| NNY and Caliga's Excellent Adventure | ||
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In the time he's been gone, it's blatenly apparent to Caliga just how much Hell has changed. No longer is it wasteland tied together by seven idiots in a quest to overthrow the world above. It's actually a thriving world in its own right. One might even think it to be a fine place to visit! If you're into the whole being dead thing. No, this is not the hell Caliga once knew. It has changed, and quite possibly for the better since his long absence from it. Be it a forced absence or not, once more he starts to question if this is really a wise idea. Irregardless, the desire to continue onward forces Caliga to trudge through the city, seeking out the one person that could keep him whole. "God damn it Johnny... where the fuck are you?" If you ask the one person who remembers everything clearly, too clearly, he'd tell you. Nothing had changed at all. Anywhere. But it's easier to push that out of his head than try to dwell on it. The world moved on, but he didn't. He's the one who forced it to move on after all. Thus, spending all of his time deliberately oblivious, Johnny sits on his throne of corpses in the courtyard of Dis where he spends most of his time. Normally he's judging people but today's he's demanded a break. The tediousness of it all is getting to him. For a maniac, Johnny seems to have his head together quite well. Once upon a time, he'd be babbling about the wall, only to be having an argument with a cockroach the next about lies and horrible slander. Now? The maniac seems to be no longer falling apart at the seams. In a sick way, this makes Caliga seem a bit lit down. Almost as if he expected Johnny to be in those memories. As he passes by the wall that Johnny is leaning against, the lord of the Eternal Wastes rolls his eyes. "NNy, if I wanted to bitch at you, I'd be yelling and screaming like you lit my puppy on fire. Also, you should have just stayed on your throne. Maybe have been playing with some army men or somethin'. Would have suited you a lot better." Caliga stops, and turns to face Johnny now, a pained expression crossing his face. "No, I need your help. You are quite literally my only hope." "I /was/ on my throne. I told them to quit bringing these assholes all goddamned day, but HERE YOU ARE!" Johnny grins maniacally. Seeing Caliga stop and actually ask for help makes him blink. "Help with what? If this is gonna be a Star Wars joke I'm not going to follow you around in a trash can making 'beep beep' noises." As Johnny asks for Caliga needs help with, the man stops hold himself together. Bits of himself start flying off, swirling in the air only to trail away off into the distance. He falls to his knees as he fights to regain control, only to fall over as his body overloads with that filthy feeling called pain. Through it all, he manages to utter a single word. "Yoko." Johnny's eyes instantly glaze over at the name. A distance suddenly appears as he becomes once more disconnected from the world around him. Even lines creep in around his darkened insomniatic eye sockets. In the matter of seconds he's become an old man only in his eyes. Stumbling backwards a step, Johnny starts rubbing one eye with the back of a palm. "Y'know... We didn't have cherries. 65 million years without cherries and then Cale. Cale gave them to me. No one remembers these things..." With that bit of randomness he turns and just starts walking away, no longer acknowledging Caliga or his problems. Caliga lays there, even as Johnny walks away. Even if the Maniac is now running down Memory Road, Caliga knows he's not going to really go anywhere. It takes him a while to slowly struggle to sitting posistion. "They were good cherries, weren't they?." He raises his head to stare at the moving away Maniac. "Johnny. If you don't help me.. then.." He stops speaking, and then chuckles. "I really can't see a reason to convince you to help me." Caliga slowly rises to his feet, only to grin. "All right. Let's go on an adventure then. One last one Johnny." Johnny turns back and stares through Caliga. "Eh?" He tilts his head to the side as a bit of his words creep in. "Oh, so you want to see it then? Fine. Fine. We can go see the cherry tree." Yeah, because that's totally what Caliga said, right? Johnny doesn't care. He just pulls out his daggers and starts hacking away at the wall behind his dying acquaintance. Eventually the wall gives and a blackened