TEAM COGNAC LOG

[recollecters]

TEAM COGNAC

After that strange Retrospec post, you may be wondering how to contact this "technician". Luckily, your phone or whatever device you have handy to check the network chooses that exact second to go haywire... Team Cognac roster: Allen Walker, Aradia Megido, Fai D. Flourite, Fuuka Yamagishi, Grell Sutcliffe, Laurent, Mafuyu Kurosaki, Mako, Mohammed Abdul, Pitou, Prompto Argentum, Roronoa Zoro, Tsurumaru Kuninaga. On whatever device you use to view the retrospec application, you may note the following scrolling on the screen instead of the usual options: ALERT: CRITICAL TIME-SPACE ANOMALY ACTIVE. SEARCHING FOR ADMIN... SEARCHING FOR ADMIN... DESIGNATED ADMIN CANDIDATE: EMPLOYEE #91962 M. MAHONEY PLEASE INPUT AUTHORIZATION CODE. The prompt does not seem to be for you, however, as the text prompts continue to scroll, this time with some input. > ********************** ACCEPT ADMIN STATUS Y/N? > y DESIGNATE PROGRAM TO RUN. PLEASE BE ADVISED WE ARE SYSTEM CRITICAL. > run subroutine designation echolocation-alpha CONFIRMED. EMPLOYEES ACTIVE IN AREA: 2 > list employees EMPLOYEES ACTIVE: M. FITZWILLIAM LEVEL 0 ACCESS, INTERN M. MAHONEY FULL SYSTEM ACCESS, ADMIN > search for alternative assets CONFIRMED. SENDING ALTERNATIVE ASSET LIST. Names scroll by on the screen. and look, there goes yours! It seems like someone is manually picking and choosing from a list of every Retrospec user who didn't disappear into the void, and several names queue up. > initialize support team CONFIRMED. TEAM DESIGNATION? > cognac CONFIRMED. TEAM COGNAC MISSION PARAMETERS? PLEASE BE ADVISED SYSTEM ENERGY LEVELS ARE CRITICALLY LOW. > make contact with sysadmin > contact point entrance 8 > temporary access level 1 granted CONFIRMED. MISSION PARAMETERS SET. TEMPORARY ACCESS LEVEL 1 GRANTED. The screen clears itself, and instead of the familiar retrospec logo, there is simply TEAM COGNAC as a designation. the application will refuse to show anything other than a map, with one point highlighted in red. it is, of course, up to team members to decide whether or not they approach the access point. Team Cognac's access point is in the Recollé Subway System. Team members will find they can travel further in the subway system so long as they approach it in a group of two or more team members. Only Team Cognac team members can see or enter the subway system sublevels at this time. Please see the Objective 1 toplevel for more information on what they can see when they travel further down the tunnels. This is the Team Cognac Event Log. You are free to toplevel and thread as you choose on this log, but only team members may utilize this log. Important links to mod toplevels are: Mod Questions & Participation Reporting. Please be aware you are responsible for reporting your own participation & objective completion efforts with links; the moderators will try to keep up with threads, but as we are currently running several teams with participation, we require you to keep us up to date! Please read each of the toplevels and instructions! The schedule for Team Cognac is as follows: WEEK 1: Objective 1; CLEAR (M. Mahoney); Maurice WEEK 2: Objective 2; Team 1 IC briefing; Team 2 IC briefing WEEK 3: Objective 3; IC mission briefing 24th: Objective 3 closes (8PM EST), Final city-wide log posted (9PM EST) Objectives will be given in mod toplevels to this post with instructions; please check the log currently for Objective 1 to see how this will work. NPC interactions will be rnged from your team roster once per week, and toplevels for those will also be posted, although all team members can hear/see these interactions!

Comments

[buncho]

[ Ugh... Mafuyu hates having to be shielded like this. There'd be a rational part of her mind that tells her she should run, that going up against this thing is only going to get her killed, that she should swallow her pride and call for help when she needs to— she doesn't engage with reason often, but Zoro voices it and she's clearly peeved as she relents and takes out her phone, knowing this isn't the time to argue.

She bypasses her speed dial— Chiyo, Kiryu, Pizza Port, and Yato in that order— and goes to her contacts. Ami is at the very top of the list under the A's, so!!!!! please be somewhere nearby; Mafuyu puts her on speaker and throws the phone onto her schoolbag, digging out some of Maurice's weapons that may or may not be useful: an energy shield, and a rifle that she hoists up with two hands and takes some pod shots at the monster. ]

Ami!! Hey, Ami, are you near the woods? By Mickey D's, there's a— well, you'll probably spot it from miles away! Bring anyone you can!

[livingdeadgirl]

[By sheer coincidence, Ami is near the woods, hanging out in a Panera and waiting for a ride. She didn't come out here by herself, of course - that would be stupid and highly dangerous! - but monsters had happened, of course, and Fai had to leave to go and help, so she was supposed to stay here until he got back. It's not too boring, she's got her phone, and her mom's transistor radio to listen in on the monster alert reports (together with traffic and weather on the 7s).

But then she gets the call.]

Mafuyu? Y- yeah, I'm close!

[She's already on her feet. The radio is on the case, too, apparently ("- sighted just north of Ptarmigan Avenue at Wabash. Residents are advised to -"). She can't really see it from the window, with the trees and buildings in the way - but she does see a section of treetops swaying oddly and a flock of birds taking flight as if their lives depend on it (probably true). There are a few gunshots that echo half a second later through her phone, too.

So yeah that's them.]

Okay, I see it! Hang on, I'll call Fai!

[With that, she hangs up and takes off running toward the site, scrolling through her contacts as she goes...]

[buncho]

Okay- Come quick! We'll keep it from entering the city!

[ Between the youngest member of their team, and the one who would possibly fret the most seeing "the kids" go up against a monster like this... You're welcome, Zoro, for the best back-up they could possibly get.

Until Ami gets here, he and Mafuyu have to hold down the fort. Zoro might've survived everything up until this point simply standing there and taking everything as a meat shield, but Mafuyu has an actual shield provided to do the job, and she sets it up in front of Zoro. It can protect his legs or something, it's not that big, just large enough for someone small like Mafuyu to crouch behind it and yell bloody murder about how they're supposed to survive this darkness avalanche. energy bullets bouncing off the metal chains and spikes because she has no idea where she should be aiming for— Maurice had told her to go for the eyes in the other monster she'd fought with Rindou, but this guy has maximum eye protection. ]

[livingdeadgirl]

[There's a problem. Fai isn't picking up. She tries a couple of other people, but none of them pick up either. She doesn't get a chance to try every name in Team Cognac, though, because all of a sudden she looks up from her phone and she is There.

This is her first good look at their stony friend, and he's huge. Easily over twice as big as the Ogre that nearly took her arm off at the convention. Mafuyu's got Zoro already, which is good, he's ridiculously tough - but if Zoro's having trouble, she realizes just as quickly, then they're in some serious shit.]

Uh - Mafuyu! [- she calls out, uncertainly.] Nobody's answering! What should I do??

[stopbleeding]

GET OFF THE PHONE!!! [he interrupts them right before he takes another punch to the face. or. well. catches a punch to the face between his still-goopy hands. the rock-fist shakes as Zoro holds it inches away from his nose, gritting his teeth.

what breaks up rock? another rock? tree roots? a lot of water and a lot of time?? he's pretty sure all of those will go about as well as punching this thing did. so maybe...]

GO FOR THE SHACKLES!

[MAYBE??? ITS SOMETHING, AT LEAST.]

[buncho]

Ami, what weapons do you have?!

[ Because the weapon Mafuyu has isn't working very well, the lasers from the rifle bouncing off the metal. ]

Does breaking the shackles help?! It's not shacked to anything! We should shackle it something?!

[ AMI, YOU'RE SMART, HELP ]

[livingdeadgirl]

All I've got is a whip! [Which she unclips from her belt now, but she's not sure what good it's going to do. She is way out of her level range here, and she knows it.

So it takes a second to realize that Mafuyu's asking her that. SHE JUST GOT HERE HOLY SHIT.] How should I know?!

[But she looks closer at the monster, and notices there's a problem with chaining it up - the chains are so short that anything small enough to wrap around won't be strong enough to hold him.]

That's not gonna work!

[But what is? She has no idea.]

[stopbleeding]

IT WOULD IF YOU BREAK THE SHACKLE–[Aaaaand. There he goes. A punch finally lands on him which mean he lands a good fifteen feet away, facedown in the ground.

unfortunately for the world he's not dead. hell, he picks himself back up a minute or so later with no sign of any real injury and shouts at Mafuyu to duck another punch. Then, to Ami:]

Figure something out! You're the only one it hasn't noticed!

