The Honor Circle Returns! (IC)

[Sunblink]

...Keaton and Xianxi:

The little black imp, Xianxi, made sure to hover off of Keaton's shoulder as she approached the bar. He floated away effortlessly, his tail curling precociously like a spaded banner. In the Demi's absence, Keaton shrugged her shoulders and pulled up a chair, seating herself. At Witt's words, she looked slightly nonplussed, although this was hardly the worst thing she had been called in her life. No, this was just a humorous remark, it seemed, but Buzz-o-Bumble was quite a confusing epithet.

"Buzz-o-Bumble?" Keaton muttered incredulously, but regained her composure easily enough to formulate an introduction. "Nice. But the name's Keaton, Prickles."

Keaton wasn't earning any points in the Original Insults aspect of her intro, but she was improvising. Keaton sat down in her selected chair shamelessly and pulled the drawstring bag off of her shoulder, resting it in her lap and starting to undo the ties. The edges of the bag, drawn together in a puckered knot, unraveled as the bands holding it were released. Keaton rustled around in her belongings and finally pulled out her wallet, still assessing her opponents with her visible eye. The eyebrow over her eye-patch, neatly bisected with a thin scar, arched in a smooth curve.

Meanwhile, Xianxi occupied himself with exploring the bar, observing some of the patrons. Having no need for conventional sustenance, he wasn't interested in ordering a drink. Finally, he noticed an appropriate resting place nearby - the top of the seat of one of the booths - and floated toward his destination, nestling on the ledge. He flung his tail around his lithe body and relaxed, tucking his hands under his chin like a contented cat.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt sniffed, and took the hand offered in a crushingly strong grip. "'ccording to these two, I'm called Prickles. Not the worst I've been called. Close enough." He let Bart's hand go, without trying for a knuckle-breaker; shook the hand of the towering feline, again with a strong, but not aggressive, grip; and cocked one eyebrow at the jackal. "Keaton it is. What's yer poison? Can't order the drinks if you don't say what you want."

He paused for a moment, then continued "We should get the rules straight, too. First one out pays up till there, second one up till they're out, third one pays the rounds to the end. Whoever's paying pays for the round for the house every ten. Money on the bar before you start, and d'you ladies want a bed after you pass out, or are you happy to kip on the floor like apeface here?" He indicated Bart with a jerk of his thumb. "Oh, and try not to make a mess when you pass out."

He glanced around. "Now where'd that barkeep get to..."

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

Keaton scowled a little as she fished a fistful of coins out of her wallet, keeping them prepared. "I was about to say," she stressed, juggling the coins in her hand and slapping the appropriate amount on the countertop, "I'll have an absinthe."

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace found a chair that looked as if it would take her weight and sat opposite Bart. She reached inside her jerkin and pulled out a small pouch that clinked when she dropped it on the table in front of her. She nodded at Witt. "Rules sound okay t' me. An' I dunno 'bout Keaton here, but I won't need a bed. Y're not suggestin' us girls might lose, are y'...?"

[Tipod]

Though Andrace's was bearable, Witt's vicegrip damn near broke Bart's hand, sending him into a pained grimace for those few seconds. Ow, ow, ow-- "...Prickles it is." He flexed and shook the waves of pain from his poor appendage. "Yeah, rules sound good enough to me."

"And not to be a sexist pig," Bart took his seat at the table, palms lying flat, "but men're naturally built for drinkin' contests. Not that it's stopped some ladies from thinkin' they could beat me." Both eyebrows raised, along with another one of those stupid grins. "Guess we'll see which gender reigns soon enough."

[Paladin Sheppard]

"Creatures like ye sicken me....And yes Piix needs an avenger after what ye did to her..." Paladin said as he reached into a pouch and pulled out what looked like a string of bead, sliding them into the barrel of the Lancer.

Bringing the rifle up, the armored wolf fired the magnesium flash rounds into the various shadows around him, lighting the area up as bright as the sun.

