Chevaleresse

"Well, we've got this far. . ." She still didn't like this, but wasn't one to give up on something halfway through. . . even if that something involved creepy convoy men (what was his name again?), creepier labyrinths, and weird, unknown magical effects. "If I get turned into a chicken or somethin', though, I'm shitting in your shoes."

"Ya could start explainin' what's goin' on any time, yaknow." Myrdwyn was quite leery of this entire thing. Magic didn't bother her a ton as long as someone wasn't trying to teach her how to do it, but this was the spooky kind of magic you heard in campfire tales and stuff. Glowing magic orbs and dark passageways in creepy houses. . . Though that kind of thing also showed up in stories about heroes and such, so who knew? The die could land on a good result here. She proceeded down the stairs, still acting as if the orb could bite her at any time.

Morgan, looking more than a tad out of breath, picked a tree that was both near them and far away from the rest of the group that they could feel mildly comfortable while still remaining in sight. The night had been. . . interesting. All these shadowy figures, and actually practicing magic for once. But then, they were probably never going to see their home again. . . Hopefully the bugs she took care of would be okay. At least there would be no more lectures about centipedes in the house.

D11 longbow mage

Lucine wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that. Strictly speaking, she was a form of artificial intelligence; while she ate, breathed, and bled like a human, those were analogues to the processes that they went through, not identical ones. "I mean, they're not ALL terrible. . . Tiffany at least was just trying to be nice." She doubted he'd meant anything by it, but it did sting a bit, especially since she'd met other homunculi that had been programmed, rather than taught as she was - not to say she was the only homunculus capable of learning, but most of them were built for a purpose and had that encoded in their beings from the start.

"It's usually the other way around, but I'll do my best." He decided to stay and scope the place out a bit longer. Almost immediately, he noted something out of the ordinary. Not much, really, a streetlight that was out of order. . . but hey, the last time he'd seen something break down it had a WWW ghost Navi inside it as well as one of those keys. It was worth checking out. "Are you certain that's a good idea, Mitsuru?" The PET's display lit up with Score's face, wearing a dubious expression. "It's just a maintenance port." Mitsuru moved to the broken lamp and jacked in.

Marisa smiled, and then nodded. "I don't see why not. Time's a bit screwy when you're skipping around on the planes, yeah, but it's still a date." Huh. She hadn't expected to get started on this sort of thing so quickly, really. Maybe easing into it, finding a few people to hang out with for more than once every. . . well, they'd just established time was odd, but she'd been a drifter for a very long time. Lots of acquaintances, but nobody all that close since she'd been to hell. She winced a bit, remembering the experience. She really needed to track those guys down for her own sake. Thanks to that Laver kid, she didn't hate them any more, but. . . Still, that was another thing. This, this was a new beginning for her. "I'm looking forward to it."

Kusuke, for his part, was glaring at another Magic Element motor. Sure, he'd gotten the trick down to making it. . . but he still couldn't find any damned way to get the things to turn off when he wanted to. Not that he was worried about them running out of fuel, but a constantly-running motor was inconvenient in so many ways. Nevermind the inability to adjust the output, though he hadn't even really attempted to incorporate that functionality. Maybe he'd ask Satomi about it later, try and teach her the principles. She was actually an engineer of some variety, she could probably figure it out. . .

"Do you even know who and what you're talking to, rat? I channel the Second AND the Third Magics, I could fry you-" Lucine hit Opal again. "No you couldn't, you need me to do anything but float around and be useless!" "I don't need you, I could contract with whoever I wanted!" "No you couldn't, nobody else has compatible circuits!" "Watch me!" The box attempted to fly off, only to be reeled in my Lucine once again, rapped against the ground for good measure, and then zipped into her backpack. The occasional muffled taunt or insult emanated from the bag, but it seemed the Kaleidostick wasn't capable of generating enough force to resist much of anything imposed upon it. "I'm sorry, Law, Opal is just. . . terrible. I think there's a glitch in her personality, somewhere. Father didn't want to work all that closely with the golemancers. . ."

