In the year 2012, a mysterious illness began to sweep the globe. In its wake, those who survived it were left with immensely powerful supernatural abilities.
As the number of people capable of wielding magic powers increased, they began to organize and seize control of the course of history. Using their powers to travel between parallel universes, these mages forge empires of a scale never before seen. And at the center of it all is the Academy, a neutral institution founded for mages to share their knowledge with each other.
Mages struggle against each other to impose their will upon the multiverse, but there is one threat that unites them all together. In recent months, mysterious entities have appeared. These entities wield power far greater than any one mage, and they seem determined to annihilate all of humanity. The mages will have to set aside their differences in order to beat them. The fate of the multiverse depends on it.
Maran felt her body go numb just like Dubai. This time though, her power wasn't suppressed and she floated up to equal height as everyone else. As much as she didn't like Karma, she was quickly growing to hate the walking lightning rod, "You keep making people numb like this and you'll never get laid Zipzap."
She had to admit that the events playing out were rather comical. Especially poor young Jack somethingorother. His stuttering and 'please don't hit me' brought the image of a puppy trying to not get eaten by wolves. All they needed now was the sparkly airhead and everything would be complete, "Well... now that I know what this is about, I'm not really opposed to learning more about magic. But threatening people with a giant mosquito is a bit much. We all left blood work at the Academy infirmiry remember? Steal that shit, make copies and send those back while keeping the real blood." At least, she assumed that's how that kind of stuff worked.
I'm not evil, I just like helping others grow by causing problems
Post by Serpentarius on Nov 3, 2018 17:42:09 GMT -7
The reaction Tristan gave left Vieri dumbfounded, upto and including the smack on the back of his head. The electricity around his shoulders and head parted for Tristan’s hand habitually, and Vieri raised his own to rub the back of his head with the shocked look of a confused and hurt child. It very swiftly shifted into heated anger.
“Damn me?! What, was shoving you not clue enough, do you need me to you shout ‘fuck off’ at you too?! And that’s what you want to get mad at me about, you- being a dick?!” He was still shouting, but his brow furrowed inward like the words confused him even as he said them. His gaze flashed to the sword woman again and her stupid inane comment. His jaw locked and the electricity webbing around him flared up again - although, as before, all of it avoided Tristan. “You ain’t making me uncomfortable, this- this is blackmail shit, guys and affection- and you- both of you bastards are laughing at me, and so both of you can just fuck off already!”
As he was fumbling and cracking his words, he just wanted to slink off behind Diana, abandon the needle he’d wrapped a tight fist around, and just come back when these guys all went away. It was exactly that inclination that had him step up and shove Tristan backwards again. He wanted to snap at someone, but someone who wasn’t Tristan - And as it happened, thoughts of going after Jack would be the spark to light the fire. If either the zealotus redhead or the sword woman had such plans, small clouds of static electricity would spark directly from their skin. It’d likely sting, but the larger threat would be leg or arm muscles that locked up under the static. Hopefully buying the janitor or Diana enough time to launch their own counter.
Action: Prediction(Sense) on Jack!
'Convince' it was. For now, she was going to start simple and try to talk him into why this was a good idea, but she supposed he did seem to want to fight her that one time. It was probably fine. For now, she just amplified his pain like she did the last mage, and this time swung her spear like a baseball bat at his head. She didn't amplify her strength, but she didn't need to. It was the kind of thing that would probably leave him seeing stars with her power in effect even if he was tough.
---
TAKE OPENING: CONFUSE on Maran ACTION: Interference (Illusion) on Karma
Under normal circumstances, Jack's main target of concern would've been the typically-murderous flamey guy. But that guy seemed more confused than anything at the moment, Tristan was clearly causing personal space issues, and most importantly there weren't any tables to throw in the vicinity. Walls began rising to keep the shadow mage at bay - while walls to neighboring rooms began collapsing, letting more light in. Hopefully the combined effect would be to keep Tristan at a safe and decent distance.
---
Action: Interference (Obstruction) against Tristan
Maran was ready to bolt if that fuckmothering psycho with the giant ass needle came towards her. Fuck fighting for thrills, traumatic childhood memories took priority.
