In their time together, Robin made a great many vital executive decisions for the well-being of their crew. But in Diogenes' opinion, her single greatest command also happened to be her first. "Hey, everyone, why don't we continue the meeting comfortably from behind the naked man's throne?" That truly was one of the rare moments in life when acknowledging the elephant in the room served to alleviate awkward tension.
Once everyone was positioned safely behind the throne, Robin promptly announced her "itinerary of gore, viscera, and gratuities violence." Robin had attempted to maintain an air of professionalism with the choice word "itinerary" but quickly reverted to her rock sensibilities after concluding "gore, viscera, and gratuities violence" was badass.
Her speech covered a broad range of topics, such as her long-term plan of targeting key infrastructure order to cripple Mitas's regime and by extension weaken the thing he worships known as Nyarlathotep.
Immediately, when Aidos heard that name, she yelped at Diogenes. "That's the guy who killed all the other concepts from Grekromia when we founded Athenia!" It was only due to this outburst that the rest of the crew, outside of Diogenes and Isaac, were able to see her. What surprised Diogenes at the time was that none of them even flinched at her sudden appearance, instead, they just continued on with the meeting after waving hello.
After Robin finished outlining the infrastructure they would target, she moved on to the details of daily life in the town, which even Diogenes knew was surely important; this did not stop his ego from tuning it out, however. He was much too busy with the dawning realization that he was the oldest one there at age thirty and yet seemed to be the least respected. This especially bothered him as the second in command seemed to be the punk with the foreign accent, Lou. Gods, did Diogenes hate his accent? he couldn't even give a reason if you asked him; he just couldn't stand it. The reason was xenophobia, which he felt incrementally it was an internalized and unbeknownst xenophobia, while this was absolutely horrid in its own right, it was a far cry from the cruel, incessant externalized and incredibly beknown xenophobia that infected the zeitgeist of his Athenia. This is why it so easily crawled under Diogenes' thin skin when he heard.
"Since I need us all here to gauge our compatibility and our independent friend Lou over wouldn't have joined us otherwise, I've let him pick the location of our first mission, the Club feed!" Robin announced with jazz hands.
Even though this thoroughly annoyed Diogenes, he held his tongue since he knew complaining about something utterly out of his control would just make him appear weak. Some would argue that keeping your mouth shut in fear of being perceived as weak is a weakness in it of itself, Diogenes did not see it that way.
Cass lacked Diogenes' Machiavellian sensibility, causing her to exclaim. "Why the hell does 'it's not a phase' Bob Ross get to pick the mission?" Diogenes agreed with Cass's judgement; he would soon find out Cass was exceptionally talented at judging. She had to be all writers are, they had to be to truly get in the head of their characters. She was even worse than your average writer; she was a writer-comedian, so she wasn't just judgey, she was intensely critical, she had to be, how else would she dismantle people so effortlessly? She was even worse than that, still, she was a writer-comedian-newswoman, so she wasn't just judgey and critical, she was cynical, she had to be because, well, any reasonable person undesiring to succumb to apathy once exposed to the twenty-four-hour news cycle had to be.
Simple minded Diogenes however just chalked it up to her being a women. Even though Diogenes agreed, he sensed this was his chance to move up in the hierarchy. "Why don't you tell us, Cass, what's her answer gonna be? Aren't you a prophet?"
"Ooohhh hit 'em with a left!" Isaac cheered, having inexplicably appeared beside Phillip with an even more inexplicable bag of popcorn that he graciously offered to Phillip, who was far too nauseous to accept.
"Shut up!" Both Cass and Lou yelled at Issac, finding themselves oddly in agreement.
"Can you all please stop arguing so we can get the mission started?" Asked Robin
No, no, they could not. They continued to bicker, and eventually even Robin joined in. They all hurled insults at each other. Cass was called a false prophet, Robin an unfit leader, Isaac a petulant man-child, Phillip a massive pussy and Lou "The mannequin they hide at the back of Urban outfitters" unsurprisingly that last one was a quote from Cass. The only thing Diogenes learned during this entire affair was that everyone could agree he was a "spineless sellout." This free-for-all all lasted until Isaac said something so utterly stupid it stunned everyone into silence. "Why are we even going to Club Feed? I thought it was only in Athenia."
