6377/The Dark Hand of Xemnas - Mission 01

The Dark Hand of Xemnas - Mission 01
Date of Scene:	02 February 2019
Location:
Synopsis:
Cast of Characters:	6909, 6730, 6726, 6906, Deelel, Haguro, 6736, 6911, Neuroi Girl

---

Xion (6909) has posed:
PHOENIX, ARIZONA

One would be tempted to call the urban fringe of Phoenix the 'armpit of America', but that would imply a wet heat - and instead, there is a crisp winter bite to the flat open desert that is broken by warehouses and streets, trucks and industry. An effort to bring green dapples the land with mostly-naked trees in the brisk winter months. Both spiritually and physically 'empty, the particular lane seems uniformly abandoned, dead-ending in desert and unupkept freeway overpass pylons.

People pass through, but few linger.

In the Realground (AKA, Normie Reality), a single laundromat-dry cleaner stands dilapidated but lit, though nobody is inside. The floors shine with a fresh wax polish, but the outer facade peels and fades across its entire surface. A Vertically Challenged person sits on a stool in front of a cash register in the back, counting crumpled bills out into bins - more crumpled bills than would have ever reasonably be in the till of a laundromat, even. Only one machine spins around, the contents a terrible mix of fabrics both natural and synthetic, colors and darks in with the whites.

In the Underground, the realm just adjacent and tuned-up from reality, the whole dead-end drive is set in monochrome, small voxels of darkness hanging in the air with large voxels of white, drifting around aimlessly. The laundromat itself is cast in baroque white, clean walls of eye-glaring 'marble' edged in exact right angles. At the counter is a black-coated figure with the bottom of a fuzzy white chin visible, and a large red deely-bopper hanging over its head like a pom-pom.

Across the street, in a shed, a girl in a white dress stands besides a circular, shimmering portal belching wisps of darkness. "Okay, you three. Feel free to call any 'help' you need for your first, most direst of missions:" Namine signs, flipping her sketchpad to reveal a doodle of t-shirts and sudsy soap. "Picking up the laundry! The moogle at the desk will help out... ppppprobably?"

Namine shrugs, before pointedly shoving Xion out of the broom-closet like storage shed. "It's really important! You're wearing clothes, aren't you? Therefore, laundry is a dire first mission, for the fate of the whole Organization."

Xion tumbles down the steps of the shed, as the Corridor swallows up Namine behind her. "T-the laundry?"

"Ohhhhhh man..."

The Underground around the laundromat is littered with strange floating symbols, stylized like colorful tattoos in the air, many simply aimlessly floating around the air like bits of paper caught on the wind - or random encounters with an awfully thick density.

"Well, since it's a mission for the fate of the whole Organization, I guess I'll call some help."

Whipping out a phone from her black coat's pocket, Xion presses the big call button on the face with her gloved index finger.

Android 17 (6730) has posed:
    Android 17 had spent a good deal of time healing and resting up. Then some more time retraining to get himself back into fighting shape before getting back to being a wondering Park Ranger. He was, thankfully, back on his feet, and is reminded being a hero can be pretty painful. But hey, it wasn't all bad, he (probably) made some friends.

    Then he is given a ping on his phone. flipping through it after coming to a stop mid air, he responds, then flips the phone into 'google give me directions to the plot phone's location'.

    Moments later, he drops from the sky onto the street infront of the Laundry place. His eyes squint, as there is some weirdness here...which might be part of the problem? He's not sure, but there was someone with a black coat near him. Now, most people would assume that they were the problem. Except that Google Plot Mode was pinging their phone.

    "Yo," Seventeen says with a small wave. "Heard that someone needed some help."

Nyrinel (6726) has posed:
    NOT FAR AWAY
    A LITTLE WHILE AGO

Fred, night watchman at the Phoenix Office of the Medical Examiner, licks the tip of his finger and turns the page of his magazine. He does not notice the front door open, or the slight figure that slips through and past him. He really isn't that good at watching things at night, but most of the time people don't want to be here after dark, so that's not usually really a problem.

He absolutely notices the crowd shuffling up the stairs and out the front door shortly after. He jumps up to go confront the figure in the hooded robe leading them -- 'them' being a bunch of naked people who have quite clearly breathed their last some time prior --- and finds that the door to the little office he was sitting in is totally jammed. It looks like it's rusted shut. Somehow.

Somehow.

Nyrinel, humming to herself, leads the group of zombies outside to the mob of more decayed walking dead waiting patiently around the corner. They all go off together, the elf skipping merrily in the lead.

    THE LAUNDROMAT
    RIGHT ABOUT NOW

Nyrinel is pretty sure that there shouldn't be this weird floating voxel stuff around. She also pretty sure she shouldn't be able to see two worlds at once. Is there some kind of stellar cunjunction, maybe? She cocks her head and looks towards the moon, but finds no satisfactory answers.

"Okay... the gate is... that way..." She's consulting a map. The mob (some might say 'horde') of undead is patiently and silently waiting in the darkness off the road, using shadow and a natural depression to keep passably concealed. "...but that means getting through the settlement without losing most of you." She turns and looks at them, and then looks at the laundromat.

A little lightbulb goes off over her head.

Moments later, she's striding right in the front door -- and heading for the nearest comically large pile of available laundry, fully intending to grab sacks or a convenient cart to just truck it all out. Whoever else put them there can wait. She has zombos to clothe!

Roxas (6906) has posed:
There was only one impression that Roxas had of laundry, and that it must be easy because usually Demyx got suckered into it. He didn't complain as much about it as he did about everything else, so it must not be too difficult. It doesn't occur to him that a person with powers over water might be able to get it all done by magic and spend the rest of the day doing nothing the way they really wanted to.

"Namine, why--" But he doesn't get the chance to finish the thought, because Xion gets shoved out of the corridor and Roxas's question really isn't as important as that.

Why, he wonders, do we need three people for this?

Roxas shuffles along behind Xion, without the first thought that they might need more people for this. Several times he opens his mouth to say something wihle Xion is on the phone but-- again, by the time he really has the opportunity to get a word in, the 'damage' is already done.

"Er... Xion, is this really..." He surveys the Noise buzzing around the surroundings, "... necessary?"

"Wow," he marvels at the cloud of the creatures, "I don't think I've ever seen that many in one place before. I wonder what's got them so worked up."

It's not long before the first person answering Xion's call arrives. He supposes that's just how things work.

Roxas waves genially at Seventeen, "Hey-- I, um... I guess we /do/ need help. I thought we'd just need more hands for carrying all of the clothes, but..."

He waves at the Noise, airily.

Deelel has posed:
Things had been mostly quiet for Deelel save for a bit of virus busting. The call for a mission had got her attention and she came to the idea. Of what could it hurt? She'd added a jacket on top of her normal outfit. For it was fairly cold here. It takes her a moment to sort out seeing the Underground and real ground. Which at first she /thinks/ is her suffering a glitch but no it seems to be not her.

She'll arrive just a moment after Android 17 and follow the wandering Park Ranger up calling out.

"Greetings! It's as he said I heard there was a need for some help here? Just what's the situation."

She tilts her head a bit and looks to Xion grinning after a moment.

"So just what do you need help with?" Then another person arrive Deelel looks to him for a moment pausing for a moment

"Greeting and just ... what are those things?"

She takes a moment to look at noise.

"I take it we need to deal with those things?"

Haguro has posed:
Is there a reason Haguro's here to help this stranger on the radio? Not really. The last time she answered a call for help, she ended up helping /Britain/ of all places.

How disgusting. Arizona, however, is somewhere she's pretty sure isn't a part of Britain, and... Well. Heroes are meant to help wherever they're needed, right? Right. Thus, she arrives at the designated location in Arizona, covered up with a small tarp to keep herself shielded from the desert and casual observers alike. Her tail pokes out from under the large chunk of fabric, each head peering in different directions while she focuses her gaze on the laundromat.

Aside from the trippy visuals and odd creatures floating about, however, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of danger around here. There's a few familiar faces around, but the ones in the black coats and the white dress are new to her. Haguro peers at those she can only presume had called for help, hesitating for only a moment before raising her hand in greeting.

"H... Hello! Are you the ones that called for help?" She swallows anxiously as she says that, the blue glow of her eye flickering once as she glances back towards the Noise. "If it's not just about laundry, then is it about those... Er. Whatever those are?"

Ryouma Sakamoto (6736) has posed:
    "Oryou doesn't understand," says a floating, long-haired woman in a school uniform, as she hovers behind a man in a white naval uniform, walking towards the laundromat.

    "Okay. Imagine that you're wearing clothes," Ryouma says.
    "Huh-uh," Oryou nods.
    "And they get dirty," Ryouma says.
    "Mhm," Oryou nodnods.
    "So, you want them to not be dirty anymore," Ryouma raises a finger.
    "Oryou can just make new clothes out of her scales," Oryou says.
    "Ah, but, not everyone can--" Ryouma doesn't get to finish.
    "Ryouma can just use mana to repair his clothes," Oryou says.
    "But normal people--" Ryouma is interrupted again.
    "This is complicated," Oryou rumbles. "Oryou thinks people should just learn to make new clothes from their protective skins, too," she notes.

