[center][h3]Deep Ground - the Source[/h3]
[s]Level 6 Goldlewis (159/60)[/s] Level 5 Sandalphon (88/50)
Blazermate, Susie, and Roland’s [@Archmage MC], Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Geralt and Zenkichi’s [@Multi_Media_Man], Sakura and Karin’s [@Zoey Boey], Pit’s [@Yankee], Roxas’ [@Double], Giovanna
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1329[/center]

When Sandalphon shapeshifted into Heavenly Wings, Sam assumed some kind of explosion and cleared out in a hurry. When her brief moment of blindness concluded, Sandalphon realized that her opponent had erred on the side of caution and ceased his assault. To his credit, he’d made the right decision; her draconic form boasted impressive damage and flinch resistance. But the archangel couldn’t afford to just stand tall and survey the battlefield. She was on the clock, and needed to make this transformation count.

So Sandalphon took in everything at a glance. She glanced toward Roxas, who had called out her name. He lay on the floor at the base of Tycoon’s body as Susie fought to regain the gigantic machine’s attention and Pit assisted her. Since Sandalphon knew that her skills could heal him, she spared him no more than a split second. Much to her relief, Geralt was still standing, her raging flames ablaze as Midna and her minions backed her up against Nox. Sandalphon saw that the street fighters had moved in for round two against Karen, even managing to pin him down. That left Mephisto unattended to, but the duplicates would complicate any attempts to dispose of him. If Karin and Sakura had Karen in a bind, that was where Heavenly Wings’ strength was needed. Though prioritizing the enemy medic made sense in general, the chance to eliminate the enemy powerhouse could not be ignored.

Golden light radiated from Sandalphon’s outstretched wings as she cast Celestial Skewer. An eruption of holy water went off around her, splashing up six divine droplets that hovered in the air for a brief moment, then launched toward Karen in the form of javelin-like rays of light. While their damage got spread over a large area, it helped break the Septentrion’s Blastokinesis and rack up some damage. It also healed her allies by forty-two percent. When Sandalphon glanced back toward Roxas to see if he needed more attention, however, a heart-wrenching revelation awaited her: that she was too late once more. In the moment she’d taken her eyes off him, Sam had executed him, disabling him with a slash to the spine that soon extinguished his light through a lethal combination of blood loss and shock. Without a word, Sandalphon turned on his killer and attacked, creating divine screens that she launched at the nobody’s killer like weaponized walls of light in an effort to stamp him out.

While she fought, Pit turned his attention on Mephisto with a relentless barrage of prismatic palm strikes. He pragmatically targeted and eliminated all of the duplicates, battering the real medic repeatedly in the process. Mephisto switched between healing and returning fire, pushing through the pain to knit his injured flesh back together. Pit boasted much greater output and mobility, however, and after a moment the medic’s pistol clicked empty. But before Pit could finish the job, two things happened. First, Tycoon -with only one of its three original challengers still holding it down- threatened the entire battlefield with Artificial Gravity. A number of small, swirling dark spots appeared scattered across the battlefield. After exactly three seconds, they would swell to a much larger size, overlapping to such an extent that only a few small slivers of the arena remained uncovered. A scant second later, Tycoon dropped magical mortar strikes on all the targets, consuming almost the whole arena in spacetime-displacing vortexes capable of ripping almost anyone apart.

Second, Nox took note of what Pit was doing. He felt confident that he could take on these enemies, but having Mephisto around provided a comfortable margin for error. In his moment of distraction, Geralt landed a direct hit with a fireball, setting Nox alight. “Agh. So warm-hearted….” The next moment, he disappeared in a shower of purple dragon fire from above. Midna’s flygon swooped down as its master charged in behind him, while Geralt hurled two flares turned infernal by her outpour of wrath. Exhaling sharply, Nox released both sword and shield, then joined his hands in an [url=https://i.imgur.com/6NXyWQa.png]interlocked sign[/url]. “...Stop.”

