Following the somewhat ominous moment spent staring at the refinery, Nadia continued to chill out with her new friends in the Steeltusk’s shade. It turned out that Piper, Caesar, and Lighter -alongside their friends Burnice and Lucy, for whom this trio was waiting- were all part of a biker gang called the Sons of Calydon, which Nadia thought odd considering that all but one of them were female. They based their operations in a cliffside town called Blazewood northeast of Hammerhead, and unlike the cutthroat vagabonds and crazed psychos common to other gangs in the Paved Wilderness, the Sons of Calydon seemed to be dedicated do-gooders. Though primarily concerned with the wellbeing of various shantytown communities and homesteads around the central yellow-grass plain, they roved all over the Wilderness performing odd jobs and competing in high-octane races. The way they spoke about one another gave Nadia a strong ‘found family’ vibe, reminding her a little of the Fishbone Gang. While being part of a big organization had its perks, she couldn’t deny that she missed having a small, tight-knit gang to run with, back when things weren’t so terribly complicated.

Eventually, the conversation turned back toward today’s trending topic: the Ficsit scavenger hunt. Still no closer to cashing in her salvage sphere than before, Nadia bemoaned the loss of her dune buggy. Her goal was to angle the others into offering to let her use their truck to haul the cargo, but to her surprise Piper had another idea. “So, you didn’t find your ride in the water down there?” she drawled, leaning sleepily atop her elbow on the Steeltusk’s bar counter.

Nadia shook her head. “Nah. Last I saw it, my buggy went over the waterfall. Darn thing could be anywhere. I guess I could wander around tryin’ to find where it went, but I don’t really know what I’m ‘dune’ out here, heh…”

Yawning, Piper shrugged. “I mean, there’s only the one river ‘round these parts, but suit yourself…”

“Huh?” Nadia blinked. “D’you know where it lets out?”

“Sure. See that bridge over there?” The little girl pointed toward a part of the highway about a mile away, past the refinery.

Nadia squinted. Through the heatwaves she could barely see what looked like a bridge. “It’s over there?” She perked up suddenly.

“Well, what’re we waitin’ for!?” Caesar chugged the last of her cola, then jumped down to the ground. “Let’s go find your ride!” She swung her leg over her bike, then beckoned for Nadia to join her. “C’mon, get on!”

With a grin Nadia leaped down after her and joined Caesar on her bike. Lighter followed them, pushing up his sunglasses. “As the boss’s bodyguard, I’ll be going, too.” Caesar protested, pointing out that she could handle herself, but Lighter ignored her with a smile and threw a questioning glance at Piper. The truck driver shook her head. He shrugged and revved up his own bike. “Alright, let’s go.”

"Don't go drinking and driving!" Nadia waved at Piper. "It's whiskey business!"

The souped-up motorcycles of the Sons of Calydon made short work of the short ride. It was empty and uneventful, even as they rode by the refinery. Nadia checked it out as the trio passed it, but she spotted neither Therion nor Roland. Only the sight of an open garage door suggested anyone had been there at all. She shrugged, trusting in the guys to deal with whatever trouble they might run into, and settled in for the rest of the ride. After another couple minutes, the three reached a shallow chasm with a river running through the bottom. There were no signs of Nadia’s buggy, so Caesar took her bike offroad to head downstream with Lighter right behind her. Another minute of rougher driving brought them to a steep crater in the red rock, home to a small lake and an overgrown, abandoned hydroelectric power plant. There, half-submerged but right side up, they found Nadia’s lost dune buggy, washed all the way down here by the current. A curved slope around the basin’s edge, meant no doubt for plant workers, provided access to the waterside.

Unfortunately, as an oasis, this spot had attracted some wildlife. Atop the central control point sat a big watermelon bugsnak shaped like a huge, bloated tick. Much smaller snax that looked like scooped melon balls roamed the area, but none looked remotely as threatening as the big one. With the buggy in the water close by, there was no chance of getting it out without the giant Mewon noticing. Nadia groaned. “Ah, crap. I don’t wanna fight, I’m way too tired for this…”

“In that case, watch and learn!” Caesar lowered her kickstand and set off at a jog, eager for a brawl. “C’mon, Lighter!”

“Coming.” Looking very unsurprised, her bodyguard went after her.

Their commitment made Nadia feel bad, and with a sigh she got off her butt to follow them. The Mewon spotted the intruders right away and let out a rumbling bellow of challenge. Nadia readied her daggers, Lighter hefted a modified brass knuckle with an engine fixture, and Caesar unsheathed her short sword. With the afternoon sun glinting off her shield’s golden spikes, she clanged her weapons together. “That’s right! Gimme the best you got!”

“Allow me!” Lighter charged forward, his weapon aflame. He dipped and dodged around the Mewon as he applied a barrage of punches and kicks to hammer the striped rind and soften the big snak up. Caesar slashed away at its face and legs to get its attention, soaking its bashes and charges with well-timed parries. Nadia lent a hand from farther back by throwing her daggers to reduce the beast’s defense, so it wasn’t long before Lighter powered up with a Morale Burst. “Now we’re cooking!” His fists became blazing blurs in a lightning-fast barrage of punches. Nadia watched, impressed, as he finished with a fiery uppercut.

The Mewon bellowed in rage, glinted gold, and pulled in its legs to throw itself forward in a corkscrew charge. Caesar threw herself in harm’s way, shield up. Even as Nadia flinched away, she held firm and tanked the blow, then struck her own shield from behind to launch a reverberating shockwave. That jolt stunned the beast, so Lighter jumped in for a chain attack, first launching up and then crashing down like a meteor. Sensing her moment, Nadia tagged in. “Fur-serker Purr-age!” she cried, laying on the hurt with seven quick lunging slashes.

Finally, Caesar finished the chain. She flipped over the others to bring her spinning shield down on the Mewon’s noggin. “Courage is POWER!” The cleaving blow scattered the watermelon snak into giant, sweet-smelling pieces, and when the echo faded the crater lake was quiet.

Nadia sheathed her knives with a sigh. “Sweet moves, you guys! All for little ol’ me, too! I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Haha, don’t thank us yet!” Caesar jumped down into the water, which came up to her thighs, to fish out the three-foot salvage cube she’d seen earlier. “Once we get your dune buggy outta the drink, you’re hauling this thing back to the Steeltusk!”

The catgirl chuckled and splashed down alongside her, followed by Lighter. “Alright, alright, that’s fair. Guess I’ll cube my enthusiasm for now.” After stuffing the cube into the buggy’s trunk, the three got busy pushing the car to the lakeshore.



After Zenkichi, Blazermate, Edward and the giant archer brought the firefight to a close, the Seekers were left in relative peace. Now, the wreckage of several vehicles on the route to Celica’s foxhole stood as a warning to other combatants, effectively warding them off by virtue of both physical obstruction and the intimidation factor. Messing with something -or someone- that could leave such heavy ordnance in such a sorry state was beyond every faction’s pay grade, at least for now. It wouldn’t be long before the turn of the Flame Clock brought around new generations of soldiers with no idea how destructive Celica’s Skell could be, eager to try their luck.

Still, despite the lull in the Seekers’ battle, the other factions’ fight around Highertower raged on in its ceaseless ebb and flow, and with their actions the newcomers sent out ripples that quickly became waves. With the New Conglomerate’s Vanguard-class Titan and accompanying platoon demolished, the blue-and-yellow faction had no choice but to pull back and consolidate its remaining forces around the Fuel Depot. With the mercenaries Hightertower thrown into flux by the payload detonation earlier as well, the psychos -led by Junkrat and Roadhog- had managed to assume complete control over the battlefield’s central facility. Once they got their own payloads to safety, the bandit legion set its eyes on the weakened NC soldiers as they retreated to stem the bleeding. The Fuel Depot’s defenders quickly found themselves pincered between a frontal assault from the psychos and an ambush by the marauding Kroad from behind, each alien gunslinger packing custom Blutonium weapons. While it would be even harder to push into that area for a while, it was safe to say that the NC wouldn’t be troubling the Seekers any time soon.

That made it a very good time to make a break for it, especially with Celica safe and their ill-gotten gains from the cargo container retrieved. The only question was how best the heroes could make their escape. Once contacted by Zenkichi, Sandalphon quickly bent her mind to the task. It didn’t take an engineer to tell that Celica’s once-proud Skell was practically inoperable and wouldn’t be driving -or walking- anywhere anytime soon, especially without attracting unwanted attention. Still, it had demonstrated its worth as a weapon of war and was well worth retrieval alongside its pilot. Zenkichi suggested using fultons. Maybe as a joke? Sandalphon couldn’t quite tell. Those devices could lift impressively large loads when correctly distributed and balanced, but there was one big problem with his plan: the Avenger was not currently airborne, but still at Wind’s Gasp. It wouldn’t be too long a flight to Highertower as the crow flies, but the time it would take the ship to take off and fly there was time that Edward’s contingent didn’t have. There was no telling what could happen to the Skell if fultoned up way ahead of time, either, making that option foolhardy at best.

Sandalphon pursed her lips as she leaned on the Comm Center desk, thinking. “I’ve received confirmation that the items sent by Edward and Juri have arrived. We’re preparing the salvage for delivery to the Hammerhead Ficsit depot via Armadillo. Can the mech be sent to the Avenger through the same method?” That seemed a little too convenient to Sandalphon, so she wasn’t terribly optimistic, but it warranted suggestion regardless. “If not, you may need to use Edward’s portals to transport everyone to a safe -or at least defensible- location to await fulton extraction. It will take a few minutes to make the necessary preparations but I can request Hope to make ready for takeoff.”

By this time, the underground third of the Highertower battlefield was beginning to get noisy. From where they were in the open third the Seekers couldn’t see what was happening, but given how valuable the contents of their payloads had been, the psychos were probably making the most of their newfound resources. The window for escape was closing; if the Seekers and their new acquaintance wanted to ditch this warzone, they’d need to act fast.



Leaving the untamed (and in some cases, totally alien) wilderness behind brought the kids and their chaperone to a more ordinary stretch of savannah, though plenty of interesting wildlife could still be found here and there. Kangaroos, koalas, dingos, wombats, emus, and platypi were all harder to find than balaharas or tonglegrops, but they were far less dangerous, leading to a wide-open and scenic countryside. To the north the terrain got darker and rockier, with the derricks scattered across the inky oilfields like burned-out trunks after a forest fire, and beyond them lay the high ridges and gorges of Oilwell Basin, but it would take much longer to get there on foot than the team had available.

The distances involved for travel around here led the four Seekers and their critter companions along a dirt road to the only real point of interest in the area: a derelict waypoint that had at some point been a bustling truck stop. Perhaps its builders thought that a location near the region’s primary source of crude oil would make sourcing its fuel easy, but that remote location had helped Hammerhead leave its competitor in the dust. Either way, not even a name remained painted on its faded walls to identify it now. More than likely, it had served as a temporary base for a rotating cast of squatters, bandits, and other miscreants since its downfall. What few vehicles the Seekers could see sat broken down and looted as they baked in the afternoon sun, never to run again.

Today, though, the outpost was occupied. A squad of five kitted-out operators were holed up inside, and when their lookout spotted incoming tangos through the cameras they set up, they quickly began to establish fortifications like metal sheets to reinforce interior walls and wooden barricades to block windows. Alibi set up proximity detectors and deceptive holograms that would ping their attackers, Ela laid down barbed wire and sticky Grzmot concussion mines, Valkyrie stuck a durable Black Eye camera in the compound’s main hall, Jager readied his Active Defense System to destroy incoming projectiles, and Wamai deployed Mag-Nets to attract and then detonate enemy gadgets. All loaded their weapons and hunkered down as Wamai’s voice resounded from the compound’s loudspeaker.

“Attention, unidentified force. If you’re here for our salvage, you should turn back, now. Any attempt to enter the outpost will be met with lethal force.” To show that the operators meant business, a spray of gunfire peppered the ground close by. It was almost impossible to tell which window it came from at a glance.

@Lugubrious @DracoLunaris @Simple Unicycle

Word Count: 687
Level: Lv: 6 EXP: (3/60)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion

Harry’s battle with the gnomes was quite chaotic and bloody. The detective was frantically swinging the mace, hoping he would eventually hit his targets. His mace and body were covered in blood from gnome-inflicted wounds. At one point, he kicked one of the gnomes far down the hallway. At some point, he had cut a few of the gnomes in half after Amaterasu had leaped over him. “Wow how did I do that?” He asked himself, amazed by his newfound abilities. He assumed he did this by using his mind. Assuming that he has just awakened this dormant power. He pulled out a somewhat mouldy looking piece of bread and ate it. Offering some of the bread to Amaterasu

Harry looked inside his pants, letting out an angry grunt at some of the things he took that were broken. “Shit.” Exclaming loudly while pulling out the broken shards of the more fragile stuff he took. Luckily, there was some of the loot that was still intact, so he would be able to sell it later. Following behind Amaterasu, he hoped that they would find Kit and Band. “Band, Kit, where are ya?” He yelled out, trying to see if they could hear him. If so then they could try to follow the sound of his voice. He couldn’t contain his excitement when he saw Band and Kit. “Yeah, I’m all gravy, did ya see Heismay yet?” Asking Band, but didn’t answer as he noticed something. Harry turned his head to face whatever he was looking at. “Ah shit here we go again…” Muttering under his breath, he felt his whole body stiff as a board.

Harry readied the mace, being ready to attack these creepy little things. Lifting his arm backwards, he was prepared to throw his mace at the creature. But stopped when a white blur struck the creature down. Harry was frantically looking around, wondering who shot that whitish blur. For a moment, he thought it was another power that he had awakened. Jumping backwards when he saw the bat creature staring at them. “Who the hell are you? What are you?” His question was answered somewhat by Band deducing that it was Heismay.

“Yeah, what is up with you kidnapping these kids? Are you some kind of pedophile? YOU SICK FUCK!” Harry screamed, pointing an accusatory finger at Heismay. “Yeah, it doesn’t make sense since you've got no hands to pick up the kids. Perhaps Morris was chasing someone else, thinking it was Heismay?” Harry was now pondering all the possibilities of the situation. “So, how did you turn into a bat anyway? Or were you always batty?” Harry said, flapping his arms like wings.

Dumbfounded and appalled by Harry’s loud and serious accusation, especially given his sensitive hearing, Heismay found himself too tongue-tied to rebuke the man beyond a simple “What!? No!” When he managed to compose himself, he was sorely tempted to defend his honor against this foulmouthed cur, but ultimately he did not deign to dignify the comments about his race with a response.

“I wonder if someone in the village was kidnapping those kids and blaming Heismay for it?” A suggestion to Band of what could be happening. “Well this was a fucking waste of time.” Adding to letting out a sigh of frustration.

“And why was she trying to save the kids? What was trying to kill or steal these kids? And what is this problem you have?” Harry asked his questions but had a feeling he wouldn’t get any straight answers. Not that Heismay had those answers, or even the time to give them if he did, for that matter..

“I got a bad feeling about this Harry.” Composure said with Inland Empire injecting. “Something bad is coming. Prepare for the worst Harry.” Looking behind him at the creatures and letting out another girly sounding scream.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” The detective blurted out while running behind the others. Running as quickly as he could. Slamming his body against doors and walls again leaving a Harry shaped hole.

