The Quest For Pandora's Box

“I’m not seeing any doctor pepper!” Clayton shouted out to Alice. Most everything behind the bar was alcoholic, and kids her age didn’t drink alcohol... right? He wasn’t sure how old she was but he was sure she probably didn’t drink anyway. “Looks like you’re not drinking anything, E. It’s all blended… I think these guys might be gay.” He responded to Elaine’s order from across the small room, and he didn’t seem to remember that he was actually in a gay bar. Clayton turned around and opened a second bottle of Bombay sapphire; it wasn’t his usual drink, but he liked the blue bottle. The crash of Narcissus being knocked through the wall made him jump and nearly drop both the bottles. “WOAH!... who the hell is that guy?” he shrugged and took a sip from the newly opened bottle while he watched the situation before him.

Comus kept his focus on the girl with the guns and mostly ignored Clayton and Alice. He could feel sweat forming on his brow – he didn’t normally do any fighting and he wasn’t eager to test himself against a bullet. He swallowed hard and slowly stared raising his hands up when Narcissus came crashing to the floor in front of him. He instantly began feeling panicked at the site of the man he’d spent the last few years with hit the floor, unconscious, in front of him. A few years was hardly any time to him but it might as well have been an eternity. He was very much in love with the very person who gave the name to what many considered one of humanity’s worst personality traits. The anger Comus had towards Elaine earlier was a minor annoyance compared to the fire consuming him now. Comus gritted his teeth, “Kill the bastard and we’ll talk.”

"Seriously!? That sucks!!!" she shouted back towards Clayton, pouting slightly in disappointment. But that was quickly forgotten as she fell into a fit of giggles, "This is a gay bar ya know!!" she shouted, for a second, her mind hesitated. What was she doing in a gay bar? But that thought was quickly brushed away. Suddenly, she heard a big crash! She quickly turned around to see a man fly through the wall. She looked at the new hole in the wall, where Dr. Everyone stood. She looked at him, "You're probably gonna have to pay for the wall." she said with a small giggle before looking at the still Narcissus. She furrowed her brow slightly, a twinge of worry penetrating her haze of happiness. She slowly made her way to Narcissus, kneeling down to poke at him. "Hey, ya alright there?" she asked, the prospect of someone getting hurt temporarily overriding the need to be happy... she hated seeing people hurt... unless they deserved it anyways.

In that moment of partial clarity, she kind of realized that a fight may soon begin. She quickly stood back up, a smile on her face "No come on folks, why don't we not fight and just get back to..." she paused for a moment, what were they doing again... "Having fun... I think..." she frowned for a moment, that somehow didn't seem to right. She shook her head, as if trying to shake the doubt out, it was temporarily quieted. "Anyhoo, let's just not fight!" she said, smiling even more brightly then before as she threw her hands up. She looked from Dr. Everyone to Elaine and Comus, her expression conveying what could only be described as childish hope. Despite the haze coming back at close to full force, one may notice that she was standing in between Narcissus and Dr. Everyone, as if instinctively sensing that he was the one that would be dangerous. She continued to smile brightly, waiting for a response.

"As the god of festivities, I find it so ironic that I have crashed your little party Comus. Even so, I think killing is a little harsh. it's Narcissus's own fault he got thrown through the wall. I want one thing, and only one thing. Pandora's Box. Now you can either give me the box, or refuse. And refusing to give me the box will results in your death. Just give me what I want, and you can go free, for now anyway."

Dr.Everyone's fists were still on fire from punching Narcissus. The outside of the hole Dr.Everyone had stepped through was charred, but was not on fire. Dr.Everyone's fire was unique. Never went out unless he wanted it to, never caught anything on fire unless he said. And right now, he was prepared to make his fire burn down this whole bar, narcissus and Comus included.

