[center][h3]Tora & Poppi[/h3]
Level 7 Tora (88/60) and Level 6 Poppi (27/60)
[b]Location:[/b] the End
[b]Word Count:[/b] 930[/center]

The Ender Dragon's mighty claw fell upon Bowser with brutal force, but the Koopa King did not give so much as an inch. A gleaming blue coating surrounded him, rendering him totally impervious to damage. Confused, the dragon raised her other forelimb to rip the turtle apart. Her talons raked across his metallic exterior without leaving even a single scratch, and that plus the look of glee in Bowser's glowing yellow eyes made her blood boil. With her full weight the dragon leaned down, trying to crush her foe where he stood. The fragile end stone buckled beneath him, causing him to sink, and for a few seconds Bowser was on the verge of being driven into the ground. Then the magic of Kamek, echoed by Mimikyu, washed over him, and he began to grow. Snarling, the Ender Dragon found herself pushed off her would-be victim and onto her hind legs as Bowser grew to a height that rivaled her own—and a weight that exceeded it. A barrage of missiles and arrows hit her in the back, preventing her from getting a footing as the ordnance ripped into her wings.

Then, abruptly as it came, the ubercharge blinked out. The healing beams of the two remaining crystals locked onto the Ender Dragon as her claws tightened around Bowser's, proving that he was vincible once again. If she could have given him a devilish smile, she would have. Instead her jaws opened wide, the angry sizzling and vile purple light from within heralding the arrival of a tide of acid to the face.

At that moment the Cadet clambered down, the blades of his clutch claw lodged in the Ender Dragon's brow, and fired a chunk of stone into the leviathan's eye. The sudden pain drove her sideways as the acid poured forth, giving Bowser a faceful but not a sustained spray. She staggered sideways on her hind legs, out of the enlarged Koopa King's grip and into one of the obsidian towers. With an impact that shook the island she slammed into it and fell on her side. Geralt's silver blade and more missiles rained havoc as she writhed for a moment, trying to regain her footing. Then, just as she did, the Courier's borrowed rifle hammered her torso with devastating anti-material rounds. An outraged roar split the air, and she sprang upward, invigorated by the pain. As much as the sniper shots hurt, they didn't seem to do as much damage as one might expect. Still, the Ender Dragon intended on making her assailant pay dearly. She thrashed her tail in Bowser and Geralt's direction, aiming to club at least one of them, then launched off a nearby tower at the Courier.

Far more quickly than he expected, death arrived. Using a flap of her wings to propel herself forward, the Ender Dragon descended on 6 with one giant claw extended. Thinking quickly, and only of her master, Gaige-tron spun around and shoved the Courier hard. He flew out of the way, and the next instant the Dragon's foot came down on the machine with terrible force. 

Thinking nothing of it, the beast pumped her wings and took to the sky again. Behind her she left a crater where Gaige-tron stood a moment ago, but instead of a sparking wreck any onlookers saw the robot completely intact, lying upon a stretcher carried by diminutive cats. How they came or where from nobody -not even the Ace Cadet- could rightfully say, but they disappeared not long after, and they took Gaige-tron with them.

Of course, nobody could waste much time thinking about that. The Ender Dragon coasted over the island at a low-medium altitude, belching out acid bomb after acid bomb to fry both those on their feet and those yet to recover. Her bombing run came to a premature end when she suddenly swooped down and upward in a back loop, trying to send her ground-bound enemies flying.

After narrowly avoiding an acid bomb, Tora decided to change tactics. “Poppi, only two crystals left! Pick me up!” Happy to oblige, the artificial blade grabbed her masterpon and flew toward one of the beam's sources. This tower happened to be one of the two protected by iron bars. She flew him close so he could start waling on them, but the Nopon protested. “Nonono, take me right above!” After she complied, he carefully extracted a handful of spare parts from his pouch and dropped them. Enough fell through the openings between the bars to strike the crystal and trigger its detonation, and the pair zoomed away scot-free.

Peach, meanwhile, had been slowly descending from the great height where the dragon's attack left her. She witnessed the chaos unfolding down below, and reasoned that if the crystals were important enough for her allies to go after them, then she ought to help wipe them out. With a little force on her parasol she guided herself above the last crystal-adorned tower and dropped a grenaduck. Its explosion spelled the end for the leviathan's healing; the true battle could begin.

With nobody able to stop the Ender Dragon just flying around, she banked back toward the island's center and began her descent. The destruction of the last end crystal did not appear to register for her, and the impunity with which she arrived suggested she took their support for granted. Once over the island's highest point she let her head droop and started to gush out acid. An immense quantity flooded forth, threatening to spread over the island like syrup over a pancake.

[center][h3]Lumbridge[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Land of Adventure
[@Zoey Boey][/center]

Ryu's Shinku Hadoken changed the pace of the fight, perhaps irreparably. When the final clash began, he felt laser-focused, honed to a fine edge. Barely any worse for wear on the surface, Sakura sped his way with her characteristic boundless energy, and Ryu was ready. He launched a quick standing kick, narrowly missing Sakura as she slid in for a low sweep. The world warrior's legs went out from under him, but even as he fell he instinctively understood that this wasn't a serious loss. A sweep he could afford to take without complaint, but not a full combo, so he covered the more important option. Getting to his feet again, Ryu kept his focus on Sakura as she leaped into the air. She jumped too close, he knew, to land a typical jumping attack. She wanted to cross him up.