With no semblance of either rhyme or reason beyond the ghoulish specters at their back to drive them forward, the explorers scrambled through the labyrinthine Curien Mansion in a mad dash for freedom. They dashed and blundered through dozens of rooms, passing by other monstrous maze denizens like clowns, slimes, and bedsheet ghosts so fast that they barely even registered the intrusion. Without the agility or athleticism of Heismay, Amaterasu, or Kit, Band and Harry in particular smacked into plenty of walls, doors, and furniture as they hauled ass, running fast enough that they almost threw themselves into pits more than once. With so much cumbersome loot on his person, Harry would doubtlessly be doomed by his greed unless he ditched a few items, especially once a coilhead joined the pursuit, its feet tip-tapping behind the team with terrifying speed.

With Heismay and Amaterasu in the lead, they reached the library before the others, but while Heismay managed to slip through the wolf wound up waylaid by a book-hurling poltergeist. Luckily she managed to turn the tables on the ghostly miscreant and escape, but she left behind quite a mess for Kit, Band, and Harry the next moment. Band spotted the specter, but didn’t register the threat -what would books do to him, after all?- until he remembered that one hit against either Kit or Harry would trigger Galeem’s influence and doom them with a forced fight. “Aw, hell!” He slowed down just for a moment, but his mind kept racing. There was no way to block for even one man, let alone both, without screwing himself in the process. He could only think of one solution.

“Sorry, buddy!” He launched forward toward Kit with a burst of speed, then slammed a Brass Knuckle into his armored back. The knight went flying through the library and into the next room. Then Band rounded on Harry, who was still bleeding from his gnome encounter, and launched a Friend Heart right at him. The moment it made contact, he grabbed Harry in his bell and flung him after Kit. He had stopped only a brief moment, but it was enough for the team’s pursuers to catch up. The coilhead slammed through the door, then stopped cold beneath Band’s glare, blocking the doorway for the other specters. Band backpedaled through the other library door as fast as he could, then slammed the door shut and locked it behind him. “No time to explain!” he yelled, shooting a Friend Heart at Kit as well. This was a bad time to restore his acquaintances’ memories, but right now they had bigger things to worry about. “Go, go, go!”

A moment later, the three reached a familiar obstacle: the hallway divided by a pitch-black pit, with only one plank spanning it. Heismay and Amaterasu were already on the other side, and for the others it was dangerous but doable, but for Band it was outright impossible. Just after he slowed to a stop, he heard a door explode behind him, and grit his teeth. There was only one thing he could do, and luckily the situation had generated plenty of dramatic tension. “Gang way!” He hopped into the air, deploying massive bits of instrumentation until he resembled a giant French horn. “Super…sonic!” Band burst forward in a bassy blockbuster, rocketing across the gap, down the hallway, and straight through the wall. It blew apart, and Band shot out into the open air from the mansion’s second story. With a trail blazed, the others could follow him out and down into the courtyard below.

A moment after Band burst from the house, the top hatch of the atom popped open, and Stein emerged to stare at the Seekers with eyebrows raised. “Hot damn! Thought you all bit the dust. Who’s that?” He gave Heismay a quizzical look, then glanced back at the mob of zombies streaming from the mansion. “Oops, one sec.” He ducked back down, and the next moment the Atom’s neon-green laser blazed forth to obliterate the shambling dead in one sweep. Their ashes joined the dunes arrayed around the Atom, suggesting that Stein and Tesset had been dealing with zombies since the others left. “Ah, nevermind, we gotta go!” With that the Atom began to reverse across the courtyard, building up its momentum until it could turn around and smash through the perimeter wall again. Band and the others hustled after it, leaving the dead -and the shadows peering through the second-story hole through the sunlight- in their dust.

Several minutes later, the procession came to a stop a safe distance from Curien Mansion on the wooded slope by the river. Heismay and Amaterasu were in pretty good condition, but Band and his pipes were wheezing–his chassis wasn’t built for locomotion like this! As he and the others recovered, Heismay double checked everyone and gave an approving nod. “Looks like everyone made it out in one piece. Well done.” He seemed especially appreciative of Amaterasu. “And you impressed me perhaps most of all. What a magnificent creature you are.”

Having climbed out from the Atom, Stein hit the ground nearby. “So, what did I miss?” Despite his sunglasses, it was easy to discern that he was keeping his eyes on the group’s newest member, who seemed hesitant to answer.

“This is Heismay,” Band stated matter-of-factly. “He ain’t the one who’s been takin’ kids, I don’t think. Said he does know who’s takin’ ‘em though, and that we oughta go and get the full story ourselves.” He straightened up. “Speakin’ of. Where we headin’?”

The Eugief cleared his throat and pointed up the mountainside with a wing. “Up there.” Above some rocky, river-carved canyons towered a distinctive pointy peak. “Witch’s Nose. We’re looking for a cave beneath it. Follow me.”

Band glanced at Kit and Harry. “Easy, fellas. I’ll tell ya everythin’ in a minute.”

Heismay led the way farther up the slope along the river. It turned out that the river flowed down the mountain from a small mountainside lake surrounded by tall rocky cliffs and pine trees, itself fed by picturesque waterfalls. After the dingy, claustrophobic confines of Curien Mansion, the natural landscape was an especially beautiful sight, but getting across it to Witch’s Nose would be difficult. Band could see several possible routes both across the lake and up the bluffs on the other side, but it would be tricky going, especially if the team ran afoul of any critters in the area.



At the same time, though, traversing the area would be a simple yet tedious enough task that there would be plenty of time for small talk. While Heismay could easily reach his destination by himself, he seemed willing to slow down and stay close to the others, which gave Band a chance to try and get to know the mystery man better. Before that, though, he needed to follow up on his friend hearts from earlier.

“Kudos to y’all for not freakin’ out back there,” he told Harry and Kit. “Sorry to do that, but if anyone’s attacked while they’re still under, they’ll be forced to fight, and that woulda cooked y’all’s goose back there.” Band took a deep breath. “So, this is the World of Light. A messed-up patchwork world made of bits an’ pieces from every other world, includin’ yours and mine. You probably remember what happened now; Galeem went and wiped it all away. But that ain’t the end of the story. I’m with a group called the Lost Numbers, and we’re fightin’ back. If we’re gonna set thing straight, we gotta fight Galeem itself, which means takin’ out all the guardians it’s got in our way.” He shrugged. “But that’s all big-picture stuff. Right now, I’m just tryin’ to get to the bottom of what’s goin’ on in Martira. Once we’re done, I can call our ride to pick us up. So just focus on what’s straight ahead, ‘kay? One step at a time.”

That meant getting around -or across- the mountain lake, and finding the cave entrance Heismay described. Heismay himself seemed both troubled and perplexed by everything Band said, as if things weren’t fully sinking in. Nevertheless, he kept his thoughts to himself for now, and jumped onto the first floating log to start making his way forward.

The desperate chase through the mansion passed by in a blur, Kit running through (and being thrown around in) the interior with the others. As Band shot the heart at him that entered his body, Kit found himself wondering for a moment what had happened to Anor Londo and why he was in some creepy manor. His head was in a jumble with his unlocked memories merging with the memories he had made in the World of Light. Still, he kept on running, and eventually the group found their way out of the Curien Mansion. Hopping into Stein's Atom, the group made their way away from the manor and into the wilderness.

Kit sat there in the Atom, taking off his helmet so he could breathe easier. He racked his brain trying to figure out just how he had gotten here. One moment he was in Anor Londo, the city of the gods, and then he was in the woods. He was confused, and scared, and frustrated. He wished for a moment that Solaire was here, the jolly knight being one of the few comforting presences he had known in his time in Lordran. But Lordran seemed far away now. He was in a strange land.

Band explained the predicament to Kit and Harry, the knight wondering just how many other worlds there had been. He was amazed at the technology that he had seen, what with Big Band the mechanical man and the giant vehicle they took a ride in to get out here. As Band finished, Kit nodded, his resolve strengthened. "This world is foreign to me, but I know that even in this strange new land I must continue to do the right thing. We'll destroy the monster that merged all of our worlds, but as you say, the children come first. I'm with you, Big Band."

The group continued down the hall until they reached the threshold of a very large, rectangular, two-story room, given an appropriately menacing appearance by the baleful red glow of burning braziers. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all metal, dirty and rusted, with similar support struts that featured large, inward-facing spikes. Its floorspace was dominated by heavy machinery that ran in a circuit around a suspended track, from which fearsome hook-tipped chains dangled. Right away the newcomers could see a handful of humanoid figures suspended from the hooks via their manacles, all being slowly brought around the track like factory items on a conveyor belt. There were also cages full of bugsnax situated around the room, all clamoring in anticipation as they waited for a hapless captive to come along so they could try and cram themselves inside.

With a handful of cultists stationed atop the central catwalk for oversight, the whole thing was a nightmarish assembly line of ritualistic sacrifice, horrifically automated for maximum output. All of the captives the Seekers could see were at least halfway gone already, and as they watched, a Cinnasnail put one poor soul past the total snackification threshold, converting him completely into a writhing mass of bugsnax. That left just two captives still salvageable: Dr. Blackwell, and Wambus Troubleham, a fuzzy blue Grumpus in a straw hat.

No stranger to horror and sacrifice, Vergil forced himself to focus on the factory’s hub, a bulky device the size of a truck that loosely resembled a furnace. “That looks important,” he muttered, pointing it out. If the Seekers took that out, they could very well shut down the whole facility.

Burnice, meanwhile, was looking at the cultists above it–specifically, the weapon one hefted on its shoulder. “Hey, that’s Lucy’s bat!” she exclaimed, her surprise quickly turning to anger. Without a second’s hesitation she dashed out into the open. “What’ve you freaks done with Lucy!?” she yelled.

Her shout took the cultists by surprise, but they quickly mobilized. Three of them turned toward a Ficsit gun cache, popped it open, and grabbed the weapons from inside. One retrieved the Plague Pistol, a reliable handgun capable of rapid-firing toxic globules. Another received the HC Hurricane, a magical tommy gun loaded with Destruction I spell bullets, whose near-total lack of recoil would enable a very mobile fighting style. Finally, the third got an electric shotgun that could hit like a truck if not for its immense spread. As the three readied their weapons, the cultist with Lucy’s bat began to whack Noodlers toward the newcomers as living artillery, their boiling-hot contents ready for an explosive impact.

Therion managed not to facepalm at Burnice almost immediately drawing the cultists' attention. What's done was done, and from the awful situation in front of them a fight was going to be unavoidable anyway. Still would have been nice to start off with the element of surprise, though.

He whipped a hand out, summoning and throwing a pair of blades from the glyph on his arm to intercept the first of the noodlers sent their way, shattering the bugsnax midair. "Here we go." He wasn't a strategist or tactician and he didn't play at being one by giving out orders, but it seemed like their next moves were more or less clear: take out the cultists, take out the boiler Vergil pointed out, and get those people down from their hooks before they could be snackified. Though the last seemed the most pressing, Therion himself didn't have a way to get them free without getting closer, or stopping the track and making them into even more sitting ducks than they already were. So instead the thief's other arm was flung forward, and from it his Chain Hook wrapped around the leg of one of the cultists to drag them off of the catwalk while Therion himself darted forward, beneath the upper levels where those with the high ground would have a harder time targeting him until he made his next move.

Therion’s hook managed to snatch the cultist with the plague pistol and yank it down. It hit a machine on the way down, which dislodged its grip enough so that when it hit the ground, the plague pistol got jolted from its grasp and tumbled a couple feet away. It also lost its pointed hood, revealing its head: a Pinkle, connected to the body via its four pickle legs tucked within its jarlike shell. With a squeak, the cultist cast a fireball at Therion, then went for its gun.

The dissonance between how small and cute the bugsnax looked and how sinister they actually were was jarring, but not so much that it stopped Therion from acting. Having already encountered the spell casting of the cultists earlier, he expected something like the fireball that came at him. He once more raised one of his arms, this time countering with his own fire spell, and the flames clashed together and burst. Through the fluttering embers left over Therion dashed toward the Pinkle-headed cultist, intent on getting inside of the range of its magic. At this distance Therion wouldn't lose in a race to the fallen weapon either, and as he came up on the cultist he intercepted it with a knife to the wrist (or whatever food equivalent there was) which he dragged up its arm until it jerked away. He took the opportunity to scoop up the pistol himself then, sweeping it up and squeezing the trigger like he'd seen plenty of others do already. High-velocity poison pellets shattered the glass of the cultist's jarhead soon after, leaving it to stumble around blindly as the toxins did their work.

“Don’t worry Dr. Blackwell, we’ll get you out!” Vergil ducked down behind cover as the cultist shotgunner fired. At this range its weapon’s spread meant it couldn’t possibly land a hit, but all the electric buckshot in the air was quite intimidating. Vergil dispensed a stick of dynamite into his hand, already lit, then hurled it at an unoccupied section of the assembly line ahead of Blackwell. A blue explosion went off, destroying part of the track. While the captives kept moving, they wouldn’t be able to progress beyond that point at least.

In retaliation, the cultist batter aimed its next Noodler at Vergil. He did not notice the incoming bugsnax in time, so when the Noodler detonated a mere foot or two away, the scalding broth caused the gleaming engineer to aggro to the batter. His next dynamite would be aimed right at the factory furnace, well before the captives were safe. At the same time, the survivor and Burnice were approaching the cultists, one much more carefully than the other. In fact, Burnice was charging forward to intercept the shotgunner, flamethrowers at the ready.

Roland meanwhile was going right for the cultist with the Hurricane machine gun. While normally super dangerous for others, for Roland the low caliber rapid fire gun, even if it fired magical bullets, was something Roland could deflect with ease with his katana allowing him to close the distance on the cultist and deliver a slash at him. He’d need an attack with more potency to get past Roland’s ranged deflection abilities… Or a partner.

Although he didn’t have much time to play with his target as the people they had rescued were making a huge mess of things, not waiting before they were starting to blow up this machine! So to speed things up, Roland donned the EGO of Frost Splinter, and with it turning the room into a frozen throne room temporarily as he unleashed two blasts of freezing air at all the cultists and the machine itself, attempting to not only freeze the machine, but also the cultists with the power of the Snow Queen. He then made his way over to help rescue those on the conveyor belt, those that survived the EGO being slowed anyway by the freezing cold.

"Drop them down!" he called up to Roland. Then Therion could take it from there, drag them behind cover before cracking open their manacles. A single story fall was sure to be preferable, and much less lethal for the captives, than dangling and at risk of being caught in crossfire - or engulfed in what might become an imminent explosion.

After a moment or two, the frozen gunner thawed out, then returned its focus to Roland with a fury that suggested that the Fixer would be sorry for turning his back rather than finishing it off. From the slash wound in its chest, a Puffy Snakpod wriggled out like a bag worm, which the cultist took hold of and threw in Therion’s direction. The thief saw the worm coming and conjured another set of knives to stop its trajectory, but on impact it exploded like a frag grenade, sending puffed rice cracker shrapnel flying like bullets raining down on him. Then the cultist reloaded and opened fire with its Hurricane again, not particularly caring if it happened to shoot whoever Roland would be rescuing.

At the same time, Burnice closed most of the distance to the iced-up shotgunner. Once it got its full faculties back, it blasted away at her as fast as it could, filling the factory with resounding thunderclaps at regular intervals. Now dangerously close, Burnice waited for one electric scattershot before rushing her target. “Yaaaaaaaaaaaagh!” Reloading just in time, the cultist unleashed a point-blank blast, only for the biker to dash straight through it in a perfect dodge. “Ha–ha!” With her grips on her flamethrowers reversed, Burnice wielded them like tonfas to wallop the cultist left and right. “Take this! And that! And this!” She finished with a kick that smacked her foe against the wall behind it. As it stumbled, she ignited her pilot lights, a grin spreading across her face. “Let’s fire it up!~”

FWOOOOSH! A two-pronged torrent of flame inundated the cultist, plastering it against the wall as it burned until nothing was left but ash. Burnice twirled her flamethrower with a laugh. “Brighter than fireworks!”

