[IC] Tengoku no Owari CT, Chapter 1.2

[Zetaark]

"Looks like we're doing card game shenanigans again," Sasha remarks as she notes the creatures coming around and the words which reminded her of a previous encounter. Summoning her bike in gear, she tries to ride past Pauline, though also making note to try and avoid some of the buildings. She's not entirely sure what those marks are, but she'd rather not run into them carelessly.

 

"Remind me to check the rules of this game later. I feel like it might make life easier somehow."

[StormLord]

"WHAT.  THE FUCK."

Owen shouts back at his teammates, he wasn't even that worried about the weird knight thing he was fighting.  More what bizarre bullshit he was going to have to deal with next.  Either way he had to focus entirely on not getting hit at this point.

 

Owen uses the 2 to dodge and obliterates the first 1.

He also wishes for Theurgia to stay put and quick teleporting around.

[Ragnarok97071]

"IS THIS AN ONGOING ISSUE, THEN? IN THAT CASE, I WILL MAKE SURE TO REMIND YOU. IN ADDITION, THERE IS AN ENEMY WITHIN THE BUILDING AHEAD OF US. IT IS ABOUT TO ATTACK. TAKING EVASIVE ACTION."

 

And so Chise increases her movement speed, pulling out every ounce of explosive movement she can out of her belts, rapidly changing direction, swinging off of objects, and generally endeavoring to be extremely hard to target.

 

DODGE.

[Empiricist]

Spoiler

Chise : 4
Immanuel : 5, Hyper[4]
Marina : 4
Owen : 2
Sasha : 4
 
Unidentified Card Caller : 5

 

The bomb detonates, Immanuel and Marina riding the shockwave. Liquid bayonets streak through the air like beams of light, the pair weaving between them. Immanuel spins around, dual handguns sweeping streams of plasma before Paulina's approach. Seeing her chance, Sasha sweeps behind the Ruin Knight as Marina closes in, hammer in hand. Paulina stretches out its hand, flames roaring outwards against the weapon's approach, but to no avail, as Marina shatters its arm. It did not need to stop the attack however, it simply had to stall. It was a split-second, a brief moment of deceleration that left the girl wide open for the next volley, a lance of molten metal piercing her sternum and forcing her backwards.

 

Chise, you have more pressing concerns, namely the Ruin Knight phasing right out the building, lunging for your throat. With explosive force, you throw yourself out the way, your assailant's lunge turning into a dive as it accelerates towards the safety of the ground. As you re-anchor to a wall, you find Paulina's sigils intruding, or at least, attempting to. You keep little from your conquests, a fond memory of conquest, a banquet of souls down your gullet, fleeting sensations, hazy memories, nothing concrete. Your possessions are few, but what's yours, are yours, and what you take, you keep. And as the sigils soon find, you will not relinquish them easily.

 

Their intrusion halts, fruitless.

 

Owen, it was a good try. But it seems this girl's powers aren't all-encompassing, your wish fizzles, dimming to naught like any other in the face of an uncaring world. As your dart back, your foot lands on one of the many circles, and the next thing you feel is the Ruin Knight driving its blade in your spine. That hurt, but this could be an opportunity... it's close, close enough to touch, just a few more steps, just a swing of your arm, and your can give that son of a bitch a taste of lightning.

 

Sasha, you think you know what's happening now, it's a feeling, the faintest of instincts, a fleeting thought yet to crystallize to words, an exclamation still unformed. Before you can say it, you hear it, everyone hears it, thundering in their ears. It is the voice of God, radiant, resplendent, rapturous. The maddening mandate of the heavens. It grabs your attention, and it wrenches, and wrenches it hard. The world spins and turns, your vision shifting in a direction with no name.

