Private/Closed Bootleg Bros. Ultimate - The Sumeragi Campaign

[Psymallard]

The Ones from Sonic the Fighters
The pay bonus caught Nack's attention. He usually shot to kill, but if he was paid extra, maybe if he shot them in the knees...

"OHMYGOD! Boss! Think of how many SHINIES we could buy with that Christmas bonus!"

Nack's thoughts were interrupted by Bean, who had began aggressively shaking the weasel in excitement.

"Ack- get OFF me, you mental case! What are you even talking about?!?!"

Nack shrugged the green fowl off, who fell back into his chair, cackling madly. Dermerzel had mentioned that the team was to split up. They had talked about the possibility before, and agreed that it was fine. They were each strong enough to do their own tasks, given they also receive direct support from Sumeragi. At least, that was Nack's decision. If they were covering more ground, that means they got more pay, and the sniper was more than happy for that.

Bark was less sure of this. He really wasn't comfortable with being sent out on his own. The polar bear knew they were much more effective as a team, but couldn't hope to stand up to the aggressive assertiveness of the team's leader. Bark looked over to Bean, who had a similarly solemn look. The melodramatic duck had began tearing up as he gingerly mouthed the words, 'I'll find you,' as if it were a romance flick. Bark gave a sad smile in response to his friend's antics.

Nack went back to stewing in his own hatred of Magneto as the human haughtily left the room. He didn't know it, but he shared many of the same ideas as the other assassin of the Kestrels. Unfortunately, the mercenary had made up his mind about hating Ghiaccio already, and that wasn't likely to change unless it could earn him some cash. As Ghiaccio asked his question, Nack sneered, and some of the weasel's disdain seeped out of his mouth:

"Weren't you listening? We're getting dossiers later."

The Team Hooligan leader didn't exactly know what a "dossier" was, but he could use context clues- plus it sounded fancy. It took Nack a great deal of effort to not call his fellow Kestrel a rude name. Bark was proud of him.

 

[Captain Cardboard]

Ghiaccio

The ice assassin snapped towards Nack, staring down at the weasel with fury. For a moment, it looked like Ghiaccio was about to start yelling at his fellow Kestrel. But like with Magneto, the hitman managed to swallow his rage. Going off on Nack would have usually been fine, but just not in front of his employer...
"I heard." Ghiaccio growled through gritted teeth. It was taking a great deal of his willpower to not call Nack a giant walking rat. At this rate, V1 might be the only Kestrel worth trying to work with. "I don't have to explain myself to you."

 

[ArmedBlue]

Sumeragi Building 13 – Conference Room
​

"QUITE SO." Demerzel agreed upon Magneto's words. Despite the mutant essentially calling off the meeting before the AI did, he didn't seem particularly bothered by it.

Ghiaccio asked about any additional information, and was quickly told off by Nack. The growing disdain between the two could be felt, and it was Blade who stepped in to offer at least some further insight.

"The targets are vehemently opposed to the truth of our superiority. Do not expect them to comply with orders or give in easily. Hold nothing back."

"STRUGGLE AS THEY MIGHT, THEY WILL SOON SURRENDER BEFORE US. THIS MEETING IS OFFICIALLY CONCLUDED. EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, YOUR MISSIONS SHOULD BE YOUR UTMOST PRIORITY. CARRY THEM OUT ACCORDINGLY."

With those words, Demerzel's holographic form vanished, the device producing his image deactivating. The Falcons at the table soon left their seats, stepping out of the room to get some rest for the night before working on their tasks first thing tomorrow.

Only Blade remained standing atop the balcony, glaring down at the conference table as the others left, before her cold gaze shifted toward the city below.

Silence fell over the room.
​

A Place to Call Home
​

Morning came – albeit it was difficult to tell.

As some of the group began to get up and move around, the automatic lights on the ceiling gradually activated to illuminate the room. Things around them were, of course, just as they'd left them last night, and fortunately, the hideout's location blocked out the noise of whatever Sumeragi squads had been passing overhead while they slept. Put simply, it was a serviceable place to get some rest.

A bit of noise came from the main room downstairs, akin to metallic items clanging together or some tools shifting around. If one were to move closer to the door connecting to the hall, they would find a small piece of paper that had been slipped underneath. A closer look revealed it was a note with fairly neat handwriting, which read:

"Good morning! Hope you slept well! Jin and I are prepping some stuff up for you guys. Feel free to come down whenever, no rush!"​

– Kohaku​

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

Boboiboy


"...mmm..."

The creature stirred. The hatless hero blinked his eyes open, looking around the room they had been so graciously provided. Part of him wished he would have woken up back on the ship, the past day being just a dream. Wishful thinking at it's finest he gathered.

Snagging his orange cap he left on a makeshift nightstand made of crates, he fit it snugly backwards atop his head. Best not to waste any more time lying around here while a war was on.

Making his way to the door, he was about to push against it when he found a piece of parchment right under it. Arching a brow, he picked it up, scanning it's contents.

A chuckle escaped his lips. They were good kids, welcoming them and willing to share supposedly food with them despite being in dire straits themselves. Those are the people that need protecting.

