Let Me Go Gravity - The Reaper's Game CYOA

A. Because Zachi said.

B???? Well B to be different

Mike could hear the Lycos howl, which prompted Zachi to grab him and pull him away from the corner. Jets of fire streamed past, the heat forcing them to squint.

"Why do they have a tell?!" Mike yelled up at the Reaper Shadows, ducking around the fire to get a lock on one of the Shadows.

"Do you even thi-!" The Shadow was interrupted by Mike's Rushdown roundhouse kick to its face. And he wasn't just showing off there. He was angling himself to put the other Pin painting Shadow in view. He swung his bat to Rushdown the target and smashed through the final Shadow and its Pin in progress. He landed, and turned around to see Zachi's handiwork.

Zachi missed Mike's flashy move since she was paying more attention to the Lycos charging for her position. Eyes focused, she inked down in front of, and exactly, where their two front legs hit the ground in stride. Their feet stuck fast, and their momentum carried them flipping up and over themselves, causing them to land in the ink pool on their backs, notably facing away from her position. Instead, they faced Mike's position, and with another howl they attempted to roast him. Fortunately, Mike's Velocity Attack was more than quick enough to get him out of their line of fire.

Mike dashed over to the sigil. Xavier's actual body was still sitting in front of it, cross-legged, staring into its glowing patterns with a dull look on his face.

This thing has to go. Somehow.

He tried stamping it out. Didn't work. He dashed over it. Hit it with his bat. Stood over it and used Shred Rubber...nothing. It was basically just a chalk drawing. It was then that he heard a howl from beneath his feet, looked down, saw that another Lycos had just entered the picture, and a jet of fire shot him straight upwards. Luckily his barrier was still active, so he was just tossed, not grilled.

From the air, he saw that the Lycos charged straight for Zachi. and this one seemed to learn, since the moment it passed near where the other two were stuck, it let out a howl and jumped high into the air, clearing the puddle of ink that spawned where it would have stepped down next. Another ink splotch formed where its trajectory would lead it to touch down...but it never did, since it spat its flamethrower downwards, rendering it continuously airborne. Zachi took the cue to run. Mike dropped to the ground and dashed to her assistance. Or, that he would have done if he didn't trip and spill out of his Velocity Attack after a few steps.

Dammit, pin's out!

As he got up, his first glance was to Zachi, who took one look at the Lycos charging her, and decided to ink the ground around herself, and the nearby wall. The Lycos pounced and landed on its target, biting into her hard, but not before she could hit the detonator. Explosion jets from both the ground and the wall crossed over top of her position and vaporized the Lycos on top of her. Unfortunately, it also had the side effect of blowing up the two Lycos formerly on their backs who, annoyingly, survived the single explosion. They took their chance to pounce on the now fallen girls, but Mike hit Shred Rubber, giving her a shield that both Lycos wrecked themselves on.

"Zachi! Are you ok?!"

Mike ran the old fashioned way towards his partner, but then a chain grabbed him around his ankle and hoisted him up into the air.

"GYAH!"

The chain wrapped itself around his arms, and he was put face to face with another Reaper Shadow. Mike thought he had dealt with them all...apparently not.

"I have to do everything myself." Mike heard it mutter. He also heard the sound of another Lycos crawling out of the sigil.

"Lemme go!" Mike yelled. He didn't know why. It was kind of instinct.

"Pathetic."  Xavier's shadow replied. He whistled down and the Lycos approached Zachi's prone body. It looked like it was fizzling around the edges. Under Xavier's commands, the Lycos didn't immediately pounce on its target. Instead, it walked over and simply bit down on Zachi's arm.

"AUGH!"

Mike jolted, feeling the pain in his arm. His eyes darted around in a confused haze, and Xavier seemed to pick up on that.

"What. A. Plebeian. Let me explain in words you'll understand." Xavier's Shadow said, as condescendingly as possible, "Your life and your partner's life are linked. She should have been Erased by now, but luckily you had enough life force to share. Bu now that she's empty, when she gets hurt, you do instead. Until you're both used up. It's quite poetic actually. You should be honored you get to experience it first hand."

The Lycos snarled and Mike winced as he felt his arm go completely numb. It then suddenly occurred to Mike that Zachi had probably felt it herself all those times he had gotten beaten up badly...

"You don't deserve last words." the Shadow said, as the Lycos howled.

Mike grimaced...but then looked slightly behind the Shadow and decided to say some anyways.

A) "Behind you."
B) "Duck."
C) "Stop sign."
D) Other

D: "GRAVITY!"

But seriously, that thing Emmpy said.

I have a lot of variable responses, but I'm having trouble Pekin the right one.

D.) Hey Listen!!! Stop it!!!!

"Alright chums, let's do this!"

Chris thought he might have heard someone say that, but it was hard to make out over the wind. Two of the five Lycos were being held airborne by small tornadoes erupting around him. He swung in arcs at one before him with the blades on his arms, leading with his left, cutting into openings with his right, making sure to watch his back since there were always two others trying to leap at him. He heard a howl and quickly jumped into the air in a back flip. The Lycos that was about to fry him received a swift impalement from above.

