Cross Effects 3.0 - June 23, 2016—April 02, 2018

[Thedoctor]

Jeanne

Her master must have believed her aversion was to the kitchen itself going by how smug she seemed when pulling her along. "Of course I can master, it will be my pleasure." Might as well lay it on a bit thick here, the real one getting the short end of the stick wasn't her after all. Thus she happily went along with her master's request and got pulled into the kitchen.

"So what are you going to make today?"

[MissingMandible]

Gojira:

Gojira dragged the hapless woman into an alleyway about a block from the apartment compex. Once swinging around the corner, the Shemonster peeked back around the corner the way they came from - sure enough, Joshua was wading through the crowd of people coming their way. Did he have a sixth sense for troublemakers?

Goira turned back to Adjutor, "Do the Shadow-thingy again!" she quickly demanded.

[SINIB]

Oka

"Don't be silly, why would we leave anyone behind?" She asked, hopping off Wormy and bounding into the cave. "Wormy, flash." She commanded him without missing a step. The bug suddenly began to glow brightly, emenating heat and light as he illuminated the cave's entrance. Oka turned around, hopping back and forth excitedly while clutching her bag. "Come on, let's go!"

[Thedoctor]

William

He smirked as he brought the pizza slice ever closer to the awaiting godesses' mouth. He was tempted to eat for himself but decided against it. She most likely wouldn't aprreciae it at this point going by how much her stomach was growling.

As the slice was gently pushed into her mouth he struck with his next question. "Oh would be so kind to enlighten me then?"

[Aiden]

Meti

So Meti drank the tea as she stole glances at the blade, her face glowing red with pride at the approval in the puppet's face. The words repeated themselves in her head. An unceasing mantra that only grew in force as she drank.

Then she was done. and Meti put her tea mug on the table as she waited for further instruction.

Muramasa Katase

Oh, it seemed that Meti was finally starting to pay the puppet some attention. It was quite dangerously endearing how eager this girl was for her approval. You would think she'd found her own personal god now. From the feelings the blade was picking up on that was perhaps not an exaggeration.

The puppet leaned in over the table, slightly, a soft smile on her face. Katase's curiosity ran away with her. "How did you become so kind, Meti?" To swords, of course; other things were irrelevant to this.

[Aiden]

Mordred

Eh? She really shouldn't just get away with such light "punishment." She was really, really sorry after all. Mordred was quite embarassed by that, but then regained her cool and made a serious offer. "Sakura, to show how I'm really sorry, I can swear a magic oath. If I ever use that spell in your presence, I will suffer appropriate backlash. You should set it so that it's fair."

IRON=SAKURA

Sakura laughed at Breeze's punishment. "What kind of punishment is that? You gotta do something more nefarious for her crimes, Breeze. That's just nothing." Sakura leaned forward and kissed Breeze on the forehead. "See. Totally ineffective punishment."

She then turned her attention to Mordred's suggestion. She suddenly flicked Mordred on the forehead, giving her a big red welt, and shook her head. "Dummy. I couldn't ask you to do that. What if we were in a fight against something big and scary together, and you needed to use that ars? It would be super bad to limit yourself like that. Never intentionally cripple yourself." She put Mordred down after that. "That flick was your punishment. Please don't do something reckless like that again, ok?" The purplehead asked, smiling at her friend genuinely. "I'll be happy if you just don't do it again."

Auspicious Breeze

"The punishment is that I didn't kiss her on the lips like I was gonna if you'd both lost fair and square!" Breeze grinned then, looking oh so pleased with herself. Or with being kissed on the forehead, one of those. "Also you know, her feeling guilty for getting away with it. Because I know you're a good person even if you get too competitive sometimes, Mordred. That's pretty worse than anything I can do!"

She nodded firmly at that.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Meti

That was... It was a question the brought up very old memories for Meti. She clasped her hands together and looked right at Katase as she spoke. "My clan was always famous for their swordsmanship. We were known as a family of mercenaries, every one of us capable of using a blade."