Roland was hacking away at the binds that held Dr. Blackwell to the machine with his sword. While there was chaos going around him while he was doing it, after getting hit by a shot from the hurricane, he quickly turned around and began to deflect the rest of the shots with his sword before swapping to his lance to dash up to strike at the cultist with a thrust. It sank a few inches into his target’s torso, but with only more snax instead of vital points, the cultist continued to back up while firing.

Roland, getting annoyed with this thing after getting shot again, decided that he was done with him and followed up his lance strike with a Furioso on the cultist, ripping the snax apart with a barrage of attacks from his many weapons. Once it was taken care of, he scooped up his gun and stored it in his gloves before he went back to freeing the hostages and managed to get Dr. Blackwell down from the track.

Elsewhere, though, things weren’t looking so bright. Once the batter unfroze, it aimed a Noodler at Therion, then shrank back from the survivor’s suppressive fire. She ducked down to reload her sawed-off with new shells. The sound of footsteps made her look up, but she didn’t see anything, so she quickly resumed her task. Only then did invisible claws rake across her spine, eliciting an agonized howl before the unseen Wendigo silenced her for good. Not so far off, Vergil flinched away from the horrific sound and sight. “God, no!”

The shouting drew Therion's attention from the captives and their captors, and when he spotted only the woman's collapsed form and no assailant readily in sight he quickly assumed that the 'rare invisible monster' Roland had warned them about had decided to show up. Because of course it had, invited by the mention and their general bad luck, not to mention the amount of noise they were making and now the smell of food cooking.

Therion let out a short, aggressive sigh. He was covered in hard rice fragments and now hot soup, more than ready to be done with this place, and now about to take on an unknown monster. An invisible skulker couldn't be left alone in a chaotic fire fight like this after all.

He shifted into his beast form, leaping high up onto the catwalk to get a better look at the situation as swiftly as possible and prevent any other sneak attacks. Around the fallen survivor he saw them, and smelled them too, the iron-like scent of the spray of blood and the soggy red footprints cutting through everything else. His feline gaze tracked the steps and with his claws extended he jumped, letting out a paralyzing roar as he landed, hoping he was close enough to the thing's location that it would take effect.

His paralyzing soundwave revealed the Wendigo in an instant, every inch of its gaunt, inhuman, and surprisingly large form revealed in its gruesome glory, accompanied by a frightfully sudden noise. The red eyes that blazed within its horned skull turned Therion’s way, but its body spasmed in place, momentarily disabled.

Though dismayed by the awful sounds behind her, Burnice now had a relatively clear shot to several targets. Rather than rush down the cultist batter, though, the biker went for the second captive. She scooped up the fallen shotgun, climbed up a set of metal stairs, and sprinted along the catwalk after Wambus. “Hold tight, I gotcha!” Unfortunately, she slowed down as she came up alongside him, not sure how she’d free the blue grumpus from his binds before the track brought him to the next snak cage. Then an idea struck her, and after dodging a Noodler mortar she simply ran ahead to torch said cage with all the snax inside. “Die, gross bugs! Dieeeeeeeee!”

Of course, that left Wambus headed toward a raging inferno that was quickly beginning spread. “Help! Heeeeelp!” he hollered, galvanizing Burnice into action. She extended the tesla shotgun over the rail until the chain with Wambus passed by, then fired it point-blank to blow through the chain and drop Wambus to the ground. Of course, the recoil sent the gun flying from her hands and knocked her over, at which point a Noodler struck her head-on to add insult to injury.

Roland saw that everyone else was having a bit of trouble with these guys and their guns, and decided to use his other EGO, Wrist Cutter. Donning a bloody tattered white lab coat, Roland raised his hand and a torrent of corrupted blood flooded the area as the area temporarily changed being inside a flesh bathtub looking upon the battlefield. Thankfully Roland could control who was affected by the attack and only damaged the cultists with it, gripping them with despair as the blood washed over them removing all their buffs if they had any and dealing some damage. It staggered the two remaining cultists, giving Burnice a chance to get up and close the distance to the batter, but it wasn’t enough damage to put the wendigo down.

Which was where Therion hoped to come in. Taking full advantage of the paralysis he'd inflicted, the man -well, the giant cat at the moment- lashed out at the revealed creature with claws and specialized blade he pulled from the custom sheathe with his maw. With no idea whether the Wendigo would be able to render itself unseen again as soon as it was free, Therion inflicted his Armor Corrosive on the thing as he slashed. Luckily, the wendigo did not disappear once its paralysis wore off, but even with its defense down and a few significant wounds, the monster was no less vicious. It reared up with a double claw slash which Therion saw coming, but then it suddenly lunged at him to sink its grisly teeth into his bones. Its mouth caught Therion's shoulder and the two beasts became a tangled mess of sharpened claws and fangs.

Before Burnice could reach the target of her aggression, Vergil recovered from his terror enough to put his explosives to work. Leaving the wendigo in Therion’s hands (paws), he hurled a dynamite stick at the cultist batter. It arced through the air and fell at the last cultist’s feet. By the time it looked down at the blinking charge, it was too late to throw itself to safety. Another mighty electric blue explosion went off, its cacophonic report resounding off the walls, and the wielder of Lucy’s bat was nothing more than smithereens. Of course, the same blast also destroyed the sacrifactory’s machine hub, kickstarting a violent chain reaction that would escalate out of control in no time flat.

Burnice skidded to a halt just shy of the blast radius. “Whoa-oa-oa!” She managed to stop herself tipping over, then hurriedly backpedaled away from the haywire machinery. With the damage done by Vergil plus the inferno she’d started, it was high time that the heroes hightailed it. “We gotta get the heck outta here!” She leaped down from the catwalk just before it buckled beneath her, then stowed her flamethrowers as she ran to the side of Wambus to help him up. More cultists had arrived, drawn by the commotion, but they were in a panic. Some fled, some charged in to fruitlessly combat the destruction, and some fell apart on the spot–evidently, these bugsnax weren’t as united a hivemind as one might think. As she and Wambus made for the exit, Vergil coaxed Roland and Dr. Blackwell his way. “Which way do we go!?” he questioned the Fixer frantically.

Having moved to grab another bugsnax cultist’s book, Roland calmly pointed at the way to go, knowing that panicking during a base going up in flames would only cause more problems than it’d solve. ”Ok everyone, this way!” He said, raising his voice over the destruction going on behind him. He was going to bring everyone the way that him and Therion had come, with the area being mostly cleared out at this point.

With the explosions going off around the area and the rest of the group headed for the door, Therion wanted to join them as soon as possible. Unfortunately he was still tangling with the wendigo, and he'd have to make sure to put it down rather than just ditch it so that it couldn't impede their escape before the whole building went up in flames. With a great push of his back legs against the creature, hooked claws extended to rake against it as he moved, Therion extracted himself from the melee entanglement with it and landed on his four paws a few feet away to reposition. Rather than waste the few precious seconds transforming back he remained in his beast form. His tail flicked behind him, agitated, and his fur bristled with light as his Battle Boost consumed him. The aura shifted from white to gold as Therion pounced, digging his nails into the wendigo and forcing it to land hard on its back. It was not defenseless while supine and raised its arms to retaliate, but at that point Therion's swiftness, and his momentary power boost, let him follow up with the double sided blade still gripped in his mouth. He slashed viciously at the demon and continued even when he felt its own claws scrape against the scales of his beast form's armor.

His well-aimed cleaves, cruelly delivered, sufficed to sever the nightmarish ghoul’s exposed neck from its shoulders. Its body writhed as its horned skull rolled to a stop, that baleful glow still alight in its eyes, but after a tense moment it faded and the twisted bones began to disintegrate.

With the wendigo dead, and hopefully no more where it came from, the thief could race after the others. There was no time to pay the deceased any final respects, only enough to snatch her spirit and sawed-off shotgun if the Seekers were so inclined. Between it, the Plague Pistol, the HC Hurricane, there was a bevy of guns worth collecting, if only this place wasn’t burning down. Roland and Therion led Vergil and the other captives back through the route by which they entered, with Burnice bringing up the rear. The biker girl torched everything she could point her flamethrowers at, ensuring that this wretched refinery -and the parasitic vermin within it- would never harm another soul.

The rest of the facility passed by in a blur, with only flickering lights to lead the escapees away from the roaring inferno behind them, until finally the light of day glittered at the end of a hallway. Before them stood the loading bay through which the Seekers entered, and now that they’d seen what they saw, the random vehicles scattered around it made a lot more sense. Rather than rush out the door, Burnice made for her bike, which lay toppled where the cultists left it. After righting it, her eyes lingered for a moment on the other bike beside it. “Lucy…” She shook her head. “She wasn’t, like…in there. Just her bat.” She balled her fists and climbed on her bike. “I bet she shook them off and made her own way out! Yeah, I’m totally sure of it! Whenever we Sons of Calydon get separated, they always turn up again somewhere!” With a determined smile on her face, Burnice revved her bike. “Hear that, Lucy? I’ll see ya soon!”

Since the doors had been broken open earlier, there would be nothing stopping others from collecting (or stealing) their vehicles and making it out of there as well. Therion didn't wait to see who else took that time. He made right for the exit and only once outside did he retake his human form, shifting back to normal in a muted burst of light. He pressed a hand to his neck and stretched it, rolling his shoulders. The wounds he'd taken in his beast form remained on the equivalent human body parts, but it was nothing some spirit absorbing with his wraith blade wouldn't fix- ...right, they turned into books instead. Therion dropped one such book onto the dusty ground and unceremoniously stabbed through it with the summoned sword just to see if it would still revitalize him a little, and luckily it did.

He looked back at the building that was soon to be up in a blaze, and Burnice as her motorcycle came out of the door. He'd heard what she said inside, and though he figured if her friend wasn't with the other captives in the cell or on the conveyor, it was more likely she'd might have been... well, no use thinking about that now. You couldn't save everyone, and the fact they'd come out of there with a handful of rescues was good enough.

"Good luck finding her," he told the girl, though if she could hear him over her bike's engine was another thing.

Leaning to Therion, Roland whispered. ”I got a feeling her friend got turned into one of those cultists…” knowing full well what happened with these cults. He'd put Therion's own thoughts to words, but the thief didn't agree aloud. He then moved to get into a position to talk with the others. ”So, you are all free and rescued. I have a question before you all leave though… Well, her” Roland said, pointing a thumb at the girl riding out of the building on her bike ” besides the point… Do you guys know of anything crazy going on here besides people being turned into snax or anything crazy about the nearby area?”

Burnice paused as if making sure she heard him right over her engine, then shook her head. “We just got to Scorched Gorge early for a picnic with our friends. Saw a couple trucks rolling in and came over to check it out.” She still sounded a little shell-shocked, but at least she wasn’t singing. Spotting a familiar semitruck down the road, she revved her bike again and sped off on her way. Vergil, Blackwell, and Wambus looked like they might need help, though, since the leftover vehicles seemed beyond them.

However, the pickup truck Roland and Therion had come in definitely wouldn't be able to fit an extra three people in the cab. Maybe they could ride in the bed with the weapons cases, assuming the drive back would be as easy as the drive here in the first place.

Therion looked at Roland first, plainly stating his intentions. "The only crazy thing I want to get up to is a crazy good nap. Let's just get Ms. Fortune and head back."

It was still too early to turn in for the night, but as Therion hadn't expected or wanted to run into this much trouble when he'd decided to tag along, he wasn't about to let Roland drag them into something else so soon. Then Therion looked at the people they'd saved, standing awkwardly like they didn't want to ask for more help than they'd already received.

"See if you can fit in the back, we're headed to a town called Hammerhead," He said to them and hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the truck. Since he didn't expect Roland to disagree, he just offered them the lift. "Or we could drop you off somewhere on the way," he added, eyeing the huge truck Burnice had headed towards. They'd be passing by that monster once they hit the road anyway.

”Yeah, should be fine. Everyone hop in.” Roland said, a bit sad that this was just a cult hangout and not anything more significant. He did learn though; Don’t eat food looking objects that are alive. Turn them into books first, that makes them safe to eat.

Once everyone got into the truck and started to head out, Roland said to Therion, Roland said. [color=d7d7d]”So… I guess the information we got from that place was… Don’t eat food items with eyes. Kinda good for me, because as weird as it sounds, some of those bug things kinda looked tasty.”[/color] Roland sighed, relaxing a bit. ”You want a nap, I’m in the mood for a sandwich.”

@Lugubrious @DracoLunaris @Simple Unicycle

Word Count: 675
Level: Lv: 6 EXP: (3/60)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion

Harry tried to keep pace with the others. But he was not as physically fit as he once was. The image of him when he was a gym teacher came to mind. Trying to motivate his students to get physically fit. His whole body felt like it was on fire. Large beads of sweat were running down his body and face. The loot he had stolen before was weighing him down severely. “Fuck.” Muttering while taking the heavier loot out of his pockets and pants. Turning around to throw the object at the thing chasing them to try and slow them down. He looked pretty sad to be getting rid of the loot he took. Looking behind him again to check to see if his attack had worked somehow.

Trying his best to move out of the way of any objects in front of him or what was being thrown at him. He was starting to slow down a little as he started huffing and puffing loudly. He turned his head to Band, who was now seemingly attacking Kit. “What the hell? What are ya doin?” He said, but he got no answer. He soon joined Kit as he was sent flying behind him. Screaming again as loudly as he could. His screams seemed to echo through the mansion. Landing face first into the ground with a loud thud. His pants fell, exposing his stained underwear. Quickly, Harry got up on his feet, brushing off some dust and dirt from his clothes.

“KISS MY FAT HAIRY ASS FUCKWADS!!!” Harry blurted while flashing his butt at his pursiuiter before following Band into the courtyard. “God damn i gotta get me one of those things.” Harry thought as he watched the zombies being vaporized. Joining the others and looking back at the mansion once again. “Good riddence.” He muttered.

Harry took a few hard breaths, trying to get the wind back in his sails. “Hi, I did pretty well fighting those things. You didn’t see me cut the zombies in half with my mind.” He said to Band. Oblivious to the fact that he doesn’t have any superhuman abilities, but was Amaterasu using her painting abilities. He turned to Heismay, coughing loudly to get his attention. “Hi, man, sorry I called you a pedophile back at the mansion. I was perhaps too hasty to throw an accusatory finger at ya.”

The Detective looked up at the mountain that was being pointed at. “Can’t we rest a little before going?” But the group seemed to be dead set on heading out to the mountain. So he would have to keep going.

Stein eyed him somewhat warily. “You can ride on top of the Atom if you want. Hold on tight though, she can get pretty jerky if the goin’ gets rough.”

Harry was still tired from his fight in the mansion. “Do any of you guys have a band-aid or something? I’m in kinda rough shape from the mansion.” Harry pulled out the bottle of alcohol he had in his bag. Tipping the bottle back but was disappointed that there was only a little bit left. Sadly, he put the bottle back into the bag.

While he had nothing to offer in terms of healing, Band glanced at Kit. Back in the mansion, the knight had restored himself by drinking some sort of luminous amber liquid from a glass flask, and it could probably do the same for Harry. Of course, Band wasn’t about to volunteer Kit for the job, since that flask belonged to him. It was up to the knight whether or not Harry got any medicine.

Harry was glad he was away from the mansion. The surrounding area was quite beautiful. The fresh air was a nice change of pace from the musky and dirty mansion they had just been in. Listening to what Band was saying, a flood of memories seemed to come rushing back to him.

