The team gave the strange duo inside their cell a strange look.
"And they just… appeared?" The captain asked, incredulous of Luigi's story.
"Yes! They just popped in and began to talk of some universe they had to save. I couldn't make sense of it." L sighed.
"They're a cute couple." Amber mumbled, "I wonder how long they've been together?"
The guy, apparently paying that some attention, gave her a glance.
"We're not… romantically related. If that makes sense. We graduated together."
"That's very disappointing." Amber growled in response.
The man, agitated, got to his feet and motioned for his partner to do so as well.
"You wanna treat us like crap, eh?"
The man grabbed his partner's mechanical arm. "This is a tool I made for my best friend. Due to the loss of arms through a detestable accident, I felt for her and made these. They're powered by a material able to do minaceous amounts of damage if she has a meltdown."
"Your point?" L had the gall to say.
"I'm gonna melt her down if you don't let me out. And you WILL let me out." He growled.
Everyone laughed. "That cell's bomb proof! You aren't blowing this up! No way, Hosea!" The captain leaned in to listen to Alph whisper: "That's ALPHA'S base. Not ours. We WILL die if he blows that up."
The captain blanched. "You wouldn't."
The guy pointed his gun at his partner, who began to act overwrought. "Try me."
"It would kill us all. You know how stupid you have to be to do that?"
"I've been told I was stupid. How'd I get a bachelor's degree if I was stupid? I know what I'm doing. We're either gonna die here, or you're gonna let me out."
The captain huffed and opened the cell door.
"FINE." He grumbled, "But just this once. You try anything and you're going back in there."
The guy slowly strolled past them. "Pfft… bunch of stupid strangers locked me up…"
Luigi went into the lounge and sat down on the armchair. 3 sat in the other armchair, decked out with WVBA merch.
"Who's winning?" L asked, watching a rotundant canadian man and a lanky spanish man fight.
"I don't know… It's nearly the end of the third round and neither's gone down once!" 3 replied, leaning forward in anticipation.
"I don't like either of them." Said Simon, bluntly.
"NOOOOOO!" 3 exclaimed, as the canadian fell over and didn't get up.
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Billy flicked awake. His head rested on his desk, as well as drool on the blueprints he worked on.
He turned to the giant metal exoskeleton behind him.
"Ugh… It'll all be worth it…" He groaned.
Billy examined the horrible-looking bags under his eyes. He slowly stumbled to the doorway and dragged himself down the hall.
"Girls!" He called, weakly.
"What?!" Arris screamed in reply.
"I feel like trash. Is this a human thing?"
"That depends. You haven't gotten any sleep since you began working on that… thing." Arris spotted, "And you haven't eaten in some days."
Billy caught himself from collapsing.
"Well, I'll have YOU know that the MVPs aren't on my tail! And I can get as much sleep as I can after I win!"
"You can't win if you're dead." Arris retorted, bitterly.
"I can't die from feeling bad… right?"
Arris frowned. "You can if you don't get some sleep."
"Oh yeah?! Well… I'm going to bed. Screw it. You guys go… do something stupid." Billy flung himself into his barely-used king-sized bed and fell practically comatose almost instantly.
Arris sighed. "Marco, there's your cover-up… better make this quick…."
?
Marco slowly knocked on the door.
He'd better be here….
A small purple octoling child opened the door. Their gaze slowly drifted to Marco's, making eye contact.
"Hi-...daaaaad?"
A taller, navy octoling strolled in. His eyes went wide.
"Sam, stay right there, okay? I'll deal with this."
The guy slid the door shut and gave Marco a scowl.
"You just HAD to show your face, hm? Just couldn't leave your buddy Mick alone?"
"Mick? That's YOU?! You're…"
"YES. And that, in there, is MY kid. I haven't seen them in months." Mick sighed, "And I can't have two days with them before someone comes barreling into my house, trying to make me work for money I'll inevitably never make. Your face is the second to last thing I want to see right now."
"You… you quit on us?!" Marco was taken aback. "How dare you! We were a team. A TEAM."
"Yeah, an incredibly dysfunctional team! Think of how much you contributed to us. Nothing. Where were YOU all the times those MVPs beat us up, hm? You surrendered. And you call ME a quitter?" Mick scoffed, "I was the backbone of the team. None of you would have lived without MY judgement. I contributed the most, never got anything for it, and here I am, saying I quit. And all of a sudden you "need me" for a stupid quest you'll only end up dead from."
"You don't know what will happen."
"I've read the plans tenfold. A thousand fold, hoping I didn't read that right. You WILL die if you stay with him!"
"I need this. He's our only hope, the MVPs are WEAK! You're ditching ME! You're ditching US! Our team!"
"Right now, you're rejected. Now get out of my sight."
Marco grabbed Mick's hand, before he turned to slam the door on her.
"You're not going anywhere."
Mick didn't move for a second. Marco caught on to his trick, but wasn't fast enough to react.
Sam threw a holstered blade toward Mick, who caught it and swung abruptly.
Marco staggered to the floor. Mick holstered his blade.
"Look what you made me do. Punk. How about you piss off with your stupid death wish, eh? Before I make you wish you didn't have regenerative abilities."
A disembodied arm lay on the floor.
Marco slowly ran off.
"And stay out." Mick growled, before turning to his kid.
