Kuki Goes To Blackstar

[Miyanokouji]

((Please, ALL EC members read WWC Stage 2 and my profile BEFORE posting in this RP, if not you're likely to break continuity.))

"Rose, you know where the EC are, right?"
"Yes, although...The only room big enough to take the Plexus is Raven and Panther's, and a) I don't want to go there again, humanoids, while they pull amusing faces mid-coitus, are intensely repulsive during the act of procretion, and b) I don't think we'd be particularly welcome there."
"You're right...We can't turn up and just say, 'Hey guys, remember us?' Besides, the EC have huge amounts of defences. We couldn't just invade without having to kill them all that way, which is impossible."
"Our chance of surviving that is 0.002% within an error margin of 0.00005%."
"Hm. Any other suggestions?"
"There is a place which has links to the Corrupted Cave. We could infiltrate the cave from there."
"Go on."
"Blackstar Dojo."
"Have I heard of this place before?"
"It's improbable, there is no advertising on Earth in the Antartic. Let alone for a Dojo in another dimension."
"...Choosing to ignore your snide remark, you have a point. What's it like."
"Insane. You ought to prepare yourself mentally before we depart. I will ready the ship."
"Okay."

--- The next morning, roughly 7AM Dojodian time. It was raining salted beef.

A large black mechanical structure faded into being a kilometre above the ground. Kuki opened the windshield's visor, and looked out over Pyschotopia City, off in the distance, the ground slowly becoming covered in beef.
"..."
"I told you," Rose informed Kuki, helpfully.
"..."
"I will land the ship"
"...You sure did," Kuki remained, staring out the window at the beef.

Reaching an altitude low enough to land, the Plexus' legs unfolded from their home and found a footing on the ground. The main body of the Plexus was hung over the top of the Inconvenience Store like some kind of foreboding behemoth.

"Kuki?", Rose attempted to gain attention from her partner.
"...."
"We have landed upon a number of shops."
"..."
"The rope ladder is blocked. I could fly out of the cargo bay lower exit but you'd be too large to squeeze through. ...I will open the main doors"
"...Okay."
"Ah, you are with us. Welcome back", Rose said as the rear exit began to lower.
"Okay. Let's just try to get out of this mad place as soon as possible."
"Agreed. Here my ability to calculate is impeded by my lack of understanding of the abnormal phys-"

---Inside the Inconvenience Store

"And this will make me harder?" enquired Fort of LittleSister, waving a Petrified Beetle Charm around in the air.
~God, this person is revolting.~
"Yes it will, but not in that sense. You disgust me, and if my brother had any idea how to run a shop he would ban you permanently!"
"And this 'Troublesome Cactus' Charm, is it good for penetratin-"

CRASH

At this moment, a good portion of the roof caved in, covering everything in dust and bits of roof. Rose peered over the top of the large hole in the roof.
"Remarkable. By my estimate each one of you had an 98% chance of being crushed by portions of the roof or dying from a coronary failure due to a massive nervous overload."
"Rose, I don't think that's the kind of statistic they want to hear," Kuki said, jumping down through the hole in the roof, and landing silently, "...sorry about the building."

[3kul]

((Interesting story Al, though I can't help but feel a little confused - why is it that Rose, a machine that Al designed to be emotional, is not only totally unaffected by his death but is also all too happy to aid his killer in whatever way possible?))

"Sorry's not going to get it fixed, pay up." Little Sister said bluntly, the possibility of receiving compensation for the massive damage caused preventing her from tearing this mangy fleabag to shreds like she so dearly wanted to.

It was bad enough that a contract forced her to keep working in this dump, and that on top of that she had Fort asking her all sorts of idiotic questions with no intentions of buying anything, and now she had people crashing into the place. ~Good to get rid of the competition though,~ she noted as she glanced around the side of the ship to see that it had crushed most of the other nearby shops.

As she was looking at the wreakage, Rose managed to catch her eye. Something about the mechanic creature was familiar, though Little Sister couldn't quite place it... She shook her head a little, remembering the most important thing here. "Today would be nice." She snapped as she held several woven hands out to receive large amounts of money. Clearly Little Sister did not have a very realistic understanding of how and where people kept their money.

[Miyanokouji]

((She became interested in Kuki the moment she met her. While it is true that she would miss AL, as much as a robot created by a teenager could (whether or not an incredibly clever teenager, but one certainly with a teenager's emotional confusion. Rose is far less emotional than she could be. Her main drives are fun/happiness and curiosity. She doesn't have a "my friend just died" emotional penalty (AL certainly wasn't expecting him, or anyone else Rose befriended to die)), she understands that it was AL who challenged Kuki to a fight, not the other way round, and Kuki won fairly. So as any self-respecting emotional robot would, she did what she could to further her own interests. Any attempt to kill Kuki would've ended in certain termination, and besides she wouldn't want to for the reasons I stated above.

