[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/z6cC6JC.png[/img] [hider]Age: 22/15 | Gender: Female/Female | Light Ranged/Melee | Barrage/Third Eye | Beacon Enhanced Outfit/Sorcery/Get Out of Jail/Blood Magic/Wings/Dual Weapon | Shine Spark/Perfect Life/Gifted Item | Vow of Patience/Excommunication 10/9/11/15/7[/hider][/center] The time had come. The assault was underway, and now it was time for the second team to deploy. Glancing over to Tenebra, Alicia nodded along with her comrades. [color=aba000]"Sounds like you can do either option,"[/color] she noted. [color=aba000]"The more confusing we make it for them, the better."[/color] With everyone transformed and disguised, she turned to Sonia and placed her hand on the table. [color=aba000]"Take us for a ride."[/color] Everyone else did so too, and in the blink of an eye they found themselves at their destination. Finding themselves seemingly floating in midair, Alicia took offense to the omnipresent darkness. A flick of her wrist sent a pulsing ball of light into the air, as her Third Eye kicked in. They had suspected that this route would have strong defenses, but this wasn't entirely what she had expected. She looked around as Mariette spoke, but there was no sign. Not that that was much of a surprise. Portal tricks, no doubt. [color=aba000]"Not until you let them go,"[/color] she called back, a demand they both knew would never be met. Especially not now. She tensed as Mariette announced what this place was, bracing herself against the wind as it whipped past. Then portals opened up from below, and they were beset upon by a myriad of tentacles and appendages. Her wings flared outwards, launching Alicia upwards before she flipped in mdiair. She drew back her bowstring and fired, a barrage of light arrows to cut through the tentacles as they drew near. As she did so she called to her companions. [color=aba000]"Wall over there,"[/color] she called to FanFan with a gesture. [color=aba000]"Take it down!"[/color] While they did that she would focus on defending her allies. She was not going to let anyone be taken out so soon. [sub][@Ariamis][@Ponn][@PlatinumSkink][@Crusader Lord][@Majoras End][@AtomicNut][/sub] [hr] [hider][b]Something that probably should have been posted before but wasn't. Whoops[/b] Sometimes, the best location to meet would be a clandestine one, hidden from peering eyes. Other times though, the best location was a pizza joint that you owned, so all the excess produce in this time of high supply and low demand could be gotten rid of. Virtuous Pie, after all, had suffered greatly in the last couple of days, with two of its three employees dead or missing, while the third was on a “break”. It left the restaurant, already operating in the red, in quite a bind, and thus, a group of magical girls belonging to the Ebon Mint was certainly happy to help the business out. By help, of course, it meant eating everything in the storage rooms before they went bad. Sunhi, seven feet tall even when cradling her knees against her chest, tossed in pizzas into her mouth like they were crackers, her dark-skinned bulk talking most of the space in the pizzeria. Contrasting with her otherwise wild appearance, the yellow-framed glasses she wore occasionally sparked and sputtered, some miniscule circuitry within it struggling to cope with whatever demands she had made of it. By the counter, Dyvrene multitasked as always, a dozen psychic appendages flickering out with deadly precision to dice onions, slice pepperoni, apply tomato sauce, and roll dough. The cat-eared girl leaned against her floating hammer as she used her real hands to fiddle with an antiquated camera. With no natural proficiency towards mechanical objects, she seemed to be having some small trouble, but the smile on her face and the intensity in her gaze showed that she enjoyed it, if nothing else. A familiar stood in place of Misery, the reclusive magical girl having no interest in showing up in person for a meeting that really could have just been Zoomed instead. A patchwork teddy bear that leaned heavily on the ugly-cute aesthetic, it sat opposite of Sunhi, occasionally splatted by food residue from the heavy eater. The teddy bear didn’t say anything though, only silently judged the others through its mismatched button eyes. Louis, his gorgeously teal hair billowing dramatically in a wind of his own making, was similarly unhappy with having been made to wait for Al Sharke for the briefing. Though the oldest of the Mint operators present, the years in the ‘family’ had made him less loyal rather than more, and he leaned against the wall. If it wasn’t for the fact that the bastard broker had promised him a gig at the opening ceremony of the upcoming Olympics, he would have