| Scene Listing | || | Scene Schedule | || | Scene Schedule RSS |
| Owner | Pose |
|---|---|
| Lilian Rook | On a different day, at a different time, which is thereotically a much closer to the last one in the ~~stage~~ world of Cinniuint, the same staff on a different shift wave you through the staging area to the waiting room once again. Congratulating you on your last run, theorizing the use of Ritescu shop greebles, pestering you to grind, pestering you to not do that because it's lame, concernposting at you about the collateral damage, prodding you for theories about the bizarre makeup of the castle, telling you to dress better, telling you not to dress up so much, placing bets on who doesn't make it, and handing you complimentary coffee and snacks; all of it is a slightly surreal warmup to something that is, technically (allegedly?) a Paladins-funded research initiative. Narratively, the beautiful stained glass portraits you've found you can hop right through are being used for you to get around after breaching the castle the first time. Given you only have one for the single safe space in the castle; the gorgeous atrium and its direct route to the lovable Ritescu's shop, that's the place you'll be starting again, fresh off what the staff are calling a 'long rest' in tones of a proper noun. Surely it has nothing to do with why the exit Warpgate has a live 24 hour feed of the castle from afar, wherein you're pretty sure you can tell that the singularity above it has gotten a little bit bigger. Unfortunately, though the sun-stained lobby-type area is just as pretty as before, and no ranks of animate armour have closed around the window-portal to shoot you on sight (like a SMART villain!!!!), the giant doors with the overgrown tower relief on them remain sealed. Really, really sealed. Though you'd managed to break you way into the grand hall by forcing your way through the Scyll-- Moat Monster, Scylla, the giant doors to the next level up are far more robustly sealed overall. It's pretty much confirmed. Given the shortcut elevator down, the hint dropped about the aqueduct by the unnecessarily mean Elena and Hafren, and the glass floor showing all that flowing water; you've definitely done a sequence break. Down, down into the levels below . . . |
| Persephone Kore | Miss Ritescu, Royal Consigner's store is closed today, and a handwritten sign on the door promises to be open on your next visit, with a little self-heating self-serve cauldron of homemade seaweed soup nearby as apology. The jewelled cog is a very tempting item, but it's still more stained-glass-petal-money than the whole group has pooled together, and while breaking into the abandoned shop is possible... It feels like bad karma. Somehow. And also morally dubious when you're being given apology soup. |
| Aidan Proudpick | As Kale cannot make it to this training, the furry substitute has been called in. Aidan grumbles from having to deal with fashion, combat, adventure, skill use, more fashion, magic advice, complaints that he can use both magic AND martial skill, then discussion about how his magic isn't that impressive because he can't put people to sleep or paralyze them, more fashion, tips on how he should be using his shield to reposition folks, and complaints that he gave up his artifact level weapon. Fortunately, there is a shop! A closed shop. Aidan has his face pressed up the glass, staring at the items. So many items that they might need. What if they need manacles or a rope!! He move towards the elevator, less of a bounce in his step. |
| Lilian Rook | . . . . . . As 'sewer levels' go, this one is actually quite nice. Given that the water theme is taking a back seat next to the fact that it's also pulling duty for being 'the dungeon', it kind of seems like Lil--iana Lycoris, Queen of the Hungering Star originally intended to force champions through a miserable series of humiliatingly tricksy tunnels, then decided she didn't actually like grime and slime enough to tolerate heroes coming out of it as physically filthy as they deserve. The shortcut drops you back halfway into the area, as a good shortcut should. A baroque elevator on magical chains descends past the skin of the mountain and into the cool darkness beneath. You're let off on an arched stone bridge, scenically spanning a major fork of that underground stream where the fissured ceiling is high and the walls are coated with enough glowing crystals and luminous moss that everything sparkles in shades of pale blue and night-light green. Even the water seems to glitter as though something were suspended in it. The architecture is old-worn, covered in ivy and moss and stray grasses and weeds that have made their way down from above, green against the blue. The stone is cut unlike anywhere in the castle above, and covered in unfamiliar markings of a totally different style. The way ahead of you is a dark and foreboding maze of slick cobblestone floors and ominously crackling torches. Claustrophobic right angles take you past cryptic scatters of iron-barred doors and steep blind-drops, empty cells gathering dust and rust to your left and right. Blind corners lead you into classic pressure plates that sound alarms, dispense paralyzing gas, or slam shut magically-sealed stone doors to either side. Patrols of wind-up soldiers occasionally ambush you in tight quarters, but more often than not, something reaches up from a glowing pool or a stream-crossing to grab you, or a softly glowing slime-creature detaches itself from above and lands on top of you. Once or twice you think you see one take human form before slinking off. All enemies continue to shatter into colourful glass petals when destroyed. For all of twenty minutes or so. Then you come to a hall where the soot-stained torches have been replaced with light crystals carefully cut from the river, shedding cheery, consistent illumination. The floors are swept clean and planed down to a kind of shiny irregular tile, glittering with exposed silica imperfections. Around one corner is a nice little table with two chairs and a couple of potted plants. Down the hall from it is a pretty landscape photograph framed on the wall. A shelf of goofy little cat and dog tchotchkes surrounds an encouraging poster facing a row of spruced up cells. And then the corridors take you right into the first wide open space you've seen down here. You emerge into a circular chamber even wider than the lobby somewhere above you, brightly lit as a ballroom in slightly different hues. The walls around you are perfectly sculpted up to a point above your heads, and then taper outwards into concentric rings, like the risers of a stadium, except each one of them is nothing more than a ring of prison cells joined together by a walkway, all facing inwards as though their captives were merely an audience. And captives there are; numbering in the scores. You may recognize a face or two that had run from Glascail when you first attacked the tribute ceremony, but others are from a longer time ago, or different villages, or even totally unrelated, as far as you can tell by looking at them. The scrappy mien of ill-fated resistance guerillas, the nervous quiet of collaborators facing a change of heart, or the plain belligerence of a villager who just wouldn't get with the program; all relocated here, arranged in nice rows together, to watch . . . |
| Sarracenia | Sarra has been suspicious of this even being a simulation ever since the first session. It is far too realistic, and far too Lilian. Or at least, the Lilian that Sarra thinks Lilian is. She is far too willing to believe that Lilian would enslave a world under threat of a black hole just for some war games, and far to ignorant of Lilian's actual powers to think that Lilian could not somehow acquire a black hole. Being one to naturally argue, Sarra does spend some time talking with the staff theorizing on those greebles, refusing to grind, waving off concerns about collateral damage, shrugging about theories of the castle's makeup, scoffing at both being told to dress better and to not dress up so much, being insulted at best against her surival, and enjoying snacks. Not coffee though. She hates bitter drinks. The black hole being bigger is worrying. They have already felt the reduction in gravity from it, and Sarra is certain they will be running the castle levels upside down, having to leap upward through doorways that do not reach the ceiling and things like that. Once again in her battle dress, Sarra squeezes Aidan's arm lightly when he gazes longingly at those shop items through the glass, then heads toward the elevator herself. And marvels at the cavern beneath the mountain! "Oh my goodness! This is lovely!" she exclaims, eyes sparkling almost like the water while the glow reflects off her rose gold metallic gloves. She even stops on the bridge to take some pictures and when she finds one close enough to the ground she uses her hammer to chip off enough glowing crystal to make a souvenir out of. The maze brings her mood back to seriousness, though. She holds her hammer at the ready, expecting monsters or tentacles or both to leap out at them. And summarily freaks out when one of those slime things lands right on her! She flails and tears at it until she is free of it, then smashes it mercilessly with her hammer before checking her clothing. Is it melting? Is SHE melting?! When it turns out that she is not and instead just has an unflattering amount of glisten to her upper body now, she continues on with a rather huffy demeanor. She is still trying to towel off the slime when they reach the... "...an arena?" Sarra wonders aloud as she looks around at all the captured people. She does not move to try and free them yet, because this is definitely a boss room and she does not want to be ambushed. She does look up at them and smile confidently. "Do not worry, everyone! We shall free you shortly!" |
| Persephone Kore | ... a portcullis slam down behind the group, sealing you all into the Obvious Bossfight Arena just as the last Elite's filtered through. The audience of prisoners isn't likely to seem surprised. The scratching of blows on the fifty-foot-wide arena's circular wall, cracks on the carved stone floor, and little dribbles of old blood tell you how this has gone a dozen times before. There's a portcullis at the opposite side too; your only exit, and the entrance of your enemy. A slow knock--knock--knocking, metal rhythmically tapping stone, draws closer. The portcullis starts to rise, but your adversary's impatient. One blow tears it from its mounting and sends the huge metal grate skidding halfway across the floor. Then the terrible foe steps out into the light-- "Hey! You!" A short Black woman with shorter hair emerges (it might be ringlets if it weren't trimmed to the length of half-lunes), white cloak billowing, baroquely-ornate silver plate gleaming and hip-keyring jangling at every step. It's Dylan Cruise, from Sapient Heuristics! Gaps at the joints show a black bodysuit underneath the armor, giving it more of a 'live-action superhero' than 'medieval warrior' vibe. She points rudely with a great silver warhammer slathered in colorful stickers. Engravings on the two pauldrons briefly read 'VI NE MOR--' before translating to 'THOU SHALT NOT KILL' and 'THOU SHALT NOT DIE', and in the same way, the warhammer is engraved with the name 'PENITENCE'. "Are you prisoners? Or prisoner-wannabes? It's one or the other if you're down here! Either way, you're gonna have to kneel for--" She stops abruptly, reaches into the pocket of her bodysuit under the armor, and pulls out a little sheaf of notes. Then she squints. Then she turns and yells back over her shoulder. "HEY! 'DOROTHEA CRUITHNE, CORRUPTED HEROINE'?! CORRUPTED?! 'Defeated in single combat by the villainess'-- I wouldn't lose to you! Liliannnn!! Come onnnn!!" It's a great chance for a rude sneak attack, though. |
