PopcornPie
Dazed, confused, but chugging on.
Cloud rubbed his chin. Standard ramen, really, but anything was standard after that big ramen boom. He did like that ramen made with brown sugar and turkey broth in particular, though the standard type was made with Behemoth meat, Zu eggs, or Karlabos Carapace.
"ExCUSE me?" Rex lifted his torso off the table, staring at Kleur sharply. "This getup means a lot to me, you know." He closed his eyes and smiled confidently. "I'm sure that you wouldn't trashtalk me if you knew that I was the one who stopped Van Kleiss and cured every EVO across the planet. Now, Giffany, what were you saying...?"
"I was on an island once!" Giffany chittered cheerfully. "Not the same one I met Cass on, a different one. It was so strange, Rex! I woke up on the shore, then I met a Cyberlife android, a dragonborn, a plague doctor-but she was a girl, so maybe a plague nurse?-a girl who came from something called a 'walker apocalypse', a Mewtwo, a shadow dog, and a girl who could shapeshift into Pokemon and carried other clone Pokemon! The island was full of jaguars and cybernetic spiders who came to see me as a friend. It was scary, but having so many friends with me made it all better."
"Cool!" Hey, after what just happened these past hours, Rex could buy anything. "So what happened to them?"
Then, for once, the color drained from Giffany's eyes as she looked down, her peppy voice deflated to a meager explanation. The memories refused to come out, remaining bunched up in her throat, forcing her to sob in order to loosen them. "...I don't know. I woke up one morning, and nobody was there. I was all alone on the island. I still don't know why I was abandoned." She didn't even register Rex's heartstricken expression. "Fortunately, I met a very nice nine-tailed fox who portaled me back to Gravity Falls, but she told me that I had just become part of a larger multiverse. I guess this is what she meant."
"...Didn't you try to look for them?"
"I did, I absolutely did. I had help from the fox, and she had this adorable little girl with her. I tried to join factions dedicated to protecting the multiverse, but I never saw any of my first multiverse friends ever again." Her eyes finally lifted back to Rex, reclaiming a spark of hope once they focused. "I'm glad I have new ones, though, and I hope I get to stay with you this time." The voice elevated to a slight joke. "You know, I think it's messed with my mind, too. A day or two before Rumble and I were ported here, I had the strangest dream where the world around me was falling apart, and I had to help the fox and her family get people out, all within the safety of a magical bubble. Crazy, right?...Right?"
And now Rex was the one with the haunted expression. "I feel like I should say 'yes', but I'm not sure..." All across his back, though he didn't directly blame Giffany for it, he felt the pinpricks of watching a world collapse all around him. But that didn't happen! He defeated Van Kleiss, he used those Meta-Nanites to cure all the active EVOs. "Hey, Giffany, if you remember your time with those factions and that fox, did she ever mention me?"
"Um..." Giffany decided to get up and move to the back of the room, where she squinted and tilted her head. Sure enough, she released a gasp and recoiled when Rex's blurry image looked exactly like the tiny blur of someone she'd seen being spared in her dream. "No, but...Rex, you look like someone I saw from afar in my dream! Wow, does this mean I had a premonition of seeing you? I might be psychic and not even know it!"
"Uh, yeah, make of it whatever you want. I'm sure you're right, I'm probably just going through the Mandela Effect or something."
Meanwhile, again, the kitsunes were watching and chortling amongst themselves.
The night was getting cold, so Megumin took shelter beneath a park bench.
Chomusuke awaited further suggestion.
The next thing Marnie knew, she had a bunch of little kids tryng to play "Doctor" with her. She had a big bag of ice on her back, which chilled her body and exacerbated her coughing, but that was "cured" with a few cough drops.
"Huh?" Hinaro turned to the sailor. "Hey, you, aren't you coming with us? I wouldn't want to be here when the owner of this building comes home."
Her big ears picked up on his worries and drooped. "Oh, the blood drive? It has me trembling, too...I doubt it's the same process we use in the Pokemon world. Giffany is, but I'm not buying it for a second." She lightly wrapped her tail around his arm. "Let's just worry about eating first, then we can figure out how we'll evade the drive."
With a shudder and forward recoil, Emer was in. For a second, she needed to internally remind herself that it was going to be for peaceful purposes this time, and just barely resisted her urge to just beat the other Hunter over the head with the cage. The bad news was, her behavior almost got her caught right off the bat. "Oop! Come on, Emer, just reach into your comfort zone and become serious again. A life depends on it."
Foxy ears she didn't have were keenly listening to the plan. As Lawrence, she needed to get this crate to the desired location. Puh! As if she would do such a thing to her fellow Pokemon. Yet this plan needed...well, a heck of a lot more planning before she possessed. The situation was compounded by the arrival of three animals that looked kind of like Mightyenas with the back fur way past overgrown, perfectly loyal to her "compatriot". If he figured out that something was amiss, Emer would be hound chow. If she tried to beat the Hunter, he'd figure it out. If she tried to verbally suggest something else, he'd figure it out. Perhaps, if she could get the Zeraora's attention, and cue him to help her do something-Wait, eureka! Sorry about this, majestic Mythical...
As the other Hunter fed his dogs, Lawrence tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to Zeraora, looking quizzically at him for instruction.
"Yeah, please do. I could go for a salad after all that pest control." VV departed from the group with that humble request.
During his night flight, he couldn't help but notice the little group still hanging around by the subway. "Hey, guys, most of the rest of the rest of us went for ramen. Unless you'd rather be like me and look for something sensible and cruelty-free, of course." Infrit, however, had quickly lost the dinosaur as soon as KFC was brought up. "The end result of chickens being bashed around in cages!? How can you stomach it and sleep at night?" The dino flew backwards as though Ifrit had a disease-well, another, more contagious disease-shook his head, and was about to fly away when his heightened raptor senses detected trails of Necromorph blood-and he doubted that it had dripped off these few.
"Hang on..." The raptor returned to the subway, only to discover that the bodies had disappeared. His brilliant green hide was completely white in an instant. "What?! Did they-It was all for-!? How could they?! Oh, wait, that's Emer's body, didn't the pinkhaired one want that?"
With a dead Braixen on his back, Vegan Velociraptor was quickly surveying the skies, looking for the seemingly straying Necromorphs. Oh, nobody he'd met from the disaster was going to like this twist. Could it be that the pest control was for nothing after all?
On his way across Tokyo, he came across some little pink thing riding on a star, who he quickly caught up to. "Hey, you! We've lost the Necromorphs, they've somehow managed to come back to life and leave the subway! You seen them?"
The little Operator continued to cough. "I'dlovetorewardmyelfwithahotmeal, butIhavecontractedanewsickness. IthinkIneedsomebedrestmorethanIneedfood..." She looked around through brown eyes clouded with misery, wondering where the nearest hospital was. But she was with her friends again, so everything would work out, right?
Cloud:
Interactions:
Condition: Fine. (Remaining self-confidence: 100)
Mood: ...Shit, someone screamed.
Location: Ramen shop
Items: Buster Sword
Text Color: dedb72
Megumin:
Interactions: Open (Chomusuke Interactions: Idle)
Condition: A bit scuffed, but nothing serious. Certain memories have been wiped. (Remaining self-confidence: 65)
Mood: Sad, guilty
Location: Manhattan streets
Items: Manatite Staff, Chomusuke
Text Color: BD1431
(Chomusuke Text Color: 562020 )
Rex:
Interactions:
Condition: Scraped underbelly and electrocuted. Certain memories wiped. Self confidence has moderately recovered. (+25) (Remaining self-confidence: 90)
Mood: Hungry
Location: Ramen shop
Items: None
Text Color: d2661d
Marnie:
Interactions:
Condition: Triple fried Lopunny, bleeding injuries from Necromorphs. Sustaining injuries to her back. Self confidence has slightly recovered. (+10) (Remaining self-confidence: 10)
Mood: Grateful, troubled
Location: Tokyo hotel
Items: None
Text Color: bf8955
Hirano:
Interactions: Yamperzzz
Condition: QUADRUPLE fried Glameow. Self confidence has moderately recovered. (+35) (Remaining self-confidence: 55)
Mood: Concerned
Location: Tokyo basement, wanting to go to Ramen shop
Items: Focus Scarf, bundle of berries, cell phone, Marnie's backpack
Text Color: 91a9cd
Emer:
Interactions: Lazaro1505 CocoaMarshmallow
Condition: Spooky scary ghost. Physical body is on the surface. Self confidence has taken damage. (-25) (Remaining self-confidence: 115)
Mood: Very angry.
Location: Tokyo streets. Save that Rockruff!
Items: None
Text Color: f1a113
Giffany:
Interactions:
Condition: Moderately injured by Necromorphs and VV. Self confidence has slightly recovered. (+15) (Remaining self-confidence: 39)
Mood: Hopeful
Location: Ramen shop
Items: Her bag, Oswald
Text Color: ed7fac
Vegan Velociraptor:
Interactions: Crow Emiya Shin LilacMonarch SkipTheKip
Condition: Fine. (+35) (Remaining self-confidence: 90)
Mood: Confused
Location: Tokyo skies
Items: Soybean minigun, Emer's corpse, Emer's branch
Text Color: 2ebf27
Shaw:
Interactions: Crow Emiya Shin SkipTheKip Celestial Speck
Condition: Fried Zalak. Heavily injured due to Necromorphs. Self confidence has taken heavy damage. (-78) (Remaining self-confidence: 22)
Mood: Sad, worried, confused
Location: Tokyo streets
Items: Standard fire equipment (minus axe)
Text Color: 7e604e