[center][h3]Septentrion, First Class[/h3][/center]
Blazermate’s [@Archmage MC], Geralt’s [@Multi_Media_Man], Sakura and Karin’s [@Zoey Boey], Goldlewis Dickinson
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2029 (+3)

Sakura looked at Sam, saying the same things she did before. [color=f49ac2]”You’re following around this guy, now?! You really need a hobby! If you want someone to follow, I know this perfect guy…” [/color] she trailed off. [color=f49ac2]”P-perfect for following! He’s really strong.”[/color] 

	Soon after that, however, her attention was brought to someone else. Nox had his little breakdown and left.

	[color=fff200]”Ohohoho! The self-defeating philosophy defeated itself. Who knew doing terrible things to justify terrible things was for total failures. Shame he got away, but I can’t imagine he’ll be doing much anymore. Not without his precious [i]cube[/i]. What a fool.”[/color] Karin said dismissively.

“Leave the mocking for later,” Geralt chided, eyes narrowed at the others. “At least one of these fools still thinks he can win.” Following up with her own insult, Geralt smirked a bit to Karin, before drawing her steel sword. 

	What happened next was quite unexpected. C showed up, and somehow turned one of their number into a bird.  Sakura covered her ears. [color=f49ac2]”Okay, I give up on trying to guess how this is going to go. Can we just start punching, now?!”[/color] 

	Sakura and Karin got into their fighting stance. Shortly after Sakura gave Roxas an encouraging pat on the back and a smile. [color=f49ac2]”You helped Sam and got him out of our hair. Easy as pie, Roxas-kun, easy as pie!”[/color] 

“Good work, kid,” Geralt added, with a small sigh for Mephisto’s fate. “But things are still getting complicated.” As the gas clouds enveloped the battlefield, Geralt drew one of her potions, Cat specifically, and took a swig. She hoped it would bolster her vision through the gas clouds, and against a psychic like Travers, the immunity to hypnotism couldn’t hurt.

	The arena was enveloped in smog, and Karen Travers stepped up to fight. Sakura and Karin were among the many Seekers to challenge him. [color=f49ac2]”Watch out for his metal body mode!”[/color] Sakura warned. In this true timeline Sakura was thinking more clearly. Her own failings had been completely overridden by Nox’s ultimate and total failure. 

Karin nodded and dashed forward with Sakura following up behind. Sakura jumped up and launched a fireball at Karen, and then used Mental Connection to yank herself down and past Karin to hit her opponent in the side with a punch. Meanwhile Karin came in with downwards kicks towards his leg and angle. 

When enemies approached, the Septentrion held his ground, activating Blastokinesis and Pyrokinesis as he waited for Sakura and Karin to come to him. A bubble shield encapsulated him while roiling flames flared up around his arms. Despite the extra protection he sidestepped the projectile, then Sakura herself, realizing that his foes planned to pincer him. Considering the other Seekers yet to come, he needed to move fast. With one hand he cast a blind swathe of flame toward Sakura, trusting his shield to take a hit from her while he focused on Karin. As she went low, further depleting his Blastokinesis, he stomped at her, then kicked upward in hopes of launching her. He lifted his hand, a compressed fireball held within to hurl at her and blow her away. While the others couldn’t see as well thanks to Mephisto’s clouds, Clairvoyance allowed the Septentrion to see everything for what it was.

Blazermate would soon join the battle as it seemed Karen was hurting Sakura and Karin more. While Blazermate had her Scan ability, she could see through the smoke and see everything much like Karen could, although with her it was more radar vision than actual sight. This did let her easily locate both Karen and the two street fighters, and apply her healing beam to whoever was getting comboed by Karen at the time. She could interfere more directly when her allies HP got lower with her own shield arm, but knowing these two fighters, they might not appreciate that so early in the fight. Plus this let her build her charge a bit.

Sakura and Karin backrose from their respective knockdowns. [color=fff200]”Keep focusing his shield!”[/color] She yelled.

Sakura felt herself get healed. [color=f49ac2]”Blazermate-san, where is he?”[/color] She ran towards where she got knocked away from. His powers weren’t exactly subtle, so if he used any she could see him. 

A torrent of bullets tore through the haze as Goldlewis opened fire. “Travers!” he yelled over the roar of his Skyfish. “Come get some!” He couldn’t see his opponent, but he could see his stolen Pyrokinesis–the flames burned bright through the haze. As the bullets blazed a trail toward his position through the smokescreen, Karen quickly grasped the reason why, and in a flash his fire disappeared. Goldlewis grunted in annoyance, dropping his minigun for the UMA to collect as he scanned for any sign of the psychic soldier. A moment later, however, the Septentrion materialized from thin air, his arms ignited as he stared Goldlewis in the face.

“Here I am.” Just a second too late, Goldlewis realized that Karen must have turned invisible. He threw out his elbow to try and check his opponent, but Karen beat it out handily, his sudden reappearance empowering his first strike. The man landed a scorching punch, then stepped up with an explosive sidekick that knocked Goldlewis back. Knowing his allies were inbound, the veteran rolled backward to his feet, delaying his next move to give the others a chance to distract their foe.

[color=0072bc]”I can try to give you guys direction, but I can’t highlight him for you, I need to see him for that.”[/color] Blazermate said as she used her scan ability to see through the smoke to point out where Karen was, trying to give the street fighters and her allies some direction. 

[color=f49ac2]”Got it!”[/color] She said. Was she being presumptions when she assumed Blazermate had some kind of heat vision? 

Geralt ran to Goldlewis, the shimmering shield of Quen covering her body, and the LCCB Assistant Manager Identity granting her both riot shield and armor, as she scanned the battlefield for their foe. Finding him, his invisibility broken from his attacks, she fired a volley of Quake Rounds at Travers, to build up some Tremor on him. Her salvo landed, catching Karen just as he moved to press his advantage against Goldlewis. Those special bullets did only minor damage, but the surprising punch they packed distracted the Septentrion in a crucial moment. Goldlewis jumped at the chance. “Crumble!” His Behemoth Typhoon whipped around like a flail, a massive weight on a beefy chain.

Still, Karen was determined not to give his foes an ounce of hope, even if it took spending his resources to do it. He activated Sclerokinesis and soaked both the mighty slam’s damage and its Tremor-amped stagger. Protected by his power, he didn’t need to actually block, so he essentially armored through the Behemoth Typhoon to stagger Goldlewis with a blazing elbow. He aimed it for the kidney, but the big man’s extra padding saved the day, sparing him from paralyzing pain. “Dammit!” he grunted. His foe followed up with a fiery roundhouse kick, but not fast enough to combo Goldlewis in hitstun, so the veteran backdashed and unleashed another Behemoth Typhoon. Still bolstered by Sclerokinesis, Karen pushed in to punish his foe for not learning, And Goldlewis sprung his trap. He canceled his special move with a purple Roman Cancel, and the same wave that reset him to neutral also slowed Travers down, just for a brief moment, but long enough for Geralt to act.

Geralt charged in, slamming into Travers in her base Identity, claws raking against his hardened body and digging through the last of his Sclerokinesis. She followed up with Igni, blanketing him in a quick burst of flames before he had a chance to respond. Still, he wasn’t one to get caught up in any one attack for long.

That’s why Sakura rushed in to slam her elbow into his back, and follow up with a spin kick to knock him back towards Geralt, off balance. [color=f49ac2]”Looking good, Geralt-san!”[/color] She said. [color=f49ac2]”...Geralt-chan?”[/color] Being attached to Sakura at the time, Blazermate used her rush to rush in herself and smack Karen with her ubersaw to gain a bit of uber and deal a bit of damage herself, while Geralt landed a nasty swipe to Karen’s side.

All too soon, Karen disappeared, using Teleportation to get the hell out of dodge. Thanks to their cohesion, his foes had landed their first clean hits, but the Septentrion didn’t let that bother him. Mephisto could undo whatever damage his opponents managed to rack up while he kept his head in the game. His attention lay on his resources and his opponents. His Pyrokinesis bottomed out, and as he extinguished his arms with a flourish, Karen spotted Blazermate patching the blonde girl up. “So be it.” He teleported again, appearing above the medabot, and as he hung in the air his Electrokinesis activated with a blast of sparks. The next second a deluge of thunderbolts descended, threatening both medic and patient with vigorous electrocution.

[color=fff200]”Above!”[/color] Karin jumped into the air and planted her feet on Blazermate. She pushed them apart with a graceful back flip, causing the bolts to land between them. Afterwards Karin fired her grapple hook towards Karen to stab into his side. She pulled herself towards him quickly and aimed to double palm strike him back towards the ground. 

Blazermate meanwhile had seen Karen appear above her after a bit and summoned her projectile shield to block the lightning bolts and save her and her patient from getting zapped. 

The hook punched through and caught in her foe’s heavy coat, and the weight of the street fighter on the other end taxed Karen’s stolen Levitation enough to drag him downward. He attempted to grab hold of the line and send an electric current through it, but the extra hindrance got in the way, and the Septentrion wasn’t able to stop Karin before she flipped above him to slap him downward. With Teleportation still engaged, however, he blinked away the moment that Karin’s hook came loose. He reappeared only a dozen feet away and hurled another lightning blast at his attacker as he hovered. Karin pulled her hook back towards her. She crossed her arms in front of her and took the shot with a grunt. She flew backwards and landed on the ground, flipping back to her feet. 

Down below, Goldlewis had spooled up his minigun again and opened fire on the airborne target, while Assistant Manager Geralt, freshly transformed once more, got a clear shot with her pistol. Karen turned and cast more lightning at the two, quickly exhausting his Electrokinesis. A bolt knocked Goldlewis down, but he got up again just as fast. “You’re spendin’ like there’s no tomorrow, Travers!” he called up, putting on a brave face. “How long you reckon you can keep that up?”

Sneering in annoyance, Karen swapped Levitation for Cryokinesis, descending like an icy comet. When he struck the floor, a massive wave of ice spikes radiated outward in every direction. Goldlewis jumped up and slammed down [url=https://i.imgur.com/7lgU1pw.png]coffin-first[/url], obliterating the ice within a small area. Meanwhile, Karen’s impact with the ground left him crouching, and he took a second to rise. Blazermate used her projectile shield to slow down the ice spikes headed for her and Karin’s way, summoning her Armstrong striker to bulldoze his way through the spikes and stomp the earth once he got next to Kaen, letting out an explosion. [color=0072bc]”Go Mr. muscles, go!”[/color] Blazermate said as Armstrong gave a thumbs up before disappearing after doing his move.

Geralt grunted, hunkering behind her shield as the ice spikes appeared, angling it a bit downwards to avoid being caught from below like Y’s core had done with its own spikes. When the attack subsided, she returned fire with yet more Quake Rounds, circling around Karen.