Plank Sinatra

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Write @HereComesTheSnow @FlitterFaux

"No, Bianca. In Atlas we never take any operation too seriously. That's why we stopped after conquering half the world." Jericho didn't look up from packing his duffel bags - he had grabbed another when his first one started to look full - and stopped short, surveying what remained of his surprisingly deep stash of munitions. "Did you guys see me unpack a minigun?"

Luke Schwarz's strangled noise was confirmation that he must not have.

"God damn it. That means my clone has it." His words had devolved into the quiet ramblings of an obsessive compulsive boy who had misplaced something valuable. He stood up, restless, and paced back to his dresser. His chest holster was dropped onto his bed, and his original black t-shirt summarily pulled off over his head. He unconsciously rubbed the bandaged area on his left arm as he did so.

His new shirt looked almost identical to the first, especially when he put the chest holster back on, but only from the back. When he turned, even the size of the twin Manticores and the knife on his chest couldn't disguise the white block text that fearlessly spelled the title "LOCAL REGIME CHANGER RUINS EVERYTHING" across Jer's torso.

"Ready. Hey, Bianca." Jericho turned to face the owl Faunus, so that the message on his chest bored into her eyes, but when he picked up the Atlesian duffel bags - revealing the words "FOR USE ON FURRIES" - his voice was casual, almost gentle. "You're gonna do great. Just remember what we've worked on in Practice. I have earpieces in here for all of us if you need to keep in contact. Any of you."

He looked around at all of them. His mouth was set in a straight line, but its corners threatened to smile.

"We have a Waffletopia on Baron Street, back in Atlas, that we like to go to after missions. They do a discount if you show up whenever the sun is down or if you look like you're on ecstasy. It's pretty great, for food someone else makes. Do they have Waffletopia in Vale?"

...

"Do...you guys eat waffles?"

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

VIVE

The four girls had each found a different use for the time they were spending waiting outside the airship. None of them were asleep, although most of the team probably wished the opposite was the case. It was Viv, awake, alert, and almost wary, who held the rest of her team to a strict command: when the team from Vale showed up, exhausted and bedraggled, they would be the definitions of poise and control. Three of those definitions, having been robbed of their beauty rest, quickly devolved into restlessness. Veronique Pressman's feet were crossed at the ankles, splotches of ink occasionally soaring up and cresting against her cheeks and nose to join the freckles there as she scribbled. Her buds were practically fused into her ears. Iris Fouquet was reading brochures for mountaineering trips along the treacherous coast of Old Mantle. Evangeline Sparr had parked in Viv's lap, braced by the team leader's reluctant hands on her sides as she continued her...

Interrogation.

"Viv, I've been thinking."

"Please get off of me."

"Don't you think they need a better term for UFOs?"

Even the other girls turned their head at that one, curious what the girl with the eggplant-colored hair and the bruised eggplant for a brain had to say on this particular topic.

"No."

"Well, think about it, Viv. What about them is really unidentified? We know they're shaped like cigars or saucers, don't we? Really, they look like submarines if you look at videos. Who says we didn't just take them and turn them into submarines? They're cigar shaped too, right?"

"We don't know if they're alien craft," Viv said wearily, as if answering the question directly would defuse her best friend's stupidity before the sparks began to shower from her cranium. "That's why they're unidentified."

"But they have several possible identities. If we have a series of hypotheses on what the flying objects could be, then at the very least we should be able to ascertain that they are, at minimum, flying craft. Just like we don't call a murderer an 'unidentified killer person,' do we? Just like we know they were killed by a person, we know a UFO is some form of craft. Making them identified in a sense, right, Viv?"

Vivianne blinked in surprise. In the darkness of the 3:00 AM hour, Evan's bright red eyes shone with curiosity - and a hint of steel.

"...I suppose that's one way to look at it," she said begrudgingly. "What brought this on?"

"Oh, I've just been thinking, Viv," Evan replied brightly, and after that she returned to nuzzling her team leader, head tucked underneath Vivianne's strongly-set chin. Veronique's eyebrows raised as her mouth set in tight amusement, and she returned to her notepad. Her sharp-featured expression was all the comment she needed to make.

Until she commented.

"You know nobody else in the world is going to be awake and functioning for a pre-dawn hit, right?" she asked the team leader bluntly. "Nobody else operates on Paranoid Cokehead Standard."

"You might think so. You'd be wrong again, bitch," Viv replied. "Our support team is captained by the Atlesian."

A pair of groans rang out from two of her subordinates.

"I saw him in combat class," Pressman protested. "He's an asshole. They probably unleash him on poor people for fun up there, those evil fucks."

"He turned into a girl in Gym," Evan mused. "First he wasn't sexy, then he was, Viv. I was confused."

