2018-12-13: Of Cuccos and Men

From Dream Chasers
Jump to navigation Jump to search
  • Log: Of Cuccos and Men
  • Cast: Kokkori Hanzo, Gwen Whitlock
  • Where: Northern Steppes
  • Date: 12/13/2018
  • Summary: Deep within the depths of the Photosphere, Gwen stumbles acrosss one of the toughest warriors she's ever faced, as well as one of the fluffiest.

<Pose Tracker> Kokkori Hanzo has posed.

     "Oh god, who even is this guy.."

     "Silence, your mistake was assuming that simple demons were the only threat aboard this ship," the warrior commands, adding the drifter to the pile with a cavalier disregard, after kicking dust at him to make sure he knows where he stands.

     Despite the fact that there is no ship in sight, it is a long forgotten corridor plated with hexagon tiles that the real scene unfolds, long since forgotten to the furious battling being undertaken in other areas. Unfortunately for the drifters who took a wrong turn and got lost somewhere in the domicile levels, they encountered the angriest one, and managed to mistake him for a metal demon for all of the briefest of seconds before he took offense.

     Offending Lord Hanzo is a novice's doom.

     Blocking off the entire corridor is a pile of men, stacked like cordwood in the center of a corridor. Patrolling with great vehemence is what can only appear to be a giant, armed, angry chicken, the ambience of his boom cluck filling the room, to the point where small pebbles are being bounced around with force as he hops over to another scuffed up Drifter. He picks the victim up by the scruff by his beak, and throws him atop the last guy. "Inside the greatest egg," Kokkori rages at the semiconscious man, "with no strength or tribute!?" He pecks him for good measure. Then he spreads his wings, further terrorizing the pile. There is a serious groan emanating from deep in their souls.

     "Disgusting!! You are not even fit to stand before a mouse, let alone the strongest wing!!"

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "Pick on someone your own size, you-"

    Hanzo doesn't even need to turn around or acknowledge the voice for it to cease in its tracks.

    There is the courier, standing at a meager 5'8" (at least, in comparison) as his open-mouthed opposition, the metallic surface of her already exposed right ARM held out in all its already flagging glory.

    She squints, licks her lips nervously, then finally relaxes her shoulders, a luxury afforded to her by the constant presence of her ARM at her beck and call.

     She mouths a soft chuckle, and sighs. "Whew. At least Demons didn't go after you. They sure did a number on those other guys, though. Look at this!" She strides forward with purpose, her direction seeming to aim to the side of the mighty cucco, towards the groaning pile of hapless Drifters, her eyes scanning the room for possible clues. "But don't worry. Keep by me and I'll get you out along with these guys, okay?"

    No, the cucco didn't speak. Cuccos can't speak that eloquently, if they do at all. Clearly, the real danger is hidden. All there is is this suspiciously fluffy and elegant looking cucco, and this pile of groaning Drifters.

    And Gwen's all too used to talking to beings that don't normally speak back.

<Pose Tracker> Kokkori Hanzo has posed.

     To his own merit, Hanzo does not bear out any thread of attention as the courier turns the corner to discover his grand work. He stands there, wings folded as Gwen laughs, walking beside him, still and unmoving as she misappropriates the defeated drifters to unimportant things. The angle of his beak gets progressively more hostile as she adds him to her party, the slightly longer feathers at his brow arching with the imposition. The cucco boss fluffs up slowly as Gwen appraises the scene for clues.

     To the merit of a brutal sage, the scene is relatively bloodless, and most of the drifters are clearly from a C Ranked party who thought they were doing pretty good in the Demonlands until they fell afoul of Hanzo's ire. Most of them have been the victim of a serious drubbing as opposed to being straight cut in half, and a proliferation of scuffs, cross-bandages (one of them was a field medic) and lumps are plainly visible on the pile of enemies. However, the comb of Hanzo is being nonplussed by Gwen's chain of supposition, as she investigates.

     She has exactly one more second to recognize the sword tucked under his wing as warning.

     "Foolish freckle foot!!" Hanzo rages, his voice seeming to both be emanating from his beak and from everywhere at once. "You dare add me to your group without tribute!? LORD KOKKORI HANZO is no one's subordinate!! Pay for your insolence!"

     At that point, Hanzo will hop forward and fell Gwen with a mighty peck, if she hasn't gotten out of the way in the midst of his tirade. Despite his great elegance, his body is strong, and even his mildest peck will feel like a great hammer. Even so, his plumage flares, his chest puffing out to a great size as he declares Gwen his force and verve. "I am the one who captured the sun, and destroyed the great spirit! I am the one who puts the dogs to rest, and the cows to pasture. Hanzo is the strongest hero, and you will pay me in tribute! Servitude, seed or death!! Make your choice quickly, before I scatter what's left of your body to the wind!!"

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "Huh..." Gwen's examination draws a sigh of relief, her fingers hovering over the C rank Drifters' injuries to make mental assessments of them all. None of them seem to be badly wounded. Blunt trauma, but nothing fatal. Hardly the work of a Metal Demon, but definitely the work of someone with a certain degree of skill, seeing as all these injuries seem to have occurred at about the same time. ... Maybe.

    Unfortunately, Gwen's window of opportunity has just slammed shut.

    "... Eh? Wh- subordinate?" The voice is clearly coming from behind Gwen, but also to the side, and from the other side, and OW

    "GWAH!" Beak peaks head, and Gwen falls down in one hit, mismatching hands covering over the spot where the beak struck. "Owowowowowow! Hold on, gimme a sec!"

    Slowly, her body still frozen in that crouched, defensive positive with her hands still secured over a rapidly developing knot on her head, Gwen opens one blue grey eye, then another. She breathes, licks her lips. "You.... talk?"

    Carefully, she stands up, biting one side of her lip, easing her hands from her head. And, like a crack in an overflowing dam, a high-pitched 'eep' makes it through the courier's clamped lips.

    The rest soon follows afterwards in the resulting flood. "T-this is so amazing! You talk, and you're fluffy, and omiguardians, you're as tall as I am, and you can TALK, and YOU HAVE A SWORD, _a cucco sword_, and YOU ARE SO FLUFFY, and you have no idea how much I NEEDED THIS right now, I so wanna hug you but I'd mess up those beads and you're so mighty AND FLUFFY this is so cool andand-"

    Oh, right. Choices. "Seed? Huh." She digs into her vest, taking out an energy bar. She makes a face. "It's a Metal Demons one, so there's a lotta iron or something in it? Tastes kinda ashy to me, but maybe you'll like it? Been eatin' nothin' but these. BUT OH. Oh man, Mr. Hanzo, if Riesenlied saw you she'd *freak out*. In a good way. She'd definitely choose servitude or seed! And-" Her face falls. "... I hope she's okay... But if she is," Gwen continues, raising her brightening gaze to meet Hanzo's own, "she'd think you're the mightiest cucco too!"

    HE IS SO FLUFFY, SHE CANNOT GET OVER THE FLUFF

<Pose Tracker> Kokkori Hanzo has posed.

     The courier is laid low in a single blow, as expected for someone of obvious martial might like Kokkori. Once she is brought to her senses, she starts saying words that are not nonsense. This is a feat in his estimatino, because most of what people say is utter nonsense. Even so, the elite cucco does not let her have any room to recover or potentially fight back, because he looms far overhead, fluffing out to a truly prodigious level, dwarfing the courier in size and might as he contemplates how hard he would need to destroy her in the coming moments.

     "KOK-NYA!" Lord Hanzo barks, his command cluck powerful and uncompromising. "Enough of your prattle, lest I become further angered and peck you into the ground like a freckled tent peg..."

     Once she makes with tribute, he is mollified for an immediate moment. "Remember that your life is on the line, drifter," Hanzo warns the courier as she searches. "Admiring my plumage and might does nothing to plead your case! Power is the most obvious thing humans can sense, even small children understand the difference in power between themselves and their parents. It merely means you and your Rice Laid friend are not touched in the skull, and I won't have to kill you to put you out of your misery," Hanzo grouses, darting his head to look at Gwen from more angles as she produces an energy bar for him.

     He hops back as she proffers him the bar, the rings around his legs chiming invitingly with the motion, Hanzo for a moment regarding the bar as if she'd produced a live snake. He glares at it with ember-bright eyes. "What is this trash you have produced!" he barks at the bar. "This is the tribute you have decided to give to me in forgiveness for your insolence!? HRMPH!" the cucco sage puffs, before finally pecking it out of her hand, gripping it tersely in his beak.

     Interestingly, it does not stop him from talking with Gwen further.
     "Give me this thing! You have already forfeited it to me."

     Slowly, the cucco crunches down on the bar, his beak making short, short work of it, and little crumbs hit the ground as he pulverizes the snack. He thinks about it harshly, staring Gwen down as he munches. The feathers around his fascia frill out powerfully as he swallows. His beak works back and forth with the motion, as he absently pecks at a piece of bar on the ground. He breathes, a short puff jetting from his nostrils. Then he stares at Gwen.


     "This is the worst thing I have ever eaten," he judges quietly.


     One great wing unfurls with sudden alacrity and danger, his feathers like scythes as a shadow falls over Gwen. "Is it your wish to die!?" he shouts, his rage suddenly filling the corridor. He follows it up with another peck, though this one is not so plainly meant to be a deathblow. "If you were not so plainly a weakling powered by cherub features and festival lights, even all of the guardians in the sky, the earth and the river would not stop me from staving in your head with my spurs!! No one insults me in this fashion and survives. Find me food fit for more than dogs!! Until then, you are MY servant!! Refuse and suffer the endless wrath of my plumage!!"

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    If only he wasn't such a wondrously fluffy stately cucco. The freckled insults would have maybe tempted Gwen to press back. They are, after all, in enemy territory, subject to attack at any minute by dangerous forces.

    Instead, Gwen watches in fascination as the cucco sage breaks down the energy bar, quickly making short work of it in forceful peaks of his mighty beak.

    The stare that follows tells Gwen all she needs to know. She shrugs helplessly. "... Tell me about it. I was just glad it was eatabl-"

    Hanzo shouts, and Gwen flinches back. Beak meets skull again, and Gwen squeals. "Eee!" Hunching down, her arms over her head, the courier backs up, tears in her eyes. "H-hey, it's all I got! They don't have Filgaian foodstuffs here!" She straightens to a normal height. "I was hopin' the Veruni camps would have somethin', but their stuff tasted just as bad, even worse in some ways." She hesitates. "I mean, I still ate it, but it tasted *horrible*. Tasted as bad as my auntie's cookin'." And because of that, it felt a little nostalgic, but that's getting off the subject.

    "W-wait, I'm your servant?" Oh, if Janus knew, he'd never let her live this down.

    Gwen's face saddens again, for the briefest of moments. Then, like the sky just past a moving spring rain, the melancholy passes. Her lips tighten, and she nods.

    "Sure. I'll see what I can do to make up for it. Probably will be a while until we get out of this base, but that's for a good reason. Not sure if you heard what happened when we breached the Photosphere's shield, but the Metal Demons' Mother made it pretty clear: if she gets her way, this is what we'll likely all have to deal with. She wants to eat the planet's life force, and make us all her loyal subordinates. So. If I become your servant, will you help us fight the Metal Demons? It's not like you wouldn't benefit anyway, and I'll be able to find something good for you t'eat, once I figure out, uh, what you like t'eat. Deal?" She offers her left hand out in a courteous handshake, then pauses. "Oh, uh, since you introduced yourself, I'll do the same." She straightens with a wide grin. "I'm Gwen Whitlock, super courier, at your service. If there's someone who can get you somethin' once we're back on Ignas, it'd be me n' my trusty horse n' partner, Gulliver."

<Pose Tracker> Kokkori Hanzo has posed.

     Insensate to Gwen's tears, Hanzo looms, folding a wing to regard the courier with the utmost of derision. The chain hanging from his sword rattles with the motion he takes, a single step towards Gwen, his head bobbing slowly up and down, one deliberate rise and fall, with his eyes locked on her the whole time as he stalks a little closer. "Is it my concern that you are unprepared to pay respect to the strength of all cucco?" he asks. "Your reason is nothing in the face of our revenge." Imperious, the cock flicks his head in dismissal, his comb and attendant feathers blooming like a flower into a magnificent crown.

     Hanzo puffs out violently, threatening to straight up absorb Gwen into his chest with his outburst. "KOK-NYA! The plights of the personfolk are not my concern!! Every other year, you have some sort of disaster or calamity from some fool or another. I am here to tell you that I am the only disaster worth acknowledgement. I am the strongest, stronger than any mother, and my only concern is to fight the strongest with the unlimited devastation of my strongest Chozan techniques." He glares. "In my mercy, I allow you to buy your life with good service to me. That is all. My mercy is but a flowerpetal in the hurricane of my vengeance..."

     "There can be no deals between cuccos and men," Hanzo puffs, icily.

     At this point, Hanzo strides away from Gwen, smoothing out his feathers and achieving a leaner, more cavalier look with each step. It's really the only evidence that he is not about to start stomping on the courier, which he seemed prepared to do at any moment prior. "My only goal here is to find the cuccos trapped here. There is no other reason why this place would be shaped like a great egg. If anything stands in my way, whether they are made of metal or hairy flesh, I will cut them down, without delay. KOK-NYA!!!"

     Hanzo looks off into the distance. "Find me the cucco, find me tribute, or find yourself to a swift demise!! Those are your only options."

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Every step makes the thundering cucco puff up further and further, until Gwen's entire world seems to be obscured, Hanzo's angry, proud words ringing over her head.

    It might as well be muffled noise, because it just makes it too tempting to just rest her cheek against that wonderful down. It's been nothing but metal and sharp edges since she's gotten in here; the mere sensation of anything soft is enough to distract Gwen.

    The courier *bites* down on her lip to swallow the squeeing sound that threatens to burst from her throat, like the glint of a blade before it makes its fatal strike. "Thank you, M- er, Sir Hanzo!" she squeaks out instead. Sir would be a better term to appeal to this being than 'mister', Gwen supposes. "If that's what you'd like me t'call you, of course. And I'll definitely look for the-.... them."

    It hits her: Hanzo may basing his entire quest on the basis of the photosphere's shape. No Metal Demon would be keeping cuccos, and if they were, it wouldn't be for very long.

    Gwen itches the side of her freckled cheek. "If you're lookin' for the strongest, I suggest you seek out the Quarter Knights. But I agree. We'll see that any cuccos that are captured are freed. Riesenlied would've had better information t'give you, but she's, uh..." She clears her throat. "I'm confident she'll get better. And when she is, she'll definitely know where any lost cuccos may be! I'll also ask any contacts if they've seen any."

    It'd likely not be the craziest thing she's ever asked, but she doubts she'll even have the chance to.

    Gwen's shoulders slump as Hanzo's feathers smooth to their proper, proud, sleek shape. "Alright. I'll do my best."

    Wait. There's Drifters here. How is she going to cart them all to safety by herself? She certainly can't ask Hanzo. Gwen sighs.

    It is what it is.

    One, two bodies on her back. Others are arranged on cloth scavenged off them, whatever she can wrap around them and then use to drag them off. Her right ARM is favored in this task, proving its worth in holding what bodies it can, but Gwen's body proves to be its ultimate limit. Still, she manages. "If it's possible, Sir Hanzo, I'd love to the fullest extent of your skill," she asks, sounding her words carefully, "since I'll be kinda helpless as I get these guys to a safepoint. Would you grant me that? So I know exactly why I should never cross you, and be really, really afraid of you. Moreso than I am now."

<Pose Tracker> Kokkori Hanzo has posed.

     "Hrmph. These nobodies?" Hanzo asks of the stacked drifters. "They have already achieved ultimate safety in not being killed by me for their weakness." At the mention of their plight, and potentially because Gwen moved several of them, one of the drifters groans audibly, reaching out a hand. It's actually probably a good thing that Hanzo didn't notice her sticking out her hand earlier, because his response to the gesture is to peck the drifter in the head again angrily, this time the force of his strike emitting a deep unearthly bass that reverberates through the hex tiles.

     "Perhaps I will grant you the barest taste of the danger you flirt with simply by asking me," Hanzo decides, "if only because you might have given me a strong person to battle on my way to perfecting this, the real ultimate power only mastered by those with the strength to live in this world as a cucco. Be glad that I am a kind master even to the lowest of my subordinates."

     He turns, facing the foolish gathering. If you have never seen a pile of people flinch in unison, now you have. "Behold, the grace I offer you," the rooster crows vehemently. Gwen might realize that this is not going to go the way she might have imagined. "Go forth and train for the day you might face me again. Go on, and live a foolish life, because my servant has willed it. But now, BEGONE FROM MY SIGHT!!"

     It's about then that Gwen will see the cucco swell up to twice his normal size, fluffing up to an intense amount. Before he finally just sneezes. "KOK-*CHA!*"

     The force and strength of Hanzo's sneeze is beyond unreal. The wind of it is enough to tear the tiles from the ceiling, rip through the small section of corridor, and blast defeated NPCs in every direction, scattering them into the sky and across the land like a novel's group of plot devices. Bodies fly through the air like cows in a hurricane, tumbling end over end. One guy gets blown entirely out of his clothing, boots and tunic and underpants being spun out of powerlessly. In truth, it will take all of Gwen's strength to remain standing even on the periphery of Kokkori's disdain, his sneeze enough to throw many of the defeated drifters clear out of the Photosphere.

     The others might require a little bit more dungeon-crawling to find, their beaten and savaged bodies probably forming the basis for future save points throughout the sphere. Not that HANZO cares for or needs save points!!!

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Certainly, when that hand is reached out and the hand's owner has his head mercilessly peaked for his trouble, Gwen winces reflexively.

    "...!"

    If Gwen's hidden strength was not hinted by her ability to move several Drifters at once (likely still a paltry number compared to a cucco of Hanzo's stature), it might shine here, if the viewer in question wasn't, well, sneezing.

    So, as Hanzo's robust sneeze abates, there is still a Gwen, now missing her parka and other random bits of clothing she wore to keep out the cold, but still present. There is also a long, rough trail of five dents, spaced apart, leading to the stiffly curled metallic jointed hand that Gwen shakily lifts. As she rises halfway, her mouth openly panting, her heart's mechanical beating is loud in her ears, her ARM pulsing in time. Festival lighting, indeed.

    Adjusting her clothing as best she can to maintain the utmost coverage (not that she supposes a cucco would care, ad evident by the fact that she isn't quick to freak out over it), Gwen mumbles, "L-lesson learned."

<Pose Tracker> Kokkori Hanzo has posed.

     In all truth, the cucco seems mildly surprised that Gwen is still standing, as his great feathers wane in the wake of his massive banishing.

     They are now standing on a ruined section of bridgework, post sneeze, with gaping holes (some drifter-shaped) in the ceiling and opening to the city beyond. Stretching the kink out of one grand wing, the cucco lord steps closer to Gwen as he refolds, glaring at her baldly. Noticeably, he is much too invested in his own grandeur to realize anything out of the ordinary about Gwen and her tin arm while he is in the middle of ranting, but he does seem to have the wisdom to realize that Gwen's continued presence is worth attention.

     "Hrmph, withstanding the smallest sampling of my technique will get you no favor from me," Hanzo is fast to warn Gwen before she gets smug, like other humans. "The bird in the bush is the only thing that matters! Now go, get me those cuccos!!"

     Pause.
     "And have stronger armor before you come before me again! Kok-NYA!"