Skyside 7: The Big Pizza in the Sky

[Reinholdt]

[Searching for Truth]

Ilpholin spends the time bouncing on her heels slightly, keeping her body in gentle motion as she tries to take mental notes of the things being pulled out for the angel summoning ritual.

"Well yeah, but everyone can summon the dead or demons. I've never seen an angel summoned before. I want to know what it's like," Bellana claims. Everyone might be an exaggeration but it is a lot more common certainly.

[Coming Up]

Raven is taken aback. She was prepared to believe that Rose was just trying to impress her (and who wouldn't?), though Raven wouldn't necessarily believe the fake sadness behind the explanation. Honestly, impressing the Empress was Raven's first thought about what had happened and she was prepared to be all magnanimous and forgive Rose for her understandable foible.

The truth is much more astounding and Raven stares at Rose boggle-eyed, before looking down at the book of badges. "You... you're a secret agent?" Raven has never heard of ARC. MERC makes a little more sense, though she hasn't a clue why MERC would get involved with the Black Abyss. Aside from the obvious draw of course. The nekomancer looks back up at Rose and passes the book back.

"And you told me?! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" Raven throws up her hands.

"You just wasted at least two perfectly good seasons of blossoming romance undercut with the raw tension of being found out at any moment! Growing more and more conflicted and torn between love and duty until the season finale forces you to make a choice. Raw passion, desire, and loyalty all in conflict. It would have just been MMMMMNNNGH!! So perfect!" Raven holds her head and squirms around with truly impressive wiggling like she's just lost something tremendously vital and amazing and Raven's in raw agony. Like having her favorite show canceled only a few episodes in or something. Raven has something of a point in a very weird way, but all that excitement comes at Rose's expense. All that tension for the audience would have been pure stress for Rose.

Speaking of tension, Raven drops her arms and sighs, releasing all of hers as she leans against Bruce Almighty, her disposition fading into something of a more downcast state. Her next words almost sound depressed and are certainly quiet and reserved. "Well... ok then. Bucking genre I guess... So, hmm. Right. What's ARC exactly?" Might as well find that out. And this day was going so well...

[Ironsmith]

[Coming Up]

Rose sighs and slumps against Bruce Almighty, sitting next to Raven, within hand-holding distance but not going for that just yet. "Back home, ARC was the fight for freedom." She begins. "Our world was invaded by a force of rogue time travelers and it was our job to drive them out. To our people, we were heroes. To our enemies, we were terrorists. In reality... a bit of both. We did a lot of good things, like getting Oroboros shut down to contain the damage of jumping across the multiverse like that. We also did a lot of bad things... our people are the reason the Systerhood exists, for instance." She sighs and shakes her head. "Sorry, you've got no context for any of that, do you? I guess it really doesn't matter. That's worlds away and it can't touch us or vice versa. The important thing is the here and now."

Rose gently lays her hand over top of Raven's. "I'm sorry. I'm afraid this isn't that kind of show. You're not in for two years of yuri laced with paranoia. That's... not who I want to be." She leans her head back against Bruce and lets out an almighty sigh. "If I wasn't an agent, I would've been an actress, you know. Could argue I still am, and just don't give you the courtesy of saying so first. My point is, I've read that script and... and no. Just no." She shakes her head, deciding on how to present this change in the relationship between them to fit Raven's twisted sense that they were in some kind of TV show, in the hopes it would help her cope.

"Let me write you a different story. You've got an ongoing series about a wicked genius who is everything you could want in a villain protagonist. She's cute, in the [screwable] sort of way. Great sense of humor and theatrics. Intelligent. And even at her worst, somehow still relatable. Early in your first season, she gets her big break. Her girlfriend slash benefactor makes the mistake of leaving a valuable piece of technology laying around, and of course, being both the genius and the daringly dastardly dame she is, she steals it, at least long enough to figure out how it works. Now she can really come into her own; she's got the resources and the will to show off the darkest parts of her being, and the implications of what she'd do if she ran unchecked. Look out, world, here comes Empress Ebondark!"

"Oh, but hang on a moment. At around the same time, it becomes clear to our audience that our beloved main character is dangerously close to going off the deep end. It happens with these villainous types sometimes; they get more power than they were meant to have, shed the need to remain in hiding and employ finesse, and so instead of the delightfully wicked, seemingly invulnerable magnificent bastard, you end up with a mustache-twirling jerk who loses all their appeal by being too openly terrible for the world around them, and has to be crushed by the end of the season. If that happens to Raven Ebondark... why, the fans would be up in arms. How dare the writers take their favorite underdog kitty and turn her into something that generic!"

"So there's another person in this story. A confidant. Someone who can stand next to our favorite baddie and remind the audience of her human side. That we're still looking at the same Raven Ebondark we all fell in love with in the first season. Someone she knows can keep a secret, because that's how their relationship started, but won't keep any secrets from her, because she willingly confessed to it. Someone like, say, the girlfriend from the first season." She gives Raven a little smile. "Now the writers can have their cake and eat it, too. Raven Ebondark gets to have her villain ascendant story, without sacrificing her more vulnerable side. We'll root for her even as she commits to more and bigger villainy. We'll enjoy her victories even while knowing the devastation they bring. And if she gets too close to that ledge, to becoming something so depraved as to be stale? There's someone there to pull her back."

