Kamen Rider Vision

Before we start, Ru_ and I were talking about the combat system and decided to make some changes. Firstly, Charge Attacks. They're now automatically hits. No more rolling Dex to hit.

Counterattacking is now a Combat Maneuver, which means you need a certain rank in Combat Experience to use it. To use it, you now have to have an initiative roll that lets you lap the enemy (take 2 actions to their 1). You may then use both of those actions to attempt to counterattack. This turns the enemy dex vs your dex roll into a different contest. If you win, it counts as if you attacked the, and ignores their Endurance.

Finally, to allow you guys to do more actions and more with your actions, we've revamped how Intelligence support works. Anyone may now take an action called "Analysis" once per combat per participant (not including themselves). They roll Intelligence, and the result is the number of Nudges that that participant can use on any of their own rolls for that encounter (if an ally). If it's an enemy, than it's the number of nudges that any ally can use while rolling against that enemy (including yourself).

We may revamp more of the combat system, but that's it for now.

[X][Morning] Socialize with someone
--[X] Vincent
[X][Day] Your belt suddenly goes off, saying an Inkling has emerged. There's no avoiding this.
[X][Afternoon] Read your book

Roll 1d4 for Mask/Alias: 4

Squirrel Mask gained! Alias-- "Squirrel" gained!

---

The next day, you roll out of bed and immediately over to Booked. Because honestly speaking, the news that Keith would be coming to live with you was completely out of left field. Now you needed to get everything in order, and you had just told him that you had a stable and nice job.

So your first order of business was going to be doing everything in your power to get Booked back on its feet as soon as possible.

As you arrive, you notice the completely empty parking lot and turned-off lights first. Perhaps coming in first thing in the morning wasn't the smartest idea.

"Amalia? That you over there?" The door jingles open and Vincent walks out, immaculately dressed as always and with a steaming mug held in his hand.

You nod, and then realize that he might not be able to make out your silhouette very clearly. "Yes, it's me. I was hoping to help out today and well…" You shrug, exaggerating the motion to get the point across.

He sighs. "Well, at least you're enthusiastic about it. I'm going to be honest, I just got up myself, so the workers won't be here for a while."

"I was wondering why the lights were all off. It'd be a miracle if you could see anything right now, the sun's not even up yet." You finish walking across the parking lot and bound up the steps into the building proper.
"Oh shit, can't believe I forgot that."
Yep, it's pitch black in here, and you hear a chuckle as Vincent flips a switch. Stuttering, the lights come on and stabilize, bathing the area in a warm glow.

Vincent leads you to the back of the shop. The front still looks bad. Although by now all of the rubble has been cleaned up, many of the damaged furniture pieces remain, and with the bookshelves now devoid of books it's clear how much destruction the Inkling caused on its rampage.

As you walk the bookshelves stop being so damaged, and eventually even get replaced by new ones, with the wall being fully plastered instead of loosely covered. The soot marks on the ground disappear, and books even begin to inhabit the shelves once more.

Finally, at the very back near Patricia the last missing pieces of the shop appear, with Vincent plopping down on a new looking armchair and beckoning you to sit on the sofa across a little coffee table from him.

"I see that the repairs are coming along well," You start off, pulling your sight from the repair's results to focus on Vincent.

"Hmm... " He bounces one leg and shifts, splaying the arm carrying the mug off to the side, the mug itself dangling from the tips of two of his fingers. "At the rate that we're going at, we should be back in business in a day or so, we just need to replace the bookshelves and furniture. The walls have been replastered for the most part, and all of the circuits and pipes have been replaced. Thankfully, I think that we'll make a full recovery." Idly, he reaches his unoccupied arm out to one of the restocked shelves, tracing a finger along a book's spine.

You have to fight down a smile when you see his lips twitching up. Unlike when he's playing the sax or joking with the customers, his smile here is faint and quiet. It's absolutely not something that you would expect from him, not after the exuberant and wild impression that he had given you. It's almost childish…

"Vincent, you really love this shop don't you?" The words spill from your mouth. He stops, freezes entirely in fact.

"Well of course I do." His response is short, and dare you say it, surprised. "I've owned this place for so long it's almost a part of me."
Or rather, I'm a part of it.
Roll Sense Motive: 3d6 + 1d6 (Rank 1) = 5,4,3,3 = 3

For all the sincerity in his tone, there's something else that seems off. But his expression, his tone, everything about him just screams honesty right now.

Still, there's nothing more to be said, and you pass the rest of the time talking idly and pulling out books from the shelves to read.

