[center][h3]Tora, Poppi, and Big Band[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Sandswept Sky - Inner-Mountain
Level 9 Tora (126/90) Level 9 Poppi (126/90) Level 5 Big Band (64/50)
Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Fox’s [@Dawnrider], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Primrose and Therion’s [@Yankee], Yoshitsune and Sora’s [@Rockin Strings], Laharl’s [@Dark Cloud], Raz’s [@TruthHurts22]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1050[/center]

While Tora and Poppi licked their wounds, left behind by Laharl as he ran off to aid in Primrose’s rescue, the rest of their allies mounted their comeback. Instrumental to turning the tides was Sectonia, who stepped off the proverbial sidelines with a serious opening act. Her Time Dilation slowed down the rampages of both the ice golem Kelvin and the last remaining Wendigo, and though by no means the herald of an instant win, its effect was significant, as the dancer and the half-demon quickly found out.

The two rushed to the aid of Yoshitsune, where the samurai fought for dear life on the ground. His armor, and especially his helmet, proved to be his saving grace against the Wendigo’s feral onslaught until backup arrived. Primrose’s Black Serpent drove the monster back, and as the two ran in to take over for him Yoshitsune passed out, exhausted from fatigue and blood loss. The rest was up to his allies.

Laharl sicced his undead strikers on the beast, but after taking one slash the Wendigo proved as wily as it was fast. Even if its hideously stretched hide could foil any conventional blade, it had no intention of just standing there and getting hit. Instead it dodged backward, backpedaling until it came upon an outcrop of stone, and when the draugr’s overswing carried it off-balance the flesh-eater used the solid surface as a springboard to shoot forward. Its claw separated the dead Nord’s head from its shoulders before its summoner could so much as blink, although its lunge left it close enough that a pounce of Laharl’s own could land a Lion-empowered blow on it. If, of course, he could overcome the nasty cut that opened on his own throat as a result of the damage done to his striker.

Of course, without fire, the Wendigo could not be put down for good. Luckily, Laharl and Primrose were not alone. Panther and Joker appeared to help, each calling upon the scorching flames of the Lamia to help in their own way. Both Phantom Thieves moved in arcs on their respective sides, along which they set ablaze every piece of wood in their paths to create walls of flame in an effort to box the Wendigo in. When the creature, intent on the bloody murder of Laharl and Primrose, finally realized the threat, it broke off to hide the darkness. A burning shipwreck let off a lot of light, however, and Joker moved to intercept. “This is for earlier!” he declared, switching Personas in a flourish of azure flame that gave the monster pause. “Jinx, Riot Gun!”

A torrent of bullets from the gunslinging madwoman, accompanied by her hyena laughter, overcame the strength of the Wendigo’s jump and sent it flying back. It scrabbled to its feet and ran the other way, but Panther had already cracked her whip, infusing it with her element of choice. Faced with the lash of a tongue of flame, a smoking gatling gun, and an inferno of mining equipment, the Wendigo had nowhere to go but toward Laharl and Primrose. “Torch it!” Panther yelled to her friend. If Laharl gave her the shot, she could incinerate the menace with one good Pyromancy.

Meanwhile, Kelvin found himself under a different sort of duress. As he tore through the wreckage of the scaffold tower in search of Fox, scattering shrapnel with one mighty swing after another, Sectonia began her assault. Though potent, her attacks encountered some difficulty thanks to Kelvin’s Ice Form, until the golem felt the curious sensation of a liquid splash on his back. Then the corrosive started to burn, melting through its protective coating of ice and into its body–or, more accurately, [i]bodies[/i]. This hulking brute was no artificial construct, with a core buried somewhere inside impregnable armor; it was a colossal mass of microorganisms, billions if not trillions strong, united under a single shared consciousness, and now that consciousness rumbled in pain. It rounded on Therion, the holes in its skull-face ablaze with thermal fury, but with the golem only about eight feet tall and its head in its middle that meant it had to look up at the thief to do so. The two launched into combat, with Kelvin constantly pressing forward in an attempt to punch Therion while he landed slice after slice. Every few attacks he would pound the ground, unleashing a small shockwave. None hurt too much, and Sectonia’s slow made it manageable, but even with lower defense he had enough durability to last a while, and if allowed to pull off a Chomp the damage would be severe. 

At least, until third parties got involved. Though far from done with her Wendigo problem, Primrose spared some attention from her friend. Makami slapped Kelvin with yet another debuff, this time to his offense, alleviating some of Therion’s worry. Fox burst from the debris, having used a charge shot to forcibly relocate himself, but as he readied himself to lend the thief a hand he heard a chorus of yells from behind. A quick look over his shoulder revealed Big Band, Braum, and all the rest who’d gone down the tunnel, ready to help however they could. The three Phantom Thieves joined the pair who stayed behind, leaving the surrounded Wendigo one-on-seven, and with Mona’s wind to fan the flames its fate was all but sealed. Meanwhile, the brawn closed in on Kelvin.

Sensing the danger, the golem emptied his bag of tricks. As his enemies closed in, he activated Sublimate, becoming a heavy cloud of frigid air. The cold front blew through Therion, Fox, and the new arrivals in turn, freezing each for a solid two seconds, and as Kelvin’s run ended it conjured its Ice Wall. A slab of impassable ice arose in the group’s midst, freezing them on contact. Its size left Braum, the Scout, and Fox on the far side, with only Therion and Big Band with Kelvin.

“Guh!” Band gasped as he shrugged off the frost. “It’s cold enough as is, freezie-pop!” When Kelvin moved in without a word, Band deployed an enormous drum pedal to do his talking for him. “Giant Step!” The tremor knocked Kelvin off his feet, giving Therion a big opening, but the one-man band wouldn’t be far behind.

[center][h3]Ms Fortune[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Carcass Isle - Where All Things Must Come
Level 7 Nadia (49/70)
Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Blazermate’s [@Archmage MC], Hat Kid’s [@Dawnrider], Geralt’s [@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN], Ace Cadet’s [@Yankee], Sakura's [@Zoey Boey],  Link’s [@Gentlemanvaultboy], Delsin’s [@Rockin Strings]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1346[/center]

For a good moment Nadia just laid there, plastered against the muck like any of the other sorry carcasses littering this accursed beach, her limbs and fibers strewn about in weird ways, beneath a stormy sky that spun as though she were three sheets to the wind. A normal person might have been lucky enough to pass out, but not Nadia Fortune; the Orphan’s punishment missed her head completely, and though nothing to shake a stick at the pain wasn’t enough to overload her. Not after everything she’d been through. Still, it wasn’t every day that she took an impact akin to a runaway vehicle, and though her healing factor was already at work buffing out the dents, her sluggish muscles weren’t cooperating. Adrenaline pumped through her, perpetuating this fateful instant, and yet she could make no use of it. [i]Drat.[/i] She could only stare in fear at the leering Orphan as it hunched over her, silhouetted against those turbulent heavens by the unwholesome light of that melty-eye moon. In both hands it held its placenta, one on the hilt and the other buried in the throbbing watermelon flesh on its head, raised like a guillotine over her midsection to deal the death blow that Rika had been so fortunate to escape. Maybe it was just her dazed delirium talking, but didn’t that weapon look sort of like a big shrimp? Karmic justice, perhaps, for all the shrimp that met their end in her belly over the years. In the middle of her attempts to play her imminent suffering off, however, memories flooded back to her–memories of being carved into pieces, of that unfathomable agony, second only to the horror of watching her family suffer it first. Nadia grit her teeth and, silently crying out to her allies for salvation, squeezed her eyes shut.

At the eleventh hour, her hero appeared. Bowser stepped over her to wrap the Orphan of Kos in his massive mitts. Though the monster put up a brutal struggle, cracking its captor’s armor enough to draw blood, the Koopa King did not relent. In what was, to be frank, an awesome display of strength and sturdiness, the rock-solid ruler powered through the Orphan’s punishment and hucked the flailing infant through the air. It hurtled a couple hundred feet and burst into the gooey, gristly, gas-swollen guts of a beached whale corpse, where it disappeared with a sickening [i]BLORK[/i] into the depths of the body’s putrefied embrace. Knowing that the carrion would hold his foe for long, however, Bowser built up and released a ray of radiant light, brilliant enough to inundate the whole beach with its splendor. Its sheer intensity caused the volatile whale carcass to erupt, and the ensuing vile deluge splattered the cove with slabs of steamy, sludgy meat. For a suspenseful handful of seconds, no trace of the Orphan could be seen amidst the haze.

Behind Bowser, Nadia sprang to her feet. Fine, dandy, and fighting-fit thanks to Kamek’s ministration, she couldn’t help but let out a long, low whistle of admiration at Bowser’s feat. “Man, you go, big guy!” Her eyes flitted between him and Kamek. “...Thank you both, for real.” The soreness would linger for a while, and the wave of nausea that followed the whale’s detonation made her glad she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, but for the most part she was fine. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for her appearance. [i]I must look like a complete mess,[/i] she bemoaned. Hopefully Ace didn’t end up worrying about her unduly. She’d been hoping to get some revenge for [i]him[/i], in fact, before the Orphan floored her. The whole thing pissed her off, not least that the nightmare seemed content to put itself at a disadvantageous position just to spite her. Did it just hate her that much? Nadia bared her teeth. Although nothing would make her happier than seeing the nightmare dead to rights after Bowser’s giga-beam, she wasn’t about to get her hopes up.

Sure enough, and all too soon, the Orphan showed its ghastly face again. Its torso sported visible damage, but a lot less than the feral would have liked, and with barely any delay the freak started charging toward the heroes once more. This time, however, it bare down on not just one or two challengers, but a whole bevy of Seekers rallied and ready for action. Nadia, Bowser, Kamek, Geralt, Ace, Sakura, and Link all fanned, steeling themselves for its offensive, but the latter had a clever idea too. He threw his brandistock, but not in an effort to pierce the Orphan’s sallow flesh. Instead, Nadia watched as he used a little tablet to freeze his upright weapon mid-air, and when the nightmare swung, the impossible happened. The ordinary-looking polearm somehow took the full force of the abomination’s armor-busting bludgeon, not deflecting it, but absorbing it. Placental blade and Orphan alike stopped in their tracks.

Naturally, just about everyone wanted a piece of that, and the more of them that stepped up to bat, the better a chance they had at locking it down. Geralt’s big stride brought him in the quickest, where he carved across the Orphan’s limbs with the safe, professional slices that would win his team this fight over the big, risky plays that ended in downtime. Sakura, meanwhile, went to town. A bone-crunching elbow led into a twin-fist wallop, then an extra-spicy special cancel to pummel the Orphan’s blindspot with a hurricane kick. Not about to let her fellow fighter have all the fun, Nadia joined in, delaying only long enough to summon another copycat with a flourish. As the gruesome twosome delivered a [url=https://i.imgur.com/9EWtK2M.png]Flip-flop[/url] they removed their heads, which then thrust forward in corkscrew-powered [url=https://i.imgur.com/BsP5DUT.png]Facepalm[/url]. The sight of Ace fighting alongside her, stabbing the Orphan with all he had, filled both Nadias with determination. Amidst the thing’s feculent bloodshed they hopped up to hurl their heads down with [url=https://i.imgur.com/fFvCWSM.png]Cat Spike[/url]. Rather than go for an aerial, however, Nadia made the split-second choice to airdash backward. In a spray of vital fluid she and her copycat flew out of harm’s way. A second later, Orphan lashed out with a distended sweep, carving a spiral furrow in the sand. Sakura’s roll got her clear of the initial pass, and though the second clipped her painfully on wakeup, she could still celebrate landing a solid combo thanks to her strategic use of Link’s stasis-bound brandistock.

The fresh cuts, bruises, and bite marks -courtesy of Bella- made the monster howl in outrage, and it got back into the swing of things with a vengeance, swinging high and wide one direction after another in an effort to eviscerate the whole group without singling anyone out. After a little more give and take, during which the polearm flashed faster and faster before hurling away into the surf, the Orphan switched it up. With a scream it pounded the ground, hard enough to send out a ripple of force, then performed a sudden long jump. It zoomed between Bowser and Geralt, not to mention [i]over[/i] Hat Kid, and landed a good way off. The nightmare skidded to a stop not too far from the entrance, which meant it was near Junior, Rika, and Delsin as well. With a yell of alarm, the Abyssal opened fire, but a few bullets wouldn’t stop the Orphan finishing what it started. Before it could get too close, however, Delsin jumped in front. Having broken out of his stupor with an intent to make up for lost time, he unleashed his chains and flames with a bellow, but the Orphan blew through them all. Before the Conduit could change tactics, he took a heavy blow across the chest that cracked his ribs, then an uppercut slice to the armpit that nearly took off his right arm. He fell to the wayside with a chilling yell, broken and bloodied, but his efforts bought the Seekers enough time to catch up to the Orphan once more.