DracoLunaris
Forsythe
Izurich
Archmage MCThe Wealth of Nations
Location: Midgar Sector 06, the City of Glass
Blazermate’s @Archmage MC, Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Sandalphon
Word Count: 10,376 (+11)
”Ah, gentlemen.” Karin tsked, walking into the room ahead of Zenkichi and Blazermate, hips swaying. ”The winds of fortune are changing. The meddler before you is Karin Kanzuki.” She bowed confidently. As she saw the size of one of the enemies, she focused on the shape of her ki and changed into a V-ISM combat style.
Roquefort glanced her way, curious, but if her words even reached Khamsin he ignored them. Instead his mech rushed at the giant wolf in a burst of speed, power building in his axe’s thrusters for a rocket-assisted cleave. Roquefort dropped down onto all fours and sprang backward using his arms. Khamsin’s axe missed by a mile, and as he struggled to halt his weapon’s momentum, Roquefort took the chance while crouching to thrash his tail to the left, then to the right, then spin around to send two blue energy tornados whirling toward his foe.
”If you both would be so kind as to cease this frankly ridiculous toy comparison contest and refrain from participating in the failure of statecraft that is warfare, I would be ever so grateful.” She said, and going by the smirk on her face, she was expecting them to continue to rip everything in this building apart.
"Well that’s not what I expected." Zenkichi admitted, frowning as the two giant cyborgs started duking it out. ”So, who are we helping out here? I feel like neither of these guys is exactly…respectable in any way, frankly.”
”I don’t know. Khamsin is a bit of a wild card, but he loves the common person. And I don’t know the other guy, he's nobody to me right now.” Blazermate said, flying into the room last as she had been making sure she
At that, Roquefort’s ears pricked up. “Not respectable!?” he barked, an expression of disbelief on his metallic, lupine face. He managed to contain his surprise long enough to leap over a shockwave Khamsin sent his way and come down on the mech with a double claw slash that doubled him over. As his tornados beat against the mech, locking Khamsin down, he bared his teeth at Zenkichi and Karin. “I’ll have you know I worked my bloody arse off to get this far! From death’s door to the top of the world, best in the business! If that’s not respectable…” When the tornados petered out and Khamsin began to rise, Roquefort hooked his massive claws beneath the mech’s undercarriage and heaved. “I don’t know what is!” With surprising strength he threw Khamsin into the air. Naturally the metal titan didn’t get much air time, but when he hit the ground he slid across the polished floor toward the Seekers, Khamsin yelling the whole time. As soon as possible he began to right his mech, which involved firing all thrusters in an almost breakdance-like spin to pick himself up, and right in the newcomers’ vicinity to boot.
”Yeah, I mean as a human being. Morally. Not as some heartless corporate cog.” Zenkichi rebutted, calling back after leaping out of the way of Khamsin's wildly flailing arms. ”Hey, be more careful where you swing those! You’ll bring this whole damn room down on top of us, you lunatic!” He chastised Khamsin, shaking his head. ”I know keeping your cool was never your strong suit, but gimme a break…”
“Buzz off, pipsqueaks!” the soldier roared.
Karin watched him spin from a safe distance, and as soon was he was done, she rushed in to punish the recovery, treating it like one of Sakura’s reversal uppercuts. She dashed forward and looked to drive her palms into the metal machine. ”Eeyah!” She was trying to gauge its durability. Bong! Karin might be strong, but this armor was designed to withstand tank shells. It would be easier to demolish a building by hand if she went at it this way.
Karin blinked in surprise. ”No, impossible!” She said, denying the thought outright. She began scanning the ugly mech for weakpoints. His big exposed human face was a good place to start.
Blazermate, being as cautious as she was with a big titanic battle like this, stayed out of the way of Khamsin's attack. ”Well… Make some arguments between you two on who is better. We’re just here to stop the fighting for now as there is a bigger issue around.” Blazermate said. Either way, she was showing her bias for Khamsin as she had healed him before and gave him a smile, well, what accounted for a smile on a robot with only eyes as their eyes for their facial expressions.
”I mean, honestly, I don’t care for either of them.” Zenkichi casually admitted, leaning on his sword as the two fought one another, even as Karin tested the DesporHado mech’s durability, frowning. ”Oh, okay. Uh…guess we’re fighting him, then? Or both? Both works for me.” Zenkichi said, hefting his greatsword and taking a fighting stance. ”But I think Roquefort is probably the bigger threat, what with the not being a rampaging psychopath with an insatiable bloodlust thing.” With that, he ran in towards the Vandelay Financier and started swinging.
”Both, of course!” Karin shouted back, affronted by the notion of anything otherwise.
Roquefort’s monocled eyes had been on Khamsin as he picked his mech up from where the giant wolf flung it, but before the mech could mount another attack, the CFO spotted a different kind of wolf charge his way. When Zenkichi struck him, Roquefort dashed away, his metal lips curled. His agility clearly put Khamsin’s to shame, but by the same token it cast a shadow of doubt on his own durability. “You’d bare your fangs at ME?” he growled. “You’ll pay the price!” He dashed about twenty-five feet at a time, twice in a zigzag pattern before leaping up to come down on Zenkichi in a giant slam. He reared back to let out a howl, then planted one forearm to take a gigantic swipe at the man the next second.
”Damn, he’s strong!” Zenkichi grunted as he barely blocked Roquefort’s slam, his bones nonetheless shaking from the force of the impact, and only half-dodged the follow-up, though he was able to recover from the stumble in time to call out for Valjean to attack, knowing he’d need some heavier firepower to deal with this baddie.
”One-Shot Kill!” Came the cry, as Valjean’s spectral chains rose and lashed out violently at Roquefort. ”Blaze, I think I could use a hand. And I’ve got an idea.”
“Grragh! That’ll cost you!” Roquefort snarled as he reflexively clutched his chest. The armor held against Valjean’s spectral gunshort, but it dealt a grip of damage, and Roquefort clearly wasn’t happy about it. He backed up and hunkered down on all fours, his tail thrashing from side to side.
Blazermate meanwhile had been finding a good spot to summon her engineer spirit who got to work making his nest. While the big mechs played, his sentry could do quite a bit of damage. She then moved over to Zenkichi when she called him, with a plan ready to go.
