[center][h3]Sector 07 - Breaker[/h3]
Level 12 Tora (70/120)
Giovanna, Susie’s [@Archmage MC], Zenkichi’s [@Multi_Media_Man], Partitio’s [@Dark Cloud], Pit's [@Yankee], Roxas' [@Double]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1085[/center]

The ride back to Midgar was a tense and solemn affair. Of the ten who set out on this trip, hours ago, only five remained. Two thirds of the Rust Crew were dead, and only Bo remained. The big man sat with a soldier’s composure, so stiff that his features may have just as well been carved of stone. He betrayed nothing, but his eyes said everything. Poppi had fled, her fate uncertain, and after her went Tora, Roxas, and Pit, their young hearts filled with determination. Yet this world was so big, and so dark, and its weight hung heavy over them, threatening to snuff out even the brightest sparks. Would they be okay? How would they even get back? Giovanna’s expression was grim. She’d have her answers once the storm was over. For now, she needed to focus on the road ahead.

Through today, Midgar had been the one constant. It loomed larger than any ruins, constantly visible from just about anywhere in the Valley of Ruin, and returning to it meant facing its unfathomable vastness head-on as the truck rumbled closer and closer. Though its manmade heights reached up towards the heavens, like a majestic mountain, Giovanna fixed her eyes on its base. Sectors 06, 07, 08, and 08 formed Midgar’s southern half, and of those Sectors 07 and 08 were the closest to the Eternal Apocalypse. Even from a distance she could hear the echoed rattle of gunfire and the percussive thumps of high explosives, and when she drove closer she could see the action itself. A robot army one thousand strong, just as Tora said, had taken an alternative route and now attacked the Sector 08 undercity. Hundreds of Bipeds, Fliers, Goliaths, and others marched through the wartorn wastes just outside the city limits. Shooters like the ones seen near the crane formed a large part of their ranks, too, and above them all towered the gigantic [url=https://i.imgur.com/orhQQx3.png]Tsar Runner[/url], its huge guns, fists, and wheels able to tear and smash through city defenses like cardboard. But Detroit raged against the Machines. DespoRHado’s androids, both [url=https://i.imgur.com/WjPLDvq.png]doll-like[/url] and [url=https://i.imgur.com/kmpNT8l.png]blindfolded[/url], fought with a variety of weapons alongside heavily-armed [url=https://i.imgur.com/hELqETY.png]cyborgs[/url] and Unmanned Gears like [url=https://i.imgur.com/8g3p0lF.png]Gekkos[/url]. Even the Tsar Runner found its match against a gigantic [url=https://i.imgur.com/N7hb39N.png]Metal Gear Ray[/url], with wings like colossal blades.

Sector 07, though, had no PMC to stand up for it. Giovanna brought the team back to the Slums, pulling the truck to a stop among the undercity scrappers and militia rallying around the gutted hulk of a long-dead starship at the edge of Scrap Boulevard. Dubbed [url=https://i.imgur.com/wJPrPTr.png]Breaker[/url] by the locals, it was their last line of defense against attack from the Valley of Ruin, and for good reason. The walls that still stood here could take one hell of a beating, and through the very center of the boneyard ran a deep gorge with lava at the bottom and a huge laser suspended from a track above, able to cut through any enemies trying to jump the gap. That meant four total positions to secure: the open center, where sharpshooters reigned, the right-side lower tunnel, the narrow right-side high crossing, and the left-side middle crossing where grenades worked wonders. Militia members had unveiled secret machine gun turrets, [url=https://i.imgur.com/etu01ZL.png]makeshift battle gear[/url], and cobbled-together vehicles outfitted with whatever weapons they got their hands on. Once Giovanna’s truck ramped over the gorge, the laser blazed to life, and the slum defenders were ready to rumble.