Interfere (obstruction) on Vieri
Unfortunately, it was looking like an actual fight was about to break out. That was probably the exact opposite of what he intended, so it was probably up to Tristan to make punching things difficult. Luckily, he was a lot better at making things difficult than he was at not being insensitive, apparently.
Pulling out his bag of old tricks, Tristan started creating the false shadow people and having them flood the area. They wouldn't hold up to inspection, but they might keep a few hits from landing on anyone important.
Interference (Illusion) against Jack
Karma needed to start with the contributors. If there was a high demand then there would obviously be a high supply, and cutting off all supply made it easier going after the former, right? Karma actually had no idea. He still thought attacking Jack, who had openly professed to want to provide blood, was a good start. And so he did, withdrawing his blade before taking one good spin to kick Building-boy in the middle before he would merge with the ground. He made sure his kick was powered enough to send a small wave of force in case he had already merged into the ground, making sure even the terrain beneath him would feel the impact of the blow.
Action: Aggression (Force) on Jack
---
Karma and Tristan Carter perform a COMBO against Jack Mason which lets them take openings even if their actions fail and causes his action to automatically fail!
Diana takes CONFUSE opening against maran at a cost of 5% combat advantage, preventing her from taking openings for the rest of the battle!
Aggression (Force) by Karma against Jack Mason results in FAILURE due to suppression by the equal-or-greater Interference (Illusion) Diana used, +5% combat advantage
---
Current conditions:
maran is CONFUSED, preventing her from taking openings for the rest of the battle!
Diana can CONFUSE Karma at a cost of 5% combat advantage, preventing him from taking openings for the rest of the battle!
Tristan Carter can CONFUSE Jack Mason at a cost of 5% combat advantage, preventing him from taking openings for the rest of the battle!
Vieri di Adatto Isabello can EXPOSE the enemy side at a cost of 15% combat advantage, causing the resolution order to go in his side's favor regardless of power level for the rest of the battle!
Karma can PRESSURE Jack Mason at a cost of 15% combat advantage, causing his powers to stop contributing combat advantage for the rest of the battle!
(Click here to send in your next round's actions! The next round's deadline is in 48 hours!)
Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Nov 4, 2018 18:33:49 GMT -7
Vieri bit down hard on his teeth and had a nice pair of fists at the ready. The guy felt bad for his weirdass comments and eye wiggles and was now expressing that by getting mad at him? Tristan continued to be more and more weird. Under a clearer mind he could’ve guessed the fact that Tristan could get this worked up about it meant he was sincere and shit, and he could’ve appreciated that.
In the moment, however, Vieri was very ready to pick a fight with the asshole. Zapping the redhead a little was a little satisfying, but the back of his head still stung and his chest still felt like it’d been tied up in knots and doused in adrenaline. A glare had settled deep into his brow, and to say he had become hyper-focused on Tristan was something of an understatement. The electricity beginning to flare up around him - not just around his shoulders but reaching down and out towards the ground too, leaving large black scorch marks wherever it touched down - was avoiding Tristan, but for once it wasn’t Diana.
Still, even with his fists raised and crackling with electricity, it seemed to be more bark than bite. He wasn’t actually doing anything, besides shooting glares, shouting words he was liable to regret later, and working himself up further.
“Don’t push the damn consequences of your actions off onto me, jackass! You want me to draw a line? I’ll draw it right fucking there!” It wasn’t even the teasing or the vague flirting, as annoying as that shit was. It was the laughing, like he and his efforts weren’t supposed to be taken seriously, or like his reputation wasn’t worth guarding, and the assessment that he couldn’t stick up for himself. “You know what?! You’re just as bad as those power gluttonous moneybag adults, even after all this you can’t stop treating me like a damn child!”
Her spear made contact with Guy's head with a satisfying clang. She figured that, combined with her power, would at least be enough for him to see stars even if he was really tough. She stretched, resting her spear on her shoulders again. If she needed to, she'd keep beating on him and either drag him back to the lab or just siphon some blood out of him here depending on how likely she thought it was he might try to blow the place up.