Her lack of attention paid -and perhaps inherent bias- to Khamsin came back to bite her at just that moment. Annoyed by the sentry’s gunfire, the wannabe Wind of Destruction drove his mech across the room toward Roquefort with a tremendous racket, threatening to sandwich Blazermate and Zenkichi between the two titans as he left Karin behind. Rather than plow through, though, he released one hand’s grip on his axe and snatched Blazermate from behind. “I SAID,” he yelled, slamming her down into the floor. “Quit BUZZING AROUND!” He then fired his lateral thrusters in opposing directions, causing him to spin in place with the medabot pinned between hand and ground. Sparks flew, and a terrible grinding noise filled the air.
The move provoked a sneer from Roquefort at Zenkichi. “You’d best not get between us, small fry!’ He then whipped around to send two energy tornados the detective’s way.
Karin grit her teeth as her opponent escaped her, and was completely outraged as he targeted Blazermate. She yanked herself forward with her grappling hook to break out into a sprint. She flung herself feet first like a torpedo into the side of the mech’s knee, avoiding his spinning attack against Blazermate to slip past. Though the impact with a heavy moving metal object hurt her, the blow destabilized the joint enough to force Khamsin to slow his spin lest he lose control. Then she backflipped off and got right back to her feet, this time targeting his knee. She would stay until she got hit if she had too, she had to start causing enough damage to get him to release Blazermate!
Grunting as Roquefort’s tornados forced him to dodge away from Blazermate, Karin, and Khamsin, Zenkichi shook his head. ”You said not to underestimate you before. How about you take your own advice!” Drawing his revolvers, Zenkichi unloaded them into the robotic werewolf, calling for Valjean to unleash a Megido blast before grabbing his greatsword again and rushing in on the attack. He couldn’t ignore Roquefort, so he’d have to trust Karin to get Blazermate out of harm’s way for now.
“Oof, augh!” With such a big target, Zenkichi’s projectiles and spells were difficult to miss. Roquefort dodged out of the Megido blast as soon as possible.
Blazermate meanwhile, was not having a great time. Khamsin in his attack had managed to not only knock away all of Blazermate’s overheal, but was doing some good damage as her paint got scraped away from all the sparks and grinding on the floor. She had activated her projectiles shield, but she could barely really get a good look at Khamsin with it to do much to him, but the edge of the shield was clipping his arm, hoping that this would help her break free, or she could build uber fast enough to use it before her arm part got disabled. Seeing her get hurt, her companions also did what they could to break her free. Apparently Khamsin wasn’t all that bright, considering now he had lost some potential allies for no reason.
Much to Khamsin’s continued aggravation, Karin just wouldn’t let him grind Blazermate into steel wool in peace. The flurry of blows she dealt to his right leg’s joint, despite how much that must be hurting her in return, threatened his stability enough that any more thrust might bring him down instead. As he slid to a stop, he glanced down at the aristocrat from his cockpit with his jaw clenched and veins popping in anger. “I’ll kill you!” With one arm he raised his massive axe and brought it down pommel-first to try and crush her beneath it. In his mech’s other hand he still held Blazermate tight, increasingly tight in fact as he tried to crumple her torso in its giant red claws.
”You’ll try!” Karin shouted, eyeing his other hand out of the corner of her eye. She had to stop her barrage for a moment to avoid the petty little pommel crush.
Toward the other side of the room, the old dog unveiled a new trick. After circling around Zenkichi with a string of dashed he extended a fist, activating the gauntlet around his wrist. A Rip Line launched from it with a hook the size of an axe head, threatening to skewer his target. In the likely event that it missed, however, it went on to lodge into the wall behind Zenkichi, and Roquefort proceeded to pull. A smaller, lighter grappler might have shot toward the hook, but Roquefort instead tore out a chunk of his office wall that flew toward him from behind.
Zenkichi did indeed dodge the Rip Line that Roquefort shot toward him, but he frowned for a moment when the giant robot wolf did not drag himself in for an attack. It was the sound of the wall being torn free that caused the Phantom thief’s eyes to widen as he leapt for his life, diving to the ground with little regard for whatever situation he wound up in after, so long as he avoided the chunk of office that was being yoinked directly at him. He managed to narrowly avoid the giant slab, which promptly sailed toward Roquefort instead. The big bad wolf brought his other hand around to smash it to smithereens, then gathered himself and pounced at Zenkichi for another big slam.
”GYAH, get me out of this thing!”” Blazermate said, not doing so well with her only course of action to keep her healing beam and healing drone on herself as Khamsin’s mech kept her pinned and tried to crush her. This was doing damage to all of her parts in quite a rapid fashion, and that was not good.
With his spin coming to a stop and Blazermate requesting aid, Karin decided to take more direct action. She dashed away and then hopped up, curling into a ball before landing on Khamsin’s hand. She grabbed onto it and began slamming her fist into the wrist joint over and over, punching her knuckles raw to get Blazermate out of the vice grip. ”I have you!”
“You don’t got shit!” Khamsin barked at her. With both ladies on one arm, he lifted it up, adjusted his aim, then slammed it down right on top of what he correctly identified as a medical drone. Karin’s efforts had worn down his arm’s grip strength, but the hefty impact with the floor did the same for her, and when Khamsin tossed Blazermate into the air Karin went with her. He brought his axe back as they went up, then blasted its rockets as they fell, hoping to turn both to paste with one gigantic -but very off balance- swing.
Zenkichi, meanwhile, was doing his best to fight off Roquefort. His opponent had size, some speed, and power on his side, but Zenkichi had quite a lot of staying power for a guy his age. He sidestepped Roquefort’s slam, though it left him in a poor position to counterattack, and called on Valjean to hit Khamsin with a Triple Down as he tried fighting off his own foe. Roquefort howled and reared his arm back for another large swipe, but this time Zenkichi got the memo, barreling forward instead of trying to dodge, and he brought his greatsword down in an overhead swing to capitalize on the opening. The heavy slash to the inside of Roquefort’s arm elicited a grunt of pain, and he instinctively stepped back. Never one to settle for less, he turned his backstep into a retreating revolution and lashed out with a huge tail slap, making the most of his speed and range. Then Roquefort spooled up his arms and a moment later sent them into overdrive, advancing with a flurry of sixteen light claw slashes in the span of two seconds, fast enough to become a blur of blue energy. His attack rush ended with a wind up into another big swipe.
