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Post by HHDeception on Oct 7, 2015 2:19:38 GMT -6
"I say split up" Sparkles said first.
Jesus nodded.
"Sounds good to me." Spencer added.
"Ok split. We'll cover more ground." Mike said.
"I'm with Mike" Zachi added
"Oh yes you are~" CC said cheerfully. This earned her a death stare from Zachi that actually managed to get her to stop smiling.
Chris threw up his hands. "Fine. Have it your way. Let's go So-yeon."
He turned to walk off. So-yeon waved a shallow good-bye before she turned and followed after him.
"I mean like, we still have phones? And texting?" Sparkles called after them, having her own phone in the air. In reply So-yeon raised hers.
"Dibs on the game store!" CC said, before hooking Spencer's hand with her limp arm and pulling him away. Spencer had a pretty big grin on his face.
Mike looked at Sparkles, who was purposefully not looking back at him. "Alrighty then. Let's go. Food court?" she said to Jesus, as they began walking.
Zachi nudged Mike.
"Let's go find lunch?"
"Uh...yeah."
They walked in the opposite direction.
*bzz bzz bzz*
Have fun you two~
- So-Yeon
*tap, swipe*
Mike rolled his eyes.
"I'mma guess that as the rock, the teasing doesn't bug you?"
Zachi shook her head. "No. this mistaken perception might affect our performance as a group. We must consider how to remedy our reputation."
"Right, " Mike said as they walked, "...ok so how do we do that?"
"Well you could start by not seeing me as attractive. That's certainly working on my end."
Stealth insult?
"...ok so how do I do that?" Mike said, attempting to mimic his previous question exactly.
Zachi shrugged, "Remember that if I wasn't dead I'd have a boyfriend."
"Who you're breaking up with."
"A measured calculation and one not due to lack of affection," Zachi replied, surprisingly quickly, "And besides I'd never date someone without a future like..."
Ooooh she went there.
Zachi stopped walking before Mike did. "I'm so sorry. That crossed a line." she said, doing her utmost to look remorseful.
Mike chuckled and shrugged, "Ah whatever. For an unfeeling unemphatic robot, you do a great job of making me feel less attracted to you."
Zachi, for once, had to think about that for a momnet. "It appears you've fried my sarcasm circuits. I will save face now by deflecting the topic and suggesting we eat sushi. I've still got cash."
She pointed behind Mike, to a small take-out sushi place. The outside wall had a Pin-to-Money Sigil, and there was a Red Hood standing just outside.
"Sounds good to me." Mike said, tilting his head to cue both of them to walk over. "You know, I kinda missed the Red Hoods. They're quite tame compared to those crazy Reapers in costume."
As they approached, the Red Hood took notice of them, stood up stiff straight, and immediately held out his hand.
"Halt Players! To access this shop you must best me in a duel!" the Reaper said with an air of officiation.
...that voice sounds...
Zachi raised an eyebrow. "Did you just say duel?"
The Reaper's composure immediately deflated casual, "Yeah, new orders from the GM Proxy. No Noise today. Just Reaper Duels."
"Why do I keep running into you?" Mike said all of a sudden.
The Reaper flinched a bit, but then attempted to slip back into character, "Uh...what? You have no idea what you're talking about."
"True," Mike said, "But that flinch proved it. You're that Reaper I've interrogated like twice now."
"Interrogated?" Zachi asked.
Mike nodded, "Yeah like...once with Sparkles during the Chimera fight...and then another time with Spencer. He works at the game store. Name is...Carl or something."
"Lawrence."
"Larry!" Mike said with a thumbs up, "Yeah that's right, he's Larry the Reaper. I thought you were suspended."
The Red Hood face palmed, palm disappearing under the hood's shadow. "I was reinstated, obviously. But you really get around, don't you man?" Larry the Reaper snapped back. "I mean like, first you were with the cute asian girl, then the french guy, now this one. To be honest she's kind of a downgrade."
Mike raised an eyebrow.
"I'll have you know you took my emotions, so such juvenile teasing is barely effectual." Zachi said, eyes narrowed.
"So you said duel?" Mike said, stretching his neck. "You wanna go?"