| Petra Soroka | There's a certain phenomenon that Petra has had time to get used to in some capacity, that tends to happen online, each time that Petra is publicly visible in relation to Lilian. Her particular, um, declarations of devotion, both through her words, her jewelry, and her actions, paint a narrative that forum-posters occasionally get worked up about, usually by getting mad at her for unrelated reasons, or making fun of how she looks, but sometimes theorizing about the true nature of her and Lilian's relationship. People online are fucking stupid, however, so no matter how many times Petra says what her deal is outright, the context of the argument never really changes. So at some point, Petra had to numb herself to the bad posts, and stop engaging online. Even Petra, given time and justification, can eventually stop posting. Which makes sitting and waiting for this new round of the Supervillain Simulation in the management facility they all gather in each time, being subjected to Paladins faculty gossiping about everyone's reactions to the Ritescu shop greebles, somehow way less bearable. The side glances and glossing over Petra's own purchase of a Queen Liliana figurine are all the more cutting for being in person, despite the relative less severity to online comments. Sure she won't be directly called a thirsty gay simp, because this is a professional setting, but the vibes are still there. It's made worse again because she signed up for in-depth examination and study for her actions taken in the simulation-- and she doesn't really have any defense for wasting some of the group's money on that, besides the fact that it's a very realistic choice if the simulation happened to be real life. But eventually, Petra is allowed to return to the pleasant fantasyland of a world owned by Lilian, and escape from the comfortable and supremely well-provisioned intermediary zone. The shop being closed is a little disappointing-- Petra unconsciously puts a hand to the side of her neck while leaning forwards to read the note-- but not too surprising. Petra diligently takes a bowl of soup, and then pulls out an uncapped pen that she has to spend a minute to get ink flowing through, so that she can write 'thanks for the soup!' with a smiley face, on the door note. To be polite. Exiting the elevator onto the bridge, Petra takes a slow circle looking around, marveling at the additional layer of constructed history and enormous architectural effort put into the castle, and just being excited to be in such a *dignified* environment. "Wow, look at those *stones*-- I wonder if they transported in aged stones from, like, appropriate environments, and were just super selective with them, or if Lilian-- Liliana personally used her magic to accelerate the weathering? I mean, like, you can really see her touch in every corner of this place. In the lore, that's got to mean that the previous princess had good taste too, which is the least realistic part." Petra is surprisingly well-suited to dungeon crawling, besides the fact that she's not actually primed to any of the traditional hazards until she sees them. For all her talk about narrative, and her interest in theatre and fantasy and the roles of heroes and villains, she's lacking in practical Dungeons and Dragons experience, and the Eggman style that she's inherited doesn't often use pressure plates. She can frequently disable traps with her morphmetal or trigger them safely with a ratbot, and she's plenty capable at dispatching enemy spawns, but her focus on navigating the traps results in a gap in her attention when a slime falls from the ceiling and envelops her completely, forcing others to scoop her out. |
| Petra Soroka | When Petra gets to the prison, she's still slick with translucent green ooze from head to toe, despite her insistent scraping. Her hair is plastered flat in the most undignified wet-dog way possible, and her glumly grumpy expression matches. She can't even muster up faux-heroic outrage at all the prisoners-- sure *they're* imprisoned in the bowels of a dangerous villainess's castle to be executed, enslaved, or humiliated at her will, separated from their families and subjected to barely survivable conditions, but *Petra* got *slimed*! Who should be sympathizing with whom, here?! A bucket of glitteringly-suspended water scooped from the river is her last hope for cleanliness, making slow progress as she scoops and scrubs away while walking. During this pathetic little ritual is when Petra is interrupted by the Corrupted Heroine Dorothea Cruithne, whose voice would be dimly recognizable even if other context clues didn't fillin the blanks. And here's Petra, gooped. Still, Dylan's tone and combatitive posture sparks a specific Something in Petra, and by something, I mean mirrored goober idiocy. "Hey! You're down here too! But you're apparently a prisoner, then, right? Because you lost and got corrupted? I don't think that'd ever happen to *me*, so I think I don't have anything to worry about." Huh? Sneak attack? What? |
| Odette Raskins | Odette can't help but feel like the singularity is a portent of something terrible. Those usually don't show up like that, especially not so close, and especially not that large. Or... Are they supposed to be that large? She's pretty sure they shouldn't be, at least not without getting obliterated by getting so close to one in the process. At least Ritescu's shop is as cute as ever, even if it is closed. If not for that (and also not wanting to be a bother), Odette could easily spend more time here than in the actual pre-staging areas. Alas, reality, so she sets her mind to... She's not really sure what to do, actually. She's well in over her head, but she's not willing to throw in the towel yet. She does, however, partake of the apology soup. The lingering singularity does make it just a little harder to swallow properly, though, but drinking that soup reminds her of that gritty-tasting Potion of Black Hole Resistance, and that actually calms her down considerably like a warm safety net if the net was wet and drinkable. And when the Potion works, then... Heck, maybe she could really pull off something impressive if the singularity goes nuts. The possibility of finally being able to live up to the normal of everyone else here puts a spring in her step as she gives her new-ish cape (white with a blue cross and Company logo) a little flick to get it moving behind her. "Hmmn... O-okay! Let's not keep the Dame-I mean.. The Queen waiting." . . . . Thankful for the sewer level being much less sewer-y than she would have expected, Odette actually breathes somewhat easily as the elevator takes the group down to the stone bridge. Despite what she said earlier, she is very much taking her time to enjoy the sights, the architecture, and the decor. The maze puts her back on task, though, as she uses the right-turn strategy to navigate those tunnels. Fighting, of course, is still largely a non-starter for Odette. Aside from scurrying around like a startled deer and tripping up whatever ambushing soldiers get in the group's way (or getting caught up in every trap in the way on command), her role is largely that of a healer: Bandaging people up, feeding them pills, and maybe even sticking a blood pack or two to their heads if anyone gets particularly wounded. She's diligent about scooping up those petals, too, especially after finding out what they're actually for. The lit up hallway, in comparison, is another welcome change. Although she's cautious about running into more traps at first, she soon lets herself relax upon realizing that putting traps in such a nicely decorated area just doesn't make sense. "Aw, these're cute..." She comments as she circles around the plant table, pausing for just a moment to peek at a soil. She won't rummage around in it, but she's heard of people hiding weird things there before. |
| Odette Raskins | . . . . In the circular chamber, Odette once again has her guard down. People moving through this area on a regular basis wouldn't want to deal with traps, after all, and this doesn't have the feel of a designated dungeon, so she's able to just take in the sights and freeze up when she notices just how many captives are in there. "There's gotta be enough people here to fill a whole station! Maybe even a trading hub..." Odette promptly screams when the portcullis slams shut behind her, jumping away from it and turning around quickly to confirm what she feared. Before she can run back and bang on it futilely, however, an unfamiliar voice comes from the opposite side of the boss arena. It belongs to... She's never met Dylan before, so she just kind of stares at the mysterious new arrival. Getting the feel of a superhero from the armored bodysuit, Odette once again drops her guard as she approaches Dylan with a relieved sigh. "Oh, thank goodness. Y-you got trapped in here, too...?" Wait, why's she pointing her hammer at the group? What's she talking about? "Eh? W-we're not prisoners or wannabes!" She protests immediately, waving her arms from side to side to really emphasize that point. "We're here to-" She pauses, to wait for Dylan to read her lines. "Oh, that's a really cool name! For a... Corrupted heroine?" She looks up at where Dorothea's yelling, then back at Dorothea herself. Glancing back at the group, Odette swallows once before approaching her cautiously, sneaking up behind her while she's occupied and raising a hand to...! "... Oh. Darn it." Odette grumbles, her hand sliding from the top of her own head to just barely below the top of Dorothea's. She looks really disappointed once she finds out. |
| Timespace Riders | One of the voices pestering to grind is, naturally, Woz. The conversation goes on as they both make their way through the castle, already armored-up. "My Demon King, should we not use every available tool at our disposal? Is that not what you would otherwise do?" asks Woz, stepping into the elevator. The Demon King, in his symmetrical, knight-and-analog-wristwatch-themed Zi-O II armor, files in beside his retainer. "Maybe it'll be harder if I don't go back in time and buy a bunch of stuff from Ritescu," he concedes, thoughtfully placing the thumb and forefinger his pink gauntlet upon the chin of his helmet. "But," he then decides with an alert, upwward flick of his helmet and a raised index towards Woz, "If I do, it kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?" "The point, sire?" "It's studying for the test instead of the material. Knowing the answers on a math test without understanding why doesn't make you any better at math." "As you wish," says Woz with a conciliatory sweep of his upturned gauntlet. "I suppose there's no convincing you to simply take what's needed." "Hm... you'd suppose correctly, Woz!" Zi-O sunnily observes. "I won't be the kind of king who declares war just to make himself richer." Gently spoken, but implacably decided. Woz utters a sharp, exasperated sigh. --- The retainer is a little more forceful after the elevator ride and subsequent aqueduct lead to an ominous labyrinth. Woz's hand catches one of Zi-O's swept pauldrons. "Hold a moment, sire. The way ahead is narrow and occluded--perfect for ambushes or traps. Please allow me to go first." "Oh, okay. Thanks, Woz!" JIKAN DESPEAR! ...calls the Beyondriver's reedy-voiced AI. A green-bladed spear with a black haft and a rectangular touchscreen (complete with colorful square icons for 'apps') flies towards the retainer's outstretched hand through a cloud of hardlight green lines not unlike a smartphone's bootup animation. Catching it firmly, he proceeds to use it as a probe, tapping the blade against the ground to check for pressure plates. JIKAN GIRADE! ZYU! ...announces the baritone AI of the Timespace Driver. Zi-O covers Woz from behind with an energy pistol resembling one of the longswords he frequently uses--in fact, it looks a lot like someone just removed the blade of said sword and bent the locket about forty-five degrees to form a 'muzzle.' They accordingly fare better here than in the staircase segment, much less worse for wear; Zi-O is able to blast enemies dropping from above, Woz likewise able to take advantage of his weapon's thrusting power in narrow hallways for blind corner ambushes. Once or twice, his prodding with the spear is too firm, and on one occasion he takes the brunt of paralyzing gas. Better him than his king, so he'd say. ... Past the labyrinth... |
| Timespace Riders | "Huh. Look at all these little decorations--Oh, this one's cute! ...Is someone living down here?" "'Hang in there,'" says Woz, reading the poster. "Certainly a... unique approach to managing a dungeon." ... ...an arena? "Could be! Or maybe a panopticon," says Zi-O to Sarracenia. "The idea is that none of the prisoners can do anything without knowing that every other prisoner, and, you know, the warden, will see them... but I've never heard of one that's got the prisoners looking down on the center like this. It's backwards compared to the usual theory, where the warden's looking down on them. I wonder why?" SLAM! "Ooouh!" It's been a while since the last time Zi-O made one of his noises of buffoonish surprise. He wheels around just in time to see it. "Well... it's only looking more and more like an arena, huh..." He rubs his armored gauntlet against the back os his helmet in mild embarrassment. HEY! 'DOROTHEA CRUITHNE, CORRUPTED HEROINE'?! CORRUPTED?! 'Defeated in single combat by the villainess'-- I wouldn't lose to you! Liliannnn!! Come onnnn!! Rude sneak attacks are the purview of evil viziers. Before Zi-O can get off a cheery 'oh, hello,' Woz makes an impressive long leap into a flying cross kick aimed at her back from behind, much to his Demon King's chagrin. "Wait..." Zi-O extends his free hand fruitlessly, then sighs, twisting the laser pistol's muzzle upright. A silver blade protrudes from the muzzle, and the Timespace Driver's baritone triumphantly announces: KEN! Because it's a sword. He calls forth another, slightly longer sword, the 'minute' hand to the 'second' hand implied by its twin: SAIKYO GIRADE! And charges in to join the retainer! "Sorry about my retainer! He's just kind of like that!" |