void yanks the two of them inside. For a moment there's nothing, and then suddenly the ground is there beneath their feet. Well, something that will pass for it anyways. Johnny looks around confused. "It's gone!" He turns around frantically looking into the endless nothing. "CHRONOS IS GONE!!" As the two of them are yanked into the void, Caliga looks around into the endless nothing. "No. It's not." The emptiness of it all is enough to unsettle Caliga some, as he moves to place a hand on Johnny. "Where are we Johnny?" The lack of life except for these two is something that disturbs Caliga, and right now Johnny is on a wild ride, and Caliga is strapped in to the passenger seat with his mouth duct-taped shut. "Shit..." The crazed maniac turns and grabs Caliga by his collar, pulling him close enough to see his wild eyes. "SOMEONE MOVED CHRONOS." He doesn't care if Caliga fights him for it or not, at the moment he just lets go of him and starts hacking away at the nothing with his daggers again. "OKAY. FINE. There's more than one way to skin a cat..." That's probably not the right thing to say at the moment. Soon enough another portal is ripped into existence, and Johnny takes a bow letting Caliga pass through it first. Palace Labs - Leyland's Lab(#1335R) Caliga passes through the portal and comes to a stop. The memories from the maniac are faint, but he knows this place. This place, should /NOT/ exist. He moves forward and steps out into the lab, allowing himself to grab one of the books. Almost immediatly however, he flings the book away in disgust, and turns to face the maniac, only to have a brief moment of panic. "Why.. why is this here?" Johnny follows behind and laughs, "Well if I can't get back one way, I can get back another way. It's all connected. There are hundreds of portals that connect any one thing to another. Someone fucked with my portal, I'll fuck up another one." Caliga steps towards the man, cracking his knuckles. "Oh, so this is Leyland?" He gets close enough to be able to look up into the scientist's eyes, and nods. "You think he'd complain too much if I took his mask thing?" He glances over at Johnny, who seems to be lost in thought on how to rightfully carve up that wall. "Eh, I want it." Caliga's right arm cocks backwards, only to surge forwards towards Leyland's face, stopping at the last moment. If the doctor were to flinch, or even move back, Caliga's left hand is going to quickly snatch at the mask, seeking to take it for his own. Leyland's eyes narrow as Caliga addresses him so casually. "How DARE you address me like such! WHO ARE YOU!" The statement about his mask sends him further in rage, "THE GEVAUDAN MK IV IS NOT A TOY!!" He points at his assailant and pokes him in the chest with a finger, "YOU WILL TELL ME WHAT YOU'RE DOING HERE OR SO HELP ME-!" Annnnnd yoink! Caliga nimbly takes both halves of the mask thing, and starts trying to piece them together as he wanders towards the vortex and Johnny. "Man, it's just a stupid mask. Gettin' all uppity over it." He places both halves of it into his jacket and turns to bow formally towards Leyland. "May you enjoy what time you have left." And thus Caliga steps backwards into the portal. Obviously the Maniac knows what he's doing. Hopefully. It's clear that Arryl Leyland has quite a few words to say on the subject, but luckily the two leave and it all fades out to a distant blur before anyone has to put up with it. Unlike the previous two portals, this one seems to resemble a tunnel full of shades of blue whipping around like rushing water. After a timeless moment it deposits them onto a platform floating in the midst of an endless nothing. Not unlike the first place they arrived. This one at least has lamp posts and bridges that lead to other platforms. The End of Time(#218R) Johnny peers around with an excited grin. "Man I missed this place." Well, it is -technically- Chronos. His voice stirs a sleeping man in a bowler who was slumped against the lamp post. "Visitors?" The maniac blatantly ignores him as he opens a wooden gate and marches up a set of stairs. "Yo! Cali! This way!" Caliga bows to the man in the bowler as he follows the Maniac, only to glance towards a door away from the gate. "This is where it all connects." He stops moving for a moment and turns to look out to the never ending expanse. "If Hornboy really knew..." He quickly turns and rushes after the Maniac through the gate, and up the stairs only to stop for a moment to glance at the