"Yeah. And drop the bully act," he said hands raised, "I've been told I can tell the players what's up. All the Reapers are out today, and you may challenge any of them to a single duel. It's a one-on-one match, no working with your Pact. One of you vs me. And you're allowed to use one pin only. Loser is the first one to take 100 hit points normalized damage."
"...normalized damage?" Zachi asked, before pulling out her phone.
"Soul damage is quantifiable, so we call it hit points, and then level scaling is applied...it's technical" Larry said, waving it off. "Point is, I won't have an advantage just because my pins are stronger than yours." He then pointed to the sushi shop, "If I win, then this is off limits to you for the rest of the day and I tell you nothing. If you win then you get to request something of me, like opening the shop, or a hint towards the mission. It's not to Erasure, just whoever gets the most hits in first."
"Sounds good." Mike said, eyeing him.
Zachi turned to Mike, speaking softly, "You're going to have to do this. I can't fight with just one Pin."
Mike returned the gesture, "I know. It's ok, I can take this clown."
"'Bout time I get some payback," Larry said, raising a red pin with a black skull on it, "Hold out the Pin you're going to use and challenge me."
A) Velocity Attack
B) Shred Rubber
C) Rushdown
D) Forget the duel, go elsewhere.
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Post by SummerCrow on Oct 7, 2015 2:30:51 GMT -6
Attack and general mobility, attack and defense, attack and extreme one-way mobility...
A.
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Post by SwordMasterEX on Oct 7, 2015 3:17:12 GMT -6
Quoth the crow, "A."
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Post by grayjack on Oct 7, 2015 16:06:09 GMT -6
A.
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Post by empireoffire on Oct 7, 2015 16:13:31 GMT -6
Sure. I'll jump on the A bandwagon.
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Post by HHDeception on Oct 8, 2015 2:55:08 GMT -6
Mike held out Velocity Attack.
"Let's get our game on!"
Something lit up in Zachi's head that reminded her of embarrassment.
"You did not just say that." She muttered.
"Hell yeah I did." Mike said proudly.
"Just Challenge me," Larry said, "That's how this works."
Mike held his other hand out to Zachi. "You still have your baseball bat? I lost mine fighting the whale."
It suddenly occurred to Zachi that she did, in fact, still have it in a pocket bound to the inside of her lab coat. She pulled it out and handed it to Mike, who grabbed it and swung it behind his head.
"...I challenge you to a duel!"
"Challenge Accepted."
Zachi watched as white light streamed out from both Mike and Larry's extended pins, followed by both duelists fizzling out of sight. Not one to be left behind, she quickly hit her Player Pin to join them.
When Mike came back into view he was flat on the same ground the Reaper was hovering a few inches above.
"You tried to sucker punch him didn't you?"
Mike didn't reply. He just sprung up, mouthed something, and dashed at Larry again, this time swerving around to hit him from the side. Unfortunately, what happened before happened again, and as Mike approached he seemed to hit an invisible fly swatter and was slapped backwards through the air.
The Reaper mouthed something. Mike mouthed something back. Zachi didn't need another hint to realize that she wasn't exactly on the same wavelength as the combatants.
"Mike. If you can hear me, nod."
She placed herself directly in front of Mike, but seeing as the next thing he did was walk straight through her, pointing his bat threateningly at the Reaper, she guessed that she was regulated to the position of complete observer.
Then she pulled her phone out and made a PDA scan.
Alright, so an observer...but not an uninformed one.
"Oh that's so the coward's way out!" Mike said, walking forward pointing the bat at Larry threateningly.
"Hey look, I just wanna win this." Larry replied with a shrug. He swiped his arm and an invisible wall slapped Mike face first into a real one.
Mike grunted, and as he saw Larry move his arm again, he triggered Velocity Attack to get him out of him immediate vicinity. He saw a slight blurring and felt a wooshing of air swing past him, and was mildly relieved he had dodged that. But he didn't enjoy that for long since another invisible wall sprung up from the ground like a springboard, catching him mid-dash and sending him airborne...until another wall, or ceiling in this case, dropped on him from above and splattered him against the floor. Still inside the Velocity Attack dash bubble, it wasn't as damaging as it could have been, but it was definitely a pain.
