BCTheEntity

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Easy Come, Easy Go

The target died with shocking ease, he pondered as he fell to the ground and landed lightly on his toes. He’d expected a bit more resistance, honestly… from Runch, if not from anybody else. Speaking of whom, he appeared to be utterly livid with what he’d done, judging by his expression as he spoke.

And frankly, whilst he wasn’t surprised to hear himself being dismissed, he was disappointed with Runch’s lack of pragmatism. He held Runch’s gaze coolly with but a tilt of his head as the pirate captain spoke to Oren through the phylactery, before ultimately calling Erina to follow on after him. She seemed a bit upset herself, to say the least.

Motley waited until Runch had turned away before he began to speak. ‘If it matters,’ he stated bluntly, ‘I extend my respects to her for not begging at the end. However, she had decided we were enemies before we even knew she existed; if you believe she’d extend your brand of mercy to us with the situation reversed, or indeed that she could not have fought back at all in her circumstances or known what would result if she failed, you are the naive one.’

He’d meant to leave at this point, but turned to find Erina’s sword at his neck, blazing with purple flames. When did she… and was Bend still possessing her there? For a moment, it seemed he was; but a moment later, the sword began to quake, the flame dissipated to reveal a rusted blade, and the girl sheathed her weapon angrily.

'There's reasonable and unreasonable killing. What sort of prestige did you hope to get out of this?'

To anyone else, the question might have been a piercing blow. Motley’s response was far more calculated: ‘Ask her. Or better yet, ask Bend. He gets it.’ If she read between the lines, she’d understand that he meant his words very literally. She could see and speak to spectres, could she not?

Nonetheless, he’d been asked to leave, and hadn’t even been attacked as a result of his actions. Perhaps that was the best option he could hope for here. Even so, as he wandered past the fox girl and away from the irate pirate, moving back into the inn, it stuck in his mind that he’d effectively be made a target for killing one of the staff running the tournament. And now he had nobody to back him up if he needed it, which was… concerning, perhaps.

But, it had a potential resolution. He pressed it as appropriate to try and call Oren, if he still could. If his phylactery no longer worked as intended, so be it; he’d try and find another of Oren’s drones to talk to. If it did function, however, he would utter the following words into it, and release it before any reply could be given:

‘You’re on thin ice, the lot of you. Should the girl’s brother come after me on his own perogative, for vengeance or otherwise, then that’s his fight to resolve. If anyone else is sent after me by your organisation, you will all be on my kill list. I don’t like having enemies who haven’t been dealt with, and I’m sure you don’t either. Consider this your only warning.’

The Crucible - Winner Take All

@Lugubrious So if Erina heads off with Runch over Motley, does that put her under @ProPro's control, or would I retain control over her? Or would @Lazo be put back in control of her? I'm not sure.

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

Raymond Haywood: Trainyard

He could have taken the shot at the white-robed girl with the glowing face. He should have, and yet he hadn’t, because just as he was about to scope in, his power deserted him again. He’d been slow, and that had left him vulnerable - and by the time he’d stepped back, something had burst through the wall, something of metal and concrete and hate, and who knew what else?

‘Doesn’t matter. Run,’ he half-muttered in response to Thunderbolt’s yell of what was likely terror. His own voice was notably at its loudest since he’d first met Jason, closer to regular speech than his usual whisper, and with that in mind, he chose to duck behind the nearest set of crates, retreating toward the back of the warehouse as he kept weaving between the crates. He had Chatterbox’s speech to listen to, as well as Heartless’ own attempts to put off the little girl up top… though he had to say, he didn’t think what he was doing was necessarily a good idea. When he’d said “deal with her”, he meant knock her out, not insult her. Who knew what her power was, after all…?

As it turned out, her power was the ability to turn into a dinosaur, as demonstrated by her transformation shortly after the actual exit came back in sight.

‘Heartless, what the fuck did you do?’ Headhunter asked. He spoke at a normal volume, but the tone of his voice was for once mildly shaken, the volume indicating what would be a panicked yell in anyone else’s mouth. And then the jackass just LEFT. How dare he.

Either way, he had a cross between a T-rex and a velociraptor bearing down on him, and he had a feeling the FN P90 wouldn’t suffice to kill it. Stop it. There was technically a human under all of that muscle mass, unfortunately. That in mind, he flicked his gun over to its M16A4 setting, and set himself up at a gap between the crates, ready to open fire on her knees the moment his power prepared for it.

