Cross Effects 3.0 - October 21, 2015—June 23, 2016

[Thedoctor]

Kuro 

"Hey I'm not that short! If anyone is a poor sod it's you, for missing out" She complained as Corbin lowered her back to the ground. She didn't really care much for his complaints about his job at the moment, but the mention of all the good food awaiting them was far more interesting. Mordred on the other had was being really nice to him. Does she like him? Kuro thougth as she saw the blonde act even more polite than she'd seen previously.


Archer

As if following up what Rin was saying,Archer disappeared and then appeared but a moment later, holding one of the somehow still hot chocolate soufflé's in his hand, offering it to Sakura. "Try it, chocolate is good for you when you'refeeling down." he told Sakura as gently as he could.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Alarice

It was impossible to know what Alarice's face looked like from under the skull as she stood up and looked straight at the mage. A claw older the kingdoms opened and was gently placed on his shoulder. No green fire poured from it to consume and it didn't clamp down with enough force to crush. There was something almost reassuring about the movement. "If my lord has no land then all we must do is find some property to occupy. Preferably empty. Then we can expand from there."

The advice wasn't the worst she could have given. This wasn't quite the role she thought she would ever be playing but if this was the opportunity she was given she wouldn't mind it. Perhaps she could get him to desist from using necromancy any longer as well. It was an unwholesome art.


Erica

The blue haired girl's head tilted ever so slightly. It was almost as if she was confused or at least giving the appearance of being so. "I do not kill anyone that angers me. This was a special case. An unprecedented level of anger was brought forth so I acted upon it. It is also unnecessary for me to 'cool off'. I had already decided to simply let her go if there was outside interference."

Erica returned to her floating state as she stared back at the man and analyzed his every movement. "You are not my babysitter but perhaps you could instruct me? The previous ones I was speaking to have vanished and I am again lacking proper instruction. You also seem to have an inclination towards stopping violent issues so it would work to both of our advantages."

[Kat]

Corbin

"Me? Have my way with a little bit like you?" Corbin asked Kuro with a laugh as he lowered her back down to the ground.  "Come back when you're five-six years older and then we'll see, but you're such a bother though.  I feel sorry for whatever poor sod you'll get those tawny little hands on when you're a bit older."

He grinned at Mordred and said, "Indeed I do have the day off.  I can work overtime another day anyway, so it's no bother.  Relaxing is a grand thing, and trust me, when you get into actual active duty, and good at a lot of things, they'll try to run you ragged.  Plus Sticky Toffee and their fish and chips . . . for such a dive it's like going back home.  Except people have better teeth."

Kuro  

"Hey I'm not that short! If anyone is a poor sod it's you, for missing out" She complained as Corbin lowered her back to the ground. She didn't really care much for his complaints about his job at the moment, but the mention of all the good food awaiting them was far more interesting. Mordred on the other had was being really nice to him. Does she like him?Kuro thougth as she saw the blonde act even more polite than she'd seen previously.

Mordred

Ah, British and their plain and bland cuisine. Her countrymen were smart about borrowing food from other countries, but fish and chips weren't bad either, and she would feel like back at home. Quite good choice, she had to admit. "Yeah, let's go, seems like the place is neat." She nodded, and followed Corbin who led the way. The bar looked like a place straight out of a Noir movie, located in a basement of an old factory. "Yeah, looks fine. And if it's really enchanted like you said, then there's nothing to worry about." Within reason of course, she wasn't a person to completely drop a guard even in safest place.

[Elf]

Corbin

"Short isn't a problem, it's the fact that you're a tad bit too young," Corbin said, "Even I have some scruples."

Then he lead them to the bar in question.  At Mordred's words, he nodded and said, "And the woman who runs the kitchen is amazing.  Like, this place shouldn't have the food that it does."

At the bar there was a large man with his head clean shaven and his arms were covered in intricate tattoos.  Anyone with an inkling of mystical knowledge would have realized that all the ink was for various sorts of protection.  He nodded at Corbin as he walked in and said, "Ah, and you said today was your day off."