    Ryouma rubs the back of his head, smiling like an idiot.
    "Ah, right, right," he nods, begrudgingly.

    It is this conversation that causes Ryouma, and Oryou, to largely miss the presence of the Noise, in favor of approaching Xion (and Roxas) so that Ryouma can ask, "Ah, are your arms still full, or are we too late to pitch in?"

Axel (6911) has posed:
The tallest of the three in black coats, moving out of the shed behind Xion after she gets shoved out, is a sighing pale man, with spiky red hair in all directions, a pair of violet teardrop markings under his eyes, gloved hands inside pockets. The fact that their mission is so...simple is a bit weird, but it's better than the messier missions, for right now. "This is the most dire of missions, is it. Well, then, let's get to work." He gestures to his two compatriots, and moves to proceed towards the laundromat in this strange monochrone realm that he's far too used to.

Axel is in the middle of whipping out a phone from his pocket with one hand as Xion also does the same, deciding it'd be interesting to see who comes from his recent allies, and begins rapidly one-handed texting. Android 17 arrives from the sky at the same time, gaining a squint from Axel, but he shakes it off quickly, grinning lightly and waving back with his free hand.

"Right on time. We have a 'dire mission' with the 'fate of our organization' at risk." And then Roxas sort of reveals the mission. Axel just removes his hands from his pockets and puts them behind his head, a careful and cautious eye glancing towards the Noise. "They might be a problem if they get upset at all the people crowding around here. Maybe..." He mutters the last word under his breath, considering something, but doesn't continue. Could these Noise be the real mission? Well, they'll have to find out.

Axel steps into the laundromat, glancing towards the woman grabbing as much laundry as she can, and steps up towards the fuzzy creature at the counter. Hopefully their matching robes mean a lack of explaining. "So, where's the laundry we're picking up? We've got a whole bunch of hands to carry it, so don't worry about that."

Though despite proceeeding with the mission, Axel isn't ignoring the Noise entirely. He's keeping his ears listening to see if a fight happens, and his chakram fingers are itchy.

Neuroi Girl has posed:
     As the various other people appear to offer Xion and the others their help, they might notice what could easily be a shadow moving toward them. It has the overall appearance of a girl about 12, but never touches the ground, has no facial features and no apparent hands or feet, and moves with only a slight sound like much like fingers moving over guitar strings. It also has catlike ears and a tail.

     It stops a short distance away from the group, then tilts its head slightly. "...hello..." it says in a quiet, nearly monotone voice of a young girl. "...it looks like you have plenty of help...but if you want any more..."

     She stops there and her head turns slowly toward Haguro. "...you came to help..?" she asks quietly.

Xion (6909) has posed:
Xion is quick to answer the GOOD LOOKING BOY-MAN that shows up, immediately ruining everything by jamming her phone back into her pocket while on.

Anyone still connected would probably have to mute her, because she stuffed an active phone into a coat pocket. Kshshshshshshshshrhrkrkarahahash. It's that sound. You know it.

"Right okay! It's fine, see, because Heartless basically ignore us if we don't mess with them. So, since we're just getting the laundry, it'll be easy with this... Many..."

Xion squints at the weird FF1-On-The-NES level of Random Encounters. "Those aren't Heartless. Are we fighting inner city crime?"

The moogle, across the street, flutters over to the door, which opens with a twinkling.

"Howdy, you three! And, welcome, customers! As I always say: More Munny, More Problems! In this case, I've got a LOT of problems and I can't rely on that useless Demyx to fix it. See, the piping's on the fritz, and I need someone to look at the fuse box - because I can't reach it! So, Xion dear, I heard you're handy, you can do that while all these strapping young customers and their..."

The Moogle turns the hooded head towards Nyrinel and the immense stack of zambambos. "Wow! A customer rush! I'll get the shop ready, and you can earn a quick buck by clearing the street!"

Xion's expression falls into disappointment. "B-but... Monsters!"

The moogle turns on his tiny little fluttering wings. "B-but... Plumbing!" In a mildly mocking tone.

Slumping her shoulders, Xion snaps her fingers (rather soundlessly, with her thick gloves). "Dang. I guess I'm fixing the pipes. But hey, these... uhm... whatevers seem pretty fierce!"

Xion bips across the street in a puff of dark motes, trudging her way into the laundromat as she does.

With their perimiter breached, the Noise take EXTREME AFFRONT TO THIS TERRIBLE BREACH OF THEIR SPIRITUAL GHETTO SPACE, and the strange shapes begin coalescing into... Frogs?

Frogs. Colorful, green-yellow frogs.

They, as one, unleash a TERRIBLE CROAK of bubbling, as they start hopping onto each other. And spinning. Why are they spinning? WHY ARE THE FROGS SPINNING?!

A malevolent winter wind picks up strongly, stripping heat from bodies and picking up the Noise-Frogs into a tornado of croaking, bubbling green. Dark bubbles froth out every which way, popping in stinging pain on contact like a very impromptu bullet hell as the pillar of wind and frogs into...

A tornado of frogs.

A veritable re-used asset olympics, as the swarm crashes around the street, shooting croakbullets everywhere.

FROGNADO ~ Dixie Meanace
<"Hey isn't that just the Heartless Swarm's Assets? Yes. Yes, it is.">

Android 17 (6730) has posed:
    "Heartless? Never heard of them.." Seventeen says with a calm demeanor, but not unfriendly. However, he is starting to feel that this might be a rouse, especially with Axel's and Roxas's comments. There is a small laugh from the man, that was actually pretty funny, to be called in for handling laundry. "Well, if I'm helping with this, I expect lunch. Seems like a fair trade to me," Seventeen says, happy go lucky. This place is weird, so it might be a good adventure. He looks at the arriving Haguro, a little deflated, not because she specifically was here...but the last time they met...

    Cue a cutscene of Haguro sinking.

    "Uh...hey. Good seeing you alive?" he says, not sure what to make of it. But hey, she didn't die? He seems not at all bothered by her Abyssal apperance. He is only half listening to the Moogle hand out instructions, and then snaps to attention when he feels danger. "Wait, what? What the hell are those?" he says, as they start becoming the /FROGNADO/. Staring unbeleving at this, he coughs and then slowly says, "I don't think I was ready for today."

    When it charges, he brings up the shield as he dances back, trying to stay out of the RUSH OF FROGS, while most of then bounce off his shield harmlessly, the cold that follows is a little harder to ignore, causing his fingers to become numb. Shaking them out, he takes a more ready combat stance, before disappearing. Appearing over the mass of frogs he brings both hands up, and aims them down, firing a ball of electrified energy into the mass to try and blast and scatter them apart.

    Well, I needed a fight to get the blood flowing again. By the way," he says towards Roxas and Axel, but not Xion who had already left, "The name is Android 17."

Haguro has posed:
It's getting more and more crowded by the moment1 It's a little worrying with so many different people around, but they don't appear to take offense to her appearance, so maybe things will turn out okay! She glances over at Evangeline and titls her head briefly, then shrugs. "Why not?"

It's a rhetorical question. Her responde to Android 17, not so much. "Huh? O-oh! Thank you. You're living... Well, I hope?"

One awkward pause later, she speaks up again. "Heartless? That's a new name to... Oh! R-right." Reaching into her pockets (wherever they are), Haguro fishes out one her trusty disposable cameras! The moogle gets  a few pictures taken of it along with the Noise, her gaze narrowing slightly as the fuzzy white thing describes it as a 'customer rush' to the chagrin of the younger girl calling them by the probably-more-accurate moniker of 'monsters'.

At least these ones are actually hostile. One more picture gets taken as those frogs start spraying colorful bullets everywhere, and then the Abyssal slips her device away and tosses that tarp aside in one smoothly practiced motion. "If you don't mind wrinkles, you can pile the clothes in there!"

Of course she practiced it. It wouldn't look quite so heroic if she just took it off carefully and put it aside somewhere.

Standing her ground, Haguro readies her guns with anti-air flak as wades into the croakbullets head on. As they fire at the Elites, she too returns fire with a wide spray of miniature explosions. It's not aimed at any one creature in particular as she's just aiming to pepper the Noise with metallic garbage!

Ryouma Sakamoto (6736) has posed:
    "Ah, what are those?" Ryouma asks, as Noise coalesces into frogs. A whirlwind of frogs. A cold, chilly whirlwind of frogs emitting bubbly attacks.

    Oryou just salivates.

    "Ryouma! Ryouma look! Oryou finally ascended to dragon-heaven!" she says, excited. He continues smiling like an idiot.
    "I'm not sure this is--" he's stopped by Oryou getting in front of him, taking the attack on the proverbial chin for him. She radiates an impenetrable wall of hunger (divinity) against which the bubbling frogs can do no harm.

    "Oryou please, this is a public area, you should--" really hold back? He's stopped again.
    "No! Oryou has this, Ryouma! Come on! You have to yell with Oryou!" she insists.
    "Yell... what?" He squints.
    "CHAAAAAANGE! ORYOU ONE!" she screams, as she dives INTO the tornado of frogs, mouth wide open.
    "W-What have you been watching," Ryouma says, face burried in a hand.