been a no-show to this particular mission. Since he was here though, he opted to act resigned and petulant, eating his vegan pizza with the gravitas of someone chewing away their last meal before execution. Reaver was one of the last people to arrive, and had extended formal greetings before sitting down in a rather unoccupied space, and tentatively getting some food for his own. Probably some devil's food cake. After all, it was a place called Virtuous Pie. He rapped his fingers as he eyed the assortment of colleagues in the assault, wondering the best way to make this work. He was wearing the same three piece dapper suit he had used in the ill-fated rave. Businesses were businesses. Unlike Al Scarpe and Al Sharpe, Al Sharke was perpetually overworked and underrested, a combination that showed in his gait and his diet. With a sealable mug of coffee practically attached to his jaw and a collection of puppets in his breast pocket that squirmed like stressed-out businessmen on the night of a project deadline, he slurped obnoxiously at the lukewarm coffee as he pushed into the pizzeria, yellow eyes gazing at the five that had gathered. Though he shared the same build as his brothers, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and chicken-legged, the monstrous broker still managed to look gaunt despite his godly genetics. His suit didn’t fit him all that well, and the flesh of his face hung loosely on his skull. Basically, he looked like shit. “Right,” Al Sharke croaked, fat hands reaching inside his pockets to pull out four crumpled manila folders. Then he made a face, first at the number of folders present, then at the number of people present, then at whether or not a familiar counted as a person or not. The screw in his head creaked weakly, before he shook himself out of his lethargy and handed them out to the people present. “Basically, it’s a simple mission. Penny’s a problem, but she’s not a problem if she’s not there. Reaver, you obtained the ability to shift to the Overcity. That’s good. We shift her there, then ruin Sanctuary. Uh...hrm, Dyvrene will support you with not dying against Penny. The rest of you will be doing a sewer dive.” The brain fog was settling in now, and the monster drank more coffee, wondering if he had accidentally ordered decaf. Definitely wasn’t kicking in, the caffeine and all. He banged the back of his head against the wall, creating a dent in the plaster. Nope, that didn’t help either. “I’m sure you have...questions, but just read the dossier.” The dossier, however, contained details for a completely separate mission, one that wasn’t even in this particular plane of existence. Something about inciting a goblin uprising in one of Beacon’s experimental facilities in Skirqrow? Some very irrelevant stuff, for sure. Reaver did raise his hand. "Uh, capo? There seems to have been a mix-up. I also heard caffeine alone is no good. I have some sugar-rich devil's food cake left." He said nonchalantly. "I will also see to talk about a certain shopkeeper running out her mouth. Secrets don't last much in Penrose…" He sighed, before adding. “I decided to invite one more able bodied person. I hope if that is alright. She loves people. As in, eating people. Can be useful to paint the town red. Hope you do not mind.” With that there was a knock at the door to the storage room, perhaps it was good timing, or perhaps it was simply a prearranged event. Either way, the person on the other side didn’t wait long before opening the door themselves and walking in, revealing to the assembled party Viva. She stepped into the room quietly, closing the door behind her as she went. She settled down a bit behind Reaver, her nose in her phone ever since she walked in. She would glance up every now and again to survey the other people in the room, but was content to keep her attention on her phone until she was addressed directly. The atmosphere in the room turned deadly on a dime. Reaver’s Third Eye allowed him to see the fluctuations in magical energy clearly enough. Psychic energies coalesced in the air, invisible to the naked eye, but more concerning was the darkness that seemed to bleed out from within the walls, dripping like oil as Viva entered. The sounds of cooking had stopped; for a tense moment, only the giantess’s nonchalant consumption filled the air. Al Sharke looked at Viva, then at Reaver, and sighed. This was just more paperwork for him, really, and he wasn’t all too happy with it. The monstrous dealer slumped against a wall, sighed a second time, then shook his head too, the puppets in his breast pocket mimicking that movement. “Let me get this straight,” he began. “You gave the location of a Mint meeting to...someone else. Important information, really. Could be