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Post by Myrdraxxis on Aug 28, 2020 15:16:20 GMT -5
“I’m Vanya,” the cyborg replied to Anse before taking long, deep gulp of the beer placed in front of her. Half of it disappeared in an instant. “I was-whoah,” Vanya swayed for a moment. “I was live streaming to my audience. I just arrived in this land and was going to explore the city for anything fun to do.” She shrugged. “Then the cops showed up. So annoying. How am I supposed to get more followers from the inside of a prison cell?”
That said, she slammed back the second half of her beer, leaning back in her seat. Then further. And kept going until she nearly fell out the back before coming up for air. When she did her face was noticeably red. “Heheheeee.” She exhaled and giggled.
If one were to consult Vanya’s fan-site on the galactic extranet (as so many would-be fortune-seekers and migraine-ridden Bunraku execs had before) they would find a heavily edited and lovingly managed list of attributes associated with the cyborg online personality. Near the top of the list, just under ‘Vanya is Love’ and before ‘Once hacked Bunraku’s corporate headquarters to use their servers to play Farcraft’, was a factoid that, in this moment became rather relevant.
Vanya is terrible with alcohol.
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Post by Razgat on Aug 28, 2020 15:30:52 GMT -5
"Don't worry, I won't tell her." Charlotte braced Scarlet and prepared her to walk forward. She couldn't leave her here this drunk and alone. Least she could do was get some food and coffee in her system to help her come to her senses.
"We've got oatmeal craisins and a bunch of others, and uh...whatever that drink was that you mentioned. Just sip your water." Charlotte held up the water bottle to Scarlet while stumbling out of the bathroom, desperately trying not to spill.
"Aw jeez." Outside, there were only more drunk people. You'd think she'd be used to it, but Bitters Sweet hadn't been crowded in a long while, so she had sort of forgotten what it was like. Dealing with drunk people sober was definitely different than when she used to be tipsy with her drunk friends. "Let's just keep putting one foot in front of the other."
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Post by Monika on Aug 30, 2020 10:45:27 GMT -5
"Haha, you got it, Captain! Left foot, right foot, left foot..." Scarlet took a number of exaggerated steps forward, holding onto Charlotte for support, as the two made their way out of the bathroom. Her eyes fell upon the set of new customers that had arrived at Bitters Sweet. "Oh wow, this place really livened up while we were in the bathroom, huh? That's a whole..." She held up a fist and extended fingers to count. "One...twooo...three people!" she said, pointing at each of the three young women sitting at the bar.
"But I bet none of them are as cool my new best friend, even if you added them all up! And truuuust me, I know math." She nodded, confident in her statement, and cupped her hands around her mouth. "You hear that, losers! None of you are anywhere near as cool as Charlotte here! Me and my best friend are gonna get some cookies because we're so cool!"
Then a devious smile worked its way onto Scarlet's face.
"Oh my god, Charlotte," she said, turning to look her friend dead in the eyes. "I just had the most brrrillliant idea. We should race them. Once we win, we'll make them buy all the cookies and coffee we want! Hahahaaaa why did Seraphina bless me with being so smart!"
Turning back to the new customers, she shouted again, "Haha, try to catch us if you can, losers! Hope your moms let you buy craisins!" And she hurriedly stumbled out of the bar with Charlotte by her side. Once the doors had closed behind them, she outstretched a palm and closed her eyes. A shimmering blue magic circle appeared and began rotating in front of the entrance, mirrored on the inside of the bar. "Equation Seal!" she yelled, and various numbers and symbols floated into place, neatly aligning themselves across the center of the circle to spell out:
∫13x + 69x2 + 666x5 dx = ?
"Haha, that door won't open until they solve the equation," Scarlet said. "That oughta buy us a little time, but it's not very hard so we've gotta hurry before they figure it out! Let's goooo!" And she let Charlotte continue escorting her to the fabled cookie shop, walking as quickly as someone completely turnt on Everdark could.
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Post by Mizagium on Aug 31, 2020 20:39:05 GMT -5
Quoi?
Anse hadn't heard everything that had just happened, or everything that Vanya has said. But the gist was that Vanya was drunk - and that some other, drunker girl had issued a challenge to race...she thought. The mystery woman hadn't actually waited for anyone to accept before speeding off and - what was on the door? Frowning, Anse hopped down to investigate.
