[center][h3]Deep Ground - the Source[/h3]
Level 7 Goldlewis (110/70) Level 6 Sandalphon (52/60)
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] 1703[/center]

For a moment, Sandalphon’s gaze lingered on the crumbling corpse of what many would have considered the most powerful man in Midgar. Though a soldier first and foremost, both in occupation and in attitude, Karen Travers had been made into a celebrity throughout the entire metropolis, and yet for all his fame she knew no more about the man himself than she did Nox. Whether lurking in the Valley of Ruin or serving the public, both had harbored secret plans fueled by grand machinations, so ambitious that they demanded the reversal of time itself. But why? What tragedies could have necessitated such an incredible step? The same went for Mephisto and, to a lesser extent, Samuel Rodriguez. Ultimately, it didn’t matter one way or the other, but in a way that only added to her feeling of vague melancholy.

As an archangel, an instrument of divinity, Sandalphon could not hesitate when it came to meting out justice. That did not mean she had to do so unthinkingly, however. Neither could she gloss over the intense battle with a moment of cordial levity, as Goldlewis and Giovanna did. They’d all seen plenty of death, she knew. For humans, be they soldiers or assassins, desensitization sets in after a while. But not for her. Life was a glorious gift, and Sandalphon would never take it lightly.

For now, though, her struggle was far from over. As much as they needed a breather, the Seekers who eliminated Karen were quickly forced to address the elephant in the room: Tycoon. Susie had been doing her best to tank its assault for a while now, but without any means of forcing aggro, her presence had been incidental at best. That left it up to her allies to make real progress, and to his credit Zenkichi had been doing an amazing job. Once Mephisto met his end, Roxas and Pit lent their aid. The more progress they made, however, the more the Guardian let loose, unleashing spell after spell addressed to ‘whom it may concern’. With enormous AoEs going off left and right, the others couldn’t sit back even if they wanted to. Goldlewis, Giovanna, Sandalphon, Sakura, Karin, Midna, Roland, Blazermate, and Geralt joined in to finish the fight.

Right away, a torrent of bullets pounded the Guardian from the chaingun mounted on Midna’s warthog. Staying at long range minimized the risk of friendly fire, and made it easier to see (as well as avoid) Tycoon’s delayed lasers, so Goldlewis joined in with his Skyfish minigun. Hadokens aside, Sakura, Karin, and Giovanna had a harder time contributing, but Geralt could put her stunning new identity to work with a majestic artillery barrage of fireballs that left Tycoon burning. Even so, Sandalphon gave her comrade a run for her money. Tycoon didn’t move much, which meant that the archangel could brutalize its head with her Eye of Sol, limited only by how much she could reload–and Tycoon’s own spells. It cleverly delayed its own Magitek Crossrays to coincide with the detonation of its Artificial Gravity, obliging the Seekers to take great care when they repositioned. At one point, it cast a spell that conjured a sort of crystal above everyone’s heads, as well as rings around them. When she saw that these harbingers moved along with her teammates, Sandalphon turned her mind to mitigation. “Spread out. Don’t let the circles overlap.” When the spell finally went off, everyone took guaranteed damage, but the archangel was ready with Angelic Wings to keep everyone in top condition.

And then, before she and the others even knew it, the fight was over. Roxas unleashed a dazzling shower of light pillars, outdoing even Sandalphon in heavenly radiance. After the boy’s Magic Hour, Tycoon’s time was up. The reverse-engineered god went limp with a resounding, mechanical groan, falling apart with the mesmerizing calamity of a demolished building. As the Guardian faltered, the whole reactor shook, as if responding to its death throes. All around the walls, the enormous magical portals, windows that offered tantalizing views of myriad realms, began to shrink. Their closure violently severed the pipes, pumps, cables, and other machines built into the portals’ housing. An eruption reaction of sparks, explosions, and Mako leaks ensued. For a moment Sandalphon feared that the damage might cause a chain reaction that engulfed this whole place in a destructive fugue, but nothing so dramatic happened. The fuses blew, the failsafes kicked in, and the downward spiral quickly devolved into a controlled descent. While the damage looked irreversible, the system probably wouldn’t fail until its fuel reserves ran dry. Probably.

Once it became clear that the whole place wasn’t going to blow and lead to an elaborate escape sequence, Giovanna let out a sigh and crossed her hands behind her head. “Welp. Another one bites the dust.”

[hider=Results]
[b]Party:[/b] Blazermate, Susie, Roland, Geralt, Zenkichi, Midna, Sakura, Karin, Goldlewis, Sandalphon, Roxas, Pit
[b]Boss Reward:[/b] Free Level Upgrade, Tycoon Spirit
[b]Additional Rewards:[/b] Karen Travers spirit, Infinite spirit, Mephisto spirit, the Eliacube[/hider]
Her casual attitude impressed Goldlewis greatly, given how exhausted he was. By now, the Seekers had defeated the Arahabaki response teams, three bosses in their own right, the long descent through Deep Ground, the horde of Akira clones, Moebius Y, Travers’ Time Travellers, and Tycoon itself. They might be in good health thanks to Sandalphon and Blazermate, but all those fights back to back had taken their toll. As he caught his breath, Goldlewis looked relieved, but not happy, and not just because of his fatigue.

“What I don’t get is…” he began, undoing his new shotgauntlets so he could deposit them into his coffin. “What in sam hill does this all have to do with the Ever Crisis? ‘Find the source’, that’s what Miss Xatow said. But that thing wasn’t an Other, or a doggone chimera, despite all that hogwash Y pulled. So what’s the deal?”

He looked to Sandalphon for answers, and he was right to do so. The archangel had been thinking since the moment she arrived, and now, with her pupils in the shape of spinning loading symbols, she felt confident enough to give voice to her ruminations. “After the reports from the battle outside Midgar, I believe the Guardian was unaffiliated with the Machines as well. Nox’s designs on it confirm as much. So I posit that its allegiance, if it can be called that, is to Midgar itself. The Administration, and to the Consuls.” The archangel paused. “Furthermore, I believe it [i]is[/i] the ‘source’, but not of the Ever Crisis.” She leaned on her gunstaff, scanning the reactor’s interior. “Consider the debate the night before last. Shinra said something, innocuous at the time, that may have a high degree of relevance now. When addressing the threat posed by so-called terrorist groups like Avalanche, he said that Mako energy has no impact on the environment, and gave the existence of the flourishing Valley of Ruin and Kunad Highway as proof. Indeed, those regions possessed enough life energy Nox made stealing it his declaration of war.”

Sandalphon conjured a handful of screens, depicting the environment around Midgar before and after Nox, various Mako reactors around the city, as well as the Cornice itself. “The news reports from the Avalanche attack on Mako Reactor 01 indicated no destruction or power loss as a result. So in truth, most if not all of the Mako reactors lie dormant. But this place is clearly a reactor, and very much in use.” She gestured at the Seekers’ surroundings. “Nox alleged that Tycoon possesses power over time, which it demonstrated after a fashion. It was clearly sustaining those portals somehow. And consider the machines around them.” Their loading concluded, her pupils reverted to power symbols as she nodded her head. “I believe that the Administration was using this machine to siphon Mako from other places, if not other times, in order to fuel Midgar while keeping up the appearance of sustainability.”

A moment passed before Giovanna said something. “Huh,” she chirped, not sounding particularly interested. “And with the Guardian gone…”

“A citywide blackout,” Sandalphon confirmed. “Possibly even before nightfall.”

Goldlewis heaved a big sigh. He’d been trundling around as Sandalphon spoke, examining the machines arrayed around the reactor, but in the end he only made one discovery: another one of those teleport pads, near the arena’s connecting bridge and activated after the Guardian’s defeat. “Guess we better get movin’ then.” He turned and waved at the others. “Reckon this’ll take us back out?”

Giovanna trooped over. “It’d be impressive if there was anywhere further in that it could take us,” she snarked. “Hopefully it works better than the last one.”

After taking a generous drink from her canteen of coffee, Sandalphon screwed the cap back on. “If this is the facility’s bottom, then anywhere else is better,” she reasoned, clicking toward the two on jet-black high heels. “Let’s go.”

The destination that awaited the Seekers on the other side proved to be better than Goldlewis would have thought, but worse than he hoped. Rather than the Shinra Building, or even the open air, he and the others found themselves in the colossal, foggy expanse of Arahabaki. Things up here looked just as the Seekers left them, except for the warning lights and intermittent alarm tones throughout the place. When he saw where the team ended up, Goldlewis harrumphed. “Bah. Guess we’ve got more hikin’ to do.” Slowly, his eye slid over toward Midna. “Unless you got any more o’ them portals in your back pocket, miss. Though I don’t know where in Midgar we’d go, knowin’ what we do.”

Sandalphon narrowed her eyes. The teleporter had brought them to the threshold of Deep Ground, where Karen used Truman Zanotto’s disembodied brain to open the way to the Guardian. “This may be a blessing in disguise,” she told the others, eying a very elaborate, full-body terminal attached to Arahabaki’s central column. “Unless I’m mistaken, this should be the interface with Arahabaki itself, where Travers made his announcement to all of Midgar.” She turned to the others. “We may be able to use it to do the same. Though it was not our intention, our actions will leave all of Midgar powerless. Warning the populace would be the responsible thing to do.” She shrugged. “And if anyone has anything else you’d like to tell every citizen, that would be within your rights as well.”

[center][hider=For Goldlewis]New Power:
[b]Railcannon Fabrication[/b]
Provided with schematics by Goldlewis’ fusion with Jack-8, his UMA is now capable of constructing a [url=https://i.imgur.com/aHnHqil.png]railcannon[/url] with an internal energy source and a high-power thruster at the back. If Goldlewis is at low health, it can fire out a heavy laser that explodes on impact. If he’s in Heat, it can be used in the ‘Meteor Raid’ Heat Smash, in which it’s called down to blow up on a foe Goldlewis knocked down. If used for a Rage Art or Heat Smash a new one has to be fabricated, which takes so long that only one can be made per ‘round’ of combat. Otherwise, it can only be used to fly short distances, or fire small railgun slugs[/hider]

[hider=For Sandalphon]New Power:
[b]Headquarter Support Request[/b]
Allows Sandalphon to manifest a laser targeting device that can be used to designate an area. After a brief delay, a cluster bomb will be dropped on the area that deals pretty good damage, and inflicts the following debuffs: attack down 10%, elemental resist down 30%, status resist down 30%, and damage taken up 10%, all for 20 seconds. This functions as a skill and must be recharged by attacking; it cannot be used while shapeshifted[/hider][/center]