Rika made a show of putting her hand to her chin. "Hmm, yes, a tempting offer," she said in a faux-refined voice, as if channeling an English gentleman from a TV show. "However!" Rather than continue her statement, she simply hucked another beach ball at Bionca. "It's funnier to keep throwing things at you." She picked yet another plastic projectile up, spun about once, then let it loose toward a new target - the girl staring over in her direction with the glasses. "And you! Beach balls for everyone!" Rika didn't really know what the point of this was, beyond screwing around. . . but, well, she was pretty good at screwing around, and it was an excuse to meet some people, maybe get everyone to stop scowling all the time.

Hearing Dan’s remark, Scypho returned his complaint with a silent stern stare. Unconcerned whether or not he was hearing what she was saying, nor if it was to his liking. However her focus couldn’t remain on the shark for long, turning her head to see Nina having ditched the group to go stuff her face and Iris remaining focused on talking to Dan and the Gemini agent. Scypho gave the agent a glance with judging eyes but her attention was diverted by what she just heard Nukkelina utter to her.

Her head slowly turned towards her with a serious scowl etched across her face. She hadn’t expected such crass language to be coming from Lina of all people just based off appearance. If anything she could have bet that Nina would be much more likely to spout something uncivil. The suggestion to jiggle to get Dan’s favor was one thing, but hearing her call her Jellmiko was outright insulting. It sounded way too similar to that mal-content’s name Himiko, of which she had very little desire to ever be associated with. “Excuse me….just were and how did you come up with that distasteful name, also Jellyfish do not jiggle, that is a misconception, they move with rhythmic pulsing of their bell, expanding and contracting in a slow wave like movement to propel themselves through the water” demanding an answer for the horrendous nickname Lina had bestowed upon her, making sure any incorrect facts about Jellyfish were addressed as well

Her Lina problem was soon solved on its own by a well-timed beach ball strike to the head. It was karma as far as Scypho was concerned as she looked down upon with unsympathetic to her dilemma. Though with what Nina went off to do and what Lina was saying, Scypho was quickly starting to realize that cooperation amongst them might be difficult. Letting out a small sigh as she observed the experimentation testing the limits of this beach world. She was just about to address Iris again even if she seemed more interested in Dan and Ashley then any concerns Scypho might have. She was stopped in her tracks as she caught a glimpse of a black bird fluttering across the beach, making its way overtop Dan and towards the table of food, it swooped down and snatched up a piece of fruit before scarfing it down and taking off again. It fluttered its way up the beach and past Mika and landed itself upon a palm tree. Upon closer look, Scypho could spot it was wearing a small Hawaiian shirt and had bright yellow eyes that seemed to be observing the group. Staring at it for a long moment she wordlessly turned her attention back towards the issue at hand with a slight frown on her face.

She left Iris to talk with the strange looking goat man, big nose Dan and the cranky looking Gemini agent to approach Nina. Stopping directly behind Nina as she held up her sleeved hands just below her nose, covering her mouth, her reddish eyes looking down on her “Enjoying yourself are we?....what an appetite, careful not to choke….” without a hint of amusement, directing her gaze towards Alice now. “I apologize for my colleagues' lack of manners..” Remaining standing for the time being.

Nukkelina, with assistance, stood back up, the blush on her cheeks reaffirmed as Scypho scolded her for her insensitive words from before. Just as she expected, the consequences of her lack of social skills had quickly caught up to her, and she averted her eyes, her expression still as stoic as ever.

”...I didn't know,” she answered quietly, almost like a child that knew it had done something bad, but still learning how to properly express it.
”...It seemed a natural name for a jelly wearing clothes resembling a miko's. I didn't mean to offend, and I'm sorry...Scypho,” she added, having barely remembered the other Esper's name.
With Nukkelina and her ever-constant poker face, it was difficult to determine whether she was sincere with her apology, or simply approximating an apology based on observing others. However, what was genuine was her surprise as she was hit with yet another beachball, though this time she lifted her arms and used Ser Miauskers to deflect the ball: as a result, the cat plushie's face had comedically caved in.

”This place is dangerous,” she commented, and walked off towards the shoreline. She knelt down at the line of sand where the waves were lapping, and set Ser Miauskers beside her.
She decided she wanted to build a sandcastle. But she wouldn't do it alone. She placed her hand on the ground, and closed her eyes as she focused on the spell.

[Touch] 0 + [Summon Minion] 2 = 2 Mana

The summoned minion was a human-sized mannequin wearing a bikini, though the allure factor was severely diminished by the lack of any distinguishing facial features on the rounded head (unless you are specifically into masks/hidden faces, in which case good for you). The minion was commanded to retrieve a plastic bucket, a plastic hand shovel, and then begin collecting damp sand in a pile next to Nukkelina as material for her to build a sandcastle with.

Nina tilted her head straight back to look up at Scypho. "Welcome back, Squisy," she replied with a cheekful of egg sandwich, as though she were the one who was ditched, and not the other way around. She swallowed. "Is good food, no poison. You should try," she insisted with a toothy grin. "Much better than hotel slop breakfast for busy men in suits." Tilting her head back down, she returned to her food, with no comment about Scypho's warning not to choke, or her comment about her manners.

Dan Daggernose's offerings must have been good, because she'd probably said more words of praise regarding them than she'd said total, yesterday, about anything. "I am hearing shark man is innocent until proven guilty in court of law," she remarked. "No need for recap. We work with GEMINI to find kidnapper and catch them for big reward and tracking down of friends. I like this plan." She gave a thumbs-up. "If we are needing bait, Nina is your girl. I don't bruise easily."

Dan's reaction was enough to make Marrie burst into a smile as well, the first real one in what seemed like a long time. It wavered a little when the shark picked her up as if she weighed as little as the ball she was holding, but she was pretty used to being off the ground by this point in her esper career.

Once she was properly standing and Dan was ready for her to throw, she did. The beach ball didn't really have enough weight to be thrown the way she'd like, but once that fact registered in her mind, (about three throws in) she decided to be glad for that. If nothing else, it was another chance to learn more about what was going on.

