[ there's just a vague hand gesture that gun must wait until he figures out if he can successfully gaslight this boss, actually. then you may gun.
charles is an extrovert and will probably spend some more time talking and picking a fight than actually starting it so that helps.
so anyway he stares this dude in the eye before shaking his head in disappointment. ]
And you really thought you'd make your way up to the top floor? Nobody's gonna believe you're the Boss when you can't even remember or control the real members of the Tingtang gang. So why don't you give up the disguise and go back outside and wait with the rest of the grunts?
[ this is probably not the way he should be doing it but here we are. ]
[ The Tieqiu Crew just do that thing where you smack your fist into your palm. In their defense, they are absolutely massive, so this isn't really as empty of a promise as it could've been otherwise. ]
Tieqiu Thug A
We'll break your bones.
Tieqiu Thug B
You're basically made of paper.
Tieqiu Thug A
Should've eaten more beans.
Tingtang Boss
Enough about beans!
[ He's not even a part of this conversation. ]
Tingtang Boss
If there's any imposter here, it's you!
I'll show you --
[ And bro is just straight up pulling out a knife to stab Shoma. I'm sorry he's gotta defend his honour(?). ]
yeah did not think this one through so there's a moment of panic about being fucking stabbed before he's just activating his e.g.o. to try and shield????
i rolled a 9 so you tell me if he actually gets this to work or not. ]
[ So, Shoma is getting a pretty nasty cut right in his shoulder, and then the Tingtang boss just grabs him in response to having a gun aimed at him, holding his knife to Shoma's throat.
For the record, the Tieqiu are absolutely not getting involved with this, because this kind of looks like an inter-gang scuffle and they're not interested.
Also, in the meantime, Arthur just comes up from behind the stairs, takes one look at this, shakes his head, and proceeds to continue past them towards the 4th Floor. He's not interested in whatever is going on here.
Probably extra-so since Shoma activates his E.G.O. out of panic, and --
His bracelet expands into a full-mechanical arm, the wires and screws digging into your body, replacing muscle with steel and an absolute rush of adrenaline flows through your veins. A part of it becomes a helmet encasing you, its teeth digging into your skull (link cw: body horror). You start... bleeding profusely, very profusely, although it's a little less traumatising than Isabel's case since your blood smells like oil and is so brightly coloured.
YOU
MUST
BECOME
STRONGER !!!
You're so strong! You can become even stronger? You have the strength, you can keep working! Truly?
Enda! [ ohhhhhhhh so this is what this is like from the other side. not great.
but like also if the kid (18 year old kid, she's enlightened now) wants to murder this guy... that's kind of fine isn't it...? honestly let's just see how this plays out for a minute. ]
[very briefly, there is a thought that flickers in charles's head something like "wow no one can give me shit for causing trouble now."
but he's going to run over to this scene now because yikes. he does not yet get involved if the boss is still holding a knife to shoma because honestly yeah? in this case murder is kind of okay? like, he does not want for shoma to have to kill a man, but also shoma's safety is presently more important than this guy's.]
[ okay actually first of all this was the worst e.g.o to give someone whose entire everything is based around being too mature for people his size and too small for people his age, so...strength?
strength is fine. strength is...
"I know about machine engineering, but not gene engineering. So I don't know too much about the details, but I do know that it works. My body is proof of that."
"You just gotta work at it! If I could do it, so can you."
a stab to the shoulder and a knife to the throat, and now he's bleeding everywhere but haha, fuck you, he has a mechanical arm now? he's finally strong enough to defend himself, right? he doesn't need everyone rushing in to protect him. no more "stay back for your own good" or people stepping in front of him or people thinking he can't take care of himself.
and no more of whatever this bullshit is so yeah. he's gonna attempt to just clock the boss right in the face with his mechanical arm. ]
[ Charles truly should be exonerated of all crimes.
Corrosion is horrifying but awesome, because as you can see, this 4'-something twink is about to literally fist-slam the Tingtang boss in the face so hard that his head just explodes. Yeah. He just did that. You can be horrified about it later and not now, since that adrenaline rush is feeling pretty frickin' awesome rn. That body is now a bloodied corpse, smashing right into the wall.
Keep going? You can! Grown Powerful! For realsies? ]
[THE TINGTANG BOSS HAS BEEN TAKEN CARE OF AND CHARLES IS NOT SURE HOW MUCH HE LIKES THIS METHOD? killing the guy was fine but it probably should not have been shoma but whatever it's done now they'll deal with possible repercussions later
but this is to say he's going to pull out his sword because he assumes this will have to go a similar way as it did with isabel.]
he's sort of impassively staring at this corpse before he seems to realize this also does not solve their problem about getting upstairs? he will simply allow one of the others to loot the dude's body for the shirt and turn to go see if he has to deal with security so they can get upstairs.