"Well Tuck, I just can't stay away," Corbin said with a smile as he pulled seats out for both Mordred and Kuro.


Gabriel

"Well here we are," Gabriel said as he pulled them in the shadows back into "reality".

The soft strains of jazz music was coming from a little quartet in the corner.  The room was a soft wine color with golden trim.  The tables were crafted with black lacquer, and an enormous bar took up a good chunk of the room.

He clapped his hands together with a smile and said, "Excellent, the music is both live and not too loud." 

[Aiden]

Forest

She grinned at Gadreel and said, "Technically, I don't need to take a shower every day, but I do.  Sometimes it just feels nice to be clean and apparently smell like an alcoholic beverage meant to drop a young co-ed's knickers."

The blond frowned ever so slightly.  She had spent most of her living life filthy after all, but when she first woke up as a vampire, being covered in all that blood, filth, and that . . .Roman Bastard's . . . Becoming clean had suddenly become something very important to her. 

Biting her lip she reached out and picked up a bottle of some sort of body wash that proclaimed sea salt. "And sometimes you're just covered in unmentionables and need to be clean."

Gadreel

"An alcoholic beverage?" he could not help but inquire after, frowning in some measure of bafflement. He was, admittedly, unfamiliar with the varieties and vintages of modern human distillations. Immune to the ravages of all manner of earthly poisons, Gadreel had little cause to indulge in such things where more flavorful options were available.

None the less, she had a fair point and a relatively long history to go with it. "I imagine with your... diet, that such things are indeed a concern," he pointed out in a low voice so nobody would pick up on it.

[SINIB]

Sakura Matou

Sakura had mixed feelings about talking about him. She couldn't figure out whether it would be helpful or just make it hurt more.

So she smiled thankfully at Archer, took the dessert, and began to eat it, thinking it over further as she ate.

She couldn't believe it had happened.

It's clearly another insidious plot. That was her first thought. It had sent another person to hurt her again, just like last time, two years ago.  This time it was an evil Shirou.

Those words shouldn't ever be put next to each other. She lamented their awful fate. She briefly felt a small amount of pitt for the bastard. What had happened to this man, to make him so mean-spirited and cruel?

…

He shouldn't be like this. Someone, or something, is after me, and they're out to get me; he's out to get me, and…

She stopped herself, and her thoughts paused long enough for her to take in the taste of the food.

"Mmn..." She made a small noise of pleasure as she ate.

It's good.

Unlike him… She wanted to curse herself for coming back to him again. It wasn't healthy. She knew these kind of obsession were bad for her. It was obvious. Faust would have gently berated her for it.

But she couldn't help it.

It just didn't sit right with her. If only he didn't have that face.

That face.

That wonderful face.

If he was just some random stranger, she'd have just killed them and been done with it. She wouldn't have any hangups at all. She knew that. Rapists deserve to die. It was obvious to her. A simple fact.

I wish it was that simple. She sighed internally.

Maybe it was an accident? She wondered, beginning to ponder the thought. That would make sense. Maybe even more sense. But…

While it logically held up, she couldn't accept it at all. His awful apology. His awful, terrible apology. It was the thing that stood out to her, that stook out like an inflamed pimple in this train of thought. He'd apologized like he'd simply bumped into her, treated it less meaningfully than even the most minor of crimes.

That was why she couldn't accept it. This just didn't work. He was awful. A liar. A coward. A fraud. A thief.

She heard a clink and looked down. Her plate was empty. She didn't know if it was the first time she'd done that or the hundredth.

She looked back up at Archer and Rin with tired eyes. "I just want to cook dinner right now, the entire situation makes my head spin."

[Thedoctor]

Kuro

A look of dejection passed over her as she was so thoroughly rejected, it was like a rain cloud was floating above her head. Her bad mood remained until they reached the bar, it was a lot better than she had expected. The man at the bar had arms covered in intricate tattoos, they looked to be of a mystical nature. So this place is run by some magus, guess Corbin wasn't lying about the defenses, probably. You could never know after all, he might have been exaggerating.