Daggernose's throws were perfect, as expected. With his attention seemingly focused on their game it was easy to believe that he really had nothing to do with the disappearances. The picture of a kind Visitor who just wanted to help everyone relax and have fun was becoming easier to believe.

After the second time that she had to jump to the side to catch the ball that had been caught by the wind, she decided to forgo the chance to ask about the missing espers, focusing instead on learning what she could about the shark in front of her.

"So Dan," she began as she tossed the ball back over the net towards him, "you've been a gracious host, even with us not playing along very well, so I'm curious. What's your home like?"

She could have asked a litany of questions about Dan, about the places outside of the world she'd spent her life in, how and why he made everything non-violent. But the two questions that were most on her mind were simple.

If he's this powerful, where did he come from? Are there a lot of Visitors strong enough to do this?

And perhaps more importantly, she couldn't help but wonder about his message before everyone arrived. Who are these 'interesting people who want to meet us?'

While Jack scanned the beach, she continued to keep her ears open to the conversations going on around her. The explanation of the cartoon physics that now ruled over Pax, the fact that the magic wasn't exactly automatic and some part of it had to be directly enforced by Dan, the spell demonstration from the spider, the continued cooperation of GEMINI and Maverick...

Wait, what?

Jack blinked and turned her head sharply in the direction of Iris and Ashley. Alright, she knew she'd been out of the loop in the city for a while and was lagging behind in general information surrounding this event and those that directly preceded it (she certainly hadn't had anything close to a clear picture when she'd decided to enter the city), but the two long time rival factions working together was something she'd never have expected. It was almost more surprising to her than the whole forced beach thing. Scratch that, it actually was more surprising. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' and all that, but seriously?

"GEMINI and Maverick, working together, for real?" she said, one incredulous laugh bubbling up alongside the words. "I guess since you can't kill each other right now there's nothing for it, huh? Damn."

Her tone dipped just slightly at the end, as if the notion was a shame. Jack briefly wondered what Pax's political esper landscape looked like now, if this wasn't even the first time the two factions had worked together. Were freelancers getting less work, without the two groups having to tip-toe around each other?

Well it hardly mattered right now anyway, Jack guessed. And she was never one to think in depth about those kind of topics for long anyway. If she was, her thought process was interrupted at that point by another beach ball colliding with Jack's head, this time unintentionally on the golden eyed esper's part. It pinged off the side of her temple and flew up, drawing her attention back towards Bionca and the girl with the draconic horns. Her gaze lingered briefly on Rika eyes squinted behind the lens of her sunglasses.

"...didn't count!" she then said, very maturely. Her eyes dropped to the box of balls, the only spot that had displayed any reaction to the anti-illusion filter. Whatever was in there, it was still pretty obscured by the beach balls. Just how many were in there?!

"Hey, clear that thing out would you?" he called to Rika and Bionca, pointing at the crate. "Chuck 'em all, really get this party started!"

She was already making her way over while she said that, happy to wage some beach ball-related war, take over the makeshift fort, and upend the box herself if she had to.

Dan was positively glowing when Marrie seemed interested in learning about him. His sharky lips curled into a grin that showed each of his teeth. "Well of course! I can understand everyone's frustrations but…" He trailed off before getting to the rest of Marrie’s question. "Well, my home was destroyed by a meteor shower. It happened rather suddenly, and we had only mastered space travel a few centuries ago. So there weren’t very many of us floating around in space when it happened." He looked like he might deflate, but then he corrected his posture and gave the beach ball a firm, yet gentle send back. "So I guess my space ship has been my home! Oh, it’s not as exciting as they make it sound on the computer." Did he mean TV? "But you do get to meet a lot of different people! Though you can imagine the difficulties of going to different planets where nobody speaks your language or holds your customs or, uh, looks like you?" He hit the ball back. It was even gentler this time. "...But it’s fine! Honestly, the people here haven’t been that bad. I mean, I typically don’t come here at the request of others, but I owed a guy a favor, and he kinda had it in writing. So I zipped across the stars and came here as fast as I could." He laughed. "Honestly, this is all going pretty smoothly compared to what usually happens. Someone always tries to sabotage the reality distortion generator on the space ship, and things don’t go too well once that happens." How lonely was this shark if he was willing to say all this? "Maybe I’ll take you aboard some time?"



Iris smiled a little bit when Ashley joined up with them. Like Ashley, she was probably happy to have found someone that was more mature and less eccentric than the other personalities that surrounded her. "If our options are unwittingly sedated or wittingly hiding themselves, I would have to go with the former. Billy is not one for subtlety. Though this does bring about another issue, and a clue." She briefly looked at Dan before looking back at Ashley. "Whoever did this is acutely aware of how Dan’s magic works. The disappearances started happening after the first day, and I believe that trying to experiment with Dan’s rules through trial and error would have some…" Her eyes shifted to Book Kidd. "Interesting consequences for our culprit. Though I do not think the goat man could have pulled it off."

"Hey!"

Iris briefly turned her attention to what was happening around her. What caught her attention first was Scypho’s annoyance at the implication Nukkelina made that jellyfish didn’t jiggle. "Well, this one seems to." Nukkelina disengaged from the confrontation smoothly enough. She hadn’t been able to listen in on Nina’s conversation, but nodded in approval when she could see she was helping manage the most eccentric member of Maverick Alternative. With that settled, she refocused on Ashley’s question.

And was cut off by Jack’s laughter. "There is an enemy in this city that’s bigger than both of us. This is not the first time we have worked together, and it may not be the last." That was all she cared to share with the random freelancer, which was probably more than they deserved. Now, she was finally ready to respond to Ashley.