As Karin dropped in what felt like slow motion into the massive swing, several options ran through her mind. It would be easy enough, she thought, to use a grapple hook and pull herself in any other direction other than right into the axe. But that would leave Blazermate exposed, assuming the Medabot was too frazzled from her damage to swing. Blazermate needed protection. Karin fired her grappling hook at Blazermate and wrapped her into a hug, turning them around so Karin would be the first to get hit by the chainsaw axe. Then she pushed the bot out of the way with her feet and braced for impact.
Not wanting to be hit by that next attack and having gotten a lot of charge from the constant, and panicked, healing of herself, Blazermate activated her ubercharge, giving the same benefit to Karin who had managed to free her, even if this was a bit more of a follow up attack from Khamsin. The mighty axe swing, even if a bit haphazard, hit the duo, but did absolutely nothing but knock them to the floor, an impact that also did absolutely nothing. In fact, the recoil from the negated impact sent a shock through Khamsin’s mech, and with a terrific noise it slammed to the ground, its limbs slack. “What!? How!?” the soldier yelled, tugging at the controls to no avail as his systems struggled to reboot themselves.
Karin opened her eyes, glancing down at her own body to find it not only completely unharmed, but glowing with powerful energy. She pushed herself into a sitting position, looking to her Blazermate. ”A-ah, I see!” Karin got to her feet and began sprinting at the slackened mech, thankful her glowing body was hiding her somewhat embarrassed blush. ”Well done, Miss Blazermate!” She called out.
Karin leapt upon the damaged mech, grabbing the top of the cockpit with her hands and using her her momentum and strength to knee Khamsin solidly in the chest with both her legs. ”Hiyah!” The double knee smash drove the air from Khamsin’s lungs. Gasping, he brought his arms -still strapped with the controls for his mech, up in a block to protect his head. At the same time, the mech’s arms feebly attempted to mirror his action, their systems rapidly coming back online.
”Thickheaded brute! Your nature can’t be hidden by anything, not even this unwieldy machine.” Karin berated. She held onto the lip of the cockpit with one hand and fired her fist into the blocking Khamsin with the other. Turning around, she saw her uber fade and the mech began to come off line. So she finished off with a throw, grabbing both of Khamsin’s arms and pushing them to the side, before again kicking him in the chest and pushing herself away with an elegant backflip before landing on the ground.
Zenkichi managed to block the massive tailswipe coming his way with his sword, though it left him rattled and reeling when Roquefort started his whirlwind of slashes. As the first blows landed, Zenkichi managed to grit out to Valjean ”D-Deathbound!!”, which caused a swarm of shadowy hands to emerge from the ground beneath them, aiming to pummel the robot werewolf. Roquefort could either tank the hits and punish Zenkichi, or abandon the attack with the hopes of also dodging the swarm of limbs. Either way, the Phantom Thief, stubborn and strong as he was, was clearly not having a great time on his side of the fight.
”Help him!” Karin shouted to her medabot ally, pointing at Zenkichi. ”I can handle this one myself!” Ideally such a boast would bait Khamsin into focusing on her more. It was also just a good tactical move, because Karin was at full-health and overhealed after the ubercharge was focused on her.
Blazermate was mad, but she agreed. Either way, Khamsin had all of his weakpoints now highlighted as Blazermate registered him as an emmy, much like Roquefort. Although for Khamsin his weak point was the most obvious, his organic body.
Zenkichi clearly needed the help, too–Roquefort had not relented his assault even as the wraithlike hands of darkness gouged his metal frame from below. Once the flurry assault softened him up, the final hit sent him spinning to the ground with flesh stab wounds. Then Roquefort jumped clear of Deathbound’s shadowy miasma, shaken but not compromised. “Money…is power!” What should’ve been a moment of respite left him frustrated as Blazermate’s sentry targeted him, riddling him with bullets. With a growl he raised his arm, took aim at the stationary turret, and then shot it with a Rip-Line. Just the giant hook slamming into the machine was enough to disable it, but Roquefort yanked on the line anyway to rip the sentry apart into a shower of nuts, bolts, and springs. The damage he’d taken up to this point was nothing to shake a stick at, and he wasn’t keen to take any more.
Blazermate made her way to Zenkichi and started to heal him. She had used her shield and uber to get out of Khamsin’s grasp. She also called back her healing drone, as Khamsin’s attack had damaged it quite a bit. She’d need to save it for later. Perhaps while healing Zenkichi she could get some ubersaw hits in, but his opponent was quite fast.
During this time, Khamsin rose from where his mech had slumped down, the axe hefted in his hands as he heaved himself forward with one massive, loud step after another. “You little fuck!” he spat at Karin. He lowered his weapon’s head to the floor so that its teeth scraped against the floor, then slid forward and swung at the woman in a spray of sparks. “Ooooo-RAH!”
Karin concentrated intensely as the mechanical warrior carved through the floor to get to her. She didn’t want to underestimate his maneuverability or intelligence, though he had thus far proven to not have much in either. Karin walked at a brisk pace towards the charge to throw off his timing and then side-stepped the charge when she thought he had committed to it. Though she preemptively jumped over any sudden swings coming her way. With Blazermate exposing his weaknesses, Karin’s plan was to exploit his eagerness to kill her and punish his attacks. If all her evasion was successful, she plucked herself out of the air with her grapple hook and flung herself to the ground between Khamsin’s legs, looking to target that already weakened knee joint. Her fists were as strong as any steel and packed full of ki, and she put them to work with precise, strong strikes. And just like that she was out, dashing with one arm behind her and the other across her as his foot slammed down where she’d been the second before. Karin tried to put herself in an awkward space for Khamsin- just out of arm’s reach for his mech, but closer than the edge of his weapon.
Practically seething, Khamsin forced his mech to dash backward, then burst forward again. As he slid across the ground, he fired opposing thrusters, causing the huge machine to rotate. It whirled like a black steel cyclone, wreathed in crimson as his giant axe dragged along the ground, but with the damage to his leg he could only sustain it for a moment. When it ended, however, he let go of his axe to unleash a gigantic palm strike with the mech’s left hand.
Karin jumped back to avoid the cyclone strike. As she finished her backflip she flinched, closing her eyes a split second before getting slammed by a hunk of metal shaped like a hand. ”Ukh!” She strained, launched back across the room. She landed with a tumble, dispersing the impact and popping back to her feet, sliding back a short distance further. ”Simple.” She said, maintaining her composure. That was a heavy hit, but street fighters let no fatigue show. Let alone a Kanzuki. She began to advance again, showing no signs of weakness. Having tasted blood, Khamsin came to her. He lifted his axe onto his shoulder with a loud clang, then slid forward and reached out for the heiress with an unblockable grab.
Karin knew getting grabbed was unacceptable. She would have to hope he would commit to it. She walked forward and jumped over the grab, looking to land on his head. She attached herself with a grapple hook to make her harder to dislodge.
”Just keep me alive.” Zenkichi told Blazermate as he pulled out a handy device he’d picked up from one of the Machine Spirits he’d crushed in the Valley: an EMP grenade. Activating the weapon and tossing it at Roquefort, he then howled, activating Fury, and rushed forward, his attacks now launching small shockwaves of magic energy with each swing of his blade.
“OWWWWW!” the financier howled, his mechanical body crippled by the EMP blast. He crumpled to the ground, leaving just one Wolf standing and free to whale on him until the last of his body’s current stamina had been depleted. On the final hit, Roquefort reeled backward, his wolflife features collapsing and contracting until nothing remained but the man he’d originally been, leaning on his cane. Though he breathed heavily, his eyes smoldered with anger, and the other cyan elements on his body glowed with the same fervor as he glared at Blazermate and Zenkichi.
”Stay down. You’re beat.” Zenkichi said, once his rather cathartic pummeling session ended, Fury no longer active. He held his greatsword in a ready stance, threatening to pop it over his shoulder and cleave Roquefort down the center, even as the other man was clearly powering something up. ”I’m serious. I can keep going a lot longer. You can’t. Just surrender. You’ve lost!”
Blazermate meanwhile wasn’t as merciful. ”Zenkichi, without a friend heart, hes just going to fight til he dies.”
“I’m only just getting started!” Roquefort scowled and raised his cane, flashing yellow. Zenkichi sighed and popped his shoulder up, swinging with his arms as his greatsword came down directly onto Roquefort’s cane, stopping only once it had carved a solid inch into the cyborg, Zenkichi staring directly into his face. ”You said they-!”
But things hadn’t gone quite as he expected. The Roquefort that Zenkichi struck was a rough approximation formed from murky, purple crystal that welled up in the man’s wake as he stepped backward through the blow. Then the scapegoat crumpled into a pair of floating bombs, spiked like jacks. Completely untouched thanks to EX Amnesia, Roquefort turned to run as the dark magic bombs stuck to Zenkichi like glue to blow up in quick succession a second later. “Know your place!” After reaching a safe distance, Roquefort snapped his fingers, using Departure. The air cracked and became a dark void above him, and as soon as possible he then thrust his cane into the ground, giving rise to a geyser of dark crystal spikes beneath Blazermate.
Blazermate wasn’t really in a mood to deal with all of this after having her heart broken, almost literally, by Khamsin. She’d continued to heal Zenkichi in his fight with Roquefort using her only free hand before he teleported away leaving a duplicate in his wake and bombs on Zenkichi. Due to all the self damage he had been taking, giving him overheal wasn’t the easiest thing to do, and on top of that she had to deal with a spraying geyser of the same dark crystals he had started to use on Zenkichi.
Blazermate did an evasive roll in the air, using her shield to take the brunt of what she didn’t dodge. She was really sick of this fight though, and urged Zenkichi to close in on Roquefort so she could teach that man a lesson, keeping him healed like she had been as she was worried about him dipping from the bombs.
”Did not expect that…” Zenkichi muttered as he recovered from the explosion of the bombs that had replaced Roquefort. He charged back in, greatsword at the fore, and let off a series of mighty swings while calling for Valjean to unleash a Megido blast on the man.
A hefty counterhit put an end to his assault as a crystal spike burst from the void Roquefort set up earlier as a defensive measure. With a grunt of approval, the accountant thrust his hand forward to conjure a clone of dark purple energy, which surged forward at a low angle to deal Zenkichi a parting shot as he landed. By then, though, Valjean’ Megido was falling. If Roquefort set up another Departure he might have been able to escape, but going for an extra bit of damage meant he couldn’t do anything else but try to block, and the Almighty explosion proved to be too much. “Argh!” Smoke wafted off the new burns and rips in his fine suit vest as he skidded to a halt, thoroughly roughed up by all the chip damage. With a growl he snapped his fingers, and another cracked void appeared a dozen feet in front of him.
Meanwhile, Khamsin was trying to get Karin off the top of his mech. While his initial grab missed, he reached for her again after the woman anchored herself to his armored roof, blindly grasping for her. Due to the orientation his the titan’s arms, they could only reach from the front, but after a fruitless moment he changed tactics. Rather than try to grab her he plopped the arm down on one side of the mech’s top, then forcefully swept it across the other side like a giant window wiper.
Karin braced herself to jump when the arm dropped onto the roof, and it slid underneath her, dislodging her grapple hook. ”Hup!” She landed back on the roof and rolled forward, going to once again grab the lip of the cockpit and swing her legs under. This time instead of going for Khamsin himself, she targeted his wrists independently with both her legs. Then she did the splits, looking to pin his arms against the wall. Essentially doing the splits. She learned on her last little visit the mech arms mimicked his physical body’s actions. After that she attempted to fire her grapple hook into the palm of his right hand and then attach it to the interior of the space, while hopefully keeping his left arm pinned with her foot.
The speed with which she arrived and restrained Khamsin’s arms left the soldier with no recourse. He struggled against her strength, the arms of his mech split apart to match his own, but could neither free nor even defend himself. “Shit, shit!” he yelled, spittle flying as he tried in vain to fight back against Karin. “Psycho! Get the hell offa me!”
”Ohohahaha!” Karin laughed at his insult and struggle, not exactly disproving Khamsin’s notion. With one of his arms trapped by her fired wire, she used her hook to latch onto the lip of the ceiling and brought her other fist back, still doing the splits, and began punching him hard in the face repeatedly with her free hand. She would do this a few times before clocking him up in the jaw and chopping his exposed neck.
Khamsin yelled in pain. Still in control of the mech’s lower half, he fired off its boosters and directed it forward. The machine quickly picked up speed and shot toward the hallway leading away from Roquefort’s office. Its arms, spread wide struck the sides of the corridor upon entry. They smashed through the walls to an extend, but eventually the arms failed and snapped off, even as Khamsin kept going. He grit his bloody teeth, crammed his eyes shut, and forged ahead. After a couple seconds, the mech burst from the hallway and zoomed toward the balcony edge overlooking the Atrium with its monolithic statue of Kale. The soldier dug in the pitons on the mech’s feet, and its momentum caused it to pitch forward as it continued to carve furrows through the floor. Some part of his delirious mind meant to fling Karin off into the void, but with how things were going it seemed more likely the whole mech would be going.
For a moment Karin gasped, failing to take the legs into account. She kept punching, but was distracted, peering over her shoulder. When the arms failed and snapped off, there was no reason for her to keep pinning his arms against the sides of the interior with her legs, so she drew them in to give herself more balance and control. Thankfully she was still attached via her grappling hook. Karin pushed off and up, and let air resistance take her over the top of the roof so she was still on top of it, her free hand and legs trailing behind her. With a jolt she was nearly flung back over the roof of the mech as it dug into the ground, but she grabbed onto the underside of the roof with her free hand.
Was the whole thing about to go over the balcony? It pitched forward, Karin feeling her core get pulled off the mech. Karin steeled herself and kicked herself up, her feet going high in the air as she did a handstand stand on the edge of the mechs roof. Then she swung her legs down and under, slamming them into the mech and leaning back as far as she could, pulling back on the grappling hook with both hands in order to secure its free fall over the edge. Though with her underneath it she would need to act fast afterwards, should her plan work.
”Hiiiyah!” Karin felt gravity shift in her stomach as she strained backwards, her hair ringlets hanging beneath her. Then wind resistance took them and her as the mech plummeted head first over the balcony. Detaching the grappling hook, she kicked off and away, and fired her hook blindly up into the wall behind and above. She bounced against the wall with a thud and peered down to observe the fate of Khamsin’s mech.
With her assistance, the already dangerously fast machine lost control completely, and with nothing but a flimsy glass railing to bar the way, Khamsin went over. In an instant his anger and desperation evaporated, replaced by pure, raw terror. As he fell, his screams echoed through the Atrium. “Oh God, oh God, oh GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD…!”
Karin let out a breath. ”Goodness…” Swallowing dryly, she was reminded of her time helping in killing Sephiroth while still under Galeem’s control.”My victory was assured, but your death could have been avoided. Still, this wasn’t my first time smiting an evildoer, and it shan’t be the last.” She said, and began to climb her way back up using her grapple hook.
Back in the office, Zenkichi had rolled with the latest hit, digging his heels in as he slid to a stop and desperately dove away from the follow-up Roquefort clone, drawing one of his revolvers and quickly sliding a single bullet into its chamber to blow the clone to smithereens before standing and reloading in earnest. His attack didn’t have any effect on the glorified projectile, but at least it seemed extremely one-dimensional in its movement. ”Alright, stay away from the crystal stuff. I can manage that.” Zenkichi muttered as he snapped the cylinders of his revolvers shut and took aim once again, firing a test shot at the void between them. His shot did nothing to the void, but after another second of inactivity the tear in reality spat out a crystal spike on its own, its two or three feet of length nowhere near enough to reach him. Almost instantly the spike broke and the void vanished, and after throwing a low clone at Zenkichi Roquefort went to snap his fingers to place another void near him for safety.
Now that he realized what the voids did and what Roquefort was going for, Zenkichi tanked a hit from the clone, before taking aim at the Finance Executive and unloading with one revolver as he tried to circle around the void that he’d placed to protect himself.
His round connected with enough force to knock Roquefort over backward, and as he took damage the void he’d placed in the air mended itself. With a growl the financier pulled himself up on one knee. There was still plenty of fight in him. “You know, you’re only making me angrier!” His position might look like one of vulnerability, but it also allowed him to tense his legs like a trackstarter, and the next moment he sprang forward. As he ran toward Zenkichi he changed forms again, quickly growing as he reconfigured back into wolf mode. With deceptive speed and reach Roquefort snatched his opponent and ran with him to the vault door on the far wall to smack and pin him against it. “Let’s take this somewhere more secure,” he rumbled, his metal lips and teeth inches away from Zenkichi’s ear. “So we don’t disturb the neighbors…”
With a mighty shoulder barge he bashed through the unexpectedly fragile vault door, and huge chunks of it went flying across a second room almost as big as Roquefort’s office, lined with columns of safety deposit boxes separated by floor-to-ceiling equalizer lights and sporting a glass wall on the far side. The wolf tossed Zenkichi onto the floor, and phase two began.
Blazermate followed Zenkichi, keeping him healed as Roquefort’s charge pushed him through the vault door. Since she had been healing the guy this whole time, she had another projectile shield, and as round two started, Blazermate activated said shield and tried to keep Roquefort in contact with it.
The twin-tailed annoyance quickly found herself turned upon. Roquefort let out an ear-splitting howl using Valkyr’s Warcry. The enormous buff boosted his armor strength by 45% and melee speed by 30% while also slowing down everyone within twenty-two meters by 25%, all for the next twelve seconds. While the slows from the projectile shield and Warcry balanced each other out, that still left the melee speed boost, so when Roquefort attacked Blazermate with the slash flurry he used earlier, he could get out a whopping eleven strikes per second for total of twenty-two rather than sixteen by the time he went for the final slam.
Zenkichi, a little bruised from the dragging charge, turned to Blazermate as Roquefort started unleashing a furious combo on her and gave her a quick defense boost with Rakukaja, before drawing his greatsword and rushing in to take advantage of not being targeted for once. He genuinely had expected Roquefort to be on his last legs, but he still had plenty of fight left in him thanks to Blazermate’s healing. He might as well return the favor.
Blazermate used a combination of her energy shield and her own shield to try to block the flurry of attacks heading for her. Due to the chaotic frenzy of the attacks, Blazermate couldn’t easily predict what distance to project the energy shield to block some of his attacks, so while a couple clashed against the projectile shield, most plowed through at which point she had to try to block them as best as she could. Either way, while she was taking damage, so was this guy as the energy shield zapped him, albeit lessened by his armor boost.
As Blazermate took the last hit of Roquefort’s attack rush and flew away, Zenkichi closed in and landed a good string of attacks. The giant wolf dashed away after he finished, quickly moving to the other side of the room by the glass wall. There, he let out another resounding howl, a yellow flash appearing behind him with big bold text that said BIG BAD WOLF, then began to breathe in. After sucking in vast quantities of air, he leaned forward onto all fours with his claws dug into the floor. A moment later, a cyclone funnel as tall as a bus blasted toward Zenkichi.
As Roquefort started sucking in air, Zenkichi’s eyes went wide as he recognized what was about to happen. Not specifically, but he knew a heavy attack when he saw it coming. ”Valjean, quick! One-Shot Kill!” He cried as he hefted his greatsword, using it to block what he expected would be a furious dash attack, instead finding himself flung backwards by the cyclone and slammed hard into the wall behind him.
As the whirlwind took hold of Zenkichi, his Persona’s magical bullet hit Roquefort in the forearm. He expelled the last of the air he’d taken in as a distorted yelp and rose, shaking his clawed hand like he’d just burned it on the stove. Of course, he got out of the exchange much better than his opponent, and the CFO gave a grim smile. “Just had to stick your noses in, didn’t you? But you ended up getting a lot more than you bargained for.” He turned his head and narrowed his eyes at Blazermate. “It’s not too late to run away. Or are you ready to bet your bottom dollar?”
Grunting and forcing himself to stand, Zenkichi took a deep breath before drawing his one loaded revolver and firing every round in the cylinder at Roquefort before calling for Valjean again to hit Roquefort with Megido and drawing his greatsword. ”I’m not going anywhere, man. You don’t hit as hard as Japanese cops do.” He taunted, semi-serious. The beating he got in custody wasn’t all that bad compared to what happened to Joker, but getting your head slammed into a metal interrogation room table hurt like hell. He could handle this, even though he ached like hell right now.
When Zenkichi opened fire, Roquefort put up his guard to mitigate the damage, but he kept a monocled eye out. When Valjean manifested, the financier knew that one of just a couple abilities must be in store, and he wanted neither to hit him. As Megido descended he mostly dodged it, only getting his tail clipped by the explosion, though that still damaged its tornado generator enough to disable that move. Roquefort bared his teeth and dashed in, closing the distance in a heartbeat to face off against Zenkichi’s greatsword with energy claw slashes, always with half an eye on Blazermate. Several times now the Medabot had acted with utter impunity, as if she never expected to be hit. If she tried to interfere again, he would prove her very wrong.
Well right now Blazermate was on the defensive more than the offensive, after having been hit so many times this combat. She had to spend a fair amount of time healing herself due to all the focus on her, but at least for now she wasn’t going to attack Roquefort right now. Either way, with all the healing, she’d have another kritz here soon.
Zenkichi did his damndest to match Roquefort blow for blow, but he certainly wasn’t fast enough to do any kind of fancy parrying or blocking like Geralt had when they fought. Where he shone, however, was his ability to soak damage. Only Ryuji, or some of Joker’s more defensively-oriented Personas, could rival him in that regard.
And Ryuji didn’t have Rakukaja back up. Giving himself the defense boost this time to buy time for Blazermate to heal herself while his life leech kept him going, Zenkichi roared in defiance with each swing of his greatsword, even as he and Valjean started to flag. They could do this. They could do this!
“Hmph!” After the storm of blows subsided, Roquefort dashed backward again. He’d left Zenkichi seriously hurting as Blazermate attended to herself, but the detective had given as good as he’d gotten. Fresh damage to Roquefort’s arms, head, and torso could be seen all over. “Not bad. But your mouth is writing checks your arse can’t cash!” He howled, unleashing what remained of his shields. The wave rippled across the room just far enough to reach Zenkichi and afflict him with paralysis. Then Roquefort reeled back to use Big Bad Wolf again, inhaling deeply. If he couldn’t evade or contest the unblockable wind funnel, the man would be blown away.
Unfortunately for Roquefort, Blazermate was one of a few who could clear status conditions and upon seeing Zenkichi get afflicted with paralysis, was on point to quickly give him a surge of healing energy, clearing the status condition almost as fast as he had gotten it. This also gave him a little bit of healing, but probably not enough to really make too much of a difference, depending on how long Roquefort was charging his attack.
”We’ll see who's ass can’t cash checks!” Zenkichi replied, before frowning. That was horrible. He barely registered the paralysis, so quick was Blazermate’s healing. He ran in and capitalized on Roquefort’s charging time with a howl, stabbing his greatsword directly at his torso, then brought it around for a series of powerful slashes, getting ready to try and dodge to the side if he didn’t manage to keep Roquefort from charging this attack up. No repeats of last time here.
Zenkichi’s rushdown brought him beneath Roquefort’s head just before the gale winds ripped forth behind him, so they did little more than dramatically billowing his longcoat as the detective went on the offensive. His attack rush against the wolf mech’s armored torso dealt enough damage to trigger the armor case’s emergency shutdown mode, and as Roquefort staggered backward, he shrank back down into his short, squat self. “Augh! Lay off!” With no time to run or prepare, he could only hold tight to his cane as he went to defend himself.
Blazermate, seeing an opening, decided to see if she could get some more uber from this fellow as she pulled out her ubersaw and tried to hit him a couple times. She had healed herself up a bit, but both her and Zenkichi needed more of it. Still, if this guy was weak now, more uber would be helpful in case he pulled out another whacky power.
Zenkichi planned to take full advantage of Roquefort’s reduced size and speed and whale on him just as hard as he had been before, each blow given reinvigorating him just a little bit. What part of him might have felt bad for beating on this old man had been wiped out by the vicious beating he himself had received. Unfortunately for him, things went south almost instantly. Roquefort had bit his tongue while Blazermate poked at him with her doohickey, but the minute Zenkichi tried to punish him he whipped out Old Reliable. EX Amnesia completely nullified the detective’s first strike and stuck him with two floating crystal bombs. “They never learn,” Roquefort declared, psycho power welling up into an orb in his free hand. By crushing it in his palm he unleashed his pent-up super meter on Lovushka, creating four voids around his enemies, two at knee level and two above their heads. “Do enjoy this.” Then he just sat back and blocked to stop a possible hit from canceling out his projectiles, and watched the show. One after another, clones shot from each void in turn, the order being low in front, high behind, low behind, and low in front, with the Amnesia bombs going off in sequence somewhere in the middle.
As the crystal bombs appeared, Zenkichi cursed and redirected the swing of his greatsword, though the heavy weapon carried too much momentum for him to get out of the way in time. ”Ah, damn!” He grunted as he was hit in quick succession by the clones before the bombs went off in his face, though he managed to get out of the way of the last clone with a lucky dodge as he stumbled from the third clone’s hit. Breathing heavily, Zenkichi let the tip of his greatsword hit the ground, looking back up at Roquefort.”Man, I’m…used to having a lot more healing than this. No..no offense, just. Hoo boy.” Zenkichi complained. Joker typically kept at least one Persona that could give a heal, and almost all of the other Thieves had something they could top him up with. Blazermate was just one medabot, though.
”Perhaps you’ve come to rely too much on abundant healing then, Mister Zenkichi.” Karin said coolly, landing at his side from a grapple hook swing into the room. She took her fighting stance at Zenkichi’s side, trying to size up her new opponent. While she, of course, rated Zenkichi’s skills as lower than herself, with Blazermate’s help, the only way Roquefort should still be fighting on even terms was if he was exceptionally talented. No doubt boosted by the wicked rules of the world they inhabited (otherwise Karin would be at the top of the pyramid of power where she belonged).
With victory seemingly in his grasp, Roquefort took one look at the newly-arrived heiress and decided she needed to be dealt with straight away. He snapped his finger to set up a Departure in front of him for defense, then raised his cane and shot out a Psycho Power clone at her, its hand outstretched.
”Yeah, well if I could use Medigolaon or Agneyastra we wouldn’t be talking here…” Zenkichi muttered, frustrated at the block keeping him from accessing Valjean’s most powerful abilities, but he shook his head and did his best to keep in a good stance, sidestepping the attack that was not aimed at him.
”Well sorry, I'm not a Neutranurse. But you don’t want one of those anyway. All they can do is heal, and they crumple under any sort of pressure.” Blazermate said, moving back and getting ready to deploy her next super buff, giving everyone some healing as Roquefort was in more of a defensive stance now, with his damage output plummeting. Once he was open though, some Kritz would show him what for.
Karin opted out of the quips, her eyes widening in confusion as the violet shadow streaked towards her. ”Psycho power?!” She exclaimed, baffled. She crossed her arms in front of her to block the projectile. Roquefort’s Embrace promptly snatched her in an unexpected command grab, and as the financier raised his hand into the air, so too did the clone lift Karin. “Away!” He closed his fist and the clone exploded, knocking Karin down. His Departure went off a moment later, though way too far away to actually extend the Embrace into a combo, and Roquefort began to set up another, this time directly over Blazermate.
Karin compressed her lips, angrily dusting herself off as she rose into a standing position. ”Simple.” She said, intent on never falling for an attack as simple as that again. Karin dashed in, going low as she saw the object appear over Blazermate, assuming it was some kind of attack. She went to crack his leg with a balanced crouching kick. Roquefort responded by blocking low, though when it came to melee combat in his human form he wasn’t as fit as he could be. Karin’s kick dealt a little more chip damage and left him in a little more blockstun than normal.
Karin noted this, and dashed in to do a repetitive series of palm strikes, expecting Roquefort to block most of them. It wasn’t a true offense, Roquefort could interrupt at any time, but Karin looked to suppress this instinct by following up with a wickedly fist downwards backhand that would shove Roquefort out of danger if blocked but would crush him if he attempted to interrupt.
”Let me know when one of you wants a kritz to finish this guy off. I don’t think that defense will handle that very well at all.” Blazermate said, ready for this fight to be over and done with.
”More than happen to put this guy on his ass.” Zenkichi grumbled, moving in to assist with the pummeling with an overhead slash before shoulder-checking Roquefort and launching a slow, heavy follow-up slash from his hip to his shoulder. He finished the short combo with a call to Valjean, ”Triple Down!”
When Roquefort saw Zenkichi’s big swing, he seized his opportunity. Once again he used Amnesia, planning to catch the man mid-swing, but the detective held it for way longer than he expected, and Amnesia failed. “...Oh dear.”
The Triple Down blasted him backward, smashing him through the glass wall. He sailed out over a gigantic hoard of gold coins covering the vault’s entire floor, dozens of feet deep. While common sense would dictate that he’d splatter against the top of the coins like a bug against a windshield, Roquefort disappeared into the pile as if it had the consistency of sand, only a splash of coins heralding his impact.
”Uh….now that’s some cartoon logic right there.” Zenkichi simply stated, blinking.
“Hmph!” After a moment, some of the coins began to shift. Roquefort’s head poked up from the hoard as he calmly climbed out, adjusting his tie as the money jingled noisily. “I put my stock in futures.” With a frown he delicately pulled off his monocle and slipped it inside his vest. “...But not yours.”
With that he quickly transformed again, regaining his giant wolf mode. “The funny thing is, you all think you can win, heheheh,” he chuckled, his deep voice filling the vault chamber. He sounded tired, but pissed. “But my Rage Drive fuels me. As long as you keep making me mad, I’m not going anywhere.”
”You’ve gotta be kidding me…” Zenkichi muttered, shaking his head. ”So, what, do we just…not hit him? Let him just kind of tucker himself out? Or what, just keep hitting him until he’s too tired to keep going? This is getting ridiculous…” Nonetheless, he jumped once more into the fray, rolling his shoulder and hefting his greatsword after he landed. ”I’m good to keep going.”
”Well, I doubt he can survive a Kritz. I gave one to Bowser once, and he killed an immortal lich girl with an army of undead that took over an entire sector .Robo wolf can’t be nearly that strong.” Blazermate said, pointing out that he can’t last forever. ”If he was that strong he would’ve taken over the city, beaten the ever crisis, and expanded anyway.”
”Everybody’s got a limit,” Zenkichi agreed. ”Alright, lay it on me.” And with that, Blazermate gave him the crackling blue energy of a krtiz boost, with her own arms glowing with the same energy, as Zenkichi’s weapons also glowed with the same energy.
Thrumming with kritz energy, Zenkichi charged forward, intent on ending this fight. He roared as he clashed with Roquefort, putting as much as he could behind each attack he let off. Blazermate holding the Kritzkrieg’s beam on him would keep him standing, hopefully, while he overpowered this False Wolf in front of him. He swung, and swung, and swung furiously at Roquefort, an overhead swing followed by a horizontal slash, which was then followed by an overhead swing. He finished the combo by kicking off the ground with one foot, spinning in the air, and hefting his sword with him in a near-360 degree overhead swing from where the last landed, using both his body weight and the momentum of his swing to maximize the damage he dealt.
