Makorai Saika's Story

Ocean, still without looking, began to weigh down the sword of the armoured figure with ice, hoping to force it to the ground so she could lock it down as well. She also began to freeze the feet of the figure. "Do you know what we do with demons in my world?" she asked, almost like this was a casual conversation. "We destroy them and force them back to the world that they came from. Call yourself a 'day-mon' all you like but killing someone because of pure irritation? That's something classified as demonic evil at home, not sure about the rest of you. So how about we stop with the death threats, alright? I'm sure you aren't one of them."

Blue eyes looked around again, before she nodded agreement to Kora. "Okay, you are being attacked, probably because you're terrifying them into fight or flight. And he's-" she waved a hand towards Drake, hovering in the air beside her- "your enemy? I'd offer for you to punch him but I don't think he'd agree. Would a replica suit?" She offered, knowing a spell for creating customized golems.

She fluttered away from Drake further, though, upon hearing Kora's accusations. Having a daughter of her own made her sympathize with the red head, and once again, she focused on Drake. "The accusations she makes are serious." she told him gravely. "I don't understand what it is like in your world, so I really can't pin a blame but... You do have her daughter?" one eyebrow raised, giving her a quizzical expression. "Why and how?"

What really stunned her though, was the newest appearence in the arena. A man with a sniper rifle, confessing to having shot Drake in the face. "Could you clarify?" she asked. "You shot him...in the face? So you both have reasons to hate the other. Glad that that's clear. Eliza Storen, by the way." Using her true name here would do nothing but raise eyebrows at elemental naming customs.

She was starting to regret getting involved, and wondered how hard it would be to get home.

It didn’t take long for Stride to notice that she had been completely and utterly ignored. Her scowl deepened beneath her mask as the others went on in their business, with several of them introducing themselves at Madison’s prompt. Others, still, however, had simply gone on without doing that either; two of the girls went off to have a fuck party- or whatever the hell they were up to- , and Kora-ganger continued to shout at the emo kid- with said emo kid participating in dismissing her. At the redhead’s words, Stride rose a brow, glancing once again at the others once again.

“A’ight, so none of you guys heard the whole ‘cannibal, psychopath, kidnapping terrorist’ spile she just went on? Just me?” If they didn’t hear her this time, the hybrid mused, then they were either idiots, or completely supportive of some random kid being accused of a...well, a variety of things by this point, really.

Without warning, another rather familiar face had bounded into her line of vision, shouting about having shot Emo-Kid in the face, how they were in hell, and etcetera and etcetera. Given the fact that she had already been introduced to the idea of “alternate selves” at this point, it didn’t take long for Stride to figure out that this wasn’t “their Makorai”. Amused by the flow of dialogue escaping the man, Stride lightly jabbed Madison in the ribs, mood lightened.

“Hey,” she mumbled, taking care that her words were hidden by the chaos surrounding them. “Ya think this Mako’s as much of a lil’ bitch as our one?”

Upon hearing Armory’s shout regarding a certain scaled sir, Stride allowed her voice to rise once again, drawling heavily on each syllable. “The Godzilla kind, Bolts. Ya know how they are; goin’ ‘round shootin’ lazers at the Tokyo Tower.” The next comment from the man regarding his...state brought a snort from the fighter, and an accompanying “No shit, Sherlock.”

Finally, to the giant sentient armor, Stride gave yet another snort. This entire arena was just filled to the brim with movie tropes, wasn’t it? The large, villainous ham, the obligatory lizard creature thing, the spunky girl with an equally spunky pet…

“Shouldn’t worry ‘bout things catchin’ on fire,” she said. “We’re surrounded by stone, n’ stone doesn’t really catch on fire or anythin’.” She paused for another moment, remembering something.

“Oh, n’ you guys can call me Stride, if we’re still doin’ the whole introducin’ thing.”







It seemed that the general aggression wouldn’t be so quick to temper down, much to Madison’s dismay.