| Powerpuff Girls | Blossom Utonium and Princess Deliliah Morbucks III had teamed up for the former to observe the latter in a controlled heroing situation. The former had taken a methodical approach to the township engagement and had joined Brick in his reinforcing of the woods stronghold after the abject disaster of making a castle in plain view of a singularity controller. Making it homier had been pretense for domestic comedy grade hijinks, and between it and surveillance at the township to try and get a sense for the villainess's control of the people the center Red of the Puffs had not bee directly present to supervise the joining Yellow. Of course, Blossom could hear everything that went on - the examination area's external span didn't break Blossom's auditory limit. Of course, Princess tried her very hardest to impress a whole new crowd of similarly-situated suit freaks. As a Powerpuff Girl, as she had always dreamed, the Paladins-sponsored event was a large dream come true and a small cost in revealing powers she was already going to use in front of everyone anyway or had before. A bargain! The pair of condiment-coded Puff and Trial Period Puff join the group at the castle today, both having missed the Ritescu episode due to Princess having a social event for the day previously and thus lingering around the closed door and Apology Soup with a confused look about them. Princess is dressed in a black bodyglove with a golden segmented and pouched belt on under a lightly metallic jacket with a thick black fuzz fringe and collar to look like pelt about her neck and down centerline, her Power Crown, and two black ribbons tying her great pouf of ginger hair into two large pom-poms. Blossom is more sedately dressed in a Stanford letterman jacket (red body, white sleeves) over black Halloween print pumpkins and witches top and black skirt, white leggings, and black Mary Janes with witch hat bows charms at the ankles. Princess, scoffing at Aidan pressing his nose to the glass, rolls her eyes and then her gaze off to check the nails of her crossed arms. "Do you need to ransack a place to win? Prepare better - or grind more!" Declares the wealthy in many senses antivillainess. "When we fought outside those *girls* you bombed explained the underground passage." Princess reminds everyone, heading for the way down. Blossom quirks her brow as if interrogating Princess' point soundlessly, but the yellow carries on without noticing. "So unless it's a massive trap, we're right on path to a per-fect score." "You don't seem to be putting that much worry on this being a disgusting, petty time, do you?" Blossom finally inquisits towards Princess, clearly now taking her chance with a good idea of the answer. She's still surprised. "Of course not. Petty? Certainly. But disgusting? Only if you don't have to share space with them. You sludge someone, then they try to punch you - that sludge is now trying to punch you! Much, much better to just use plasma jets and power fields." Princess speaks while preening from long experience. Blossom is forced to take that, surprised at the logic but finding no fault. "]I guess that... makes sense. I never thought of it that way."] Past the less-than-gross shortcut, there's a segment with pressure plates that both women decline to interact with at all, switching to swooping natural flight and lazy jetboot-hovering to avoid the traps and take the hard corners even harder than an ambush could go with bursts of zipping-and-soundeffecting super speed. It's perfectly smooth for such experienced heroes, until-- |
| Powerpuff Girls | Blossom Utonium and Princess Deliliah Morbucks III had teamed up for the former to observe the latter in a controlled heroing situation. The former had taken a methodical approach to the township engagement and had joined Brick in his reinforcing of the woods stronghold after the abject disaster of making a castle in plain view of a singularity controller. Making it homier had been pretense for domestic comedy grade hijinks, and between it and surveillance at the township to try and get a sense for the villainess's control of the people the center Red of the Puffs had not bee directly present to supervise the joining Yellow. Of course, Blossom could hear everything that went on - the examination area's external span didn't break Blossom's auditory limit. Of course, Princess tried her very hardest to impress a whole new crowd of similarly-situated suit freaks. As a Powerpuff Girl, as she had always dreamed, the Paladins-sponsored event was a large dream come true and a small cost in revealing powers she was already going to use in front of everyone anyway or had before. A bargain! The pair of condiment-coded Puff and Trial Period Puff join the group at the castle today, both having missed the Ritescu episode due to Princess having a social event for the day previously and thus lingering around the closed door and Apology Soup with a confused look about them. Princess is dressed in a black bodyglove with a golden segmented and pouched belt on under a lightly metallic jacket with a thick black fuzz fringe and collar to look like pelt about her neck and down centerline, her Power Crown, and two black ribbons tying her great pouf of ginger hair into two large pom-poms. Blossom is more sedately dressed in a Stanford letterman jacket (red body, white sleeves) over black Halloween print pumpkins and witches top and black skirt, white leggings, and black Mary Janes with witch hat bows charms at the ankles. Princess, scoffing at Aidan pressing his nose to the glass, rolls her eyes and then her gaze off to check the nails of her crossed arms. "Do you need to ransack a place to win? Prepare better - or grind more!" Declares the wealthy in many senses antivillainess. "When we fought outside those *girls* you bombed explained the underground passage." Princess reminds everyone, heading for the way down. Blossom quirks her brow as if interrogating Princess' point soundlessly, but the yellow carries on without noticing. "So unless it's a massive trap, we're right on path to a per-fect score." "You don't seem to be putting that much worry on this being a disgusting, petty time, do you?" Blossom finally inquisits towards Princess, clearly now taking her chance with a good idea of the answer. She's still surprised. "Of course not. Petty? Certainly. But disgusting? Only if you don't have to share space with them. You sludge someone, then they try to punch you - that sludge is now trying to punch you! Much, much better to just use plasma jets and power fields." Princess speaks while preening from long experience. Blossom is forced to take that, surprised at the logic but finding no fault. "I guess that... makes sense. I never thought of it that way." Past the less-than-gross shortcut, there's a segment with pressure plates that both women decline to interact with at all, switching to swooping natural flight and lazy jetboot-hovering to avoid the traps and take the hard corners even harder than an ambush could go with bursts of zipping-and-soundeffecting super speed. It's perfectly smooth for such experienced heroes, until-- |
| Powerpuff Girls | Princess gets slorped by a from-the-ceiling threat, gooped despite firing a crown ray back up at the offending creature before it could chomp her cranium or whatever else might happen. Unthreatened except for how it mats and slimes her coat (her hair is safe due to some form of Advanced Spray, she is a veteran) and grosses her out, Morbucks does a bouncing 'foot stamp while flying and tries to violently shake off the garbage while washing her face with jets of repulsor exhaust. "Ew! Yuck! Disgusting!" "Thought you were sure it wouldn't be--" "I didn't expect for ceiling freaks to have sticky tongues!" Blossom just laughs amusedly, knowing better, as both of them float into the Prison complex. Princess is still swiping slime from herself onto the ground in sympathetic echo of Petra and Sarracenia, while Blossom narrows big red eyes at Dylan across the arena. Dramatically closing her fists as she speaks, Blossom uses her surprise action trying to get a read on Dylan - their speaking of script and being dissatisfied with Lilian might be positive! "I understand you've provided us options, but I hope you're still willing to negotiate! If you're unsatisfied with your... role, then, maybe it can be changed! Anything can be overcome, if we all work together!" Moving speech deployed, Blossom ends with a forward stance and a determined look. A picture of taking this seriously Morbucks uses her quick turn more simply. Swiping off the last of her slime, the antivillainess puts on her finest and warmest evil smile, tilts her chin up to proper angle for ego, and gives an interested upnod to Dylan. "Hey. Corrupted in a one-on-one battle, huh? You want to get coffee sometime? I've got some work for a big hammer in very, very legal activities." "Princess!" Blossom protests. Helpessly shrugging while gesturing powerfully towards Dylan, Princess protests directly. "Are you kidding? Forget 'big hench energy', we could be *nemesisters*! The villainry we could get up to!" |
| Angela | Cinder is not going to rob Rita, or Ritescu. This is less because of karma or even fear, it's mostly because she'd feel guilty and Ritescu, the character, was super nice. And also Rita, the person, is super nice. She'd have trouble sleeping at night, she thinks, so she really doesn't want to do that. And so... A sewer level. Cinder isn't fond of this either, but she's been in worse sewer levels so she actually remarks, "This has to be one of the nicest sewers I've been in." She proceeds carefully, and more towards the rear of the party, because she's anticipating ambushes. But this means she does get a preview of any triggered traps. She almost gets slimed, but fortunately(?) she sees the slime goop land on Petra instead. "Oh geeze...! I'm sorry, Petra... If only I was moving faster..." Would she go and get slimed for Petra? YOU BET. She lets out a low whistle when she sees all the prisoners. "There's loads of them in here... If we lose, is she gonna dump us here too?" It's a Readiness Seminar so ideally they don't lose, but she imagines Lilian isn't going to play with kidgloves that much. SLAM!! The portuculis comes down! Cinder lets out a faint 'eep!' and makes the Cinderpanic face before she turns to look towards Dylan, whose voice is familiar. "What do we do, Petra?" Cinder asks moments before Petra shows what she'll do. "Um, how are you corrupted anyway?" Cinder asks, after a moment, now that surprise attack is over for good. |
| Petra Soroka | "I didn't expect for ceiling freaks to have sticky tongues!" After nearly half of the party gets slimed, Petra falls in sync with the two evil yellows to either side, soggy and defeated. Hopelessly, she bemoans, while futilely failing to scrape any slime off, "Since it's sticky, she won't get dirty when we show up to fight her, since it won't come off of us... she's two steps ahead.... I never even thought of that tactic before." "Oh geeze...! I'm sorry, Petra... If only I was moving faster..." Petra limply parts her slick bangs so that she can peer balefully through them at the completely dry Cinder. "No, then you'd be slimed instead, that wouldn't be fair... what *would* be fair is--!" Petra lunges to grab at Cinder's arm, wiping her awful slimy hands all over the sleeve of her suit, which is the most successful tactic so far for cleaning herself. "--Both of us!" |
| Aidan Proudpick | Aidan gives an appreciative nod to Sarracenia's solidarity. He glares at Morbucks, "Come on! You never know when you might need all that stuff. Do you know how much soap can come in handy? And I didn't BOMB them, I threw a wind blast at them!" BUT he still has a ten foot pole from last time! And, having brought Sarracenia to the TOMB OF HORRORS, has a little bit of practice in what to do here. Walk a step, press at the floor with the tenfoot pole. Walk a step, press at the floor with the ten foot pole. Walk two steps, tap at the floor with the ten foot pole. Walk a few paces, bouncing the tip of the ten foot pole across the ground. The keeping track of where they are going is a bit easier, since he can mark the walls with the chalk at a much less arduous pace. Approximately five minutes into this task, Aidan leaves the stick up against a wall and resorts to simply climbing on the wall itself, moving across them with the ease of an arachnid themed super hero. He bypasses several traps, grinning to himself as he starts into a steady scurrying lope along the wall. One WAHVORE moment later, Aidan smashes into the ground underneath an enormous ooze. With the wind pounding out of him, Aidan is forced to resort to panic-firing non-lethal glue rounds into the slime, hitting it with his buckler, and generally scrambling out from under it on the floor. Into another push trap that opens a door, revealing an enormous wind up soldier. Arriving in the arena, wishing he wasn't wearing a bare midriff while oozing. He could get wet, but then he'd be even more miserable, so he is just trying to tough it out. Maybe wipe a little away from his face and make it look dramatic? Mascara smears across his face. "HEY! 'DOROTHEA CRUITHNE, CORRUPTED HEROINE'?! CORRUPTED?! 'Defeated in single combat by the villainess'-- I wouldn't lose to you! Liliannnn!! Come onnnn!!" Aidan steps into the arena. A brief memory and wince at the LAST time he was in an arena flashes in. At least this time, he'll play for the crowd. He lifts up his hands, putting those weekend community drama classes to work. "Well well, Dorothea Cruithne, Dark Heroine, Champion of the Dungeons," he spots the keys, "The Undefeated Warden! The Vicious Hammer! We aren't here to be prisoners, we are here to free the prisoners!" He brings two wind balls into his hand, letting them spin into a tiny whirlwind. Then again, crushing them together. White wisps flow together, escaping his palms briefly before swirling up into a single pill sized ball. "Wi-" Aidan draws in a breath to shout a new phrase when he sees the two riders in the room transform. The phrase dies into a sucked cough and sputters into a mutter. White wind envelopes the squirrel from head to toe, swirling white spirals within forming a knight's armor with a sort of vague but not really Kamen Rider helmet as he steps up next to Sarranecia. The knight's armor does have somewhat defined biceps and torso muscles, but it is hard to see in the white on white. "Be careful, everyone! She supposed to be the most powerful of Liliana's Generals!" |
