[center][h3]Tora, Poppi, and Big Band[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Sandswept Sky
Level 9 Tora (234/90) Level 9 Poppi (234/90) Level 7 Big Band (60/70)
Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Therion’s [@Yankee], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey], Raiden’s [@XoXKieroBombXoX], Bede’s [@Crimson Flame], the Phantom Thieves, the Scout, Peacock, Vandham, Wonder Red, Asbestos, Commander Nelson, Alice MacGregor
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2573

With the help of the friendly Metro Cat and his considerate advice in mind, the heroes proceeded out from the Yellow Line toward the main station, leaving the train platform and its bizarre subway behind, although not before Tora jumped up to scratch the giant tabby cat under the chin. Luckily, the color-coded signs and arrows on walls and floor alike made navigation easy, and the path brought them to a row of translucent, neon yellow gates. Through them Band could see the ground level of Yakuza Metro proper, at least for a little way, and as he watched a couple of the black-furred Metro Cats ambled straight through the barrier. Those exiting on the right side, ahead of the Seekers, made it through without having to lift a finger, while those who entered on the left side needed to produce and then scan a little plastic card whose color matched the gate. After a beep the gate dimmed slightly to let the incoming cats through one at a time.

Band noted all this down mentally, nodding to himself as he did. Though a little fantastical with the one-way gates and intelligent barriers, the whole thing worked on much the same principle as any old turnstyle, so it made sense. Identifying the cards the cats used as the metro passes his team got warned about prompted him to realize one other thing, as well: that despite already being in the Yellow Station, he and the others didn’t actually have free access to it. The moment they stepped through the gate, they would need to get passes of their own if they planned to come back in, unless they could find another entrance somewhere. As luck would have it, Band also spotted a ticket booth recessed into one of the walls right next to the gate, but a stroke of fortune it was not, since a cursory examination confirmed that the half-lidded clerk at the counter would be accepting only one currency: the cheap emeralds that the Metro Cats called pons. Even if he did manage to get back into the station without a pass, it looked like he’d need one to board the train again, anyway. [i]So close, and yet so far,[/i] the detective thought to himself, glancing around at the Yellow Station one last time before he stepped through the one-way exit and into the main station. 

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tncKjOs-Vw&ab_channel=Project-6[/youtube][/center]

It didn’t take long for the Seekers and their new acquaintances to find the Metro’s help center, especially given Sectonia’s lofty point of view as she led the party through the main area. It took the form of a circular kiosk situated right in the middle of the open area, and as everyone made their way over, Tora followed on autopilot, since his awestruck eyes were looking anywhere but straight in front of him. Zipping along through the open air along the holographic yellow track gave him one perspective of the Metro, but being able to see everything clearly was a wholly different beast. Only the distinct memory of boarding the subway five minutes ago, uncomfortably hot in the Sandswept Sky’s potent light of day, kept the Nopon from now believing he stood in the middle of a huge, neon city at night. Things looked relatively normal, albeit not to an inhabitant of Tora’s native Alrest, if one kept their eyes at ground level, but looking upward revealed buildings stacked on top of one another like massive building blocks of brick, metal, and glass, continuing up and up and up for tens and then hundreds of stories. Even Poppi, with the aid of her specialized optics, couldn’t zoom in far enough to make out where the altitudinous [url=https://www.gematsu.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/zp-271143_Ghostrunner_2020_06-13-20_001.png]upper levels[/url] of the Yakuza Metro finally gave way to some sort of ceiling. “Forget train station,” the artificial blade murmured. “This practically indoor city.”

“Meh, meh…” her Masterpon agreed, somewhat astonished by all the sights and especially smells, as if he hadn’t just stuffed himself silly with the best grub the Wild West had to offer back at Tumbleweed Saloon.