Within a very short span, things had only seemed to escalate further. While Eze seemed to have calmed at this point, and while at least a few people had decided to go along with the introduction session, there was still the matter of the ones who hadn’t been soothed whatsoever. The alternate version of Kora was still- quite literally- fuming, with the winged boy and Rateva continuing to add fuel to the fire. At this rate, a fight was inevitable, and the main offenders seemed very much unwilling to let things go so easily.

Madison hardly batted an eye upon seeing another copy of a SCION member run up. He didn’t even need to focus on the man’s scent to see the differences between this Makorai, and their own; the fact that he recognized the dark haired youth was a large amount of evidence in itself, as well as the fact that he was neither baffled nor shocked by the fact that Kora was aflame. At Stride’s sudden jab and subsequent whisper, Madison only gave a disapproving shake of his head before continuing to listen.

Frowning as the little gathering continued to toss insults and obvious frustrations about, the vampire took a few steps forth, adjusting his hat to better sit upon his head with the movement. “While I don’t speak for everyone,” he spoke, voice just as calm as before, “and while I don’t claim to be in any sort of authority here, I think it would be best if you all calmed down for the time being, and stopped threatening each other like this.

If I’m correct, we’re all currently captives of some sort of powerful being, and in a world completely different from our own. Now,” a slight gesture, as to emphasize his point. “again, while I have no authority, trying to kill each other at the moment doesn’t seem like the best idea. I can assume that,” a hand wave towards Drake, Kora, and Makorai, “you all are from the same world, yes? While...he,” another wave, this time to Rasteva, “is currently thinking that attacking would solve the problem of fights starting. I’m sure you have are very much enemies where you’re from, what with...well, everything you’ve said, by now. Here, though, we’re currently on the same playing field.

I don’t mean to offend, but those who suddenly thought violence was the answer to solving violence shouldn’t…really shouldn’t do that, especially when the person on the receiving end didn’t do anything but curse a bit. The being said nothing about trying to kill each other- just to introduce ourselves. On that note,” Madison gave a small clap of his hands, “my name is Madison Lovette, and I am a behaviorist working for my organization. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

There. Hopefully, that would at least do something to calm things.

Ezenvare Queem

---

Now there was another problem starter. Great. This one carried what Eze could only describe as a large club, but he could tell that is had some other use. It was just how the human holding it was spouting about himself being such a good shot. Then the kid did something with his eyes, but it looked kinda like he was preparing to shoot with a lazy eye.

All the while, the massive suit of armor was explaining itself and asking what kind of arena isn't meant for fighting. Eze knew this answer from... prior experience. Bouncing down from his staff, Eze caught it before it started to tilt. He then walked over to the suit of armor now known as Rasteva. Tapping a claw on the armor, Eze spoke up with "One that is meant to be a holding pen. Something only to be walls and a floor. Or an arena made by one who does not like to use things for their purposes."

Then Eze finally got what the metal man, who now had two shiny devices in his hands, said. "Bronze dragons don't breath fire! Only red, gold, and brass dragons do that."

Not moments after his statement, Eze heard something soothing. A gentle flute playing a gentle song. It would have been the type of thing to take the edge off, but Eze was still weary of those around him. He understood the armor, don't threaten it and it won't threaten you. Madison just wanted peace. Stride was more interest in making comments that Eze just didn't get than actually causing trouble. Oliver was just confused, as was the dragon-winged man. However, there was still the fire woman and the supposed archer.

Xinder Ouquid

---

Xin wasn't gonna shoot first. No, he wasn't going to shoot first. Let them all just kill each other before cleaning up the mess. It was no use, the hostility in the air was like a bad glass of milk to Xin. Disgusting because it was left to hang for too long.

While he would have gladly watched and enjoyed the fighting that was about to ensue, this failure for either the fighting sides to start fighting or the peacekeeping side trying to stop the fighters from fighting. Which side would eventually win was anybodies' guess, but it was still wearing down on Xin's limited patience.