Fortunately, the efforts of the Seekers had paid off. When the Machines came for Sector 07, their ranks were sorely depleted. The rain turned Breaker’s sand to mud, and while the defenders were ready for it, the Machines were not. Partitio, Zenkichi, Giovanna, and Susie all pitched in to mop the robots up. They fought alongside Isaac Clarke, who wielded an unassuming cutting tool to expertly part the Machines from their limbs with lethal efficiency one wouldn’t expect from your everyday engineer. Even Cloud and Tifa put in an appearance at the [url=https://i.imgur.com/nOFtqcK.png]right-side tunnel[/url], dispatching any rogue machines that attempted to sneak below with the help of a [url=https://i.imgur.com/jgr9oxe.png]brawny gunner[/url]. Within half an hour, the steadfast efforts of everybody involved meant a decisive end to the machine threat. A round of victory cries, borne of a result that went better than anyone could have expected, quickly gave way to a mad scramble as the scrappers scurried to haul away the spoils of war through Breaker and back to the Salvage Depot.

After the fighting died down, Giovanna and the others regrouped in the [url=https://i.imgur.com/O6iSFQd.png]forward command center[/url]. Though only a little better protected than average as far as areas inside the starship wreck went, it was the spot where the defenders kept their medkits, equipment, ammunition, power cells, and other supplies. Believing lives to be more valuable than hardware, Isaac wasn’t too bothered by the loss of one truck, especially when he learned what it had been used for. “Sounds like Sector 07 is in your debt,” he told the Seekers. “I can’t say you’ll be treated like kings or anything, but if you’re up for a round of beers sometime, they’re our treat.”

Giovanna nodded. “No sweat,” she told him breezily before addressing her teammates. “Scuse me while I make a call.”

She left the others to their own devices as she used her glyph to contact S.O.U. HQ. Tora, Poppi, Roxas, and Pit needed extraction, and she reasoned now -while the Machines’ forces were depleted- was the best time to send Mr. U and his Cargobob helicopter out over the Valley of Ruin. Just before noon, the chopper returned with the three boys, no Poppi, and a sorry tale to tell. Tora refused to speak to anyone after his arrival; he just hooked his toolkit up to a mechanical arm in his possession and started hammering away at his keyboard, muttering feverishly to himself. It was up to everyone else to decide where to go from here.

[center][h3]Abandoned Subway - Underground Nexus[/h3]
Level 4 Goldlewis (55/40)
Karin and Sakura’s [@Zoey Boey], Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Blazermate’s [@Archmage MC], Geralt [@Multi_Media_Man], Benedict’s [@Dark Cloud], Raz’s [@Truthhurts22]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2201[/center]

Though the fight against this monstrous thing had been a mad scramble in its own right so far, the introduction of billowing dust clouds to the subterranean parking garage turned everything to chaos. It wasn’t just that Goldlewis could barely see; he could scarcely even breathe. Every time he strove to fill his voluminous lungs, the cloud of heavy particles hanging in the air filled his mouth or coated his mouth, turning his tongue sandpaper-dry and his throat scratchy. Dust on his skin and clothes wasn’t nearly as much of a problem as the grit that quickly caked his glasses, turning the already-bad visibility downright awful.

True chaos, however, came from the sound. There were voices coming from every direction, both the effort noises of attackers and the pained outbursts of those who got hurt. Naturally, the worst offender when it came to din was the Other itself. Its screams were incredibly loud, so loud that they reverberated off the walls in here and made it hard to track the beast down. The metallic scrapes of its ribbons as they burrowed underground were the only warning the Seekers got before they erupted from below. Blocking skewer after skewer, Goldlewis wheeled around in the gloom, trying to find Sakura. Right now, killing this thing wasn’t as important as ensuring her safety. Not even a seasoned fighter could shrug off hits like that. But where was she? “Damn it kid, where are ya!?”

His shouts only added to the commotion, though, for the Seekers were in uproar. Their voices pierced through the haze in a wild tumult, chiefly concerned with the bombshell that a panicked Sina dropped on them moments before: that this monstrosity [i]was[/i] Princess Peach. Blazermate confused herself into inactivity, first conflating Others with Chimeras and then likening this dangerous situation to a problem she was supposed to solve, but at least she managed to find and then focus on healing Sakura. After yelling back at her, Midna filled the dust-choked air with poignant questions nobody could answer, even if she did specify who she meant to ask. She fell back and began to call out suggestions, which Benedict promptly overruled, announcing the team’s options but providing no methods.

When Raz tried to read the Other’s mind, his brain suddenly filled with a terrible cacophony. It sounded like screaming, distorted as if by television static, but still woefully assignable to a familiar voice. Almost instantly he suffered a splitting headache. Suddenly, entering this thing’s brain -if he could even get the psycho portal on- seemed like a very bad idea.