 

Imagine you're standing on a pane of glass suspended above the ground. Imagine then that some fucking asshole proceeded to then build a machinegun nest on that pane of glass, and that you would really much rather be on the ground below, than standing on the glass. Now imagine that you didn't know you were standing on that glass because you had a stroke or something and forgot that you could look down and all you knew was that suddenly there's a machinegun firing at you. That, was your position, more or less. Except y'know, there's two panes of glass, and everything is one dimension higher.

 

Yeah, you're all stuck in a paracosm, a constructed reality bristling with hostile magic circles, overlayed ontop of a second paracosm, overlayed ontop of  the real world, with all this fuckery hidden in some fourth dimension that shouldn't even exist. Well now you're aware, so the solution is simple: you smash your way out, you level enough firepower against the damn glass and break your way through.

 

Okay so, as it stands, the magic circles are now focusing fire on Chise, starting with explosions aimed at her anchor points and followed by volleys of liquid metal bayonets aimed to strike her as she falls. Paulina meanwhile chases after Marina, aiming to run her through with its lance and/or catch her with its sigils as it adopts a sweeping trajectory that sends it smashing through the building beside it, Theurgia meanwhile traces its path with its beams along that same building's edifice while it continues to y'know try to shank Owen more

 

Spoiler

Chise

Status: Fine

World Line: 6 1 4 6 2 2 3 4 2 2

Alterations: 5

Resolve: 1

 

Immanuel
Status: Somewhat hurt, a bit woozy from the morphine and unaffected by pain, Hecatus Install - Cu Chulainn Henshin, wishes for increased speed and maneuvering thrusters
World Line: 6 4 6 6 4 1 6 5 1 3
Alterations: 3+
Resolve: 1
 
Marina
Status: Quite hurt, False Install - Kingmaker's Mantle, wish for wings
World Line: 6 4 3 6 3 1 3 2 5 1
Alterations: 3+
Resolve: 2

 

Owen
Status:Somewhat hurt
World Line: 4 3 2 1 3 3 1 6 5 2
Alterations: 3+
Resolve: 3

 

Sasha

Status: Fine

World Line: 3 4 4 3 3 4 3 6 3 2

Alterations: 5

Resolve: 3

 

Unidentified Card Caller

Status: Unknown

 

Ruin Knight Paulina

Status: Missing an arm, diagrams are spreading across the street and along a building

 

Ruin Knight Theurgia

Status: Fine, two lines of circles going down the street, one line of circles cutting across the street, circles surrounding Owen

 

Ruin Knight Goetia

Status: Fine

Spoiler

Putting this in Fate terms which I've a feeling is more familiar for some of you, you're inside a double-nested reality marble and need to physically smash your way out.

 

On the off-chance that Owen's fizzle wasn't an intentional RP case of him not knowing how Marina's powers work IC, I'll make the reminder that Marina can only grant wishes that affect the person directly, meaning the only cases she can really directly curse or debuff someone is if they themselves wished for it to happen.

 

[IntSys]

As the words of God wrestled with her momentarily-fleeting consciousness, Marina began to see clear again. She did not need to see herself coughing out blood after getting the once-in-a-lifetime sternum penetration that she never asked for, yet she did.  She was now flying away from Paulina, who was closing up with her for a finishing blow. That clearly needed to be taken care of, and fast.

 

Marina propelled herself back towards Paulina, and, as the two got dangerously close, she fired off a series of Repelling Bursts and sent her flying into the building she was moving along with. Then finally, Marina launched her sledgehammer at Paulina to wrap things up.

And only then, did she realize that getting a molten metal pole through her nonexistent chest hurt like hell. "M-Make it stop-" She muttered with a coarse voice. She landed on the streets and took a bit of time to wish for her wounds to recover. In meantime, she hatched a new plan. A plan to get out.

 

In theatrical terms, Marina needed to break the "fourth wall". And perhaps, she was already halfway there. She kept a close eye on Paulina, as she started to go down on her small list of possible solutions, starting with "literally wishing for the ability to open up a convenient wormhole that will take her through two paracosms and into the real world."

 

 

Using the rightmost 3 for a Repelling Burst.

[Ragnarok97071]

Chise considers for a moment.

 

They had been trapped in a contained dimensional space which prevented egress and limited their escape vectors, attempting to entrap them. A hallmark of prey.

 

Prey she had designed herself to kill.

 

The belts once again fly free, having had permission previously to unbind herself and the encounter technically having not ended before this one had begun, thus meaning the permission remained. Then, she began to emit blasts of plasma to maneuver rather than simply swinging, replacing the disruptable method of locomotion with simple physics, sending herself rocketing around the arena and slowly but steadily painting the world in her colors, not the enemy's, hopefully while keeping their attention on them the whole time.

 

True False God, Begin Evasive Maneuvers and focus on spreading Invasion.

[Yours Truly]

Meanwhile, Immanuel promptly decides that this is a dumb card game that he really can't be bothered to learn the rules of or play, and crafts another railgun before he dives the fuck down and starts hammering away at the very floor of this dimension to shatter it into tiny little pieces.

 

Immanuel uses that one railgun hyper to make one, and attempts to break a hole leading the fuck out of these overlapping dimensions with his 6.

[Zetaark]

"Oh what kind of multilayered crap is this?" Sasha groans after seeing what sort of situation the group is in. Luckily, Immanuel seems to be trying to make an out, so Sasha decides to provide some cover so that the others can do their thing.

 

Rapid shot [3] the bayonet volley and attempt to speed into Pauline with the mighty bike, ducking a bit to prevent sweeping shenanigans.

[StormLord]

Spoiler

Shitty post is shitty

 

Owen uses the 4 to shank Theurgia right back and obliterates the first 1.

He wishes to know what's going on with these weird card-game rules.(seriously I'm at a loss)

[Empiricist]

Spoiler

Chise : 6, Hyper[R]
Immanuel : 6, Hyper[4]
Marina : 6, Hyper[3]
Owen : 4
Sasha : 4, Hyper[3]
 
Unidentified Card Caller : 3

 

Marina spins through the air, her wings spreading open to decelerate as she turns to face her pursuer. With a hard flap she launches herself right at them. Now a problem with fancy sweepy glowy sigil beams, is that your opponent knows exactly where it is and where it will be; Marina's explosions have no such weakness and as she approaches the danger zone, she peels to the side, grazing just past the expanding sigils as she unleashes her attack - a series of close ranged explosions. Her attack seems to burn with runic fire as it unleashes, but thanks to her totally fair and objectively much funner house rules of "go fuck yourself", her foe finds itself incapable of fully negating the attack and finds itself crashing deeper into the building.

 

With a final explosion Marina launches her sledgehammer forwards. A finishing blow won't be that simple though: Theurgia's beams mark objects for sacrifice, and right now it's pointing them right at the hammer. It can't negate the attack sure, it can't fully burn the hammer either sure, but if it does both, well it's still gonna be alive and kicking. That's what the plan seemed to be anyway, one thing it didn't count on - Sasha.

 

A crimson blur intercepts the hammer and like light through twisted glass the beams seem to twist away from the weapon, the weapon that was now slamming right against the  construct's side. The hammer burns, the edifice of the building burns, the walls begin to crumble. Fine, no matter. The streak of crimson seems to turn a full 270 degrees, and worse, the turn didn't seem to slow it, no, on the contrary it had accelerated  and was now coming at Ruin Knight head on.

 

The motorcycle burns, the building burns, the pavement burns. But guess what? There's not much left to burn, Paulina's shit outta fuel, and shit outta luck. The rather questionably named Scarlet Heat breaks through the flames and breaks Paulina, shattering it ever so many fading motes of light.

 

Ruin Knight Paulina is no more.

 

Well Owen, you uh, you were really hoping maybe this was like, a game of strip poker gone horribly horribly wrong. Hell not even poker, blackjack maybe, something easy, something simple, but nope, as rectangular pink lens of the weird techno-monocle slides over your left eye you find yourself staring face to face with you foe's fucking stat sheet. Okay, it's not that bad, but it's pretty fucking bad.

