[center][h3]Big Band[/h3]
Level 2 Big Band (18/20)
[b]Location:[/b] Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1259[/center]

With a heavy heart, and an even heavier slam onto the ground, Big Band realized that he still seemed to be missing some core functionality. His first idea, and far and away the most effective, had been to engage his afterburner and soar off into the wild blue yonder, but his systems refused to listen. “So it’s like that,” the big man grumbled, picking himself off the ground with one pneumatic arm and holding his volatile plunder with the other. Even in dire straits, however, he took a moment to dust the sand from his coat as part of his efforts to keep cool and collected. With steady breath he shut out the worrisome hissing noise of the explosives inside the treasure box and weighed his options.

In a way, Band felt grateful that the bombs appeared to be magical, so that defusing them wasn’t even something he could try. Someone versed in any of the many arcane arts this world appeared to foster might know how, but the detective lacked both the slightest idea where one might be found and the time to actually get there. That left just one possibility: mitigation. As much as he prided himself on the strength of his big bell, he wasn’t willing to bet that he could soak a blast meant for a small building. Stashing it underground could be even more disastrous, with the sheer potential for collateral damage. Band reckoned his throwing arm could hurl the payload high enough into the sky that the detonation would do no damage, but that would take precise timing. His best shot? Getting it out of Al Mamoon entirely. But speed was not his forte.

“Salt...peanuts,” Band groaned. Suddenly he felt the absence of any nimble companions a lot more. To reassess the situation he opened up the oh-so-innocent treasure box once again to check on the bombs. As he feared their pulses had already gotten faster, and with the innocent little faces drawn on them they looked like round little rabbits squirming together in a nest. Band felt as if they were mocking him, saying [i]whatcha gonna do about us?[/i] But watching them together turned on a lightbulb above his head. Using a padded pincer he plucked one bomb from the box and set it in the hole he pulled the box from. If a dozen of the fruit-sized explosives could take out the commissions office with a chain reaction, he reasoned, one couldn’t be that bad. From beneath his coat he extended his saxophone and clamped it down over the hole. He took a deep breath, tensed his joints, and blew out a single flat note.

[i]BWOMP[/i]

A muffled explosion went off in the saxophone’s bell. Some smoke rose from his mouthpiece, which he avoided inhaling, but Band saw no visible damage. “Alright, looks like I’ve got you under my skin. Gonna need a hell of a tune-up later though.” One by one he repeated the process, moving with mechanical precision. Place, cover, blow. Place, cover, blow. As the remaining bombs pulsed faster he pushed himself into overdrive, keeping at it even as the internal damage to his precious sax began to mount. By the time the last cheerful bomb vanished beneath his instrument’s bell his eyes were watering, and not just from the stinging smoke. He smoothed over the little crater, replaced the tile atop it as best he could, coughed a couple times, and stood. Crisis averted.

Only after he turned to stomp off did he realize that a bespectacled woman had been watching him with crossed arms. He’d been so intent on his task he didn’t notice her arrival. His eyebrows shot up over widened eyes. “Oh! Uh. Hello, Dolly.” He glanced down at the pile of sand, soot, and chipped tiles, more than a little embarrassed. “I ‘s’pose this looks a little odd.”

“Yeah,” the lady replied, “What were you doing? You with the Resistance?”

Band straightened up and shook his head. “No, ma’am. I’m a detective from out of town.” Not quite the truth, not anymore, but good enough for his purposes. “I tailed a trio of suspects to this office. Saw them come down this way, then leave a while later. When I dropped by to take a look, I found this.” With a tilt of his head he indicated the homemade treasure box laid on the ground. “Stuffed with bombs, cheek to cheek. I couldn’t let ‘em blow up the surroundin’ buildings, so I detonated ‘em one at a time.”

For a moment the woman considered his story, but it took her only a few moments to give a stiff nod. “In that case, I guess I should thank you for saving my life. I work right in this building.” She slapped the side of the commissions office.

With a smile Band bowed his head. “No thanks necessary ma’am, just doin’ my duty. But you’re welcome all the same. I just appreciate you believin’ me.”

Hunnigan shrugged. “It just makes sense. If you wanted to do some damage, you could have let them go off together. Or just run into the office yourself, I guess. Wouldn’t have taken much. I did see a few other people head in and out of the alley in my peripherals, and there isn’t much of anything here anyway, so it was a little unusual. What’s your name?”

