Chapter 21: A Roman Holiday

[Heikki Toivonen]

"Having them here does make it more complex." Heikki chimes in. He leans against the washer as they talk. "They can't get infected here...at least when you two are around...or else you guys will get sick too. If they leave, I could follow them, but they may split up, as was their earlier plan to split into teams and talk to the different workers. Then...there's your sister. She could get sick."

Heikki turns to Archer to see his opinion on the matter, since he seems pretty clear minded about things.

"What do you think we should do?"

[Akira 69]

"Y-y-y-your lighting is in violation- bzzt. ERROR!" Akira stammered, his sentence and also thought process getting cut off by an internal short which made him jolt. Eyes warming up as he blasted a lamp post to pieces. Akira then stops and looks beind him- and he does that by literally spinning his head completely and could have sworn he heard something. "Konich-chi-chi-wa?" Akira stuttered looking all around, his head eventually falling off at the speed at which he turned it.

"Damnit!" Akira swore as his body dumbly felt around at the space where his head was moments ago. "Bakka! BAKKA! ERROR! NO CREDIT! Identified, Akira 69- bzzzt." Akira yelled at his body, either forgetting he had the ears or that he could actually control his body. Seeming to remember this fact, Akira had his body pick his head back up and spun it back into place; a loud click heard as it locked back into place. It is during this rotation that he notices a very disturbing... creature peering at him from behind a window that he did not break.

"Horacio Hatfield!" Akira exclaims pointing a finger in Horacio's direction before walking straight toward the door. It doesn't open which infuriates Akira, prompting him to knock rather loudly until finally growing impatient and simply ripping the door clear off it's hinges. Stepping through, Akira put the door back as if that would remove the fact that it had been ripped off the hinges. "Why is your credit only decent? G-g-global bank demands satisfactory!" Akira rambled on incorherantly; breifly considering the option of beating Horacio slightly- would probably go unnoticed.

That was until he noticed Ophelia who made him completely forget about finishing his sentence. "Oh, why hello." Akira said bowing on reflex, his head popping off again and rolling off somewhere. Akira then went on a spiel of high pitched swearing in japanese, speaking it so quickly that it was almost impossible to tell which ones as his clumsy body chased after the rolling head. "BAKKA! That's a flower pot! BAKKA!!" Akira roared as his body mistook a flower pot for it's own head.

[Max Alexander]

((To Dinari))

Max was lying on his couch sleeping when he was startled by a vibrating PDA. It was a text from Dinari telling him to come to Rome.

He decided what the hell. Got up, took a quick shower, changed then headed for the teleportation booth. He walked out of a booth a block away from the Colosseum. He quickly phoned Dinari to ask where he was.

[††Venice "Cephrien" Ashgrove††]

Ceph blinks as Horacio points out an android.. or rather, a creditor who seemed to be running rampant through the streets of Rome. As he looked out the window with Horacio, he briefly wondered why a Creditor would do such a thing.. But without much thought, he was able to put it together easily.

"It's just a rouge creditor." He spoke flatly.

"I'm pretty sure the production of his model had stopped when they started giving them synthetic skin. So he really shouldn't even be existing."

Ceph turned around to walk away from the window. As long as the thing didn't have a reason to bust into this shop, he didn't see any reason to confront it.. But then, the door was ripped off off it's hinges. There, at the ripped open doorway, stood the rouge creditor.. It was was loud.. and annoying.. -and now it was going to assault Horacio.


Poor guy never got a break..

-and then the android's head fell to the floor and rolled into Cephrien's boot. He made a brief face as he reached down and picked the head up, turning it around so that he was staring at it in the face.

"Oi. You're making a mess of things."

-and with that, he wound his arm back and then threw it forward to hurl the robot's head out one of the already-broken windows.

"Go away."

[Émilie LaFramboise]

To Kasper (if it's alright)

Once again, Émilie was using her free time to explore despite the fact Vivien disliked her doing so. She generally respected Vivien's wishes, but saw no harm in exploring as it was usually spent in the few forests left in the world. The call of nature was not something she could easily ignore, her nymph blood luring her to the woods whenever possible. If she didn't visit the woods every once in a while, she grew depressed.

Either way, she was more than content now. She didn't know where she was nor did she really worry, the teleportation code for France was memorized as well as how the bark of trees felt. Finding a booth was also rarely difficult. She let these thoughts roll in her head as she usually did, brushing her fingers across the vegetation of the forest until she felt something odd. Cloth?

