[IC] Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya grinned at the two men who stood to oppose them.

"You know, up until now, all of the opponents I've had while fighting for this team have have mostly been non-human on one way or another. I had to fight some skeletons, a golem... I mean I fought a basic mage, but they were teamed up with a summoner who summoned otherworldy beasts that were definitively not human." Raiya talked a bit slowly, dancing a bit around the point, like a lioness stalking a fresh prey. "You see, in all of those battles, I had to twist my fighting style, tweak it a bit to combat non-human entities. And while I can certainly do a good job fighting those types of enemies, well, it's just not that fun." Raiya was still dancing around the point. She unsheathed her katana and threw the scabbard to the wind, it evaporated in a flurry of electrical mana. "I certainly can get the job done, fighting non-human entities. But... My specialty... my, shall we say, expertise, is in killing humans." Her eyes narrowed as she finished her point. To drive home the point she raised the hilt of the sword up to her face. She tilted the sword horizontally so the back of the blade rested on her lips. Then she took a deep breath and opened her mouth, sticking out her tongue. Her tongue was a bit longer than the average tongue, but nothing too abnormal. Though it was distinctively pointed, not rounded off at the tip like normal tongues. She then ran her tongue all the way along the side of the blade, a coat of overly abundant saliva could visibly be seen dripping off the blade. Although, Raiya knew the truth, that the saliva wasn't just saliva, but a powerful paralyzing poison.

Raiya enchanted herself with her speed enchantment, and in the blink of an eye she was behind the bat wielder, Her blade thrusting out towards the small of his back.

[Cottonmouth]

Boslan's clairvoyant abilities were what led him to tracking the group in the first place, so using it to see Zoey's incoming attack was rather easy. Without turning to look behind him, a semi transparent blue magical arm extended out from Boslan's back like a phantom. While it didn't seem to physically effect Boslan's clothes in any way, it's palm was able to block Zoey's elbow before it could contact him. He followed it up by clapping his real hands together, which emitted out a concussive shock-wave that rapidly grew out around him to try to throw Zoey back.

Zoey's howl had tainted Boslan's realm spell to turn to night, something that Nemo likely appreciated, but there was nothing Boslan could do about it yet. "It's not every day I get a chance to fight a dog. I'm really hoping you don't shed." He spat out.

---

Logan raised an eyebrow in response to Raiya licking her blade, followed up by a slight scoff. "Ah, yeah, well my speci-" Just after he opened his mouth to respond Raiya had shot behind him. The action had caught him off guard, immediately wiping the confident look he had on his face. Logan spun around just in time to push Raiya's thrust off to the side with his bat. He regained some of his confidence, now pointing the end of the bat directly at Raiya after the parry. The top of the bat also had a inscribed rune which immediately began to charge up bright orange.

However just before the spell could come to fruition, Nemo had already came up on Logan. He firmly grabbed the bat with his gloved hand, which immediately cancelled and absorbed his spell charge. And then used his other hand to push the knob of the bat back into Logan's chest. The jab was enough to knock the wind out of him, and if that wasn't enough, Nemo made it even worse by kicking him in the chest with enough force to drive him to the ground.

Logan recovered quickly by athletically rolling back to his feet. The end of his bat lit up again, now glowing blue. Despite the distance between them he swung at Nemo. A blue crescent shaped energy attack leaked out from the top of the bat during the swing, the same one shot at Travis earlier. The flight path was tricky, as it arced around Nemo before it hit him, instead going for Raiya.

[Dawnpath]

"Dogs have leashes. Like your ward," she replies, melting back into the shadows. She ended up briefly next to Zuri. "Help me out here mate. We paired off for a reason. No need to fight to a disadvantage. Blast em or something." *She fades back, now that the shockwave had dissipated, coming out of the ground behind the man feet first, in a fast kick. "Woof woof motherfucker." She anticipated he would probably block it, so she would also through a couple throwing stars as she passed.

