Lucas is standing a few paces into the seating area of the ground floor of the cafe, with Miss Masher in the process of cautiously climbing through the shattered window he had used as an entrance behind him.
The overdosed offender is breathing heavily while standing in place, his attention roughly in Lucas’s direction, but he is still glancing around with hazy unfocused eyes while trying to figure out where Jonathan has run off to.
Throughout his rampage so far, he has heavily damaged not just the area, but also his own attire. The shredded remnants of his shirt sway with every one of his ragged breaths, revealing peeks of exaggerated dehydrated looking muscles, soiled and sweaty, but completely uninjured.
Miss Masher takes a few cautious steps back, grabbing an upended table that was resting against the short under-window wall nearby. She glances at Lucas, and upon seeing him coughing as he sits up with no visible injuries, she no longer spares him any further attention.With a firm grip on the table, she runs at the erratically flailing over-medicated man, shouting in order to pull his attention away from Lucas.The befuddled bully had managed to turn around to face Lucas, but he staggered a few times before ultimately falling to his knees, as his balance from the injured leg was thrown off more than he can currently mentally account for, even though he’s largely unaffected by the pain of it.
Meanwhile, back over in the OP OD zone…Lucas is power-walking backwards with a taunting grin, kiting his overmedicated opponent in circles.Miss Masher is off to the side, rummaging around in search of anything that could potentially be useful in breaking the current stalemate. This process may or may not involve forcefully removing semi-damaged bits of terrain and seeing if they seem sturdy enough for her liking. Everything has failed this check thus far, not that that deters her from continuing her foraging.‘As much fun as I am havin’ with fuckin’ with him, what the hell shoul
While Lucas’s lingering overwhelming pain has overloaded his senses a bit, he feels a rising panic upon realizing he’s having some difficulty breathing, and is lying on his back whilst cradled in debris.‘Wai- no, no, NO!’[Hmm? Oh, calm down. It’s the first time, when you didn’t actually get injured.]‘OH THANK FUCK!’[...Well, at least you don’t have to get dressed again.]‘Wait… But wouldn’t that h
“Oh, actually, Mar- er, Mash, ya think this dude even understands what we're sayin'?" While Lucas is asking this, he twists the cap off of an artificially-flavored ‘fruit juice’ drink, recently tossed to him by Miss Masher. Then, he precisely throws the cap directly at his pursuer's left eye, earning an inarticulate snarl in protest of his actions.The overmedicated menace even attempts to lunge at him in retaliation, but Lucas just hops back quickly before resuming the same pace he's been maintaining for a few minutes now. He's still erratically circling around the cafe’s seating area backwards, occasionally glancing behind him to make sure there are no oncoming obstructions to his path. As Jonathan kites the Ankle Annihilator around the area and passes Lucas once more, Lucas sighs and starts following behind the aggressor, far enough back that he’ll be out of reach if he were to suddenly change targets.“Whelp, if no one has any other ideas, I guess that’s our plan? Oh, when I jump him, make a whole lotta noise, yeah? Maybe it’ll help slow him down another second or two to gimme more time to pin ‘em.” Lucas is answered by multiple agreeable hums. The conversation’s topic is completely clueless as to the content of their chatter as he combatively crawls after Jonathan.After the three-man lineup moves a bit further past Miss Masher’sI'd Like to Change My Reincarnation Subscription, Please Ch208 - Fancy Failure
When everyone is more or less in position for Operation Druggy Dogpile, Jonathan pauses for a moment and shouts out, “Oh!” and then disappears.The ground-dwelling OD Disaster balks after crawling a little closer to the position Jonathan previously occupied, looking around in clear confusion. As he can only see Miss Masher, he babbles some gibberish at her and slaps the ground angrily in a form of aggressive posturing… but doesn’t make a move to approach her.‘...The fuck?’Noticing his hesitancy to take the initiative against her, Miss Masher grins and fle
While Lucas is busy disassociating during his mental conversation with 427, he completely destroys the suffering addict’s wrists, to the point they’re not quite a secure hold on his arms any longer.With blood gushing out of the malicious man’s ear around the painstakingly slow insertion of the Viblade, he makes one last desperate effort at self-defense, tearing apart his own flesh as he manages to rip his arms free from Lucas’s grasp by leaving behind the ruined wrists with their respective hands still attached to them in his grip.Miss Masher is pinning his shoulders down well enough that he can’t quite flail his right arm enough for a
As they stabilized their breathing, Miss Chievous and Miss Masher had lifted themselves fully upright. Miss Masher’s attention has been fixed firmly on the corpse, whereas Miss Chievous stared at Jonathan for a few moments longer before finally looking down at the corpse as well.Lucas is vaguely aware of some quiet murmuring off to the side, but his attention is brought back to those nearby when Miss Masher makes an impressed whistle as she kicks over the corpse.“And here I thought Calc went berzerk when she gets mad. I had a feelin’ you two were playin’ around before, but that was somethin’ else. Tch, right through his endurance, too.” While Miss Masher is saying this, she is grinding her right heel down on the still-attached arm.