"I was the daughter of the family head, and it was expected that I would succeed my father. But my concerns slowly became less about my lessons and more on my swordsmanship. There always a connection I had with swords. I could feel them. Their purity and perfection sang to me, and I wanted, and still want, to become with it."

Her hands gripped each other tightly. "One day, when I was twelve summers old he called me to the main hall to publicly chastise me. He said that I was slacking in my other subjects, that while we may be excellent swordsmen there is more than that. I disagreed. To live and to wield the sword is one and the same."

"We fought. He had experience, reach, and power, but he did not know how to love the sword as I did. I took his hand, his position, and his sword. He would never forgive me for that. It's why he would try to have me killed later, and why I left home with a cart and the finest swords our armory had."

She smiled. "Then I spent time with them as I collected blades from the unworthy. I would spend weeks in the company of nothing else but them, and our connection would only grow. It would be impossible for me to not come to love them."

[Aiden]

Muramasa Katase

Ah.

The tale spoke to the earliest souls in the demon's steel. A tale of familial grudges, duty subverted in the service of ambition, of love ruining a generation to come. Only instead of two men killing over a woman it was Meti killing over a sword, with and for one. She was unlike anyone else, truly, in that single-minded devotion. Even Katase was not so pure as this girl, weapon though she was, for she had been contaminated by her centuries of feasting with human foibles.

Outside the heat of battle, at least.

They were perhaps alike in that: imperfect when out of their element. Katase's puppet wiped tears from her eyes by the end of it as she realized Meti had broken all of those swords. "And then you broke them all... just for me."

[Umbra of Chaos]

Meti

Her eyes were wet at the mention of the blades. Grief pooled inside her and weighed heavily on her heart. Then, with some bit of audacity and courage, held the puppet's hand as she cast her eyes to the blade. "Yes, for you. You are beyond value. A blade that has perfection lurk in its edge. I saw it. They saw it. A wielder who holds back its blade is useless, but the opposite holds true as well."

"I want to become one with you. Sharpening ourselves against each other, fighting together, correcting one another, alloying ourselves into one perfect philosophy and purpose. To become the very act of Cutting."

"I love you!"

[Aiden]

Molly

The Hunter cheerfully skipped down the almost completely dark alley leaving a broken body in her wake. It was way too easy. Just go to the shadier parts of the city and act lost and eventually they'd come. Seeking a cute defenseless girl, they would come. Guys wanting her, wanting to rape her that is. Little did they know what they were in for.

Maybe she needed a change, her underwear was completely soaked huh.

Coming here had actually made her life easier. She no longer had to be careful for the Association to catch wind of what she was doing. She was desperately out of money though and wanted something else than that for a change. What a thought, before coming here she'd never think something like that. How things change.

Tchhh... I guess I have no choice then. I'll have to find someone who'd hire a maid. But what if they are perverts with maid fetishes and want me to do really creepy stuff? There's no limit to what it could be. This is the Nexus after all You never know. I'm here after all hehe... I don't even... Could I do it? I do need money but..... Ahhh what to do?"

"Whaaaaaa!"

She didn't notice the bump in the ground and tripped, which lead to a quite spectacular face plant in the ground.

Liam

The vampire had gone out to find a bite to drink. In the past month he'd begun weaning himself off relying on the people who already lived in his neighborhood and branching out to, well, his neighbors' neighbors. His sorts were already starting to fall in line, so he couldn't get all complacent about it. So that's how he got out and about just after sunset.

How he'd found the strange girl, well that was another sorta thing altogether. It started with catching a whiff of blood, the sort he'd get if someone scraped against somethin' and made the skin all red somewhere. Then he got close enough to see her in the dark, hear her heartbeat plain as night. Also, for some reason she was wearing a maid outfit. And he could see up her skirt.

Well if I weren't already damned, I would be now.

That being said, Liam walked up beside her and did the only gentlemanly thing he could do. He knelt down and moved to help the strange little lady up. "You alright there, miss?"