    "ORYOU TOMAHAAAAAWK!" she continues. It's less a tomahawk, and more... well, grabbing ahold of frogs. And trying to crush them into easily edible balls. And taking bites out of ones that can't be crushed. They're frogs. She's hungry.

    She's about to find out if Noise is edible.
    Mercifully, she isn't in dragon form.

Deelel has posed:
This call for help with Landry has sure got a lot of attention a third man shows up in a black coat and he's kind of pale. She takes a moment to look him over for a moment nodding once before looking back to the strange. She cringes for a moment at the static from Xion's phone and has to turn off her own connection there. Then comes a word Deelel didn't expect to here.

"No they don't appear to be heartless."

She notes for a moment looking to the Moogle for a moment, and now the things are frogs? Very colourful frogs at that.

Then comes a tornado of frogs?! Deelel is taken aback for a moment and attempts to spring away but she's not quick enough as she takes a few hits from the Frognado.

"Okay so that's how you want to play? Fine!"

Deelel "I could use the warm-up myself!"

She pulls the chakram like disc off her back and the edge hums to life and starts glowing as she throws it at one of the Frognado, which hit or miss might bounce off a few inanimate objects such as the laundry mat and make for another attack before finally returning to her hand regardless of the damage done to it.

She keeps moving now.

"Frogs, of all the things in the world? Frogs?!"

Roxas (6906) has posed:
"Does something smell really strange to anybody else?" Roxas asks, not observing Nyrinel as anything unusual in herself but definitely not failing to notice the smell of a bunch of recently-deceased shamblers, even a little bit away. It's probably more the smell of embalming fluid than anything else, though. It certainly doesn't strike him as rotting meat, or anything like that.

"... Huh?"

The young man turns to look towards Deelel, "Er.... well, they're called Noise, but I don't really know 'what' they are exactly."

Immediately, he looks towards Axel for help. Axel knows everything, of course.

To Haguro's approach and inquiry, Roxas points towards Xion, "She did. Sorry, I guess we haven't introduced ourselves. I'm Roxas, that's Xion, and this is Axel."

Roxas gestures between them as he goes. In response to Ryouma, he frowns a little and looks at the Noise, "We're definitely going to need help carrying that much stuff, but I think those are a bigger problem if they get annoyed. Most of the time they just sort of buzz around and bother people, but they can be dangerous if something sets them off."

He's just about to follow after Axel, who is attempting to do Adult Things instead of faffing around in confusion, when the shop moogle comes out. Roxas mumbles something about water going through pipes in the middle of the moogle's claim that Demyx is useless for this.

Roxas chuckles a little at Xion's subsequent disappointment, and replies, "It's okay, I'll come with you-- it'll get done quicker with two of us anyw--"

Which is when Xion, who pulls ahead of him, aggroes Everything.

Roxas stops and gapes at this. It's not the first time he's seen the stupid Heartless tornado thing, because for some reason the weaker Heartless really love to do that when they're on the back foot. It is the first time he has seen Noise do this, and certainly the first time he's been subjected to a barrage of murderous bubbles. He slips forward through the hail of bubbles, sliding through as if skating on open air. Only a single bubble pops against his skin, raising a great painful welt along his cheek.

Well, okay then.

He sweeps both hands around with a momentary ominous glow, gleaming white light emanating from the palms of his hands. An instant later a series of blindingly bright white columns burst into existence along the ground, rotating around the Frog Tornado and closing in on it from multiple angles.

"Android Seventeen," Roxas repeats, "it's nice to meet you! I mean... you know what I mean."

Nyrinel (6726) has posed:
Nyrinel, with an armful of ILLICITLY-OBTAINED LAUNDRY, freezes in her tracks. "Um... ... ...yes. Custom... ers..." She trails off, awkwardly shifting the bundle of surprisingly heavy garments. Are these like sixty percent zipper by volume? Who /wears/ these? Well, her zambonis soon will, that's for sure!!

Attempting to get out the front door results in getting blindsided by the FROGNADO. A particularly voluminous hood catches the cold breeze, and Nyrinel gets sent on a parasail ride across the parking lot, dragged through a froggy bubble swarm, much to her own chagrin. She yells, mostly because she didn't expect the laundry to be massive enough to move her towards the ground markers, and because that /smarts/, /ow/.

"Minions, obey me!" Nyrinel yells. "Do something about the frogs! I've got paaaaaants...!!"

A flood of mostly-naked zombies shamble up out of a ditch and into the street. They come in ranks, pretty straightforwardly going to overrun and smack down frogs. Several of them have traffic cones on their heads for no discernable reason.

Axel (6911) has posed:
Axel shamelessly mutes Xion. He'll never let her know that, though. Regarding Noise, Axel responds. "They're basically supernatural pests made out of nasty feelings. They're probably not the biggest threat we could deal with today, especially with this many people here to handle it."

As they move to approach, the moogle reaches the door before Axel can reach the interior, and tells them that he needs, well, handiwork. That's Xion's bag, not Axel's. So when he's told 'earn a quick buck by clearing the street', Axel cracks his knuckles (difficultly, through his gloves), and stretches his hands out. "Alright, then. Let's get to work, Roxas...everyone."

Darkness wisps through the air around Axel's hands, forming into his chakrams. A pair of red and silver chakrams, with a black cross each as a handle, and eight spikes along the rims. They're wreathed in flames immediately as the bubbling death-frog tower attacks, the two chakrams thrown outwards to intercept the bubbles coming at Axel and blow them up, as the redheaded Nobody slides underneath a series, narrowly dodging the bullet hell. The chakrams return to his hands. Axel nods towards Android 17, giving him a thumbs-up.

"Name's Axel. Got it memorized?"

The flaming chakrams go flying at the frog tower, slicing through it in an attempt to unsteady it as Axel moves to try and cut through the frog-Noise that seem to be most holding the tower up. If they can unsteady it, they can drive the swarm into chaos a bit, maybe better hit it. Or he can, at least.

Neuroi Girl has posed:
     "...froggie..." says Evangeline as those strange frogs appear. She actually floats toward one, looking as if she might try to pet it. But, she stops as she realizes she didn't introduce herself. "...oh...I am Evangeline..." she says to the group before bowing at the waist. Which results in a quick somersault as her momentum carries her around.

     Her attitude toward the frogs changes as they open fire on the group and start spinning in a colorful tornado of death blades and deadly bubbles. The little Neuroi floats into the air with barely a motion, avoiding the bubbles and blades with skillful twirls and a shield of glowing translucent blue hexagons that flare into view only when hit, apparently forming a sphere around her.

     "...why are they attacking..?" the floating black figure asks as she holds out her arms. The flat ends of those sleeve-like arms start to glow a sinister red before she fires a steady beam of red energy into the swirling mass. Wherever it hits there is a sudden explosion. Especially along the ground, where it leaves a very noticeable groove.

Xion (6909) has posed:
There are many people engaging the FROGNADO of re-used assets and dabbing frogs. There's a burst of RANDOMAINU from Android 17, causing a series of bright explosions that simply annhilate a cloud of the frogs, a vaguely positive feeling of accomplishment accompanying the popping fade-out of the Dixiefrog's existance as they shower the ground in...

Are those quarters? The twinkling of plated coinage tumbles to the ground in a mild shower of 'twinkle-dink-tink-tink'. Yep They drop money.

When you blow up the frogs, they drop pocket change. This is canon.

Meanwhile, big chunks of metal tear through the cloud, splattering like extremely lazy railgun rounds through the frog-cloud, being pulled for a few moments into the orbit of the Noise Tornado and being flung into the backyard of the laundromat. Haguro, too, feels a vague sense of positivity while busting the frogs, like she just went for a nice run, or ate a particularly tasty bit of wreckage.

Oryou does a very stupid thing, diving into the cloud of frogs with her mouth open and chomping down whole balls of frogs like she was a very anime game of Centipede, and is rewarded first with a bitter, sour taste that, when she closes her mouth down on them, experiences a popping of frog-monster and a FLAVOR EXPLOSION of warm, pleasant taste with an unplaceable positivity, like eating gourmet durian-steak - or a Warhead Mega-Sour. The headrush that comes is like the pleasant burn of hot sauce - addictive in its simplicity.

Deelel's ID-Disc chakram swings out, bisecting frogs in a parabolic arc before returning, leaving pops of positive emotions and pocket change scattering across the dead-end street, channeling the tornado into the center of the street for Roxas to channel his magic - and summon a swirling, purging zero-in of vertical beams that scorches the street surface as it tracks inward, blasting apart the Noise that come in contact with it and forcing the swarm apart - blasting in all cardinal and subcardinal directions to escape the final ion-cannon like lightblast.

Just as the tower reforms, Axel slings his flaming weapons through the 'base' of the wind, causing the re-forming tornado to lose its wind power suddenly and raining frogs all over, easy prey for the ace Nobody to tear apart with attacks of opportunity while the others join in on the TEAM ATTACK.

Evangeline has an easy time with her counterattack that begins picking off the individual, scattered frogs as they flop around dazed from Axel and Roxas' pinning and chaos-causing attacks with sinister crimson beams.