plethora of vortexes that expand out before him. "This is the truth of everything, isn't it?" The words are spoken really only to himself, they are loud enough for others to overhear. "You're right. It's all always connected.." Johnny stands staring at each of the pillars of light on the upper platform trying to remember which was which. Caliga's words make him stop and shake his head, though. "What?" He starts to laugh, "Nooo! This is where all of CHRONOS connects. Only reason we can get here from Twisted is because Twisted was anchored here and the flow of time forced it to age." He says this like it's the most obvious thing ever. "Soooo, play your cards right and you could say that Twisted is connected to Chronos - or was. I'm still not sure why there was nothing when I opened that first portal. It should have brought us straight here." Hmm. "If that's the case, then the Twisted we know now.. isn't the real Twisted." Caliga shrugs his shoulders as he moves to the upper right most pillar, and stands before it. "I think this is the one you're looking for, if you're trying to head to back to Truce." He reaches forward and touches the pillar that flows upwards from the floor, causing a vortex to appear. "Shall we?" Johnny steps over to him and into the center beam of light. As it washes down over them the world seems to melt away, leaving them in an empty fairground at the base of a mountain. Guardia Fairgrounds - Time Gate(#199R) "Yeah, this is right." Shaking his head, Johnny adds, "No. It's the real Twisted. It's not the /first/ Twisted. Well, it wasn't supposed to be but it sorta is. I dunno. Let's just get on with this." He takes off to the South towards Truce Village and beyond. "How do you know about Truce?" "From you. Rather, your memories. Yet.. I've also been here myself. Before the fight with Concordance, I did quite a bit of traveling. The best conclusion I ever came to was knowing that you aren't as crazy as you let on to be." Caliga slowly follows after the maniac, reaching up to pull a leaf from one of the low lying branches of a tree. "Thinking about it all hurts. Especially since Tabitha handed me my ass. Don't you tell anyone I told you that though." Caliga lets the leaf go, watching it flutter in the wind before landing on the ground. Johnny starts walking backwards as they exit the fairgrounds, "Wait. Tabitha? MY Tabitha?" He rubs his eyes, "Wow, maybe that's why Sun was all in my face about talking to her." He sighs and shoves his hands in his pockets, ignoring as they pass through Truce and make their way to Guardia Field. Somewhere along the line he starts walking normally again, taking in the empty and seemingly endless field broken up only by a few trees and animals skittering around in the tall grasses. Eventually they come to a lone cherry tree on a hill overlooking the waters below. Johnny stops and gestures for Caliga to go forth. "We're here." Caliga nods. "Yeah. She did a number on me." He comes to a stop before the tree, and stares at it, only to reach up towards the cherries. He pulls his hand back however, and looks out over water, staring off into the horizon. "They can't ever know about this place NNy." He turns around to face the maniac once more. "Will you help me, Johnny? I don't think its time for me to go just yet. Once more I'm depending on you to help me. This time though.. I don't think I could force you even if I tried." Johnny's eye noticeably twitches as he promptly starts ignoring him again. "This was the first cherry tree on Chronos. Yoko was the first person I spoke to about it after I planted it in the past. I liked her. She wasn't from here. She was from somewhere else and whatever or however this place works she woke up here one day and never told ANYONE about what had happened to her. After what that fake Cale did to her..... I swore... I couldn't just sit back and watch that kind of bullshit happen." As he spoke he started turning away showing his back to Caliga, but suddenly he turns to face him and instantly his body is completely black, burning with shadows. His furious red eyes are one moment tiny specks on his blackened body and the next they're in Caliga's face as the manaic wraps one hand around his throat and uses the other to draw his Dread Dagger and start syphoning off his life force. "I'VE NEVER SPOKEN HER NAME OUT LOUD!! WHERE DID YOU HEAR IT FROM!!!" A loud sigh escapes Caliga's mouth as Johnny grabs ahold of his throat. "Please, let me go." There's no strength