World Tree MUSH

Garish and golden fliers go out for several Vines away, advertising this relatively low-key world's most important event in the last one hundred years! The Golden Chef Competition is not just some meager game show on the world of Chefia. Everything from minor arguments to the politics of countries is settled not through armed conflict, but by competitions in the culinary arts! A three panel judge system is set up in this gigantic arena. It holds /thousands/, with three distinct levels rising up in this domed building in the center of Chefia's largest city. 

It's a rather diverse place, much like Earth. Offworlders seem to be accepted - welcomed even with open arms - so long as they bring their delicious ingredients and cooking techniques. One has to pay to get in, of course. Not in money, but in a single recipie from one's world. 

There's security here too. The stage, in addition to the panel of judges and cameras, has black suited men and women, your real FBI looking types with what appear to be massive chef's cleavers on their sides, as well as what can only be described as a gun in the form of a pasty squirter. For all the oddity of them, they look very real. There's a round set of railing about waist high to prevent anyone from immediately rushing the stage. 

Over the intercoms, a voice can be heard! 

"Helllooooo everyone! Chefians, our new off world friends! Welcome to the Golden Chef Competition! Where we will decide who is the best chef in the world! Our two competitors will fight for three rounds to decide which country: Amerigrill or East Burgeria, will set economic policy in the United Nations!" 

Two chefs stand before two entire open-air kitchens down on stage. Golden Chef workers wheel out a single serving tray, and pop off the silver top. Inside? 

"For the first round, it will be grilling! See that everyone? Real, raw dragon meat from the endangered Acid Dragon! Valued at over fifteen billion Kookies, you could trade just one slice for an entire private island! Now....who's ready to cook!?" 

A cheer goes up through the watching crowd. 

Outside, at the Arena's back entrance, there's a single van parked. Dressed in coveralls and a hat, a leather belt holding a few tools, the dark haired young man whistles as he 'repairs' the powerbox with a set of cutters. 

Oddly enough, there's no security back here. That's because in the back of the van, two suited guards are piled up, pens in the back of their necks. 

Inside the building, just as the chefs go for the prized meat, the power cuts out. Screams erupt! Over the PA, the announcer is trying to calm people. 

"Ah...technical difficulties everyone! The generators should come on any second now!" 

The maintenance man steps inside the service entrance into the darkness, a book in hand. For those with the sense for the supernatural or the mystic? It feels like the world is skipping, like a vhs tape going wrong. 

~Stop The World~ 

And after a few moments of one's eyes adjusting, or if one has low-light vision? 

There's a figure behind the forms of the chefs, right at the serving table. It dashes, something under it's arm, feet utterly quiet as it flees out a door into the staff rooms. 

The lights begin to flicker on, and the screams double, as one of the chefs is on the floor with a butter knife in their throat. That service door leading to the back swings closed from the momentum. Seems none of the security caught that motion...

    Emily has elected not to handle her emotional slump by moping around in one Blossom for months on end until Luke Gray stumbles upon her. Apart from anything else, it was caused by someone dying in front of her, which 1. she isn't going lay on a twelve-year-old, and 2. she hardly knew Lucatiel, anyway.

    She has taken the form of an auburn-haired woman with glowing purple eyes, dressed in a midnight blue business suit and with a glowing white Lunar Tear flower in her hair. Her payment was a recipe from the halcyon remnant, on a slip of paper with the header "Manhattan Transfer Nano-Chili (historical; tools for constructing it have been lost to time)". Food could be replicated using nanotechnology, of course, but someone had to actually put together the original, and the advanced technology of the twenty-ninth century permitted all sorts of new variations ...

    ... until the entire human population was wiped out in 2852, thus causing the end of the world and leaving only the Eudaemon androids like Emily.

    (Like any good recipe blog post, the sheet of paper includes the entire historical context of the dish. Or at least, the post-historical context. It was placed afterward, however.)

    She's snagged a seat close to the front, and she auto-adjusted her vision fast enough that she caught sight of that figure. "THERE!" she shouts, pointing and conjuring up a holographic arrow aimed at the service door, in order to get the security guards' attention, and she leaps out of her seat, flying through the air towards the door.