"Come on Guy, aren't you the least bit curious about how we're different from mundanes?" she didn't catch the subtle change in tone or expression that suggested he was hiding something. "We're just going to look at it and see what's different. Compare it to mundanes and to other mages, see if we can figure anything out from those differences."
That was the simplest way she could think of to put it since she doubted he'd even remotely understand any of the specifics. She paused to think for a moment to try to think of a better way to explain what they were hoping to find or how they were doing it, but her thoughts were interrupted by Vieri shouting about blackmail.
Admittedly, she hadn't been able to follow that conversation for a long time. She assumed it was just harmless teasing and Tristan would eventually stop and start doing his job once the mood was reasonably lightened, but it seemed like there was a lot more going on than she expected. Vieri wasn't even redirecting his lightning away from her he seemed to be so upset about something and that rarely happened. Diana always wore thick rubber soles in her shoes just in case, and would have put more rubber in her clothes if it breathed better, but this was enough of a rarity that it caught her attention. She immediately lost all interest in talking about the expirement with Guy, readied her spear, and darted between Vieri and Tristan.
It was rare for Diana to fight seriously. Fighting was just as much a game and a hobby to her as it was something she did for any other reason, and most of the time there wasn't much need to take it seriously. If an opponent required more power she'd escalate often times because it was fun, not because she was taking the fight particularly seriously. This time was clearly different. Her expression was stone cold, and even though she didn't say anything it was clear she had no intention of playing around.
In retrospect, popping back out of the ground to clarify himself in the middle of combat probably hadn't been the best idea. The flame-guy's attack was surprisingly slow, given that it didn't look like he had been hit that hard, but Jack's reaction was slowed as well by the distraction of all Tristan's shadows. The attack cracked open the top of Jack's head as he disappeared, but the real damage was dealt by the tremors shaking the floor. It was disorienting enough that his attempted wall manipulations came out all crooked and sloppy, making a mess for no good purpose. He'd have to remember to clean it all up later.
In the meantime, Jack emerged from another wall a safe distance away (or so he hoped), rubbing his bloodied head and wincing as he felt for the first time just how painful it was.
"I... I'm okay!"
No one had asked, but Jack figured he should establish it if only for tactical purposes. In fact, everyone seemed to be caught up in the growing drama between Vieri and Tristan. It was actually a bit awkward. Jack slowly sank back into the wall as he briefly reconsidered getting involved in all this.
Post by Tristan Carter on Nov 5, 2018 8:19:41 GMT -7
The word thrown that caused Tristan to switch stances was "blackmail". Before, he had felt guilty about being insensitive and was upset at having been put in the situation without a word of warning. He hadn't been able to find a way to apologize properly, and had lashed out angrily; if anyone could've understood using their violence to make up for an inability to express emotion, he would've expected Vieri to. That clearly wasn't the case, though, and now he was genuinely angry. A very hurt sort of angry.
He'd already been over this. There was no substantial benefit to him being around. There was nothing to be gained by him, whether by helping the Isabello's or by whatever Vieri meant right now. He had no intention of blackmailing him, which should've been obvious. There was no point in making the effort. At least, that was what he thought. He had been under the impression that his thoughts were valued, and that if he ever absolutely needed something within Sparky's power, a reasonable conversation would've sufficed. Apparently not.
"You are a damn child," the shadowmancer said coolly, looking down his nose at now both of his fellow Isabello's. The fact that both of them were taller than him would've been comical, had he not been so pissed. "You're also the shittiest mind reader in the multiverse, I swear to God.
Tristan could handle taking responsibility for his own mistakes. He had been mistaken in thinking that he had been understood by the brat. It was his mistake that he thought that, if nothing else, mind reading powers meant he could relax and didn't have to try to pick and choose every word in order to get his intended point across. For all the problems he had with the kid, Tristan had considered him a friend; apparently, he had been mistaken in thinking the feeling was mutual.