“Oh god Kim…” Harry had his hands to his face. Trying to hold back his tears, remembering the flash of light as Kim was about to be shot by that female mercenary. He hoped perhaps Kim was alive and he would meet him soon. He took a few deep breaths after finally gaining his composure. “What is Galeem’s goal? What does he hope to achieve by taking apart our worlds? How many guardians do we gotta fight before we get to Galeem? What happened to the other people in our world? Are they dead or alive?” Asking Band all of these questions, hoping to get some answers to ease his mind. “Nevertheless, for now we should focus on rescuing those kids.”

The cyborg furrowed his brow, frustrated by something but not necessarily Harry. “Wish I knew myself. Galeem hasn’t done much while we been here, far as I can tell. Just hangs up in the sky and lords over the place.” From this mountainside, the team could see clear across the region to the empty space in the middle of the continent, far of which the Lord of Light hovered like a second sun. “As for other folks, there’s no tellin’. They could be anywhere, but this World of Light just ain’t big enough to have everythin’ and everyone from every world Galeem destroyed. I could count the people I met from my world on one hand.” He gave Harry an apologetic glance. “Sorry. Just tryin’ to not get your hopes up.”

Heismay still looked puzzled, but at least he and the others could agree on something. “It is indeed a strange -and perilous- country. I can hardly say how far I’ve wandered from home.” He paused sorrowfully, his claws clutching the amulet strung about his neck.

Having raced ahead of the others (alongside Heismay), Amaterasu had missed the entire ordeal Big Band went through to get the other two galeeming past the ghost that she had ‘defeated’, including the incident with the friend hearts. What she did not miss was the roar of engines flaring to life behind her, prompting her to glance back, and then to dodge out of the way as Big Band came blazing through the air and then smashed his way through several walls, smashing a nice and easy sprint to the finish by following the wake of his devastation.

She’d been growing sick of all its twisty corridors, and so in her mind this served them right for getting in her way.

She then made good time galloping out of there, emerging just in time to see Stein annihilate a whole host of zombies with casual ease. His machine really was something.

They got to see what else it could do as it followed them along on their child finding quest, but not before the divine being got to feel smug about being praised by Heismay, her snout raised snootily and tail wagging.

After that, the Atom rolled on, with Harry on top, who Amatarasu hopped up to join in-order to save her stamina. She’d been running around protecting the foolish hero, it was only fair she got a break too.

While taking this ride, Big Band explained some things to Kit and Harry, but for whatever reason she didn’t quite manage to take this all in, and also, despite this, she didn’t find herself caring about her ignorance either. It must have just been dull and yawn inducing, or so her manipulated mind was convinced to think. Still, she had to agree with Heismay on his final comment on the matter, the world had no end of dangers, or so it seemed.

Case and point: the big lake that was in the way of them getting to the children, which was a bit of an issue for the goddess who, as for all her talents, wasn’t exactly a fine swimmer.

She was rather a wretched one, really.

Still, she had her ways of dealing with this. First she drew herself a massive lily pad in amongst the detritus that Heismay had gotten his floating log from, and hopped onto it. Then she drew a swirling loop, conjuring a gust of wind that would push her, and any other foliage floaters, out into the lake and off towards the distant cliffs that they were being led to.

With only 3 ink vials total, and a 9 second recharge time, it might take a while to sail on over, but she’d be more than capable of making it there, assuming there were no rude interruptions.

The gang’s leisurely ride/drive to the abandoned truck stop was interrupted at the last moment by its current occupiers who yelled at them rather rudely to leave and then shot at them. Or near them

Not at all familiar with the concept of a warning shot, Rika leapt off of her steed and had it bank around to act as cover while she called out for the others to get ”Behind the whale!” to use it for cover. As it came to a stop and she crouched behind it, the ship girl began to turn the whale’s turrets towards the building, intending, it seemed, to simply level it rather than worry about where they were being shot from exactly.

With her brother having been a bit away from them in his own ride, it was down to the other two to allow or stop this behavior at their own discretion.

Geralt let out a long-suffering sigh at the warning shots, but his exasperation turned to alarm at Rika’s reaction. As the whale's turrets turned towards the shack, Geralt called out to her. “Rika, wait! Those were just warning shots. They're just trying to keep us out. Warn us that if we try to come closer, they'll shoot for real.”

”Huh?” Was Rika’s confused reply, but she did stop turning her turrets, and just in time too. A few more degrees and they’d have been shot at for real.

”But we do wanna go in though, right?” Rika asked with a confused cock of her head, before pointing out that ”My brother needs a wall to paint on”

The brother in question had wheeled around the other way when they’d been shot at with Roxas sprinting to follow, and was now driving his way over, a metal shield raised between him and the building in case they decided that stopping their approach wasn’t good enough.

Geralt just sighed at Rika's question, shrugging. “Up to you, but I usually don't make a habit of killing folk unless they really need it.” Punctuating the reality of the situation, he gestured over to the outpost. “Unless you think we can knock them all out without getting ourselves killed, that is.” Ultimately, it was up to them. He'd protect them if they decided that they needed this wall to draw on, but he wasn't going to start the fight, either.

”Huh” Rika replied, curling up a big metal fist, popping it under her chin, and going ”Hmmm” as she tried to think of doing this, at which point jr rolled in and asked ”Hey, what we doing?”

Once he’d been filled in, he said ”I mean I’ve got a spell that puts things to sleep, and Dazzle can do the same with singing. But I kinda need to know where they are to do that” before adding that ”also we could just go back to the cliffs and I could paint on those, but that’s booooooooring”

”So you’d rather… pick a fight… with strangers?” Roxas asked between heavy breaths after he caught up with the group. He was with Geralt on this one, not wanting to get into any fights they could avoid. He’d certainly still act in defense of his friends if they decided to go through with fighting. But he wouldn’t feel particularly great about it, either.

”If it’s a wall we need, then I can just make us one with my virtual cubes.” The Nobody offered.

”I mean, bad guy, remember” Jr began to rely, only for the loudspeaker to blare “I repeat. Turn back. You have ten seconds to comply” over him, the building holders clearly not satisfied with them simply stopping their advance, before beginning a countdown of “nine, eight, seven”

”Uuuuurgh, fine, we can go and try and make a wall!” the prince groaned, before starting up his car’s electric engine and setting off away from the gas staging muttering about how they couldn’t blame him if the art came out bad.

”Couldn’t we fire our own warning shot and make our own demands that they leave? We are stronger n stuff, right? I could, like, make a big explosion or something to scare em” Rika suggested, even as she followed her brother in moving away from the building, a whale trailing behind them in case the occupiers decided to try and shoot them in the back anyway (They didn’t).

As they started moving away, Geralt leaned over to Rika. “If we shot back, that might have triggered Galeem's influence and forced them to fight us to the death. I'm not exactly sure how it works with warning shots, but better to be safe I think.”

”I guess” she replied with a sigh

Roxas started to jog away but got the idea to ride on Turbo instead. He released the Revavroom from her Poke Ball and hopped on. Once her passenger was secured, Revavroom began accelerating forward in order to catch up with Jr’s clown car. Once they were a distance away, the Nobody hopped off of Turbo in thought. He wasn’t sure how big the wall needed to be exactly, and there were limits to the number of virtual cubes he could generate at a time.

Ultimately he decided on a five foot by five foot square wall to start with. If needed, he could always dispel the wall and generate one with slightly different dimensions if it wasn’t tall or wide enough for Jr’s painting to fit on it. Roxas grasped the triangular Phantom Ruby necklace he wore and proceeded to generate the five-by-five wall in question. The red virtual cubes were packed solidly together, and hopefully that was enough of a solid surface for the portal to be painted on.

”I guess this’ll work” the prince decided before snapping his fingers while thinking and saying ”Now, uh, what did it look like again? … oh, right!” before brandishing his brush, and painting a large M with two umlauts on top onto the wall, one that shimmered and revealed in it a vision of a bustling, non abandoned, truck stop

”And done!” he declared, planting the butt of his brush against the sand, frowning, and then asking, ”These gonna stick around after you go through? Coz I dunno what this vanishing while your going through would do”

”It should be fine.” Roxas said as he recalled Turbo back into her Poke Ball. ”The only times I’ve noticed them vanishing is if they’re destroyed in battle or if I generate a new set of cubes somewhere else.” He explained but then also added a warning, ”That still means this’ll be a one-way trip, though. So are we sure we’ve got everything we were after?”

Jr just sorta gestured around the landscape and its general lack of value to the likes of him before spotting one of the great gaaahrs way off back the way they had come and remembered an idea he’d had that they’d not acted on ”Oh. We forgot to record one of the tall things. Oops” before simply shrugging and saying ”oh well”

”I mean I wanted a big treasure but I guess the rocks will do” Rika said, having joined them just in time for the question

Geralt nodded. “I mostly just came to make sure you all didn't get eaten by a giant monster.” He said with a small smirk.

”Alright, then let’s go already!” Jr said, before bunny hopping his clown car up in front of the portal. It hung in the air for a moment, no propeller spinning, simply suspended, and then both he and it transformed into a stream of bubbles that flowed into the painting.

Within it, if the others looked closely, they could see a stream of bubbles pop into existence above near the entrance to the truck station, which then solidified into the form of the prince and his flying machine.

Rika didn’t look, she just counted in her head for a few moments to give her brother enough time to get clear, and then followed suit, warping from here to there in the blink of an eye.

Taking a deep breath, Geralt waited about as long as Rika had before jumping into the portal as well.

Roxas was the last one to go. He counted fifteen seconds in his after Geralt left before approaching and jumping through the portal. He was not a hundred percent sure if his assertion about the cubes had been correct, but it was a relief when it turned out that it was.

And just like that, the gang crossed the entire space they had just traveled, and a bit more, in only a fraction of the time it had taken them to get out to the outback.

”Soooo. Wanna go for a snack? Place we ate at last time is gone, which is lame, but whatever that is might be good” Jr suggested, referring to the new Cheesetopia restaurant that had replaced Grillby’s, only for Rika to remind him that ”Tora took all our money”

”Oh. Right.” the prince replied, a little dejectedly, before glancing around and saying ”Well there’s gotta be something to do round here till the others get back”

Taking a few moments to get his bearing after the portal, Geralt shrugged. “If it isn't too late, we could always try to get something on board the Avenger.” Far be it from him to turn down food.

”I guess we could just go right back rather than sticking around here” the prince replied, before asking ”wanna?”

Unfortunately Roxas was light in the pockets as well. He had some change from an earlier trainer battle he had won back in Port Meridia but that likely wasn’t enough to buy a meal, especially not for four people. ”Wonder if there’s some other way to get a snack?” He pondered aloud.

Geralt shrugged, looking around. “Unless we begged for it, or went back out to scavenge for food, can't think of many ways we could get our hands on something.”

”Shoulda taken whatever those shooty people’s salvage was” Rika grumbled, while Jr looked over at the manufacturing set up and though out loud ”I wonder if they’d wanna buy some of the rocks n stuff we found?”

`A quick check in about that, and the total sum they could get was a total of 6,300 z, which was a fair amount, yet at the same time not so much. Certainly enough for a little snack however. Little, being the key word, given it was 400-500 for a coffee alone. Still. It was something.

They got themselves settled down, and the kids grabbed themselves a pair of ‘Nitro Fuel’ juice boxes and one for Roxas as well. Geralt ordered an “Uncle Henry’s” for his own drink.

As for food, Rika more or less insisted they get a Cheesetopia Platter due to it giving them the most variety in food possible on their budget. Plus it was good for sharing.

Not a lot of food, but then the point really was to be able to sit down in the air conditioned restaurant and take another break while they waited for the other groups to get back. And all it cost about 2/3s of the money they’d just gotten then so be it.

Still, it was a pleasant enough way to pass the time, and so the quartet engaged in low stakes smalltalk till the time to head back and meet the mysterious commander of the lost numbers arrived.

Silence, locally, fell, as the last of the NC troops assailing Celica and the seeker’s position fell the spell and shot.

Edward was particularly glad it was over, because both of his new weapons had jammed during the firefight, much to his frustration. As such he’d had to fall back on portal punching, something which had left him much more exhausted than it had before. Now able to actively feel his physique deteriorating, the man wanted whatever of the two spirits he had absorbed that had caused that out of him as soon as possible, and decided it was time to cut their losses.

To that end he first started up a series of portal drops and catches to consolidate all of the ones that were not within Zenkichi’s arm’s reach into one place. As he did so, he sent the one scout drone that had survived the battle to check on the mercenary spirits he’d collected, only to find they had already faded.

Which was rather frustrating.

”These will have to do in terms of salvage, and we best collect them before they fade” he said, before adding ”and those” with reference to Celica’s broken machine and what little remained of the one she had been fighting.

”Sending it to the armory will be slow given how big it is, so it would be best if we move them. If we can” He said, before adding that ”I can just drop them” as an option, though naturally that would not be pretty.

”Or we can crush them I guess. Gotta be quick regardless though!” Blazermate said, offering her suggestion before these guys respawned again.

While the others were dealing with the ground combat of highertower, Sectonia was busy conjuring her maximum amount of Antlers to get them all ready for the inevitable respawn of everything that was fighting over here. They would help either delay or stall everything so their escape with their loot could be a lot easier.

”We should probably get her out of that thing.” Zenkichi pointed out, gesturing over to the immobile Skell that Celica was still in. ”I get the feeling she's not standing there to look intimidating.” He added, jogging over to the Skell. A cursory inspection revealed that the machine was unresponsive, and he didn't hear anything from inside, so he started haphazardly climbing the machine.

The giant knife made that a bit awkward, but after a short bit, Zenkichi found purchase on the Skell and managed to find an emergency release for the cockpit, engaging it to reveal Celica. To his eyes, she looked like an elf from some fantasy world, but the mech she was in screamed science fiction. Carefully taking a hold of the unconscious woman, he braced himself and hopped down from the Skell, knees protesting angrily upon his landing.

Blazermate, having been following zenkichi, started to heal up Celica. They needed to get out of the area with their loot soon, especially if they didn’t have a giant robot to fight what could be a respawning giant robot.

”Looks like we’ll need to move it ourselves then” Edward said, gazing up at the massive machine and wondering how in the world they’d do that, before his scout’s eye happened to scan across the veritable army of big bugs she was preparing.

Which gave him an idea.

”Your highness!” he called over, before jerking a thumb to their oversized prize and asking if she’d ”Care to lend us your many hands in transporting this?”

Sectonia was going to march her antler army to keep the mercenaries suppressed, but Edward called for her attention, seemingly having some sort of plan. As she descended, keeping her eyes more on the battlefield than the current task the group was dealing with. Once she managed to get within sight range of the Skell, and Edward motioned for this large thing to be carried, Sectonia called her antlers over to do the deed.

As they were of different strength and sizes, the Gold antlers did most of the work in picking up the heavier limbs. The red antlers picked up the lighter limbs, and the green and blue antlers started to pick the skell up from underneath and much like their namesake, were able to lift the mighty machine.

”I assume you have something you want to do with this thing and you're not calling my antlers for no reason?” Sectonia said, clearly waiting for what Edward needed them for.

”We’ll be adding it to our arsenal of course” Edward replied, the man having clambered up onto one of the containers to get a better vantage point, before opening a very large portal which would let them all, cargo in hand, get out of there ”This way please, before some other fools try their luck”

”This chick and her busted ass robot better be worth it,” Juri said, taking cover nearby, her twin pistols out.

Sectonia rolled her shoulders and commanded her Antlers to carry the Skell in the portal, liking this new ability of Edwards. Although she asked where the portal went to know how she should use such an ability.

