Board Thread:What Would You Do?/@comment-28718853-20180403152732/@comment-30014014-20180407202238

Such a shame, it was a nice dinner...

Trevor raises his arms in defense, his eyes squinted, bracing for impact. An impact that never came. They all came crashing down on themsleves, locked in a struggle between each other to claim the man who's dinner they ate. Smoke erupts as they kick up a considerate amount of dust, the noise of battle drowned in the same looped sentence "He's mine! No he's mine!"

Trevor was a handsome man. True, his cooking was on part with masters of other continents, but, he had the uncanny advantage of bearing sublime beauty. Golden lavish hair, a flawless visage, a seductive voice and a peerless physique. Perhaps that was what tipped the group of Zodiac-affliated women to go for the pot of gold.

Trevor could not see what occured under the heavy shroud of smoke, but, seeing magic being thrown all around the room, breaking the floor, walls and ceiling was more than enough for him to attest to the ferocity of the skirmish that was happening in front of him. Never would he have thought that any of them were still single. His mind returns to the letter he was given this morning A dinner for twelve, but only one may have you. Putting the dots together about the fact that this may have been more than a mere dinner, what with the lifeless city was easy.

He knew not, but this was a regular occurence. Each year, at the departure of the previous to make way for the current, 12 Zodiac monsters come together, a pack for anything from artistic pursues to physical prowess to discover who's year was it, meaning that other cities had similar trials. One way they did for countless eons, place a male with talent at a certain task among 12 individuals and pit them against each other. Whoever manages to swoon the man to their side will be the current year. Not only a way to see what year becames the current, but as a way to bring single monsters with someone linked to them, they keep friendly contact, purposly make competitive as to have each bring their upmost, fate being the decider of who get to be celebrated for the year.

Trevor walks to the cloud of smoke, clearly distressed at lovely women biting, slashing and hitting each other in the name of instincts "Ladies, ladies, please! You'll hurt yourselves!" Alas, an unindentified source of attack plummets straight at him, the force more than enough as a driving force...

The cacophony of smahed glass and a yell of distress had made their way to the skirmish, causing all of them to halt their endeavor, each about to strike another. "Wait, wait, wait" speaks the dragon, drifting her gaze away from the manticore she was engaged in a slug-fist with. Her head twitches from side to side, lingering on a fractured window. She runs through with no hesitation, smashing more glass to engage in a free fall. Here, with gravity drving her body to the surface of the pavement, she spots Trevor several meters down, his body convulsing uncontrollably in the winds of panic.

"Damn it! I'm coming!" screams the dragon, her scally claw driving the momentum behind her body in an effort to reach the man, making little of friction with her wing folded to slice through air.

"Oh lord! Oh God! This can't be happening!" His panic-induced twitches make him deaf to the reptile diving behind him, so close. Her finger, pratically tasting the collar of his immaculate uniform. She would catch him, and surely, wint him over. She can feel the connection between them. He was born under the Zodiac of the dragon. They are meant to be together. A mere fall will not get in the way of her getting her most sought treasure.

...except it did. Just before the index of her scale could latch on his collar, the shivering sound of collision had snuffed her hopes. Trevor had fallen directly on a city light, shutting any response from him. The harrowing stare of the dragon worsens as she is unable to detatch her eyes on his collapse from the light to a car, pressing the metallic vehicle with his moderate weight.

"No..." Her gaze is livid, her impending world, shuttered away before it could begin. Words, share, touch, all withered away in her mind, to the point where her fall on the city hydrant is naught but white noise to her.

"No, no, no". Slowly rising from the fractured cement, her stare still lingering on the cradle body of the unresponsive man. Hugs, embraces, kisses, all ripped away from her heart, way she'd shun her pride for a moment of intimacy, played in a feedblack, chalked in gray.

"No, no, no, no!" Her paces dent much of the passengers' walk side, attempting any and all denial of his passing, hoping her hands could cradle him back to life. Chef, lover, fiancee, husband, father of her unborn children, the one for her, laying on the wreck of the car...

...dead.

The rest of the Zodiac representative had by then descended by stairs, save for the manticore, gliding at a much slower fall than the dragon. They all witness her cradling the dead man in her arms, forcing herself not to give away to tears while seeping out her threnody. Sitting on top of the broken car, Trevor nursed like a widow to her deceased. Their heads collectively lower in a mourning gesture, the darkness of the night veiling most of their features. An unfortunate unprecedent in the Zodiac Trial. No breath lifitng his stomach. No twitches driving his eyes. No heart beat pulsing through his chest.

Nothing, but the fizzling sound of sparks, spooking the dragon out of her jeremiah "What?!" She brushes tears out of her drowned eyes, a glimmer falling on the deceased. How the sound resonates with a solid metallic response, startling her even more so "What is this?!" Her voice still reels from the ruined promises when she decides to run a claw over his resting visage. her nail is met not with the dying temperature of a human skin, but the cold touch of steel.

