Plank Sinatra

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

do i smell burnt coffee

CLOSED

Dana Harada

Location: Diner, Olympus Academy
Interacting With: Why does this ten dollar plebian beef fill her stomach as well as glorious wagyu!? WHY!?

It was amazing how much food you could find on the Olympus Academy campus. Even with the night's worth of research into restaurants at colleges here, this place seemed designed to contain the sum of not just American decadence, but the grandiosity of their godly parents as well. Seeking out a good burger, she had deigned to skip out on a morning latte and indulge in something called an "X-Large Oreo and Creme Milkshake" (it sounds evil) and a cheeseburger with some of the seasoned fries. This advice came to her on behalf of her brother Jonas...who had promptly disappeared by the time she came to call on him for lunch. Rebekah Cross, as someone she had held a conversation with, was another possibility, but she had seemed just as aloof as Dana herself, and she was unsure if inviting her to lunch would be received positively. The other Japanese demigod had brought a smile to her face yesterday, was kind of cute, and would at least have given her someone from home to talk to.

On the other hand, it would disrupt any opportunity for a quiet lunch. And one such as he did not need his warrior's heart tainted with diner food any more than Dana herself.

Hypocrite that she was.

Harada chewed on the end of her straw and flipped the page idly on the coffee table book she had brought with her. She used an unused utensil in lieu of her fingers (this food was proving messy) and dabbed at a spot of juice from her burger with a remaining scrap of pretzel bun. The view from outside her window seat looked busy as ever. She could see demigods, perhaps even siblings of hers, hustling and bustling through the campus. It looked as busy as any other school, though Jonas had told her last night (after a spirited rendition of "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" that her new brother had forced her to play on Guitar Hero as a test; the son of Ares had told her cheekily that it would prove "memeworthy" ) that in recent weeks the campuses had quieted with the disappearances of demigods, even some close to friends of his. The Headmistress herself was responsible for these acts against her charges. A rogue sensei? Revolting.

If such an attempt on her own person ever came, she would force such a woman to stand and fight her. Harada would determine whether the woman had backbone soon enough. Though the disappearance of Jonas and his smiley friend was more than likely an indication that they were off to do something similar. Dana would have pursued them, if not for the jet lag and the note she'd found on her door saying "don't pursue us. J."

She was only an amateur sleuth, to be sure. But such clues led to a small list of outcomes.

sssssssslurp

The scraping sound of suction. Empty air blown into the bottom of a cup.

...

She pushed the empty glass to the side to join its two doppelgangers, and briefly opined the fact yet again that she would have to wait to have a brother who would buy her such creamy treats after one pouty look.

Soon, though.

Phoenix Wing (A Fairy Tail RP-Always Open, Open)

Angel Ferrara

"Was I...fired? Or did I just quit?"

This was a question that Angel Ferrara asked his traveling companion often. In the year that they'd known each other, in their journey south through Ishgar, most tenures with the restaurants that Angel had earned travel money with had ended in a fashion that could only be described as 'chicken-or-egg.' It suited Ferrara just fine. He had never put together much in the way of a resume or even much of a pitch for his services. He just kind of whipped up a soup-and-salad course and a quick entrée after the restaurant closed, and ta-da, they had themselves enough money to travel for a couple weeks. It was even fun more often than not; Angel was more at home cooking at inns than he was as a mage.

Nobody tipped mages for birthday parties. Credit to Kaia for turning him on to those.

Regardless of the method of loss of employment, it was gone - and this job had followed the trend in Fiore of giving the cooks kind of a crappy wage. Since that was the case, there was no point in sticking around to reminisce, so Ferrara was currently leading his blind sous chef to the center of town to find a nice bench and sort out the cash they'd made. When such a seat had been acquired, he gently helped Kaia sit down first - she never needed the assistance, but it was always polite - and sat down after her. Angel breathed quietly through his nose and wrinkled the button-shaped appendage slightly at how much different city air smelled than the familiar pine of a forest.

"So." The cook pulled his hat down over his head, and two handfuls of the long, straight blonde hair that framed his face along with it. "Let's start counting out mone--"

His gaze drifted to the sightless eyes of the dark-skinned girl beside him.

"Oops."

Kaia's stare back was expressionless.

"I'm sorry, okay." His face wrinkled up at his sous chef and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Sometimes I forget."

Star Wars: Coruscant Underworld [Always accepting!]

Can I reserve a spot? I'm on an iPhone until Saturday evening, so I can't bang out a profile that's Advanced caliber until then, but this really has my interest.

