Carthrat Who Hunts Elves!

[Carthrat]

"Naw. Sounds like something to do with mecha," replies Carthrat, shrugging.

[Bean Bandit]

"In a manner of speaking." Remy replied. "I'm sending you to Tokyo, in the rough area of where the Temple that contains the Steel Angel that houses the soul of your teammate is."

"It's adjacent to the Juuban Ward, so if you get the chance, track down a girl named Minako Aino, and bring her with you."

[Carthrat]

"What, is she one of our partners?" replies Carthrat. "I'll track her down, sure.."

[Bean Bandit]

"Yes." Remy agreed, and raised a hand, opening it to reveal another rune made entirely of light.

The rune left his hand, floating out in front of Ritsuko, and stretching and distorting itself into a swirling vortex, suspended on nothing.

"That's a gate into the dimension where you'll find them. Be careful...if Chaos has found this out, and he sends a mystic to awaken the Steel Angel first, winning this competition will be that much harder..."

[Carthrat]

Carthrat pauses. "And, uh, am I going to able to hide that there tank easily?"

[Bean Bandit]

Remy grinned. "No. But I'm depositing you outside the city. Find a good place to park it, and give it instructions. You'll find that you can speak directly to, and understand it."

[Carthrat]

"That's a relief," replies Carthrat.. "Any idea who everyone else is? I'm sure there are others in Tokyo besides Ms. Aino.."

[Bean Bandit]

Remy nodded. "Sakura Kinomoto is around, somewhere." he offered. "And Yomiko Readman and Tsuruko Aoyama should be in your area soon."

[Carthrat]

"That's a relief," replies Carthrat, nodding. "Here's something more mundane; what about food? Sleep? Will I even have time to sleep?"

[Bean Bandit]

Remy smiled, a little more kindly, this time. "I suppose it depends, but yes, you should be able to, if you organize your time wisely, and manage your resources creatively. But you probably knew that."

[Carthrat]

Carthrat raises an eyebrow. "Right. Anything else you think I should know before I go through to the other side?"

[Bean Bandit]

Remy grinned, and eyed Ritsuko. "You mean, like...avoid wearing a skirt in combat?" he asked the ponytailed red-head wryly. "Seriously, just relax, and use common sense. Don't fight if you can avoid it safely, save your strength. But don't undercommit, either. If you have to fight, don't hold back, or you'll lose."

[Carthrat]

Carthrat chuckles. "Yeah. Simple advice so few people follow.

Well, see you around."

With that, she jumps in the tank, closes the hatch (nothing like not seeing the inevitably psychadelic colours that may assualt anyone when going through a portal) and drives through..

[Bean Bandit]

Remy watched the tank enter the dimensional gateway he'd created with a slight smile of satisfaction. "Perhaps this is not as an uphill battle as I'd feared." He mused, collapsing the portal after the tank disappeared.

Eventually, he himself vanished, and the frozen world's time resumed, the grassy plain now empty...

***

Ritsuko's tank re-emerged...in a forest.

While there were a number of surface similarities to the forest she'd just departed, the most marked difference was the familiarity of the trees and surroundings...it was instinctively 'home' to her...

[Carthrat]

Ritsuko gets out, and looks around.

"Well.. I'm back on Earth. That's a plus," she says to herself. "Now.. to work out where I am."

Grabbing a pair of binoculars she finds amongst the stuff on the tank, she decides to try climbing a tree and getting a birds-eye view of her surroundings..