Ryot Rion heads into Costa Brava to get himself a drink from one of the nine remaining locations in which such an action is possible. He heads into Bar Stand In, a bar in which there are no chairs, and the one rule is that you can never sit down. It used to be called the Bar Stand Inn, but the second n fell off of the sign, and nobody ever wanted to sleep there anyways because they were required to do so standing up. Rion heads inside, looking around at the crowd. The only real person of note here is Grarg, who's drinking to help deal with his PTSD. Ryot Rion approaches the bartender, a man named Standin' Standley.
"Hello, sir. You don't seem to be from these parts. How can I help you?" Standley asks.
"Give me the regular, bartender." Rion states. Standley nods, handing Rion a drink called 'The Regular'. "What's this one like?"
"It's best served at a higher altitude." Standley states.
"Right…I figured that was this place's schtick…but what's in it?" As Rion asks this, Grarg grows a bit uncomfortable with his presence, and forms his menu into a shank, just in case he needs it.
"You saying you ordered a drink without even knowing what was in it?" Standley inquires.
"You sayin' you work at a bar with no stools?" Rion retorts.
"I don't like your attitude. Remove yourself from my establishment." Standley says, shooing Rion, who leaves with a huff. Rion gives the Bar Stand In a bad google review, and then heads to the next nearest place where he can get a drink, which happens to be the Beaten Meat, where it is currently Beatsmith's shift.
"Hi, how can I help you this evening?" Beatsmith asks as Rion enters.
"Heard you guys have drinks here."
"Yeah, they're the only thing on are menu that actually costs anything."
"Any chance I could just get one with a meal?"
"We could pour it on the meat, if that works for you."
"Yeah, that'll do, I'll take a regular."
Beatsmith heads to the back to prepare a regular with a drink poured onto it. Rion looks around, seeing not too many people in the establishment. Anti is here again, having enjoyed it enough the first time to want to come back, and foul play is outside, having been banned from loitering within the building. Rion waves at Anti, and Anti waves back, as Beatsmith returns from the back room with the meal. Rion promptly slurps all the drink out of the meat, sucking it completely dry and then offering the meat itself to Anti, who happily accepts. Ryot Rion heads to the door, but outside is Grarg, who's making threatening gestures with his menu shank. Anti gets up and leaves, walking right past Grarg, but Grarg remains in place, focused on Rion. Rion consults The Answer on what to do here, and The Answer writes a little equation showing that Rion could easily beat up Grarg in a fight. As Ryot Rion steps outside, Grarg tries to catch him by surprise with the menu shank, but Rion is prepared and catches the shank between his fingers with grace. After helping out with this assist, grace leaves, and Rion gives her a thumbs up.
"You thought you could just surprise me out in a public place like this, didn't you?" Rion says, and Grarg nods fearfully. He was hoping to take advantage of the dark, but since Grarg himself is literally the opposite of darkness, it didn't do much to help him. Rion grabs the shank from Grarg and points it right back at him, and Grarg, with no other options, reaches into his pocket for his guaranteed method of escape: the d1, which he stole off of Librarin as he was fleeing the library during the fire. With a roll of the legendary Artifact, Grarg flees the scene, leaving Ryot Rion alone with the menu shank and the small marble-like d1, which he himself picks up and inspects. Rion realizes he could use this to potentially cause a lot of trouble in the right circumstances, and he thinks back to all the people who have wronged him that he could potentially get back at. Of particular note is his former financial assistant, Cledit Card, who scammed him out of thousands of dollars and had him in debt for a couple of months, which was a really bad point in his life. Ryot Rion picks up his phone, and dials up that all-too-familiar number.
"Hello? Who is this?" Cledit Card asks.
"I was looking to arrange an in-person meeting? Where could I do that?" Rion asks.
"My current place of work is in the sub-basement at 245 Crime Avenue." Cledit Card discloses, not even thinking twice about the fact that this 'client' might have ulterior motives.
"Great, I'll be with you by the end of the hour if you have a slot open."
"I do. Sounds good, it will be a pleasure doing business with you."
