BCTheEntity

Worlds of Disney

Emperor Kuzco

Oh for- they weren't sheep! Now this strange-looking woman was calling them some animal, too? And OH, this orange-haired crazy girl did NOT just sass the title- alright, relax, do what Pacha would do...

'Okay, well, sir-' Nope, the girl was being loud. 'I am here be- uh, because-' Why was she- 'BECAUSE-' Would she just- 'Actually, they're-' Why was she still talking? 'Hey, Princess Merry-da?' What was she saying?! 'Merry-d-' They weren't even that close to- 'Okay, shut UP, I am TRYING to talk with the guard, THANK YOU!' he finally snapped, stamping his foot just to relieve some of his frustration. Yeah, he was trying to do what Pacha would do, but no way would Pacha just sit down and let people talk smack about him.

'Sire?'

'If she keeps talking, make her stop talking,' he said to the guard. Luckily, he didn't have to put up with it. 'Like, cover her mouth or something so she won't keep interrupting me.' She was the most impolite and incomprehensible girl he'd ever come across, frankly. And she didn't even have the good looks to make up for it the way Malina did. Or the smarts, if she was going to keep claiming Emperors- sorry, "Emporers" weren't important. Hah, see? He could mock her too. He wasn't gonna keep doing it, because it's not what Pacha would do, but he could.

'Okaaaay,' he huffed, his guards on standby now to move in and stop Merry-da from talking over him if she kept trying to do so, and incidentally very presentable in the process, 'well first of all, as you can see, these giants are blue and red, so somebody's description is a little off! Ahaha, and the uh, the alpacas aren't for riding, and they aren't donkeys, or goats, or sheep-' He ticked each animal that they weren't off on his finger as he went through them. Seriously, sheep? '-or heoress, or demons... I think the princess there said dorgs, dogs? Whatever.' And he was totally fine with them not being those animals, even if they weren't shiny and slick. From what he'd seen, the heorsse weren't very well-behaved, regardless. Not great for pulling stuff, probably.

'As for why I'm here, I am on a diplomatic mission,' he further explained with a more relaxed smile. 'I hail from the Kingdom of the Sun- in fact, I am the Emperor of this kingdom, name of Kuzco. I heard this-' He gestured to the city in the near distance. '-and many other kingdoms were scattered around, and I've been reliably informed that good relations are key to good fortunes!' Oh boy, didn't he know that? 'So, to forge fortunate relationships, I intend to start discussing such matters with other rulers, trade routes and alliances and such, and see how it all goes.' There they were, then. Simple, matter-of-factly, diplomacy. And... alright, he figured he'd said the important bits. Snapping his fingers as a gesture, the guards near Merida stepped away, indicating that she was probably free to talk without being stopped again, for now anyway. If she kept talking over him, maybe not.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

Heheh. That's a good post all round, @Stormflyx. Very nicely done.

Worlds of Disney

Emperor Kuzco

So, this young lady with a weird accent was by far the strangest person Kuzco had ever come across. Or rather, the mouthiest person he'd ever come across, Yzma beat her for strangeness no question, only he had no idea how she could ruin her phrasing of so many words so badly, plus who didn't know what an Emperor was? And they were alpacas, dang it!

'Uhh, you do know Emperor is a title, right, Princess Merry-da?' Kuzco asked, just a touch impolitely. He knew that much about princesses, so it wasn't like she couldn't have done her research about... whatever, didn't matter, because a small army of, how many was that uh... they split into three groups, ten, twenty, yeah, thirty armoured soldiers had just ridden up and encircled their camp. Immediately, Kuzco was acutely aware that those guys could probably deal with this small group pretty quickly - his men were armed but not really heavily armoured, there were thirty of these soldiers to his twelve, three of them were mounted on more of those giant smooth alpacas, so... yeah, nearly three guys each, even if his guys were buff as heck. Then again, he was here on a diplomatic rather than combative mission, and he was being asked if they could approach peacefully. Soooo...

'Sure, come on over!' Kuzco called, waving the leader toward him. 'Peacefully, mind. We got approached already, and uh, somebody fell off their... hhhoerss.' He was pretty sure he'd mangled the pronunciation, and his face in trying to pronounce it that way, especially with how impossible it was to figure out Merry-da's accent, but the fact there were more of them pretty much proved these creatures were more common here than alpacas or llamas.

