The Reality Vortex: Red Reputations

Status
Not open for further replies.
During the momentary halt given to him and the Breakers, Bage kept himself busy by gathering information about Panich's whereabouts from the Breakers and the recordings in the command center. From what was given to him, the Saiyan princess acted as herself for the time being, with a few outbursts from time to time, even Brachi was able to tell him of her sudden act of betrayal. It stung to hear how desperate she was to find him and all her other friends in this mess of reality. Maybe it was because he had begun losing hope that he would ever see her again but Bage would let that fact beat him up for a bit. 

And Spina was a whole other story since it had been so difficult trying to talk with him during his isolation. He had faced Panich during her crazed state so it was important to the detective to hear from him what exactly happened between the two during what Brachi had claimed to be a ferocious battle. Maybe he had found out where she was going, what made her decide to leave. Something to give Bage a hint of confirmation that she could have gone to reflection city. But Bage had since given up trying to talk with the seemingly undead and bloodthirsty Saiyan and resigned himself solely to the recordings. 

And when he wasn't doing that, the Saiyan trained as vigorously as the others. Knowing Panich was out there now gave him a new sense of hope and he wasn't going to fall behind because of a few bad feelings. during the month it would seem that Panich and training were the only things on his mind, with the exception of helping Spawn, May, and Cayde with the operation. The deadline was fast approaching and there would be no time to waste.





This morning, it would be nothing new to the Detective, having resigned himself once again to the command center, reviewing the day-by-day footage of the Hart investigation. He sat in front of the panel, maneuvering the controls as if he had known how to use them his whole life. It was today that he would finally get to the recording in which involved Spina and Panich's brawl. There was no sound, but the motion of the two clashing could be heard even without it. This particular recording seemed to hurt the most. As Bage zoomed in closer, he could see the black energy encasing her form along with black veins visibly running throughout her body. 

He had never seen her with such murderous intent in her eyes. It was truly terrifying. Anyone could clearly see she wasn't in her right mind. With a heavy sigh, the Saiyan detective looked down at a notepad he had held in his arms, adding something new to it with intense focus, a list of reactions and side effects of the black crystal from observing the fight.


  • Reality distortion
  • enhanced physical and magical abilities 
  • Explodes with even a little bit of force applied
  • Drives you totally insane
Bage then rested his head on his fist, allowing the other hand to idly shake and spin the pen he was holding as he sat in silence and processed what he had just seen.
 
The month

May did help with the operation involving generators and placing them. The amazing thing was that non them needed to carry a single generator thanks to these G Orbs. May explained that the question on how much they weighed was more for fall safes than any concerns about the orb's carry limit. In fact is that may did tend to leave getting various permissions wend needed to setup the generators and let Cayed to setup the generators. If needed she would give a hand to bout the deceives or Cayed.

As far normal day to day for May she did seem to train or to study the people she was working with. This was mostly to get an idea of what to expect form the breakers. The times she did train with the Breakers she despite being human was able to keep up with them and despite using rubber bullets had the same effect on them as they would as a normal person no mater how powerful they became. May was a solder and despite having more better weapons may never really used them in order not to kill or risk killing them.

Those that seen May in her room did see her being served by what is best described as an attractive "woman" waring a skimpy French maid outfit. If asked may would tell people that how it may seem the "woman" was one of many golems. May was good with making things so it would sand to reason that she could do some thing like that but there were some doubts because the maid she used did seem to have free will.



The morning

May thinks as she drinks some coffee "If not for the side effect insanity the black crystals would be a good explosive rounds or some other kinds of gear. Even I don't want those weapons." May payed the shouting out side little mind. The maid serving may did seem like she wanted to harm the one shouting but would is following a standing order form her mistress. May thinks "So far 04 has been a good girl and not left this room."
 
During this month, Brachi was training rather extensively, following Vegetto's training lessons and doing her best to take them to heart in the best way possible... the fruits of her labor would soon be presented.

Jize and Bara didn't stay still either, with Jize having worked to unlock more of Bara's potential, which in turn increased the Majin's strength manyfold, which Bara utilized in concentrating on her Body Manipulation abilities as well as more techniques to confuse the enemy, which would hopefully give them an edge over their enemies, which in turn would hopefully lead to a quicker reunion with their remaining friends.