[ I fucked up your Corrosion rate so honestly, I'm just letting you have this. Shoma can just absolutely fucking brutalise the shit out of the Tieqiu guards in whatever way you want -- just that in the end, it boils down to you being INCREDIBLY EFFICIENT!!! at it, and also you're strong enough to literally explode people with a slam or punch right now.
You'll probably feel better after you clear out at least half the floor?
After which, the adrenaline will wear out, and your bleeding will slow down -- the helmet will come off, but funnily enough, looks like you're stuck with this mechanical arm. Hmmm.
Well.
Once Shoma has calmed down and the Corrosion has worn off, how would you like to proceed now?
but he will approach shoma, after looking around to make sure the remaining people on this floor aren't about to, like, come after them. they really should get going, but first—]
[ well unless lowe is about to tell me otherwise he's standing here with a robot arm, a stab wound in his shoulder, bleeding probably and also with bleeding teeth marks?? in his head?? but at least the bleeding has slowed down enough that he's sort of just staring at a bunch of exploded bodies round his feet like he's trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. ]
...that...could have gone worse. [ which is about all he says because it could have also gone better and he'll compartmentalize this to consider how many people he just straight-up murdered later. it's fine. they can freak out about that later. he kind of shakes his robo-arm though. is it still like the actual arm is steel instead of muscle or more like now it's a casing because the corrosion wore off because i assume it's the former. ]
We should go. We've lost a lot of time, and if Arthur's heading upstairs it means the game's probably starting. At least we can pass as the Boss now...? [ he says, staring at this exploded man that isabel is trying to loot. ]
[ Tingtang boss's outfit is absolutely disgusting, being covered in blood and gore, but it is in one piece. So if you don't have objections to wearing the bloodiest Hawaiian shirt you ever saw in your life, then this is fine. The shirt was once a nice dark green. It's almost black now. FFXIV /payrespects emote. The bright side is... pretty sure you only need to wear the shirt, and don't need to steal any more than that.
You managed to solve the problem of the shirt, but I don't think anybody could have predicted this.
Your arm feels like a prosthetic, basically, rather than just being an encasing. The good part is that it doesn't hurt. The bad part is that your arm is no longer regular flesh and blood. Well, we can figure that out later probably.
You can move onwards now, up the fourth floor and guided by workers to a certain corridor, where you will enter a pretty simple room. It's got a game table set up, and behind it, you see an elevator. Once you step into this room, all three of you feel rather strange -- like you're resonating with something, but you're not sure what yet.
At the table, you see two figures seated already! One is Arthur, who's tapping his fingers idly on the table. Second is that literal mechanical box of a person you saw earlier, who glances up, adjusting the bowtie they have on them. It looks right at Shoma as you come in and when it speaks -- you recognise this voice. It's entirely mechanical and essentially autotuned, but the pitch is very familiar to you. ]
Tieqiu Boss, Amame
...Shoma...
[ Feel free to take a seat, fellows. Because you have one more guest coming up behind you as you do. Once again, quite a familiar voice to at least one of you. ]
charles is freezing the moment that the yurodiviye leader speaks, before he whirls around. he knew something like this could happen, he'd spoken to the previous mission groups—but it's still deeply unpleasant to have it happen to him. (though it's not as though it's the first time something like this has happened, either.)
he also has a very specific trauma i did not mention to lowe so i'm sorry but his first reaction is to pull out his sword—but he does at least calm himself after that, holding it by his side rather than pointing it at anyone. a moment passes, and then he just laughs.]
... Haha.
[it's not exactly a happy laugh. it's fine.
he turns away from king riven to look at shoma instead, because he can only surmise this isn't a pleasant surprise for shoma either.]
[ yeah. like. even autotuned as it is, of course he recognizes that voice. this looks nothing like her because it's a literal mechanical box (which, like, ironic) but there are a few things happening here. first of all he's hyperfocused on that stupid bowtie and frowning so, so deeply. second of all the tieqiu boss says his name like that and he immediately kind of wants to crawl into a hole and die.
the downside of people thinking he's 12 is that he only kind of got a sense that something like this could happen, so this really sort of knocks him on his ass for a second. charles is busy pulling a sword and shoma's busy taking a few steps back to kind of shift behind the two of them as if maybe...if she can't see him she doesn't have to know he literally just murdered a bunch of people downstairs.
are there actually enough chairs for all of us to sit, or is it just isabel? he's letting his gaze bounce almost frantically between her, charles, the yurodiviye leader and the tieqiu boss. ]
[ If Riven recognises Charles... he says nothing. He does consider him with a carefully neutral expression though, hardly reacting even when the sword is drawn, before he moves on to take a seat at the table beside Isabel and Amame.