| Lilian Rook | 'HEY! 'DOROTHEA CRUITHNE, CORRUPTED HEROINE'?! CORRUPTED?! 'Defeated in single combat by the villainess'-- I wouldn't lose to you! Liliannnn!! Come onnnn!!' About twenty seconds later . . . The liminal half-darkness of a certain room, drawn in silhouette by the glow of surveillance monitors and a backlit table surface. Pitch blackness on all sides, broken only by slivers of light from the hallway far beyond. An ominious figure, seated to one side, taps the silent start of running clock, and laces her fingers together, waiting. The uproar happening on screen is so muted that it feels eerily distant. Unworthy of breaking the hush of the closed room; one amongst a hundred little reports of the heroes' progress. The figure barely deigns to speak at all, but neverthelesss, says . . . "Are you joking? She had ten lines! Sabrina. Get down there and remind Miss Cruise not to embarrass herself already." On the upper levels of the prison gallery, a sharp flash-crack of magic, and a swirl of glittering purple smoke. The haughty voice of Hafren, sans Elena, calls down from the echoing apex. "It would behoove you, Miss Guardian, to not speak so familiarly of the Queen! Do you really expect even these idiots to believe you? You can't even memorize a handful of simple pass-phrases! This kind of thing is why you're consigned to guard duty, you bumbling oaf! Get your act together and mind your manners, or you'll be in one of these cells next! You have one job!" |
| Persephone Kore | "Anything can be overcome, if we all work together!" "Um, how are you corrupted anyway?" "I-- there's nothing that needs overcoming! And I'm not corrupted! I'm notttt!" Oh gosh her face looks *so* round when her cheeks puff out like that. "I'm just, a cool and noble heroine, who's helping Lilian- uh, 'na', for ssssome reason! Now fight me already!?" "I don't think that'd ever happen to *me*..." "I don't wanna hear it from someone who got got by a dungeon goop! I'm gonna give you to her beaten and tied if you don't--" Half-beat passes in silence. Dylan raises one finger. "Hey, aren't you that cute girl from the radio? You sounded, like, drier." "You want to get coffee sometime?" Instantly, she swerves. Her armor clinks with the wind-down into a soft befuddlement. "Huh? I mean, sure. The whole little crown thing is sorta--" "The villainry we could get up to!" "No!! HERO! HE-" she waggles her arms for emphasis- "RO!! Are you listening to me?!" "Champion of the Dungeons! The Undefeated Warden! The Vicious Hammer!" "Well, okay, I'm not really sure how I feel about 'vicious' but that's a whole lot better." "Get your act together and mind your manners, or you'll be in one of these cells next!" She twists around again when Elena yells down: "Oh yeah?! I'd like to see you be a boss fight!! I'm sorry I didn't read my lines, okay, I was gonna have plenty of time last night but some of us have a sex li-- hough!!" Woz slams into her half-turned back true, sending her staggering forward with a spray of armor-sparks; she catches herself and heel-pivots with a titanically motion-blurring swing, massively impacting-- --Odette? Oh no. The resulting warhammer hit is a squish-and-stretch cartoon-deformed shockwave-making WHAM that, imbued with a psychic gentleness, breaks zero of her bones instead of 'most of them'. But it does fling Odette's body through the rest of the group like a ninety-pound bullet. |
| Persephone Kore | https://youtu.be/Q6k9en5Bvk0 Her next hammer-blow is against the floor, 'magically' radiating out into a ten-meter spherical biome of moondust and gentle craters around her, complete with local skybox of night-time stars. Inside it, her hair stirs and the keys on her keychain float. It's a sharp border to low-gravity: projectiles skew passing through it, footing is hard to maintain since you don't stick to the floor, and flight jerks upwards. Zi-O catches her across the face twice before she swings a hammer-uppercut back, trying to launch him up in low-grav so he'll soar high before smashing back down outside the moonbubble (a similar threat awaits anyone else who closes in). But 'Dorothea Cruithne' doesn't bleed. What's beneath the skin isn't normatively "human", isn't flesh, and maybe even isn't matter. There's a glimpse of weird-starry-purple before I wish I wasn't hurt; the uglier cut vanishes, and the one on her cheek shrinks to a conventionally-red scratch. Shopkeeper's advice: "Did you hear about the Corrupted Heroine down there? I hear she's, like, almost invincible, but there's got to be a trick to beating her, I bet! Ha..." "Let's go," Dylan grouses, rubbing her face with her free hand (because, thank goodness, there's still air in her moonbubble). "It's a panopticon just for me. All the prisoners are watching 'cause they'll learn from my shining example- they need to see justice and goodness prevail!" That's definitely an ad-lib. |
| Sarracenia | Aidan clears the way for Sarra, and she is quite grateful! "Aww~ Thank you, Aidan!" she says as she follows him, smiling right up until that sliming. Their challenger appears! Sarra is -really- starting to take a lot of this simulation personally. First the whole black hole motif, Ru Li getting kidnapped instead of her, the moat monster not trying anything unseemly on her while doing so on others, and now...someone who uses a big hammer and smashes doors off their hinges?! And is also apparently loud! Although, the response to her pretend name and occupation draws a slight snicker from Sarra. She is not one for sneak attacks, so she twirls her own hammer in a graceful flourish while she twirls a few times herself to get her dress to billow outward elegantly. 'we could be *nemesisters*! The villainry we could get up to!' Sarracenia huffs. "This is a -hero- search! If you team up for villainy you automatically lose!" she exclaims. 'Be careful, everyone! She supposed to be the most powerfulof Liliana's Generals!' Sarra blinks in surprise. "Wait, how do you know that?" she asks Aidan. And hearing the arguments the others take, Sarra calls out. "If you should have defeated her before, then fight off her corrupting influence and join us in a quest of redemption!" 'Well... it's only looking more and more like an arena, huh...' "Indeed!" Sarra says, only for her hopes of recruiting the other hammer wielder to be so sadly dashed as Woz attacks. Sarra really isn't that sad about it. There can only be one loud hammer wielder in this adventure! "Well, I guess we are doing this~" she says as she rushes forward, going into a spinning pirouette to add her hammer power to the attack on the misguided guardian. |
| Aidan Proudpick | "Well, okay, I'm not really sure how I feel about 'vicious' but that's a whole lot better." "The Noble Warden!" Aidan helps, "Forced to fight, but still undefeated. Because you are... protecting the prisoners from her wrath!" He looks over at Sarracenia, but his face is hidden from view behind a curtain of white wind, so when he is trying to motion at her and jerk his head towards 'Dorothea', only the jerky head motions are visible. He hasn't learned to use his hands more to gesticulate. Either way, there's a bouncing eagerness to his voice, only turning to see Odette coming towards them. "Oh fu-" He staggers back as Odette flies at them like a practically dog chaseable bullet, bumping into Sarracenia. His fingers lash out, forming a wind wall to slow Odette's travel speed. He grabs at Sarracenia to steady them both before he points dramatically at Dorothea. "Then they'll see your justice and rise up against Liliana!" He starts pacing forward, tracking Zi-O. How many times is he cursing losing Aegis? He has lost count. "You remind me... of a Breath Weapon user!" Weapons that break physics in very specific ways. The White Knight armor around Aidan shifts up to a central point around his mouth as he draws in a great breath. Then, with a mighty puff, he blows those hurricane force winds at Dorothea, into the bubble. |
| Angela | "Ack!!!" Cinder cries out, throwing up her arms. SHe doesn't make a CInderpanic face this time because despite going 'Ack!!!!' she's also laughing a lot, giggling like a maniac as Petra slimes her. This is really not professional but in this moment, it's like a great weight has lifted off her shoulder and she can relax--maybe meeting Ritescu helped too. She's feeling better. ''I'm just, a cool and noble heroine, who's helping Lilian-uh, 'na', for ssssome reason!'' Cinder is still giggling and spreading the slime on her by trying to wipe it off so she almost misses the response. But only almost. "But you said the--ohhhhh. RIght right." She draws out a cigarette, dramatically lights it with Fourth Match Flame as she draws it, sticks it in her mouth, raises Fourth Match Flame threateningly and says, between clenched teeth. "Get ready...! I won't hold back!" to try and be a cool showperson too. She charges forward dramatically! And then undramatically slips across some stray slime and lands flat on her face, accidentall swallowing her cigarette and sliding to a stop at Dorothea's feet. "Errk..." |
| Lilian Rook | 'Oh yeah?! I'd like to see you be a boss fight!!' "I think we'd all prefer to see you be one first." Hafren sniffs down at Dorothea. Her level of mean smugness is a distinct flavour from Elena's, and it seems to require two of them to cyclically amplify each other into critical bully overdrive. "There's a reason that you're down there and I'm up here, and it's that you're good for is brute force and I'm good for everything that requires an iota of intelligence. So hop to it!" 'I'm sorry I didn't read my lines, okay, I was gonna have plenty of time last night but some of us have a sex li-- hough!!' "Oh my god could you at least try to stick to a bare minimum of the decorum you were drilled in!" says Hafren, bravely struggling to stay in-character despite the odds. "I don't care what kind of weird mischief you get up to down here! This level was left to you because nobody else wanted it! Everyone upstairs can mind their manners and proper address when surrounded with harems of beautiful lust demons! So you have no excuse! So there!" She's pouting a little bit, but making it sound scathing nonetheless. 'It's a panopticon just for me. All the prisoners are watching 'cause they'll learn from my shining example- they need to see justice and goodness prevail!' "Hmph. That's better." Hafren sighs, snootily. "The Queen expects to see results from you. Who knows; if you do well here, maybe you'll earn a promotion?" With a villain subheather swirl of skirts and a snap of her fingers, Hafren disappears in another swirl of scorching magical smoke. Elsewhere, in an ominously quiet watch room, over steaming cups of coffee . . . "And she promised to behave herself too. Unbelievable. She can find all that time to go around sprucing up my dungeon level, but she can't sit down and read sometime before the last second?" says mysterious figure, ominously. "And yes you would lose, and I'd totally corrupt you." |
| Petra Soroka | "Hey, aren't you that cute girl from the radio?" "Uh--" Petra is taken aback by being recognized, eyes widening a bit and half-stepping back. The one-two combo of having to navigate what ended up being a first face to face meeting with a Sapient Heuristic member who's evidently a friend of Lilian's, and then being called cute, completely eclipses the dungeon and duel. Petra fumbles back to grasp for the Bit, as a way of getting through this interaction within the paradigms set up for her by external approved forces. "Um, I think I might remember, talking with a girl that might've seemed like a pre-corruption you, in the radio." "You sounded, like, drier." "Really? I did?" Petra wonders if she's ever sounded dry in her life. "I'd like to see you be a boss fight!!" "Hey!!! If you're a hero, why are you teaming up with the people calling you a bumbling oaf! That's not-- okay, well, maybe that's something a hero would do, but it's pretty corrupt! It kind of makes you seem a lot like you got corrupted!" Petra just sidesteps Odette without attempting to stop her catapulting, and twists the bayonet extension onto the end of her transteam gun with a blare of RIFLE MODE. She'd been skewering the dungeon gumbies with her morphmetal weaponry up until now, but for *this* kind of fight, the glowy plastic gun is the most tone-matching choice she's got, independent of how much harm she could or couldn't inflict on Queen Liliana's invincible champion. Transteam rifle in one hand, Petra smugly uses the gleaming puddle of goop that's dripped off of her to summon one of her treasured minions-- the armored knightly ratbot equipped with a lance on its underside that she's used in Elibe. "And! I've been a boss fight before! And I'm actually really good at it, because *I* beat a bunch of these people here, so I have the authority to say--" Petra raises up her gun to point it at Dylan one-handed, with the ratbot floating up above her shoulder. "That sort of thing actually makes you better at it! You just got lazy instead!" Petra's fighting style is shockingly well-adapted to low-gravity, for whatever reason. The exploding energy projectile that she fires at Dylan is massless, and all her ratbot has to do when crossing into the moonbubble is adjust the output of its tiny whirring antigravity engine in order to keep course on jousting her. Petra herself jumps in right after, more nimble in low-gravity from practice rather than fumbling around. She swings the bayonet around like a glaive towards Dylan, trailing a weightless-floating streamer of black-glittering smoke from the muzzle as long as she holds the trigger of the rifle down, and when it connects with her she releases it with a crackling explosion and a callout of Elek Steam! Matching the movements of her ratbot in sync, when Petra backs away from Dylan's retaliation, the ratbot charges in for a second round, lance screaming through the air like a missile. "All the prisoners are watching 'cause they'll learn from my shining example- they need to see justice and goodness prevail!" "Are they?! Or is that just the fabrication that's been drilled into your head by your new mistress, *heroine*?" Oh no, Petra is getting way more into it. "Let's see what justice the prisoners *really* want to see prevail!" Petra raises her volume to be heard by all the rings of cells watching over the arena, voice cracking just a bit because of holding back a smile. "Hey! You all! We're here to rescue you! Are you hoping *we* win, or your *warden* does?!" |