    After a few seconds of effort and flight, a black portal opens in front of her, which takes her to the other side of the service door; the other end is staticky around the edges. "Hi there!" she calls after the running figure, settling her expression into an amused and faintly smug smile as she flies after him. "Whatcha up to?"

The sudden holographic arrow is...quite something! And gives two of the security guards enough of a hint to burst into the service entrance. Now these normal humans are hardly enough to keep up with an un-distracted Nen user. 

Too bad Chrollo is distracted quite a bit. He's tugged his hat down enough to obscure a little bit more of his face, or at least the more indentifiable bits like that tattoo! Pausing in the service door, he eyes that dark portal, then eyes the woman that came from it. 

Interest sparks in his eyes. "I would think that's obvious. I'm short on time, Miss. What does it matter to you? ...How /did/ you get back here so quickly anyway?" Cue those two guards bursting right in! Chrollo turns, scowling, and with his back heel kicks an errant extra set of forks towards those duo of guards. With some fragmentary nen infused into them, it becomes a dangerous rain of steel threatening the two if Emily does nothing! 

Still holding both book and delicious meat underneath that silver platter thing, he chooses to duck into the windy maintenance area, home to a minor maze of pipes, boilers, storage rooms and other chaos that keeps this arena running.

Luke was quite enjoying the cooking show! For his fee, he used a recipe for Masaladas he snagged back from Alola, tasty treats! even if it wasn't anythign fancy... at least he didn't think pokemon food might cut it. He picked a spot near the other side of the arena, not spotting Emily at first, his focus on the action, and keeping his pokemon sidekick from causing mayhem!. He once again picked a very energetic ghost panda for the time being!. 

    The blackout and the screams cause the boy to lose control of his pokemon, that, having far better senses than his trainer, spot the movement, and with a loud 'Pang!' quickly dives towards the back door, leaving Luke to stumble behind it, "Pangshi!, no!" Of course, noticing the arrow makes the boy focus less on stopping his pokemon, and more into trying to see what DID he see. 

    Pangshi has no concerns for things like 'doors', it simply phases through, and stumbles into Chrollo and Emily, letting out a loud, cheery 'Pangshi!' that might distract Emily from keeping an eye on the spider thief. Luke is a bit delayed, trying to explain what he was doing to the guards, and finally being allowed to follow them, well, Bewear helps convince the guards he was going to help. All in all, he is surprised by the knives, even if the bear is perfectly capable of providing cover.

    Emily glances back towards the portal. "How do does it look like I got here?" she says irreverently as the portal dissipates. "Whoops!" She thrusts her hands out to block the forks -- and her arms are stretching out unnaturally far -- and lets out a squawk of pain as the forks embed themselves into her hands and arms.

    There's no blood; just silver scars around the puncture points.

    "Well, that's unexpected!" she says, her grin widening. She blinks at sudden Pangshi, and turns around. "Pangshi!? What? Is Luke here?" She shakes her head, and focuses back on the thief. "Well, whatever. Releasing capacitor seals 3 and 2!"

    She's surrounded by three distinct auras: one silver, one gold, and one pearlescent. The first two shatter and the third one fades, and in a swirl of what appears to be silvery glitter, she has short silver hair and is wearing a frilly white YoRHa-style dress, and a few more glowing white flowers. Also, she has four arms, and her hands look uninjured (because she swapped out the damaged nanomachines which had previously formed her hands, and buried them somewhere under her skin); the two forks clatter to the ground. She then charges forward after the thief, and immediately realizes that she's lost him in the maze.

    "Ugghhh." She taps her chin thoughtfully. "Hmm ... if he's the one who cut the power ..." She turns to the security guards. "Where's the most public-facing electric box? Or, I mean, not public-facing, the easiest to get to. Are there any on the outside? Ones with suspicious utility vans, for instance. Uh." She looks at Pangshi. "And you, get Luke."

    The small Ghost panda waves happily to Emily, seemingly non plussed by the random aura thing, it's not like he hasn't seen pokemon do crazy stuff before!. The little guy nods a few times when asked to find Luke, and it is not too lon before she can hear the boy, "Hey!, slow down!, ouch!, remember I can't go through stuff!... what..." he mumbles, all but dragged rapidly next to Emily, with Bewear standing next to him just in case.