Jize herself had proceeded with Meditation in order to increase her own strength and energy output as well, at which she began to develop even more techniques both with and without the use of her trident. If they had to fight the Xy'phers at any point in time, they need any possible edge they can get.

==============================

On this fine morning, Brachi went to the living area in order to get some breakfast herself. In hindsight, Brachi appeared the same as she was before, although the striking difference was that she had a completely different hairstyle; it appeared a lot more spiky overall, making it much more reminiscent of a traditional Saiyan-type hairstyle, with a complete blonde section at the front which was more like the Humans within, while the rest was colored turquoise at the front which ended into black spikes down below... if it wasn't for the absence of hair further down her back as well as the absence of fur over her body and a tail, one might confuse her hairstyle to be similar to that of Super Saiyan 4.
 
KPQmfrp.png
 
As the Berserk clone shouted to get everyone's attention, she laughed loudly as if to mock those who questioned her. When Lucifer spoke out, Clone-Berserk would point at him and laugh in a similar fashion that the actual Berserk would. The similarities between the two were entirely identical.

"Waahahaha! You must have some pretty bad ears, Lucifer. Don't you know my voice by this point?" Suddenly, there was a pause and a giggle before the clone winked at Lucifer and lowering her voice. "It's me, Avalon! I managed to master the transformation technique! I can look and sound exactly like anyone who touches my scroll! For example..."

There was an explosion of smoke before he turned into Bernkastel again. The way the clone move and poised herself was a carbon copy of the Witch herself. Clearing her throat, she called out down the hallway in order to show Lucifer his technique.

"Zenta, can you please come here?" The clone said in Bernkastel's usual deadpan voice. "Lucifer seems to be bothering me again."

In a flash, Zenta appeared by where he heard Bernkastel's voice and stood by her side, completely fooled by Avalon's clone. The beast had his usual smile and bowed his head to Lucifer as a way to say 'good morning.' He then bowed at the waist to the Bernkastel clone.

"I am here to serve you, Lady Bernkas--"

Zenta paused before leaning in closer to the clone, sniffing it cautiously. The beast circled the clone like a wolf, sniffing it from every angle before backing away with a smile. A hard smack was delivered to the back of the clone's head, which caused Avalon to yelp. Clasping his head, he turned to Zenta and spoke using Bernkastel's voice.

"Gwaah! What's the big idea?! I thought I tricked you!"

"You tricked my ears, yes, but you do not smell like Bernkastel. Also, I can see you just fine." Zenta tapped his visor. "Your energy remained the same to me. Though, I will say you have gotten better at masking it so it almost feels like Lady Bernkastel. Almost."

"Shucks, I thought I had ya'! Well, do you think I've gotten better?"

"Absolutely. Keep this up, and even I will not be able to tell you apart from your clones." Zenta then stood by Lucifer's side and gestured towards him. "Why not try cloning Lucifer? Perhaps Lilith will enjoy the show."

With a nod of his head, there was an explosion of smoke and from it came Lucifer. While it was obvious that he was the clone, he stood in front of the real Lucifer so he can judge for himself. It was like looking into a mirror! Just like before, every little move and quirk Lucifer had would be copied on the spot.

"What do you think, Lucifer and Lilith? Very convincing, huh?"
 
In the month of free time everyone had before the operation would take place, Berserk recovered from her intense fight against Spina with a renewed sense of restlessness. Even though it was a very close match, she didn't want to fall behind the others and instead focused her energy into revisions. She wondered about the strange figure she had seen standing so close to Avalon when he helped her out of the crater, but he seemingly was unaware of it-- as far as she could tell it must've just been a hallucination she had from having her brain hammered inside her skull a bit too hard.
During the next few weeks Berserk was often seen inside the tower hounding Cayde for spare mechanical parts, or at a workbench soldering away on what would be an upgraded and somewhat larger duplicate of her original toothed weapon. Intermittently, she'd be down in the chamber doing 'test runs' by herself in the late hours before trusging back to her room grumbling about having to do revisions. Despite her being busy she was still socializing with anyone that had the downtime to assist the test runs.