Once at the help center, the whole crew could examine the extra-large monitors at their leisure, taking in all the tips and tricks the kiosk had to offer about navigating the Yakuza Metro, and requesting additional details from the helpful attendants as needed. After scanning list after list for a place that he recognized, Tora couldn’t help but agree with Sectonia. [i]Gutsford, Radlandia, Clock Town, Wugachug?[/i] Rot one location in the entire registry, save Al Mamoon and Gerudo Town, rang a bell for him. He hadn’t [i]really[/i] been expecting to see a name he recognized from his own world, but a small part of him felt a little let down, anyway. 

Band shared the Nopon’s disappointment. “Looks like it’s gonna be trial and error after all, folks,” he observed. Before that process could even begin, however, everyone present needed to buy at least one metro pass each, and as Sectonia pointed out, that meant they needed pons. Luckily, that task looked refreshingly simple, for a change. While pons didn’t necessarily grow on trees, they weren’t far behind. A quick look around confirmed a bunch of them all over the Metro, whether sitting pretty in some out-of-the-way place, or forming trails up walls and across jumps. Naturally, Sectonia planned to delegate the task, but without any such luxury himself, it was time for Big Band to break a leg. “Y’all heard the big bug,” he said. “Let’s boogie.”

“Just don’t get careless, mates,” Vandham told everyone. “There’s a lotta places to fall, and it’s a long way down.”

Asbestos chuckled. “Yeah, don’t come cryin’ to us if ya getcha pockets picked, oah run ovah by one o’ those trains!”

The group quickly split up. Big Band set his sights on the heights and blasted off toward the Metro’s upper reaches. While everyone climbed around on food trucks, fire escapes, and in some cases the trains themselves down below, he’d scoop up some easy pickings where those without the gift of rocket-powered flight couldn’t hope to make their way. Tora and Poppi stood together as they watched Raz and the others go their separate ways, peering around for any good spots where they could make a quick and easy pon. At least, Tora kept an eye out, while his companion stared at him expectantly. After a few moments he returned the look. “Poppi want say thing to Tora?”

“Oh, Poppi just wonder when Masterpon ask Poppi to pick up and fly around and nab pons, easy-peasy,” she replied.

“Tora did think of that,” her Masterpon admitted. “But also have second thoughts, meh. It…too easy. Tora always rely on Poppi to get around fast. Poppi very good at it, of course, but carrying Tora like beach ball…it rob essential Nopon dignity, meh.” He glanced at Poppi as if expecting a sarcastic interjection, but this time she kept quiet. “Plus, this place look like biggy-time fun, in all honesty. So Tora want try run and jump around too, for once!”

Poppi smiled. “That does sound like fun. Masterpon not want Poppi help at all, then?”

“Well, no,” her inventor laughed. “Tora jump barely get off ground on own, and not very agile shape, meh. But if Tora have Drill Shield, can use to jet over gaps, midair boost, and even high jump. That make up difference for sure!”

In response, Poppi constructed a new Drill Shield for him, spinning it out of the ambient ether. “Roger, roger!” she agreed, putting her hands on her hips. “Now, let’s go before all good ones get gone!”

Tora took off at a run, flailing his wings a little as he bounced along, and Poppi clanked behind him. He ran up an escalator, saw Asbestos stomping around the scaffolding of an active construction zone for what looked like a statue of the Metro’s founder in the middle of a shopping center, and hooked a left. A second set of escalators brought him to a third-story landing, and while the currently-inaccessible entrance to the Blue Line stood right ahead, he spotted a [url=https://i.imgur.com/W83qzg6.jpg]corner[/url] with paw-print phones and a really cool piece of wall art to the right, and the open area stretched on a ways to the left. The glass outer wall of a giant aquarium took up the entire facade along there, and Tora ran past the assembled Metro cats who watched the fish with wide, bright eyes. Ahead lay the bridge that spanned the path he and the others came down earlier in order to reach the help center, but rather than hustle across, Tora turned his attention to a balcony on the aquarium’s second story, where a handful of Metro Cats were lounging around on deck chairs beneath a beach umbrella. Since the Metro lacked both rain and shine, their furled parasol served only a decorative purpose, but at its tip Tora spotted just the bright green glint he was searching for. A pon, out of reach for a casual kitty, but not for an industrious Nopon such as himself.

