[center][h3]Suoh[/h3]
[b]Sector 3 Upper[/b]
Level 2 Goldlewis (2/20)
Goldlewis, Peach, Raz’s [@Truthhurts22], Roxas’ [@Double], Bede’s [@Crimson Flame], Sakura and Karin’s [@Zoey Boey], Midna’s [@DracoLunaris]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1711[/center]

Trusting that the musclebound mountain of a man could follow through on his part of the plan, Peach took off running. The sudden motion by a less formidable-looking target got the Others’ attention, but Goldlewis Dickinson did not intend to let them go after her. His coffin dropped to the sidewalk with a very loud slam, and its door slid open. An ephemeral blue light shown from within as starlit hands hoisted a massive Skyfish minigun weighing hundreds of pounds into the veteran’s waiting hands. With his cryptid companion pointing targets out like a spotter, Goldlewis bottomed out his Security Level to deliver a [url=https://i.imgur.com/mAj0CFr.png]torrential fusillade[/url] of bullets into the crowd of Bile Pools and Plateau Pendus. “COME AND GET MEEEE!” he roared over the cacophony, and the Others obliged.

The fliers moved with dangerous speed, spreading out toward the sides of their target, while their gelatinous counterparts fixed their glowing lights on him. Goldlewis expected them to mob him, but things took a nasty surprise as the Bile Pools remained at a comfortable distance, content to sit there in a line and spew water from afar. As the alien disposed of the spent minigun Goldlewis brought the coffin up for defense with gritted teeth, but the triple dosage of Pool water did more than chip damage. It rinsed through his guard and left his clothes soaked. Neither did the Pendus come at him to strike with those dangling arms like raptors’ talons; instead their bodies danced with arcs of bright yellow electricity. After a moment it coalesced in their green gloves and they both hurled bolts of lightning his way. Elemental projectiles rained down on his position, and though far too experienced to lose his head, the veteran quickly began to realize just what he’d volunteered for. ’This wasn’t a brawl, it was a shootout! 

With a frustrated grunt Goldewis took cover behind his hummer. He hated to use his beloved ride as a shield, but what happened when water and high voltage mixed, he needed to be pragmatic about this situation. His steadfast Patriot Mammoth took the first round of elements just fine, but the Pendus quickly buzzed around to either side to both flank and surround him. One threw more bolts his way, which he narrowly avoided, but the other electrified itself before flying in a shuttle loop to divebomb him. “Hmph!” Determined to not fall prey to this simple strategy, Goldlewis jumped onto the hood of his hummer. As the crackling Pendu whooshed behind him, he ran across the top of the vehicle and jumped again. Now with a clear shot, the Bile Pools sprayed water one after another, but Goldlewis didn’t intend to plop down right in front of their firing squad. Instead he pushed off a magical glyph mid-air, airdashing the remainder of the distance across the strip mall’s parking lot to come down amidst the Pools with his coffin [url=https://i.imgur.com/1FTUsj3.png]beneath him[/url], a half-dozen arms extended like the vanes of a cosmic pinwheel. “Try this on!” The attack covered enough space to hit all three, whether clipping them with the arms or crushing them with the coffin itself, and on hit Goldlewis unleashed his Behemoth Typhoon. “RAAAGH!” Swung in a downward half-circle, it slammed into one Pool and kept going with the Other stuck to its front like a bug on a windshield. The [url=https://i.imgur.com/UrUsO6B.png]Behemoth Typhoon[/url] smashed into the second, then the third, and as Goldlewis hit the ground he brought the coffin all the way around in a loop to flatten the three-Pool pileup between itself and the tarmac.