[Yugo]

The forest had called to her. Amber rays sliced through the cloak of night, twinkling behind the leaves of the lush treeline, bringing with them a state of gentle repose in place of the shadows. Heavy booted feet kissed the forest floor, accompanying a hunched shape that slowly made its way from cover to cover, a small blur amongst the natural beauty surrounding it. To Kaela, it was like she was home again, amidst the trees and loamy ground, the smell of dew and wet earth playing a nostalgic tune for her nose. The forest fled. She suddenly found herself in a clearing, and casting her gaze about her, found no trees or foliage, only the thick grass of the plains. Ahead of her, silhouetted by the rising sun, she made out a set of buildings. What sorcery is this...? With precious few other options left to her, she began to move again, vanishing like smoke into the grass.

---

Kaela nudged open the building's front door apprehensively, her metal-clad bulk occupying most of the space within the frame. Her salt-and-pepper fur was standing on end, her hackles raised, braced for action. Instead, she found a strange menagerie of various people within what appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, a pub. A few of them were sitting down to drink, boasting about their alcohol-related accomplishments. Taking a step forward, the black metal plates covering her body jostled and clanked lightly. A single white bar ran down her right shoulder, opposite a wolf's head biting a knife on the left. A snub-nosed submachine-gun hung from a lanyard at her side, and a long thick-bladed knife was thrust into a scabbard that sat on her left hip. Stretching, yielding a staccato series of cracks from her back, she made her way to an empty chair at the end of the line of drinkers, gazing about herself with curiosity as she gently set herself down, keeping a healthy dose of paranoia about her.

[Tipod]

Oh-ho, what we got now? Bart immediately perked upon hearing the front door, sizing up the clanky new patron with a scrutinizing eye. ...damn. Another tall one. A lesser man would feel inadequate in the company of taller, quite possibly stronger women; fortunately, Bart had thicker skin than that, his glance stuck on her as she crossed the floor and took her seat. Hmm... to pester a dangerous-looking and armed stranger, or not?

...aw, why the hell not? "Hey, you with the piece! You a bettin' lady?" He slapped down on the tabletop twice for emphasis. "Come on, we could use s'more stakes here." More stakes, more people to impress, and more respects if he won. A simple formula. "What've you got to lose other than a few bucks?" Besides the comfortable sensation known as "not being completely wasted and hungover," of course.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt grinned - evilly - at Andrace. "Oh, heck no. If I pass out, park me outside to sleep it off." He paused, then added, "Ask someone to help. I'd hate to be drunkenly dropped on my head."

He placed both paws behind his head and stretched, cracking both shoulders, then wrapped his arms around himself and cracked them the other way - entirely incidentally showing off some impressively muscular physique - then put his elbow back on the bar. Fishing with his other paw in his jacket for a moment, he pulled out a bag of coins - not small - and dropped it on the bar next to Keaton's change, with a thump. "Might as well ante up, now we're all in. All we need now is the barkeep, and a row of drinks."

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace glanced up as another new arrival entered. "Oh, great, another wolf-in-a-can," she muttered very quietly under her breath. Still, out of habit she kept the wolf in the corner of her eye as she clanked towards the bar and sat down.

She flicked an ear towards Bart at his "made for drinking contests" comment, but she made no reply apart from a brief are-you-kidding glance.

"Y' think I'll need help, Mister Pointy?" she said to Witt with an amused gleam in her eye. "I don't make a habit o' droppin' folks... accidentally... that I've decided t' carry. Did it once, when some impolite person put an arrer in m' leg, an' that's all." She picked up the full-of-money-sounding pouch and tossed it just over Witt's shoulder. It skidded along the bar-top and came to rest against the other contributions to the pot.