"Thank you." The white haired girl responded to Corbin as he pulled out chairs for them, even going as far as bowing to him. It looked almost unsettling, how fast she she switched to being polite, like it was a facade.

[Elf]

Rin

"Yeah, chocolate has endorphins in it; Roderick told me his use to drink hot chocolate if something had gone wrong and used it as a kid as part of her therapy to get use to her Crest.  She sweared up and down by it apparently," Rin said as Archer returned with one of his confections.

Rin watched Sakura eat, and how her fork hit the empty plate a few times.  She didn't even say anything about how it tasted.  This . . . must be really bad.  I know what happened upset her, but I didn't know to this extent.

"You look exhausted tough.  Dinner can wait a little while.  Maybe you should take a nap.


Forest

"Yes, ones specifically of fruit and high proof.  High enough were you cannot taste the liquor anymore," Forest said with a nod. "Some of which aren't half bad."

She nodded to his quiet words and replied in a soft whisper, "Or if you're fighting werewolves and gore gets in your hair.  I'd rather not feed on a dirty person, but I can and have before.  I'm just glad that personal hygiene became popular again."

[Kat]

Mordred

Huh, he seems like a reasonable fellow, but also fancied himself a ladies man. She wondered if had some designs too on her. Honestly, Corbin looked handsome and she would be pretty flattered if he fancied her. And he didn't seem to be a pushy guy like Emily or Bellitanus, so that was a plus.

As for Kuro, Mord felt like she was hard to read. She swinged back from an obnoxious to nice kid. But she guessed she liked her that way, she wasn't boring.

"Thanks, Corbin." She thanked Corbin, who seemed to have proper manners under his swearing facade. "You like tinkering, right?" She picked up conversating, asking him about his hobbies. "Could tell me about more about it? Not about guns of course, let's not talk about job here. Let me guess, you like cars?" That what guys usually liked, and cars could be called shiny, if you cared about polishing them every day.

[Panda]

Annabeth

The Hunter's eyes widen as he continued dancing through the bullets, not at his impressive skills at dodging the bullets, but rather at the way they bullets disappeared. The Hunter started maneuvering away, taken off guard by the realization that the creature was somehow catching the bullets with its mouth. Ron's efforts proved useful, the creature ducking behind a pillar to get away from the gun-fire as Ron advanced towards it. They were still well within the range of Annabeth's En, which allowed her to realize that the creature had just opened its mouth as Ron was charging in before horrified realization struck.

In that instant, the Hunter's mind flashed back to something she'd heard in a bar back in Meteor city. Someone telling about a member of the Phantom Troupe managed to kill three of the Mafia's Shadow Beasts with only his head and neck. It was the second of the three fatalities that came to mind now, a piece of skull spit so fast that it blasted through the Shadow Beast's head. The exact thing that was being spat differed here, but with so many bullets all being fired at once, even if they packed about as much punch as a shot from a BB gun individually...

As the pink-haired monstrosity roared, the Hunter acted, a flicker of her will forcing every last bullet within the creature's mouth to simply dissipate as its roar shook the warehouse. The sound served Annabeth's purposes well enough, the black revolver already in her hand, her hand already reinforced by Gyo, and her finger already pulling the trigger. The sound of the gun-shot was drowned out by the roar, though the bullet outdistanced the sound it left behind by a fair margin, barrelling through the pillar that separated the two and exploding out the other side, already homing in towards the creature's head once more, only with even less warning than last time before the bullet was upon him.

[Cherry Lover]

Rider

Rider smiled and nodded, riding along as fast as she could whilst alowing the man to keep up with her, enjoying the feeling of the air rushing through her hair.Finally, she noticed a place on the horizon. Before she could point it out to Tony, though, he had also noticed it, and begin slowing down.

"Hey, that looks decent", he said. "How about we try there?"

Rider turned and smiled, also beginning to slow down.

"Yes, that sounds like a good idea", she said.