Phoenix Wing (A Fairy Tail RP-Always Open, Open)

Name: Angel Ferrara
Age: 22
Birthday: May 1st
Magic: Negation. Angel has the ability to block all physical magic directed his way in an attack, whatever type or element. He can choose to reflect this energy back as though the attack bounced off a rubber field, or launch the same type of attack back once at an opponent. He can only stack one of these stored powers at a time.
Magic Level: A-B
History: Angel was born to a single father deep in the Boundary Forest, far to the north of Fiore. The reasons for his societal exile died with his father when Angel was seven, but he had been taught enough rudimentary skills about survival to fend off the monsters that infested his home that he wasn't torn apart within weeks or anything. Rather, as he grew, he honed his skill in hunting and cooking until he proved self-sufficient enough to turn the weeks of survival into months, then the months into years.

By the age of sixteen, however, Angel had left the Boundary Forest in search of who he and his father truly were. Having never required currency or merchants for anything in his life, he found the journey into civilization difficult, and to support himself he began cutting a swath through Veronica and south down the peninsula, staying a couple months to cook at inns and small restaurants for a couple months. As his purse grew, so too did his culinary repertoire - and, eventually, his traveling party, as his meals impressed one Kaia Iona. The girl became his traveling companion and sous chef as they traveled south into Fiore, where they currently are residing.
Personality: Ferrara is sunny and cheerful, but you wouldn't know it from his tone of voice. He speaks with an odd combination of earnest, confusion, and painstaking politeness coming from having spent the first two-thirds of his life removed from even village society. Idioms and snide remarks often fly over his head at terminal velocity, and he proves almost incapable of being insulted. Instead, his frustration and negative emotion often channels itself into a fierce determination to do right by people, and intense loyalty to his friends.
Guild and guild mark location: None yet
Team Members: Cyare Staunton
Three Strengths:
1. Cooking
2. Grooming
3. Pep talks
Three Weaknesses:
1. Metropolitan areas
2. Sarcasm
3. Alcohol
Greatest Love: A warm meal with friends
Motivation: Engineering a way to end world hunger
Appearance:

Angel

Additional Details: He's my trap queen watch him hit the bandooooo~

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Lauren Negasi

Lauren swept the camera of her glasses over the maps, recording each diligently. For once, as Ben presented her idea, she stayed completely silent for the sake of her captain's headache. Nonetheless, her chest swelled with pride as she continued listening, and when she turned back to the other six students, she was beaming ear to ear.

"Sounds like a plan to me, for what it's worth." Prolly not much. Lauren thought burgers were a plan to her, too. She looked to Amy and Sangue, and one emerald eye briefly closed and opened again. "What about the drums? They're targets too. And my girl is, like. Super serious about making her bank."

She raised a hand and casually stretched it out...right over Amy's ruffled crimson spikes and into Ben's hair.

"But what do I know. They just put me in front and let me flex at shit."

Phoenix Wing (A Fairy Tail RP-Always Open, Open)

Name: Angel Ferrara
Age: 22
Birthday: May 1st
Magic: Negation. Angel has the ability to block all physical magic directed his way in an attack, whatever type or element. He can choose to reflect this energy back as though the attack bounced off a rubber field, or launch the same type of attack back once at an opponent. He can only stack one of these stored powers at a time.
Magic Level: A-B
History: Angel was born to a single father deep in the Boundary Forest, far to the north of Fiore. The reasons for his societal exile died with his father when Angel was seven, but he had been taught enough rudimentary skills about survival to fend off the monsters that infested his home that he wasn't torn apart within weeks or anything. Rather, as he grew, he honed his skill in hunting and cooking until he proved self-sufficient enough to turn the weeks of survival into months, then the months into years.

By the age of sixteen, however, Angel had left the Boundary Forest in search of who he and his father truly were. Having never required currency or merchants for anything in his life, he found the journey into civilization difficult, and to support himself he began cutting a swath through Veronica and south down the peninsula, staying a couple months to cook at inns and small restaurants for a couple months. As his purse grew, so too did his culinary repertoire - and, eventually, his traveling party, as his meals impressed one Kaia Iona. The girl became his traveling companion and sous chef as they traveled south into Fiore, where they currently are residing.
Personality: Ferrara is sunny and cheerful, but you wouldn't know it from his tone of voice. He speaks with an odd combination of earnest, confusion, and painstaking politeness coming from having spent the first two-thirds of his life removed from even village society. Idioms and snide remarks often fly over his head at terminal velocity, and he proves almost incapable of being insulted. Instead, his frustration and negative emotion often channels itself into a fierce determination to do right by people, and intense loyalty to his friends.
Guild and guild mark location: None yet
Team Members: Kaia Iona
Three Strengths:
1. Cooking
2. Grooming
3. Pep talks
Three Weaknesses:
1. Metropolitan areas
2. Sarcasm
3. Alcohol
Greatest Love: A warm meal with friends
Motivation: Engineering a way to end world hunger
Appearance:

Angel

Additional Details: He's my trap queen watch him hit the bandooooo~

Mecha Carta Institute

Jericho Piper

"I am Jericho. Come if you must. But you will find that I refuse to crumble."

Name: Jericho Dylan Piper
Military codename: N/A
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Appearance:

Jericho

Jericho stands no more than a hair over six feet, with about one hundred and sixty pounds of muscle providing a tough, athletic build. He has a light olive tan that brings out his casual, aloof good looks - a smooth jaw, sculpted, expressionless lips and big cider-colored eyes are framed by jagged black hair that is constantly pushed back or to the sides, where it takes on a wavier look.

Jericho dresses casually, but usually in black - t-shirts and jeans are usually worn with boots, along with one of several leather jackets that will keep eyes away from the fact that Seal Judgment seems permanently and symbiotically affixed to his arm. On the rare occasions that it is dispelled, the words "CRY HAVOC" in block caps are imposed on the back of his hand in golden ink.
Personality: Jericho is calm and composed at most times, his strongest form of negative emotion or frustration generally emerging when it comes to Seal Judgment. Around people, he is polite but aloof, taking backseats in conversations even as he effortlessly assumes a command role on the battlefield. Not averse to a bit of fun, but he'll never show it even if he's having it. Confidence to a fault is his greatest weakness, along with a stubborn tendency that isn't exactly offset by Seal Judgment - if anything, it's actually encouraged, begging the question of whether his Spirit fuels his steadfast and smooth tendencies or if it just quietly manipulates it into a path that it sees fit for their well-being.
Biography: Born to a semi-successful family of merchants to the south, Jericho grew with a talent for sales but no desire to do it. Rather, he wanted to put his quiet, confident charm and tactical know-how into something he knew he was meant to do - working with others from a cockpit, not from behind a booth somewhere. His parents, however, refused to let their son - even the second of three, who was not assured a particularly valuable place in the Piper family operations - give away his life with a Core at his back. It was only an attack close to home that Jericho refused to flee from that introduced him to both Cry Havoc and Seal Judgment. Jericho's return home, at the tender age of fifteen with a unique, ancient Spirit and a mech he had proven adept with, caused his parents to quietly acquiesce and disown him as politely as possible. Jericho, unable to volunteer with the KAD for another year, decided to work as a soldier of fortune for twelve months - and took to it so warmly that he continued on for another ten months after that. A close call in which bare fists and Seal Judgment nearly weren't enough to keep him from being gutted jogged the memory of his original intent, and Jericho enrolled as a member of the first class at MCI.
Military Job: Pilot
Mech: Cry Havoc

Seal Judgment

"And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead."

Spirit Name: Seal Judgment
Spirit Appearance: Judgment manifests as a gauntlet of sheer, malleable black material, as flexible and light as gallium at room temperature. Only the creases in the metal, as well as its instant hardening at any touch but Jericho's, hint that it is not a particularly well-designed prosthetic. When hardened, however, the creases begin to resemble some sort of labyrinthine path to the center of Jericho's palm; the gauntlet also lengthens from his wrist up to almost his elbow, revealing seven ornate patterns that trace up the inside of his arm, spaced out in intervals. When Judgment is active, the first of these emits a white hot glow that soaks into the creases, giving the glove a monochrome, striped appearance. Whether the other six provide similar transformations is unknown.
Spirit Power: Seal Judgment's power is twofold - emitting a blinding white flash of heat that disorients an opponent for twenty seconds. When the twenty first second comes, the heat can be pooled together into one source that Jericho chooses - Judgment has been known to cause targets to spontaneously combust over the course of its existence, but Jericho usually deigns to use it to power Vendetta's fire magic to new heights.
Spirit Origin: Seal Judgment has preyed on many a host over the centuries, catalogued inside obscure texts in a manner unique to most Spirits. Where others bond to families or spits of land, Seal Judgment is by all accounts a wanton entity, seeking out hosts and rejecting them after a brief period of time. It will then lay dormant for decades, as if disappointed in its current crop of heralds, before attempting to choose another. It would appear that none has scratched even the surface of the gauntlet's secrets or powers. Jericho Piper is but the latest in the centuries-long procession of the gauntlet's hosts; it bonded itself to the youth a year and a half ago, after Jericho fended off a demonic attack in a local construction area. The diggers had come perilously close to unearthing Judgment, and after watching the young man's combat prowess in action Judgment bonded itself to Jericho and helped him push the fight into his favor. Though it has served him ably in the interim, and continues to do so after enrollment into Mecha Carta, Jericho's research into the gauntlet has wielded little, and the time it allots him to uncover more of its mysteries is dwindling by the day.