All around him, the battle froze in time, every combatant and projectile slowing to a complete standstill. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply. “Who will it be, then?” He extended his hand toward Geralt, resummoning his pendulum sword. “You’ve certainly been bugging me, my hot-blooded friend…” He adjusted his arm in increments like the hand of a clock, ticking around from three o’ clock to Midna, and when it ticked into place at eight o’ clock his sword’s tip lay inches from her nose. “Beastmaster. Cut off the head, and the body dies. Looks like we have our answer.” He pulled his arm back and flung the sword, which slowed down the instant it left his grip and stopped an inch from her stomach. “So sorry. Looks like you’re number’s come up.”

He looked over at Sandalphon, then at all of the Artificial Gravity indicators on the floor. He then teleported, warped directly in front of Pit, and time resumed. Suddenly, the angel found himself face to face with the man who’d slain Goldlewis, his hand extended. Nox released a blast of blue energy, and as Pit flew back, he used his perspective to pantomime crushing Pit in his fist. At that moment, Tycoon’s attack completed, and one of the bolts dropped down on the angel. By that time Nox had warped Mephisto to safety, and after the blasts went off the Watchmaker resummoned sword and shield. “Je vous en prie.”

The boy slid a new magazine into his place and expressed his gratitude with a tap of his cane rather than a smile. “Don’t expect any thanks.”

Karen, Karin, and Sakura had all competed for a tiny safe space before Artificial Gravity went off, and as a result, all of them got hit. Sam would have made it if Sandalphon didn’t push him back into the blast zone with a divine wave, though Tycoon’s attack also struck her as a result. Zenkichi and Roland, who’d stepped back from their fights and been healed by Celestial Skewer, both escaped Artificial Gravity, while even if she made it to a safe zone Susie’s business suit was too big to not get clipped. Zenkichi and Roland converged on Karen, but bolstered by Mephisto’s healing, the Septentrion took them both on. After hurling explosive sparks at the detective with Pyrokinesis, Karen faked Roland out, knowing that the Fixer wanted to clash. He swerved out of the way of his attack, then made him see stars with a burning hammerfist to the jaw. The next second his other palm connected for an explosive blast that sent Roland head-first into the floor. Zenkichi struck him from behind, but to his surprise a Guardian Vision of a [url=https://i.imgur.com/lSEjCRN.png]strangely-dressed woman[/url] appeared in a defensive stance to negate the blow. Even now, SAS seemed to be protecting him. He turned and faced off against Zenkichi, ultimately using Sclerokinesis to grab his foe’s greatsword in his hand, then melt through it with a pyrokinetic squeeze.

At the same time, Sam continued to fight Heavenly Wings, but the archangel seemed to shrug off his attacks. Gathering her divine power, Sandalphon lifted her hand and created a holy star above her. Her Celestial Castling rained down rays of light across the arena, inflicting Frostbite and Scorchrend on Sam, Karen, and Typhoon. Nox took aim and let fly a volley of energy blades. Though the projectiles didn’t damage Heavenly Wings, they did deplete the rest of her draconic energy, abruptly returning Sandalphon to human form. The next second the last couple blades sliced through her, severing two of the archangel’s limbs. She fell, her final Frost Lock going wide and bursting into icy mist near the Watchmaker. Then she lay on the ground as the battle continued, alive but catatonic, helpless, and losing too much blood.

Just then, Giovanna arrived to find herself in a hellscape, but there was no time to stand there gaping. The secret agent dashed in to assist as best she could.

[center][h3]The Under - the Black Egg[/h3]
Level 13 Ms Fortune (87/130)
The Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Primrose and Therion’s [@Yankee], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Ganondorf’s [@Double], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1426 (+3)[/center]

If she’d been expecting some sort of enormous monstrosity, Nadia might have been disappointed, but after her encounter with the nightmarish Orphan of Kos on that impossible underground beach the feral knew just how little size mattered. The Guardian of the underground kingdom appeared to be a bug, very similar to the little knight she fought alongside in the Basement looks-wise, but much larger and utterly enthralled by the Infection. The way her instincts screamed when that pulsing orange light confronted her convinced her that this wasn’t just some diseased dreg, either. “Patient zero,” she muttered. Maybe even the source of the Infection, sealed away, but not nearly well enough. She couldn’t hazard a guess about much else, but the environmental storytelling painted a vivid picture. Up close the Hollow Knight’s unnatural howl made her flinch yet again, but with her claws at the ready after the warm-up against F’s infected minions, Nadia wasn’t about to back down.

Of course, mustering up determination was easy. There were few things that Nadia couldn’t psych herself up into mindlessly running toward. Fighting this wretched warrior was another matter. While it still towered over two feet above her, and probably couldn’t be combo’d, the Hollow Knight posed an altogether different problem thanks to its relative size. Though the Seekers could easily surround it, there was a very real possibility of them hitting -or just obstructing- one another. Meanwhile, the Hollow Knight could barely swing its nail without striking a would-be hero. Everyone would need to be careful in this frenetic dance of death. Still, at the end of the day, this was nothing new to Nadia. Within seconds, the cat burglar charged in to take the stage.

Employing much the same strategy that she did against the likes of Ten Piedad, Robin Goodfellow, and all the other oversized threats that she couldn’t scrap with properly, Nadia darted in and out, waiting for -and in some cases baiting- attacks so that she could whiff punish the Hollow Knight as it recovered from its massive attacks. Of course, her target didn’t just stand there and let the others whale on it; it launched around the room with surprising agility, punctuating every burst of speed with a skewering nail thrust or enormous slice. Its warp slash, grimly similar to Barnabee’s, was a nasty surprise. Nadia kept on her toes, evading when possible and blocking otherwise. The chip damage and blockstun the Hollow Knight could dish out was no joke, but being excessively safe with her dodge rolls and blood-propelled dashes meant that she’d end up too far away to deliver punishment.

Of course, fighting as a Seeker meant sharing the stage with the likes of Bowser and his gung-ho entourage. The Koopa Troop bombarded the Hollow Knight with the elements, which Nadia tried to turn into elemental reactions like Electrocharged and Overloaded, and Bowser himself used his prodigious side and strength to actually push the boss around. Sectonia kept her spells to herself for once but contributed through the use of enormous minions that could control space with their bulk and implicit threat. After boosting her allies through the magic of dance, Primrose bathed the Hollow Knight in darkness and flame, while Therion’s steel cut through sorcery and sickened flesh alike. He also tasted the warrior’s sword skills, which Nadia naturally proceeded to trigger herself. The Hollow Knight’s riposte hurt like hell, stinging more in one blow than anything Rumor Honeybottoms spat out, but Nadia had seen worse. Her agility and regeneration allowed her to weather the worst of the vessel’s fury, and she boosted her damage output with her Bait Launcher from a safe distance.

Before long it revealed more up its proverbial sleeves than swordfighting. “Yugh!” Nadia groaned when the Hollow Knight unveiled its weeping lesions, running for the hills as infected globules began to fill the air. Whether sprayed out or rained down, they fell in abundance, and even the feral couldn’t avoid them all before reaching Jesse’s shelter. Luckily for the Seekers, the diseased deluge mostly acted like a scaled-up variety of acid rain. Though a caustic shower would be horrible enough, the infection couldn’t worm its way into those possessed of higher minds that easily. Sectonia’s golden antlers, however, were not so fortunate. They proved highly susceptible to the Infection. When the infected rain stopped, both Jesse and Primrose bashed the vessel with the rocks they used as shields, and the fight continued.

Once Kamek did some research, he came to the conclusion that the Seekers had been misled. Dangerous as it was, the Hollow Knight that they now faced seemed to be no more than a front. Nadia threw the magikoopa look of disbelief after he announced that everyone would need to keep their opponent alive. “You’ve gotta be kitten me.” By now, the fight had already escalated. The Hollow Knight fought in a berserk rage, weaponizing the plague that eked ceaselessly from the core of its very being, and before long the Infection worked its dark magic on the golden antlers. “The hell!?” Nadia yowled, leaping away from a stone-cracking mace slam. “Toni, get your buggies under control! This is getting g-old fast!”

At least Sectonia’s Slow, combined with Primrose’s buffs, tipped the scales in the Seekers’ favor. Ganondorf attacked alongside his Phantom, and the two gave a lot better than they got. At the end of their exchange, the vessel pushed the warlord back, and Nadia moved in. “Nyaow it’s my turn!” She slid beneath its follow-up slash with Cat Slide, then transformed her legs with Fluffy Soft to extend them for a double tiger kick into the Hollow Knight’s torso. Her legs snapped back into place, and after getting into a handstand, the feral sprang with her arms to fly into the air. Drawing a boxcutter, she grabbed onto one of the monster’s horns as she fell, her amplified weight bending its head sideways as she dangled. “Steel your heart!” Nadia swiped at the pustule on the Hollow Knight’s mask for a moment, but it quickly grabbed her and tossed her into the air. “Whoa-oa-oa!” She narrowly split herself in half to avoid an overhead nail slam, but picking up the pieces would take a minute.

Moments later, the battle reached a fever pitch. After the Hollow Knight stabbed itself with its own nail repeatedly, it threw itself at the Seekers with everything it had, but their counteroffensive bore fruit. The vessel slumped down onto its knees, bent forward. “Now!” a familiar, young-sounding, high-pitched voice called out. From the direction of the Black Egg’s entrance, a bright blue lash flew out and struck the Hollow Knight, wrapping around its body. A dark shape shot toward it, which turned out to be the short Organization member from before. She whipped around the vessel’s horns and landed on its head, tugging on the [url=https://i.imgur.com/64Qybp1.png]evil-looking keyblade[/url] in her hands to wrench the vessel’s head upwards. A brilliant light shone from its forehead, radiant as the light of day. “What’re ya flippin’ waitin’ for?! Get in there, you mugs!”

Kamek had the Dreamcatcher ready. After he extended it toward the Hollow Knight’s head and waved it around, a crystalline substance quickly collected into a globe inside its crescent. Within a moment it was large enough, and once Kamek plucked the globe from the staff, he hurled it against the ground. It shattered, releasing a flash of unreal light, and the world around the Seekers disappeared. 

When the light died down, they found themselves back in the [url=https://i.imgur.com/GqG6q7T.png]dream world[/url] on a circular pillar, much like they had during the fight with Robin Goodfellow. Except this time, the peach-colored sea of clouds lay beneath them, interspersed with hornlike spires, and around them stretched a vast, twilight-orange sky. On the horizon shone the sun–except that wasn’t the sun, brilliant and baleful as it was. The incandescent beacon approached with astonishing speed, then resolved into an incredible shape. It was dazzling, but unmistakably alien. Just staring at it burned Nadia’s brain, much worse than the sensation she got from the eyes of the Hollow Knight. There could be no mistaking it: this almost angelic thing must be behind it all. The Seekers had found it, the light of madness that seeped out through dreams, consuming the reason, the consciousness, and finally the very self of bug and beast alike. It was beautiful, but deadly. Not just to the Seekers, but to civilization, to sentience itself.

[center][h3][color=red]Warning! Boss discovered![/color]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/90VkmYP.png[/img]
[b]Thought-terminating Beatitude[/b][/h3]
[b][h1]The Radiance[/h1][/b][/center]

It had to be stopped. And as the first rays of light blazed toward the Seekers, Nadia Fortune was ready.