Unfortunately that failed to finish the Noise off. It rolled and tossed Chris towards the waiting mouths of the other two. Ever alert, he charged blade first into one to deflect its attacks, while the other was occupied by So-yeon. Raising a microphone to her mouth, she blew as hard as she could, and another tornado burst into existence around her before rocketing off to intercept.

Chris turned his head to give So-yeon a thank you nod, but instead gave her a look of worry and shouted "Behind!" since yet another Lycos had spawned from the Sigil and was in the process of pouncing towards the girl. She jumped to the side out of instinct, but even more helpful was a girl who teleported in to grab her and teleport her again out of harm's way. Well, helpful to So-yeon, not Chris, since two of the tornadoes were wearing off and that left him outnumbered four-to-one.

"Heads up!"

Chris tilted his head up and saw Mike on his bicycle in the air, in the process of giving a Rushdown blow to a previously immobilized Lycos. Gripping just the handlebars, he kicked the bike around in a tailwhip, smashing it into the weakened Lycos on the ground, Erasing it. The other airborne Lycos was sideswiped by a fire hydrant and pinned to the ground, stuck there by a patch of black ink that just so happened to be completely coating that annoying summoning Sigil.

Mike hit the ground running with Velocity Attack, peeling away from the fight, only to dash right back in. He rammed through a Lycos on the edge of the scuffle, knocking it towards Chris, who finished it off with an X-shaped slash with both arms. Mike's next target was the Lycos in the last tornado. He Rushdown-tailwhipped into the air to its side, and hit it out of the tornado and into the ink patch. From the air, he saw Sparkles pinning one Lycos down with her red light of pain, while Chris retreated from another Lycos before it breathed fire down his throat. Said Lycos was quickly Erased as it was run over by a Jesus-controlled car.

As Mike landed again, he saw Zachi casually walk up to the Lycos under Sparkles's light with that stop sign in hand. She slathered it with ink, and slapped it across the Noise's face, before hitting the trigger. The ink atop the sigil exploded, as did the Lycos caught within it. So-yeon looked quite impressed by the fireworks.

The smoke cleared, and the battlefield was finally quiet...but the Sigil was still there.

"Well that's it. I'm out of of ideas." Zachi muttered. Chris, however, was more proactive taking out his player pin.

"You have to do it like this." He said, pointing his Pin at the sigil. A beam of light shot out of the pin and hit the Sigil, seemingly burning it. Zachi looked for a moment, before trying it herself, and Mike followed suit, pulling up next to her. He could feel some kind of..."energy" vibrate the Pin as it did its work. Soon enough, the sigil was blackened beyond recognition.

Everyone breathed. Reality began to fade back in, indicating the fight was over.

"...these things didn't drop any money." Zachi muttered to Mike.

"I knew it. Pure evil."

Mike looked to Chris with a smile, but his attention was drawn away by Xavier, the real one, who was standing up for a change, and clapping as sarcastically as possible.

"Good job you ingrates! I hope you're all soooooo proud of yourselves." He stopped clapping. "And the worst part is...I can't even bring myself down to your level yet. Such is my inhumane punishment for today. But, I'm going to have a lot of fun determining the most beautiful way of Erasing you in the days to come."

"I've survived worse than you." Chris said, dead seriously, "Just get out of the way."

Xavier sat back down in front of the Victoria's Secret entrance and shook his head. "Not unless you're all degrading yourselves with products from this hellhole of debauchery." he said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. "My darling Alterna Lycos weren't part of the mission. I was just trying to have some semblance of integrity today." He said those last few words through gritted teeth.

Mike looked at the assembled company, and deflated.

"None of you have shopping bags."

Xavier scoffed, before pulling out a sketchbook and tuned the Players out. Mike checked his hand.

1:02:08
1:02:07
1:02:06

Sparkles sighed and shook her head, "There wasn't anything open at the mall. I asked a shopkeeper, and she said that D+B lingerie is only available in there right now." she gestured inside of the store.

Great. The key to the chest is inside the chest. Now what?

"There is...something that might work." Chris said, after giving it some thought. "The Player Pins can let us imprint on someone leaving, to convince them to discard what they just bought."

"Imprint?" Zachi asked.

"It's kind of like subtle mind control." Chris explained, shaking his head. "I really don't like it. But it's better and easier than stealing."

Is that what the GM did yesterday to the Tin Pin crowd? We can do that too!?

"Can you do it then?" Sparkles asked Chris.

"We all can, technically. But I don't practice." Chris said, somewhat defensively.

Zachi raised a hand. "There might be another way."

"What's that?" Mike asked.

Zachi pulled out her phone. "Phone calls attract Noise. The mission said we have to Erase all the Noise inside the store. But if all the Noise come outside the store...then..."

*Clap!*

Jesus clapped and pointed at Zachi, giving a thumbs up in approval.

"But that will drag Noise in from everywhere." Mike continued. "We could get overrun before the store empties."

"There's six of us." Chris said back, "I think we can handle it."

Sparkles cut in. "Easy for you to say big guy. I want to try imprinting. It might be a good skill to have later on. I don't have a problem. I'll do it."

"Could still be other options too." Zachi chipped in.

Ugh. It's like we're right back where we started!

A) Imprint method
B) Phone method
C) Other

A