'We've got food if you're hungry,' he continued with a grin, saying that as much to the weirdly-accented lady as to the guard man. 'We can introduce ourselves over it, get to know one another. Oh- hey,' he realised, turning to face Merry-da and the new guy, 'do either of you know the guy who rules this kingdom? Or girl, I don't, y'know, judge on that or whatever,' he added, waving his hands to make sure they knew he wasn't judging. Hey, he had a hottie-hot-hottie ruling his kingdom as Empress Regent in his absence, so he'd better not be judgy. He had come up with a good maxim, actually: What Would Pacha Do? And Pacha wouldn't judge.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

Humm. Aeryn's grip was, ah, quite strong when she put her mind to it. And it was obvious she was more impressed with Beren's musculature than his own. No matter, though. He was not a jealous man, for generally he could get what he wanted out of people with his wit rather than his build. Though admittedly, a larger frame might help him escape a grasp such as... well, this, which was not actually helpful all things considered.

Beren, it seemed, had other ideas than being stuck next to her. He slipped free of her grasp and went ahead, to talk to whoever had intruded upon the village - non-violently for now, or so it seemed. Which left Sett with Aeryn... and, well, a nice view if he felt so inclined to glance over her form. He wouldn't, but he could. And actually, if he thought about it, he could probably also guide them into a position better suited to gather information from!

'Come,' he said as he guided his gripped arm to push insistently against Aeryn's back, his tone more intently serious than usual, both legitimate and feigned to some degree, 'let us move to support our ally.' Yes, support. From a ways away. And with his hand guiding her in roughly the direction he wanted, at least if she weren't actively putting up resistance, he made to bring them both toward the front of the town, stopping once the newcomer was in sight and earshot. And Fineki above, if she didn't look questionable, albeit built in a fascinating manner. He'd have to see how this situation panned out, then... at least Beren seemed relaxed for the moment.

@POOHEAD189@Gardevoiran@The Fated Fallen@Fetzen@Stormflyx@Mortarion@IcePezz

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

@POOHEAD189
Plus BC can vouch for me when I say my laptop died for the second time in a month and got factory reset.

@Gardevoiran

Can confirm that this did indeed happen.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

@POOHEAD189 Feck. No, in my case, it just totally slipped my mind as to how the deadlines were applied and how long was left, and I honestly just have a habit of putting stuff off too much anyway. I'll try to get a post done soon, though my evening today is going to be rather packed, so I'm not sure if it'll be today or tomorrow.

Fighting King: Brawl in the Streets

Dealing with the thugs was, it transpired, a simple enough affair. With a few more strikes, and in a few moments, it was Cobra trying futilely to beat Llexe away from her, whilst many of the remaining fighters circled around Viper, who was clearly on the back foot there. It felt bad to simply gang up on her, but it was clear that a few seconds was all that would be needed to-

Cobra's attacks were suddenly drowned in a cruel growl, and her voice emitted a cry of intense agony. Even as Kiyoshi turned to see the carnage, Llexe was rending the girl's face asunder. And yet, his distraction provided an opening for Viper to dart in and attempt to strike him, itself a crucial distraction that he was forced to deal with, his blade beating her away and backward into Light's range, just as Llexe tore open the other girl's cheeks gruesomely. It occurred to him belatedly that perhaps she was attempting to reach her partner, but that would be a digression from the matter at hand: Kiyoshi's clones spewed out from him again, this time toward Llexe and the fallen gangster, getting in range of her just as the clawed girl smashed her victim's nose in. The only response Kiyoshi could give was to swipe at Llexe with his weapon, bludgeoning- and he hated that word, but it really was bludgeoning her with as much of the heavy wooden sword as possible to force her off of the gangster's form, and promptly yanking Cobra out of reach of the maniac, inspecting her for... oh, those were truly horrific injuries. What a wonderful start to their heroics; nothing wrong with their actions, it was just somebody with their face violently ripped to shreds.

And in his increasing fury, Kiyoshi almost failed to realise how badly injured Light was getting until she tossed Viper to the ground, her body punctured in many places, seeping some shadowy wisps of substance that Kiyoshi could only assume was equivalent to blood. Again, he was forced to take action, sending another wave of clones in the gangster's direction, the last one quickly striking the second leader around the head and shoulders as she tried to get up, finishing the job Light started, though seemingly at the cost of her well-being, if not worse. This time, his real self didn't leave its original position as the generated clones faded away, instead turning toward Llexe with an expression and posture rather unlike his previous calm demeanour.