A zapping noise got his attention, and he turned in time to see more lighting incoming. He couldn’t capitalize on his maneuver to batter the prostrate Pools into oblivion without eating a nasty shock. “Damn.” Goldlewis stepped off before he could get electrocuted, and the three sludgy pools slid in different directions to reconstitute. That gave him one moment, though, and his well-honed combat instincts made sure he wouldn’t squander it. “Thunderbird!” he called, and from his coffin the alien sent out a [url=https://i.imgur.com/CxyVfhY.png]spiked drone[/url] to chase the offending Pendu down. Then he turned on the nearest Pool as it began to spray water and stopped it short with a heavy [url=https://i.imgur.com/G8vl8S1.png]shoulder barge[/url] straight to center mass. That led straight into a [url=https://i.imgur.com/GlnqtyM.png]massive backhand[/url] that span its head like a tetherball, and the next second an [url=https://i.imgur.com/BB7yOOc.png]alien uppercut[/url] launched it skyward. Not even given the chance to expose its bulb from the ruthless beatdown, the Other exploded into red petals that soon turned to dust themselves.

Rather than savor his first takedown, Goldlewis charged toward the next Bile Pool. It spewed a blast of water into the tarmac in front of it, but the veteran stopped short to block while crouching. Then through the spray came a [url=https://i.imgur.com/7cxceHH.png]battering ram[/url] followed by an asphalt-cracking [url=https://i.imgur.com/fHtsgYy.png]coffin crush[/url], and from the floored Other popped a bulb. By that time, of course, its attacker had already committed to a walloping [url=https://i.imgur.com/orEUw3J.png]Behemoth Typhoon[/url] that would’ve finished it off anyway. Unfortunately, Goldlewis then took a water blast to the face from the last Bile Pool that not only stung his eyes, but also both knocked off his glasses and mussed his hair. “BAH!” he bellowed as he swung blindly, but his [url=https://i.imgur.com/lDycGRK.png]Hail-Mary haymaker[/url] came up just short. In the background, he heard two loud reports in quick succession, the sound of gunfire. He wiped his face with his arm, but it was too late. A Plateau Pendu struck him head-on, dropping the huge bruiser to the ground in a state of painful paralysis. The Others closed in on his twitching body, and the Pendu reached down with its green gloves to almost gently take hold of his head.

Then something drove into the Pendu’s back in a high-speed, light-blue streak, instantly shattering its composure. As it lolled limply in the air, a bulb protruding from its chest, a [url=https://i.imgur.com/iQoqhuo.jpg]blonde stranger[/url] in a dark cape appeared. He took the Other’s bulb in a headlock and slid a wickedly curved knife just beneath the fixture, severing the brain stem. He gave a cheeky two-finger salute at the fallen veteran, then vanished the moment before the last nearby Pool tried to blast him with water. Three knives immediately slammed into its body, and as it reeled the same man manifested above it and dropped with a plunging stab that pinned the Pool’s head to the ground. A bulb appeared from its struggling body, and its assailant finished it off with a stylish kick.

As the paralysis wore off, Goldlewis sat up. “I’m mighty thankful,” he said, slicking his hair back into its trademark pompadour before replacing his slightly-crooked glasses.

“Aw, no need to thank me,” the stranger announced with a coy smile and joking tone. His eyes were two different colors, one yellow and one red, but the colors of his gear interested Goldlewis more. They marked this man as a member of Psych-OSF. “In fact, it’s an honor to fight alongside the illustrious Secretary of....”

The conversation stopped with the sound of more gunshots. Back by his hummer, a [url=https://i.imgur.com/DrH5RaQ.png]dark-haired girl[/url] was trading shots with the last Pendu using a revolver. Goldlewis stood, exchanged a nod with his new ally, and wordlessly took off running. As he drew near, the Pendu dove at the girl, but somehow she managed to dodge at the last second with perfect timing. She dropped to a knee, taking aim with both hands, and fired a shot that blew the Other’s doorknob-shaped head clean off. It staggered in a garbled slurry of sounds just long enough for Goldlewis to jump up, airdash in, and extend the many arms of his alien to snatch it out of the sky. Once his captive threw it to the ground, the veteran came down in a [url=https://i.imgur.com/7lgU1pw.png]mighty slam[/url] to finish it off.

