JNHRO retirement party
darthcourt10
Well worn.
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Lord K
A.N./ There's something I find entertaining about the fact that the Canadians are probably going to beat MACUSA with their big summoning project first, even if it is partly my fault for getting distracted with the AP2 snippets when I was originally planning to progress onto the next phase of the "Wizards can into shipgirl Ops" plot line.
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Mary woke up with a hangover.
This was a somewhat anomalous experiance, considering her rather venerable age.
It was also rather anomalous considering how long it had been since she had one this bad. Especially when one considered how hardy her constitution tended to be, even now.
Sitting up in bed slowly, Mary notes that she is fully clothed (suit, casual, must have literally fallen on top of the covers and passed out), and assess her current surroundings with a mild amount of analytical study (nomaj modern styling, simply but high class, mini-fridge and bed size suggest expensive hotel room).
No, she is definitely not confused. Just mildly uncertain.
And with some gaps in her memory.
Walking to a nearby curtain and pulling it open, Mary then glares back resolutely into the sunlight's own harsh glare that would cause most to flinch away. As her eyes last adjust, she then realizes she is looking out onto the Las Vegas Strip, with the front fountains for Bellagio across the road and a few stories below. Off in the distance, she can see the Flamingo, and the Eiffel Tower at the Paris as well.
Well, that confirms her suspicions then.
Frank's 'retirement party'.
The witch then stares out the window for a few moments longer, before something then occurs to her. What time is it? She and Howard may have thankfully wrapped up all their business in New York and Langly early, which was why they were able to make the party in the first place, but they were supposed to be Apparating up to San Francisco the next day, giving themselves a day to recover before taking the chain of Port-Keys back to Japan on Sunday evening.
Where is the old Swordsman anyway?
Turning back to her bed, Mary then notes a bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water on the bedside table next to her watch. Retrieving the highly tricked out and modified magical chronometer and noting the time (1056 Hours), Mary then offers a prayer of thanks for Past-Mary's foresight to leave out a glass of water and painkillers for the morning.
Raising the glass to her lips, the witch then spittakes.
That's not water.
That's vodka.
Making a face, the veteran Auror puts the glass down with disgust. With no small amount of frustration, Mary curses Past-Mary before then shaking out the recommended dosage of pills and simply swallowing them dry.
The witch's next objective becomes exploration. Mostly likely in search of either some water, or one of the other fellow party-goers from last night. Hopefully somebody else still has their kit on them in their civvies, so she can wash the pills down with a universal poison remover potion or something.
Exiting her room, Mary then freezes in baffled astonishment at the sight that greets her in the main lounge-turned-party-area of the suite. It is as if someone has set off a bomb, filled with chaos personified.
The first and most noticeable aspect, is obviously the car. A rental, judging by the logo on what's left of the side, and with the roof and most of the doors shorn off as if it were driven underneath something it's driver misjudged the height of, and with fence posts stuck in the grill. Said driver is also apparently a rather portly, grandmotherly looking witch of similar age to Mary, 'asleep at the wheel' while Banned From Argo plays over the radio, and currently hip deep in papayas that fill what's left of the vehicle like a tub. Oblivious to the situation, the woman quietly snores on as Mary turns her attention to the rest of the aftereffects of the cyclonic revelry that seems to have swept the room.
On one of the back walls, someone seems to have magically enlarged a series of portraits and prints out of various figures from WWII. Hitler, Grindelwald, Mussolini, Tojo, Kamo. There's also a few allied figures, such as Fudge Senior.
All have become the subjects of some kind of target competition, to the degree that the heads of the images are barely recognizable from the accumulative damage. Idly, Mary catalogs the implements still present. Bowie knives, throwing daggers, stilettos, needles, a hand axe, a butter knife, some inventive soul has even managed to score an eye-shot on the elder Fudge with a spork.
On the other side of the room, Mary notes that the Jacuzzi is now full of bubbles and foam, creating a fluffy hell that has mostly consumed that corner of the lounge. Even through all the foam though, Mary is pretty sure she can make out the form of a store manikin dressed in Christmas lights and looking like it was set on fire at some point. Elsewhere, somebody has put a kiddy pool in the middle of the floor. Most likely it was originally filled with ice to keep drinks cool, with a few toy ships added in as a gag. Now there is a only a mostly deflated lump of plastic, barely containing the melt water and magical miniatures, that sail between the islands of undrunk cans.