 

So firstly, what you see is a blue-framed card with a picture depicting your foe. Ringing the image in the eight cardinal and intercardinal directions are outward pointing arrows. North, Northeast, Northwest, and South are lit up in red, the other remain dark. Their name's at the top, Ruin Knight Theurgia, next to it is a uh, blank glitchy circle. Below the image is a description:

 

[Warrior/Link/Effect]

2+ Creatures

Whenever a zone this card points to is not occupied by a Theurgia Mark, place a Theurgia Mark on that zone. When a creature would enter a space occupied by a Theurgia Mark, Ruin Knight Theurgia can attack that creature.

 

You think it barked out that last part the first time it teleported

 

Below that is some glitchy text and something that reads LINK-4. 

 

Now you may be asking yourself, "what the flying fuck does this mean?" well don't you fucking worry, because there is where all the other goddamn pop up windows come into play with extensive rulebook extracts on what the fuck a zone is, what a "Link Creature" is, and why the fuck this even matters, not that it even does that much seeing as you also get a nice big error message ontop of the whole shebang helpfully informing you that unauthorized modifications have been made to this card, altering the specific properties of the resultant summon. In other words, whatever the hell this is, it probably doesn't follow the rules of its own game either. Wonderful.

 

It's around this point where you decide that seeing as you don't actually have time to read all this shit in the middle of a battle, you're just gonna taze the thing and run them through the chest. You do that, it goes down like a bitch. Seriously, like it takes a few tries to pierce your blade through its armored form, but it also completely fails to do anything but spasm having apparently no resistance to being repeatedly tazed.

 

Ruin Knight Theurgia is no more.

 

Chise? Sasha's bolts didn't really help you, they were sorta like those thoughts and wishes posts humans make on social media in response to any large tragedy, remember those? The ones Elly showed you? Yeah. Like it's nice, but as it turns out Sasha is more a living embodiment of various vehicle-related offences than a functional CIWS. But thankfully you didn't need it either, the shots were kinda banking on the explosions turning your swing into a drop rather than y'know, a plasma-propelled flight. Spreading your infection along the ground, you catch Goetia inside the earth. It tries to flee sure, but it seemed to only sense your presence when your Invasion brushed against it. Caging it was simple. Devouring it was simple, simple and unsatisfying. It's empty, a hollow projection sustained by something that isn't physically present. 0 Stars, would not recommend.

 

Ruin Knight Goetia is no more.

 

So with all that bullshit  going on around him Immanuel focuses instead on getting everyone the fuck out. First comes the railgun. Summoning it is easy enough. Next comes aiming it, that's a little more troublesome. You'd think that with the target being what it was, it wouldn't be a challenge to hit, and you'd be correct. The issue lay more in what happens if the barrier was, flimsy, what if the round overpenetrated. That, would be problematic, it's a busy bustling street out there. Plenty of people, plenty of cars, plenty of collateral damage potential, and you don't become a railgun toting de facto superhero without considering collateral damage. Responsible railgun disposal, that's optional, responsible railgun aiming, less so. Taking careful aim, he aims down an empty alleyway such that if the round were to say, be deflected wildly by the impact, it wouldn't hit some random civilian. He also aims it at less-than-perpendicular angle, didn't wanna risk hitting himself with a rebound if it came to that.

 

Right, moment of truth. Immanuel fires, and there's a sound like cracking glass as the round crashes through the first layer, coming to a halt in the second. For a moment, the breach holds still, a spherical wound in reality like a bullet-hole in glass raised to a full three dimensions, and then it explodes open, the world shattering apart to reveal...

 

The same fucking thing, but with less magic circles in the distance, and a noticeable absence of explosions. There's still the liquid metal bayonets, but, seeing as the constructs are dead, you guys don't have much trouble just leisurely healing up and smashing back into reality, back into the busy Sendo night life. The Card Caller is nowhere to be seen.