behind Caliga's voice, as he's already resigned himself once again to his apparent fate. "I'll explain it all, and then you can do whatever you want Johnny." He waits to see if the manic complies, and even if he doesn't, he starts to speak. "Since.. Twisted's rebirth I've been dying Johnny. Kaldrath is dead, and has been for some time. Since then, I've been finding ways to have myself completely destroyed, or hiding in a pocket dimension that either Crux or Nancy Dark have been supporting. Any time I make myself known on Twisted... More of me leaves to rejoin with Kaldrath. So, I left insurance behind that Twisted will have a future." Johnny throws Caliga down and screams, "THAT DOESN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION!!" Thunder can be heard rumbling in the distance. "I don't really CARE about you Caliga. You AMUSE me... and very few people do that anymore. I've stopped caring about people - if you can even call them that! Everything I get invested in comes back to hurt me in more ways than should be possible. Her name HURTS me. So for the last time WhERe Did YoU HEaR tHAt NAmE?!?" "Settle down Beavis." Caliga moves to sit down now against the trunk of the tree, and stares at the maniac. "I gave /my/ memories to one of the new residents of Twisted. One who has the ability to stand against most that would seek to bring it down. Even you or Hornboy. You really don't remember just what parts of you are now apart of me, do you?" He stares at the maniac, and frowns. "I know it because you know it. I know, what you knew. When I gave my memories to Kotal, that one word went along with it. In my hope to ensure that Twisted stays safe, I may have passed the very taint I have on. Maybe your memories were trying to remind me that you hold the power to save my own life. I don't know, but since I gave them to Kotal, he has obsessed over that one name, and knows nothing else of it. Nor does he know of its significance." Caliga now goes silent for a few moments. "There are many other things that you should be angry or hate me for Johnny C. We both know that I have done horrible things to you, and of the denizens who have wandered Twisted, you are one of the ones at are at the front of that ever long line who has a reason to plant a knife in my skull. I came to you, knowing that if I were to speak that name, it would hurt you again. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a choice if I want to continue living, and not end up being lost forever." Johnny's blood literally boils and almost nothing Caliga says matters at all in his mind. The skies seem to be darkening the madder he gets. It's probably a good thing Twisted doesn't react to him like this. Johnny turns and directs his rage suddenly at the tree. The darkness that makes up his body suddenly jerks forwards, becoming a wall of jagged edges and the tree that mattered so much to him shatters outwards in a cloud of splintering wood and red mist from the cherries that hung on its branches. Floating in the center of where the trunk had been is a long black odachi sword. Johnny's form momentarily flickers back to normal and he snatches the blade by its hilt and throws it at Caliga in a way that he can catch it safely. All along it's blade flames have been etched that only show when the light catches them. One thing is for sure, once Caliga has his hand on it, it's made of whatever the Dread Dagger is made from and instantly it starts feeding darkness and Caliga's own essence back into him. As Johnny changes, Caliga leaps to his feet and away from the tree. However, as the sword takes shape and is flung towards him, he neatly catches the hilt, only to fall to his knees as he feels the energy returning to him. He stares at the ground for a few moments, only to glance up at the maniac's words. He closes his eyes now, thinking on the time he's been on Twisted, and shakes his head. There has been quite a few things that he owes to the maniac, and a lot of it is because of his own mistakes. Things he should have never done or meddled with, yet Johnny has seen him through it in his own chaotic way. "When.. have I never not?" Caliga moves forward and picks a cherry off the ground, only to place it in his mouth. "They are good." He removes a seed from his mouth, and punches a hole into the ground, neatly laying the seed into the hole, and covering it with fresh dirt. His free hand reaches into his jacket, and pulls out a small flask, which he then opens with his