Meanwhile, one of the couches has been almost entirely buried in the colorful plastic balls from a bouncy ball pit. Next to it, a table covered in knife marks and electrical burns is laden with duffel bags full of cash and poker chips, along with playing cards that lie scattered about the circumference of the table. A spread that suggests two of the players had begun brawling. And above it all, one of the suite's flat screen TVs sits slightly off kilter on the wall, rigged to a laptop streaming a Japanese yokai MMA tournament off of a dark web based streaming site for magicals.
In the kitchen, Mary discovers a chicken with a tiny sombrero on it's head, clucking away and starring at her gormlessly from among the forest of bottles, cans and cups that cover almost every inch of space on the counter. Beer, whisky, firewhisky, tequila, rum, Victory Gin, mead, jaeger, Glen McKenna scotch. There's even a bottle of absinthe.
Examining the latter, curiously, Mary then makes a face.
Make that a mostly empty bottle of absinthe.
Opening the fridge out of curiosity, Mary then finds the entire thing to be full of a dead pig, dressed up in a a way that can only be described as 'chic gay-sailor'.
For the sake of her sanity, Mary then closes the fridge and grabs a nearby solo-cup from the counter-top. Not trusting the taps after the chaos that seems like it was wreaked by aurors acting quarter of the average age of the participants from last night's party, Mary instead settles for scourgify'ing the cup, and then casting aguamenti. Her thirst quenched, Mary continues her investigation of the trail of destruction.
What the hell did they get up to last night? This was supposed to be a glorified farewell party/preemptive wake for old friends and comrades.
Then again, this was Woodsman who was supposed to be one of the stars of the show.
Before her pondering of the accumulative detritus of the night can continue, Mary is then interrupted by the opening of the Hotel suite door.
For a moment the witch freezes, hangover forgotten while her sakaki and dragon tail-bone wand finds itself transitioning with a flick from wrist-holster to hand. Held at the ready in case it is the nomaj room service who has unwittingly stumbled in the aftermath of the magical veterans party.
To her surprise, the face that greets the elder witch is that of easily the youngest member of the party who ended up getting roped into coming.
Last night, Kisei had looked ecstatic at the blanket invitation from Frank to Howard, telling him to bring along his young protege anyway, rather than making the girl spend a boring night waiting for them in San Francisco on her own. Now the young agent, previously over the moon at an opportunity to meet so many past or semi-retired legends of the Magical Investigation Bureau and veterans of most of the conflicts of the last 80 years, looks very different.
Mortification seems to be her main expression upon being caught by Mary, along with a deeply pained regret towards the universe and existence. No doubt the signs of youthful underestimation about just how hard even 'ancient foogies' can party when enough of the old gang are together that they forget how old they are. Alternately, it might also have something to do with how awkwardly she's attempting to sneak into the room.
Time for the patented 'Inquiring Mother Pose #3?'
a.k.a. crossed arms, unreadable gaze and a curiously raised eyebrow.
"Kisei?"
"M-Mrs Maleficus?"
"What are you doing?"
The younger witch shifts awkwardly at the question. Looking her up and down more carefully, Mary notes the absence of Kisei's shoes and the generally dishevelled state of her clothing.
"Oh. The shipgirl from the bar last night?"
The younger witch turns red with embarrassment at being caught out on her walk of shame.
"Look, can I come in? I just want to find a bed and sleep. Or maybe just a nice corner to curl up and die in until this headache goes away."
Wordlessly, Mary steps aside, and gestures for her to enter, which Kisei then gratefully does with a strangely awkward shuffle. Then she freezes when she sees the state of the hotel suite, and looks to the older witch with baffled incredulity.
"What the- what happened last night?"
"A Frank Woods party for veterans did apparently," offers the witch, before giving her old partner's protege and her odd shuffle an assessing look. "Speaking of which, are you okay? You didn't fall or anything did you?"
Somehow the younger witch manages to turn an even brighter shade of red, and mumble something under her breath.
"Kisei?"
The aforementioned witch looks like she would prefer nothingless than to have an invisibility cloak on at that moment. "You know how we thought that shipgirl was magical and following us around?"
"Yes?"
"Apparently she wasn't teleporting." Kisei shifts awkwardly. "She just has a twin sister-ship."
Wryly, Mary raises an eyebrow. "Well. As far as I know, I don't think your grandfather ever managed twins in any of his conquests."
"I don't think he ever almost broke his pelvis either," Kisei mutters to herself, now redder than a cherry as she looks at Mary uncertainly. "Also, please don't tell anyone about this...."