“Okay, it go time!” He held down the button for the Drill Shield’s thrusters, charging them up for a moment, then released to blast up toward the balcony. At the apex of his flight he snatched the pon, then landed nearby. While the cats looked up for a moment from their phones, they didn’t seem to care, and after Poppi rocket-jumped up to join him, Tora ran inside. The building’s second greeted him with the sight of a large perimeter walkway that ran around the edges of the aquarium, allowing visitors to look over the railing at the fish swimming down below. Some of the cats even wielded rods to catch a meal with, but Tora was more interested in the pons that trailed along the narrower walkways over the tank.

“Meh-meh, perfect!” Without a second thought he hopped over the railing, paused for a terrified moment as the catwalk shook under his weight, then proceeded along it. Two, three, four, five, six. He went back and forth across the catwalks and climbed the occasional vertical grate, accidentally spilling a few buckets of fish food as he made sure to collect them all. A couple rafts drifted around the surface in set patterns, and with a little timing Tora could use them to get across otherwise excessive gaps. Tora did slip and fall in once, but getting soaked wasn’t about to dampen his spirit. With a final daring boost over an open area to nab pons seven and eight, the big fishing tank was cleaned out, and the duo ended up in what looked like a blend between a maintenance area and an alley, all reflective and gray.  There seemed to be back doors to a couple restaurants, possibly used to offload leftovers to the fish tank, as well as some half-finished graffiti depicting a tiger. An orange splotch lay on the ground from the rupture of an abandoned paint can, but a [url=https://i.imgur.com/99j3TEl.jpg]cat vacuum[/url] seemed to be on the case. Tora steered clear and went to bounce off the dumpsters in order to collect six more pons. That left just eight before both he and Poppi could afford a pass.

After that, the two considered their next move for a moment. They could go back out through the aquarium, or down the only other open route from this alleyway, which resounded with the loud, telltale rattle of a nearby subway train. Tora could see some more pons up high on the restaurant’s fire escapes, but the dumpsters couldn’t spring him high enough to reach them even if he boosted up with the Drill Shield midair. Out of curiosity he tried jumping on the rubbery, domed top of the cat vacuum, and bounced even higher, only for the hapless Nopon to land face-down in the paint. “Meh-meh, of course!” he groaned, annoyed, before turning to see the cat vacuum speeding toward him with an angry, electronic [i]MEOW![/i] “MEH!?” Poppi charged in to protect him, but before she or her Masterpon could do anything, the machine ran him over. In an instant Tora not only got cleaned off, but also bounced sky-high, soaring high enough to grab hold of a fire escape. He held on for dear life, barely breathing until his heart slowed back down, at which point he managed to wrap his head around what happened. “Heh…heheh!” After swinging around to deposit himself on the landing, he put his wings on the rail and leaned over. “Up here Poppi!” he called down. “See, Tora always manage to reach new heights, meh!”

As she looked up Poppi removed her fist from the destroyed remains of the vacuum somewhat sheepishly. “G-good! Now…Masterpon can collect rest of pons!”

He did, and once he finished he jumped back down into Poppi’s waiting arms. While they’d gathered more than enough, Tora was too curious to leave before taking a peek at whatever lay beyond the alley’s other exit. Together he and Poppi followed the path through the maintenance area, and after just a couple moments they came upon a [url=https://i.imgur.com/2Kn7Etk.jpg]ledge[/url] that overlooked a Blue Station train tunnel, wide enough for two subways to run alongside one another in opposite directions. “Whoa!” Tora marveled. “How this work? We supposed jump down and run across when trains not coming?”


“Poppi think opposite. Would be more practical to jump across tops of trains when both come by together,” the artificial blade reasoned. She pointed at the pons that floated in the tunnel at the perfect height to scoop up if one happened to be standing on top of a passing train.

“Oh!” Now that Poppi said it, it seemed so obvious. “Well, we just zip-zoom across anyway,” Tora remembered, hefting his Drill Shield. The two jetted across to find themselves overlooking none other than the Blue Station itself. Metro Cats milled around throughout, hanging out and chatting in their little groups, and after jumping down Tora could see the very same row of blue gates that confronted him at the top of the escalators before, complete with a matching ticket booth. “Meh-meh!” he sang, looking pleased. “So there [i]are[/i] ways in without pass. It probably same for other stations. So they more like shortcuts than actual obstacles, meh.”

“Well, we still need buy pass to ride train,” Poppi reminded him. As she spoke she produced her share of ten pons. “Since we here, why not get ours before go back and meet others?”

Tora nodded his agreement, and the dynamic duo did just that. A few moments later they stood back out in the open Metro, not far from the glass front of the aquarium. As the Nopon watched, a trout got snagged by a fishhook, and yanked up toward the catwalks he’d explored earlier on the building’s second floor. “There very much more to this place than meet eye,” he observed.

“Mhm. I wonder how others get on,” Poppi mused. She turned to go, prompting Tora to join her, and the pair began the short trip back the way they came.

[center][h3]Ms Fortune[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Deep Blue Seaside - Limsa Lominscuttle Town
Level 9 Nadia (37/90) 
Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Blazermate and Susie’s [@Archmage MC], Geralt’s [@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN], Ace Cadet and Pit’s [@Yankee], Sakura and Karin's [@Zoey Boey], Rubick’s [@Scarifar], Omori’s [@Majoras End], Nadia Fortune, Peach, Yennefer, Rika, and Cerberus
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1245[/center]

The voice of this strange fetus beast in her head made Nadia a little uncomfortable, so as she listened to its attempts to get everyone on the same page, she tried to make herself as comfortable as possible in her chosen chair at the Garfont Center’s fancy roundtable. As if its map wasn’t already crazy impressive and nigh-magical enough to someone who essentially hailed from the early twentieth century, the fact that its holographic surface started changing itself as Mewtwo explained things boggled Nadia’s mind even further. Utterly fascinated, she couldn’t possibly avert her gaze as little dot-trails snaked across the map to trace the teams’ approximate paths, or when areas flashed and displayed additional information, like the guardians that her buddies had already taken down. Both the Ender Dragon and Red Eye looked like terrifying monstrosities, and the mention of Megadragonbowser intrigued her, but considering everything she’d been through she didn’t even stop to question it.

As more new information trickled in Nadia mulled it over with narrowed eyes, her chin resting in her hand. She delighted in HQ's exciting plan to secure both far-off friends and a world-wide travel network, then absorbed the details of their dealings with the Forlorn Factory, both through Dedede’s distressed account of the initial raid and Peach’s summary of that problem’s thorough resolution. With everyone caught up to date, that just left the matter of where to go next. Nadia glanced at each region on the map as Peach described them, and like the princess her attention came to rest on Midgar, represented as a very large city up in the Dystopiascape. For now it possessed only a vague but very large outline, which left Nadia all the more curious. Part of the reason she chose to brave the Dead Zone in the first place was its staggering enormity, far surpassing her only frame of reference, that being New Meridian. The thought of a live megacity in this strange new world set her imagination aflame, inviting her to go see it for herself. And if the Seekers had allies there that needed a hand, all the better. Geralt wanted to help too, so Nadia knew it wasn’t just bias on her part. Then again, Midgar seemed to be about as far to the northeast as one could go on this continent. Yennefer was right: if the Seekers did plan to head over, this Metro would need to hook them up. 

While she and the other members of the so-called Hero Teams were out hunting down guardians, Alcamoth and its Mercenaries had been very busy, and not just when it came to sending people off on missions. From the beginning Nadia had struggled to wrap her head around such an enormous campaign, and what it took to make such a venture possible. Luckily, the people at Alcamoth seemed to have accepted the responsibility to handle all the logistics and stuff themselves, meaning that Nadia and the other Seekers could focus on what really mattered: go place and kill thing. Still, she didn’t plan to turn a blind eye to important developments around here, especially when they concerned Galeem’s chosen. When Kamek mentioned a return to the Dead Zone to finish the job, Nadia grimaced. Blown up or not, she hated that place with every fiber of her being, and as it turned out, things were far from over. The young Pit hit the team with a double-whammy of absolutely [i]disastrous[/i] hazards for any prospective clean-up crew in the form of an age-accelerating rain and a kind of invisible entity that could trigger more explosions like the one she saw all the way from the western coast. 

She puffed her cheeks out as she exhaled, eyes wide, then shook her head. “That’s a no from me, bud.” Hopefully Ace was correct in thinking that time was on the Seekers’ side. If the guardian was holed up somewhere in the crater of the former Dead Zone, the team could wait until the eggheads around here came up with some sure-fire way to beat timefall and turbo-ghost alike. Something Pit said did pique her interest though. “Beached things,” she repeated, scratching her head. “Y’know, it’s probably nothin’, but hearin’ that makes me think of that freaky beach beneath the island. With that slug monster washed up on shore, and that nightmare that crawled out of it.” For a moment her eyes rested on the image of the creature that haunted her dreams, the one Mewtwo called the Orphan of Kos. She shivered and looked away.

Not far away from her, Cerberus had been leaning on the table, oohing and aahing over all the new information they were given and probably retaining none of it. The Triple Demon had continued to follow Blue Team around today just as they did the night before, so for better or worse it looked like the dog girls would be along for the ride. Even if they seemed rather carefree and dim-witted, they were fun to have around, so Nadia didn’t mind. When a lull in the conversation followed Pit’s tale about what became of the Dead Zone, Cerberus seemed to get bored. “So what now?” they chorused. “Everyone just waits until the other team calls for us to come pick them up?”

[i]”Good question,”[/i] Mewtwo replied. [i]”I did think of a way to spend the time. An activity that will not only get all of you warmed up for the day ahead, but also broaden your skills and horizons. As it happens, this is also the activity that Alcamoth is built around.”[/i] Some of those present could already begin to figure out what that meant, but for everyone else, Mewtwo went ahead and explained. [i]“I want all of you to engage in some special training. One-on-one sparring matches, held within any of Smash City’s many arenas. As time goes on the adversity you face out there will doubtlessly increase, so you must not only know one another better, but be able to face enemies with a variety of powers and skills.”[/i] He reached a hand out toward the table. [i]“Now, let us match you all together.”[/i]

[center][b]Blazermate[/b] <-> [b]Rika[/b]
[b]Karin[/b] <-> [b]Rubick[/b]
[b]Ace Cadet[/b] <-> [b]Sakura[/b]
[b]Geralt[/b] <-> [b]Pit[/b]
[b]Kamek[/b] <-> [b]Bowser Junior[/b]
[b]Susie[/b] <-> [b]Ms Fortune[/b]
[b]Bowser[/b] <-> [b]Peach[/b][/center]

As everyone got busy reading to find their opponents, Mewtwo addressed the others in the room, namely Omori and Cerberus. [i]”You two -four?- I am unfamiliar with, and you are not currently signed on with the Hero Teams. If you wish to participate, I might be able to arrange something for you as well. Would that Link were still here…”[/i] Mewtwo looked over at Dedede. [i]”As for you…be ready for your next assignment. Dismissed.”[/i]

The big penguin sighed and turned to go. “A dyed-in-the-wool king, talked down to by a doggone test tube baby, don’t that just beat all,” he muttered to himself.

Nadia, meanwhile, was scanning the room. “Susie, huh?” Her eyes landed on the little pink-haired secretary bot, currently little more than an acquaintance in her mind. More to the point, the feral knew nothing whatsoever about Susie’s abilities. “Well, this should be interestin’!” With a smile she hopped out of her chair. “Wanna take this outside then, li’l miss?”