"Who was THAT?" Sam whispered.
"An old ally of mine who thought I was stupid enough to brawl with MVPs. Clearly not."
Both of them reacted when another knock ensued. "Argh… stupid mess…"
Mick swung open the door and blanched as a chrome arm made secure itself around his neck.
"I heard you bailed on me! I didn't know you were a tentacle-head! You remind me of someone." Billy monologued, "Listen, buddy, I hired you for a reason. I made sure I was in control. My plan doesn't require you anymore, so I COULD let you go… but where's the fun in that? You took from me a valued member. So I'm gonna take something from YOU."
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Day 1 of expedition. We were travelling through a murky sorta place. It wasn't pleasant. We've taken one too many stops here. The fruit here is deadly. Well, deadly to people trying to get through this speedily, anyway. It causes extreme excretion. That is, urine. It's starting to hurt at times. Apart from that, we've found something on the way here… an unconscious inkling. They're estimated to be middle aged, maybe their 20's. We scooped them up and they're in the cargo bay. We'll tend to them as soon as we can.
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The guests sat down in the lounge.
"Your names are… Jacks and Ari, right?" The captain assured himself.
"Yes." Both of them replied.
"Good. Then we can begin. You two need transportation to a special portal only SHE can open. We need some help with our current villain problem. We have two secured, three left. You guys can help us with our quest. You pat our backs, we pat yours."
Ari raised her mechanical hand. "Do we get our own beds?"
"No."
Ari huffed.
The captain continued.
"Do either of you have any combat experience?"
Jacks brandished a glowing pistol with an exposed energy core in the middle.
Ari raised both hands.
"I'm gonna take that as a yes. So, now that we know this, you guys are officially honorary MVPs."
"What does the "honorary" mean?" Jacks asked, raising his hands.
"Alpha said that was the nice word for temporary."
Both guests groaned.
"Aww…"
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Arris heard her room door swing open. Dang it…
Billy pinned Arris to the wall with his chrome arms.
"Say, what are you doing in here… packing bags? Where are you going, hm? I thought we had a deal."
Arris blanched. "W...well… I was going to go and rescue our leader-"
Billy hushed her.
"No, no, nononononono… you don't leave to get your leader with a farewell letter on the door unless you planned to die on the way there. This gives the implications that you wanted to leave? And what about your girlfriend, you're just going to ditch her too? See, that's what Travis did. You wanna know where he is?" Billy began to chuckle, "He's dead. Floating out in space somewhere. If you saw, it was Omega. Omega threw him into the void. Because he did one thing. He betrayed me."
Arris swung the blunt side of her axe into Billy's jaw, knocking him far enough for Arris to dart out the door.
Before she got to the exit, Arris felt someone grab her hand.
Marco and Arris locked eyes.
"Listen, Marco, we need to get out of here, he's insane!"
"You're not going anywhere." Marco hissed, "Mick already abandoned us. You're not gonna be next."
Arris sighed. "He's bonkers! I'm not gonna be stuck with him! I thought we were a thing! What happened to unity?!"
"You decided you didn't want to be a team anymore." Marco retorted, sharply.
"You let me go right now and things don't have to get ugly." Arris snapped.
"Don't make me do th-"
Arris swung the axe. Marco, with no apparent regrets, caught the axe, wrangled it out of Arris's hands, and jabbed the sharp side into Arris's side. And then it hit her.
Marco's countenance switched from a scowl to a more surprised expression.
"What… what the heck did I just…"
Slow clapping resonated from the halls behind them.
"Bravo, bravo! I didn't have to even get involved! You did everything for me! Good girl! See, I actually highly regard you now!" Billy looked daggers toward Arris, "And YOU. You'll have a nice cell beside your teammates! Take her away."
Marco slowly carried Arris away.
Billy grinned ear-to-ear. "It's all going to plan. Hahahah…"
He sashayed to his workshop and tore off the large tarp that covered the biggest thing in the room. He smirked as his reflection smirked back.
"Omega thought HIS big suit was cool? Pft! HAH! What a drag!"
Billy slowly began to polish his invention. He slowly began to think, to himself.
...I wonder if Travis really is dead… I miss him…
He slowly began to cease. Why did he end up hating me, anyway? It was my fault... Billy huffed, It's no use thinking about it now. Let's avenge a friend. And make those MVPs know who they've just picked a fight with. They're gonna recognize their folly soon enough.
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Alpha slowly spoke into his log recorder.
"Day 32 of recovering. My legs are still disabled and my arms are fine. I'm still stuck using my NITB, because my jaw is taking forever to return to health. It still hurts to breathe. In the meantime… let me get this off my chest. Billy's got something big in the works. That masked guy's no longer involved. But… whatever Billy has… It's more menacing than what we fought last year. And they barely stumbled out of that one alive. To see that I would have to die to end this war we might just lose anyway… I might have to. I can't bear to watch MVPs die because of me. And it's not looking good for them anyway… What should I do? Do I accept death? Do I pin my hopes on them? What to do…"
Three of the RE are in cells. Marco doesn't seem to take this lightly.
Billy's new weapon is, I never told you this, ten times more fortified than Omega's.
Alpha's not feeling good. He's got a choice to make and he doesn't know how to cope with it...
The two guests are VERY stuck-up. Maybe the compromise will work? See you then...