The older witch just chuckles and gives the younger a comforting clap on the shoulder. "Don't worry, I won't. Now go take a shower, trust me, you'll probably feel better after."
"Thanks." As Kisei shuffles away, the noise of an opening door makes Mary turn around curiously.
One of the suite's other bedrooms has opened, disgorging a small avalanche of balloons, along with a bushy mustachioed wizard sporting a Union Jack messily magically painted on his dress shirt in shades of ketchup, mayonnaise and blueberries. The British wizard, and long time ally who was once a regular to be stumbled across in the field when alphabet soups overlapped, now stares in disbelief and no small amount of awe at the state of the rest of the Suite.
Ever the image of implacable, Mary raises an stares back from the otherside of the devastated room. "Good morning Price."
The Brit just stares, mildly slack-jawed until he finally finds his tongue.
"Bloody hell. It must 'ave been a damn good send off last night then."
The witch grimaces. "Considering I haven't been convinced-slash-guilted into drinking like that for a friend in a very, very long time, I would say so."
Before Price can respond, a terrified shriek interrupts him. As both witch and wizard spin around, wands at the ready, Kisei tumbles out of the suite's bathroom in a whirlwind panic. Pulling the door shut behind herself and locking it with a spell, she then trips over a small mountain of empty cans while stumbling backwards. In shock, she then looks up at the older veterans from the ground.
"There's a wampus cat in the bathroom!"
"What?!" is Mary's eloquent response.
"It's huge! It's the size of a cougar!"
"How did a bloody wampus end up in the 'effing bathroom?!" asks Price in confusion.
Awoken by the clatter of cans and the shouting, the portly witch in the destroyed rental ceases her snoring with a jerk of surprise, and then looks around in baffled shock. Realizing her automotive predicament and the fruit stall's worth of papayas she has fallen asleep up to the waist in, the ex-Mediwitch groans in resigned frustration.
"God damn it! It still happens! This is the last time I drink with any of you!"
As if summoned by the long since retired Hydra's frustration, someone abruptly sits upright on the ball covered couch, causing a small avalanche of colourful plastic orbs. "I'M UP! DON'T WORRY, I'M.... up?"
In confusion the now revealed Swordsman glances around, before comprehension at last begins to dawn on his face.
"Damnit Frank!"
Between Price starring incredulously at the sombrero wearing chicken in the kitchen, Hydra espousing some rather ungrandmotherly language as she attempts to extract herself from Papaya hell, and Kisei still gibbering about one of the tamer things to ever turn up at a MIA retirement party, Mary decides that her fellow veteran of Tokyo Station is the best candidate for reasonable conversation. After that time with the Nundu and the hot spring, most things tended to feel rather tame in comparison.
"So, Howard. What do you remember of last night?"
Freeing himself from his multi-color prison with a cascading waterfall of balls, the wizard grimaces. "In summary? Words to the effect of "fuck" and "all". What about you?"
Mary frowns deeply as she fills a nearby solo cup with water via another aguamenti, and offers it to the grateful Swordsman.
"I remember Frank badgering me into keeping up with the rest of the party when I honestly should have stopped, as one last favor to him." The witches expression then turns into a pained grimace. "And then after that, there's a lot of black."
Mary pauses uncertainly. "Was I.... talking to somebody from Europe last night?"
"Well, one of the few things I do remember, was Frank getting the bartender to load you up with Screaming Vikings until you started talking in icelandic or danish or something."
The witch grimaces. That wasn't something she'd done in a while, i.e. a decade or two. Or required no small amount of alcohol for her to lapse into. "I suppose that explains the severity of my hangover."
"Oi!" From the side of the room, Price adds his two cents. "I think I remember that being just before we started doing shots of firewhisky. Then I think we all buggered off to go play craps."
"Well lucky you," grumbles Hydra as she finally extracts herself from the fruit laden car. "I don't even remember us leaving the room last night."
Quietly, Mary facepalms. "Frank up to his old tricks I suppose. Instant blackout with baffling aftermath everyone was apparently talked into doing while drunk, just add Woodsman." The witch then frowns as something occurs to her. "Where the hell is Frank anyway?"
"Bloody right, where the hell is he. Just because he's in a wheelchair doesn't mean I can't kick his arse."
Glancing around the room curiously, Swordsman also looks increasingly torn between mild confusion and worry. "Actually, where the hell is everyone else in general? There were like twenty of us last night. I hope we didn't loose anyone casino-crawling across the Strip or something."