[Boog]

Boog came back from the infirmary, dusting his hands. Corporeal things were HEAVY. He got back to find the newcomer and another two newcomers, plus one of the earlier patrons, clustered around the bar and talking. Another newcomer was sitting further down, giving off a general aura of one who lacked any desire to be trifled with. He'd have to trifle with her, in just a-
"All we need now is the barkeep, and a row of drinks."
On the one hand, in this particular crowd Boog probably should have known better than to encourage a drinking contest, but he couldn't seem to hear his common sense over the sound of slot machine payouts in his head. Besides, it had been awhile since he'd indulged in his own favorite vice, and plastered people had the BEST bad ideas.
The sleazy (thing that looked like a) man slinked back behind the bar and grinned at the group. "You rang?"

--

Richard strolled out of the infirmary and collapsed into a seat at the bar, wincing at what he saw of Marya on the camera feed over the bar. "'Ey barkeep! Something strong enough to make my head ring," he muttered, putting his bills on the bar and waited for Boog to make his way over. His gaze happened to glance over Kaela and Andrace briefly before returning to his money. Brilliant. Well, if Marya gets herself dead, good to know there's people around here who could take up her slack.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt sniggered at Andrace. "No, of course not... now. Later, though, might be a different matter..."

At about that moment, the bartender showed up - or at least something that moved behind the bar and acted like a bartender. Witt turned to address it. "These three challenged me to a drinking contest." He waved a hand at the three of them. "First person to pass out pays the bill, and we shrink to three players, then two, then the winner. Money's on the bar there," he waved his hand at the tidy pile "other than the big man at the end, who's holding on to his at present. He wants a shot of grain alcohol, 190 proof or better, for the first round. The ladies called for a shot of absinthe. And I'll start off easy in the fourth round with four pints of Afterburner."

He turned back to the others, and put his elbow on the bar again, then looked back over his shoulder at the barkeep. "Oh, and they'll want four each as well." He grinned evilly at the ragged jumble of clothes.

[Tipod]

Bart couldn't help but make a few childish snickers at Andrace's glance, retrieving his trusty wallet once more. "Yeah, I'm all in," he affirmed, digging out a decent number of pale-yellow coins, twenty or so in total. Hopefully, the place would accept minted electrum. "But Goddamn if this isn't takin' forever." The coins shook and clanked in his hands as he stood and sauntered towards the bar once more. All this anticipation was making him fidgety; the poor guy could hardly stay in one seat.

Seriously, where'd that poindexter go? He slapped the coins down onto the bartop with a moderate clunk. "Some bartender, walkin' off with payin' customers around. Why, I got half a mind to--" Though Boog had snaked his way back behind the bar before Bart could finish his irritated musings.

"...yeah, what Prickles said." No point in repeating others like a parrot. "Make mine Everclear if you got any. Or anything from a jug with three X's on it."

[Boog]

"Ooh, tough guy," Boog snickered at Bart, reaching under the bar, "By the by, a heads up?" He pulled out a jug of what looked like drain cleaner and made a flourishing motion with one hand, revealing one nasty looking claw on his index finger. He quickly scratched three cursive X's on the jug and gave the newcomer a meaningful look. Some Bartenders don't need lip from the patrons. With that he put it right back under the bar and set out the requested drinks, sniggering as he did so. "Now then, as your barkeep I'm required by law to make sure you don't try to drive yadda yadda gennelmen start'cher livers," he leaned back and grinned. This was gonna be good.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt snorted, impressively.

He reached out, taking his three shot glasses in one paw, and one of his four pint glasses in the other. Downing all three shots in one practised move, he then tilted his head back and did much the same with the first swirling, greenish-black pint... and the second, and the third, before pausing halfway through the fourth, letting the absinthe and sambucca twist and turn through the ouzo.

He turned his apparently unaffected head towards Bart. "So. What d'ya want for your second round?"