Once everyone had sufficient time to process the ridiculousness of his statement, they all dogpiled him with their own versions of the phrase "Yeah, you idiot, that's where we are." Some versions of this phrase were leagues more colorful than others. Phillip was the only one who refrained from the relentless mockery, partly out of mercy but mostly just his signature confrontation avoidance.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get confused about that kind of thing. But you know what I remember, where we are now."
"Congrats, man, I'm glad you caught up," Lou said, much to everyone's approval.
"We're in Club Feed."
Pop
Suddenly, everyone except the naked man and Aidos was on the third floor of a thoroughly packed Club Feed, looking down on the pit and the accompanied stage three long stories below. The layout of the club was like a mini colosseum that was so jam-packed that if you were to observe it from an aerial view, it would appear like toothpicks bound together by rubber bands. A playlist consisting of every genre imaginable, no one was ever even annoyed by the shift in genre; they adored everything played in that club, how could they complain when the music blasted all around them as if someone had shoved speakers into every last molecule of air. Blissfully, this cycle turned out hit after hit until, devoid of any prior warning, the club blared "Three infants found burnt to a crisp inside a laundry mat dryer!" which prompted a momentary respite in all the dancing and drinking at least until the next song played.
Snap
The crew's ears turned deaf to the music while the crowds around them remained dancing.
"Now that you ladies and gents get the general idea, stay close so that way you all can watch without exposure," Lou instructed with an out-of-character voice crack.
Intervals of dancing remained just as fervent as the news-induced respites were solemn; the only slight change to the schedule was that clubbers resumed their dancing sooner and sooner with each rotation. With time, the respites faded out of existence, and so did the gaps in between announcements. To explain the disappearance of the respites, Lou allowed the music to reach their ears again.
"♪Lets♪
ARE
♪Boogie♪
TERRORISTS
♪The♪
IN
♪Night♪
YOUR
♪Away♪
CEREAL?"
They had completely intertwined the music, and the headlines had become one and the same, and not a single clubber cared.
Cass's hair levitated as if they were getting pulled upwards by puppet strings, and her eyes lit up the color of the now extinct lightning bug.
"The pit will consume
One earns a boon
History repeats
They will eat"
"Oh god, this again, you know this is why I always won in our debates."
Nobody agreed with Diogenes, not due to some special faith they had all placed in Cass's prophetic abilities, but because they had all reached a similar conclusion to their interpretation of the prophecy on their own.
"Ha, I have no goddamn idea what she meant with all that! But I do know that pits got some serious bad mojo going on!" Said Lou
"Great, I finally know what to do now, it's time for y'all to follow your fearless leader! Lou, I'm assuming you're protecting us using some kind of dome thing like the naked man's. Do you think you could increase its area of effect by making smaller domes around our ears?" An eager Robin took control.
"Yeah, maybe; ok, it's done, I still definitely wouldn't recommend running off too far away from me."
"Great, thank you! Now ill protect y'all from above using my awesome commitment and kick ass bow. While the rest of y'all try to convince people to leave before the grand finale. Leave the pit for the strongest of y-."
Lou vaulted over the club railing and allowed himself to free fall to the pit in a way that made him feel incredibly badass. To the rest of the crew, however, it just appeared like he was rag-dolling until right when he was about to plank into the clubers he blasted himself up right and somehow avoided hitting anybody before he softly landed on the sticky floor, which was an admittedly bad ass landing. He immediately got to work pushing trios of people out at a time with his abilities, unfortunately, he barely made a dent in the pit. He could've done more if he didn't have to also protect his crewmates. Robin took special notice of this.
Issac had the second easiest time adapting to the mission since all he had to do was transport himself to the second floor and touch as many people as possible to transport them out of the building, and hopefully somewhere relatively close but Issac was terrible with all the minute details especially when he wasn't there himself. Isaac separated himself from Lou's protection with his initial transport; he just remained deaf to the music for some inexplicable reason, as all things with Isaac tended to be.
The remaining three had a much trickier time with their assignment. Diogenes forced himself to bribe people to leave with the lowest amount possible, not to maximize the clubbers evacuated but in the hopes of having some cash left over. Despicable as he was, he even felt relieved when he noticed people would just take the money and blend back into the crowd. The only part of that that he truly despised was that he swore he bribed someone twice. Philip was nowhere to be seen since he had hidden himself underneath a pair of passed-out clubbers. Cass was the only one who made a genuine attempt to help; unfortunately, however, she was the only one without any commitment, so she failed utterly at it. Ceaselessly, she tried warning people, but with each attempt, they grew angrier with her and expressed so via equally ceaseless shoving and kicking at her shins. Robin would have stepped in when things got out of hand; however, before she could, the club did it itself.
Multi-colored neon fairies danced in front of the obsidian stage curtains until, ultimately, they formed the name "The Sirens." Which cued the curtains to part; before they could even part an inch, Robin launched an arrow through it, piercing right through it before it crashed to the floor with a thud that startled the other Sirens to start singing.
With the clubbers now completely transformed into an apathetic mass, they were perfectly pliable and accepting of the Sirens' commands to swarm Robin and bum rush the stage. With Robin preoccupied, evading the swarm, A pastime she was all too familiar with, and Lou catching as many clubbers as he could, all the while the exploded bodies that crashed all around him formed a tsunami of blood to assault him from all sides. Left the Sirens free to fully unveil their hideous forms.
Three heads with lone feathered wings that pricked out their ears with the crowns of their heads adorned with slicked-back feathered hair, flew in a haunting circular pattern above a vast shadowy chasm once hidden by the curtains, and was rapidly being filled with corpses that were once people lured into it.
Immediately after seeing this, Cass leaped into the air and allowed herself to plummet perilously to the pit as she screamed for a distracted Lou to catch her. But even once she grabbed Lou's attention, he couldn't make her out from the waterfall of clubbers. Seconds before she joined the lake of innards, Isaac snatched her, transporting them both into the chasm of bodies, face first. They both puked out their intestines as the realization of their surroundings smacked their consciences. "Oh, my gods, I'm so sorry. I needed a place that could absorb the kinetic energy!" Isaac somehow managed to explain through bouts of vomiting." Once they were thoroughly emptied, the duo transported themselves back up to the stage, where they managed to prevent tens of would-be jumpers.
Diogenes could not quantify nor understand the depths of the hatred that burned him as he watched that scene unfold, and he certainly couldn't quench the wildfire that was rising from his chest and into his eyes. A vastly more literal, a suddenly visible ring of blue fire that engulfed a shared brittle spine that traveled through Siren's neck and out their mouths. That ring needs to be put out! He called out to Cass and Isaac, but his yells got lost in the gap between the third floor and the stage. "Shit!"
A mouse-like tug pulled on Diogenes' sleeve. "Please, I need to help, just please, please keep me safe. I can phase my body if that helps?" Squeaked Phillip.
"That's perfect, give me a hug!" Diogenes lifted Phillip off the ground as they hugged, and he scanned the club for Robin, which he couldn't find, leading him to deduce she must be directly below him on the second floor. "Tell Robin to aim between them, all she'll need is a second finish this!" Diogenes instructed as he slammed Phillip to the ground slightly too fast for him to phase before the hit. "Ohhh oh shit I thought you'd phase in time I'm so sorry!" he apologized to the floor where Phillip once laid.
Phillip had no way to cushion his fall other than to land on the crowd. Luckily for everybody involved, when he slammed against the floor again, he crashed right next to Robin. Phillip rolled to his side and clamped his hands around Robin, rendering her intangible. Frighteningly quickly after Phillip relayed Diogenes' message, Robin had drawn her bow and shot an originally intangible arrow right through the ring of fire she couldn't even see. Three thuds later, all the heads had fallen, and the music was killed.
Four grueling hours later, the shellshocked crew had finally escorted the last of the survivors out, leaving only the six of them left to stagger out of the club and onto the private beach outside of it like blood-bathed zombies. Lou blasted the club to the ground but was far too traumatized to turn and watch. The sand had been thoroughly dyed red by all the survivors. The crew felt themselves drawn to the ocean like animals to a spring, they did not allow themselves to rest until they were knee deep in precious cleansing waves. As if they all shared a mind in unison, they flopped back into the ocean, drowning themselves for as long as their lungs permitted until they had to break up for air. What followed was the longest silence of their respective lives until Isaac thought it was his job to lighten the mood. "Well, at least they died as they lived … uhm, I'm sorry guys, I thought the punchline would come to me."
"Most people die as they lived, and all people would consider this a cruel fate, as even the rare few who want to be themselves don't want to be their present selves."
The sheer pessimistic nature of Phillips' statement forced a howling laugh out of everyone, ironically doing Isaacs' self-imposed job for him.
"Hey, Lou man, how'd you know about all this? I thought it was gonna be a mob boss or something." Cass questioned devoid of insults.
"Oh man I was just taken the piss I thought clubbing would be fun then that creepy announcement happened."