Cross Effects 3.0 - April 13, 2015—June 23, 2016

[Kat]

Richard Maxwell

A mighty attack, a lance that could not be avoided or averted by even the greatest of beasts of his knowledge. Unleashed, it was powerful enough to cut trough a skyscraper cleanly. And yet-

She was alive. More precisely, in one piece. That meat doll, that mound of monstrous flesh, that thing. It withstood his mightiest attack, a spell crafted with the sole purpose to kill him.

"You..." growled Richard, his tone furious yet astonished. She did not seem to have any vampiric or demonic power. If one went by appearance alone, she was but a normal girl. And yet, her power compared to the strongest monsters out there! This was almost too strange. Almost.

So he laughed. He laughed loud and heartily, as if to respond to a funny joke. He seemed relaxed.

"Are you alright?" said Richard, his mood unnaturally jolly compared to the situation. Despite his exhausted state, he did not pant or show any sign of fatigue.

Rikuyo

She plucked out ice spears that beforehand pierced body and let her body regenerate. Her bones mended, her intestines stopped bleeding. Her transformation dissipated, leaving her in her default human state. She had about half of her internal energy left after the duel with Roxas and Maxwell. She really needed a break, for the first time in years. However, even if tired physically she felt more fired up than even before. Maybe in this city are people stronger than her? She didn't want to stagnate fighting people who were unable to provide a challenge, just like back in Japan.

"Thank you, that was fun!" she was grateful for the entertaining fight. "Are you alright? You don't have a weird body like me after all. Forget about you buying me clothes, I didn't hold back and I owe ya if I roughed up you too much."

She thought about simply finding some passerby of her height and tell him or her to strip down. Any clothes will do until she can buy one she wants.

[SINIB]

Faust

“Of course, I agree perfectly. I think it was Shakespeare who said it best: ‘All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.”

Faust saw the manor approaching rapidly, and sighed. He had been able to feel Rider’s presence for some time now, and he knew that it would be extremely unwise to continue this conversation with her around. A pity, it had been such an interesting one too. He willed the black crow to land with a loud caw, dissipating as soon as he dismounted from it. He walked into the house, still holding Vanguard in his hand, and approached Rider, patting her on the shoulder, and ignoring Shirou.

“Congratulations, Rider.” He said warmly with a smile. “You exceeded my expectations and managed to bring everyone here just fine. You deserve a medal for your excellent work!”

[Kat]

Abigail

Abigail blinked at Mordred's tirade about wanting to kill Forest and about Abby being a "loyalist" or whatever that meant.   For some reason she was reminded of the American Revolution with the people being loyal to England and those being loyal to the Colonies.  However, Mordred started ranting about Abby being loyal to people being slaves, and she felt her eyes narrow.

"Mordred," Emily said in a firm voice, "I'm fairly certain there's been a gap in understanding here. Chances are actually fairly good that Abby isn't quite like us. First off, she doesn't seem to have a Mask, unless pointy ears are part of it for some strange reason."

Abby felt her cheeks heat up and she reached up to touch the point of her left ear before trying to pull some of her red hair over it.  She nodded and replied, "Emily's right.  You feel completely different than I do.  There's enough similarities that my senses tell me that you're part of some sort of Fae and human, but not a Fae where I'm from, and where I'm from if a Faerie tries to take a child to raise as a slave that's a grave crime with an even worse punishment.  Children are precious.  Faeries especially don't go around stealing them from their parents arms to put them into slavery where I'm from."

Then Emily turned to her and asked, "And while you may not know it, pretty much everything you've said would've elicited much the same reaction from most Changelings where we're from. So that begs the question, do the terms Wyrd, Gentry, or Arcadia mean anything to you?"

Abigail frowned at the question and toyed with the crystal around her neck.  She said, "I'm sorry, and . . . Weird means stuff that's strange, Gentry is another word for 'aristocrat', and isn't Arcadia the name of Captain Harlock's ship?"

"Uh, gals? I think there's a better place to talk about this than in front of a changing room at Target. Like maybe my car. Or the parking lot," Law said, clearing his throat.

Abigail looked at him and said, "I don't want to get Mordred more riled up, so I want to get this cleared up before we deal with this hunter dude."