[buncho]

[ Figure something out p l e a s e

Because there's nothing Mafuyu can do besides run under cover, ducking under the swinging arms of the monster and sliding low to the ground between its legs and around the back— it's just as armored from behind but that puts her in the monster's blind sight for the moment. ]

Hey, Ugly, turn around!

[ She shoots at the back of the monster's head, probably irritating it more than she is damaging it. But this way its attention was divided between the three of them, and will buy Ami time because honestly, it's all on her...... ]

[livingdeadgirl]

[Yeah no pressure or anything. Figure something out? She doesn't even know what it is! Her occult knowledge wants to call it a Golem, but if it is one, she doesn't remember offhand how those work.

So there's two options: 1) call Maurice, 2) Google it. Either one requires her phone, so she fumbles it back into her hands, in her distress sort of forgetting that she is standing around in plain sight with no cover while also taking her eyes off the monster.]

Hang on a sec...!

[But then the monster turns its head as if to say Oh, what's this, an easy target? Don't mind if I do! And ignoring these other two for now, it lunges toward Ami with thundering steps...]

[stopbleeding]

[Yeah. Should have seen that coming.

Biting back annoyance at seeing her on her phone again, Zoro takes a running leap and latches on to one of the chains on its back.]

You think you have the time to ignore me?! [To the golem. Just for clarification. He yanks back on the chain and the monster does indeed come to a stop. Zoro's heels create small craters in the ground. He pushes them even deeper to strength his hold on the monster.]

I've got it here. Mafuyu, see if you can help her come up with something!

[two minds are better than one or whatever.]

[buncho]

[ Mafuyu's head is empty, Zoro... and leaping onto the monster's back like that just eliminates most of what she can shoot at. Her specialty is hand-to-hand, not even firearms, but Ami's weapon of choice is something she has zero experience with and the temptation to take her own phone out and Google whip techniques is really strong. ]

Okay! Okay, uh! A whip— Can you grab it around the leg and pull it to the ground?

[ Does a whip work like a lasso?? What does a whip do besides make horses run faster. Maybe Zoro should be the one using the whip, riding the golem thing like a bull. ]

[livingdeadgirl]

[Oh shit. Ami almost drops her phone in surprise, but instead pockets it. She's not gonna be able to Google anything, she has to focus on this.

Fortunately, the maneuver Mafuyu suggests is one that Ami has actually done before! Yeah, she can do that one!]

I'll try!

[Muscle memory kicks in as she darts forward, snapping the whip out toward the monster at the last second. With a satisfying crack, it wraps itself snugly around the tree-trunk-sized leg, and she gets her footing and pulls!

... Nothing happens. Ami's face goes pale. Oh right, weight ratios.]

Crap.

[Unfortunately, getting within whip range has also put her within the golem's reach. It brings one of its fists down on her like a hammer, and she only has a split second to look up and raise an arm to protect her face before it hits -

- only it doesn't hit. It meets some resistance, yeah, and Ami feels something, but it's a foreign sensation - or at least, foreign to her as Ami - and with her eyes still squeezed shut, she extends her arm and

pushes

back

Without warning, the golem's arm snaps off at the shoulder and goes flying into the woods. ]

[stopbleeding]

Woah.

[zoro just.

watches.

it go.

then looks back at Ami.]

Do that again!

[buncho]

[ Holy shit.

Mafuyu gapes at what just happened, the monster still for a moment before it starts lumbering back into the woods to reclaim its lost appendage. ]

Ami, its leg! Take down its leg so it can't move!! —WAIT NO, BLAST ITS HEAD OFF! DECAPITATE IT!!

[livingdeadgirl]

[These commands might work better if their target had any idea what she was doing. The golem lumbering away leaves Ami standing dumbly in the grass, staring after it, then staring at her hand as if it just grew 20 extra fingers, then back at the monster.

Did... did that just happen? The memory had come to her weeks ago, out of nowhere - Aradia desecrating the temple, snapping the head off a gigantic stone frog with nothing but a wave of her hand. She'd joked a little about how useful it'd be to have a power like that. But never more useful than now, apparently.

> Golem: Quickly retrieve arm from woods.

The arm is stuck in a tree, which it has also partially uprooted; it's easily within the golem's reach, though, so the monster successfully retrieves its own arm, now wielding it as the legendary weapon Arm & Hammer! It's not actually legendary it's just using its own severed arm as a hammer, that's the joke. With a roar that sounds like stone grinding on stone, it brandishes the Arm & Hammer, then comes charging toward the one who wounded it.

