New Beginning 23: One for the Record Books

[Zaleramancer]

Red glanced at the person on the floor, then the girl with the sword, then the basking-shark-sloth-combo, then the woman, then the person on the floor, then the shark-sloth, then the other guy.

He was obviously interrupting something. Might as well make this as blissfully short as possible, for everyone's sake.

"Uh, Hello. I hate to interrupt your.. whatever... but I'm a wee bit lost right now, meant to end up in Paris in 1913- which I am assuming this is not. Based on the shark-sloth, which I don't recall existing then.. or at any point in time really. Doesn't seem like a good surviving combination to create, unless they're made for comedic purp-"  Red paused to realize he was rambling, "Right, so, you seem to be some sort of magic-using-group. Were you trying to summon something and got the wrong glyph-combo by mistake or something? If so, could you please turn off whatever it is you're using to keep me here? I'm kind of on a tight schedule today."

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Billy shakes his head and sits up. "No, I can't think of any reason why you should show up here. Miss Shield, Mr. Zaubar, are you doing something to keep this gentleman here? Are there any wards on the room besides the obvious?"

[Philote]

Zauber points up. "Not me, but there is always that commotion going on up above that could be blamed." He turns towards the new man. "If you don't want to be involved, then you should leave now. You're almost out of time."

Over next to the seal, the shape of the of the magic has drastically changed and divided into two parts. A black cloud of magic is being pulled towards the Guardian while a white cloud has almost reached Miss Shield. Between the two, a red orb can be seen that is attached to the two clouds by just a few remaining strands of magic.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

"If it's almost done unsealing, then I might as well Release my Soulsword," Asoka comments as she holds up the blade. "Let's skip Released State and go straight to Hyper State. Eviscerate, Lilianna Venti!"

The sword appears to glow blue for a second then shatters as the air around Asoka starts to shimmer as though a haze from extreme heat surrounded her.

"How strong have you guys gotten since we last met?"

[Celadon's Penultimate]

In the middle of the forces intending to invade Aeon, a relatively small vessel (only fifty feet long, and eighty feet wide--resembling, in a way, a really thick band-aid) drifted forward at a casual pace. Within, a small robot (scarcely the size of a human child) eyed the approaching enemy, and his smirk grew wide.

Analyzing lifeform makeup: Specialized Philotic Composition. came the computer's voice, in staticky monotone.

He clasped his hands together. "Ah. A Core User. I've only heard about Correnians before now. Computer: recommended response?"

Attempting Subquantum Philotic Cloaking. His assessments should not be able to pick you up. Solution in progress for this vessel, and also your armor. Anything else before you disengage?

The pointer finger on his cybernetic hand--the left one--alighted on his arm-rest touch-pad, and the computer's voice went silent. A red robotic eye--his left one--lolled about in his head, searching for where he'd put it. No, not the subcutaneous intra-flayers. Not the sanguinary ignition drives either. The ophthalmo-gauger would come in handy later, but no--ah, there it was. Motherboard Prime had been so generous in her supplement.

While she could find nothing in particular to combat the effects of Philotic Manipulation, she could at least provide a means by which not to have HIS Philotic makeup so easily manhandled, by the like's of Aeon's champion. The Phase-Rift Psychic Auto-Jaunt would be perfect for the likes of this one. At least, such was the hope.

With that, Titannus of the Microverse took his first shot. Just as promised, he needed only install it into his drive, and the entire ship jumped through space like a hooker through party cake, at even the slightest deliberate mental nudge. Left, right, up, down, his entire vessel bobbed and weaved like mad. And each movement was so swift, it would leave behind an afterimage for ten seconds after.

Though, now was not the time for his personal confrontation with the Corennian. For now, he would send his Antimatter War Skiffs and Hyluvian Harrowers and Iixtraxi Blade Gunners. Each would charge energy for an impromptu target practice. No use in wasting efforts with practice shots. Hiding a planet basically guaranteed that a hard fight lay ahead.

The first blast from Titannus' fleet would be a full-force tri-barrel energy-blast from the Hyluvians' Black Hole Inversion Matrix.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"I have spent all my time preparing specifically for this moment." Billy says, standing up. He pulls his glove off his hand and presses his thumb and finger together. "Mr. Vaultboy, perhaps you'd better take your leave as well?"

