Disclaimer: None of the authors own any of the referenced properties.
[Persona 3], [Persona 4], [Spectrobes]
The escape pod – parts 23 to 26
Author: Tincanman125
===Present day, NPP HQ, Kollin===
"I hear the two of you are finally off probation!" Aldous exclaimed with a huge grin on his face. "So I stopped by to drop off these." He said as he gave Yu and Minako their Prizmods back.
"It's good to see you again Aldous." Minako told him. "It's been what? A year?"
"One year and nine months to be exact." Yu corrected. "Are Izanagi and Pharos with you?"
"No, they're waiting for you in your new Patrol Cruiser." Aldous said. "I'm just here to say hello before I head off to help Kate in the service bay; but I can't seem to shake the feeling I'm forgetting something today."
"It probably isn't that important then." Minako mused. "It was nice seeing you."
"Likewise." Aldous stated. "I suppose I'll see you around then." He said as he left.
===Cargo Bay/Lab, Patrol Cruiser===
The bad news was that all of the team's combat capable Personas other than Lucifer, Messiah, Thanatos, and Izanagi-no-Okami, had been "requisitioned" (read: confiscated) by the NPP for research purposes, likely as a punishment to appease the members of the general populace that were still upset about Meido's destruction.
The good news was that the door the the Velvet Room had followed them to this ship.
"Well, at least we still have each other." Yu sighed.
"Well what are we waiting for?" Izanagi asked. "Going out to find some new fossils is the perfect excuse to take this baby out for a test drive!"
"While that is true, we're still on a tight leash." Pharos pointed out. "We are not allowed off the planet except on patrol, and ours doesn't start for the next half hour."
"On the bright side, as long as we don't leave the ship we're free to goof off however we want." Minako stated. "It'll be nice to have some R&R without another officer watching us."
"I'm going to go back up top and get reacquainted with the flight controls." Yu said.
"I'm gonna take a nap, wake me up if the Krawl attack." Minako joked.
"Like that'll happen," Izanagi said as he rolled his eyes, "there isn't a single Krawl left in the system."
===Orbital Service Bay, Kollin, 25 minutes later===
As the intruder alarm blared throughout the Ancient Starship Aldous had finally remembered what he had forgotten.
"Blast it!" He swore. "I forgot to warn them about the Krawl returning today!" He yelled to he bolted to the door. "I just hope there's time to warn them before-"
He was unable to finish his thought as a familiar hair-like tentacle wrapped around his waist and tossed him aside.
===Meanwhile, back at the Patrol Cruiser===
"Hey everyone, we've got a call from the Commander." Yu announced as he put the message on screen.
"We're under attack." Commander Grant stated grimly. "We have confirmed reports of Krawl all over the system, I'm mobilizing all our assets across the system, but I can't reach Aldous, your mission is to find him." Grant ordered.
"Understood." Yu responded.
"I want you to know that I'm thankful for your prior service," Grant said, "save him and the Starship, and I might be able to turn public opinion back in your favor. Grant out." The Commander said as he cut the transmission.
"It'll take too long to wait for Minako," Yu said, "Izanagi, you're my co-pilot, Pharos get below deck and wake her up." Narukami ordered.
"Got it!" Pharos said as he rushed to the elevator.
"I can't believe I jinxed it." Izanagi said as he sat down in the co-pilot's chair. "Why'd I have to open my big mouth?"
===Orbital Service Bay, Kollin===
Unfortunately, by the time the team had reached the Service Bay there was no trace of the Ancient Starship, and worse still, it seemed everyone was trapped on the upper level of the Service Bay by some black vortexes guarding the elevator on the lower floor.
"What the? Thanatos is acting strange," Minako said, highly confused by the Persona's behavior, "he's looking at those vortexes like they're armed explosives."
"Why are they green anyway?" Yu asked.
"Back at the lab Doctor Wright said the color of a vortex matches the property of the Krawl inside." Pharos explained. "He claims that other officers started to report these color changes during the last days of he mop-up operation two years ago."
"I remember that too," Izanagi commented, "the green ones have the Aurora property."
"I guess that explains it." Yu said. "Messiah and Lucifer can deal with this, Minako and I will distract the little Krawl, Thanatos and Izanagi should fly up to the upper level and check for survivors." He suggested.
"Ok, then let's remind the Krawl why they shouldn't screw with us!" Minako shouted as she sliced one of the Krawl Dust in half with her sword.
…
Izanagi was a bit worried now, for starters Thanatos was still tense (and it was never a good sign when death was worried about something). Secondly, Kate had told him that Aldous had been on the ship when it disappeared. And third, now he had the feeling that something was watching him.
...It had him even more concerned that the feeling faded almost as soon as he noticed it, and more telling was the fact that Thanatos was visibly calmer in that instant; which suggested that if he was being watched, then whoever was observing him could either read minds or could tell when he sensed their presence.
…
"Something's wrong here," Minako said aloud, "I get that those Krawl theoretically had an advantage over Thanatos, but they were so weak that they probably couldn't even scratch him, so why was he so on edge?"
"Good point." Yu agreed. "But we don't really have time to think about it now, let's just finish up here and report back."
…
"It's like I told your... friends here," Kate said, "the Krawl came, attacked us, and stole the ship with Aldous on it."
"Can you remember anything else that might help us?" Yu asked.
"Well Hank, that's our head mechanic by the way, said he saw a Krawl that looked almost human," Kate told them," and he's been swearing up and down that she actually spoke, but frankly we aren't sure if we can believe him." Kate explained. "It's not that he isn't trustworthy, but he did take a nasty blow to the head during the attack." She amended.
"Well we'll include it in the report anyway, it doesn't hurt to be prepared after all." Minako stated.
===Patrol Cruiser, A Few Minutes Later===
"The loss of both Aldous and the Ancient Starship is unfortunate," Grant said over the commlink, "but at least you saved everyone else, and we know that there's a chance our enemy has some intelligence behind it, so I'm going to call this a tentative success."
"Any new developments?" Minako asked.
"The research team on Genshi have reported sightings of Krawl near an old tower they were studying and have reason to believe it may be a target." Grant informed them. "Digg asked for both of you by name in his request for help."
"Give the word and we'll head there right away." Yu said.
"Good, I've decided to deputize your friend Pharos, that way we can tell the public that we have an officer monitoring you at all times, it should give you more wiggle room to work with." Grant told them. "I also called to tell you that your informant wants to speak with you after you're done investigating. Grant out." He said as the comm clicked off.