Lucas and Jonathan—dressed decently but nowhere near as fancy as yesterday—are most of the way to Cat’s Paw Cafe, pointedly not utilizing the stinky subway station to get there.‘Ya know, it’s been surprisingly peaceful, yeah? Though, not havin’ people gawk as much as yesterday is kinda nice. All that attention was gettin’ old fast.’[Ahem, well, fortunately, Boss System approved my long-term task priority filtering proposal.]‘Oh? Whassat?’[Compared to before, now it requires an opt-in before being bombarded with every single task in range. Before receiving alerts—and therefore penalties for ignoring them—we’ll run the calculations of the tasks’ estimated impact vs. potential unwanted attention. This effectively weeds out a majority of minor tasks—plus some moderate ones—by accounting for how suspicious it would be for you to know the event was taking place, let alone be believably compelled to interfere. I knew there was no need to ask if you were interested in activating it immedi
Once the allotted thirty minutes have passed—precisely down to the second—427 tentatively undeafens Lucas. At first, all he can hear is a booklet’s pages being flipped through, followed by Lucas grumbling.Hesitantly removing the remaining sensory suppressions one at a time, 427 nearly sighs with relief upon discovering that Lucas is standing in the kitchenette by the new automatic drip coffee maker—thankfully dressed—in the midst of poorly attempting to demystify its instruction manual.‘How the hell is this so complicated?’[Ah, making good on your promise to Jonathan?]‘Oh, thank fuck; yer back. Took ya long enough.’[…Hello, again, to you, too.]‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Welcome back. So, anywho, can ya scan through this or somethin’ and tell me how to use it?’[…I already looked up the instructions from everything’s model numbers earlier. First, measure out—]427 guides Lucas through measuring and grinding a serving’s worth of coffee beans and setting it up in the machine with such in-d
For a few peaceful minutes, Lucas delights in demolishing the delicious delicatessen delivery. As Jonathan reaches for his coffee cup to gauge if it’s cool enough for a sane person to drink, he ends up cutting himself off with a yawn, earning a side-eye from Lucas.“Hey, ya barely got any sleep, yeah? Instead of havin’ caffeine, shouldn’t ya go take a nap?” Upon Lucas’s question, Jonathan pauses, looking at the contents of his mug with an obvious longing. “I’ll make ya a fresh one in like half an hour; I’m sure 427 can figure out howta use whatever newfangled machine ya got,” Lucas continues, his eyes also fixed on the beverage.[…I suppose I appreciate your vote of confidence.]Jonathan’s gaze lingers on the coveted coffee for a moment before he sets it back on the table. As soon as he lets go of it, Lucas lays his claim upon it.“Um, o-okay, yeah. I just, um, sh-should take a shower first,” Jonathan stammers as he stands.Lucas hums an agreement around a mouthful of coffee.[Did y
Thankfully, there are no further interruptions during the rest of this round of deliveries. Or even during the next one, either.Once Jonathan finally has the fourth and final load of freight, he makes a detour to a delicatessen. More specifically, the one where he previously purchased yesterday’s breakfast.After equally uneventfully acquiring milk, third breakfast for himself, and first breakfast for Lucas—since he’d totally only eat sugary baked goods if real food wasn’t conveniently available—he makes his way home.With his back to the recently re-locked front door, Jonathan reclaims the last armload of supplies as he looks at Lucas’s still-shut bedroom door.‘…Our food will still be too hot to eat for a little while; I’ll make some coffee first.’Jonathan may or may not be making up excuses to keep putting off waking up Lucas in the hopes that he’ll do so on his own, knowing full well that he probably won’t.While taking longer than necessary to decide which appliance to christen
“Ah! Um…” Jonathan’s face scrunches up a bit as he looks over his pending purchases.‘Can we at least turn off tasks while my hands are full? I really don’t want to drop everything and have it get broken or stolen by the time I get back to it… It will be annoying enough having to run back and forth a bunch.’[Requesting temporary task suppression… Permission granted; disregarding minor tasks for one hour at no penalty, effective immediately.]Jonathan barely represses his urge to sigh with relief.Before Ji Soo works up the nerve to express concern over Jonathan’s vacant stare at the wall behind the service bot, Jonathan’s attention returns to reality and redirects to said bot.“Um, c-could you hold some of it for a few minutes once I’m done paying? I-I won’t take long… Like, five minutes?” Before fidgety Jonathan even finishes asking his question, the bot is already nodding.“Certainly. Do you wish to use a private scanning kiosk to complete your order?”‘I’m surprised it’s even an
Jonathan, however, doesn’t hear the utterance of recognition. Unaware, he continues his quest for a coffee maker.A short time later, Jonathan stands--while quietly grumbling--before a row of two-in-one coffee/espresso machines.Behind him is a sea of drip coffee machines, with cold press equipment further off to the side. Alongside the arrangement of two-in-ones sits a selection of espresso machines, both automatic and semi-automatic.‘How are there so many!? What even are the differences? Wait, no, don’t answer that. The technical details will probably just be even more confusing.’[Understood.]Although Jonathan notices movement in his peripheral vision, he doesn’t outwardly react to the recent arrival at the end of the aisle. Instead, he pulls out one of the two-in-one machines set at eye level, rotating it so he can read the back of the box.“Ah! Don’t get one of those! That entire line is overpriced trash,” the newcomer blurts out, muffled by the layers of carbon-filter fabric f
After the harrowing--see also; totally normal--experience of getting his hair professionally cut, Jonathan blinks a few times as he looks himself over in the mirror. ‘Oh, wow. That’s way better.’ He’s now sporting a long-top, backswept, tapered hairstyle with a rounded back. Given how clearly tense he was throughout the entire cutting process, a trendy skin fade would have fairly obviously been too much for his liking. After giving Jonathan a few moments to make his mental evaluations, one of the hairdresser’s dreadlocks uses a soft-bristle brush to clear away the loose hair clippings around the collar of the barber cape. A few other coils of his hair organize the various tools he used, setting them aside for cleaning. Meanwhile, he quickly sweeps aside the bulk of the rogue tufts of hair on the ground in a much more conventional hands-on-broom method as he uses the mirror to make eye contact with Jonathan again. “Lookin’ good, mon. Well? Whaddya tink?” His question pulls Jonath
Once Jonathan is finally en route to the hairdresser...[Safe distance from Mikah’s power detected. Alert; you have exceeded 10 GDV. You have one enhancement available.]‘Oh! Um, you said before that rank three vision should be good enough to see through Maria’s powers, right?’[Correct, rank three should be sufficient as long as her target is in motion. Rank four would be necessary to see anything stationary, given the current strength of her powers. Please be aware that going beyond rank three for any individual enhancement has additional requirements.]‘Three should be good enough to avoid most of her pranks... Use my upgrade on vision.’[Please confirm that you would like rank two vision.]‘Yeah.’[Understood. Please close your eyes during calibrations to avoid nausea.]Jonathan slows from running at enhanced speed into a normal-paced jog for a few steps, then stops and shuts his eyes.[Bzzt... Calibrations complete.]He opens his eyes and looks around, blinking several times.‘Wo
The duo’s fiery funnel further forces the growing multi-car pile-up towards the middle of the street for a few seconds longer. Finally, the flames falter and fade. After a short delay, the wind wanes as well.‘Oh, I shouldn’t give them any extra reasons to think I’m a threat.’Jonathan swiftly shuts and pockets his switchblade as he follows the sidewalk. While doing so, his attention flicks between the ongoing chaos in the street and the front door of Howling Cartographer’s HQ lobby.Ashley steps through the door with Jason right behind her. They both take a moment to appreciate their destructive handiwork with smug expressions. Considering that Jonathan is conspicuously the only person still in the immediate vicinity, they quickly focus on him.Before either of them manage anything beyond a glare, Jonathan raises both hands in a submissive gesture, showing that he isn't wielding a weapon. "I-I just wanted his gun!"Ashley's exposed eye squints with amusement, the not hair-hidden cor