Cry Havoc

"A man of courage never needs weapons, but he may need bail."

Name: CCA-001 MCI-spec "Cry Havoc"
Classification: Sword-class
Appearance: Cry Havoc is ten meters tall and bulky for its class, as befits a mech formerly used for construction efforts. Though it maintains most of the speed of a Sword, some of the old brute reliability of the base CCA-001 remains in Havoc, giving it a burly, swaggering appearance as it walks that contrasts with the aloof, controlled pilot in her cockpit. Havoc is painted with a warm dark blue, flecked and accented with gold. Its name and designation are painted on opposite sides, underneath the arms, along with a hand-sprayed replica of a great walled city in the palm of Seal Judgment in lieu of Jericho's name. When Seal Judgment is activated by Jericho, the mech's fingers become pointed and talon-like, and a crown-like apparatus extends from the top of Cry Havoc's rounded head.
Weapons:

• Vendetta: Havoc's cutlass, capable of utilizing fire magic and Jericho's gauntlet to superheat to up to 3000 Kelvin. Generally wielded in Havoc's right hand (corresponding to the hand where her pilot utilizes Seal Judgment) to make room for...
• Riscatto: Havoc's shotgun, generally slung over the shoulder and capable of firing a volley of magic capable of devastating a small crowd. (Think .30-06 rounds) This weapon is secondary, or generally used on human opponents; Vendetta's heat and Jericho's skill with a sword is utilized in conjunction with Seal Judgment against any would-be demons. Though his Spirit can also be used to power up Riscatto, the heat blasts prove less effective when channeled from a gun - and, indeed, can even damage the weapon itself.

Upgrades: None.
History: Havoc began life as an unassuming construction mech manned to assist with digging and lifting beams. Manned by Jericho as he walked near a half-renovated diner under attack by demons, he petitioned to keep it and emancipated himself from home, first maneuvering in the mech as a boxer would with the added x-factor of Seal Judgment. As time went on, this technique proved more and more hazardous to Jericho, and upon enrollment in Mecha Carta Institute, he went about ordering a pair of weapons that alleviated his problems with range, and overhauled the mech from the Core up to make it uniquely his.
Extra: Steel Salvation

Mecha Carta Institute

Jericho Piper

"I am Jericho. Come if you must. But you will find that I refuse to crumble."

Name: Jericho Dylan Piper
Military codename: N/A
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Appearance: Jericho stands no more than a hair over six feet, with about one hundred and sixty pounds of muscle providing a tough, athletic build. He has a light olive tan that brings out his casual, aloof good looks - a smooth jaw, sculpted, expressionless lips and big sea-colored eyes are framed by spiky black hair that is constantly pushed back or to the sides, where it takes on a wavier look.

Jericho dresses casually, but usually in black - t-shirts and jeans are usually worn with boots, along with one of several leather jackets that will keep eyes away from the fact that Seal Judgment seems permanently and symbiotically affixed to his arm. On the rare occasions that it is dispelled, the words "CRY HAVOC" in block caps are imposed on the back of his hand in golden ink.
Personality: Jericho is calm and composed at most times, his strongest form of negative emotion or frustration generally emerging when it comes to Seal Judgment. Around people, he is polite but aloof, taking backseats in conversations even as he effortlessly assumes a command role on the battlefield. Not averse to a bit of fun, but he'll never show it even if he's having it. Confidence to a fault is his greatest weakness, along with a stubborn tendency that isn't exactly offset by Seal Judgment - if anything, it's actually encouraged, begging the question of whether his Spirit fuels his steadfast and smooth tendencies or if it just quietly manipulates it into a path that it sees fit for their well-being.
Biography: Born to a semi-successful family of merchants to the south, Jericho grew with a talent for sales but no desire to do it. Rather, he wanted to put his quiet, confident charm and tactical know-how into something he knew he was meant to do - working with others from a cockpit, not from behind a booth somewhere. His parents, however, refused to let their son - even the second of three, who was not assured a particularly valuable place in the Piper family operations - give away his life with a Core at his back. It was only an attack close to home that Jericho refused to flee from that introduced him to both Cry Havoc and Seal Judgment. Jericho's return home, at the tender age of fifteen with a unique, ancient Spirit and a mech he had proven adept with, caused his parents to quietly acquiesce and disown him as politely as possible. Jericho, unable to volunteer with the KAD for another year, decided to work as a soldier of fortune for twelve months - and took to it so warmly that he continued on for another ten months after that. A close call in which bare fists and Seal Judgment nearly weren't enough to keep him from being gutted jogged the memory of his original intent, and Jericho enrolled as a member of the first class at MCI.
Military Job: Pilot
Mech: Cry Havoc