"The last time I saw the others?" It happened almost a week ago, and the details were getting a little fuzzy. "It wasn’t the first day, I remember everyone being there. I do remember hearing that some people left the beach early to look for their friends, but that didn’t involve us. Tetrad said her stomach bothered her so she stayed in her room, apparently. That was day two. I think on day three, Billy and some of the angels went out to hunt for her. Or was that day four? I think Trixy was getting bothered by the disappearances, so she and some of the girls went out. This is all that’s left of us. I did see Boteg this morning, but I haven’t seen him arrive yet. He did leave the hotel though, that much I know." She thought harder. "Wait, no. I think Trixy had lunch with us a few days ago. So she wasn’t at the hotel when she disappeared. She must have been taken in the middle of the day. We were talking about looking for the others and she grabbed some espers to help her."

That was about what Ashley remembered too. The others disappeared when they left the beach early or stayed at the hotel.



Bionca took another beachball to the face, courtesy of Rika. She retaliated by kicking a beachball into the back of Rika’s head, but it harmlessly bounced away. Though Jack came up with a really cool idea.

"Only one way to get this thing empty fast!"

Bionca’s hand lit up with the warm glow of a campfire, before her hand was covered in a baking mit. She reached her hand between Rika’s ankles and shoved the crate. With Rika on the edge of the crate, and its contents being pretty light to begin with, The potent shove from Bionca’s melody was enough to push the crate off balance.

"Here comes the ballpocalypse! AHHHHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

She wrapped an arm around Rika’s waist, just in case she were to fall. Though it didn’t really help, as both girls face planted into the sand. Though just like before, the beach itself seemed to stretch and twist, with its grains of sand behaving more like a plate of jelly. They bounced out of the crate, followed by a slew of beach balls. Though they were moving strangely, as if something was running threw them.

Jack picks up something with their glasses....

While both the girls were briefly dissorientated, You see something moving in the crate. It was a person, that much you’re sure of. It had five appendages that could easily be a pair of legs, arms, and a head. Everything was thick like it was covered in armor. But more than that, it had a cape and antlers too. It tumbled with everyone else, but it was much faster to recover. And it was purple. That much was revealed through the illusion begone.

This purple entity bound towards the girls in a single leap. When it landed, it kicked up faint traces of purple dust. Again, only visible to you.

For some reason, the sand around Rika and Bionca was kicked into the air.

Rika feels her veins oxydizing....

Oh, what is this sweet scent? It’s making your ears buzz, and any of your worries leave your body in an instant. Why suppress the urge to inhale? Could something this sweet be bad for you?

Bionca senses something from beyond the veil....

You have a sudden urge to suppress your breath. Anything that smells this good this suddenly has to be a trap!

"Gah!" Bionca cupped her hand over her face and rolled off to the side, but not Rika. She knelt there in the sand, deliberately inhaling the air. And with each breath, her body seemed to relax more and more. "Hey! What are you doing?"

Rika seemed to float into the air, and swiftly flew towards the ocean.

Jack picks up something with their glasses....

You notice the purple man running towards the ocean, but you know that’s not their goal. You can spot a massive rectangular brick that’s wider than the entire beach. It has to be some sort of futuristic craft, and it’s coming down over the water.

Oh. Not who she was expecting to come over, but Alice wasn't going to tell the other girl to shove off. She gave Nina a curt nod before going back to watching everyone else. She didn't even flinch when a second ball almost hit her. Hah, imagine her luck if it did.

"No need for apologies, you're fine!" Alice reassured Nina, waving it off with a free hand. It paused when she offered a fish skewer though. Her eyes glanced between the two for a brief second. Then she smiled, taking the offering. "Thanks." She mumbled.

From overhearing the rest of the crowd, it seemed like the remnants of GEMINI and Maverick were agreeing to a continued team-up towards finding the culprit behind the disappearances. She shrugged. It would be nice if the two factions finally learned to get along after this little event, but this was Pax-Fucking-Septimus we’re talking about, she already knew hope like that was rather overestimating.

"Again, no need for apologies." Alice addressed Scypho once she came over to the table too. "Gonna sit? S'just us here right now, we can make room." An offer taken, an offer given. Might as well. Though her expression soon dropped when she saw what was happening with Rika and Bianca. She quickly finished off the rest of her skewer. "We got trouble, haul ass!" Alice called out, withdrawing her smaller water gun and rushing over to Jack's side.

She knocked a pair of fancy-looking swim goggles over her eyes, flinching once she was able to see the purple beatle-knight-thing that was seemingly making off with Rika.

Can’t attack it directly.

Capturing it is!

"Why you running, big guy!?" A fireball formed in Alice’s free hand. Aiming at the beatle knight’s legs, she threw it like it was a baseball.

The space man was sprinting to the space craft and paying little mind to what the other espers were doing. When the ball of fire hit him in the back, he and Rika traded places with Alice. This put Alice in front of the giant invisible space ship, and the invisible man and his cargo at the picnic table.

The sweet smog rolling off his body assaulted everyone at the picnic table, but they were all(?) able to realize that there was something amiss, and inhaling something so strange couldn’t be good. What little exposure they got was enough to make them feel drowsy. Rika didn’t remain stationary for long, however. Her body, rather swiftly, continued to move towards the ocean.

Alice hears the chattering of the lonely lunatic....

As fun as it is to play a hero, don’t you have something else you should be doing right now? You’re being watched, and now you might have some idea of who’s doing it. What could be inside this giant metal chest?

Alice clicked her tongue. Fuck, she did not mean to catch people in the crossfire. "Quarantine the area around that table over there, keep away from that thing! Sorry about the food!!" As much as she wanted to continue helping, someone had to deal with the weird aircraft hovering over the water. Putting the situation in the others’ hands, she sprinted off towards it.

Ashley couldn’t help but frown as she listened to Iris’s answer. Not only were the missing Mavericks not all last seen at the Golden Trove, that revelation also reminded her that some of her missing GEMINI associates had also last been seen leaving the beach to explore the city. That meant the potential captors could have abducted them anywhere, making any possible rescue attempt far more difficult, to say the least. She was just about to suggest possibly enlisting Dan’s aid with the search, when she noticed a commotion over by the beach ball container. At first, the high-tech heroine simply assumed that it was just more of the Freelancers’ carefree idiocy, but it soon became apparent that something more was at play when the horned young woman (Rika, was it?) levitated off the ground and began moving with some speed towards the ocean.