Ami wants to run. Every instinct in her is telling her to run, except one. The one that whispers Aradia would fight.

She braces her feet, extends her arm. As the golem winds up for a home-run swing, she flings her arm upward. Its momentum, suddenly redirected, carries it bodily into the air over her head. It is RIDICULOUS what kind of air this thing is getting. Dude come get the ruler check this out.

And after a hang-time that feels interminable (though it's only a couple of seconds), Ami swivels on her heel and brings her hand down. A force greater than gravity propels the golem down hard into the asphalt that used to be the Mickey D's parking lot, before it got bought out by McDitto's. The impact buckles the pavement and kicks up a huge amount of dust, obscuring the golem from view.

This is now the coolest thing that Ami's ever done in her short life, but rest assured, she is screaming internally.]

[stopbleeding]

[meanwhile: zoro's pumped. he let go of Rock McMuscles awhile ago and just kind of spectated as Ami pulled out her sickest moves absolutely none of them here knew she had. after the impact's hit and the earth has gotten its rumbles out, he jogs over and claps a hand on her shoulder.]

That's what I'm talking about! Nice work! [he leans forward and whistles, calling over his shoulder.] Hey, Mafuyu! Check this out! It's like she punched it!

[buncho]

[ Is it dead though. Mafuyu doesn't approach until the dust settles, hiding behind Zoro to use him as a shield in case the golem pops back out of the crater like the worst horror movie. But it looks pretty much dead, and doesn't move even as Mafuyu steps up to it, gives it a swift kick on the head, and regrets it immediately because it's still rock and she's still stupid.

She picks up the brass knuckles she'd gotten from Maurice, and starts chiseling off pieces of rock in search of the hidden sigil. ]

If you could do this, then do it from the start! You could tear apart all the monsters in the city just like that!

[livingdeadgirl]

I- I couldn't! I literally couldn't do that until just now!

[Of the three of them, Ami herself is the one most freaked out by this turn of events. Her mind's starting to jump to what this means. She doesn't like fighting, especially not like Zoro and Mafuyu seem to. And more importantly, she doesn't want to like fighting. That's not the kind of person she is!

... Right?

She tries to shake that line of thought from her head.]

A-anyway, what are you trying to do? [She may not have been at the Team 1 briefing.]

[stopbleeding]

It's gonna become a thing.

[helpful. he gives Ami one last pat on the shoulder before skidding down the crater.]

You find it yet? Maybe we should hit it with its arm.

[buncho]

[ ...Okay, yeah, Mafuyu pries the golem's fingers apart and hefts the arm up over her shoulder and starts bludgeoning the golems' body with his own arm.

With the spikes and impossibly hard rock covering, it starts to crumble, kicking dust up into the air and maybe stop Mafuyu from shattering their last sigil because she's not paying attention to what she's smashing, she's just getting revenge for her beloved burger place. ]

[livingdeadgirl]

[Yeah it's pretty clearly dead if it's suffering such a rapid loss of structural integrity. But then again, if Mafuyu can lift that arm she's got to be really freaking strong. Ami hesitantly follows them into the ... crater (holy shit, it left a crater) and hefts the nearest chunk, which happens to be its head, which fell off at some point.]

What are you guys looking for?

[... Huh, its mouth is hanging open a little. And there's something gleaming inside ... Ami pokes at the jaw a little, but she's understandably leery of putting her hand inside its mouth.]

Is this it?

[stopbleeding]

[zoro scrambles over to see it.]

Isn't this just it's tooth? [It is not a tooth. It is a jagged gray crystal that is Definitely the sigil. zoro moves aside so mafuyu can get a glimpse of it.]

What do you think? Tooth or sickle?

[He means sigil.]

[buncho]

[ Mafuyu reaches inside its mouth and yanks out a tooth. One of the regular teeth; she sticks this in her back pocket just in case she needs another weapon, one can never have enough weapons. Then she wrenches out the actual sigil tooth and holds it up to show the other two— grey, sort of translucent. ]

This is it! I think this is it— the last one! Now we can go tell Maury!

[livingdeadgirl]

[Come on Mafuyu don't break our perfect record of no lost limbs...

Ami drops the head off to the side and leans in for a closer look at the sigil tooth. This rock is shiny, it must be important to our quest.]

So that's good?