[Kotomine_Rin]

RED

It had been a while since she had fought something so nasty. She had gotten off the hospital a while ago, apparently the doctors were shocked at how quickly she recovered from the trauma. Oh silly, why wouldn't she? This didn't hurt one bit, she thought cheerfully as she gobbled a candy whole, consuming the innocent sweet into oblivion.

She wondered if Oren was doing alright...

Well, no matter! She was glad, she really was, that she could be useful to someone. She didn't really know why, but when she protected her friend, she felt a weird happy feeling inside. Kinda like she was born for this!

"Bah! Idiot, idiot, idiot, idioot!" She suddenly shook her head. She was still kinda mad that she'd get into a stupid fight like that! She swore, if she found her again, she'd give her a clout to the ear and hug her so tight she'd never escape again.

But suddenly, she heard sounds, noises that she had heard over and over, but in different places. Her eyes widened as her brain made the connection. The thunder, the screams. Her face changed into fear, then horror. Something was wrong, people were in danger.

Her skin turned into a scarlet red, like she had morphed into a demon, and through some strange power she took flight like a comet, flying over invisible appendages that dragged her in the sky. And then she found the source of the screams, and her blood red eyes narrowed in anger.

"Unforgivable..." Se grit her teeth before crashing down into the bar, her branches cushioning her from the walls and blowing a sizeable hole into the roof and floor. Standing in the center of the crater, surrounded by smoke, blood, rubble and bullets, all it took was a look at the corpses for the smoke to shift and contort with a crimson streak of lightning.

Invisible arms slithered and crawled over her, acting like a shield. Surrounded by this carnage, an invisible hand slammed on the ground and shook it.

She only had one thing to say.

"WHO DID THIS!?"

[Aiden]

Annabeth

The Hunter gave him a short smile at the greeting before she started fidgeting again. Should she launch into now or start with something else? Chances were he'd smelled someone else on her by now, so there was no point trying to hide it. At the same time, launching straight into it might be a bit much...

"Guess this is good timing then, or the closest thing I can get," Annabeth said, wavering on her words for a moment before pushing on through, "How did your time with Rikuyo go after I left?"

Damn it, can't really stall much and I shouldn't really try.

Ron

Huh, what was that odd smell anyway? It would take a couple minutes for him to place it in his human form after that shower, so he focused on grabbing some socks and figuring out how he was going to tell her about the day. Probably best to start from the beginning; he wasn't a great liar. "Well, we got into some trouble. Because that's just how Riku is. Somehow or another we ended up in a doughnut shop and we got into a fight with a couple of vampires."

And it was true, though a foursome almost happened somewhere along the way. It was a threesome instead. His face was a little red now. Well, here came the part where he probably got shot at.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Paladin

Well, she was certainly energetic. Paladin couldn't fault her for that! And if Oka was to charge so recklessly he knew in his heart that there was little that they could do to maintain subtlety now. So he rushed in right after her.

[Aiden]

Meti

Her eyes were wet at the mention of the blades. Grief pooled inside her and weighed heavily on her heart. Then, with some bit of audacity and courage, held the puppet's hand as she cast her eyes to the blade. "Yes, for you. You are beyond value. A blade that has perfection lurk in its edge. I saw it. They saw it. A wielder who holds back its blade is useless, but the opposite holds true as well."

"I want to become one with you. Sharpening ourselves against each other, fighting together, correcting one another, alloying ourselves into one perfect philosophy and purpose. To become the very act of Cutting."

"I love you!"

Muramasa Katase

Some human impulse in the demonic weapon made her want to stutter, admonish Meti that they had just met and this was way too fast a progression of their relationship. Indeed, her puppet was blushing furiously and her handle was practically warm to the touch in ways it shouldn't be. She restrained the urge to give into that, and focused instead on the purity the girl was praising so much.

you do

There was a pause.

need time

[Umbra of Chaos]

Meti

Her hands drifted to her side. They lacked the sheer exuberance of the moment before but were saturated with a calm satisfaction. The unspoken acknowledgement that Katase would love her as well. "I have never had to wait for a sword before, but I understand."

Meti's hand stroked the warm hilt of the blade as she asked, "But how did you become the way that you are, Lady Katase?"