”As far from here as I could see when I opened it” the Dreadnaught replied, before stepping through, and out the other side into the dusty plains beyond, before almost immediately opening another portal, so he could take them a second step further, and fully clear of danger. In these two steps, he took them to a little hilltop, about a 15 minute walk away from the carnage they’d just been embroiled in.

”Before we get too far, I left a vehicle in there with a turret defending it. Any chance we could pop back and try to grab it?” Zenkichi added, briefly describing where he'd parked the Prowler earlier. After a short trip via portal, they found the vehicle overturned, with a Psycho nearby nursing a badly scraped up leg.

”Eh, I'll take it.” He shrugged, gesturing to Edward. ”Let's get this thing out of here before this guy does any more damage to it.”

The Psycho in question turned, pointing an offended finger Zenkichi's way. “Alright wise guy, if you're such a good driver, let's see YOU make that jump!”

In response, Zenkichi stared the Psycho down and shook his head. ”Noooo, I'm just gonna take it and leave. You can barely walk, dude. Just take the fact that you can still walk as a victory. I've seen enough people get hurt pulling crazy stunts to try it out here with a car I'm not familiar with. The crazy taxi game was one thing, but out here in the real world I like my neck unbroken.”

The Pyscho blew a raspberry in response, standing up to further insult Zenkichi but immediately sitting back down with a pained hiss, clutching his leg.

”Those guys can talk?” Juri asked, referring to the psycho.

”Amicably resolved. Now, this way” Edward said from where he’d been waiting for things to resolve, before opening a pair of portals, one for him to step through, and one for Zenkichi to drive through.

On the other side of a few portals, the seekers were finally free from danger, and able to debrief the whole madcate escapade. Edward practically collapsed as he took a seat upon a conveniently placed rock, complaining that ”That has taken… a lot out of me”

”Still, it's not like we have nothing to show for it” he said as he extracted the NC spirits from a pouch, before saying ”best we make use of them before they decay”

To that end, he used a hand to summon Sectonia’s mimic hat from the armory, while pressing one of the infiltrator spirit to his head.



On the other side of the portal, in relative safety, Juri put both hands behind her head and strolled around a bit. Then she turned back to the group. ”What the hell’s wrong with you, Edward? Never saw you get gassed before when we were at the Qliploth freakshow. ” Juri asked. ”I mean what’s wrong beyond you being some kinda fucked up hideous monster now.” She clarified helpfully.

Zenkichi, despite himself, chuckled a little at Juri's crass wording. ”I mean, just how many Spirits have you fused with today alone? I've fused with three since I met these guys, and two of those were in the Spirit Chamber itself.”

It was about this time that Celica finally woke up. She didn't have too much that needed healing, it seemed the worst she got was the damage to her machine had caused some sort of backflow of nasty fumes that filled the cockpit and had knocked her out. Sitting up, she rubbed her head, and slowly blinked her eyes open to look around at this, incredibly odd group that had come to her rescue. Though of course, her first realization was that she was no longer in her Skell, and in fact, she had no idea where she was at all! Though still a bit lightheaded from inhaling too much mechanical fumes and likely even smoke as well, all she could manage was a short "Are you... the extraction team..?"

”You could say that yeah.” Blazermate said, being the one to look over Celica as the group medic. Well, seeing as they were taking this one with them, might as well not deal with that whole Galeeming thing, plus it’d get her healed up way faster and on her feet. So with a slight flourish, Blazermate pulled out and threw a close range friend heart at Celica.

”We’re your guardian freakin’ angels, sweetheart.” Juri crowed ‘sweetly’.

”We’ve got one, and I think I fused with one at some point. I mean, thats where the holy bright powers come from right?” Blazermate said, throwing a divine star and having it return to her.

”Don’t gotta lotta robo-brains rattling around in that tin head of yours, do ya?” Juri said.

Zenkichi rolled his eyes at the banter and addressed Celica directly. ”Take a minute to sort everything out in your head. I remember when they first took me out of it, at swordpoint no less. The good news is, you're safe with us. The bad news is…well, just about everything else. Welcome to what we call the World of Light.” He gave the pilot a small, sad smile and gestured around. ”We have a ship we can take you and your mech to for repairs as well.” He added, pointing to Celica's badly-damaged Skell that had been set aside in a somewhat safe position thanks to Sectonia's Antlers.

Celica got a little defensive at the motion made toward her, but then there was only silence. A lot was going on in that head of hers... a lot of gears turning that may as well have been covered in a fine layer of dust at this point. She hadn't thought about things in what felt like a long time. She remembered where she came from... NLA, and more importantly, the planet it was on, Mira. This was... definitely not Mira. The place somewhat resembled Oblivia... but so many things were off. And as her memories started to come back to her, all the things that had happened, the very sudden realization that NLA might not even exist anymore struck her, as with a sudden gasp she sat up straight, trying to force herself to stand.

"Have... have you seen a large creature, nearly as large as my machine? He has, leathery, brownish, tannish skin and fur, metal cuffs on his wrists... he is very imposing but absolutely no threat, his name is Rock, and, and..." Her head was already hurting from the sudden rush of memories, forcing herself up and speaking so quickly, and it was a wonder she didn't knock herself out in her panic.

”Not much point of worrying about them” Edward told her cynically, before explaining that ”You saw those soldiers who kept coming back to life, but with no memories of what killed them the first time? We’re all like that, in the end, it just takes a bit longer most of the time. So this ‘Rock’ you remember isn’t in any real danger, because if they die, they’ll be back soon enough”

”So they could be wandering anywhere. Like, anywhere. You won't believe where we found Sectonia here. Someone as pretty as her was in the middle of some zombie land! She is like, the furthest thing from a zombie! So yeah, we’re going all around the world doing things. Maybe you’ll find them while saving the world and fixing that whole cycle thing?” Blazermate said, being way too optimistic but definitely offsetting Edward’s cynics.

”We have a couple people looking for people, so you wouldn’t be the first. And as we gain more dominion over the world, we get much stronger. If you're looking for that, we have people like that as well” Sectonia said, getting back from directing her Antlers.

Juri decided to pile on. ”Big guy, leathery brown…” She tapped her gun against her chin as if in thought. ”Ooh, my bad. I mighta turned him into shoes.” She lied, of course.

Zenkichi sighed, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. ”Jeeze, guys, give her a little room to think.” He butt in, gesturing back to Celica. ”This is hard enough as it is.”

Celica had to take a long, deep breath, reaching up to rub her head, shaking it a bit. "Yes, this is, a lot to take in... I'm going to need time to think through everything. At least what you have told me so far." She looked around for a moment, adding "You said you have a ship? How are we getting there? Surely you don't intend on carrying my Skell the whole way there... wherever it is..." There sure was a lot of nothing around, and she hadn't been awake for the whole portal thing.

”This magic will get us there” Edward replied simply, flicking a hand out and helpfully filling her in on what she had missed, before closing it again, and adding that ”and other magic will get the salvage there”

With that said, he pushed himself up, and began to set up various armory recall rituals, magic circles forming on the ground beneath both the Skell and the various items acquired from the spirits. A loading bar like ring on these circles then began to fill, though the sheer size of the Skell ment that its recall would be taking a bit longer than the gear.

While Edward worked on that, Zenkichi pulled out the NC soldier spirits he'd gathered after the giant fight, crushing the bunch of them.



At the tail end of this, Edward approached and offered him his own supply to also be crushed while using the symbol of avarice (as it would not fit on his currently oversized head). Zenkichi, of course, obliged.



With all the materials handled, and stashed in the armory, all that there was left to do was head on out, and so with a ”Follow me” and a wave over his shoulder, Edward stepped through a portal, and began the hopping traversal back towards Hammerhead. With so many people, it would be slower than the trip over with only two due to coordination issues. With his body feeling weaker and weaker by the moment, this was both blessing and curse for the Dreadnaught, as it was a pace he could both manage, and yet also one that was drawing out how long he would have to endure his condition.

But endure he must.

Finally back in the somewhat soggy seat of her purloined dune buggy, Nadia followed her new biker buddies back from the hydroelectric facility to Scorched Gorge. The trio found Piper and Chucho exactly where they left them, although the trucker’s hiccups suggested that she’d helped herself to some booze in the others’ absence. Though seemingly concerned for her, Chucho happily floated right on over when his owner pulled up in her formerly lost vehicle, then inserted his ghostly head beneath her arm to be stroked . “Aww, who’s a good boy?” Scratching behind a ghost’s ears still felt a little weird, but if her polterpup enjoyed it, Nadia wasn’t one to object. “We were only left, like twenty minutes aghost. Heehee~” Chuco rolled over onto her lap, so she started scratching his tummy, which made him kick his leg.

Behind her, Caesar single-handedly pulled the salvage cube out of the buggy’s trunk and threw it toward the Steeltusk. It slid to a stop next to the much larger salvage sphere retrieved from the gorge by Nadia. “We’ll be takin’ this! Thanks for bringin’ it over. One for you and one for me, eh?”

“Hey, boss.” Lighter tapped her on the shoulder, then nodded toward the refinery. “Check it out.”

Caesar glanced over, and Nadia stuck her head out her car’s window to catch a glimpse as well. Smoke wasn’t just pouring out of the building’s chimneys, but its windows and doors as well. Her eyes were drawn to movement inside the garage through which her fellow Seekers entered. Though the refinery was too far away for even a sharp-eyed feral like her to make out the individuals, there was no mistaking the trophy truck that Roland and Therion rode in on. While she didn’t recognize the bike that preceded it, both Caesar and Lighter did. “Burnice!” Caesar sounded surprised. “What was she…” Her eyes widened as she witnessed the flames spreading throughout the refinery. “Uh oh…”

Piper sighed, sounding much less surprised. “Oh no. Burnice started another fire? Must be a Tuesday.”

As Nadia and Chucho climbed out onto the buggy for a better look, Caesar jumped on her bike and took off to meet Burnice halfway. Seemingly perturbed, Lighter just stood by for now, keeping an eye out. “No sign of Lucy, though.” He watched as the two girls rendezvoused, then returned to the Steeltusk together, with Roland’s truck figuratively in tow. Only once they grew close did Nadia realize that three strangers -two wild western folks and a fuzzy blue fellow- were hitching a ride as well.

Another minute later, the two teams reunited. While the Sons of Calydon caught up, Nadia got the scoop from her fellow Seekers, which promptly shattered the laid-back afternoon mood. Nadia listened to their sordid tale of snackrifice with her brows scrunched up and her lips furrowed, and when their story concluded, she gave a shrug. “Yeesh. Well…even if you couldn’t save everyone, at least you ex-snack-ted revenge.” The others might not appreciate her attempts to lighten the mood, but they had to be used to it by now. Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and Ms. Fortune laughs through the pain. It would be nice if the team could go one solitary afternoon without finding something horrible, though. At least her arm had already turned back to normal, and she wasn’t planning to tell either Roland or Therion about it. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

The two teams quickly made arrangements. Caesar called off the treasure hunt, loading up the Steeltusk not just with her salvage, but with the civilians as well. “We’ll getcha to Blazewood, safe and sound,” she told the three with a winning smile, trying to make them feel comfortable. As the resident bartender, Burnice quickly mixed the captives up some free drinks, as well as Roland and Therion if they wanted one. Once they were ready to go she, Caesar, and Lighter mounted up. “Alright, let’s go. And keep an eye out for Lucy, everyone!” With that, all that remained for the Seekers and the Sons of Calydon was the long drive back.

All things considered, the trip back was mercifully uneventful. As much as she wanted to snooze, Nadia did intend to return the buggy she stole, and Chucho helped keep her focused with occasional sharp-toothed nips. About two-thirds of the way back the Seekers bid the Sons of Calydon farewell and parted ways, the former headed to Hammerhead while the latter were bound for Blazewood. After what felt like hours, the gas station’s iconic sign loomed in the distance, and the tired team rolled to a stop in the parking lot. Much to her frustration, the engineer Nadia stole from was already gone, apparently in another vehicle he’d somehow made on the spot. Groaning, Nadia enlisted the others to help bring her salvage sphere to the Ficsit depot. After a brief inspection from the pioneer on duty, it was accepted and the reward paid out. Whether here or at other depots around the Paved Wilderness, the compensation offered to scavengers’ for their hard work would be the same. Of course, the scavengers didn’t need to turn in everything they found, but Nadia hadn’t come across any firearms herself with which to replace her lost handguns.



One at a time, the groups of Seekers spread around the Paved Wilderness returned. Tora, Poppi, and Lulubi hung around Hammerhead for a while, bussing their allies to and from the Avenger as needed in the Armadillos. The Ace Cadet and the youngsters (plus Geralt) had wrapped up their business ahead of schedule, so they could return at their leisure. Nero and Nico brought Pit back aboard the Minotaurus, then left him with a message for the Lost Numbers: that Nero wouldn’t be returning for the time being, but instead heading out west with his old friend toward a medieval city called Brightvale to investigate the Theater of War. Sandalphon relayed the news, then coordinated the remaining pickups as needed. When Edward returned, he found a portable fission station set up outside the Avenger by Deadman, able to return him to normal by removing his unwanted spirits. Celica’s Skell would be transported into the Avenger’s cargo bay for repairs, a prospect which excited both Tora and Lulubi, despite the pink nopon’s attempt to hide it.

Accounting for everyone and getting them aboard the Avenger was a slow process, so by the time everyone was back and the ship could finally take off, over four hours had passed in the Paved Wilderness, and it was only about thirty minutes until the meeting.



As always, Sandalphon arrived ahead of time. Although privy to a great deal of information, and not always to her benefit, she was still completely in the dark about the identity of the Lost Numbers’ enigmatic commander. Both Commander Nelson of the Centinels and Vandham of the Alcamoth Mercenaries were recent additions, after all, and while Hope served a pivotal role as the Avenger’s AI, it couldn’t be called a leader. Especially since the Lost Numbers were more like townsfolk than a military force, she couldn’t help but be curious about who was really in charge of this motley crew.

The archangel considered herself fortunate that Zenkichi was early to the meeting as well, though now the sight of him left her with strong mixed feelings. Having already mostly drafted what to say, she needed to talk with him, but this wasn’t the time or the place. Given the proposed schedule of meeting followed by dinner followed by the memorial, it would be an eventful night, but she could probably catch him alone once in a few hours. For now, Sandalphon stuck to basic pleasantries. “Hello again,” she greeted him. “I must say, I am impressed that after this morning, you managed to spend your afternoon off in an active warzone. According to my statistics, most humans of your age would prefer an afternoon nap instead. Your stamina is remarkable. Perhaps worthy of further study.” She managed a thin smile. “I understand that several Seekers discovered caches of guns out in the field today. I don’t suppose anyone requisitioned an ammo-dependent precision magical firearm?”

"Hey Sandalphon." Zenkichi replied, taking a moment to process what Sandalphon said. If he didn't know her better, he might have thought that was an innuendo. Hell, with her more human side, it could be. A soft blush betrayed his thoughts, but he continued.

"As for the guns, I'm not quite sure how magical most of them were, but I did wind up with a few things. Among those a rocket launcher..." he half-grumbled, completely unsure as to what the heck he was going to do with that. "I know Edward and Juri got a pretty big stash, you could certainly check in with them to see if they'd be willing to trade or donate it. We also got a big chunk of weapons from when we rescued Celica."

“I see, thank you.” Sandalphon felt rather hesitant to ask Juri anything, so she made a mental note to inquire with Edward later. Much to do tonight.

