| There's a God for Everything | ||
|---|---|---|
Summary: Continued from Trouble in the Mall, Shizuko and Iridescence find themselves intended to be sacrificed to a god of wealth and debts. His minions really should have picked someone else to kidnap.   |
Here the stone blocks are commonly hundreds to thousands of yards long, though some have great gaps between them, making one have to perilously jump or fly between them. The colorful skies above and below fade here, giving way to a great red and black miasma that churns all about itself, forming constant portals, some small, others the size of planets. Ancient monsters, gods, and creatures often manifest here, eager to make contracts with those who seek their powers, arriving through the portals in the sky, or the various ruins of buildings that litter the place. A few structures seem to be inhabited, with signs in other languages hanging above them. Dark magic of all kinds reigns supreme here, making casting and learning that particular school far easier than it would be normally. As the white of the teleport magic fades, it'll leave Iridescence and Shizuko in the Chaotic Expanse, particularly in a large castle courtyard. The castle itself is in a bit of ruin, walls caved in, a few of the towers toppled over, but there's enough of it intact that it could somewhat function as a place of safety. Looming on the ruined outer wall of the courtyard is a giant gargoyle like monster, with four arms rather than two, and six eyes. Its wings span at least forty feet, and its a good fifteen feet or so tall. One of its talons grips the side of the castle beneath it, the other resting across its bent knee. "Well," it says, voice gravely, rumbling, and loud, "Looks like he honored the contract. Pity." Another gargoyle, or whatever the species is, is on the wall next to him, though he's literally half the others size, "Yeah, I thought we'd found one who'd fail and we could eat his soul." There's half a dozen thugs here as well, dressed and armed like the ones back in the mall, but they're down in the courtyard below, plasma gums aimed at the two teleported in girls. Iridescence winces at the bright white light, dampening her magical energies so lightning doesn't discharge and mess with the spell. One thing she doesn't want is to end up teleported off in multiple places. You just can't ever be to careful with magic that moves your entire being from one place to another. As they arrive she looks around, frowning at all the peeps. "Fwuh..." That's...what is that thing on the castle wall? And where in TRI are they? She glances at Shizuko as she says something about stars and striking? One white light fades, and another begins. This new light is far more localized, entirely around just the high schooler next to Iridescence. Energy field up around her, blocking all from view, her clothes are transported away for safe keeping at the same time as new clothes are transported in to replace them... or more accurately armor. The light fades just as fast as it came, though, and six devices fly from the new skirt has replaced the old on Shizuko, no, Strike Star. She's mad, a determined look on her face, as the bits fly out towards the goons with guns and open fire. Really, it's not until the last second that her guilt catches up and she sets them to stun... something she has to consciously do, to her mild annoyance, as opposed to their default more powerful setting. She reaches out her hand towards the two gargoyle-like creatures and the last two devices, the ones on her arms, detatch and spin rapidly in front of the outstretched arm, forming a shield-like barrier in front of her and Iridescence with their far more short-ranged beam projectors. "Why are we here?" she says bluntly. "I don't believe what that guy was saying in the mall for a second." Iridescence is like, totally shocked that Shizuko just totes transformed into a new outfit, complete with attacking tech or everything! That is neatoz! She likes it. And she's shielded too, thankfully, since those bullets would certainly kill her if they managed to penetrate her skull or something nasty like that. Lightning crackles and ripples all around her body, thunder echoing across the courtyard. The sky above seems to resonate with her, crackling flashes of power rippling over the red and black miasma that makes up the view above. Yeah, battle time works for her! Course she needs ot charge up for a second. Hopefully Shizuko will keep em jabbering. The thug men were not expecting a counter-attack, much less a bright flash of white light from Shizuko, er, Strike Star. There's multiple screams as the bits fire towards them! Four get hit right away, collapsing backwards to the ground, fingers holding down the trigger which spatters bullets into the castle walls, sky, and a few near the gargoyle-like creatures. The remaining two are a bit quicker to react, and managed to jump out of the way of the first stun shots, falling down behind some debris to try and get cover, but it's doubtful they'll avoid another barrage. The larger creature raises an ash colored eyebrow, "Oh, they're not defenseless. Hm." The smaller one frowns, pulling a large chunk of stone from the castle wall as if ready