Rooftop Run

Rooftop Run
Date of Scene:	09 December 2012
Location:	Goug
Synopsis:	Having arrived in Goug to fulfil a reaper's game mission, Shiki enlists Beat's help. Things go about as well as you'd expect.
Cast of Characters:	Shiki Misaki, Beat

---

Shiki Misaki has posed:
The Machine City, Goug. Presumably a little bit like Midgar would look if it was in the middle ages, or perhaps what Midgar would look like thousands of years in the future when a neo-medieval city is built on its ruins. Regardless of what you compare it to, somewhere in here they sell sea-salt ice cream.

Shiki Misaki certainly hopes so, anyway. She's been travelling for days to get here, and she has the tan and the knapsack full of junk to show for it. Mr. Mew picked up a fedora in his size, too.

She expects the Reapers to be around here somewhere; it's not like this will be easy, now she's actually arrived. There will probably be meaningless tasks to perform and keypins to acquire.

Beat has posed:
Beat's life was very different to the one he had before. Formerly a lazy student and untroubled skater, he was now some kind of delinquent punch clock villain, shirking his responsibility to JUDGE THE WORTH OF MEN! in lieu of exploring the world shards and punching Heartless square in the jaw. Those that frequented the WildKat Cafe hadn't seen him for a good few weeks either, something that Mr Hanekoma put down to him 'finding himself'.

In reality Beat hadn't found himself, he was lost, but in the nature of men everywhere had refused to acknowledge that was the case. He considered passing through a Corridor of Darkness to get back but it wasn't really worth it... when you start down a path of shadow it's hard to find your way back. Thankfully, however, some of Beat's Reaper powers were still as strong as ever. "Shiki?"

Turning, Beat jogged through a few alleyways and past a couple of streets before seeing a familiar face in the distance. "Yo! Shiki!" he shouted, running over. "What'chu doing here?"

But if Beat heard her it's safe to say other Reapers did too...

Shiki Misaki has posed:
There are worse places to get lost in than Goug!

Scarytown, for example. Well, no, supposedly it's nice this time of year.

If Shiki was privy to Beat's internal monologue of troubles, she would probably ask him how he manages it: solo wandering across the face of the World of Ruin, that is. But she's not! Because she can't scan him, o ho ho.

"Oh, hey, it's Beat!" Shiki says to Mr. Mew. She gives him a wave, and plods over. When she gets over there, though, she looks him up and down for a moment.

"Um... boy, this is a little akward. Are you 'on the job'?" she asks, holding up the back of her hand. There's a countdown, but it has over twelve hours left on it.

"I got a message on my cell like... practically four days ago from the Game Master that said there was a mission here in Goug. Had to get to get on a boat to come here! Do you know anything about it?"

Beat has posed:
Beat crossed his arms at the question, a small ruffle appearing at his brow. "What?" he asked, a but put-off. "No! Of course not, that a'int my style." He glanced down at the timer, the fear seeing it once caused replaced with a kind of weird professional curiousity. "Didn't you hear the news? I can fill my quota by Erasing Heartless."

Beat chewed Shiki's question over. Did he hear anything? His phone was off, true, but wasn't there some other way the Reapers sent each other that info? He couldn't remember, and neither was he going go turn the device on to figure it out. When he did, trouble came his way. Way more trouble than a Player Mission.

"Nah, sorry, they don't tell me that sort of stuff," Beat explained with a note of pride. Betraying the Reapers was kind of sweet after all. They tried to screw him over and now he's screwing them right back. Then it hit him... how was she supposed to to this without a partner? The Delinquent Reaper unfolded his arms and tilted to look past Shiki, slightly confused. "Where's Phones?"

Shiki Misaki has posed:
"Oh wow, really? I did not know that!" Shiki says, brightly. Holds her other hand up for a high five. "Good for you!"

And possibly good for her, if it means there's going to be no barriers to her getting the mission completed. "You wanna hang out while I go wandering around, then? I've been here once before, but I've never visited more than a couple places."

