Lucas

The Pigmask outside of the movie theater catches the group's attention.

"Lucas? You're Master Porky's guest?" says a muffled, familiar voice. "It's me, Isaac. I've become a big shot now."

"Oh," Lucas mutters. "I'm...m'real happy for you, Isaac."

Isaac tilts his head, looking over the group. He does have to keep the peace, especially in Master Porky's city.

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With Boney stuck somewhere in the sewer and everyone else too big to go through, Lucas leads everyone back out, following the muffled sound of his dog.

"In there!" he calls, pointing out the arcade.

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"Yes. It's me, Leder, the bell-ringer."

His rusty voice croaks like the frog downstairs at his feet, the impossibly tall and once mute bell-ringer speaking for the first time since Lucas met him.

"It must be a real shock to hear me speaking for once. It wasn't that I couldn't talk all this time. I simply chose not to. As I rang that Cross Road bell, deep inside my heart I had decided I would speak to no one. But the secrets I've been guarding are now starting to leak out."

"Secrets?" Lucas queries.

Leder nods once.

"Lucas. The time has come to tell you everything. What I'm about to tell you, you might not want to know. Even so, you absolutely must hear it. It will be a long story, but please listen to it all."

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At Leder's instruction, the group stands before the terrifyingly tall Empire Pork Building. The skyscraper disappears straight into the clouds, hiding the top from view even outside of the dark city.

Somehow it's not as imposing once they're inside, the plush yellow carpet oddly inviting.

"Guess we gotta go up," Lucas muses.

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Dinah is walking a line between Dinah and Canary with a wig and a low cut top, but also pants, because sometimes fishnets are overkill. She offers Isaac a friendly grin, before glancing at Lucas.

"I'm Dinah," she says. "I'm a friend of Lucas."

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The masked head tilts.

"Oh yeah," comes Isaac's muffled reply. "Weren't you the one who helped out at the chimera lab? I heard about that incident after I got the uniform."

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And it's just about here that Autor, standing next to Duster in the back, cringes. Lucas had mentioned that some of the people from his town had hared off to join the Pigmask army, but he didn't expect to meet one so soon.

He checks his grenades in his pockets, and checks them again, looking to Lucas, or Dinah, or Enzo for direction.

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a1enzo

Although Enzo is human right now, he's still got his uniform on. He's also the most visibly geared-up of the group, with the sword at his side and the fingerless gauntlet on his left hand.

"Hey. I'm Enzo." Until it's clearer whether he should be friendly or un-, he'll stick with cordial.

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"Oh yeah, I met you back when I lived in Tazmily," Isaac says to Enzo. "You wanted to take a look at the Happy Box I had bought. Well, now you get to see what it's done for me. Joining Fassad and the Pigmask Army was one of the best decisions I ever made."

"Well....that's progress," Duster says.

Boney whines and barks, sniffing about anxiously.

"You'll wanna do something about your dog," Isaac tells Lucas.

"Oh, of course," Lucas says, scratching Boney behind his ear.

"Anyway, don't cause any trouble and we'll all get along just fine."

Isaac nods his head and returns to the others standing outside the cinema.

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"Enzo?" Autor says, startled. "Aren't you normally green?"

He sidles up to the other sprite--er, boy--and looks him over. "Well, I'm glad you're at least prepared for this," he murmurs.

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a1enzo

Enzo smirks. "Normally, yes." He winks an eye which is still bright purple.

"I'm prepared for something, at any rate. User knows what."

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Autor smirks back at him, planting his feet. He's a bit more comfortable, now. A bit. "So how do you become human? I assume it's something optional, but temporary?"

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a1enzo

"Yeah, we've got a machine for it. It works both ways. I can't visit human worlds as a sprite. I mean literally can't, I'd die."

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Autor nods quietly. "Thanks a useful convenience," he says. "And I'm glad you were able to come help Lucas, too. What do you think about"--and he gestures around--"this... situation?"

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a1enzo

"The Pigmask Army and everything? I know things can be different for humans, but... if something like this happened in my world, it'd be because of a virus. You can fight as many minions as you want, but nothing's going to go back to normal unless you go to the top."

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"That makes sense," Autor says, watching Issac rejoin the Pigmask group milling around. "Here it seems like everyone is an individual who bleeds. Well, the king has requested to see Lucas specifically, so perhaps we'll be able to figure out what he wants and talk our way out of it."

Or massively screw up and then fight their way out.

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Boney whines once and nudges his head against first Enzo's legs then Autor's before padding up to Dinah.

"Boney wanna get a move on?" Kumatora asks.

"Must be gettin' anxious, ain'tcha, boy?" Lucas responds, leaning down to rub Boney's ear.

"Anyway, the cinema's as good a place to start as any," Kumatora says before leaning into the doorway.

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Autor pats Boney twice before he leaves. He was amused to realize that Boney was a dog, not a person, and had taken a liking to him since.

"All right," he says, "there's no point in putting it off. Let's head to the movie hall."

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Dinah nudges her knee into Boney's shoulder, scratching him a couple of times as he stays near her.

"Alright, let's go. Boney and I'll watch your backs. Right, boy?"

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a1enzo

"I'll take point, then."

Not something typically said upon entering a movie theatre, but...

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"Good idea," Autor says to Enzo, completely out of his depth as to who should be taking what positions in this line-up. "I'll watch, and try to learn something."

He hovers in the middle, between the sprite-turned-human and Dinah, and glances over his shoulder at her. "So," Autor says as they start their approach, "what's with the wig?"

The attempt at levity may fall completely flat, but he really is quite curious about it.

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"It's my work clothes," Dinah says simply, fishing for an explanation that doesn't make her sound ridiculous.

"It's psychological. I feel more comfortable doing missions in the wig."

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Autor mulls this over for a bit, and nods. He's the one who showed up to this wearing a school uniform. "How often do you go on them?"

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"Maybe twice, three times a week," Dinah says. "Depending on what you count as a mission, you could argue that it's nightly."

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