Mordred

"Do you come from some alternate reality suck in 1970s where inhuman bastards of my world have 'good' counterparts with fucking Van Dyke beards? Nah, forget the good part, they don't see anything wrong cooperating with vampires, beings for whom humans are the food." Mordred glared at Abigail, spiralling into uncontrollable rant. "I swear, whoever is the leader of the police force is out of mind to cooperate with a fucking bloodsucking corpse! Goddamnit, there is like only guy who seems to be sane there. Who knows, maybe at this rate he will be only normal human being out there, all other people turned into or replaced by members of the supernatural clique. I bet that vampire bint is planning to turn some of coppers into vampires to serve her bidding. I pledge on the sun that shines brightly now in the sky that I won't let her have her way. And if she tries to touch that guy, I will stick my spear up her arse, not through her heart."

[SINIB]

Irisviel

Irisviel hurried out of the room, and quickly walked down the hallway to her closet, rifling through it while looking for new clothes to wear. She threw on a casual red blouse and a short white skirt with stockings to match. Afterwords, she quickly returned back to the Solar, finding Sakura and Towuh running excitedly around, Sakura seemed to be holding a notebook.

“Um. . . Are you looking for something?” Iri asked cautiously.

[Panda]

Emily

Emily winced ever so slightly at the beginning of Mordred's rant, feeling the chances of managing persuade Abby and Law to let them stay over slip away with every word that passed Mordred's mouth.

Okay, this just can't go on.

In the brief moment that Mordred glared at Abby before continuing on her rant, Emily struck.

Or rather, Emily cupped Mordred's face in her hands and went in to silence Mordred's lips with her own.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vanguard

Vanguard chuckled. He couldn't have said it better himself. This man, Caster, proved to be more and more intriguing by the second. But at this point, it was unwise to speak furthers of these matters. After all, they were back in the manor.

Well, he was sure they'd be able to resume this sometime. Perhaps sooner, perhaps later. He had all the time in the world, so there was no need to worry. However-

It was not Rider's presence that was bothersome. Far from it, such a thing was normal. But that child...

There was no mistake, he was the man Sakura had asked him to fetch: Emiya Shirou. He had arrived too soon, far too soon. Vanguard was somewhat annoyed by this predicament, but it mattered not. He could work around that.

It seems fate had more surprises in stock.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Natara

The Caretaker watched impassively as the Taint consumed the building and the people within and only lost her focus when a figure emerged and launched a wave of fire from the roof at her. She almost scoffed. What kind of mage still bothered with physical phenomena?

It didn't matter. With a few whispered words the Taint receded and rose even larger than before. The fire simply fizzled out on contact and the tide of shadow was sent speeding towards the building and the interloper on the roof. It then took an instant for some of the flow coming from the Chalice to split off and go surging towards the stranger trying to talk to her.


Urthemiel

The Old God had to admit she was rather surprised. She hadn't really expected him to dodge every single one. It was both intriguing and slightly irritating. Her pride wouldn't allow her to let him to walk away without a scratch. So instead the projectiles circled Adjutor and formed a dome as he stood in the glyph. Then with a clap of her hands chunks of the island were broken off and fragmented into a multitude of shards.

These physical objects would not be stopped by the glyph and were soon spread out within the dome of rotating projectiles. The mage waited a few more moments until she was sure the glyph was beginning to waver and with a clenched fist every single projectile closed in at once.


PARIAH

The virus let go of Mia and pouted when she mentioned she had to go. While any other child may have thrown a fuss PARIAH had spent years within a prison since birth. Time was of little consequence to him. The pout soon faded when he realized how fun it would be once he got to play with sister again.

But for a moment he froze and a look of confusion rossed his face. "Who's Papa?"


Mata Boyd

The sewage worker paused for a moment after the tall man spoke and soon burst into laughter. She continued for a short while before finally stopping. "Oh, that's really funny. You want to find a single creature in here that's been murdering people? What a joke. How clean do you think these sewers are? Nearly every beastie and criminal who wants to get away from the police come down here."

Mata let out an amused chuckle before continuing. "You want to find a thing that's murdered a family or two? Look anywhere around here and I'm sure you'll find one."