“What the…?” Ashley breathed, her eyes narrowing to focus in on the strange sight. The Knight of Tomorrow doubted this was in any way Rika’s own doing, and her initial thought was that the freelancer was caught in some form of tractor beam. However, the odds of that possibility being the case swiftly diminished as Alice, the mysterious, raven-haired lady whose clock-themed attire bore an uncanny resemblance to that of a certain former agent’s, transplaced herself with Rika. Now, had the horned young woman actually been caught in a tractor beam, then it stood to reason that Alice would now be in a similar situation, speeding through the air out to sea. Yet, that was not the case, with the would-be rescuer simply standing in the knee-deep water. Furthermore, a glance at the area near the picnic table revealed that the seemingly dazed Rika had again begun levitating and was once more moving toward the ocean. So, either the tractor beam reestablished a lock, Ashley reflected. Or something invisible is carrying her…

With the odds of the later being somewhat higher than the former, and with Alice issuing some very reasonable orders, the Knight of Tomorrow snapped a quick instruction to her new ally, “Iris! Try and lock down the area around the picnic table! I’ll rescue Rika!” Aiming her techno-wand turned squirt wand, she fired a small sphere of bright green energy at the space directly below the horned freelancer. As soon as it hit the suspected mystery abductor, it would expand to form a full body manacle composed of that same emerald energy. At least, that’s what would normally happen. Now, the restraint would take the form of a large, green beach towel, which would constrict around the hidden kidnapper. While the high-tech heroine would have liked to have employed a spy ray to ascertain just what they were dealing with, the immediacy of the situation meant that such intelligence gathering would have to wait. That said, this was the first real clue as to what had befallen the others, and Ashley wasn’t about to let such a potentially critical piece of the puzzle slip away.

"You shall never- Wah!" In the midst of proclaiming how she would never be toppled from her perch, Rika was promptly toppled from her perch, the box of beachballs lurching away from her and the ground doing the same, but very much towards her. She reflexively braced for impact, but, of course, nobody got hurt at Dan's parties. It was a little disconcerting, really; sand wasn't supposed to do that. Of course, there wasn't much time or cause to speculate on the nature of the behaviors of pulverized silicates, mid-impact as she was, and before she could re-orient herself, a strange scent washed over the two of them.

"Whoa-hoah, hey, slow down a lil!" she said, suddenly sounding less than sober as the mysterious fumes wafted into her lungs. "I was in the middle of - wah!" Cut off once again by being unexpectedly displaced, Rika found herself not atop a crate or facedown in the sand, but at a picnic table, with an increasingly dubious level of consciousness. "I was uh. . . winning! Yeah! So I'm just gonna. . ." Wires began to wind themselves about her - which were promptly transformed into ropes, giving a somewhat more lurid note to the melody than, perhaps, intended - and to rise out of the sand nearby. A touch over half a second later, Rika would swap places, the ropes falling limp in her captor's arms as she appeared in the sand nearby.

Alice was hardly Nina's commanding officer, but when told to "haul ass," she at least managed to remove said ass from her seat. When she put goggles on, Nina also followed suit. It was around the time that she managed to get them on that purple-armor-guy (which immediately registered in Nina's mind as "space pirate") appeared more or less right next to her. Quarantine? This is not good... She fanned the strange fumes away from her face. Already, Nina's plan (if indeed it could be called one) to use herself as bait was going pear-shaped, as the space pirates (she would assume there were more than one, as it took a whole crew to run a ship) were now abducting the dragon girl instead. That was fair, she supposed, since abducting a dragon girl was an inherently more interesting prospect than abducting either a dragon or a girl, and most of Maverick Alternative (and the beachgoers, for that matter) seemed composed of either one or the other. Rika was both, which made her stand out, just like Dan Daggernose, who was both a shark and a man—but probably much harder to kidnap, she would imagine.

"Hmmh," Nina remarked, drowsily. She was good at making useless observations, but every once in a while, she struck gold. If 'no hurting' was the rule of Dan Daggernose's magic, then "the best offense was a good defense." This was good. Defense was Nina's forte. It was her time to shine! This in mind, she began to compose her melody, smiling easily. "You see? This is why you listen to Nina! At parties, food is always gone before you know it." Shortly, a sound like a distant foghorn would ring out, and the sedating effects of the space pirate's smog would presumably be banished from their formerly peaceful picnic table—but Nina did not plan to stop there. The smog followed purple-armor-guy everywhere he went, which was a pretty efficient means of spreading it. It would be a shame, then, if a purifying effect also followed him everywhere he went. Nina wasn't sure when, exactly, she had bestowed the space pirate with personhood in her mind, but the solution she came up with almost seemed like a prank, and the idea of playing a prank on an actual space pirate made her laugh rather childishly as she chased after him, intent on closing the distance so she could touch him—and, for once, she was actually running at something akin to full speed ahead.

Scypho’s eyes shifted with disinterest towards the food when Nina insisted she try some. Ever since she had met Nina she hadn’t spoken much, but apparently whatever Dan put into his food got her vocal and active. “You seem mistaken about who ran off to gorge themselves on the offerings of our Carcharodon host” Keeping her sleeve covered hands covering the lower part of her face as she responded to Nina. She couldn’t judge whether Lina or Nina was more trouble just yet, neither of them had given her a good initial impression. Then there was Iris who seemed like an intelligent sort but also a bit of trouble in her own way. Scypho had her doubts but hoped that when push came to shove the misfit group of what was left of Maverick could complete the mission at hand.