Noticing the youngest member of there current group gazing at them uncertainly out of the corner of her eye, Mary's attention then fixates the least experienced agent in the room.
"Kisei?" The aforementioned witch shifts awkwardly as the rest of the veterans look to her curiously as well. "What's going on?"
"Are those things really the only events you can remember?"
Mary nods, the others generally following suit in agreement. "At least with any clear detail, or confidence in place and time."
"Ah.... well....." The younger Auror trails off, not quite sure how to break the revelation she knows. "The thing is.... That was all stuff from the day before yesterday. The first day of the party."
The geriatrics are silent for a moment, before Hydra finally voices the through the that's on everyone's lips.
".... what?"
Kisei cringes. "Today is Sunday, not Saturday. Nobody else is here, because Mr Woods somehow convinced everyone who didn't need to leave, to keep on partying right up until he finally had to go himself. And then for a few hours after as well to be honest. A lot of the others only really started to go home last night."
After a few moments, the silence breaks.
"God damnit Frank!"
"That fookin tosser!"
"Damnit, not even the Raiders were this bad."
Unlike the others however, Mary starts to chuckle, causing Howard to look at her curiously.
"Mary?"
Shaking her head, the witch at last gives a resignedly bemused smile.
"Isn't that Woodsman to a T. Escalating a mess he roped everyone else into, and then taking off for the next big adventure before the rest of us can even finish cleaning up the mess he and Mason left behind."
The MIB Station Chief can't help but give a snort of his own and a roll of his eyes. "Just like old times then." Blinking for a moment, the wizard then swears.
"What's wrong?" asks Mary curiously.
"What time is it?"
"After 1100 hours now. Why?"
Facepalming, Howard then gestures around at the devastated hotel room. "He just pulled the ultimate case of stiffing us with the clean up job, hotel bill, and tabs."
"How do you reckon that?"
"Because if it's after 11 on Sunday, then the fucker is probably already dead."
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"Holy shit, that sucked."
For the first time in the nigh on eight years since Blood Week, the veteran MACUSA special operative finds himself able to stand on his own two feet.
On the other hand though, he is also now only a few inches tall, and his statement comes out sounding a lot more like "Hey-hey hey hey."
But then on the brightside once again, he feels almost in the prime of his youth once more.
Wins and losses he supposes.
Looking around, Frank then takes stock of his current situation. Currently he is only a few inches tall and sitting on the shoulder of a young woman. Said young woman can acurately be described with the adjectives of 'blonde', 'stacked', 'American beauty' and 'obviously a battleship'. Said battleship is also currently standing in a summoning pool in front of a group of other shipgirls and a vaguely photogenic looking admiral, as a band plays in the background.
All this, Frank sees with his eyes. And then Frank calls upon his decades of experiance as one of MIB's best field operatives, and sees. The world around them is a liquid filled tank.
An almost empty, coffin-like bath with an observation window in the top, through which robed figures peer in carefully at the coalescing magical presence being summoned into the shape of the shipgirl in a self-fulfilling dream being crafted for her. Some of the robed shapes take notes. Others cast spells, making minor adjustments to the contents of the bath and it's subject. Others weave and orchestrate, playing the parts of maestros and puppeteers for the world of the dreamer they easing her into, in preparation for the real world.
For a brief moment, Frank offers a tiny thumbs up.
And then he closes his eyes once more, back to the dreamer's summoning circle and the shoulder of the shipgirl he is riding on.
16"/45 caliber Mark 6 guns in a 3
Nelson-style 'all forward' arrangement gleam in the lights cast on the pool. Mark 12 5"/38 guns swivel in unique triple turrets. Toned, stocking covered legs hint at machinery capable of generating 185,000 horsepower and propelling her to 30.5 knots on four shafts, while her build also suggests a toughness inherent with having 17 inches of main belt armor beneath her delicate ivory skin and crisp white uniform. Though bigger than the within treaty limits battleship which would eventually be built from the preliminary design project that spawned her basic schematics, the blonde still moves and strikes a pose with a powerful grace and beauty that almost seems to have something magical about it.
Flicking her hair over her shoulder, the battleship grins and salutes to the vaguely generic figures watching the dreamscape summoning circle.
"USS Frankland, reporting for duty!"
Even within the coffin-like bath and drawn into the nascent Frankland's dream, Frank can hear the cheers from outside.
It's time to build themselves a battleship.
Already though, he can also feel other distant tenuous connections formulating as well.
Today it's the flagship. Soon they shall also have the fleet to accompany her.
