April 9th 2016 Brightedge City, Undercity, 9:00 PM EDT
We didn't get attacked on the way to the castle. Sindara summoned her demiliches to light our way, and the undead simply turned away from them. I saw some weird monsters. Not just zombies and vampires, but a few haunted scarecrows and ghostly beasts. Without exception they were turned back. These were random wandering beasts, and none of them were above E rank. Th...
2023-03-21 21:10:30 +0000 UTC View PostThe next day, we decided to come in and watch Lament and Wren's match. They were set up in a different arena, but they were in the second day's lineup, so were able to come watch their fight. Zeke actually came along too for some reason, and I was curious as to why. As we settled into wait for the match to start I decided to just ask. "So what made this fight interesting enough to check out with us?"
Zeke turned to look at me with a smile. "Lament. No...
2023-03-20 22:16:34 +0000 UTC View PostJuly 4th 2016 Castle Bat, 10:00 PM EDT
We headed out of the castle at top speed as soon as we found the others. Of course, there was no need to stick around. I could see the clones being suppressed, as we ran, the trap closing in. Zee's protections were fucking stellar, but they weren't invincible. They only lasted as long as they had because the bat joker was as annoying and chattery as the original one and twice as sadistic. He'd cr...
2023-03-20 20:22:56 +0000 UTC View PostFebruary 15th 2001, 177A Bleeker st. 10:00 AM EDT
"Well this seems...excessive." I said, staring up at the palatial mansion. It wasn't the size really, I'd been in bigger. I was a Frost after all. No, the thing that struck me most about the mansion was that since this was New York, it was practically stuffed into the plot of land it was on until there was nowhere left. Like they'd built the house first and it was too big, so they'd gr...
2023-03-19 23:31:46 +0000 UTC View PostApril 9th 2016 Brightedge City, The Narrows, 8:00 PM EDT
I admit, I was a bit annoyed the method to kill Lilith was some special object. I'd really been hoping there would be a spell or a convenient weakness I could exploit instead being forced to spend probably a million points to make something that would only work on one fucking person. Still, I'd done more than just find out a direction for my new weapon design, m...
2023-03-19 23:03:23 +0000 UTC View PostJuly 4th 2016 Castle Bat, 9:00 PM EDT
I held up a hand after about five minutes of walking down the steps to the dungeons. Honestly, who needed a fucking prison this deep under a castle? This was just fucking superfluous. Still, the one good thing was that it gave me plenty of time to scout as we went, and my aura sight had just caught a series of powerful fluctuations coming from deeper into the dungeons.
"Hold up." Everyone fr...
2023-03-18 19:17:46 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as Mel finished taking down the lightning caller, Callie was at my side in a flash. "Solomon." She said worriedly. "Are you ok? Where are you hurt?" I was confused for a second, before I realized the bond was probably dumping an assload of agony from my brain into hers. She saw me get stabbed a few hundred times and then experience horrifying pain and assumed my defenses didn't hold up.
I groaned as sat up slowly. My armor being F-rank would h...
2023-03-17 22:36:39 +0000 UTC View PostApril 9th 2016 Brightedge City, The Narrows, 6:00 PM EDT
Tracking down the Order was a clusterfuck, but luckily I still had the League on speed dial. Unlike the Court they didn't have unclear motives that would potentially end in my demise, so I had no problem calling in a favor from the apple dumpling gang.
Nightwing might have been a chump in fighting and a demi-chad at best when it came to women, but the guy'...
2023-03-17 21:37:14 +0000 UTC View PostAbel stopped beating us early enough that I we were able to get a few hours of sleep. Our match was at eleven in the morning, so we had a bit of time to rest at least, but he wouldn't let me heal us until after we woke up. Aside from the natural healing of Vitality, he also knew the blast of energy from the heal burst would stop us from sleeping, and wanted us to maximize the amount of rest we got.
I healed us up with one heal burst each while we scar...
2023-03-16 22:28:43 +0000 UTC View PostJuly 4th 2016 Quadratum, 8:00 PM EDT
"So." I said slowly. "I can't decide if not checking here first was ridiculous, or just common sense. Because...that." I gestured broadly to the absolutely humongous gothic castle slapped down in the middle of this otherwise totally modern city. A castle I really didn't want to go into because the aura around it was not only equally massive, but also sentient and super fucking hostile.
"That....