However, no sooner has she gotten a few paces away from Beat to try and point to where she's been that she runs into- you guessed it- a wall. Fortunately, on cue (yes he WAS waiting), Tenho steps out of a nearby doorway. The Reaper in the red hoodie raises his hand to lazily greet Beat, apparently uninterested.

"Hey, Player," he says to Shiki, picking a sheet of paper out of his side bag. "I was just startin' to like lying around here. Still, the GM doesn't want this to be easy for you guys."

"What, and getting here from another continent wasn't?" Shiki replies, hands on hips.

Tenho shrugs. "Not my problem. If you wanna get through here, bring me a boomerang that'll make you crabby if it doesn't return."

Shiki sighs. "Nothing for it, I guess. Wanna pact with me?"

Beat has posed:
Beat returned Shiki's high-five, but casually. He had no intention of being rude but just wasn't the type to do that kind of thing. His hand moves to behind his head and a small blush flushed his cheeks. "Heh, thanks," he said. But in a flash -- and almost as if he caught himself doing it -- Beat snapped back into reality and pumped his fist at Shiki's suggestion to hang out. "Sure!" he said with genuine enthusiasm. "If you need it we can form a pact too, I still got a Player Pin around here somewhere..."

Of course, this wasn't motivated by Beat wanting to use some of his REAL psyches against hapless Noise, oh no. Not at all.

Beat didn't notice Shiki bump into the wall at first since he walked straight through, even unconsciously giving the Support Reaper a nod. It's only when Tehno spoke that Beat realized his mistake, doubled back (while waving 'sorry!' at Shiki from where he couldn't see) and returned to her side and gave the Reaper a defiant look. Instead of nodding again he grunted, adding an inspired "Yeah, what she said," as his own thought-out touch.

Shiki Misaki has posed:
Paching! Or whatever sound happens when you make a pact.

I like to imagine it's paching.

Shiki can't really relate to Beat's struggles with the business of being an escapee Reaper, but she's not sure if dealing with a trollbeast dragon-girl can compare. She would have LIKED to spend a few hours in Goug with a friend, just lazily complete the objective whenever, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be on the cards. When Shiki's not being trolled by Priel, she's being trolled by Sho.

The blush goes mercifully unmentioned, but don't think Mr. Mew isn't watching.

Shiki's actually... kind of smiling when she watches Beat, although it may just be because she's looking for something to smile about, since she's had little in the last couple days. "It's nothing, Beat, don't worry about it."

But, mission accepted! It's time to search! "I'm guessing we'll have to poach something from a crab, or a crab noise," Shiki says to Beat, looking around at some of the buildings and mine entrances. "Where do you think monster crabs'd be in a place like this?"

Beat has posed:
Beat blinked a couple of times, looking from the Reaper to Shiki. "Where'd you get /that/?" he asks. Now you know how Rhyme felt 90% of the time. He leans in to Tehno. "Is that right?"

Beat looked around at the sprawling city of Goug, lifting up his hat slightly to scratch his head. "Well... I'm spent. Monster crabs? We can scan for that right?"

Shiki Misaki has posed:
Shiki Misaki blinks. Wait, really? "You know? Crabby? Crabs? First four letters are the same?"
Tenho just shakes his head and facepalms.

Shiki scratches her chin. Mr. Mew, meanwhile, helpfully mimes a crab claw by clacking his arms together in case Beat needs the visual illustration. "I think we can scan for Noise, but I've been adventuring for a couple months now. Sometimes monsters have items or weapons they've stolen that they keep in like... little nests or something. I don't want to grab a pin and find out we needed an actual boomerang, y'know?"

Don't ask questions about how that squirrel dropped a broadsword! Just don't!

Beat has posed:
It's not that Beat is thick-headed, just literally minded. He thought about things with a mind like a hammer, always looking for a nail to hit. Or anything to hit really. Shiki reply earned her a slightly suspicious look. "Okay," he said, still not fully following.