[Stygian]

There was no time to respond, before bright flashes burst into life with a glaring, synthetic light that cast hard shadows outward from the ground, vaporizing the moving darkness even as it took shape and burning bright in the cold, acidic dusk. There was a sizzling, crackling sound, painful and unnatural. Like wet wood being forced to burn.
   'Hahahaa!' For a moment, Pal thought he could see a moving humanoid outline made hard by the glare of the phosphorescent rounds, before it was shattered. And the voice had come from above. The light made it hard to see, but...
   He had a fraction of a second to blink away the light and react, and then, with a jarring impact that shocked the Cubi, a long beam of metal came down straight on the first point of light. A broken half of another hit the next, and the ringing sound as they struck through and lodged themselves in the ground and reverberated from the impact was accompanied by another one of those metallic groans. Perched atop a jutting bit of superstructure, shadows billowing around him in a haze that as much hid him as made him eye-straining to even look at, Stygian sat, his hunched shape somehow hanging down over the beam.
   'I wasn't rough on her. I was careful, like she was... comfortable... to me,' he - it - hissed, the venomous green of two dimly glowing eyes the only point Pal could focus on solidly. From that distance, with that sort of target...
   He didn't have time to take the shot though. The thing raised its arm, curling back and tensing up somehow, and then, with a pang of something hard hitting metal, it struck down, the force traveling through the already unsteady structure and crumbling it. Repeating what he'd learned from that stone golem from earlier, Stygian brought the mass of concrete and steel down in an avalanche onto the few lights that were left burning, riding at its front amid a tidal wave of dust and shadows, laughing maniacally.

- -

Having rolled her eyes, all seven of them, even though such an action was barely visible save upon close examination, and turned her back to the business the moment that Bart started talking about genders, thinking that a few bits of the latest events were just too stereotypical for her to put up with, Sal retreated to her table, leaning on an elbow as she sat down and diverting her full attention to the fight between Marya and Mechangel, trying to catch whatever glimpses of those mechanical gauntlets she could. Her idle hand played a clicking tantrum on the tabletop as she wondered something about when she'd get her new face mounted so that she could properly express her distaste for certain things.

[techmaster-glitch]

(sorry for another late post. I have been in the shitters this week )

The Mechangel

   As the Mechangel rose, he made sure to keep an eye on [Marya]'s progress through the building. She had seemd to be gearing up for another window-jump assault, but changed track and instead went straight up for the roof. He was impressed at how fast she ran, zipping up stairs to the roof faster than the stokes of his large wings brought him to that altitude. As he neared the roofline, he saw that she was readying herself to surpise him. Well, in a suprise contest, the victor is usually the one with the more impressive fireworks.
   On the final stroke of his wings, he rose above the roofline, the half-Angel-half-machine man, seeming like something out of a mythology text as he simultaneously released two more micromissiles. The same whistling, screaming sound filled the air as they shot straight for Marya. At the same time, he brought up his slightly damaged right arm, deploying two barrels from the wrist. They erupted in flashes of light, spewing pulses of photon-bursts to assail Marya. Since the arm was damaged, the compensation and tracking targeting was a bit off, but no matter; its purpose was to keep [Marya] under a constant barrage of fire, thus preventing her from advancing on him if she managed to escape the missiles again once they exploded.
   Which they promptly did.

[Tipod]

"*Koff, kaff--* Uah?" By the time Witt had faced him, Bart had finished each piddly shot, wiping the corner of his mouth with a sleeve before chugging down on his first pint. The following three went down in similar fashion. Being a simple man (in more than one way), he never let any kind of taste linger. Burning, fruity, dry, minty-- As far as he was concerned, he drank to harden his liver and loosen the muscles.

The end result? ...ow. A rather acute, painful tingling at the back of his skull. "Psshh, that wasn't so bad." Liar.

His eyes shifted to Boog. "Hey, wiseguy. Bring that jug back up, I got an idea." If the peculiar, clearly inhuman creature had drain cleaner under the bar, then what other odd little substances could he conjure up? "These straight-up drinks are for chumps. I want somethin' special." He leisurely propped up an elbow. "For round two, make me a cocktail with two ounces maple syrup, a quarter-ounce of drain cleaner, half an ounce of peppermint schnapps, and another quarter-ounce of liquid smoke." He spoke his request politely, as though ordering something not completely wretched.

[Yugo]

Kaela half-smiled, the left side of her face fused and pitted by scar tissue, refusing to make the expression her mind desired. She wasn't sure if she should be impressed or stupified by the amount of liquor the burly hedgehog was knocking back. At this rate we'll need to call for paramedics. Especially with mixed drinks like that. "Sorry, but I'd like to remain sober and alive tonight." Her voice was a rich contralto, gritty from years of battlefield exposure. Not really looking forward to drinking antifreeze or pipe cleaner, even for that kind of money. Reaching into a pouch on her abdomen, she produced a couple of coins, hoping that they would pass for money in this strange place, sliding them onto the bar. "I'll just have a lager, thank you," she muttered, appraising the strange looking barkeep. Strange proprietor for a strange place, I suppose. "And can you tell me exactly what this place is?"

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace's only reply to Witt was a wink and a sphinx-like smile. Her grin returned full strength, though, as the drinks were set out. "It comes in pints now?" she said, "What will they think of next... bottoms up, folks!" The lioness picked up each of the shot glasses and downed them with a practiced toss of her head and a gulp. The first two pints went down in a single long swallow each. On the third, her throat bobbled once as she tipped her head back for the last few mouthfuls of the swirling green goop. She put the fourth empty down with a flourish, licked a few drops of green from her whiskers, and belched daintily.

"Ahh, that's laid down a good linin' f'r th' rest o' th' evening," Andrace said with satisfaction. She turned to the bar-thing with a moderately convincing innocent look on her face. "Y' been able t' come up wi' everything else so far," she said, "so y' gotta have some 307 in stock. Let's have a bottle o' that f'r th' next round."

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

Once Keaton's drinks were served, she immediately snatched up the first glass, peering over the glossy rim of the cup to watch her opponents. Witt went first, downing each of his three drinks in an impressive succession, while Bart finished his virulent-looking beverages next. Keaton tried not to appear intimidated by Witt's considerable capacity for alcohol. Tipping her head back, Keaton began gulping down the contents of her first glass, then once she was finished, she slapped the emptied glass back on the counter-top and grabbed for the other one. Again, the glass flew to her muzzle, and she gulped down the absinthe with renewed vigor, having adapted to the taste, while she prepared the third shot glass. Almost the instant the second departed from her lips, she drained the last one and scraped it to the side, casually pushing it into a neat arrangement with its other two companions. All three shot glasses were tipped upside-down and organized unconsciously in a row before her, their glassy vessels still glistening with residual amber.

Next came the pints. Keaton braced her stomach, knowing that this was going to overwhelm her, even when she was relatively inured to the effects of alcohol. Seizing the pint, she upended it in her mouth, greedily and relentlessly swallowing down the deluge of intermixed alcohol that poured into her throat. Once she was finished, she pushed the pint away and grabbed for the second, drinking it with the same amount of vigor, although she was more than a little at a disadvantage with her more mortal limitations. She tried not to seem affected by the overwhelming taste of the amalgamated concoction. Being an Etazekyn only ensured a slightly superior imperviousness to alcohol. Already, she felt like her stomach had been plowed by a freight train once she finished that second pint, leaving her to lifelessly discard the pint. The third wasn't much easier; she felt like her head was going to explode once she finished the drink, and even coughed hysterically once she depleted the glass. The pint would've dropped from her hand if she hadn't regained her glassy-eyed composure and rested it among the ever-growing row of empty glasses.

A triumphant look colored Keaton's features in-between inebriated deliriousness. She steepled her fingers, as though anticipating the next move in a chess game, even though her vision was swimming. She still felt more than a little woozy from devouring her drinks in such a short amount of time, which certainly taught her to pick a less alcoholic drink for her next turn. A short belch from the side alerted her to Andrace's turn. Keaton's ear twitched, and she gestured again, scooping up her wallet and piling another mound of coins on the counter.

She shouldn't have been interested, but the foreign, green substance Andrace had cleaned from her whiskers looked distinctly otherworldly. Keaton groaned a little, suddenly at a loss of creativity for what to choose during the next round. She wanted something less alcoholic and more sweet. Anything to have less of a reaction on her body - but oh, she wanted to prove her perceived superiority at this type of competition! Such hubris would be her downfall, but Keaton sounded shakily confident as she pointed to Andrace and shuddered, leaning against the counter top. "I'll have what she just had," she instructed.

Off in the background, Xianxi gave Keaton a concerned look, and contemplated intervening to remove his master from the contest. However, out of the interests of remaining servile, he simply tensed his paws uncomfortably and tried to stop bristling protectively. To any of the other contestants, he probably looked like an incensed guard dog awaiting any excuse to rip out its master's antagonist's throat.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Annoyed that the flares had little effect against this child of the darkness, Paladin holstered the Lancer.  "What be comfortable to ye is horror to others ye beast" he growled out.

As the avalanche started Pal put his helm on and locked it. Pulling 'Edge' out of its holster, Paladin crouched and then shot up and forward in an almost imposable blur on an inception path, the massive axe over the shoulder and arcing forward to split Stygian in two.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt raised an eyebrow at the black and yellow canine. "You missed one." He nodded his head at the remaining, fourth pint resting, innocently, in front of her.

"Did ya wanna drink it, or give yourself a minute to pass out?" he asked, archly.

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

Keaton scowled irritably at Witt, suddenly raging with overwhelming dislike for the prickly creature. Grabbing the final pint, she finished it, routinely ignored the reeling sensation in her head that felt like a cannonball had smacked her in the skull, and dropped the glass at the end of her little line of pints. She flipped him off, her eye twitching, her amiable demeanor effectively evaporated.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt snickered evilly, raised his pint to the jackal, and grinned. "Up yours, too." he commented, amiably, then took another drink.

He turned back to the bar(man?). "So. One shot of pipe cleaner, one bottle of 307 ale, one 'I'll have what she's having', and another four pints of afterburner. Each." He topped this off by finishing his fourth pint, and putting the glass with all the others.

[Tipod]

"Hey, hey," Bart chuckled a bit at Keaton, "keep it friendly. We can slap and scream at each other after I win." Much of the buzzing at the back of his skull had subsided by then, allowing him to remain cheerful. "'Sides, that wasn't very ladylike." ...though on further pondering, she might not take his own comments much better than Witt's.

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace glanced at Keaton's reaction to her first few drinks impassively, although she hid a triumphant smirk. Hah. Lightweight. she thought confidently, She'll not last long. One pickled jackal, t' go, comin' right up.

The lioness wasn't unaffected, though, by the massive amount of brain blaster in just the first round of drinks. Her tail began to make slow, random curls and loops. She'd never really been able to see the bar-thing clearly, but now he — probably — appeared to be little more than a constantly shifting agglomeration of approximately the right number of arms, legs and heads. Most of the time. And her common sense was rapidly becoming very un — she'd already started thinking about tricks and jokes she could play on... and with... any of the others who passed out before she did.

Most of her ideas were, if looked at in the right way and with a very good defence lawyer, relatively harmless; but not all of them could be considered "nice". After all, Andrace Kithara wasn't a tame lion.

[Stygian]

The dust rolled in against Pal, a choking cloud that blended with the shadows into a mushy soup. Steel and ash collided and in the furious clash the Cubi swung his axe. Yet once again he found himself striking out at air. Stygian remained right at the forefront of the rolling destruction, but as soon as the dust and the shadow of the taller structure behind them fell upon him that haziness made him somehow blur before Paladin's eyes. The shadowy something that was split by the axe's edge felt cool and choking together with the dust. Yet it must have been the real man up until the very last few instants. And judging from his direction, he'd have to have overshot him and gone around his left. He was moving fast...
  'Ah, but you just said it yourself!' the man's voice hissed out at him from the murky space around. 'Horror is just a matter of perception...'
  There was a slicing, sharp sound to Paladin's right, and a silhouette approached, wicked clawed fingers drawn up to strike. Illumined dimly by that sickly light from the horizon off to the Cubi's left, smoky blackness falling around its feet, it approached the Cubi quick and intimidatingly, sharpening as it went.
  The ambush was set. From his vantage point within the settling ashen smoke, Stygian made for the kill.

[Boog]

Boog raised an eyebrow at some of the drink orders he was getting. Ooh, iron bellies. This oughta be worth watching. Muttering a quick argument to give him a hand, the barthing got to work mixing up Bart's order and setting out the others. "Draino, liquid smoke, lessee here then..." Finally the various drinks were set out again, Bart's being served in half a pineapple with a dinky umbrella sticking out, smoking gently where the wood contacted the substance within. He quickly mixed up the rest of the round of drinks and set them out. All of Barts drinks being served in pineapples.
"Have fun, kids." He then slinked down the bar to set out Kaela's lager. "So, not familiar with our fine establishment?" The... thing leaned on the bar and grinned so broadly it looked like the top of his head would fall off. "Welcome, my dear, to the Honor Circle, interdimensional fight club franchise. Fighting is not only permitted here but encouraged, as it gets people to buy more drinks, so long as you follow the rules. One, fights take place out there." He pointed outside to the circles, just in time for one of the skyscrapers in one of them had something on it explode. "And you wait for someone to accept a challenge before you take a swing at 'em. Challenger choses the when and why, challenged choses the where, and the rest is essentially left to chance." His grin, somehow, broadened. "And don't worry, we got a top-notch doctor on hand. We hope you enjoy your time with us."

--

Marya whipped around to face the Mechangel and lunged to the side, raising her gauntlets against the barrage of fire. Guy ain't bad... The whine of the missiles reached her ears. She ducked behind the roof door with a curse for a temporary respite from the photon bursts and did some quick mental physics. The missiles are pretty fast, moving at This Speed with This assumed manuverability... The missiles curved around the side of her tiny cover, whipping around and inward like a pair of pincers...
The one on the left...
Marya's right arm flashed out, backhanded the micromissile into the other one and raised her arms to guard herself. The gauntlets caught much of the blast, although a good amount of shrapnel scraped her shin and shoulders. The mongoose hissed through her teeth and dropped down.
...
It was quiet. Marya undid the clasps on her left gauntlet with a snarl and hunkered against the only structure on the roof. Figure he'll come around the side, and when he does...

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt raised one eyebrow at the pineapple, and watched the umbrella sink into the drink, dissolving gently. He reached out, took the straw (glass) delicately between thumb and forefinger, and swirled the drink, mixing the remnants of the umbrella in, then brought the straw to his lips and sucked the whole thing down in one go.

"Aaaah. That clears the sinuses out, good and proper."

He grabbed the the shot of afterburner, that being what Keaton had ordered, downed it, took a bite of the (now fairly toxic - discounting the poisons in the skin, anyway) pineapple, followed that with a swig of the 307 ale...

At which point he paused. He blinked. He looked carefully at the bottle. "Oh." Then he smiled. Beatifically. "Oh, my. I think we've just found me a new favourite brew. Mmm, mmm, mmm." He put the mostly full bottle carefully down, took another bite of the pineapple, downed one of the four pints, another bite, another pint, yet another bite, the third pint, munched down the last of the fruit, and washed it down with the last pint.

And then he sat there with the klein bottle, drinking the 307 ale slowly, savouring it. And making pleasant little mumbles to himself, all the while.

Slightly disturbing pleasant little mumbles. Ever so slightly.