[center][h3]Tora & Poppi[/h3]
[b]Level 5 Tora[/b] - (24/50) EXP and [b]Level 4 Poppi[/b] - (22/40) EXP 
[b]Location:[/b] Adventurers' Guild, the Land of Adventure
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1482[/center]

[center][hider=For Bowser]New item acquired:
[b][url=https://www.mariowiki.com/images/6/6f/Mallow.gif]Mallow Sticker[/url][/b]
A bit of plastic with adhesive on one side and a picture of Mallow on the other. When worn, it grants the wearer slightly increased damage on traded attacks (that is, attacks landed while getting hit).[/hider]

[hider=For Michael]New item acquired:
[b][url=https://i.redd.it/50xczs7demsx.jpg]Stealth Costume[/url][/b]
An adaptable outfit that can change to suit its wearer. Its dark material grants great camoflauge in the dark and near-silent motion, while those goggles feature night vision. Though light, it has respectable defense.[/hider]

[hider=For Hat Kid]New item acquired:
[b][url=http://ep.yimg.com/ay/yhst-51695279624825/cap-bandana-gears-of-war-2-marcus-fenix-2.gif]Skull Cap[/url][/b]
A piece of headwear worn into many dangerous battles. When worn by a Hat User, it grants the Power Active Reload. When going to reload any weapon, the wearer will hear an audio prompt, and between 1 and 3 seconds later the edges of her vision will turn red. If at that point the wearer starts reloading, her reload speed will be increased by 300%, but if she doesn't mind the prompt or mistimes it the reload will be at normal speed.[/hider][/center]

Tora gave the Ace Cadet a sagacious nod. “Mm-hm!” he said officiously. “So far, it seem like red-eyes cannot get heart unless weak first.” Despite the monster hunter's engagement with the idea, with him going so far as to size up Geralt, he did not give any affirmation. Instead, Franklin offered his two cents, suggesting that they wait until a better opportunity. They could find a more suitable place to do it, perhaps in a situation where the Witcher got hurt on his own, so that his allies wouldn't have to lend a hand. Discerning when it came to effort as ever, Tora replied with a nod. “That good plan.” He glanced at Geralt again. Tora thought highly of his chances against a human adversary utilizing physical damage, however skilled he might be with those swords. “But if needed, Tora could take him. Right, Poppi?”

The artificial blade spent more time examining Tora to make sure he was serious than examining Geralt's combat ability. “With Poppi, definitely. Alone...probably.”

Kamek started talking about his adventure up north, and since neither Tora nor Poppi knew anything about what had been going on up there, they listened at rapt attention. He described a horror show of monsters and mayhem, featuring some sort of threat he described as 'undead'. While the Nopon didn't know what he meant by that exactly, it sounded creepy, so he guessed things got hairy up there. His mention of manipulating corpses, by Blazermate of all people in particular, set off alarm bells in Tora's head. Had the cute robot changed herself into a monster to do that? Kamek's mention of four-armed brutes as big as Bowser did not bring him comfort. The magikoopa went on to describe a battle against a devastating tree giant with a lot of minions and abilities, which to Tora at least sounded like fun. As long as he had a good party with him, the size of the threat didn't matter. Apparently, someone new had worked with Blazermate's minions to deal the final blow to the thing, using some kind of summons. Kamek's description of V intrigued Tora. Was there really some kind of power he could get so that he could get others to do all the fighting for him? That sounded great!

After that, Junior took his turn to run through the events of the afternoon. Since Tora and Poppi experienced them firsthand, they stopped paying attention and looked elsewhere for anything of interest. Linkle had just returned from her bout with Ryu, whose eyes looked to be free of Galeem's touch. She put together a heap of various foods, which did not seem wrong to Tora in the slightest, before digging in. It occupied her focus for a while, but her eyes soon fell on the loot pile and -of all things- the very expired milk. Luckily she passed it up, instead producing a number of spirits that she added to the pile. Tora took another look at the haul, noting in particular those floating arms. Their shimmer reminded him of how people looked when fusing with a spirit, which to him screamed 'stay away'. The spirits Linkle left caught his interes, and at Linkle's invitation he approached. “Fish, meh?” He peered inside a spirit and saw the ugly, vicious-looking grouper inside. No way did he want those things anywhere near him. “Bleh. Not want friend with that. Maybe give good  stuff, though.” He reached down, took a few pelagic spirits in each wing, and crushed them.