The scattered frogs are largely dealt with and dispatched, but more long-hop together, gathering into a giant mass of green, with layered legs and body coalescing into a MEGA-FROG - a DIXIE DANGER. It's, you know, just a... really big colorful frog.

Which proceeds to thrust kick Androd 17 and Haguro with a single, sweeping blade of its extended graffiti-leg. Extending its graffiti-tongue, it grapples onto Oryou and swings her around, before smashing the big dragon towards Deelel's position in a STUNNING REVERSAL. A pile of at least a dozen sub-frogs start leaping onto Axel and Roxas's body - especially their face - and start powerfully kicking them like little lemmings in a mound of pain, and DIXIE DANGER does similar to Evangeline, leaping over her to simply bellyflop atop her.

Xion (6909) has posed:
There's the quiet tinkle of the door-bell (a literal bell, in this case, atop the doorframe) as Nyrinel escapes carrying armloads of Organization XIII's clothes. Edgy black coats, black boots, black gloves, black pants, black... Black everything. It's just black, and then a few white dresses, white labcoats, and a single red scarf.

And they're getting away with it, too. They're clear of the door, heaving through a frogocalypse to get NEW CLOTHES for their Morguefriends, when there's the dramatically unmistakeable sound of a pump action shotgun <ker-chack>-ing a shell.

"Thought you're pretty clever, didn'tcha, kupo? Thought you could just take my wares, and not drop a wad of hard-earned munny on a simple moogle's business? Eh, kupo? You think this is a kupo-ing game?"

Behind Nyrinel is the moogle shopkeeper, floating with his adorable red pom and tiny bat wings and a full sized gold-plated shotgun hefted in his comically small hands.

"You know what we do to thieves round these parts, kupo? I don't - I've got people to hide the bodies."

Then the moogle levells its shotgun and blasts the thieving elf with a veritable Big Budget SFX Finisher cone of golden munny-triangles from the nozzle of the magic shotgun.

Good news: It's not buckshot!
Bad news: You P/O'ed the wrong Moogle, buddo.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel is thankful for the information Roxas has given her she'll have to thank him later. Right now there are the FROGNADO to worry about, things are getting pretty crazy now with all the various means of attack everyone here are letting loose from Axel to Roxas who summons some sort of magical attack on the horde of Noise. At least she thinks it's magic Android Seventeen is good to have here:

The terror of the re-used assets and dabbing frogs is not lost on Deelel. She's always been somewhat unnerved by creatures who are not people. Given her own world's only analog to animals were grid bugs, which were exterminated on site whenever possible.

She helps to set up things for Roxas as he scattered the tornados for a moment.

"Nice moves!"

She calls out and now something else is going on as soon the lesser frogs are all handled well most of them but now comes a /huge/ one.

"They get bigger?!"

WHAM She gets hit by the counter-attack which sends the program skidding across the road and it takes her a moment to get back up.

She's back on her feet again, still with her ID disc in hand and breaks into a run, trying to get up closer to the frog she'll try to time it for the next time the Frog's tongue comes out and she'll try to use her blade to sever it. Failing that she'll make a lightning-fast attack on its face throwing the ID for what might be one of its eyes.

Haguro has posed:
Haguro hates eating wreckage. But fried rice? Steamed meat? Whatever sorcery it is they use to make no-bake cheesecake? It's been so long since she's eaten a real meal, but that feeling of general goodness she gets from blasting the Noise swarm... She can practically taste it already.

She wants more. As she switches her rounds to more explosive... Explosives, however, the frognado is already changing forms. It becomes a giant superfrog that looks like it could easily flatten chunks of the very laundromat they've come to defend!

At least, she's assuming they're here to defend the laundromat. Those people's clothes /are/ in there, after all! At least, she's assuming that's the case (notwithstanding Nyrinel's antics with the shopkeeper), so her attention is focused squarely on the bigger target at hand. As that bladed leg comes swinging towards her, Haguro dives forward to avoid getting cleaved in half!

... And then she finds herself being carried off by something. Although her body is fine, the graffiti-leg catches the heads on her tail! With her newfound vantage point, she starts clambering on the leg to try and get closer to the main body of the Dixie Danger for a more up-close and personal blasting of explosives!

At close range.

This is a terrible idea.

Android 17 (6730) has posed:
    "Nice to meet you all," Seventeen says, still flying around the monster as it weaves around, the monster of reused ascets! "Uh, yeah? Axel, right? I think I can remember that. Like, you use two wheel like weapons, and they're on you, so you're their Axel. Pretty clever." He says, not passing up a oppertunity to make an extended pun. Of course, this distraction gets a FROG PU-KICK! The android and frog collide, as the shield covers him to protect from the force of the blow. However, he goes flying, crashing into a nearby building. He's not hurt, it was just a good blow, and the shield saved him from substansial damage, but his back was exposed as the crashing through the building happened. Looking up into the sky, he sighs.

    "I am getting distracted because it reminds me of an animal..." he says, with a grin, and then stands up, eyes focused and whistful smile gone. With a blaze of speed, he's out of the building, and aiming to get right into the frog's face, aiming to litterally BASH it with the shield, before land towards the thing's chest. Flipping off of it, he point's both hands down, aiming to take advantage of Haguro's assault, hammering the place she struck.

Axel (6911) has posed:
This is chaos. Dangerous frog swarms, someone robbing a Moogle and getting super-shotgunned for it, and now, at least, the tower has been broken. But more and more form together...and they create Dixie Danger. That's not good.

As the chakrams return again to Axel's hands, sub-frogs leap at Axel and Roxas. They kick into Axel, slamming into his chest and knocking his head back, but he quickly pulls his chakrams up to block, slicing into those aiming for his head as the chakrams spin and spin rapidly, grinding into them to push them back. "Come on, big guy isn't interested in us?"

Not that Axel actually cares. He's okay with this situatioin. He's not enjoying it, because he doesn't enjoy fighting, but it's fine. Hopefully with several of the frogs in a collection together, Axel gestures at them with a chakram-full hand.

And then a sphere of fire appears around them and moves to explode, hopefully igniting the frogs and killing several of them, so that they can focus on the big frog later.

A slight glance and 'frown' at 17 isn't avoided in the process. That was a pretty bad pun, in Axel's opinion.

Roxas (6906) has posed:
"They seem like a pretty big threat to me!" Roxas shouts back at Axel, because he has no frame of reference and tornadoes of anything are still impressive to him. He'll eventually get tired of repeating this miniboss, but it's not quite that stale yet even if it's not surprising either.

In response to Evangeline's question, he calls: "They just sort of get angry and aggressive sometimes! I guess they don't like people going inside the laundromat. Maybe they're the things messing up the pipes?"

This is around the time that a flood of mostly-naked people who happen to be zombies wander through. Roxas is about to dive into a roll when this happens, and he trips and skids along the ground while frogs bounce off of him painfully. He comes to a halt with scraped hands and an increasingly bruised-looking face, staring in disbelief at all of this corpse nudity.

Then Nyrinel goes floating past, and Roxas's attention is drawn magnetically towards her... and then immediately towards the moogle shopkeeper with a shotgun.

????

"U-um," Roxas stammers as he scrambles forward, coming to a halt next to Axel, "Axel, which ones should we be stopping?! I guess these are more dangerous for now, but-- they're frogs, and they use bubbles, so the fastest way to get rid of them must be..."

"THUNDAGA!" Roxas calls, a series of lightning bolts bursting into being amidst the Frognado and its remnants.

"Thank you?" He asides to Deelel, uncertainly. The truth is that he's improvising heavily here. Except for all the sliding around. That's all him.

Neuroi Girl has posed:
     "...the frogs...are made of money..?" Evangeline wonders aloud. She also twitches when those bursts of good feelings hit from popping the frogs.

     Of course, that is offset by the feeling of being bellyflopped by a giant frog. Even though Evangeline manages to fly down and away before the frog actually crushes her into the pavement, the initial hit still caused her shield to flare into view and a portion of one arm to break off like a piece of glass and disintegrate into a pale pink powder. Her arm starts to regenerate almost immediately, a silver glow moving down her arm much like a piece of paper burning in reverse.

     Beams aren't really good for helping to get tiny targets off of allies, so Evangeline focuses on the giant frog. She fires a flurry of smaller beams that vector through the air to hit the giant frog. She also offers a slight nod in agreement with Android 17. "...I don't like hurting animals either..." she says in her soft, child-like voice. Which oddly isn't coming from her lack-of-face, but rather from a large red plastic watch around one arm.

     She turns her head toward Haguro again. "...I am glad to see you really do want to help people..." she says.

Ryouma Sakamoto (6736) has posed:
    How did this go so horribly wrong so horribly fast.

    While Oryou is busy enjoying the sourest frog she's ever had, the now-massive frog begins the process of hurling her around like a ragdoll. She smashes into things, although things mostly end up smashed up, while Oryou makes a variety of munching and squeeing noises at the sight of the massive meal before her.

    Ryouma watches, semi-nervous.