The Delinquent Reaper listened a while longer, nodded at Shiki's explanation with his eyes thinned in concentration. "Right," he said slowly. "Like that crab a few weeks ago? You don't mean to tell me there's a crab as big as this around here?!"

Beat started searching, each step clearing up his memory a bit. He remembers the last time something like this happened in more detail. Specifically, how he got electrocuted. He gulped.

Shiki Misaki has posed:
"...you know, I'd forgotten about that crab until you mentioned it," Shiki suddenly says, looking sidelong at Beat. "Huh. My first big adventure in like, a month, and both of them have involved crabs. What are the odds, huh?"

She walks as she talks, trying to scope out a mine entrance or something. "I don't think anything that big would fit in here. I /do/ know people tend to go... ugh, like... mucking about down under the city, so I don't think any would grow that bi-"

Suddenly! Shiki's hat is knocked off! She ducks in surprise, clutching her hair, and when she looks up a large orange and green blade is whirling back to the arm of a Carcinosamps Noise. It bubbles at the two of them, then scuttles behind a chimney!

"Hey! At least that's one piece of luck!" Shiki shouts.

Beat has posed:
Beat gave an amused sniff. If a person didn't know any better they'd think the world shards were all giant monster crabs out of nowhere at the rate people must have been seeing them. "Crabs are cool I guess," he answered over his shoulder vaguely, just a little ahead. It's a habit Beat had; that way if anything jumped out he'd be the first to know. He had the sort of personality that would put himself between friends and danger, whether he realized it or not.

It's just that tendency that put Shiki in danger this time though! Beat takes a few deep steps inside the mine, shouting once to hear the echo. "I know what you mean yo, sure it dark down here..."

Dashing out, Beat let out a loud hah! while Shiki picked up her hat. "You can say that again!" he said with his skateboard appearing in his hand in a flutter of darkness. "YO, C'MON, AFTER THAT NOISE...!"

Shiki Misaki has posed:
It'd be a lot easier if we had more than one of these crabs to go after, wouldn't it? TOO BAD.

Our solitary Carcinosamps flinches and scuttles away sideways, so I hope your legs are up to scratch. Time to go chasing after it!

Shiki jumps on a pile of trash and shouts "Come on, Beat!"

The chase is on, and we're going to have to navigate past the chimneys, scaffolding and slippery rooftops to go after this crab. And speaking of slippery, rain begins to fall, a shower starting up, which might make this a little problematic.

Beat has posed:
Even at the best of times skateboarding a bit risky. You could fall, for example, and seriously scrape your elbows. Skateboarding on rooftops is obviously riskier, and FORGET about skateboarding on rooftops in the rain because there's not a chance anyone would do it.

That is, however, unless you're Beat, who considers this an acceptable risk because A) he's been a skater for a while and B) had his fair share of knocks (to the head).

"I'm comin', I'm comin'," he yells, grinding from rooftop to rooftop and navigating the complex maze of chimneys at a considerable speed. He's having to go the long way, unable to match Shiki's path because of unnavigable bumps. Every time he skids chunks of masonry fly from to the streets below, causing confusion and irritation to those without a sturdy umbrella.

Shiki Misaki has posed:
More stupid: more fun. The only way to get better at skateboarding is to perform in extreme conditions! Next time, try rail grinding in icy weather!

Shiki, by contrast, treads a lot more daintily, and Mr. Mew goes on all fours for once. Shiki winces with every shout from the people below; darnit, missions are supposed to make civilians' lives better, not worse! She's going to be in mission arrears after this.

Only thing to do, she guesses grabbing her Entanglement pin, is to catch that scuttling crab as soon as possBIRDS

As the crab hangs a right and moves low to the ground, a flock of birds go over the rooftops! In fact, one or two of them are Aerial Knockers, which is going to equal a punch in the face if our partners aren't careful. Run the gauntlet, guys!