"Hold on. I got in trouble last time I shoot at a guy while he was giving a villain monologue." Regardless of the outcome of the situation, Elaine kept her arms crossed over each other. One aimed at Comus; one aimed at Dr. Everyone. The monologue rolled to a stop and ended with a cliche villain ultimatum of sorts. An escape with a hidden threat sounded villainous enough for her to make up her mind. Black Knight would probably see the reasoning behind her next few actions. "Well." Her jaws muscles muscles pulled back a wad of spit and released it onto the ground. "Looks like we got ourselves a wreckin' of a reckoning going on."

Bullets moved forward into the cocking mechanism if the gun. Staring down the long barrel of the modified Colt, Elaine took aim at two areas of the room. The charred edges of the hole and the bottle of alcohol around the room. The two gave her an interesting way of using exploiting her oxygenated bullets. She fired three oxygenated rounds from her right pistol at the hole in the wall Everyone stepped through, while sending two smoke rounds into the alcohol bottles and one round at Everyone.

Everyone exhumed fire recklessly, and heat never dissipated quickly. If the bullets reached the frayed edges that Everyone charred, the oxygen within the bullets would ignite with the extreme heat of the bullet along with the heated sides of the wall. The bullet itself would then provide the fragmentation that would spray out towards Everyone's back.

Elaine hoped that the smoke rounds sent towards Everyone would divert his attention away from the three she sent towards the wall, but if he attempted to fire at the rounds, it would only cause them to explode in a more dangerous area in proximity to everyone else in the room.

Uh oh, looks like there’s gonna be a fight… Clayton realized there was danger in the room even through the haze he was in, “I better get the girl out of there while the grownups talk.” He chuckled at his own lame joke and hurried towards Alice. Elaine had apparently gotten a bit trigger happy while Clayton was hurrying towards the group around the hole in the wall. The loud noise of the blasts took him completely off guard and made him flinch… which caused him to drop one of his bottles to the ground, shattering it, and sending glass everywhere. Clayton stopped dead in his tracks; the shattered bottle now took his attention in his easily distracted state. The gin from the bottle formed a small reflective pool on the ground which Clayton could see himself clearly in. Even with all that was going on in front of him his reflection made him laugh just like everything else in the bar. “Kid, you shouldn’t stand over there!” he shouted over to Alice without looking up.

Alice poked at Narcissus again... why wasn't he waking up? He wasn't dead was he? Alice put her head to his chest, nope, there was still a heartbeat. She frowned slightly, wondering what to do. Then... the fighting starts. Alice flinched, instinctively forming a small barrier between her and the bullets firing above them. She nudged at Narcissus even harder, trying her best to wake him up. "Come on!!! You gotta get up!!" Her fear and worry was slowly eating away the effects of the aura. Suddenly, Clayton's voice was heard through the commotion, telling her to get out of there. "I need help!!! He won't wake up!!!" she yelled back, a touch of panic in her voice. Survival was now the priority at this point.

The bullets Elaine shot exploded and shrapnel sent sharp, stabbing pain into Dr.Everyone's back. Dr.Everyoe shouted in pain but quickly looked around the room. Where had the other bullets gone? He looked around and saw the spot. And he shot a beam of fire right at the spot where the bullets had gone.

"Smoke bullets."

"I guess asking won't do. Now I have to threaten your lives."

After he shot the beam, he quickly jumped at Comus, a flurry of fiery punches ready to be delivered. Dr.Everyone was prepared to do anything for the box.

While all of this was going on, Narcissus began to get up. His head was pounding. It felt like he had crashed through a wall. Then he looked over to the scorched and burnt wall with a man sized hole in it and realized he had come through the wall. He spotted Dr.Everyone and remembered that he had thrown him through the wall. He could only imagine what would come from continued hiding of the box's location.

A plan formed around the surroundings of the room. The estranged doctor leaped across the room to attack Comus, granting a reprieve to the crew of rejects Elaine took under her maternal wing. Elaine throw her pistol barrel up to her hand and whipped Narcissus across the back of the head. Sometimes a tender touch is all she needs. She wrapped her rope around his torso to create a line for her companions to take hold on.

Elaine fired the rest of her smoke bullets around the room to give them a cloak to escape back from the way they came. Weeks ago Elaine installed a switch into her holster that allowed her to select the ammo she fed into her pistol. Feeling that discretion favored valor, she slipped the switch to her remote explosive rounds and loaded two into the chamber.

"Time to go, but stay alert." Feeling that her two companions could handle everything now, Elaine handed the rope to Alice. "Hold on to the rope and get this guy out, Bandit. Janitor, grab the whiskey and wait for me."

Now that her hand no longer sat occupied with a the lasso, she let her right hand reach down to take grasp of the pistol handle. Ammunition selection seemed important now; Elaine flipped over to oxygenated rounds, and pressed her pistol against the holster to load the chambers. She got prepared to make her draw out against Everyone, while he assaulted the club owner.

Comus may have been startled by the shooting, but Doctor Everyone hadn’t managed to take him off guard. Rather than let his rising anger thrust him into a frenzy he managed to remain relatively calm and let the doctor rush recklessly at him. Comus managed to jump backward and avoid most of the Doctor’s punches at the last second. He would have retaliated by dropping low and attempting to sweep his legs but he was distracted at by Elaine knocking Narcissus unconscious again and tying him up. The distraction left an opening and Dr. Everyone took advantage of that by delivering a punishing blow to his gut. The flaming punch burned a hole into his shirt and nearly caused him to double over in pain, but he stood tall as a small amount of blood trickled out the side of his mouth. He didn’t care that the other three were attempting to kidnap Narcissus; it was better not to let him see this. He wiped the blood from his mouth and managed a smirk. He hoped that would piss the doctor off enough to rush at him like that again. This time he wouldn’t be distracted. If Doctor Everyone got close enough to hit him again Comus would go through with his original plan and try to knock his legs out from under him. If that knocked his opponent to the ground Comus would waste no time and attempt to stomp Dr. Everyone’s head in.

“If you insist.” Clayton shrugged at Elaine’s orders for them to get out of there. He didn’t really want to leave, even with all the violence and the super villain, but he didn’t want to say no to a girl he found attractive. Maybe she wanted to go someplace even better. Could there be a better place? He’d just have to follow her and find out. He stepped back over to the bar which didn’t contain any whiskey she would care for. She explicitly stated no Jack Daniels, so that left the other bottle of blended girly whiskey for her. Clayton set down his gin and grabbed the bottle when something else caught his eye. It was a full unopened bottle of everclear. Clayton wasn’t sure why but he felt it might somehow be useful to him later. He headed back towards his companions- taking the long way around the room to avoid the fight. If Alice lacked the strength to pull Narcissus herself he'd trade her the rope for the bottles and pull him towards the way they came.

Alice sighed in relief when Narcissus got up, only to have Elaine knock him out with her gun. "Hey! He was getting up." she felt a flash of irritation pierce through the haze, as she remembered that she didn't really like the "cowgirl". She was then handed one end of a rope, the other which was tied around Narcissus. Alice stared at it for a second, absentmindedly listening to Elaine's instructions to get out. "I don't think I can pull him." at that, Clayton handed her the bottles, taking the rope for himself.

Alice glanced over at the fighting, "Shouldn't we help him?" she asked, pointing at Comus who seemed to be hurt now. "I think the fire guy's gonna kill him... and that's not good." she frowned slightly, unsure what to do.

Elaine had a gun pointed at him, and Comus wanted to kill him. Comus' face didn't show it, but his eyes did. Dr.Everyone's super genius brain was working like a super computer, going over every option on how to come out on top. He saw the others taking Narcissus, but he didn't care. He had his own problems. Greek mythology wasn't his expertise, but he did know a few things about it. And then he had his plan.

"Comus, tsk tsk tsk. God of festivities and yet this whole room is rather hostile and droll. Where is the fun? The dancing people, drunk of their asses? You look like you have somebody to kill, and this girl over here is pointing a gun at me. Let me liven things up a bit.Are you familiar with the, Fire Dance? Oh, I know you are, Komos."

Then, the fire that covered Dr.Everyone walked off of him, but retained the shape of a person. Dr.Everyone covered himself in fire again, only for it to walk off again, also retaining it;'s person like shape. He did thise once more, and then the fire-people started dancing. Not just dancing with each other, but dancing alone. The fire people did wonderful flips and slides, and a bunch of acrobatics and dance moves that could seldom be accomplished by something not made of fire. The dance was very entertaining. Very attention getting. One might say, hypnotically attention grabbing.

Dancing fire spirits? Sounds good. This seemed like the deck started to slant itself in her favor. With a quirked smile, she brought up her pistol and fired the two remote explosive bullets into the floor underneath Dr. Everyone. Elaine moved her thumb over to the handle of her pistol and pressed a button along the side of the grip detonating the two rounds in an attempt to dislodge the floor underneath Dr. Everyone and send him to whatever lay under the party room.

The fiery apparitions gave her a brash catalyst for creating fire bombs. A clank and a sliding of metal whispered softly into her ear, as her left pistol fell to the ground and her right pistol fed the oxygenated rounds into the chamber. With her left hand she secured a bottle of alcohol and chucked it at the first apparition. A bullet followed. She gained flow and motion into singular systematic purpose, while two more bottles reached towards the flame spirits. Entailing them through the air rung the special rounds.

Once the bottles and bullets reached their targets the bottles would erupt into a glass bomb, that would erupt out towards the occupants of the room. Threats of people sporadically dying always came true with the the brash girl, and as she flipped behind the counter she closed her eyes and moved into a temporal state of nothingness. Her head split and she could only suffice a sleight grimace as she rematerialized on the other side of the wall, facing a post modern gray wall adorned with glass-brick lining.

She left her pistol behind. That just did not sit well with her as she watched the door, waiting to see if her companions made it out prior to the sequential events she laid into action. "I need that pistol." Never the faithful mistress to her munitions, Elaine reached into her boot and pulled out her spring loaded 9mm and gathered her composure.

Clayton dismissed Alice with a wave of his hand, “They’ll be fine. Elaine has guns. We have to go someplace even better now! So hurry up.” The man on the rope was actually pretty heavy, so Clayton had to actually pull the lasso with both hands. He trudged down the hallway backwards and dragging the unconscious body of Narcissus. Eager to get where ever it was they were going, Clayton didn’t bother looking behind him. Near the end of the hall Clayton’s head started to clear up; his thoughts finally felt a bit more rational, more coherent. Just what the hell was going on here? he wondered. He didn’t have much time to think about it, though as he backed in to the wall. Before he could turn around or process what happened the wall slid open quickly—revealing a long and ancient spiraling stone stair way. Clayton, of course fell backwards; he tried to grip the lasso attached to the heavier narcissus, but he only ended up pulling the unconscious body with him all the way down it to the very bottom.

“FFFUUU…“ Clayton couldn’t help but cry out as he fell down the painful, crumbling steps. Once at the bottom, he was stuck on a dust covered floor. He didn’t think anything was broken but he would definitely be bruised. Wherever he was it smelled like mildew. He struggled to get a good look around him but it was hard to do with the K.O.’d protector of Pandora on top of him. All he could see was the surprisingly brightly lit ceiling. Apparently the room was lit by torches. Just what kind of a gay bar is this? Clayton slid out from under the dead weight and stood up. The room had three different exits that looked like they led to long, dark hallways. The stairs he fell down were narrower than he thought, and they were in the center of the room. He turned around to see an unusually large, marble door behind him, covered in what looked like Greek alphabet. Looks like the Cowgirl knew what she was talking about. Clayton smiled, blood trickling down from the cut in his forehead. He could hear what sounded like an explosion coming from down one of the hallways. Better grab the box and go Clayton looked for a way to open the door, but there was nothing to open it with. He pushed at it futilely.

Alice nodded slightly, looking back one more time before following Clayton down the hallway, making sure not to step on Narcissus as she walked. As they neared the end of the hall, she felt the haze of happiness start to evaporate. "Aw shit." she said, eyes widening, looking down at the unconcious man. Right as she was about to speak though, a hidden passageway opened, causing Clayton to fall right though, pulling the body with him. "OY!" she yelled, descending the steps as quickly as possible after the two. She was much slower then the two though, and by the time she reached the bottom, he had already stood up. "What is this place?" she asked, voice filled with wonder as she gazed around the room. It had three exits leading out... like a maze of sorts. She watched as Clayton attempted to open the door, flinching slightly at the sound of the explosion. "Let's hurry up." she muttered, walking over to the door, pushing at it as well. It wouldn't open... crap.

((I'm pulling out. Not just this thread, but all the threads I'm in right now. I'm busy, I'm in a lot of threads, and Dr.Everyone just died. So I'd like to be in zero threads when he comes back and stuff. You guys can keep going if you want, but I'm going to stop here. Fun RPing with you all.))

Dr.Everyone looked around and evaluated the situation.

"It this all worth the Box? What can the box do that isn't already done? I have killing to do, and I'm not nearly reaching my weekly quota with this. It's just not worth it. It would be better to let them all kill themselves."

And with that, Dr.Everyone shot fire at the ceiling, and attempted to fly out. He almost made it to, but then the room exploded in a bomb of glass and fire. Shards of glass embedded themselves in his back, joining the bullet shrapnel from earlier. The fire, it did little to him other than propel him upwards. His clothing was heavily fire resistant and didn't even char from the fire, But the glass hurt badly and bled. Dr.Everyone cried out in pain and shouted.

"AHHHH! YOU'LL PAY FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE! Hurt me, AND waste my precious time for killing innocent souls? For shame! Now I'll make you pay. Pay the debt all men pay!"

And shot two beams of fire at the roof of the building, circled around, and shot into the sky, flying back to Chicago.

An abrupt sound came from the room Elaine so gracefully vacated. Not necessarily abrupt for the situation, of course, but not what Elaine expected to here from the man. It sounded as though he sought to retreat from the situation. An odd end, but an end nonetheless.
He gave out a sign of return, but for now the room should possess less angry people than it did a few moments earlier.

From below her Elaine heard the cries of idiots expressing glee over finding something. Elaine forgot what they came here for quite a while ago, so she began to walk back towards the door. She placed her hand on the knob of the door. A burning of the metal from the extreme heat of the room caused her to yelp in pain. The pain brought back some clarity to her mind. "Did you find the box? I'm going to assume you found the box and act as though you did regardless of your answer." She yelled down into the hole where Clayton and Alice disappeared into.

Hearing the calamity within the room, Elaine kicked the door in and entered with one pistol held towards the occupants and the other in the form of a finger gun. "I need my gun. Also, we're kind of changing the deal. It sounds like we're taking the box in exchange for your friend, unless of course, you consider what we just did saving your bar. In which case we were merely pulling your friend out of harms way and will be returning him with little to no real damage." Elaine surveyed the room and saw scorch marks all around the bullet ridden room. She walked forward and retrieved both of her pistols. "Well." She looked around the room. "I'm sure this will be an interesting story someday. Right now, it probably isn't."

Elaine readjusted her hat and slid five round into her pistol, she spun the chamber put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger. A blank sounded and Elaine slid the chamber open before sliding a smoke bullet into the chamber. She reholstered the pistol and summoned the second pistol loading the five chambers and performing the same near suicidal trick. She reopened the chamber and slid a remote detonation round into the chamber, before placing the pistol back into her holster. "So we're done here, right?" She placed her 9mm back into her boot. "Oh, and get some real alcohol you bitch. What are you gay?"