[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/5r7OTIh.png[/img] [b][color=Aquamarine]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,146 +2 [b][color=Aquamarine]Midna: level 5[/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aquamarine]/////////////////////////////////////////[/color]////////// (40/50) [b][color=Aquamarine]Location:[/color][/b] Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon [/center] Midna gave the slightest sigh of relief, both because that her idea was being taken onboard on a provisional basis, and that she wasn't going to have to be the one putting it into practice. Her little speech had been about the limit her wounds would allow, and so she gratuitously settled down on the ground and let one of the clerics tend to her while the more intact Tora and Poppie did the example freeing. As said clerics' worked their magic (Or faith? She wasn't quite sure, but either way they put parts of her back together with pulses of power, which, as with the Medic, was a far better option than risking bleeding out or getting infected by something even if she didn't know how it worked) the pair who’d shared her concerns stepped forwards and got to work freeing the girl and the teen (or at least that's what she guessed his age was?). The results were dramatic. Far better than she had expected even, considering her encounter with Crow. Yes, the little girl was still concerned about her former boss (which was ok in Midna’s book but maybe not in Kan-Ra’s) but the horror she expressed about using bombs on people showed that Galeem’s twisting went even further than Midna had expected. Maybe these were just good people who had been driven to cruel ends by Galeem’s wretched influence, she thought? Their cause was, when it came down to it, just, but maybe they’d only gone too far with what methods they’d considered reasonable because of the Gleeming? This line of thought gave her a fundamentally incorrect impression of Mao, who’s practically jumping at the chance to sell out his former comrades she took to be a result of him also being horrified at what he had done, rather than being horrified about having done those things in the name of someone else’s cause. [color=Aquamarine]”Seeing as this was my idea, I’m sticking with you”[/color] she told him, adding herself to the team that would be raiding the store he’d talked about. She wondered which one it was. Had they been meters away from a hideout and not even noticed? That was very briefly going to get awkward if it was one where she’d dealt with the owner at all. Before they headed out however, there was the sudden arrival of Primrose and company (who Midna was happy to see where all in one piece) to briefly deal with. The dancer noted rather bluntly that they’d made contact with the resistance in perhaps the worst way possible. Minda wondered if she was annoyed about not having a say in how this had gone down. Probably yes. She knew she would be, and in fact still was with how things were getting out of hand and having to be reigned in. [color=Aquamarine]”You could say that, yes”[/color] Midna replied, rolling her right arm, now wonderfully free of claw gashes thanks to the cleric’s work, before adding [color=Aquamarine]”But we didn’t even get to introduce ourselves before they threw this welcome party for us”[/color] jokingly. Part of that they could at least change now with at least one, former, member of the resistance. [color=Aquamarine]”I’m Midna, good to meet you. Also yeah, I can answer some questions while we get going”[/color] She introduced herself to the newly freed bleach haired, grey skinned, hylian-esque person, and then nodded her head towards the exit for him to lead the way. They didn't have a lot of time. One of these resistance members had escaped, and the fights around the other bases were sure to start as soon as the news of the failed ambush got out, if not sooner. When he did she followed him or, more specifically, his shadow, while giving him (and Band, if he went with them) a quick run down of their quest while hitching a ride to the store. [color=Aquamarine]”If you want to see who’s fault this all is, just take a look at the sun,”[/color] Minda said, entirely unaware that this was a bad idea for lighters under normal circumstances as it was for her all the time [color=Aquamarine]”and, I’m told, you’ll see the winged being known as Galeem”[/color] [color=Aquamarine]”It dismantled all worlds with that light basalt you just remembered, and stitched everything back together in the mess we are now living in, and finally blinded everyone to the fact that that had happened. It also is the reason everyone else has red glowing eyes. Be careful around them. They're mostly themselves, but Galeem’s power means that once a fight starts, they won't stop fighting till they’re dead. Plus I think we’ve just learned that they’ll go to greater and worse lengths to achieve their goal than they would if they were able to remember themselves”[/color] They saw plenty of such individuals as they rushed through the city, the eyes of every member of every crowd glowing an unnerving red, the new theorized facet of the influence adding an extra ting of danger two each and every one. [color=Aquamarine]”Long term plan is that we, and a few other groups of other freed people, travel round this round island we’re on to gather spirits and allies in order to gain power, and then use that power defeat the rest of these Guardians that dotted around the land which are shielding Galeem from harm. Then last things last we head to the center to take down that glowing pain in the ass once and for all in order to set the world back to the way it once was”[/color] she continued by spelling out their long term goals before moving on to the more immediate goals. [color=Aquamarine]”Short term, if we can free both the resistance and some of the Grimleal we might, might, be able to resolve this civil war without any more death and get a bunch more allies in the process. We can only free people when they’re beat up, you see, and because of that whole, fight till the end thing, we can't just go around picking fights and freeing people without causing ourselves a whole heap of trouble. Don’t exactly want to try and take on a whole town after all. ”[/color] this was very much in line with Fox’s thinking, but after that she deviated back to her own [color=Aquamarine]”Also, obviously, people who were evil before will be evil after, so there's always a risk involved with freeing people. If you're in a tough fight, free your opponent and they still want you dead? Well you’ve just freed them and taken off a blinder that might have been holding them back. Think that’ll be an issue with some of the others?”[/color] she asked their newest member, in case he had some insight about the general gist of the resistance. She didn't think it would, but best be safe rather than sorry. [hr] [center][img]https://www.mariowiki.com/images/thumb/b/b2/Koopa_Troop_artwork.png/658px-Koopa_Troop_artwork.png[/img] [h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2] [b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,011 (+2) [b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 9 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (119/90) [b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 8 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]///////////////////////////////////// (45/80) [b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 8 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]/////////////////////////////////////////[/color]////////////////////////////////////// (41/80) [b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] Bottomless Sea – the Maw - the Depths Feat: Rika [/center] Like Ms Fortune Rika didn't actually know how to handle Sakrua’s emotional plight, but that didn't stop her from doing what she could, which was hugging her friend back when Sakura gripped her. Doing so was made a bit awkward by her gauntlets, but she did her best to be a comforting presence anyway. The ship girl didn't really get it. The heart had practically made her into a person, but here it had made the robot not a person? It was confusing and painful and she didn't know how to handle that either, which made her grateful that, while Sakura’s way of dealing with the situation was bizarre, and honestly a little traumatizing in and of itself (Rika was very alarmed when the schoolgirl smacked her head against the metal floor) it also let Rika deal with it by association. It was Galeem’s fault. Simple as. Thoughts of revenge really were a great way to handle pain, be it hunger or death! “It’s ok. You helped me too”, she told Sakura when her friend thanked her for being there, as little as she had actually done to help, and then headed into the com’s room with her friend. After the debacle with the bloated fish guy she went to take a look where he’d gone, once again showing that Jr was overthinking things when she simply pushed open and then stepped through a gate in the fence without a thought in order to look down at where the old guy had gone. According to Blazermate he was apparently still down there, which meant that somehow, against all odds, Bowser had been right. Picking up on the fact that people were weird out by his prediction, Bowser defended it by saying [color=FD0000]”What? It’s the worst thing that could happen, so of course it’s going to happen in this weird nightmare of a place. Have you guys never watched a horror movie?”[/color] and planted said prediction firmly in the dumb luck category. [color=SpringGreen]”You never let me watch horror movies… wait they’re like this? Yeesh. They sound really lame then”[/color] Jr complained, before quickly getting over his own complaint. Who in their right minds would have anything to do with this stuff for fun, he thought. Either way, they had other things to worry about. Like the wet guy pulling some kind of dry Bowser move on them as soon as they went down there. Rather than keep staring down into the murky water waiting for that to happen, Bowser wandered off to start rifling through the guy’s stuff. There was a doll (creepy), a key item (which the king held onto) a bunch of toys and games the guy had presumably used when not staring at the tv (based on the abandon nature of the jigsaw the tv was probably his favorite pastime by far), a crummy looking fishing rod and a bunch of jars of stuff. Bowser took a sniff of the labeled one, went [color=FD0000]”Blech”[/color] when it reminded him of Bracus and promptly left the rest alone. All except the last jar, which had a very gross looking thing called a “Cadou” in it, which Bowser had the displeasure of having a hungry stomach growl coincide with him looking at it. Which made him feel sick. What kind of monster would… Bowser glanced at the fishing rod, then back to the disgusting thing and had an idea. He hooked the jar and fishing rod under his arm and rejoined the others, now rather loaded down with stuff. [color=FD0000]”Ok, don't look at the thing in the jar, but for distractions, I bet we can use it as a bait on the end of this fishing rod or something”[/color] He suggested, responding to an earlier comment by Peach about finding ways to buy the sub gower’s time to sneak down to the water controls. “I can go down and scoot around and shoot to make some noise? If I stay close to land and Blazermate acts as a spotter she can probably make sure I don't get got by a big fish right?” Rika suggested in line with that idea [color=FD0000]”Just as long as your safe kid”[/color] Bowser told her, which got him a confident nod in affirmation. [color=SpringGreen]”We’ll have mirage’s sub robot thing too… we could chuck that in to make noise and be a distraction. Or maybe even just have it do the thing?”[/color] jr suggested, seeing as he was assuming he’d be the one doing the submarining. Then he had another thought, based on how Mirage was acting while wearing the fortunately not dangerous robot control system and suggested that [color=SpringGreen]”Do you think Carl was just some guy plugged in like Mirage was then? Somewhere else though, and for like, way too long?”[/color] “Hey, yeah. Maybe you just got him to get out of his own chair thing? That would be nice” Rika said to Sakura, accidentally punctuating how much wishful thinking was involved in that with her final comment. [color=SpringGreen]”Maybe. Well. Even if we do just use the robot, we still want to get the sub down as like, more bait. And if we do go, like if we need to do land stuff down there, then I can drive it and I think Mimi can do her shadow thigh through the glass? So we are not 100% defenseless”[/color] he said, getting a nod from his pokemon that that would work. Whether it would be enough to hurt anything down there was debatable, but it was a reassurance to not be entirely helpless. As for getting the sub down, Nadia’s strategy of just climbing up there didn't yield any internal release mechanism, but it did find a wire leading from it down somewhere that might have a release mechanism on the other end. In response to this info, Rika and Jr both took up their respective strategies for getting in the cage again. The ship girl went looking for a door or hatch or something, while jr followed the wire itself and then tried to claw open the panel it led into to try and follow it. Unfortunately it was way up there in the ceiling. [color=SpringGreen]”Give me a hand getting up, will you?”[/color] jr asked generally, but Bowser was more than happy to help, putting down his many gubbins (hammer head, mutant containing jar, fishing rod and key) before joining his son in his mission. First they tried forming a two Koopa stack and, if that didn't get them high enough, the king would casually wander over to unplug the annoying staticy tv so he could move it over to use as a footstool.