"What in the world," she muttered, scratching lightly at the luminescent circle and symbols.
"Dammit!" Anse turned to see who was shouting, but she should have guessed, really: the bartender. He was leaning against the bar with his head in his hands. "I hate this pace."
Qu'est-ce que c'est? Anse asked, pointing to the door. "What did she do?"
But she didn't get a real answer. The bartender just kept muttering about mathemagicians and bad life choices and disappointed fathers. Yikes; not getting into that.
"Mathe...magic?" Anse investigated the door again. She hadn't been to college - her family couldn't afford it, hence the thievery. Actually, she hadn't finished high school, either. Wait, had she ever attended school? Her inability to answer definitively troubled her, but less so than this math problem. And it was a math problem, she was sure of that. But what kind of impossible math problem used letters? And what in the world was that symbol? She tested the door and it wouldn't budge.
Anse decided this was clearly the work of the space-devils and wanted no part of it. "Don't worry," she announced, although to the bartender or Vanya, she wasn't sure. But she swept up the bar stool she'd been sitting on just moments before and hurled it at the window next to it. The window promptly shattered into the street.
"Come on." Anse took her new friend, Vanya, by the arm, and pulled her along. "Allons-y! We have a devil witch to confront!" And with that she leaped out the broken window, Vanya in tow.
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Post by Calefrun on Sept 4, 2020 14:32:09 GMT -5
Still reeling from the shot of Everdark, Rachel could only watch as all of the other women dashed out of the building, leaving her alone with the bartender. The man had already appeared rather perturbed when the drunk mage had cast some form of sealing magic on his door, and after another patron smashed out his window he just looked downright pissed.
Seeing this, Rachel decided that it was best that she made her exit as well. She didn't want to give the bartender any opportunities to take his rage out on her, and after everything that happened in the past several seconds she was now even more interested in finding out whatever she could about these strange women. She slapped some cash onto the bar to pay for her drink and stood up, nearly falling over backwards in the process.
I'm fine, she thought, it was just one drink. The whole "400 proof" thing has to just be some kind of weird marketing ploy. Diving out of the window that Anse had broken, Rachel tried to hit the ground running but only managed to slip and fall on her face, miraculously avoiding any of the shards of broken glass on the ground.
On second thought, maybe I should make a note to investigate this "Everdark" stuff as soon as I finish learning what the hell "mathemagic" is. Things have gotten really weird, really fast. Still a little dizzy, Rachel managed to get back up on her feet and take off running after the others.
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Post by Razgat on Sept 4, 2020 15:13:17 GMT -5
What. The. Fuck.
"I will never be able to go to this place again. I'm definitely banned." She muttered to herself as Scarlet...hopped? She was pretty sure Scarlet thought she was running, but Everdark will do that.
But she didn't really have time to worry about that. No, she had to worry about the people running after her. This wasn't how this night was supposed to go. This was supposed to be a quiet, maybe somewhat social night. Who even were these people? Are they all drunk?
She quickly glanced behind her to see someone face plant out of the window. Definitely drunk.
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Post by Myrdraxxis on Sept 4, 2020 16:48:36 GMT -5
The world was spinning. That confused Vanya a bit, as usually it took at least two beers for that to happen. There must have been something else in that drink, which meant this had all been a set up. Clever, only one other group of hunters had tried this tactic before. The bartender must be one of them or had been paid off beforehand. Well, little did they know that as a native Doscovi Vanya only got stronger the more alcohol she ingested! Prepare for the suplex of your life fiends!
Wait no, the world was actually spinning.
Her new friend Anse was dragging her through the street (when had they gone outside) yelling something about a devil witch. Well then. Vanya began running on her own, then immediately defaulted back to hanging off of Anse. Curse Burnaku Corp for not giving her an intoxicant filter. 'I'm sure their precious 8th generations have those.'
Vanya tried again and this time began to get her footing. She knew not where she was, what they were doing, or why. But Vanya was a gamer, and she played to win. Wordlessly she scooped Anse up into her arms, rather than leave the thief in the dust, and began pumping her legs as fast as she could. The world began to blur by. And their quarry grew closer.
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Post by Monika on Sept 4, 2020 18:53:46 GMT -5
"What the hell?"