A.N./ There's something I find entertaining about the fact that the Canadians are probably going to beat MACUSA with their big summoning project first, even if it is partly my fault for getting distracted with the AP2 snippets when I was originally planning to progress onto the next phase of the "Wizards can into shipgirl Ops" plot line.
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Mary woke up with a hangover.
This was a somewhat anomalous experiance, considering her rather venerable age.
It was also rather anomalous considering how long it had been since she had one this bad. Especially when one considered how hardy her constitution tended to be, even now.
Sitting up in bed slowly, Mary notes that she is fully clothed (suit, casual, must have literally fallen on top of the covers and passed out), and assess her current surroundings with a mild amount of analytical study (nomaj modern styling, simply but high class, mini-fridge and bed size suggest expensive hotel room).
No, she is definitely not confused. Just mildly uncertain.
And with some gaps in her memory.
Walking to a nearby curtain and pulling it open, Mary then glares back resolutely into the sunlight's own harsh glare that would cause most to flinch away. As her eyes last adjust, she then realizes she is looking out onto the Las Vegas Strip, with the front fountains for Bellagio across the road and a few stories below. Off in the distance, she can see the Flamingo, and the Eiffel Tower at the Paris as well.
Well, that confirms her suspicions then.
Frank's 'retirement party'.
The witch then stares out the window for a few moments longer, before something then occurs to her. What time is it? She and Howard may have thankfully wrapped up all their business in New York and Langly early, which was why they were able to make the party in the first place, but they were supposed to be Apparating up to San Francisco the next day, giving themselves a day to recover before taking the chain of Port-Keys back to Japan on Sunday evening.
Where is the old Swordsman anyway?
Turning back to her bed, Mary then notes a bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water on the bedside table next to her watch. Retrieving the highly tricked out and modified magical chronometer and noting the time (1056 Hours), Mary then offers a prayer of thanks for Past-Mary's foresight to leave out a glass of water and painkillers for the morning.
Raising the glass to her lips, the witch then spittakes.
That's not water.
That's vodka.
Making a face, the veteran Auror puts the glass down with disgust. With no small amount of frustration, Mary curses Past-Mary before then shaking out the recommended dosage of pills and simply swallowing them dry.
The witch's next objective becomes exploration. Mostly likely in search of either some water, or one of the other fellow party-goers from last night. Hopefully somebody else still has their kit on them in their civvies, so she can wash the pills down with a universal poison remover potion or something.
Exiting her room, Mary then freezes in baffled astonishment at the sight that greets her in the main lounge-turned-party-area of the suite. It is as if someone has set off a bomb, filled with chaos personified.
The first and most noticeable aspect, is obviously the car. A rental, judging by the logo on what's left of the side, and with the roof and most of the doors shorn off as if it were driven underneath something it's driver misjudged the height of, and with fence posts stuck in the grill. Said driver is also apparently a rather portly, grandmotherly looking witch of similar age to Mary, 'asleep at the wheel' while Banned From Argo plays over the radio, and currently hip deep in papayas that fill what's left of the vehicle like a tub. Oblivious to the situation, the woman quietly snores on as Mary turns her attention to the rest of the aftereffects of the cyclonic revelry that seems to have swept the room.
On one of the back walls, someone seems to have magically enlarged a series of portraits and prints out of various figures from WWII. Hitler, Grindelwald, Mussolini, Tojo, Kamo. There's also a few allied figures, such as Fudge Senior.
All have become the subjects of some kind of target competition, to the degree that the heads of the images are barely recognizable from the accumulative damage. Idly, Mary catalogs the implements still present. Bowie knives, throwing daggers, stilettos, needles, a hand axe, a butter knife, some inventive soul has even managed to score an eye-shot on the elder Fudge with a spork.
On the other side of the room, Mary notes that the Jacuzzi is now full of bubbles and foam, creating a fluffy hell that has mostly consumed that corner of the lounge. Even through all the foam though, Mary is pretty sure she can make out the form of a store manikin dressed in Christmas lights and looking like it was set on fire at some point. Elsewhere, somebody has put a kiddy pool in the middle of the floor. Most likely it was originally filled with ice to keep drinks cool, with a few toy ships added in as a gag. Now there is a only a mostly deflated lump of plastic, barely containing the melt water and magical miniatures, that sail between the islands of undrunk cans.