Short bursts. Gotta preserve the charge or he'll have a field day on me.
Mike jumped back up. "Is that all you got?"
"Work on your combat banter dude, you're falling into cliches."
Mike saw the Reaper's arm move, and felt the air stir from his right. One quick lurch forward and he was clear. He felt movement beneath his feet, so he quickly dashed a few paces to the side, off of the rising platform.
"I'm dueling a Reaper in the afterlife!" Mike shouted back, "If I don't use cliches now, when will I ever?"
Zachi spoke, knowing that Mike couldn't hear her. Maybe she just liked hearing herself talk, to check if what she was saying made sense.
"If he could make invisible walls of infinite width, you wouldn't have been able to dodge them. If he could make them last for a long time, he'd have kept you pinned when he dropped one on you. You move fast, but he gets around that by predicting your move. So you're going to have to out-think this guy Mike, that's how you'll win.
"You know, I kinda get why the higher-up Reapers go for a full on gimmick."
"You're chatty aren't you?" Larry hissed.
Multiple walls converged on Mike at the same time. Feeling motion, but unable to figure out where they were coming from, he did the only sensible thing. Seeing the blur of a wall coming in head-on, he dashed-jumped straight forward, landing feet first on that wall, and jumped up off of it, sending himself upwards, above the walls wooshing past below him. He turned in the air, and as expected, a wall ceiling was about to crash down on him from above. So instead of letting it him him, he slapped his hands against it. Velocity Attack registered that as movement, and it carried him away, out of the impact zone and towards Larry. He was closing the gap pretty well too, until a third wall slapped him out of the air, sending him crashing to the ground again. Mike groaned and got up. He was a bit closer to the Reaper now though, so...progress?
"I figure if I keep you talking you'll make a mistake." Mike said, as he stumbled from being clipped by a wall coming at him from behind. The main thing tripping him up was figuring out to dodge left or right.
"Talking is your mistake." Larry replied, flinging another wall at Mike, who dodged it easily enough since by now he was getting a feel for these.
"Why you gotta be so boring?"
"Heh?"
"Like...do you Reapers graduate from Red Hood when you find an eccentricity to fixate over?"
Mike felt motion behind him and saw a blur in front of him. He decided to practice video game style wall jumping, and whaddya know? He could actually pull it off. Jump off front, jump off back, land even closer to the Reaper before he was swatted out of the air. He shrugged.
"I do want an answer."
Larry groaned, "The...eccentricities develop naturally as one's soul becomes stronger."
"Ah so you're boring because you're weak. Figures."
Larry would have said something in response, but his mental disturbance gave Mike an opening in which he could successfully sucker-grand-slam his bat into the Reaper's Red Hooded face. So instead of the words "SHUT UP!" leaving his lips it was more of a pained "HMMMPGFCKBNPHKNCBSHTS!!!!"
Zachi watched the numbers on her screen.
"75% in one hit. That's a good bat."
Mike grinned, figuring that would do it. But it didn't. And that grin didn't last long as invisible ceilings began jack hammering him into the ground. Larry was also lying on the ground, but was snapping repeatedly to cue the hammering.
"That freaking STUNG!" Larry said, getting to his feet. At the same time, Mike was desperately rolling to try and get out of range. Velocity Attack cued and soon Mike was emulating a certain blue hedgehog. Larry let up his vertical assault in favour of a series of walls to batter Mike back across the hall.
Mike found a pause, and used it to get up. He distinctly noticed that walls had stopped assaulting him constantly.
"Well I don't appreciate getting slapped around either bud!" he called out, "But hey, I bet that pin of yours is running kinda low by now."
"I'd say the same for you. What, you got like 2 seconds left?"
...one actually.
"I know what you're thinking. Did I dash six seconds or only five?" Mike called back.
"Well, I'm feeling lucky." Larry said with a small grin.
A) Keep him talking, wait for an opening, and then gun it.
B) Dash at him now.
C) Waste what's left to get to the recharge faster.