Anger. Kill. Maim. Destroy. Strangle. All these things went together in Xin's head, a problem and its solutions. Looking around, he knew that it was coming to take him over. If he didn't find a living outlet to release his rage upon, Xin would soon be putting himself in danger while likely taking a few others down with him.

Another quick look around the arena and finally something useful seemed to show itself. There was a shark swimming in the lava near the gate to the outside world. That would do.

Pulling out his pistol while walking towards the gate, Xin focused on the shark. There was more then one. It swam to do as the other was doing, biting at the bars of the cage without any signs of stopping. When he finally reached the bars Xin shot one of the sharks with his rifle-sounding pistol. Its body exploded from the force of a hollow round from the little rail pistol, but there was no visible blood. This wasn't satisfying enough.

Xin shoved his hand into the mouth of the second shark mid-bite. Grabbing hold of it from the inside, Xin pulled back with all his might and force the creature through the bars. Surprisingly, only the fins got separated from the lava beast that was now flopping about on the ground. Using the plasma knife Xin cut off two feet of the sharks back end before picking it up and beating the bleeding shark to death with it. Xin could feel the pleasure with every strike as the 'fighting' soothed him.

---

---

...Where’s Ocean?

What happened- I- where did she go? What just happened? What...wait.

How…? Characters...characters don’t do this. Characters can’t do this! They can’t just- just get up and walk away from the Rend like this! That’s ridiculous! They- they can’t- but what if she did...

…

EVERYTHING IS GOING HORRIBLY WRONG.

N-no, it’s too early for everything to be that bad, Rend! Sure, the gates just- just magically opened themselves, and sure, one of the characters just- just somehow left, but...but it’s fine! I can still do this! After all, every GM starts off rockily, right? They always have that one that ends up going all...like this, right? In fact, I’d say I’m doing decent, given the...uhm, the characters I picked up. And yeah, it’s my first one! Nothing to feel bad about! I just need to, uh, start things now. Intervene.

”Okay, everyone! I- well, one of your fellow...people just ended up leaving, but...but don’t worry, alright? I’m pretty sure that no one else can do that, but- but I probably have to make sure, uh...Heh. Sorry! B-before I do anything like that, though, I just want to go ahead and clear up a few things. Actually, uh, y’know. Do my job and all.

“Well, I just want to go ahead and clarify that nobody is supposed to kill anyone here. Yep! Haha, yeah, no, uh, trying to cut people in half, shoot someone in the head, noooope. In fact, you’re actually doing the exact opposite of what I wanted, if you can believe that! Weird, right? Heh. Basically, uh, I’m going to send you all out to do these amazing missions! Fun, right? You’ll be explorers of a new world, and you can fight evil monsters and things like that! Everything you could want, I’m sure- but, uh, still, no killing the other people here? You’re supposed to form a nice little group down there, and, uh, not supposed to attack everyone else? In fact, you guys will actually, ehm...get...punished if you do anything like this again! Scary, right? Nobody wants that. And you’re also supposed to protect each other, too, so if you don’t do that, you’ll...Also get punished!

“Now, now, I know what you all must be thinking- ‘But Rend, you sound like some evil god trying to watch us all suffer!’ I would also like to clarify that I am neither a god, demon, daemon, daedra, angel, death, Gifted, or anything like that. You guys are not, in fact, in hell. But I do have to be a bit strict in things, however, since you all are so...uh, violent? And because one of you just suddenly up and left, but, anyway. Let me just, uh, clear my throat here…”

Suddenly, several of the characters found themselves feeling...well, not as absurdly strong. Got to even the playing field and all that, but, eh-hehm. Don’t want to end up causing more trouble, but, uh, the ones with the most skills and powers and magical stuff ended up with less. Like Rasteva, and Eze- mainly because I’m just kind of worried about how far this will, uh, escalate, if they’re so strong...Uhm, and, uh, the other ones who triggered the problems, um, got less strong somewhat, too, and, uh, yeah. Less power. Of course, not planning on, uh, taking away from those who need the power, but yes. Weakened somewhat. This is both punishment and to make sure nobody else escapes.

