[center][h3]Al Mamoon - Palatial Gallery[/h3]
[@Zoey Boey][/center]

By the time that Jesse pulled herself onto the roof of a convenient building, attracting a few odd stares but no attempts at interference, and turned her vision back toward the museum, the newest guests were just about inside. The boys and their cat moved with purpose and disappeared through the front doors in just a few seconds, followed by the red-haired woman at a far more leisurely pace. However, even she -distant and unfocused- entered the building faster than the older man, whose speed had nothing to do with his age. Rather, he seemed to be lagging behind. He lingered for a moment on the threshold, allowing the others to go ahead, and then with a subtle motion snapped a strange device from thin air.

The [url=https://www.models-resource.com/resources/big_icons/17/16796.png]bizarre doohickey[/url] resembled a revolver, albeit one utterly crammed with nonsensical attachments. From this distance Jesse could catch only the faintest glimpse of taped batteries and naked wires, with the glimmer of copper where the revolver’s chamber should be. The scientist-looking fellow shot a very thin, very silent bolt of electricity at the gate, then the ground below it, before closing and -judging by the flash through the glass- doing the same to the front door. Then, the onlooker could see no more.

Once inside the Museum of Vanity, the Phantom Thieves commenced their search. They split up among the sightseers to look high and low, across the high walls and through the off-kilter, frame-shaped doorways, but not at the paintings. Only one visage inside this dreadful, gaudy place would set their minds at ease, and it was not the portrait that Mona and Skull met in front of in the east wing.

The blond stared upward at the enormous painting that loomed above him, and even further above Mona. Stark despite its vivid, even discordant purple and blue, and dripping as if just barely holding itself together, it was one among many portraits of talented young individuals that Madarame had stolen. People who in the old faker’s heart were no more than objects. “Just as I remember it that first day. Our first infiltration where, y’know, we kinda knew what we were doin’.”

Mona shook his big, round head. “Jury’s still out on that one. Regardless, it’s not the Yusuke we’re after. Let’s keep looking.”

They found Joker beneath a giant sculpture of solid gold. Its sheets, shaped into a spiral waterfall, supported statues of youths descending as though on a slide. Guests crowded around it, oohing and aahing over its magnificence. They must, Joker reasoned, not be reading the plaque. He remembered the spirit of it, if not the exact words, as well as the revulsion they inspired in him, and read over what the inscription had to say with a stony gaze.

[i]The Infinite Spring
A conglomerate work of art that the great director Madarame created with his own funds. These individuals must offer their ideas to the director for the rest of their lives. Those who cannot do so have no worth living![/i]

“Y’know, if that Madarame bastard’s here in this place too, I wouldn’t mind kickin’ his ass again,” Skull remarked, arms crossed. Rather than offer some sort of objective guidance or even-keeled coolheadedness, Joker could only agree. In a distortion this massive, far greater even than Mementos, he couldn’t possibly tell what if any good might come of such action in the real world, but if Madarame had somehow been ‘reset’ like Shadow Futaba, knocking him down a peg would be well worth any time put in. Plus, he knew the mechanics this time.

The Phantom Thieves prepared to delve deeper, but before they ascended the stairs, they found themselves confronted with an odd spectacle. In a massive breach of social convention the old man from before clambered onto the plinth of the Infinite Spring, holding a weapon in his hand. Joker stopped suddenly enough to get his friends’ attention but not create a disturbance, then tilted his head in the direction of the strange scientist. He held a finger to his hips, and when Morgana looked up confusedly, Joker picked the cat up by the head and oriented him in the right direction to see. The three skirted around into a hiding position as the man raised his gun. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “I..uh, ladies and...may I...may I have your attention? Your attention PLEASE!” With an irritated look he shot the ground with his weapon. Some kind of rocket appeared where his gun’s arc struck, making a terribly loud, fiery roar. With a few assorted yells the visitors complied, watching the weapon he waved around. “Finally! Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to pull off another grand heist. The theft of this Infinite Spring! You have the privilege of watching as I do it, and the curse that when you tell of it, nobody will ever believe you! Hahaha!”

Before he could get to work, the paint-splattered woman stepped forward. The scientist did not ignore the oversized paintbrush gripped in her hand. “You will not get away with this desecration of art.”

If anything, this seemed to please the strange man. “Ohoho! Going to stop me are you? The guards certainly haven’t! But you’ll have to do it without that brush of yours. Boop!” He sent forth another arc from his gun. The paintbrush slammed into the ground hard, heavier than a truckload of stone combined, fallen hard enough to break fingers. He wasted no time switching tools and shooting the woman in the facing, adhering the woman’s lips together to muffle her scream. One more adjustment and a rope suddenly connected her shoes, tripping her as she tried to run. “Quiet!” the scientist yelled. “Or I’ll make you!” One more wave of his gun silenced the other guests. Those who’d already run found the front door completely immovable, stuck to the floor as if bolted there.