From the dancing lights, a few items manifested. There was a [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/warframe/images/d/dd/DENamiSolo.png/revision/latest?cb=20140529190718]cutlass[/url], a [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/warframe/images/7/70/FishingSpearT3Peram.png/revision/latest?cb=20171027150839]fishing spear[/url], a [url=https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/darkestdungeon_gamepedia/d/db/Inv_trinket-seer_stone.png?version=7807b76b1a603647457828548376f1a3]shiny stone[/url], a side of tough fish scales, and a [url=https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/darkestdungeon_gamepedia/b/b1/Inv_trinket-recovery_charm.png?version=55480ad1d1e1b4c6fef10b1912de98ee]spiral charm[/url]. Tora very much liked the shiny stone, but decided not to take anything. He wanted to of course, but if he scooped up someone else's loot again, it could look bad, and Poppi would certainly scold him. He resolved to take it if nobody else did. The weapons, meanwhile he disdained, since he doubted any could channel Blade power. “Very nice, meh. Will take shiny if okay with friends.” As he went off again, a dubious look flew the long arms' way. “Meeh...Tora not know what that does, but be careful not to touch if not sure,” he warned.

Once back with Poppi, Tora looked around again. Everyone, from Hat Kid to Bowser to Michael to the Centurion, was having a good time...everyone except two. Still too full to shovel in another mouthful of dinner, Tora thought that he'd pay them a visit. On second thought, he went and asked Poppi for help. “Hey, you see lady dancer?” He pointed a wing toward Din, all alone in a corner. “Seems sad. Maybe ask if okay? Tora going to do same for guy over there.” Poppi nodded and left the table, while Tora waddled over to the spiky-haired guy by himself.

“Hello, friend!” Pulling himself up onto a bench, Tora treated Phoenix Wright to a big smile. “You must be hungry. Well, even if didn't do anything to gather, food belong to heroes team and heroes say it for everyone!” His brows furrowed. “Although...friend Mina already say so, meh. So that can't be problem. Maybe...you are worried about money?” The Nopon spoke as if one problem or the other must be the root of all unhappiness.

Meanwhile, Poppi approached and seated herself by Din. For a moment she remained quiet, looking at the mask laying on the table in front of her ally. Then, mustering her warmest smile, she greeted her. “Hi there. Poppi see Din by self even though everyone enjoying selves. What wrong?”

The dancer sighed. She held up a hand in front of her face. Smooth, rubbery, completely artificial, and now an indelible part of her. Experimentally, she fired the new nerves integrated to her system, and her metal wings shuffled. Closing her eyes, she faced her guest and started to speak. “This change...everything...it's just too strange. I wanted to help people out, so I took in the spirit of that machine. It's made my arms...fake, foreign. With them I could help that boy Euden, saving him from falling in the lake, but...we all got lucky. If not for one thing or another, the boys and Phoenix, or all of us, could have died.” Standing behind her, her Gogoat nuzzled up against her. Din reached down and ran her synthetic mesh hand along its back. It twitched uncomfortably at her touch, and even though it nuzzled her again afterward, Din took it as confirmation. “Ever since Megadragonbowser, I've had this sort of 'raw' feeling,” she told Poppi. “It's all so unreal. Any of us could die at any moment, turn to ash, then have our souls destroyed. I'm not even a fighter, after all. And will our deaths have meant anything?”

Poppi couldn't give her an answer. She didn't know much herself, only that so long as she was with Tora, they could carry on, and everything would be alright. Yesterday, she struggled with the notion of being unreal herself, a soulless object that anyone could contort or change, erasing countless memories of joy and pain. The artificial blade looked at own metal hand, and narrowed her eyes. “Poppi understand Din pain. Going forward in danger and uncertainty hard, but we have to do it, because that what heroes do. Even if Din not fighter, Din can be hero. Because anyone can be hero, even loser Nopon and his artificial blade.”

Din laid an arm on Poppi's shoulder. She smiled, but her eyes were sad. “Thank you, Poppi...but I can't.  I'm deciding to stay here in Lumbridge, and help out however I can. It'll be up to the rest of you to be the heroes.”