'What the fff...' Catching himself before he made a discourteous statement, he quickly but angrily rephrased 'What were you thinking, Llexe? In what world did you think this was reasonable?' Even as he gestured to Cobra's unconscious and bloodied form, he knew passing the blame to Llexe in full was just as discourteous as swearing at her. He could have moved to stop her sooner. He could have taken on Cobra himself, or at least in tandem with the more aggressive person. And in turn, there was no way he could blame Llexe for Light's wounding. He was angry with her, true, and he was rather forming an image of her in his mind that he'd rather not form of anybody, but frankly speaking, the failure here was utterly his own, and his anger dissipated quickly, giving way to despair and self-hatred as he knelt next to the woman unfortunate enough to draw Llexe's ire.

This was unacceptable. How could he have let it happen? How dare he let it happen? He had more skill than that, he knew he did, and yet he'd allowed this failure of justice to come to fruition, not to mention... hell. Llexe was wounded too, not to mention Light. They needed medical assistance, and quickly.

Worlds of Disney

Emperor Kuzco

❚❚

Okay, so here's something you don't see every day, folks: a little bit of fog comes rolling in nearby, and then some girl with frizzy orange hair and a green dress charges right out of it, on... I wanna say it's a very large and sleek-looking llama, but I don't think llamas grow that big, or move that fast! Then she comes to a sudden stop, falling off her giant sleek llama- And that does look like it hurt by the way. You see? Conscientiousness. I think that's the word.

But then as people start going over to see if she's alright, the girl gets up, dusts herself down, and starts spouting off in some weird dialect about how there's a city just over there, and what are these animals, and who are we, and oh my GOSH I can't understand a large chunk of what she said. And I mean, she looks rich too? Like royalty rich, maybe even? Which would be a weird coincidence, because that'd mean two different royals set off on two separate quests, came to the same place, happened to meet each other right outside that place... uhh, not sure how to show the sketch of how unlikely that is... it was so much easier when I was doing this on camera...

Whatever, I'll come up with something. In the meantime, you wanna see how I dealt with that? Ahahah, yeah, of course you do. Okay.

►

---

'Wh- whu- huh?'

This was a bit of a blindside for Kuzco, if he had to admit it. You didn't just come across people yelling at you about stuff every day, especially as an emperor. In fact, the guards were immediately on edge as a result - especially since this had interrupted their evening meal. But, that was okay, because Kuzco could handle this.

'Uh- okay, settle down, men, and... also you,' Kuzco uttered to the two groups, smoothly, with not a hint of maybe some confusion as he stood and approached the newcomer. 'I'm pretty sure I could ask you the same questions, assuming I heard the questions right, so, uh... tell you what, I'll answer first, and then you can answer your own questions, so we don't need to ask them again.' Yes, a perfect solution, one that had Kuzco smiling, quite pleased with himself and his logic. 'I am Emperor Kuzco, Emperor of the Kingdom of the Sun, maybe you've heard of it,' he introduced himself, suavely offering his hand to the weird girl to shake. 'The animals are alpacas, but I don't think any of them are taking bathroom breaks...' He double-checked to be sure. Nope, not at that specific moment. '...aaand we are not camping outside a city. It's a dinner break! For the alpacas, too. Okay, your turn, let's hear it!' he exclaimed, clapping his hands together, ready to hear what this lady had to say.

Fighting King: Brawl in the Streets

Well, that had gone pleasantly. It transpired that most other minions remained outside, and by the time he'd stepped out, two... very, very similar-looking women had appeared, the only noticeable difference being which of them was blowing a bubblegum bubble, at least at first. However, leaders they inevitably were, for their mere presence brought their allies running to their side, some even revived and ready to fight all over again. A fascinating amount of charisma. Yet what a shame it was wasted on crime.

Llexe made her attack immediately, lunging from- ah, the one he'd winded was looking to be in bad shape- from the doorframe and into the sky, dropping down on the twins with what looked to be a vicious assault. Simultaneously, Light charged into the group, clad in some form of energy that apparently sliced at the gangsters as she literally passed through them. She was an oddity to behold, for certain - but it seemed that Llexe might want help fighting the two identical gang leaders. Or not, but she'd probably lose if she fought them on her own... or kill them outright. Either way, his help would be required.