"I get the feeling he has a much more personal stake in this than most people." Pharos mused.
===Research Lab, Genshi===
"I'm so glad you're here." Digg said with a sigh of relief. "The situation has changed drastically since I called for help."
"What exactly happened?" Minako asked.
"At first the Krawl seemed content to keep their distance, they were only watching us, and there were only a few, so it was unnerving but not dangerous." Digg explained. "Then a little while before you both arrived they chased us away from the tower and started guarding the only path to reach it. Thankfully no one was hurt."
"Don't worry Digg, we're here to clear them out." Yu reassured him.
"Just be careful," Digg warned them, "the Krawl had some sort of leader, and not only is it smart enough to speak; its appearance is unsettlingly humanoid."
"Think it's the same one that Kate's friend saw?" Izanagi asked Pharos.
"At this point that seems to be a safe bet." Pharos replied.
"Thanks for the warning Digg." Minako said.
"Before you go, we have some fossils in the crate behind you." Digg mentioned. "We were going to send them to Kollin, but they'd be more useful brought back and fighting Krawl, so please take as many as you need."
The team turned around to see a comically oversized crate, and silently wondered how they hadn't noticed it before.
"Where did all these come from?" Yu asked in a surprised manner.
"Genshi is almost as rich in fossils as Nessa is in minerals," Digg explained, "that's why set up the lab here."
…
After awakening the fossils the team had a wide variety of options to choose from, and as they had been warned about the large number of Flash Krawl, Yu had decided to bring Sraosha and Izanagi-no-Okami. Meanwhile Minako brought Scathach and Titania, though Thanatos refused to be left behind and was following them.
"Any idea why Thanatos is being so clingy all the sudden?" Yu asked.
"None whatsoever." Minako dully replied as the group marched through the jungle with some solar panels Digg had loaned them. "I'd almost forgotten how hot it was here." She sighed.
Eventually they arrived at the path to the tower, and after getting rid of the Krawl blocking it, aligned the solar panels to focus sunlight on the wall of shadows cutting off the path, causing it to disperse.
With the path unbarred the team had a relatively clear route to the tower, and with any luck they'd be able to beat a few answers out of the talking Krawl that was most likely waiting there.
===Tower, Genshi===
"I was wondering when you brats would show up." The Krawl sitting on a rock next to the tower said. "I still have to pay you both back for ruining my plan and making me look like a fool two years ago."
"Do we know you from somewhere?" Pharos asked.
"Not personally no," the Krawl said, "my name is Jado; I'm one of the four High Krawl serving Master Krux, and mastermind of the invasion from two years ago."
"So you're a Vilokken agent then?" Yu asked.
Jado scoffed, "I'm as much a Vilokken as you are a monkey." The High Krawl stated. "Vilokken are mindless beasts we send out to crush the pathetic attempts at 'resistance' that the locals put up, after all, why dirty our boots crushing bugs when we have a flyswatter laying around?"
"We don't have time to waste on you," Minako said, "Kate identified the Krawl leading the attack on Kollin as a 'she', so if you have a point you should get to it quick, otherwise we might as well kill you now."
"Big mistake," Jado growled, "until now I was just annoyed, but now I'm pissed!" He shouted as he smashed the tower to rubble. "Now you die! Get them Shadow!"
At that point a dark figure with glowing white eyes rose up from the ground behind the group and lunged at them, only barely being intercepted by Thanatos.
Meanwhile Jado had taken the opportunity to change into his true form during the distraction his 'Shadow' had created.
Jado's true form vaguely resembled a gnarled tree with black and blue stripes on its body, and his face consisted of one vertical oval around where his forehead had been, and two horizontal oval shaped eyes just beneath it.
Jado quickly fired three orbs of energy at the group, one of which had hit and taken out Titania despite the Persona's resistance to Jado's Flash based attacks, the second scored a direct hit on Thanatos, causing him to lose his grip on Jado's Shadow, which sunk into the ground and vanished, and the third caught the edge of Izanagi-no-Okami's weapon; ripping it out of his hands and sending it flying.
As soon as the weapon hit the ground Shadow materialized under it, and after grabbing the handle its massive jaws, it sped off to Jado's side.
To say Izanagi was upset was a huge understatement, he had reached a level rage which he hadn't known since his mind had first developed; in fact his anger was so powerful and had come about suddenly enough without Yu expecting it, that it caused enough stress on Narukami's psyche for Sraosha to demanifest itself.
In short, Izanagi had gone completely bats**t insane with rage.
To put it in simple terms, the reason Izanagi had formed a coherent mind in the first place was partially because his personality had been created based on Yu's perception of the Shinto deity of the same name, who he imagined had a strict code of honor; of course he was still Yu at his core, but basically, by disarming him, and taunting him by stealing his weapon to top it off, Izanagi reacted how Yu believed an angry Shinto deity with a massive ego would: with blind rage.
That rage had just barely been enough to bring Izanagi's demonic nature to the surface, and the demon was lashing out in Jado's general direction with everything it had, from the typical repertoire of Agidyne, Bufudyne, Garudyne, Ziodyne, and Megidolaon, to more primitive attacks like throwing large rocks.
Needless to say neither Jado's Shadow nor the cliff behind it survived, and after atomizing a few trees and inflicting massive (but not lethal surprisingly) damage on Jado himself, Yu had finally managed to suppress Izanagi's demonic side before passing out, causing Izanagi and the weapon he'd been throwing a fit over to return to the sea of his soul.
…
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Jado shouted.
"Let's just say he has... issues and leave it at that." Minako said as she walked over to a downed Jado.
The last thing Jado saw was Minako's blaster barrel leveled at his face before his world ended in a flash of green.
[Devil Survivor 2]
(no title)
Author: Alternis_Alcor
Saiduq looked down at the city as the Loop began again, already planning to take care of Polaris again when new memories hit him. He actually stumbled due to the absurdity of the memories, not having been prepared for them.
"...Well, I'm sure the Shining One will be thrilled for this."
…
In the JP's base in Osaka there were seven people inside the meeting room, all gathered for a single reason.
"Oh my god, this is my new favorite Loop now. Forget everything else, this is the single best one."
Daichi had never seen Hibiki so excited for anything like this before, so it was no surprise that he was a bit creeped out. "Yes, because being Sentai knockoffs is the greatest thing ever."