Diana looked ready for a fight and, for a moment, Tristan was ready to oblige her. She'd seemed pretty well otherwise occupied mere moments ago, so he wasn't entirely certain what caused her to change targets. She even looked menacing, every bit like the intimidating mage that Vieri wanted to be. Even in such a bad mood, the shadow mage could at least see some humor in that. In other circumstances, he'd have ignored the mean look and kept on doing whatever. She was probably aware that seriously attacking allies was an easy way to strain relations, even if there was a heated quarrel over something being blown way out of proportion (on both sides, probably, he was willing to admit). However, this was a weird day. He and Vieri were now screaming at each other because he had made some jokes that he regretted and basically tried going "hey, give me a chance to demonstrate that there actually is some merit to my methods". If that could lead to a shouting match, why couldn't it lead to a mass murderer seeing it as a reason to start stabbing?
If he had anything to fear from Diana on her own, he'd have stopped then and there. He'd have actually stopped and cooled down. However, just because she was good at stabbing people didn't mean she was something he should fear. He may not be able to really win, but he'd still come away little worse for wear. Besides, he was hurt and angry. Someone that didn't have anything to fear from him, either, was the perfect person to vent that on, anyway.
"Alright, fine," he sighed bitterly. "If we're escalating this to an actual fight, I'm willing to oblige. Which one of you two assholes wants their shit kicked in first?"
Karma had barely struck the other guy before he had received a blow to the head by Diana followed by an unnatural amount of pain. His eyes shut tightly to the impact of the hit before opening again to glare at her, only to miss the boy's stomach and hit him in the head. Trying to concentrate on two things at once with pain fueling at the side of his head, Karma stumbled back a few steps before stopping himself from falling, his kick making it harder to maintain balance again.
"Ugh..." He held his head, not feeling the urge to get at her just yet. In fact, he didn't have to as her attention quickly averted to the kids arguing with each other, her expression twisting and turning into a less peaceful one. Karma couldn't stare for long, his hands gripping his head as he crouched slightly feeling an incoming headache. He only heard shouting on their side, an annoyed grunt escaping his throat as he grit his teeth with pain.
Post by Serpentarius on Nov 6, 2018 0:49:50 GMT -7
Jack wasn't quite able to follow the intricacies of the drama brewing between the Isabello mages, but even he could tell that an uninvolved party trying to interfere would just end poorly for everyone involved. He resolved to keep his distance, and he made a bunch of bars rise from the ground in front of the fire mage to keep him at a distance as well. He could just sit in the corner.
---
Action: Interference (Obstruction) against Karma
Maran felt her body come back under her control and she decided to go for another meteor drop. This time directly among the enemy mages. She launched herself high into the air before streaking back down and cratering the ground around her. She drew her sword, wary of Vieri but more concerned about Diana who seemed to have the muscles to fight Maran in a one on one. Maran kept herself light and ready to react.
Maneuver (field) on (maran)
Diana still wasn't sure what was going on, but it was clear Tristan crossed a line and had to be knocked down for it. That was her job. He was still an ally, so she didn't want to maim him too bad, just make it clear that he shouldn't actually cross Vieri. Fortunately, even though there seemed to be some physiological differences between him and most humans, there were enough similarities that she could work with it.
She wasted no time in attacking, moving faster and hitting harder than she normally did because she was actually trying this time. Tristan was pretty tough and she doubted her mundane attacks would scratch him that hard, so she was very precise and completely relentless in her assault. There were several areas on the human body that would cause more pain and problems than others. The neck, the chest, under the armpit, the gut, there were enough places she could hit whether with the blunt end of her spear or her fists that she doubted it'd be long until he was on the ground even with his natural toughness. The moment she could, she stepped on his neck and put enough pressure on it to be painful, but not quite enough to fully restrict his breathing, making use of her height to loom over him with a glare and a cold expression. Vieri could decide what to do from there.
---
TAKE OPENING: CONFUSE on Karma ACTION: Teamwork with Vieri Aggression (Force) on Tristan
Of course the feeling of friendship was mutual, Tristan wouldn’t still have intact kneecaps if it wasn’t. Hearing the shadowmancer’s fears that it wasn’t stung worse than anything else, even as Tristan admitted aloud exactly what he didn’t want to hear. And, he could deny it aloud all he wanted, but seeing his friend in pain and knowing some if not all of that pain had been caused by him, that shit hurt too.