Seal Judgment

"And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead."

Spirit Name: Seal Judgment
Spirit Appearance: Judgment manifests as a gauntlet of sheer, malleable black material, as flexible and light as gallium at room temperature. Only the creases in the metal, as well as its instant hardening at any touch but Jericho's, hint that it is not a particularly well-designed prosthetic. When hardened, however, the creases begin to resemble some sort of labyrinthine path to the center of Jericho's palm; the gauntlet also lengthens from his wrist up to almost his elbow, revealing seven ornate patterns that trace up the inside of his arm, spaced out in intervals. When Judgment is active, the first of these emits a white hot glow that soaks into the creases, giving the glove a monochrome, striped appearance. Whether the other six provide similar transformations is unknown.
Spirit Power: Seal Judgment's power is twofold - emitting a blinding white flash of heat that disorients an opponent for twenty seconds. When the twenty first second comes, the heat can be pooled together into one source that Jericho chooses - Judgment has been known to cause targets to spontaneously combust over the course of its existence, but Jericho usually deigns to use it to power Vendetta's fire magic to new heights.
Spirit Origin: Seal Judgment has preyed on many a host over the centuries, catalogued inside obscure texts in a manner unique to most Spirits. Where others bond to families or spits of land, Seal Judgment is by all accounts a wanton entity, seeking out hosts and rejecting them after a brief period of time. It will then lay dormant for decades, as if disappointed in its current crop of heralds, before attempting to choose another. It would appear that none has scratched even the surface of the gauntlet's secrets or powers. Jericho Piper is but the latest in the centuries-long procession of the gauntlet's hosts; it bonded itself to the youth a year and a half ago, after Jericho fended off a demonic attack in a local construction area. The diggers had come perilously close to unearthing Judgment, and after watching the young man's combat prowess in action Judgment bonded itself to Jericho and helped him push the fight into his favor. Though it has served him ably in the interim, and continues to do so after enrollment into Mecha Carta, Jericho's research into the gauntlet has wielded little, and the time it allots him to uncover more of its mysteries is dwindling by the day.

Cry Havoc

"A man of courage never needs weapons, but he may need bail."

Name: CCA-001 MCI-spec "Cry Havoc"
Classification: Sword-class
Appearance: Cry Havoc is ten meters tall and bulky for its class, as befits a mech formerly used for construction efforts. Though it maintains most of the speed of a Sword, some of the old brute reliability of the base CCA-001 remains in Havoc, giving it a burly, swaggering appearance as it walks that contrasts with the aloof, controlled pilot in her cockpit. Havoc is painted with a warm dark blue, flecked and accented with gold. Its name and designation are painted on opposite sides, underneath the arms, along with a hand-sprayed replica of a great walled city in the palm of Seal Judgment in lieu of Jericho's name. When Seal Judgment is activated by Jericho, the mech's fingers become pointed and talon-like, and a crown-like apparatus extends from the top of Cry Havoc's rounded head.
Weapons:

• Vendetta: Havoc's cutlass, capable of utilizing fire magic and Jericho's gauntlet to superheat to up to 3000 Kelvin. Generally wielded in Havoc's right hand (corresponding to the hand where her pilot utilizes Seal Judgment) to make room for...
• Riscatto: Havoc's shotgun, generally slung over the shoulder and capable of firing a volley of magic capable of devastating a small crowd. (Think .30-06 rounds) This weapon is secondary, or generally used on human opponents; Vendetta's heat and Jericho's skill with a sword is utilized in conjunction with Seal Judgment against any would-be demons. Though his Spirit can also be used to power up Riscatto, the heat blasts prove less effective when channeled from a gun - and, indeed, can even damage the weapon itself.