Indeed, for this Loop the Divine Star Canopus had need of seven people to take up the powers of the Septentrions to defend Tokyo from the demon forces of Belberith the Raging Lightning God. Those seven happened to be Hibiki having Alioth's powers, Io with Phecda's, himself with Dubhe's, Makoto having Merak's, Keita and Mizar, Airi and Megrez, and Yamato with Benetnacsh's power. It would suffice it to say that their reactions to dressing up as Sentai heroes were varied.
Io looked over her costume, rather nervous to wear it. "It doesn't really… leave much to the imagination, does it?"
Keita huffed. "So long as it disguises us it should be alright. Let's just hurry up so we can go kick some ass."
"Speak for yourself, won't this get in the way of school?" Airi still had classes, and was worried that this would hurt her grades.
Makoto was off to the side with Yamat, having their own discussion. "Chief Hotsuin, do I really need to do this? It just seems rather juvenile." She was the oldest one of the group here, so she felt rather out of place.
"It was either you or Fumi and I don't trust her enough to not dissect one of us or herself to figure this out. Besides, if I have to do this then you do to. That is an order." He was damned if he was going through this farce of a Loop without someone else being uncomfortable.
"Y-yes sir."
A siren suddenly went off as the computer screens detected a demon emerging in Nagoya. They were all quickly getting prepared to go face it as Hibiki said, "This is going to be good!"
…
As the demon Jaki Wendigo rampaged through the streets of Nagoya, it spotted a man exiting a nearby hospital and focused on him. The man looked at his approaching doom with a cool but nervous gaze. "Well this was a good time to visit my girlfriend, wasn't it. Can't let it get in, though. So come on Ugly, try and get me!"
He led the angry demon away from the hospital down a few blocks before he tripped a gap in the sidewalk caused by the demon's earlier bender through town. "Well damn. Guess this the end of ol' Joe," he muttered as the Wendigo loomed over him.
"NOT TODAY!"
A sudden punch knocked the demon quite a good distance away from the downed man, as he looked at the figure. "Dude, are you wearing Sentai cosplay?"
"No, good citizen, I am a hero sent to save the masses from demons like that one! Now get to a safe place while we deal with this monster!"
As Joe got to a safe place, the others caught up to him as they started to pose.
"WE ARE THE SEVEN STARS! NOW PREPARE TO FACE MAGICAL JUSTICE!" Hibiki yelled, becoming too engrossed with this to stop now.
Daichi turned to Yamato and said, "We never speak of this again."
"Agreed."
[Persona 3], [Persona 4], [Spectrobes]
The escape pod – parts 27 and 28
Author: Tincanman125
Minako had just sent back Scathach with an unconscious Yu, and was about to head back to the ship herself when she heard a voice from behind her.
"That was ruthless," the feminine voice said, "I approve."
At that point Minako spun around with her blaster at the ready, only to be greeted by the sight of a woman in purple sitting on the ruins of the tower slowly applauding her.
"My name is Maja, and I'm the High Krawl you've been looking for." The 'woman' told her. "You might want to get comfortable, we have a lot to talk about."
===The Patrol Cruiser, Some Time Later===
Minako's conversation with Maja had been both enlightening and disturbing.
It seemed that Maja had been watching them since they first found Aldous two years ago, she had also been responsible for Thanatos' fossil being discovered on Genshi, and had been able to see and hear everything he did until Thanatos reached his final form, an act which weakend the connection.
That meant she knew about both Yggdrasil and the Loops.
Maja had also claimed that her presence had been the reason for Thanatos' recent odd behavior, though her link to the Persona was barely there, it still existed on some level, thus making the death god nervous when she was present.
The only good thing about the meeting was that Minako had confirmation that Aldous was still alive, but Maja promised to return to them with 'an offer' sometime later.
In all honesty, a calm Maja was almost as scary as an angry Mitsuru.
Minako had explained everything to Yu when he awoke, unfortunately Izanagi going berserk meant he'd have to spend some time with Igor before he could pull the Persona out of the sea of his soul safely again, meaning that Minako would likely be on her own for her mission on Nessa.
This was going to suck.
===Colony, Nessa===
"It's just you this time?" Cyrus asked. "Where's your friend?"
"My partner was injured in the line of duty." Minako told him, it was close enough to the truth anyway.
"That's a real shame," Cyrus said in a surprisingly disappointed tone, "I was starting to like him, maybe I'll send him a get-well card."
"As much as I'm sure he'd appreciate that, we're getting off topic," Minako stated, "You said you had information?"
"Yeah, my workers have seen Krawl hanging around an old stone tower in a place called Mineral Valley on the other side of the planet." Cyrus explained. "They say the Krawl there turn the sand into glass in a trail behind them, and that something big, mean, and red is leading them; I'd thought you'd want to know."
"I have to say, that's some pretty good intel." Minako replied. "Color me impressed."
"I may be greedy," Cyrus said with a grin, "but when someone pays me to do a job, the client always gets their money's worth."
===Mineral Valley, Nessa===
Minako wasn't taking any chances this time, she decided to bring Byakko and Thanatos with her, both them being her most powerful Flash Personas at the moment, and she also brought Messiah, Cybele, Kohryu, and Satan as backup, if they couldn't stop what she was up against, then she had her 'instant win button' in the form of The Universe, though she'd really rather not break the local space-time continuum to win, she didn't want Maja to find out about all of her tricks; there was always a chance she could develop a counter, and though that chance was practically non-existent, non-loopers had pulled it off every once in a blue moon.
Maybe she was being paranoid, but who could blame her? She did just learn that her unAwake enemy had used her own Persona, and a few other methods, to spy on her for the past two years after all.
[Devil Survivor 1], [Fate/stay night]
Servant Summoning Program (title assigned by compiler) – part 1
Author: Alternis_Alcor
Shirou had Woken up kind of early this Loop. Sakura was also Awake, seeing as Shinji had a complete attitude adjustment. A not as important note was that it seemed to be the year 2014.
He was a first year student this time around, which meant the War wouldn't happen for a while. If at all. This time around the Fuyuki Grail War had a decisive end, ending the existence of the corrupted Grail. To celebrate, Kiritsugu had an acquaintance go and rescue Ilya and her two maids from the Einzbern family (he honestly suspected it was Lupin) and they managed to have a happy life until the elder Emiya's death.