worth a lot to, say, certain other people. Straight up gave that to your friend over here. Didn’t think there was any better way to do this, any method more...” Al Sharke twisted the screw in his head. The word that he had on the top of his mind never came to him though, so he discarded that train of thought. “She’s cute enough,” Louis piped up. The magical boy shot a sparkly-toothed smile in Viva’s direction. “Just get her to sign a contract, and I’m sure it’ll work out.” Sunhi licked her teeth for crumbs of crust and cheesy sauce, then reached to roll up another pizza. There weren’t any though, and she raised a brow at Dyvrene, before settling on Reaver. “Bad move. Don’t care though.” The psionics that suffocated the room ebbed away, but the darkness that stained the walls remained. Al Sharke let out another melodramatic sigh, and extended both his hands outwards. “The cake, Reaver. And your hand, girl.” "More than friend. She is kin." Reaver admitted as he saw tensions up. " Close kin of the kind that lies would not have worked very well on. I assume responsibility over the unpleasantness my indiscretion might have caused." He added, without batting an eyelid, and giving up his cake. “Blood calls to blood” Viva would agree as her phone vanished into her hammerspace “I found Reaver again only recently. I would have followed him here regardless, telling you all was his idea.” She would add as she extended her own hand. “Ok.” was Al Sharke’s curt response. One fist grabbed onto Reaver’s cake, bringing it to the Mint broker’s facehole and jamming the whole thing in. The other grabbed onto Viva’s hand. Inbetween the chewing of soft cake and the licking of sugary frosting, he said, “By the powers invested in me, we recognize you now as a Mint operative, effective immediately. Obey all orders, and you will be rewarded in turn.” Something within Al Sharke’s palm dug into Viva’s hand, and one of the puppets in his breastpocket wriggled ecstatically, settling down as the pain faded. With that done, he wiped both of his hands on his pants. Louis furrowed his brow. Disgusting. “Alright, no dossier then,” Al Sharke said, his tone sounding just a bit more energetic now that he had some sugar in him. “I’ll explain it verbally. Once. No questions.” Another psychic appendage was manifested by Dyvrene, equipped with a notebook and pen. “There’s a monster in Penrose’s sewers. Big but immobile. Drains magical energy to grow more powerful. Only had kobolds and goblins to eat. Sanctuary has magical girls and infrastructure too. One team will deliver this monster into Penny’s Sanctuary and enable its initial growth, while disrupting attempts to organize a counterattack against it.” Sunhi finished off the last of her pizza, before cracking her wrists. She could see why she was summoned for this mission. “Second team works to deal with Penny. Make her disappear when Sanctuary most needs her. Got word that her popularity’s dropping low; this should be enough to finish her off, socially. No need to kill, but if you do, that’s a bonus.” The patchwork plushie continued to do nothing, because it was just a plushie. “A monster destroys the infrastructure of the Sanctuary, while the leader has abandoned it. With that, the choices of those displaced will be between an organization that still wishes them dead, a smattering of small factions who will soon no longer exist, and the Mint.” An inelegant, dirty little plan. Louis shook his head, then reminded himself of the Olympics. “Capiche?” "Io Capito." Reaver said. "I look forward to working with you all." The young man finished, defaulting to his polite stance. Viva’s hand would split and curl back onto itself once she got her hand back from the Mint broker, she had been tempted to bite back at first, but knew that was a recipe for disaster easily enough that she didn’t. It would reform into a clawed mockery of a hand for a moment as she pondered which avenue would suit her best. “Glad I dropped in on this after all” she would say with an amused drawl as her hand returned to normal “As this sounds fun”[/hider] [hr] In a time approximate to 'now', Reaver would find himself being contacted by the Mint. Unlike some normal Magical Girls, this was not done by texting. Instead it was psychic message, the mental equivalent of getting a rock thrown against your bedroom window. Once they were certain he was paying attention, the actual message would be sent. [i]'It's time. meet us in the Industrial District and bring your partner. Near the train yard'[/i] That was all that would be said. Some distance away Dyvrene and headed in the same direction. She had played her part, now she had to get to the meeting spot. It was time to get to work. [sub][@AtomicNut][@Shifter_Master][/sub]