Keep's Castle (for DragonierMan/Nightshade's Mission)

When Watchtower talked about how the ROT was different from the NS Empire in regards to ejecting vs. deleting, Aya and DragonierMan kept quiet about all the times they almost permanently deleted navis with the help of jackout suppression rope, and just nodded along. Then they all headed in and linked up with the main group, minus Castille and Magistrate. Aya immediately "attacked" Guillotine with some splashes of water, skipping away from the slower navi without much trouble, as she gave chase. Not only was Aya more sleeker and nimbler than her curvier ally, but she could stand on top of the surface of the water with Planeswalking, giving her the ability to quickly stride across the water's surface like an ice skater if Guillotine came too close. Eventually Guillotine cried out at the unfairness of the situation to Drago, who couldn't help but chuckle during the one-sided battle in the surf.

He cleared his throat and tried to look serious for a moment to appease Guillotine. "Okay Aya, that's enough. You got what you wanted, so ease it up. We are all trying to have fun here," he called out to Aya. Aya replied by coming to a stop, which gave Nightshade the opening to slink up and hug her. "Ack! What? Oh, it's you again," Aya reacted to the sudden embrace. She slowly slid down into the water so her feet touched the bottom and patted him on the back, but didn't make any movement to pull away from him, "Ugh, fine. You can hug me for awhile. You better get your money's worth while you have this chance," she said.

Suzume, finally separated from the original Nighty, stood up and headed for shore. The shadowy doppleganger he left behind clung to the SP, but didn't weigh anything, and as such didn't hamper Suzu's movement. "Got a towel?" she asked Keep. If she didn't have one available, Suzu would pull out her bag and grab her standard-issue cloak to dry off with. "Also are you the only two 'children' of Castille, or are there more of you out there?" she asked both Keep and Watchtower. While that was going on, Keep asked Nighty to go and check on Castille for her. Aya looked down at the creature which had affectionately locked itself to her body. "I think she's calling you," Aya mentioned, internally glad that the fuzzball would potentially let her go and go bother someone else.

---

Meanwhile Magistrate was left with Castille and a group of soldiers. Castille purposed a handicap for the 'Strength Tester' game. Magi thought for a moment and then had an idea. "Very well, Miss Castille, I suggest the following." Magistrate produced two objects in her hands. One was a blindfold and the other was chip data for a Barrier100Protection: Combined Damage of 100 HP
Accuracy: S
Description: Defensive field that prevents damage up to 100HP.
Duration: Until Destroyed
Element: Null
Special: Status Guard: This chip blocks debuffs.
Trader Rank: C battlechip.

"I suppose someone of your power would be able to bust through this strong barrier without a problem. Though the idea would then be to do it without destroying the machine as well, while blindfolded. This would be a test of both your inner strength as well as your outer," Magi concluded. If Castille took the challenge, Magi would apply the Barrier100Protection: Combined Damage of 100 HP
Accuracy: S
Description: Defensive field that prevents damage up to 100HP.
Duration: Until Destroyed
Element: Null
Special: Status Guard: This chip blocks debuffs.
Trader Rank: C to the machine first, letting the bubble form around it for all to see, followed by helping Castille with the blindfold. However, once Castille's eyes were covered, Magi would also touch the machine and secretly apply her own Casing signature: Magistrate's ScalesProtection: Combined Damage of 20 HP.
Accuracy: S
Description: The SP causes the target to grow a layer of armored scales that prevents damage up to 20HP.
Duration: Until destroyed.
Element: Null
Signature: Passive Casing. to further reinforce the structural integrity of the object.

A secondary effect of this reinforcement would be that if Castille focused exclusively on the strong Barrier, without taking into account a Casing, that she would potentially fail at ringing the bell. With Castille blindfolded and probably not able to see the deception, the odds of that were still slim at best. That is unless her hammer would just cleave through both Barrier and Casing alike, similar to some of the dragoniers' own battlechips, in which case it would just dull the hit by a tiny bit more. Magi helped Castille into position. "Okay you are ready to go, Miss Castille. Good luck and strike true."

---

Back at the main group Drago approached Keep and Watchtower, joining Suzume to listen in on the question on whether there were more than two 'children' of Castille. After they were done asking that, Drago asked Keep directly, "Why did you want to run a water park of all things?"

---

Nighty in the meantime was making real sure he was hogging all of Aya's attention. He squeezed himself as close as he possibly could, snuggling with his big sis inside the pool.

