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Post by Lorie Zetros on Aug 16, 2023 14:04:58 GMT
As it turned out, Su's recommended establishment was not in fact, on the third floor, with the other restaurants - likely high-class ones, based on the signage they passed by on the way down. Instead, they passed all those, took an external stairwell all the way down to the ground floor, darted back into the mall, and rode down the escalator to the basement. Golden Arches greeted them as they descended to the bottom. The distinct smell of... something salty and deep-fried filled the air even before they got off. Some health snobs might turn up their noses, but Lorie didn't care about such peasant concerns. All that was important was the taste. It certainly had a pleasant aesthetic about it, a strange mixture of corporate efficiency, with just enough panache to not be called bland and soulless. Warm, earthy colours like different shades of brown. Subtle off-white ceramic floor tiles, wallpaper with a convincing wood-like pattern, and clean, but not blatantly plastic tabletops. It certainly straddled a line, but depending on one's upbringing, this could very well count as classy. Su took their number from the counter and led her to sit down on a waiting couch as they waited their turn. Well it was definitely fast food. "It certainly has its own unique... charm..."Lorie took another breath, and that strangely enticing salty, fatty scent wafted into her nose again. "We will have to see if the food is charming as well."[243/2161/8] Kanagi Su
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Post by Kanagi Su on Aug 17, 2023 11:40:58 GMT
"Well, you just have to be patient to find out," Su said, and patiently they waited, until their number was called.
"Number 69, number 69" the attendant spoke loudly in order to gain their attention whilst trying her best not to laugh.
"That's our number," she said, stood up and entered the restaurant.
Now most restaurants insists that you go up to the counter and shout your order as loud as you can in front of the staff behind it, but this one keep things more civilized, through electronic interfaces. Inside this McDonald's are multiple touchable screens, which is also the menu. Su went up to one of the screens and tapped her order, and after she finished, she simply moved to the side, letting Lorie choose hers, "basically, after we ordered and confirmed our foods, this interface immediately transmits our order to the counter, and it will also give us a receipt with a number on it, meaning we have to wait......again," she explained.
"At least this place is slightly faster than normal restaurants," she said and looked around the restaurant.
[But that's weird, this place would usually be flooded with customers by now, I mean it's not even a weekday today......] Su checked the time through her phone, 10:00 am, one hour after the grocery store opened, and also the time which a lot of customers will flood in. Su looked around again, this floor, which has the most food shops, are abnormally empty.
[Maybe I'm thinking too much?] She thought to herself. (257 words)
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Post by Lorie Zetros on Aug 17, 2023 13:18:56 GMT
Lorie stood up and followed her "tour guide" to one of the menu screens and watched how it was done. Once Su stepped aside, Lorie took her turn to pick, well... whatever it was that tickled her fancy, honestly. But since breakfast was the most important meal of the day, at least she'd been taught repeatedly, then it might as well have been something big. At the end of the day, it came down to a meal starring either the so-called BigMac, or the Quarter Pounder, with supersized "french fries", and her choice of soft drink (also supersized). Now, she might have just been imagining things, but it seemed fascinating that there of the many varieties of carbonated beverages, each planet she had eaten fast food on would have some spin or another. She knew nothing about any of these names, but she would play it safe to order the transparent one. Why? Because in all of her travels to various worlds with carbonated drinks, she knew that no transparent drink would ever be mistaken for that bubbly, cloying, happy drink that the Bureau loved so much... root beer. They kept serving it at the FIeld Base, and it was utterly tiresome at this point. Lorie punched in her order and got her receipt, as per Su's instructions. At least it seemed reasonably affordable. She closed her eyes for a moment. That salty deep fried smell assailed her senses again, and it was strangely starting to grow on her... "Then do we wait until our number is called? Or does this establishment serve tables as well?" That would be a miracle for a fast-food restaurant, that was for sure. [279/2440/9] Kanagi Su
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Post by Kanagi Su on Aug 18, 2023 12:11:46 GMT
"Yeah, this McD is one of the rare ones that serves tables," she answered.
Su pointed at a smaller number in the receipt to Lorie, "that's our table number, if I remember correctly that was at the topmost floor," she said, "you can either go there by stairs, escalators or elevators" she continued. "You can go take a seat there first, I'll go join you with our order later, after all, that line is going to take a while to shorten," she said and pointed at the great line in front of the counter in order to wait and acquire their order.
She soon walked to the very back of the line and joined them in their adventurous quest of standing in line and patiently wait for their order to be handed to them so they can go see their friends, wife, children, lover, pets, or just simply sit in a lonely corner thinking about life.