So, if Tristan wanted to escalate this to a fight, Vieri was right there with him. He’d wait for Tristan to throw the first punch to see if he was serious, then they’d punch each other and get it over with. They’d just be sure not to hit each other too hard. As internally ready to pop as he was, he trusted Tristan to know when to pull back and he wouldn’t be able to not pull his punches if he tried.
And then his focus caught Diana.
Among things he wouldn’t admit, as Tristan implied, a lot did get past his mind-reading abilities. Especially when he was angry, and even moreso when it was the anger fueled by pain. The image of that mage, her slow death ending in her body in a pool of blood - the cold, emotionless look in Diana’s eyes as she’d stared back at him, it wasn’t something he was ever going to forget. Seeing it again, even a little, was like a siren blaring in his ear.
Vieri had drawn in a breath to yell back again, but the air caught in his throat. His eyes shot wide, and his stance shifted from ready to start swinging to wanting to guard his face. Diana didn’t get serious unless she intended to make good on it.
What had happened to that mage - the image of the same happening to Tristan flashed to mind. For once, fear was overriding anger rather than the other way around. He had to stop both of them before that happened again.
The static and bolts of electricity he’d been creating around him in preparation for a fight was the first thing he thought of to use. Rather than avoid them, he purposefully redirected several towards Diana and Tristan. Their voltage was lessened; not enough to leave any lasting mark, but enough to lock and stiffen muscles. Hopefully enough to slow them both down, but even now, he couldn’t help but pull his punches.
Action: Teamwork of Aggression(Force) with Diana against Tristan!
Karma slowly got up, his head still throbbing, this time to the loud quarreling of the two. Clenching his fists, he glared daggers in their direction before kicking his heel at the stone beneath him,
"Shut the fuck up already! Aren't you two on the same side? The hell are you fighting about?!" And with that, the force and energy from his heel sprawled over the ground all the way to their space before letting hot lava jump out in the middle of Tristan and Diana.
Action: Aggression (Force) on Diana
For as much as Diana was the best person to vent on, as far as minimizing lasting damages to individuals or standings with said individuals, she wasn't the one that made him feel like shit. That honor went to Vieri, and so Tristan had no intentions of doing anything but decking the brat across his face. Besides, it wasn't like she had innate healing powers. She could share that ability, which made taking his anger out on Vieri all the more viable.
He could've just used shadows to close the distance, but he wanted to send a message. Clearly, mind reading abilities didn't correspond to ability to understand people, so he needed to rely on old fashioned methods. He couldn't really focus on what message it would send or that he even really wanted to send, but he'd be damned if it wouldn't say something. He was too upset to be poetic.
So he started trudging towards Static, fist raised. He was going to try his damnedest to land the punch, no matter if it actually did anything or not. He was determined to hit the little bastard, even if it meant that he'd have a spear in his stomach in order to do so.
Aggression (Disruption) against Vieri
---
Diana takes CONFUSE opening against Karma at a cost of 5% combat advantage, preventing him from taking openings for the rest of the battle!
Interference (Obstruction) by Jack Mason against Karma results in SUCCESS, +10% combat advantage
Maneuver (Field) by maran for maran results in SUCCESS, +15% combat advantage
Aggression (Force) by Diana and Vieri di Adatto Isabello with TEAMWORK results in SUCCESS, OVERWHELMING the target's lesser immunity, +30% combat advantage
Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Nov 7, 2018 12:36:38 GMT -7
The one boon to having his teeth clenched so tightly together was, when Tristan decked him across the face, it left his jaw burning and his mouth tasting like iron but him no teeth fewer. He was preparing to return a swing back - Diana or not - when Diana beat him to the punch, in just about every conceivable sense. She wasn’t planning on killing him, but all Vieri wanted was a brawl, and with that cold gaze- he was hard-pressed to trust her assessment of how far she was really willing to go. He just didn’t know, and after last time, he really didn’t want to.