Vault, seeing as he's not going to be able to stop this or warn anyone about what's going on starts to turn arounds and slowpoke his way away from the door.

[Zaleramancer]

While he wanted to press for more information, it was easy to see that this was heading towards some sort of climatic fight against ancient evil by a rag-tag team of misfits turned friends forever. Interrupting or drawing the spotlight away from them would be unimaginably rude.

Red just quietly shuffled after what he took to be their wacky animal sidekick. He had no idea why they'd gone with a lumbering shark-sloth, but who was he to question the main characters' choices?

"So, are you one of the talking animal side-kicks, or am I gonna have to break out the telepathy?"

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Vault turns to look at the guy, which meant turning his head sideways and looking with only one eye and slowly brought his clawed hand up to point at his giant open stupid useless mouth, before shaking it.

[Zaleramancer]

"Telepathy it is. Mind filling me in on what your buddies are up to?" Red said, eying the light-show going on behind them.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Knight", he thinks trying to drown out the uncomfortable feeling of having another person in his head. "Or Billy. Whatever his name is now, he has to release the final boss because he's duty bound to kill it or something. I have no idea about the other two, they just showed up. Me, the lady at the door, and the big stone guy are just helping out. Honestly, at this point I'm not sure if it's a terrible idea or the best idea. With all these robots running around I'm sure they'll take out a few in the fight. Hey, you have any idea why these robots showed up again? I frickin hate those guys."

[Zaleramancer]

"Oh, one of those <duty/honor> things. Always an irritant. I'm sure they can handle it. These sort of <people/heroes> usually do. The <robots/Technari/annoying twits> are a more pressing issue. They're here for revenge because <I/my other self/my predecessor> and some friends defeated their attempts to reclaim a <defector from decadence/rebel>. Might be some other <people/witches/sirens> as well. You know, you sound like that new <time-friend/temporal anomaly attractor> that showed up several (personal subjective time units) ago. I <had/will have/are having> one of my people give them a taxi ride to Aeon, I think. Are you related?"

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Wait. What? Time? You're with the time cops? I didn't do nothing, that time ray was totally an act of self defence. I never build a glass clock! I've never even read the Thief of Time! I just saw the movie, they changed a bunch of stuff. Wait, that's not what I meant!"

"What I meant was...was...was....what do you know about planet Vix?"

[Zaleramancer]

Red suddenly stiffened. The rest of the room seemed to drift off into the distance.

His next thought touched Vault's mind like the side of an ice-cold knife.

"How do you know about that?"

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"I only heard it twice. Well, I heard it once. It was on the bottom of a note that came with a cheque 'In recompence for recent actions,' and from a scary beyond all reason frog thing that wanted me to meet a dead god or something."

[Zaleramancer]

Emotions weltered across Three's face. This could not possibly be happening.

"You.. you got a note? Do you happen to have it on you?"

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Uhhhhhhh...."

Vault thinks very hard about that, for the first time considering just what had happened to what he was wearing when he assumed this form. He couldn't really turn his head enough to see. He closed his eyes and concentrated.

A little sloth arm appeared on his side and Vault began to move his arm about in the air in front of him. The little moved with it, in the same way, and after a few seconds of groping around he found what remained of his pants. "Oh that's great, I'm the Hulk." He thought, feeling his way into his pocket and pulling out the note.

He tossed it to red, and it sailed through the air as the little arm withdrew.

[Zaleramancer]

Three read over the two word note a few times. He made a complex motion over it a few times and then looked back towards Vault.

"So, tell me what I need to do to get you on this planet. I am literally prepared to offer you anything. You want to be king of the Milky Way or have the Technari Queen's head on a silver platter? Say the word. You are talking to someone with phenomenal cosmic powers right now."

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Whoa Whoa whoa, hold on for just two seconds. What do you mean anything? What's so special about this planet? What's so special about me? Why do I have to go there."

[Zaleramancer]

"I don't know why you are important but you're the one he's contacted-" Three stopped, "I'm going to have to explain things. Do you want the long version or the short version?"

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Go ahead with the long one, I've got time until this form wears off."