Bernkastel was the opposite in her approach; seemingly holed up inside her room all hours of the day only coming out for a walk around the tower's balconies or eating when others would eat. If it weren't for the growing stacks of books seen occupying her room, one would mistakenly think she slipped back into her depressive habit of reclusive solitude. It was assorted spellbooks and things that required active thinking to keep her mind sharp. With how she always had a book in her hand or floating in the air to read while eating, it looked a lot like a girl studying for an exam. This also allowed Bern to distance herself from things (or people) that made her act out, so her silence was welcome. When she knew people would be sparring in the Chambers, she would watch from afar but conjure up a miniature version of them on a checkerboard as if to analyze the simulation and apply it to herself. There wasn't enough time for her to master fighting physically so she focused instead on learning how to use her magic around it... she was adamant about practicing deadlier magic alone. Each night in her bed, she'd wonder about whether Cuki and Whis were the unknown captures, not knowing the tall angel was there. She just couldn't figure out who else it would be 'associated with the Breakers', but kept this to herself.
===========

This morning, Berserk threw open her door with her hands hooked at the belt loops on her hips. She looked annoyed but the amused grin on her face said otherwise.

"Awright, what's all that racket?!" Immediately she pointed at the Berserk clone in accusatory shock. "Hey, that's me! Are you copyin' me?!" Saying it in unison, Berserk eyed herself closely up and down with a hand on her chin. "I look pretty good... nice."

Bernkastel peeked her head out of the door, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "For a second there... thought I was hallucinating. Zenta might be the only one who can't be tricked by sleight of hand... or is it sleight of eye? Hm. But I cannot deny your mimicry is quite accurate, Avalon." She stretched her arms until the joints popped, watching Avalon bring a good atmosphere to the morning of what would be a risky operation. Today's the day.
 
“So that’s what you have been doing for the past few weeks. Very interesting.” Lucifer gave out a small praise to Avalon’s technique. Compared to the others, Avalon, alongside Berserk, have not showcase much of their moves to everyone. Aside from secondhand accounts, information gained from Lilith and the rare occasion that he does watch the fruits of their training for himself in the Chamber. The angel was not all that interested in the physical aspects; he had simply interested at the results and nothing more. “Here I thought that your universe doesn’t contain an ounce of sentimental value. With this, I’m slightly intrigued. Tricking one’s eye for a while is good way to access information, but if everyone can sense one’s energy, it won’t last long, I suppose.”
 
Lilith on the other hand was not amused by this trickery. Hissing angrily, she let out a foul order of darkness from her body in reaction. It did not inflict any damage, but simply let out horrible order to force Avalon away from Lucifer. It was her way of warning Avalon to drop the form of Lucifer immediately.

Lucifer covered his mouth and nose as he let out a slight chuckle. “Looks like she’s not in mood for your tricks, Avalon.

Rogue City Command Center

Seeing that the loudness from outside of this room had ceased, Detective Spawn turned around to see Cayde, May and Bage. Upon approaching Bage, the detective noticed that he was analyzing the footage between Spina and Panich, his girlfriend. Bage has been looking at such footage repeatedly throughout the month and today would be no different.

Remaining silent, Spawn approached Bage and placed his hand on his right shoulder. “We’ll find her.” He said since the detective figured Bage would not be interested in any dialogue about how strong Panich is or how she’s safe. “Once we finished off this thing in Reflection, we’ll gears towards finding your love.”

Spawn tapped his shoulder a couple of more times before heading towards Cayde and May to give the news, allowing Bage to have more time to his thoughts. “My informant just texted me that she arrived in Reflection City.” Spawn never gave Cayde an description of what his informant looks like for reasons unknown: just the usual phrase “it’s a matter of privacy and avoidance of possible conflict” without any further elaboration.
 
"W-Whoa..." Avalon backed away from Lucifer thanks to Lilith's warning. "Hey, I'm not gonna do anything funny, Lilith. I think Lucifer would be a good person to test my skill--" Avalon paused before realizing what Lucifer said about his universe. "Hmph! No need for your rude remarks, but I'll take your compliment." He then smiled. "I still need to work on hiding my energy to make it matches the person I'm imitating. I've gotten better in spreading it out in my natural clones tho'!"

Taking a step back, there was a plume of smoke that engulfed the Lucifer clone. When the smoke receded, there stood Avalon and next to him a Berserk Clone. The Berserk clone would wrap her arms around Avalon in a lovey-dovey fashion. There was a large cocky grin on the ninja's face, no doubt playing at Berserk's personality.

"Oooh Avalon, so handsome and smart!" Said the Berserk clone. "I don't know what I would do without a cool guy like you! You're totally awesome!"

"Aww, shucks, I know." Avalon rubbed the side of his nose bashfully.

"When you are done admiring your feelings for Ms. Berserk, I believe we need to find Detective Spawn." Zenta smiled as he made his way to the real Bernkastel and bowed at the waist to the Witch. "Good morning, my Lady. I hope you slept well."


"Hey! What about your feelings for Bernkastel, huh?"

"It is called respect, Avalon. My heart belongs to another woman, if that is what you are implying. Lady Bernkastel makes me happy and comfortable. Any who, another remark out of you and I will kindly ask Lilith to eat you."
 
The month had dragged on longer for Gogeta than most: the entirety of the time having been spent in a distant section of the Hyperbolic Vortex Chamber. Vegetto had willingly provided his insight and advice for Brachi's training, but the sparing moments spent educating her were only ever given at the spur of her initiative. Despite making time to provide any training necessary for Brachi and the others during the month, Vegetto had forced Gogeta into rigorous bouts of training lasting the entirety of the downtime.

The two fusions relentlessly battled; the section of training given during the time dedicated to the ideology of using actual energy to sustain one's self. Instead of only utilizing energy only in the form of weaponization into blast attacks or empowering melee strikes, Vegetto's lessons to Gogeta were about using the energy to sustain organs instead of through food or water. The mechanisms behind repairing tissue and regeneration all powered by energy.

However, Vegetto spent the back of the month stressing Gogeta's capability to not only rebuild or sustain his body purely on energy, but to force the man to dig deep and generate more in such an extensive toll behind sustaining the body and also fighting. His mentality of training was to pressure and force Gogeta past his shell both physically and mentally through such a tall order, yet no matter how hard he pushed Gogeta, the other fusion did not fully realize the success Vegetto wanted. Even as others rose in the morning by the antics of Avalon, the two continued to train.

As for Cayde, you hooligans will find out as we jump into the story.



Hyperbolic Vortex Chamber

Scratches and red marks littered Gogeta's skin as he dropped down to one knee. Panting heavily, he shook and trembled heavily in a clearly disheveled state of exhaustion. Looming over him, Vegetto stood without a mark or scratch on his entire body; breathing calmly through his nose despite the stern narrowed eyes turning down to Gogeta with crossed arms.

"How did I beat you?"

Gogeta continued to pant heavily, shaking his head once.

"You're too strong."

Vegetto crossed his arms slowly on his chest.

"Yet I've taught you everything. You can repair those cuts and sore muscles on your own, and completely clear the fatigue in your mind that clouds your judgement. Time and time again you've felt the energy all around you at your disposal; power you can pull inwards to give you the endurance you lack. Why aren't you?"

Gogeta narrowed his eyes slowly, glaring up at Vegetto.

"Because it isn't mine."

Vegetto let out a gruff breath of air from his nostrils as a scoff at the other fusion.

"This again. I give you the means to see the entire world around you, and you still only look within. One of these days you're going to have to learn there's more out here than just you, Gogeta, even if you won't listen to me."

He kept his arms crossed.

"But fine, have it your way. You already know what to do next if you don't want to use any other source around you: dig deep. Break past your shell and bring it out."

Vegetto lifted his lips to the side in a small, condescending smirk.

"Unless this is all the mighty Gogeta has to offer."



Rogue Command Center

Cayde audibly yawned, having entered the room a few minutes after the two detectives and May had entered. He shuffled his way to prepare his own cup of coffee, watching Bage fiddle with the controls and his notes on the footage for Panich. He paused for a moment to see the strange energy and aura surrounding the woman in the video, his expression clearly indicating he had never seen what the Black Crystals could do to a person.

Hmmm...that's weird. Gonna have to take a look at those dates later and see what they've found.

Cayde yanked up his cup shortly after finishing brewing his own drink, the steam billowing upwards and the coffee sloshing a bit as he turned on his heel. He let out a pained, disappoint yowel as some of the hot coffee spilled on his wrist, stopping in place to inspect if any other part of his clothing got soaked. Yet he walked a bit forward, nodding to May and sipping on his morning drink.

"Morning."

With his cup half full, he peered up to see May's maid walking away after serving her another cup, and raised his up to her back.

"Oh wait, can I get a refill...nevermind."

He perked his head a bit once Detective Spawn joined them, his glowing orange eyes locking with Spawn's.

"Ah crap, really? I only just got done getting complete maps of the city from the generators; I thought you said it'd be a couple of months before she showed up?"
 
Berserks amused grin quickly faded into a scowl upon seeing Avalon conjure up a clone of her to behave in such a manner. "Alright, fun's over, ya lughead!" Sauntering over to him, she angrily raised her fist and promptly struck the clone in the back of its head. "Dummy Avalon, as if I'd let you clown around and make me look like a total geek! Geez."

Bernkastel realized she hadn't seen very much of Zenta in the past month, staring back at him somewhat sheepishly as she forgot her manners. "... oh. Good morning." Avalon's inquiry to Zenta about how he felt about her made her rub her neck awkwardly. She didn't seem to know how to react to those sorts of statements. "Y-you shouldn't just ask people things like that so freely. Just because he's nice to me doesn't mean he likes me 'in that way'."

"Oh, yeah? Do ya liiiike someone, Bernie?!" Berserk inquired.

Bern remained silent and looked away from the group, immediately changing the subject. "No more of that. Where are the others anyway? Think they've gone up to meet the Detectives?" It seems Spina, Vegetto, and Gogeta were missing from the current gathering of Breakers. Berserk pouted.

"You're no fun..." the Powerpunk looked around and stared at Brachi up and down. "Huh, Something's different about you... oh! You got a haircut! It looks badass compared to the ol' bob cut from before. Keep it that way, you'll look cooler. Like me!" She said, gesturing to her wildly spiked hair.
 
“I do find it odd that you two latched themselves to someone you *barely* met and suddenly they are your whole world. Is that a common trait among the people of your universe? No wonder they perished so quickly from that beast.” Lucifer joked about the way they behaved around Berserk and Bernkastel. “And if you take account of Cuki’s behavior, I starting to suspect that it is indeed a case.” Letting out a light chuckle, the angel turned to Bernkastel. Their eyes fixated upon one another for a moment. “Then again, Bernkastel’s behavior Gogeta is also the same way too. Is it love? Or a desperate attempt to fill a void.” He said in a way that does not mean to be taken directly to her, but rather leaving it up to the air for the others to hear. “Ah well, bonds are a complicated matter; it never makes any sense when you try to use logic as an explanation.”

Lilith continue hissing at Avalon’s trickery as the plumes disappeared. She was turned off that Avalon would use that to make a mockery of someone. She slithered away and wrapped herself around Lucifer’s left arm. She noticed Brachi’s new hairstyle, but since she was a snake, she can’t make much of a comment.

Lucifer, of course, notice the change of topic when Berserk requested about Bernkastel’s love life. Deciding to leave that matter for later when the times come, the angel offered an answer. “I assume that those Saiyans are still training in that chamber. As for Spina… he’d still in that room and never came out since. Perhaps someone can go fetch him. Maybe you could use that “maskery” technique to find Spina if you required some efficient practice.”

Rogue Command Center

“Seems like she completed whatever she was doing earlier than expected. And considering her schedule, we don’t have the luxury of delaying it any further. With that said, we will head out right away; so, whatever you have prepared, we just have to make do that. I’ll inform the others of our plans, our course of actions before heading out.”

Detective Spawn was seemingly adamant about pushing forth this plan in an efficient manner. He headed out to the halls where the available Breakers were gathered about. “Hey. My informant just texted me that she’s in the city, so we’re about to kickstart this mission: and I want to ensure that everyone is on the same page here. If everyone is missing, bring them here go we can go over it.” Without giving them a chance to reply, Spawn went back to the Command Center.

===

“Well, guess it’s time then. Someone fetches the Saiyans and Spina.” Lucifer and Lilith headed towards the Command Center.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom