[LN] Thank Goodness We're Well-rounded Characters

[matchmadeinhell]

Kon was reading at relative superspeed. It wasn't at his usual brisk pace, because he found that the limitations of his powers meant he couldn't retain the knowledge for more than a few minutes at his usual speeds, so he had to slow it down a little, but he was still thumbing through far faster than some of the others were taking just to go through the study guides they'd quickly procured.

"Is it just the fact I'm reading this as superspeed or does this story make no sense?" Kon said, as he thumbed through page after page.

Another reality shard had fallen away and now that their brands had signaled it, it was time to go dimension-hopping. Fortunately, it was a very small shard in the middle of the wilderness in Siberia and the area of effect was spreading slowly, so they had time to prepare.

With his otherworldly wisdom, Manny had managed to help out on this one, communicating some clues about the world they were about to enter by flashing the image of a cover of a book.

A fairly terrible book. Apparently they were entering the world it was based on.

So they were doing their homework as they geared up to go and trying to make sense of the senseless.

"So what I'm getting from this is this is a world where you're not allowed to have more than one personality trait? I think? Under pain of death, you have to be a one-dimensional character."

Comments

[othersdestructive]

One thing they had to worry about was a butterfly effect. Make a few tiny changes here and it could spread out like a cascade and change even bigger things. Their presence changed the game even if it only happened in subtle ways.

That meant they had to make sure those ripples didn't cause any tsunamis.

Kon had warned them about a particularly dangerous moment, where Tris might wind up in trouble, and they opted to hang around and make sure it didn't lead to catastrophe.

So they tried their best to keep an eye on Tris and when it seemed the time had come, a night that Tris walked alone through the railed hallway next to the chasm, they waited nearby, peeking around the corner.

"I see 'em," said Raph, "at the other end. They're waiting to ambush her. I call dibs on dangling one over the pit. We can't both do it."

[mark_in_the_sands]

"All right, but only if you promise not to have too much fun," Cassie said, taking advantage of her ability to hover so that she could peek around the corner over her head. "If she goes over the edge herself, you get to be the root of the hanging line. I'm not helping you explain how you can apparently pull a grappling hook out of your butt."

She could totally explain away something that appeared to be flight but totally wasn't to a traumatized girl. Probably.

"Athena, this place is so stupid."

[othersdestructive]

And the fight was on. A group of masked attackers came out from the other end of the hallway, gagging her so her screams weren't loud enough for anyone else to hear.

To her credit, she fought like a banshee, clearly using what she'd learned so far from Four and Cassie, but she still wasn't experienced enough to take on several attackers at once, after being surprise jumped.

They hissed threats and horrible things at her, although one of them hung back, hesitant. They started to dangle her over the railing, and the hesitant one hissed, "What are you doing?! I thought we were just going to scare her, not actually hurt her!"

Tris managed to rip off that one's mask as he rushed in and actually tried to pull the others off her, revealing Al's wide-eyed face.

Raph was the one to reach them first, quickly kicking Tris' main attacker into the others, knocking the two most aggressive ones down, and grabbing her by the arm and yanking her back over the railing to safety in one quick movement.

He tsked at them.

"Well, what do we have here? You idiots know taking out the competition is the coward's way up the rankings, right? But hey, you being pathetic is why you're at the bottom of 'em to start with, so why am I not surprised?"

Al backed away, horrified, but the other two got up, prepared to fight.

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie followed Raph at a more sedate pace, hands swinging loosely by her sides. Tris might not have been able to take three attackers from surprise, but Raph could handle two in the open with one hand tied behind his shell.

After glancing in Al's direction to determine whether he was likely to spring in as back-up (not likely), Cassie covered a yawn with her hand and raised her eyebrows at Tris' two still-masked attackers.

" 'Hey, Thing One, who could that mysterious and shadowy figure be?'" she asked in a mocking tone of voice. " 'Why, Thing Two, I do believe that's One-Punch Cassie! We should probably pee ourselves now and just get it over with.' 'Undoubtedly, Thing One!'"

[othersdestructive]

They both started to back away slightly, now realizing how hideously outmatched they were, facing down not only Raph, who was number one in the rankings at the moment, but Cassie, who was number three and had decked the toughest trainer of them all.

Still, they rallied and attacked them both, a terrible, terrible mistake on their parts.

As one of them gunned for him, Raph elbowed him in the neck so that he bowed over, wheezing, snatched the mask off to see who he was fighting (and also so he could see the fear on his face), then kicked his feet out from under him.

Oh, it was Drew. Excellent. Due to his attempts to torment Tris and her friends (and Raph and his friends, which was laughable), he was Raph's second least favorite person in this place. (Eric was firmly entrenched at the position number one).

Raph picked him up by the throat and pressed his back to the railing, dangling his upper body over it. The only thing keeping him from toppling over was Raph's hold on his neck.

"Let's see how you like it - Hey, hey! No kicking!" he commanded when Drew started to kick him. "You wouldn't want me to lose my grip, would you?"

Drew froze as Raph held him there, whimpering, a wet spot appearing at the crotch of his pants.

[mark_in_the_sands]

"Okay, see, your third mistake was just running at me," Cassie was explaining to the boy whose attention she currently held by way of a hammerlock. "The first being attacking my girl Tris here, and the second being not running away as fast as your little legs could carry you when Raph and I showed up."

She snatched the mask of his head and turned him around to face Raph (and Drew) and Tris. "Which lunkhead is this? Peter?"

[othersdestructive]

"Yeah, that's Peter. He's one of the morons that licks the boots of Drew here," Raph said, shaking Drew slightly. "Which he might not wanna do for a bit until Drew cleans 'em because of what's dripping on 'em right now."

It was almost criminal that he was enjoying himself so much right now.

Like possibly actually criminal, technically speaking, but Raph didn't care.

[morethanmyth]

"What the hell is going on here?!" shouted Four as he walked out into the hallway.

And there was the cavalry that would've come if Raph and Cassie hadn't shown up.

Al bolted the moment he heard his voice.

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie turned Peter loose, planting a foot on his ass and shoving him away.

"Get out of here or I'll let Raph have you once he's gotten bored with your friend," she snapped, inspecting her fingertips as though she were more concerned by the possibility of a hangnail than she was about Peter. Which was kind of true, hangnails were bad enough when you weren't a mythic creature...

[othersdestructive]

Raph pulled Drew up and did the same, giving him a boot to the ass to help him along. He ran off as fast as he could.

"These creeps attacked Tris," said Raph. "We were just giving them a firm, educational boot to the rear."

Raph went over and helped Tris up.

"You okay?"

[morethanmyth]

Tris nodded frantically, clearly shaking, and turned to Four. "They attacked me. Raph and Cassie stopped them before they could really hurt me."

Concerned, Four went over to Tris and gently put a hand on her arm.

"Why don't you come with me to somewhere quiet so we can get you calmed down?"

Tris nodded frantically at him as well and turned back to Cassie and Raph, wide-eyed.

"Thank you," she breathed out.

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie frowned at Four for a moment, but then the expression was gone like it had never been as she clapped Tris on the shoulder.

"You're welcome," she said cheerfully. "You probably could have taken 'em, but Raph and me hate to let an opportunity to kick some butt pass us by."