 

Crow will probably wanna hear about this.

 

Level Up!

Spoiler

+6 Stat Points

+1 Hyper Slot

 

Spoiler

And that's the final fight of Chapter 1! It only took us what? 11 months, a forum change, and 2 players being switched out for another 2 players in the middle of combat?

 

Also Sasha's interception didn't work out too well due to her defense stat being focused on personal and Regalia durability rather than intercepting or blocking shit. 

 

[IntSys]

"Well! That's a wrap!" Marina clapped her hands and declared victory, having just recovered from the wounds Paulina had given her. She took notice of the night sky blurred by Sendo's city lights, and then, her growling stomach. She leaned her back against an appliance store's glass display, and said, "Aren't you all starving right about now? I say we celebrate together tonight! I know a good restaurant around here!"

[Yours Truly]

Immanuel slowly floated down from the skies with his two arms outstretched, a slight glow illuminating him as his armor gradually regained some of its bulk, with his cloak seemingly repairing itself and changing from a deep shade of crimson to it's original deep blue. He was still holding the epithet card in his hands as he quickly shifted back into his usual outfit, slipping it inside of one of his suit's pocket before he said, "Geeze, aren't you at least going to ask who mister electric spear fetish over here is before you ask him out?."

[IntSys]

Marina paused for a moment, turning to look at Owen. "... Or I could get to know him better over a dining table instead! Silly you, I know how these things work," she said, sticking a tongue out playfully back at Immanuel. "So, shall we get going?"

[Empiricist]

Sometime later

Y'all work your way through the crowds and away from the pubs and nightclubs over to more family-friendly territory. Owen is kinda still on the clock right now but, he's sure the boss will understand. Okay no, the boss probably won't understand, guy didn't understand why the hell the bouncer vanished the previous half dozen times, but he's figured out out by this point he could just place a stern-looking cardboard cut out of the lad with a sign assuring any would be troublemakers that if they stir shit up, he'll be back soon enough to settle things. It's pretty effective honestly, though then again the guy did hospitalize ten dudes last Friday by just standing there and letting them break their hands against his jawline so uh, it's probably pretty reasonable no one really wants to risk it.

 

The curry house is warm and cozy, with soft yellowish lights and luxuriously cushioned booths assembled out of an assortment of second-hand furniture to give it that home away from home feel. Place is open all night and quite popular with salarymen and grave-shifters alike, nothing like a piping hot curry after work, speaking of which, that's precisely what the five of you have in front of you now, sitting at Marina's usual table.

[IntSys]

Marina's spoon dug right into the plate of apple curry, and before you knew it, it had already ended up in her mouth. With a satisfactory "Mmm!" she gulped down the aromatic delicacy. She then reached for a glass of water, and began to talk.

 

"Alright mister, let's get to the questions we all want to know. Who are you, and what's your relationship with mister 'CHALLENGER ONE' over here?" Marina looked intently at Owen, with her free hand gesturing toward her uncle.

[Yours Truly]

Immanuel was drinking down a tall mug of cool green tea until Marina asked her question, causing him to almost choke on it a little before he coolly replied with, "I have to admit, I do want to know why you conveniently showed up to help us out of the blue, did Crow send you there to help us? Or were you just being a good samaritan?."

[Chevaleresse]

"I can answer that." A familiar voice, to Immanuel anyway, sounded from nearby. It carried the hint of the owner's age, but the sort of age that mostly made one feel confident that the owner knew all of the ways to kick one's ass, rather than being slowed down by it. "I'm afraid I don't know our friend well, but I'll be rectifying that situation soon. I take it that errands went well?" The woman settled into a seat, placing the cup of tea she already seemed to have on the table. "Although I question your choice of venue for relaxation. Typically you'd want to be a bit more. . . private, though I doubt we have any other acquaintances here."