For the record they really weren't kidding, it seems. They legitimately are playing a regular game of cards, the specifics of which I will not get into. The rules are quite simple and extremely straightforward, though -- turns out, it really is all about pure gambling. You can argue about how much skill gambling technically takes, but them's the breaks.
There are no extra seats, Charles and Shoma are stuck standing behind Isabel. ]
Tieqiu Boss, Amame
...I didn't know you were here for the Bough.
Sorry, but I'm here to win, too. I have to.
[ Despite being nothing more than a mechanical contraption right now, you can still feel a profound sadness coming from her. ]
Jefe de Los Mariachis, Arthur
I'm not interested in small-talk.
[ As a response to Isabel. Mr. Riven also doesn't seem much interested in small talk, though he is still looking at Charles with a somewhat steely gaze first before he focuses on his cards.
You can have your rounds to chatter if you feel like it... or just play! How do you want to go about this? You have a few items at your disposal, so tell me your gameplan. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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wonders what the hell shoma is doing back there but turning around to look would be like SHOWING WEAKNESS to these thugs...]
Ah, is that so? What would you consider "big boy toys", in that case? Because I'm sure not seeing any on you.
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charles is an extrovert and will probably spend some more time talking and picking a fight than actually starting it so that helps.
so anyway he stares this dude in the eye before shaking his head in disappointment. ]
And you really thought you'd make your way up to the top floor? Nobody's gonna believe you're the Boss when you can't even remember or control the real members of the Tingtang gang. So why don't you give up the disguise and go back outside and wait with the rest of the grunts?
[ this is probably not the way he should be doing it but here we are. ]
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[ He's not even a part of this conversation. ]
I'll show you --
[ And bro is just straight up pulling out a knife to stab Shoma. I'm sorry he's gotta defend his honour(?). ]
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BUT THEN I WOULD LIKE TO AIM GUN AT BOSS??? ]
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[BECAUSE THAT BOSS OUTBURST SOUNDS CONCERNING SO HE TURNS AROUND JUST IN TIME TO SEE SHOMA MAYBE GET STABBED]
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yeah did not think this one through so there's a moment of panic about being fucking stabbed before he's just activating his e.g.o. to try and shield????
i rolled a 9 so you tell me if he actually gets this to work or not. ]
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For the record, the Tieqiu are absolutely not getting involved with this, because this kind of looks like an inter-gang scuffle and they're not interested.
Also, in the meantime, Arthur just comes up from behind the stairs, takes one look at this, shakes his head, and proceeds to continue past them towards the 4th Floor. He's not interested in whatever is going on here.
Probably extra-so since Shoma activates his E.G.O. out of panic, and --
His bracelet expands into a full-mechanical arm, the wires and screws digging into your body, replacing muscle with steel and an absolute rush of adrenaline flows through your veins. A part of it becomes a helmet encasing you, its teeth digging into your skull (link cw: body horror). You start... bleeding profusely, very profusely, although it's a little less traumatising than Isabel's case since your blood smells like oil and is so brightly coloured.
YOU
MUST
BECOME
STRONGER !!!
You're so strong! You can become even stronger? You have the strength, you can keep working! Truly?
What would you like to do? ]
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but like also if the kid (18 year old kid, she's enlightened now) wants to murder this guy... that's kind of fine isn't it...? honestly let's just see how this plays out for a minute. ]
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[very briefly, there is a thought that flickers in charles's head something like "wow no one can give me shit for causing trouble now."
but he's going to run over to this scene now because yikes. he does not yet get involved if the boss is still holding a knife to shoma because honestly yeah? in this case murder is kind of okay? like, he does not want for shoma to have to kill a man, but also shoma's safety is presently more important than this guy's.]
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strength is fine. strength is...
"I know about machine engineering, but not gene engineering. So I don't know too much about the details, but I do know that it works. My body is proof of that."
"You just gotta work at it! If I could do it, so can you."
a stab to the shoulder and a knife to the throat, and now he's bleeding everywhere but haha, fuck you, he has a mechanical arm now? he's finally strong enough to defend himself, right? he doesn't need everyone rushing in to protect him. no more "stay back for your own good" or people stepping in front of him or people thinking he can't take care of himself.
and no more of whatever this bullshit is so yeah. he's gonna attempt to just clock the boss right in the face with his mechanical arm. ]
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Corrosion is horrifying but awesome, because as you can see, this 4'-something twink is about to literally fist-slam the Tingtang boss in the face so hard that his head just explodes. Yeah. He just did that. You can be horrified about it later and not now, since that adrenaline rush is feeling pretty frickin' awesome rn. That body is now a bloodied corpse, smashing right into the wall.
Keep going? You can! Grown Powerful! For realsies? ]
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[THE TINGTANG BOSS HAS BEEN TAKEN CARE OF AND CHARLES IS NOT SURE HOW MUCH HE LIKES THIS METHOD? killing the guy was fine but it probably should not have been shoma but whatever it's done now they'll deal with possible repercussions later
but this is to say he's going to pull out his sword because he assumes this will have to go a similar way as it did with isabel.]