to throw it at them, despite the shield, "We should put in more than delivery next time I guess." The big one nods, then address' Shizuko, ignoring the gunfire and attacks, "Sacrifices to me, Qarazital. Found my way into this realm, thought I'd try some of the delicacies." Strike Star looks back over her shoulder to better mentally direct the bits to change targets. Three on one for each of the two remaining now as the bits all fly about for better and more varied angles to fire again. "Well, forgive me for not exactly being a willing sacrifice." She wonders if 'rich and powerful' was a requirement for the sacrifices. "Sorry, but your delivery guy shouldn't have delivered you two pizzas." She gets a LOT more feisty when she's angry and can actually fight back... Iridescence wrinkles her nose about sacrifice. Kidnapping for ransom money? Surez. Kidnapping to be part of some contract or whatevz? Pfft! No! That's totes unkewl. And hey, she's shielded, so she can go on full offense. Looooks like Strike Star has the thugs in hand, so she'll bring her left arm up, snapping her fingers towards the smaller gargoyle creature. The lightning around her body strikes up into the sky, connecting with the flashes already occurring above, which then lightning zaaaap towards the not really small but not as big as the big gargoyle monster. Needless to say that all happens in two quick lightning strikes and with massive thunderclaps! The two thugs aren't sure what to do, so they both open fire at Strike Star, plasma energy from one of the thugs guns, ordinary bullets from the other, trying to straight up murder her, though the shields are probably going to stop the attacks, but they can pray! It's the last thing they do before the quick maneuvering bits stun them to land of unconsciousness! Doublethud. The larger creature says, "I'm not much of a forgiver, more of an atone for your actions type of god." He rumbles in displeasure as the thugs fall easily to the attacks. Weaklings. The smaller creature cracks his knuckles, as if stone is grinding against stone, "How about we just eat one of you? We'll let the other one g-" then lightning strikes him and he makes a horrific high pitched nearly ear drum shattering scream and collapses to the ground, crackling and smoking! Strike Star's sword devices suddenly stop their spin and fly to specifically block the gunners attacks. "Well, I don't actually believe you're a god. I believe if you crossed the river to the west you'd not even be able to stand under your own onerous weight." Is it a good idea to taunt the giant monster that thinks it's a god? Probably not. But for some reason Strike Star has faith in the 'Magical Girl' that gave her her 'powers' that she can, at least with help, take this thing on. Hopefully. While Strike Star winces at the scream, she's a bit less... concerned that thing might be killed than she was of the humanoids. It did just threaten to eat her, after all. "How about we just take down one of you? Then we'll let the other one go? What do you think?" Strike Star looks over to Iridescence as her six bits return to her, all hovering around pointed at the remaining monster. "Honestly, I don't think it's a good idea." She lowers her voice down to a whisper and says, "He might actually call my bluff and fly to the west." Wait, she's bluffing at a whisper, counting on the monster to hear her to run off to a place where she thinks it won't be able to stand under its own weight, let alone actually stay aloft on those undersized(for it) wings? Shizuko can have some strange ideas. Well, it's not like she actually thinks the 'whispered bluff of saying what I said earlier was a bluff' plan is going to work, anyway. Iridescence nods subtly at Strike Star whispering about the bluff. Yah, that's a great idea! Ha. Maybe this thing will just fly over the line between Senta and Synthatek and collapse. She manages to suppress her grin as she starts charging up for another lightning blast anyway, just in case. This place seems to enjoy destructive style magic, and while lightning is closer to a force of nature, seems like it qualifies. The smaller creature quivers, looking like its in a rather bad state and not wanting to move, a lot of its rocky like flesh has been blackened. It makes a nasty hacking sound, black smoke coming from its mouth. The larger one looks up at the sky, then to the west, "Your belief in me doesn't change what I am." He stands up on the castle wall, looming. Well, looming even more than before anyway. "I'm disappointed in the delivery though. And if you kill my servant it'll cost me more than I want to pay." He scratches the side of his chin, the sound of rock grating against itself echoing amid the thunder cracks from above, "If you won't give up one for the other, then pay for both of your freedom in another way." Strike Star is certainly not counting on her double-bluff doing... anything. Her two sword-devices snap back into place on her arms now that she has only two potential threats to deal with instead of eight. "Why would I give her up? She's been nice to me. You threatened to eat me." She points directly at the big guy, and the six floating devices shifting to start rotating around her arm