The others, especially the hakutaku, had picked up on the strange. Man is made of flesh,blood and bones. This one had skin of metal. The pillar of knowledge walks among the rest, holding her furry hands out to the dragon "That is abnormal. May I hold him for a moment?"

The dragon instinctively hold tightly to him, confusion between a protective anger and denial. "I'll be careful, alright?" she insists, drawing her hands to the weeping reptile trying to swallow her pride. Slowly, she directs his remains to the hakutaku for her eyes to inspect his body. She pulls the uniform away, met with a starking discovery.

"This man is no man..." she whispers, prompting the rest to approch, each of their eyes collectively widening up. What they look at, were the grisly remains of a machine. Where is heart should be, a sizable vial of spirit energy operating as the machine's lifeblood. Gogs and circuits instead of organs and blood, steel over bones. This was an android.

The dragon approaches as well, her epiphany striking much more strongly than the rest "Then, he's still..."

"Must be, but then begs the question: why a machine?" speaks the hakutaku, pulling out the vial of SE to observe it.

"Anyone has this android's adress?" asks the dragon, her sorrow renied to outrage. Making one of her kind cry, only for it to be a fallacy of present in the beginning, she was having none of that. Being foiled in a sacred tradition, an unacceptable offense.

"Well, yes, an appartment at the edge of the city, 229, St. Lucida, but--

With no more, she spreads her wings in a spetactular display, the crimson scales taking off before any of them could utter anything. The manticore, astonished by this sudden hot-blood, looks at the direction where the red tide trails "Well, that'll be the first time I see her rushing like that..."

"I don't blame her..." states the hakutaku, still holding the vial "It's been years since one born under the dragon has been spotted, let alone in the trial where she stood by. Now that one is here. she has no reason not to follow through. After all, she did leap head first out the window".

The werewolf shrugs with a grin "Well, guess this mean 'tis the year of the dragon. Lassy better get that prize of hers".

They watch her disappearance into the night, hoping to claim her rightful prize. Her prize, standing at the very edge of the border of this city, the lights still on amidst a lightless town. Within the walls of said appartment, a visor was jolting with the fizzle of dead responses from the hud of the avatar. The man wearing it, as well as other pieces of equipment sighed in resignation " I can't believe they actually threw it out the window".

He pulls off the visor and sets it on the counter of his living room, walking to the kitchen before a plate of everything he had prepared, but scaled down for one man. A bite of this, a sip of that, he goes for the closet, and flips a switch. Machinery springs to life, the closet opening up to yet another advanced piece of hardware sembling a man in his prime. It's chest compartiment opens up, allowing him to place the source of life for the machine: hiw own spirit energy, harnessed and distilled in a gold-encased vial "Aw well, good thing I have spares in case of a disaster like that. As much work as this is, cooking is a passion for me. Can't have this set me back".

"So, this is your machination?" a voice roars through his window, causing him to look through. A crimson woman, wings red as blood, and a dress adorned in battle fashion form the chinese wardrobe, looks back from the window, startling the man.

"You! You're the--

"I'm one of them, yes. Surprised? The dragon. The one who wept for a lifeless machine!" she punches through the window, setting shards of glass all around, forcing the man to cover his face behind his arms. Steps chording clearly in his ears, over breaking shards. He backsteps all the way to the kitchen counter. "Is this funny to you? Sending a machine to play puppet?! In a place where a man of flesh and blood was of utmost necessity?! Playing with my heart strings?!"

"You're misunderstood. I do not practice this act in for a cheap comedy--

"I cried in front of them!" voice booms all across the neighborhood "They saw me weep like a damn maiden just for me to realize that there were no man to begin with! And you speak of this as a mere misunderstanding?!" Exactly what kind of sorry excuse would this transcribe to--

Her yelling stops, Trevor since long walking to his newest android. With a press of a button, the android is set on its feet, with him standing next to it "Look at it, then at me...and you'll understand..."

Lassy takes a quick glare at both of them...then a moderate one gaze...and a deliberate stare. The difference began flourishing. The machine, beautiful, strong, appealing, flawless. A pinnach of man in the eyes of those seeking beauty.

Trevor, average, somewhat feeble, easily forgotten, ripe with small physical imperfections. Were it not for his legendary cooking skills, he would likely be unnoticed.

"When I started working for the 81th floor..." he starts speaking, walking away from the android "I noticed quickly that those eating here, paying for my cooking would demand for a more appealing cook. A painfully average individual such as I would never have stood here beyond face value unless I made some drastic changes..."

"Physical changes..." Lassy whispers, looking back at the machine. Even she couldn't help but admire its flawless design.

"Precisely " Trevor nods "A design based on the most handsome men following surveys collected worldwide. A friend in engineering helped me set up shop where we started working on whet I've gathered. Call off as a surgical change, I've ever since practised my profession from the comfort of my home, always starting here what I would replicate further. Unfortunately, being a newcomer to this place, this lifeless city I've experienced this day was not planned for. Nor were there twelve of you, representatives of your kind making an implicit selection...".

"So you didn't know..." Lassy asks, knowing he alreayd answered her "...assuming your replica didn't fall off the window, wht then? What would you have done had I declare the year of the dragon?"

She looks at him, the anger in her eyes long washed away, given way to an expectation. One couting his reveal as a pilot to a machine. A stark opposite of what she hears "I don't know...perhaps modification to my units. I've learned to know monsters are a more physical kind than humans, so with the appropriate changes--

"And that's where I've got a bone to pick with..." she whispers, her voice once more booming across the street. She walks to the machine, speaking along "Maybe you didn't know much about this, this I can take..."

Her scaled hand grabs the android's hair, turning to face Trevor with it, anger swelling once more "...but to think I'd actually share my intimacy with a cold machine is where I draw the damn line!!" With a press, the head of the machine is crushed in her palm, a spetacle of fizzling sparks flooding the remains of its central unit "You thought I'd be content with this? You thought any of us would be content with this? This?! Just because its physical appearance is somewhat over the average man?! Are your thoughts of us as creatures to shallow that we'd go with it?!"

She throws the machine over the counter in a fit of rage, forcing Trevor to duck to dodge it, her outrage undone as she pulls the door out of the closet, seeing aother copies fo the same android "Or those?! Is this what you tought would happen?! That a machine would satiate my yearn for someone that would hug me from behind? Kiss me? Cook for me? Become my very confident? A husband to share the bed with?! A father to my unborn children?!" she spit, fire cracking in her throat, spweing out like a river at the copies, melting each of them away at Trevor's terrified stare, looking for the extinguisher.

"No, no! My work! What will I do now..." he whimpers, his foam dispencer choking away the flames, but all too late. His pristine machines are naught but smoldering wrecks. Trevor drops to his knees, even as Lassy walks in front of him "Oh dear, what will I do now? I-I can't go to work like this...not like this..."

Looking down at his impending existential crisis, she hunkers down to his size, placing her hands on his cheeks to lift his eyes to her. Forced was he to considerate the drastic difference in their appearance.

"Never will my treasure be of steel and circuits. Why so when the one I stand with is soft to the touch?" she speaks, slowly measuring her words "I've waited far too long for my selected mate to be nothing but nuts and bolts..."

"Madam, look at me..." he states, to mirror the desolation to his frame "...is this what you would proudly prance around with? In the streets during the day? I am no hunk. No athlete. No model, nothing but a cook".

"Exactly..." with that said, Lassy presses her lips on the man's with eyes shut, while his widens. Initially resistant to the idea, it rapidly looses itself in the warm tide of her breath, his mind welcomed to rapture. His stance chips away the last ounce of restraints and he ends up welcoming this somewhat impromptu kiss...

...on that eventually ends with them wanting. "...you lack the physique..." she states, holding his head on her chest with whispers "...but you hold everything else someone would search for in a mate.Those machines could never hope to hold a candle to a true man for any of us, much less one with nothing else to offer in the way of warm blood".

"I see". Trevor's hands are hugging back, the vague thought of his backup plan to set up a few more machines dying with every second "Then I guess this spells the end to Trevis..."

"Trevis?" she looks at the charred metal, having by then spelt alarms across the appartment "Ohh, that...forget it. My treasure won't be making use of those anymore".

"I guess that means I won't be going tomorrow..."

Lassy scoffs, remembering the spot where they hasd set up "Hmpf, screw them! If those thankless hacks can't bear to look at a face they don't consider to be of their own sheltered standards, which they barely do at the back of the kitchen anyway, they have no damn business bloating themselves on the palm of my treasure! I have a place that could use miracle hands like yours. One filled with people who's standards are not narrowed down to their own belly buttons".

"Really?"

"It'd be a crime not to have others have stars exploding in their eyes with national treasure that are your hands. And frankly, I'll have no business raising our offsprings in this dump!"

"Ohh..." Trevor sighs in relief for but a second before blood rises to his cheeks "Wait...offpsrings?!"

Lassy giggles a bit, pressing her chest against the man's "Ohh, did I forget to mentio how long I've waited for a suitable man? Motherhood is long overdue for me, and now..." Her face becomes flustered like the scales of her body, breath gaining in density to the point of fanning mild flames "...I've a father that can cook for them, to grow strong and fit. Passing an opportunity like that...would be unforgivable~