-
[QUOTE=Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh;5062688]Arxiros turned, and quirked an eyebrow at the Centipede.
"Hm, the Mascot. Curious." Stretching the Dragon considered how to respond, before shrugging her shoulders and picking the remnants of Vivienne's shoulder from her teeth. "You're more magic, than meat. I eat magic." She responded simply. "Think of it like how a plant needs water, and sunlight."[/QUOTE]
"Mascot...heh. Now there's a term I haven't heard in ages..." Omu snorted. "But listen...we're gonna have ourselves a problem of you try and eat yours truly. And after these folks made the effort to show us some hospitslity, it'd be a shame to make a mess of the place....so how's about a truce fer now?"
-
[QUOTE=Tami;5062785]"Allies, not a word I have heard used often." he crossed his arms as she spoke, "Being on good terms with others is always a worthwhile goal, but more than that is survival. You have already said, in so many words, that you could leave right now and go straight to the Administration and tell them everything without retribution. They would not arrest you, or if they did you could call on those favors you speak of."
"Why then should we trust you? Simply because we know who you are."
His hands dropped back to his sides, "It takes more than words to create trust. Your actions back at the terminal lend themselves to some measure of trust, but I have known of plants. People sent to gain the trust of others, only to turn them in to the authorities."[/QUOTE]
“Perhaps. Another reason I was upfront about my history. Keeping such things just breeds mistrust. My record should speak for itself, I suppose, if anyone can find it. Ask around the slums and lower class housing: my name is well regarded there.”
He shrugs.
“I could still be punished too. I said I had some protection: if the bigger guns want me dead, I’m dead. My favors only go so far.”
-
[QUOTE=Cleric of Hell’s Brigade;5062879]“Perhaps. Another reason I was upfront about my history. Keeping such things just breeds mistrust. My record should speak for itself, I suppose, if anyone can find it. Ask around the slums and lower class housing: my name is well regarded there.”
He shrugs.
“I could still be punished too. I said I had some protection: if the bigger guns want me dead, I’m dead. My favors only go so far.”[/QUOTE]
Matthias smiled slightly, "In truth, I have heard talk of you, though not by name. Perhaps we can become allies if it comes down to it." His smile faded, "I do not know if I will stay here any longer than needed to ensure that I can safely vanish, in my own way. Fate does have a way of dipping her hand in people's lives when they least expect it."
-
[QUOTE=KingofPie;5062843]"Mascot...heh. Now there's a term I haven't heard in ages..." Omu snorted. "But listen...we're gonna have ourselves a problem of you try and eat yours truly. And after these folks made the effort to show us some hospitslity, it'd be a shame to make a mess of the place....so how's about a truce fer now?"[/QUOTE]
"Hmm..." Arx, finished with her self cleaning, feel silent for a second before sniffing the air.
"Well. I've got no reason to eat you, if I'm full. So assuming Mulvric follows through that's fine, yea." That wasn't to say of course, that she wouldn't change her mind. But it certainly seemed that, when she was full at least, that she was far more agreeable to non-violence; than she was when she was in need of a meal. How long that'd last of course, was anyone's guess.
The Dragon grinned, and held out a clawed hand.
"Truce."
-
[QUOTE=grampagen;5062817]The Mask nodded slowly, admiring the fighter's concentration in tending the fire. Just hot enough to grill, but the black smoke kept to a minimum. Seemed that she had a high level of skill...and exceptional focus.
"You may call me...the [I]Great[/I] Kinu, Airwalk," she replied, "...and hold that thought, I'll be right back..."
For about five minutes, the sound of rummaging and chopping sounded out behind them in the kitchen. When she came back, she shuffled over across the makeshift wire firepit with a giant bowl of battered, shredded cabbage, a griddle pan, and a bunch of unlabelled cans.
Eyeing Xia's fire, Kinu wordlessly raised the pan in one hand. In the other she had an aersol of cooking oil. She pressed the nozzle...
[I]...pfft...[/I]
"..."