Rose gives Raven's hand a gentle squeeze. "What do you say to that? You want to catch a few seasons of that show?"

[Earl of Purple]

Trust-Worthy Hotel

"Ah, but see, I don't need this body. Or want it alive. You, on the other hand? Well, let's just see." Trust grins madly, patting the body down and finding a pen. He holds the pen up, pushing the numb leg to one side so he can find the artery that runs along the inner thigh, and stabs hard. He'll stab three times, the fact he can't feel pain in the limb helping his grisly plan. Then he'll lean over all the way and stab the pen into the Achilles tendon, before exiting the body and floating away, headed for the exit.

Does Sandals go to the body, to try and repair it before it bleeds out, or after the evil spirit? If the body even bleeds. Without a heart, it might not, though the damage to the thigh and especially ankle may still slow it down.

SSGTV

The lead zombie groans and shuffles forward, stumbling awkwardly and nearly twisting its ankle as their lone shoe slips on the floor. It doesn't stop it, or even slow it down much, and it raises its hands and rapidly approaches, jaw clacking up and down. The mummified corpse is slower, the desiccated muscles creaking as it also shuffles forward. The halfling's faster than the mummy, and is able to overtake, head lolling back on its broken neck. But the halfling's short legs prevent it from overtaking the first zombie, which is first to make contact, pushing at Hana with its weight as it bites at her. Hopefully Hana moved away from the wall, or this fight may end faster than anyone expects, as the first zombie pushes her onto the spikes.

[Reinholdt]

[Coming Up]

Leaning against Bruce Almighty feels extremely gross to most people with normal sensibilities.

Rogue time travelers, terrorists, and an organization eating itself with its own misguided deeds. Sounds exciting. But Rose is quite correct that Raven lacks the context for all that. Doesn't mean she doesn't listen though.

Just how she listens to Rose's pitch. Raven admits that she likes the part where Rose is flattering her. But not much else. Raven Ebondark pulls her hand away from Rose's affectionate squeeze. "This isn't a show Rose." But... But Raven just... "I don't have a mustache. AND all power naturally belongs to me, being the Empress of Everything." Raven always thought that part was easy to understand. Then again, she tends to be wildly inconsistent at times. Except about being the Empress. There's nothing she's more consistent about! Maybe she needs a big flashing sign that lights up one letter at a time that some Mecha-zombies can hold behind her to remind people of that fact. Would that be helpful? It might be helpful. She's going to commission one of those.

"More importantly, we're not even remotely done talking about you. How could you even ask me to start considering us? That's unfair." Raven's always believed herself to be open and honest about who she is, so it's taking some time to process the double life of Rose Verdoyant. "For starters, you're a MERCenary? ... Was that 'ex-boyfriend' of yours one too? What about the car, was that also a MERC asset? Why did MERC need... no, if it needed a paint job you wouldn't have had to lie. I've not kicked over any of MERC's stuff. What do they want with me? ... How much of us was just a job to you?"

[Vahnavoi]

[Trust-Worthy Hotel]

Indeed, underneath the reaper man's jacket and bandages, there's a conspicuous empty space where his heart ought to be - something Trust would've noticed while searching for something to injure the man's body with. The man hoped such observation would dissuade Trust from, well, doing something like this. Alas, it's not his lucky day.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Phineas?", the skull-faced apparition begins, but then stops. He knows the look on Trust's face. This kind of malice is beyond reasoning with. He already gave Trust three chances to stop, that's enough. Still, he's not out of plays yet He could've wrestled his body back from Trust the moment it was possessed, he just didn't want to, as that would've risked injury to his body. But, if Trust is going to leave it to die out of his own accord, then the reaper doesn't need to use any force lf his own to expel him. His body does still bleed, so being stabbed means the reaper will have to work fast, but it's still easier to fix than some of the alternatives.

So, the apparation watches and waits for Trust to maim his mortal body. The moment Trust leaves his body and tries to flee, though, the reaper extends a finger and repeats some, by now familiar, words: "Path of Destruction: Crimson Flame Bullet!" Loud bangs ring through the air again as the reaper takes a series of shots at fleeing Trust - he keeps firing until there isn't enough left of Trust to possess a rat, or the former hotel-owner manages to escape his line of sight.

Then he walks next to his collapsed body and presses a palm against its wounded leg. "Path of Binding: Reinforcing Bandages!" The cloth already wrapped around his body begins to shift and change in texture, both stopping the bleeding and bracing the wounded ankle. There's more he could do to fix the damage, but that will have to wait - he's still in a burning building, after all. He takes a look around to check if the flames have already spread into the lobby and to see if the receptionist who was screaming prior is still alive.