Then, the little navi was called over to Keep. She was by the edge of the pool with another new face, waving at him.

Nighty looked up at Aya. Then at Keep. Then back at Aya. He did not really want to separate from his bigger sister, but the curiosity was so nagging at him...

The little navi slowly peeled himself from Aya's tonic body, Yumi defusing as well. So, while the small water wyvern remained with Aya to cuddle, the young navi, back in his original shark costume, swam all the way to Keep.

He would quickly jump in her lap, throwing his hands around her neck and give her the biggest hug of her life, forletting her have so much fun in her waterpark. He refused to let go until he had the chance to snuggle with her too, as well as give at least one hug to her sister as well.

He sat down between her legs and quietly listened to what she had to say. "Oh don't worry Keep! Big Sis Magi is super smart! She probably already figured your super hot mom out!" He stated, extremely confident.

"But If you want me to go check, I can. But before that I wanna try your armor." With his tail wagging, the young kitten seemed dead set on becoming a Keep jr. Then, leaned forward and grabbed Keep's helmet.

"And also I wanna see your face 0w0" He added, tryig to lift the heavy head piece and failing. He dropped back down in her lap.

"If you can armor me up just like you! I'll make sure your hot mom has the best time of her life today, in no time too!" He spread his arms wide for emphasis, but also in case Keep was really going to give him her armor and needed to make adjustments to fit a much smaller and sleek phisique.

Guillotine didn't exactly look pleased, even now that Aya had let up. Her dignity appeared to be pretty fragile and when it started to break down, she got even huffier than usual. For now she went back over to Keep and crossed her arms, glaring at the nearby soldiers who had assembled to watch. For their part, they all pretended to be doing something else instead.

A short ways away, Suzume struck up conversation with Keep and her sullen sister. Keep handed over a towel, bearing the image of Yumi on it; she seemed to have gotten it made very quickly as a form of merchandise. Watchtower continued to mope, while allowing her sister to answer. "Besides myself and Watchtower, there is Donjon, who keeps close at my mother's side. He is probably the closest she has to a real successor of the family business, that being maintaining mother's various holdings. There is also WallMan, who I understand works somewhere in Beach Net these days. I suppose he wanted to live on his own and do something altogether different. Beyond that there are the younger children: Drawbridge, Portcullis, and MoatMan, though calling him a man is a bit of a misnomer, as he is still a child. There is an extended family as well, though I know little of those. As for our father, well, we in the family try not to talk of him. Castile's father, ThroneMan, and his wife, Spire-"

"You could build several whole castles with our family tree. You're probably thinking it's pretty strange, having a family tree, huh?" Watchtower interrupted, still frowning. "Most navis don't. It starts at ThroneMan, basically. He thought it was disgraceful for navikind not to have a traceable lineage. Therefore, he was the first, Castille was the second. That is also part of why she wants all of us to marry off... Though, ironically, as much as she adores Donjon, he won't do much for her as far as a lineage goes," Watchtower scoffed.

Keep watched her for a while, with a silent stare that seemed to ask, "Are you providing her with a child any time soon?" but held back for the sake of politeness. The strange topic of conversation was interrupted as Nightshade surprised her with a big hug. Awkwardly, she reciprocated, thankfully without having to tone down her strength like Escort had.

Watchtower was an even more awkward high target, squirming her narrow shoulders irritably. She almost certainly would have tried to evade the hug, had it even crossed her mind that someone might want to hug her. The inability to summon her protective tower from this close range attack was perhaps the worst part. "Grrr! Yooou!" she cursed Nightshade noisily. Frankly, she did not seem the hugging type, regardless of how cushy her thick white tube dress was.

With an awkward laugh, Keep pulled him back free and placated him with another hug. "You'll have to forgive my sister," she sighed. She kept that very uncertain smile on, unsure what to make of the child calling her mom "super hot."

To her surprise, he worked on lifting her helmet off to try it on himself. "Don't you think it's sort of silly?" she laughed, amused at his efforts. "It probably isn't quite your size. But if you come back and see me some time, I'm sure we can get you one that fits," she encouraged him. Her soft, fine-tune face was a fair shade different than Castille's smirking gray one, to the point that it was hard to place them as family, any further than a slight resemblance in the nose.

Nightshade insisted, of course, so she began figuring out how to engineer him a set of armor just like hers. It was clear she was a bit of a pushover, yielding to the demands of an employee who had just held her orders against a ransom of his own. "It will take a little time... Please have patience," she urged him, using her viewscreen by twisting her body to one side, so that she wouldn't have to reach around the cat boy to use it.