Aim at left kneecap. Shatter kneecap, no permanent damage. Avoid blood vessels and ligaments, ensure bone shrapnel does not strike-

He was drawn out of his planning by a sudden burst of gunfire striking him in the back, dragging him out of his state with a pained grunt. With no time to scope in and redo the calculations, he promptly leapt to the side just as the giant lizard-girl charged past him, in turn barely avoiding being crushed under the weight of so many crates and winding up at the opposite wall of the warehouse in his frenzy to avoid being killed off-handedly.

In fact, it had been a dual burst: that of Margrave’s announced attack, the announcement unheard within the deafness of Raymond’s scoping in, and a second more accurate spray aimed by Corporal Johnson. Not that Raymond himself knew this; he was simply preoccupied with the throbbing pain in his back. His armour had absorbed a lot of the force of those rubber bullets, but wasn’t exactly getting rid of it, just distributing it all evenly. He’d be sore tomorrow, for sure.

And moreso, with the arrival of another soldier: Private Skeetz had shown up round the back, apparently taken one look at the situation with Lillian and decided it warranted no input from him, and moved to handle whatever was on the other side of the warehouse instead. And that was Headhunter, who was promptly shot at from the front, forcing him back behind the fallen crates.

Towards the dinosaur, as it happened. No way was Raymond about to have anything more to do with that. Quickly, he flipped the gun back over to the FN P90 setting, scoped in without a particular target in mind, then quickly span himself round the side of the crate he’d hidden behind whilst designating Skeetz as his target.

Target: enemy soldier, skull. Induce unconsciousness for one minute at minimum, avoid permanent brain damage. Shoot.

He’d admit, he wasn’t expecting to be aiming left of the soldier when he shot. However, he’d also admit that the resulting ricochet off of what appeared to be something solid in the crate the bullet hit did indeed knock the soldier out as intended, the bullet striking the man in the back-left of the helmet and apparently lodging in there as the target fell to the floor face-first.

And that about summed up the matter. Heartless was off with the package, Chatterbox and Sofia were doing whatever they were doing, and Thunderbolt was a big boy who ought not to need his assistance. And if he did, well, he’d shoot down these folks from a distance later on. Until then, he began to run out of the warehouse, ready to try and take on anyone else who followed on after him.

No Hope, No Glory, No Problem - A No More Heroes RP

Frankly, the look Zzyxx gave to both Able and Abigail could not have been more sour. It was as if he were trying to kill them with his glare - or indeed, trying to hold himself back from doing so - though it could also be misconstrued as severe constipation on his part if one saw the expression out of context.

Mister Person’s reaction to Able’s dramatic entrance was more subdued, at least visually, only taking another drag from his cigar. To Kimber, he offered but a shrug, and to Omnivore’s enthusiastic greeting, he responded ’Well, thank you. I’ve been working with some other agents on this for a while, so I’ve been a bit busy.‘ He nudged his head over at Zzyxx and Rutabaga as he mentioned the other agents, just as Rubert was gifted a box of apple juice by Vincent, much to his confusion.

‘Uh… thank you, Vincent,’ he muttered, accepting the gift somewhat hesitantly before poking the straw through the covering and taking a sip. Admittedly, he felt himself calmed just a bit by the notion of an assassin wanting to get on his good side - and it was at least better than the actual weedkiller Abigail seemed to be drinking.

Everyone else ultimately took their positions as necessary, gathering roughly around the three agents who’d called them there that afternoon, at which point Rubert double-checked his phone for something, before frowning and putting it away as he began to speak, more exuberant than he felt.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the zeroth day of… let’s call it a job within a job, shall we? You see, my fellow agents and I have had an idea. You all want to reach the top, do you not? Rhetorical question, of course you do. The upper echelons are where the money’s at, after all, moreso the number one position than any other, and that’s true no matter what your business is - assassination, corporate work, military, whatever.

‘And yet what some people don’t realise is that humans evolved to cooperate. They try to get up there on their own, taking all the weight without considering the benefits of allies, especially assassins. But you know what benefits you folks would get out of working together? Take a guess. Go on, take a guess-’

‘Money.’

‘...thanks, Person,’ Rutabaga deadpanned, his mildly drunken annoyance back to its former level after a brief inhalation. ‘But yes, money. Turns out, if the top few spots in the United Assassins Association actually unite their earnings, from odd jobs and rank defense and so on, they can actually earn more money per person than they would even if they simply held the number 1 rank. I know, I found it unbelievable too when I figured it out - but the math fits. Agent Person, you’re up.’