More than able to hear what Blazermate said about the ‘kritz’ and see what Zenkichi looked like in possession of them, Roquefort pulled out all the stops. He reared back, but rather than howl, he screamed. The blue light in his body turned from blue to a searing yellow, extending his claws into vicious talons. With Valkyr’s Hysteria online, he charged across the dunes of coins to fight Zenkichi to wolf-to-wolf. He fought with savage, reckless abandon, not even trying to defend himself as he scored hit after grievous hit. And the reason why quickly became abundantly clear:
Roquefort wasn’t taking any damage.
He laughed as he fought, shrugging off every hit with minimal effort. “Are you beginning to understand?” After a few seconds more Zenkichi’s kritz ran out, and Roquefort leaped into the air, somersaulting rapidly. “Money. Is. Power!” When he came down, he did so with a titanic slam that sent a wave of coins through the entire hoard. The detective dodged the deadly blow, but a moment later, Roquefort ran out of Energy. Hysteria deactivated, and as it did thirty percent of the damage Roquefort took while using it radiated outward within five meters as Impact damage, practically pulverizing all the gold in his immediate vicinity.
Zenkichi groaned as Roquefort’s explosion vaporized a huge amount of gold. ”Gotta be kidding me..” He muttered as Valjean manifested behind him. He was tired, sore even with all the healing he’d been getting, and frustrated. This guy seemed to just keep going. Whatever that Rage Drive crap he was talking about was, Zenkichi couldn’t be sure. Some sort of software in that robot body of his? Did it absorb his adrenaline and use it to power his werewolf form?
This was out of his wheelhouse. ”Blazermate, got any ideas to keep him from transforming back if we can pound him back down?” He asked as he moved back in to fight.
Karin watched all that from a safe distance as soon as Zenkichi took over. She jumped back to the side of her allies. ”The Rage seems to be over, now, yes?” She pondered. ”He baited out the use of our most powerful move by using his. But he was losing the battle before, and he is still losing now.” Karin said.
“You wish!” Roquefort told her halfheartedly.
”Are you alright?” She asked Zenkichi, standing in front of him and eyeing Roquefort down. She was preparing for an all out assault from the frenzied wolf, and was ready to try and counter any moves he threw her way with a dodge and a punish.
She eyed Roquefort, though, and hoped to extend the lull in the battle to give her friend some time to heal. And maybe something good would come out of it. ”Even if you win this battle, your company is in shambles and will soon be under new leadership. You’re smart enough to understand there are more types of power than money, yes?” She said, eyeing the preposterous amount of gold coins all around them. The financier grunted resentfully.
”And my goodness, sir, have you ever heard of a bank?” She asked.
Roquefort huffed. “Those DespoRHado fools aren’t trying to take us over. They’re trying to take us out. They’ve done some damage, sure, but they won’t win. And we’ll bounce back, like always. As long as we have the capitol, anything’s possible.” Though still ‘in the fight’ he was using the lull to recover his stamina and shields too, but as his heartrate slowed his anger was slowly subsiding. “Speaking of, perhaps I could pay you to piss off. Killing you in here would make a fine mess, and laundering money is illegal, you know.”
”Ah, too true, on all counts.” Karin said with a little laugh. ”Still, I know a bad investment when I see it, and a private security company being invaded isn’t a good look for investors, though it hardly reflects much better on DespoRHado. Speaking of which, you know we’re not with them. We’re here to change things. For the better.” She turned over her shoulder at her two allies with a raise of her eyebrows, like she was a little surprised she had actually gotten into a conversation with him at all.
“You attacked me first!” Roquefort protested.
”Well, we also defeated your other attacker, so maybe we’ll just call it even?” Karin offered cheekily. ”There is one more type of power, the one most potent: knowledge.”
Blazermate let out a mechanical sigh. ”I suppose loot is loot at the end of the day. We’ve got important things to do and I suppose we were here to break up the fighting here at the end of the day. ” She said, annoyed with the fight but healing her own wounds back up as everyone else was also taking some time to rest. Pulling out a friend heart, she said. ”We can talk civilly.” and with her flight speed, got in range to smack him with it as he was also recovering.
“Augh!”
Zenkichi let out a long breath, stowing his greatsword and lifting his hands above his head to breathe a little easier. ”Yeah, I’ll live.” He confirmed to Karin before taking a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds, and letting it out before shaking a little weariness out of his bones. ”Finally, change of heart done with!” He cheered half-heartedly, looking around. ”Man, what I wouldn’t give to have this much cash stashed under my mattress.” He joked, locking his fingers behind his head as he looked around.
“Urgh…” Roquefort put a hand to his head as he shifted back into human form, leaning on his cane knee-deep in gold coins. “Let’s just…call it even, then. You’re right about that DespoRHado goon, after all.” He gave a mirthless chuckle at Zenkichi’s joke. “Heh…heh heh…if only this were all mine. Still, email me your routing number, and I can approve an expense from Accounts Payable.” He pulled out a business card and with an expert hand tossed it to Karin like a frisbee. “Somethin’ tells me our pool of liquid assets is about to get a lot shallower…ugh, damn it.” He winced, glancing at the Seekers. “Off with you then.”
Karin caught the card between her fingers. ”A reasonable conclusion. I’d give you mine but…I didn’t bring my butler with me.” Karin said. She made a mental note to back and retrieve her assistant. She’d gone too long without one.
”... Does, does anyone have a banking account here? I think only Susie does, right?” Blazermate said, looking a bit dumbfounded and frankly, confused since this didn’t involve anything a medabot ever dealt with.
”I literally live here…” Zenkichi reminded her, scratching the back of his head. ”You guys beat me up and did that to me, like…two days ago.”
”Oh… right. I forgot. I’ve been like, in so many different weird places it’s hard to keep track of every little detail.” Blazermate said, lightly bonking herself on her head. If she had a tongue, she would be sticking it out.
Shaking his head, Zenkichi chuckled a little. ”Nah, I get it. It’s…a lot. And yeah, I’ll probably take you up on that, sir. And uh…I guess it’s time to go?” He shrugged.
”We must reunite with the others as soon as possible. I doubt everyone will be as open to diplomacy. Khamsin certainly wasn’t. I doubt he still lives.” Karin said, moving to leave the vault.