    At a glance, it looks like Axel, Roxas and Xion are together, and that black-draped moogle with them. They must be from this world?

    "Ah, I'm sorry, what... are these, exactly? Besides frogs," he asks, as their attacks might allow a moment of conversation. He holds onto his hat, to make sure it doesn't fly off in the various gales.

    Oryou, picking herself up, shouts at Ryouma: "Ryouma! Ryouma! Come on, do the shouting!"

    "Ah... which one?" he asks.
    "Oryou wants to eat that one, but it's too big!" she explains.
    Ryouma nodnods.

    "Right, right. Like A Soaring--" No, even his Noble Phantasm chant doesn't get to finish. That's how antsy she is to feast.

    "CHAAAAANGE! ORYOU TWOOOO!" She yells.
    "T-That's not how that goes!" Ryouma protests.

    Clearly this does not matter to Oryou, who, for the span of about five seconds, reverts to some manner of her true form, the divine serpent opening her maw wide in a mad charge at the massive DIXIE DANGER. Her hair (fur? scales?) whirls like a drill behind her.

    "ORYOU HURRICAAAANE!"

Nyrinel (6726) has posed:
The zombies are something else. Some of them have convenient shadow censoring. Most of them are wearing scraps of things like hospital gowns or what were probably tarps meant to cover them. A couple are hopping in body bags. The skeletons, on the other hand, are generally classier: apparently, ties, ribbons, and other accessories last longer in the ground than the outer parts of human corpses. Random adornments like traffic cones and street signs being used as spears are scattered throughout, and they even move with some semblance of military coordination!

Just barely, though. Nyrinel is like a kid playing with miniatures compared to any actual commanders she's met. One day...

Well, if she survives the capitalism-fueled kupo frenzy, anyway.

Nyrinel manages to stop herself on a curb, hauling in the accidental sail that happens when there's been insufficient zipping of these clothes. She has about a second to breathe a sigh of relief before the moogle comes out with the GOLDEN (shot)GUN and accosts her in a very reasonable fashion. She turns, blinking owlishly. How can something so small and cute be so simultaneously menacing? She's looking down the barrel of an unfamiliar weapon when --

*KA-MUNNY*

The SFX-budget-fueled munny-triangle-filled not-quite-buckshot rips through the air. Nyrinel makes an unladylike squealing noise and flings her ill-gotten gains straight into the air. She dives, twisting between individual triangles, ducking and weaving with incredible agility to keep from getting spread all over the street. Some of her zombies end up getting perforated, and they blow up in a truly spectacular fashion. There's a little *tink-clink* as they drop... gemstones? Black ones. It's not quite loose change, but...

"My zombies!!!" Nyrinel's wail is distraught. Also, she's grazed, but only /partly/ in the bullet hell game sense: her robe is torn to shreds, revealing the close-fitting armor of bluish scale mail and sorcerously-shaped bones that has somehow deflected the worst of the injury. She's unbalanced and down a number of valuable corpses, but she's also not /dead/, so, you know... that's something.

Rather than attack the moogle, Nyrinel... jumps. She snatches falling clothing out of the air, doing an intricate dance that would be more visually impressive if it wasn't accompanied by piling up laundry in a more organized way than she'd stolen it in. Her innate and somewhat absurd elven grace is turned to the task of pilfering someone else's clothes in order to cover the naked walking dead she's got milling around, and it solves the problem quickly and neatly. She stops, taking a breath, holding a now-folded pile of Org13's Gothic Outfits.

"You know if you told me where those thieves were buried, I could take care of that too," Nyrinel offers, a tiny bit smugly. She raises one hand, holding the clothes like a serving tray, and fingerguns at the moogle. There's a sparkle in the air. It immediately makes his weapon and anything metallic near him start to rapidly corrode, as if put under the stresses of TIME and ENTROPY.

The moogle is fine, though! (Unless he's made of metal. Then he's not so fine.)

Xion (6909) has posed:
The team picks up the Dixiefrog fight's second phase like professional champions, each contributing a telling blow either to the Dixie Danger or the Dixiefrog "adds" that hop around and harass people.

Deelel's ID Disc swings out wide, arcing into Dixie Danger's large composite frog-eye, staggering the massive entity for--

--Haguro to attach to the Boss Frog's leg, clambering up to hold down the massive creature and give it an up close and PERSONAL what-for with her array of organic guns, weighing down the creature as--

Android 17 powers up his powerful personal shield, realizing that the noise only LOOKS like a delightful innocent forest creature, and is ACTUALLY a terrible monster made out of shitty emotions. Powering himself like a crashing wrecking ball, he shield-charges into the spot Haguro blasts away at, dealing tremendous damage (and feeling pretty good, doing so), and flipping the Dixie Danger onto its back for--

--Axel to be free and clear to spin his chakrams, now no longer focused on by the big frog, summoning up a tumbling sphere of fire with the boss so stunned, sending it bowling down the 'lane' of the street into a crowd of the hopping 'adds', exploding violently and seding scorched frog-tattoo-bits around the area, giving--

--Roxas all the time in the world to power up his thundiferous magic, the long casting animation blessedly free of getting KICKED IN THE FACE BY DABBING FROGS, dropping a big ol' lightning bolt onto the belly of DIXIE DANGER, striking its weak belly for massive damage.

The Dixie Danger begins to fade away, before bellowing one last tremendous RRRRRIBBZZT, righting itself as it sheds component frogs, powering up. The component frogs immediately look to become a problem--

--As Evangeline vector-lasers them as they split off, controlling the danger of what is to come.

Ryouma prepares the Noble Phantasm callout of his wife(u) dragon, eager to GO IN FOR THE KILL, DO IT FOR THE THRILL, and as her massive jaws close around this Largest of Dixiefrogs, the sour-sweet taste of misery-wrapped candy, the SFX budget makes a grand sigh.

The frog explodes into motes, and tasty bits in Oryou's mouth, and a pulse of darkness goes out.

"Uruuuuuuuuuuuuuu..."

The fire hydrants on the street explode with water, fountaining upwards as the water mains burst. The dissipating frog is replaced by a huge avatar of froge-ness, a huge aquatic SHADE OF DIXIE that brings up massive frog frontlegs to smash, surging backlegs to kick, and large bubbling zones of torrential darkness-spouts to simply blow away.

It's a mechanics bonanza, and everyone gets a slice.

MEANWHILE

Mog nods firmly, in his coat. "That's right, buddy! THAT's what you get for stealing! And no, I just... I JUST TOLD YOU, I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE BODIES ARE! Do you need an ether for your ears? Maybe a down-soft q-tip to wring them out? I've got those on sale - special offer!"

Nyrinel fingerguns at Mog, and he smugly moves to accept the bundle as the terrible power of metal-corrosion takes hold. His weapon rusts away, before the wooden (fine mahogany) clatters to the ground, sparkling into magical motes - and then his zippers go, and then there's a terrible feeling of existential dread as the Moogle's energy turns tremendous and dark.

"You. Just. Deleted. My. Munny. Kupo."

"You're dead, buddy."

"I'LL DESTROY YOU DOWN TO YOUR LAST DOLLAR!"

Nyrniel has another set of mechanics to deal with, as giant golden dollarsigns begin appearing around the moogle with a now fluttering-open coat, bounding index graphs and box charts vectoring dangerously pointy bear markets at the thieving, capital-destroying elf.

Axel (6911) has posed:
"Don't worry about it. Shopkeeper seems to have that handled." Axel replies to Roxas, not yet having realized that Nyrinel is stealing /their/ clothes until after they burn through the adds and the frog, and after the moogle is angry enough to be limit-breaking. Well.

It should be fine, the Moogle will handle it. That's his job, right? Axel tells himself he'll back the guy up in a minute, at least until the Shade of Dixie appears, and distracts him.

Axel wreathes the chakrams in fire again, as he turns to Roxas. "Let's go all in. Stop it from thinking to come back as a ghost a second time." It probably can't do that, but with all these eyes...and prospective allies or people to think well about them, Axel realizes that it's probably good to show off a little.

Axel dashes forward, as he avoids a torrential darkness spout, but gets smashed into with the powerful frontlegs. They batter him back, but he's more durable than a normal human is by far, though he's certainly feeling it, as he lands on his feet and takes a moment. And then, Axel spreads his arms out, and moves to /run up/ the Spirit of Dixie.

And approach its head with flaming chakrams and try and run up it and slice through the face with a burning slash, kicking off of its body at the last moment to bound backwards towards the ground, and turn away. Maybe if he's lucky, the Noise will explode behind him with the combination of everyone's attacks, like an action movie.

Android 17 (6730) has posed:
    Darkness...darkness everywhere.

    Seventeen, now firmly determined, but not filled with DETERMINATION, because this is the wrong world for that reference, moves to protect himself from the attack. The shield comes to life again, but he does not simply stay still. Infact...there is a...

            QUICK TIME EVENT

    As Darkness wells under him, he flips to the air and pushes the shield down against it. The two collide, sending the Android up. Bolts of darkness fly everywhere, forcing him to deflect, or take on the attacks directly, before the next part of the QTE comes. Two blasts are readied, as the event is successful, causing explosions in the air as the Android is blown back, skidding across the ground until he finally stops.