She had only just started to acknowledge Alice’s offer with her gaze when everything went off the rail. Turning towards the commotion that was stirred up as Rika was being taken away. With a quick scan of the situation she saw that others were already going into action. With that fact in mind she decided it was best to take a wait and see approach as the others seemed to have it handled. She casually glanced towards the spot Alice had just been, keeping her frilled sleeve covered hands near her face and bringing them closer to her nose instinctively upon the scent having grown stronger the moment Alice had transplaced herself. Her reddish eyes squinted as she started to move herself backwards and away from the table. Whatever the scent was, she knew better than to rely on it smelling good as an indicator of it being safe to breathe in “Intriguing…” Muttering to herself as she held her breath as long as she could manage it while keeping her nose covered. With Nina and the Gemini Agent already trying to handle the new situation, Scypho waited to observe the outcome before she acted herself. If an opening presented itself she would act, but she figured they should have it handled without her needlessly adding to the growing chaos.

Rolling her eyes hearing Nina comment about the food being gone during a moment like this. Scypho hadn’t even wanted any of the food anyway “Focus on the specimen Nina, not your stomach” Admonishing her almost immediately upon hearing her comment to try to get her focus onto more important things. Scypho was starting to think that the only thing that this woman ever thought about was food. A fact she would have to keep in mind for later as it might be useful someday.

Nukkelina was content with building her sandcastle, even as a commotion began to brew around Ceasar Beach. It seemed like something invisible had grabbed one of the Espers present, and began hauling them towards the sea. However, Nukkelina was not interested in some Freelancer’s shenanigans. It was likely their own fault for provoking Dan in the first place. The moat was shoveled, and the base of the castle began taking shape. It was going to be a masterpiece…Until someone stepped on it while passing by.

”...”

The puppet girl with the voided heart…Happened to feel something. Was it anger at the inadvertent saboteur? Sorrow at the loss of something she had invested time and effort into? Or was it something else? Nobody could tell, for the puppet-limbed girl showed no expression in her blank stare.

However, where there was no expression, there was instead action. She took out her goggles, now styled as fancy sunglasses, and placed them on.

”..Ser Pekka Puupää Esquire,” she called forth, and Ser Miauskers transformed, taking shape into a fearsome Instrument: a tall, broad-shouldered monster mannequin wearing a white mask with a disturbing asymmetrical set of eye symbols on it.
However, instead of sharp claws, Pekka wore white gloves with fat fingers, not unlike a certain rodent. It also wore blue swimming trunks, and a gaudy hawaiian t-shirt, complete with a baseball cap on its head, lessening the fright factor considerably. Now that Nukkelina’s arms were freed from holding the plushie, they were now extended out, each finger outstretched as translucent, near-invisible wires extended from them to Pekka.

”Let us enact justice,” Nukkelian then spoke, and with a flick of her fingers Pekka was off, it’s large size deceiving it’s true swiftness, as it moved at incredible speed unbecoming of such bulk chasing after the invisible assailant.

Out of everything that could have been hidden in that box, some weird guy was not Jack's first guess. Nor her second. It might have been her third if she thought that far ahead. She blinked at the cape and helmet wearing figure in surprise, at least until it started letting out some spores or particles or whatever it was doing. She could tell from both Rika and Bionca's wildly different reactions that it wasn't just harmless dust.

"The fuck? There's a little alien monster abducting a poor defenseless girl!"

Which wasn't true, even without the ability to inflict harm as an esper Rika was not defenseless. No clue if she was poor though. Still, Jack shouted it for the benefit of the other espers on the beach, who if they weren't aware of what was going on already then they would be soon as Alice came up and then swapped places with the invader and his attempted kidnapee. And where had the suspicious guy come from? That's right, the box of beach balls that Dan had provided!

"Damn shark was planning something nasty after all!"

Daggernose was gonna get what was coming to him one way or another, but the purple monster and the literal alien-like craft coming down seemed like more pressing matters. Jack ignored Alice's order to secure the area around the table - the woman wasn't her damn boss, plus there were already plenty of other espers around to do it. She left the area (and the purple monster) to those others, bolting towards the ocean. Briefly she passed Ashley, the first of those to act, and said, "you got her?"

But as she didn't linger to help if the answer turned out to be no, it was less a genuine question and more a hopeful vouch, confirming she could leave the girl's safety in Ashley's hands. Of course, Rika was doing her best to help herself too. Between the two of them, and everyone else still gathered up, things would probably be alright on the beach. Which was good, because Jack wasn't keen on changing her game plan.

"I'm gonna make sure that ship isn't gonna be taking off after daring to touch down in my city!" she shouted, which was alert number two for the unaware that not only was there a little bug-looking spore-spewing purple alien dude, there was also the space ship he probably came on in the first place. Alice had a head start on her, but Jack didn't waste a spell to catch up. It would not be long until her legs got her there just fine, though she did almost trip when she pulled her instrument and had a momentary brain lapse when remembered the spell still on the city upon seeing its beautiful form reduced to a toy. Ah, but the no harm rule only counted for living things. Even this plastic weapon could deal some damage to a ship, inside or out, and Jack was very much looking forward to it.

Oh...

As Marrie was told of Dan's history, both her mood and preconceptions deflated with each word.

He's an alien? So he's not magic, he's just got magic technology...

That certainly changed things. Sure, she'd believed that aliens existed even before her discovery of magic's existence, but even with that revelation, she never thought she'd actually meet an alien. And one that looked so similar to an earth creature...

Still, he seemed to be taking the Freeza Protocol destruction of his home planet really well. Or as well as someone could, she supposed. Still, it was interesting to see a living example of the kind of sci-fi dreams she would often have.

"Yeah," she finally managed to say as her thoughts tumbled around her mind, "culture shock on a planetary scale can't be easy."

She gave an equally gentle throw back to the shark man. There were a lot of problems that could come from his willingness to just... talk about things like that, not that she had ever been in a position to say that 'talking things out honestly is bad,' of course. Still...

"Hey, Dan, I know I'm one to talk, but have you heard the saying 'loose lips sink ships?' Telling me all that has definitely helped me become less desperate, but if things had gotten worse, and we'd all been more desperate, hearing that the source of all this change is a machine could have driven someone to want to destroy it."

"And I can only imagine how things would... 'not go too well' after that." Her face broke out in a wide, genuine, smile. "But I'd be happy to visit sometime if you want, that sounds fascinating!"