‘What doesn’t fit, more frequently than not, are the personalities of the assassins,’ Mister Person continued dryly, pointing at the assassins gathered round him. ‘You guys don’t like playing nice with one another. We even have examples present - The Heretic, right now, and Omnivore, just a moment ago. Left to your own devices, you’d probably all tear each other to shreds before getting anywhere near the top fifty, let alone-’

He was interrupted by the door being kicked open again, this time by a rather angry man in ragged gear with a beam katana already drawn and blazing, his other hand immediately pointing in the general direction of the entire group and screaming ‘KILLSTEALEEEER!!!’ at the top of his lungs. He proceeded to ignore everyone else as he stamped over toward the Killstealer in question, and held his weapon up against the agent’s throat, the hand holding the sword visibly juddering.

To his credit, Zzyxx didn’t lose his cool as he replied. ‘It’s pronounced “Zzyxx von Killstealr”,’ he insisted. Mister Person simply stared through his box at the newcomer, whilst Rutabaga barely held himself back from having an apoplectic fit, perhaps with the notion of Zzyxx’s over-timely death in mind to help.

‘I don’t care how it’s said! I care about what you did!’ the man ranted, angrily waving the weapon around without care for where it went. ‘My brother, a man whose life would have been spared… and then YOU come in and end him where it isn’t warranted, you BASTARD!’

‘Live by the sword... die by the sword,’ Zzyxx quipped, flicking his hair again, then unsubtly leaning back from the beam katana to grab the headgear off the floor again. ‘Mine, if not his foe’s... or, mine anyway. I take my dues, much like the Grim Reaper... you never know when I shall-‘

‘Okay, no, shut up, shut up!’ the guy raved, seeming rather unhappy with the direction the edgelord was taking. ‘You’re a fucking fool, do you know that?! What, do you think you’re DEATH now or something, in your stupid coat and dumb hat? Oh, well aren’t yuuurck.’

It wasn’t quite clear what had happened to make the man’s neck suddenly spray blood over the bar, and his head to come away from his shoulders. At best, the keener-eyed assassins might have seen a slight flicker of light, and maybe a hint of motion from Zzyxx’s arm, before he turned to his fellow agents and giving what he surely believed to be a cool smirk.

‘I guess that’s what happens when you… lose your head oh shit,’ he uttered, his hat now falling into a puddle of his would-be opponent’s lifeblood. As he picked the item up for the umpteenth time, he made to swipe the blood off, thought for a second, then evil eyed everyone around as he stood and placed the cap back atop his scalp. Apparently, having someone else’s blood dripping into your hair and down your face was a price he was willing to pay to try to look like a badass, even if to everyone else, he just looked like a lunatic.

‘...moving on,’ Mister Person sighed quietly, ‘as you can see, assassins dislike working with others. That’s what we’re here for: we’ve gotten special permission to shift you fellows up the ranks a little, just in order to practically test our theory. In exchange, we will be performing the murderous equivalent of herding cats. Not all of you at once, though, no no no. You’ll be split into teams of three: Heretic, Kraken, Chroma, you'll all be working together under Agent Zzyxx, as will The Savile Fist, Omnivore, and Whiteout under myself. Maiden of Bones, Silver Prowler... you ought to be in a team together under Agent Rutabaga, and in fairness, we might have somebody else showing up late; if they don’t show, we’ll figure something out.’

‘I assume you will know what to do from there,’ Zzyxx promptly butted in, for some bizarre reason contorting himself in a practically ballerina-ish fashion as he spoke. ‘Then again, if you need… help with your jobs, I would be most gracious as to offer my services in training you... for a certain price.’

‘We’re all willing to help you folks out,’ Rutabaga confirmed. ‘If you will, consider me a strength trainer: harder, better, stronger, that’s this Rutabaga’s goal for those of you looking to boost yourselves. Zzyxx, admittedly, is not entirely incompetent-’

‘I have never been incompetent shut up.’

‘-and he’ll be focusing on speed, and… shall we say weaponplay? Sure, let’s go with that… and Agent Person will be covering more general combat skills, martial arts, and the like. Maybe stealth, I don’t know. All, of course, for a price - but I think you’ll all appreciate the assistance.’

With all of that said, Agent Rutabaga finally leaned back on his stool and took another sip of apple juice. ‘Any questions before we go, boys and girls?’