In the mean time, DragonierMan returned to chat a little more. "Oh, well... I was just trying to think of something that would turn a profit and seemed easy to manage. There were probably easier choices. The visit was a bit... short notice, so I decided a bit hastily," she admitted, while busily tapping away on the viewscreen.

Soon enough, she summoned a near replica of her own armor, albeit with more normal-shaped cauldrons and a print of her castle symbol on the breastplate. The tall, oddly tower shaped helmet was the same, however. "This is the livery that my castle guards used to wear, Nightshade. Back when I had castle guards," she explained. "Will that suffice?"

---

Elsewhere, Magistrate had a laundry list of potential handicaps for Castille to try out. "Ha ha... You're just throwing on whatever you can think of, I see. Very well; I accept the challenge," she nodded, placing her hand back upon the hammer's long handle. "Someone, please assist me with the blindfold," she encouraged the others.

Before Magistrate could offer to do it herself, a shogun soldier with thick muscles and a flat-top haircut stepped forward to do it, shoving his way past others who were attempting to do the same thing. Seriously, he tied the garment around Castille's eyes, seeming to breath hard as he looked downward to her toned back and shoulders. Perhaps that was just his thing.

"Good. Is the bell all armored up? Shall I swing?" she questioned, now placing both hands together on the hammer. She quickly lifted it above her head, and in the process, smacked the living daylights out of the man behind her, who went down as though an anvil had just fallen on his head. "Whoops... Clear the area, please," she requested.

The circle around them seemed to widen a bit, while Castille brought the hammer back over her head and an especially brave soldier grabbed the earlier one's legs to drag him out of harm's way. With no restraint, the mother of the family brought her hammer down on the general area of the bell. It might be to one side a bit- she seemed unable to cheat the blindfold in that regard- but it didn't matter. The castle-shaoed hammerhead created a giant crater, then a giant shockwave, then a huge cloud of dust as it connected. Splintered wood, a bell, and several mechanical parts flew this way and that. Even a few soldiers seemed to have been blown back from the blast and found themselves ricocheting against the nearby food stalls. The sound was like a meteor impacting.

Still closeby Magistrate, the lady placed her hammer down butt first against the ground and turned her head to what would be looking at her companion, were she not blindfolded. "Did I get it?" It seemed she was heedless of two things: one, that several wooden pieces of the machine were now embedded in her rock like body at the shoulders and abdomen, and two, that the chain holding her bikini bottom had shattered, leaving the castle-printed rag barely in place and threatening to fall away at any moment. The position of her hammer would hide the front, but not the back. The dust cloud obscured a bit but the soldiers still remaining may get some excitement one it cleared.

---

"I don't like the sound of that..." Keep murmured, looking at the plume of dust in the distance with concern. "Please, hurry," she repeated to Nightshade, as she now busied herself with something else on her viewscreen. "And perhaps ask if she would be willing to abandon her hammer for the rest of the day's proceedings."

"Good luck," Watchtower scoffed, seeming to have shrunken back into her shoulders. She was probably glad she wasn't being asked to go.

Aya noticed Guillotine's fragile state and returned to shore, dragging Yumi along. She walked up in front of Guillotine and looked her in the eyes with a concerned expression. "Hey," she began. "Look, I'm sorry to have been picking on you today. I've just been a little frustrated lately and I was accidentally taking it out on you without meaning to. I'm sorry," she said as she extended a hand. "We cool?"

Suzume was not expecting there to be so many 'children' as Keep and Watchtower listed them off. She tried to make note of all the information she was given as she took the towel offered and began drying herself and her wetsuit. Assuming the shade of Yumi!Shade was still hugging to her body, kept in place by the concentration of its master, the towel would probably pass through the decoy as she went. "So... You were made with reproductive capability? That is a rare trait for Navis to have. Or do you encode aspects of yourself into a new Navi core template, like one does with SPs?" she asked clinically. "Either way, how many of you are still single? Or does mother dearest have to approve of the marriage and that hasn't happened yet?"

"We met this one Blesser named MarriageMan one time and he tried to force his strange sense of marriage aesthetics on good 'ol Master over here," she continued, adding to the conversation with a juicy story. She leaned in conspiratorially and pointed over her shoulder at Drago "See, he's kind of off-and-on with some of the Neo-Shogunate ladies, and we were at one of their cabins..."