[Ragnarok97071]

Chise, having already eaten her required amount of crimes against life and sanity today, did not require further nourishment.

 

"I am also curious about several things. I was informed I would be transferred to a team of professional operatives that dealt with high-level supernatural threats. While you seem to have a minimum degree of effectiveness, I cannot help but notice that you all appear to have been, as my previous handler would have put it..."

 

"Your typical group of random strangers who probably met by chance!"

 

Which likely would throw them off a little bit, given that the little bundle of belts went from her normal voice to an entirely different and significantly more human one.

 

"That having been said, may I have the card that was recovered during the fight? I would like to try something."

[Yours Truly]

14 hours ago, King Murdoc said:

"I can answer that." A familiar voice, to Immanuel anyway, sounded from nearby. It carried the hint of the owner's age, but the sort of age that mostly made one feel confident that the owner knew all of the ways to kick one's ass, rather than being slowed down by it. "I'm afraid I don't know our friend well, but I'll be rectifying that situation soon. I take it that errands went well?" The woman settled into a seat, placing the cup of tea she already seemed to have on the table. "Although I question your choice of venue for relaxation. Typically you'd want to be a bit more. . . private, though I doubt we have any other acquaintances here."

Immanuel tried his best to stifle his urge to jump a little in his seat as he heard Crow's voice come from somewhere behind him, and he nodded in her direction before he confidently stated, "The errands went about as well as can be expected, at least in the sense that we ended up with the same amount of people we came in with, and got what we came in there to get in the first place. And while we did get jumped by a caller, they seemed...only slightly more competent than the rest at least, too bad that they got away before we could take them out, there no other sign of them before or after that though," with a friendly tone of voice.

13 hours ago, Ragnarok97071 said:

Chise, having already eaten her required amount of crimes against life and sanity today, did not require further nourishment.

 

"I am also curious about several things. I was informed I would be transferred to a team of professional operatives that dealt with high-level supernatural threats. While you seem to have a minimum degree of effectiveness, I cannot help but notice that you all appear to have been, as my previous handler would have put it..."

 

"Your typical group of random strangers who probably met by chance!"

 

Which likely would throw them off a little bit, given that the little bundle of belts went from her normal voice to an entirely different and significantly more human one.

 

"That having been said, may I have the card that was recovered during the fight? I would like to try something."

A tone that immediately disappeared to an almost stereotypical icy and clinical one after he heard Chise speak, and decided to respond with, "....wow, because we all know that's a great way to convince people to hand over something they almost died to get, casually insulting their competence before semi politely asking them to outright give it to you while also not stating what you wanted to use it for." He leaned back on his seat before he continued with, "Especially since you are, as you yourself said, just a random stranger who met up with us by chance, a random stranger who didn't actually do anything to fight the card's user if I might add." 

He then raised his glass and let out a slight chuckle before he finished up with a friendlier, "So you know, take us all out to dinner a couple more times first, talk about your hobbies, tell us what you're planning on trying, be less of a dick, and we'll think about it."

[Chevaleresse]

Crow made a little tutting sound at Immanuel's rant, setting down her tea for a moment. "Now now, Immanuel, behave yourself. Your group is clearly not a professional one - but you got the job accomplished anyway, which is the part that actually matters in the long run. Besides, we have more important things to speak about. Like your unexpected guest. I'm going to need a full run-down of everything that happened, including them. Especially them." She looked over Chise for a moment. "I also don't see any harm in letting her try the card out - she is quite under control."

[Yours Truly]

5 hours ago, King Murdoc said:

Crow made a little tutting sound at Immanuel's rant, setting down her tea for a moment. "Now now, Immanuel, behave yourself. Your group is clearly not a professional one - but you got the job accomplished anyway, which is the part that actually matters in the long run. Besides, we have more important things to speak about. Like your unexpected guest. I'm going to need a full run-down of everything that happened, including them. Especially them." She looked over Chise for a moment. "I also don't see any harm in letting her try the card out - she is quite under control."