Yay fixing plotholes <.<))

"Umm..." Kuki looked dumbfounded. Rose flew down from the ceiling and settled on the ground. She paused for a little, accessing her memory store to find out what currencies this strange world used.
"We apologise, but we do not have any , Cornelius Lives, Gerbils, or spare Souls upon our persons or in our craft."
Kuki wheeled round to face Rose.
"These people pay each other in small rodents? You really weren't overstating the insanity of this place."

[3kul]

"Keh! A big ship like this and no money?!" The arms all folded themselves over as Little Sister scowled at the pair. Knowing whether they were lying or not didn't really help her too much, and if she killed them she'd just have somebody on her back for killing whoever these people were...

"Tch, crashing into Council property without any way to pay, and then she says we're insane..." She muttered to herself as she began to tap one of her feet angrily against the ground, the clack-clack-clacking increasing in tempo as her patience ran thinner and thinner. She suddenly stopped, hoping that perhaps the strange girl's response to this next question would quell her rapidly rising rage levels.

"Well if you haven't got any money, how do you intend to fix the damage that you caused?"

[Miyanokouji]

Kuki ignored Little Sister's question for now, choosing instead to survey her surroundings and actually take in what she was seeing.

A half-dozen or so bemused customers were staring directly at her. She turned back to Little Sister. This armless person, using the term loosely, with six legs, appeared to be the owner of the shop. Kuki didn't recognise her in the slightest. Kuki's thought was interrupted by Rose.

"I have estimated the cost of repair to be five hundred thousand yen," Rose stated, "or approximately 46 gerbils. It would take approximately two years to produce this sort of money, for a successful merchant."

"Rose, I have two skilled builders aboard the Plexus. How long would it take them to fix the roof?"

Rose processed for a moment. "Given the lack of viable resources nearby, it would take them approximately sixteen weeks to reconstruct the roof. If we were able to raise enough yen to pay for raw material shipments we could half this figure with relative ease."

"Would that be sufficient," Kuki paused, attempting to determine if Little Sister had a gender, and if so, what it was, " ...miss?"

[3kul]

"Liyao." Little Sister said, now grinned greedily. This was the most ideal solution to her new problem, as Rose's estimation was miles off what she would've calculated the damage to be... Hell, it was twice as much as what HollowEyes had paid for the place to begin with. "And yeah, I guess that sounds fair." As favourable as the deal was to her, Little Sister made sure not to sound too enthusiastic about it in case the pair got suspicious. "You can tell them to start as soon as possible. Don't worry about disturbing the customers, it is called the Inconvenience Store, after all."

She seemed to have calmed down now that this was all sorted out, and now she could focus on the other matter that was concerning her - why did this robot seem familiar to her? "So strangers, what brings you crashing through the roof of my little operation here?"

Now seemed like the right sort of time to offer her 'guests' a drink (now that they'd come up with a way to compensate her for the damages, that is), so she grabbed up a few unbroken bottles from a nearby shelf and offered them to the pair. Most of the labels were in foreign languages, and the ones in English didn't seem all that appetizing, but hey, a free drink is a free drink, right?

[Miyanokouji]

"The Inconvenience Store, how pleasant," Kuki said, attempting some James Bond-esque dry humour. At this point the room began to look more alive

"We are here to find the Evil Council, though for what purpose I have not been informed," Rose began, as Kuki lept back up through to roof to call her builders to attention, "-no thanks, having no stomach or mouth causes difficulty drinking."
Rose's low priority process to work out who this Liyao was had finally completed.
"Ah. Liyao-" Rose stopped and attempted to compute what her next sentence should be.

A metallic sound echoed out quietly from the interior of the Plexus. A minute later, two half-cats dropped into the room from the ship, promptly starting to clear up the rubble and find useful material in it. Kuki also returned, jumping into the room as deftly as before.

Rose managed to think of something to say, "A minor error on my part. I had not been expecting there to be a shop on the edge of this forest, and had no desire for the Plexus to be the object of attention for the entirety of Psychotopia. It is quite a remarkable vessel in many ways, not least its size."

"Rose," Kuki interrupted, "could you move the Plexus away from this building?"

"Alrighty then," Rose said, and jetted up through the hole in the ceiling to look around, then came back inside the store, and clung to the ceiling, using a claw extended from her top corner. The Plexus' main door slowly rose from the roof, and then the propellers heaved the entire ship off to the side of the store. The legs folded up much tighter than they had been previously, and once it was landed again it was far closer to the ground.

While this was happening, Kuki walked up to Little Sister, and took the offer of a drink of "Fermented Fruit I found in the forest", due to its description sounding most like anything she'd heard of before.

"I am seeking the Evil Council's lair, do you have any idea where I could find this?"

[3kul]

Little Sister gave Rose an odd look as she replied to Kuki's order, her response seemed to remind her of somebody or someone. She couldn't shake this annoying sensation of déjà vu about the bizarre robot, though thankfully she was now forced to direct her attention to Kuki.

"The Evil Council's lair? Now why would you be wanting to go to a dangerous place like that, hm?" Little Sister said, grinning as Kuki accepted the bottle. It still pissed her off that this punk had smashed up her shop, but at least she had guts. Odds were she wanted to go there for one of two reasons - to become a member or to try and kill one or more of the current members. Either way it sounded like it could be interesting to watch.