"Suzume," DragonierMan growled in a semi-warning manner. Suzu took a moment to glance at Drago and give a sly smile, before continuing. "Anyways, we sent him packing. I heard he died later on. Apparently the Blessers are all super crazy and powerful because of some unstable program they are given by BlesserMan himself. So yeah," Suzu concluded, "That happened. I can understand what you guys have gone through to some extent."

"So how close are you to your siblings? Do you keep in touch?" she asked them, just as Yumi!Shade came in to hug the Castille sisters.

---

Magistrate began brushing dust and debris from her clothes as the clouds settled. She did not look amused. "While I admire your might, Miss Castille, you have failed at the task set before you," she began. "I clearly stated that the goal of this 'game' was to punch through the barrier to ring the bell, without destroying the machine. As demonstrated by the cooperation between DragonierMan and Keep, not every solution to a 'test of strength' involves a display of overwhelming power. Sometimes, the precise application of 'force with intent', is preferable."

Magi called out to any nearby NS soldiers to help clean the area, while she continued to talk with Castille. "I do not have to remind you that in administration: of ledgers, castles, or at war; one cannot simply brute force their way through to victory. Trying to do so will have you lose more often than not," she added. Magi was tactically using this somewhat predictable situation as a further lesson on how Keep made the strategically correct choice by allying herself with the Neo-Shogunate Empire. Magi also let the notion hang in the air, that Castille's 'test of strength' to her daughter Keep was not 'won' through force of arms, but in the precise application of 'force with intent'. With minimal effort Keep was able to secure her holdings without suffering potentially crippling damage in a fight over them, unlike what happened to the poor strength testing machine, which lay in ruins trying to resist a much stronger entity.

And to further Castille's humility, Magi kept quiet about the state of Castille's outfit. If anything, it might encourage the NS soldiers she called to get closer and get to work, even if they were slowed down by their potential gawking. Magi herself was not one to care about anyone but herself and the tasks she was assigned, being an administrative program first, a newly formatted woman second. So, her standards of modesty or morals was pretty non-existent beyond a clinical viewpoint. Thus, Magi would stand there and converse with Castille if she had any further topics of conversation to cover or if she wanted to continue to talk more about the subject of her lesson, as her clothing fell off. Castille was a mature enough woman and could handle the condition of her own outfits.

When Castille was ready to continue to further explore the park, Magi would escort her to the next viable attraction nearby.

---

Nightshade giggled happily, looking at the armor he was now wearing, tail wagging around wildly. He pushed himself up and huggled Keep's neck, not really bothered to have an intimate moment with the castle's Keep. "That means I'm your knight now. Yeah? Yeah? YEAH?!"

Nightshade hopped around in Keep's lap, all super happy and super proud. "I'll go check on your hot mom not! Knighty to the rescueeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

And with that, he was off, the armor not stopping his bristling speed and hyperactive behavior. He quickly snapped towards Magistrate's signature, hopping right in as the "Hot Mom" exploded the stuff around. Thankfully for the people around there, Nightshade was a speedy navi. Arguably speedier than Drago too. His systems overclocked, as the little catbot tried to intercept as much shrapnel as he could, trying to protect Keep's caste from the siege.

He would not be able to catch them all, having one of the pieces lodging into his spanking new headgear. Upon noticing, he would sat on the floor and pulled it off his head.

"Aaaaaw...you ruined my helmet..." The cat navi whined, looking at his sleek black helmet now bent and scuffed with a piece of metal embedded into it. "NNNngh THAT'S IT!" He bursted, slamming the helmet into the ground and charging at Castille, making sure all her field of view was covered by his shining black armor and pouting face."

"YOU RUINED MY HELMET!!" He pointed at the damaged helmet. "I DON'T CARE WHO YOU ARE, HAMMER USE IS BANNED. NO SWINGING. NO SMASHING. NO HAMMER TIME." He listed out, counting off the do not on his hand. "NO HAMMER!!! AND I DON'T CARE YOU'RE KEEP'S HOT MOM. YOU RUINED HER STUFF SO YOU FIX IT TOO RIGHT NOW!"

Saying Nightshade was beyond pissy and livid was an understatement. He'd fight her off right then and there if he had to. She would not be allowed to swing a hammer anywhere else.

Guillotine didn't look entirely pleased by the truce, perhaps because it was causing her to reflect that she herself had been acting childishly. She accepted the handshake, but still kept her usual glare. "The only thing I want less than your mockery is your sympathy," she pointed out to Aya, remaining standoffish.