Between Bewear and Emily, the knives end up stopped! For the most part anyway, Guard # 1 gets a knife in the ankle. It's not life threatening though, and Guard # 2 stops to give him first aid. Both guards look from the strange 'pets' that Luke seems to as, and nevermind Emily's impressive transformation! 

After a few seconds, Guard 2 recovers though. "Um, suspicous? Well, there was that guy that was scheduled to work on the wirebox outside. Uh, name of 'Joe Web'. Quickest way to that one is into that boiler room, hang a right, and out the door!" Seems the Guard isn't going to chase down a thief, not when he can just get on his radio. 

Outside at his very obviously stolen van Chrollo pops the engine open. He has no doubt that the strange teleporting girl and that animal-using boy are after him. The van is running, and he's swapped out his clothes with one of the dead guards'. Closing the book in his hand, it dissappears. Placing a lit lighter in the engine with the oil container open, he flicks it in. 

In the driver's seat, wearing Chrollo's old clothes, sits one of the bodies from earlier roughly the thief's size. Down goes the van's hood. 

Then ducking behind a nearby alleyway to observe his handiwork, he waits for the two chasing him to arrive. 

Arrive, that is, as the suspicious van immediately goes up in flames.

    Emily furrows her brow and smirks slightly at Pangshi. "I didn't mean literally drag him here," she says. She nods to the Guard. "Okay, thanks!" she says, and turns around. "Let's see ... uh ... hmm, judging by the dimensions of the building and our current position within it ..." She cranes her head to peer down the hallway. Then she opens another portal, and steps through, nodding for Luke to follow her.

    She gets out just in time to see the van burst into flames.

    This wipes the smirk off her face for a moment.

    But then she quickly rallies. "Uhh ... hmm ... wait. Waiwaiwaiwaiwait." She projects two holograms in front of her so that Luke can see them: one is a photo of the thief from her own perspective, the other is a photo of the van in the instant before it combusted. She zooms in on the windscreen, revealing the already-dead guard.

    Her smirk returns. "Well, well, well," she says, glancing around. She smiles down at Luke. "I wonder where our little spider could possibly be," she says cheerfully, slowly walking forward and glancing around at the various alleyways around her. And her eyes are good.

    Luke is still a bit surprised by Emily, but smiles to his friend, and of course, makes sure to follow the portal with his pokemon on tow, Bewear quickly moving to stand between Luke and the burning vehicle. "Do you have anything that guy touched?, maybe one of my pokemon can track the smell." the boy offers, rubbing the back of his head, while Pangshi tries to float closer to the burning van, only to be held back by a Bewear paw. "Pangshi, no, you don't run into burning vehicles." the boy tries to chastise the small ghost. Bewear tries to mimic Emily at looking around, even if it is not sure WHAT to look for.

Another portal...and is that a different person? He didn't see a four-armed maid-ish person. He can't think too hard about it, perhaps this is the portal-user's partner. 

Chrollo realizes he's at least been partially had in his deception when those holograms come out. Luke is here too, and that Pangshi is an issue. First things first, he quietly ducks back further into his alleyway, slipping into a second story window of the building. A warehouse, luckily empty. Covering his prize with a convenient tarp, the thief then slips back out the window, and up to the rooftop of the opposite building. He can come back for the ingredients, at least for a while. 

Both Luke and Emily won't have to wait long to find out where Chrollo is. Fully encasing this brick up on the roof in Nen, he bombs the darn thing from up there just as Emily meets his gaze! 

A followup brick goes one each for the Pangshi and Bewear as well! Rude!

    Emily brightens. "Of course -- the cutlery!" she says. "One second!" She concentrates, opens another portal back to where the brief scuffle took place, extends her arm through it to swipe a fork without looking ...

    ... and meets Chrollo's gaze with a smile. She conjures up five golden bolts of light, which hover above her head; three of them launch up to intercept the thrown bricks, and the other two head straight for Chrollo.