The blue-haired girl had a dozen more questions for the spacefarer, but they would have to wait. She couldn't see what was actually causing the commotion, but she could hear Jack's summary of the events, and that was enough for her.

Or it would have been, if she didn't remember that harming things was off the table. Being unable to see or hurt a target left her sort of out of options. Blasting random Melodies in random directions hoping she hit something invisible wasn't appealing, so she kept an eye on the others and asked Dan a new question.

"Do you have any enemies who might have followed you here?" As she asked the beach's host that question, she pointed towards the others.

The time for discussion had ended, something was afoot.

Iris closed her eyes and brushed aside her hair, and one of her illusion penetrating eyes gazed at the picnic table. It did not seem that there was anything amiss, at least not hidden. She then closed that eye and looked at the picnic area with her magic detecting eye, only to observe that the area was saturated in multiple layers of magic. In particular, she was able to witness Nina’s melody devour whatever foul magic the creature was wreathed in. The fog horn sound it made only caused the spider woman to squint her brow.

"Hmmm…"

The table had been cleared, it seemed, and her fellow mavericks were running towards the coast. There didn’t seem to be any reason to keep the table cleared, so she kept pace with her companions. Though it seemed the squid was able to outpace them both.



Bionca sat up and shook the sand off of her arms. Things were developing rapidly, and it was a bit much to take in. First the girl she was playing with was throwing balls at her, then she was getting possessed by a poltergeist, and now she was teleporting across the beach. She realized she was mentally calling her a girl, but that was because only children had the kind of demonic energy to bolt around so fast.

But now Rika was in front of her, which was good. Because Bionca didn’t feel like chasing her all over the beach. She picked up a beach ball that had rolled into her ankle and bounced it off of the girl’s head. "Tag!"



Dan laughed. "Oh, I wouldn’t tell that to just anyone! But I can tell a good egg when I see one!" He passed the ball back again. "You can really access the spaceship anyway. I haven’t said where it was, and even if you found the generator you probably wouldn’t know it. So don’t worry about that! I’m not that silly. Also, are you…" Though it was clear that Marrie was distracted by something, and it wasn’t long before it also caught the attention of the host. The beach ball harmlessly bounced off of his head without notice. He held up a finger to Marrie. "One moment, please!" Dan took off towards the coast. "Tim! Stop!"



Mika hadn’t just distanced herself from everyone to avoid annoying interactions. This wasn’t the first time someone kidnapped a GEMINI agent, and the last time it happened, they had been brainwashed and served as a mole. Wittingly or not, someone here was causing the kidnappings, and it was easier to analyze everything when you weren’t being hounded by everyone. So she closed her eyes and attempted to tap into this Mad World power she had only used a few times before.

Mika has a premonition...

What you seek is close in distance but far in skill. Feuding warriors of purple and orange hues and shapeless bodies will bar your path. They are powerful, but they pose a greater risk to the innocent than you.

Of those you don’t know, the wild freelancer is your best bet. Though none of the others mean you any true harm. Not at this time, at least.

Join them on the beach, and you will be closer to what you seek.

But be quick, time is not on your side.

When Mika opened her eyes, she could see that quite a bit was going on. She was oblivious to the large horned man, but for those that could see him, he looked rather confused when his capture was replaced by a cluster of cables. This didn’t stop his feet from moving, which continued to run towards the coast.

Though Mika was able to see the effect of Ashley’s attack with far more clarity. A hardlight beach towel coiled around the creature’s invisible legs and attempted to pin him in place. It tugged on its restraint a few times, and then appeared to slip out of the towel as it collapsed to the ground. Those gifted with illusion detection would see that the purple creature was able to distort its body like jelly, and slipped away once it distorted itself enough to do so. This wasn’t quite enough to let Nina or Nukkelina catch up, but Scypho could. It was just unfortunate she didn’t know exactly where they were. It had been beneficial to Jack though, who would make a beeline for the ship before the purple alien could reach them.

Though as they neared the ship, Jack would soon realize that it was far bigger than she initially thought. She could see that the crate-shaped ship was as wide as the beach was, at least as far as what her glasses would let her see. It looked small at a distance because of the range of her glasses. It was unlikely that she could destroy it with a single attack, but it would be worthwhile to test her theory about Dan’s magic, surely?

The pool gun (or squirt noodle) came down hard on her target. The ship didn’t budge, and the toy didn’t break. Her instrument bounced off of the hull like a hammer might a naked anvil. While the instrument kept its shape and was just as unbreakable as before, there was an unknown variable in Jack’s test. She didn’t know how durable the hull of the ship was, and couldn’t say that her instrument was as strong as it once was. Not without a shadow of doubt, at least.

The horned astronaut had caught up. He reached out, and his arm split apart into a myriad of tendrils. They coiled around the pool gun and threatened to slide over her wrists.

Of course Mika hadn’t just been watching. She gave herself a short boost into the action and ran straight for Jack’s position.



Alice was able to slip inside the ship unimpeded. It probably looked strange to the onlookers to see a swimsuit clad woman run up an invisible ramp and disappear ten feet up in the air. Those that had some form of illusion detection would see the ship for what it was, and that Alice had disappeared inside it. As for Alice though, she no longer needed anything to observe her surroundings, which had become quite alien.

The majority of Alice’s surroundings were quite dark. Most everything was made out of black geometric shapes. Everything was flat or edged without a single curve in sight. Cuboid stalactites hung from the ceiling, and their downward facing plane put out a smattering of soft neon light. The floor was smooth, and while it seemed to be made of square tiles, they fit together so perfectly that one couldn’t fit their fingernail between the cracks. The walls were uneven, but just as geometric as the ceiling. An uneven surface of cubes. The smallest one was an inch across, with the largest being a foot wide. They were quite glossy, but only some of the edges caught the light coming from overhead.

Alice hears the chattering of the lonely lunatic....

Keep looking. Someone has to be hiding in here.

At least the pathways were spacious. If everyone were to board the ship they could walk side to side and not touch the walls. More concerning were the number of pathways. Ten seconds of walking brought Alice to an intersection. Then ten seconds later she found another one. Things were going to get confusing if she went too deep without a plan.