[Accurian]

Zuri stands in a firm stance, holding her staff with both hands as she focused on what type of spell she wanted to cast, aimed it at the clairvoyant and channeled her mana through her staff, a bunch of missile-like orbs the size of snowballs that travelled towards the clairvoyant, roughly at the speed of a tennis ball. Unless her spell gets completely nullified, they will create a deafening blast when they come in contact with something. It's not a strong spell to make someone go deaf, but cause disorientation, hopefully opening a window for Zoey to strike.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya's attack at Logan's back wasn't a full fledged attack. Raiya was merely testing her opponent, seeing how well he could react to her attacks, and how fast he could counteract. From that one instance, she had enough information to make a full onslaught. But as she prepared to engage, Nemo stepped in. She had expected the counterattack, and was fully prepared to fein into it and end the fight there, but Nemo stepped in her way.

"Tch!" Raiya let out an irritated scoff. She didn't let Nemo's intervention throw her off, though. Her plan she had formulated still would work, even with the distance now between them. That was when Raiya felt the manawaves of a spell echoing towards them. it's heading towards Nemo- no the target is me! Raiya thought.

Thinking quickly, she used her enhanced flexibility from her tattoo runes to bend unnaturally backwards. The spell whizzed above her, her backwards bending flexibility allowed her to completely dodge the spell. The tattoo runes weren't exactly runes. Her iruzumi tattoos were an ancient shinto spell formula that integrated with her and enchanted her entire biology. There were others like her, with other shinto iruzumi tattoos that morphed their biology a bit, but only she possessed the hebi iruzumi.

After successfully dodging the crescent shaped magic attack, Raiya began to put her plan into motion. First she moved out in front of Nemo, and then stabbed her sword, "八岐の大蛇 (YAMATA NO OROCHI!)" Raiya shouted. Her sword's blade extended underground and then split into eight different blades which shot up all towards Logan. The blades were made of mana, but they weren't manaegis like Felix's spell created blades. They were temporary iron blades created by magic from the earth surrounding the original blade. As soon as the spell faded, the blades would revert to dirt once again.

[Cottonmouth]

Even with his clairvoyance, it was hard for Boslan to react quick enough to Zoey's attack. He took the kick straight to the chest, causing him to let out a grunt. After noticing the throwing stars, Boslan got his bearings back and used telekinesis to alter their flight paths, quickly looping them around him and back at Zoey.

Right after he detected Zuri's spell and spun around to face it. He used the same heavy telekinesis to try to stop the blasts in their tracks in a field. However as soon as Boslan used his magic to grip the spells, they all detonated into loud explosions. For a guy who relies on his mind, a headache would really be a pain. "Ah!" Boslan yelped, cupping his ears and adverting his gaze off to the side.

---

The crescent shaped attack had been dodged, but it continued on until it hit a shipping container and exploded.

Raiya's exclamation had tipped Logan off that something was coming, but he noticed a little too late it was coming from the ground. One of the blades has sliced him in the forearm, while another cut his thigh before he leaped out of the spell. If he would of noticed any later he would of been a shish kabob. Logan seemed to put some extra mana into his jump to give him unnatural height. While in the air he fired off a small blast from the tip of his bat. It came close to hitting Raiya, but ended up missing and connecting with the pavement besides her.

Anyone paying attention would of noticed that the blast left a small runic imprint in the ground. While in the air Logan used this as a relay point to suddenly teleport down to. He appeared mid-swing at Raiya, at least three different colored runes could be seen lit up on his bat now. But before he could start to bring the bat back towards Raiya to complete the swing, Nemo had intervened again by jabbing into Logan's side with his knee. The pain caused him to let out a howl of pain and froze him up before he could finish his strike.

Nemo then gripped Logan by his jumpsuit, one hand by his shoulder, the other by his waist, and used his unnatural strength to throw him at a nearby shipping container roughly eight feet away. Logan let out a preemptive "Shit!" before colliding heavily with the unforgiving steel side of the container. The container rattled in response to the impact, one might guess if Nemo had thrown him any harder he would of left a dent. Logan, thoroughly reeling from the toss, slowly stumbled back up to his feet, not in any shape to start an attack yet.

One might note that Nemo had taken a odd approach to this fight as compared to what was expected of him. For a fighter known for his offense, Nemo hadn't used one offensive spell yet, nor did he even draw a weapon. He had been acting completely defensively so far.

[Prodigal Son]

What Raiya expected from her attack was an opening. She had hoped that he would leap out of the way and then Raiya would use the opening as he was in mid air to land a strike that Logan could not escape from. And, Logan did leap in the air, like expected, however, before Raiya could use her enchantments to meet him in the air with an Iaijutsu finishing move, he used a rune to teleport back to the ground. Raiya began to formulate another plan, looking for a different opening. Raiya used a moment to materialize her scabbard, sheathing her odachi within it.