Inspecting closer, Émilie discovered that it was cloth attached to one of the trees. Fresh cloth? Rarely did she ever find someone else in the forests on her walks. A little foolishly, she grew a bit excited at the thought that it could be someone else who enjoys nature. Deciding to keep her real appearance out (silver-white hair, silver-blue eyes, pointed ears), she begun following the pieces of cloth.

Her white sun dress catches on a few branches in her rush, but she eventually nears someone who appears human. She can only see his back, but he doesn't seem to be dangerous or carrying any weapon. In fact, he seems a little scrawny... "Uh, hello?" She finally calls out lightly, waving her hand despite the fact he's facing away from her.

[Bambi Engel]

Bambi nods and rushes to neatly put everything away. She follows Annette to the booth, feeling a little nervous. She thinks on how the booth could malfunction, but had used enough of them that it didn't cause her to feel too paranoia. She feels more comfortable in the crowd, where she's just another person out of many. She's even more relieved to find some of the Blessed giving speeches instead of sacrifices.

Standing up on her tip toes even, she listens closely. Many of the speeches were good, even inspiring despite how she disagreed with some points of Manalism. However, when Annette suggests she gives her own speech, she instantly falls back down to the back of her feet. "S-say something?" Did she have a choice? It wasn't like the speeches were bad, talking about killing children or anything.

She gulps and nods. "O-of course, wonderful idea." But would they even let her up there? Was she allowed to? Then again... who was to say she couldn't? She begins making her way through the crowd, partly panicking. Reaching one of the people who seemed to be organizing things, she gets their attention. "I'd like to speak at the stand for a moment, I'm an employee from the Global Bank."

They let her on with no fuss to her surprise, and after the current speaker, it's her turn. With any luck, this wasn't on tv. She moves in front of the stand and clears her throat. Just... pretend you're talking to yourself in the mirror!

"Hello, I'm Bambi Engel from Global Bank. I planned the Manala Mas celebration this year, which I hope was enjoyed. I've been working the moment I stepped out of school, my job the most important thing to me. Work is my life, and thanks to my commitment I have been proving myself well. No matter where you come from or who you are, you can always prove yourself if you have the drive to work and do so."

She speaks calmly, looking at nothing in particular. Once done speaking, she steps down from the stage. It wasn't much, but no one seemed to hate it. Hoping Annette didn't, she makes her way back to her through the crowd. It hadn't really been so bad- okay, it was terrifying, but nonetheless. At least she'd kept her cool and hadn't knocked anything over.

[Linnea Korpela]

Linnea wipes the dirt off her hands as Kith puts the supplies away, there would be others to finish cleaning up the mess and to put the office back together.
"Leisure..." Linnea almost forgot the meaning of the word. She was always worrying about something, or busy doing something that someone demanded her to do to think about leisure. There weren't many fun things that Linnea did.
"A distraction sounds wonderful!" Linnea looked a little giddy. "But I don't have many ideas..."
She thought about the what the Manalists had banned and wondered what they could do in order to stay away from trouble. She was only following Calithin's advice.
"How about the beach!" she blurted before she remembered that she was always shy at the beach and no matter how nice it was she always ended up sitting under an umbrella with a long shirt on. Maybe that's why she was so pale most of the time.

[Jack Kruschev]

"Well, quite frankly," Anthony replies in a realistic, but somewhat harsh tone. "With your technology, you'll never even come close. Now, take a look at this."

Anthony motions for Momo to come over to a microscope and take a look.

"As you can see," he explains, "When the blood mixes with the feather, it begins to glow and push everything away. We've done similar tests with the blood, which we only recently have been able to replicate accurately, and microscopic pieces of the feather. Depending on the polarity of the charge we run through it, it can blow up or heal life forms. Through this, we've created 'Godlike' creatures that can survive through extreme conditions. However, they typically die within a couple days of their creation. We think that if we combine this with you mechas, we can really have something good."

[Akira 69]

"Oi! Hands off the merchandise!" Akira growled as Ceph picked his head up, glad he didn't have a nose or else he would have been disgusted at Ceph's undoubtedly horrible breath... how he would even know that his breath stunk was completely unknown as his head was sent flying through a broken window. At that, Akira activated a pair of small helicopter blades which whirred into action. Shifting the weight of his head, Akira flew back through the window and knocked the flower pot off of his body so that he could reattach his head.

[Archer Aylmer]

"I don't know why you let them stay with us to begin with if it was going to cause such a conundrum."