| Timespace Riders | Woz tenses in anticipation of the counterblow as he lands, his spear already raised and ready to turn the haft of Dylan's--Dorothea's hammer aside, only to find that it doesn't impact with him at all. Rather, it makes a projectile of Odette, who collides with the haft of his spear, driving him first off his feet and onto his back. Rolling onto his feet, he takes a knee and observes the fight for a moment... "If she were wholly invincible, there would be no Queen Liliana to speak of, would there..." he ponders to himself, before rising to his feet with one of his square-faced futuristic pocketwatches in his free hand. All the prisoners are watching 'cause they'll learn from my shining example- they need to see justice and goodness prevail! "Then they won't have to look much farther--I'm going to be the greatest, kindest Demon King of Time," Zi-O proudly announces, trumphantly pumping the larger of his two longswords in the air before combining them together by plugging the hilt of the shorter into a slot at the locket of the longer one--thus making a greatsword to match her own power weapon. The crossguard in particular is hard to miss--it's just a smaller version of his own armor's faceplate. The mirrored watch hands on his helmet winding in rapid, pink-afterimage reverse. How *did* the Queen defeat her? Of course, the answer to that depends very much on how studiously Dylan researched her role, and by her own admission, she did have other things to do... "Let us pray you are better company than a certain other regenerator I have known," says Woz, pressing the stop on his Miridewatch. The face bears a rendition of his own helmet, with katakana in slightly lighter blue reading-- DRAGONFLY! ...the Beyondriver's reedy, excited voice announces, followed by, as Woz opens the neon green side gate and inserts the Miridewatch-- Future Time! Woz slams the gate closed with a theatrical flourish, his hand held high... Genius! Odious! Imperious! Futurering Dragonfly! DRAGONFLY! ...as he's enveloped by brass-colored gears courtesy of a laser light show from a giant holographic smartwatch behind him. New armor is forged onto his sleek silver bodysuit by scurrying sky blue lasers. The blue katakana which fly into his helmet's visor are backlit and their shape is changed slightly from his base armor, giving the helmet an almost disappointed expression. Dark grey wristguards and vambraces form lightweight, aerodynamic lines with a light blue breastplate and pauldrons, each of the latter, left and right, sporting Dragonfly's distinctive frown. The final touch is a dark blue minimalist decoration set horizontally across the armor's neck in imitation of both the classic rider scarf and a dragonfly's wing, in shape. "Does your physical resilience extend to your constitution, I wonder?" Woz presses one of the buttons on the Jikan Despear's touchscreen menu--the white logo over the light blue background resembles a laser emitter. With a tap, the Beyondriver announces: UN-BEAM-LIEVABLE! The whole assembly rockets off of the haft and affixes to Woz's wrist, whereupon he taps the button again and zaps Dorothea with a yellow laser. But as Woz hinted, this isn't the sort of laser that burns or destroys, no matter how unpleasantly hot it is! Rather, it's unpleasant for an entirely different reason: the smell, which might best be described as the acrid, plasticy assault of a flaming laptop, distilled into use as a means of subdual. |
| Powerpuff Girls | 'This is a -hero- search! If you team up for villainy you automatically lose!' "Don't mistake me, lady." Morbucks is quick to retort, like a readied parry being expended as an attack of opportunity purely socially. "Every Hero, everyone who's stopped someone's master plan or saved the day, is someone's nemesis. Being the nemesis means-" Morbucks brings up her left arm, palm canted across her cheek in haughty ojou pose and confident half-shielded smirk behind black bodysuit glove and falling-fluff sleeve ring. "-that you're winning, obviusly." "I'm not your nemesis, Princess." Blossom complains, wiping face with a hand and momentarily perplexed-annoyed. "I'm not wrong!" Princess crows, hitting the 'doh!' of a doh-ho-ho with her 'not', and Blossom has no rejoinder for that. Dylan, of course, has a rejoinder for all that actually saying villain-the-word Princess got up to, though. "So we're on for coffee then!" Princess drops the hand from ojou-braced pose to closed fist at side. Her suit-accellerated reflexes make having the flailing meat bullet of gravity-fastballed Odette still a ninety pound underhand towards the crowned supervillainess, fwooshing from ground in volleyball volley posture to scoop up Odette and ease off the impact before the medic reaches Blossom or flies around uncontrolled. Rolling Odette from a catch to princess carry as her casual crowned smirk continues with twinpom aplomb, Morbucks looks down at her arm passenger. "Hey girlie. Back here again, huh?" Princess asks smooth, slalom weaving her boot-jet skating thrusters into braked air-stop. She immediately blasts up to jump over the ground wave and air-twirl Odette into a safe landing on the ground with a spin out and two palmed out pre-attack pose on the ground after. "I'm sure you were about to praise my marvelous Power Crown, since, I was listening!" Princess shoots verbally as she she shoots kinetically, pink energy blasts zap-crackling from her palms from range with the power of brick-shattering punches in a zorching barrage towards the hammer heroine. "Clearly happy to be a hero too!" "Let's all hope you stay happy when it gets hard, Princess!" Blossom chides, zipping through a zigzag-line of red speed that does a loop-de-loop over groundwave and ends with her mid-divekick towards Dylan's powered up defense! "And if you'll only see us as prisoners, we'll just have to break fr--" But! Oh no! With a mighty *crack!!* Blossom is sent flying up with closed-eyed distress, momentarily stunned by the blow across the head. Sailing up and away, she just doesn't come down. Instead, air-stopped and rolling over in aerial place, Blossom pops her jaw with a sorely slow hand and rolls her eyes back onto target. "O-kay, Princess wasn't kidding about the big hench energy. But maybe -- instead of serving the ones who enslaved you to do it to others," Blossom aims a pointing finger down at Dylan. "-you could cool off instead!" Corkscrewing down through the air trailing cool mist, Blossom's spin creates a sudden-effecting atmospheric maelstrom over Dylan's bubble filled with freezing mist from the Puff's ice breath! |
| Lilian Rook | Despite the sub-drama (literal) playing out on the boss room floor, however, the prisoners don't seem nearly so taken out of the action as 'Dorothea'. From even before the moment of Hafren's first appearance, they've been fully engaged. Hands clutch bars, faces press to cell windows, and a wave of excitable gossip rises weakly through the stands. Ragged voices half-dare to whisper, "Look!" "I told you there'd be more!" "There's a lot of them this time . . . " "More than any of the times before!" "So what? The Queen has more troops than ever before too." "We're doomed . . ." "No we're not! Don't lose hope! Come on!" "At least keep your eyes peeled! There might be a chance to get away!" "Remember what we promised!!" "Screw you! If I get broken out, I'm not coming back for you! I'm out!" "Not like that'll happen . . . They look so weak . . ." "You don't think they're stronger than the Hero, right?" "She's going to flatten them!" 'All the prisoners are watching 'cause they'll learn from my shining example- they need to see justice and goodness prevail!' "Yeah! Don't lose Dorothea!" "You can't lose until you beat the Queen!" "You're the strongest there is!" "She's the jailer, idiots! Don't cheer for her!" "I believe in her to come back to us!" "Forget that! She's evil now! You all have to stop her!" "A-as long as she's evil, you have a chance of winning! G-good always triumphs in the end!" 'Errk...' "Bahaha! Look!" "Nooo . . ." "I'm going back to sleep." "Is this the best they've got left . . . ?" "Don't give up!" 'Then they'll see your justice and rise up against Liliana!' "Yeah! Come on Dorothea!" "We're all together here! We can take her!" "We believe in you!" "Like hell. She could squash him to a pulp in a single blow." "Yeah! Look at him!" "Support magic? Is this a real adventurer party?" "No way, they didn't rehearse it at all. What a flub." 'Well, I guess we are doing this~' "Noooo! Get awayyy!" "You can't beat her in fight hammer to hammer!" "You have to find her weakness!" "No-- With the power of all those friends, maybe-- . . . !" 'It kind of makes you seem a lot like you got corrupted! Are they?! Or is that just the fabrication that's been drilled into your head by your new mistress, *heroine*?' "She is! You have to help her!" "We know the Hero is still in there!" "Every day she goes around livening up the dungeon, making it more bearable! She's looking out for us!" "You have to help her!" "The Queen . . . Th-The Queen . . . Sh-she . . . T-to h-her . . . oh god . . ." "You can do it! You're strong enough! You have to be!" 'I'm going to be the greatest, kindest Demon King of Time' "Then you're sure to lose!" "Dorothea wouldn't lose to some Demon King!" 'Does your physical resilience extend to your constitution, I wonder?' "Look--! He's got a plan!" "No way it works . . ." "Cheap shot! Like that'd work on the Hero!" 'O-kay, Princess wasn't kidding about the big hench energy. But maybe -- instead of serving the ones who enslaved you to do it to others, you could cool off instead!' "They didn't try that before! Keep it coming!" "Don't try to-- "The Hero would never lose in a fair and square fight!" "Even if you win, you're basi--" "Don't listen to them! Keep going! You're doing great!" 'Hey! You all! We're here to rescue you! Are you hoping *we* win, or your *warden* does?!' The gallery explodes into riotous argument straight down the middle. Echoing in the enclosed chamber, it overlaps itself until it just sounds like nothing but cheering. |
| Odette Raskins | "Forget 'big hench energy', we could be *nemesisters*! The villainry we could get up to!" "V.. Villainry? Wait, I thought we're supposed to be heroes here!" Odette comments with a lighthearted giggle, apparently thinking that Princess meant that as a joke and nothing more. "It would behoove you, Miss Guardian, to not speak so familiarly of the Queen!" Odette stays quiet through that verbal tirade, but she does offer Dorothea a sympathetic look at that. It's not that sympathetic, though, since she still feels kind of miffed about still being shorter than her. "Wait, how do you know that?" Sarracenia's surprise is mirrored on Odette's face as the EMT tilts her head slowly. "Right... H-have you two fought before? Or did... Was there some information we missed?" She wouldn't put it past herself or Sarracenia to miss something, but she doesn't look particularly convinced by Aidan's declaration even after Woz's sneaky surprise attack at the start of the first round leads immediately to Dorothea's hammer coming around full circle right at her face. Odette isn't expecting to get swung at so immediately, of course, and her head's still a little in the clouds after her size comparison with Dorothea. She pauses to stare at Dorothea when she gives her reasons for not reading her lines, forcing herself to keep a straight face at that last bit. "Th.. That sounds like a... I mean... O-okay, I guess...?" That straight face doesn't last for long, though, as Hafren continues shouting back at Dorothea. "There's... Upstairs? What?" Wait, is this still a supervillain readiness test? Will they all have to face these same trials that Liliana's underlings are already treating like ambient noise? It's actually rather impressive to the EMT, thinking about how much self-control they all must have to operate with such focus in those conditions. Without even a thought about getting away from Dorothea at that point, that might warhammer slams right into her, drawing a frightened scream from Odette as she's launched backwards in all sorts of... No bone pain? No bone pain. The initial impact doesn't hurt the way she'd expect it to, at least, since everything feels firmly attached and not pulverized on impact. The same can't be said for her flight path or her landing, though, as Odette only gets it together enough to cover her head with her arms. Tumbling head over ass several times in the air, she yelps at colliding with Woz's spear haft and makes a strained gagging noise at Aidan's wind wall slowing her down suddenly, and her mind is already moving from 'landing plan' to 'hoping she doesn't break her neck hitting something'. Luckily, Princess has that covered for her and then some as Odette finds herself not necessarily falling or flying through the air so much as she's getting... Carried? She's in a bit of a daze as curls up against Morbucks reflexively, only realizing where she is several seconds after she addresses the EMT. "Agai...? H-huh? Oh! Thanks, Princess Morbucks. Uhh. I-I-I... Yes?" Eloquent as ever, Odette just blurts all that out in her semi-confused state while being let back down onto the ground, eventually breaking into a quiet laugh. "It's a good crown! That's gotta be... Twice now? Three...? Three times, I think. I owe you... Something!" |