"I've never seen him not look sexy." Iris grinned and made a show of licking her lips at Evan. "You're missing out on half the fun."

"He's probably a Ken doll. When he's close enough to seduce you, his programming tells him to kill. They didn't design him to actually have to fuck," Pressman mused. "Shoot your shot, Iris. Here he comes."

Viv would have taken much more satisfaction in being right if she hadn't shared a similar loathing for the boy that approached them. He had his own pair of earphones in, a pair of wireless buds that would have been hidden in his long hair were it not for their metallic sheen. His walk was brisk, like he'd been impatient for the mission to start himself. More infuriatingly, it made Viv feel as though they were the ones who were holding him up, even though they had set a hard deadline for 4:00 AM and VIVE had all assembled at the airship forty five minutes in advance. As far as she could tell, the Atlesian had come alone. He beheld all four of them, head bobbing slightly. Viv realized that he still had music playing.

She calmed herself with a low breath.

"Hello," she greeted him with cold courtesy. "I am Vivianne. I hope we work well together."

His head was still bobbing. Left and right, subtly. He hadn't stopped his music.

"Hello?"

Why wasn't he stopping his fucking music? Was something wrong with him? Could she be too quiet? No.

Jericho Piper was staring right at her. With all the lights on Beacon's helipad, one could be forgiven for thinking it was three hours later than it was. There was no way he was ignorant of her. This was just ignoring her.

Fuck's sake, he's even mouthing fucking lyrics.

Right at her face! She would be convinced it was mocking her if his face wasn't so damn expressionless. Was he retarded? His gaze had drifted away from Viv and Evan (who looked at the Gold Stripe expectantly, as if waiting for him to start shooting at random and growing curious at the prospect) and towards another member of the team.

The only other member who wore earbuds like himself. Viv felt her stomach and heart clench with fury. To say something would be to let the fascist cocksucker assert control over her team to fit his whims, but if he just kept standing there, she would wind up beheading him. Such an outcome would help nobody.

"Pressman, take those earbuds out."

Veronique Pressman's head snapped up, elfin eyes indignant.

"What, are you fucking serious?" she snapped. "I'm centering myself!"

Jericho Piper raised his hands to waist level and snapped, too. Fingers left, fingers right, fingers left, fingers right. His mouth refused to even twitch; his commitment to getting under the skin of each Mistralian girl was unfailing, even though he was meeting with mixed success. Evan had a goofy grin on her face as always, and Iris had clearly found some measure of rhythm in his motions. She mimicked them, throwing in her own finger snaps and an occasional slap on one toned, tanned thigh. Pressman hesitated, mouth curling upwards in a snarl, before she finally relented and pulled her buds out from her ears. Jericho didn't, but he instantly stopped all movement and turned his attention back to Viv.

"Team VIVE. It's nice to finally meet you. have one question," he said suddenly, speaking for the first time. His sudden turn to all business had been brusque, but at least it beat him goofing off and making the girls look like idiots.

Asshole. What does he mean, finally?

"Everything should have been in your briefing, if you read it."

"I read it on my run this morning. It was vague. What do you want crippled? The whole product? Personnel or warehouse? Are we going in light or heavy?"

Evangeline looked up at Viv expectantly, eyes wide. Viv was a second too slow in answering, mind racing to calculations even as--

"Heavy!" Evan burst out. Jericho focused his attention on her for the first time for a second before he turned to leave them, just as unceremoniously as he'd asked his question.

"That's up for discus--" she started, but of course he cut her off. Chauvinist fucking asshole. Fucking fascist. And Evan, his willing collaborator, seduced by the pair of firearms holstered to his chest. Her treachery was in the fucking blood.

"Okay," he said simply. "Heavy. Forty minutes. I'll be back."

Before the eyes of the team, he just...started to walk away. Iris began to laugh incredulously. Evan went a step further, lifting a finger gun and yelling out, "Hasta la vista, baby!" but Jericho didn't turn to acknowledge it.

Viv looked down at her mutinous best friend.

"Traitor," she grumbled.

"Grumpster." Evangeline Sparr beamed. "I like him. We're friends now."

---

@Write @HereComesTheSnow @FlitterFaux

Holy crap.

Did that just happen?

The absolute state of transfer students.

Jericho grinned as he maneuvered through Beacon's dormant hallways. In a few hours, the majority of the teams would be mobilizing for their missions, but missions required sleep and preparation. Those who weren't indulging the former would no doubt be engaged in the latter, meaning no one would be able to catch Jer expressing his pleasure with how easily his character assessment of the four girls had gone. It was hard to imagine those four princesses as his backup aboard the yacht last weekend.

For the first time in his life, he appreciated Bianca Nuit for being alive.