Setting the griddle down with a clatter, she clamped her other hand over the top of the can, and twist it open with the greatest of ease like a pickle jar. Once it was greased up, Kinu - rather presumptuously - set it up a little over half of the fire and wait for it to heat up.
"That little box in there ain't gonna cook squat, fuh-fuh-fuh," she said, slowly unfurling her coat and letting it fall to her waist where she sat. "This is the real deal."[/QUOTE]
Xia didn't recall Kinu the "Great" asking permission to use her fire pit. The masked woman was lucky Xia had grown out of the habit of getting pissed when people horned in on her terf. "Civilized folks have gone soft," she murmured. "The rich girl will probably be in here to bitch and moan about the shitty conditions." She gave a soft chuckle and moved to move a small pair of chicken pieces from the grate to a plate she procured.
"So, I take it you were a hobo drifter like me for a while. You got a worldly way of thinking that I don't see for most of the others around here."
-
[QUOTE=Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh;5062934]"Hmm..." Arx, finished with her self cleaning, feel silent for a second before sniffing the air.
"Well. I've got no reason to eat you, if I'm full. So assuming Mulvric follows through that's fine, yea." That wasn't to say of course, that she wouldn't change her mind. But it certainly seemed that, when she was full at least, that she was far more agreeable to non-violence; than she was when she was in need of a meal. How long that'd last of course, was anyone's guess.
The Dragon grinned, and held out a clawed hand.
"Truce."[/QUOTE]
"Sounds fair and reasonable..." Omg figured as scroll appeared in front of Arx, unraveling and revealing Omu's arm extending from it to shake her hand.
-
The first - and strongest - impression was left distinctively upon the sense of smell. The stench of aired out refuse invading the airways, largely... Morgen had visited the slums in the past, but never this far down. She imagined there wasn't much that fazed the folks who made their living down here, but her elegant attire turned heads nonetheless. Were their faces of want? Or hatred? Morgen hastily averted her gaze, and certainly made no motion to ask. She felt herself clearing her own throat to alleviate her anxious tic building up, increasing her speed to keep pace with the others walking ahead of her.
Well, whatever. Hopefully she won't stay long. She turned up by the cooking fire being started by the martial artist and the wrestler, fanning herself with some cardboard as she took a seat somewhere.
"Some food... an excellent idea. Maybe it'll overpower this horrid, vomit-inducing stench," said Morgan to no one in particular, bitching and moaning about the shitty conditions. "No need to share, though. This place doesn't exactly do favors for my appetite."
-
[QUOTE=Sub-Zero MKA;5062973]Xia didn't recall Kinu the "Great" asking permission to use her fire pit. The masked woman was lucky Xia had grown out of the habit of getting pissed when people horned in on her terf. "Civilized folks have gone soft," she murmured. "The rich girl will probably be in here to bitch and moan about the shitty conditions." She gave a soft chuckle and moved to move a small pair of chicken pieces from the grate to a plate she procured.
"So, I take it you were a hobo drifter like me for a while. You got a worldly way of thinking that I don't see for most of the others around here."[/QUOTE]
A small chuckle escaped the gap between the parted lips of the mask. "Soft? Maybe. It's all relative, I'd say."
Once Xia had removed her portions, daringly, Kinu leaned in, and pushed the griddle over the centre of the fire.
"When you stick around one place too long, you start to become that place," she replied, "Hobo? I prefer...self sufficient, fuh-fuh-fuh..."
Then, she lift the bowl of mashed mix over the pan. It was a crude mixture, this batter running over the side of the steel bowl rim in equal measure pale sallow and watery green. Its coating was a most uniniform appearance. Shreds of slaw smelling faintly of stale grass and raw flour. She spread it in a large circle around the surface of the pan, and the surface hissed and steamed.
"But drifter, heh, as much as I'd hate to disagree, I must. That would imply I got no place better to go, when I'm exactly where I need to be."
Next to her, she started rummaging through piles of cans with missing labels. Flat ones, round ones, ringed ones, plain ones, she dug through them, finding one strange mystery meat after the other.
"Ah, the wonders of civilization. No wonder they're so damn fat in here."
All the food you could want, and you didn't even have to catch it first.
[QUOTE=Melon God;5063025]The first - and strongest - impression was left distinctively upon the sense of smell. The stench of aired out refuse invading the airways, largely... Morgen had visited the slums in the past, but never this far down. She imagined there wasn't much that fazed the folks who made their living down here, but her elegant attire turned heads nonetheless. Were their faces of want? Or hatred? Morgen hastily averted her gaze, and certainly made no motion to ask. She felt herself clearing her own throat to alleviate her anxious tic building up, increasing her speed to keep pace with the others walking ahead of her.
Well, whatever. Hopefully she won't stay long. She turned up by the cooking fire being started by the martial artist and the wrestler, fanning herself with some cardboard as she took a seat somewhere.
"Some food... an excellent idea. Maybe it'll overpower this horrid, vomit-inducing stench," said Morgan to no one in particular, bitching and moaning about the shitty conditions. "No need to share, though. This place doesn't exactly do favors for my appetite."[/QUOTE]
"Well if it isn't her majesty. You're taking things in stride aren't you, Rosie?"
As the batter browned and formed a crust, the raw, disparate appearance slowly became cohesive. Piling a latticework of canned meats on top with a spatula, Kinu scraped it up and flipped it over, and when it hit the cooking surface a waft of sauce and spice and grease kicked up in their little corner. And when she hit it with a storm of brushes and splashes and dashes from various bottles, the dishevelled thing became [URL="http://jdh.hamkins.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/okonomiyaki.jpg"]strangely artful[/URL].
"You got them out of there today. You should recover your strength."
With two spatulas in hand, Kinu cut the thing in half...and put it onto her own plate, a mount of sauce, cabbage, flecked with tender flesh from unknown stock.
-
[QUOTE=Melon God;5063025]The first - and strongest - impression was left distinctively upon the sense of smell. The stench of aired out refuse invading the airways, largely... Morgen had visited the slums in the past, but never this far down. She imagined there wasn't much that fazed the folks who made their living down here, but her elegant attire turned heads nonetheless. Were their faces of want? Or hatred? Morgen hastily averted her gaze, and certainly made no motion to ask. She felt herself clearing her own throat to alleviate her anxious tic building up, increasing her speed to keep pace with the others walking ahead of her.
Well, whatever. Hopefully she won't stay long. She turned up by the cooking fire being started by the martial artist and the wrestler, fanning herself with some cardboard as she took a seat somewhere.
"Some food... an excellent idea. Maybe it'll overpower this horrid, vomit-inducing stench," said Morgan to no one in particular, bitching and moaning about the shitty conditions. "No need to share, though. This place doesn't exactly do favors for my appetite."[/QUOTE]
On cue, Ms. Moneybags walked in complaints on her lips and nose turned up at the awful stench that permeated through the slums. Xia had to admit that it was awful, but she had long gotten used to it.
"You never answered my question." A beat passed before she have a crooked smile and added, "Don't worry. My sword is in the other room."
[QUOTE=grampagen;5063052]A small chuckle escaped the gap between the parted lips of the mask. "Soft? Maybe. It's all relative, I'd say."
Once Xia had removed her portions, daringly, Kinu leaned in, and pushed the griddle over the centre of the fire.
"When you stick around one place too long, you start to become that place," she replied, "Hobo? I prefer...self sufficient, fuh-fuh-fuh..."
Then, she lift the bowl of mashed mix over the pan. It was a crude mixture, this batter running over the side of the steel bowl rim in equal measure pale sallow and watery green. Its coating was a most uniniform appearance. Shreds of slaw smelling faintly of stale grass and raw flour. She spread it in a large circle around the surface of the pan, and the surface hissed and steamed.
"But drifter, heh, as much as I'd hate to disagree, I must. That would imply I got no place better to go, when I'm exactly where I need to be."
Next to her, she started rummaging through piles of cans with missing labels. Flat ones, round ones, ringed ones, plain ones, she dug through them, finding one strange mystery meat after the other.
"Ah, the wonders of civilization. No wonder they're so damn fat in here."
All the food you could want, and you didn't even have to catch it first.[/QUOTE]
She gathered the rest of her food and placed it carefully on the plate. She didn't bother with any utensils and picked up the corn cob to start eating. "Relative? Maybe. Most people couldn't survive on the streets without their modern conveniences if their life depended on it." Which it most certainly would. If the elements didn't kill them, other people in the slums would. Resources were scarce and food was hard to come by. If getting a meal for the night meant killing the guy next to you, so be it. That was a lesson Xia had to learn the hard way very early.
The food was hot, but she made a mistake and forgot to add seasoning to literally everything. The chicken was bland, as were the corn and the carrot. Even a slab of butter would have been... [I]Listen at me, complaining like Moneybags over here.[/I] It was edible and that was good enough.
"You're where you belong, huh? So I take it you believe what these people claim about 9?"
She wasn't sure what she believed, which was a small part of why she was there - the larger part being the Boss Lady chasing after them. Once the heat blew over, she planned on giving these people a chance to make their case. After that, whether she stayed or vanished into the wind depended on how convincing Mulvric and Woman were. Kinu seemed like she wanted to be a freedom fighter, a liberator against the Big Bad Bosses. Xia just wanted to live her life, but if something wasn't right, she supposed she couldn't stand idle for long.
-
[QUOTE=MrSandman;5062371]The safehouse, as it turned out, appeared as a non decript shack from the outside.....but from the inside....
It was also a **** hole.
At least until Ange gave a knock on the floor, and a panel popped up to reveal a set of stairs leading down.
[IMG]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6a/f9/46/6af9468a02fd3cdea526657de7cceb53.jpg[/IMG]
The safehouse consisted of three rooms, a large common room(as pictured), a kitchen and a workshop.
"One track mind.....not one to talk though." Mulvric answered, then started towards the workshop. "Gonna check when we have on hand....and then I'll cook something worth the wait. Your welcome to use the tool table." He motioned to Levi before sticking his head into the supply closest.
"Room over there...." Ange pointed off towards the kitchen while she was fiddling around with a table full of what appeared to be communication equipment. ".....Take what you need.....cept the chocolates in the corner."[/QUOTE]
Jacob looks around. " What a dump, but I been in worse, so this is fine, I guess," Jacob said in a bitter tone.
" You know you could try to be a little more upbeat, Jacob," Rhea said.
" Being upbeat is for idealistic, naive children, you damn hallucination," Jacob said.
" Just saying it won't hurt for you to be upbeat, Jacob," Rhea said.
-
[QUOTE=KingofPie;5062994]"Sounds fair and reasonable..." Omg figured as scroll appeared in front of Arx, unraveling and revealing Omu's arm extending from it to shake her hand.[/QUOTE]
A clawed hand gripped Omu's own, and with it came a cackle.
"Day of firsts, this is. Started with not killing a Witch," the Dragon said with a glance shot Morgen's direction. "And ended with a ... truce, to not eat a Mascot." A tasty, tasty mascot... the thought alone was almost enough to get the woman to start salivating; but a deal struck and shook upon was a deal upheld. So just as quickly as the clawed hand had shook the Centipede's own, was it retraced.
"Just don't make yourself more appetizing than you already are... uh. Bugman?"
-
[QUOTE=Sub-Zero MKA;5063103] She gathered the rest of her food and placed it carefully on the plate. She didn't bother with any utensils and picked up the corn cob to start eating. "Relative? Maybe. Most people couldn't survive on the streets without their modern conveniences if their life depended on it." Which it most certainly would. If the elements didn't kill them, other people in the slums would. Resources were scarce and food was hard to come by. If getting a meal for the night meant killing the guy next to you, so be it. That was a lesson Xia had to learn the hard way very early. [/QUOTE]
"Maybe. But it don't mean you're hard if you can't appreciate a good thing. Even better if you can get it on your own terms, know what I mean?"
Digging through half of the cabbage pancake with a small metal spatula, Kinu cut it where it was soggiest. Steam rose and thin gravy streaked her savoury plate. Flourishing her hands, for the first time today Kinu reached up to her mask.
[CENTER][img]https://i.imgur.com/Mzh3J63.gif[/img][/CENTER]
"Perfect. Easy-peasy."
Prodding through crisp edges that led to a bottom of mealy canned ham, the eyes widened, briefly cherubic and lethal, before she took a bite.
"Not anyone's fault they're not aware of what's missing. That's the knowledge that they can stand on two feet," she said merrily between chews. "If you want what's good, reach out and take it!"
[QUOTE]The food was hot, but she made a mistake and forgot to add seasoning to literally everything. The chicken was bland, as were the corn and the carrot. Even a slab of butter would have been... [I]Listen at me, complaining like Moneybags over here.[/I] It was edible and that was good enough.
"You're where you belong, huh? So I take it you believe what these people claim about 9?"
She wasn't sure what she believed, which was a small part of why she was there - the larger part being the Boss Lady chasing after them. Once the heat blew over, she planned on giving these people a chance to make their case. After that, whether she stayed or vanished into the wind depended on how convincing Mulvric and Woman were. Kinu seemed like she wanted to be a freedom fighter, a liberator against the Big Bad Bosses. Xia just wanted to live her life, but if something wasn't right, she supposed she couldn't stand idle for long.[/QUOTE]
Swallowing a hunk of something with a snappy casing, Kinu heard Xia's comment and shook her head as she cracked open a can of beer.
"Believe what? All I heard was the EN had a different story," she replied. Throwing back the beverage, she took a long, heady swig before continuing.
"Gee-Gee and Mercer though it was worth crashing the Skyport and blowing the bridge over. There's a story Administrator Gretel's trying to spin, but En's guy Mulvric's got the uncensored take," she said. "Come to think of it...you were on the 3rd floor with him, weren't you? Don't suppose you heard anything?"
Scooping the griddle off the fire, she offered the other half of her okonomiyaki to Xia. "For your trouble."
-
[QUOTE=The Chou Lives;5062485]“ Also where can a guy get new clothes? And might as well get names down. I am Levin. This day has just been the worst so far.”[/QUOTE]
Suddenly rising in a manner reminiscent of a certain [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZR1EKU4Bk0]deadman[/url], Lucifer looked towards the man- and what he was he wearing- as he spoke, not even minding the fact he was obviously no longer where he was just a while ago.
"Did you just mention [i][b]new clothes[/b][/i]?"
-
[QUOTE=Noldere;5063361]Suddenly rising in a manner reminiscent of a certain [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZR1EKU4Bk0]deadman[/url], Lucifer looked towards the man- and what he was he wearing- as he spoke, not even minding the fact he was obviously no longer where he was just a while ago.
"Did you just mention [i][b]new clothes[/b][/i]?"[/QUOTE]
"oh ma god!" Mercer exclaimed from somewhere off screen.
-
"Your question...?" Morgen crossed her arms and looked to be briefly in thought. "Ah, yes. You did ask me something. Well, there are only two things you ought to know about me..."
"First!" she began, closing her eyes and dramatically holding her finger up. "My name -- Morgiana Dupont. Familiarize yourself with it, the first time you cross the family will be the last." Cracking a lid open to eye Xia, she continued, "Be thankful I have been in a more gracious mood. You seem to think this is funny, but know that I won't soon forget our encounter, and [I]especially[/I] not... that lizard's."
"Second!" Morgen held two fingers up. "I accept apologies, if they are sincere. If ever we will work together again, I would advise you take this seriously. Now, does that answer your question?"
As she wrapped up her response, her eyes hungrily moved to the fried pancake being passed to Xia, but only for a split second.
Not that she wanted any.