Upgrades: None.
History: Havoc began life as an unassuming construction mech manned to assist with digging and lifting beams. Manned by Jericho as he walked near a half-renovated diner under attack by demons, he petitioned to keep it and emancipated himself from home, first maneuvering in the mech as a boxer would with the added x-factor of Seal Judgment. As time went on, this technique proved more and more hazardous to Jericho, and upon enrollment in Mecha Carta Institute, he went about ordering a pair of weapons that alleviated his problems with range, and overhauled the mech from the Core up to make it uniquely his.
Extra: Steel Salvation

CLOSED

Dallas Relo

Location: BFE, Utah
Interacting With: iTunes Library (Warm Up Music - For Use in Baseball, Sex, and Suicide Missions), DJTZ, the Dogs of War @HereComesTheSnow, @Onarax, @Kaithas

It was 6:45 in the morning, and a lone pickup truck was barreling like buckshot down a hauntingly quiet Utah highway. Inside the battered, battle-ready vehicle, Jonas Highwind was driving with a light, diligent touch on the gas and wrist comfortably slung over the wheel. Zaheen and Tara slept beside him. But a fourth demigod was sitting with his back propped against the bed of the truck, chin nestled comfortably on his knee as he stared listlessly ahead. He hadn't slept in fifty one hours, and thirty three of them involved the pleasant autumn sun warming him to the bones. With sleep an impossibility thanks to his power set and mental state, his thoughts had been roiling, bouncing to and fro between two fulcrums: there was a blonde haired girl somewhere in the miles ahead, waiting for him to come and save her while she languished like a dog in a pound.

And if I ever live to see Olympus Academy again, Dallas Relo thought, I'm only buying fucking Gucci.

Not that he had put much thought into what he was wearing if he didn't live to see it again. Truth be told, he couldn't even remember getting in the truck. They had left Olympus Academy at dusk two nights previously, under the illusion of going out for dinner, to follow the trace that Zaheen had cobbled together on his phone call with Vivian. Dallas had spent the two hours before they'd all met up soaking in the shower, trying to remember the feeling of hot water, clean hair, and his own face in the mirror. Little things that made him grin in the morning had been painstakingly branded into his mind. Confronting your own morality type shit. Memento mori.

Before the start of this week, Dallas had thought he'd never die. Even now, he still did his best to thing that way.

But if you've gotta die for someone, Vivian was...

...

...as good as anyone else.

Or the inverse. If you had to kill for someone...

Viv DEFINITELY makes me want to kill someone.

He'd have to make sure he drilled that through her head sometime. After the longest hug he'd ever given someone, after he'd filled her ear with some affectionate and sophisticated cursing, and bought her a bacon cheeseburger, Dallas would tell her that.

The truck's transmission was rattling a little, constantly cutting itself in on an aural arm's race with Dal's iPod, but at this point, if Zaheen's trace was correct, they were minutes away from Vivian at last. Close enough that even if Eva Green had waltzed up to the back of the truck in lingerie wielding a Shake Weight suggestively and asking if he could loan her a fuck, he wouldn't give one. We're so close. Close enough that Dallas could feel the familiar jump in his chest that started occurring whenever he was within reach of a goal. Close enough that he could trick himself into believing he could catch Viv's perfume on the morning breeze. Close enough that even the sun had started to peek out, both to give him something in his corner and to watch its son go to town. We're. So. Close.

The thought had hardly left his head before Jonas stopped the truck and turned it off - they'd been closer than even Dal's internal pep talk had believed. Over the trees, hugging the lake underneath the highway, the barest hints of a cylindrical building peeked out at the four demigods in the truck. There hadn't been a building for miles, excepting old gas stations that had probably shuttered sometime during the Space Race and old houses that were missing a wall or half a roof. This had to be it. Had to be.

Which meant that there was no time to think. No time to ask questions. No time to even chew bubblegum. Just fight until he had too much blood in his eyes to see, or until he could give his sister one of those annoyingly cute pecks on the nose. Whichever came last.

Knocking on the back of the truck twice for good luck, Dallas Relo vaulted over the side of the bed and landed nimbly on his feet. He kicked up a few pebbles on the highway as he walked up to the driver's side of the door and leaned inside to talk to Jonas.

"So, between you and Tara," he asked (flinching as he did so; his voice was hoarse from two days of disuse) tersely, "what are we packing, fam?"