Meanwhile, one of the couches has been almost entirely buried in the colorful plastic balls from a bouncy ball pit. Next to it, a table covered in knife marks and electrical burns is laden with duffel bags full of cash and poker chips, along with playing cards that lie scattered about the circumference of the table. A spread that suggests two of the players had begun brawling. And above it all, one of the suite's flat screen TVs sits slightly off kilter on the wall, rigged to a laptop streaming a Japanese yokai MMA tournament off of a dark web based streaming site for magicals.
In the kitchen, Mary discovers a chicken with a tiny sombrero on it's head, clucking away and starring at her gormlessly from among the forest of bottles, cans and cups that cover almost every inch of space on the counter. Beer, whisky, firewhisky, tequila, rum, Victory Gin, mead, jaeger, Glen McKenna scotch. There's even a bottle of absinthe.
Examining the latter, curiously, Mary then makes a face.
Make that a mostly empty bottle of absinthe.
Opening the fridge out of curiosity, Mary then finds the entire thing to be full of a dead pig, dressed up in a a way that can only be described as 'chic gay-sailor'.
For the sake of her sanity, Mary then closes the fridge and grabs a nearby solo-cup from the counter-top. Not trusting the taps after the chaos that seems like it was wreaked by aurors acting quarter of the average age of the participants from last night's party, Mary instead settles for scourgify'ing the cup, and then casting aguamenti. Her thirst quenched, Mary continues her investigation of the trail of destruction.
What the hell did they get up to last night? This was supposed to be a glorified farewell party/preemptive wake for old friends and comrades.
Then again, this was Woodsman who was supposed to be one of the stars of the show.
Before her pondering of the accumulative detritus of the night can continue, Mary is then interrupted by the opening of the Hotel suite door.
For a moment the witch freezes, hangover forgotten while her sakaki and dragon tail-bone wand finds itself transitioning with a flick from wrist-holster to hand. Held at the ready in case it is the nomaj room service who has unwittingly stumbled in the aftermath of the magical veterans party.
To her surprise, the face that greets the elder witch is that of easily the youngest member of the party who ended up getting roped into coming.
Last night, Kisei had looked ecstatic at the blanket invitation from Frank to Howard, telling him to bring along his young protege anyway, rather than making the girl spend a boring night waiting for them in San Francisco on her own. Now the young agent, previously over the moon at an opportunity to meet so many past or semi-retired legends of the Magical Investigation Bureau and veterans of most of the conflicts of the last 80 years, looks very different.
Mortification seems to be her main expression upon being caught by Mary, along with a deeply pained regret towards the universe and existence. No doubt the signs of youthful underestimation about just how hard even 'ancient foogies' can party when enough of the old gang are together that they forget how old they are. Alternately, it might also have something to do with how awkwardly she's attempting to sneak into the room.
Time for the patented 'Inquiring Mother Pose #3?'
a.k.a. crossed arms, unreadable gaze and a curiously raised eyebrow.
"Kisei?"
"M-Mrs Maleficus?"
"What are you doing?"
The younger witch shifts awkwardly at the question. Looking her up and down more carefully, Mary notes the absence of Kisei's shoes and the generally dishevelled state of her clothing.
"Oh. The shipgirl from the bar last night?"
The younger witch turns red with embarrassment at being caught out on her walk of shame.
"Look, can I come in? I just want to find a bed and sleep. Or maybe just a nice corner to curl up and die in until this headache goes away."
Wordlessly, Mary steps aside, and gestures for her to enter, which Kisei then gratefully does with a strangely awkward shuffle. Then she freezes when she sees the state of the hotel suite, and looks to the older witch with baffled incredulity.
"What the- what happened last night?"
"A Frank Woods party for veterans did apparently," offers the witch, before giving her old partner's protege and her odd shuffle an assessing look. "Speaking of which, are you okay? You didn't fall or anything did you?"
Somehow the younger witch manages to turn an even brighter shade of red, and mumble something under her breath.
"Kisei?"
The aforementioned witch looks like she would prefer nothingless than to have an invisibility cloak on at that moment. "You know how we thought that shipgirl was magical and following us around?"
"Yes?"
"Apparently she wasn't teleporting." Kisei shifts awkwardly. "She just has a twin sister-ship."
Wryly, Mary raises an eyebrow. "Well. As far as I know, I don't think your grandfather ever managed twins in any of his conquests."
"I don't think he ever almost broke his pelvis either," Kisei mutters to herself, now redder than a cherry as she looks at Mary uncertainly. "Also, please don't tell anyone about this...."