Beat has posed:
As if this was an infomercial to teach little kids at home the dangers of skateboarding on the roof, in the rain, with your shoelaces untied (oh yeah, that's right, they're totally untied) Beat falls from his skateboard, but saves himself just in time and winds up next to Shiki again. Phew.

Wait, wait, wait. Maybe I'm not giving that enough reverence on second thought, because what really happens is a lot more spectacular.

Beat sweeps past another chimney, both dislodging a swathe of tiles and securing an affluent future for the Roofer's Guid in one grind, then stamps his foot down to continue his momentum. At that moment Beat's shoelaces get caught in the back wheels of his skateboard, flipping him up and into the air like a hedgehog thrown underarm style.

Sailing through the air Beat stares down at Shiki with a 'what do I do?!' kind of look frozen on his face before clutching something held in his hand. At that point everything goes kind of nyerrggg.

A great soap-bubble of distorted time washes out from Beat's fist, where he has activated a clutched Lazy Bomber pin, slowing both him down and the Aerial Knockers he's drifting towards. Beat turns, plucking his skateboard out of the air in slow-motion and smacking the Noise on the head with it. This serves the dual purpose of Erasing them and keeping him in flight until Lazy Bomber wears off, at which time he's fully back on his skateboard.

Beat plops down next to Shiki, still rolling, and gives her a nod of the head. He's trying to pass off what just happened as cooly as possible but you can tell by his face is was a complete fluke and scary as hell. "Sup," he says, barely contained exitement on his voice.

Shiki Misaki has posed:
Mayhem ensues.

Beat flies through the air with the disgracest of ease, riding on a wave of plaster and flying tiles. Shiki, who was previously actually maintaining a degree of grace, flinches in surprise when the guy goes gormlessly flying over her, and subsequently slips, losing her composure completely. Now with her arms flailing, she skids down a rooftop, takes a flying leap to the next, careens helplessly, and continues running on sheer momentum. Furthermore, she's going right for the birds and the Heartless- and explosions take place all around her in slow motion, feathers flying and popping all around her. As this happens Beat presumably continues flying through the air above her tumbling like a ragdoll in a game with a glitchy physics engine.

Finally reaching a dry patch, Shiki tries to grab onto pipes to slow her momentum, eventually coming to a halt, breathing heavily, just as Beat also makes his perfect three point landing.

"I don't even know if you planned that!" she shouts, voice excited with fear and adrenaline, looking briefly from Beat to the left- the last place she saw the orange and green crab go.

tSubsequently, we hear something unfamiliar- someone shouting that's NOT our fault! The samps has summoned up some Orchesprogs to back it up and they're bashing the hard work of one of those aforementioned Roofer's Guild members. Mr. Mew leaps into the fray!

Beat has posed:
Beat doesn't reply to Shiki's question though his slow, wide-eyed blinking is probably all the answer you need. It's like looking at a rabbit caught in your headlights. He's wise to keep his mouth shut though, since if he were to speak it would probably be in gibberish anyway. Thank God for pins, if it wasn't for them Beat would be dead. Again. And that would be humiliating and inconvinent.

Psychokenesis: Beat's can't do it and his player can't spell it, so it works out for everybody. What would using it be anyway, a skateboard coming to life and beating people over the head? Is that what you want to see? Is it?! Uh, anyways...

Beat activates another psych, rolling boldly into the affray to meet the stuffed cat(?!) as a brother-in-arms, his fists thrumming with power from the Respect pin. "It's clobbering time!"

Shiki Misaki has posed:
"Don't destroy my illusion of your competence, Beat," Shiki says, and he helpfully complies, so we can all keep our dignity for a little longer.

In the meantime, we can make something good out of this roofing-destroying fiasco because we've got a person to save! Hooray! We're not menaces to the public!