“Now, I’m going to remove the lava and, uh, other things right now. And open the gate properly. I expect for all of you to get along at this point, or else, you know. Punishment. Have fun!”

With that, all obstacles that had been placed outside the arena vanished, and the gates began to open once more…

Ezenvare Queem

---

After Eze's few words to Rasteva, all that any of the others did was shout at each other. Figuring that his intervention would be, once again, pointless the half-dragon began walking back to his bag. Almost halfway through his little walk a storm picked up. The rain Eze liked, but as it escalated he simply dug his claws into the ground to prevent himself from moving with its wind.

Even with the storm, Eze managed to make progress to the bag. However, as soon as the storm stopped the being that brought them here spoke up. Something about things not turning out how it wanted to. Perhaps the 'god' should have made a place a little better for introductions, or given everyone some time before sending them all to the same place. Eze didn't care at this point. The only thing he cared about from this being was the fact that it mentioned that the exit was now open.

Then it happened. Just an arm's reach from his bag and Eze dropped to the floor. The air was becoming dryer, his mind foggier, his muscles more tired, and his scales dulled of their bronze-like shine. Then his shoulders began feeling pain beyond anything he had ever experienced. From his crawling position, the half-dragon let out a long, loud, high-pitched screech like a dragon mounted on a pike. All the while his wings were being forced from his back, slowly growing out to 6 and a quarter feet each. After 5 or so minutes of the excruciating pain, the death screech ended as Eze shakily stood up. Finishing his march to the bag, Eze quickly opened it up only to devour the once again full bucket of water and fish.

Placing his bag's straps around his neck and rolling his wings on his back, Eze shakily marched towards the gate. Useless. I am weak. How am I supposed to fight evil like this? No, I useless. Just another reminder as to how useless I am. I couldn't even stop a fight, how am I supposed to protect everyone else?

Well, that... solved that? Khojin sighed and pulled herself to her feet, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. This was one hell of a way to get her to do what she already got paid to do.

She studied the wall of the arena; if Rend wanted them to go off on 'heroic quests' to fight 'evil monsters' then there was bound to be some kind of board where they could find their marks, right? Or was there supposed to be some kind of town outside the gate, with this 'arena' just being a gathering point for new arrivals? She didn't see any kind of board from where she stood, so she opted to rejoin the others for the time being.

"So, how we gonna do this?" she called out as she approached. "I figure there's enough here we could form teams, if we wanted." She came to rest next to the white-haired Sha... girl, scratching the back of her head and looking at those around her.

Suit of armor, Magitek Armor Shark Mutilation (now gone, she noticed), a guy who looked to be 80% metal now that she was close enough to see it wasn't armor, wing boy, hot lady, gun dude, umbrella mask, shock lizard, girl who's black clothing wasn't as nice as her's, white-hair boy, white-hair girl, Adira, and others. Haha, yeah. Heroes.

Oh gods, this wasn't gonna end well.

Khojin really wasn't particularly eager to start team-building; getting Adira to accept her as an ally was hard enough, and she wasn't really sure who she could group with, anyway. She was pretty certain the guy in magitek armor wouldn't be up for it, and the red-haired warrior queen likely wouldn't want anything to do with her since she was allied with one of the ones who had sided with the winged boy. He might be a possibility, of course. The suit of armor who had apparently traded his polearm for a sword at some point was questionable; Khojin had no objections to it, but Adira might have other thoughts on the matter, assuming the big guy was even interested. The rest were... strangers. She didn't know enough to say either way. She glanced at white-haired girl out the corner of her eye, looking her up and down. She might be able to handle herself.