    Axel gets a helpless shrug, "Everyone's a critic." To Evangeline he nods. "Well, I am a park ranger. Vet certified too, but for larger and exotic animals."

    So now there is a giant dark negitive emotion frog shadow thing that uses darkness to try and kill them. "Who in the heck even makes forms like this. This has got to be by design, I can't imagine anything actually evolving into this."

    Then, with a helpless shrug he dives in again, aiming to run up the creature's body, or make very well time air jumps to look like it, aiming to get right into it's face, and aim a swing for it. He starts hammering the creature, again and again, before aiming a spin kick for the side of the thing's head, before drawing a hand forward. Three balls of energy rain down, aiming to catch the creature in their electric explosive detonation.

Haguro has posed:
"So we subdue the threat and we... Solve the laundromat's plumbing problem all at once!" Haguro shouts to Roxas with an unusual determination in her voice, trying not to let her terror show through her voice even as everything explodes around her. How can she not be scared?! 17 and Oryou are crashing into the frog, Deelel and Axel are carving swaths out of the thing, and Roxas and Evangeline are bringing down lightning and lasers against it.

It's taking a lot more effort than it looks just not to cower and hide under her tail. The rush of positivity from breaking the thing down piece by piece certainly helps, though, and Haguro even takes a moment to breathe once the frog fades away. She doesn't have a long time to relax, though, with an even BIGGER GODDAMN FROG appearing to kick  and water cannon everyone's faces in.

"This... This has to be the last one. Just one more left!"

One more. Haguro really hopes this is the last one. Leaving Nyrinel to her own devices, the  Abyssal follows Axel's lead as she rushes in behind him, bracing both arms and tail in front of her to push through that massive blast of water. She's almost through the worst of it, too, when a limb slams right into her and sends her sprawling back, a pained yelp escaping Haguro while she tucks into a roll to upright herself quickly.

"Tch. It's just one frog after the other today... Enough of this! I'll turn you into.." There's an awkwardly long pause as Haguro only then charges forward again, diving into a forward slide to try getting under the frog. As she slides forward, both her tail's guns and her wrists' turrets fire in tandem, aiming at the frog's center of mass to riddle it with explosives and metal shards alike!

"... Frog legs!" Too long of a delay. Her delivery sounds stilted, too. She's working on it.

Roxas (6906) has posed:
"They're called Noise," Roxas explains to Ryouma, "and I guess they're basically just bad feelings? I'm not sure I understand, but that's what Axel told me. So... I guess they get nasty because they feel bad."

This is somewhere in the ballpark of the truth but also sufficiently off-base as to be embarrassing if you weren't totally clueless.

"U-uh, Axel..." He raises a hand, frowning in the direction of Nyrinel and her Pile O Coat. But he looks between Nyrinel and the poorly-clothed zombies, and then back towards Axel.

"... I think they need those way more than we do." He decides.

Then a fire hydrant explodes immediately adjacent to Roxas, flinging him across the street into a telephone pole. He strikes the surface with a painful metallic ringing, and hits the ground underneath it with a hissing groan characteristic of abrupt and throbbing pain.

It's only blearily that Roxas hears and understands Axel's command to Go All In. It wasn't really what he was planning on, and as wobbly as he is when he gets up, he's quite certain that he can't join Axel in the sort of melee attack that he probably wants.

So Roxas steels himself against the lamp post that just gave him a concussion and summons up his inner energies again, that brilliant white glow returning.

It is much more pronounced, just now.

No-- it isn't just more pronounced.

The sky disappears in the surroundings for a moment, replaced with the dimming glow of the world at sunset. A pair of energy spheres materialize to either side of the young man, hanging there momentarily before beginning to issue forth a repetitive volley of strikes that crash into orbit of the SHADE OF DIXIE, exploding violently on approaching proximity.

His aim is obviously wobbly, and he's expending substantial effort /not/ to accidentally catch Axel or somebody else in it.

Sagging against the telephone pole, Roxas asides to Seventeen: "I don't... I don't think they're /animals/ exactly? If they're just feelings, they're probably..."

He trails off, uncertainly.

Roxas feels like he should know this, but he has no clue.

Deelel has posed:
Whatever these Noise are? They are very good at not staying down when it seems like they should be. Her ID disc in hand once more, she's on the move not wanting to keep still, for one to keep out of the area of effect of some of the allies of the moment. For second? So she can set up for another attack she has taken note of Axels very stylish Chakrams. Then the Noise shows it's still got some fight in it as the fire hydrants star to explode and water is forming into a shade of the frog.

"How many forms does this thing have?!"

Luck and skill both play a part as Deelel is able to avoid the water and any further attacks from the frog shade for the moment.

She's also managed to not get swallowed by the Darkness.

"I can't either Android 17, organic evolution generally goes with the accidents that work. They are not a creature by design like say me."

It is time for her to get her game on, and Deelel will launch the disc at the frog thing, whatever the heck it's calling itself right now, The disc will be launched again, and again. Followed by a strange hockey pock like thing with a glowing display that gets smaller and smaller.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

If it can penetrate the shade it will before donate if not the light grenade will just go off on contact with the things mass and explode!

Neuroi Girl has posed:
     One useful thing about being a strong flier is you can simply fly over things. Evangeline flies straight upward as all those eruptions of water and shadow happen, managing to avoid all the geysers in the process. She listens to both 17 and Roxas, then takes up a position directly above the creature. With her arm fully restored, the sinister red glow from before returns. "...whether they are animals...or just look like animals...they are attacking people..."

     But this time, it is much brighter. It builds steadily until it is almost blinding. Finally she fires a beam...nearly as broad as she is tall. From her high angle it is easier to aim without much risk to those around her or the buildings that might be hit. But, despite that, the beam carves a deep crater into the ground as she sustains it, and there is an eruption of dirt and rocks once the beam tapers off.

Ryouma Sakamoto (6736) has posed:
    Oryou NOMS. This is, truly, dragon-heaven.
    Although, it's Phoenix, so could it really be?

    Oryou's transformation is short-lived however, as she didn't let Ryouma empower her properly. Reverting back to her human form, she is momentarily surprised by the reappearance of the massive frog. Or its, err... shade? Ghost? Neither her nor Ryouma are experts.

    Although when the frog smashes her until its leg, it becomes obvious it isn't to be triffled with.

    Ryouma ahs at Roxas, nodding. "And this happens often here? How perplexing, even if it doesn't. A world where negative emotions just become monsters. There would be no end to a hero's work, would there?"

    That makes him a bit sad.
    Though his attention is taken back quickly when Oryou, from underneath the massive frog, suddenly attempts to lift it up over her head, only barely bruised from the impact.

    "Ryouma, one more time!" she pleads.
    "Ah... really?" He asks.
    "Yes! Come on!" she demands.
    "Ah... change, Oryou Three!" he shouts, hesitantly.

    Oryou's hair whips about like a whirlwind of blades.
    "TAKACHIHO OROSHIIIII!"

    Ryouma makes a mental note to keep an eye on Oryou's TV-watching, because he can't see this coming from anywhere else.

    At least, with the frog beaten up from everyone else, and assuming it doesn't puff into a cloud of nothing, there'll be equal shares of carved up Frog Shade for everyone! ... that's probably not edible, honestly.

Nyrinel (6726) has posed:
Nyrinel's fingergun droops slightly. "Oh. Maybe you should... make your weapons out of different kinds of materials. I know an excellent bonewright --" The moogle's demeanor becomes dark and dangerous, and Nyrinel reflexively takes a step backwards.

Into CAPITALISM HELL.

Nyrinel is launched into a capitalistic nightmare-realm of profit margins and expense reports. She's cast from the black into the terrible realm of the red, all sense of social responsibility battered from her body through the relentless pounding of fiscal quarters that report nothing but losses and pain throughout her trademarked form. She loses all sense of direction, her will tested again and again by management's iron pompom and singleminded sense of profit through kupo and kupo alone.

Also, she gets straight air-juggled. Ain't nobody gonna come out of something like /that/ happy.

Nyrinel hits the ground heavily, landing in a heap. The laundry lands on top of her, no longer folded and -- due to touching the gross ground -- no longer freshly clean. It shifts a little, and she pops her head out from under the pile, having ended up halfway inside a hooded coat that's clearly too big for her. She shakes her head sharply, making a 'buhhhh' noise, and stammering something in some kind of short, clipped language that translates to something between 'do the thing' and 'make yourself happen.' In context, it seems like it maybe means 'make yourself happen to the other thing.' It's a weird language.

One of the zombies suddenly gets big, fat, and extra ugly. It smiles beautifically, extends its arms, hops towards the moogle, and explodes into a noxious, ever-expanding cloud of gross green gas and kinetically-accelerated zombo-bits. Gross. Effective?

Roxas (6906) has posed:
Roxas blinks uncomprehendingly towards Ryouma. He shrugs, "I ... guess not? Is it heroic to fight Noise? It's just something that you have to do, sometimes."