The image of Beat's skateboard flying through the air brings to mind the mental image of the wheels flippin' down into hoverjets and creating a sort of hoverboard, for sweet air moves and cutback drop turns, or maybe just horrible splattery death. Double death.

So instead we're going to just punch things. Mr. Mew and Beat, back to back, brothers in arms and violence, fighting a bunch of evil tadpoles with their bare hands! Life is an adventure.

They might even manage to get in a swing at the Carcinosamps, who, despite its huge claw, isn't all that good at fighting in melee. Perhaps the claw is /too/ large. It retreats again and begins to climb a big ol' tree- Shiki tries to Entangle it, but only succeeds in wrapping her threads around some sturdy branches.

Since it's disappeared, she offers one to Beat when he's done. It's tree or nothin'.

Beat has posed:
Right after punching his third tadpole right in the eye Beat stays himself, realization focusing on his face. Hold on, he has a pin that can slow time. They're trying to catch up with something that keeps running awa-- THWOMP! Then a tadpole leaps kamikaze style into his head and the thought is gone.

Soon after Beat and Mr. Mew are done severely reducing the infant Frog Noise population, whereupon he notes Shiki holding a threat his way. So they're climbing a tree now?! He heaves a sigh, declines the branch and unstead unfolds his Reaper wings. These have /got/ to be good for something, right?

Sailing high Beat has another thought filter through the volcanic layers of his mind. He's a Reaper isn't he? Maybe he can exert some kind of control over this thing. "Yo!" he says with authority, then cycles through some likely options. "Slow down! Give up your pins! Uhh... Erase yourself!" He bellows down to Shiki. "WHAT ARE WE DOING WITH THIS CRAB AGAIN?!"

Shiki Misaki has posed:
Let's have a brief moment of mourning for Beat's brain cells.

No, I just mean the ones that died then, not all of them, we'd be here all week...

However, there's enough to generate at least one excellent idea: flying! Shiki makes a 'hey how about that' expression, and drops the other cord.

The Carcinosamps is still scuttling uneasily through the branches, but Beat being able to fly means there's nowhere for it to go. Unfortunately, everyone knows that even when you control someone in that way, you can't force them to jump from a great height! The survival instinct is too great!

Don't you watch sci-fi? It didn't work for the guys in the bone facemasks and it won't work for you.

It DOES, however, slow down, and looks quite confused at Beat's commands, although maybe it's just because this is so bizarre.

And then Mr. Mew drops down on it from above wearing a sort of leaf as a hood, like he was some kind of assassin that's so popular lately.

Look away, it's going to be gruesome.

"Way to go, Beat, it worked!" Shiki shouts, as Mr. Mew holds up a Pop Pendulum. "We got it!"

Beat has posed:
Beat bats his Reaper wings once, floating backwards a short distance. He makes an awkward face, the kind you would expect somebody to make if they just saw a stuffed cat doll leap from a distance and take out a crab, pulling his wooly crap over his eyes while Mr Mew does what presumably has to be done.

Beat ponders the idea that Shiki is entirely in control of Mr Mew and, in a psychological sort of way, it's doing things she wants to... eh, nah. That's too bizarre. Beat gently falls to the floor, hand already extended to give Shiki a high five. "Nice!" he says, grin spreading over his face. "You sure that's mission completed then? Check your hand!"

Shiki Misaki has posed:
Nobody will ever know the truth.
Ever.

Shiki holds up her hand: the timer's still there. But she can see from where they are where she /needs/ to be: a shop selling sea-salt ice cream. "Gotta grab a snack for Sho from there. I know, if you think it's petty, try and wrap your head around the fact I've been travelling for five days to get here."

"Tell you what," she says, tossing him the Pendulum. "You go give this to Tenho, I'll wait and grab that as soon as the barrier goes down. Pi-face'll be around for me to hand it over."

Mr. Mew is throwing an acorn at a tame dragon from the safety of the rooftop, meanwhile. Subconcious urges? Naaaaaaaaaaaah.