D) Other
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Post by SummerCrow on Oct 8, 2015 6:08:27 GMT -6
D. Half second feint-dash forward, half-second dash sideways. And hope VA charges faster than BS.
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Post by grayjack on Oct 8, 2015 13:27:07 GMT -6
The Crow is right. We need to pysch this guy out. D
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Post by empireoffire on Oct 8, 2015 13:50:40 GMT -6
D. Defeat him through the amazing power of sensual dance.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2015 9:47:40 GMT -6
D. Defeat him through the amazing power of sensual dance. This or Crow. |
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Post by HHDeception on Oct 25, 2015 3:39:04 GMT -6
"Let's not waste any more time." Mike said with a shrug.
His dash was L-shaped, and drained the last of Velocity Attack. A spurt forward and a dodge to the side, expecting retaliation. Instead, his opponent just flinched and held his arms up defensively.
He was out...
They were less than a dozen feet apart. Mike stretched his neck until he heard a small crack. Neither of them had their Psychs, but Mike still had a baseball bat. Both duelists looked at each other.
...now I'm just some normal guy trying to beat up another normal guy....
"Do we wait?" Mike called out.
"Sure," Larry said back, still holding his arms up defensively, "Yeah, these recharge periods are kind of awkward."
"...No hard feelings, but I'm impatient." Mike said, before running at him anyways.
He closed the gap and swung, but Larry ducked it while diving aside. Mike continued to swing wildly while Larry scampered backwards out of reach, demonstrating that he really had no idea how to effectively use a blunt object as a weapon.
So he dropped the weapon and just jumped on the guy, tackling him in the chest and throwing both people to the ground. Grappling was obviously not Larry's strong suit, and despite a mess of flailing limbs, Mike quickly found himself in an advantageous position from which he could punch the Reaper in the face repeatedly.
So he did. And on the third punch Larry fizzled out of the battlefield, dropping Mike to the ground.
...damn, that got real.
Zachi wondered how emotional her would have reacted to Mike's dip into street fighting. But either way, she deactivated her Player Pin and followed Mike back as he returned to the real world, and offered him a hand.
"Ah, thanks." Mike said, panting slightly and letting Zachi help him up. He saw Larry getting up a short distance away from him, groaning and holding his jaw.
"That was...unpleasant." Zachi decided to say at last.
Mike's head snapped up. He looked at her worriedly, "Were you watching that?"
Zachi's mind cycled through a variety of possible things Mike could be feeling right now but she ultimately couldn't determine what to go with. So she just answered.
"All of it, yeah." Zachi said with a quick nod.
Larry laughed in a dejected sort of way, "Unpleasant for YOU?!"
Mike shrugged sheepishly, "Hey, it's a duel right? I kind of...had to..."
The Reaper just waved him off, "Whatever man. It happens. You won fair and square so here." He flicked his own Player Pin (Reaper Pin...?) and the wall around the Sushi shop dissipated. "And if you'll excuse me, I have to go file a failure report." He added one last time, before fizzling away.
And then he fizzled back. He pointed as menacingly as he could, and said "But next time I swear I'm taking you out. If only I had all my pins man...if only..." And then fizzled away again.
The two players looked at each other.
"So...still hungry?" Mike asked.
"Yeah." Zachi answered.
Mike sat down with his lunch opposite Zachi. The shop was mainly take-out but had a small seating area.
"California rolls." Zachi observed, noting Mike's choice. "You know, those were actually invented in Vancouver."
"...what?" said Mike, as he fiddled with disposable wooden chopsticks.
"One of the first restaurants to serve Sushi in North America was in Vancouver. The chef noted how seaweed made it look too foreign, so he invented a roll that put the rice on the outside. It caught on huge with Californian tourists, hence the name."
"Why do you know this?"
"Wikipedia takes me places." Zachi replied honestly, as she bit into a piece of unagi.
"Right." Mike said, proceeding to fiddle with small packs of soy sauce.
Meanwhile, Zachi pulled out her phone, checking in to see if any of the other players had said anything.
Chris
Spencer
So-Yeon
Sparkles
Zachi
Mike
Anyone try one of those duels yet? Fun stuff.
Maybe if your pins don't suck in combat.
...
I beat another guy. Clue is "Canada".
That's very helpful.
