[center][h3]The Fungal Knight[/h3] Location: the Big Top [@Banana][/center] Having reached his goal, the clown wiggled his fingers in gleeful anticipation before plucking a ray gun of comical proportions from the weapons cache. With that ludicrous firearm in hand, he turned to take aim at Bonesword, only to find him nowhere to be found. All that remained were a few leaves on the ground, and the sound of another automatic door closing. After a moment, the clown gave a disappointed gurgle. Where could the intruder have gone? He began his slow trudge in pursuit, taking a guess as to the direction in which he started his search. The skeletal swordfighter sought an exit, but far more readily than an avenue out of the Big Top, he found other clowns. A huge variety of the creepy creatures infested the ship, all busy with one task or another, the appearance of the devices that they operated making every duty look ridiculous and trivial. Though quite occupied by their various pursuits, they took no time at all to take notice of Bonesword as he zoomed by, and many drew weapons from their oversized pockets or from beneath their hats in their attempts to catch him. More than a few blasts of popcorn and acid-filled pies smacked into the walls near him or his quick-moving mount, but aside from the stray kernel he managed to elude them all. Still, with every twist and turn through the bizarre funhouse more clowns were alerted to his presence, making the chase more and more dangerous. Most important was the perception and subsequent avoidance of dead ends; if forced to double back by one, he would essentially be throwing himself upon the mercy of the pursuing clowns' response times, and sooner or later they wouldn't allow the basilisk to sail over their heads. Fortune favored Bonesword, however, and a short while into his wild chase he stumbled upon a circular room at the Big Top's center. Here, where a large colorful machine that might have been an engine span and made wacky noises, stretches of the floor were made from fabric rather than plastic or metal. Not impervious to cutting, those lengths of tarp could easily permit a desperate swordsman and his trusty seed a swift if perilous exit, provided they could escape the posse of clowns that gained on them even now. [center][h3]Sunspot[/h3] Location: the Park [@FloodTalon][/center] Two rushing walls of leaves collided, expansive enough to trap and eliminate practically any threat, yet once again Jin proved his alacrity more than a cocksure boast. Having escaped the leaf cascade with only a few scratches and no visible injections of the leaves' fluid, he took aim with a pistol that Pieter -ever observant and keen of recollection- recognized the moment he saw it. “Took long enough,” he muttered, then spread his hands apart. A fourth of the leaves, specifically those closest to the stand user's opponent, broke off from the main reservoir and surged forward. They flattened out as they flew, becoming a wall that caught Jin's stream of flame and continued to advance even as it burned to ash; Pieter's hope was that they might burn back the one who burned them, though even if that ploy didn't succeed, he'd exhausted one of his foe's options while protecting his resource. When the smoke cleared, a cloud of leaves still circled around Pieter's tree. He dared not expose himself, but the noseless man could not keep silent. “Save your breath for when I get serious, kiddo!” Above, small portions of the reservoir began to break off and shoot toward Jin. The leaves packed themselves tightly together, crushing themselves into dense, razor-sharp blades that spun through the air like boomerangs. A few dozen of these flying blades zipped Jin's way, some looping around to attack from several angles at once. [center][h3]The Cereal Killer and Book Keeper[/h3] Location: Flooded Historical District [@Propro] [@BCTheEntity][/center] Aralynn tracked the pirate as he made his move, fabricating a raft of cereal in a mad rush straight toward the siblings' position. “Foolhardy at best,” the woman criticized, raising a hand his way like a wizard casting a spell. To Motley, her fingers and palm opened up to reveal secret, miniature missile silos, which without further ado rocketed their contents forward. The sticky projectile of Captain K. Runch never got near; it appeared to burst apart in midair. A second later the remainder of the missiles exploded at his feet, the palm-missile in particular large enough to render his raft asunder with its explosion and send the devil fruit-eater into the drink. By that time, her earlier salvo had been dealt with by Motley's cunning defensive maneuvers. No illusions persisted in the twins' mind about the fighting ability of their vampiric adversary, who'd demonstrated in the tournament so far a terrifying capacity for using every resource at his disposal to take his enemies down. Every part of him could be made into a weapon, in ways ordinary humans just couldn't conceive of. All the same, Aralynn and Davian assailed him with certainty that they could find away. If their new power couldn't deal with this threat, after all, what was the point? While she kept her attention fixed on Motley, who appeared to be buoyed above the water by his own pitch-black stand, her brother examined Erina before she disappeared. Doubtless she'd notice that during her jaunt, not only did the Boys of Summer react to her movement, but some would move to follow her. With this many elements in his stand, he knew he couldn't possibly use any one of them as a conduit to see in the manner that the Barnabys could. “The spiritualist is attempting to flank us,” he informed his sister. She gave a nod in reply. “That leaves only Crue for now. Stay focused; I'm sure he's about to attack.” Her next plan of action she did not state aloud, for while she knew not their extent, she knew Motley's senses to be superhuman. She doubled over, and from her back ten large missiles burst forth. They sailed straight up, their turning radius nothing to admire. After that, Aralynn knelt, and at the same time released both a large missile from each palm and a huge one from her knee, comparable to the size of her leg. The three shot Motley's way, even as the earlier ten converged on their target—not the vampire, but the top of a nearby church steeple. The first six hit at once all around the edges, neatly blasting the entire top of the tower off, and the remaining four hit one after another to guide its fall, so that it might plummet toward Motley like a boot toward a roach. [center][h3]Malveil[/h3] Location: Main Street [@Roughdragon1][/center] Following the brief but intense struggle with the shadowy ambushers, and none the worse for wear, Malveil made tracks through the city. He left the great pit, and the sight of the colossal crow, behind as his path took him through streets. Here and there, pockets of walking corpses gurgled and gasped as they meandered around, but even in groups they posed no threat to a real combatant. Once in a while, from dark alleyways and closed manholes, the harrowed shrieks of other monsters like the ones Malveil dispatched could be heard. They did not appear to be able to spring their traps and materialize in fighting form unless one went out of his way to investigate the sources of the noise, but they did not appear to be the only threat. As the buildings grew shorter and dingier, the street trash thicker, and the public utilities like phone booths older and less operable, the possible avenues of attack rose. Out of the corner of his eye, Malveil could glimpse discrete movement among murals and displays of graffiti, but a direct look would reveal nothing out of the ordinary. Some time later, the row of tenements to the left opened up into a bridge across a brown river. On the other side a misty, tiered neighborhood occupied the almost conical island, its only light a bar by the name of Slow Dancers' that stood dead ahead. On the right of the bridge on Malveil's side, a sign read 'Welcome to the Village' next to a map display, complete with a 'you-are-here'. Using the map, he could tell that the quickest route to the ocean on the City of Echoes' left side would be to follow the river on the Village's opposite side, where a street that traced its bank could take him straight there. In the opposite direction, on a defunct fire station's brick wall facing the bridge, was an especially eye-catching piece of street art: the intricately spraypainted image of a shaggy, bipedal creature with antlers and huge fangs. Its milky white eyes bore no pupils, yet they seemed to stare outward Malveil's way.