2023-03-16 22:22:52 +0000 UTC View Post"This sucks." My girlfriend groaned as she slumped down on the couch. "I'm an Ascendant. A powerful G-ranker who is probably going to hit F-rank before I turn nineteen, and I have to WORK to make money to pay my own boyfriend. I became a superhero to avoid this kind of nonsense. I hate hunting monsters. I can't even bring you along to help because if we earn the money together it doesn't COUNT."
I just snickered at her. "You're lucky I already confirm...
2023-03-15 21:43:10 +0000 UTC View PostApril 9th 2016 Brightedge City, Hall of Nevers, 10:00 AM EDT
Barbie lasted the whole night, which was nice. I'd expected her to pass out halfway through. Being an E ranker clearly gave her a serious boost. She did end up going to fuck Donna like I told her, but not after the first round. After she left I went to sleep and waking up the next morning I felt absolutely fantastic. It was nice to decompress and pound out a bit &...
2023-03-15 21:22:08 +0000 UTC View PostWaking up the next morning, I was incredibly exhausted. Between helping Callie schmooze 'randoms' as Carl called them, and training (I absolutely wasn't going to waste a chance to train my soul strength nigh-limitlessly) my brain was fried, and I was still tired when I woke up. Not physically tired, since my Vitality was pretty high, but mentally tired. The process of constantly exhausting and refilling soul strength was a unique kind of exhausting I'd neve...
2023-03-14 22:31:46 +0000 UTC View PostJuly 4th 2016 Quadratum, 3:00 PM EDT
"Haha." Said the anthropomorphic mouse kind. "Sorry about that. Almost had him. That old ghost Luxu is a slippery one. Didn't expect the Master of Masters to be involved in this mess." His big dark eyes were creased at the corners from his huge grin, and from his aura I could tell this guy was a genuinely pure hearted person. He reminded me a lot of Sora, actually, but WAY more powerful. Like...hol...
2023-03-14 22:26:45 +0000 UTC View PostI sighed dramatically at the sight of the other man. Hard to forget someone who threw a rope of sausage at your face during your first patrol. "Carl." I said, not even bothering to feign enthusiasm. "So good to...no, wait that isn't true. I see you you're here. Where's your buddy Stephen?"
Carl sneered. "They wouldn't let him in because he wasn't wearing shoes." I hadn't considered that. He glared back at the foor. "They even tried to say I coul...
2023-03-13 22:55:59 +0000 UTC View PostApril 8th 2016 Brightedge City, Hall of Nevers, 6:00 PM EDT
We got back to hall shortly after that, but I ended up spending a few hours making calls to various sources about Lilith, and by the time I was done it was already almost sunset. Barbie didn't complain about the wait, but she slipped off after an hour or two so I figured I'd have to call her to my room. Surprisingly, when I arrived, she was there waiting for ...
2023-03-13 21:50:25 +0000 UTC View PostFebruary 15th 2001, Clair Temple's condo, 8:00 AM EDT
I got back to Claire's place pretty early in the morning. I was exhausted, but pretty smug. Gwen had eventually been so worn out from all the fun that she fell asleep, and as much as I'd have liked to nap with her (because gods was I tired). That didn't seem to be in the cards. I took a quick shower when I got there (cold, to wake me up) and when I got our found Claire casually mix...
2023-03-13 00:22:57 +0000 UTC View PostJuly 4th 2016 Quadratum, 2:00 PM EDT
There are a lot of ways people can hurt someone, even someone like me. Magic can do amazing things, certain levels of brute force can ignore even my armor, and there are plenty of weapons that can negate most forms of defense. SHOOTING someone with the ability to phase through physical objects, godlike speed, and triple the reflexes a GOD should have, however, is not a viable form of attack.
...
2023-03-12 22:03:14 +0000 UTC View PostApril 8th 2016 Brightedge City, Grayson Pier, 2:00 PM EDT
Naturally, we turned that fucking house upside down. With Cherry there to scour the halls with her ghost powers, we even found a sizable chunk of hidden compartments. Most of them seemed to have been made recently, but the house had apparently had a few when they moved in too. Fucking Gotham. Even after the merge this place was annoyingly dramatic in way too many ways.
As...
2023-03-11 05:53:26 +0000 UTC View PostThe Mindbender's Ball was apparently being held at the ballroom of a local hotel in the city. The Ventralia was an upscale hotel catering to visiting dignitaries and high ranking Unity and WCP personnel from other cities. Since most of the E-rankers were concentrated in Rajak, they mostly saw F-rank visitors, but considering these people were all influential local powerhouses, the place was still pretty swanky.
As we gathered outside the place, I took...