Xion (6909) has posed:
It is a victory in two parts! A victory over the SHADE OF DIXIE, as seven powerful heroes come together to utterly annihilate the terrifying shade-of-a-shade-of-bad-emotions-of-reused-assets, seven being the apparent magic number as people are tossed around, rally, and unleash devastating attacks to finally finish off...

Frogs...

It is a victory of communal living and """charity""" over capitalism as the Moogle flutters RIGHTEOUSLY TRIUMPHANT in the power of his short-selling of stocks in Nyrinel's stupid face, before floating down to get really smugly up in Nyrinel's flopped-over form. "How does that downsizing taste, buddy? Wanna buy a Hi-Elixir? It'll only be nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine Munny. But I'll give you the special friends-and-relatives price."

He dangles a large, rainbow-liquid-in-crystal-container-with-stopper. "Which is also nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine, because high quality goods don't come cheap, bud-"

The fat zombie looks down at Mog. Mog looks up at the fat zombie.

Mog weakly smiles. "Oh kupo."

The fat zombie explodes, sending Mog flying off into the distance like Team Rocket, with a distantly dwindling 'KUPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-'.

The Hi-Elixir drops onto Nyrinel's back and splashes all over the elf, filling her body with REVITALIZING MAGIC SYRUP that quickly gets to work. Convenient!

Xion pushes her way out the door. "Hey! Uh... I found the problem! There's a fuse out, and we don't have any, so... I've got to go down to the store. Thanks, everyone! Hey, is... everyone okay?"

Xion looks around at the ruined street, the hydrants pouring water into the air, the mob of damaged zombies, the bludgeoned elf, the soiled clothes, and the general state of things. "I could... go get ice cream on the way back?"

Android 17 (6730) has posed:
    With a landing sound, Seventeen touches down to watch the frog...disolve. Do the thing that things do when they die. That's weird.

    Not the weirdest thing he's seen, but still pretty weird. Taking a breath, he looks towards the others for a moment. Then Xion comes out, telling them that the problem is a fuse.

    "Yeah, sure, I'll take ice cream as payment," The cyborg says, with a unworried shrug of his shoulders. "Was a little fun, so maybe a more indepth idea of what those things are?"

Xion (6909) has posed:
Xion gives a thumbs-up. "Sure! Axel knows... basically everything! And Roxas is super smart, too, so I'll just... Go to the store then!"

Xion uses her hands to pull open a Corridor of Darkness, waving. "Be right back! Uhhh, is that nine ice creams or eight, or..."

Xion looks at the crowd of zombies and begins counting. "Ohhhh man I'm going to run out of fingers."

Axel (6911) has posed:
The group succeeds, and gets to show off a little. When Axel notices that Roxas doesn't join in, he glances at him leaning against the pole, and after getting briefly hosed by a fire hydrant, a little sore and bruised but nothing healing magic can't fix up, Axel heads over to him.

"Hey, Roxas, you alright?" Noticing that he looks dazed, probably from getting battered around, Axel considers for a few moments if he's going to do it himself, before offering. "Let me heal you up." They're friends, after all, right? And having a dazed and confused Roxas isn't the best idea right now.

Axel dematerializes his chakrams away who-knows-where and snaps his fingers as he incants. "Cura." A pair of golden bell-shaped flowers appear over Roxas's head, as petals briefly flow around him, hopefully revitalizing him and help treating the immediate side effects of a possible concussion.

And as Xion offers to buy ice cream, Axel gives her a thumbs-up, and then moves to stand over near Roxas' side. "Noise. They're pests that us people in the Underground have to deal with. Not big fries from what I've experienced, which isn't why I was too worried. They're made of negative emotions or something like that, nasty feelings as I said."

Haguro has posed:
As long as there's adrenaline, nothing stands in the way of impressive combat maneuvers!

Once it wears off, the realities become much more apparent. Sliding on sand and dirt is pretty rough, especially after it's been stirred up from a fight and laced with metal shards everywhere. Sitting up slowly, Haguro shivers lightly as she tries to ignore the pain on her back compounding with the soreness of her arms and also everything else from getting battered around by those frogs.

Too many frogs.

Hearing Xion, the Abyssal turns towards her with a slow nod, eventually settling into a pleasant chuckle. Even with all the discomfort, it comes out rather naturally for her. "That would be nice. Thank you, Miss Xion."

Of course, before she forgets? Haguro brings her hand up into a more formal military salute. "My name is Haguro, fourth of the Myoukou class heavy cruisers. It's nice to meet you all."

Now nobody can rag on her for forgetting to introduce herself.

Android 17 (6730) has posed:
    Seventeen seems to think on this for a moment.

    "So negitive emotions formed those things. So I have a different question. Why...frogs?" he asks. "Also why did they explode into money?" he thinks of more questions, "Also, what even causes negitive emotions to even form monsters?"

Nyrinel (6726) has posed:
Nyrinel ducks back under the laundry-pile when the zombie explodes. Mostly. The Hi-Elixir bursts on her armor, soaking through every layer between her and the syrupy healing goodness, and she feels pretty much instantly revitalized. There's some rainbow glowiness to it, which is weird, but she isn't going to look a gift mog in the pom.

Nyr sits up, brushing broken glass off of her, and whistles twice. The various milling undead stop in their tracks and then shamble/stalk/stumble/clatter on over to the side of the parking lot, clustered up in neat ranks. They've been battered by the froggy onslaught and look somewhat worse for wear. If you can tell, on account of the undeadness. She apparently can, because she gets to her feet, bundle of some laundry under one arm, and goes over to inspect them, looking mildly distraught about the whole affair.

She does not know the perils of froggliness.

Roxas (6906) has posed:
Roxas heaves a great sigh as the SHADE OF DIXIE dissolves. He leans back against his telephone pole a little dizzily, staring up into the sky. It isn't until Xion comes meandering out of the laundromat that he comes back to immediate attention. He replies, "Why don't you wait on the fuse? We'll go together, just in case there are more Noise hanging around. I don't know why there are so many to begin with..."

He looks over towards Seventeen, his expression falling a little. Shaking his head, he replies, "Sorry... I don't know very much in general. It's just the sort of thing that we have to deal with sometimes. There are other kinds of monsters, too."

The young man perks up a little at Axel's approach, and perks up a /lot/ when the spell restores a bit of his vitality. Roxas grins and nods, "Thanks, Axel. That's a lot better. But I'm still pretty tired..."

"... They sound sort of like Heartless, but they definitely don't have stolen Hearts..." He mumbles, half-to-himself.

"Oh-- nice to meet you, Haguro. Sorry it was..." Roxas waves around them.

Seventeen's continued questions elicit an even more baffled look.

"Why... NOT frogs?" He wonders, more than answers.

His attention then slides towards Nyrinel and her zombies. Technically, she's still in the process of stealing things. But one look towards the people she's obviously meaning to cloth immediately deters Roxas from objecting, or pointing it out further to Axel.

"Hey, uh... why don't those people have clothes, anyway?" He asks, towards Nyrinel. But it's loud enough that anybody can hear.

Unfortunately he has never encountered zombies before. Roxas can probably look forward to being treated (subjected?) to Romero movies for his ignorance.

Haguro has posed:
Knowing that the frogs were formed from negative emotions, meanwhile, Haguro levels a general question to the black-clad locals! She's assuming they're locals, anyway.

"If they're made of negative emotions, then... Is that why destroying them felt strangely good?" A beat, and then she starts getting flustered. "N-not that I enjoy breaking things or anything! I mean, it can be relaxing sometimes, but it's not a... N-normal thing I do. Really!"

Maybe sometimes. The zombies wandering off gets a long look from Haguro, and Nyrinel too gets a raised eyebrow as she tries to put five and some kind of imaginary number together.

Deelel has posed:
Deelel sees the frogs are handled for the moment she'll secure her ID disc back on the mount on the back of her outfit and seem pleased with herself for the moment. She will pause at the offer of Ice Cream as it's offered to her by Xion as payment she thinks for a moment.

"It sounds like a plan to me."

Some User foods are quite interesting and still an interesting novel to her still. Treat like Ice Cream were something she could get very much behind.

"I'm Deelel good to meet all of you."

She pauses looking at Roxas now as he speaks about Heartless. She gets a chill up her 'spine' for lack of a better term and she speaks.

"So you have heartless problems here?"

Deelel sounds like she knows of them or something like them. She then pauses for a moment.

"Those are zombies a kind of undead."

She pauses for a moment then stares, oh her user. Will they have to deal with undead now too after the Frogs. Speaking of Zombies? Where was the shop keeper?

Nyrinel (6726) has posed:
"They probably rotted off of them," Nyrinel sighs, answering Roxas without really looking at him. She's examining the zombies and skeletons like someone might look over a horse, or maybe a piece of machinery. "The really decayed ones came from underground, which is not actually as excellent a storage location as humans seem to think. The more intact ones are from a mortuary. They did not have clothing for some reason."

She tsks. "How did /frogs/ do this much damage? At least they are /mostly/ intact." Despite the weird looks, the elf (well... not that you'd know; she's got horns and no pointy ears) does not wilt or stammer. Instead, she turns, looks back between Haguro, Deelel and Roxas, and declares, "Intact enough for pants, at any rate!"

