[center][h3]Ms. Fortune[/h3]
[b]Level 4[/b] Nadia (122/40)
[b]Location:[/b] The Maw - Kabuki Theater
Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Blazermate’s [@ArchmageMC], Hat Kid’s [@Dawnrider], Geralt’s [@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN], Ace Cadet’s [@Yankee], Sakura's [@Zoey Boey],  Link’s [@Gentlemanvaultboy], Mirage’s [@Potemking]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2031[/center]

Though she had a hold of herself for now, hidden from the snake-tailed terror  in the shadows atop the chest of drawers she scaled, Nadia was still rattled by what happened to Glenn. Being no stranger to loss did not prepare one to witness such a jarringly sudden end. Naturally she wanted to believe that the young swordsman still lived, but with her every instinct telling her otherwise, she didn’t dare get her hopes up. In stories the band of heroes would always escape every crisis unscathed, pulling through no matter the odds, but real life wasn’t always so convenient. It shouldn’t have come as a shock, but it still managed to. If her team’s run of good luck through the gauntlet of horrors so far had convinced them that they really would all escape this wretched place, this tragedy was a stern reminder. With the end so near, one mistake or moment of carelessness could spell death.

Resolute in the face of despair, Link chose to dance with the devil. From her refuge on high Nadia watched the little hero creep across the room to the weakened floorboards beneath the Lady’s heaviest furnishing. The purposefulness of his movement and the impossibility of a straight fight led her to the same conclusion that Ace struck upon, and after taking a deep breath she crouched down to watch Link’s plan unfold, ready with magnet in hand to interject if necessary.

The tense atmosphere, deadly quiet except for the hissing breath of the monster, the slide of demonic metal against wood, and the frantic pumping of young hearts, finally shattered as Link made his move. He summoned the Resentment’s attention to himself with an outburst of sound, and only too happily did the menace oblige. Its faceless hood swerved his way, locking on, and with a gleeful sigh that said [i]ah, there you are[/i] it lunged across the room. It fell onto its belly, pulling itself along with its arms even as the undulation of its muscular tail pushed it forward, and extended a cluster of grasping arms from its hood as it closed in on its prey. Before it could take Link into its multifaceted grasp, however, Larry manifested before it.

Man and monster slammed into one another hard enough to make the room shake, and though the butcher’s strength paled in comparison to the demon’s, the Resentment quickly found itself hard-pressed. Try as it might, it just couldn’t cram Larry’s ponderous bulk into its hood. Instead it choked, having unexpectedly bitten off a lot more than it could chew, and though it fired off its accursed beam in an effort to make the bloodstained adult more bite-sized, the foul sorcery did nothing. Instead Link’s striker held the demon at bay, quickly exhausting the transient power that sustained his existence, but not before Ace and Nadia tagged in to finish what the young hero started.

Following her friend’s example with all the nimbleness her tired little form could muster, Nadia scampered up to the Resentment’s right side while Ace took the left. She’d been watching for the monster hunter’s signal, and though neither exchanged any words the plan seemed crystal clear. Even if she had her moments of foolishness and scatterbrain on occasion, the cunning cat burglar Nadia Fortune was the queen of crazy ideas, and she wouldn’t for the life of her miss an opportunity like this. By the time the demon finally dispelled Larry and pounced on the spot where it saw Link last, only to shake the unstable floorboards as its demonic hands closed on empty air, the Ace Decoys had already raised their magnets toward the highest metal knobs that the dresser looming above it had to offer. With nothing else they could do, the two willed their saving graces to pull, and the magnets obliged. Beams of red and blue energy tethered their targets like lassos, and with an all-out double yank for good measure Ace and Nadia pulled the teetering colossus down.

The mass of wood fell on the Resentment like a hammer on an anvil. Ordinary timber meant almost nothing to the infernal monster’s armor, but the force carried straight through to the floor beneath, and in an instant the impact pushed the already-strained planks well past their breaking point. With a screech the demon smashed through, plunging into the darkness below. Its howl faded away into the darkness, and try as she might Nadia never heard it hit the bottom.

For a brief moment the joy of a hard-won victory filled her, but it withered just as soon as she realized both that she didn’t seem to be turning back to normal, and that the demon had taken any chance of saving Glenn with it. If the Resentment left his fate ambiguous before, its defeat made one thing clear: the boy who would one day become Frog was lost to them. The thought of leaving anyone behind made her heart ache, but in a way she was relieved that his life was out of her hands. In her mind, it was time for the survivors to cut their losses and move on. Did that make her a bad person? Well, there was no way they could possibly do anything now, was there? So there was no point in beating themselves up over it. Surely the boys wouldn’t jump down there to try and save him--surely even the most valiant and idealistic heroes weren’t that crazy. Nadia looked between Link and Ace, her expression grim and a little fearful. “C’mon, we gotta go,” she whispered, her eyes on the mirror tucked beneath the Cadet’s arm lest she accidentally meet Link’s gaze. “Can’t stay. Can’t go down. We’ve gotta get the mirror to the others, beat that damn Lady, and get the hell outta this place.”

Nadia swallowed and took Ace’s hand, which she squeezed, followed by Link’s in her other. There followed a brief moment of solidarity and assurance, of hope that the others would accept the path forward alongside those still here rather than agonize over the one who’d gone. Then she took off toward the stairwell, running alongside whoever cared to join her as she hurried back the way she came.

[hr]

Just as in the Lady’s Chambers the arrival of the towering Resentment demon sparked a sudden panic among the merry band greedily looting the place for all it was worth, but unlike Ace, Link, and Nadia the Koopa Troop was a whole lot better equipped to deal with it. A flurry of frying pans and other hurled objects, bouncing off both the monster and any shelves in the way, created enough visual and auditory chaos to keep the Resentment from homing in on the scattered heroes while they hurried to reunite. Angered by the clamor, the Swindler of Progress swept its thorned lance back and forth, wreaking havoc among the aisles of the Storeroom as it sought to clear some space. In the midst of the tumult, however, Bowser presented himself, and with dreadful speed the Resentment snaked across the floor toward him. It bore down on the gaggle of children with killing intent, noticing but ignoring Kamek’s projectile on account of its own inherent toughness, only for the accursed blob to hit and polymorph it on the spot. Unable to attack and only barely able to scoot around, the tempura soon fell victim to Junior’s brand-new hook, totally oblivious to the fresh hell it was then dragged into.

Finishing off Larry had been visceral and savage, a grim product of necessity and fear, but the beatdown that befell the Resentment-turned-tempura as the tots all dogpiled it was an altogether different beast. Spurred on by the pain of powerlessness that this faceless monster inflicted on them, the Seekers went to town, using every method at their disposal to vent their anger on the oversized foodstuff before them. Of special note was Geralt, his damage output empowered by Blazermate’s donation of lentil stew to a staggering twenty-one times. Where the other attacks only dented or marred the tempura’s exterior on account of the demon’s unchanged defense, the Witcher’s nail pierced straight through, again and again.

All too soon the fun came to an end. A short time to begin with, ten seconds flew by in an instant, and at the curse’s conclusion the Resentment poofed back to normal. It regained its former size in explosive fashion, hurling the kids crowded around it backward to slam into shelves or tumble down aisles, but after that it merely slouched there, taking no further action. Even in the poor light it was easy to see the abundance of injury done to it, especially the multiple skewer wounds that went straight through it from one side to the other. Its waist, the smallest part of it, seemed to be barely holding together. Yet the monster was still alive. It lurched, filling the room with a metallic screech, and began to attack blindly. Its tail and lance raked across the shelves, lockers, floor, and anyone not fast enough to get out of the way. But in the midst of that flailing onslaught, it left itself open enough that anyone with enough speed and strength could charge in and, with a solid blow to its nearly-destroyed midsection, part the demon’s upper and lower halves.

When the deed was done the Resentment fell, hissing its last as its body disintegrated. Its spirit rested among the ashes, shining innocently at the epicenter of the utter mess the monster made of the storeroom. If the Troop expected to return to normal the instant the demon died, however, they soon found themselves disappointed. The key to dispelling the curse must, it would seem, be elsewhere. Whatever other trinkets and treasures the place might have offered were no more, although for better or worse Isaac remained where the Seekers left him under his shelf, a miserable heap blind and deaf to his surroundings. With little else on offer in the Storeroom except the possibility of more mimics, and the incredibly loud disturbance sure to draw attention, it was high time the looters returned to the Lady’s nightmare theater. 

[hr]

As bad as the curse felt, the sensation of being unable to do a thing about the anguish of someone Bella cherished rankled her insides worst of all. It filled her heart with sorrow and her eyes with bitter tears, leading to wonder what the point of awakening to her own consciousness had been if she was still just a useless monster, after all. What good was intelligence without knowledge? What good was empathy without experience? Never in a million years would she regret the kindness Sakura showed to her, but becoming aware had so far been almost constant pain. First came the crashing wave of regret after realizing for the first time just how much loss and suffering she’d inflicted throughout her life, next came the hammering of bloody battle, and now the carnival of terrors that rained down every agony upon the sorry group of kids while Bella got to see her precious, beloved sailor worn down bit by bit, until all that remained was a crying wreck. Even Bella’s biggest, most heartfelt hugs had done nothing to reverse this woeful degradation.

So when Sakura asked -no, implored- Bella and Mirage to leave, the Seaplane Tender remorsefully prepared to obey. She could offer the little street fighter nothing except the assurance that Bella would listen to her, and since as far as she was concerned Sakura knew best, Bella knew that it must be the right thing to do even if it felt wrong to leave her alone. Mirage, however, refused. Instead he filled the silence with a whispered story, and the Abyssal listened. He told the story of a young man who blamed himself for every tragedy that haunted his life, but who never stopped doing his best for those he cared for, nor turning away from the mother that loved him, even when she was unwell. [i]Why would he blame himself again and again?[/i] Bella wondered. [i]It’s not his fault his brothers were marched off to war, or that his mother got sick.[/i] It was then that she began to reflect, applying the story to her own situation, and her eyes went wide. For someone with no past of her own to fall back on, desperate to accumulate the human experience, the tale hit hard. Thinking about it made Bella realize that she shouldn’t be wasting time blaming herself, agonizing over not knowing what to do, or letting Sakura send her away. She cleared her throat and put on a determined face. “I trust ze others to do what zey must,” she told Sakura, lifting up the mannequin’s kimono to look her friend in the face as best she could. Her leviathan tail slunk out and gently curled around the little girl, sliding her out of her hiding spot and back among her friends. “Ze place I belong is right here.”

Some time later, the two splinter groups snuck back into the theater. The Koopa Troop seemed a little banged up but not much worse for wear, with everyone having apparently found something that may or may not help out in the showdown that awaited them. Only Geralt looked wounded, but what at first glance looked like blood from his mouth turned out to be nothing more than a smear of vibrant red lentil soup, easily wiped off with the back of a hand. When the detachment to the Residence returned, however, the headcount came up one short. Quiet, reticent Glenn, the green-hued shadow trailing behind the Seekers as they forged onward through harrowing horror, was gone. In exchange they gained an ordinary hand mirror, unremarkable until Nadia mentioned that every other mirror in the Lady’s Quarter’s had been destroyed. ‘It seems important’ wasn’t much to go on, so hopefully Bowser’s intuition about a secret weakness was spot on.

For her part, Nadia was absolutely relieved to see everyone else okay. It had been way too easy to imagine the Lady appearing in the dark, reducing poor Sakura to a cone-headed nome without even a struggle. It soon came to light that the Koopa Troop not just found but actually killed the other Resentment, which along with the safety of the stay-behinds in the theater invited a critical conclusion: that the enigmatic Lady, mistress of the Maw and all its monsters, lurked in the shadows of the kabuki stage all by herself. Meanwhile, the Seekers commanded a dozen members, at least one potent polymorphing ability, a variety of weapons, and the mirror that Nadia felt increasingly sure would play a pivotal role.

The tension in the room was rising. Everyone was restless, upset, angry. They were beyond sick and tired of all this, and it was past time they confronted the one responsible. “It’s time to do this. To bring the nightmare haunting this place to an end,” Peach murmured, giving voice to the general sentiment. “Prepare yourselves. Eat if you need to. Does everyone have something?” she asked, parasol at the ready. Link’s knife, Geralt’s nail, Mirage’s dart gun, Nadia and Ace’s magnets, Bowser’s hammer, Junior’s hook, Kamek’s teacup, Bella and Rika’s Abyssal armaments, Blazermate’s metal body comprised their armory, to say nothing of newly gained powers. That left just the mirror, and one set of empty hands.

“Here,” Peach said, offering the mirror to Sakura. “You’re not a screw-up. You’re our friend, and we trust you. There’s only one person to blame for all this, and she’s up on that stage. I want you to take this and show her. Show her who’s the hero, and who’s the monster.”

In the black stillness of the nightmare theater there could be no rallying battle cry, but the group was in agreement. Trusting in the safety of numbers they crept through the darkness, past the rows of faceless mannequins and into the central aisle. Step by step they approached the stage, inching toward the lone spotlight to do battle--to put an end to the mistress of the Maw.