Goldlewis could barely hear anything over all the noise. While looking around for his allies, he took a spiked ribbon to the back, eliciting a grunt of pain. Not far away Dexio, overwhelmed by everything going on, took one to the leg as well. He fell next to Sina, and with them both vulnerable Goldlewis stomped over for the sake of safety in numbers. “We got a man down!” he yelled hoarsely, though at this point he couldn’t even hear himself over the ruckus. These people needed to wait to run their mouths until after the Other was done impaling them. He sucked in as much air as his lungs could carry. “COULD Y’ALL SHUT UP A MINUTE AND HIT THE DAMN THING!?”

By now, the disturbed dust was beginning to settle. Midna was the first who managed to make it to the Other during the smokescreen, and she attempted to rinse and repeat the same strategy she used before. Summoning her Darknut upward right next to the Other, however, left it completely obvious -and wide open- to the nightmare as it emerged. The Other did not hesitate to rear up and slam its giant head down on the Darknut with the full force of a small building, as many times as it took to crumple its metal armor and bodily shove that undead juggernaut right back where it came from. Doing so, however, meant stopping its ribbon attack, and Midna’s palm strike helped keep its focus on her. It raised its backwards arm, contorting and cracking it into an unexpected position to strike her, but in the nick of time Luka blinked in. He brought its hammer down on the joint the Other just dislocated, and it let out a roar of pain as the material shattered compromising the already-damaged limb. “Stay back!” he told the others. “Let me handle-!” Whipping its head suddenly, the Other caught him with one of its antlers, slashing him across the chest. “Ugh!” He hit the ground, looked up to find its other fist descending on him, and blinked away not a moment too soon. In his place came Geralt, backed up by a mob of Strikers, who viciously mauled the Other with the bloodstained blade of the Orphan of Kos in a fit of unadulterated rage. 

He dealt a ton of damage, but between himself and his Strikers he took a lot in return, and he’d need some serious backup. “Aw, hell.” As the others continued to attack, Goldlewis quickly let go of his coffin so he could reach down and help both Dexio and Sinah up. The former winced, and the latter took a moment to find her footing, but Goldlewis clamped one giant mitt on both their shoulders. “Listen, you two. Whatever happens, I ain’t gonna let anyone else die. There’s no way that thing’s Peach, it just ain’t possible. So let’s work together, knock that thing down, and figure this damn mess out. Okay?” He squeezed them. “Okay!?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Dexio clenched his teeth, then pulled the ripcord on his jacket. Sina, silent and stony-faced, did the same. Their hoods popped up as they activated Brain Drive, their heads insulated in dark shrouds save for matching radial symbols in vivid crimson: a [url=https://i.imgur.com/LxNszB3.png]nut[/url] for Dexio, and a [url=https://i.imgur.com/aNxDA7D.png]six-pronged snowflake[/url] for Sina. When Goldlewis ran in to help Geralt and the others, the two Cadets were behind him. He and Dexio closed in and joined the melee, with Sina running support. Working with the others, they laid in damage while blocking or avoiding its mighty but telegraphed blows. After a few moments, the Other slammed its arm down, then swept it across the floor at Goldlewis to trip him up. He jumped, airdashed over the sweep, and battered the creature’s chin -now at the top of its ‘head’- with an aerial [url=https://i.imgur.com/h7FXRwd.png]coffin pound[/url] canceled into upward Behemoth Typhoon. As the Other leaned back from the blow, Sinah formed an icicle from the palm of her hand, then shot it at the upside-down chair in the monster’s gullet, shattering it. It reeled, and Dexio, mindful not to cause another cave-in with his Seismokinesis, instead forced a stone outcrop from the ground below its jaw to bend it even further backward, exposing the basket of pinecone flowers where its stomach should be. Luka warped in and whirled like a hammer thrower, building up momentum. Ice from Sina’s borrowed Cryokinesis grew around his weapon’s head, increasing its size threeful, until with a final shout Luka smashed the huge mass into the flowerbed in an explosion of icy chunks.

It went down, sprawled on the floor. Goldlewis instinctively took a step forward, coffin in hand, but Sina stepped in front of the fallen horror. “That’s enough!” she announced. “This Other is Peach!” Suddenly an orange light fell upon Goldlewis’ face, cast from behind her. Sina whirled around to see an energy field forming around the Other, a huge box formed of interlinking triangles. “Peach!”

“A transfer power?” With his Brain Drive used up, Luka stood with his hood off again as he lowered his hammer. “You need strong abilities to move something that size.”

Before most of those present even had time to process what was happening, the field shone, then disappeared. In a flash, both box and Other were gone. Goldlewis blinked a few times, then noticed some uninvited guests standing at the mouth of the paved northwestern tunnel. One, a masked man with a distinctively tall head in familiar red and black stood with his arms out, his chest heaving as he gasped from extreme exertion. He collapsed, and the soldiers to either side of him grabbed him by the arms to haul him into the back of a waiting truck. The sight left Goldlewis stunned–when did that show up? During the smokescreen? “H-hey!” he belted out, charging forward, but the driver put the pedal to the metal and the truck sped off.

“Wait!” Sina ran after the truck too, shooting and missing several ice blasts. “Where did you send Peach!?”

There came a greenish-blue flash. The familiar skittering sound of teleportation. But the person who appeared beside her wasn’t Luka. He stood at around six feet, dressed in gray, with pointed silver boots, and a long black coat with white fur trim, his hair and long jackal ears white as well. A silver mask adorned his face, and a triangular ruby hung from his neck. “Where are you going?” [url=https://i.imgur.com/xSiPD6g.jpg]Major General Karen Travers[/url] asked her as he took her by the wrist. “You can’t run off during a mission.”

Sina attempted to wrench free, and the man let her. He turned to face the others as they approached, removing his mask. “Karen?” Luka asked, taken aback. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to protect you,” Psych-OSF’s first-class Septentrion replied. “You, and Peach.”

Goldlewis breathed in sharply. “You ain’t sayin’ that really was her?”

“What happened to her?” Sina demanded.

“She metamorphosed,” Karen replied simply. “She can’t change back. Not like this, anyway.” He slipped open one of his pouches and tossed a multicolored mote of light onto the ground. Pictured within was a Psych-OSF soldier, the same one Sakura saw moments ago, but with her helmet off–revealing the face of the raven-haired sharpshooter, Anya, that she saw yesterday in Anistar Gym. “This was the culprit,” he added.

Furrowing his blow, Goldlewis considered the situation without loosening his grip on his coffin. When Karen appeared his first impulse was to assume that he was somehow in league with the people responsible, but now he wasn’t so sure. “What’s goin’ on, Travers? That woman meant a lot to us. You better start spillin’ some serious beans, partner!”

“If she remains here, or is taken above, she’d be killed as an Other,” he told the Seekers evenly. “The only way to make her human again is to entrust her to the Seiran Defense Force. They won’t kill her. I can guarantee that.” He crossed his arms. “I can also guarantee that if you tell a single soul about what happened here, your safety is in jeopardy.” 

Goldlewis bristled. “You sayin’ you’ll try to kill us?”

Karen shook his head. “Not me. [i]Them[/i]. And [i]they[/i] won’t ‘kill’ you.” From the way he enunciated it, it seemed unlikely he was referring to the Seiran Defense Force. “You must report that Peach was killed in action. Think hard before you act. And don’t trust the Administration. You’ll regret it if you do.” He took one final look around at everyone. “...It makes my blood boil, you know. It won’t be long before things start boiling over. If you’re the same…wait for my sign.” He held a finger to his lips, reminding everyone to keep quiet, and teleported away.

After a moment, Luka took a deep breath. “We have a lot to think about,” he said. “I feel like I just dipped my toe in dark waters. Without the slightest clue of how deep they go.” He looked around at the gathered faces, his misgivings plain to see on his own. “We should disperse. This op has no designated endpoint, and so everyone’s making their own way back. Psych-OSF won’t expect the troops back for hours. Be careful, everyone.” With that he, Dexio, and a shell-shocked Sina all began to make their way to the nearest rally point to get topside.

Goldlewis tugged at his whiskers, clearly agitated. “Guess we’ll debrief back at base? We got a whole lotta figurin’ to do before we decide what we do next.”

[hr]

The direct route to the surface through the holes in the ceiling made the return journey to the Seiran Reservoir a lot simpler than the subway system would have. Light rainfall made the trip a wet one, but it was otherwise uneventful, and within the hour the Seekers had returned to base. Thanks to the efforts of Bridges, their hideout had become a home in its own right, with reasonably comfortable cots, medical supplies, training gear, water to drink, and some groceries. After what happened, Goldlewis knew that some of the others might not have much of an appetite, but he used the cold cuts to make ham and turkey sandwiches anyway. At this point, people had been bottling up their thoughts for a while, making their own connections and conclusions. He was waiting for -and perhaps dreading- someone to finally speak.

[center][h3]Home of Tears - Gallo Tower[/h3]
Level 10 Nadia (196/100)
The Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Primrose and Therion’s [@Yankee], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey], Ganondorf’s [@Double], Ichiban’s [@Truthhurts22]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1544[/center]

As bone-tired as Nadia was, nothing got the adrenaline flowing like a good freefall at terminal velocity. Her hair, her jacket, and especially her tails whipped in the wind as she plunged downward from the hole left by Ganondorf in Gallo Tower’s crimson clock face, which seemed to be a lot farther up than she would have guessed, come to think of it. Walking all that distance rather than climbing it must have led her to underestimate it. Would hitting the surface of the basin in the tower’s courtyard be much better than hitting the ground at this point? Not that the cavern’s ambient darkness and the fungal garden’s colorful but rather gentle glow made seeing the basin a piece of cake in the first place, either. [i]Not my smartest idea,[/i] she was forced to admit. All these factors combined to wake Nadia up plenty quick as she plunged down through the rain, and with her train of thought chugging along full steam ahead, she hatched a scheme.

First, she steered herself toward the biggest darkest spot in Gallo Tower’s courtyard as best she could. Those luminescent mushrooms might not be bright enough to illuminate the water, but she could at least tell where they weren’t. Then she dispersed her blood limbs, and after pumping out a little extra, coagulated a trio of friendly Copycats to lend her a hand. Twisting around in the air beneath her, they grabbed hold of the blade case on Nadia’s back in order to plant their feet against it. “A-one, a-two…” It was a little tricky -coordinating a maneuver this complex with her clones made the feral feel like steam ought to be wafting off her cranium- but by the time she gave the signal, all three Copycats extended their legs together as if performing Fiber Upper. “A one-two-[i]three[/i]!” Their combined power launched Nadia’s limbless body upward just prior to impact, and her momentum not only stopped, but even reversed a little. Still, gravity took its course, and as it did the doppelgangers promptly exploded into blood to fly back toward Nadia. She soaked it back up gladly, and the next second plopped gently down into the water.

Once underwater, though, she met with a different problem. She sank like a rock, and her copied limbs weren’t doing a great job of swimming. In fact, being submerged was causing her blood to diffuse into the water. It being shockingly cold didn’t help, either. For a moment Nadia’s mind filled with panic–she didn’t know if drowning was one of the kinds of death the Life Gem could prevent, having never cared to test that. Then a pertinent detail came to mind, and after rolling her eyes, Nadia rocketed toward the surface. She burst up from the basin, repelling the water beneath her legs of blood with the water-walking ability gained from Massachusetts. “YEESH, that’s cold!” she yelped, crossing her arms around her shoulders. As her breathing normalized, she slapped her copied palm to her face, which left a smear of blood. “My bag of tricks is stuffed so full I can’t even remember what I got half the time,” she sighed. [i]Oh well. All’s well that ends well.[/i] She skated over to the edge of the pool and hauled herself onto terra firma. If nothing else, she was wide awake now. At least the water out here was refreshingly pure.

She took a good long breather, but eventually Nadia got to her feet. Ever since P stole her limbs back in the fight, she maintained feeling in them, and though she initially despaired of ever seeing her real arms and legs again something was telling her that they were close. By the time that the doors of Gallo Tower were thrown open and the Seekers emerged from within, Nadia had plundered the dumpster where P had unceremoniously tossed his stolen goods, and piled them up near the door. “Hey guys, look!” she called, hopping over on one leg with only her right arm reattached. “I found all our stuff! You’ll never guess what it cost me, though.”

“Oh, an arm and a leg? I get it! Thou art most humorous.” Barnabee said as he approached Though the battle against the Consul hadn’t been his fight to pick, he still possessed a vested interest in the Seekers’ continued existence. “It gladdens mine heart to see thee hale and hearty.” He squinted his black eyes. “...Though rather weary, truth be told. Didst the Consul truly pose so great a challenge?”

“He attacked us with a bed. But we made it.” After a giggle Nadia stuck her last arm and leg back on, then took a long, deep breath. No matter how hard she and the others tried to be ready for anything, nobody could have expected a fight like that. Though P’s high-density bedframe offered a full-on boss battle in its own right, the real fight began the moment that Consul showed off his special ability. The power to rewrite the past in order to change the present…terrifying. How did it work? Surely he couldn’t have just, say, gone back and killed them in their sleep? But it looked like the secrets of P’s power had died with him. It wasn’t just the heights team that returned, but the depths team too. While Junior, Kamek, and Ichiban looked a little worse for wear, they were here, and P sure wasn’t. “Dead?” she asked simply. When she received her answer, she gave a curt nod. “Figured. Sorry, Ichi. Either him or us, y’know.”

With a sigh she turned her attention to the group at large. “Everyone okay, more or less?” Gallo didn’t show up to see everyone off, but Nadia didn’t really care about him anyway. Even after severe poisoning, bug bites, stings, and a whole host of different wounds from the bedmech, everyone else still seemed to be alive and kicking. The good news didn’t stop there, though. Kamek’s crew came laden with a metric crapton of loot from P’s private stash, including a heap of geo for everyone present. Nadia was all smiles as she got to relish her favorite sound: the clink of coins that belonged to her as she slipped them into her pockets. Or in this case, her magic wallet. “Aw, you guys!” She dabbed at her eyes as if the raindrops streaking down her face were tears. “You’re makin’ me all cent-imental. We should throw you a cere-money!”

“Good fightin’ in there, everyone. Man, what a little bastard that kid was, right? Not to mention some kind of monster. I sure hope the ‘rest’ can’t pull sheet like that. As for me, you can just call me roadkill, ‘cause I’m dead-tired. I’ll feel a lot bedder once I crash back at hotel.” She vaguely remembered Jesse saying something about ‘sleep schedules’, but was that really a thing? It sounded like some fancy-shmancy baloney parents tell their kids to make them go to bed on time. She needed sleep [i]now[/i]. It was always dark underground anyway. “What time’s it now, lunch or somethin’? Let’s meet back up around dinner and figure out where we’re headed next. Got two more masks to find, and a whole Under to find ‘em in.”

[hr]

True to her word, Nadia crashed the moment she got back to her room in Habbo Hotel. There was some sort of big kerfuffle in the lobby -Nadia heard snippets of conversation about ‘food poison’ and ‘hospitalization’- but she couldn’t bring herself to deal with it before having a nice long snooze. When she awoke, her bedside clock said quarter to five. Groaning, she tossed and turned in bed, but ultimately decided to get up. Not even close to a full eight hours, but it would have to do.  At least she could be pretty confident that she didn’t miss anything -in addition to being pretty in general- since even if the others didn’t sleep, they couldn’t possibly do anything substantial in the state P left them in. Maybe someone found a clue about the next boss on the Seekers’ list, though, or a better way to traverse the Under than surfing through giant intestines. Only one problem: how was she going to find everyone?

[center][img]https://gamecritics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/necro-4.jpg[/img][/center]

After thinking for several minutes straight, Nadia left the hotel and headed toward the bridge linking Home of Tears’ downtown to Fountain Central, though she didn’t cross it. That point was one that everyone going in or out of Downtown would need to cross. As it happened, a cafe had been erected right there to take advantage of the foot traffic that came as a result of that very fact, and Nadia could think of no better place for an exhausted Seeker desperately trying to stay awake to go. Called the Terminal, this cafe seemed very popular with the undead in particular if its clientele was anything to go by, but they welcomed the living just as well. With plenty of moolah to spare, Nadia ordered herself a coffee with plenty of cream and a plate of scones, then sat near the front to keep an eye on the comings and goings nearby. Hopefully this wasn’t just some harebrained scheme, and the others should pass by sooner or later.