Others were filtering into the Bridge quickly by then. Both Seekers and Lost Numbers were in attendance, and as much as Nadia wanted to continue snoozing after getting back from her arid excursion, even she had dragged herself up here with Chucho and Blazermate’s help. Of course, nobody was forced to be here so anyone who felt like it could abstain, but enough people either cared about meeting the Lost Numbers’ commander or cared about the team’s next destination to attend. At six o’ clock on the dot, it was time to begin.

The door to the commander’s quarters, both electronically and mechanically locked until now, slid open, and silence quickly filled the room. A moment later, a robot in black stepped through and down the stairs. With a peaked cap, long coat, and a three-pronged eye that shone a bright yellow-orange, he definitely looked the part of a captain, but Sandalphon had not expected another machine. After all the time she spent in Midgar, having a machine in charge of real peoples’ lives -especially ones as precious as the Lost Numbers- intrigued her.

After a moment the robot came to a stop, the light of the hologlobe reflecting off his metal body. “Good evening, Seekers of Light” he greeted everyone, his voice a scratchy monotone. “I’m sure you’re all quite puzzled as to why the ‘commander’ would only appear now, over a week into our partnership. Please allow me to to disillusion you: I am the de facto commander in name only. I have no military experience, nor combat ability. But I think that you’ll agree that my story is an interesting one, and by its end you should understand how it pertains to our mission.”

He clasped his hands behind him, adjusting his gaze upward. “It begins with my introduction. An easy feat for most. Not so much for me. It would be a lie, for instance, to say I am Simon Jarrett, an easygoing bookstore employee from Toronto, Canada. But Simon Jarrett did live, once. After being injured in a car crash, he volunteered for a comprehensive brain scan in the hopes that it would aid in its recovery. It did not, and he died less than two months later. But that scan, housed in a machine body, appeared in the World of Light over one hundred years ago. Spawned, just as you all were, with a finite ten-year lifespan. Simon Two. Simon Two would eventually, in a misguided attempt to preserve himself, subject himself to a scan much like the original did. Of course, he failed, and Simon Three was born. Spirits are, after all, just data, and data can be copied. Moreover, Simon Three would not be crushed by the inexorable wheel of time. A creation of this world, a bonafide Lost Number, he would continue to copy himself from vessel to vessel as they lost power, aged, or were destroyed.”

He nodded. “And so I stand here today. A ghost. An echo. I…am not Simon Jarrett. I am merely an iteration. I have no name, and I cannot die, for I was never alive. But I can bear witness, and keep accounts. An observer, watching and recording across countless years and lives. I have seen that while spirits are just copied data, every copy must ultimately come from somewhere. Somewhere in this world is a storehouse where the ‘master copy’ of every storied individual is kept. The fabled Source. Every individual, of course, but the Lost Numbers, whose existences are products of this world, never recorded in the Source.”

“And that,” he continued, “Is where I come in. I manage the Avenger’s Data Bank, meticulously maintained and backed up. In it, I chronicle every facet of every Lost Number. Every characteristic, every action, every memory. So that even though generations of Lost Numbers have come and gone, their lives -their stories- are etched into the fabric of existence. So that one day, when the Source is ultimately found, their data -their ‘spirits’- may be seeded into the restored worlds. So that one day those seeds will grow and bear fruit, and that they will have true lives of their own.

After a moment, he adjusted his gaze downward. “At least, that is my hope. Our hope. Right now, though, the mission of all Lost Numbers is to aid you, Seekers of Light, in your quest for Galeem and its guardians. I hope you will do so without fear for the Lost Numbers, for this world won’t be the end of their stories. Nor yours.”

He stepped down the stairs and leaned onto the hologlobe table with both hands. “So, while I am pleased to meet you and amenable to questioning, the primary goal of this meeting is twofold: to determine a true leader for this campaign, and to determine its next destination. I believe that Miss Sandalphon is up to date on the latest intelligence.”

The archangel nodded, summoning helpful light screens as she spoke. “Right now, we have six general regions left to explore on this continent. The Twilight Forest, the Theater of War, the Frozen Highlands, the Forbidden Kingdom, Empty Space, and the City That Never Was. As I understand it, this campaign has seen great success previously by dividing in half to handle two regions at once. Right now, my personal recommendation is for the Frozen Highlands and the Forbidden Kingdom. Thanks to the efforts of the Ace Cadet, Big Band, Wonder Red, Albedo, Mewtwo, and Linkle, we know the fatal weakness of the Frozen Highlands guardian, Baldur. They obtained this information from Moebius L, who traded it for her life, but her associate Moebius N is still at large. Destroying this guardian means tracking him down across the entire region, so our best expeditioners would be needed.”

She directed everyone’s attention east of the Frozen Highlands. “Additionally, the Meridi-at-han contingent led by Goldlewis Dickinson determined that one city in the Forbidden Kingdom is the most likely candidate for housing the Guardian. Esaka, the Tiered City. My intel indicates that it is a hotspot for martial artists of all kinds. For this locale, I would recommend dispatching expert duelists.”

Sandalphon dismissed her screens and crossed her arms. “These are only my humble recommendations, however, and I urge everyone to reach their own conclusions. All team members present are entitled to their votes both for destination and whomever they believe would be worthy of a leadership role. The floor is now open for discussion, as well.”

All things considered, Kit handled the revelations he received from Band pretty well. Maybe he was no stranger to crazy situations like this, or maybe he was simply made of sterner stuff than the average man, but he managed to take the news in stride and adjust his view of the big picture without losing sight of the present. He wasn’t even freaking out about all the futuristic technology around him. Band gave a nod of respect to the knight for his character and composure after he stated his intent to carry on with the mission. “Right on.”

The detective did not expect Harry, meanwhile, to be on the verge of tears. Though given his hyper-emotional behavior during the short time he’d known Harry so far, maybe Band should have anticipated such a reaction. That said, the fate of his friend seemed to impact him a lot more than the nature of the World of Light itself, since Harry began to rattle off practical questions about the mission right away. Unfortunately Band didn’t have the answers, and even if he did, he didn’t want to put Heismay and Amaterasu any more on edge. There was no telling how much Galeem’s influence impacted their cognition, and what reaction they might have if unintelligible information hit their mental blockers again and again.

For now, his ragtag team needed to focus on reaching Witch’s Nose, and while Kit and Harry grappled with their new reality, the others had already forged ahead. The lake ahead of them had a decent current thanks to the waterfall that fed it from the southeast and the rivers flowing down the mountain, and it carried enough debris that an agile adventurer could get cut across the water rather than go around. This mostly took the form of logs washed downstream, maybe from a lumber mill, but there were also wooden pallets, broad-backed turtles and, despite the altitude and climate, lily pads. Amaterasu had found herself a big one that made crossing the lake a breeze, and hopping around seemed like the easiest thing in the world for Heismay, but the going would be tougher for Harry and Kit. And impossible for Band. He doubted any of the debris could even remotely hold his weight, and that was if he didn’t just tumble right off to begin with. Luckily, he had an alternative he could make use of now that he was out in the open.

“I must go. My planet needs me.” Band jumped up into the air and reconfigured his lower half into an array of rocket thrusters fueled by sound energy. “Just kiddin’. See y’all on the other side.”

Band rocketed over the lake, taking the chance to appreciate the mountainous scenery. Though still rather close to the Dead Zone, this area was remarkably beautiful, with a natural majesty that could just about take his breath away. Unfortunately, he couldn’t admire it for long. His thrusters weren’t designed for sustained flight, so Band steered himself toward the top of the cliffs by the waterfall on the lake’s far side. Heismay was almost there already, hopping up the rock wall like a flea. He climbed up just a few moments after Band touched down, and the sight of the big man seemed to surprise him. “Well. You certainly made good time.”

“Thanks.” Band settled down in order to give his mechanical body a break. “You ain’t the flyin’ type?”

Heismay pursed his lips as he thought for a moment. “I suppose I cannot blame you for not knowing in this country, where Elda are curiously common, since Eugief being able to fly is a misconception even in Euchronia. Although we are excellent jumpers, we can only glide in the air.”

“Gotcha, sorry. Didn’t mean to offend or nothin’,” Band offered an apologetic smile.

His new acquaintance shook his head, unbothered. “Think nothing of it. Where I’m from, discrimination by tribe is woefully commonplace. Even if not as many bat an eye at a Eugief in this land, it is hard to see things in a different light.”

Band nodded, his expression solemn. “It ain’t exactly rare where I’m from, either. As if havin’ humans, ferals, dagonians, elves, and gigans wasn’t enough, plenty o’ humans are happy makin’ divisions amongst ‘emselves, too.” He shrugged. “Folks have it hard everywhere, I guess. Me though, I think it’s what’s inside that counts.”

Heismay sat beside him, watching as the others made their way toward them. “I was surprised, but grateful, that you heard me out. For many my word carries little weight, to say nothing of what I actually claimed.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m well aware how preposterous my claims must seem. I am but a disgraceful hermit, after all, and unworthy of warmth or trust. I only ask that you and your friends approach the situation with an open mind and draw your own conclusions. Sometimes, a monstrous face may hide a heart of gold, and sometimes monsters hide their true faces behind masks that everyone trusts.”

“Uh huh.” That was the second time Heismay alluded to monsters hiding their faces. Band wondered if this was merely cynicism borne from the Eugief’s experiences, or in reference to specific people. If there really was some hidden darkness in Martira, it warranted investigation, and based on the misinformation provided by Morris, Band knew where he’d want to start.

Once the others caught up, they proceeded toward the mountain. Thanks to Heismay, they found the cave entrance nestled within the surrounding landscape and pushed inside, leaving the daylight behind one step at a time. The already-cool air chilled down considerably within the rough and uneven tunnel, and the sounds of birdsong atop the waterfall’s rumble gave way to an eerie silence interrupted by the occasional echoed drip. If not for glowing mushrooms and the little lantern on Kit’s belt, it would be pretty much impossible for anybody but Heismay to see, but for Eugief at least echolocation would suffice even in total darkness. Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before the warm light of a lamp could be seen up ahead, marking the point at which the tunnel gave way to a huge and unusual cavern beneath the mountain.



Built in the middle of the cavern, and into the surrounding walls, were rickety wooden houses of wooden planks and nails, connected by similarly slipshod bridges, held together with the help of an abundance of huge, thick ropes. If not for the drawings sprawled across the sides of these dwellings, it would have looked like an elaborate bandit hideout to Big Band, but those images of shapes, plants, animals, and foods were more reminiscent of classroom walls in kindergarten. It was an odd and unnerving juxtaposition against the rows of stalactites and stalagmites that surrounded those houses like fangs.

So, this was where the culprit behind the Martira kidnappings kept her prizes? Band narrowed his eyes, scanning every inch of the cavern he could. The warm light shining from inside the towering structures suggested that they were occupied, but he couldn’t see any security. Slowly, he began to approach the central tower, working his way up along the spiral pathway to the right. Right away he passed beneath a length of rope, at which point he noticed that it wasn’t rope but huge, thick strands of red yarn, strung out and woven together in such a way that brought to mind impossibly large spiderwebs. “Hm…” Unlike Harry in the mansion, he elected to not announce his presence. Heismay had referred to the abductor as a ‘she’ but had neglected to mention anything else about her, and Band had a bad feeling about this.

Heismay was less wary, but even he kept his voice down. “The children should be inside. Let’s go and check on them.”

Moments later, the team reached the wooden bridge that led to the door of the main house. Band tested it carefully, but it seemed able to hold his weight, just barely. Just to be safe he stayed behind while the others creaked across, looking and listening. He could hear faint whispers from inside the building, but it was too far away to see much through the cracked-open windows. For the first time, he wondered if this could all be some kind of trap.

After crossing the bridge, Heismay reached up and rapped on the door with his knuckles. He seemed somewhat nervous. “Hello? Anyone home?”

A number of muffled, indistinguishable voices could be heard inside the building, as well as excited footsteps. Seconds later, a small voice replied from within. “W-who is it?”

Heismay cleared his throat. “Ahem. It’s…Heismay. I’m a friend of Molly. And…I have guests. Who want to make sure you’re alright.”

Molly? Band thought.

The door swung outward, revealing over a dozen children. Though a little dirty, and dressed in patched-together clothing, none seemed to be hurt or starving at a glance. Instead, they seemed excited to have visitors. They all started talking at once, instantly overwhelming Heismay, and a moment later he found himself pulled inside. Kit, Harry, and Amaterasu were invited in as well, the kids oohing and aahing over the knight’s armor and Harry’s appearance, while a dozen grubby mitts went to stroke Amaterasu at once. Seeing all this, Band let out his breath and made his way over the bridge to follow the others with his gentlest face and voice in use.

“You’re so big!” A little boy admired Band as he tugged him inside by the hem of his trench coat. “Not as big as Molly, though!”

Band’s eyebrows went up. “O-oh yeah? Sounds like a real big lady…” Once inside, Band saw that the first floor of the house was essentially a big living room. There were pillows, blankets, and toys strewn everywhere, with shelves full of thin, highly illustrated books and jars of cookies or fruit. All the walls were covered by colorful blotches of paint or crayon. Against all odds, it seemed to Band like kids were being taken care of here. Of course, that only raised more questions, and he suspected that the others had their fair share too. He could only be sure of one thing: that Molly, someone evidently even bigger than he was, wasn’t here yet, and that his team should do their best to figure things out before she arrived.

@Lugubrious @DracoLunaris @Simple Unicycle

Word Count: 445
Level: Lv: 6 EXP: (3/60)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Witch’s Nose

Harry, by this point, had calmed down quite a bit. Although Band’s revelation still shook him. Nevertheless, he was going to focus on trying to save those missing kids. But the thought of Kim, Jean, Cuno, Garte, and the others being dead filled him with great dread. Hearing the voices speaking to try to cheer him up. Whether he was allowed to drink from Kit’s flask or not, Harry would continue with the group.

“Perhaps they are alive but just separated in this world. Like Band said, they could be anywhere on this patchwork of a place.” Logic said, but Harry was not cheered up by this. And in fact, he was still quite depressed that people he knew were possibly dead.

Harry tried his best to cross the lake without falling in. But he was much too clumsy Trying to jump from log to log, but mostly just fell into the water each time. It was pretty comical, if not a little sad. When he did reach the other side, he was soaking wet and had lost some of the items in his plastic bag. Wiping off the lily pads and other debris that had attached itself to his clothes. “Fuck…” Harry muttered under his breath while following the others. “Great, another dark place.” Harry grumbled while staying close to the others.

He hoped they wouldn’t run into any undead or eldritch creatures that would haunt Harry’s dreams. But that didn’t seem unlikely. He stayed close so he wouldn’t trip on anything and be left behind. Looking around, he wondered if the missing kids were living here. And if so, what was the reason behind it. Was it to keep the captive kids comfortable. Looking at the drawings and smiling to himself. Being reminded of the drawings he would see when he worked at the elementary school. For some reason, he could hear the very faint sound of children screaming in joy. He noticed a few children poking their heads out to watch the group. A few had a mixture of fear and curiosity.

“Molly?” Harry wondered if their name rang a bell. But perhaps it would come to him later on. Harry crouched down so he was eye level with the kids.“Hello, my name is Detective Harry Dubois. Do you know who brought you here? Did they build these houses for you guys?” He noticed the flood of children coming toward the group. He had to stand his ground so he wouldn’t tip over. But he kneeled so he would still be on the kid’s eye level. He noticed two kids with bright red hair that reminded him of Cuno and Cunoesse.

After a bunch of increasingly annoying negotiations with Juri over their spoils, Edward came away with 29,000 zenny and the damaged weapon crate for his troubles. He cracked it open, but was, due to his now inc increasing levels of fatigue caused by having to haul his oversized body around with his rapidly deteriorating physique, in little condition to do anything but send the contents to storage.