I feel like the use of the word 'conundrum' takes away from the intended intensity and seriousness of my sentence, and this makes me a little upset. However, it's not a 'problem' per say and 'conundrum' is really the most accurate word to use. I frown.

"Um... Well, Bonifaz, Freida and I could stay at a hotel while Heikki stays here with the Socialists and infects them. I suppose you could make up a lie to tell your sister... About how Socialists are gross and degenerate and you don't want her staying in the house with them. That may work to persuade her. Or... Maybe... We could just get infected. I mean, you have the... Cure, right Bonifaz? Or... Maybe you can have your company develop a vaccine we could take that would make it impossible for us to catch the illness at all."

[Calithin Crest]

I pop a stick of gum into my mouth and, since it is spearmint flavored (my favorite gum flavor), much away happily. I hold out the pack to Dinari and Dr. Lonnrot in case they want some. I am very good about sharing my gum.

"Um... Yeah. I guess we could do that. I've never been psychologically evaluated in an official way before... Just unofficially... And usually... By ex-girlfriends."

I roll my eyes and blow a big bubble with my gum. It pops. I blow another.

[Eun/Aoi Kiriyama]

"So...Niilo.....are you a social worker or something?" she ask as they walk to his place.

Eun hopes that his place have a shower. She didn't took a shower for a few days.

"And other thing. Where were you when the Mechas attacked here?"

[~Ophelia Vespera~]

"W-wait! You're going to try to save someone from the gladiator ring?!" Ophelia squeaked moving to the bottom of the stairwell so he could hear her better up the stairs.

"Maybe you could try to pass yourself off as one of the fighters in the Gladiator arena, and help rescue her then." Horacio suggested calmly .

"That would be placing him in the ring though!" Ophelia exclaimed in a disagreeable tone looking towards Horacio, "How would he get out with her? Only the last person standing has a chance of leaving the ring, there can't be two."

She looked back up to Ceph, with a pleading expression in her deep green eyes.

"Not that I don't think rescuing your friend is a noble thing to try to do!.. It is very tragic all the lives that are sacrificed for an idol such as Father Manala.. B-but it's very risky signore! In all honesty, it's suicidal trying to intervene in the Holy Week's events! The chances are you'll be killed just the same as the person you're trying to rescue. You should seriously think this through."

She should've been holding her nose firmly to her face and not letting it slip into Ceph's business. As long as what he did in not in anyway affect her or her shop, she shouldn't have cared. But, she was vicarious and worrisome by nature. She also had no idea he was a super natural being who might actually have a shot in surviving the Gladiator ring.

Something crashed through the window at that moment, interrupting the conversation and alarming everyone. A manic creditor then made its way over to the establishment, busting through the door to get in and yell at Horacio about his decent credit.

"Oh sweet Jesus." Ophelia spoke under her breath, watching the destruction through parted fingers.

How could this all be happening? Just when she thought things were going to get peaceful again, a malfunctioned creditor bursts into her shop, her one safe haven, her pride, her joy, and starts making a mess of things!! Her blood was starting to boil. She was reaching a breaking point in her patience.. All of it was just too much for Ophelia to handle with grace.

Her thin sandals crunched over broken glass and gardening soil on the tile floor as she made her way over to the creditor to stand in seething silence until his head re-attached itself.

"You!.. You!" she began as soon as his head landed back on its body and clicked into place, "I will NOT tolerate anymore of your mayhem!! If you do not get off of my property this instant I will call authorities and have you DEACTIVATED so help me God if I do not stick a hose in your mouth and burst all your circuits myself! You hear me?! Now get out!!" she yelled, her voice cracking from hardly ever raising her voice so loud. Her whole body quaked with pent up emotion and she stiffly pointed to the broken doorway for Akira to take his leave.

[Niilo Ukkonen]

"In many ways, yes," Niilo responded as he took a look to a fallen sign and ensured that they were going the right way. "I help a lot of people."

"Well, you can't tell now, but I got hit by some rock when a mecha attacked a building I was near. I was nocked unconscious and woke up a while later. After that, I just walked around to try and find another lifeform. Then I found you."

[Anya Louteius]

Anya smiled up at Lulu and nodded and looked around and then looked confused. Travis wasn't anywhere to be seen. When Lulu returned with a pitcher and two glasses full of peach tea, she looked up at her confused. "Where is Travis? Did you send him with Alora?" Lulu nodded sadly and Anya didn't push the subject. She took a sip of the tea and smiled. "Wow this is better than i remember." She laughed and took another sip.