The words struck Poppi like a tackle. She sat in silence for a few moments, racing to think of something to get Din to reconsider, but nothing fell into her grasp. Instead, she thought to herself [i]that isn't fair.[/i] Try as she might, the choice had been made for her, and if it could be helped Poppi wasn't the one to do it. She said the only thing that came to mind. “...Oh.”

“Of course, you can stop by anytime and say hello. I'll be here whenever you need me.” The statement made Poppi smile weakly. The dancer put on a happy face, maybe trying to reassure the artificial blade, but Poppi was anything but reassured. Once their business in the Land of Adventure concluded, she and her Masterpon would not be coming back here. Their duty as heroes would carry them forward, on and on until the world was saved. But Din had given up on making things right.

Poppi stood up from the table. “Thank you. Poppi wish Din good luck.” She left, and a pair of sad eyes, glowing the color of the sunset outside, watched her go.

[center][h3]Nero and V[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] RCPD, Dead Zone
[@Archmage MC] [@DracoLunaris] [@ProPro] [@Dawnrider] [@Simple Unicycle] [@Genon][/center]

The first to break the silence was Blazermate, and Nero figured that he had a pretty good idea of what she would be doing. Sure enough, once her howls rang over the necrotic hordes, the zombies ceased their ominous waiting and flocked in their direction. At her bidding, the masses of the dead began to dance, rickety joints and rotting sinews propelling them in a herky-jerky tango as freaky as it was ludicrous. Some of the undead, set alight by her burning zombies, Blazermate sent as scouts into the dark. While most of them revealed only further shambling putrification, her keen sensors could make out a few unusual shapes in the center of the thickest groups: unusual [url=https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Jl6HihEdIhk/maxresdefault.jpg]tombstones[/url] that gleamed in the makeshift torchlight. That wasn't all, either. Just as she predicted, some of the figures ignored her howls. They looked like zombies, but not exactly, with the differences subtle. Those who refused to answer the medabot's call sported grandiose disfigurements rather than rot, including tentacles and gigantic tumors that looked more like cocoons, and from the bulbous things inside extended antennae with crimson fronds. They moved differently, too. Instead of lurching around, relying on dead flesh, they moved like ravenous animals, as though still alive—or filled with something alive. In fact they moved now, spurred on by the stimulation of the helicopter crash, making a beeline for the police station.

Nero noticed the unusual zombies. Even with the bulk of the invading force currently engaging in an impromptu dance party, the survivors holed up in the police station didn't need anything else to deal with. He jumped from the top of the upheaval in the road where his party stood, landing on the head of a zombie. Instead of crushing it, he pushed off at just the right moment, executing an Enemy Step to keep him in the air. With the wretches indifferent to his presence, he proceeded across the top of the whole crowd, and when he got close enough the devil hunter started ventilating the other creatures one by one with the Blue Rose. Though tougher than the average zombie, they fell just the same, but on death exhibited something both new and disgusting. From their carcasses a number of small, skittering things invariably escaped, too little and numerous to be targeted. From his time in Fortuna, Nero could guess what was going on: some kind of parasite. He cleared Blazermate's undead crowd and hit the ground, looking up just in time to see one of the larva leap onto a normal zombie, rapidly infest it, and turn it away from the rave to target him instead. When the [url=https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71O20aaxpCS._SY679_.jpg]monster[/url] got close it lashed out with its tentacles, but Nero deftly swung his blade upward, carving its arm free, before smashing it flat into the ground with a return stroke.

Shaking his head, he turned back to the police station. The others would be with him in a moment, so there was no point in waiting. It was then that Nero noticed the flying golden things from before flocking toward the top of the police station, aided by the alarmed yells of the two women up there. With Banjo and Kazooie already taken to the sky and on the way there, the devil hunter opted to give them a hand and make sure the fliers were dealt with. “Hold on!” Nero broke into a sprint through the station's main gate, planning to use Gerbera to shoot himself up after the bear and bird, but the minute he set foot inside the yard a low, dark [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/the-evil-within/images/6/6f/Reiko-hirashima-tew2-spawn-03.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20171222111308]shape[/url] lunged at him. Its huge, vile maw closed around his right shin, but found itself biting into more than it could handle. Nero wasted no time grabbing the Red Queen and sinking it into the beast, but it doggedly continued to chew on him. Pulling the blade out, Nero revved it and jammed the fire-wreathed greatsword into the Spawn's body again, and this time he yanked it out sideways to cleanly cut the things in two. Still, to Nero's astonishment, it wasn't enough. “Get LOST!” The devil hunter executed a full-bodied football kick that sent the horrible half-monster flying, but the ordeal had cost him precious seconds. He looked up to see a fight in progress.

Up top, the women appeared to be attempting to withstand the angels on their own. One wielded nothing more than an axe and was trying to survive more than anything, but the other moved like lightning. She dodged and flipped around like a cat, detaching parts of her body to evade the angels' tailblades and even firing of blasts of her own blood like rocket jets to slip away when taking a hit seemed inavoidable. After evading, she struck back with claw swipes and kicks, with her own detached tail as a sword, and by rotating her forearm at the break point with an index finger extended to attack with a makeshift drill. Still, whatever damage she inflicted seemed meaningless, and she could only keep the angel's attention for so long. Banjo and Kazooie arrived just in the nick of time, ready to lend their strength to the catgirl in driving the angels off.

That worked out well, since happenings on the ground demanded Nero's attention. As if in response to the nearby conflict, the nearest tombstone stirred to life. The eyes of its carved skull reliefs glowed a haunting purple, and monsters started to appear. From the ground came a mob of new [url=https://img.pngio.com/the-evil-within-2-the-lost-render-png-by-gamingdeadtv-on-deviantart-evil-within-png-950_841.png]zombie-likes[/url] that ignored Blazermate's commands: the Lost. They advanced toward the police station en masse, snarling and swinging, with only Nero standing in their way. He readied the Red Queen, but before the Lost and Spawn closed in, a familiar voice reached him from above. “Hehey, Nero! Save some for us, huh?” A moment later V floated down, carried by Griffon. He landed by Nero's side, and Griffon alighted on his outstretched arm Together, the three faced the incoming monsters. “Alright, superstar, I got your back,” the demon taunted, “It's barbecue time!” The first Lost ran at V, who threw Griffon right into it. The bird bulled through it, purple lightning crackling across him, and into the center of the group. “Fryyyy, little piggies!” He screeched, and unleashed a spherical burst of electricity to cook the monsters alive.

Reinforcements came for the enemies too, however. More Lost arrived to replace the lost. Additional Spawn appeared to crawl across the ground with frightening speed. Pools of blood formed on the sides of the tomestone, and from them emerged a handful of reptilian demons. From the moment they hit the ground, the [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/devilmaycry/images/8/81/Riot_DMC5_Artbook_Render.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190515193450]Riots[/url] were on the move, scampering toward the police station and its defenders along with the other monsters.

A shout suddenly echoed from a window on the police station's second floor. “They're coming again!” A [url=https://i.pinimg.com/564x/fc/8b/27/fc8b27f6c8102afdb9da962a22bcd5bc.jpg]young man[/url] showed his face, having called to someone else inside. He could only spare one flabbergasted glance at the dancing zombies before turning his attention to the monsters that were still a threat, and to the newcomers fighting them. “And...friendlies! I think?” Falling quiet, he let his handgun do the talking, raining down shots on the Lost from above. After a few moments, more survivors started to appear. On the first floor, a humanoid [url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9e/Fox_Mccloud.png]fox[/url] started up a volley of blaster fire, and a [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/residentevil/images/1/1f/Chara12wFnM_rev2.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/307?cb=20151221004448]woman[/url] in tactical gear leaned out a window to take a few shots as well. The front door burst open, and from it stormed a burly [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/battleborn/images/d/d6/Render_Ghalt.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/350?cb=20160920093650]man[/url] with a giant shotgun, a [url=https://assets.vg247.com/current//2014/01/dark_souls_2_zzz_Lucatiel-of-Mirrah.jpg]masked woman[/url] with a greatsword and shield, and a slender [url=https://66.media.tumblr.com/48b827b413c8449227f6b33d2f6e94e3/tumblr_pt6yilv0hB1qdqlkxo10_500.jpg]swordsman[/url]. The first blasted a Spawn in its rear head, the second hacked its legs off, and the last teleported to a pair of Lost to strike with a series of arcing slashes. Those Riots, however, forced the defenders back with their vicious attacks, all the while shrugging off the shooters' gunfire. Nero and V engaged the demons together, but the whole thing was a massive, chaotic mess.