Fountain in the courtyard. . . ? She'd passed it on the way in, but hadn't really noticed it. Or much of anything, really, she was far more concerned with finding a quiet place to rest. Not that she'd been particularly successful in that regard (and she still wanted to just go and take a nap,) but she supposed this conversation wasn't the worst possible alternative. Her brow furrowed. A steel shell, paper, and plastic was all well and good, but unless it was some sort of high-grade polymer. . . "How, um, did you get it to hold together? Dumpster plastic, um, isn't usually very um, structurally sound."

Ruler "I see." And then silence. She sounded honest enough, but mages were duplicitous types. There was no way to know for sure. She supposed she could wait until she met this brother of hers. . . for now, she'd have to trust Erica. After a while, she did speak up again. "We should go into the city and look for more Servants."

"Oh." She frowned. Was he actually afraid of her? She didn't think she was particularly intimidating, but then Law was like a foot and a half tall. "I was just wondering." "Oh, now you've really got her mad. You'd better fess up, weasel boy!" "Opal, what are you even talking about? I'm not angry." "She's lying, if you don't apologize right now she's gonna turn you into-" Whatever Law was supposed to be turned into would have to be left to his imagination, as Lucine battered Opal downward before the imitation Kaleidostick could finish the sentence. "Why are you like this?!"

"Oh, him? Kid looked like that when I found 'em. If I meant him any harm, he wouldn't be alive to look so pathetic." He shrugged. "And yeah. I ain't here to lose my head over a miracle that probably doesn't exist. Whenever anyone tells you they've got that kinda thing for ya, you'd best start checkin' for poisoned needles, or worse. I ain't a good man, but I am one of my word; I promise ya, as soon as Min bites it, I'm done with the war. You can count on it." Since they seemed to have actually reached a point of ceasing hostilities, he holstered the gun, and pulled out an entirely different device; his lighter. Karsten shuffled back a bit to get out of the rain, withdrew a cigar, and lit it, taking a deep breath of it (with another somewhat dissatisfied expression) before continuing. "Damned waste of money. This Min's a drug dealer, and not the kind that sells weed to teenagers on the corner. Don't know what Servant he's got, yet, but I've got some favors to call in; one of 'em might get em that info."

Karsten nodded. "Man named Min. Not a nice one, either. There's a good amount of cash available if he stops usin' up oxygen sometime soon, if you get the picture." So she was another mage hunter, interesting. Sanctioned. . . Well, he couldn't say he had any special qualification himself, he wasn't exactly an Enforcer. "Association's not the only one that wants him dead, either. As to our actual arrangement, way I see it, we can do this a couple different ways. First way's the simplest; I go my way, you go yours, and if we meet again, we ignore each other. You get one less person to deal with, I get the same thing. Or, we could work together to kill off this bastard. Your choice."

Get into position, but don't attack yet. Try to put the kid somewhere he can't run away, I'm not convinced he knows what's good for him. He didn't lower his weapon quite yet. "Only if I know you're not gonna be sendin' any swords in my direction in the near future. Civility's all well and good, but havin' a neck's better, in my personal opinion." Still, after a moment, he lowered the weapon. Karsten didn't holster the firearm, of course, so this mage wasn't a whole lot safer for him doing so, but it was a gesture of good faith nonetheless. "And speakin' of necks, I'm only out for one here. I ain't much interested in this Grail nonsense, but I do need to put a man in the ground, so I figure we can work somethin' out to our mutual benefit."

Lucine glanced at Law curiously. "What was that last part again? I didn't catch it," she said inquiringly. The little weasel. . . otter. . . person thing was interesting, he seemed to really know his way around things. That metal he used was interesting, too. She wondered if she could get him to collaborate with her more in the future.