| Odette Raskins | Odette probably won't be that much more eloquent later, either, but she thinks she will for now. She's still a little dazed from the aftermath, any,way and she still has to take stock of those bumps she took earlier. Still no breaks! Breathing a light sigh of relief, she slips a hand into her bag as she rummages around for something, anything that might help here. "If... If the prisoners need to see justice and goodness win, then we'll give it to them. You should, too, but with us instead of doing it as part of... As one of Queen Lilian'as pawns!" The EMT calls out, taking a few bounding steps towards Dylan to punctuate how serious she is. Once she remembers that the warhammer is still in play, however, she immediately tries to halt her momentum in the air, stabbing her heels into the arena ground and kicking off sideways to try and make her movements a little less predictable. Unlike her usual antics with throwing garbage, she's actually trying to get closer to her opponent for once. She doesn't ACTUALLY want to drug Dylan up that badly or cause her any kind of long term physical problems, though, so that really limits her chemical options quite a lot. She keeps darting around as best she can, though, and when she sees an opportunity to get in close, she rushes for Dylan, hand coming out of the bag dramatically overhead and chock full of... Nothing! The raised hand turns out to be a fake out as she rushes in low, throwing her entire body weight at Dorothea's lower body to try and wrap herself around the corrupted hero's legs to try dragging her down and limiting her mobility with sheer body weight. |
| Sarracenia | ...but, Sarra does not make it very far into her charge before she is grabbed by Aidan to help catch Odette! She yelps and staggers back, bringing her hammer down against the ground to help steady herself and Aidan. She slides back with the force of the Odette impact and the hammer shockwave, then huffs. "Odette, dear. You really should leave the frontline action to those of us with proper combat prowess. We cannot have our cute little medic getting hurt, after all. We will be counting on you after the more reckless of us get injured!" Sarra, being the sheltered virgin that she is, turns red at the mere word 'sex'. "Wh-what is wrong with you?!" she exclaims...only to turn more red at what Hafren says. "What is wrong with all of you?!" Sarra still thinks of villains in the Saturday morning cartoon sense rather than the actual things that villains and dens of villains might be doing. That starry purple draws Sarra's attention, and she tries to think of what it might mean. "If they need to see justice and goodness prevail, then you are serving the wrong person! The Queen of the Hungering Star has imprisoned all these people here and holds the entire world hostage with her power! A true hero would be assisting -us-!" 'Hey! You all! We're here to rescue you! Are you hoping *we* win, or your *warden* does?!' Sarra huffs. "What sort of question is..." Sarra starts, then realizes what Petra is doing. She ooohs, then smirks. "I am sure they want the one keeping them captive to win." she says, oozing sarcasm. Although, when she hears that a good portion of the prisoners are cheering for Dorothea the princess's expression returns to a bit of a deadpan one. "...well, I suppose that is a mark of heroism. If your prisoners would defend you due to your kindness, then you must be doing something right." 'You can't beat her in fight hammer to hammer!' With Odette once again being princess carried by Princess, Sarra rushes in again. "I can beat her and restore her in the process! Why, I did it just the other day to a much more heavily corrupted heroine!" she says, resuming her spinning before aiming an uppercutting swing at the jailer. "What weakness do they mean?" she asks to no one in particular but everyone in earshot. |
| Persephone Kore | "It's that you're good for is brute force and I'm good for everything that requires an iota of intelligence." Even while hammer-locked with Sarracenia, Dylan manages to spare her eyes to bark back at Elena: "Hey, shut up!! I'm smart! I speak three languages! I play an instrument! I paint! I do an hour and a half of meditation every day and I'm studying neurobiology! Where do you get off--" "Wait. You guys have, like, demon harems up there? C-come on. I..." But her focus slips for a second. When she's peppered by energy blasts from Petra and Princess, she flinches; flinching, Sarracenia's hammer slips through the clash to smack her upside the head; and in her stagger animation from the cumulative effect, Aidan's winds pick her up and slam her against the arena's far wall, just below the 'stands' of cells. Wham. "Ghh-" Thunk, back down to the ground on one knee. There she's maelstrom-frozen to the floor in the process of getting back up, Odette rams into her, and Zi-O's laser strikes her, making her scrunch her face and wrackingly cough into her one unfrozen balled-up fist with the sharply noxious gas. Dylan doesn't have lungs, not really; there are no organs in the heroine's chest. But she breathes to gasp and laugh and talk. "But even so...!" (Translator's note: this means 'soredemo'.) She pounds the floor with her fist. Now the ten-ish meter zone around her is a scorching desert to muddy footwork and sap stamina, clipping the old zone of moonscape where they overlap at the edge- evidently she never needed the hammer- and she shatters off half-melting ice while standing, shouldering off Odette into the hot dunes as if she weighed no more than a toddler. Dorothea's body, or the imposition-on-the-world that stands for it, simply forgets to maintain its wounds- except the blood dribbling down her temple photogenically, and where a glancing hit from a beam slightly scorched her side though the under-armor bodysuit. 'The cool heroine' can be scuffed-up, bloodied, and bruised, but she's never maimed. She's never un-cool. The smoke still fills her lungs, but heroines, in the end, don't lose to smoke. "'Demon king'! 'Nemesis'! Listen to yourselves already!! I'm keeping them in cages and they're still- *hhck*- still cheering for me! You're all a bunch of- of mean weirdos, who wanna say I'm subjugated when I'm wearing the keyring- how come?!" That last word is grunted with effort; she picks up both her hammer and Cinder and baseball-slams the poor agent up towards Blossom and Princess with the same improbable soft-nonlethality. Pivoting, she rushes out of the desert-bubble and throws a terrifying oncoming-semitruck-weight overhead smash at Petra and Zi-O. Whether they block, dodge, or take the hit, the sheer force of it propagates through to shatter the stone floor from under the rest of the group. The arena's floor starts to crumble into the glowy-green underground goop-river that evidently ran below, and Dorothea is more than happy to batter back down anyone scrabbling out of the new hazard. "Just accept it! I'm the great big shining heroine and you're just-- just my props! That's why there's eight of you! But I, Dorothea Cruise, will punish and control you in the name of justice! You call me a minion because you don't wanna believe I could punish you, I could take you, but they're! Cheering! For! ME! " "Um. But. Yeah. We are on for coffee?" |
| Persephone Kore | SECOND HEALTHBAR: https://youtu.be/iJtFlQaQ6wo - - - - "Awww, but Lily-R--" Oh! Persephone's there, far away, in the spectating-room. Her arm's draped around Liliana's shoulders, legs crossed and leaning-over, pinky-out while she sips form an over-sugared mug. "--She's a natural! Sure, she whines and complains, and maybe she always loses, usually, but 'heroine' was made for her. Just look at her, when she gets going!" A pause. A wink. "Ahahaha, and I'd feel really bad if you blamed her! But look. Her and Petra are getting along! It's like introducing your pets through bars." |
| Aidan Proudpick | "Like hell. She could squash him to a pulp in a single blow." "Yeah! Look at him!" Aidan points a wind wrapped finger up at the stands, "I've got ARMOR! Magic armor!" He waves towards himself, his body wrapped up in extra wind magic, trailing white wisps as every time he moves. Everyone starts asking Aidan if he's fought her before. Well, he can't break the story now, can he? "Yes! I was defeated by her! It was a short battle, her amazing strength on display!" "Are they?! Or is that just the fabrication that's been drilled into your head by your new mistress, *heroine*?" "I bet The Dark Queen Liliana isn't even ABLE to control her. Her will is too strong! No one that mighty can be laid low!" "But I, Dorothea Cruise, will punish and control you in the name of justice!" Aidan tries to juggle that around in his head, before conceding back to Petra, "Okay, she's being mind controlled!" She is still SO damn cool. Aidan keeps on the edge of the arena, out of the circles. A soft timer. If the arena keeps getting filled with these areas, no one's gonna be able to fight. "She doesn't need to stay in the spot to use her powers..." Wind gathers up outside of Aidan's body. Step. Downward. Air bursts downward as Aidan takes that step, pushing him forward at an incredible speed. Again, another step, a burst of air, and Aidan chews through the space between him and Dorothea. As the ground cracks, the squirrel tail moves, shifting all of his weight to one side. Across the ice covered stones, underneath the swing of Sarracenia's mighty hammer, and staying well out of way of Petra who would certainly be happy to stab him by accident. Then one last whip coil spring at Dorothea, hand outstretched to snap up the keyring. |
| Angela | ''Don't give up!'' Cinder presses Fourth Match Flame into the floor, "Hcrrrk... God I swallowed it I'm not giving up!" Dorothea picks her up. "Oh--uh." And a hammer. "UM...!!!" Cinder says, swinging her arms to protect her beautiful beautiful face ubt that doesn't stop her from getting clobbered as she's used as a projectile for the Powerpuff Girls to deal with. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry for saying you were corrupted! I think corruption is kind of an overstated concept usually actually!! I was just making conversation, please don't take it as a moral judgement on my part...!" Nevertheless, even in midair, she can swing her sword and send a wave of flame towards Dorothea even if it's a little wild. The wave of heat is likely to hit before the fire does--but the heat doesn't seem to be bothering Cinder so much so much as the semi-uncontrolled flight. She really really hopes the Powerpuffs catch her or something because she hasn't figured out how to land yet. |
| Sarracenia | ''Demon king'! 'Nemesis'! Listen to yourselves already!! I'm keeping them in cages and they're still- *hhck*- still cheering for me! You're all a bunch of- of mean weirdos, who wanna say I'm subjugated when I'm wearing the keyring- how come?!' "Because that is the role you are playing! If you are a real, uncorrupted heroine you would not be holding a key ring for an evil overlord in the first place!" Sarracenia retorts. 'Don't mistake me, lady.' "L-lady?!" Sarra exclaims, a bit dismayed. "At least call me princess or highness or...or even Sarra!" Being called 'lady' by someone named Princess who has been showing you up all simulation just doesn't feel very good! 'Just accept it! I'm the great big shining heroine and you're just-- just my props!' Sarra bristles visibly at this. Her grip on her hammer tightens. Even as the floor starts to crumble, her eyes are locked on to Dorothea. With gravity reduced, the princess who can already leap short buildings in a single bound can leap quite a bit higher. Just before the chunk she is standing on hits that green goop, she pulls out a leaf to give herself some flight-granting raccoon features. Then, she leaps like a bullet. Straight toward Dorothea. "I am no one's prop!!" she practically screams as she swings with all her might right at that photogenic head. She isn't too worried it might kill Dorothea. Whoever this is seems practically invulnerable to typical attacks. "And yes, they are cheering for you! To defeat the Queen! To be cleansed! To return to your former self! Not for you to beat us!!" Even as she is swinging, the prismatic glow of her hammer's seal being released can be seen flowing over the princess. And soon, she is hammering with wild, magically-enhanced abandon. Being airborn, each swing sends her into a somersault that just keeps repeating until she is a whirling wheel of destruction. She was not really even thinking about what Aidan is doing, but she might still serve as a pretty good distraction! |