Taiga had done her best to help around this time around, and had recently given the three of them right-off-the-production-line smartphones (probably with Raiga Fujimura's help) earlier this month. He had just the faintest idea how to operate it, not being familiar with the model, but funny enough, Ilya had become an expert at using it and similar technology. He suspected it was only to get one up over an Unawake Rin, though.
As he headed to the school he saw Sakura walking to him, with a hint of worry on her face.
"Hey, Sakura. Is there something wrong?"
"Well, I found this strange app on my phone and I can't seem to find out anything about it. Did the same thing happen to your phone?"
A quick check revealed that there was indeed a new app on his smartphone, labeled 'DSP'. Messing with it he found that he couldn't open it or remove the strange app. "If it's on our phones, then it's probably on Ilya's as well. We'll have to check this out after school."
Parting to reach their respective schools, Shirou made it to the gate when he saw his sister over with Rin. A new thing to this Loop was that Ilya had decided to enroll at his school as a second year, her excuse for her height and childish looks was an advanced state of pygmyism from her mother's side of the family. He knew the real reason for her being here was to troll Rin.
Getting closer, he could hear Rin whisper with a hiss, "A proper magus shouldn't be fooling around with technology anyway, so any point you make now is rendered moot!"
"Oh Rin, that is such an old-fashioned way of thinking. If we can't get with the times then we might as well be progressing backwards. Is that what you want? Backwards magecraft?"
"Why you little-" Rin's retort was cut off as the school bell rang. "Aw dammit!" Not even bothering to keep up her School Idol image, she rushed to her homeroom.
"Is any of that really necessary?"
"Maybe not, but it's rather fun acting my proper age." He doubted that. "Anyway, after school we need to talk about something, alright?"
Nodding in response, he left for his own homeroom, barely making it without being late.
…
After school, the two step-siblings met Sakura on the way home, discussing the new app.
"I've been fiddling with it the whole time at school, but I can't make heads or tails of it." Ilya had deleting it, passwords, everything to her knowledge. Nothing worked.
Shirou asked her, "Do you have any idea what 'DPS' stands for?"
"Don't know, it could stand for 'Doggy Pooper Scooper' for all we know."
"That's gross."
Further down the street they noticed that a purple-tinted haze was rising from a few blocks in front of them,and the people rushing by, screaming to get out of there.
"Senpai, what's going on?"
A bestial roar was Sakura's answer, followed by a wave of green light washing over the three. They could see a figure stalking out of the haze, revealing itself to be a giant dog-like creature with two heads with trails of fire leaking out of one head mouth and a frosty mist pouring out the other.
"The hell!? Is that a monster?"
"Nevermind that, just get ready to fight it!"
But when they tried to activate their magic circuits, they found that they couldn't draw anything from them.
"Senpai, I think that light may have blocked our magecraft!"
Before any other thought could be spoken, their phone beat them to the punch.
BEAST_ORTHRUS_DETECTED/ UNLOCKING_DEMON_SUMMONING_PROGRAM
"What?" At least they found out what DPS stood for.
Shirou's phone unleashed a bright light as it continued, stopping the approaching demon in its tracks.
ACTIVATE/ SUMMONING_FAMED_KING_ARTORIA
At that the demon sprung towards them before a golden sword Shirou recognized blocked its attack and flung it back down the street. He saw a figure's back in front of him, clad in a rich crimson cape fit for royalty, and the figure's features as she turned towards him confirmed just who had jumped out of his phone.
"Saber, is that you?"
Chuckling, King Artoria Pendragon of the Famed demon race replied, "Why Shirou, do you happen to know of any other King of Knights, I wonder?"
"Er, I-I had only meant-"
"Yes Shirou. It is me, and I am fully Awake.
"Hey, will you two knock it off! That thing's coming back!"
As Ilya said, the Beast Orthrus was back on its feet, ready to tear apart the one in its way.
Nodding to his new summon, Shirou said, "Alright, let's go!"
PeAcefUL dAYs haVe DieD,
LeTs SurVivE…
[Persona Q]
(no title)
Author: Tincanman125
"Hey Zen, can I ask you something?" Minato asked.
"Of course," Zen replied, "what do you wish to discuss?"
"Well you told us that both you and the 'Clockwork God' we fought in the rift were part of Chronos." Minato said. "So which one of you is the original? Did you make him, or did he make you?"
"Does it matter?" Zen asked in turn. "I exist, and now he does not. For all intents and purposes I may as well have been the original."
"So, you just don't care then?" Minato asked.
"Correct." Zen stated bluntly.
[Devil Survivor 1], [Fate/stay night]
Servant Summoning Program – part 2
Author: Alternis_Alcor
As Artoria clashed with the Beast demon, Shirou noticed two more shapes emerge from the haze. One was a hunched human shaped figure, with a curved horn sticking out of its forehead. It was clad in a tattered blue cloak and carried a large iron club. The other a mass of flames in the shape of a man. Fearing that Shirou's summon would become overwhelmed, Sakura looked at her own phone as it spoke.
BRUTE ONI DETECTED/ SPIRIT INFERNO DETECTED/ SUMMONING FEMME MEDUSA
In a bright flash, the legendary gorgon appeared in front of the fire demon. Her skin was pale from the waist up, her body clad in an iron chest piece. On her head was a mixture of light pink hair and iron chains shaped like snakes, or they were actual iron snakes considering the way they moved. Her eyes were covered by a blindfold adorned by a rune. From the waist down was a long serpentine tail that was covered in flexible chain mail and armor on top.
"Do not worry, Master. This demon will not harm you." And with that she rushed at the burning mass, her body covered with ice magic.
Ilya's own phone activated and began to speak.
SUMMONING DEITY HERACLES
And like the others before him, a giant of a man with bronzed skin stood tall before the three kids. He was the very definition of strength. A mane of wild dark hair framed his face as he glared at the oni who sought to harm his little master.
Without a word the Greek hero dashed forward and struck the Japanese ogre with a hard tackle, driving it farther back.
The three teens watched as their new summons completely wreck the attacking demons. Shirou summed up what they were all feeling.
"Technology is awesome."
…
"What the hell is going on!?" Rin hissed from her hiding spot.
She had noticed the two Emiya siblings acting odd at school, and decided that she needed to investigate as the Second Owner of Fuyuki City. They could be plotting some convoluted scheme involving magecraft for all she knew. It was a legit reason to snoop- to investigate.