M9

Kusuke stopped dead for a moment at the comment on getting him alone, and then made a strangled noise at the comment about tapping him. There was no way she actually meant that, right? And talking about all the unique things he could do, that could be interpreted. . . a lot of ways. His face colored as he tried to locate a suitable response to Satomi; his consternation was plainly visible. He coughed, then made some attempt at speaking again. "Uhm, yeah, I'll just follow you over there." Despite his words, he fairly quickly began moving in the direction indicated, avoiding eye contact with the samurai.

Mitsurugi "Thank you," the goddess said, bowing her head politely as she took the proffered crystals. "Share energy? It sounds remarkably similar to faith, would I be wrong in assuming they are of the same nature?" She couldn't say she'd heard of condensed faith, unless one counted an individual that was fortunate as she was and possessed a physical (in a loose sense) body of their own. And if it was made by condensing faith gathered by a goddess or her priests, that meant Spicy had to be one of those two. Perhaps that was the cause of her nervousness? Not all gods were fond of competition; an attitude Mitsurugi herself had always found somewhat silly. The Yaoyorozu no Kami were not the sorts that required exclusive faith, and so she found it rather unnecessary to demand such a thing.

"Sure." He was glad to finally have tracked down Satomi - or rather, Satomi had tracked him down, but the distinction was moot - so he could put this damned engine down. "I managed to work out something for you to use later, by the way. I remembered the trick to Magic Element engines. . . though, uh, I did forget how to turn them off. Still, I figured you could use it." He tapped the engine he carried under one arm with the other, as the cylinder sticking out the end continued to spin. "Where to first?"

Karsten The assassin was already on the move, not wanting to remain in place while a mage cast spells to bombard him with. Sure enough, more swords presented themselves; he had just enough time to roll behind a car before the shadowy blades embedded themselves in the thing. Wonder if insurance covers that. He continued to move, circling around and slowly approaching the place he'd fired on initially. He cast out a web of his own magic, mumbling an incantation under his breath. A web of bluish lines appeared in his minds eye, circling about the cars nearby, the pile of powder he'd tossed, and all around the environment. There. A shift in the lines, a person-sized disturbance. Not much metal on whoever it was, except one bigger one; a sword, judging by their current mode of attack. "Don't suppose we can work this out without continuin' to try and kill each other, can we?" He was already moving toward her position, gun at the ready; he wasn't going to try and start negotiations without having an out if they broke down.

Kyou cursed out loud at the results of her action; technically she was impeding the motion of Asuka's EVA now, but not nearly in the way she'd intended. . . Still, may as well try to make the best of the situation. Crash tried to focus on holding down whatever part of Unit 02 was convenient, perhaps with the occasional punch if she saw the opportunity.

The force on her brought Lyssa back to rationality, or at least close enough to realize that her current course would lead to a rather unproductive death. "But, we can't just, they, they fucking. . . !" The Faunus continued to sputter for a bit in mostly-incomprehensible rage, wrenching herself free of Embla's grasp. She still seemed on the edge of rushing after the beasts again, but seemed to at least for the moment be stuck in a loop of pacing back and forth, the occasional spark still jumping across Breaker Keuranos or over the length of a limb. Eventually, her sputtering devolved into her mouth simply working soundlessly as she tried to dispel enough of the mixture of battle rage and genuine anger to be useful going forward..

Hiroki, Lena, Gozer & Dackly "It's, um, not just tournament matches, um, there are actual fights too. I, um, never really did that, though." An Incorruptus? From what she was saying, it sounded somewhat similar to a mech, with a rather more dramatic name. Incorruptus, unbroken. Or, if it was named by people speaking English, closer to "pure, lacking corruption." The latter was a strange way to refer to a fighting machine; it must be the former. "Um, a raccoon. . .? How does um, that work?"

He shrugged. "No idea, honestly. A couple of them seemed to be a little shifty, they're probably more interested in the prize. Part of me wants to just let 'em have it, honestly. Not sure that having terrorists trying to kill me is worth all that money."