"I'll tell you what kid, I'll do you one better - I'll take you to the Corrupted Cave myself."

She started walking without waiting for an answer, not bothering to even acknowledge that the Headmaster was right here in the store and could have probably answered whatever questions that this person might have.

[Miyanokouji]

"Can we wait for-" Kuki began to ask as Little Sister walked out of the door, then sighed, "Guess not."

Kuki ran to keep up to Little Sister, and together they went to the Corrupted Cave.

--
Back inside the Inconvenience Store, Rose released her grip of the roof and looked down upon the people inside the store. She scanned the entire store with her camera. Finding no trace of Kuki or Little Sister, she worked out there were two possibilities, the most likely of which that Little Sister was leaing Kuki to the Corrupted Cave. It was either that or they'd gone outside to fight. Rose went back outside the store through the roof, and looked around for the pair. Not seeing them, she decided that the most useful thing she could do would be to travel to Psychotopia and attempt to find a map or help of some description.

She looked in the direction of Psychotopia. It was a long distance away. She wouldn't be able to make it on her battery in one go. The only other method of transportation was the Plexus itself. She used her jets to fly into the Plexus, then went up to the cockpit and plugged in to recharge and pilot the ship herself.

--
Deep in the black forest
Kuki heard a wooshing coming from the distance and turned on the spot to look. She saw a large black shape zoom across what little unhindered view she had. Little Sister seemed unperturbed by this noise and carried onwards. Kuki realised she had little choice but to follow. She hoped that black shape hadn't been the Plexus, though she may have just been in denial.

[3kul]

"Well then, here we are." Little Sister announced as they reached the entrance to the Corrupted Cave. "Home sweet home." She noticed a bunch of mangy looking wolves chewing away at the corpse of a salesman of some kind - poor fool hadn't even made it inside to get eaten by the wall slime. Several woven fists punched at the flea-bitten mutts and Little Sister checked the dead man's luggage to see what he was selling...

Wolf repellent. Suddenly the salesman's death seemed too stupid for words.

"I haven't been here in a while actually," Little Sister said, mostly to herself. "I tend to spend a bit of time away since I don't get along with everybody here... Cornelius! Haven't seen you in a while!" The man that she'd greeted bolted the second she'd finished saying his name, though like any good EC member Little Sister was always prepared for a Cornie encounter - slipping a large kitchen knife out from somewhere underneath her hair, she hurled it after Cornelius. The knife stabbed into the back of the Council's unluckiest member's head and he collapsed to the ground, dead as a doornail. "Ha! Bulls-eye!" She laughed, pleased to see that her Cornie killing skills were still up to scratch.

Little Sister seemed to have forgotten that this person standing next to her probably wasn't used to such things, but she did manage to remember that she was here for some reason (or at least she assumed that this must be the case). "Alright, you're in the Council's lair now. What exactly did you want from us?"

[Miyanokouji]

Kuki continued walking, "I want to see what made an ex-member of yours so special. I also want to talk to your leader. And, uh," Kuki paused to kick the corpse of Cornelius to check it really was dead, "Is that normal? Do you always throw knives at people in the entrance?"

By now, Rose was in Psychotopia, having landed just on the outskirts of the city. If robots could think "If I was a map, where would I be?", then Rose would have been thinking that. Instead, she was simply thinking "Where is the most probable place for a map to be positioned?"

She decided it was most likely to be stationed in the central square, most likely at the edge in front of the tallest building around the square, whatever it was. As she was walking to the map, there was a large explosion in the centre of the square. Which she chose to ignore, as it had no pertinance to what she was attempting to accomplish.

She reached the map as a person and some kind of robot began to argue, and a lot of flashes of light came from their general direction. Rose skipped (if it possible for a four-legged octahedron to do so) back to the Plexus happily, a map of Blackstar now stored in her memory units, and set off for the Corrupted Cave.

[Cirrial]

Serakree stirs, resting in the soft interior of her spaceship. She has been asleep for a while now and isn't entirely sure what course her ship had taken after that last rip in space-time. The hibernation drugs are starting to wear off. She rolls onto her front and looks at the closest thing to a monitor the ship has, a thin film of luminescent microbes with a slimy film protecting it. The entire ship is bathed in a dim diffusing ambient red, and the monitor stands out by glowing a complementary green.

She inhales deeply. The Nest is moist, slimy, and some parts of it pulsate, but the air conditioning is incredible considering how thin the air is outside. Inside, the air is warm and clear, and odour free.

pilot there have been developments developments occured in forested area

She taps at a control panel, with it emitting a series of rasps as confirmation. She's not too interested in what said developments are, but if the Nest just found a forest which was otherwise uneventful, it was about time. She's fed up with the inactivity. "Nest, take us down to the forest and root there."

confirmed pilot moving to isolated area observations indicate sufficient ecosystem for replenishment of supplies

The Nest dives towards the Black Forest, looking from a distance like a small meteorite covered in veins as it hurtles down.