Pivoting on his heels hard enough to tear the grass from his dirt, Ryu spun his block around to intercept Sakura's two-handed strike. He was already swinging when she touched down. His one-two punch struck home, but instead of linking into a followup, he purposefully dropped the combo. Then, with his foe unprepared to start attacking again but able to block, he lashed out again with another few punches. [i]One-two-three...[/i] He crouched again, forcing a low block. [i]Kick...kick.[/i] His powerful legs propelled him into the air. Ryu raised one arm, preparing to chop as he fell. With Sakura guarding low, a jumping attack would not just hit her, but initiate the combo that would take the match.

And he knew she knew it.

He dropped without performing an attack, straight into a crouch. [i]Empty jump, low![/i] A crouching jab, one of the fastest moves in his arsenal, zipped forward. This trick came out very rarely, but constituted a devious psych-out. By almost fully committing to an overhead but performing no attack, he could bait out a high guard from his opponent and then land without any recovery and take advantage. From there he belted out crouching light kick, standing medium upset punch, then spinning heavy kick, which put him into the perfect position. “Shoryuken!” No firecracker imitation, Ryu's true uppercut punctuated the combination in decisive fashion, sending Sakura end over end. When he landed, however, Ryu stood at the ready. Even if Sakura couldn't get up, she would try. The red in her eyes...that color didn't run.

[center][h3]Dead Zone[/h3]
[@EvilEdd1984][/center]

As the heroes moved in, Minos raised his fist and slammed it down to the left, aiming for V. The mysterious one recalled Shadow to scoot out of harm's way. Nadia, Nero, and the Slayer moved in, the latter two firing their weapons. Without picking his arm up off the ground, Minos swept it across the courtroom. Spotting the incoming limb in time, Nadia used her catlike reflexes to spring into the air and over it, but Nero took the hit and was knocked aside, and the same would hold true for the Slayer if he didn't evade in time. After being sent sprawling Nero jumped to his feet again. Minos raised an arm in front of his head to block the incoming shotgun and Griffon fire, and attempted to keep track of his scattered opponents. With a grunt he swung both arms, trying to pancake both Nadia and the Slayer -his closest enemies- at once. The double impact shook the courthouse and sent dust flying, but when he raised his arms, however, the feral was nowhere to be seen.

“Where did you go?” he snarled, looking around. A series of tentacles arose from the ground around V, keeping him too busy dodging to mount a counterattack. Minos did not notice the lithe woman clinging to the bottom of his arm until she dug in her claws and dropped. 

“Hey, ugly!”

Using her momentum and jets of blood, she swung a circle around the arm and launched forward. “What?!” Minos bellowed as Nadia struck him with a double kick to the jaw, then dropped straight down while rotating her lower half. Like the blades of a propeller her legs cut a furrow all the way down his chest, and by the time she reached the ground Nero had arrived. He shot upward in with a rising slash, cutting deeper into the gash his ally left behind. At the peak of his ascent the devil hunter unleashed a slash, slash, high roller combo, slicing deep into the judge's chest. A moment before Minos' fists slammed together Nero kicked off, and as he sailed away he rode the Red Queen like a snowboard.

A noise from the left prompted the feral to look over, and she caught the last of the judge's mini-tentacles cleft from its stump by Shadow's scythe-tail. “Nyahaha!” Nadia grinned up at the monster. “How d'ya like us nyaow?”

Minos wiped blood from his eyes, his ghastly face a mask of pure rage at the heroes' impunity. “You cannot hide your sins!” He made a rising motion with his hand. Spots on the floor turned to lava, and from the puddles burst a quintet of [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/deadspace/images/6/66/Slasherimage.png/revision/latest?cb=20171105131147]shrieking abominations[/url] that staggered forward to eviscerate the heroes with their bladed arms. “Damnation will be your final reward!”

Nadia flinched, horrified. “Ew! I am so not biting one of those things.”

The Blue Rose rang out again and again, plugging a necromorph full of holes. Nero's demonic bullets wriggled around inside the abhorrent thing's body, carving tunnels of agony, but the monster barely slowed down. “Okay, these things don't care,” he reported, reaching for his sword again.

A moment later, Griffon toasted one with a column of lightning. It shambled onward, but only another step; Shadow's head reshaped into a spike that rammed straight through it, carrying the necromorph onward until the demon pinned it to Minos' belly. “Ya say somethin', buddy boy?” Griffon cackled.

While Nero sighed, Nadia dislocated her leg to extend a hook kick into the legs of her incoming assailant. The necromorph toppled, and she moved in to start carving it up. “Its limbs are nice and spindly. Just stop it attacking while we deal with six-eyes!” Obligingly the devil hunter rolled out of the way of his necromorph before chopping off its arms. Using a rev of the Red Queen, he separated its legs a second later.

That left two necromorphs for the Slayer, both of which rushed him viciously. Minos, meanwhile, prepared to strike again.