[center][h3]Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital, Medical Ward[/h3]
Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Sakura’s [@Zoey Boey], Gemma[/center]

Though rather unsettling, both in terms of appearance and the way he crawled around on the hospital’s ceiling, the Doctor didn’t really intimidate Gemma. Sure, he seemed inhumanly large -inhuman in general, in fact- but the Scarlet Guardians regularly beat larger foes, and while holding that ungainly bloated mass aloft probably took some serious strength, the Doctor looked ill-suited for combat. Still, given the inexplicable invulnerability possessed by the patients it sounded reasonable to abide by Midna’s suggestion and not get tangled up in another fight needlessly. Although, the Seekers ought to know as well as Gemma did that investigations like this tended to culminate in the act of beating answers out of somebody. If this uncanny physician didn’t strike him as incapable of human speech, he might have objected, but for now he allowed the smaller, more agile members of the team to take initiative and sneak around.

Behind door number one: a surprise death drop. Midna actually fell in, much to Gemma’s dismay, but thanks to the special talents of the Twilight Princess she managed to save her skin. Soon she returned with the bad news, and though Gemma was relieved to hear it her cautionary tale was cause for concern. “I didn’t think we were that far down,” he murmured in a low tone. “This area of the plate may be heavily undermined. We’ll need to tread carefully.”

Sakura wisely chose a different exit. After taking pains not to disturb the Doctor as he worked, she reached the doorway silhouetted against a pink-green glow and made her way inside. On the opposite side lay a circular room in the same style as much of the hospital, with faded green tiles and splotchy off-white concrete. A strange machine stood in the middle, visually somewhere between a hot water heater and a lighthouse, with a spider’s web of cables stemming outward from the top and a ring of glorified bathtubs around it, all standing in a depression filled with ankle-deep murky water. Medical stands with monitoring devices could be found parked along the walls, and cables lay everywhere on the floor. However, this apparatus appeared to be offline, and judging by the dusting of cobwebs, not used for some time. Moreover, this wasn’t the source of the green light; that lay deeper in, beyond another set of doors, where it got much stronger. When Sakura ventured in there, she quickly realized that the [url=https://i.imgur.com/m4G2HAY.png]squat, neglected chamber[/url] she’d just left had been nothing more than a prototype.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/9Pm5lgn.jpg[/img][/center]

Though also circular, this room was much larger and high-tech, its better-kept machines connected not just via insulated industrial cables but holographic orange vision cables. Gone was the standing water; each tub had its own dedicated machinery with it on a checkered platform. There was a set of elevator doors on the room’s right side, and a stairwell on the left that led up to the second-story observation deck. Over the central hub a much larger nexus of oblong pods connected to the inverted glass dome of an enormous, oval-shaped tank that formed much of the room’s ceiling, and inside the tank were thousands of brains.

Those aside, the room wasn’t empty. In one of the tubs, unconnected to any machinery, slept a gaunt, wiry young woman with a stitched mask, brown hair in a bun, a scant beige dress, and nails protruding from the black veins in her skin. On one side of the tub, four enormous blades dangled from the cord that extended from the small of [url=https://i.imgur.com/O53m1I0.png]her[/url] back. Next to the central hub floated a figure in a dark brown trench coat lined with cream-colored fur. At first glance he appeared to be wearing a white metal helmet and gauntlets, both laden with spiky points, but in truth he was a robot. Or a  robotic body encasing a glowing pink brain inside his head, bent as if asleep or meditating, deep in thought. Psychic pulses emanated from [url=https://i.imgur.com/A9VXtdq.png]the mystery man[/url] at short, rhythmic intervals. When Sakura entered, however, he awoke after a few moments, his red eyes blinking on as he slowly straightened up. His glowing white irises turned the Street Fighter’s way, and she could feel a faint psychic pressure. [i]”What have we here?”[/i] A deep voice intoned directly to her mind. [i]”Not another surprise visit, surely? Hmm…interesting. I think not. You’re not here on business.”[/i] Brain Drain adopted an upright posture as he descended, his feet not quite touching the ground. [i]“I’ll make this simple, then. Tell me who you really are and why you’re here, before I pry your mind.”[/i]

[center][h3]The Under - The Hive[/h3]
Level 11 Nadia (147/110)
The Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Primrose and Therion’s [@Yankee], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey], Ganondorf’s [@Double], Rubick’s [@Scarifar], Artorias’ [@Dark Cloud], Barnabee
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1340[/center]

Nadia moved through the remainder of the underground marsh quickly. Now that she'd gotten wet and dirty she didn’t play around jumping between the trees, instead skating across the surface of the rust-colored muck with the speed and lightness of a water strider. She would have preferred to put what just happened out of her mind and focus on the mission, if only she could. Instead the unfortunate event pursued her doggedly. While she hadn’t known this Ah Muzen Cab whatsoever, and the exact circumstances meant she didn’t get the chance to see or hear his morbid fate, the whole thing left her in a sour mood with a bad taste in her mouth. As she wound her way through the fridge of the bug-riddled bog, close enough to the edge that she could gauge her progress, she passed everything else right by. Not even the sight of an infested settlement amongst the trees, home to the malignant insectoid cleric known as [url=https://i.imgur.com/cJ71RC7.jpg]The Thrall[/url], gave her paws.

Soon enough the feral ran out of swamp. Though it provided good cover for bypassing the wasp legions in the end, she was glad to leave the fetid mire behind. Toward the back of the great Hive cavern, where the honeycombs were richest and the hexagon-based architecture the most grand, a tiered series of cliffs about a dozen feet high led like gigantic stairs up to a magnificently archway, opulent with gold and amber, that led to an immense hallway. Nowhere in the Hive seemed fancier or more important than that, meaning that nowhere was more likely for the usurper of Vespa’s queendom to be. After thinking about making her way up with a series of blood-pressure rocket jumps, Nadia realized that the hollow hexagonal cells in the cliff faces formed perfect handholds and pawholds, while the filled-in ones yielded readily to her claws. The climb up to the entrance turned out to be a breeze, especially since the wasps that would’ve normally been guarding this area had abandoned their posts to join the fight against the Seekers. As she ascended, cresting ledge after ledge out in the open after all the pains she’d taken to be stealthy, the feral couldn’t help but feel small and exposed after. Like a mouse scurrying around a storeroom for morsels of cheese. By now, with so many slain by the intruders, the wasps’ leader had to be getting desperate to hunt down and squash every last Seeker. Once they pushed through and regrouped, however, the hunter would become the hunted.

Despite her delay at the ruined temple, Nadia actually arrived first. Maybe the others had really kicked the hornets’ nest by going loud right off the bat. At one point a platoon of reinforcements buzzed down the hall to go join the battle, forcing Nadia to make herself scarce. There wasn’t anything in this big, empty corridor to duck behind, but by going to pieces she could easily fit herself into an empty hex cell on the wall and avoid their gaze. She hid there until the others arrived, then rolled out the welcome wagon by dragging herself out of the cubby like a mummy from a catacomb. “What took you guys so long?” She asked, working harder than usual to force a cheerful smile. “I thought you’d bee here ages ago.”

The Hive Knight was breathing heavily. His fuzz was stained with the gunk of dozens of wasps, and the teeth of his Yato blade moved slowly, chewing through the caked-on remains that had yet to turn to ash. “Justice,” he told her flatly.

“...Right.”

Together the team proceeded through the gilded hall, its waxen walls and hexagonal tiling polished to a mirror sheen. At the other side they found yet another cavern, this one with walls of scintillating royal blue and a honeycomb platform leaning out over a yawning abyss, with a minecart track looping around the circumference of the cave between the platforms' opposite sides. In the center of the great hollow hung the usurper, a colossal wasp in appearance, but not quite in truth. Though no expert on either bugs nor engineering, even Nadia could tell that this six-legged titan was no more than a robot. A stupidly huge robot, maybe even comparable to that leviathan that surprised the Seekers back in the Bottomless Sea, but still. She could easily picture herself sliding down that tube protruding from the mega-bug’s middle, which on second thought looked rather like a giant yellow teapot. Regardless, the Wasp Queen’s glowing red eyes fixated on the Seekers the moment they set foot in her throne room. No backing down now.

[center][img]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RrvZqzyWUOk/maxresdefault.jpg[/img][/center]

“Intruders!” The queen cried, her fake wings flapping back and forth furiously as she dangled from the ceiling on an immense chain. Her resounding voice sounded like it was being projected by a megaphone. “How dare you challenge the Queen?”

On either side of her, more wasps began to swarm, forming a couple enormous clouds of them. “Don’t challenge our queen!” they called out in chorus.

“Exactly! Attack!”

The Queen herself did not attack, however. Instead her wasps fought for her, attacking not as individuals, but as a cohesive swarm. They packed themselves together into huge, floating shapes, like swords that span through the air, hammers that came down hard on large areas, and pairs of scissors that chased the Seekers down, snipping ominously. Not sure what to do, Nadia took off running, dodging hammer after mighty hammer. “Bahahaaa! Run, you pests!” her foe sang. Those ‘weapons’ struck with serious force, the hammers in particular sending out ‘shockwaves’ of wasps that spread out in all directions on impact before wheeling around to rejoin the swarm. With a smirk the feral leaped over the ‘blades’ of a giant pair of scissors as the swarm tried to snap shut on her, then ran for the platform’s edge. When she jumped onto the minecart track, she slid along the metal rail with improbable ease, away from the assault swarms and around the hanging Wasp Queen. That gave her time to think about how exactly she’d go about attacking this distant metal monstrosity.

As she circled around, her ears, hair, and tails streaming behind her, she noticed the big orange bandages on the robot’s hull, one pair each crossed in an ‘x’ on the front and back of both her thorax and abdomen. Seeing no other possible weak spot except maybe the eyes, Nadia put together a plan and leaped from the track. She airdashed toward the Queen on jets of blood, then flung Athame directly into the bandages on the back of the abdomen to weaken it. Then she blitzed into the spot with Charge like a living lightning bolt and dished out a handful of air-to-airs, culminating in a dropkick that acted as Battery, triggering a pair of electric crits. She yanked out Athame and kicked off, flying back toward the rail to continue her grind. Her sneaking suspicions proved to be correct, as the Queen was not happy about that. “Managed to tickle me, did you?” she asked as Nadia’s slide came to an end. To either side of her, wasp swarms formed into giant mitts that flew toward her to try and squash her flat. “Let me give you a hand!”

The Wasp Queen would continue to ‘attack’ with swarms in a variety of shapes, covering different angles but not all angles. To defend her weak spots she would call upon her underlings to form shields and block with their clustered bodies, but if enough wasps got minced, burned, or blown up, she’d be vulnerable until reinforcements arrived. When each bandaged spot took enough damage, the yellow shell covering the corresponding front or back of the Queen’s abdomen or thorax would break off and fall away, revealing the metal skeleton and parts beneath. But only when all four parts were destroyed, leaving more or less just the wasp bot’s head, would the fight progress to the second phase.