Though even at this depth of the ship, she was able to spot what looked like something important. It was a massive shape that looked like a cluster of cubes, but it was about three times as big as a refrigerator. Also, it glowed a faint green color, which highlighted it as something particularly important.

Alice hears the chattering of the lonely lunatic....

The mastermind must be hiding inside there.

"Hmm…" Now how was she going to approach this? Does she knock? Can she even knock, or would it just phase through her hand?? Alice glanced down at the water gun in her hand as she mulled over her options.

…

She raised it up and nonchalantly fired it at the cluster.

The water splashed all over the strange cubic crystal. While it initially appeared to have no effect, the sound of electricity arcing could be heard deep inside. The outside flickered and smoked, until it went out.

Alice hears the chattering of the lonely lunatic....

You’d think alien tech would be more durable than that.

While not much had changed inside…

"Ah. Sorry about your tech!" Why Alice was apologizing, not even she knew. She stepped closer to the cluster, feeling around for any way she could pop the sucker open, pry it if she must. "You should really look into getting your shit upgraded, not sure what you’re trying to pull by kidnapping an esper in a public area, but I’d expect a little bit more, y’know?"

The cubes were held together strong, but Alice was able to pry them apart. But it was tough, like the entire thing was held together with tar. Though prying the cubes apart did not reveal anything inside. There were only more cubes, and they were arcing fiercely now that Alice had pried them apart. A bolt of electricity leapt out of the device and struck her in the chest, rolling her across the floor.

The pillar of cubes caught fire. Chunks of the thing arced and popped off as molten blobs. Then with a crack, the pillar split in half and dumped its contents onto the floor, which was just more cubes. They were red hot, but cooled in the ship’s interior quickly.

Then Alice noticed that her outfit was starting to glitch out, and was now back to her normal self.

Alice hears the chattering of the lonely lunatic....

My bad.

No worries, our quarry’s just elsewhere then. Alice pushed herself back onto her feet, dusting her dress off.

…Wait a second!

Her eyes shot open as she looked over herself, her guns. Actual guns. Yeah, whatever she did to that cluster managed to break the pacifistic magic’s hold on her. "Fuck yes, back in business!" Alice grinned. But wait, was it just her, or had she…?

She had to check. Giving one more glance to what remained of the pillar, Alice began her rush back out of the ship.

It became apparent as soon as Ashley’s hard light beach towel struck its target that they were indeed dealing with an invisible would-be abductor. Unfortunately, said would-be abductor (or “alien monster”, as Jack called them) proved more than capable of extricating themself from the Knight of Tomorrow’s emerald ensnarement. Not only that, but they’d been so quick about it that the others hadn’t even had time to catch up to their briefly captured foe before he was off again. Ashley sighed in annoyance as she watched her invisible adversary leave splashes in the surf as they raced out to sea. There really wasn’t much more she could do here. Restraining him was provenly ineffective, and direct combat wasn’t an option. That only left…

“Dan!” the high-tech heroine called as she raced to join the shark man, who was even now running towards the waves. “Do you have any idea what’s going on here?!” The fact that he apparently knew the invisible kidnapper's name pointed to that very much being the case, and Ashley only hoped that the shark man was capable of sorting things out in a way that wouldn't cause even more problems.

Rika barely noticed the ball hitting her as it bounced off a horn, miraculously not suffering a puncture in the process. ". . . Huh?" Her head was clearing now that she was breathing untainted air, which, in this case, actually lead to more confusion. (Or maybe that was just Rika.) "Suddenly what just happened seems really weird." She glanced around, seeing most of the beachgoers doing their best collective impression of a kicked anthill. Even Dan was running off in the direction she'd just come from.

The dragon girl pulled herself to her feet, dusting off the sand she'd accumulated in various places. "Uh, where is everyone going, exactly?" From her limited and somewhat distorted perspective, she hadn't exactly been able to get a strong read on what the various espers present were reacting to, or why. Evidently Plan "Goof off until something interesting happens" had, somehow, failed, despite the interesting thing potentially happening to her? "I'm not really sure what just happened, admittedly." She scratched her head in puzzlement, vaguely directing her confusion toward the seeming sole remaining person nearby, Bionca.

With the frantic situation being what it was, no one was able to act. Ashley asked a question, which the shark man ignored as he ran for the beach. Rika, too, was too confused to do much more than question what she had narrowly escaped. And the rest were struggling with an invisible enemy that they couldn’t see or were too far away to do anything about.

Kidd hadn’t said much while everything was going on. But he was there, tracing a circle in the sand. It couldn’t have been more than three feet wide, but he had traced it around himself and was starting to add lines. The sand even glowed a bit under his finger.

Before the invisible purple menace could do anything, he turned his head to the approaching parties. There were a lot of them, and it didn’t take a genius to understand that he would be at a disadvantage out here in the open like this. Especially since he had just been surrounded. Though only he knew that, and so they shoved Jack towards Mika and ran towards the invisible ramp.

"Hmph!" Mika braced as Jack stumbled into her, but they both bounced harmlessly away from one another.

Then, suddenly, it showed up for everyone. The crate’s cloaking field wore off. The sea began to fill up with trash and the sand lost its luster. The next gentle waves of the sea brought fresh pollution onto the otherwise clean beach. The ball pit, volleyball nets, tables filled with food, it all vanished in an instant. Even the crisp blue sky greyed over as was common in the cold November weather. But it wasn’t all bad. Everyone’s beachwear glowed intensely, and then in a flash, turned back to their original forms. This was the same for the espers’ instruments, and Iris noticed her giant corn dog sword had turned back into an odachi.

"Hmm." She stopped running mid sprint to examine her body. "Did something happen?"

Indeed it did, though no one would be entirely sure what. Alice leaned out of the doorway and was able to confirm what she suspected; that everything had turned back to as it once was. Unfortunately, this was also something that the purple astronaut was more than willing to take advantage of. No sooner did she stick her head out of the open doorway did the space fairing man coil a tentacle around her neck. He pulled her in close, and stopped at the top of the ramp.