She then turned on her own flashlight and took her time observing the group. "Now then, considering how there's a group of you and you haven't run away from me you're either really dumb or some group of police or at least one of the newer branches. And if that's really the case I can't imagine why you're here. You've let this place be a stinking cesspit for a while and now a murdering beast in the sewers garners official attention? Did it kill the family of someone important or something?"

Incredulity, annoyance, and a bit of anger seeped into the woman's tone as she spoke.

[Panda]

Michael

While Michael found it curious that the kid could apparently desummon his weapons, it wasn't something he hadn't seen before. Just then, the immortal realized that he may have tied his weapon up a bit. This realization came with the sight of the kid charging his weapon with...light?

The hasty block, all he had time to do from his current range and with the kid's speed, served most of its purpose, though the force of the blow still knocked Michael away a fair distance, with that distance being compounded by the kid rolling away.

Well that was nice of him.

That roll put the kid exactly where Michael wanted him to be. At a range where he couldn't reach with those blades and where Michael could easily keep pressure on him with his own weapon.

The light indicates that this kid might have some magic up his sleeve, however.

Regardless, Michael recovered quickly enough to press the attack, lashing out at the kid at range with his staff.

[yinsukin]

Roxas

The moment that he finished his dodge-roll, the nobody turned his head to look at the creepy doctor and Rikuyo.  It seems like their fight ended.  He turned his head back to see a staff coming straight towards him.  Rather than block, Roxas swung both of his keyblades down from his head to his hips in an X formation.

"Enough!"  He commanded.

He cast Areoga.  A powerful vortex of wind formed, with Roxas at the epicenter.  It exploded upward, possibly pulling in the staff wielding man.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Tohuw Balagan

"Erm, what are you doing? The kitchen is over here." said Toe, his look full of puzzlement as he pointed to an odd pink polka-dotted door. It surely was not there before.

Opening it, the demon revealed yet another door, which he proceeded to open once more to reveal another door, which he proceeded to open once more to reveal another door, which he proceeded to open once more to reveal another door, which he proceeded to open once more to reveal another door, which he proceeded to open once more to reveal another door, which he proceeded to open once more to reveal another door, which he proceeded to open once more to reveal another door, which he proceeded to open once more to reveal another door, which he proceeded to open once more to reveal another door...

"Oh, whoops. It seems that was the wrong door." the demon realized, moaning nonchalantly and snapping his fingers before opening a neon striped door. As it opened, light seeped out of something, revealing a pristine kitchen with clean wares and the greatest quality ingredients available at a reasonable price.

Grinning, he lazily waved at Sakura and urged her to get inside.

[Panda]

Adjutor

As the last of the projectiles dissipated against the bounds of the ward, Adjutor was about to allow a relieved sigh when the sound of Ur clapping registered, shortly followed by the sound of part of the island breaking apart. Looking around, the teen spotted chunks of the island being reduced to countless stone shards.

...Oh boy. That's...not something this ward was designed to deal with.

Well, that doesn't look fun. No magic directly involved in the creation of those things means we're kinda screwed.

At least it's just a dream.

With that, the teen readied himself for the assault. Sure, he couldn't actually prepare magic while within the ward, but preparation of any kind was better than nothing.

...Well, all we've got is that fireball and that flame blast...the blast is probably our safest bet here, but...

Fire ball might actually work at range though, it's still got a large blast radius, and the blast is mostly short range.

Okay, so Fireballs, followed by the blast?

...why is she waiting?

Then the Glyph started to waver and the shards all started to close in at once. A dome of rock that would be completed in a rather painful manner if the teen didn't do anything about it. Unable to wait any longer, the teen quickly stepped out of the bounds of the ward himself, reaching through the connection for the mana around him and gathering it into multiple packets. Fireball after fireball burst from Adjutor's hands, exploding amidst the shards and reducing a fair portion of them to useless dirt. There were still too many, however, and they were closing in.

The barrage of fire balls stopped as the ward finally vanished, with still far too many shards approaching. Mana rushed to Adjutor's arms once more before twin gouts of fire poured forth, taking out still more of the shards even as the rest approached. By now, the stone shards were reaching the teen, a fair portion grazing him, but more than a few striking true. When the barrage was over, the robe was all but torn to shreds, Adjutor himself bleeding from multiple grazes, with stone shards stuck in him proper. The teen's face was twisted in a pained grimace as he took in the wounds, taking a moment to pull some of the shards out as Armogarian metal flowed from his arms to staunch the grazing wounds.