“Me? I’m the last of the most real. They call me Big Band.”

His new acquaintance gave a thin smile, although for someone who looked as if she hadn’t smiled in years, it still made an impression. “Do they now? Well, most people call me Hunnigan, but Ingrid works too. Would you be willing to give a report of everything you saw to the peacekeepers?”

Band glanced out of the alley. “More than willing, ma’am, but right now I’ve got a slim chance of trackin’ the suspects down before they’re miles beyond. The trail’s cold, but it’s not dead yet. But you better clear out, ‘cause when they come to see their handiwork and realize everything’s still in one piece, they might try an’ finish the job.”

Pursing her lips, Hunnigan took the warning seriously and gave back some advice of her own. “Believe me, it’s important to demonstrate to the Grimleal that you’re on their side. What we should do is call them here anyway, but not to guard the building. Instead they could lay low in the area and wait for the Resistance to show up and spring the trap. That way you can both give your report and stay on the case.”

“Hm,” Band murmured, pleasantly surprised. “You know your stuff, Ingrid. That makes sense to me. Go ‘head an’ make the call, and I’ll stand by.”

The two made their way to the front of the office, where the secretary slipped inside to use the phone. Band looked out over Al Mamoon’s thoroughfare, pausing on each face. None of the suspects seemed to be around, but who wasn’t to say their compatriots hadn’t already lined the street? Without even meaning to the one-man band had gotten involved in the desert city’s shadow war, and in just a few minutes he would be standing on its frontlines. The detective treated himself to a wry smile. “Never could just stand on the sidelines, could ya, Ben?” A tiny mechanical arm rose from his coat with a handkerchief to dab the sweat from his brow. If things were hot now, they were going to get a lot hotter, and real soon.

[center][h3]Al Mamoon - Museum of Vanity[/h3]
[@Zoey Boey] [@Yankee][/center]

Overwhelming Fear momentarily relieved  the Phantom Thieves of their senses and put them to flight, their legs running as if they had minds of their own. As they sprinted away or dived behind cover, however, Jesse held strong. Rather than waste time wondering why this puny creature could resist it, if it was even capable of such, the Shambler lurched forward with raking claws at the ready. In the stygian blackness the flash of Jesse’s power seared into her mind a grotesque vision of a wrinkled, eyeless face, singularly dominated by a gaping, fang-toothed maw.

Then she hurled one of the soapstone deities at it, bowling the creature over backwards as the carved statue shattered against it, and lit it up with her Service Weapon’s muzzle flash. The monster glet out an uncanny shriek as it regained its feet, the limbs on its back like featherless wings as they flared out behind it. It howled up a storm, giving vent to its otherworldly fury, but in the split seconds that Jesse could see it the thing she could make out no injury on its contemptible frame.

The Shambler moved forward. Relentless and implacable it staggered Jesse’s way through a hailstorm of gunfire and an avalanche of unsettling antiques. Though its body only absorbed part of the physical force delivered to it, it never once evidenced any injury. No matter how much she punished it, the unstoppable Shambler kept coming toward her, forcing her to back up. Twice it got too close just as she hammered it with a carving, but luckily the scrapes of its cruel claws received mitigation from a recovered Primrose’s defense-boosting enchantment. After only a few moments Jesse’s supply of throwables began to run dry, but to cease her onslaught in favor of an alternative would be to give the horror the moment it needed to pounce on her. Bit by bit it forced her back, stepping blindly through the darkness, each flash illuminating its ghoulish mockery of a face, nearer, nearer, [i]nearer[/i].

Then gunfire to either side of Jesse broke out, joining their cacophony to her own. The FBC director had bought the time she needed. In her peripherals Jesse found Panther keeping up a steady bombardment with her submachine gun, Skull unleashing more infrequent but brutal shotgun blasts, and Joker targeting probable weakpoints with his pistol. Even Mona stood at Jesse’s feet with his slingshot, terrified but determined, peppering the Shambler’s ankles and knees with projectiles. “Going in three!” the cat yelled. “Two! ...One!”

“GO!” The Thieves cried as one.

Mona leaped forward, transforming into a full-sized bus. With his pedal to the metal he bulled into the Shambler head-on. A second later his forward momentum smashed the Shambler into the doors behind it in a bone-pulverizing impact, but neither the doors nor the monster gave in. When Mona turned back it left the Shambler plastered against the door for a moment, providing just the opportunity Primrose needed. The dancer’s fireball blazed through the air and crashed against the horror in a scintillating follow-up, and now that she was out of ammo, Panther followed her example. The thief snapped her whip taut and the weapon burst into flame, lighting up a face of frantic courage. She lashed out over and over again, striking the scenery as much as the Shambler, proliferating the fire Primrose started. Thanks to all the flame everyone could focus on putting out damage rather than light, and as the horror pulled itself from the doors Joker called upon Leena to plant a One-hit Kill shot straight into its mouth. The magic bullet drilled into the flesh between its teeth, but even that evidenced no wound of any kind.

“It’s freakin’ immune to everything!” Skull growled.

“Then there’s a gimmick somewhere!” Panther yelled in reply. “Dormina!”

Carmen manifested to unleash a wave of sleeping magic, but predictably the Shambler shrugged it off. Shaking his head, Mona called, “I’ll stay here and help push it back with wind. You guys try to find a lead!” He pulled out his scimitar, and by his side his Persona appeared with rapier extended. “Show them your might, Zorro!” 

No longer worried about miscellaneous curses, the rest of the Thieves scattered. Their search lasted only a moment, for the hideous portrait of a monster the thieves now knew to be the Shambler itself was prominently displayed at the shadow gallery’s opposite end. Going out on a limb Joker slashed at it with his knife, but its edge slid right off the paint. “This must be the answer...” Holding his hand over one side of his face, the leader of the Phantom Thieves activated his Third Eye, and in his mind’s eye a clue took shape. “I can see it...a dagger of bone, shaped like a helix. It’s somewhere in here. Find it!” The Thieves ran between the exhibits and display cases Jesse had yet to destroy, wildly searching for the weapon Joker mentioned as fast as they could while the director and the cat struggled to keep the monster at bay.

[center][h3]Ms Fortune[/h3]
[b]Level 4[/b] Nadia (44/40)
[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] 1337[/center]

Even though a small part of Nadia (smaller than the rest, at least) still wanted nothing more than to dive beneath the pillows and hunker down until this nightmare was over, it was time to make the best of a bad situation. It helped that her new friend Mirage was practically chomping at the bit to get back into pint-sized action, emboldened by his newfound toy. Though a gun that could create platforms without needing ammunition certainly seemed more useful than her fan at first blush, she didn’t mind. If anyone was equipped to make the most of an unconventional power set, it was someone who fought by pulling her own body apart.

After hearing Mirage’s plan Nadia watched him set off, scaling a sideways table to get atop a nearby ‘hill’. His new tool made the conquest of vertical space easy, but the minute he tried to wade through the junk up there there came the commotion that Nadia had already learned to fear. The unseen monster tunneled through the ground layer like a shark through the water, with only the objects it kicked up marking its frightfully swift passage. “Get off the ground!” she called up in panic, but luckily Mirage was a step ahead of her. He clambered back on top of some furniture well before the horror reached him, a few foraged items in his hands. Rather than forge onward busied himself with his loot, and though Nadia’s lower angle blocked her sight, she guessed he must be crafting something. When he did press forward he was in for a fun journey. For whatever reason the chutes on the left side of the Belly seemed to be the most used, which led to a chain of junk mountains arcing along that side to form the ‘high road’ laid out before him. A number of floor lamps, flags, thin cabinets, and other tall, narrow items stuck out between the mountains. It looked like one hell of a tricky path to Nadia--good thing he had that dart gun.

While he went off on his own adventure, Sakura kept her ambitions in check and went for a far more pragmatic approach. Her methodical strategy gave her a slow but straight, and most importantly safe, shot all the way to the other side. If something got in her way, she would simply go around it. The simplicity of the plan made Nadia smile, and it was one that everyone could do too, what with Mount Pillow behind them and all. Still, the fact she went alone (much to Bella’s chagrin), and how isolated it left her set off warning bells in the feral’s head. Sakura would be fine if nothing weird happened out there, but given everything that happened so far, Nadia felt a little uneasy. Peach watched the future street fighter with similar worry, and worked to follow as close a path to Sakura as she could by climbing, jumping, and gliding with her parasol.

Next up was the koopa troop plus Rika, whose welfare Bowsers Junior and Senior seemed committed to look after. They also chose a straightforward tactic, even simpler than Sakura’s really, that relied on their throwing and jumping power. “Hey, if anyone’s cheatin’ it’s definitely you guys!” Nadia teased. “The rest of us can’t chuck like baseball players or jump like rabbits.” Even if she could have gone along for the ride, however, she would have passed. In a way, she needed to forge a path of her own. To prove that she wasn’t useless. Still, one thing Kamek said ignited her imagination. The feral examined the bedsheet, getting a feel for its thickness, then tested the weight of the fan. For being so strong, it managed to be incredibly light. As she looked between the two objects, an idea coagulated in her mind, dumber and cooler than any she’d had so far. “Okay. Okay! This is gonna be good. Gimme a meowment.” Her little claws flashed, making the first incision, and she got to work.

A brief but furious session of slashing, arranging, twisting, and knot-tying ensued, and in only a short while a final knot completed her project: a bedsheet parachute. Two other twisted lengths of cloth went into makeshift straps that allowed her to carry her fan like a backpack, and after a quick test to confirm that her parachute could catch the air, Nadia felt ready to fly. She pulled up behind Blazermate and Geralt as they coordinated their jump, and a moment after they leaped into the air Nadia turned her fan on and followed in their footsteps. Her parachute billowed open as the fan whirred to life, and with a squeak the kitten lifted off her feet. Heart pounding and beyond giddy, she sailed up, up, and away. For a moment she could see everyone, from Sakura with her pillows to the Koopas in front of a [url=https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/036/774/914/large/beatrice-tisander-ittakestwo-hopscotch.jpg?1618576042]toy dump[/url] to the sad little boy back at the start.

Then she, along with the other fliers, realized their mistake.

From the pitch-black center of the Belly’s cavernous ceiling, there shone a dreadful crimson light. Nadia looked up, frozen, to see a dot of yellow at the center of a vivid red orb, surrounded by a ring of similar yellow beacons. From the shadows emerged a hand of massive proportions, disembodied, floating like the angel of death come to take her away. It came too late to snag Blazermate, who landed safely with her passenger, but now it bore right for Nadia. Reflexively she tugged on one of her parachute’s cords and banked to the left, brushing right by the loathsome thing. When the back of the hand made contact with the cloth of her parachute the hand snapped shut, just a few feet away from crushing the kitten mid-flight, but Nadia’s momentum carried her out of the way. She drifted left and smacked belly-first into a television set on top of the one the junk mountains in Mirage’s path, where she clung like her life depended on it as her parachute settled softly atop her, hiding her from view.

Then the red-and-yellow spotlight shone down on her position, but its glare found nothing out of the ordinary. A moment of absolute, agonizing stillness passed, Nadia’s breath held. Then the baleful gaze slid on, headed back toward where Blazermate and Geralt stood in the open, exposed.

Peach moved quickly to retrace her steps. She hopped back across the set of speakers she’d just navigated and sprinted along the fallen ladder that formed a bridge over the junk where Sakura was making her way. From the pool table at the other end she slid down the ramp of pool cues onto the caved-in nightstand. From its bowels she retrieved the alarm clock she saw just moments prior, which she then wound up and threw with all her might. The clock hit the junk a few feet away and shattered the tense quiet of the Belly with a terribly alarming clamor. Instantly the spotlight locked on, and as Peach got clear, a mammoth hand smashed the whole area flat.

It took a moment for the echoes of the impact to die and the smothering quiet to return. The clock was no more, but whether not satisfied or simply curious, the monster wasn’t done. Its fingers curled, gathering a clump of junk before the hand floated upward again, silent as the grave but for the couple loose pieces falling to the heap. As the hand went up the body descended. The hand turned upward with its payload, and in contemplation the scarlet eye regarded it. In that moment the children below got their first -and only- glimpse of its outline--a [url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6e/e8/f4/6ee8f416d265e70036e7113603f7ade2.jpg]colossal hanging torso[/url] with mottled, veiny flesh, near-human musculature, severed wrists, and a head like an alien flower. Then Bongo Bongo brought his other hand around to smash the clump of junk in a mighty clap, and as the shreds and splinters cascaded to the floor its eye resumed its search.