...
"Millennium"!
Chris also beat someone. "Expo"
*tap tap tap*
Skytrains. Keep it up. More clues the better.
Meanwhile, Mike also checked his phone.
OMG I won a duel! ^_^ How about you???
*tap tap tap*
That's great. Me too. Kind of stressful isn't it?
He also checked the group thread. Seeing Zachi's comment, he got her attention in real life.
"The mission could still be anything. We should find some more Reapers to fight. I get the feeling that's the point of today."
Zachi nodded. "Yeah. It would be nice if I could help though. Even Sparkles can do something in a duel."
Mike thought for a bit, "I don't know...even if you had a functional pin, what would you do on cooldowns?"
"Run away for a few seconds. Seems achievable."
Mike blinked. And then his gaze averted. Zachi caught on.
"Is that really bugging you? So what if you're an opportunist?" she said, "You still won, with an unorthodox tactic the Reaper was not expecting."
Mike kept his gaze averted, "Thanks. But still...it's almost like it stopped being a game for a bit there."
Zachi leaned in, "This is a fight for our lives Mike. They might call it a game, but this really isn't. Not for us."
Mike popped his last sushi roll into his mouth.
"Anyways, where to after lunch?" Zachi asked.
A) Search for more Reapers
B) Investigate the nearest train station
C) Find a way for Zachi to duel
D) Other
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Post by empireoffire on Oct 25, 2015 4:44:56 GMT -6
A. Nothing like a good fight.
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Post by SummerCrow on Oct 25, 2015 8:03:28 GMT -6
C. Montage.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2015 9:17:05 GMT -6
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Post by grayjack on Oct 25, 2015 16:01:18 GMT -6
A. I'm up for some more foightin.
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Post by The Big Cheese on Oct 29, 2015 10:12:05 GMT -6
C.
We'll either get one of her pins to evolve by Tin Pin Slammer if necessary or work out some hardcore cheese tactics here.
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Post by HHDeception on Nov 15, 2015 4:52:34 GMT -6
"Let's find some way for you to help with the dueling." Mike said to Zachi after swallowing. "Maybe we can get you a new pin or something."
Zachi got up from her seat, clearing the table off. "Shopping it is."
"Have a place in mind?"
"I have a good feeling about one, yes."
*bzz bzz bzz*
Stressful? Not really. It's nice not having to hold back ^.^
*tap tap tap*
Hold back? I give my all just trying to keep up!
Mike looked up again, checking where they were. "Left I think." he said to Zachi, directing her to their destination.
"Aaand there's the game store." Mike confirmed, "And oh look, we have company."
Spencer was there, hunched over a table. We was on his phone, and from the movement of his fingers he was texting someone. Zachi paid him no mind at all and just went inside to see what pins they had in stock. With the Tin Pin Masters game being pushed excessively, it'd make sense there'd be a lot here.
Up above, a TV was playing advertisements.
"Join me! With the powers of LOVE and EMO combined, we will rule the TIN PIN DIMENSION!"
"You're INSANE! Pink and Blue will NEVER go together like that!"
Mike's groan must have been audible since Spencer looked up.
"Oh hey," he said, "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for a pin upgrade." Mike answered, gesturing to Zachi. Spencer gave her a look, and saw her browsing an array of pins hung and shelved, individually compartmentalized inside an excessive amount of packaging. She squinted, then hit her Player Pin and fizzled out of sight.
"I thought she does the explod-ey thing." Spencer said, turning his attention back to Mike.
"That takes two pins. Not exactly workable in these duels." he replied. He thought to hit his Player Pin and follow Zachi in, but then he thought he'd ask the other thing on his mind first.
"Where's CC anyways?"
"Oh, she's dueling the store owner."
"And you're...?"
"I'm waiting," Spencer said with a shrug. "She actually asked me not to watch. Says it gives her performance anxiety."
...nope, that doesn't add up at all.
Mike felt a tap on his shoulder, and jolted around to see Zachi there. She looked a bit...off. She was definitely trying not to look at Spencer.
"It's a wash," Zachi said, "I can't use any of those pins. PDA confirmed."
Mike looked back and forth a bit between the other two people present, "ah, um...that's a shame then. PDA?"