Warhammer 40k: Enemy Without, Enemy Within - an 'Ecclesiarchal' RP [Mature][High Casual/Low Advanced]

@Jbcool I've been biding my time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Warhammer 40k: Enemy Without, Enemy Within - an 'Ecclesiarchal' RP [Mature][High Casual/Low Advanced]

@ArisenMoon That looks like a good plan to me. Looks like Act 2 is starting off with a few hints of daemonic activity anyway, so a guy with the capacity to fight daemons would be a good call.

Warhammer 40k: Enemy Without, Enemy Within - an 'Ecclesiarchal' RP [Mature][High Casual/Low Advanced]

@ArisenMoon Most Ecclesiarchy entities are valid. One of the characters is a priest.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

@Lugubrious@ProPro Posted as Motley. Huzzah.

The Crucible - Winner Take All

Well, Now...

Frankly, that plan had gone far, far better than he’d anticipated. Not only had he reached the shoreline at last, landing in a perhaps-stereotypical fashion as the ground cracked under him, but he’d also seriously injured his enemy, drained some of her energy and likely deafened her to boot. She was in a bad state.

However, being in a bad state did not mean a foe was defeated. Not when it came to Stand users. And if he knew Stand users, it was that they frequently came up with their most ingenious solutions when backed against a wall. In other words, this girl was still dangerous, even with the damage she’d sustained. That said, it appeared that the Boys of Summer had yet to dissipate - if anything, there were even more of them than before, and their danger lay in how easily they could prolong a fight until a lethal solution could be found.

Even so, he had his lethal solution still brewing inside him. He began to pressurise his gut, preparing for-
And never mind. Apparently, Runch was calling off the fight. You know, like that was at all feasible in this case. He even launched some of his Bloodberry recipe at their foe, apparently an effort to help make amends. How adorably foolish.

'With all due respect, Captain, I highly suggest you stop trying to interfere,' Motley suggested disapprovingly, his voice unnervingly cold. 'Whilst your sentiment is perhaps a rare and appreciable trait in your world, it’s a death sentence in mine. Think about it - this girl and her brother came after us, unprovoked, with the intent all along to slay us, and it is simply our luck that their Stands were insufficient for the task despite our group’s relative lack thereof. If they are allowed to leave, as I imagine you’ve allowed the brother to, they’ll simply come back for more later, and will likely return with greater preparation against us.

'They can’t reasonably be allowed to live. I, for one, am going to finish this girl off, whether or not she’s the more dangerous of the duo.' As he spoke these last two sentences, Motley began to run in the target’s direction, taking a leap into the air at around two hundred meters from her to give himself the height he needed to enact his ultimate plan - though, bearing in mind her nature as a Stand user, prepared himself to dodge midair if she managed to fire yet more rockets at him from an unexpected angle. Perhaps he’d sacrifice a shoe to launch a nail harpoon from his toes toward the ground as a way of forcibly pulling himself downward should a set of rockets barrel toward him. If he needed to, that was.

His stomach began to churn, compress, contract; bile rose in his throat, all his teeth retracted into his gums simultaneously, and with a vile and disturbing retch, he produced a wave of projectile vomit aimed directly at Aralynn. Stomach acid, functionally, was hydrochloric acid, dilute enough not to burn a hole in the stomach’s lining as it recovered itself; with a boost from his Black Ripple and his own vampiric regeneration, the glands producing the acid could effectively be supercharged without risk to himself, allowing a far more concentrated and deadly acid to be produced with enough time. With similar compression tactics as he’d just used in his eyeballs, indeed practically the same mechanisms as vomiting usually required, that acid could then be launched a great distance toward an opponent with decent accuracy. He imagined some practice might let him focus the acid blast into a sort of lethal cannonball; for now, the focus needed was a bit beyond him, but the acid itself would dissolve her body with ease if it made contact.

But he wasn’t done yet. It was painfully clear that the single burst would be absorbed by the brother’s Stand if he just left it be… and so, he needed to increase how many shots he’d actually fired. And wouldn’t you know, he had exactly what he needed to do just that: aiming his fingers at the stomach blast, he fired out ten beams of blood simultaneously, directing them to pass through the stomach acid and shred the singular attack into an oversized cloud of discrete acidic shots - each of which, he hoped, would require one bodyguard to absorb to ensure they were stopped, plus extra guards for the ten blood beams aimed at Aralynn herself to boot. And if not enough guards were left, well, that would just be a darn shame for his target, wouldn’t it?

@Lugubrious@ProPro

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

@POOHEAD189 Cool beans. I was tempted to ask earlier whether we were still going; I'm glad to see that we definitively are.