Trailing them she found that they had met up with her sister, who was good friends with them for some reason. After that, though, they just started talking about those cell phone things. Seriously, those two called themselves magi, yet they fiddle with those stupid little things. She couldn't figure out how they got Sakura roped into their little group.
Then some freaky magic fog leaked out from the' street and a Phantasmal Beast showed up! Then Emiya over there summoned a SERVANT from his PHONE! She was pretty sure that phones didn't work like that. To top it all of, the other two did the same thing and summoned another beast and another Servant!
She couldn't figure out what the hell just happened. Are they using mystic codes, or-
That had to be it. The Emiyas had gained a new magecraft, and then they taught it to Sakura. She then thought of how to get them to teach it to her. It was obvious that she would also be able to learn it if her sister could. As she was schem-plo-thinking, she saw that the beat down was over.
…
As Medusa finished shattering the Inferno-turned-stone statue, the three demon summoners could see that the strange haze had dissipated and was no longer a danger. Artoria had slain the Orthrus just seconds ago, and Heracles… had basically made the Oni his apprentice in the ways of Greek wrestling.
"I honestly don't know how that managed to happen." Ilya was confused, but she wasn't going to question it. But hey, she just got a new demon contract.
Sakura was focused on another matter. "How do we hide them? We can't just let them be seen."
"We can always say that we're just really good cosplayers." Medusa suggested. Artoria looked down at her armor and nodded, she herself wouldn't look out of place at one of those Renaissance fairs.
"Yeah, no. The 'DSP' app says here that it can dismiss you until we need you again. We'll call you back out later so we can figure this mess out," Shirou had been checking his phone for anything new when he found a manual for the app on the menu.
After dismissing the newly summoned demons (and new Oni) they prepared to leave when they heard someone behind them.
"And just where do you think you're going?"
Turning around, Shirou saw Rin with one of her scheming smiles on her face.
"Here I was just walking down the street when I saw you two calling up Phantasmal Beasts out in the middle of the street in broad daylight."
'She wouldn't,' Shirou tried to convince himself.
"As the Second Owner it is my duty to report you two, but I think I could be convinced to look the other way this one time."
'Oh balls. At least she isn't targeting Sakura.'
"So, care to try and convince me?"
Shirou and Ilya shared a glance with each other while Sakura looked in shock by this version of her sister. This one seemed much more devious than baseline Rin. The two step-siblings nodded, and proceeded with their plan.
"Trace on."
Grabbing Sakura and pulling her into a bridal carry, Shirou Traced a pair of rocket skates on his feet. A benefit of the Loops was that he had enough practice Tracing things other than blades, though other things were trickier for him to craft. Ilya turned him around before jumping on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck to hold on.
The second he blasted off he started shouting behind him, "SORRY TOHSAKA I GOTTA GO OKAY BYEEE!"
Standing in shock, Rin took a few seconds before she shook her head and gave chase.
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE EMIYA!"
As the teens ran down the street, they failed to notice a figure in orange robes hiding behind the corner.
…
Shirou had managed to reach the Emiya residence with Sakura and Ilya, but Rin had also managed to follow them the whole time. Before they could open the gate, all four teens noticed Taiga standing by it looking serious for a change.
"Shirou, there's some people inside who want to speak with you and the others."
Blinking, Shirou couldn't think of who was looking for him right off the bat. "Uh… who are they?"
"Hookers." Ah, she found out about his and Kiritsugu's prank, then. Also the Association was here. Balls.
"You come in too Tohsaka, seeing as you are already here."
"Oh, yes Fujimura-sensei."
Shirou frowned, if his sister-figure was being this serious, then something big had come up.
Once they had all gone inside, Taiga led them to the dining table, where there were three people seated. Two were familiar to Shirou, being Waver Velvet and Bazett, but the last person was definitely new. He was young, with silver hair and a serious expression. He wore a black trench coat with emblems on it, one of with read as 'JP's'.
Rin was the first to speak after overcoming her shock. "Lord El-Melloi, sir! What are you doing here?"
The addressed man turned to her, "We are here because something has come up in Fuyuki City. Before I begin, let me introduce you to my associate, here.'
The stranger stood up from the table and said, "I am Yamato Hotsuin, the leader of a government group named JP's."
…
In the church, a person wearing an orange robe was on the phone speaking. When he finished the Father of the church, Kotomine, entered the room and asked, "So how was your little test run? Was it a success?"
The figure nodded. "Yes, we were able to bring a few demons into our world, but they were soon defeated. A minor setback, but soon we will be able to bring Lord Belberith to the city in time for the next War. Your cooperation is much appreciated, Father Kotomine."
Kirei smirked, already preparing his plans in advance. "Of course, Kuzuryu-san. Of course.
[Nocturne], [Warhammer 40000]
D&D – Four-Chaos-Gods-Style – parts Uno, Uno-and-a-Half!, and Dos
Author: Lurks in the Dark
"And you'll need this one, and this one, and this one... Oooh! And all of these!" Naoki quickly found himself balancing a tower of tomes more than three times his height, and Tzeentch was still adding to the stack. Naoki had Awoke in the Grim Dark future and immediately set off for the Eye of Terror to meet up with Slaanesh, only to shanghaied by Tzeentch and find himself in the god's fabled Hidden Library, where, unsurprisingly, Tzeentch had been adding all the books and other forms of information from Yggdrasil as he could get his claws on.
"Listen," Naoki said, rolling his eyes, "while I might not be a devout fan of it, I know that you have to choose one edition and go with it. It's impossible to play all of them at the same time."
Tzeentch turned and stared at Visiting demon, eyes beyond counting blinking in befuddlement. "Yes, I can..."
Kashima rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Of course..." he muttered. "Listen, for the sake of whatever we all have that's the closet thing left to sanity at this point, I'm going to be Dungeon Master," he asserted.
"But!"
"No! No 'but's!' Naoki said, putting the full weight of the power that let him punch out deities into his glare. He had found out upon arriving in the Eye of Terror that the Chaos Gods had instituted a "Game Night" periodically whenever all four of them where Awake at the same time and they felt like it. "Slaanesh, much as a I adore hir, would turn the campaign into one giant orgy; Khorne would simply have the plot be a portal to the Hells opening and having us fight all the demonic armies of the setting, with Khorne himself somehow declaring himself lord at the end; Nurgle would be... I don't know... virus-ridden zombies or something... and you, you would use DM privileges to change the rules on the fly, saying that it was 'all part of the plan' or some shit," Naoki summarized.