Khojin nonchalantly tapped her hand, looking in a different direction to pretend it was an accident. She turned her head to look at the girl, as if only just noticing she were there, and pulled her hand back. "Oops, sorry. My bad." Good. Ice: broken. "I'm Khojin, by the way. Don't think we've met yet."

Cold. That was the first thing Dawn felt upon awakening. The second was the feeling of being completely soaked to the bone by...something. Shivering reflexively, the mind-manipulator pushed herself out of a puddle, wincing as the back of her head throbbed and moving to rub the tender spot once her hand was freed.

What happened? The last thing she could remember was them dealing with...well, whoever that speedster was. Some of them had been taking her to a building for the time being, Dawn knew, but other than that...her mind was hazy. She bit the inside of her cheek, attempting to stir something, only to have her focus broken by a gentle breeze hitting her damp clothing. Wrapping her arms about her torso, she rose into a standing position, squinting in the sunlight until her vision focused enough to let her see where, exactly, she was.

It was only until she laid eyes on the surrounding arena, on the various blurred figures surrounding her, that memory hit her like a brick- she had been in some sort of...darkness. There had been a voice, and according to it, she wasn’t in her world anymore. As the fog in her mind cleared, so did her use of her abilities, and soon enough she could hear faint voices within her skull like radio static. Not the best thing to have when her head was still pounding, but Dawn put it to use nonetheless, giving a brief scan of the area as soon as she felt that she could handle it. Some sort of godlike figure named “Rend”- that was the voice, apparently-...a fight, with a woman leaving somehow in the middle of it after...causing a storm? Some sort of mission to go on “adventures”, and so on, and so forth.

From the sounds of it, these people were, indeed...well, not from where she was from, at least. Even with her Gift, the concept of others coming from another world was still quite foreign to her, difficult to fully wrap her mind about. Deciding not to focus on that for the time being, Dawn began to search for her own duffel bag, quickly finding it (somehow, the slip of paper reading her name had remained intact through the storm) some few feet away from where she had been lying. After checking the contents to see if they had been affected by the apparent storm- which they hadn’t, miracle of miracles- Dawn slung the bag over her shoulder, deciding to look through it in detail once she had a more in-depth understanding of what had happened, instead of a brief summary plucked from the heads of others.

Hopefully, she would get a moment to change into dry clothes soon- while the sun was doing well to warm some parts of her, it couldn’t remove all the water at once. Clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering, Dawn hesitate where she was for a moment before starting her own walk towards the gate. While it would probably be in her best interests to try and get to know the people she was trapped with soon, she thought it better to leave the arena first before attempting to start any conversation with the others. If things went well, there wouldn’t be any death traps lying right outside the boundaries of the arena, and she would have a decent chance to speak with the others while looking for the “goal”, so to speak. With that idea planted in her head, she pressed forth, maneuvering around the occasional puddle and attempting to keep a low profile for the moment. After all, with how things stood, conflict wasn’t exactly the best thing to encounter.

Needless to say, Dawn had not yet noticed the variety of Erubescians littered about, nor a certain winged Gifted.

Kor"Fuck him, he's not worth it." Makorai's shade toward Drake came from a place of fresh wounds, each emotional cut symbolized a friend he lost on the battlefield during the assault. While he blamed Erubesco for underpreparing them, this didn't lessen his dislike for the boy, or his desire to put a round in his kneecap.

"Hey hold up." Makorai grabbed a duffel bag from on the ground, the bottom covered with mud thanks to the flashy distraction by the magical princess of 'I'm not going to get anyone else out forget yall, peace'. He hooked the strap onto his shoulder, and swung the duffel bag around so it lay on his opposite hip, directly under the same shoulder his sniper was resting on.

He grabbed another and did the same, this one resting on his back, hefted into the air slightly by his battle pack.

"Hey, take one, maybe it's medicine and we can cure ourselves while waiting for the assorted assholes to die of unnatural causes." The light tone of his voices suggested it was a joke, as Makorai wasn't the kind of person to let someone die over something as simple as an argument.