    "Fascinating!" she says. "Is he ... are you wrapping your own life energy around these bricks? I felt that in the forks you stabbed me with, too!" She seems utterly delighted by all this.

The boy nods, and motions Bewear to get closer, "I think Bewear might punch him a few times, if we can catch up with him." he mumbles. The bear jumps up at the bricks, only to have them be intercepted anyway. He spots the darn thief, and sees Emily rush to chat with him, and finally realizes that maybe, he should warn her. "Emily! be careful! He is... Chrow or something like that, he has some weird powers, I think he can steal them from people, or copy them, he copied the powers from a friend of mine... he tried to steal something very important after he helped us defeat a vampire!". it is a bit of a ramble, but Luke is suddenly worried. His pokemon growls at the spider thief, and suddenly begins trying to climb the building to catch up with him.

It's strange to find a kindred spirit in the curious during a heist. This, perhaps more than anything else, gets his attention. Oh, and there's also bolts of light heading for him. The bricks get dusted as Nen and that energy collide, causing sparks and the feeling of energies contesting each other. 

"Are you really so worried about how someone accomplishes something when they're trying to kill you?" Comes Chrollo the spider answering question with question like a true jerk. 

"What about your partner? Do you fight alongside a companion? I mean, aside from the boy. What is the name of that technique you use, casting light that way?" Comes the man again, with a flurry of questions. 

Luke gets an absolute /scowl/ as he names his copying technique, eyes briefly murderous. Concentrating, that book of his appears in his hand. "It's very rude, spreading rumors that way." 

Then, the world seems to /skip/ as Bewear begins to climb the building. It feels like a vhs tape going awry, and Chrollo is cast into a world of grey. Casually, he drops down the alleyway from the roof, keeping his distance from the frozen Bewear, until he's behind both Emily and Luke. The book closes silently. 

Two pens, coated with nen, flying for the back of Luke's head. Hand free, he then tries to hammer Emily in the skull with a follow up kick!

    Emily pauses at Luke's warning. "'Crow', huh," she says. "And he copies abilities ..." Her voice trails off. You practically can see the gears turning in her head.

    She smirks as Chrollo asks if she's really worried about how someone accomplishes something in a fight. "That's my line!" she says. "Awfully inquisitive, aren'cha? But no, I'm not worried, I'm delighted." She furrows her brow. "Partner? It's just me here, dude. Just with two more arms and two fewer Capacitor Seals than I had before I ran outside." Well, that answers that mystery. Her voice is exactly the same, anyway.

    Her gaze zips to that book when Chrollo gets it out. When he seems to vanish, she instantly closes her eyes.

    In the middle of his kick, Chrollo would find a pair of glowing purple eyes peering back at him through Emily's hair. She just barely manages to duck under it, part of her head seemingly disintegrating into silvery glitter in the process. "Oh, you want me to rearrange your face with some more Phalanx Busters?" she says, making up the name on the spot (she actually thinks of them as "directed-energy beams", or just "lasers"). "THINK FAST!" Five more bolts of light appear and rocket towards Chrollo's face. ... It looks like five bolts at once is her limit.

    ... Seems she's missed the pens headed towards Luke.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Emily has eyes in the back of her head.

    Unfortunately for Chrollo, Bewear is in bodyguard mode, it has good senses, combat training, and is extremely fast. The bear didn't actually move very far from his trainer deciding to stick with Luke just in case!. As the spider thief tries to time stop and sneak attack with those pens, the pokemon is quite capable of moving behind Luke and raising it's paws to block the dangerous projectiles!. The pens sink in the dense fluff of the pokemon, which seems to absorb the energy around them with a grunt of pain, before the pokemon simply grabs them on those broad paws of his... how is it even holding the pens?!. 
"Revenge" Luke manages, having realized what just happened, "And it's not rumors, it's the truth!" the boy points out tThe bewear growls. A bright orange aura forms on the area of impact, and gathers around the makeshift projectiles, the now angry pink,black and white bear glaring at the spider person and throwing the pens back, now engulfed in that same orange aura. It's not quite nen, but it certainly is some kind of energy!

>> SUMMARY[Luke Gray] >> Bewear is hit with Nen Projectiles!. Bewear uses Revenge!