"If there's any chance of not having this idea turning into a total and complete cluster-fuck I'm going to have to grab you four numskulls by the proverbial bootstraps and drag you all kicking and screaming to victory."
…
Naoki flipped another page of the module, a beach chair and umbrella set up in the pristine white sands around. For a while (the passage of time meant little to a Looper, and even less in the Warp) he had been staying in Slaanesh's corner of the Warp, and was currently set up in the domain of Indolency, the sound of angel choir and the gentle lapping of the sea filling his ears, but he casually disregard the eldritch temptation inherit in them and instead used it as any other beach in Yggdrasil.
"Yeah..." he began, his eyes scanning the sheer multitude of traps and pitfalls that this module had. It was like the pen-and-paper equivalent of the Amala dungeon-maybe even worse. "Are you four sure you want to tackle this dungeon as your first?" he asked, looking over to his side, where Slaanesh laid completely nude in a more or less feminine form, taking in the "sun."
"Mhmm," Slaneesh replied, sipping of time type of liquid that might have been blood or wine out of what was either an actual skill or a coconut carved to look very much like one. Either way, it had a colorful umbrella, which Naoki approved of. "Tzeentch said he had a plan-" Naoki snorted-"and Khorne said he'll simply crush the puny traps."
"Yeah... best of luck to him with that," Naoki commented, biting down on a piece of jerky one of the damned souls had brought him and chewing it viciously between his teeth. Nicely spiced and pleasantly smoked; he didn't know what type of meat it was, only that Slaanesh had told him that it wasn't human flesh, and he wasn't too picky. "What about Nurgle?"
"Nurgle doesn't really care all that much when it comes to Game Night," Slaanesh said, flipping over to sun hir back. "He's usually content to simply hang out."
"I can see that..." Naoki commented, distracted, his brows rising as he read the section of the module that had a hallway that changed a player's gender and alignment, and trying to pass through the trap again to reverse it simply teleported them out of the dungeon sans their equipment.
So, basically, everything and anything that existed in this dungeon wanted to kill whoever was in it, and he was responsible for making four overgrown eldritch entities who, more or less, acted like small children at times, come out of it alive without causing a Loop crash.
Shit...
Right. Sighing, Naoki stored the module in his Pocket. He had decided on using 3.5 edition-no matter what Tzeentch might bitch about-but he would tweak the Tomb of Horrors so that version was up to snuff, since the 3.5 edition had nothing on the original. Granted, it would take some time to familiarize himself with Dungeons & Dragons enough to reliably do so, but time was something he had.
"Okay," he said, pulling out the character sheets that Slaanesh and the other gods had given him, "let's review who you guys are going to take into this meat grinder," he said, spreading out the four before him.
Slaanesh got up, neither shi nor Naoki cared about hir complete nudity, especially after some of the places each other had been in and done to other...
"So, first off: there's no way in hell you four will survive without at least level 20 characters with some hefty gear-not being total novices to D&D-so I'll have to do something about that. Otherwise, I'm not too surprised by what I've gotten. Khorne wrote out a human male Berserker-big shock..." Naoki said, deadpan. "Only thing is, if he wants any chance in even doing any damage to Acererak he's going to need a Vorpal Sword+5..." he considered. Moving on, he turned his attenion to Tzeentch, "Appearantly outline that he wants to be an Archmage with a focus on Divination... There's no way he didn't game these stat rolls..." Noaki's palm met his face with the same power and force that he had obliterated gods with. "It's like they either didn't bother to read the damn rules, or didnt' care..." he groaned.
Slaanesh made a cooing noise, hir hands rubbing at his Naoki's shoulders as shi pressed her nude breasts tight to his back. "Tzeentch read every book or every edition, Khorne never even opened any of them," shi commented.
Naoki peeked out from between his fingers at Nurgles character sheet, such as it could be called that. "And Nurgle?" he asked, his voice muffled behind his hand.
"Nurgle just likes playing games with rest of us," Slaanesh said.
"I can tell..." Naoki said, looking down at Nurgle's sheet, which instead of having statistics filled in, it was blank, and a post-it note, stained with all manner of fluids, had the suprisingly neat writing of: "Whatever you think is best."
Followed by a fucking smiley face drawn in.
Naoki let out a sigh. "And then, there's you..." Naoki said.
"What about me?" Slaanesh breathed, proceeding to then bite one of Naoki's earlobes between her teeth.
"You want to be a succubus with either a sword or spear..." he said, not distracted by the Chaos God who was currently sucking on the side of his neck, over a pulse point.
"So I can be penetrated and still penetrate other people at the same time!" Slaanesh explained cheerfully.
"Yes, I know," Naoki said in a very unimpressed tone of voice. "Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't go with an elf, or better yet: a drow," he told her.
"Why?" Slaanesh said, coiling around him and gyrating hir hips in a very interesting manner.
"The Eldar made you, and they're, for all intents and purposes, space elves," Naoki said, causing Slaanesh to let out a giggle at his comparison. "Hell, a drow would be perfect for you, since you were birthed from their debauchery. Dark reflecton, and all that crap..."
"So, no succubus?" Slaanesh Pouted. The capital "P" was very much warranted in the expression.
"I could work up a succubus character for you," Naoki said, "but it would more or less be chewed up and spit out by the Tomb," he told her.
"I see," Slaanesh commented, moving to straddle her lover. "Well, whatever you think is best, then."
From that point on, there wasn't very much talk of Dungeon and Dragons.
…
"Okay..." Naoki began began, sitting at the head of a large table with the module for Tomb of Horrors set out in front of him. "First, you'll find before you your revised character sheets that I modified for you so that you guys might have some hope to survive this thing...'
"You suggested it," Nurgle said, gazing down at his character sheet that listed that he was was a human bard.
"Yes... yes, I did," Naoki muttered to himself, ignoring Kashima's dark chuckle echoing in his mind. "I just didn't suspect that you guys would agree to it, but upon hindsight, I really should have," he grumbled. "Anyway, Khorne, I gave you a male human Barbarian, with a sub-class of Berserker. It kills things with sharp objects," he said simply.
"YES!" Khorned bellowed, the sound of dice rattling about in the skull gripped in his other hand. It was apparently his "lucky skull." "What is this Vorpal Sword+5?"
"You'll need that if you want to kill some of the enemies," Naoki said. "It's magical. It gives you a bonus to decapitation,"
"Skulls for the skull throne!" Khorne bellowed, gripping his character sheet in his hands.
"Thought you'd like that" Naoki said. "Moving on-Tzeentch, re-roll your character," he told the said god, who seemed to be favoring an avian form.
"Why?" Tzeentch demanded.
"Because I know you didn't roll between 18 and 20 for every stat," Naoki demanded. "You know what, here, Nurgle you do it for him," Naoki said, passing a cup with dice to the disease-ridden god, who did so without complaint.
"You cannot do this!"
"I just did," Naoki said, looking at the roll, which was very good-not impossible, but highly improbable. "I'm fairly certain you just did something to that roll-but you know what?-I don't care. Stop complaining," he demanded, filling in Tzeentch's sheet for him and passing it over to the sulking Warp deity. He turned his attention to Slaanesh. "You got any complaints?" he asked.
Slaanesh smiled at him, licking hir lips. "No, no..." she said airily, waving a hand. "I'm good." Shi was quite pleased with her female drow ranger and its bow and arrow-shi could penetrate other people from a distance!
"Lovely," Naoki commented. "And, no, you can't have sex with Animal Companion," he established, causing Slaanesh to pout. What good was her wolf, then?
"Okay, seeing as how you guys are... well, you," Naoki waved a hand at the gathered Ruinous Powers, "I'm going to bend the rules a bit and have you guys simply resurrect outside the dungeon when you die," he told them. "If only for the sake of my own sanity."
"Don't you mean 'if'' we did?" Nurgle asked.
"No."
"This shall be amusing!" Naoki heard Kashima gleefully cackle in his mind. Naoki did not agree.
…
After explaining to them what the ten-foot poles were really for-and that while, yes, Khorne could, in fact, use his pole to attack his enemies with, it was not the intended or recommended use of the instrument-the adventure had gotten under way with a minimum of difficulty.
"I found the entrance!" Khorne bellowed, waving an actual sword above his head.
"You begin to hear an ominous rumble," Naoki said.
"What fool dare to challenge the might of Khorne!" the Blood God yelled. "Is it a dragon? I will decapitate it and take its skull!"
"Ten," Naoki began to count slowly in the required seond-and-a-half increments.
"What is that counting for?" Nurgle wondered.
"The rumbling persists," Naoki said, immediately followed by, "nine... eight... seven..."
"I have no need to wait! Give me my foe now! I will kill them!"
Needless to say, Khorne was crushed beneath a giant slab of stone and lost his pole.
Khorne Death: 01
…
Tzeentch eventually found the real entrance to the Tomb before Khorne snapped the table in half, and Khorne proceeded to trigger two poison pitfall traps, leading to another death, and spikes, killing once more before all is said and done.
"Seems your 'lucky' skull, isn't," Slaanesh commented cattily, causing Khorne to attempt to throttle hir, only for Naoki to smack him back into place. Tzeentch had the foresight to check the area and noticed the mosiac path, but followed it and fell into a pit fall trap. Next time he cast a levitation spell and avoided that problem.
Khorne not so much.
Khorne Death Count: 03
Tzeentch Death Count: 01
…
"I shall handle the rest," Kashima suddenly spoke after-by what Naoki was quite certain was intervention from nothing short of their Admin or Yggdrasil itself-he had managed to get all four of Ruinous Powers into Tomb of Horrors.
"What? Why!? No, go to hell!?" Naoki shot back. Khorne was filled with manic glee as he sent his character after the gargoyle with the gem-studded collar. Nurgle ended up dying.
Nurgle Death Count: 01
…
"You open a door," Naoki rolled a die, "a spear materializes and impales you," Naoki said to Slaanesh, who grinned roguishly.
"If you want to impale me, darling, you don't have to use a spear," shi winked.
"You die," Naoki said. "How is Nurgle the one who's died the least out of all you?" he demanded. "No offense," he offered.
"None taken," the jovial grandfatherly god said, waving off the implied insult.
Tzeentch grumbled.
Slaanesh Death Count: 01
…
Tzeentch clicked his talons together, having discovered a trio of treasure chests behind not one, but two, secret doors.
"Yes..." he hissed. "I open the golden chest," he said.
"Poisonous asps leap from the chest and bite you." Naoki rolled his die. "You die."
Tzeentch growled.
Tzeentch Death Count: 02
…
"I cast 'Detect Magic' on the silver chest," Tzeentch said.
"You detect no magic," Naoki said, rubbing his temples.
"I open the chest!" Tzeentch demanded triumphantly.
"Poison darts fly out for d6 damage each. No saving throw."
Tzeentch Death Count: 03
…
"I open the wooden chest!" Tzeentch screamed.
Naoki raised a brow. "Are you sure about that?" he asked.
"It's the last one-it has to be the right chest!"
In his mind, Naoki heard Kashima snicker darkly. He shrugged shoulders.
"A towering magical skeletal appears in a flash of bright light; he has two swords. You are disoriented from the flash and the skeleton attacks you with both swords doing..." Naoki rolled his die, ...you die. Again," Kashima suddenly foced his way through, finishing the sentence with a smirk. Naoki forcibly wrestled back control, glaring darkly.
Tzeentch howled with anger, ranting at how he, the Weaver of Destinies, could be bested by a demilich!
"Yeah, Acererak is kind of a dick," Naoki commented.
"One wonders if he is an undead angel of some sort. His tricks are not unlike YHVH's plots," Kashima trew in his two cents, and Naoki wasn't inclined to argue the point.
"This is bullshit! I am TZEENTCH! I am the master schemer, not this stupid skull! I am untouchable! INVINCIBLE!" the Chaos God raged, warp energy thrumming around him in his rage.
"Icarus had similar thoughts, and we all know what happened to him," Naoki said, making something on a piece of paper.
"WHO THE FUCK IS ICARUS?!"
Tzeentch Death Count: 04
…
"I pull them all down!" Khorne answered, taking a long drought from a nearby skull. Naoki would ask why he simply couldn't use regular drinking vessels like everyone else, but that would have been a stupid question.
"The floor opens up and you fall a hundred feet to your doom." Khorne bellowed; it was slightly amazing that his character sheet was still in once piece at this point. "Why are you so angry?" Naoki demanded. "You know you have to pull the levers up; Tzeentch figured that trap out already!" Oh, well. At least Naoki could counsel himself with the fact that none of them had been foolish enough to go into the gaping maw of the Face of the Great Green Devil-mostly because he had highly stressed, short of outright blatantly telling the Chaos Gods, that it would be a GOOD idea to stay the fuck away from that. Hadn't stopped Nurgle from losing his pole by sticking it into the mouth, though.
Khorne Death Count: 08
…
"I know you're doing this on purpose, and yes, I do recognize the extremely thinly veiled sexuado inuendo your suggesting to me. Later," Naoki said, looking over at Slaanesh, who smiled gleefully and clapped hir hands, not seeming to care that she had just impaled her ranger on one of the door-spear traps for the fifth time.
Slaanesh Death Count: 06
Khorne fell into the pitfalls at the entrance twice more.
Khorne Death Count: 12
Naoki sighed, cradling his head in his hands.
"Let me take my turn," Kashima chimed in eagerly, and Naoki could actually feel his demonic essence rub its hands together gleefully, despite not having any.
…
Amazing enough, Khorne actually seemed to have finally started checking for the pit traps and didn't die from them anymore. Naoki was honestly amazed. Then, he pulled the damn levels down. Again.
"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" he glared at Khorned, who howled and slammed his sword into the table in a fit of rage, impaling his own character sheet.
Khorne Death Count: 13
…
How were they dying so much! Naoki was deliberately fudging their rolls whenever they took the time observe their surroundings for clues or traps so that they succeeded! He knew they all read the rules (though he wasn't sure how much Khorne retained, honestly), and he was tempted to simply pull out a PS3, pop in God of War, and have the Blood God do that instead.
Nurgle was doing really well, actually, and had even found the start of the riddle near the entrance and was taking them to heart, leading to his low death count. Tzeentch, while playing cautiously, often tried to outwit the module and suffered the consequences of being a Munchkin by Acererak killing him with a trap. Tzeentch was still angry about returning to the Chamber of Three Chests and only finding a measly Ring of Magical Protection+1 for his troubles.
At this rate, Khorne was going to throw a tantrum and cause a the Loop to crash; Naoki decided to covertly ignore most of the traps and only punish him if he really wasn't trying.
He really didn't know how they doing this bad! This module could and has been completed by parties of lesser levels than what he had given the Chaos Gods-and he had only done that to given them a buffer of extra hit points.
"Slaanesh," Naoki commented, a thought occurring to him, "where's your wolf?"
"It died." Shi didn't seem overly distraught over that, so Naoki decided not comment or ask how the wolf had died. Probably fell in a fire pit or got turned to slime.
…
The hours seemed to blur together, one after another, as Naoki suffered through a completely new fresh Hell that was attempting to lead the Chaos Gods through the Tomb of Horrors. He didn't know and he didn't know when, but he would somehow get a hold of Gygax's soul and introduce him to torments so horrific that Yggdrasil itself would need to invent an entirely new language to describe them, primarily composed of screams of soul-rending agony and sanity-shattered gibbering.
This thing was worse than the Amala Labyrinth.
He felt Kashima fight for control once more, and at this point, Naoki simply couldn't bring himself to care. He didn't know why Kashima wanted to DM so badly, or why he had even told Naoki to suggest Tomb of Horrors in the first place, but you know what?
HE. DID. NOT. GIVE. A. SINGLE. DAMN. ANYMORE.
"Go nuts!" Naoki told Kashima. "You can deal with these four idiots," he said, and then proceeded to do the equivalent of taking a nap in his soul. "Try not to crash the Loop, okay?" Naoki didn't have much hopes of that, but he figured he should at least ask; Anchors of Yggdrasil had responsibilities to uphold, after all, but there was only so much one man could take!
"The time for practice is long past. Now, you shall fight, or your shall die," Kashima declared, grinning in a feral manner at the Chaos Gods, his eyes turning red.
"Kashima!" Slaanesh cheered, and Kashima himself with a lap-full of Chaos God. "How have you been!" shi said, giving him a long kiss with more than a little tongue. Kashima grinned at hir and sent hir back to her seat despite the pout shi gave him. Tzeentch eyed him warily, but Nurgle simply waved in a good-natured manner.
"What are you doing here?" Tzeentch asked, quirking a brow inquisitively at him. "Where did Naoki go?"
"He grew tired of your foolishness and truly awe-inspiring acts of stupidity," Kashima told the Gods. "You deserve some sort of award for your inspired errors. He was doing everything short of holding your hands like children to guide you through the maze-and still you fell into obvious traps dozens of times" Kashima said. "It matters not, though, for you are all my test subjects now!"
"Test subjects?" Nurgle burbled; he supported this, being a scientist of sorts himself
"I plan to recreate this meat grinder as a boot camp of sorts for demons," Kashima told them. "I mean, granted, you are stronger than most of our Compendium combined, but if even you four stooges can claim victory over this simple skull, imagine what I could achieve with my own army!" he said, grinning wildly.
Slaanesh raised hir hand in the air. "Can I have a portion of of the Tomb?" shi asked, her eyes sparkling wickedly. "Filled with succubi and incubi and all sorts of fun toys?" shi asked, like a small child sitting upon Santa's lap at the mall.
Kashima winked at her. "As you wish" he agreed. "I needed a private chamber for Lust Squad, regardless. Their own weapons would distract everyone else, and nothing would get done."
Slaanesh shuddered in a manner that would have made a nun renounce her vows on the spot.
"Anyway, let's see where you are, then," Kashima said, looking down and then smiling in a manner that would have made Lucifer himself proud. "Ah. Khorne. you find yourself in a hallway of rose-coloured mist. What do you wish to do?"
"Khorne fears no mist!" Khorne replied.
"Good for you," Kashima commented. "You grow tits," Naoki suddenyl broke in, not willing to give up this golden opportunity.
All was silent around the table, and then all the gods broke into laughter, except Khorne.
"WHAT!" the enraged god bellowed.
"The mist flips your alignment and gender, and you are now a lawful good female berserker. Congratulations."
The table in front of Nurgle was now coated with a thick layer of mucus and pestilence from him laughing so hard.
Much to Khorne's credit and Kashima's shock, the Blood God didn't chop the table in half and instead decided to pass through the mists once again to reverse the effects. Good for him, thinking with his head like that, unfortunately...
"You teleport back outside the Tomb without any of your equipment or weapons," Kashima informed him, not even bothering to hide his glee.
The Loop crashed shortly thereafter, but Kashima felt he had gathered enough data to implement his training facility in the future.