Scarlet chanced a brief glance behind her and could only hobble along with her friend's support, mouth agape in shock as the three women from the bar began running after them, two of them seeming to move inhumanly quickly.
"I knew the problem wasn't hard, but there's no way they solved it that fast. No, no, something's not right here..." Scarlet continued ambling, but their pursuers were closing the distance more and more with every passing second. "How the hell are they...?"
Then it hit her.
"Cheaters! You're all cheaters!" Scarlet stopped dead in her tracks and pointed an accusing finger at the trio. "That one's running like a fizzing cheetah," she said, pointing to Vanya. "And I bet none of you even showed your work! Grr...I may not have graduated, but even I wouldn't stoop this low! I will not stand for this! You all get a penalty!"
She patted herself down for a moment, fumbling around in her pockets for something, but couldn't find what she was looking for. "Damn it," she muttered, "I'm still wearing these stupid prison jeans. Came straight to the bar without grabbing my purse or anything." She looked back at Charlotte, who had stopped there instead of leaving her behind and escaping to the coffee shop by herself, and her heart sank as she realized the chances of victory were rapidly shrinking.
Charlotte's probably the least drunk of all of us, she thought. She could totally make it there on her own, but she's staying here with me! She's such a good friend! And I'm only slowing her down...We're not gonna win like this!
"Gotta improvise. Think, Scarlet, think!"
Then a second idea hit her.
Wait. Drunk. Yeah, I'm drunk! She breathed into her hands and sniffed. I don't know what all was in that shot, but it must have had a metric fizton of alcohol. So in that case...
"Add: One energy blast. Uh, small radius. Like, 0.1 or something." Scarlet lifted a finger to her lips, and at her command a tiny sphere of glowing magical energy hovered above it. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply through her nose, opened her mouth and -
BOOM!
The moment Scarlet's breath came in contact with the energy ball, it exploded outward into a massive torrent of black fire, spiraling forward to ensnare their would-be captors. The concussive force of the blast was enough to send Scarlet rocketing backward, where she grabbed Charlotte along for the ride.
This oughta slow 'em down and get us there faster. I'm such a genius! And as Scarlet and Charlotte began flying toward their destination, the mathemagician moved her head from side to side, still exhaling, sweeping the entire city street with Everdark flames.
[Illegal Count: 1]
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Post by Calefrun on Sept 7, 2020 19:12:25 GMT -5
On instinct, Rachel sprung into the air to avoid the incoming attack, grabbing onto the balcony of a nearby building as fire swept through the street below.
"Okay, I still don't know what 'mathemagic' is, but that is definitely a potential threat." Deciding that it was best to stay out of the line of fire, she climbed the rest of the way up onto the balcony and stood up on the railing. Focusing intently as to avoid losing her balance (which the Everdark in her system was making incredibly difficult), she reached up and pulled herself up to the roof.
Not exactly subtle, but who knows, maybe nobody will bother looking up, she thought. Catching sight of Scarlet and her companion as the two made their escape, she took off in a sprint across the rooftops. Leaning her upper body forward, Rachel stuck her arms out behind her as she ran, adopting the running form that she had mastered during her time at the Proteus academy. Running this way allowed one to align their body's energies in such a way as to increase their movement speed threefold, and it made them more difficult to spot and mostly impervious to bullets. Hopefully that last part wouldn't be necessary, but at this point Rachel was ready for anything.
Or at least, as ready as a drunk rookie ninja running across the rooftops of a city in another dimension could be.
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Post by Mizagium on Sept 11, 2020 22:08:23 GMT -5
Anse yelped in surprise when the black fire appeared. "Zut allors!"
But Vanya either didn't notice or didn't care, as she kept running right towards the fire. "Vanya," Anse wanted. "Vanya, the fire. Vanya, the fire is coming right at us! The fire, Vanya! The fire!"
Unwilling to die while not fully in control of the situation, Anse twisted and wriggled in Vanya's arms until she could fully plant her feet. Miraculously not slipping, she jumped into the air. Vanya was somehow heavier than Anse had assumed, but they got some air. And stayed there. Awkwardly. Anse had effectively forced Vanya into a weird piggyback position - made even worse by the fact that they were almost the same height.