"Right on time." The purple alien hissed.

By this point, Dan had arrived at the foot of the ramp. "Tim! What is this all about? Why are you outside?" He waved his orange arms at the beach. "Everyone was enjoying themselves, it was working!"

"Working?" Tim scoffed. "Firstly, I despise that name. Why don’t you call me 'ॐ🙰🙕' as you did before you discovered the specimens?" With a growl, a spear grew in his opposing hand, which he pointed at Alice’s neck. "Or are you willing to forget our culture to adapt to theirs?"

"Look, it’s not that hard!" Dan sighed. "I talked to some other aliens who came here. They uh, they said…"

"That if you acted as they did, they would allow you to experiment on them? Hah!" His body swelled up, and he grew several inches taller. "If you insist on being nice to them, then why not be honest? Tell them what you want to do to them, ‘Dan.’ Tell them about the machines you want to run them through, how you’d like to strap them down, how you plan on probing each and every one of them until there is nothing left to discover."

Dan’s jaw trembled. "Uh… That, is…"

"We cannot afford to play around here!" Tim was getting angrier as he spoke. "While you set up resorts and play house with the specimens, our kind drifts closer to extinction! We are not gifted with time. We do not have months to save our race, we may not even have weeks!"

Alice rolled her eyes. "Honestly, I'm disappointed in the both of you!" She finally spoked up, despite being held hostage. "You could've been direct in your dilemma and sought the Mavericks out for help. Or hell, even GEMINI might've been willing to spare some of their tech! Even if it was just to get you out of dodge as soon as possible. But no, you had to go kidnap people, antagonizing the very humans and monsters that could've been willing!" Dan was just a distraction, to them and himself, and Tim was here to speed up the process that was taking too long. "Though I will commend the fact that you made me take so long to find the root of this anomaly, your operation hasn’t been entirely sloppy. But I'm afraid things must progress. And you're currently in the way of progress."

Alice hears the chattering of the lonely lunatic....

Don’t talk too much! His musk is powerful! And STANKY!

"Ain’t as sloppy as you think, babe." The horned alien turned to look at Alice. "While I disagree with my colleague’s way of doing things, it did let me pick off your strongest first. The only people who are left are on this beach, and I knew the last bit was always going to be the hardest to snatch up. But now that the causality field generator’s down for the count, I guess we commence the experiments now… On everyone." The tip of Tim’s spear turned into a face conforming suction cup with too many tendrils to count lingering inside of it. He thrust it over Alice’s face, but she vanished from sight, only to reappear at the end of the ramp. Tim stood upright, and then the ship shook.

Two openings on top of the crate-shaped spacecraft opened up. A pair of bulbous jelly shapes popped out of the holes. They were filled with long black cuboids that floated inside of them. But once they were ready, they assembled into something resembling turrets. They took aim and fired on the approaching mavericks. Neon green bolts of plasma cut through the air.

Two more such blobs popped out of the floor beside Tim and began firing on everyone near the opening of the ship. This put Mika and Jack directly in their crossfire.

Then Tim pointed at Bionca and waved his hand into the ship, before stepping inside himself. She looked between the ship and Rika before standing up.

"Yea, I don’t know what’s going on either…" Now armed with her gear, she drew a frying pan and swung it at the back of the dazed esper’s head.

Rika was many things. A trained combatant was not one of them, nor was she a character from a spy thriller poised to respond to a betrayal at any moment. What was among them, however, was a person who'd grown up in the real version of Pax Septimus without being wise enough to avoid dangerous situations in advance. When someone wound up to hit you, there were warning signs. A hesitance or a strange care in the voice, the sound of metal or wood being palmed, the intake of breath that often involuntarily came with exertion. When Bionca swung, Rika reacted, gleaming steel interposing itself between the incoming pan and her vulnerable cranium. "Woah, what are you doing!?"

Wait, gleaming steel?

"Why would you just swing on me like that? And what the hell's going on?" Her tone held much more confusion than anger. She'd known it was all too good to be true, but a part of Rika had been hoping that this was just how things were going to be in her hometown from now on. Now, though, everyone was in all kinds of wild costumes and had actual weapons, including herself. The greatsword in her hand felt exactly like the oversized pool noodle it had been, but it was difficult to mistake the presence of a killing edge on it.

Something told Rika that her life was about to get a lot more complicated. Assuming it didn't immediately come to an end at the hand of a frying-pan-and-knife-wielding maniac, or a giant purple alien, or the latter's array of heavy artillery.

One moment, Ashley was being ignored by Dan, the next, Pax Septimus had returned to being its usual ugly self. The skies were gloomy, the beach was filthy, and the balmy summer breezes had become the chilly gusts typical of late November. Along with the change of scenery came the welcome return of the high-tech heroine’s standard esper outfit and instruments, as well as the far less welcome reveal of a sizable craft hovering over the water and formerly indivisible purple armored abductor. The Knight of Tomorrow paused for a moment in an attempt to get her bearings, while also listening to the heated conversation between Dan, “Tim”, and the now captive Alice.

As she’d strongly suspected, the entire “beach vacation” was too good to be true and there was indeed an ulterior motive at play. Well, at least now we know what happened to the others… However, Dan genuinely seemed to want everyone to enjoy themselves and vocally opposed his armored ally’s tactics. That said, the shark man had still enabled the abductions, and that would have to be addressed, albeit at a later time. Right now, there were more pressing problems to deal with, like the gelatinous turrets that had popped out of the apparent spacecraft and begun firing at the beach.

Raising her shield to guard against any shots directed her way, Ashley aimed her glowing, prong-tipped techno-wand at one of the turrets atop the alien craft and fired a neon green energy sphere at the weapon, promptly followed by a second, even more powerful techno-arcane projectile. “Cerberus!” the Knight of Tomorrow called to her teammate. “Help me take out these turrets!”

Then we can focus on the ones responsible for all this…