mouth. The contents are poured onto the small mound, soaking it entirely. "I've always owed you Johnny, thats why I've done my best to help Tabitha." Watching him replant the seed is enough to calm him down enough to stop flickering, but his rage keeps him shrouded in darkness. He noticeably twitches his eyes again as Caliga rambles on about helping. "Shut. Up. I don't CARE!! I don't care about her! I don't care about you!! I don't FUCKING care!!!" He turns and starts to walk back to Truce, no longer caring if Caliga follows him or not. It's time to go home. One way or another Johnny will slowly fade back to his usual form before they reach the Village's limits. Caliga places the flat of the blade on his shoulder as he rises upwards and follows after Johnny. He allows the silence to exist between them, until he can't really take it anymore. "Next time we go on an adventure, there needs to be hula girls." Johnny stops dead in his tracks in the center of Truce, his eyes going wide. There's nothing to see there but a large fountain, but Johnny is clearly seeing something else as he starts running his hands along the ground. "Dude. There's something REALLY FUCKING BIG here, and it's NOT supposed to be." Where is this anyways? Oh. There's Crono's house in the corner. Caliga stops behind Johnny, and examines the ground as well. Unfortunately, he doesn't see things the same way as the Maniac, nor does he truly know this world as well as he does. "...What exactly are you saying is wrong, NNy?" Johnny responds by taking out his dagger and beginning to cut open the ground which bellows open like a giant blister. More of that swirling blue seems to be beneath the ground in this vortex-like tunnel that ends up being larger than the fountain itself. Johnny begins to cackle as he cuts it open to its full length although the large blue robot that suddenly launches itself into the air and to the South is enough noise that half of Truce comes out to investigate. Johnny starts to panic. "Cali? You're an evil mage named Magus who wants to destroy the village. Start acting the part and keep these people away from this portal while I go find out what that was!!" Seriously?? "Oh god, I have to pretend to be him?" Caliga grumbles as he rises into the air, and bellows loudly, "AT LAST! I HAVE RETURNED TO THIS WORLD! THE HERO OF LEGEND HAS FAILED TO TRULY DEFEAT ME! ONCE AGAIN, I, THE GREAT MAGE MAGUS WILL RULE THIS WORLD!" As the village starts errupt into sheer chaos, Caliga starts to lob rather puny fireballs from the sky, sending people skittering away from the portal and towards the castle for safety. It isn't that hard to scare villagers, however when the castle guards get there, thats when the real fun will begin. Turning to look off into the distance, he sees the giant blue robot rushing off towards the only thing that lies due south of the village. "Oh for fucks sakes... Anything but that place..." Luckily for everyone the guards won't be here for a few moments and Johnny vanished pretty quickly. As people start screaming and at least a few people start wrangling cats into their homes.... Wow, there are a lot of cats here! ...sorry. Anyways, during all of that a large splash can be heard as the blue thing touches down in the bay narrowly missing the island to the South. In about enough time for people from the Inn to start making their way here, mixed with a few sword wielding adventurers, a loud grinding noise can be heard like someone shifting gears in a large truck. Wait... Is metal music playing? With the sound of a jet engine being fired up the large, humanoid robot is suddenly back and punching its way through the adventurers as it gets to Caliga. Where the robot's head should be, Johnny waves out the window of a red sports car. "OH MAN!! IT'S LIKE A VIDEO GAME!!" The engine revs up again and the passenger door opens wide. "GET IN, QUICK!!" This is seriously happening isn't it? Johnny and Caliga on Chronos in a giant blue robot with mud flaps on its feet. This couldn't possibly just be someone's fever dream, could it? >_>; ..... .....Loading..... Caliga floats in the air staring at the giant robot, running his free over his face in disbelief. "Oh COME ON. JOHNNY. WE ARE TAKING THAT BACK TO TWISTED WHERE IT BELONGS RIGHT THIS INSTANT." He flies down to the passenger side of the head, and opens the door, slamming it shut behind him. "We really need to get this off this planet, and quickly." Nodding his head, Johnny leans out the window, "Thank