| Petra Soroka | "Wait. You guys have, like, demon harems up there? C-come on. I..." "*Right*?!" Petra's squealing indignation is so nakedly apparent that it's like she forgot to feel shame for a moment in the presence of the other Elites. "I totally bet they're making it up. I *know* they're making it up. They keep saying it, but, like, only to be mean, and then at the end, I bet Liliana's gonna be like, saying we coincidentally missed it or whatever, and it's our fault for being slow." "There's no *way*, right?! This is sponsored by the Paladins! It's a-- it's a, like, practical, technical, serious thing! There's-- they wouldn't *get* Paladins money to hire a demon harem! It's made up!" Petra skids across the sand, sinking up to her ankles in the desert before managing to catch herself. She grimaces and pulls her foot out to shake it free, and along with a shower of sand she kicks around, some of the translucent goop hardens in the shimmery-hot air and flakes off. Petra looks disproportionately triumphant at this, and levels her rifle at Dylan to charge up a glowing finisher blast. "Haha! See! You can try whatever you want, but it'll help me more than--" Her gun lifts up in a panic to intercept the hammer-slam, and after a yelp and jaw-clenching wince, she holds her ground to launch her finisher at the same time that Dylan smacks her across the room. The explosion and STEAM BREAK are nearly drowned out by the BANG--brbrbrbrbrbr of Petra flying back into the desert bubble and rolling a half-dozen times across the sand before coming to a stop face-down. Her hand peels up to plant unsteadily into the sand, arduously pushing her back to her feet. And when she stands up, she-- --Is coated in sand from head to toe, 360-degree-coverage, glued to her by mixing with the leftover sticky goop. She lifts a hand slowly to examine it, flexing her fingers and watching the sand barely crumble away at all. She looks like a blonde chicken tender, battered and fried. "... Whyyyyyyy?!" When the floor starts collapsing into the green river, Petra doesn't hesitate for a moment before sprinting up the crumbling incline, full-body tackling at Dylan and rolling past the remaining solid floor to take a few warning shots at Dylan to keep her from batting her back into the goo river. "No! No more!" "You call me a minion because you don't wanna believe I could punish you, I could take you, but they're! Cheering! For! ME!" Petra stands up and spits out sand, back to looking mostly-normal-if-sandy, after the worst of her coating was scraped off in the scuffle. "Nuh-uh! They're cheering 'cause *I* prompted them to! Because *I* did the crowd work to give them the idea that there'll be a good ending to this fight!" "So what we'll *do* is that we'll beat you, and then uncorrupt you, and then you'll be a proper heroine again! Listen to everyone in the stand-- cells! The part they're calling the 'Hero' is the part that wants to take care of them, not the part that's keeping them in prison, Dorothea! So--! Let's get them all on the same side!" Petra's transteam gun, glowing brighter and brighter as she charged up a blast throughout her excitable little monologue, releases a beam of energy when she lets go of the trigger. The black-sparkling beam sears through the air at Dylan, leaving twinkling black comet-trails in its wake, then explodes into a fireball when it impacts her. |
| Timespace Riders | ~~In the past, Zi-O does indeed find the mostly-unread script. But thankfully, the page it's open to isn't entirely unhelpful! The Rider's pink katakana lenses fix intently on a certain paragraph... "Huh... well, that's gonna be a problem. Not that I can't explain it, but..." Petra and Cinder would 'get it', for sure. Blossom and Woz might not necessarily understand, but they'd follow through in their way. Sarra, maybe... but he doesn't know Aidan or Odette nearly well enough to make a judgment there.~~ ~~THE PRESENT~~ I'm subjugated when I'm wearing the keyring- how come?! I'm the great big shining heroine and you're just-- just my props! If she wants to be the heroine, why not let her? It's not like one more person calling him an evil overlord is going to break the bank--and in this specific case, he can use it to his advantage if he plays his cards right. What *would a villain do? Well... what did his future self do, the last time they met? *Become* me? You already are me. Right--start it up now, while she's winding up for a swing. "...You're *less* subjugated than the people in the cells, but more than the person who had the keys made--" The symmetrical, mirrored watch hands over his pink lenses wind rapidly again, this time in fast-forward, the villainous power of predicting where Dorothea's attacks will land before they're made. "That's on purpose," says Zi-O, diving out of the way to a spot chosen strategically for the time it takes the shockwave from her hammerblow to reach. He scrambles up the collapsing floor, swinging his greatsword in a warding arc to keep her from harrying him with another blow as he gets to solid ground. "I'd know, as a Demon King! The people cheering for you are cheering because they think one day they'll get to *hold* the keys one day! That's the most effective power there is--the invisible kind, that works at you without even knowing it. And you're *good* at upholding it." --- In the observation room, an older man in kingly silks leans forward in his seat. A sash reminescent of those worn by southeast Asian royalty cuts a daring golden line across a black jacket, itself having a striking white portion from the shoulders up, set in a floral pattern. His graying hair somehow frames his face in a familiar way, though much of it is obscured by a peculiar trick of the light; his seat having been chosen as if in anticipation of how the room's lighting would behave at precisely this hour or that, held frozen in that moment because I am its king. He leans forward with interest. "Intriguing... here I expected another outburst." It's like introducing your pets through bars. The man in silks rocks with the mirth of a gravelly laugh. "As amusing as ever. I'm tempted to tell them both your words, just to see their reactions." --- |
| Timespace Riders | Zi-O leaps from his precarious footing towards the bars of a cell, springing off of them into a backflip that sends him sailing over her head. He twists in midair, swinging at her despite being out of range of his weapon--a cluster of disembodied, iridescent clock faces flies from the blade of the greatsword down to meet Dorothea, each one exploding on contact but none of them the true attack of a villainous overlord. It wouldn't be nearly as cool without a clash of weapons! As he lands opposite Dorothea, the greatsword's blade strikes up sparks, employed as a brake for the Demon King to halt his momentum. Charging her down, "I know your every move, 'hero!' You're beaten!" Preternaturally gliding around her hammerblows, counterswinging just in time to strip buildup time for them, or else leaping free of shockwaves, he indulges in the vaunted struggleclash, his strength against hers, sparks flying from each weapon, before his foot flies out in a forceful straight kick to knock her off balance, and his blade flicks across her jawline, just under the ear... |
| Powerpuff Girls | ''Demon king'! 'Nemesis'! Listen to yourselves already!!' Princess can't help but be caught grinning at Petra as they engage in wordless Yellow to Yellow communication by echoing over and over. Blasting away with little corrections leaves pink sparkle-scattering cones of glitter about finger and forearm. Her metallic black jacket-sleeves with black fuzzy holes waft with loose kinetic crackle as her palms cool off, and the powered Princess scoffs again. "Like I said, the hero's the one with haters! It's always true! And speaking as a re-formed member of the community, there are *no* heroes in the carceral state!" Princess challenges. Jumping from position to position in quick bursts of circling flight that are palm-stopped as she moves between people's maneuvering, Morbucks fights for an angle as the field ripple-changes from frosty-cold to aridity. "Just because you're being cheered for at the bottom of a bucket doesn't mean anything." Blossom declares, floating to a stop besides Princess momentarily as they cover each other from what both expect to be some sort of desert attack. While they mutually brace, Blossom keeps talking as her ponytail and ribbon flutters. "You know cheering voices doesn't make you a hero! I'm sure you want better than to be the biggest winner in the loser pit, and you are right you have a keyring that lets you choose. So why don't you--?!" Blossom is just about to be more seeking in her questioning and reinforced in her points when Dylan's slung Cinder is slung with powerful force and improbable softness into the Red Puff's arms this time. Catching with a stop that drops Blossom's Mary Janes onto the floor, Blossom heel-backsteps away from the cracking floor and pivots away with Cinder to set them on a big island of safety with a blur of super-speed and a 'skrr!' of motion that crackles vibrantly through the air in translation there and back. Cinder gets a soft feeling of a reassuring hug and the peripheral-audible whisper of an 'You're going to be okay!' from Blossom, but the Puff is multitasking trying to fight around a desert-goopfield and manage people's footing! Princess has no such zipping-fast overwatch concern - and Blossom is trusting the Yellow to capitalize with the rest. "You know the part that bugs me? It's that you asked me to listen, but you're not listening to me! But I get it, I get it!" Still smug, still self-assured as she challenges reality field with a chargedown, the rocketing twin-pommed heroine zips in with a jetwash ripple of blue white and a penumbra of Power Crown pink. "You want to be the shining hero!" Visible as black smear, audible as a jacket-sleeve snap at the speed of sound, Princess assaults the hammerless champion of the prison with a series of no-nonsense high speed strikes that challenge Dylan like knocking politely on her door. With a supersonic drill punch and a smirk, but the Hero can't be more than scuffed! "And you are, and you're right to think that they're just bits, extras, also-rans in the race of life but--" Close enough to smoulder a waggling browed look as Princess Delilah Morbucks III knows she's got this one on the hook and oozes the success of a born winner - no space magic required (for the ego). "Skip calling me a prop and we're definitely on for coffee, hero." |
| Odette Raskins | One minute, the floor is arena flooring, and Odette has herself wrapped around Dorothea's leg like a desperate urchin. Another second, the entire area becomes terribly hot, and the EMT finds herself moving further from the ground as Dorothea just hoists her without a second thought. "Wha..? H-hey! That's not... How the heck are you even that strong?!" She shouts in protest, both trying to kick her legs free while also latching on for dear life. "You really should leave the frontline action to those of us with proper combat prowess." "I-it felt like the right idea at the-geh.. A second ago!" Odette exclaims in a half panic while thrashing about, eventually losing her old getting tossed off Dorothea unceremoniously. Groaning lightly in her daze, she looks up and over at 'the cool heroine', and... Oh. Oh, no. She IS cool. Still, Odette has to protest a little bit, right? "H-hey, I'm not a... We're not all mean! O-or weirdoes!" She calls out, realizing what she's saying a few seconds later and who she's saying that around. Sweating a bit more, both at the sweltering heat and at the possibility that someone might take what she says wrong/know exactly who she's talking about, Odette clambers back up while trying to take the advice to NOT rush in to heart. "And nobody.. Ergh.. M-most of us don't want you subjugated or anything, either!" "I'm the great big shining heroine and you're just-- just my props!" Odette would be far more offended by what Dorothea says if she wasn't also dealing with the floor giving way. Screaming as she plummets into the goop river, she eventually stops once she actually falls right into it, making a bigger mess of her uniform than it already was. To make matters worse, each time she starts dragging herself out of the much, Dorothea's already there to smack her back down into it. It's terribly frustrating, but... "Cheering! For! ME!" It also gives Odette an idea, even next to how actually frustrating this feels already. As she's dunked into the river again, she stays there a little longer before resurfacing. "Bwugh... Wh-what kind of-augh! Hero... Beats up a medic like this?" She whines and sputters in between bouts of choking on green river goop, playing up the sniffling and snorting to try and get more of that goop out of her face while sounding even more pathetic than she already does. "You're just a... B-being a jerk! A bully!" She continues, grabbing a glop of river goop on her way back up again. She hurls it ineffectually at Dorothea, likely not hitting particularly hard physically because it's still just river goop. All Odette really has behind it is impotent anger (real and fake) and an attempt to drag Dorothea down to her level! ODette might also be a little jealous of the attention Dylan's's getting from Morbucks, even if she doesn't quite get it just yet. |