Keep blushed slightly at Aya's line of questioning, but answered regardless. "Yes, we are all made with reproductive capabilities. As you could imagine... there aren't a lot of suitors who meet the specific criteria we need from husbands or wives, that being reciprocal reproductive capabilities. Furthermore, while I suspect my mother recognizes this and is more or less happy for us to take any interest in anybody, you've seen that she is rather... offputting, to potential suitors, in other ways," she sighed. She looked to the sullen Watchtower for a moment with eyes that seemed to say, "Some of us also have other traits and hobbies that make marriage unlikely regardless." "So, among the group of us, none of us have found a committed partner yet," she finished, keeping a very straight face despite the embarrassing topic. "Though, perhaps WallMan does. We haven't heard from in a while. He was even further disconnected from the family than Watchtower."

Keep raised her eyebrows at the discussion of MarriageMan, then lowered them again, with an expression as though she found the coincidence of a second marriage focused individual too odd to ignore. That said, she was just as interested in the topic of DragonierMan's amorous adventures, but DragonierMan himself cut that one short. She was left wondering about both that and the fate of MarriageMan, plus what, if any, connection he had to her grandfather's obsession with family lineage, which her mother had partially inherited. "As for my siblings, well, I moved out here... but that doesn't seem to have broken my mother's sense of control," she sighed deeply. "It's as I've told you; Watchtower, WallMan, and I all left the nest, but the others stay close at home. I'd have to wager that Watchtower and I may have done better to stay at home ourselves... although, at first, my mother was very proud of my decision. If only I'd been able to follow through on my ambitions."

Keep turned her attention back to the less somber discussion Nightshade offered. "Yes, little friend. At least while you're here, why don't you be my knight? It's been a long time since anyone has served under my banner," she agreed. She waved as he left.

--------------------------

Castille's smile never wavered, as though she herself was a statue, but she did pause for a moment, as if considering her reaction to Magistrate's news that she'd failed the contest after all her braggadocious behavior so far. "Is that so? Perhaps I'm getting old after all," she chuckled, though such a statement was very at odds with both her appearance and her performance just now. "My memory isn't what it used to be. And I'm not terribly used to playing games like these." She closed her eyes and smiled calmly, though her words were pointed. "I suppose that this lesson of yours also serves to help you and the empire feel a little bit better about your failure to secure the net by force, isn't it? 'We've expanded much more rapidly when we didn't ruffle feathers and got along with everyone,' hm? That's one way to do it," she shrugged. With all her passive aggressive behavior, one might be tempted not to warn her she was losing her swimsuit, and indeed, Magistrate gave into that temptation. "My daughter will fit right in. She's the type who, in her failure to rally others through fear or admiration, relies on a lot of sympathy..."

As it happened, Nightshade was there to minimize the damage from the debris explosion, at least preventing too many other nearby stalls from being ruined by the larger pieces of flying wreckage. Castille seemed to have failed to notice his presence until he spoke up about his helmet. Raising one eyebrow and still smirking, she rested one hand near the top of her hammer's handle and the other fist at her newly bare hip. "Is that another new rule? A strength test with no hammer?" she joked, grinning in a teasing way that the cat boy was unlikely to appreciate. "Fix it? Despite the hammer, I'm more of an architect than a carpenter," she chuckled. It was hard to say whether her current attitude was more aggravating than it would be if she's simply been offended by Nightshade's insistence. "I already gave my daughter a castle. Now I have to give her a new strength-testing machine as well? Maybe there is an aunt she can bum one off of!"

Speaking of bums, as she turned and swung her hammer back over her shoulder, there was a brief rattle of chain as the surprisingly heavy ring around her waist dropped into the dust. Her bare bottom was on display to Nightshade and Magistrate, as well as a growing number of soldiers, as the dust began to clear. It seemed she was preoccupied with inspecting the broken bell from the strength testing machine, despite her earlier mockery. "I have a lesson for each of you as well. If you don't want your army to be bullied, you must build a stronger army. If you want a 'strength testing' machine, it must be built strong enough to withstand strength. Do you understand? If I'm adversarial, it's only because I don't want my daughter- nor you, her friends- to believe you can coast through life without sufficient strength."

One of the soldiers seemed to have suddenly come up with the idea to offer a cloak to her, so that she'd be covered and he'd win brownie points. In response, two others who'd begun to have the same thought stepped forward at the same time... until all three were tussling together. Castille looked over her shoulder, away from the broken bell, and raised one eyebrow. "Oh, but this water park has been most amusing. Being in the thick of the Neo-Shogun Army and offering you all my wisdom and guidance is ever so entertaining. And this pouty cat just begs to be bullied."

With a slight smile, she raised the bell. "This didn't do its job. But that?" she paused, dropping the bell and pointing her thumb backwards towards Nightshade. "That helmet did its job. You were protected... Perhaps my daughter's craftsmanship is meant for the castle's knights, not the castle itself. Interesting, if true," she mused. "How about it, little knight? This strength machine is garbage; there is no need to rebuild it. It should be replaced with something more practical. That helmet, on the other hand, is worth refining for further use," she suggested. Seeing that his face was still pouting, she raised her eyebrows sympathetically. "Come now... Are you not going to feel any relief until I get a spanking? I'm a little old for that, aren't I? Hm hm..." Probably a bad choice of words.

At any rate, Magistrate may note that Castille had already admitted to having been amused by the park. In a way, that meant it was a success... though, clearly, in the future that amusement would need to come without so much property destruction. She'd stopped her wanton destruction, but it was hard to say she had any remaining interest in the rides either. Maybe there was some way to urge her along in leaving her daughter be?

As Aya and Guillotine "reconciled" at the water's edge, Yumi hanging off of Aya's dripping body like a clump of seaweed the dragonier accidentally dredged up, a few feet away Suzume was listening as Keep replied to her line of questioning. "Unfulfilled ambitions huh, I know the feeling," Suzume commented while glancing over to DragonierMan and Aya. She waited for Nightshade to run off before she continued. "So... when was the last time someone 'served under your banner' and what happened to them?"

---

Magistrate's indifference to the shenanigans at play was wearing thin, and her facade cracking along the edges. First it was this insufferable woman who thought herself higher than Magi. If Magi wasn't a proper woman, she would have reached out and broken Castille's neck. Then to continue Magi's wild ride: Nightshade, of all people, showed up at the exact right wrong time to make things worse with his own brand of tomfoolery. Thankfully, not only did his actions not cause more problems with Castille, but the Neo-Shogunate soldiers were at least doing something productive through the whole thing. She would have to see to rewarding their diligent work later.

Magi tried to put up with everything while attempting to return to her fake "hostess" smile. "I am... glad that you had a good time," Magi said with a brief pause to articulate. She saw an out and decided to take it, while trying hard to ignore Nightshade and Castille's little bout. She would bring the tour to a quick resolution, so she wouldn't have to deal with anyone else for the day, and go seclude herself in her Hub. She walked up past Castille and Nightshade and then turned to beckon Castille back towards the main gathering at the central pool.

"You can relay your feelings to Ms. Keep before you head home." Magi would then attempt to lead Castille back to the central pool before, hopefully, the exit. Magi internally prayed that Nightshade would just behave long enough to get Castille out of their hair. Magi didn't care what he did after. He could do anything else and she would turn a blind eye, just let Castille leave quickly.

---

Assuming Magi succeeded at bringing Castille and Nightshade back to the central gathering, she would try to fade into the background. She was done with this whole situation. However, as she tried to fade away, she made a note at the end of her Castille dossier to try to murder her, and all of her family members that were like her, at the next available opportunity. Drago stepped forward as they showed up. "I hope the park was to your liking," he stated more than asked. "As you leave I wish you a pleasant journey on your travels. And I hope we meet again," he said. Then he waited for whatever conversations flowed at the end of this gathering, before attempting to escort her out the front door gatehouse.

---

Nightshade meekly walked back to the central pool all bummed out as Magi took over and tried to get Castille out of the castle. At the end of the day, his helmet had been rendered inusable.

He sat down cross legged at the edge of the pool, watching Yumi getting all kinds of cuddles from Aya and enjoying it too. Then, she would waddle off into Suzume's embrace and cuddle with her too.

He had to wonder who she preferred between the two energy wise. He would have to ask her that when they got back home.

Setting the helmet to his side Nightshade sighed, wondering what to do next and generally enjoying the warm feeling of power wearing Keep's armor
was giving him.

"Oh, well, you needn't worry; if you're imagining the dramatic death of my last sworn knight or something of that sort, I assure you, it's much less exciting. What I should say is that without a stream of funding, I couldn't afford to pay anyone who I'd hired, and I ended up letting all of the staff go," Keep sighed, smiling with some effort despite the dismal tale. "It wasn't an issue of disloyalty either, of course. Ah, imagining all of those concepts of medieval chivalry and oaths and so forth is entertaining, but my position was nothing more than an employer of employees."

----------------

Castille watched Nightshade go with an unreadable expression, setting the bell down and resting her chin on the back of one hand. Magistrate only did a little better in terms of engaging her; neither one of them really seemed to satisfying her need to impart wisdom upon others, as insufferable as that was becoming. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you're eager to get rid of me," she chuckled dryly.

One of the Neo-Shogun soldiers finally broke free of the pack and managed to reach her, making a diver for her with his tunic unwrapped and held in both hands. As such, with his frenzied motions and his body bare aside from a fundoshi loincloth, one could hardly blame Castille for stepping to one side and allowing him to collide headfirst with the bell she'd set down a moment ago. A slapstick KAGONG noise rang out as he slumped against the stand. "What is this? Some new kind of game?" she questioned, raising one eyebrow.

In the mean time, one of the others ran forward, then another, each of them ironically eager to win brownie points with the lady they were ogling by giving her something to prevent the others from ogling. Finally, in a team effort, two of them managed to approach on two sides and press the cloth up against her wide hips. One of them went down as she clubbed him with a nonsensically powerful blow to the head, while the other one finished bringing in the loop to tie it at her hip. "Ma'am..." he huffed, then gave a quick salute. "Your bikini-" he huffed, then took two steps backward as she made as if to punch him as well.

Finally understanding, she looked down at her feet where the shambles of her swimsuit lay, then looked at the yellow tunic forming a pareo around her waist. Putting two and two together, she chuckled quietly, crossing her arms and walking past the group, which divided to let her through. While the soldiers watched from behind, Magistrate could see that the mother's face was gradually growing a deeper shade of gray around the cheeks, which might be her way of blushing. Evidently, the soldiers had all gotten a little more eye-candy than she was actually comfortable giving.

------------

Castille seemed to be in a slightly sour mood as she arrived back. It could be that she didn't like Magistrate and Nightshade's reactions to her bullying, or it could be she was still upset about being pantsless in front of everyone. "Well, it was fun enough. I'm sure you can make more of yourself doing this than you can managing a real castle, at any rate," Castille shrugged, not giving her daughter much of a thumbs up. "Watchtower, for now, you stay here and help your sister. I don't want to hear about you getting anywhere near those ROT folks again. The truly strong don't need to do something as crass as eliminating all the weak in order to prove themselves," she reminded her daughter, as if there could be any doubt.

"Yes, Mother," Watchtower answered, seeming just as eager as DragonierMan to brief so that Castille could simply leave.

"Toodleloo, for now," she finished, swishing her makeshift skirt as she walked with heavy steps towards the exit, still shouldering her massive warhammer. "DragonierMan, if one of my daughters strikes your fancy, please, do take them and make something out of them. Little cat, you must take quit sulking. Women don't like a man who pouts," she scolded, wagging one finger. It seemed she couldn't resist one last lecture.

"There's no need to worry, Nightshade," Keep reassured him, rubbing one hand over the top of his head. "I can always make you a new helmet. I'll deliver it to you the next time we meet. I'm only thankful you weren't injured..."

Castille raised one eyebrow, as if this nurturing, motherly routine was simply alien to her, then left of her own accord.

-----------------

The lazy scene around the pool continued uninterrupted, now that the guest of honor had left. The soldiers seemed much more comfortable slacking off now. The wreckage where Castille had run amok was mostly cleaned up now, including her discarded bikini bottom, which seemed to have vanished before the official clean-up effort actually began. Watchtower and Escort had gone to assist with the cleanup, leaving just Guillotine and Keep at the pool with the others.

"I know you may think that went a bit choppy, but honestly, it went as well or better than I'd expected. I'd call that a victory," Keep informed DragonierMan and Nightshade, as well as the SPs, if they were hanging around to listen. "To save you a trip back to the mission board, I've been authorized to hand over the rewards from Yasu," she continued. "... After having a somewhat uncomfortable conversation with her. I suppose I should be happy she was sympathetic with the situation, given that she expected to get a real fortress out of the deal and got an all-access water park pass instead. At any rate, here are your rewards," she finished, handing over two data packets.