As the sun is rising and the workers begin to pull up, your belt rings out. A glance at Vincent shows no indication that he heard it, but there's tingling in your head. From the information that the driver had downloaded into your head earlier, this was the alarm that an Inkling had spawned somewhere in your vicinity. The vicinity being an area the size of the entire town.

You pause. Everything inside you is telling you to stay, not to fight but to work on rebuilding the shop. Be safe, stay in your comfort circle. Where you have some modicum of control over your circumstances.

A sigh forces its way out of your body as you pull out the driver and then stand up.

"So it's like that, huh?" He mutters. "Be safe out there, ok? I'll let you know when the store is open again."

Vincent +2 RP

---

Encounter Roll: 1d7 = 6

For all of the information the driver had given you, it hadn't actually told you what to do to search out the Inkling. And you couldn't transform right here and now. It wouldn't do any good to go running around town in your suit. If anything, you'd get stopped by the police or other citizens, and it'd cause more trouble than help.
Allerswell doesn't get many cosplayers.
Sucking in air through your teeth, you click your tongue. What a terrible situation.

The worst possible place for this Inkling to spawn would be where it could get to lots of people. Knowing your luck then, you had to go search for places with lots of people. And sure enough… "What the hell do you mean I'm fired? Do you know how much I've sacrificed for this place? The hours I put in, the sweat and tears I poured out?!" There's a huge ruckus coming from the center of town.

When you get there, it's as if it's a free for all brawl. People are punching each other, kicking each other, shouting, hitting, tearing, and swearing at each other. It's ugly, and as you try to make sense of the chaos you even spot the uniforms of the police in the middle of the fray.

"There it is!" Someone dashes past you, charging into the center of the chaos. It's a man with the brightest red hair you've ever seen, and that makes it easy to keep track as he wades through the people.

He leaps onto something in the middle of the crowd and starts spinning, then he releases with a grunt of effort. "Watch out!" He shouts, and you realize with a start that it's directed at you.

You leap to the side as the giant thing he had grabbed on to flies past you. It hits the ground and rolls, springing back up in an instant. It's grey, with splotches of black running across its monstrous body. Its form is almost weasel-like, and it shifts from foot to foot with surprising agility as it eyes you.

"Inkling…" You pull back into a fighting stance, hand fishing the Illusion Driver out of your pocket as the man leaps back out of the crowd, running up to hold an arm in front of you protectively.

""Illusion Driver!"" Two mechanical voices ring out. ""Eh?!"" You and the man look at each other, specifically at the identical belts that are strapped to your waists, and the pens that you hold in your hands. Where yours is a neon blue, his is a dark purple, almost black in color.

The man breaks contact first, laughing as he turns to face the monster. "Well whaddya know, looks like I'm not the only one after all. Name's John McAllister, night shift cop. Let's talk after we take this fecker down, eh?"

"Amalia, bookstore cashier, and sure. But shouldn't we, you know, transform? Now?"

"Right, right, sorry 'bout that." He laughs and turns back around to face the monster. In one smooth motion he swipes his arm across his body, your own experience telling you that he's slotted the pen into his Driver. "Cap off! No carts! Let's write! Horror, monsters, run in fright!" The voice takes on a deeper, growling tone as it initiates the transformation sequence.

His own form gives off vibes similar to yours, yet for all intents and purposes looks entirely different. While your suit was form-fitting and more like a body-suit than any actual armor, his suit seemed almost organic from what little you could make out. It covered his body in a light haze, almost tangibly purple that would shift between dark and darker shades while it obscured his actual form. Black words such as "Nightmare", "Disappear", "Fear", and "Scream" ran across his body. You could barely make out the shape of claws in his silhouette.

"So sorry, but this is where it ends," The Inkling has gathered itself and is lurching towards you two, once more darting from left to right to make itself harder to track.

You bite back a curse and transform into your own suit, drawing a quick glance from John. Without wasting a second you get your sole Trope Cartridge out, activating it as quickly as you can. "Setting loaded! Energy weapons! Pew-pew pew!"

"Fancy! Well, seeing as how you look pretty experienced yourself, you have any idea on how to take this thing down?"

Plan? See Author's Note for Additional Detail and Important Combat Rules Rework

[][John] Example Plan
-[] Get in and engage it in melee
--[] Don't let it focus on Amalia

[][Amalia] Example Plan
-[][Weapon] Use the Sword
-[][Weapon] Use the Gun
-[] Scan the Monster/John
-[] Blast the Inkling with long-ranged shots
-[] Use a Charge Attack

---

Authors Note: So in case you all haven't noticed, the only vote for this post is your battle plans for the Inkling. Please vote by Plan what you intend John to do, and then in a separate plan what you intend Amalia to do. Specify which plan is for who using the prefixes like in the example plans. Additionally, for Amalia's plan also indicate which weapon to use.

Generally speaking a plan will be which actions to take, what range to keep, etc etc.

For the Combat Rules rework please see the AN at the BEGINNING of this post.

[][John] Good Enough Plan
-[] Get in and engage it in melee
--[] Don't let it focus on Amalia
[][Amalia] Plan Support Unit Go
-[] Scan the Monster
--[] Then follow up with a Raising Action with the gun
-[] Stay at a far range from it

You immediately command your suit to start analyzing the enemy. Knowledge is power, and right now you have the luxury of a meat… partner to help take the flak off of you.

Surprisingly, the Inkling stops closing in just shy of melee distance. "Oh my," It starts talking. "Look at the two of you. Isn't it just wonderful how much you all trust each other. But my word, isn't it your first time meeting? You don't even know how competent you guys are, you're in no shape to start fighting alongside each other. You'd just get in each others' way."

As it talks, your suit's analysis starts beeping. There's a wide range of information scrawled across your field of vision, but you ignore it for the source of the beeping. There's a shading of red in the air, circling above John's head. The coloring is artificial, done by your suit for your ease of observation.

Nevertheless, it does a good job of showing the malice in the smog's nature. The growing cloud is coming from the Inkling's mouth, faint traces of it being released with every word.

Even worse is that John has frozen, the silhouette in the center of his suit's haze still as a statue.

"John, don't listen to it! It's releasing something when it talks! Just uh- shit, just don't listen to it and attack!"

The Inkling stops and shoots you a glare as John jolts, breaking the haze before it could settle. He rushes towards the Inkling, and you take your opportunity.

You slot the pen into your gun as if you were loading it. A pulse of light is released from the weapon. "Turn the page! Rising Action!" Light surged from the pen up the barrel, intensifying until it shot out in a bolt of pure destruction.

The Inkling gives out a shout of surprise as it turns, the bolt carving a trench across its chest instead of piercing through it, blots of highlighted ink dripping from the wound.

"Why you- Grah!" It shouts and lashes out at the nearest target-- the incoming John.

He slips behind the wild blow with practiced ease and brings his arms up, trapping the Inkling's head between them. He twists, but the Inkling just turns with him. It looks like John isn't able to get enough momentum to break its spine and finish the fight.

The Inkling is still mad. Hell, if anything it's even madder than before. You realize with a drop in your stomach that it's looking at you with an unnerving light in its eyes. Fumbling a little with your gun, you slot the Genre Pen back into your Driver and dash back to a safer distance.

Although it looks like it wants to follow you, John is still on its back. It reaches an arm back to punch John away, or even grab him and just wrench him off. John isn't fazed though, and shifts his grip on the Inkling as he spins, throwing the Inkling to the ground. At the same time he grabs onto the offered arm and pulls on it, kneeling on the Inkling's neck. A textbook perfect armlock.

John's learned his lesson about trying to mess with an Inkling's joints, and follows through by standing up, pulling on the arm and snapping his legs together to kick the Inkling as its yanked up, sending it flying a couple of feet away from John.

You snap off a few shots, but it displays inhuman reflexes and takes advantage of John throwing it, redirecting its momentum to roll into a sprint aimed right at you.

John steps in front of it and stops it, acting as a wall it ineffectively crashes against.

It doesn't give up though, raging and pushing against John. As they struggle against each other you notice their feet making grooves in the concrete.

As terrifying as the situation is, it's also the perfect moment. You scroll through your suit's list of analyzed weaknesses and latch on to the most obvious one. A cold calm takes over your body and you raise up your pistol, aim, and pull the trigger once.

A bolt goes flying towards it and enters through its eye, exiting through the back of its head with an explosion of ink.

Headshot.

+18 Combat Experience

And then silence.

Wait. Silence? You and John look at each other and in unison turn around. Where before there had been tons of people fighting with each other, now everyone was on the ground, passed out. Thankfully there were no cars and the square had no streets running through it, so you didn't have to worry too much.

"So… what now?" John asks. You shrug.

"Hell if I know. The first Inkling I killed just kinda… exploded."

"Oh, you too huh…" You both lapse into a companionable silence, marred only by the occasional bubbling of the puddle of mysterious ink at your feet.

You decide to approach, and your belt speaks up. "Ink detected. Genre incompatible. Dissipate?"

You look back at John and he shrugs before gesturing for you to go ahead.

"Of course not," A voice interrupts you. Someone brushes past you before a voice you recognize comes from her. "Ink detected. Genre compatible. Sealing."

The puddle glows and then shrinks, rising up into a ball that lengthens, shaping itself into a familiar rectangular shape. It solidifies into a cartridge. An ink cartridge.

The person snatches it out of the air, turning around to give you and John a curtsey. "Thank you for taking care of that. I would've had to skip another period looking for it if you two hadn't found it. And as for defeating it for me? Well, I can take care of myself but thank you anyways. I'm sure I'll see you two around school. Ask for Felicity, dears. Tata now!"
Her hand clenches into a fist, and she whispers, "Nailed it!"

You get the impression that she's trying to put on an act of composure and maturity, but she's… well, she's rather obviously much younger than both of you. Although she hasn't had the opportunity to see the two of you outside of your suits.

Still, the sheer cheek of her. You're still struggling to get your mouth moving when John rushes forward with a cry of "Wait!"

You shake your head and track her, but she's gone. Merged into the crowd of groggy people just beginning to wake up. John sighs. The two of you can't track her now. With twin flashes of light, you two slide out your Genre Pens and de-transform.

"Jeez, it's too early for this. It was… well, it was nice meeting you Amalia. I'm going to go to sleep, have to be up for my shift in a couple of hours." John says.

You nod and wave goodbye. "Yeah, I'm going to go try and get my own stuff in order. If I find out anything about that Felicity girl I'll let you know."

---

Training Roll: 1d40 = 39

The book you checked out was certainly good, and you thanked your sense of good judgement for that. But after spending a couple of hours digging into it and taking notes on the side… Perhaps you should have skimmed it a bit more evenly rather than just a little bit from random parts of the book? Because the amount of knowledge held in the beginning alone is shocking.

It is, as befitting the beginning of a book on such a complex topic, basic to the extreme. But detailed nonetheless. Even on topics that one could handle with a little bit of common sense, such as cuts, burns, and blisters, the amount of detail is astounding. Clearly whoever wrote this book put a lot of love and effort into it. But alas, when you tried to check the name of the author on the cover it was too worn away to tell.

Your notes pile up rapidly, the simplified explanations easy to understand, yet comprehensive and chock-full of knowledge. Even the diagrams that are put in are minimalist, captioned and annotated so that there can be no mistaking what the picture is trying to show. And even more, when you try to sketch down copies of some of the diagrams yourself, you find it extremely easy. Almost as if the author intentionally made it so.

You only put the book away when your phone beeps out the alarm for bedtime. As you sit back, you feel a wave of satisfied exhaustion crash over you. Why couldn't school have been more like this?

The next day you…

[][Morning] Train
-[] What Skill or Stat (Besides Combat Experience)?
[][Morning] Sleep in
+More rest means your next action gets a bonus!
+Also sleep is good for you, kids
-Doesn't work for Fights. Just Actions.
[][Morning] Go to the Library
+Books are great
+Learning is good
+Classes amirite?
[][Morning] Explore the town and see what kinds of places and such it has
+Chance to discover new facilities
+Chance to meet new people
+Day exclusive places/people?
[][Morning] Socialize with someone
+You get Friends
++Frrriieeennddsss
-[] Who? (Pick from someone you have a Social Link with)
[][Morning] Read your book
+Chillax with a book
-You nerd go out and do something with your life
[][Morning] Try to track down that Felicity girl
+Felicity SL?
+More Kamen Rider info?
-She's kind of a bitch tho
-You're being a little creepy

[][Day] Dexterity Class
+Yoga!
-Yoga...

[][Afternoon] Train
-[] What Skill or Stat (Besides Combat Experience)?
[][Afternoon] Go to sleep early
+Bonus to your next action
+Sleep is good for you
-Doesn't work for Fights, only Actions.
[][Afternoon] Explore (But at Night!)
+Chance to discover new facilities
+Chance to meet new people
+Night exclusive places/people?
[][Afternoon] Go to the Library
+Books are great
+Learning is good
+Classes amirite?
[][Afternoon] Socialize with someone
+You get Friends
++Frrriieeennddsss
-[] Who? (Pick from someone you have a Social Link with)
[][Afternoon] Read your book
+Chillax with a book
-You nerd go out and do something with your life
[][Afternoon] Fight Club
+Combat EXP Training
+The Salty Spitoon
+Piratey fun
-Why tho
[][Afternoon] Go talk with John
+Talk with John
+SL?
-It's night why
[][Afternoon] Try to track down that Felicity girl
+Felicity SL?
+More Kamen Rider info?
-She's kind of a bitch tho
-You're being a little creepy