| Persephone Kore | 'Not being hurt anymore' is as easy as a wish for Dorothea. 'I wish I was my ideal self', over and over, like a mantra, and every time the thought crosses her mind her wounds just cease-to-exist. But a wish has to be a want. What about wounds she can't want to disappear? What about cool ones, scuffs and scrapes and cheek-scratches? What about wounds that make her more like her ideal self, 'the heroine'? What about wounds that come from the heart, a heart she can't want to shout over? Cinder's flaming arc-cut was like that. It scorches her armor and peels the suit, and must sting the skin beneath, but if I wish I was my ideal self, she feels actually sort of scared. It's awful to 'overrule' her, right? The teeth-gritted weaponlock against Zi-O- "Upholding it?! I-- well-- they do look up to me, but--?!"- leads to her catching a slice across the jaw right after a kick. The cut exposes glowy-purple-psychic-space beneath her skin, and I wish I was my ideal self, but doesn't the hero lose to the demon king on their first fight? And why *do* I have them locked up?, and it 'heals' into a heavy-bleeding cut that she has to clutch. "Ghhhhhhh. And they should look up to a 'demon king' instead? Who wants to be like you?! Who should?! Why do you deserve to win? Come on!" Dorothea only has the idea of a heart in her- she wished to have a heart to race or skip or pound, but not the lump of muscle and cartilage itself. It doesn't really matter how much blood is on the arena's floor now. But the wound slows her just like a wound should. "... you have a keyring that lets you choose. So why don't you--?!" "H-hey, wait, that's sort of mean to me, isn't it? I mean- you're- is this in character or not?? Because if giving up is an option, I'll- ... Wait, no, I still won't. Heroes don't give up! Don't mix me up!!" She just has one hand free to fend off Princess then, skidding back with the pummeling drive first through the low-grav moonbubble and then through the little desert. Bruises accrue where she can't swing the handle around or clear space fast enough; she's a Power Type for sure. Quick gamble while she's eating the barrage: Dorothea slams the sand to make a smokescreen, then swings through it hard, on "can't dodge what you can't see" rules. But then she has to lean on her hammer and pant. I wish I was my ideal self, but that's 'shouting over' her when she's asking me to listen. That kind of sucks? This sucks. It was fun for a minute, but... And so the badgering bruises are still there when the sand-spray clears. |
| Persephone Kore | "You're just a... B-being a jerk! A bully!" Splat. Odette hurls a slime-handful, and it doesn't do much more than make Dorothea grimace in disgust and wipe-flick it away, but the words that came with it... "Sh-shut up...! Shut up! You hit me first! Come onnn! I'm not- that's not who I am at all!!" This isn't who I am at all. The neck-bleeding quickens. And-- "The part they're calling the 'Hero' is the part that wants to take care of them, not the part that's keeping them in prison, Dorothea!" That makes her whip around and blink, not with the sharp burning sting of Odette's words, but with the near-painless shock of being known. Oh. Yeah. I did bring them plants and all, didn't I? "... You really care like that? I mean-- could we garden together? Be nice to them together? You liked the posters and everything? I--" The greeble-fireball comes as a rude reminder that this isn't just a sweet roleplay heart-to-heart. She's too woozy and sore to block it, so it hits her at a comedic cold stop, and the explosion buries her in little chunks of stone from the arena wall. Stained-glass petals in assorted colors scatter after the last hit. I wish I was... Ugh. My 'ideal self' definitely isn't doing this. Dorothea stays there for a long, long moment. And then Dylan sits up, scattering rubble from herself, and rubs her mostly-now-okay face with a deep throaty exasperated groan. The breastplate cracked off her at some point, and she doesn't move to retrieve the warhammer. "Alright, alright! You got me. I'm, uh, defeated now, so it's all okay. I'm all reformed, and un-corrupted, and you can have the keys and everything. And..." More sincerely, her shoulders drop, and her wound-massaging turns to balled-fist eye-rubbing. "I'm sorry, for... 'talking over you', like that, and not listening. That-- kind of sucked. I was just-- I don't know. I'm bad at acting. And if I listened I'd like you all too much. Ugh." She hasn't noticed her keyring's already been stolen, but she's probably strong enough to pry the bars apart if need be. They're getting freed by their jailer, one way or another. |
| Persephone Kore | Elsewhere, in the rest area, the camera pans over to reveal a certain man in orange. Oh! It's you. You're my friend, I think. Or you were my friend? Ahaha, but I'm unforgettable, so there's no difference! So, Persephone makes the Demon King a coffee with his favorite amount of cream and sugar, without getting up, and says "Are you proud of him? I think you should be. He's amazing." And then she laughs, first with the corners of her eyes and second with her voice, and says "I mean everything I say and say everything I mean! If you don't know that, your memory's not so good, Ohma." |
| Petra Soroka | The dissolution of the hero/villain kayfabe also removes Petra's emotional paradigm for interacting with Dylan. Without the structured guidelines of Lilian's roleplay scenario, suddenly, now it's 'Petra' talking to 'Dylan Cruise', rather than a member of the hero party attempting to overcome and save the corrupted heroine Dorothea. And 'Petra' is a lot less reliable at doing that safely. "... You really care like that? I mean-- could we garden together? Be nice to them together? You liked the posters and everything?" Petra's arm drops to her side, bayonet digging into the sand. She carefully busies herself for a few seconds unscrewing the rifle attachment while the heated gun vents sparkling steam, stowing it all fastidiously away, until she's ran out of busywork tasks for her hands and shuffles over to where Dylan is sitting; energy exactly like an actress who can hardly make eye contact off-stage. She flops down cross-legged a short distance away, hands on her ankles, leaned a bit forwards. "Um, I mean-- we're here to save them, so..." She presses her lips shut, then tries again. "It's nice. That you decorated. I thought it was cute. If you're-- I mean, you're probably too sore to check the plants yourself at this point today, so...." |
| Lilian Rook | In an ominous room . . . "There! It looks like everything turned out fine. All she needed was a little push." "It seems so." ". . . And?" "Good work not breaking character." ". . ." ". . ." "Lilian are you cross with me?" "No." "You look cross." "I'm not. Everything worked out." "Okay . . ." ". . ." ". . . Is there a harem of lust de--" "Well I suppose there is NOW!" Lilian throws her hands up over her head and storms back in from the hall in a huff. Throwing herself down in a chair, she rubs her face for a few seconds, then opens the lock screen on her smart device and starts scrolling while muttering. 'She's a natural! Sure, she whines and complains, and maybe she always loses, usually, but 'heroine' was made for her. Just look at her, when she gets going!' "Oh she's superb." says Lilian, reaching for the coffee and refreshing hers between them. "She enjoys fighting much more than she enjoys winning, which makes her an ideal heroine and a perfect second boss. Or at least she would be if she could read her lines before getting ploughed. God." 'But look. Her and Petra are getting along! It's like introducing your pets through bars.' "I learn to worry about it less and less each day." Lilian says, smirking about the phrasing anyways. "Even Petra isn't too horrid for Dylan to make it about fun and games. More importantly, seeing that Dylan isn't too much for Petra to learn into is reassuring. I don't know what's going right, but I'm glad." Lilian pauses to sip her hot coffee, and then says into the dark room "This is nice. We should find an excuse to do this more often. Can we?" 'As amusing as ever. I'm tempted to tell them both your words, just to see their reactions.' "This is hardly the place to abstain from temptation." Lilian says, offhandedly, then pauses to comprehend the fact she'd said that while rapidly scrolling listings for specifically three star demonologists. "After all. If you're here, that means all of this was one of many possibilities that was necessary for him, right?" In the prison gallery . . . Waves of competitive cheering crash this way and that from the captive audience. Roars of hope and desperation as the heroes strike at Dorothea crest just before she staggers onto the backfoot, then cheers of encouragement and pride go the other way until she's back on the offense and throwing the challengers to the mat. No matter how wary or pessimistic or practical they were when you entered the room, the whole dungeon is yelling their hearts out on the stakes of the fight, rattling the bars and pounding on the doors until it forms an almosty-rhythm like a sports event. The first person let free is so caught up in it that they rush past just to get to the edge of the walkway and yellow down in-person. It takes the fifth escapee to start dragging them away. They don't even get far; by the time the battle is won and the final door is unlocked, the prisoners have gathered into a stadium crowd in earnest, whooping and hollering and trying to call out thanks and congratulations to people whose names they don't know. |
| Lilian Rook | All thoughts of where they'll go next set aside, one of the prisoners-- someone in the 'totally a freedom-fighter with a backstory' camp, scurries down the stairs to whisper into Dylan's ear about keeping in character as 'the newly freed Heroine' as improv, and reminding her about-- The Ivy-Clad Key on her ring. |
| Timespace Riders | I'm sorry, for... 'talking over you', like that, and not listening. That-- kind of sucked. I was just-- I don't know. I'm bad at acting. And if I listened I'd like you all too much. Ugh. <J-IC-Scene> Sougo Tokiwa, as Kamen Rider Zi-O says, "Yeah... I'm sorry for bringing historical class analysis into our fun roleplay fight." <J-IC-Scene> Dylan Cruise says blankly, "What?" <J-IC-Scene> Dylan Cruise says, "Like, which class?" That makes Zi-O laugh, shouldering his greatsword, his helmet dipping upwards in lively fashion with the sunny sound of his amusement. The 'don't worry about it' is implied. <J-IC-Scene> Sougo Tokiwa, as Kamen Rider Zi-O says, "The talking-over... well, that, I'm just kind of used to. If I didn't get that from being a Kamen Rider, I'd get it from being a Demon King. I know what I signed up for, but I appreciate you apologizing." <J-IC-Scene> Dylan Cruise says, "I don't really know either of those jobs, but it sounds like you've got it rough. Uh, yoou're welcome?" "The short story is that Kamen Riders fight with their feelings and try to find their most perfect selves to do that--and, well, you know how that is, being from Sapient Heuristics, right? Feelings are a lot sometimes. So much that... talking-over can happen, sometimes, until you really understand them." He pauses. "The Demon King thing, that'd take more explaining than we probably have time for. But I haven't visited the station in a long time, and I'd love another excuse to come by." Woz attempts to withdraw coolly, but Zi-O grabs him by the bracer and tugs him close. "Woz, don't you have something you'd like to say?" "It is tactically unsound to turn your back on an opponent," Woz says to Dylan. "Woz..." "...However," the retainer adds with laborious hesitation and a grandiloquent sweep of his hand, "We were opponents only in the context of this exercise. I offer my apology." The smartwatch-themed Rider bows at the waist. It's nice. That you decorated. I thought it was cute. "Mm!" Zi-O's helmet dips twice in enthusiastic agreement with Petra. He liked the dog tchotchkes and the posters. --- Elsewhere... Ahaha, but I'm unforgettable, so there's no difference! So, are you proud of him? I think you should be. He's amazing. "I think you may be right," the Demon King intones with a slow nod, sipping his coffee. Generous on the cream, two lumps of sugar; just enough cream to let the flavors of the beans exist with some subtlety and just enough sugar to mute the bitterness wholly without being overpowering. After all. If you're here, that means all of this was one of many possibilities that was necessary for him, right? "Very astute. I wonder how much will truly change, but... I look forward to seeing if he continues to surprise me." And what might happen then? I mean everything I say and say everything I mean! If you don't know that, your memory's not so good, Ohma. Another gravelly laugh. "The same as the first day we met. Don't you worry--I still believe in gravity." |
| Persephone Kore | "I wonder how much will truly change, but..." Elsewhere, Persephone is tapping the corner of her mouth with a pinky-fingernail. "This is the earliest time I met this you," she says, word-picking carefully. "But, you sort of seem like a nicer person than Sougo talked about, already? So." So! She winks, with that itty-bitty eyelash star. "Could it be, maybe, that you're already changing just a bit?" Praising Dylan warms Persephone too, like she's absorbing adulation by proxy. She seems even more full-of-sunlight than usual when she looks over at Lilian. But... "This is nice. We should find an excuse to do this more often. Can we?" "Abso-- oh! Right. That reminds me, Lily-R!" Phony reaches into a pocket that her skirt didn't appear to have, because of course Sapient Heuristics believes in those, and hands Lilian a small crisp envelope. Then she returns to angelic, crossed-legs, hands-on-knees, eyes-shut posture. "There's an excuse. I found it! Ahaha." ... The envelope is official Concord stationery. |