Once he was beside her again, he intertwined their arms synchronizing their paces perfectly, and giving him someone to lean on during their journey.

Despite everything he felt...excited. His life had been a mixed bag of ups and downs with the most exciting things he'd ever done consisting of shooting people while they launched their powers and bullets at him. Something about this was appealing to him, but he couldn't quite figure what it was.

"You think you could turn that heat thi-

Makorai's head snapped over to the sound of bullets flying, part of him thinking that one of their crazier companions had decided to ignore Rend's warning, and off someone.

In actuality, it looked like grey on brown had free'd armour man's weapon in a very un-Arthurian way.

"Yeah your heat thing on a bit, our cloths are soaking wet."

'and form fitting' he thought, allowing his chocolate brown eyes to wander down Kora's form for a second.

'Focus Makorai."

"There is literally no point in talking to you. You're either lying through your teeth or you're enough of a naive little lemming to believe the bullshit you're spouting. Or a bit of both. Either way I got nothing else to say." Kora responded dismissively to Drake.

She might have been tempted to spell this out further, but Makorai's urgings to move on drove her to drop it. He was right, the little punk wasn't worth it. Plus it wasn't just herself she had to concern herself with at this point. She'd seen more Knights die lately than she wanted to ever again, so if nothing else she felt some responsibility to avoid that, even if she didn't have much interest in getting back to the front asap.

She started walking once again, and on request she flared up her hands, instantly evaporating the water up to her elbows in a burst of steam.
"You make me feel so useful, Saika. Soldier to storage heater." she muttered.
The knight was considering whether the kit stuff needed drying out more urgently, and, powering down one hand for a moment, had taken one of the packs from her companion to look through the contents. That was when she heard a familiar voice.
"Skip? Skip!" a pretty unconflicted smile broke across the woman's face at the sight of the little talking glowstick. She doubted anyone had ever been quite so pleased to see something that emitted harmful radiation.
"No-one's dead Skip. Some powerful thing's messing with us. It's like Balthazar stuff all over again." Considering that point and his history, she corrected herself.
"Well, so far, marginally less frightening, but y'know. We should get a move on."

She snapped off the other hand so Skip could approach without the immediate danger of his core blowing them all to kingdom come, and started collecting her things. It was at that point that the girl whom she'd nicknamed 'Pipsqueak' started speaking up.
And Kora, despite her better judgement considering these people, felt compelled to speak up as she slung the bag over one shoulder.


"For a place that's had storms, lava, spiders and sharks in quick succession, you're sure applying a lot of conventional logic.

If this place is controlled by some weird omnipotent thing, then the day ends when it wants it to. Who's to say it lasts twenty-four hours?
Same with the game. How we gonna know what's edible and what's poisonous? "

She reached into the bag, pulling out a few packs to illustrate.
"There's food in these, and I'd assume this thing isn't going to try and kill us of with our own rations. Wouldn't really be worth all the effort of setting this up. Far as I'm concerned this isn't so much about conventional knowledge as understanding what the rules are."

Ma’am. While others might have chosen to correct what was, really, a completely honest mistake, Madison chose not to- at least, not for the moment. He hardly bothered these days until it was completely necessary for him to do so, and the young man had already flounced off before he could have the chance to do so. As such, the vampire merely blinked once, twice, thrice, then trailed after. It was rude not to answer a question, after all- especially when said question pertained to someone who had escaped captivity as easily as waving her wrist.

As soon as he was in proper earshot once again, Madison slowed to a stop, taking care not to plant himself in a puddle or anything of the sort (these heels had been expensive, after all!) before speaking. “I’m afraid that she didn’t tell me anything about getting out,” he admitted. “She was in a bit of a...rush to get out, you could say. All she gave me was a warning before- well, considering you saw her before she left, I’m sure you know what she did just now, too.”