Immanuel let out a sigh before he replied with, "Well for one thing, unlike the last group of callers we fought, our uninvited guest was definitely still alive, and a whole lot more powerful than any of them individually, if the three dimensions we had to shatter to get home was any indication. Seemed to have been planning on waiting for us to tire ourselves out getting the card for her before she jumped us."

 

He shrugged slightly before he jokingly suggested, "Although for all we know of the average caller's intelligence, she could as well have been walking through the neighborhood to get some shopping done, and decided to make things up as she went along after getting lost and spotting us with the card, not like we got a chance to ask anyway."

 

He then slowly took the epithet card out before saying, "Also fine, if all of you are fine with it then I guess she can try using the card, just as long as she doesn't ear it that is, here," he reluctantly handed it to Chise, gently poking it onto them due to their complete and utter lack of tac-sight.

[Zetaark]

"That reminds me, where was Chise supposed to get transferred to? She somehow ended up on my doorstep without explanation, and I have no idea whether its someone forgetting to tell me or sending things to the wrong address. Also, have fun with the card, just don't break anything too much," Sasha asks after hearing about Chise's situation a bit, along with an approval to mess with the card.

[StormLord]

Owen shrugged, it was really all he had left at this point.

"I woke up one morning to find this-"

He reached to his side and tapped the pommel of Fragarach.

"In a box at my house, I don't know where it came from or who sent it.  But something gave me a feeling that I'd find answers in Sendo city.   Just like something told me it was a good idea to head down that sideroad, or stab that jackass Cu Chulainn knockoff shooting at you.  What even was that by the way?"

He glanced over to the woman, presumably an acquaintance of theirs judging by the fact that none of them were remotely surprised by her presence.

"I too would like of complete rundown of what just happened."

[Ragnarok97071]

The child-shaped mass of belts doesn't react at all to the words laid down upon it, though it does remain silent for a moment.

 

"I apologize if my observation that your team appears to have no single point of origin, uniform style, or signs of long-term cooperation offends you."

 

When the card is proffered, one of the many belts winding around the form moves to take hold of it, somehow adhering to it with a light touch, before drawing it into the mass as a whole.

 

Then, after a few moments of pause, as if it was taking a moment to actually process the effect, before suddenly the belts seem to unwind, vanishing, seemingly, until only a few of them remain, though what was revealed under them doesn't exactly resemble either what had been seen before or even the sealed form of the being, but instead an almost uncomfortably attractive... person. Couldn't really tell whether they were male or female, their features definitely fair and with a touch of femininity, but whether they were truly a woman or just an extremely pretty man was hard to tell.

 

Other than their looks, they weren't uncommon in appearance for the area, dark of hair and eye, perhaps a shade or two fairer-skinned than most you see in these parts, and apparently whatever the install was had given them clothes, or disguised the belts as clothes, or... something, as they were now dressed in what appeared to be a black, button-up top, tight-fitting pants, and a loose-fitting, almost floor-length coat,which billows dramatically for a moment. most of the belts they had been wearing seemed to be gone, though several still remain on their arms and legs, as well as at least three around their waist.

 

"Oh, well, this is much better. I'll stand out considerably less like this, I expect."

 

Their voice was... also rather different after the transformation, both clearer and... significantly more distracting, as is most everything about them, for various reasons.

[IntSys]

"Oh. So, you don't actually know, him," Marina reeled back against her seat, slightly disappointed for whatever reason. "But hey! Your intuition seems to be working fine!" It was... a compliment? Let's go with that, a compliment.

 

"Well these 'card emperors' had a bunch of mononoke guard that flying fortress, which happened to hold that card over theeeer-" Marina pointed to the epithet card, but hesitated halfway through when Chise just, assimilated it before everyone, and then turned into... the handsome cover person you'd see on CD albums?

 

Damn was it cool. Maybe she should get everyone to try out the card too to see everyone's transformation, she thought.