((Nightshade gets: Neo-Shogun Recruitment, 6500 zenny, WaterLine1Damage: 80 + Ground Attack + Wide Attack
Accuracy: B
Description: A wall of water gushes from the ground, drowning up to 3 targets.
Duration: Once
Element: Aqua
Trader Rank: D: 80 + Ground Attack + Wide Attack (Acc: B) x1, 15 faction points, 40 bugfrags)
DragonierMan gets: 13000 zenny, DashAttack2Damage: 120 + Impact + LineAttack(5) + Movement
Accuracy: C
Description: The user charges forward at a great speed to ram a line of enemies. Hits a maximum of 5 enemies before the momentum is lost.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Direction of travel may be altered with chip, terrain, and sig use.
Trader Rank: C: 120 + Impact + LineAttack(5) + Movement (Acc: C) x1, RageClaw3Damage: 100 + Slashing (Attack) OR 50 + Impacting (Throw)
Accuracy: B / B then B
Description: Creates an impressive bear claw. Can be used to slash or throw enemies or objects.
Duration: Until Overridden/Broken. Breaks automatically after 6 uses.
Element: Null
Special: Throw: The wielder must first grab the target to be thrown, then the target is thrown in the direction/area indicated. A second check is made if against another object/enemy. Throw deals damage to both thrown object/enemy and the second object/enemy. Damage occurs at point of collision with the ground/wall/ceiling/etc. or an object/enemy, not during initial grab attempt. Objects deal their max HP in damage (instead of the chip's damage) if they hit an object/enemy, then break. If they miss, the object just takes the chip's damage. This chip has a variety of uses.
Trader Rank: B: 100 + Slashing (Attack) OR 50 + Impacting (Throw) (Acc: B / B then B) x1, 20 faction points, 110 bugfrags))

"Thank you again for your help. You're free to stay and enjoy the park if you like, but I must take my leave. There are some less fun logistical issues to take care of with this park that I've been neglecting today, so I must bid you goodbye," she finished. She gave a curtsy, lifting her armored skirt just slightly and bowing her head, before heading towards the keep nestled in the rear of the castle's walls.

With their mission complete, and that insufferable matriarch gone, Magistrate handed her contact information over to Keep before they parted ways. "If you need any further assistance-and you probably will-please contact me. I was created as an administrative program first, after all. It is what I live for... Just limit it to the technical aspects of your endeavors. I have had enough babysitting," she said. Then before anyone could stop her, or engage her further, Magi left in a beam of light. She probably was breathing a sigh of relief right now in being done with this unpleasantness.

Aya, with Yumi still draped off her like a cloak, turned to Guillotine. "I don't think apologizing when someone is wrong is a sympathy. However, if you want to settle this in another capacity... You just name the time and place," Aya said with a competitive, hungry, glint in her eye while poking her finger at Guillotine's chest. "Come Yumi, we're heading out," Aya said as he left Guillotine to her own devices and headed towards the gatehouse, with Yumi still hanging off of her. Aya would stop at the drawbridge until the rest had gathered before jacking-out.

Suzume, dried off from earlier, was sitting with Keep and Watchtower when Nightshade came over and sat down on her lap. "You hear that Nighty? Your helmet will be good as new before long," she assured the sullen warrior about Keep's promise. Though Nighty was unusually docile at the moment. "So what happened with Castille? Did you get into a fight? It seems that you both lost some clothing." she asked, with a slightly concerned look on her face.

DragonierMan accepted the rewards from Keep. "Thank you for the rewards in advance. I hope our partnership will continue to grow and flourish for the foreseeable future," he said. "My group will be heading out shortly, but Escort and Guillotine will be staying on for a little while longer... So if you'll excuse me," he stated before nodding to both Keep and Watchtower. He motioned to the rest of the dragoniers present, "Okay, pack it up! We're heading out," he called before striding towards the exit gatehouse where Aya and Yumi were waiting. Suzu nudged Nighty to stand up before heading to the exit as well. She left her hands open in case Nighty was going to grab it to hold on their way out.

Assuming nothing interrupted them on their way out, the group would jack-out on the bridge.

---

[DRAGONIERMAN JACK-OUT!]

---

Nighty, pretty much running over to Drago and company, turned once and waved his goodbyes at Keep, not wanting to be left alone. He shouted a thank you for tye greatest day of his life as he jacked out of the area in a beam of light.

[Nightshade.Rx Jacking out]

((DragonierMan gets: 25 Nightshade FXP, 23 Keep FXP, 15 Guillotine FXP, 9 Escort FXP, 14 Castille FXP, 7 Watchtower FXP
Nightshade gets: 25 DragonierMan FXP, 18 Keep FXP, 1 Guillotine FXP, 9 Escort FXP, 3 Castille FXP

Nightshade- your FXP in your signature is not current. According to DragonierMan's, it should be 35. Please update that before you add in this additional amount.))