The others only added to the chaos - Vieri raised his arm to guard his face from the burst of lava not intended for him but near enough by it brought back memories from the last time the redhead had gotten him stuck in a muck pool of it, and had to jump back to avoid that sword lady falling from, of all places, directly above. Small explosions helped break apart the rubble flung towards him from that one, but a large chunk still found its way through the smoke. It was going to leave a large bruise in the morning, and drew a grunt from him in the moment.
What he wanted to do was easily decided. With as much weight behind him as he could muster, he took the few quick steps towards her and shoved her as hard as he could, trying to get her off of Tristan. Though he was yelling like he was angry, it was fear in his eyes.
“Diana, what the fuck?!” He paused to wipe the drool and blood from the side of his mouth on the side of his fist. “He’s an ally, what the hell are you doing?!”
He clicked his tongue in revulsion and bent down beside Tristan to offer a hand down to help him up, the static dying down around him. As firm a glare as he was fighting to keep, his eyes were betraying his concern for the shadowmancer.
Everything else that was going on was irrelevant to her at this point. She could be splashed with lava, punched in the face, or what have you and not really notice or care. Fortunately, it seemed like the rest of the world was taking care of itself and not too much was there to inhibit what she was doing. That was fortunate given she was going for more precise strikes. None of them were intended to kill, just seriously hurt. It was becoming increasingly difficult to pull off though because Vieri's aim was complete shit today for some reason. She knew he got really bad at this when he was agitated, but this was something else. Still, she knew what she had to do, so she kept pushing through it no matter how hard it was or how much it hurt to do so.
Diana started only started getting suspicious about why she was getting zapped when she managed to knock over Tristan and subdue him. There shouldn't be any more need for that. Her foot was on his throat, minimal pressure so he wouldn't choke given he just needed to understand that he really shouldn't move right now, so he could do what he wanted to him in that moment. He was a completely immobile target. There was bad aim and then there was this. If it wasn't intentional she was going to have some serious concerns.
"Stop zapping me!" she shouted through grit teeth, she didn't dare move like this. "If you make my foot twitch the wrong way I'm going to end up crushing his throat."
She relaxed a bit when he finally stopped and let herself be shoved. If this was what he wanted to do she wasn't about to contradict it, but it just left her even more confused about the situation. She couldn't tell if he was just being soft again or if he was over exaggerating before. It's not like she was able to follow that conversation at all.
"You said he was blackmailing you. Did you expect me to just stand there?"
After taking a moment to test her fingers and making sure she could move okay now that Vieri wasn't shooting electricity through her, she went to grab the big syringe. It seemed like everything was under control, so they could go back to the task at hand. She could just take some blood now, but between the resources at the lab and her own power they could get a lot more if they chanced dragging the other mages to the lab.
"So do you want me to take these people to the lab or not?"
Post by Tristan Carter on Nov 11, 2018 18:51:04 GMT -7
The rational part of Tristan would've been lying had he said he'd expected to actually get far enough for his punch to connect. There was electricity, explosions, spears, and whatever manifestation of Diana's power in the way. As much as his frustration was currently in charge, it's hold wasn't so strong that it saved him from surprise when he made it through the small electrical storm and felt his fist meet face.
That surprise, combined with his body already trying to be uncooperative, was what he was going to blame for his inability to get away from Diana's flurry of blows. His reactions quickly shifted from "what the hell?", to "ah, shit, stop!" to forced attempts at speech through attacked vocal chords and then a foot on his throat. He was tempted to just teleport away - his message already sent, whatever he'd later decide it was - but he was less tempted to find out if he'd be able to fix a broken neck through his little party trick.
Fortunately for everyone, being kept from making any rash decisions made him stop and consider everything. He'd just threw a tantrum because he felt guilty about making possibly insulting jokes at Vieri. Granted, it could have been avoided had Sparky ever shared his romantic preferences before, but Tristan was able to see that there hadn't been any situation in which it was relevant. They'd both just overreacted over practically nothing, and only kept making things worse for the other. In Vieri's case, it was justifiable; capable as he was, he was still a kid. Tristan didn't have that excuse anymore, though.
The two winning Isabello's were quarreling over him like a couple of morons. Diana had a couple of valid points, and, again, Tristan wasn't wanting to see if he could patch up a snapped spine. She was also the one currently standing on his neck, though, so he wasn't exactly feeling generous with giving her credit. Once the foot was off of his throat, he sighed and started massaging where it hurt worst.