like a Gatling style canon readying itself up to start firing. "Soooo, pay for it by beating you. Got it," she says with a one-fanged grin. When she gets into this level of bluster, she tends to forget about trying to hide that... Iridescence smiles over at Shizuko's words. Ha! At least the kidnapping by thugs who are making deals with a so-called roc god gargoyle thing hasn't prevented a friendship from starting. Sparks of lightning ripple around her body, but she's happy to let a few wild strikes flash down from the sky and explode a few chunks of the castle here and there, you know, to emphasize Shizuko's point. "Fwuh, ya. Pretty sure if you're using thug boyz to kidnap your sacrifices you can't do that much by yourself." Qarazital grunts at the shows of force, eyeing the floating devices and the lightning strikes. "I take many different kinds of payment, but attacking and attempting to damage me doesn't equate to any build up of spendable coin." He exhales, black smoky cloud coming out of his mouth, "But I think you'll find your attempts to harm me result in little effect." He folds two of his arms, and shrugs with the upper set, "Go on, attack me, and afterwards maybe you'll be more agreeable to my words." Nothing from the smaller creature, looks like it's either feigning being really hurt or...it really is really hurt. Strike Star blinks a few times. "Wait, are you actually some kind of money lending god?" she says flatly. She then shakes her head. "Well, okay, then. Since you asked so nicely." Sooo much bluster. She wishes that's how she felt on the inside right now. The devices speed up their rotation around her arm, then, true to their movement, start blasting the rock-gargoyle-thing with rapid fire blasts. She's aiming low, at the thing's legs before working the rapid fired beams upwards on the body of the 'god'. She is, however, avoiding the black smoke coming out of his mouth because... yeah, don't know what that is. Iridescence raises an eyebrow, "There's a god for that?" Well, if it really is a god. I mean, yah sure there's gods and all, she met someone who got reincarnated after dying and claimed some angel named Talenti or somesuch let her choose to return to life in a new body. She looked into it and there's a few other reports around TRI about it, so...is this thing from there? Hurm. Well, don't matter ya, because it's obvs time to stop jamming and start attacking itz. She'll go ahead and unload the lightning she's been building up at the same time Strike Star starts opening fire on it, multiple strikes crashing down at the gargoyle thing and all around its general area as well, which means one or two might actually hit the smaller guy as well. Qarazital nods, "Something like that." In response to the money lending thing, "But I've been in the lower echelons and found this realm opening up to me." Then the attacks start. He was partially bluffing himself, having assumed that lesser creatures like these two wouldn't call such a claim. I mean, he's bigger than they are, and black smoke comes out of his mouth, normally that terrifies mortals. The blasts from Strike Star, despite his claims, blast into him, tearing off chunks of his rock flash, and the lightning...well, it's lightning, and it crackles onto him. A loud high pitched groan rumbles from him and he wobbles on the castle top, bringing up arms to try and shield from the damages. Above his head in the air, a large alien script forms in golden numbers, however it's obvious from a glance that the numbers are going down with each strike he takes, "Gaaaaaahhhhg!" He screams, leaping from the castle wall and coming down towards both of the girls, trying to use his larger form to just crush them underneath himself before he runs out of money! The black smoke he exhaled trails after him and doesn't seem affected by the lightning or the blasts. The smaller one gives another scream and doesn't so much as move from the hits it takes, either unconscious or dead. Strike Star says, "I mean, there's supposedly a god for everything, isn't there? In some religions..." She shrugs. But fighting! Strike Star winces slightly at the high pitched groaning, mumbling something about a mismatch at it, but choosing not to push it. Nope, firing now. And it seems to be working! Yeah, she's continuing to just do what she's doing for now. She's watching the numbers now, and... "Wait... do you actually get more powerful if someone rich is sacrificed to you? Ha! Joke's on you, I'm dirt poor!" Just with... access to one certain set of nice resources. And apparently a tendency to befriend rich people? Oops, time to dodge now! Well, her attack ceases for a moment as she does THAT, leaping out of the way and travelling farther than she should with just a leap... primarily because the devices she reset onto her arm bracers are pulling her further out of the way. Hey, it's how she can fly, though for now she's choosing to stay closer to the ground. She is, however, trying more to keep her distance for now, and doesn't turn back to face Qarazital until she's feeling comfortable with the distance. Iridescence isn't about to get squashed! No wayz! She'll shift her mana focus over to the manipulation of time. Well, not time travel, but more just the time around herself to speed her up. It's not super blinking away disappearing speed, but it does let her run the goth OUT from underneath the bodysquishing attempt by the god thing dudeo. This does sadly make her lose her lightning magic, and strikes that were building in the sky just go wild, a lightning storm smashing about the castle, look out innocent bystanders, fwuh! Qarazital crashes into the ground, growling as he misses BOTH of his targets. If he comes across those mortals he contracted with, he'll extract a heavy payment. "Poor?!" This agitates him greatly! They were supposed to be deliciously rich sacrifices! Ugh! Despite his size and the damage, he gets to his feet, two of his arms grabbing a chunk of castle and hurling it towards Strike Star! With the other arms he exhales, the black smoke that was following him growing from more smoke that comes out of his mouth, which then starts rushing towards Iridescence. Strike Star strategically says nothing about the state of Iridescence's finances. "Yeah! I barely scraped enough money the past MONTH to buy myself some new clothes! I even had to skip lunch for two weeks!" Not mentioning Basil didn't let her go without eating, but... "My mother won't let me get a job, says I need to focus on my studies instead!" ...which, you know, isn't happening because of the amount of time Shizuko is out on 'patrol' as Strike Star. Oh, she really has no clue how much of her mother's paycheck is going into her education right now... Aaaand speaking of right now, incoming chunk of castle. She's able to dodge out of the way of that, but... Strike Star really was focusing more on the threat actively targeting her. The lightning coming all around? She was sure from the earlier strike that they were Iridescence's doing. That's why she wasn't concerned about them... until, well, the problem with Iridescence's lightning is there wasn't any innocent bystanders around here to be hit... so instead it's Strike Star that's stuck. She's flying through the air when her path and the lightning intersect and... her flight just stops. In her Augmented Reality eyes, an ERROR flashes red in the center of her vision, a visual she's not seen before. This happens just long enough for her to careen into the ground and tumble for five or so meters before her armor repowers itself, once again actually blocking her from the damage of the scrapes and abrasions of the next five meters before she hits the block that Qarazital threw earlier where it was now resting. "....ow." She's still moving... technically, but she's clearly a little dazed from that. Iridescence turns to look back once she's an okay distance away from the monster that tried to squish her. Casting two different types of magic at the same time isn't something she's capable of right now. Maybe someday she'll get good enough for it. Now there's black smoke coming for her! Normally, that'd be a kewl fashion statement, to have black smoke following you around, but she's pretty sure it's going to do something bad to her if she inhales it. She drops her speed upz magic and switch back to forces, though she winces as lightning strikes Shizuko. Ohgeez! She's...not dead though? That's great! Whatever summon armor abilities it has must be durable. Phew. Ohright, black smoke. She holds her hands out towards the smoke. A harsh wind blows from behind her, her hair, sleeves, bow, skirt, and side cape all whipping about her, but it should send the smoke back towards the dumb money god. Quarazital emits a high pitched growling sound towards Strike Star. Even if she ends up killing her, with that low of currency rating, this will all be for a massive net loss. Assuming the bits are still shooting at him, he'll jump into the air, flapping his wings and staying aloft, despite his size, wingspan, and other things saying that shouldn't really be possible. This all causes the black smoke which he hadn't noticed coming back at him to blow right past. A bolt of random lightning hits him next, and he grunts, a chunk of his shoulder blasting off. He glances up at the other language numbers above his head decrease again. He should end this quick before he loses more money from damage. He'll angle his wings and dart down out of the sky, pulling back a big rocky fist to try and smash it into Strike Star. Bits still shooting at him? No, actually, they completely stopped while Strike Star was tumbling around, their commands interrupted. When she looks up again at Qarazital, however, the bits fly into motion once more, zapping bolts all around the money god even though the 'Magical' girl only has one eye open, the other closed in pain. Thankfully the armor indeed took all the damage from the lightning, but being thrown around on the ground while the energy fields were down did NOT feel good. Oh. Great, he's focusing on her anyway. Well, net loss not withstanding, apparently she's just pissed the big guy off. She doesn't particularly feel like standing up again, and indeed doesn't really have the time to do so in time... Well, she lifts up her hands in front of her... then shifts them as the energy blade devices detach and come to life, spinning rapidly in front of her to make this hopefully feel like a suddenly much worse option to Quarazital. All the while, the gun bits stop firing and instead arrange themselves like the chain gun formation again... but then turn inward at a 45 degree angle towards their center point. There they fire, their beams intersecting to create a ball of energy, charging for her biggest attack... one she's not used in anger yet. . o O ( Just... FLINCH you big dumb hunk of rocks. ) Iridescence is relieved that she's not being targeted, but also worried for Shizuko. She took a lightning bolt and it looks like she's about to get smooshed. Oh, she's got some kind of blades and hm, she's charging up something. She likes to charge her own attacks as well, though the side effects of the lightning storm is problematic. But it's kewl, she just shifts forces back to lightning and stops the random raining of lightning, redirecting it towards Qarazital. Normally she'd need to charge the storm back up, but it seems whatever natural forces are working in this area have decided to just let a lightning storm rage away without her influence, so it's much easier to just redirect the now ?naturally? occurring storm! Zapzap! Qarazital is ready to just smoosh Strike Star into human gravy, but then some whirling blade thing starts spinning around where he's going to compound her flesh. He flaps his wings, arcing and changing directions to instead land a safe distance away from the blades on the ground. "Surrender yourself, and I'll make your sacrifice painless!" He cries, as a lightning strike hits him. The trouble with lightning is it's as fast as...lightning, so dodging it is not really possible. The numbers floating above him decrease again. He gives a high pitched roar, clenching hands into fists. "Raise my servants back up!" The numbers drop a huge amount, losing an entire 0 to its sum as he pays for the universes services, but the stunned thugs from before suddenly jump to their feet, grappling for their weapons! Apparently he can exchange money for things to happen? Strike Star drops her head slightly, her bangs hiding her eyes from view. But not her grin. That one fang is showing itself almost proudly. "Wrong move, Quad Zit-face." The sword bits stop spinning and fly back to her arms. Yeah, if he kept coming, the chunks of him would probably pulverized her. She just had to make it not worth it to him. The blaster devices continue feeding their beams into the sphere until the ball of energy nearly reaches to their emitters... and then they shift, changing their aim back to the god, moving as one and taking the energy ball with them... before they suddenly face out and at the money-god, directing the ball of energy down the path their now lower powered lasers guide it along. She'll have to deal with the servants later, she kind of has all her power going into this attack now. Hopefully she'll get her legs back under her after that attack, too. Iridescence isn't super keen on lightning striking the thugos, since they'll probably get cooked and killed to death, but at the same time they did abduct her and her friend, and seriously even if she -can- be kidnapped when her security boyz fail her, that doesn't mean she isn't a threat without them. She's not big into sending messages by murder, but fwuh, this place is crazy and there's a weird money god thing here, so she'll just send the lightning storm towards the recently woken up thugies, especially since Shizuko is shooting a energy ball thingie so yaknow, prioritizing targetz and that. Yeaahhhh, the thugs aren't ready to be struck by lightning, especially since most of them are holding metal weapons, the lightning arcs between them, the weapons, and each other. There's a lot of blood curdling screams among the lightning flashes and thunder crashes, before the lot of them fall to the ground, cooked, singed, unconscious, dead, or greatly wounded. One lightning blast won't always kill you, but a collective barrage isn't so merciful. Qarazital screams that high pitched wail! "Ugh! This is costing me a fortune!" He doesn't want to keep paying for all of this. He never should have dealt with those humans. What's the point of getting sacrifices if you end up fighting them? Everything's gone backwards. At least lightning isn't hitting him. Then an energy ball is hurtling towards him. He jumps, trying to dodge it, but it still catches his lower half, blowing off most of his right leg and some of his lower torso. He flaps his wings HARD, arching to the side and not wanting to go to far up, because there's a lightning storm going on. This is...he's done! "ENOUGH!" He screams, and will actually arc his wings and turn to try and fly away from these accursed poor people rather than run out of money fighting them! Little does he know if he could score Iridescence he'd more than make up for all the losses. Strike Star's gun devices quickly shift to snap off shots, yes, set to stun, at the underlings as well... okay, too late, but they then rearrange back into the cylinder formation. "Oh, running away, now?" They rapidly spin up again, opening fire with that rapidity from before. Yeah, the whole having them around her arm earlier to do that was just for show. She's just... tired, and in pain, and would rather just do it without the flashiness. Never mind that she doesn't actually need to spin them, or even arrange them in a cylinder to fire like that. They could just be lined up, or not arranged at all. At any rate, she's aiming roughly for the wings, looking more through their optics than through her own eyes to aim. She's angry. Shizuko is angry. All this. All this just so some idiot god can score some literal points. She just wanted to get a new outfit today. That was her one and only goal. And now she doesn't even know where she is, got struck by lightning, scraped herself up, and slammed into a wall. She's tired, too, affecting her aim... Well, even if she doesn't score any hits with that rapid fire, she'll at least send a message off with him. And no, she's still not gotten up yet from where she's slumped against that prior thrown chunk of castle. Iridescence is more than happy that the fights ending. Not that she doesn't mind having one once in awhile, but she enjoys more information about her enemies before fighting them. Prep is key, ya. But Shizuko has proven to be more than capable of holding her own, something she totes didn't expect! She'll redirect the lightning storm to follow the stone money god thingie, because there's no reason not to keep attacking him just because he's running away. Qarazital was actually hoping not to keep getting attacked as he left. This is already disgraceful for him, a god, to be running from mortals, but the price has been too high. He'll dodge and arc, but with half of his lower body missing, he's off balance, even if most of his flight isn't physics based, some of it is. Some of Strike Star's shots hit him, taking out chunks of numbers above his head, and a couple hit his right wing, sending him spinning in the air, which does let him dodge most of the lightning strikes by accident. There's a loud crashing of rock and stone as he hits one of the main stone walkways that let people traverse this area of existence on TRI, putting him out of sight from people inside of the ruinous castle. Strike Star's gun devices rise up in the air, trying to get sight of the loan-shark deity, but no, he's too far gone now to see without going too far from the 'Magical' Girl. They fly back to her, reattaching to her skirt at the same time as her blade devices reattach to her arms. Finally, all eight devices actually lift her back up to her feet. No, the gun devices don't lift up the skirt, it appears to be designed with reinforcement so they can lift her without doing that. With Strike Star back on her feet, the devices all seem to power down, leaving her to walk towards Iridescence with only a slight limp, favoring the leg that did more scraping on the ground. "Watch your lightning," she says simply, and that's the end of her complaints. "You okay?" She certainly looked better before, her exposed legs and arms scraped up, though the actual materials of the armor seem to have held. There's also the welt across her face, apparently the tumble put that in contact with the ground at one point. It's because of that she still has one eye closed. Gone also is the nervous politeness from before. The almost scared Shizuko from before is replaced with a more tired and jaded Strike Star that's too done with this day to care if she makes a social faux paux. Seriously, this is a rarity with her. Iridescence takes a little bit more time to direct the entire lightning storm away from the castle and over where she lost sight of the monster. With any luck it'll keep striking him from over there beyond the castle. Wisps of electricity spark off of her now and then even after she lowers her hands and Strike Star comes over to her. She nods, "Fwah, sorry, I'm not used to fighting in a duo." She smiles though, rubbing her forehead with a sleeve, nodding, "Yah, just drained a lot of mana, but I haven't fought like this since dealing with that kraken with Menma." She's pretty well off herself, having taken little to no damage in the fight. Her favorite way to go about them! "Shopping date could have gone better." She winks, letting out a regretful sigh. "You can summon armor and stuff though, yahey? Very kewl!" She'll look around, "Not completely sure where they teleported us, but it has to be on Senta somewhere." She gestures at Shizuko's tech, then fizz some lightning between her fingers. Strike Star tilts her head. "Memna?" Sounds familiar. Was that the guy that teleported a clone behind her when she accidentally walked up on him and Iridescence? When she first met the super-rich woman? Then she blinks twice, finally opening her other eye at the second. "Date?" Well, Iridescence stops her next question before she asks it by... already stating she doesn't know where they are. "Yeah. Somewhere." One of the gun devices detaches again and flies up and out to attempt to get a view of just where they are. She frowns. "My mother's gonna kill me for not being home in time to get a night's sleep before school tomorrow..." She lets out a sigh as she hangs her head. Iridescence nods at the Menma thing, "Summoned a giant tailed fox, was super kewl. I need to catch up with him and see how he's settled in." She'll not address the date part, obviously that's what it was! Even if it was just friends, date's a date. She'll tap her lips with a finger, looking around. "Ya can tell her you spent the night at my place." Hmmmrm. She reaches into her sleeve and pulls out her ear com, putting it in and tapping it, "Heya?" Silence. Either out of range, dead, or kidnapped themselves. She taps it some more, then pulls it out of her ear, looking at it. She's sure there's a way to switch channels or somesuch, but she usually has a tech boy deal with it for her. Strike Star tilts her head. "Don't all foxes have tails, though? Or was it a fox with a giant tail?" Her gun device flies back and reattaches again to her skirt. "No idea where we are, though. I don't recognize anything out there." She raises an eyebrow at the suggestion of what to tell her mother. "...She'll just lecture me about staying over A: without asking first and B: on a school night." She starts walking towards the edge of the floating land to get a look with her own eyes. "...And probably about the fact that I fully am going to miss a school day because of it." She sighs. "I suppose being honest and saying I got kidnapped by some money-laundering god or something is the best route. Leaving out that I wasn't just rescued by someone else, of course." Because of course that's something that's actually believable in Senta. She tries to get telemetry on where she is through her AR implants. Where ever her 'Magical Girl' powers come from were able to tell where she was, right? Iridescence grins, "Oh, yah, but it had nine of them." She adds, probz an important detail, but ya know, she's distracted with not knowing where they are or how to get back home. "I have backup security that'll start looking for me, but it takes a day for them to start the search." Wasn't there tracking in her ear com? Or was that something else? Wait, her cell phone? She checks the hidden pocket in her skirt. Nahp, forgot it at home or in the hovercar. Fwuh... "There'll be a report about the mall incident for sure, so you can use that as backupz to your story." It takes a few moments, but Strike Star's AR will eventually pull up a map of TRI and its three continents. And after a bit of beeping and such, it'll show her position hiiiigh above Senta, somewhere in the sky above the Conglomeration, which probably accounts for some of the weird landscape up here. So....just fall down through one of the many large gaps amongst the stone pathways and it should take you back down to Senta proper. Strike Star mumbles, "It's not 'backup to my story' when it's the actual truth of it." She hrrrms as she looks out over the landscape. "...We're higher up than I thought. I guess I've never really looked at Center City from this kind of angle before... It looks so small... But if I'm reading this right, we're over the Conglomeration." She pauses as she looks out over it, then looks back to Iridescence. "Do you have a flight spell or something?" Iridescence blinks, then nods, "Fwuh, right." That's true, she was still in the making excuses mindset mode. She never had to make any herself, since her parents died when she was young. Oh, they're high up over the Conglomeration? She doesn't have a way of knowing. No wonder everything up here is off. "Flight? Nahp. But I can summon enough wind that it'll keep me safe as I fall." Until she runs out of mana, but wind likes to push things around so its not overly difficult or draining, just not a great way to travel to specific places. Strike Star peers over the edge, then over at Iridescence. "...Do you need me to fly you down, or can you, eh, 'summon enough wind' to stay safe?" Don't make crass joke don't make crass joke don't make crass joke. Her devices lift her off the ground to emphasize her point of 'I can fly.' Iridescence looks down towards the skyscape. It's weird seeing things from up here where the sky is above and below, but eventually Senta is down there, right? She nods at Strike Star as she floats up, "Ahyah. Totes ma gotes. I'll just freefall for awhile. I haven't done it in years." It'll let her get a great view of Senta too, although taking hovercars up lets her see it all the time, it's different when you're falling from the sky. She looks at Shizuko, "Hit you up later for an actual shopping date?" She winks. Strike Star blinks again at the wink and mention of 'date' again. Is she being hit on or just teased. She honestly doesn't know, and decides the best course of action is to... pretend she didn't notice either. "Well then. I, uh, guess I'll see you around some point in the future for that, maybe. And it looks like I'll get home in time for my mother to only lecture me about getting out of the way of danger instead of being out too late..." There's a slight eyeroll, but then she just... hops off the floating landmass. Iridescence nods! She'll have her boyz track Shizuko's location down next time she has free time. Now she has to get to her mansion and start finding replacement security, or pay the ransom on her kidnapped security, depending. She lets the flying girl get a good distance to avoid any sudden crashes, then checks her mana pool and jumps! Freefalling in a mass of multi-colored ponytails. o O ( Fwuh, I've had better dayz. ) | |