Code: ASSIMILATE

Dan winced as the girl screamed. So, their were some... down sides to being a cat. He covered his ear and walked over to the girl. She just lay there and screamed her head off. Even with his ears covered it was giving him a headache.

"Please stop screaming!" No response. He tried again, this time louder. "Ah, hello! Please stop the noise!" Still no response. He uncovered on ear to grab her shoulder and shake it. His eyes narrowed and he whacked her on the head. She dropped like a rock. She stopped screaming too. He uncovered his ears and sighed happily with relieve. Sweet silence.

He cautiously picked up the girl and examined her. No blood on her head or the ground. That was good. She did have a big bump. She would probably have a sore spot there. A mild concussion maybe. But... meh. He laid her back on the ground and nodded. He smiled over her prone form at the newcomer.

"Hi! I'm Dan. Don't mind the lifeless body here. Nice to meet you!" He stuck out his hand with a smile.

"Um...Dan, not that I enjoy having my eardrum tormented, but was that really necessary?" Kuori asked.

Okay, sure the screaming was torture for her, and probably everyone else in the group, but Kuori felt that knocking the girl out wasn't needed to shut her up. After all, Kuori probably could've found a spare roll of duct tape in this room somewhere.

"See Kuori," Dan smiled. "Masq is on my side. And what else could I have done? It's not like there was something convenient, like a say a roll of duct tape, around the place." He jumped over the girl and joined Masquerade.

"Wait," Dan side, holding up one furry hand, "let me guess! Um, so far, everyone was someone on Eternal dream... And their character was more or less obvious... I'm guessing Xeno or Cerani. Definitely not Via."

"Via? . . . " I looked at myself, wondering for a moment what Via would look like if she were here. Probably some kind of hyperactive puppy. I laughed at Zan (for it could only be Zaneko, the biggest furry feline we had). "I can see why you'd think I was Xeno, but nah. It's Cerani. Hi Ju-- Masq!" I had to catch myself. I forgot I never really called him by his real name here, like Quinn and Silver . . . sort of.

I felt my normal expression for confusion scrunch my face as I realized what Masq was wearing. "Only you, and not an assassin this time?"

I visually perused everyone else, instantly recognizing Creame and Silver after a few moments. The last one took a bit longer . . . "Kuori? Are you okay? What's going on?"

"See, Cerani instantly recognized me," Dan griped. "What did Kuori do when she spotted me? She called me 'unidentified data' and shot a laser at me at the first possible opportunity." He sighed and kicked at a loose pebble before continuing on more defensively.
"Sure, I didn't recognize her at first. I was expecting another furry. But I didn't attack her, I talked to her. A much less violent option." He feel into a soft mutter and kicked his pebble around the room. "I admit that I like fighting but I don't attack blindly..."

"Well Dan, there is a roll of duct tape here, oido." Kuori said, pointing to a table with various items on it, including a barely-used roll of duct tape.

The android turned to greet the newcomer, but right when Kuori saw Cerani, she felt a small jolt through her body. Did part of her mechanical body short-circut or something? Ignoring that for a second jolt did not come, Kuori smiled slightly.

"You are the first to recongnize Kuori by appearance, Cerani. How did you know it was Kuori, oido?" Kuori asked, standing up and watching her wounds beginning to repair themselves, "I'm fine, but for some reason we've all been trapped here, in Eternal Dream, oido."

Kuori looked over at Masquerade as he imitated what had happened the fight before, where she mistook Dan for a high-threat virus. Masquerade had done it all wrong, Kuori never even fired a laser at Dan, that was all those slimes' doing.

"No no no, it was like this. Unidentified data detected, threat level: High. ASSIMILATE, oido!" Kuori said as she pointed her right index finger at Dan and fired a bullet from it, purposly missing by an inch, "Except that I actually hit him that time, oido."

Now I laughed at Masq. "Yeah, you're a bit like an old man, deaf one."

I still didn't understand why I was left-handed here, but at least my friends were here too. That made me feel better, in general. Honestly, now that I think about it, why was I carrying a sword in the first place? I mean, I know how to use one, but I figured I'd be more of a mage-type or a run-and-hide thief with skimpy little daggers. I knew how to break things. Well . . . I guess that's a start.

Wait a second, me Kuori were in this thing. We were Destruction and Creation, respectively, so that meant . . . no way. I didn't feel like I could destroy the world. I could barely scratch a dinky spider.

"I think I know why I recognized you Kuori. Creation and Destruction, do you remember?" It was just a guess, but you never know.

As soon as she heard the words "Creation" and "Destruction", Kuori felt another jolt, a much more painful one, running through her head. Also making sense that the reason for the earlier jolt was because of her memories as Creation and the link she had with Destruction.

"Yes, I remember, odio." Kuori replied after a moment.

Dan paled and the bullet whizzed past his ear. It did miss, but the fact that she would so casually shoot again... He wandered off to the duct tape. Grabbing it, he slunk over to anthe fallen Silver slumped to the ground beside her.
"See," he muttered to no one. "Everyone hates the cute cuddly furry. Shooting random bullets at him for no apparent reason.." He ripped a strip of tape from the roll and wrapped it around her. As he continued his rant, he wrapped more and more tape around the prone form, fetched a couple more rolls and preceded to cocoon the girl with tape.

The sensation of it all, the quick nothingness. It was great. The pain had subsided, and so had the thoughts. It was all gone. As the duck tapped was wrapped around her mouth, she ripped it off. Aelita had no spite or glee for the action. But instead moved away from the fluffball. It seemed everyone knew eachother. And while that was all good and well, Aelita seemed to have the idea they had a mission.

"I know not by what means you are found in my world... But you seem to have a mission. I wish to help... but for me to do that, I think we need to move on..."

I had to raise an eyebrow at Silv. Even if he was girl here, it was still obvious it was him. "This isn't one of our roleplays, Silver, so I don't think there's any need to be in character or something." I shook my head slowly. "But you have a point, isn't there something we should be doing?"

"In Character? What are you talking about? And who's Silver? I'm Aelita Mars. And I am from this world. You all obviously are not. Now. No more talk. Let's move on."

Aelita ripped off the last of the duck tape. She threw the wad at Zaneko. Hitting a spot of fur, she hadn't meant for it to. Turning to the doorway, she motioned for the others to move towards the next passage.

Dan sighed as his target awoke and ran. With nothing else to do, he drew circles in the dust on the ground, ears flat. He continued muttering unintelligible things as he did. He tried dodging the tape wad, but noticed it too late and it got stuck on his tail. His efforts to remove it left strips still attacked to the tip of his tail and patches of glue in his fur.

"Stuphid gluef," he muttered as he worked it free with his teeth. "Sume peophe are nu fuhn. An this stuphid gloo wun't come uut." He spat out a mouthful of glue and loose fur. "Where's Dale when you need him," he sighed.

The party seemed to be getting along with each other well; after all, they did know one another. Just as the mood began to become slightly more carefree, a sudden poof of smoke came out of nowhere, and when the smoke faded, in its place stood a slender, teenage boy with blond hair. He wore typical magician's apparel and an eyepatch covered his left eye. As he appeared he stumbled forward and landed on the laboratory ground with an unpleasant thud.

"Urhm..." He coughed, attempting to clear his throat of the excess smoke, "Why hello there!" The boy nonchalantly waved his right, gloved hand at the party, yet, when he opened his eyes, he was struck with an odd, uncomfortable feeling.

"It's you!" He pointed at Kuori menacingly, "You're that girl who tried to shoot my head off back in the Room of Generality!" He took a second look at the party and gritted his teeth, "Then that must mean you're... No... Run!" He attempted to coax the other party members away as he realized their true identities, save Kuori's and Silver's, of course. "This thing is dangerous! You must escape before she tries to-" He started, yet he choked on his words as he caught a glimpse of Dan's snipe-wound, "What? You're already wounded?"

There was no response, for this boy's actions had weirded the group out, causing them to resort to staring.

"Augh! Come on! You can clearly see what that thing did to the furry over there!" He pointed towards Dan, "Alrighty, you know what? Fine! If you don't want to move aside, then I'll just fight this thing head on, yeah!" He revealed what seemed to be a magic wand from his cloak, "I apologize if I hurt any of y'all in the process, but this thing must be destroyed at all costs!"

"But... Hmm hmm hmm..." He giggled as he looked away momentarily, "I shall not do this in a cliche manner, you see! I will put on quite a show for each and every one of you!" He spotted a small, innocent, blond girl, who looked quite helpless and lost, "... Especially you, pretty little maiden of innocence!" He valiantly pointed towards Silver, clearly uneducated about the changes that one might go through upon entering the Dream.

He wavered his magical wand back and forth as a large, wooden stage popped up from beneath them. Two wooden stakes emerged from the platform that they were now on, and from those, crimson curtains lined with golden lacing came. After a couple seconds of whacky transformation, the entire laboratory was now a stage fit for a show. To top it off, a large, colorful banner hung from the top of the stage that read in excitable, sparkly letters: "THE MAGNIFICENT, PULCHRITUDINOUS DURN!!"

Kuori just stared at the entire thing, sure, she did try to shoot this man, but she never would've thought he'd arrive in the Testing Facility. Nevertheless, she sighed and allowed her eyes to scan the man and the stage and save it as a picture.

"Recorded, odio." Kuori said with no emotion in her voice as her arm began to transform into a claw again.

File 0-2
Location: Eternal Dream Testing Facility; Laboratory Performance Stage
Objective: Defeat Boss
Defeat: Party is defeated

(s) (b) (b) (b) (b) (b) (b) (b) (s) A
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) B
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) (D) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) C
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) D
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) E
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) F
(s) (s) ( ) (s) (s) (s) ( ) (s) (s) G
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (K) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) H
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) I
-1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9

Kuori (Android)

HP: 40
ENG: 100
ATK: 7
DEF: 4
INT: 6
SPR: 3
Movement: 3

Durn (Magician)

HP: 70
MP: 80
ATK: 1
DEF: 6
INT: 8
SPR: 8
Movement: 3

b = Banner (Cannot be occupied, cannot be passed)

s = Side of Stage (Cannot be occupied, cannot be passed)

You may start in row H-I

Aelita starts at H3!

"I believe you need to be put in your place..."

Aelita made her way up to the stairs of the stage. She was considering just walking up and slapping the guy. But that wouldn't do very much. So instead she would do something rather different. Her newly acquired Pink Mana was ready for this fight.

Dan starts at H7

"Finally," Dan smiled. "Someone who understands my pain!" He instantly cheered up. Though he seemed more interested in the fight. He fingered his knife. He always wanted to fight Durn He was right up their on the To Fight list with Saggy and Shadow. "Durn, just so you know, I won't hold back, so no hard feeling, Kay?" Dan grinned like a child with a bag of candy, then looked longingly at the crimson decor. "And... you won't mind if I rip those curtain, right?"

Creame gave a little giggle as she watched Durn and his flashy banners. "Hee hee hee... You're so silly. If you're fine now, why does it matter if Kuori-tan shot you or not? Leave and let live...err... something... right?" Creame said cheerfully, beginning to chew on her fork. "In any case, I'm sure this will be fun~ Just a little spar... right?"

[ Creame starts in I7 ]

File 0-3
Location: Eternal Dream Testing Facility; Laboratory Performance Stage
Objective: Defeat Boss
Defeat: Party is defeated

(s) (b) (b) (b) (b) (b) (b) (b) (s) A
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) B
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) (D) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) C
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) D
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) E
(s) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (s) F
(s) (s) ( ) (s) (s) (s) ( ) (s) (s) G
( ) ( ) (A) ( ) (K) (E) (D) ( ) ( ) H
( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (M) ( ) (C) ( ) ( ) I
-1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9

Player Phase 1

Spoiler:

[ Creame moves to G7 ]

After thinking through whether or not to go and walk up the to the stage or be polite and let everyone else through first, Creame decided to walk up first instead. Ah, well. They can just walk around me~ The sweet-loving girl wanted to get closer to the magician as fast as possible, but she just just... a tad bit slow, compared to the others. Although, she didn't seem to be bothered by it. Patience, patience~ No big deal, right?

[ Creame waits ]

Aelita
Hp: 30/30
Mp: 35/35
Atk: 1
Def: 5
Int: 8
Spr: 6

Aelita moves to F3!

Aelita moved onto the stage, playfully juggling around pink mana orbs. But then she stopped, throwing an orb at Durn, the orb fizzling out before it could possiblely hit him.

"Can I have a turn in the Spotlight?"

Aelita
Hp: 30/30
Mp: 35/35
Atk: 1
Def: 5
Int: 8
Spr: 6