The lie came naturally, the researcher not missing a beat throughout his words. While he was sure that this one wasn’t as...volatile as the others, he was still determined to keep the existence of the fairy’s presents hidden for the time being. With how the gathering had been acting, and how powerful the woman had shown herself to be, there was enough evidence to make Madison reasonably wary- or so he felt. Even if they decided to properly ally, there was still the chance they would attempt to use the capsules for more malicious purposes. So he simply decided to keep his lips sealed, absentmindedly adjusting his packs as he stood.

Soon enough, Madison seemed to realize something, and smiled brightly even if the other’s eyes were not on him. “I’m Madison, by the way; it’s nice to meet you.” Curious as to what had drawn the man’s attention, he peered over his shoulder, looking at the contents of the bag from where he was. A question had begun to form itself on his lips, although it was soon and suddenly replaced upon catching sight of a dog trotting up.

The question itself was delayed again as the vampire cooed at the canine, bending a little in order to pet its head.

Once he had remembered what he had been about to say, Madison raised his head, although he kept his eyes locked on the little beast for the time being. “Is she yours? She’s beautiful!” Although he typically disliked assumptions, the other had been rifling through a bag stuffed to the brim with dog treats and other miscellaneous objects, so there was at least some evidence to do so.

By the point that both Adira and Rasteva had spoken, he had lowered himself to the ground already, tucking his duffel bag beneath him so as to avoid getting himself wet. He appeared completely and utterly distracted by this point, so his sudden raising of voice seemed to only spring from nowhere at first.


“I have to agree with Kora on this, actually. After all, you two- such a cute little puppy- you two seem to be assuming that our host didn’t add in other challenges for us to deal with. This...being has been acting extremely erratically which leads me to believe that there may be some things that we can’t expect outside- I’m sure you all remember the sudden lava, after all. We have enough rations to feed all of us, I’m sure, and the gate can be barricaded…” He paused once again, moving to actually look back at the others.

“I would say that we should cast a vote. From what we’ve heard, we’re all a team, and if one of us ends up wounded, we’ll all end up punished one way or another. Shall we?”

After all, he was no leader. Calling a vote and conducting himself as if he was was only stir more tension, or so Madison believed.

It was with a sort of morbid fascination that the hybrid watched Khojin’s...tongue? loll from the massacred flesh, waving about in the open air for a long, uncomfortable moments. It was like watching a car crash- it wasn’t really the most pleasant thing to watch, but you just couldn’t tear your eyes away. It was only until the muscle was pulled back into the “Za Ri’s” mouth that Stride blinked, continuing to squint at the opening as if expecting it to suddenly start expelling beetles.

“That’s fucked up,” she muttered decisively, giving a short shake of her head. “Ya know, where I come from, ya don’t usually tear open someone’s face when you’re screwin’ ‘em. Least, we have a rule ‘bout that; ‘don’t stick your dick in crazy’.” Stride paused, giving Khojin another once-over. “Or, ya know. ‘Don’t let batshit insane stick its dick in ya.’.” The true rule of thumb, really, no matter the race or origin.

Adira’s words caused her attention to be drawn away from the weird horror-story shit she had just witnessed, and it was with a sense of disbelief that Stride listened to the dragon-rider boss everyone around. Her disbelief was only increased as the weird suit of armor chimed in, and, eventually, Stride began to chuckle just a bit louder than before.

“Look,” she said dryly. “I don’t care if you’re the princess where you’re from or whatever, but I can’t say I really wanna go jump off a cliff cause some magical armor and some kid told me there was a buncha pillows at the bottom of it. Hell, I could just be trippin’ by this point cause some asshole decided it’d be fun to slip some drugs in my drink, but I’m still not gonna just fuck off into the wilds like this.” Idly, Stride brought her gaze about in a circle, taking in the surrounding party.

“Just cause ya think the voice cut pieces from our worlds doesn’t mean everythin’s baby-proofed. For all we know, someone came from Monty Python, and there’s a buncha killer rabbits everywhere. There were fuckin’ lava spiders out there, ya know- and whose to say the voice might end up lettin’ one of us die off to make things interestin’?” Popping a stiffened joint in her neck, Stride let out a small sigh before continuing on.

“I’m votin’ that we just don’t follow the lead of the underdressed fifteen year old and Iron Man. Not sayin’ we hide in here forever, but we should at least find a place where we know there’s no poison dolphins or anythin’ like that.”

Absentmindedly, Stride took notice of the weird little glowing guy who had joined DoppleKora, but her attention did not focus for long on them. There were more important issues at hand, after all.

Khojin gave a very exaggerated look around the arena. "No poison dolphin's here," she commented, letting her duffle bag fall to the ground.

There was a point to what she said, of course; thus far none of the dangers claimed to be present in this world had appeared in the arena. Even the lava sharks had stopped at the gate, with one only passing the iron barrier when it was yanked in by a homicidal man encased in magic metal. This also seemed to be the only known location people had arrived at; wouldn't it make sense for the area to be warded against outside dangers? She said as much to the others.

"I mean, yeah, I could be wrong, but judging by our current track record this is our best bet," she waved up at the iron wires strung over the arena's mouth. "That's a good defense against anything from the air, an' the only t'restrial entrance is the gate, which we could probably close if needed. Or, failing that, drop Big Man Metal in the center of it. He seems reasonably impervious. Did you get smaller?"

She didn't notice before, but the suit of armor seemed to have shrunk several feet. Unfortunate. Still, her point remained. Oh, she almost forgot.

"Hey, jus' by the by, if we're s'pose to be a team wouldn't it be better to separate into groups?" she asked, lacing her fingers behind her head. "I mean, we'd be slower and attract more attention if we all jus' followed each other. Like, I dunno bout you guys but in my world travel in the Wastelands mandated groups no larger than four or five, unless you were lookin' to raid one of the Gaian settlements."

"Oh. And, uh, I'm Khojin. Not sure if we did introductions."

---

Azai had been enjoying a night's rest in his web just moments before and now he was falling... and falling... and falling. He wasn't a fly! He didn't have wings! How the hell did that ominous voice think that it was a great idea to have him spiraling down in the darkness like this? He had tried to use his webs to cling to something but this inky blackness had no ledge, branch, or ceiling. It was just emptiness. He did have a strange bag that appeared beside him but that wasn't helping him right now. He almost wished he was back in the mansion he despised. At least things there made sense! Why was it that he was the one that always got snatched away from his home and brought somewhere else? This was the second time, damn it! And this time, he hadn't even done anything to warrant his capture!

Suddenly, the shadow seemed to break open and spit the spider out and he continued to drop. The ground and people were fast approaching. "Ah!" he cried out a bit undignified as he landed on one of the creatures below. Both he and the stranger hit the ground hard though Azai had to admit, he was lucky this guy cushioned his fall. He winced and started to try and get to his feet but the damn bag dropped on his back then and he winced as he hit the man beneath him again. He groaned and shook his head, his dark strands falling against his pale skin. He looked up, his deep amethyst gaze catching a glimpse of the dog in front of him. He had never seen a creature like him before. His eyes widened as he got on his hands and knees, careful to actually use the ground as leverage instead of the man. He pulled himself off the stranger and dusted himself off, his gaze never leaving the strange four-legged beasty. He wondered how the creature's innards tasted like.

The black widow then realized there were others in the strange place he found himself. He tensed and crouched low. He gave a hiss and bared his fangs. He really didn't like meeting strangers as of late. The voice said he was in a different world, but was it really a different world or was the master of the house toying with him? Punishing him for biting that patron? He wasn't supposed to bite or harm the others after all but it really wasn't his fault the man kept poking his face. The guy was asking to be bitten. He didn't recognize anyone or anything here. And being out in the open like this put him at a disadvantage. His only true weapons in this situation were his fangs and claws but he couldn't take on all of these strangers. Some of them looked like their skin wouldn't be easily penetrated.