you folks for participating in this production of the Porre Theatrical Society! Please step away while we take our exit!" He looks back at Caliga with a huge grin on his face and shrugs. The entire inside of the 'car' is lined with game controllers with a hula girl on the dash. The manaic looks at it and laughs as he starts using a clearly labeled Playstation controller. "It's literally just like video game! Luckily I wasted a lot of time playing the Neo Tokyo Arcade Game." He taps down, forward, punch. "POWER WAAAVE!!!!" The MEGAS, the giant blue robot in question, suddenly punches the ground and passes straight through the portal which explodes around them, closing the Chronos side in the process. At least until the robot gets stuck and the swirling blue energies become too bright to withstand. Johnny screams, mashing every button he can see. There's a loud click and suddenly the car rockets forwards on its own speeding even faster than the robot was originally traveling. The portal explodes open again and another fountain is suddenly coming up right in front of them VERY FAST as they come rocketing out of the sky towards it. Johnny grabs the steering wheel and yanks it up instinctively, somehow managing to change the decent of the vehicle in the process. The tires hit the ground and start spitting flames as the red car is suddenly traveling hundreds of miles an hour through Nowhereto Park towards the entrance. The maniac screams and hits the brake, sending the car into a rapid spin that only stops a half second before they manage to crash into a wall extending around the park. The car lurches violently to a stop and Johnny smacks himself on the head violently. There's an odd moment of silence as the engine ticks as it cools, and the car's driver becomes daring enough to look around at the destruction they've just caused. "LET'S DO THAT AGAIN!!!" Nowhereto Park - Fountain(#2924R) [!]Without warning a large vortex suddenly opens up in the skies of Twisted and a red sports car is suddenly seen falling towards Nowhereto Park at hundreds of miles an hour. There isn't an explosion, but the sound of squeeling tires can be heard clearly over the city. "....Really?" Caliga is currently upside down and stuffed between the dashboard and passenger's seat as he hadn't had time to buckle his seatbelt, his sword precariously poking upwards. "...You know how to drive, right?" He struggles for a few moments, before outright giving up on moving from his current posistion without destroying the car. "I ask, because if we don't get out of here, I'm fairly certain that TASK is going to be swarming down on us to find out just what in the hell is going on. Plus I really don't want to see Kotal just yet." Caliga fidgets some more, only to grumble as he gives up once again from dislodging himself from his current posistion. Johnny pfffts, "Yeah! I know how to drive! I use to drive my Volkswagen all over the place before-" Mid-sentence Johnny is yanked out of the driver side door by a large overweight man with a yellow mullet. "YOU STOLE MY ROBOT!!!" Johnny just stares with wide eyes in confusion. "DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I'VE BEEN SITTING HERE WAITING FOR IT TO COME OUT OF THAT PORTAL?" "Long enough to gain thirty pounds?" Caliga grins as he says this, only to kick at the back of the seat violently. "WELL TONS OF FUN, IF YOU'RE COMING TO RECLAIM YOUR STUFF, HOW ABOUT YOU OPEN THE DOOR SO I CAN GET THE HELL OUT!?" If Coop doesn't hurry, he's going to have to search very hard for a new seat, which on Twisted, may prove to be pretty difficult. Johnny flashes Coop a grin and dangles the keys he somehow held onto as he was pulled out of the car. Snatching them up the fat man marches around the car and lets Caliga out. "I /GUESS/ I should thank you for bringing me the car. Now maybe I can build something to track the rest of it." Caliga flops out of the car, and lands roughly on the ground. He doesn't stay long on the ground, quickly making his way to stand next to the Maniac. "So. Really. We need to be going. Good luck with your car robot thing man." He stares directly Johnny, and motions that they skidaddle. Johnny just nods his head and starts making a break for it. When they get at least out of earshot of the fat man he finally asks, "So! I have this weird urge to go hang out at the 24*7 and make myself sick on cherry brainfreezy! Wanna come!?" Well, it is a plan...
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