Knives, and fans. Kiyoshi knew that of the two, the fans were the more defensive weapon; though normally tessen were used as clubs rather than razors, they were nonetheless good at deflecting attacks. That being said, of the two, Kiyoshi believed the knife-bearer might be somewhat simpler to render a non-threat. And thus, after a second or two of consideration and walking calmly in their direction, Kiyoshi, for want of a better word, "charged" - though his real self continued to calmly walk toward the duo, his figure suddenly blurred into a chain of rapid afterimages around the weaker gang members, each image holding the wooden blade as if to strike from above until the clone before the final clone. The last clone, the true attacker of the chain, spawned into existence in a crouched position, already moving to unleash quite an abrupt low slash toward the knife-wielder's gut specifically, an effort to catch her and her ally off-guard by how it repositioned itself - and luck had it that it even struck both of them in one go, occupied with other threats as they were. This was his Afterimage Strike, or at least a version of it - funnily enough, the ability to spawn ki images of oneself was extremely useful, especially when they didn't have to spawn in the same positions as their predecessors.

Whether or not the attack made contact, most of the clones would vanish, save one positioned right next to one of the weaker gang members. To those who knew not how the technique worked, they might well be shocked to realise Kiyoshi's "real" body faded too. To those in the know, they'd be more than aware that his real body had merely switched places with the image in question, just in time to follow up his initial charge with a blow to the head of the unfortunate man, knocking him out cold. The gamble was, would this draw attention? It surely wouldn't matter either way, of course, but he imagined that Viper and Cobra would be too preoccupied to deal with his presence specifically, or else that the other gang members would be dealt with accordingly before a loss of focus would be a problem.

Worlds of Disney

Emperor Kuzco

Ahhh. Man, I always thought travelling places like this would be rough, but this isn't so bad. Fresh air, open skies, a nice gentle rocking motion... oh, and plenty of travelling food! Who knew alpacas could carry so much food such a long way without getting tired?

'Sire, I believe the alpacas are getting tired,' the nearest guard said, his blue-and-burgundy bodypaint breaking Kuzco out of his daydreaming. Woah, evening-dreaming, even. Who knew doing nothing could take so little time? 'Perhaps we ought to halt for dinner?'

'Ehh...' Well, it was about that time. They were so close to the city, though; it was right there, just a teensy little bit further... wait, he had a plan. 'Alright, let's take half an hour, and then we're pushing on until we get there. I'm sure we all want to sleep under a roof tonight, right?' Well, they had ceilings, but they were ceilings made of cloth and attached to carts. Carts pulled by alpacas! They'd considered llamas, but those weren't presentable. They didn't like being brushed. But they loved spitting, so.

It took only a few seconds for the royal procession to come to a full-halt, each of the twelve guards forming a line leading to one of the carts, with Kuzco modestly taking his place in the middle of the line. The nearest man to the travelling device, of course, yanked the velvet rope tied to the red-and-gold tent atop it, pulling out all the hidden cookware and surfaces, and rapidly transforming it into what amounted to a makeshift chef's kitchen. And stepping in, taking the spot of master chef, was none other than...

'Alright, boys, today's dish is chicken in spicy grub sauce!' called the chef, who was average-sized, yellow-haired, and decidedly not Kronk. Admittedly, Calo's food was pretty good in its own right, else he wouldn't have accompanied the procession, but it wasn't Kronk good. Kronk's food was practically divine, fit for a king - or, an Emperor! Hah, man, he just loved Kronk. What a champ.

'Where the heck is Kronk?' Kuzco asked after a moment, realising that pontificating internally hadn't brought the musclebound man into view.

'Nature watching!' came the answer from Calo as he served the first guy. 'Keep the line moving, sire, folks behind you wanna eat too!' Right, right. "Nature watching." God, of all the times for somebody to get lost- okay, to be fair, Kuzco had been only half-aware of the world for the last few hours. He was sure Kronk would show up sooner or later; the big lug had a sense of direction like a bloodhound. Kronk would show up soon, Kuzco just knew it. Kronk was always... definitely not going to show up just because he was thinking hard about it. Fiiine, he'd have the stupid chicken, but he didn't have to enjoy it.

...oh, that was pretty tasty, actually!