So she can change her appearance, create portals, /and/ fire light blasts? The pure breadth of her abilities is astonishing to Chrollo. What sort of ability would allow that? 

He can't imagine that she wouldn't run out of 'memory', particularly considering how it would require multiple nen types. A specialist, perhaps? 

The capacitor seals are a clue indeed. Restricting her actions until she meets certain conditions certainly fits into Chrollo's considerations. He can use that. 

With someone this earnest seeming, it's difficult to tell if what she names is /really/ the name. Chrollo's been lied to before, and thanks to Luke, he's already been outed on his own powers. With two on one, he'll only have so much interrogation time. 

There's no point in not seeing if she's astute enough to lie. Putting all his attention into dodging, and his Nen into his legs, he's a blurr as those bolts go for him. He ducks the first three, lashes out with a punch to the fourth to deflect it from eating his face. That leaves his hand lightly scorched and his sleeves destroyed. Whipping out his knife with his free hand, he turns, and slashes out at the bolt! 

It works, sort of! The bolt proves stronger than the knife, the weapon shattering in his hand and slicing him up with the shards. He eats it to the side, too, lightly bleeding. But far less damage than the full-on blast! 

Chrollo can't quite talk though, still reeling from Emily and her strange silvery disintigration! Luke's revenge-fueled pens courtesy of Bewear lash out for him, and while he manages to duck aside a few, one of them catches him on his wounded side. Chrollo grunts, and is sent skidding back from the force...right towards Emily. 

Another punch, this time aimed right for the center of Emily's chest! But he pulls back at the last second, instead trying to get Skill Hunter's cover to touch one of the odd woman's hands! 

"I hate fighting two on one." He mutters, and then, he starts to book it towards the nearest non-arena building! 

He knows there's a kitchen not far away, given the world he's on!

    Emily blinks as Bewear lunges in to protect Luke. "Whoops," she says. "Sorry I forgot to guard you, kiddo. Looks like Bewear's paying attention for me, though!"

    She smirks as Chrollo rights himself after her attack. "Hm ... you're definitely a human," she says, as if she was guessing the weather instead of talking to someone she just hit with a couple of laser bolts. "... but ..."

    And then he's lunging towards her. She grins, swings a punch to meet his fist, and then ... there's a book in place of Chrollo's fist. No time to dodge; she responds by dissolving that entire half of her body into silvery nanomachines as she grins a grin which is much too wide for a human. "I lied!" she exclaims, her remaining eye blazing brilliant purple.

    She reforms; the left half of her YoRHa uniform is now sky-blue, and she takes off and glides through the air after Chrollo, projecting obvious holograms of bat wings, one blue and one white. "I get it now," she calls after him, in a thinking-out-loud tone of voice. "You're an expert on subterfuge, but with those powers you've snagged, you can pack a punch so that you can suddenly spring it on someone if they do confront you directly." She seems to have concluded that his Nen-usage is a Skill Hunter ability, rather than the other way around.

    She smirks, and attempts to land in front of his path. "If this was a straight fight, I think I might have to go all-out!"

    After the last attack, Luke's pokemon decides to stick right next to Luke, tryin to focus it's attention on Chrollo, vocalizing loudly at Emily, and glaring at the bad guy, even after he gets hit by the attacks!. Both bear adn trainer begin to follow, not from too close, but still trying to keep him in their sights, "Let's follow! we can't let him get away!" he announces, apparently not quite concerned about Chrollo's wounds, or Emily's fancy moves, even if he finds them rather cool!, "Get him Emily!"

>> GAME >> Chrollo Lucilfer uses a Free Edge for: Stop the World-based Kitchen Bomb

Part of Chrollo /likes/ Emily. Smart, strong, confident, and able to think in a fight. 

Still, he's happy to help Emily along by cementing her assumptions. 

"I'm hardly looking like it right now. You have me figured out. I'd be helpless without what I've taken. And with that wide array of powers of yours, well, I feel jealous. What /are/ you?" That, at least, wasn't a question on an ability. 