Each and every person in this line has a different story, some has a family, some has a group of friends, some has a lover in front of the mall entrance, some have hungry pets in their homes, but they are all doing the same thing, waiting for the arrival of food. And Su was no otherwise as the line shortens person by person. (220 words)
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Post by Lorie Zetros on Aug 19, 2023 9:59:41 GMT
"So that's how it is here..." Lorie nodded silently as she examined first the receipt, and then the long line. "In that case, we shall go find the table and await the order." Now, of course, there was the simple explanation that Su was simply being courteous and considerate. These common things were taught to people in a civilised society, after all. But to someone like Lorie, who despite her parents' best efforts grew up in a particularly bad way, this was simply a sign that her heritage was being honoured. Never mind that the average citizen from Administered worlds had at most heard of the Sanktkaiser, rather than of the various titles used by the eight Prince-Competitors. The rub in all this was that Su didn't really ask what an 'Archon' was, so Lorie simply assumed that she understood what it meant. At the very least, given her very Belkan name, it should have been a no-brainer to put two and two together that anyone who still had the audacity to use a title was either a con artist, or the real deal. Not that Lorie ever considered the possibility that people might suspect her of being a con artist, of course. After all, most Belkans were so horrified by the war's results that they gave up their very identities as Belkans. In her mind, only a true noble would cling to her family's pride. But all those considerations in her head were an aside. As she ascended the stairs to find their seat, it dawned on her that this "Muck-Dee" fast food establishment must have been quite the local powerhouse, if it consumed mall space from the basement all the way to the top floor. It was either that, or she had not been to enough malls on Administered worlds to compare their influence to this one.... Truly one of the great mysteries of her time. [318/2758/10] Kanagi Su
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Post by Kanagi Su on Aug 20, 2023 10:17:02 GMT
It was a few minutes, probably 10 minutes, since Su was in the great wall of people waiting for food. And her legs, are about to give in, she pulled her phone out and looked at the time and sighed, "I hope Lorie-san isn't an impatient type......" she mumbled.
Bit by bit, the wall shortens as numbers were called, but as soon as the next person went to the counter, everything went from your average Saturday in Kamihama, to your average every day in Kamihama.
"Number 451," the staff called, and the person with said number went up to the counter, placed an empty bag on the counter and pulled out an AK-47 and aimed it at the staff, "put the money in the bag," he said and the staff, obviously scared, slowly opened the machine and placed money into the bag. Meanwhile, Su was looking around with pure confusion as the customers simply did not bat an eye at the robber or call the police, as if this is the normal for them.
The robber, getting impatient, aimed his AK-47 at the ceiling and fired it off, and EVERYONE, including Su, all crouched to the floor and screamed.
[OH, SO NOW YOU ALL PANIC!] She thought, the man grabbed a girl by her hair and aimed his barrel at the side of the forehead, in front of the staff. "If you don't hurry the f- up I will blow this woman's brains out, and after that yours, and after that this entire restaurant." He shouted at the staff, and she quickened her speed.
Now, Su can use her magic in this situation, but she can't since she doesn't know any combat magic, at all. She could use strike arts......if she learned them. Heck, she defeated the familiar from last night by simply bashing her staff at it.
Basically, she's in great danger. (314 words)
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Post by Lorie Zetros on Aug 20, 2023 12:00:42 GMT
Lorie stifled a yawn as she struggled to keep herself awake. While the view was nice, and she could consider this part of the city tour, that line truly had become atrocious given how many people were in place. Just as she was about to take a sip of the complimentary water - in a paper cup of all things - that she had taken from the nearby dispenser, her ears perked up at what sounded like firecrackers somewhere beneath her. This was soon followed by... cheering? Which sounded oddly like screaming. What an odd city this was... firecrackers in the morning? Not even Midchilda was so obtuse. <<Mass Weaponry discharge detected, meine Herrin,>> Hofud streamed his alert directly into her mind. <<Approximate distance: 3 stories.>>Lorie's eyes widened. That really was screaming, then. Still... mass weaponry. Unsurprising that local criminals would use such armaments. This world at large had not yet discovered magic, after all. On the one hand, that meant she had the advantage. On the other hand, the Bureau was clearly uptight about secrecy. So how was she supposed to resolve this? Well... technically she didn't have to. None of the locals were important to her, and one could argue that perhaps Su would be able to deal with them due to her magic... She did have magic, right? She was probably wearing a minimised Device somewhere on her person. But that was never really confirmed one way or another. Which meant... Lorie sighed in resignation. So how was she supposed to do this without getting discovered? It wasn't that she particularly cared for Su per se. It was that if this happened under her watch, the Bureau would eventually find out she did nothing... and of course, she would not get to sample this Muck-Dee's food. This would be a completely irksome waste of time. And that, she could not allow to pass. She stood up and adjusted her tie before making her way back down the escalator. The self-styled Archon didn't need to use magic to dispatch one or even several normals armed with automatic slug throwers. She was a Belkan sovereign. Merely punching a normal hard enough would do the trick. Lorie cracked her knuckles as the third escalator trip brought her slowly down to the basement level, where the counter, line, Sue, and thugs were. The challenge wasn't going to be taking them down unarmed. It was going to be holding back enough so that a single punch didn't reduce the criminal's head to a fine red mist. Just briefly, she allowed a predatory smirk to form on her face before the scene came into sight. "Oh my! Big man with a nasty broomstick. Set that aside, and what are you?"[456/3214/11] Kanagi Su
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Post by Kanagi Su on Aug 20, 2023 12:24:54 GMT
[Wha-, Lorie-san?!] Su turned her head to Lorie's voice as she slowly approached the robber, [what is she planning to do?!]
The robber scoffed as he turned around with hostage in hand and pulled out a knife as he wrapped it around the hostage's neck , "I'm going to kindly ask you not to interfere, miss," he said in a sarcastic tone as he aimed his AK-47 at Lorie and slowly moved it to the left and right as he unloaded lots or freedom upon the poor civilians and staff, some of them even died. Su sat at her place as she looked at a bleeding dead body right in front of her eyes and covered her ears as more screams of pain and fear, along with the AK-47 firing can be heard.
after almost everyone was killed, the robber stopped firing and threw a GRENADE at the kitchen behind the counter, blowing it up and since the McD was close to the shopping mall, well almost half of it went up in flames. Soon customers from the upper floors came flooding down to the basement but most of them are sadly gunned down by the robber.
As for Su, you can't seriously ask her to adapt herself to this situation, so she just sat there, terrified, scared and is silently praying to god to let her live. "Oh, you're alive......" the robber sliced the hostage's throat to half and made her into a blood fountain as he aimed his gun at Su.
"Someone, please, help me......" She mumbled under her breath.
(261 words)
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Post by Lorie Zetros on Aug 20, 2023 12:49:38 GMT
Lorie kept her poker face. But inside, she cussed. Was this planet only apparently civilised? Were they in fact, a bunch of savages? The most obvious argument against such a claim was that they had managed to build a civilisation to this level. Of course the counterargument was that perhaps, someone else had bestowed it upon them, and they were just bad at handling this responsibility? She would have to ask about any evidence of intervention by an advanced species in their history. Of course, the third explanation was that they were relatively civilised. It's just that criminal elements such as this one were more susceptible to manipulation by Hexes and their ilk. If that familiar from before was any indication, they held some kind of powerful psychic capabilities. "We were waiting for a burger, you Köter." In the blink of an eye, she was right in front of him, twisting the barrel of the rifle into a pretzel with one hand. Her other hand found its way around his free arm and started twisting it slowly. "Do you have any idea how long we've been waiting?"She continued to twist the arm, the bone creaking but not quite cracking. A quick nudge from her leg to the back of his knees brought him down to the floor, now looking up at her. "You've now made this entire morning a waste, Köter. Do you have anything to say in your defence?"[241/3455/12] Kanagi Su
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Post by Kanagi Su on Aug 21, 2023 10:59:10 GMT
The man was shocked by Lorie's strength as she twisted his gun and pinned him down. As for his slowly creaking hand, he simply ignored it. "Do I look like I give a f- about what the f- are you doing? I have had enough of this city and its irresponsible government, I will never forgive them for taking away everything I loved, and I will absolutely not resort to peaceful measures in order to change their minds."
his face looked at Su and chuckled, "the little girl over there, it is a shame that you have to suffer a more horrible fate than the dead bodies lying in front of you, the same applies to you rich, spoiled motherf-" of course, he was referring to Lorie.
"In this world, religion is a lie, integrity is simply a tool of murder, morals are obsolete, peace and harmony are bulls-, the only thing that is true......is violence!" He shouted as he unzipped his jacket, he had wrapped 2000 C4's around himself with an inverted cross as a necklace around his neck. After praising the demons in a language that's probably Latin, the man pulled the pin and soon exploded into evaporated blood and organs.
(204 words)
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Post by Lorie Zetros on Sept 16, 2023 14:27:59 GMT
Such an insolent and vulgar tongue. Oh, how Lorie would have loved to rip it out of his mouth and then shove it right back down his throat. But there was a morbid curiosity, an amusement that let a little insect prattle on as the child slowly tore off its wings. Lorie snapped his wrist like a twig, and she found herself disappointed that he continued to prattle on about his suffering. Maybe certain other Volunteers at the base were right when they said this planet was full of barbarians. He then ranted on Su and herself directly, about how worse they were going to have it. "Pathetic and insectile. You think hollow words can threaten us?"The self-proclaimed Archon scoffed and stood up above him. Surely, he wouldn't be a threat with a broken arm? At the very least, he shouldn't be a threat now that his focus was on someone who wasn't a pathetic bystander. His earlier action was erratic. Unpredictable. She had tried to get him to focus on her but apparently, he was so insane that he shot up the restaurant's entire basement floor instead. That was irrational. Most gunmen would have tried to shoot her to make an example of someone who tried to show off and be a hero. That was always her experience. Instead, he had shot everyone else. But still, he went on. At this point, Lorie kicked him in the shin just to get the last word in. "The world is more complex than your depraved nihilism would-"That was when he opened up his jacket revealing himself to be wrapped up with... a strange plastic substance? "Huh?"Hofud suddenly spoke up, raising alarms. "Materialanalyse: Hochexplosiver Stoff! Gefahr!"The shooter pulled the pin. On instinct, Lorie raised her open hand in the man's direction, summoning a wall of mana. Just as quickly, she closed it into a fist, and the golden light enveloped the shooter. Less than a second later, the explosives went off, and while they were contained within the bounds of the haphazardly set up barrier, the results inside were not pretty. Nor was the fact that only the two of them had survived. She went over to Su. "Can you stand? He's gone, but I'm keeping a scan up of the area. Security will be here soon."And the last thing she wanted was to have her face plastered on the news for this incident. She made a big mistake, and if every local was like this, then there was no room for playing around. This was a stain on her honour. She would not let such a thing happen again. [443/3898/13] Kanagi Su
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Post by Kanagi Su on Sept 17, 2023 8:15:53 GMT
Su's eyes are completely blank from trauma and fear, and she didn't reply to Lorie for a while.
"I can stand up......probably," she said as she tried standing up, only for her legs to suddenly give in and she dropped to the ground.
She slowly stood up again and tried walking, but her footsteps are wobbly, and it is very visible that she will fall at any given time. Her brain was still processing what she just saw and also her near death experience. She also wondered how Lorie was so used to seeing what just happened, a man blowing himself up and his blood and organs are all over the place within the barrier, remembering that suddenly made Su want to puke but she held it in. She slowly walked out of the McD, but just then her vision became foggy, and her footsteps were slowly becoming more unstable. Yet even so, she pressed on, and slowly walked to the mall building, her consciousness fading bit by bit.
"Just a little but more......" She mumbled to herself as she slowly closed her distance with the mall building's entrance, but before she can grab the handle, her body and mind gave in.
Su fainted. (205 words)
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Post by Lorie Zetros on Sept 21, 2023 10:23:17 GMT
It didn't take a medic or healer to see that Su had serious trouble processing what had just happened. It was quite clear at this point that she was most definitely a civilian. And while one would mistake Lorie for a posh, sheltered socialite due to how she presented herself, her demeanour was simply something she grew up with. It was her own way of coping with the last few years of having been thrown out of home to fend for herself. To say that she had seen some rather gruesome things during her mercenary time was an understatement. Her dogged aristocratic pride often landed her in some truly ugly scrapes. This kind of thing was just another Tuesday for her. It was ugly, yes. Absolutely unsightly. But long gone were the days she would end up like Su, who she slowly followed to the exit until collapsing. Lorie looked around at the empty hallway. Partly because it wasn't opening time yet still. But mainly because of what had just transpired. The cameras were still rolling, though. She would have to ask some techies to remove them from the picture. But for now, she needed something to get them away from security, and maybe even the police. The disowned heiress clasped the cross hanging from her neck and muttered, "Set up a Temporal Field, Hofud. Just for the three of us." One acknowledgement and a burst of mana later, and they found themselves in that eerie empty space where time didn't matter and Techmages could fight without fear of consequences. In retrospect, she should have done this to isolate the gunman. But she had let her guard down, and this was the result. The cost of arrogance was an injury to pride. Now with the freedom to do a bit more, she called on the nearest Hex Hammer facility, Field Base Sakae. The response was immediate, and after explaining the situation, she was told that a cleanup crew would be deployed soon. For the two of them, though, they would just have to sit tight until the base's Transporter station could lock on to their signals and beam them in. Suffice it to say, once Su woke up, she would find herself in the base's infirmary. For now, at least, Lorie set her straight so she didn't wake up with a stiff neck or something. It wasn't for any real concern about her, however, as it was the optics. What would the agents say if they saw her just standing there while the person she was accompanying was just... lying in a heap? Yes, that's what this was about... appearances. [440/4338/14] Kanagi Su
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