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Dragon Ball: After the End

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Can't Sneak Me
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    • [X] Yes.
    -[X] You've been meaning to speak with Meerak. He's still in the cells, although he and the scouts who first stood down get to stay in the nicer ones.

    Can't Sneak Me
    ​
    You sigh, admitting defeat. "Dad, can I head down to the cells?"

    Your mother looks over and raises an eyebrow. "Last fight of the day. You sure you want to miss it?"

    Dad watches from her other side.

    "I'm not going to miss anything," you say, shrugging. "The last fights of the tournament are tomorrow."

    Your parents trade a glance, and then your mother gestures towards the door. "Don't let us stop you. Have fun."

    You nod and jog out, blurring out of view for most of the audience. After all, it might be seen as a little rude for the Scion to be stepping out on the competition.

    You phase back into view in a distant corner of the Hall, miles away from the tournament fair. You can still hear the cheers and the sounds of combat as the final match progresses. That said, it's quiet here as a general rule. All the noise is far away, and really only audible thanks to your enhanced senses and the nearly-unbroken terrain between where you stand and the fair grounds.

    Which must be excruciating for the guards stations here.

    The women on guard shoot to their feet as you appear, cards scattering everywhere. "Lady Scion!" explains the one on your left, a towering specimen in proper battle armor. "I- we were only-"

    "Just cards, Scion Kakara," says the other. She couldn't be more different; dressed in a casual gi, short, and sporting an easy grin. "My word on it, we were paying attention."

    "You missed me," you point out, cocking your head. "Hm...Vegetan," you say, pointing at the tall woman. "Gokun." You point at the shorty. "Right?"

    "Right on the money," says your Clanmate. "What brings you here tonight? Don't you have some matches to watch?"
    Deceit [Kakara vs. Guard]: Why do I even bother rolling these anymore?
    You shrug. "This isn't really a big one. Important matches are all tomorrow."

    She nods. "True, true."

    Awkward silence falls for a moment. You cough, leaning forward a bit. "So..."

    "Oh, right!" says the Vegetan, snapping out of it. She starts shifting into her Masque, as does her companion. You do the same, and it strikes you how slow they both are. You really are an outlier.

    Once they're fully human, they turn to the doors and open them for you. "Make sure to stay away from the bars, and don't stick anything you want to keep through" says the Gokun. "Some of them...grab. Mark needed healing."

    "I'm only talking to Meerak," you say, your voice echoing as you step into the cell block beyond. "But thanks for the heads-up."

    The door shuts behind you with a hollow boom, and you stride through the halls. Doors of solid metal line either side, leading to individual blocks. You step along to the one housing Meerak and the other surrendering prisoners. You wait.

    You frown. The guard's not at their post. You're going to need to let Dad know. Sure, the cells are basically impregnable, but there are still reasons to keep somebody on watch. A tournament is no excuse to slack off. Cards are one thing, but outright desertion?

    Muttering to yourself in frustration, you push open the door and step into the long block.

    You hear the echoing of voices cutting off as the door swings open. "Hey, Meerak?" you call, stepping down the hall. "It's me! Karen. Lord Marsden's daughter?"

    "...down here, third corridor on the right!" you hear.

    Nodding to yourself, you quickly jog to the corridor in question and walk down.

    Meerak occupies the best cell in this block -- a roomy affair with comfortable furnishings, right at the end of the hall. He's sitting in the chair, near the bars. The rest of the members of his team who surrendered with him also sit at the bars of the cells along either side, staring at you.

    "From what I've heard, Murk decided to shoot down your deal," says Meerak, gesturing to his companions. His voice rumbles soothingly in the echoing hall. "And according to my friends, you defeated him." The reptilian alien peers at you. "You've trained, young one."

    "It's been pretty busy," you say, coming to a halt in front of his cell. You don't look to either side. "The government of the country I live in tried to launch nukes. Had to stop that. Then there was your boss. And we know that Tamar isn't stopping. He's still coming."

    Meerak hums. "Yes, I thought he might. This is what I was trying to avoid."

    "Why?" you ask. "Why work so hard?"

    "As I told you when we first met, I am hoping that our objectives can be achieved through diplomacy rather than force." He pauses. "A hope that Murk has complicated somewhat."

    You snort. "Shattered. The word is shattered."

    "I am an optimist," says Meerak.

    "Tamar is coming," you say, leaning towards the bars. "He thinks you're traitors, and he wants revenge on us for taking down Murk."

    "This is why I wanted to talk," says Meerak. "Once you touched Murk, the matter was as good as sealed! Tamar is protective of the Lieutenant in a way he is with nobody else. My hope was to prevent a fight. Now that it's happened..." He sighs. "I don't know what to do. We're backed into a corner. Tamar does not forgive."

    "So tell me about him," you say. "How strong is he? Does he have any special tricks? What does-"
    Ki Sense [Kakara] vs. Ki Control [Ninjas]: 103 vs. 59. Easy-peasy.
    You twitch as you catch a flicker of ki from behind you, moving up the corridor. You don't miss a beat, though. "-he really want? How can I talk him down?"

    "You can't," says Meerak. "Tamar is one of the strongest-willed-"

    You tune him out, shoving ki into your ears. You hear the padding of footsteps -- four sets -- in the main hall of the cell block behind you. Quiet whispers. Human ki signatures. There are no humans in this cell block. Masqued saiyans, then.

    In a flash of intuition, it occurs to you that the tournament is not the only reason for the saiyan guarding these prisoners to walk off the job.

    Behind you, you hear the rasp of metal on metal. In between fractions of a second, as your power level rises to a million -- that much will be a believable amount of power, as quickly as Jaron and Maya are progressing -- you see Meerak cut off, his eyes widening. You hear the whistle of a small piece of metal hurtling through the air towards your back.

    You turn in a flash, arm outstretched, and catch the object in a sphere of ki.

    The grenade hangs there for a moment before detonating, a foul green mist filling up your sphere.

    You look up at the end of the hallway. The man standing there looks back at you, an expression of terror on his face. "...it was sedative mist," he croaks, white-faced. "I swear."

    You give him an unpleasant smile. "That so? Good."

    You flick your wrist and send the sphere rocketing back towards the end of the hall, letting it burst as it reaches the main corridor to the sound of surprised choking and coughing from the ambushers.

    tsew

    Taking a big breath of air, you zip into the cloud, arms blurring. Four Masqued saiyans stumble through the mist, already swaying on their feet. You only need to push them over in order to break down the last of the resistance keeping them on their feet.

    The cloud disperses in relatively short order, and you stride out, tendrils trailing off of your body. You blow out your air, purging any of the stuff still hanging around you and expressing your frustration in one handy action. "Everybody alright?"

    "We're fine!" says Meerak, on his feet. "But the others -- these can't have been the only ones-!"

    "You need to save them, too!" says the woman you can remember arguing on your behalf in the standoff. "They're in another block, these people must be going after them as well-!"

    "I need to find my father and tell him what's going on," you say.

    "Do you think these people were looking to take prisoners?!" says the woman. "You don't have time to run to Daddy! You have to help! Please, we can't do anything from in here, and it's as much our fault as anybody's that we're in this mess! You have to do something!"

    You take a fraction of a second to glance down the hall and then back to her before looking around the corridor. The prisoners stare back at you with pleading eyes.

    You think, and debate what to do.


    Seems that your visit was well-timed. Rogue saiyans are attacking the cell blocks with the prisoners, reasons unknown (although really, you can guess). The cell block is not internally shielded from ki sense; you will need to keep your power level to some degree of sanity, whatever you do, in order to avoid tipping the prisoners that there's more to you than meets the eye. However, the block is shielded completely from the rest of the Hall, even more completely than the Hall itself is shielded from Garenhuld; nothing out or in. You'll need to leave completely if you want to call Dad. What do you do? Vote by plan, and vote for as many plans as appeal to you, or as few (approval voting). As a reminder, your multiform ability is currently burned out from prior use and you have no access to it. Plans featuring it will be struck from the tally. Vote for as many sub-options as you like, but if they conflict, I will resolve conflicts according to what amuses me the most. :evil: I will execute plans by order of sub-votes from top to bottom, if order of operations is important to your plan.

    [ ] Write-In Plan Name Here
    -[ ] Ping. With your ki sense, you're pretty sure this'll let you sense almost anybody in this prison, suppressing or not, but if there are other attackers, they'll know for certain that you're onto them, if powering up didn't do it already.
    -[ ] Rush to the other prisoners. You're not letting these people die, whatever the reason. If you weren't willing to kill them in a battle, you're not willing to let somebody do it in cold blood.
    -[ ] Depart the prison as swiftly as possible. Call Dad in and let him know what's going on.
    -[ ] Guards don't just vanish without the people in charge noticing, and the staff areas are a good place from which to control a prison. Head there to see if you can find the person behind this, or a way to initiate a lockdown.
    -[ ] Write in.

    TWO-HOUR MORATORIUM TO DISCUSS YOUR OPTIONS (THE VOTE WILL, AS PER USUAL, BE OPEN FOR A MINIMUM OF 24 HOURS BEYOND THAT). THIS VOTE IS NOW CLOSED.

    Y'know, for a Dragon Ball quest we don't have an awful lot of random fights, do we? Have fun plotting, folks! Lives are on the line. ;)

    And you can thank Monado for rolling so well and ensuring that you didn't get gassed right at the start. Granted, Gore and Horizon also rolled well enough, but Mona got there first. ;)

    Have fun, and I'll see you...

    In the middle of a discussion with the scout Meerak, Kakara is attacked by rogue saiyans under Masque! With her own people entering the prison with foul intentions, Kakara now must balance the remnants of the Masquerade against the prisoners' lives, and try to figure out what she needs to do next. Who is behind this sudden attack? Find out next time, on Dragon Ball AE!
     
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    • Huh. Well I have three reasons why this might be happening and I think we all only need one.

    Still these fuckers are BOLD to be trying this shit. I hope it was worth it for them.
     
    Gore17 said:
    I can't. Seriously, WTF?
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    Well, they can't be official. They've subverted or removed the guards, so they have the run of the prison. They tried to remove their Scion as a witness or as interference. I had one of the trained soldiers present explicitly mention that they're probably not taking prisoners,
    PoptartProdigy said:
    "Do you think these people were looking to take prisoners?!"
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    and in the vote options had Kakara explicitly conclude that this is a murder attempt,
    PoptartProdigy said:
    You're not letting these people die, whatever the reason. If you weren't willing to kill them in a battle, you're not willing to let somebody do it in cold blood.
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    so...
     
    PoptartProdigy said:
    Well, they can't be official. They've subverted or removed the guards, so they have the run of the prison. They tried to remove their Scion as a witness or as interference. I had one of the trained soldiers present explicitly mention that they're probably not taking prisoners,

    and in the vote options had Kakara explicitly conclude that this is a murder attempt,

    so...
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    I know all that, but I still can't think of an actual reason for this. My brain is just going "Error. Error. Error." No matter how many different angles I look at this.
     
    PoptartProdigy said:
    Well, they can't be official. They've subverted or removed the guards, so they have the run of the prison. They tried to remove their Scion as a witness or as interference. I had one of the trained soldiers present explicitly mention that they're probably not taking prisoners,
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    You misunderstand. Gore is asking 'WTF are these Sayians trying to kill our prisoners?'
     
    PoptartProdigy said:
    [Divide and Conquer ] Write-In Plan Name Here
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    Split into three after finding Privacy.
    One [X ] Rush to the other prisoners. You're not letting these people die, whatever the reason. If you weren't willing to kill them in a battle, you're not willing to let somebody do it in cold blood.]
    Two [X ] Depart the prison as swiftly as possible. Call Dad in and let him know what's going on. (and return to the prison to back up yourself)
    Three -[X] Guards don't just vanish without the people in charge noticing, and the staff areas are a good place from which to control a prison. Head there to see if you can find the person behind this, or a way to initiate a lock down.

    The Multiform was learned for a reason. That reason was to be in and do more than one thing at a time.
    If multiform is unavailable, I vote Ping and then rush to protect the prisoners.
     
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    PoptartProdigy said:
    Ah. That looked more like you didn't realize what was up at all. As for the reason...

    ...I'm sure Kakara will figure it out at some point during the next few IC minutes. ;)
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    Not helpful. The reasons I've thought up are:
    1) This is an attempt to discredit/put egg on the face of Berra and/or Kakara. While it would do this, the fact that they're committing treason, yet seemed to have wanted to keep Kakara alive suggests there's something else going along.
    2) They're not actually here to kill the prisoners, but take them for themselves. Feeling that Berra is going to easy on them? Want to experiment on them? Can't guess why.
    3) They hate the aliens and want them dead. But they seem to organized and specialized for that, and it risks the wrath of the Lords.
    4) Dandeer plot. Doesn't fit, she'd likely be focusing on different things.
     
    Do we have to worry about the prisoners sensing our power level? They were useing scouters which indicates that they can't sense them naturally. I don't think that they have been allowed to hold on to their scouters.
     
    Gore17 said:
    Not helpful. The reasons I've thought up are:
    1) This is an attempt to discredit/put egg on the face of Berra and/or Kakara. While it would do this, the fact that they're committing treason, yet seemed to have wanted to keep Kakara alive suggests there's something else going along.
    2) They're not actually here to kill the prisoners, but take them for themselves. Feeling that Berra is going to easy on them? Want to experiment on them? Can't guess why.
    3) They hate the aliens and want them dead. But they seem to organized and specialized for that, and it risks the wrath of the Lords.
    4) Dandeer plot. Doesn't fit, she'd likely be focusing on different things.
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    Option 5: They want to join the alien army and reveal to the world that the Saiyans still live, something something reach for the stars, something something Saiyan Empire.
     
    Clearly this is a faction of Saiyajins that think the race has grown weak in it's years of isolation and wants to remove any chance of a peaceful resolution to instead have a proper and all out war.
     
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