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[color=8258fa]Level 2[/color] - (6 - > 9/20) EXP
[color=8258fa]Location:[/color] Peach's Castle -  Throne Room
[color=8258fa]Word Count:[/color] 788 (+3 EXP)
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As expected, the heroic troupe wouldn't be able to keep the king on his back, and not for lack of trying. Virtually every available ally present relentlessly pummelled and peppered the downed tyrant for as long as his predicament and temperament would allow, which wouldn’t give them long. After a moment of uninterrupted punishment, the doppelganger decided he had enough and explosively unfurled his burning wings, propelling himself back upright and forcing his attackers off and away from him. Luckily for her, Hat Kid was already positioned far enough outside of the blast radius to not get caught in the fires, but was still thrown from her feet and back towards the broken entryway from the force. She managed to right herself onto three points as she slid to a stop, picking her head back up to look upon the rapidly redeveloping scene. The usurper beckoned them forth to their deaths; few answered--some to his satisfaction. What the child witnessed next was, if she was being honest, horrifying.

The pet killing machine: scrapped; it’s teenage master: pulverized; her friend, the assassin: bisected. All so suddenly--in spite of their best efforts--they met brutal, violent ends. Kid’s eyes went wide and her mouth agape with shock and the sudden and gruesome turn of events that she just bore witness to, powerless to do anything about it. It was then that it truly started to set in for her just how grave, perilous, and unforgiving this new undertaking that she inadvertently found herself a part of was. Less than half an hour she had been in this world, and already, she saw to comrades die in vain for a common cause that she wasn’t even aware of yet. She never even got the chance to properly meet them, which did precious little (none good) to make any of it any easier to watch. For the time being, however, whatever her thoughts or feelings on the matter, she would have to harden herself to it. The cowboy and commando, having reclaimed and assimilated what looked to be the life essences of the now deceased, seemed content to do as much, so she would do the same.

Then, it occurred to her that between the commando’s retrieval and the assassin’s assassination attempt, this made twice in under a minute MegaDragonBowser had been snuck around. This meant that there were places where he wasn’t looking; places where SHE wasn’t looking. If the onyx supports in the room made for an obvious solution, perhaps there was a [i]less[/i] obvious one elsewhere. Her train of thought was momentarily interrupted as she braced herself a second too late for the shallow tide of tile that threatened to roll over them, only to be saved yet again by the wing-eared-armed(?) shield warrior when he somehow, to her amazement, managed to divide the earthen wave around everyone behind him. Luckily, that included her. With a moment bought back, the child resumed her musings. With her eyes closed and fingertips to her temples, she bore the appearance of one trying to think in a hurry, which she was in fact doing, but also, she was checking her hat to see if it could find something, ANYTHING nearby that could be of use. Whether it be at the back of the room, along the sides, at the top, directly outside of it, or wherever else, she was all but certain that there had to be a better answer [i]somewhere[/i]...

Then, as if arriving at an epiphany, her hat picked something up. An imaginary waypoint directed her to an objective that lay out of the battle, at a door on one side of the throne room that lead -judging by a nearby cylindrical bulge in the wall- to a spiral staircase leading upward. She spared not a moment more of hesitation as she beelined for the stairwell, taking advantage of the ongoing chaos to stealth her way to the other side of the room. In the unlikely event that any of her allies notice her leaving, she hoped they would understand that she wasn't abandoning them, but simply trying to find a better way. After all, she wasn't much good to them in the fight as she was. Whatever it was she expected to find that would somehow help, she would hustle her way up to find out in a hurry so she could return in time to aid the others.