Joker crouched back down, addressing the others in a low whisper. “That gun is insane. We don’t know how many more functions it has, and he’s fast. It could be even worse if he’s not toying around. We need to take him down without giving him the chance to fight.”

“You could snipe him,” Mona suggested. “Using Leena. Or we could shoot for a windburn combo.”

Shaking his head, Skull muttered, “Same problem as Kidd’s lightning. No guaranteed status. I say we all shoot him at the same time.”

As the Thieves talked strategy, the scientist started on the sculpture. He alternated between making it lighter and smaller, bit by bit, to avoid putting too much stress on and damaging the monument of gold.

[center][h3]Ms Fortune[/h3]
[b]Level 4[/b] Nadia (19/40)
[b]Location:[/b] Bottomless Sea
Blazermate's [@Archmage MC], Bowser's [@DracoLunaris], Ace Cadet's [@Yankee], Hat Kid's [@Dawnrider], Sakura's [@Zoey Boey], Frog's [@Dark Cloud], Mirage’s [@Potemking], Mr. L’s [@ModeGone]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1173[/center]

The sea churned with abyssal horror, savage in its simplicity. Over the course of just a few moments, all who dared to stand atop the tumultuous sea full under Scylla’s attack. One heinous, long-toothed maw surfaced a little too close to Sakura and took her reactive hurricane kick to the jaw before it could prize open its mouth to snap shut on fresh meat. The experience filtered straight through to Scylla herself, arming all her limbs with knowledge on how to better fight the particular threat. None of her tentacles could make use of it, however, before the street fighter reached the one that hauled Bella up into the sky and joined her shortly thereafter.

As Sakura clambered up higher, the fish that threw themselves after her to take a bite of tasty cat tail found a stern rebuke issued from Mirage’s smoking gun as he covered her. Rika ran interference, serving as both a distraction and a painful reminder that the sea creatures had better things to do than aim high. With that taken care of, Sakura could climb in relative peace, and watch the Water Princess contend with the threat as best she could. Her leviathan tail’s teeth, shorter but a lot stouter than the eel’s, could crush them if they got purchase, but the living limb thrashed around like a thing possessed. Sakura soon reached the point where one abyssal horror ended and the other began, but for all her strength couldn’t quite get good leverage. Bella yelled to be heard above the wind. “Hit its head and stun it or something, mon cherie!” she called as the limb continued to toss and turn. “Kyah! If...if I can just concentrate for...for one second, I can get out!”

She held tight as best she could with the blood flowing to her head. When Sakura gave her the opportunity, she seized it. “Okay, now jump!” she shrieked, as power built up within the jaw of her tail. A moment later a railgun shot tore free, blasting straight out the back of the tentacle’s eel head, and Bella plummeted toward the water below. If she could have, she would have advised Sakura not to catch her or anything, given the weight of her tail, but in the heat of the moment all she could do was scream.

Down below, things remained more than a little hectic. Mirage, Link, and Nadia put in some serious work thinning out the leaping schools of nightmare fish and hungry goblin sharks, drilling them until their batteries went dry, but as ever the Cadet’s bow made quite the impression, and nothing belt out continuous fire quite like Blazermate’s sentry turret. The rescue effort looked good, but for retreat, not so much. Peach guessed that she thought that the team could disengage without attacking -and thus provoking- that little nightmare atop the rocks, but she couldn’t make any bones about it now. Thanks to Galeem’s influence, they had to finish the fight. “Okay, fine then!” she yelled, still pretty pissed, as Bowser made his way toward Scylla’s seastack. “Nadia, Ace! Leave the boat to us. You get out there and help!”

“Sure thing, P. Cat-ch you later!” With a cheeky wave weirdly juxtaposed with the fresh fish bites all across her body, Nadia flipped over the railing, then blood-dashed to work up some speed before even hitting the surface. Riding stormy waves was an altogether different beast from calm ones, but she managed to adjust quickly. The jarring transition from near-panic to relief at Bella’s rescue and especially Link’s critical save of the Atomos allowed her to go forth unburdened by the burden of worry, and she sped toward the action. With her rigging arms extended for balance, her hands were free for action, and she took a stab at any mofish that breached a little too close using her tail as a sword. “Yah! Yah! How’s this for a cut-lass?” In just a few moment’s she’d managed to rack up a whole kebab of the things, but they looked a ways past their best-by date so she flicked them off to dissolve in the surf. 

Her puns came to a sudden pause when Tentalus rose from the waves, his brand new eye winking in bewilderment. Going from blind, bloody, and on death's door to fit as a fiddle out of nowhere did a number on the monster’s tiny mind, but after the heart’s lull of tranquility passed, it rose from beneath the surface in a less than friendly mood. It paused just a moment to watch Bowser water cannoning himself through the air to land about halfway up the seastack. Then an eel tentacle bit Tantalus right in its chest and twisted, provoking a roar of breathtaking rage. It slammed its weight against the rock, shaking it hard enough to fling rubble into the water and throw Bowser loose if his cannons weren’t pushing him back on.

The rest of the tentacles were just as busy. One lunged for Geralt atop his Ordnance Platform, aiming to sink its face into his chest and knock him from his high horse. Another breached and then came down on Nadia like a hammer, only for Nadia to dodge backward using the recoil of her cannon fire and then blood-dash upward. She stabbed her tail between the scales and sprinted across its breaching curl, cutting a long gash that trailing hull-blades widened. When her ride came to an end she zoomed onward. Another still snapped shut on Mirage's decoy with dizzying speed, allowing the crackshot a vision of what his fate might have been were he not so cautious.

Above everything, Scylle laughed with mad glee. Bowser’s words didn’t seem to register with her, no more than anyone else’s. Whether she understood them or not mattered little in the end. She was not an animal protecting her territory. She was a child having her fun, and a cruel child unfettered by even the slightest shadow of authority or conscience, given instead to immense power. She used it to retract two tentacles with blistering speed, battering Bowser from one side and then the other, wrenching him hard enough so that just one clawed hand remained attached. With a cackle she raised a hand, a virulent green bundle of magic swirling above her palm, and she readied the sorcery to cast Bowser into the deep.

Then Link’s plane drone let loose, peppering Scylla with miniature gunfire. She snarled as her magic went wide, flying past Bowser to strike the sea far below. At the point of impact it turned into a fifty foot magic circle on the ocean’s choppy surface, slowing anything inside it until it detonated moments later. A moment later a smaller green fireball blew the drone to pieces, but Scylla’s main body had been distracted for just a moment. In that moment two things happened: First, a big arrow came flying in out of nowhere and struck one of her tentacles a ways down, inflicting a painful poison. Second, Tentalus pounded the seastack one more, and this time there came a massive [i]CRACK[/i]. The entire upper third of the ocean monolith slowly began to lean sideways.

[center][h3]Snowdin[/h3]
[@Gentlemanvaultboy][/center]

On the way to Grillby’s to reconvene with Albedo, Linkle turned her attention to the festive tree at the center of town. Decked out in multicolored orbs, glittering tinsel, handcrafted ornaments of all shapes and sizes, and lights that definitely looked better at night, it encapsulated the homey, welcoming feeling that characterized Snowdin even after her violent run-in with the unyielding Stranger. That spirit of hospitality, not foreign to even a Skullgirl’s heart, warmed cold bones and spurred her to give a little herself. First she stocked up on offerings by introducing her new, papery acquaintances to her faithful cuboid traveling companion. The box devoured the money greedily the moment Linkle so much as brought it near the slot, perhaps through some sort of vacuum, and after a dramatic few moments of rattles and shakes the box burst open in a spray of colors and sounds, not without excitement but maybe a tad overdone. For all the aplomb, however, it didn’t quite compare to the sensation of opening a present made by some nameless, kind person, giving away something without the expectation of anything in return, when she opened a green-wrapped gift beneath the tree.

[center][hider=For Linkle]You have acquired:
[b][url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b1/d6/c2/b1d6c271c82552f898580f80b34bba6f.png]Mocchi Plush[/url][/b] - [i]a soft, huggable toy of a white monster, a foot and a half tall. Its indefatigable smile is an encouragement even in dark times[/i]
[b][url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dragalialost_gamepedia_en/images/7/7b/400408_01_portrait.png]A New Year’s Battle[/url][/b] - [i]a depiction of celebratory games in a joyful season. When on someone’s person, it grants[/i] Critical Devastation[i], which increases critical hit rate by 10% for 30 seconds after a 15 hit combo, defined as inflicting 15 blows without being hit or allowing three seconds between any hit[/i]
[b][url=https://images.gamebanana.com/img/ss/skins/51ae92f7393a8.jpg]Beret 3-Pack[/url][/b] - [i]for the best of the best[/i]
[b][url=https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/v0-b8lrgOQKWRgJ0w8iJFE0tQfo=/1400x788/filters:format(png)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22295868/Destiny_2_Screenshot_2021.02.10___16.09.42.19.png]Worldshaper Ornament[/url][/b] - [i]a weapon skin that can be applied (permanently) to any rifle, changing its appearance to a grim gunblade. The blade is functional, and while no more than the sum of its parts, serves as a stern reminder of the terrible cost of war[/i]

And:
[b][url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/a-hat-in-time/images/c/c4/Dweller%27s_Mask_beret.png]Dweller Beret[/url][/b] - [i]A trendy combination of headwear, just eye-catching enough to make a statement[/i][/hider][/center]

After that she proceeded to her destination in a businesslike manner and made straight for the titular blaze behind the counter. Grillby watched her approach, seemingly surprised to see her again as far as Linkle could tell. As Albedo implied, nobody messed with the Stranger around here. To the average villager he was a force of nature, and when he swept into town it was wise to bend with the wind, rather than break. 

Regardless, his manner failed to suggest even the slightest hostility, so much so that Linkle’s apology suddenly seemed a formality, or a self-conscious quirk, rather than something she owed. “Don’t mention it,” the living flame sputtered, brushing away the property damage with a dismissive swipe of his hand. “That guy is as that guy does. Happy to see you here in one piece, if anything. Not many have poked that tiger and lived to tell the tale.”

When offered her oil, he accepted it with good graces. “Ah, you shouldn’t have. But thank you. This’ll keep the lights on for a good while.” Grillby nodded to Albedo, seated as ever by the window. The Alchemist was trying not to watch Linkle’s interaction, lest it seem like he was making a point of waiting on her. “Nice guy, that Albedo. Might not show it, but I’m sure he’s happy for someone to be alone with. Go ahead, and I’ll sling you some breakfast here in a minute or two. Just a little thanks--and congratulations.”

Albedo’s corgi ran up to Linkle as she drew near, his big eyes begging for more pets. Looking cozy in his new coat, the alchemist slid out the chair opposite him at his table with his foot, and inclined his head toward her new crossbows. “You must be quite the savvy shopper,” he told her. “New clothes, new weapons, and gifts as well. Really taking in the local customs. I hope you’re ready for all the adoration the townsfolk will shower you with if you keep this up.“ He seemed amused. “While you were out I did a little asking. The man you want to meet typically shows up in the evenings, so it may be a while. That does mean the day is open, and I may have a place we can start.”

He looked out the window into the snowy street, then at the frosty forest beyond. “I mentioned already my hypothesis that the brute has some sort of divine protection. I believe I also mentioned the period during which he was willing to let me try different things I felt might have an effect on him. All failures, but that plus his single minded obsession with finding things that might make him ‘feel’ suggests that not only does he too wish his condition was different, but that he thinks there may be something or someone out there that can.” Albedo held up his hands by way of concession. “Now, that assumes he isn’t acting out of pure desperation, which is a possibility. But since we have time to kill, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Once again he produced his handy sketchbook, and after flipping to an early page he revealed a crude map of the area. “Not precisely measured, but a decent approximation of the surrounding terrain, I would hope. There are some spots where we could place some inquiries: a temple, a mystic’s abode, a dungeon, and a derelict hospital. Even if we do not find answers, we’ll probably come by, money, spirits, or other rewards. If you’ve a preference on where to first, I’m all ears. Or if you have an idea of your own. I’m afraid I’ve started rambling again.” The young man looked just a little sheepish, but not much.

[center][h3]Edge of the Blue - Atlantis Temple[/h3]
[@Zavazggg][/center]

“[i]Your[/i] rigging?”

Any points Sephiroth’s ostensible cooperation might have yielded were squandered, and her machinations doomed from the start, when those select few words left her lips through that viper smile. The members of the posse, all thoroughly briefed on the situation, evidenced varying degrees of contempt, but she perturbed Shantae the most. Her face was one of disgust, indignity, and despair all rolled into one vehement ball. In other words, she looked at Sephiroth like she was the scum of the earth.

The half-genie looked like she wanted to slap the swordswoman silly, but she reigned in her fury. “That was the property of Miss Scharnhorst, stolen away like the lifetime she could have shared with her grieving sister! And you’re a fool if you believe for one second we’ll let you arm yourself.” Sephiroth could practically feel the palpable resentment in the air around her now that the others were convinced she had planned to fight back.

“Well, if you’re not going to get your things...” Still as gloomy as ever, the policeman stepped away. “I’ll just help myself. They’ll fit nicely in my Bag.”

Shantae glanced at him, gave a nod, and returned her attention to Sephiroth. She gave the momentary vacationer a thin, sarcastic smile. “And yes, before you ask, we’re just fine with having you face justice in a swimsuit. You weren’t so concerned with dignity when you killed Miss. Scharnhorst.” She extended her arm, pointing toward the door. “Now march.”

“You ‘eard the lady!” Birdie bellowed, whipping his chain that dangled from his wrist against the ground at Sephiroth’s feet. The miniature metal heads at the end of his chains smashed the floor like a flail, cracking the tile. Behind her, the fishman guards kept their tridents raised, ready to thrust at a moment’s notice if the swordswoman took one step out of line.