The older witch just chuckles and gives the younger a comforting clap on the shoulder. "Don't worry, I won't. Now go take a shower, trust me, you'll probably feel better after."
"Thanks." As Kisei shuffles away, the noise of an opening door makes Mary turn around curiously.
One of the suite's other bedrooms has opened, disgorging a small avalanche of balloons, along with a bushy mustachioed wizard sporting a Union Jack messily magically painted on his dress shirt in shades of ketchup, mayonnaise and blueberries. The British wizard, and long time ally who was once a regular to be stumbled across in the field when alphabet soups overlapped, now stares in disbelief and no small amount of awe at the state of the rest of the Suite.
Ever the image of implacable, Mary raises an stares back from the otherside of the devastated room. "Good morning Price."
The Brit just stares, mildly slack-jawed until he finally finds his tongue.
"Bloody hell. It must 'ave been a damn good send off last night then."
The witch grimaces. "Considering I haven't been convinced-slash-guilted into drinking like that for a friend in a very, very long time, I would say so."
Before Price can respond, a terrified shriek interrupts him. As both witch and wizard spin around, wands at the ready, Kisei tumbles out of the suite's bathroom in a whirlwind panic. Pulling the door shut behind herself and locking it with a spell, she then trips over a small mountain of empty cans while stumbling backwards. In shock, she then looks up at the older veterans from the ground.
"There's a wampus cat in the bathroom!"
"What?!" is Mary's eloquent response.
"It's huge! It's the size of a cougar!"
"How did a bloody wampus end up in the 'effing bathroom?!" asks Price in confusion.
Awoken by the clatter of cans and the shouting, the portly witch in the destroyed rental ceases her snoring with a jerk of surprise, and then looks around in baffled shock. Realizing her automotive predicament and the fruit stall's worth of papayas she has fallen asleep up to the waist in, the ex-Mediwitch groans in resigned frustration.
"God damn it! It still happens! This is the last time I drink with any of you!"
As if summoned by the long since retired Hydra's frustration, someone abruptly sits upright on the ball covered couch, causing a small avalanche of colourful plastic orbs. "I'M UP! DON'T WORRY, I'M.... up?"
In confusion the now revealed Swordsman glances around, before comprehension at last begins to dawn on his face.
"Damnit Frank!"
Between Price starring incredulously at the sombrero wearing chicken in the kitchen, Hydra espousing some rather ungrandmotherly language as she attempts to extract herself from Papaya hell, and Kisei still gibbering about one of the tamer things to ever turn up at a MIA retirement party, Mary decides that her fellow veteran of Tokyo Station is the best candidate for reasonable conversation. After that time with the Nundu and the hot spring, most things tended to feel rather tame in comparison.
"So, Howard. What do you remember of last night?"
Freeing himself from his multi-color prison with a cascading waterfall of balls, the wizard grimaces. "In summary? Words to the effect of "fuck" and "all". What about you?"
Mary frowns deeply as she fills a nearby solo cup with water via another aguamenti, and offers it to the grateful Swordsman.
"I remember Frank badgering me into keeping up with the rest of the party when I honestly should have stopped, as one last favor to him." The witches expression then turns into a pained grimace. "And then after that, there's a lot of black."
Mary pauses uncertainly. "Was I.... talking to somebody from Europe last night?"
"Well, one of the few things I do remember, was Frank getting the bartender to load you up with Screaming Vikings until you started talking in icelandic or danish or something."
The witch grimaces. That wasn't something she'd done in a while, i.e. a decade or two. Or required no small amount of alcohol for her to lapse into. "I suppose that explains the severity of my hangover."
"Oi!" From the side of the room, Price adds his two cents. "I think I remember that being just before we started doing shots of firewhisky. Then I think we all buggered off to go play craps."
"Well lucky you," grumbles Hydra as she finally extracts herself from the fruit laden car. "I don't even remember us leaving the room last night."
Quietly, Mary facepalms. "Frank up to his old tricks I suppose. Instant blackout with baffling aftermath everyone was apparently talked into doing while drunk, just add Woodsman." The witch then frowns as something occurs to her. "Where the hell is Frank anyway?"
"Bloody right, where the hell is he. Just because he's in a wheelchair doesn't mean I can't kick his arse."
Glancing around the room curiously, Swordsman also looks increasingly torn between mild confusion and worry. "Actually, where the hell is everyone else in general? There were like twenty of us last night. I hope we didn't loose anyone casino-crawling across the Strip or something."
Noticing the youngest member of there current group gazing at them uncertainly out of the corner of her eye, Mary's attention then fixates the least experienced agent in the room.
"Kisei?" The aforementioned witch shifts awkwardly as the rest of the veterans look to her curiously as well. "What's going on?"
"Are those things really the only events you can remember?"
Mary nods, the others generally following suit in agreement. "At least with any clear detail, or confidence in place and time."
"Ah.... well....." The younger Auror trails off, not quite sure how to break the revelation she knows. "The thing is.... That was all stuff from the day before yesterday. The first day of the party."
The geriatrics are silent for a moment, before Hydra finally voices the through the that's on everyone's lips.
".... what?"
Kisei cringes. "Today is Sunday, not Saturday. Nobody else is here, because Mr Woods somehow convinced everyone who didn't need to leave, to keep on partying right up until he finally had to go himself. And then for a few hours after as well to be honest. A lot of the others only really started to go home last night."
After a few moments, the silence breaks.
"God damnit Frank!"
"That fookin tosser!"
"Damnit, not even the Raiders were this bad."
Unlike the others however, Mary starts to chuckle, causing Howard to look at her curiously.
"Mary?"
Shaking her head, the witch at last gives a resignedly bemused smile.
"Isn't that Woodsman to a T. Escalating a mess he roped everyone else into, and then taking off for the next big adventure before the rest of us can even finish cleaning up the mess he and Mason left behind."
The MIB Station Chief can't help but give a snort of his own and a roll of his eyes. "Just like old times then." Blinking for a moment, the wizard then swears.
"What's wrong?" asks Mary curiously.
"What time is it?"
"After 1100 hours now. Why?"
Facepalming, Howard then gestures around at the devastated hotel room. "He just pulled the ultimate case of stiffing us with the clean up job, hotel bill, and tabs."
"How do you reckon that?"
"Because if it's after 11 on Sunday, then the fucker is probably already dead."
--------------------
"Holy shit, that sucked."
For the first time in the nigh on eight years since Blood Week, the veteran MACUSA special operative finds himself able to stand on his own two feet.
On the other hand though, he is also now only a few inches tall, and his statement comes out sounding a lot more like "Hey-hey hey hey."
But then on the brightside once again, he feels almost in the prime of his youth once more.
Wins and losses he supposes.
Looking around, Frank then takes stock of his current situation. Currently he is only a few inches tall and sitting on the shoulder of a young woman. Said young woman can acurately be described with the adjectives of 'blonde', 'stacked', 'American beauty' and 'obviously a battleship'. Said battleship is also currently standing in a summoning pool in front of a group of other shipgirls and a vaguely photogenic looking admiral, as a band plays in the background.
All this, Frank sees with his eyes. And then Frank calls upon his decades of experiance as one of MIB's best field operatives, and sees. The world around them is a liquid filled tank.
An almost empty, coffin-like bath with an observation window in the top, through which robed figures peer in carefully at the coalescing magical presence being summoned into the shape of the shipgirl in a self-fulfilling dream being crafted for her. Some of the robed shapes take notes. Others cast spells, making minor adjustments to the contents of the bath and it's subject. Others weave and orchestrate, playing the parts of maestros and puppeteers for the world of the dreamer they easing her into, in preparation for the real world.
For a brief moment, Frank offers a tiny thumbs up.
And then he closes his eyes once more, back to the dreamer's summoning circle and the shoulder of the shipgirl he is riding on.
16"/45 caliber Mark 6 guns in a 3
Nelson-style 'all forward' arrangement gleam in the lights cast on the pool. Mark 12 5"/38 guns swivel in unique triple turrets. Toned, stocking covered legs hint at machinery capable of generating 185,000 horsepower and propelling her to 30.5 knots on four shafts, while her build also suggests a toughness inherent with having 17 inches of main belt armor beneath her delicate ivory skin and crisp white uniform. Though bigger than the within treaty limits battleship which would eventually be built from the preliminary design project that spawned her basic schematics, the blonde still moves and strikes a pose with a powerful grace and beauty that almost seems to have something magical about it.Flicking her hair over her shoulder, the battleship grins and salutes to the vaguely generic figures watching the dreamscape summoning circle.
"USS Frankland, reporting for duty!"
Even within the coffin-like bath and drawn into the nascent Frankland's dream, Frank can hear the cheers from outside.
It's time to build themselves a battleship.
Already though, he can also feel other distant tenuous connections formulating as well.
Today it's the flagship. Soon they shall also have the fleet to accompany her.