Rion clicks his phone off and heads to the given address, making his way in through the big hole in the wall. None of the officers on the ground level care about Rion's presence, having just gotten used to random people barging in here at this point. Woo Hoo is currently on the phone talking to Wrench Woo to arrange a meeting to get the building fixed up, but in the meantime, it's still a pretty messy sight. Woo Hoo also has Wash Woo on the other line, wanting him to come over and clean up the marshmallow goop and marinara that loss averter keeps tracking around every time he's thrown out and re-enters. Mugsy walks up the stairs, and Ryot Rion bowls right through him as he beelines towards the sub-basement, causing Mugsy to fall down and make a funny noise on every single step he lands on. In the sub-basement, Cledit is patiently waiting, eager to have any sort of company that isn't loss averter. Ryot Rion arrives in the sub-basement, and approaches the well-funded individual sitting in a computer chair. Ryot Rion decides to check The Answer one more time to see if it really is worth killing this man, and The Answer comes back with the consensus that yes, yes it is. Rion unpockets Grarg's menu shank and steps towards Cledit, who suddenly seems to realize the potential danger of the situation, and starts trembling.
"Hang on, what's that thing for? I thought we were just gonna have a talk." Cledit stammers. "Why don't you put that thing away and we can sort this out?"
Rion raises an eyebrow.
"Give me a good reason." Rion demands.
"It'll cause really wacky bad things if you kill me!" Cledit pleads, and Rion becomes conflicted, even The Answer not having an immediate solution here. Rion puts away the menu shank, and claps his hands together, uttering a phrase which strikes enough fear into Cledit's heart to nearly kill him on the spot.
"Stabskatool, stabskatool." says Rion. Deep in the depths of the burnt Painforest, the Multima Cutter quivers in place as it detects the call of a new wielder, and it launches out of the cave, zooming straight towards the WCL building. Mugsy heads down the stairs to go and offer Rion some meatballs, since they got off on an awkward foot earlier, but instead, Mugsy ends up severed in two through the waist as the Multima Cutter slices through the air, only coming to a stop once it reaches Rion's waiting hand.
"Okay, okay, I get it, you don't like me, that's fine." Mugsy says, using his hands to crawl back upstairs so he can be treated by Dr. Woo. Cledit completely loses his cool, and decides to break his promise to Cybr that he'd stay in the sub-basement, bolting directly towards the door. Before he can get away, Cledit hears the sound of a marble-sized object rolling on the floor, as Ryot Rion uses the d1. Seconds later, Cledit screams out in guttural agony, as the Multima Cutter shreds through his very being, vivisecting him into a pile of plastic and gore, around which a new ZONC begins to take form.
Upstairs, Cybr suddenly melts into a pile of goop, unable to reform himself no matter how hard he tries. Cybr tries to call out, but cannot form any words, leaving him completely helpless. Thankfully, El Diablo is still nearby, just close enough to witness this and use context clues to determine that Cybr is currently, for all intents and purposes, dead. As a result, El Diablo uses his Stand to grab the Latex Mask sitting at Cybr's desk, and tosses it into the goop pile. The mask shifts as it mixes with the substance and Cybr's existing mask, and before long, Cybr is standing up again, cursing Ricky Elusive under his breath. Cybr starts to head downstairs, but then remembers that if Cledit died, it means there is now another ZONC present, so he instead just heads down to the ground level and tells all the officers to never enter the sub-basement due to this dangerous phenomenon. He also tells those hanging out in the regular basement, and then returns to his usual workspace, more determined than ever to find a different place to stay.
"I told you so, you know." El Diablo says mockingly.
"Told me what." Cybr says, clearly unamused.
"That this sort of thing would happen because you kept refusing to use a DAMN PROXY!"
"Fine, I'll use a VPN or something once we find a new place." Cybr sighs.
"Actually, this was probably Chiminal's fault somehow. I told him that advertising our location via pop-up ad was gonna end badly at some point." El Diablo says. Outside, Bermuda walks by, snickering at his phone once again and taking a selfie, before heading on his way.