The second time came a minute later, after he made sure to wipe the smug smile off his face before entering his dorm. The bathroom door was closed and another bed was unoccupied, particularly the one that was most suited to a winged occupant. Bianca was no doubt showering and doing her makeup, which was just fine in Jer's book. It meant he had a few more minutes to prepare before he talked to her.

He thought he'd entered the dorm quietly, but there was no telling whether or not Bianca had heard him enter or whether she had noticed his bed was empty. She had to have. On at least one occasion he had felt a stare aimed at his bed from the direction of hers, but it couldn't be helped. The alternative was sleeping with a shirt on, which was inconceivable and uncomfortable. His mole would have been appalled.

Reaching under his bed, he half expected to feel the hair of the mole in question, camped underneath his mattress awaiting deployment orders. But there was no hair, nor the telltale grab of his fingers before he could extract them from her range. He didn't hear the telltale munching of her foraging for snacks, either. All Jer felt was a duffel bag.

That'd have to do.

He pulled the bag out and placed it upon his bed before walking over to the floorboards he'd uprooted on his first afternoon in the dorm. He began foraging himself - this time for the guns he deemed appropriate for 'heavy.'

The ones he couldn't pack, he would probably have time to dismantle now and rebuild on the plane, right...?

Fate/Italian job - Roman Holy Grail War

Zero Hour - Day 1

The acolyte dragged behind his mentor by four paces, fascinated with every treasure – real or imagined – that the Church held near to its chest.

While it would be rational to assume that this amazement was a madness that possessed many younger clergymen, Giuseppe Pelagatti knew that whatever madness gripped the boy behind him could never be tempered by experience. The acolyte, who was born with the name of Francesco Atra, had been a thorn in Pelagatti’s side since the day he had been sworn into the Assembly of the Eighth Sacrament. He had a talent and a reverence for the artifacts that fell under the Assembly’s purview, but such qualifications went without saying for every clergyman that swore to uphold their sub-agency’s sacred trust; such qualifications were also where the patience of Cardinal Pelagatti, who stood 42nd in rank among the Church and thus stood ironically fitting to head the Assembly, wore thin with the flighty young man. Though he looked local, with a shock of swoopy blonde hair and bright eyes that stuck out among the lifelessness of the veteran clergy, Francesco had done nothing but gawk around the Church like a tourist. He would dress the part too, often sporting the bizarre regalia of wherever he had just arrived from. Recently he had traveled across the Atlantic on Church business and had returned sporting a long beach, cerulean-and-gold towel with emblems of an American basketball team festooned across its surface. He preferred to wear it as a shroud, wielding that comparison to such a holy garment like an excuse.

The young man’s oddities made explaining the gravity of the upcoming situation even more difficult.

“Francesco.” The Italian name did not flow elegantly from the cardinal’s lips. His voice was thin and reedy, and didn’t carry well in the bowels of the Church’s vaults, so even Atra began to quicken his pace to keep up. “You were not present when we first retrieved the artifact five years ago.”

“Not quite, Your Eminence,” Francesco replied, now dragging behind Pelagatti’s hurried steps by only a single pace. “I was probably traveling somewhere at the time, knowing me. I’ve read up on it since, though. The Holy Grail—”

“—the artifact—”

His Eminence, Giuseppe Cardinal Pelagatti, delivered the correction swiftly and brutally.

“—The Holy Grail,” Francesco insisted cheerfully, “was discovered five years ago in the trophies of a certain tycoon. Most of it was junk, tourist trash, like all of my favorite stuff is. Maybe there was something that could have served as a catalyst or two out in the Far East, but mostly junk. Until something happened out in the Far East, right? The old Grail was destroyed by magi, and then the one here kicked in?”

Kicked in, thought Cardinal Pelagatti. Sweet Father, have mercy on us all.

“Isn’t that the gist of it, Your Eminence?” Francesco insisted. His superior gave a begrudging nod.

“We learned thus not long after the events you describe. The artifact here was dormant for years, a trinket among many, until this year. This is around when you joined us, so no reading should have been required for you to understand our present…situation. You helped to secure the Grail, yes?”

Francesco Atra looked absurdly proud to have been recognized by a cardinal of such eminence, and he nodded with puppy-like eagerness. The motion only emphasized the flapping and billowing of his towel when Pelagatti opened a very particular door on the right-hand side of a very particular hallway; the vaults were stuffy and rarely explored, so a draft of wind was a rare treat for those clergy who kept their custody. Francesco couldn’t help but peek around the door to check if she was still there.

The 727th Holy Grail. The true Holy Grail. He just knew it.

“She is still right where we left her,” Francesco said proudly. “You didn’t have to come all this way to ascertain that, Your Eminence. I could have told you that myself, or one of the others who helped me set stuff up. Nobody is laying hands on her without us knowing.”