Zachi shook her phone, "My PDA pin lets me see info about Pins. It would have indicated if I could use any of them, and I can't. So there."
"You consider evolving one of your current ones?" Spencer interjected. But his attention was quickly diverted by two people suddenly dropping into view behind him. CC was on her back, and a Red Hood was groaning, pulling herself up on the opposite side of the room (the sight of a Red Hood with slight curves and long hair only caught Mike off guard for a short moment). Spencer quickly ran over to help his partner up.
Mike leaned over to Zachi and spoke softly.
"You okay?"
"You thought you were being violent...?" Zachi said, tilting her head towards CC. Mike raised an eyebrow.
"Seriously? Like what-"
"Mike! Zachi! Hey guys!" CC cheered. "Just won a duel, fun stuff!"
Fun. Right...
"I'll tell you later." Zachi said to Mike. Then calling over to Spencer: "You were saying something about evolving?"
Spencer was pulling the Red Hood over to boot up the small two-player Tin Pin Masters table available in the store. "Yeah hold up," he called back, "Gotta get this game on first. Pins only evolve if they're used to play TPM."
Mike did a double take. But then he thought about his own pin and it kind of made sense. Well, the method made sense, not the reason. Nothing about Tin Pin Masters actually made sense.
"How'd you figure that out?" Zachi asked.
"Trial and error mostly. This is day five. I've been playing since day two. It checks out. Mega Thumper HLX evolved first, and it was my Tin Pin main. I use Stellar Wings way more in battle, but it only evolved after I gave it a try in Tin Pin. Er, Magna-Stellar Wings now. Ultra Claw is on its way too. It's the Tin Pin, I swear." Spencer said with a grin.
"Which is a shame for me, but eh, what do?" CC added.
Mike was taking a moment to process the names of Spencer's pins. Zachi walked over to the table as Spencer continued. "And best part is, we can actually loophole the rules and mission Duel through TPM. It's a battle between a Player and a Reaper using only one pin. It's legit."
He turned to the Red Hood. "It's legit, right?"
The Reaper threw up her hands, "Yeah! Yeah, it works. Honest."
She threw a nervous glance CC's way that Spencer probably didn't catch but Zachi did. Mike didn't since he was still thinking about what "HLX" even meant. The Reaper kind of shuffled into the back room out of sight.
"I don't suppose there's a solo mode on this, is there?" Zachi said, looking at the controller.
Spencer shook his head, "Nah, but we could do a couple of games. I'll go easy on you."
"Dibs." Mike said heading to the opposite control port. "Hey man, it's only fair. If this powers up pins then I've got two that still need upgrading. You've had three days already, right?"
Spencer rolled his eyes.
And then Zachi spoke, "Did it ever occur to you to try playing with CC's pins to evolve them for her?"
Spencer and CC shared a look. CC seemed to be mentally willing her partner to slap her palm onto her forehead for her.
"I'll take that as a no. Which means we also don't know if that will work. Anyways, is this the only table?" Zachi asked.
"Yeah...yeah it's the only one. I just dueled for it." CC answered.
"Then we should play for efficiency."
A) Find a Reaper to for Zachi to TPM duel
B) Zachi vs. Mike (using his own pins)
C) Zachi vs. Mike (using one of Zachi's pins)
D) Zachi vs. Spencer (using one of CC's pins)
And to save time for a future vote, indicate which pin should be used and by who
Zachi's pins:
PDA - The Analyzer
PN-D - The Inker
C4 - The Detonator
Mike's pins:
Velocity Attack - Agility
Rushdown - Mach Punch
CC's Pins:
Tathlum - Bullet Spam
Brionac - Fires her laser
Lugios - Controls her guns
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Post by The Big Cheese on Nov 15, 2015 7:16:30 GMT -6
D (just in case it could get our adorable, possibly psychotic pal CC out of a bind!) PN-D and Lugios.
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Post by SummerCrow on Nov 15, 2015 9:07:07 GMT -6
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Post by grayjack on Nov 15, 2015 21:45:52 GMT -6
Agree with Cheese, better gun control sounds useful. D and Lugios.
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