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wild.
he's sort of impassively staring at this corpse before he seems to realize this also does not solve their problem about getting upstairs? he will simply allow one of the others to loot the dude's body for the shirt and turn to go see if he has to deal with security so they can get upstairs.
p o w e r. ]
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You'll probably feel better after you clear out at least half the floor?
After which, the adrenaline will wear out, and your bleeding will slow down -- the helmet will come off, but funnily enough, looks like you're stuck with this mechanical arm. Hmmm.
Well.
Once Shoma has calmed down and the Corrosion has worn off, how would you like to proceed now?
Game starts very soon btw. ]
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but he will approach shoma, after looking around to make sure the remaining people on this floor aren't about to, like, come after them. they really should get going, but first—]
... How are you feeling?
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...that...could have gone worse. [ which is about all he says because it could have also gone better and he'll compartmentalize this to consider how many people he just straight-up murdered later. it's fine. they can freak out about that later. he kind of shakes his robo-arm though. is it still like the actual arm is steel instead of muscle or more like now it's a casing because the corrosion wore off because i assume it's the former. ]
We should go. We've lost a lot of time, and if Arthur's heading upstairs it means the game's probably starting. At least we can pass as the Boss now...? [ he says, staring at this exploded man that isabel is trying to loot. ]
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You managed to solve the problem of the shirt, but I don't think anybody could have predicted this.
Your arm feels like a prosthetic, basically, rather than just being an encasing. The good part is that it doesn't hurt. The bad part is that your arm is no longer regular flesh and blood. Well, we can figure that out later probably.
You can move onwards now, up the fourth floor and guided by workers to a certain corridor, where you will enter a pretty simple room. It's got a game table set up, and behind it, you see an elevator. Once you step into this room, all three of you feel rather strange -- like you're resonating with something, but you're not sure what yet.
At the table, you see two figures seated already! One is Arthur, who's tapping his fingers idly on the table. Second is that literal mechanical box of a person you saw earlier, who glances up, adjusting the bowtie they have on them. It looks right at Shoma as you come in and when it speaks -- you recognise this voice. It's entirely mechanical and essentially autotuned, but the pitch is very familiar to you. ]
[ Feel free to take a seat, fellows. Because you have one more guest coming up behind you as you do. Once again, quite a familiar voice to at least one of you. ]
Shall we, then?
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[ lovelace will swap out one bloody shirt for a different bloody shirt, then. trying to wring it out a little bit first. this is so fucking gross.
and upstairs, she will go take a seat at the table. it's fine she's the boss? ]
Don't be so impatient.
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charles is freezing the moment that the yurodiviye leader speaks, before he whirls around. he knew something like this could happen, he'd spoken to the previous mission groups—but it's still deeply unpleasant to have it happen to him. (though it's not as though it's the first time something like this has happened, either.)
he also has a very specific trauma i did not mention to lowe so i'm sorry but his first reaction is to pull out his sword—but he does at least calm himself after that, holding it by his side rather than pointing it at anyone. a moment passes, and then he just laughs.]
... Haha.
[it's not exactly a happy laugh. it's fine.
he turns away from king riven to look at shoma instead, because he can only surmise this isn't a pleasant surprise for shoma either.]
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the downside of people thinking he's 12 is that he only kind of got a sense that something like this could happen, so this really sort of knocks him on his ass for a second. charles is busy pulling a sword and shoma's busy taking a few steps back to kind of shift behind the two of them as if maybe...if she can't see him she doesn't have to know he literally just murdered a bunch of people downstairs.
are there actually enough chairs for all of us to sit, or is it just isabel? he's letting his gaze bounce almost frantically between her, charles, the yurodiviye leader and the tieqiu boss. ]
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For the record they really weren't kidding, it seems. They legitimately are playing a regular game of cards, the specifics of which I will not get into. The rules are quite simple and extremely straightforward, though -- turns out, it really is all about pure gambling. You can argue about how much skill gambling technically takes, but them's the breaks.
There are no extra seats, Charles and Shoma are stuck standing behind Isabel. ]
Sorry, but I'm here to win, too. I have to.
[ Despite being nothing more than a mechanical contraption right now, you can still feel a profound sadness coming from her. ]
[ As a response to Isabel. Mr. Riven also doesn't seem much interested in small talk, though he is still looking at Charles with a somewhat steely gaze first before he focuses on his cards.
You can have your rounds to chatter if you feel like it... or just play! How do you want to go about this? You have a few items at your disposal, so tell me your gameplan. ]
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[ okay we're going to play..... which roll of mine were we using. it doesn't matter they're both Bad ]
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