Android 17 (6730) has posed:
    Seventeen takes a moment to consider the return question.

    "I mean, I expected creatures that come from negitive emotions to...be...related to the emotions. I don't remember having frog related negitive emotions," he says. "Also that's another word I don't know, what's a heartless?"

Axel (6911) has posed:
As Roxas gets a little better, Axel nods. He'd normally focus on the objective after this, as he shrugs at Android 17 with a reply. "You know, I'm really not sure." But instead, Axel turns his head towards Deelel. "You familiar with them?" It doesn't sound suspicious, though internally, he sort of is. Axel's curious how someone called over Multiversal frequencies would appear to, well, be familiar with Heartless so quickly.

But Axel turns towards Nyrinel. He weighs things over in his head. He then speaks to her, unaware she's one of his allies. "You know, pretty sure those clothes you have are ours, do rotting corpses really need a coat? They're pretty important, too." They do cool things and make Axel look great, after all. Roxas seems ignorant on the subject, so Axel nods to the others and leans in towards him. "You haven't seen a zombie movie, huh? They're walking corpses. Seems she dug them out of a graveyard."

Though Axel does consider. He'd be willing to, theoretically, get compensation for the clothes if it'd avoid another fight. Though he's going to see what Nyrinel has to say, first.

Android 17 (6730) has posed:
    "Huh, so that's something to take in. How do I know if I see or run into a heartless? I'm assuming they're just not animals?" Seventeen asks. He's got a lot of questions apparently. Though Axel seems to be focused on the lady with the undead, and this causes him to stare at her and her...'friends'.

Xion (6909) has posed:
Xion nods firmly. "Right, I'll just get a case. And don't worry, I can handle a few Noise! I didn't get any action at all, I just fixed the plumbing and rewired the fusebox and... Oh, uhm, right. You're not from around here, you just answered the phone."

Xion points around at the devastation. "There's Heartless, who are bad, and Noise, who are a different kind of bad, and ghosts, who are a different-different sort of bad, and monsters, who are... Well, you get the picture!"

Xion shrugs and smiles emptily. "But that's why we're around! And SeeD, and Galbadia, and those superheroes, and..."

17 asks about Heartless specifically. "Well, the normal kind are these sort of blobs of darkness with beady yellow eyes that try to eat your heart! Mostly they're black monsters with yellow eyes and various forms."

Xion taps her gloved index fingers together. "That's what Zexion says, anyway. I haven't seen one yet! This was my first real mission."

Xion's empty smile returns. "Well, it wasn't really a real mission, was it?" Her sentence is chased with an empty laugh. "It's fine. I'm going to go get that ice cream, be riiiiight back! Don't worry, I've got my phone."

She hops through the portal she opened, which stays open behind her.

Nyrinel (6726) has posed:
Let's be clear here: they're not friends, they're minions. Valuable minions, but minions nonetheless.

"Er?" Nyrinel eyes Axel. Then she looks at the bundle of cloth, and what he's wearing. "I... suppose I can see a resemblance, but how do I know that this isn't just the local style?" Hedging? Maybe a little. "And they dug themselves out. I just... had them do it, that's all. But they don't have any clothing, and the gate is on the other side of town," she gestures with her free hand, "and in my experience, marching the walking dead through a human settlement tends to result in a lot of destroyed dead! And I need them."

Nyrinel motions at the clothes. "Thus: clothing. In the dark, it would be hard to tell if they just dressed like anyone else." It all sounds so reasonable! ...to her...

Roxas (6906) has posed:
"A Heartless is..." Roxas folds his arms over his chest, looking thoughtful, "... well, most of them are just a blob of basic instincts. They try to steal people's Hearts, to make more of themselves."

He nods towards Deelel, "I think so. We haven't found a big group of them in a while, but they've been really aggressive in the last year. Or... that's what people tell me, anyway. I don't actually know."

"I have to go destroy them sometimes, so I assume so."

"Undead." He repeats, dully.

Towards Seventeen he says, "What you asked-- about the Noise. That makes sense, but I don't know. I don't know that they're really that coherent, though. That is, um. Weak monsters like that, they tend not to be very distinct? They just sort of take general shapes. Stronger monsters are a lot more defined. You can get a better idea of what made them."

"Rotted... underground? Um... I don't mind if you take the pants, but could you please leave the coats?"

He looks up towards Axel, interestedly.

"No," he says, a little dejectedly, "At least... I don't remember anything like that. But, I don't remember anything at all."

In answer to Seventeen's request for how-to-identify-a-Heartless, Roxas puts his hood up and draws it tightly closed with its strings, "It's kind of like this, I guess? Xion described it better than I can show you. I could go find some, but it's sort of dangerous to do it just to show somebody..."

Deelel has posed:
Deelel looks to Axel for a moment "My homeworld had trouble with them some years ago, caused a lot of problems before they were driven off. With a good deal of aid from the multiverse. They caused a few problems on another world or two. Then they vanished as mysteriously as they first appeared."

It looks like a fight with the Necromancer and her zombies might be avoided and preventing further damage being done here so she's not going to push things right now on that.

"See you soon Xion."

She looks to Roxas for a moment listening intently.

"Sounds like things on this world are a bit busy."

Android 17 (6730) has posed:
    Seventeen listens to each set of explanations, and then hearing the signs of 'litterally just went on their first missions' and also 'someone has amnesia.' Oof...a lot of stuff to be thrown all at once, and Seventeen takes it with as much stride as he can. It was a lot to absorb all at once, but it's not like they know much more than he does. Hm!

    "Sorry to hear that, Roxas." is about all he can say.

Axel (6911) has posed:
Axel affirms Roxas and Xion's explanations of Heartless with a nod and a 'yeah', before moving to respond and agree with Roxas. "Yeah, can't really help it if you take anything other than the coats, but we came all the way to /this/ city for those coats, so." There's a gesture and a shrug. Axel might push it, he might not, but Nyrinel's attempt to hedge her bets gets a small laugh, which feels ever so slightly disingenous. "Thick coats like that? In Arizona?"

He's not buying it.

Axel then turns to Roxas, adding. "We'll have to go see one, then." Axel isn't actually going to pursue Nyrinel and her army of zombies for the coats, though. If they fail, they fail, but Axel will try to repair the damage with the info on Elite capabilities and the Noise and what happened with the Moogle and the fact that, apparently, someone foreign knew what Heartless were. It will be an interesting and weird report, for sure.

Roxas (6906) has posed:
Roxas pulls his hood down, smiling a little dimly at 17.

"It's fine," he says, "it just means everything is really new to me. It's not like I even know what I don't have to start missing it. It's just... strange, sometimes. And I don't know things everybody else does."

He casts a worried look towards the Corridor of Darkness Xion left through a bit ago, "Hey-- if all of you want ice cream, you might want to come with me. The corridors aren't safe for most people, but I can keep the bad stuff off of you for a little while. I need to check on Xion, and I don't know if this one will stay open."

He gestures for anybody interested to come along, and then sweeps on through the portal Xion left behind.

A second later he emerges momentarily to point at Nyrinel, "You, too, if you want. Just uh, please don't take /all/ our coats."

Then, he vanishes back inside.

Xion (6909) has posed:
After a few moments of DISPENSING WITH THE PLOT, and Roxas disappearing into Xion's portal, Axel probably has to entertain people!

He can juggle! But only he can know if he reveals this secret talent to STRANGE, MYSTERIOUS OUTSIDERS...

And it's probably moot, becuase Xion and Roxas return with a big crate of orange creamsicle ice cream bars - the nice ones, with two sticks! That's TWICE the popsicle power!

"Dig in, everyone! Thanks for helping out. Wow, it's so easy to get a ton of help if you just ask, isn't that great?"

Xion moves back towards the laundromat door. "I need to fix this fuse, but help yourselves, everyone. And thanks again. Wow, friends DO make everything easier."

Nyrinel (6726) has posed:
"I don't know what an Arizona is besides 'here,'" Nyrinel says, "but it had a lot of bodies for some reason. So..." She trails off.

Roxas asks nicely. Nyrinel gives him a weird look. She sighs, rolling her eyes, and mumbles something, making a gesture with one hand. One of the skeletons -- wearing a bow tie and a tiny hat for some reason -- steps out of the line-up and walks over. Nyrinel carefully disentangles the pile she's got, shaking them once and mumbling what sound like actual magic words. Dust and stink-cloud-zombie-juice poof off of them, leaving the garments clean as they were when she got them out of the laundromat. They're laid out across the skeleton's bent, partly-upraised arms like it was a rack just for this purpose. It looks like it was cleaned and polished, too, so there's no... skele-bits contaminating anything. She'll turn over their coats.

The laundry skeleton goes and stands over by the portal. Nyrinel gestures, and the most naked of the zombies start helping themselves to pants and things that aren't coats. One coat is missing from the bunch, because she's presently wearing it to replace the absolutely shredded robe she had on when she showed up. Apparently, having her weird bonemail armor on display is something she'd prefer not to do. "There," she grumps. A little.

There's ice cream shortly after that, so her grumpiness miraculously evaporates.