“Th-thank you,” the girl said, her soft voice barely higher than a whisper. She seemed to recoil from Goldlewis as he stood back up to his full size, and looked to the other man for help. “K-kagero?”

The easygoing fellow stepped up with a smile to put her on the shoulder for reassurance. “Don’t worry, Tsugumi. Even if he looks big and scary, Mr. Dickinson’s here to help. We can trust him to fight by our side!”

“Right,” the girl nodded, trying to meet Goldlewis’ gaze with sincerity. “S-sorry…”

“Scary?” Goldlewis blinked, his brows raised. “...Me?”

An explosion brought their attention to Peach. The princess had made it to the crashed car and engaged the Buddy Rummies over there in combat, but their durability and tenacity had taken her by surprise. She’d been knocked them down one at a time with scatterboom blasts to keep them from getting close to the unconscious man trapped inside his vehicle, not knowing that her strategy gave the Others time to recover their Crush. Now, with all four close enough to start smashing apart the car to get at the man inside, Peach resorted to her rocket launcher to topple all four at once. Farther down the road, Kasane and Naomi’s attempt to come help got stymied by the appearance of a a [url=https://i.imgur.com/KraCmVd.png]horse-sized ram[/url] of curved metal strips, vermillion leaves, and ghastly bone. With more Rummies in tow and its only weak point shielded by a hard steel dish cover on its back, the Wither Sabbat charged around with dangerous recklessness. Introductions could wait. The three humans ran in to help Peach wipe the Rummies out so she could get the civilian to safety, then on to the next battle.

[center][hider=Goldlewis Levels Up]New Power acquired:
[b]Tension[/b]
A reserve of magical energy that builds within Goldlewis as he fights. He gains it mostly by attacking, but he can also build a little continuously as long as he’s running toward an enemy, and if he follows after an enemy he’s sent flying a long way he gains Positive Bonus that builds a bunch quickly. However, if backed into a corner for too long or forced to retreat, Negative Penalty will quickly deplete his Tension. Goldlewis can use Tension for Faultless Defense, which negates the chip damage of most attacks while pushing melee attackers back a little bit, or for a Roman Cancel, which allows him to near-instantly reset to a neutral position to act or attack again much faster than he’d usually be able to. He can also move slightly in any direction while canceling[/hider][/center]

[center][h3]Detroit[/h3]
[b]Sector 8 Lower[/b]
Level 11 Tora (108/110) Level 11 Poppi (108/110)
Susie and Blazermate’s [@Archmage MC]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1826[/center]

As her Masterpon protested, full of excuses about all the incredible tech on inside the Android Zone, Poppi dragged him by the wing past the place’s reinforced storefront window where a handful of glassy-eyed machines stared out from the pristine white store at the dirty street, their friendly smiles and welcoming gestures urging passing pedestrians to take them home. Atop the sidewalk stood a bus stop, well situated for what seemed to be a popular destination, and next to it stood a small shelter marked ‘Temporary Android Parking’,  with a two-hour limit. Five identical models stood beneath its overhang as if crammed into a queue, indistinguishable from humans save for the LEDs on their heads. Poppi came to a stop behind it, well out of the sight lines of any humans or homunculi inside Android Zone, and there the team of four regrouped.

Once Blazermate caught up to the dynamic duo with Susie in tow, she opened with a teasing entreaty to Tora to keep her maintained. Not quite sure what the healer was playing at, Tora scratched his head with one wing. “Meh-meh? Of course Tora fix Blaze-Blaze up if needed. After almost full week of adventure, Blaze-Blaze and Bowser only ones left who there with Tora from very start. Plus, always heal Tora up when being tankypon. So Tora be sure to return favor, meh!”

As it turned out, Blazermate had something else on her mind. With more machines like her in evidence around here, she gave Tora a crash course on medabots and robattling so he could play the part of ‘Medafighter’ if need be. The Nopon accepted the device Blazermate handed him and mulled over the ominous things she said about Medal Ejectors and Mr. Referee. Those aside, the process sounded pretty simple if push came to shove, but hopefully they wouldn’t need to try their luck. “Tora get gist, meh,” he told her after she finished. “Still, best to not go looking for trouble and risk cracks in story. Should avoid medabot fight if possible. Besides…” He turned up his nose with his eyes closed, his little nub-hands on his hips. “There only one artificial partner for Tora!”

Standing with her head resting diagonally in her palm, Poppi raised her eyebrows. “And yet, Masterpon’s eyes tend to wander…”

“Meh-hem!” The engineer noisily cleared his throat. “Actually, Tora been thinking about something else Blaze-Blaze say, back in scrap heap.” He furrowed his brow, looking more serious than usual. “It bother Tora ever since. All those wrecks in dump surely not there since world began. As shown by big crane, new junkypons come in and old ones probably get recycled, too. Not just severed limbs either, which we know not disappear thanks to hunts in Land of Adventure, but bodies with heads.”

Poppi quickly boarded his train of thought. “But in the World of Light, destroyed machines turn to ash and drop spirits, the same as living things. I remember from the junkyard in Mushroom Kingdom, and the robots who ambushed us near Parnasse.”

“Exactly, meh. So why [i]do[/i] broken robots turn up in dump?” Tora reiterated Blazermate’s question from before, now burning with curiosity. “Tora want go back to dump and take closer look for self.”

The four of them retraced their steps to the Solid Waste landfill, and with the help of his artificial allies’ eyes in the sky, Tora soon identified an android that looked reasonably intact. It seemed to be wedged in the dirt beneath the twisted, bullet-ridden husk of a DesoRHado UG, so he enlisted the others’ help to pull it out. “On three!” he said, directing Blazermate to take hold of the exposed legs as Poppi prepared her superstrength to lift the debris. “One, two, three!”

The moment the android popped out, it sprang to life. Its rose into a sitting position and reached out to grab Blazermate by her kimono. With a face flattened into a mangled, unrecognizable, thirium-soaked mess of circuits and plastic, it gasped out just two words as Tora looked on, frozen in terror. “Find…Jericho!” Then Poppi’s Variable Saber blazed in a brilliant arc, slicing through both of the husk’s forearms a moment before a point-blank blast from her revolver turned its grotesque mockery of a head into slag. Specks of the android’s blue blood spattered Blazermate’s face as the torso splattered down into the mud, and yet despite its catastrophic damage, the remains showed no signs of disintegration.

“Sorry about that, meh,” Tora said sheepishly. “Did not anticipate such fright. Not one bit.” He wiped a few flecks of thirium-310 from his fur, then waddled closer. “This only prove it, though,” he murmured. “Body still intact. Maybe secret lie inside?” He plopped down his tool box, took out a blow torch and screwdriver, then got to work.

Without any need to worry about component damage or eventual reconstruction like he did while working on Band of Raiden, Tora could dig into the machine without any regard for its wellbeing, and get straight to the heart of the matter. He pulled it apart piece by piece, stopping only to marvel at the slick ingenuity of the mechanical organs that seemed to cleverly mimic human anatomy. Removal after removal, however, the body did not turn to ash. Not even the loss of the robust heart-pump responsible for the purification and circulation of thirium-310 throughout the android’s system seemed to trigger a meltdown. Increasingly puzzled, Tora continued to ravage the wreck’s innards until he’d opened up its whole torso cavity, and only a few components remained. When Poppi held her Variable Saber close for a little extra light, however, he saw it: tucked away in the electronics by the spine where the heart once resided lay a small black chip, no bigger and barely any thicker than a playing card. Tora jammed his screwdriver beneath one side and pried it loose, and the instant the last transistor parted ways with its housing, the android wreck began to buckle. Tora watched as the gutted hardware turned to ash, then held up the unassuming component in his blue-stained wing. “Bingo.”

He handed it to Poppi, who snapped a photo of the mysterious chip before examining both front and back. “What is it?”

“It black box of some sort,” Tora replied. “Common electronic failsafe, built to preserve important data and record what happened in case of catastrophic equipment failure..” He narrowed his eyes. “Tora have sneaking suspicion that android spirit actually in there. Which mean that whoever make machines not only aware of spirits, but make products salvageable for some reason.”

Poppi gave the black box back to him with a shake of her head, unable to determine anything about it save one critical detail. “That must mean Cyberlife.”

“Meh-meh,” her masterpon agreed. He snapped his toolbox shut and tucked his wrench into his pocket like he meant business. “Tora think friends should pay visit to headquarters.”

The group stood there for a moment before Poppi poked him. “As cool as that sounded, we don’t know where it is. Plus, we’ve completed our current assignment. We should find Giovanna.”

“Mehhh…okay.”

They didn’t know any closer bus stops than the one by the Android Zone, so once again they went back the way they came. On the way through the Detroit streets, Poppi caught wind of some sort of commotion the next street over. Despite the potential danger, Tora chose to investigate and led the team down the block. On the way over they kept an eye out for any unsavory characters lurking in the darkness, just as Giovanna advised, but the four traveling together with obvious firepower on their side kept all onlookers at a distance. They arrived to see a [url=https://i.imgur.com/CY1Gl1Q.png]hazy plaza[/url] with black, withered plants cast like shadows by bright cyan and yellow lights. Many people milled around, going about their errands with many a glance over their shoulders, or wallowing on cardboard boxes in the friendless hell of unemployment. A cluster of people had gathered with signs in one corner next to the busy intersection, making sure their noisy demonstration reached as many human ears as possible.

“What do we want!?”

“BAN ANDROIDS!”

“When do we want it!?”

“NOW!”

“What do we want!?”

“WORKERS’ RIGHTS!”

“When do we want them?”

“NOW!”

As Tora watched, he noticed an [url=https://i.imgur.com/ouBFFfI.png]android[/url] with some sort of parcel veer away from the protest. Even with a few G-men in the area, which the Nopon couldn’t fail to notice as well, the machine clearly wanted nothing to do with the angry crowd. As the android hurried on his way, Tora also realized that he lacked any sort of human chaperone. Was he really running an errand on his own, in an undercity renowned for criminal activity? Tora wondered if Blazermate might be wrong about the existence of a prohibition against unaccompanied automatons. The direction of the android’s movement led Tora’s gaze to another bus stop, which worked perfectly for his merry band of bots. “C’mon!” he said, waving to the others as he bounded off..

They caught up with the android in question at the bus stop, where he stood waiting in the designated zone. “Mehllo!” the Nopon greeted, slightly out of breath. “Am Tora, what your name? Pleased to meet! Tora have few questions, if friend not mind?”

“My name is Markus. With nothing to do but wait, the android gave a courteous smile. “How can I help?”

“Tora want know two things. First, can machines travel city on own without running into problems? Third, where is CyberLife base?”

He watched the android’s LED turn yellow for a brief moment, then back to bright blue as he began to apply. “My name is Markus. Both military and civilian machines like myself may move through Midgar unaccompanied according to their owners’ orders, so long as they possess proper IDs and authorization. State-of-the-art onboard GPS, cybersecurity, and memory modules discourage acts of theft or violence. The CyberLife Tower stands in Sector 5, the City of Glass.” He looked over his shoulder as a bus approached, then back down to Tora. “Is there anything else?”

“No, that all Tora think of right now.” As the bus stopped and passengers began to board, followed by androids, Tora turned to the others. “Friends should take bus back to train station. It seem like folks know better than mess with other people’s machines!” He climbed aboard and grabbed himself a seat. As she went to join him, Poppi spotted Markus on his way to the designated android area at the back of the bus, where a handful of other automatons already stood in stolid silence. Without any insight into heavy-handed racism analogies, she could only shoot her Masterpon a look that said [i]be careful on your own[/i], then with a heavy sigh follow in the android’s footsteps.

[hr]
[center]Giovanna, Raiden’s [@XoXKieroBombXoX], Geralt’s [@Multi_Media_Man], Benedict’s [@Dark Cloud][/center]

With one exception, the Seekers made quick work of the jump and climb in front of them to reach the decrepit tenement. Neither agile nor gung-ho enough to make the trip, Benedict volunteered to stay behind on lookout duty. Giovanna, still a little wary of the Turk, accepted on the condition that Rei stay behind with him as a guard dog, and Benedict didn’t have much say in the matter. Just a few moments later, the others got into position, then swooped down on the drug peddlers’ hideout like falcons on mice.

They each picked their targets. Separate from most of the others were a couple dudes in front of a ramshackle TV setup, mashing buttons on some old-timey fighting game. Giovanna landed on the shoulders of the man playing as a zoner, taking him so utterly by surprise that he couldn’t even yell before her legs clasped around his neck. “I’m throwing you,” she informed him, and so she did. By leaning backward into a handstand on the floor behind the couch and flexing her abdominals, she sent the thug flying back into the apartment building’s central cavity.

As he fell, howling all the way, his deathgrip on his controller caused the wire to yank the console straight out of the entertainment center, which seemed to startle the other goon a lot more than the loss of his opponent. He grabbed the bat that leaned against his bug-eaten sofa and whirled around. “Hey…!”

“Hey yourself.” Giovanna fully extended her leg with a jumping split kick to hammer the man’s jaw with the pawprint sole of her shoe. He smashed headfirst into the TV screen and lodged inside it, down for the count. Dusting off her hands, the secret agent looked over to see how the others were doing, and found them both already several murders deep as they ruthlessly cut through the Hoodlum Dolls. “...Ah.” Did these guys deserve it? Maybe. They no doubt perpetrated countless crimes throughout Midgar’s seedy underbelly, including the distribution of dangerous and degenerative drugs, with a couple kills of their own probably under their belts. But Giovanna didn’t assign herself the mantle of judge, jury, and executioner all in one. While the people she beat up might not necessarily be okay afterwards, she did not intend to slaughter them, and yet that was what the strike she led on this place brought about–a slaughter. Geralt straight-up outclassed them in terms of strength and fortitude, while Raiden reaped them like grain with those blades of his. Did that fluffy little guy with the toolbox back at HQ really have this in mind when he agreed to install them…?

Well, no turning back now. Down at the bottom of the building, the ringleaders saw their lackeys dropping like flies and went into panic mode. As the clients fled or hid, the stash carrier loaded up his cache of money and Red Ice packets onto the Stash Vehicle, and a clattering garage door began to slide open. Giovanna jumped again and silently dropped to the bottom floor. As a shadow fell across the driver, she looked up to see Giovanna descend in a flame-wreathed dive kick. “Fear on the wind.” She hit the other woman in the stomach, then plowed her through the stash behind her with a series of burning aerial kicks that ended in with a fiery [url=https://i.imgur.com/hL4tpfF.png]Sol Nascente[/url]. The strongbox’s contents got scattered across the bottom floor as the driver tumbled through it, only to crash into and nearly crack in half a door behind her. “...Tempestade.”

Behind Giovanna, the stash vehicle toppled over with a slam, which seemed to jolt the stunned carrier into action. He pulled a gun on someone, but Giovanna dashed in with lightning speed to grab hold of his wrist and break his elbow against her forearm. One leg sweep later and he hit the ground face-first, where he lay holding his arm, sobbing as he begged for his life. “Huh.” She smoothed out her hair, flipped her braid back over her shoulder, and tilted her head. “Not as hard as you thought you were, huh? If you’re gonna try and kill someone, you should be ready to pay for your life if you fail.” The front door burst open to reveal Benedict with sword and shield in hand. Behind him, Rei was shaking one of the outside guards like a chew toy, while another lay twitching on the ground thanks to Benedict’s electric riot shield. “Guess that just about wraps things up here.”

She made a quick glyph call while Geralt collected the sky-hooks and Raiden helped himself to some spirits. While his decision to fuse with one of the pistoleers took Giovanna by surprise, the fact that he looked weaker after doing so did not. Less armor and less muscle wouldn’t help him in his next fight, but hey, at least his hair looked fancy. He immediately complained about feeling less intelligent. “Uh…[i]That’s[/i] the caliber of spirit you fuse with?” Giovanna asked, an eyebrow raised. “You do you, of course, but a good spirit’s a lot like a good suit.” She leaned back, stretching her arms above her head. “Gotta find the right fit.”

Giovanna remembered all the formless dead and sighed. Rei joined her and nudged her head under the woman’s arm, obliging her to scratch her noggin. “I called the police. They’ll be here in a few minutes to mop up. Let’s take what we came for and get out here.”

The four hurried on their way, and how better to escape the scene of the crime than to sail through the undercity via the sky-lines. As the newcomers soon found out, though, the [url=https://i.imgur.com/fEfGujy.png]lines[/url] wound above the streets and between the buildings without any apparent rhyme or reason. Suspended by their new sky-hooks and forced to hold on with their own strength, the team hurtled through Detroit’s hazy yellow lights and murky shadows fast enough to whip their hair like flags in a stiff wind. Superhuman sight would come in handy in order to just make sense of the rail riders’ surroundings as they flew by. Giovanna remembered the sky-line she saw near the train station though, and knew that when the rail emerged from the upper alleyways to dangle her legs over orange-tinted Quarantine Valley far below, it would almost be time to get off this wild ride.

Unfortunately, they never got that far. About twenty seconds after Giovanna hooked a right turn at a rail split in what she thought was the right direction, the sky-line came to an abrupt end. Sliding along at full tilt, Giovanna’s sky-hook skipped right over the stopper, and she went flying through the open air with her brows raised. “Oh.” After a moment spent trying to control her momentum, she flipped over a large metal pipe and released jets of air from her shoes to guide her smoothly down to the ground. She landed in a drab brown lot and slid for a couple dozen feet in a low stance with her arms extended, and when the dust cleared she rose with a nonchalant expression. Geralt and Raiden landed behind her, more or less in one piece, while Benedict -who’d lagged behind out of an abundance of caution- managed to stop before he flew off the rail. “Guess it’s not a circuit,” she said with a shrug.

Giovanna took a quick look around. Her crew appeared to have landed in the right side lot of one [url=https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DMiVazJUMAAYcR_.jpg]Agua Mofeta Brewery[/url], although an act vandalism on the billboard atop the main building at the back of the complex turned it into ‘Ass Brewing Co.’ Two giant propane tanks dominated this side, but she could see cars on the opposite side and, more importantly, another vista of Quarantine Valley across the street in front of the brewery. That meant they’d reached Detroit’s extremity, and that proceeding in this direction would bring the team back to the train station where they started. Unfortunately, things might not be quite so simple. High walls surrounded the brewery on all sides, with outward-facing security cameras in abundance, and a number of strange [url=https://i.imgur.com/7o9BJMf.png]barrel drones[/url] stalked around on patrol. A few [url=https://i.imgur.com/MtLwgmK.png]brass vats[/url] of orange liquid looked pretty sketchy, as well. Giovanna slid into the shadow of a wall and crouched down behind a small red car. “Looks like they take security seriously around here,” she told the others in a low voice. “Let’s keep a low profile and sneak out of this place. We don’t wanna be put on any more watch lists.” At the very least, this jumbled mess of a brewery seemed to feature a lot of ways to get around, especially now that she wielded a sky-hook that would let her slide along beneath lengths of metal. If she and the others could just get across the brewery to the orange tower on the other side, the rail that wound around it in a vertical corkscrew would give them more than enough height to escape to another set of sky-lines along the adjacent street. 

[center][h3]The Colorless Wood[/h3]
Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Primrose’s [@Yankee], Rubick’s [@Scarifar][/center]

Galvanized into action by the crushing damage that blindsided both Primrose and Rubick, the Koopa Troop went into overdrive, all four of them fighting tooth and nail with all they had to both whittle the needlessly large spider down and keep their fallen friends safe from further harm. Adrenaline pumped through their veins, and in a terrific display of magic and might the underground forest, once eerily quiet, erupted into a raging battlefield. Through all the chaos, however, Bowser’s true-blue team found a method in the madness, one predicated on the fact that despite her vicious strength and versatile teleportation, Silitha’s bag of tricks only went so deep.

That didn’t necessarily change when she called in Deephunters for backup, but their arrival complicated things, not least because their virulent orange spit bypassed Kamek’s protection. Most of the smaller spiders had cleared out by now to give the Brood Mother a wide berth, lest they too be crushed in the mayhem, but Junior was right; if the tides of battle turned against his team now, the eight-legged hordes would surge forth again, and drown their prey in a flood of burning pain. Shadow Clones fanned out in pursuit of the Deephunters, but they kept on the move, climbing through the heights between silhouetted hiding spots to confound and shoot down their assailants. Junior himself went for Silitha, and she turned to her tiny attacker as he closed in, happy to oblige his deathwish. A giant forelimb smashed the ground next to him, but it was telegraphed just enough to be dodged, and the child cast his spell. Silitha slumped down, momentarily dazzled by divine light. That gave Rika the opening she needed to unleash hell, perforating Silitha’s carapace with a withering bombardment from her main gun. 

Unfortunately, that exhausted the last of her ammunition well short of the final blow, and Silitha rose to her legs with a horrendous shriek. With a forelimb she reached into the teeming masses of small spiders in the darkness, scooped hundreds of them up, and flung them like a child splashing water. The arachnid wave swept over everyone in front of her not hidden behind something, knocking the lighter ones to the ground before the spiderlings got to work spinning their webs. As the heroes struggled, the eyes of a dozen Deephunters lit up in the shadows where they’d taken refuge, and at Silitha’s command they opened fire like venomous ballistae. 

The bombardment closed in on the sitting ducks who didn’t manage to escape their webs. Before they would rain down, however, buzzing filled the air. Dark shapes darted through the gloom, and one after another the blobs burst in the air. Silitha hissed. “W̸h̴a̵t̵ ̴h̸a̶p̸p̷e̸n̸e̵d̶?̷ ̷ ̵S̵h̷o̷o̴t̶ ̸t̷h̸e̵m̸,̵ ̸y̴o̸u̷ ̵f̶o̴o̵l̴s̸!̴ ̵K̴i̵l̵l̶ ̷t̴h̷e̴m̴ ̸n̴-!”

In a blur something appeared in front of her nightmarish face–a [url=https://i.imgur.com/yBOs73c.png]striped warrior[/url] who held in one hand a [url=https://i.imgur.com/xQdPoeQ.png]serrated blade[/url] that gleamed even in the pale light of the colorless wood, with teeth that traveled along the weapon’s edge on their own. The swordsman used it -and the element of surprise- to carve through a couple of Silitha’s eyes in one fell stroke. With another shriek she teleported into the background, and the newcomer fell to the ground. Spiders crowded around him, but as they drew near he raised his head and sword high.

“HUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAH!”

The sheer force of his bellowing cry blew the spiderlings around him back, and he waved his flaming blade above his head. “Never fear, unlucky travelers!” As he yelled a jagged mouth opened in his hairy head, making him look like a roaring lion. “For I, Barnabee, the Hive Knight, have come!” As one the Deephunters shot down at him, but even flightless the big bee was fleet of foot. He nimbly hopped around, bouncing like a basketball, and when the barrage ended he took in a deep breath. “HUZZAH!” He opened wide to release a dozen [url=https://i.imgur.com/6tOAVDw.png]Hivelings[/url] to hunt down the Deephunters, turning predator into prey. Silitha teleported in to crush him, but he dodged backward in a stripy blur, sliding to a stop by the Seekers as the last one tore free of the spiderlings’ silk. “Friends! Let us finish this foulllll creature for good and all!” He leveled his blade at Silitha, then without waiting for agreement charged forward once more. “HUZZZZZZAH!”