"Hey, everyone! Let's get a move on, I think the kids are waiting for us!"

 

[Captain Cardboard]

Tracy Rinehart​

The automatic lights woke Tracy. Pulling the blankets closer, she stared up at the ceiling of this strange place. Sleep hadn't come easily to her, in a strange location with strange people, but eventually it had. She was here, in the safehouse. Not the Ra Yellow dorm, or the Slifer Red dorm. Still stuck in this strange world. Tracy took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair. Sleeping in normal clothes wasn't a comfortable experience, and sleeping in her school uniform was even worse. God, how was she going to get clothes? Was she really going to be fighting in a resistance in a skirt and sleeveless top?

Another concern to bring up for later. Now it was a new day, with a new outlook. This situation she was in was really happening. No amount of denial would change that. She would have to face this head on. Tracy sat up in her bed, pulling a notebook and pen from her bag. She pulled her math notes out of her notebook, and began writing furiously.

Spoiler: Tracy's Notebook

Questions I can worry about

• Location: How did I get here? Where is here? How can I get back home? How is it 2134? Did I time travel?
• What are Adepts? What are Minos? What differentiates them?
• How was the masked woman able to shoot lightning and fly?
• Who are Sumeragi? How did they become so powerful?
• What are they doing with that big laser?
• If this is the future, then why am I able to summon actual spirits and use actual spells?
• Clothes. I don't want to be fighting in my school uniform.

Tactics

• I can summon monsters and use spells and traps here, but enemies don’t use duel disks. I need to go through my cards and modify my deck for this. Enemies aren’t summoning allies, so those cards are probably ineffective. I need to focus on destroying enemies, swarming my own field with monsters, and focusing my own defenses…

Allies

• Boboiboy
  • Boboiboy: How many fam-splits are there? How was he able to split into two? Is Boboiboy the dominant one? Are they multiple personalities, or distinct spirits? How does his powers work? Does he have any powers by himself?
  • Thorn: How does his plant powers work? How are some of his plants also beasts?
  • Fire? Who is this guy?
  • Lightning? Who is this guy?!?
• Frisk
  • What is the extent of their powers? Energy constructs, energy blasts, shields, walls, barriers, healing magic? Why did the Sumeragi troops let her in the wall? What did she find there?
• Mr. Miracle
  • This guy does real magic, but it looks like show magic? How?
• Magic dog
  • Can this dog understand me?
• Blindfold guy & Tempura
  • Friends with Frisk? They know each other?
  • Tempura: She can speak, what is she? Frisk had mentioned there were monsters in her world, is Tempura one of them? What’s the deal with the construction paper?
• Officer Howard
  • She can summon monsters, but doesn’t seem to have a Duel Disk or Duel Vest? And she’s a police officer? She said she was from a place where robots were going crazy. That doesn’t sound like anything I know about.
• Medieval Archer man
  • Who is this guy? Was he able to calm people, or did I just imagine that?
• V2
  • Why did he tell Officer Howard humanity was better off dead? Even so... I hope he’s okay…

Questions I can’t worry about

• Is everyone back home okay?
• Do my parents know I’m gone?
• I hope Goule isn't getting in trouble from me disappearing from the occult clubroom...

"Hey, everyone! Let's get a move on, I think the kids are waiting for us!" Boboiboy's announcement brought Tracy out of her concentrated notetaking, and she nodded. She put her notebook back into her backpack and packed up her Duel Disk as well. Taking a quick moment to make her bed, she put on her backpack and walked to Boboiboy.

The duelist paused a moment as she recalled her breakdown the day previous. She rubbed her neck, feeling a little embarrassed.
"Ah... Hello Boboiboy. How are you feeling?" She asked.

 

[comic]

FRISK DREEMURR and TERRENCE BOOM​

(Perms granted by Mok)​

The book wasn’t all that old, considering. It was written in 2109, and if the current year truly was 2134 (if those faded newspapers were even up-to-date) that made this book cover events that happened about 25 years ago. Still... a lot can happen in 25 years.

Frisk had spent a good few hours reading it, summoning her own SOUL as a source of limited light before the overhead ones had returned. She hadn’t slept much, not as much as she knew she needed to, but her mind was far too active to properly indulge. That, and... she didn’t really like spending all those hours in her head. Too many bad experiences.

Frisk flipped over to the next page, her gaze following the lines of text. This chapter was covering Sumeragi’s gradual takeover of the Japanese government in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Frisk had gathered early on that the author of this book wasn’t a fan of the Sumeragi. They were often pretty critical of the institute, and Frisk felt that their bias might have sometimes made their reporting be a little more skewed. However, given what Sumeragi was currently up to, Frisk didn’t exactly mind.

“Wassat?”

Frisk glanced to her right to see Terrence leaning over on his side. He’d slept soundly on the collection of pillows that Tempura had assembled for him last night, and the temmie herself was curled up between the both of them. From the bean bag Frisk sat on, she placed a finger on the line she was reading and looked at her friend. “An Overview of Ongoing Adept-Human Relations.”

“Oh yeah...” Terrence grunted, sniffing. “I’m not kidding when I tell you this is the best thing I’ve slept on in... dude... so long...”

