Life Is But A Stage (IC Thread)

Shiki frowned, before picking up her knife. She ran her finger along the edge, blood slowly flowing down her hand in a tiny creek of red. Hadn’t been dulled much, then; that was good, at least. She spun the knife in her hand, before sliding it into her belt, where it would be handy but not annoying.

Should she follow? It wasn’t a question of whether she could kill off whatever complex she was in - she could kill the foundation, its occupants were not a problem - but she had no idea where she was. Or how to get home. “So long as you can get me home to Mifune, I’ll follow.”

As she walked away from the others’ weapons, the flourescent-ish lighting caught on her ring, shining through the gemstone that adorned it. She couldn’t say she understood the tradition, but she appreciated it nevertheless. She’d deny it made her smile to look at it, of course.

“Where are we, anyway? I can’t feel Gaia, so we aren’t on Earth.”
 
Zer0
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Zer0 followed behind Vivian and the others on their short journey to the location that held their gear. Well, hopefully where his gear was also being stored. As nothing more would be annoying and slightly embarrassing to without any of his gear for however long he's going to be here.

When he heard something about someone else being the one to inform Vivian of the location of their gear and help throughout this whole thing caused Zer0 to instantly have flashbacks to a certain individual that 'helped' the Vault Hunters when they all first met on that train before said train exploded and they were stranded in the Tundra.

"Be careful of them/Unknown sources can be bad/Had experience." He said, as he wanted to avoid a similar situation in which they all get betrayed and potentially end up being worse off than before.

Once the group had found their respective gear, Zer0 scanned the cabinet for the one thing he needed. Which wasn't hard as his eyes landed on a very familiar small cube. Picking it up with his four fingered hand, Zer0 reattached it to his belt. And waited for the Digi-storage box to reconnect with him. It wasn't long as his shield, grenade device eventually were Digi-constructed on his belt. As his shields booted up, Zer0 went through his weapons, starting out with checking the Jakobs weapons, as they were his favorite. Then moving onto the Hyperion SMG and ending with the Maliwan Pistol. Seemed each weapon had plenty of ammo, although he was going to have to be careful to avoid running out.

He moved onto his most prized possession.

In his hand, the hilt was the first thing Digi-constructed before the glowing cyan blade was next. Giving it a few practice swings and stances. Well, he had moved a bit from the group to avoid accidentally cleaving off someone's limb.

It felt amazing to hold it once more.

The blade Digi-deconstructed back into storage while he placed the hilt on his belt. Zer0 made his way to the group.

"I can be patient/For revenge is best served cold/Lead the next way out."
 
"Of course they do, but if you singe it like you did, we start to lose our status! Of course you wouldn't know that." Neptune responded to 18 with a smug expression. She certainly loved to uphold her personality trait of breaking the fourth wall, despite this not being a game like she believes it to be. "Besides, at one point, I wasn't even the Protagonist of the main games, that was my beloved sister, Nepgear. Of course, in a later installment, she started to suffer something Blanc called 'DBZ Syndrome.'"

As they were being escorted, she thought about the comment made by Vivian that she had 'received instructions and guidance' to reach where their gear was being held. "(This is raising so many flags. Who would want to allow us to obtain our OP gear? It's like placing all the main characters at Level 99 at the beginning of the game, and then resetting them to Level 1 afterwards just to show off our skills.)" Once they had arrived, Neptune looked long and hard and eventually found her beloved weapon: The Wooden Sword. Brandishing it into a stance and holding it's grip, she smiled.

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"It feels perfect! To be able to wield this sword again is just like starting a game out fresh! I hope those bad guys are ready, cause I'm about to Nep them all up!" She then looked towards Vivian and nodded before making a comment. "If we're going to get out of here, I don't think I'd be able to fly us out without my HDD. These guys have something called a Skill Jammer Pod, which is like a floating drone for those Sci-Fi nerds out there. If I am to use the fullest extent of my awesome moves and abilities, we're going to need to find it and destroy it. Knowing these guys, they'll probably have it defended quite well if they know who I am, which they do."
 
One by one those gathered would gather their weapons and/or gear, and the red skinned synthezoid stands apart from them. Each one of them she looks over, glowing softly eyes lingering upon each form. This is a very peculiar group to her… but isn’t that what Riri said just after she was asked to join the Champions? She looks back towards 18 then, a spark of recognition suddenly going off in her mind. She just now remembers where she knows her from! Speaking of Champions… one of the cartoon shows the boys like to watch. That’s where she knows 18 from. Rather… where she recognizes the outfit the woman is wearing. Since she’s just dressing up like Android 18, right? A cosplayer or something. That’s just a cartoon, after all.

But another she vaguely recognizes. She watches Zer0 as he inspects his weapons… Vivian is a gamer, that’s how she met most of her friends. From playing Battlesmite, specifically. And said friends (especially Amadeus) have tried to get her to play other games with them. And a long time ago, one of those games was Borderlands. She doesn’t remember terribly much of it (it was when she was at her Ver. 1.0 era), but she remembers she played it the same day they tried to get her to play Diablo 3. Which she disliked just as much. She remembers in Borderlands the villain’s name was Handsome Jack, and she played a female character… she was a ‘crowd control’ character.. but mostly Vivian picked her because she was pretty. Don’t remember the name, though. ANYways.. she vaguely remembers Sam playing a ninja character. One with garb similar to Zer0’s…

This is troubling.

Vivian’s gaze now draws down the corridor they had come, and she speaks in an even tone. +If this is our first show, I do not see any way not to perform in it. I am not willing to risk further imprisonment in the happenstance that this ‘show’ is what they want. I am being assured escaping is the best way to go for now.+ As the group exits the storage room, Vivian begins to proceed down an intersecting hallway. +I do not know where we are, precisely. But no, not Earth+ Although her Earth and Shiki’s Earth are 2 very different places, if they were on Earth she would be able to detect at least faint radiowaves. Or better yet interlinked communications. Which is an odd analogy with Shiki…she can’t detect Gaia, and Vivian can’t detect information moving through the air. Both are connected to their native worlds, but in differing ways. 2 different things, but the same conclusion.

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She now speaks as she leads them down the corridor, her glowing eyes drifting right to left cautiously. +There is no mention of the Skill Jammer Pod. It is not on our itinerary, so we can not seek it out. As it is, we are 2 minutes behind schedule.+ The group would hear a distant rumbling, and the whole corridor seems to tremble. This lasts about 10 seconds. Vivian now picks up her pace, walking a little faster. +3 minutes behind schedule. Once we have escaped and gotten our bearings, we will seek out the Skill Jammer Pod.+ The group comes to the end of the corridor, and to what seems a dead end. But as Vivian steps forward, the wall itself fades from view. They are now looking towards the landscape, and they would see thousands of ships moving here and there across the horizon. Some right below them, some in the far distance. But as far as the eye can see, it’s nothing but gleaming metal. The city covering the whole landscape.

She steps to the edge, strong winds seeming to threaten to want to pull them out. The winds aren’t strong enough to do that, though. But they are noticeably. And that might be because… when Vivian leans forward over the edge… +By my measure we are approximately 6,580 feet from the ground.+ She stands up straight, looking over her shoulder to the group. +Please do not fall. I do not know if I can catch all of you.+ Her gaze moves towards the darkened landscape once more as she speaks. +Please do precisely as I say, precisely when I say. We are being given a chance to escape, everything must be timed precisely.+ She falls silent as she watches the broad landscape before them, her long green hair swaying with the upper winds outside of their vantage point.


No, no this isn’t Earth at all.
 
"I prefer my revenge flash fried, but I guess cold will have to do." 18 says after the guy who speaks in Haiku lets them know he's still in as well. She would rather ignore the Neptune girl altogether, but if they're going to be escaping together, she really has no choice but to listen for either information to actually help the group, or something that can help her throw them under the bus if need be. "If we all need to be flown out, I can do that. Never done it before, but it's easy enough to improvise." She says in case that should become necessary later.

18 also couldn't help but notice the one girl named Shiki has been the most silent of all assembled. From the doorway she watches her stand apart from the others. All those weapons in there and she doesn't grab one, just that knife. Just like 18, she probably doesn't feel she needs anything out of here. Was this Shiki also a living weapon? Her musings continue as the group moves on from the armory and down the corridor. When they feel the building shake, 18 doesn't flinch or stop a beat. "Sounds like a good fight is going down. And here I am running away from it." She says mostly to herself.

When they reach the dead end, and 18 is hit with a sudden gust of wind she grimaces. "Small city huh? Guess 'small' is relative." She dares to go right to the edge and not only peer over, but allows herself to fall off. She only falls a few feet before engaging her flight function, and floats up with arms crossed looking at the others with a blank expression.

"So, where to from here?"
 
Shiki frowned. She’d probably survive that drop - she’d survived some truly absurd things - but it wouldn’t actually get her anywhere useful. She blinked as a cloud drifted in through the opening, before sighing and activating her Mystic Eyes. Slash! Slash! As the inhuman light faded from her eyes and the Lines of Death vanished, the cloud dispersed as if it had never been. And, technically, it hadn’t; she didn’t just destroy it, but destroyed the very concept of it having ever existed.

Sometimes she gave herself headaches.

She turned to robo-girl. “I don’t have much I can offer. I’ll follow you.”
 
Zer0

The sight before Zer0 reminds him of the more civilized worlds back where he came from.

Well, not completely like this. But the scale and such could be almost compared to a world called Paradise. A place that looked like its name, but was utterly filled with the worst people imaginable. The types that cheated the system and were living like kings, while the poor were left to starve. The types that settled disagreements with hiring people like Zer0 to do so in very bloody ways.

But he couldn't stop himself from making his helmet put out a ":o" face at the sight of the city.

He peers over the edge, having to remind himself that this isn't Pandora where gravity actually helped lessen impacts for when one jumped from a high height. Well, to an extent. As certain heights impact couldn't be lessened, unless you had cybernetics.

And while Zer0 is somewhat cybernetic, he didn't want to risk a fall from this height unless there was something to break his fall.

And so, he waited to see what the robotic girl had in store to get them out of here.
 
"Oh I know what it looks like so once we see it, we can destroy it! Although it will attempt to attack back as most enemies from my world do." Neptune exclaimed before making a comment. "But uh, I'm totally expecting Arfoire to be around. Whenever something that seals CPU's powers off and has so much of a grudge against us, 100% of the time it's Arsnore." Then they went outside, and Neptune took a look off the edge. "Oh this is easy, all I just got to do is just... Wait... Oh yeah. I can't transform yet... Curse you, writers! A thousand eggplants rain upon you!" She exclaimed before watching 18 fly up, arms crossed. "So um... Android 18 was it? We may uh... have our differences and all but uh... I can't exactly fly right now.. Could you help me perhaps find that Skill Jammer Pod thingy? I could be of greater use! And plus, don't we protagonists stick together? Aren't we all friends in this case?"
 
When 18 starts to fall, Vivian instinctively reaches out to catch her. But her glowing eyes widen as she stops herself. Part of her memory of 18 comes back when the other woman is suddenly floating there. Vivian draws back her hand as she stares up towards 18. +Then perhaps you are not just a costume. Somehow.+ She says offhandedly.

Vivian glances over her shoulder towards Shiki, offering a small smile. As if to try and be reassuring. +Your presence now is enough. We are all meant to flee this place together. Despite whatever roles we all think we can fulfill.+ There is another gust of strong wind, and Vivian’s knees bend a little, looking back out towards the open airway. She starts a countdown in her head. And at the same time, she looks in Neptune’s direction as she speaks, her brows furrowing a little. +Please have faith the Skill Jammer Pod will be dealt with once we are clear of this place. If we go after it now, the chances of our success drop nearly to zero. We must flee together, to further delay would be folly.+ She looks towards the others as she continues. +Seek out the Skill Jammer Pod with her if you wish. But I am escaping this place, that is my first priority. And again, all of you are welcome to join me.+ She falls silent, and then starts to stride forward.

+And the next part of our escape is upon a transport.+ Vivian steps off of the edge as the countdown in her head goes to zero. She falls perhaps 3 feet, and then lands on the top of a long cargo ship. Almost akin to a train, with different compartments, it runs parallel to the building. She lands in a crouch, but finds the ship is generating a short gravity field around it. To prevent workers from flying off should they need to get out onto the transport during flight (for repairs, perhaps). She slowly stands, her long green hued hair swaying wildly as she looks in the direction of the others. She watches to see who else jumps onto the transport as it begins its turn away from the large building they had been imprisoned within.
 
That's an interesting trick 18 thinks witnessing Shiki's display of her power. Not like any Ki-based ability she has in Gero's databanks. The guy, or what she assumes to be a guy, looks like a straight-forward melee fighter. By her estimation may be the easiest to kill, if it became necessary. This Shiki was so far the most unknown quantity. Not that she knew any more about Neptune, but 18 thinks she could take the small annoying girl no problem.

Speaking of whom, Neptune was talking to her, and 18 can't help but listen, there not being anything or anyone else to really distract her besides the cityscape before them. She manages to keep her expression neutral as always, though from her tone Neptune has gotten the idea that 18 doesn't really like her as of yet. Guess she's not as dense as I thought . Good for her.

18 waits for the red girl to give her assessment of Neptune's suggestion before speaking "I'm not really keen on going off alone. Yet." Leaving out she intends to have the others take the brunt of whatever they happen to encounter here. She does crack a smile when Viv steps off the ledge and onto a train. "Come on, kid." She says before grabbing Neptune by the waist and flying off after Viv, as the train is moving quite fast. They catch up to Viv, and 18 sets Neptune beside her. 18 feels the gravity, but voices her concern. "We seem exposed here. Let's go inside." This is not a suggestion, as 18 kneels down and punches into the transport roof, which buckles under her strength. She uses both hands to pry that hole she made wide open and drops into the transport.