Chrollo definitely doesn't want to stay in a straight fight with both of these two if he can avoid it though. Hence this kitchen he's ducked into. It is fairly gargantuan! Which is par for the course on this world. Chrollo is now in the center of the room, with Emily in front from going further in the building, and Luke and Bewear behind. Two steak knives are in his fingers. Book still in his right hand, Chrollo spins both and flings one for Emily's leg, and the other looking like it's going for Bewear! 

That pokemon isn't the real target though. The knife hammers into a gas line of the large stove, and slowly the invisible stuff begins to fill the air rapidly. 

"Oh, Luke. I hope Miss Delaney is doing well? The Empire is no doubt hungering for her blood. Has she given into her true self yet?" Taunts Chrollo, trying to buy a few more seconds. 

Then he once again activates Stop The World. Slowly, he walks far-too-casually past Luke, keeping just enough distance that the ability doesn't fizzle out. Slowly the young man is learning how to manipulate how long it lasts, and its drawbacks. 

Just feeling time in his hands feels so good, and the dark things he can do using it. Stopping as he lurks in the doorway he just walked into, he pulls something from his pocket. 

A lighter. Snipt. Then he gives a low underhand toss towards the source of the gas before slowly and gently walking back out into the alleyway. 

Closing Skill Hunter, he lets time resume. 

Emily, Luke, and Bewear have all of a second or so to realize what just happened as there's the feeling of a time skip in the air. And a lighter sailing through the air quickly turning the kitchen into a sea of burning flames!

    Emily nods to Luke. "Right!" she says, rushing into the building alongside the youth and his pokemon.

    She smirks at Chrollo's question, casually striding towards him. "A Eudaemon," she answers. "A device built for a purpose which is now impossible. A slave, whose masters all died before she came to exist." She gestures expansively with her four arms. "I am Emily Nyx," she announces. "I am three quintillion magical microscopic machines in a trench coat." (Her frilly dress doesn't even remotely resemble a trench coat.)

    Her response to the knife thrown at her is to stomp down on it, before she immediately whirls around when the other knife impacts the gas line. Seems she know what he's just done; she was designed for domestic use, which means she can detect various types of leakage. Once again, Chrollo has successfully wiped that smirk off her face.

    Her response is immediate, almost before she sees the thrown lighter. Grimacing, she opens a portal directly below Bewear's feet as fast as she can -- this one is entirely staticky, with no darkness to it -- before she attempts to grab Luke and bodily carry him into it, with the intention of depositing the three of them outside the building and closing the portal behind her.

    Luke is distracted listenign to Chrollo him, "I don't have to tell you anything!" he protests back, flailing an arm angrily. The knife attack si dealt by Bewear swatting away the knife aimed at it, and quickly picking and pulling Luke out of the way of the other blade!. They barely have time to react to the gas, at least, bewear does, sniffing the air, glancing at the broken pipe, and starting to move aside, holding Luke like a squirming bag. Both him and the pokemon are not really able to do much about the time stop and certainly can't put that much of a distance, but thankfully, Emily saves them both!. 
     The bewear seems angry, startled and ruffled, grumbling loudly and gesticulating to Emily, apparently he was quite surprised, maybe complaining about Chrollo cheating. Luke is... understandably rather startled too, "He tried to blow me up."...

A slave with dead masters, a monster of magical technology. It's all tucked into Chrollo's head, and he ruminates on it as the building where that kitchen /was/ is now rapidly burning down to it's steel frame. Things were chaotic enough with the theft. Now? Emily and Luke both gets to smell smoke and fire as the portal closes and deposits them safely outside. 

There's no trace of the thief either! He made the rather smart choice to retreat and gather his prize from the warehouse. One quick punch to a passing security guard, and he once more has a fresh set of clothes. As well as a black car to put his meaty payload into, rolling up the tinted windows as he pulls out onto the highway. 

He smiles, looking out the window as he passes by the street where Luke and Emily have found a spot of safety in the growing chaos of the city. Everywhere emergency services and what passes for cops in this world scramble. The news will be in a furor! 

On the plus side, both will get checked out by an ambulance if they stick around. 

"Such fascinating people." Mutters Chrollo, heading back to his rendeavouz point, a job well done, even as he shoves absorbant gauze against his acheing side.