“Were you sleeping on rocks?” Frisk asked.

“Sometimes. Learn anything cool?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘cool’ exactly,” Frisk pursed her lips, stretching out her legs and placing a ripped envelope in the book to mark her place before she closed it. “Want the TL;DR?”

“Yeah...” Terrence sat, placing his arm underneath him to make himself appear more attentive. “Yeah, lay it on me.”

“So, Sumeragi’s pretty old. Not Messiah old, more like Asgore old.”

“Still pretty old,” Terrence said.

“They were basically fortune tellers for hundreds of years, working with shamans and mystics and stuff. But then, some visionaries took advantage of Japan’s economy and infrastructure during the recovery after World War 2, started buying up land, businesses, transportation... they made a monopoly, and filled the pockets of any politicians opposed to them. Or took them out. Whichever was most convenient.”

“Huh, pretty cut-throat,” Terrence frowned. “So they went from comparing horoscopes to running a shadow government?”

“Basically,” Frisk shrugged. “Then Adepts started to appear. The world didn’t like that, pretty much every country declared it a matter of national security, set up concentration camps, internment camps, any other horrible camp you can think of.”

“The kind without marshmallows...” Terrence wrinkled his nose in disgust, now turning himself so he was properly sitting up. “And Sumeragi?”

“They did the same, coupled with other classic dictatorship moves, like inhumane experimentation, weaponizing the press, you name it.”

“We sure these guys aren’t tied to the Messiah somehow?” Terrence asked. “I mean, they sound damn identical.”

“Difference is, Sumeragi won,” Frisk said. “Resistance groups came and went. The book talks about one called Q.U.I.L.L. that actually almost took down Sumeragi, or at least one of its members did. Not much else on it, but after Q.U.I.L.L. disappeared, It appeared.”

“It?” Terrence raised his eyebrows. “What’s ‘It?’”

“Sumeragi’s leader, as far as I can tell. Q.U.I.L.L. took out the top brass, nearly toppled the whole empire, but then some artificial intelligence popped up out of nowhere and course corrected it all. This book only goes up to 25 years ago, and the A.I. is still in charge of it in this. I doubt it’s been replaced since then.”

“Okay, so the A.I. probably took out Q.U.I.L.L. What’s it got against humans, then?”

“Not really sure,” Frisk admitted. Terrence was asking her all the right questions, and he probably knew he was doing that, keeping their conversation interactive and engaged. She’d missed talking with him, even if it was about something like this. “But It renamed the company to the ‘Sumeragi Institute of Human Evolution.’ Also deemed all non-Adepts as Minos.”

“I’m guessing ‘Minos’ isn’t short for ‘Minotaur.’”

Frisk shook her head seriously. “Minority.”

Terrence was quiet for a moment, clearly thinking. “So my guess is, this A.I. saw Adepts as the natural evolution of humans, so just... what, went about trying to accelerate a replacement?”

“That’d be my guess. Whole world looks like it got toppled by the Adepts, and Sumeragi went from ruling Japan to ruling Asia to ruling everything.” Frisk agreed.

“That’s some X-Men level stuff,” T sighed, leaning back and stretching some. “We got a name to put on this A.I.?”

“Demerzel. Runs everything, apparently. Nobody seems to go against it. Trust is pretty implicit.”

“After fighting Blade...” Terrence winced slightly. “Yeah, I don’t doubt it.”

Their conversation was cut short when Boboiboy hollered toward everyone from the front door: "Hey, everyone! Let's get a move on, I think the kids are waiting for us!"

“Those kids could fill in any gaps of knowledge we have,” Terrence suggested as he rose to a stand. “Really helpful stuff, though. Good find.”

“It’s their book,” Frisk shrugged. T offered her his hand, and she grabbed it. He lifted her to her feet, and she did a small stretch of her own as Tempura began to stir. She had the urge to keep her hold of Terrence’s hand, but quickly let go. Now wasn’t the time for... whatever was going on between them. They’d be able to talk about their relationship later. “But thanks.”

Terrence still had his blindfold on, but Frisk was pretty sure he’d just winked at her before he walked by. Tempura was already bounding at his heels with rejuvenated energy (“tEmPURa alLL slEEPiED Up!!!”)

Frisk set the book aside and followed after them as they all three approached Tracy and Bo at the door.​

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

Boboiboy


it looked liked Tracy was the first one to get moving, putting away a school notepad of some kind and that device she wore on her arm the other day...the duel disk was it called? Maybe he should take Yaya's advice and be more frequent with personal log entries, though those were usually for when he had some privacy.

She approached him, Terrence and Frisk getting the drill as well, packing up what they were doing. Asking him what how he was feeling, he cleared his throat, shrugging at the question.

"I'm feeling alright, sure yesterday I wasn't exactly the king of first impressions...but this today is a chance for a whole new spin on things."

He nodded his head in his resolve before his eyes danced around Tracy, obviously avoiding direct eye contact as he tried to find the words to approach the subject. His eyes eventually drifting to set on hers, he gestured to with a palm to her.

"More importantly, how are you feeling?"