2023-03-10 20:06:18 +0000 UTC View PostJuly 4th 2016 Quadratum, 1:00 PM EDT
Quadratum was, as we'd seen from the rooftop, creepy as hell. Empty city streets were different without all the signs of destruction everywhere. You would expect it to be less eerie, but somehow the lack of damage made it much worse. It was like the people here had all vanished in the blink of an eye without any chance to resist. Some of the cars were literally in the middle of intersections, but complet...
2023-03-10 18:55:08 +0000 UTC View Post"What the actual fuck was that?" Abel said as he strolled over. The two ghosts he'd been fighting appeared to be sprawled on the sand leaking some sort of mercurial substance I suspected was ghost blood. He didn't even notice though as he stared at the spot where the dark magma dragon that Callie and I had made with our Paired Dueling Skill faded into a cloud of darkness and green sparks.
I smiled smugly, pulling Callie against me as she laughed at hi...
2023-03-09 22:41:13 +0000 UTC View PostApril 8th 2016 Brightedge City, Grayson Pier, 1:00 PM EDT
I turned to glare at Cherry. "You didn't think it was a good idea to MENTION the army of werewolves?" It was probably unfair, I could see that they were fear constructs, but I was still annoyed. This was why we did fucking recon damn it! I didn't have time for this shit.
Mary chuckled seductively. "Oh, don't blame the little ghost girl. You think a vampire as old as I am doesn'...
2023-03-09 20:07:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe next day found us reporting to one of the WAY too many arenas in Rajak. "Seriously." I complained. "Why are there like three hundred of these places in town? Do people not DO anything else?" I knew they did, actually, because tons of Ascendants spent most of their day hunting monsters for various bounties or Academy points. There was zero reason for them to be so bored as to run off to a random Arena to mess around.
Callie giggled at my annoyed to...
2023-03-08 23:31:39 +0000 UTC View PostJuly 4th 2016 Traverse Town, 11:00 AM EDT
"So." I said as we climbed aboard the gummi ship (which was much bigger than it looked from a distance). "Quadratum. Pull up the directions. I hope this place isn't in the Dark Multiverse. Showing up there would be a problem for us at the moment." As Sora socketed the blue cube into a slot on the dashboard, the windshield of the ship flashed brightly and then a series of readouts began to flas...
2023-03-08 23:27:30 +0000 UTC View PostThe place Alexander took us was HUGE. I was expecting something like one of the pubs we had been to before. Something with a bar and wooden tables and a seedy backroom feel. This new place though...it was really upscale. It reminded me a bit of Rantano's back in Valen, but not as obviously geared at mortals.
The new place, Deva, was a much larger building for one. Where Rantano's was the size of a normal restaurant, Deva was, at least on the inside, a...
2023-03-07 21:39:16 +0000 UTC View PostApril 8th 2016 Brightedge City, Grayson Pier, 12:00 PM EDT
"Huh." Said Cherry from beside me. "This place is less swanky than I would have expected. Like I know our house is pretty amazing and there was no way it could compete, but still, I expected more than this." Most of the girls I brought along this time were E rank, with the exception of Amy of course, but Cherry was still at the F rank and allowed to come anyway.
Aside fr...
2023-03-07 20:37:00 +0000 UTC View PostI vaguely considered throwing fruit or something at Midknight as he returned to talk, but that was clearly beneath my dignity, and also I didn't have any fruit. Instead I just held Callie's hand as the armored bastard returned to his obnoxious soliloquy. "Now." He rumbled. "As I'm sure you know, today we will be selecting your primary opponents. In the spirit of fairness there will be a random selection rather than a structured match schedule."
Callie...
2023-03-07 00:30:04 +0000 UTC View PostJuly 4th 2016 Traverse Town, 10:00 AM EDT
We obviously didn't up and leave for Quadratum at almost midnight. Merlin took his leave, but the rest of us decided to sleep at the old house. After informing my daughter that being unconscious did NOT count as sleep, I and the girls went to bed. I slept unusually well given the whole mess that was going.
In the morning, I rolled over to kiss each of my girls and told Zee. "Happy 4th of...
2023-03-07 00:24:09 +0000 UTC View PostFebruary 15th 2001, Stacy Residence, 3:00 AM EDT
Finding a donut place open before the ass crack of dawn in New York was easier than expected. Jack's Donuts was apparently an all night place, and I even got there early enough to get them fresh rather than snag last nights old ones. I got two dozen, one and a half for me and half for Gwen (mostly jellies with a few custard) before heading for her place in midtown.
When I arrived, I sho...
2023-03-06 01:38:11 +0000 UTC View Post