By the time the convoy rolled back to the Avenger, Edward had to summon a pair of bronze golems to physically help haul him out of their transports. Fortunately, however, news of his condition had reached the ears of Deadman, who’d prepared a reprieve from his condition. A shaking hand reached forwards, touched salvation and was smothered in a flash of light.

”Thank you for relieving me of my self inflicted torment” Edward, returned to fully human as the spirits cascaded around him, said to Deadman before admitting that ”Field testing that was not my wisest decision. I was aware there where drawbacks but that… was far more than I had anticipated”

Deadman put on a thin smile as he began to push the portable fission device back up the Avenger's ramp. For a portly fellow getting on in years, it wasn't the easiest task. "Yes, well, spirit fusion is quite the fascinating process. Similar spirits seem to enhance one another, while disparate spirits repel one another." He paused in order to push the cart over the upper edge with a grunt. "Oof! So...as tempting as power can be, I recommend prioritizing ones that are more physically compatible."

”Here, let these” Edward said, as he directed the bronze golems that had been helping him walk to go and assist the man with the machine.

As for his advice, Edward said ”I shall consider it”, but in his heart he knew he’d have to keep taking risks with this process. Despite the pain, despite the regretted actions, there was no question that Midna’s turn of phrase still held true. Power was power, and he needed it.

He’d just need to be more cautious this time.

Skill was power too after all, and the nature of acquiring it seemed to be less impactful overall.

As such, first thing’s first, the man strode to the Fusion chamber to do it all over again. He did at least take part of the man’s wisdom to heart. While the advanced technology fascinated him, it was not his ballpark, and so despite the physical similarities, it was not the NC troops who remained a part of him, but the forces of the heavens and the hells. Just with an adjustment to the latter



Edward stretched his wings once again, feathers restored, and then gave them a flap, only for the armor he had started wearing to keep him firmly affixed to the floor.

”I suppose this will have to go as well” he said to himself, before adding in his thoughts that that was probably for the best. It was hardly diplomatic attire.

Still, stripping away the armor showed that he’d not quite been spared physical changes from the refusion with the demon, his eyes glowing with an inner power. His angelic physique somewhat reduced the evilness of the resulting aesthetic, but an urge to tell others to ‘be not afraid’ wasn’t exactly the greatest improvement.

Still, it meant he was back to his older more mobile setup. Or even more mobile, as the man’s second test flap gave him a teasing sense of resonant magic, that he then discovered by flapping his wings to perform a backwards leap, which caused him to briefly vanish from reality, go straight through the wall behind him, and end up in the corridor outside.

A marked downgrade from the absurd portal power, and yet also incredibly useful nonetheless. And that was without him tapping into its other aspect yet.

After that, the things that were left were the two nc troopers, and one idea he’d had for one of the spirits they’d acquired.



Flying mounts were incredibly useful, and always having one at hand even more so, especially one that simply floated steadily rather than flapping any wings (like, for example, himself). It would make for an excellent aerial firing platform.



Ironically, or perhaps entirely expectedly, the striker gave him a weapon which it had been giving him natural talent with, and which he now had little idea of how to use. One look at its bizarre ammunition and he knew it was entirely beyond his repertoire. Same went for the oversized cannon that would likely best be attached to one of the armory’s vehicles (that he also did not know how to use).

Still, someone might find value in them, and so into storage they went.

The mag launcher meanwhile had far more intuitive operation, to the extent that its grenade based ammo was sitting right there in the open on the side of the weapon. He could probably feed grenades straight into it himself even with just a little modification, which he just so happened to have a spell to produce.

Speaking of spells, that simply had to be the way the gun made of bricks of some sort operated, and he was certainly interested in test firing that when the time came around. There’d be no such experimentation with the Ice Breaker however, as it was too damaged to be fired safely in his assessment. A shame.

Now needing to be armed again, the man had several ideas for different setups based on all the equipment they’d acquired, as well as a notion to use them for parts to make his own more specialised gear. For now however, he summoned and slid his magelock pistol into its holster, and strapped the munitions pouch to his waist for later use.

His sidearm, and a surplus of grenades, would have to do if anything disastrous happened before he got round to fully kitting up. An unlikely prospect, but it always did to be prepared, even if it was just a meeting he was going to.

”Wow wow wait hold up what was that about a ‘ten-year lifespan’? Like. All of us? What?” Jr, youngest by far here, so young that that would mean he’d barely reach adulthood, asked.

”Afraid so.” Captain Falcon answered, having kind of hoped to break this news to kids in a more delicate way.

Jr certainly did not take this confirmation well, the boy just sort of starting into space, but his sister seemed almost nonplussed by this news because it was ”Longer than I was gonna get I guess” though she did make a groan of dissatisfaction afterwards.

Pit looked at Rika in surprise, a little disturbed. "Longer? But... ten years is so short!" Sometimes it could feel like a while, but for a long lived race like his, in the grand scheme of things it would be like the blink of an eye. Eventually.

”I’ve dreamed about the other times I’ve been alive here. Most of em ended real quickly” the ship girl who’d been built to be a disposable pawn replied straightforwardly.

Zenkichi’s face was pale as he looked around the room, his heart thundering in his ears.

”I see why the Consuls are as they are, at least a little bit now. Although with no way to tell how much time is left…” Sectonia said, dejected, but also with a fire lit under her to control the system to eliminate such a fate for herself and those loyal to her. ”That's why they separate themselves from the system, to eliminate this expiration date. And they use the flame clocks in place of being able to use magic to extend themselves into perpetuity.” If anyone could read between the lines, they’d get the hint Sectonia was far older than she let on using this method before coming to the world of light, but she wouldn’t admit it if asked, not easily anyway.

”Indeed.” Said Ganondorf from where he was standing with arms crossed.

”Ok, that sucks. Maybe common medabots have a life span only a bit more than that, but us Medaforce using medabots are way more durable than that!” Blazermate said, angry at that being a thing.

”There is a lot you can do in 10 years. That's longer than most fixers get in such a dangerous profession. Even the great Red Mist didn’t make it past 30…” Roland said, his words more hollow than anything as if he expected this cruel fate in a way.

Primrose, standing with her arms folded in front of her chest, made a quiet tut tut noise of disagreement with Roland's statement. She was one of the few that hadn't been blind sided by the sudden mention of the ten year time limit by the Avenger's commander (a fact that her fellow Orsterran hadn't missed, cutting a suspicious glance at the dancer). She did send a meaningful look Sandalphon's way, if only to imply that she now agreed with the archangel's decision to keep that piece of information secret even if it was too late. Then, her eyes slid back to the other Seekers and their reactions. Ten years... It really wasn't a long enough time. But it would have to be.

Though he hadn’t said anything yet, Roxas was of a strangely similar mind to the fixer. Technically he only had a year before things got complicated and he had to return to Sora’s Heart. Granted, he was freed again a bit later on, but still.

Geralt, meanwhile, had to bite back a scoff. At least it meant he could, theoretically, die of ‘old age.’ What a world this was, where a Witcher could die outside of battle.

As a bunch of people started talking at the same time, Nadia held her tongue for once. She remembered what the miserable old king said back in ash lake: we’re made like matches, and we burn out quick. During the journey so far, she’d harbored plenty of doubts. She’d doubted her own ability to survive and triumph on this campaign, and she doubted the campaign itself, too. Part of her wanted to run, to make a life of her own somewhere in the World of Light with the new relationships she’d forged. Her time in Limsa and Mafia Town had convinced her it was possible. But if she had less than ten years, how much of a life could she live? And at the end of the day, wouldn’t that still be better than dying even earlier under the boot of Moebius? Nadia slumped further down into her chair, numbly scratching her head. She was sharp enough, though, to mostly notice who did and did not seem surprised by the news.

Juri was on another track, apparently. ”Ugh. Can’t believe after all that the ‘commander’ is some moody, nerdy, tinhead.” She pointed at the robot. ”I’m gonna call you Not Simon Jarrett, since that’s what you introduced yourself as. It’s either that or Eugene Dinkle.”

Edelgard, having already had her own lifespan woes, focused more on the story of the ship’s commander, the technology required confusing and astounding her. ”It is…an admirable goal, though. To save your people and help them find a new home. I wonder what would happen to somebody born of people from two different worlds, though. What world would they return to?” For that, unfortunately, the commander could venture no answer.

One of the Lost Numbers in attendance, the ship's quartermaster, cleared her throat and raised a hand lightly as she spoke. "I would not concern yourself with such things, especially before even reaching the Source. Eventually, the circumstances of our birth will be different, as well as the world we end up being raised in, the manner in which we are raised, and needless to say our memories -should they follow us- will be shaped in new ways." They may well be different people, so it ultimately wouldn't matter where they ended up in her mind.

Of course despite her words, it was something many Lost Numbers had thought about before, herself included. She assumed the data of children would go with the parent that gave birth to them, but if that was truly the case then in the next world, would she be separated from Haruka? Eventually remember a phantom existence she had no context for? And what of existences like little Ciel, Aurora, and Soleil? It was a silly thing to fret over, but sometimes Sagi did so all the same.

Things were starting to get a little off track, as large discussions like this tended to. Before even thinking about complex matters like what would really happen to the Lost Numbers, the Ace Cadet had to wrap his head around a couple of other things first. Maybe not now, though... The time limit had thrown him for a loop as much as anyone else, but if he treated it as just another thing included in the big info dump he'd been given not even two days ago then he could move past it now and think about it later. His own memory of the World of Light went back... a few weeks before meeting the Seekers in Lumbridge? So if he took that to mean that he 'came back' around that time— Nope, not thinking about it now. Moving on.

"Alright. One of the things we have to decide is where we're all heading next, right? Well, I want to check up on everyone we left in the Frozen Highlands then finish what we started!" The Cadet said, jabbing his thumb in towards his chest. "And if we run into that Consul? Then bringing him to justice while we do it would be a great N'd to things there."

Leaving Albedo, Linkle, and Lucia behind hadn't felt great, but at the very least Mewtwo had stayed in Edinburgh to fill them in. Hopefully the Pokémon had managed to find them. It hadn't been long, but the Cadet would be glad to see them again. Plus the monster hunter was, well, a hunter. Sure his quarry was normally way larger than one person, but he could survive in the wilderness and he could track, especially with the help of his scoutflies.

It wasn't surprising at all that the Ace Cadet had chosen that destination for himself, now it was just a matter of where everyone else planned to go.

“Understandable.” Sandalphon took note of his reply on a virtual ledger, and was ready for more. “Any other decisions?”

”Highlands. I am entirely aware that I do not have the capability to stand toe to toe with the best fighters of this world,” Edward said, putting himself down for the only real option between the two that he had before adding that ”I can also take note of who is going where so it's easier to keep track,” and flicking open a journal page to begin doing so.

”Yeah we could kick your and everyone else’s butts! So we’re going to the city,” Jr piped up, to which Rika nodded in agreement.

”I’ll go to Esaka. I have an easier time in a duel than in a group fight as it is, even if I can make myself unnoticed in a big brawl.” Roland said, ”The question lies… what if we are put up against each other? Also I’ve gotta assume if we fight something it's to the death with that whole galeeming… attacking… thing..” Roland said, rubbing his chin.

Nadia raised an eyebrow. “Like, in some kinda tournament? Well, fights between us wouldn’t be to the death, at least. We could even rig ‘em.” She shrugged. “Though…could be fun to see where we stack up ‘fur’ real!”

To be honest, Nadia was a little surprised that everyone had seemingly accepted Sandalphon’s plan without challenge and begun to divide themselves accordingly. She’d figured that some of the bigger personalities in the room like Sectonia would make their own propositions, especially since the archangel did not seem particularly insistent. She did possess a quiet self-assurance, though, and nobody knew more about the current situation than her, so it made sense to defer to her prudent advice. Nadia certainly didn’t have any suggestions of her own; on the contrary, one of the options was already getting her fired up.

“So, I’d finally have a chance to go mano y mano with fighters my own size, and actually combo some fools instead of ticklin’ giant monsters to death? Sign me up!” The catgirl was excited for a mission that might actually cater to her strengths for once.

”I feel that Esaka will offer only martial weapons instead of magical power so I will go for the other target. My Antlers can help cover some ground if anything.” It was clear on her face she was making the best of a bad situation as she didn’t like any of the choices. But she had to take one due to the information she had just learned. She didn’t have time to sulk, she had to get moving.

”While I’d like to be in a duel thing as Medafights are usually either 1v1 or 3v3. I’m really made for the 3v3. I mean… I do have a strong 1v1 strategy, but it's kind of a one trick pony. Heal myself and generate Medaforce, then spam Medaforce to deal damage and heal. I’m sure they’d be able to dodge that if they’re good enough.” Blazermate said, thinking by weighing the options by rocking her head. ”But the hunting team will need a lot of healing especially with Jr. going over to the martial arts place. So I’ll go over there.”

Juri might have said something, if only to be disruptive. But she did want to go after that giant bird she got the clue for way back in Mafia Town. But Sandalphon’s intelligence caused a shadow to pass behind Juri’s eyes. She crossed her arms and crossed one leg behind the other. If he was going to be anywhere in this world, it’d be there. ”I’m goin’ to Esaka, too.” She said, simply.

“Bleeegh!” Nadia fell apart on the spot.

”Do the world a favor and stay that way.” Juri replied.

”I’ll go to Esaka, too.” Captain Falcon announced. ”I’m quite the fist-fighter myself so this city should be right up my alley. And…” He gave a sidelong glance in the direction of Juri and Nadia, ”...I have a feeling someone’s going to have to keep those two out of trouble.”

”Hmph, good luck with that” Ganondorf scoffed but then said, ”I’ll be going to the Highlands. I’d like to see this Consul L for myself and confirm the location of her Flame Clock.”

"You won't be able to miss it," The Cadet said. He could tell Ganondorf all about it on the way over.

”I’m going to the Highlands, too.” Roxas suddenly piped up. ”I’m no martial artist. So I’m probably better suited to the other team.”

Geralt piped up with his own choice, nodding at Roxas. “Either would be fine by me, but I’ve a feeling my nose might do us some good in the Highlands if we find ourselves having to track.” Loathe as he was to reduce himself to a bloodhound, it helped the team in Midgar position themselves in a good place before the Redshift cascade and may have saved them valuable time.

The decision was an easy one for Pit, especially so when his goddess agreed with said decision. Never far from Pit's thoughts (literally), Palutena had reached out to talk about the time limit, and the internal conversation had kept him occupied until now. Ultimately, they'd agreed that keeping up with the Seekers' mission was the best option at the moment. To that end… He puffed his chest out, his wings standing proud at his back. "If we'll need 'expert duelists' at the Forbidden Kingdom, that's me!" he said with confidence. He'd be heading to Esaka.

Zenkichi shrugged, weighing the two options in his mind. He’d already been to the Forbidden Kingdom, so he eventually decided on that, and said as much. He was clearly still somewhat stricken by the earlier revelation, however, and his voice was faint.

A people-watcher in the first place, Primrose cast a sympathetic gaze his way. Among the Seekers, Zenkichi had a rather unique circumstance... and it wasn't hard to venture a guess as to why he was taking the sudden news much harder than others. She felt for him, and his daughter.

Sighing, Edelgard stood up. ”I…regret to inform you that I shall not be coming along for the next expedition. The people of Enbarr need their Empress. Nonetheless…I shall remain in contact with you via Sandalphon. Should you find yourselves in need of my assistance, or vice versa, we shall not be strangers. And should I find myself successfully able to reclaim the throne, know that we shall stand by you when you need it. First, however, will have to be the region’s Consul. Once I have built a strong enough group to depose them, I shall reach out for assistance.” Her goals might have been lofty, but the self-assurance with which Edelgard spoke indicated that she was supremely confident in her ability to achieve them. With that, she departed the room.

Sandalphon watched her go, impassive. Though loathe to lose allies in any context, a voluntary departure was the preferable option. At the very least, this wasn’t a surprise to her. After being approached by Edelgard before this meeting, the arrangements had already been made for her drop to the Theater of War tomorrow following the deployment of the Highlands expedition. With her in the wartorn region’s north and Nero in the south according to his message via Pit, the Seekers would hopefully have well-informed contacts in the region when it came time to take on the Theater of War.

In the wake of Edelgard’s exit, the archangel herself weighed in to keep the group on topic. “I am pleased that everyone concurs with my suggestions. I myself plan to join the Highlands expedition, but I will keep an eye on the Esaka proceedings remotely and can visit when needed.” She looked around, her ledger up to date on everyone’s decisions. She, the Ace Cadet, Edward, Geralt, Sectonia, Blazermate, Roxas, and Ganondorf were all bound for the Highlands expedition, while Bowser Jr, Rika, Roland, Ms Fortune, Juri, Captain Falcon, Pit, and Zenkichi had chosen Esaka. That left both teams even at eight members apiece, each specialized for their mission. Hopefully Esaka would have medical facilities with which to offset the imbalance of healers.

That left just a few members unaccounted for. Primrose and Therion, for instance. Sandalphon’s electric green gaze turned toward the shadows, where eyes of crimson flame burned in silence. Grimm had yet to decide one way or the other, and Sandalphon honestly wondered if he intended to play along with the others at all. He seemed to have some other agenda. “Additionally, I have received word from one Big Band, who is currently deployed to the town of Martira nearby and scheduled for pickup this evening. While he wishes the Highlands team well, he will also be headed to Esaka.” That meant an opening on the expedition for whoever might be available to fill it.

...though it would not be the Orsterrans.

Esaka didn't seem like the type of place Therion would prefer based on the way everyone else talked about it, but the thought of going to the Frozen Highlands appealed to him even less. Snow-soaked hikes and frozen cities? No thanks. He was certainly no duelist, but if Esaka was anything like Victors Hollow back in Orsterra -turned up in intensity most likely- then at the very least there probably were things he could get up to that didn't involve pitting himself against muscle-heads. Betting pools, brokers, and plenty of tourists to be found if he had to guess. If everyone else headed there wanted to participate in some assumed martial arts tournament, he'd just put some money on them and stick to information gathering while they did it.

"...between the two, I'm leaning towards Esaka," Therion said simply. "Heavily."

"As am I," Primrose said afterward, which meant the two friends would be sticking together once more. At least it seemed that way until the dancer followed up with, "the Forbidden Kingdom as a whole, really.

"Based on what we learned while there, I agree that Esaka is the best place to look. If it's not there, then someone who knows where it is will be. However, on the chance we could get a head start on the Guardian's location if it is elsewhere..." On the projected map, Primrose's eyes drifted over to the palace on the area's eastern side.

"Or if it may be prudent to secure easier passage between the Highlands and the Kingdom... as I've heard the Highlands' Guardian is wont to travel far..." Her gaze shifted over to the village marked 'Kanal' and the Tyrannian Plateau.

"Or even to keep looking into ways to get through to the city up north..." She looked at the massive unreachable City that Never Was then, eyes lingering before she brought them back to her fellow Seekers. "...well, we don't need so many of us all in Esaka, now do we?"

Therion's tail flicked in thought. She was right - they could all deploy together, but nothing was really stopping them from splitting up beyond safety being in numbers, especially when it was easier to keep in touch with each other than ever. Maybe, then, he’d look into some things outside of the city as well.

The commander nodded his head approvingly. “You all have settled the matter of destination most expediently. That just leaves the matter of who will assume leadership of the Seekers of Light in the field, as well as a second-in-command who will take charge of the other team.”

”We had very little choice, all things considered. We need to clear every area and gain what little we can learn in such a short amount of time to avoid a terrible fate.” Sectonia said, showing everyone that the 10 year time limit and how to circumvent it in some way shape or form was definitely on her mind.

”As for leader, I’d nominate myself, naturally. It's a queen's role to know how to properly delegate.” Sectonia said, snapping back to her more prideful demenur.

”It should be me while papa isn't here” Jr piped up, continuing the trend of royal arrogance with perhaps the most absurd prospect of the bunch. Still, he did have one positive point, which was ”plus I just led a mission and it went great!” which got a nod of agreement from one member of said side missions at least, namely his sister.

"Bowser wasn't our leader before! ...uh, right?" Pit retorted, though he looked less sure soon after he'd said it. The Koopa King definitely thought and acted like he was though, but it wasn't the same thing... Probably. "Besides, you're too young."

Which was a hilarious thing to hear from the mouth of a boy who barely looked like he was fifteen, even after fusion made him taller.

"I'm already the captain of our army back home, so... I could do it. Or be co-captain!" The angel might not have necessarily volunteered earlier in the campaign, but after returning from Skyworld he was filled with a lot more confidence and a greater sense of duty than before. Especially since he had some divine intervention available now.

”I could see co-captain for sure, but not the actual leader. Not being able to read is going to cause a lot of problems” Roland said, holding up a book lazily as his powers in this world involved the powers of the library quite heavily. ”And I’d rather have someone who isn’t a kid. Not even the City had kids leading the wings… I hope.” Roland continued. Although when it came to him putting his hat in the ring. ”I did run my own fixer office, but I feel there are others here better at leading people. I’m more… an advisor if anything.”

"Well I'm not a kid, and I can read now!"

”If Bowser were here, or Kamek, they’d make great leaders. But they’re not. And I’m more a support than a leader, so…” Blazermate said.

Based on what she knew of the Koopas so far, Sandalphon wasn’t sure about Blazermate’s opinion. Her pupils became @ symbols as she addressed the nominees so far. “Everyone should consider one crucial point of actual leadership. There is more to being a leader than giving orders. Leadership means taking complete and total responsibility for every member on the team. They must know each subordinate inside and out in order to utilize them to their fullest. Moreover, a true leader takes responsibility for the mistakes, faults, and failures of all members of the team. The lives of your subordinates are in your hands, and if they die, their blood is on your hands. Are you willing to pay that price?” Her pupils turned back to normal as she looked around, then down. “It is not an enviable position.”

Her words were the nail in the coffin for Nadia’s thoughts on the matter. “Yeah, nah, I’m good. I couldn’t lead a trip to the grocery store, much less one to the ends of the earth.” She raised an eyebrow at Sectonia. “That said, not to be a ped-ant, but you only lead mindless drones, right Toni? Dealin’ with people’s a whole ‘nother beast.” She then gave Pit and Junior a sceptical look. “And, uh, sorry, but I’m with Roland on this one. No way some rugrat’s sendin’ me to my death.”

”Mindless drones I use to do jobs that would be too dangerous or mundane for people with more worth.” Sectonia said. ”I did rule a large kingdom before all of this.” She then mumbled to herself ”but of course without Floralia all you see is a bandit queen…”

Pit's feathers fluffed out a little as he began to feel defensive. He didn't mind not taking the mantle of leader, but he didn't want it to be because everyone thought he'd be bad at it! Sure he was young for an angel, but still! He was probably older than Roland and he was definitely older than Ms. Fortune. He also took his duties as captain of Skyworld's army seriously, anyone that had been with him up there would know that. He could lead, despite his appearance.

He managed to bite back an argument though and instead said, "Okay, what about Captain Falcon?"

Pit looked over at the man and splayed a hand out towards him. "He's a good guy, he's got experience with worlds-colliding problems, and he's a captain too!"

It did occur to him that he didn't know what kind of captain the bounty hunter was. Actually hadn't he talked about that once with Viridi? Still, to get a title like captain he must have led others at some point, Pit figured.

”Vote for me. Promise I won’t play favorites.” Juri chimed in with a grin.

Blazermate and Roland looked at Juri and shook their heads. Nadia didn’t respond either to her or to Pit’s suggestion, partially because she felt bad for misidentifying the angel as a child. She more cared about overall maturity than age itself, but it was harder to generalize Pit’s level of maturity, so she held her tongue. Sandalphon did consider the new nomination, though, and she gave Falcon a mildly curious look. “I would be interested to hear about your leadership experience, Captain.”

The Captain in question hadn’t said anything during this part of the discussion yet. And neither did Ganondorf, surprisingly enough. One would have expected the Gerudo Warlord to immediately nominate himself the same way Sectonia did. But he hadn’t. At least, not yet. As for Falcon, he looked around and laughed a bit. ”Well, you might be a little disappointed to hear that most of my ‘leading’ has been on the racetrack.” He said, willing to admit the honest truth. ”I’m a Captain by virtue of owning a personal starship called the Falcon Flyer.”

After a pause he continued, ”But Pit here isn’t exaggerating. When it comes to worlds colliding, let’s just say… this isn’t exactly my first rodeo. I can still remember some of the old days, too. There were originally twelve of us, including myself. And our only real enemy at the time was Master Hand. I’m not sure if that qualifies me as a veteran or even as leadership material. But I can at least promise to perform those duties to the best of my ability if that’s what the majority here ends up voting for.”

”Hmph, you’re not the only ‘veteran’ here, Captain.” Ganondorf said, finally choosing now to speak up. ”And unlike you, I have actual experience as a commander. Both in my world and here in this one as well.” He wasn’t saying it outright, but he was certainly implying his self-nomination strongly enough.

”Mm…. Whoevers leading probably has to be really up to date on the whole consul thing… ” Blazermate said. ”Also has to be with us for awhile.”

”I notice so far a lot of those nominated are either ‘royals’, or are more commanders than leaders.” Roland said. ”I wonder which one of you guys is the most humane?” The way he said that sounded fair and measured, but there was a double meaning to that. Someone needed to have camaraderie, but if they were too soft they were too weak to lead.

"Should we even pick a boss?" The Cadet wondered aloud as the choice of leadership unsurprisingly turned out to be a much harder one than a destination. Throughout it, his own gaze had landed on Geralt, who he knew had a good head on his shoulders and had more than once reminded him of the Ace Commander, the leader of the monster hunter's old crew. That said, the Cadet wasn't about to volunteer the man if it wasn't something he actually wanted. Ace had his thoughts on everyone else that had volunteered or been volunteered so far, but with a group like this... He drew a hand across his chin before finishing his thought. "I mean a permanent boss. We've come this far already with whoever stepped up at the time. Maybe for us it would work better if we could just choose commanders for each group we split into, and re-choose when we make new ones in the next areas."

”Given that both teams will have more ability to coordinate via shared access to resources than they have previously had, it seems wise to have some form of coordination at least” Edward said, before placing forth a theory ”I’d suggest that, from what I have garnered, ‘leading’ this group has a lot less to do with commanding, and more about keeping track of various, hmm, strong personalities. Juri is perhaps the most extreme example, but I hazard to guess many of you are not inclined to ‘taking orders’ in a traditional military sense”

”Hey. As long as there’s somethin’ in it for me I’ll break whatever or whoever you want.” Juri responded with a casual shrug.

”Mm… While I haven’t gotten to know everyone all that much, that can work. With some of the more dominant personalities in the room.” Roland said, looking at Sectonia, Ganondorf, Juri, Falcon, Pit, and Jr. ”Constantly shuffling the team leader when the teams inevitably change for future missions to be the best person for that area and to manage that group of people might be best.” He then gave it a bit more thought with a low ‘hmmm’ before saying. ”The only problem would be if we need someone to talk for the group. Which doesn’t have to be a leader, just a good talker.”

”So what you're suggesting is to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Granted, it has gotten us this far in such a short amount of time.” Sectonia said, looking at Ace than Roland. ”And while it would work for what happens now, if this is finished with us the victors and we find a way to this ‘source’ to remove the time limits placed upon us, a leader will need to be discussed and agreed on. Otherwise we all may become the way the Consuls are many years down the line.”

”Continue as is?” Ganondorf interjected, ”You mean the same methods and tactics that resulted in losses for us down in the Dead Zone? All while Moebius continues to escalate their own efforts? Forgive me if I don’t see the wisdom in that plan.”

”I’m not sure we can blame what happened in the Dead Zone on our methodology.” Captain Falcon countered, ”That entire mess was just due to a single Consul’s ability. Can’t exactly account for something like that without being a precog.”

”Three, one of which got away and two others. One of which was deemed to be the strongest consul of them all that managed to be defeated.” Sectonia said, clarifying their accomplishments in the Dead Zone. ”Although you didn’t see the zone before the time rain. I wonder if attacking it before it became such a hazardous area would have been better or worse. Imagine what happened in that tree, but many times worse when it came to the creatures crawling around in that zone.”

Sandalphon inhaled through her nose. “I planned and executed the Dead Zone operation with help from Bridges. Better information gathering on my part may have allowed us to be better prepared. It is true that some factors can simply not be anticipated, but I encouraged this assault even in the face of such unknowns. It should have been obvious that Moebius would anticipate the Qliphoth as our next target…regardless, as the one responsible, the fault is mine.” She paused. “In my experience, having a leader is essential, or an unconscionable amount of time is wasted on deliberation. And the person most fit to lead does not change with the context of the operation.”

”Information is valuable. That is why I extorted out as much information from Consul F in the Under as I could. But it's difficult to gather with such an enigmatic group. And we have that other group…. The Nobodies Roxas called them as well. They haven’t been hostile to us yet, but with how little we have of the Consuls we have even less of them.” Sectonia then shook her head, but got an idea. She then gave Sandalphon some relief ”Considering A was the cause of what happened in the Dead Zone and was known as the strongest Consul with powers that F, in his sheer terror couldn’t even comprehend when I interrogated him, there wasn’t much you could actually do.”

Therion, who'd pretty much tuned out at this point as it didn't matter to him who was symbolically in charge, spoke up then. "Why don't you do it?"

He blinked at Sandalphon. She clearly was invested, had all of the information privy to the Seekers, had already coordinated them multiple times, and was a logical thinker among many... passionate personalities. She was already kind of leading them all anyway, at least from what Therion knew. Or did one failure in her eyes disqualify her?

”I second nominating Sandalphon for a leadership role. At a bare minimum, her ability to communicate with everyone is invaluable to group coordination” Edward said.

Jr sighed and then added that ”It sure helped out in the fight we had, we’d have been toast without her” reluctantly and a touch despondently, his own bid seeming absolutely in the gutter at this point.

Pit gently tapped a fist against his open palm, having only just realized that Sandalphon could be made their official leader. In the absence of someone like Palutena, Sandalphon might just be the next best thing. "Great idea!"

”It's not a bad idea I guess. She can still direct people and even heal even if she gets cat karted away. I don’t think any of us can come even close to that. At most if I put down a teleporter someone could come back, or Jr. puts down his paint. And didn’t Sectonia say she could be summoned as well to Kamek at one point or am I getting that wrong. Haven’t seen her do that yet.” Blazermate said, unsure, but pointing out what she saw.

”If it's about being able to give directions, isn’t she the only one that can put those markers on where to stand? I for sure haven’t figured out how to do that.” Roland said.

”I can put a glowing spot on an enemy's weak point, but that's as far as I go with that sorta stuff. Remember guys attack the glowing spot! I’m marking it to make things easier for you!” Blazermate said, explaining her Scan ability again.

”Sandy’s got a terrible poker face, though.” Juri said. ”Her eyes are like little emojis. