Board Thread:Roleplay/@comment-30655593-20190720092525/@comment-29564364-20191004185745

"Like hell I'll leave that out!" Alex thinks aloud once the Alp is out of sight and out of earshot. "... Or maybe not."

"Why not?" asks the spirit.

"She just nearly killed a dude JUST for being a pervert, on top of looking like she could suplex that Kos over the city wall if she wanted to. I know to pick my battles, and a single glance at her will tell you she's someone you don't want to pick a fight with."

"But is theft not against the law and thus, should be reported regardless of who committed it?"

"Remember when I told you that the law isn't absolute and that there're situations in which it's better to ignore or break it? This is one of those. Do you want to see me folded in half and King K. Rool down threw like mister 'douche canoe'?"

"..."

"Exactly."

Holder sighs and would be shaking his head if his current form allowed him that liberty. "And me who thought that the current humans would be easier to understand..."

"Just keep watching and you'll eventually get there, my friend."

"By the way, are you certain this is the right path to the jailhouse?"

The question causes Alex to halt and take look around. He had wandered in a residential district where the streets were much more desert and quiet at night than in the part of the city he had familiarized with over the day, where the Crimson Brew is located. Most of the houses were sound asleep, safe for the glow of a few night owls' firelights who accompanied the street lanterns late into the night. "Damn it! I did it again! Luckily, we still have that map the guard gave us." He unclips the scabbard from his belt and empties it once more, however its content slips passed his hand and spills onto the ground, forcing on Alex the realization that his right forearm now had a glaring bend in it. "Holy shit! That guy hits like a truck! How am I gonna get that fixed without Outsider tech now?" He says, bowing down to pick up the stolen purse and his own. "Wait. Where's the map?"

"If memory serves right, Kos walking by distracted you from picking it up and you forgot to do so afterward."

"Why didn't you say so BEFORE we left the place?!"

"I didn't think it was worth mentioning."

"'Not worth mentioning'?! A map is an indispensable navigational tool when in an unfamiliar place; OF COURSE it's worth mentioning. It's like someone already did all the exploration for you so you don't to waste days doing it yourself, and you DON'T think it's worth mentioning?!"

"Oh, well I apologize for never having to rely on a drawing of the land bellow I could already see from the sky before meeting you! It's not enough that I lend you my power, you also expect me to shoulder the blame for all your shortcomings too? You use me to keep yourself alive; you use me to fix your sight; you use me to power your inventions – some of them don't even work without me! It'll be six years tomorrow and you STILL haven't thanked me even ONCE! All you ever do is use me like a tool!"

"Don't be ridiculous; of course you aren't just a tool to me! I literally gave you freedom and the opportunity to discover a new world through my own body! Or did you not spend enough time in that cave of yours?"

"Being stuck to someone else, unable to even move an inch on your own is hardly what I would call freedom!"

"But you would've been able to soon if you'd held that off a little longer!"

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Nick, asks.

"Ugh. Guess we'll have to climb on a roof to get a better view. We can't be THAT far from the marketplace, right?" Realizing his blunder, Alex quickly changes the subject, completely ignoring his partner's question.

The blatant disregard for his question meant he'd never get an answer – Holder at least knew that much about Alex – and so, he simply moved along, albeit keeping an ear out for the slightest clue as to what exactly he could be hiding. "Or you could simply ask around for directions." he suggests.

"Ask ro who, Holder?" He swings open his left arm to emphasize the total desertedness of the street and, as if fate itself had heard him, a magic circle appears mere steps ahead, summoning a familiar petite figure and a tall cloaked one before vanishing.

"Emmelyn! What a pleasant surprise to be blessed with such fine company! Well, not that the standard was set very high..." Holder scoffs.

"Why do I feel attacked by that last line?"

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" the Gremlin lunges forward and delivers a resounding slap across the inventor's face, which staggers him, "It's only a prototype and the first thing you do with it is cross the sea? I was worried sick about you!"

"Please, Emy, the final glider could make a whole lap around Zipangu. It's only logical that it could make it across the sea if you slap a propeller on it."

"But what if you ran into a storm and crashed in the middle of the water?"

"Why do you think I stuffed the fuselage with those air balloons? Then it's just a matter of contacting you."

She takes her backpack off and fishes a projecting mirror out of it that she throws at him. "Oh, you mean with this? And contacting me won't do anything to save you from a swarm of monsters trying to drag you to the depths with them!"

"That's why I brought the emergency return scroll you made me."

"Are you sure about that? Because I don't remember making two of these." She rummages once again, this time pulling out said scroll. "And your compass, and your pocket clock, and your sextant, and your parachute, etc.! You didn't bring ANYTHING!" She takes out each item one after the other and throws them at Alex who struggles to catch even half of them. Meanwhile, Holder is rather pleased at the sight of him getting a semblance of comeuppance. "Now do you get why I was so worried?"

"Okay, okay, I get it! I'm sorry for forgetting my stuff and worrying you. Buuut, isn't me being here proof that it was for nothing?" he says with a slightly smug grin on his face.

"Oh, you..." she stomps the ground with her left foot as her anger flares up, before letting it go with a deep breath followed by a long sigh. "So, 'just a quick test flight,' huh?"

"Well, it was quick according to current transcontinental travel standards, only second to the teleportation spell."

"And where is the plane spending the night? Somewhere safe, right?"

"Well, it's a bit everywhere."

"Nowhere." the two reply at once, an answer that is met with the Gremlin's perplexed look.

" 'Everywhere and nowhere?' “ she sums up, crossing her arms, “Why do I have the impression that something bad happened to it?"

"Oh, believe me, it wasn't the plan A. If you will, I know of a nice tavern-inn not too far from here where I could tell you all about my day, but thing is, Holder and I've been lost for a while now."

"Sorry for interrupting, but is it normal that your... um... mysterious companion is leaving us?" the spirit chimes in, bringing attention to the black cloak as it floats up, just above the houses, then passes the inventor and disappears behind a roof.

“I dunno, but I bet it isn't.” Alex hastily gathers his equipment while Emmelyn brings her backpack to him.

“And you'd be right.”

He shoves the items inside, then bends his knees and extends his arms backward, offering a piggyback ride, "Alright! All aboard the Alexpress! We were planning on a little stroll on the roofs anyway. Holder, Overd–"

"Yeah, yeah. I know..." Holder begrudges and electricity starts coursing around Alex's body, lighting up blue the light grey lines on his clothes and rising his hair in a nice Van de Graff style.

"Where's your backbox?" the Gremlin inquires as she boards the Alexpress.

He leaps onto the nearest house and proceeds to give chase, Naruto running and jumping across the roofs. “Well, long story short, I had my stuff confiscated as a result of crashing the plane in this city.” he explains as his monocle zooms in on the fleeing cloak. It was going toward a brighter part of town. Tracing his trajectory – which was very easy to do since it was completely linear – led Alex's gaze to a familiar building easily recognizable by the fact that it was covered in ice.

“Say Al, do your boots happen to be out of your backbox?”

“Yeah, and they locked them away along with my stuff in the jailhouse, that frozen building over there.” he says, pointing forward. “Hang on a second. Why's it attracted to my boots?”

“Well, according to “the plan”, I was supposed to contact you when the time came, so I programmed it to follow your spirit energy once I'd have sent it over with the teleporstation. But since someone didn't bring their mirror, I had to come over myself and forgot to remove the command talisman.”

In under a minute of flight, the cloaked figure has reached its destination and lands in front of the jailhouse, soon followed by Alex and company. Emmelyn hops off of Alex's back and walks up to the building to examine the thick layer of ice covering each wall. “What an odd design choice...”

“So, who might be this new friend of yours?” Holder asks, growing increasingly curious of the newcomer.

“Not yet, sweetie,” she pulls a small clock out of her pocket and glances at it before putting it away, “we still have about [What time is it now?] left before midnight.”

“So now that it's found me, I suppose it won't be needing that, right?” Alex asks, pointing at the piece of paper showing from under the hood.

“Oh, of course! Actually, it's even better if you remove it before it does anything else.”

Alex reaches for the talisman, but before he can grab it, the thing moves again. It crushes the handle, rips the door clear off its hinges and carries it inside, much to the guard's and the two captive drunkards' surprise. It moves to the reinforced locker where the confiscated equipment is kept and stands in front of it, the door still in hand. The young inventor remains there for several seconds, stunned by what he just saw, then bursts into laughter. “That thing's dumb as a bag of negative IQ rocks!”

“Stop laughing!” the mamono shoves him into the room, clearly offended by the mocking of her work, “I didn't want to monsterize it and I had a... very, limited supply of your spirit energy to work with, so I had to cut corners on the programming.” she explains as she scans the room for something she could use as a stepladder. Glancing over the dumbfounded guard, she then goes for one of the chairs around the table without even acknowledging his presence and drags it over to her creation. "Perhaps that's why it takes those long pauses between actions..."

"So basically, it's so dumb that it takes forever to determine the next course of action and even fails in the execution as soon as it becomes as complex as opening a door?" he chuckles, walking over to her and snatching the talisman she was about to grab, “And what happened to the full mana cage of SE that we still had when I left? Don't tell me you used it as candy dip again...”

"Of course not! I needed it for... um... a-an experiment!"

"Yeah right..." Alex leans in close to Emmelyn's face with accusingly squinted eyes, "An experiment that involved spirit sauce and honey candies that is!"

"Hey! I told you it's not–"

"But hey," he straightens up and shrugs, "it's a donation. Once donated, what you do with it is none of my business... until you power your magical superweapon with it."

The guard that had been watching the entire scene unfold coughs in his hand, signaling his existence to the duo who had ignored him up until this point.

[Done.]