The use of gendered pronouns for an artifact of any kind was clearly grating on Giuseppe Cardinal Pelagatti, but he swallowed his tongue this time as he admitted that the Grail did seem to be secure. Normally, he would have taken a more veteran member of the Church to help, but Francesco had done the lion’s share of the work on securing the Grail for the Assembly after its activation, and such were the Church’s defenses that it seemed even the Mage’s Association of London was choosing not to get involved. Such an action was wise on their parts, for it would not do to have the Grail molested, but even so, their inaction was well-understood among clergy gossip due to fear of the risks involved in obtaining the Grail from the heart of the Church. Such a fear was well-founded mainly due to the diligence of Francesco and other young acolytes like him. In that spirit, the cardinal had thought to bring the young Father Atra along to get his measure, acquire a sense of perspective on the young man’s talents.

Unfortunately, the boy was a savant. Pelagatti was thoroughly unimpressed. He was one step above what the younger clergy called a…

Fanboy.

Yes, that was exactly what he was. Francesco Atra was a fanboy.

As Pelagatti watched the young man grin lovingly into the storage room like an idiot, another realization struck him. There were seven magi out there, somewhere in the world, who the Church knew to have acquired markings akin to those of the magi in the Far East, who had fought to the death as champions of their own wishes. There was a very real possibility that a Holy Grail War would spark here, right in the heart of the Vatican. For their line of defense to be staffed by callow boys such as this…

“Your Eminence? Everything seems alright with her. Why are you staring? Do you smell something funny? Is there a rat in the room somewhere? I can ask. Hellooooo? Is there a rat in here? It’s okay if there is!”

We will just need more lines of defense, then.

Fate/Italian job - Roman Holy Grail War

Goofed up a couple of the names, so here's another tag for you: @HereComesTheSnow @XmasForJuan

Fate/Italian job - Roman Holy Grail War

@Reflection @Black Keys @Red Alice @CarbinatedDream @Kaithas @Lazo @Krayzikk @Abillioncats @Dealdric @floodtalon @Froppy @Seirei No Hai @Crimmy

discord.gg/8KAtfrn

Hop in! If your nickname is different from your Guild username, be sure to change your nickname in the server so that everyone knows who you are.

Fate/Italian job - Roman Holy Grail War

@Plank Sinatra@Crimmy

Should we be expecting a discord or some such, or will the OOC and Guild PMs be our main method of communication for the RP?

I'm personally fine with either, just curious.

@Red Alice

Good question. I’ve been meaning to set a Discord up anyway, so this will give me an excuse. I’ll post the invite link here later this afternoon.

Fate/Italian job - Roman Holy Grail War

GM CHARACTERS

A Certain Variegated Pseudepigraphum [Toaru/Raildex RPG]

@Krayzikk @Crimmy

"When da fook was I gonna fill ya in?" Brennan shot back, face scrunching up as though he'd taken offense to something Umeko suggested. Clearly the idea that he was keeping his girlfriend in the dark about his actions and intentions was as personally wounding as it was true. His pout was deep and expressive. "Last night you were in a shit mood 'n' wanted to play with da action figures. So I letcha. Dis morn we went right over to da bank after groceries. I toldja 'bout as quick as I coooould."

Fucking justice. It always made her cross her legs and pout like that when she thought it wasn't being respected. Brennan whipped out his phone and began typing the name the banker had given him into the search bar of his mobile browser.

"Now we're on da same page. We can be joostice together."

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Krayzikk @Kaithas @NaraK

Or nah?

The young bull's nostrils flared. Amy's absence, while not noteworthy enough by itself to warrant any real concern, had nonetheless thrown a wrench into the team's highly coordinated, well-oiled dinner machine. Soon enough, the post-class traffic would give way to rush hour traffic, and then the whole team would be stuck together far longer than any of them actually wanted to be.

Well, except for Cap. Or Amy. Or Sangue, but she didn't know any better.

The team would be fine sticking together until they had to work out a schedule for who got to keep her when. If they couldn't even keep a schedule for something they all universally needed like delicious, middle-of-the-road expensive fast food, forbidden fruit like Lauren would result in a downright fucking cataclysm of the team's time management. Amy Desire's procrastination was fucking with the whole team dynamic.

To: Cap, Am, Snek
From: Baby Black Panther
Message: Bitch. You fucking lackadaisical fucking op. Or nah ain't an option when food on the line. We're all starving out here on burger night and you got all of us out here fucked up. Fix your shit Chik-fil-Amy. Get to the dorm! Or you're buying!!

bloop
bloop

The incoming message notification hit the Scrolls of the team members who actually knew how to attend team meetings!

Fate/Italian job - Roman Holy Grail War

I managed to convince someone to master Berserker last night so the Serker sheet should come in sometime this weekend if not sooner.

@Red Alice

Awesome. Shoot it over to me when you're finished.