"Merede," she muttered. She hopped again. And again. Each time she hooped, they gained a little bit of air. Anse quickly abandoned any thoughts of forward motion and instead focused on the much more attainable 'get on top of a building' goal. Which she did, barely. Several more air jumps later, the two women landed atop a nearby building, safely out of anger from Scarlet's black fire attack.
Unfortunately, Anse wasn't able to keep her footing once up there and collapsed, face down, with Vanya on top of her.
"Onward," she muttered, breathlessly.
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Post by Myrdraxxis on Sept 16, 2020 19:07:54 GMT -5
Vanya took a moment to just breath, a steady and calming inhale-exhale to reassert reality because what just happened?
Once the world stopped spinning (sort of) she realized that the squirming, muttering pillow underneath her was in fact Anse and rolled gracefully off to one side like a sack of potatoes. After laying on her back for a moment because oh god that did NOT make the spinning any better, Vanya wormed her way over to the roof's edge and peered over. The street was on fire, and the cyborg did a quick system scan of her optical implants to confirm they were working right. They were, which meant the fire that was currently ravaging the city block was in fact black and that was weird. "Anse, I think there is something off about this planet."
Their apparent quarry was indeed some sort of devil witch that could and would set an entire street on fire to cover her escape. This was suddenly very real, and very dangerous. There was only one logical thing to do in this situation. Vanya pulled out her (cracked) smart phone and queued up the camera. "chto proiskhodit everyone. This city is crazier than I thought, I'm about to take out a devil witch Vanya-style so tune in in a few minutes for the stream! See you then!" She quickly uploaded the video to her vlog and began loading her gun.
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Post by Razgat on Sept 21, 2020 17:17:08 GMT -5
“Ah jeez!” Charlotte tumbled several feet from where she had been a second before, “What the fuck was that?”
She sat up, rubbing her head when a glow caught her eye. “Noooo......NononononoNONONONO WHYYYYYYYY!?” Everything was on fire. Literally everything. Drunk people were shouting and flying places, this was just too much. “A phone! We need a phone!” Scrambling to her feet, she took in her surroundings, scanning for a familiar storefront. “Ah, there!” They were right nearby the cookie shop, finally. There should be a useable phone inside.
She pointed at Scarlet, “STAY! Or don’t, whatever, just don’t go anywhere and don’t touch the fire!” Darting inside, she noticed it was oddly dark. Did something happen? “Brad!”
A twenty-something muscular boy wearing an apron lazily looked up from his phone from behind the counter. “Huh? Hey, Char, wassup?”
“FIRE, BRAD! THERE‘S A FIRE! Why is it so dark in here? Is the power out? Are the phones working?” Charlotte stared exasperatedly into his dull but sparklingly blue eyes.
“Oh, heh, no. Weird, right?” He went back to texting on his phone.
They stood there a beat.
“Brad?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think maybe you could use your phone to call the fire department?” She spoke through gritted teeth and could already feel herself getting a headache. She’d slap him if she wasn’t so afraid of messing up his perfectly tossled hair.
“Oh yeah,” Brad looked surprised that there was a phone in his hand. “Guess I could?” He didn’t stop texting.
“OH MY GOD!” She threw her hands in the air in frustration. Thinking quickly, Charlotte hopped up on the counter and snatched the phone out of his hands before quickly sliding back down and running outside. “SORRY, BRAD. PROMISE I’LL GIVE IT BACK!”
“Oh, ok.” Brad looked back down at his phone “....oh wait.”
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Post by Monika on Sept 21, 2020 20:12:46 GMT -5
Before Scarlet could even register the request to stay put, she saw Charlotte zip in and out of the cookie cafe, returning with a cell phone in hand
"Oh wow, if you could run that fast this whole time, I had nothing to worry about!" She ambled over to her friend and gave her an enthusiastic pat on the shoulder. "My bestie had this whole situation under control! You hear that, losers!? We already made it here! We win! That means you have to buy us cookies!"
She shouted out into the vast expanse of black fire in front of her, answered only by the roar of the flames.
"Huh? Losers? Where'd you go?"
Scarlet glanced to her left and right, sweeping the street with her eyes, but their fellow competitors were nowhere to be seen.
"Where the hell did they go?" she asked again. "Show yourselves right now!"
But there was still no response. The people she had been racing - and thus her ticket to free cookies - had seemingly vanished into thin air.
"No, no, no! You guys aren't getting out of the deal that easily! I don't know if you, like, teleported or flew or what-the-fiz-ever, but I'm sick of you guys always cheating! If you're still in the area, I've got just the thing to find you, so get ready!"
Scarlet closed her eyes and stretched her palms out in front of her. "Random Number: Generate. 1 and 3 inclusive." Once the command had left her mouth, a glowing blue '3' appeared on the back side of either of her hands. She opened her eyes again and took a look at her new magical tattoos. "Two 3's, huh? That oughta get me my magic mirror. Then I can get a bird's-eye view of the area and find where they went. Haha, I'm so smart! Okay, let's do this!"
Giving a self-assured nod, Scarlet clapped her hands together and gave her next magical command. "Matrix Closet!" she yelled, and an ethereal blue three-by-three grid manifested behind her. The bottom-rightmost square began glowing as the two numbers on her hand slowly faded away. Scarlet turned around, thrust her hand through the glowing square, and removed it to reveal her trusty...
"Magic mirror? What the hell? Where the fiz is my magic mirror?!" Scarlet looked down at her hand incredulously, finding that instead of the expected hand mirror, she was holding a pool stick. "And it's not even one of those quality, handcrafted wood ones either. It's one of those cheap fiberglass models. Ugh! Was I really away for that long?"
One of the greatest perks to being a mathemagician, Scarlet found, was the ability to summon a Matrix Closet. You see, every mathemagician gets access to Vectorspace, an alternate, grid-like dimension of cells that can be used to store and retrieve miscellanea on a whim. It was a handy enough tool that Scarlet had almost no complaints about, except for one thing: it was shared. Every mathemagician had access to this same dimension, and while they were technically each assigned a different section of the space, the whole thing was crowded and poorly regulated. And it had only gotten worse since the technomancers successfully lobbied for access with their stupid computer magic. If a person neglected to check their contents regularly - due to being in prison for a year, for example - they ran the risk of having their items "overridden" by some other magician's and lost to the Out of Bounds area for all eternity.
As this realization hit her, Scarlet slapped her free palm against her face. "Fiz. Well, there goes that plan. How the hell am I supposed to find them with this?" Scarlet idly twirled the pool cue in her hand, racking her brain for any way to find the women who were supposed to be running after them. Maybe they'd come out if I challenged them to a game of billiards? But I couldn't even win because this thing is made out of that crappy fiberglass stuff, she thought
"Fiberglass, huh?" Scarlet continued twirling the stick, regarding it thoughtfully. "Only advantage it has over wood is that it doesn't burn...Wait! I've got it!"
The young mathemagician turned to Charlotte and flashed a devilish smile. "Oh my god Charlotte I just had the most brilliant idea. I know just how to get these guys to come buy us cookies! Watch this!" Turning back toward the seemingly empty street, Scarlet shouted out loud, "All right, if I can't find you guys with my mirror, then I'll just smoke you out the old fashioned way!"
Gazing into the black fire, Scarlet made a few motions with her hands, muttered a few words to herself - "Just gotta set my references axis, establish the central point, aaaaand there!" - and threw the pool cue directly into the sea of flames. Instead of falling to the ground, as a normie might expect it would, the cue stayed suspended in the flames, held in place by a magical blue glow. "Now," Scarlet said, "rotate!"
On cue (pun partially intended), the pool stick began spinning horizontally, starting off slowly but picking up in speed like the blades of a helicopter. As it spun faster and faster, the surrounding flames began spinning along with it, and what had once been an ocean of fire was soon whipped into a giant flaming vortex. The black fire tornado towered over the skyline, threatening to engulf the buildings and any twenty-something year old women who happened to be perched on the roofs.
"Now I'll say this one more time," Scarlet said, cracking her knuckles. "Show yourselves."
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Post by Calefrun on Sept 22, 2020 13:44:10 GMT -5
Rachel stopped in her tracks as the fire tornado rose up from the street. At the rate the inferno was growing, it seemed unlikely that she could outrun it even with her enhanced speed.
Instead, she opted to use another technique she had learned at the academy. As quickly as she could in her current state, Rachel performed the series of hand signs required by the ability, then recited the incantation as she had been trained.
"Nothing personal, kid." She instantly vanished, leaving nothing behind as black flames engulfed the spot where she had just been standing. A moment later, she reappeared directly behind Scarlet. She turned around, considering questioning the mathemegician about the senseless destruction but spotted Charlotte, who appeared to be dialing something on the phone in her hand.
Who'shecalling?? Rachel thought, her inebriated mind scrambling after her narrow escape. Crap, what if it's the police? If they decide to investigate, my cover could be blown! I'd better act fast!
Her hands began moving once again in preparation for another technique, this time one intended to jam nearby communications devices. She completed her series of hand signs, then glanced at the phone expectantly. At first, nothing seemed to happen. After a few seconds, however, the screen began to flicker. Another second later, raspberry jam began oozing out of every opening in the device. The jam quickly coated the entire screen (as well as Charlotte's hands), rendering the device unusable.
Wait, did I actually learn that one at the academy? I could swear I saw that in a movie... As she tried to recall where she had picked up such a strangely literal jamming technique, Rachel subtly made her way over to the cookie shop. Well, whatever. The math lady was focused on Anse and Vanya earlier, so my cover should be safe. I just need to act natural and retreat to a safe distance so that I can continue my observation.
Reaching her hand out, Rachel tried to lean on a railing connected to the shop's porch for stability. Unfortunately, the world was still spinning a bit, and she missed her mark by about a foot. Caught by surprise, the Proteus agent tumbled forward, hitting her head against the railing. The resulting shaking was enough to destabilize a scented candle that had been placed atop the railing, causing it to tip over and fall into an open container of gasoline which had been carelessly left atop a pile of dry wood and pine straw. Instantly, a burst of flames erupted forth, igniting the front side of the store.
Rachel, who had fallen to the ground after the blow to her head, opened her eyes and realized what had happened. "Oh sshhhhit!! Shomeone call the fire department!"
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Post by Mizagium on Sept 26, 2020 15:45:16 GMT -5
The top of Anse's face appeared over the edge of the building, illuminated by the dark light of the burning cyclone. Merde, but this was rapidly getting out of hand.
Instinctively, Anse retrieved her copy of Lupe Flynn and the Treasure of Callistro. Unfortunately, the intense winds generated by the cyclone ripped the paperback from her hands. "[/i]Non![/i]" Anse reached out to grab it, but the book was already consumed by the swirling flames. She wasn't sure how hot magical black flames got, but it was surely enough to destroy her favorite book.
The heat, as well as fresh tears, stung her eyes. Now what was she to do? That had not just been her favorite book, but the template against which she had modeled her admittedly short life. Sure, there were other Lupe books - plenty in fact, if the ALSO BY AUTHOR index was any indication - but her parents had saved up for that one. And she'd never stolen (or purchased) another.
An uncharacteristic anger welled in Anse's chest and she hopped up onto the ledge and pointed an accusing finger at Scarlet, hoping she could hear: "Hé toi putain! You owe me a book!"
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Post by Razgat on Oct 1, 2020 15:24:38 GMT -5
The whole block is on fire.
twitch
There’s a fire tornado.
twitch
The store is on fire.
twitch
This random girl that I decided to help is screaming, this girl on the roof is crying, and I think one of them just started another fire.
twitch
And now Brad’s phone was ruined.
twitch
“That. Is. ENOUGH.”
Charlotte stamped her foot and was rubbing her temples. All this had given her a killer headache. “I have had it! You!” She pointed towards Scarlet. “Stop it! Just stop it! You!” She turned towards Anse. “Stop crying and for the love of Goddess, GET DOWN FROM THE ROOF! And you!” She now turned towards Rachel. “Stop sneaking around or whatever you’re doing! You’re drunk, and you’re not good at it. AND THAT GOES FOR THE REST OF YOU TOO! I KNOW THERE’S MORE OF YOU!”
Her hands were shaking, and she was beginning to hyperventilate, but she couldn’t stop herself. “And will someone PLEASE call the fire department! I would, except someone made it explode with jam! And don’t try to pretend like this wasn’t one of you! This isn’t even my phone! And now my hand is sticky, and Brad is going to hate me and *hic* and *hic*...” She couldn’t stop herself now. Tears were already welling up in her eyes. “And I just *sniff* wanted to go out *sniffle* and make some frieeeends! *sob*”
She had done it now. She worked herself up and couldn’t stop. But honestly, could anyone with everything on fire?
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Post by Myrdraxxis on Oct 3, 2020 19:25:41 GMT -5
Everything was on fire and people were crying. It was beginning to remind Vanya just a little too much like home around here. Her first instinct was to bolt and maybe try her luck sleeping off this buzz somewhere. Except that this strange fire wielding devil witch had made Vanya's(and apparently her own?) new friend cry. Unacceptable.
Vanya bravely stood up and faced the flaming tornado before her. Then swayed slightly. But after catching her footing again, Vana set aside her gun. Something like this needed to be done personally. Then she scooped up Anse and jumped off the roof. She landed in a perfect three point landing on the sidewalk below. Without stopping, or bothering to acknwoledge the now ruined sidwalk beneath her feet, Vanya walked over to Charlotte, set Anse down and heartily patted both on the back. "Friends! In times like this you should not be sad! When the fire spreads beyond the fire room and into the streets, it is best to think on what is fun and joyful in life, and I find nothing brings people closer together than a trip to the arcade! We should seek one out! But first..."
Eyes focused and heady filled with booze, Vanya spun and around and started sprinting. Midstride she launched herself through the air in a double drop-kick, pitching herself like a missile towards Scarlet's face.
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Post by Monika on Oct 4, 2020 19:09:14 GMT -5
The moment Charlotte started to cry, Scarlet's heart sank. Hard.
"What...what the fizz am I doing?" she asked herself, the answer revealed in a long hard look at the damage to the surrounding area. "I...I incinerated that girl's book," she said, glancing up at Anse. "I've torched the entire city street...I've made the one person who was willing to hang out with me cry! How can I even call myself her friend?!" Tears rushed to her own eyes, matching the set streaming down Anse's and Charlotte's faces. "What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I such a screw up?!"
It was at this moment that Scarlet noticed Vanya flying toward her, feet-first, ready to deliver a healthy dose of blunt force trauma. Her instinctive reaction was to go on the defensive. There was no shortage of mathemagical abilities that could protect her - the Tesselated Barrier spell came to mind - but she instead dropped her arms and let the attack connect, experiencing the full force of the blow directly to her head. She was sent flying backwards into the blazing cookie shop, where she crashed into a burning support column, sending burning debris from the roof falling down onto her skull.
"Ouch..." she grumbled. "Dad always said I was pretty hardheaded. Good thing, too, or that might have killed me. But I deserved it." After a few seconds to recover from the collision, she gave herself a quick once over and promptly noticed that she (much like everything else) was now on fire. "Huh. You know, I'd expect this to hurt a lot more. Really just feels more warm than anything. And..." She spun around and jumped a few times, finding that she was able to do so with perfect balance. "Am I sobering up?"
And then she understood.
The impossibly concentrated Everdark had so much alcohol that it must have been seeping out through her pores, her body's way of evacuating what otherwise probably should have been a lethal dosage. And as long as the fire could feed on the alcohol around her skin, it wouldn't reach her skin itself. And, as an added bonus, as the alcohol was burned away, so too was her inebriation.
"Huh. You know, I think I remember this from one of those 'Fire Friday' experiments back in high school chemistry. And who said that stuff would never be useful?" After a beat, she added, "Me, probably. Whatever. Looks I'll be able to withstand the fire for a short while, at least. Clothes probably won't, but they're garbage prison hand-me-downs anyway. So in that case..."
Without giving it a second thought - because second thoughts are for losers - Scarlet discarded her baggy T-shirt and prison jeans and ran headfirst into the flaming vortex. The first thing that caught her eye was what appeared to be a book cover featuring what Scarlet assumed was its cartoonishly handsome protagonist. "Lupe Flynn and the Treasure of Callistro," she read. It was singed around the edges, but otherwise still intact. "This must be all that's left of that girl's book. It's not much, but I can least bring it back for her."
Stuffing the remains of the novel into her bra, Scarlet turned her attention to the fiberglass pool cue, source of the tornado part of the fire tornado. With a couple words and a few hand motions, she made the cue stop rotating and banished it back to her Matrix Closet.
Of course, that still left the fire part.
With nothing to whip them into a cyclone and gather them into a single area, the black flames fell back to ground level and began spreading across the city street. Scarlet couldn't decide whether this was more or less dangerous. Either way, she could feel the pangs of guilt tugging at her heart.