With that, she rode off towards the restaurant, Tony following slightly behind her. When she arrived, she took her bike around to the bike parking, glad she'd remembered to buy a bike lock from the shop. Locking the bike up, she changed back into her casual outfit, making no effort to hide what she was doing from Tony, and sure that no-one else was present. Then, she waited for him, intending to follow him into the restaurant when he was ready.

[Elf]

Corbin

Corbin chuckled at Kuro's bow and asked, "What's this?  A few minutes ago you were saying I was going to 'drag you to a back alley and have my way with you' and now you're bowing like I'm some fancy lord.  The courtly routine doesn't suit you Little Bit."

He waited until Mordred sat down and pulled off his jacket.  Once it was draped behind the chair he sat down as well and tilted his head at her question.  "You're welcome.  I maybe a punk, but an old friend would have my hide if I wasn't polite to a lady.  Besides, you ladies do deserve respect so yeah.  As to tinkering, I actually like motorcycles and almost anything electronic."

A smile spread across his face at an old memory.  "The leader of my Order was a bit of an uptight yet perfect knight.  Everyone called him Galahad because of it.  Anyway, dourer and super responsible Galahad had one weakness.  He really loved the old arcade game Joust.  None of us knew why; it's kind of a klunker compared to Donkey Kong, Galactica, or Pac-Man.  Yet he loved it.  So a few years ago I found a busted cabinet for it at a flea market.   

"Figuring, 'Well, what the hell?' I bought it.  Figured it would be fun to mess around with it.  I got shocked so many times; the electrical system had been redone with duct tape connecting the wires together of all things, but I got it working again.  I gave it to Galahad and the look on his face was priceless.  He looked like a kid on Christmas morning, and he still has the machine to this day, and plays it on a weekly basis."

He chuckled, missing his somber old friend.  "Considering he bailed my ass out so many times and stood up for me when my methods were less than orthodox it was the least I could do for him."

[Kotomine_Rin]

Count Greyskull

“E-eh, yes! Of course! Why, that was my plan all along! You may be perceptive, but you are a thousand years too early to best me! MYEHYEHYEHYEHYEH!!”

He jumped up the bed and sat royally, putting a pillow down and tapping it to indicate that she was to come up and join Mr. Bone’s wild ride next to him. After all, what kind of dark lord would force a girl to walk tiresomely like that?

“You should save your strength. Please join me!”

[yinsukin]

Relius Clover

Last time I saw you?  That confirms it.

Relius frowned.  Then he walked over to the door and layed the snow haired girl on the ground.  Soon after, he reapproched the creature.

"Yes.  Words have little value.  And perhaps I have been a bit fool hearty, even if I have collected plenty of data."

Ignis once again appeared, this time behind Theodore, in a flash of purple light.  Relius grew a large grin that dominated the bottom part of his face not concealed by the mask.  He walked closer, entering shoulders distance from the creature and gazed into his blank expression.

"However, your wrong about one thing.  I CAN confirm the validity of your statements.  Now, lets build some rapport.  Hold still.  I will not harm you unless you resist.  Although, I do find your soul most fascinating.  If you don't function as a collaborator, I have no issue's reverse engineering you for parts."  He said as Ignis slowly inched forward from behind.

[Thedoctor]

Kuro

"Oh so we're ladies now, I see, the von Einzberns is actually a noble family where I come from. But if you prefer the other way so much I can shout pedophile, and we can see what happens." She told Corbin with a sly smile on her face. "You shouldn't worry, buying me cakes goes a long way, so I won't expose your secret right now, okay, this Galahad would be so disappointed if he found it wouldn't he." Her barrage of teasing comments were unrelenting, her smile just kept growing as she went on.

She then turned to the blonde who was also also sitting at the table, Mordred had been the one who prompted Corbin to go down his trip on the memory lane. "Motorcycles look cool, they go so fast, I don't really know much about tinkering actually, but my brother does it a lot, he can pull apart anything and put it together. What about you Mord, do you tinker with stuff?"