"You know, if all three of us keep squabbling at each other like this, everyone's gonna think it's an opportunity to pull some shit," he said softly as he hesitantly allowed Sparky to help him to his feet. "Don't go off on Diana, now, too. I did hit you, and you had said some shit about me blackmailing you or something. And Diana, trust me, there's a much higher chance of Vieri doing serious damage to me than there is of the reverse, and I think we both know he's doing his best to avoid that. He's way too much of a wuss for either of us to try and hurt the other. There's nothing to worry about from me."
After a brief moment of contemplation, Tristan let out a defeated chuckle and turned to face Vieri alone.
"And, uh... Sorry, man. Didn't mean to be a dick."
Post by Jack Mason on Nov 13, 2018 21:08:00 GMT -7
It seemed that the tensions between the Isabello mages had been resolved more or less peacefully. Jack was conflicted on how he should feel about this, since he was technically probably more of an enemy than an ally to the group, but it was hard not to be happy about seeing friendship prevail. That was still true even if he wasn't quite sure what exactly it had prevailed over.
With the numerical advantage now decisively in favor of the pro-science side, it seemed that it was once again time for brandishing needles. Jack wasn't too bothered by this, though. Even before he had become a mage, needles weren't that painful compared to some of the stuff his peers inflicted upon him.
No one else seemed eager to volunteer, so Jack stepped forward, raising his hand.
"Actually, uh... I normally plan on losing a lot more blood than this when I get into a fight, so you might as well take as much as you need. As long as I can merge with the walls afterward and pop out in the medical ward, it's not really a big deal. Would feel kinda like a waste otherwise."
Post by Vieri di Adatto Isabello on Nov 20, 2018 14:01:19 GMT -7
“I didn’t expect you to try to beat the shit out of him!”
He hadn’t so much as gotten the words out before he began to fear the logic Diana would likely throw his way. Making examples of people wasn’t a bad thing - it was quite useful, actually, so others didn’t try the same - and to do that you needed to hit fast and hard. With emphasis placed on the hard. Intimidation wasn’t bad, and having possible betrayals in the ranks, especially as high up in the ranks as Tristan was, was just asking for the organization to crumble.
It’d be something like that and he got it. But what he was seeing in front of him was his friend being beaten up by another friend over what was ultimately a misunderstanding and a bit of bad phrasing on his part. He didn’t know what all was up with Tristan and the information age with guys liking guys, but it was blackmail back where he knew it and he didn’t want that spread. Though he doubted Tristan would.
The actual, genuine apology flashed Vieri’s eyes wide quickly enough he couldn’t stop the reaction or hide it in jamming his hands in his pockets and staring at the ground. It was hard to keep up anger with Tristan getting all mushy. And, he guessed maybe he might’ve had a bit of an overreaction to the whole situation too.
“It’s fine, or whatever.” He huffed. “Look, I might’ve yelled some stuff I shouldn’t have. I won’t make the same mistake again. And I’m not a wuss, got it?” The volume and speed of his voice picked up again, and he managed to whip his eye contact back up towards Tristan. “If I had to beat the shit out of you I would.”
He huffed indignantly again. Business and bullcrap Tristan was spouting about him was easier to deal with than that awkward mush, and he was perfectly content with saying said awkward mush was done and behind them. The uncomfortable fact that Diana had just seriously attacked Tristan was even less appealing to give attention. The janitor, as it happened, had proven himself useful for once and was still carrying through.
It didn’t stop Vieri from staring dumbfounded at the building mage and glancing towards the nearest wall just in case, but the confusion and suspicion passed quickly enough. With Tristan back on their side, three against one would end pretty quick if the janitor did try anything.
“Yeah, come on, we’ll go back to the lab.” He said, nodding back in the direction he planned to walk. Diana’s question required a pause. “Nah, leave ‘em here. They’ll come by later if they know what’s good for them.”
The last thing he wanted right now was half of a half-alive mage dragged into the lab because Diana considered it ‘fine’.