"Damn it," she muttered under her breath. "Gotta think fast." With a sidelong glance at where she had tossed her prison clothes, Scarlet took a deep breath and shouted, "Okay, girls! I know we all just met - kind of - and I know you have no reason to trust me, and I know we're in a huge mess here and it's pretty much entirely my fault, but we're going to have to work together to get this situation under control! This is going to take a lot of energy, but here goes. Multiply by 1000: Clothes!"
At Scarlet's command, a thousand copies of her baggy shirt and jeans materialized near the cookie shop. She looked behind her at the pile of clothes and then to her fellow barmates.
"You," she said, pointing to Anse. "I'm really sorry about your book. I don't know if it had any, like, sentimental value or whatever, but I promise I'll get you a new one after all this. You can fly, right? Or jump really high? Take some of the clothes and start spreading them across any part of the rooftops that have caught on fire."
She shifted her attention to Vanya. "Thanks for the wakeup kick. You can run pretty fast. I need you to help me do the same thing as the book girl here on the ground level. We have to smother all the flames we can before they get any more out of control."
Then to Rachel. "Uh...I guess you're the one who turned that phone into jam? Not gonna pretend like I understand that power, but if you can do that on a larger scale, some jam would be great at smothering the flames, too. If you could make a wall of it, we could keep the fire from spreading anywhere else, too."
And finally to Charlotte. "Charlotte, I owe you a huge, huge apology. 'Sorry' doesn't even begin to describe how I'm feeling right now. I'm probably gonna have to do a lot for you to forgive me, but I'll work my ass off for that forgiveness after this. I'll start by paying for the cookies, if there are any left. I'm guessing you don't have any magic powers, which is totally cool, but if you can find some house that isn't burning and ask to borrow their phone, get the fire department on the line. Even with all of us working together, this might be too much for us to handle. The more qualified people we have involved, the better. I'll deal with whatever consequences the authorities have for me after the fact."
With one last deep breath, Scarlet grabbed a handful of duplicate clothes and mentally steeled herself. "All right, girls!" she said. "Move out!"
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Post by Calefrun on Oct 15, 2020 17:19:24 GMT -5
“Stop sneaking around or whatever you’re doing! You’re drunk, and you’re not good at it."
Rachel was taken aback by the other woman's rude remarks. "Excuse me?" she demanded, slowly getting back up to her feet. "What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in-"
Before the sobering-up-but-now-mildly-concussed Proteus agent could continue her rant, someone else started talking at her. "Uh...I guess you're the one who turned that phone into jam? Not gonna pretend like I understand that power, but if you can do that on a larger scale, some jam would be great at smothering the flames, too. If you could make a wall of it, we could keep the fire from spreading anywhere else, too."
Between her fading buzz and worsening headache, Rachel immediately forgot what she was saying and turned her attention to Scarlet's request. "Larger scale? Hmm... unfortunately, that technique was created for the purpose of disabling communication equipment, not for covering a lot of ground."
She tapped her cheek, trying to think of her abilities that might help in this situation. "Ah, I've got it! With a vanishing jutsu, I should be able to make the fire disappear!" Another series of hand symbols ensued, after which all of the black flames disappeared from view, as though they had suddenly popped out of existence.
Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. "There we go, problem... solved..." Her voice trailed off has she inhaled though her nose and realized that she could most certainly still smell smoke. Not only that, but she could still hear the crackling of flames as well. "I uh... might have made a slight error."
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Post by Mizagium on Oct 21, 2020 17:34:10 GMT -5
A mission! Anse could handle that, although she was definitely getting a little tired of being manhandled by Vanya (womanhandled? was that a word?). Her tears dried up as she composed herself and also due to the heat of the black fire raging just over there.
With an armful of clothing, she leaped - and the fire vanished! Anse was so startled by this, she failed to catch herself on the air and crashed back down.
"Ouille," she muttered, rubbing her rear where it had slammed onto the pavement. "What happened? Has the magical fire been...magicked away?" She sort of hoped so, even if it denied her the opportunity to show off her air-stepping ability again. But the look on Rachel's face said otherwise. "Hein? What's wrong?"
And then she smelled it. "Sacré bleu! Is the fire now invisible!?"
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