"Ow," the teen muttered as he yanked a particularly large shard of rock out of his body, black metal quickly covering the wound.

"Might we learn healing magic next?" Adjutor asked, wondering if that was the point of this last insane exercise.


Michael

Of all the things he'd expected, the kid pulling a vortex out to knock him away was not one of them. Usually, air mages needed a bit of set up before managing something that big. Regardless, Michael wasn't knocked too far back before he extending the staff out to its twelve foot version, slamming the hook into the ground and anchoring himself to ride out the sudden explosion of wind.

All too soon, the vortex ended, the immortal taking a moment to recover from the strain of having to hold himself in place by his staff before reducing the staff back to its eight-foot form and holding it in a neutral position.

"If you insist, kid," the immortal says with a shrug.

[yinsukin]

Roxas

 Roxas sighed.  "Look, all I was trying to do was stall until I had an opening to stop Rikuyo.  I didn't really want to fight you."  He said, a bit tired of being dragged around.

He turned around and began walking to where the other pair had fought, not waiting for a response out of fear that Rikuyo would do something else drastic.  "You cant just attack people after they do you a favor!"  He said, a bit annoyed that he had to fight when he was against it.

[Knick]

Mia

“Papa is Papa!” Mia said with cheer as began to giggle, her face becoming flushed slightly flushed. The thought of Papa brought her nothing but joy. The soft red and white hair, the kind eyes, the feeling of his callused hand on her head, it only made her feel happy, feel joy and safety.

“Papa, papa, papa.” She began to mumble to herself as she held her hands to her face. “I wanna see papa…”

[Kotomine_Rin]

Richard Maxwell

"Ah, that's good. Good indeed. Man, this was just terrible. And I put all I had into that too, took me everything I had. No-"

Then, he chucked. He didn't seem to be quite there, as if he was lost in his thoughts. It's not like he was mad or anything, no no no. It's just that when seeing that meat doll regenerate like that, he couldn't help but get in his bad habits again. Just a little.

"I see. I lost because I went all out. It's only natural, I should have judged better than to focus on offense. Using mindless brute force was never my forte, unlike you. And yet I did get carried away. Maaaan, this is embarassing. So embarassing, so embarassing so embarassing. This is so embarassing I feel like puking, haha. And look, now I have no arms! Haha, hahahaha. Man, so embarassing. Embarassing embarassing embarassing embarassing." he raved with an oddly flat voice before laughing his heart out. He laughed so much, so hard, that it looked like he was about to die from it.

After a little while, he regained his composure. Getting up sloppily yet with a certain grace, he smiled and spoke once more. This time, he was calm. After all, being calm suited him better, keeping calm meant he wouldn't do mistakes like that again.

"Well, bravo. You won. Congratulations. With that, how about I treat you all to something to eat? I'll get you some clothes while you are at it."


Lorenzo Remei

A great pitch black wave descended upon Lorenzo, nullifying his flames and attempting to crash on him and end him. He barely had the time to use fire in order to propel himself out of the way, running back as fast as he could. He barely survived, barely. If that thing touched him even once, it was sure death. Attempting to gain distance from that woman, he fired his gun multiple times, flames bursting from the gun in quick succession and turning into bird-like creatures.

Quickly, they flew all over the area and exploded, causing smoke and dust to rise around that woman. The other flame familiars were pouncing at the woman at a quick pace, flying straight at her from multiple directions. Unlike normal flames, they could avoid her attacks and change directions.

"MEDAKA, GET OUT! NOW!" he roared, flying in order to get around that woman's blind spot and fire. He couldn't keep in the air for long, not at this rate. But he didn't have the time to land either.

[yinsukin]

Medaka Kurokami

Lorenzo was right.  She needed to guide the officers to saftey, she couldn't let her worry and guilt control her.  Every life counts.

Medaka began directing officers out, following the herd of what was left until they can reach their cars.  "Go call the stronger officers!"  Medaka commanded, her voice booming with authority.  Most of the cops followed her warning, a few stayed, inspired by the new officer and not willing to leave the station.

"OUT!  If something happens to the other officers, then we need you guys to get backup!"  Medaka commanded, stomped her feet on the ground and making a dent in the earth to emphasize her point.