After a brief exchange with Nemo, Logan was sent flying into a crate, leaving him disoriented and created the opening that she was looking for. Using her biri biri no sokudo enchantment she moved to position herself in front of Logan within striking distance. She then charged her sheathed sword with mana, preparing it for her next spell.

""SEN HEBI NO KIBA! (Thousand fangs of the snake)" Raiya shouted, releasing her Iaijutsu technique. The same technique she had used on the giant ogre skeleton. She immediately unleashed a thousand crescent slashes within a 8 foot square area in front of her where Logan stood disoriented. If he could make it out of the kill path in time, chances were that he wouldn't leave unscathed, which is what Raiya counted on.

[Cottonmouth]

Hearing another spell be announced forced Logan to focus. He brought his bat up in a defensive positional and called out his own incantation. "MAGUS SCUTUM! (Magician Shield)" Causing a blue rune on the side of the bat to light up before projecting out a large shield shaped semi-transparent wall of blue energy. Logan thought he had nullified her attack, but he hadn't accounted for the sheer amount of slashes that were going to be dealt. The barrier soon cracked, signalling that it wasn't going to be enough. But if he tried to run the shield would drop anyways.

Logan opted to try to hold out, which the nervous expression on his face hinted that he wished there was another option. The cracks in the barrier had grown, and within seconds it failed entirely. Logan knew it was only a matter of time, so he tried to time in dodge to be as soon as it failed. But unfortunately before it could make it out he suffered three more cuts. One to his shoulder, another to his forearm, and finally one to his lower right side.

Logan was able to keep to his feet despite the damage, powering on to use his counter attack. "I love a girl who can make me bleed ya know." He spat out with a sarcastic chuckle as he prepared his next spell as fast as possible. Logan tossed up two more energy balls and struck them with his bat. Sending them soaring towards Raiya.

Despite it looking like he was just trying to hit her with two attacks, the reality of his spell was much more complicated. One of the balls suddenly detonated mid-flight into a bright flashbang. But the other carried on, missing Raiya and as soon as it passed her, Logan used it as another teleportation relay to put him in back of her.

Logan's bat was already charged with a orange concussive rune to inflict more damage as he took a swing at her right side.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya was satisfied when she felt the pull of her blade biting into flesh. Of course, no basic magic shield could hold out from her barrage, and she was surprised it held out as well as it did. After he dodged out of the main barage, Logan let out a quick quip, which Raiya smirked at. Then Logan proceeded to go fully on the offensive. Raiya was focused on the forward attack which was a ruse, and the blinding explosion might have disoriented someone other than Raiya, however, Raiya's senses were different than the normal mage's senses. It was a good attack, the blinding blast of the first attack was enough to even throw off the most keen manalysis user. However, Raiya did not need manalysis, nor did she rely heavily on it. With her enhanced sense of smell and sensitive skin, she was able to quickly track the movement of the mage without ever using manalysis, so most of the time she kept her manalysis suppressed only activating it when she was in areas that her enhanced senses wouldn't be as effective, such as the shipping yard. However, as soon as Logan and Boslan appeared, she suppressed her manalysis, relying on her enhanced senses instead, switching only into manalysis when she had lost the target with her regular senses.

When Logan appeared behind Raiya, she felt the warmth of his overworked body. She could hear hear his exasperated heavy breathing. She could feel the displacement of the air as he took his swing. Raiya deftly dropped down and twisted both her lower and her upper body, flipping horizontally under the bat swing. Mid twist she lifted her leg up to capture Logan's neck in a lock coming in at the right shoulder, if her movement succeeded, Logan would be flipped onto the ground, his head in a leg lock.

[Cottonmouth]

While the flashback didn't effect Raiya much, it had taken a toll on Nemo. His unusual eyes were weak against bright lights, and it made assisting Raiya afterwards unworkable.

Logan's swing continued on after the miss, making another attack impossible and also leaving him vulnerable. However his emergency reflexes helped him enough to use his arm to block Raiya's leg before things got ugly. Logan then used a basic spell to shuffle himself away from Raiya; he figured that fighting a close quarters battle was an unwise idea.

By this point Nemo had recovered from the flash, and Logan had now shifted over to him. He swung his bat with the unused rune from before, hitting Nemo in his side and discharging the increased force into his body with a unpleasant noise. In response Nemo's posture merely curved to the side from the hit. He gave no audible reaction from the strike, as if he had been attacking a training dummy, which unsettled Logan a bit.

"What the fuck?" Logan muttered in confusion, trying to pull his bat away. But it was to no avail, as Nemo had grabbed onto the weapon with one hand, not letting it budge. Nemo then used his free hand to strike Logan back in the face; causing Logan to nearly fall over if he wasn't still holding onto the bat. Nemo followed it up by jerking the bat inwards to pull Logan towards him into a savage headbutt, knocking Logan down to the ground once Nemo released the bat.

Nemo prepared to attack him again, but before he could Logan threw his bat up above one of the shipping containers and teleported to it, placing him on top of the container. Logan used his sleeve to wipe off a small stream of blood coming from his nose and took a breather before making his next move.

Nemo regrouped with Raiya after being given the chance. "Do you have anything in mind for finishing this?" He asked calmly.

Logan threw up a larger ball of energy than normal this time and batted it towards the pair. This one would explode in an even larger blast radius.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya stretched her arms out to each side, doing a bit of exercise stretches. "Sorry it's been a while since I have really let loose like this. I need to limber up." Raiya said to Nemo. Resuming her combat posture, she turned her attention back to Nemo, "My plan has been in full effect ever since I first engaged with birthday boy here. And, unless he has trained in resistance against poison, his right arm should be fully paralyzed within the next twenty seconds or so. Let's see this MLB wannabe swing his bat with an arm paralyzed." Raiya replied.

"So, he's probably going to send an attack out at us before the poison has fully taken effect. When you feel the attack come out, that's our queue to split up. Then what we will do is a two pronged attack in a scissor-flank formation. I'll hit him from the left first, which will leave his right open. That's where you come in with a quick attack, he won't be able to stop you." Raiya finished.

Right as she finished a blast sent out as an attack came just as Raiya said, it flew down to blow up Nemo and Raiya. Raiya was able to easily escape with her biri-biri aura. Right away she ran and hopped up on the container Logan was on, and sent out a horizontal slash at his left side with her blade.

[Cottonmouth]

The blast Logan shot out hadn't hit Raiya or Nemo, but it did plant a small rune on the ground in it's wake.

Logan could feel control in the areas where he received cuts start to fade, becoming stiff. What has she done to me? When Raiya rushed him he had all he could do to turn and block the attack by swinging his bat in the way of her blade. Rapid metallic thuds alerted him to Nemo now approaching from behind. Logan slid his bat off from lock it was in with Raiya's sword and twisted himself around as fast as he could, his runic bat raised up now by his still functioning left arm.

But it was too late, his bat would never come to swing at Nemo this time. By the time Logan had turned around Nemo had already reached him and planted his gloved palm right into the middle of his torso, discharging a powerful kinetic spell into his body. A shock-wave of pain rattled through Logan's body as the spell rapidly spread. He howled out in agony, a spatter of blood being released from his mouth.

Once the spell finished Logan was blown backwards, past Raiya, and slid to a stop near the end of the shipping container. From the looks of it, he seemed to be down for the count. But the silence was eventually broken by a cough, a guttural hack, as Logan managed to bring himself back to his feet. His breath was ragged-the venom didn't help-and most would have surrendered by now. Anything Logan had planned was likely reckless. The runic bat held hanging in his left hands grip slowly began to fill with energy, lighting up all the engraved runes placed on it one by one. He clearly had on last ace up his sleeve.

Logan suddenly teleported away to the rune from earlier, disappearing from sight. From below he spun around and hurled the bat towards the pair with as much force as he could. The runic bat began to crackle with energy as it whirled towards Nemo and Raiya like a boomerang, becoming unstable by the amount of spells it was charged with.

---

Nemo quickly turned to look at the bat. "Uh oh." He muttered once his hungry manalysis got a read on the amount of energy it was filled with. Once it closed the distance in to about ten feet the bat suddenly exploded into a giant purple concussive bomb with enough of a blast radius to completely wipe most of the container Nemo and Raiya were standing on from the earth entirely.

Escaping the kill-range of the explosion by normal means would be impossible. Logan figured that Nemo and Raiya were now just a relic of magi criminal history. However just before the blast triggered Nemo wound up his warp to as far as it could take them in the given time. He turned and tackled Raiya before it activated, transporting them both barely out of the range of the massive purple-y death. They both ended up on the floor, with Nemo still holding onto Raiya. Once he realized they weren't dead, Nemo let go of her with a small sigh. "Are you alright?" He asked afterwards.

[Dawnpath]

Zoey hit the deck as the sound bombs assailed her senses, her throwing stars flying over her head in some nondescript direction. Suddenly her help was becoming a detriment. Her form melted into a wolf on the ground, for realzies this time, and tackled the clairvoyant. Assuming this was successful, she'd push a paw to his forehead and start sending him nightmare visions. Lots of nightmare visions.

[Prodigal Son]

As expected, Raiya's sword strike was blocked by Logan's bat. Any normal wooden bat would have been cut in two by Raiya's empowered slash, but Raiya assumed the runes on the bat prevented such damage. After the attack was blocked Nemo came in as Raiya suggested, and placed a powerful well placed blow on the birthday boy's torso. Shortly thereafter he jumped away wounded, and threw his bat back at them. The bat was empowered by an immense level of magical energy and had Nemo not jumped them away, they would probably both be dead right now.

Raiya looked up at Nemo who was previously on top of her but was now standing up composing himself.

"Yeah, I'm fine. A bit sore, but I'm all good. Thanks for the save." She said as she got up and adjusted her right shoulder which was a bit sore from the tackle. "Should we track Babe Ruth down and kill him? Or do you think he's not going to be a problem anymore?" Raiya asked.

[Cottonmouth]

Nemo dusted himself off, thinking for a moment. "I'm sure he'll find a way to be a nuisance if we give him the chance. Besides, I like to finish the things I started." Nemo replied, and began walking back towards Logan.

Logan was sitting down with his back leaning up against one of the containers. He lit himself a cigarette to pass the time, the paralysis made it hard for him to keep mobile and help out Boslan. Despite his wounds a grin was apparent on his face after his supposed victory. A grin that didn't last long once Nemo and Raiya walked out from behind another shipping container and came into his view. "You gotta be fuckin kiddin' me." He muttered.

As Nemo continued to approach Logan began to panic, doing everything he could to bring himself to his feet despite the trouble he was having moving now. "W-wait WAIT A MINUTE HERE!" Logan yelled out with his arm outstretched once Nemo was only within a couple feet from him. "You can't kill me! Not if you want to make it on Seidon's ship." Logan added, his cigarette falling from his mouth.

Nemo paused, his head cocking to the side. "Hm?" He simply sounded out.

"Yeah, I know what you're after... Those are the containers Seidon was gonna pick up. I know what's in them, it's not worth the effort you're puttin' into it to just steal em. You must want on Seidon's little boat party, huh?" Logan explained between heavy breaths. "Well that's gonna be a problem if you kill me. Because that ship, and those crates, aren't going to timbuktu without my all clear. You got that?" Logan argued.

Logan seemed to settle down a bit when neither Nemo or Raiya made any moves. "Look, I think we've been goin' about this all the wrong way. I don't care about that ragged old man. He never did nothin' for me. If you want on that ship you shoulda just asked... How 'bout this, I'll get you lot on Seidon's ship scot-free, and in exchange you leave your little friend here with me. I'll be sure to take real good care of her. You can even have her ba-"

Logan was suddenly cut off after the sound of metal clacking together. His slight grin disappeared when he tried to speak again and all that came out was guttural gurgles. He spotted Nemo holding a freshly blood stained kris butterfly knife, and the realization of what happened sank in. Nemo had rapidly jabbed him with it in the throat. Logan felt a copious amount of warm blood begin to flow down his neck and stain his blue jumpsuit a dark bruised purple color.

Logan grabbed onto his neck to try to halt the rapid bleeding. Fear and pain set in as it was getting harder to breath, most of his breaths only resulting in him inhaling his own blood. Nemo suddenly stabbed him twice more in the side of the neck savagely, nearly knocking him over with the force of the blade being driven into his neck. Logan abruptly pulled back to avoid any more damage being done to him, but he stumbled, falling back and banging into the shipping container. Unable to keep himself up, Logan slid against the steel side of the container and fell to the floor, splattering blood from his neck on the ground in the process.

With three wounds on his neck now, any hope of stopping the bleeding with his hands was gone. He instead laid there, squirming and hacking as he tried to draw breaths unsuccessfully. Logan's motions began to die down before suddenly, he stopped moving altogether, succumbing to his wounds forever. The only thing that could be seen still in motion was the gushes of blood still flowing from his neck and pooling onto the ground.

Now that the dirty deed was done, Nemo pulled out a white handkerchief from his jacket and calmly wiped his blood covered blade and hand clean, disposing the sullied cloth by tossing on top of Logan's lifeless body afterwards. Nemo flipped the knife closed and placed it back in his pocket. He stepped over to the body and reached down, fetching his manadial from his wrist and then leaned back up and turned around to face Raiya with a blank monotone face.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya watched the panicked Logan attempt to talk his way out of trouble. And, to her, it seemed as though he made a valid point. However, before he could finish his proposal, the poor birthday boy caught 5 inches of steel to his throat a few times over.

Raiya cocked an eye halfheartedly. "I'm not one to debate strategic decisions. However, it would seem as though we might have actually needed that idiot alive." Raiya said in an uncaring tone. "What should we do now?" Raiya asked.

[Cottonmouth]

Nemo adjusted his jacket, a bit unkempt from the vicious assault he just dealt out. His actions definitely displayed the more frightening side of his impulsive behavior. "I would have sooner thrown the paragon into the sea myself than let that man lay a finger on you. But that was never the case anyways, we didn't need him." Nemo replied. "I swear, people put too much value on their brief chit-chats over manadial. It's certainly not the first time I've encountered that proposal, sure wont be last. But for such a good actor like me, it'll never be of any value." Nemo explained with a grin, putting his hand on his throat and adjusting his voice to mimic Logan.

---

Boslan hit the ground from the tackle, but was able to use his mental capabilities to quickly power through the onslaught of visions. He then attempted to push both his hands into Zoey and discharge a heavy concussive shock-wave into her to get her off him.

[Dawnpath]

Well, that would work. Not that he would know that at first. Zoey left a visual clone of her wolf form on his chest while she landed a bit away. She changed back into her human-like form as her illusion changed into bright light, stuck to Boslan's face. Using that distraction, she'd elbow drop him and try to knock him out.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya felt a bit disturbed by the overt emphasis Nemo placed on, "protecting" her. After a bit of mental deliberation she decided to just ignore Nemo's insanity. Raiya released her sword letting it evaporate into her manainventory.

I mean, if he isn't just being crazy for the sake of it, he is probably just trying to manipulate me. Either way, I won't let anything get in between me and my goal so it's best to just disregard it and focus on my goal of finding my parent's murderer Raiya's mind briefly wandered.

Raiya leapt on top of a shipping crate and sat down on it letting her legs hang off it.

"Well," Raiya said to Nemo with a soft undertone of forced enthusiasm, "That's a useful trick."

[Cottonmouth]

Despite the bright light, Boslan closed his eyes and used his advanced manalysis to locate Zoey, just in time to roll out of the way of her elbow drop. Boslan then levitated himself back to feet and dispersed the bright distraction stuck to him. Boslan had been getting a bit irritated by now, causing him to lash out by sweeping his arm across from right to left, generating a twelve foot tall wall off magic energy that rapidly swept across to hit Zoey. "A persistent one aren't you?" He spat out.

---

Nemo didn't face Raiya once she got on top of the container. He instead looked off to the distance in thought. Judging by what I saw happen to Mr. Hunley earlier, that intimate display with her sword earlier wasn't just for show. She must have venom in her saliva. That's an interesting thought.

"Indeed it is. That technique doesn't seem like all that much, but it's been one of my most effective over the years." Nemo replied. He suddenly got an idea, licking two fingers and running them through a lock of his hair, causing it to temporarily stand up. "Hey Raiya," Nemo turned around with one hand still on his throat, "Who am I now?" He asked, a goofy grin plastered on his face. Raiya's own female voice sounded awkward coming out of Nemo. "Do you think that Zoey and Zuri will be fine on their own, or should we swoop in and steal all the fun?"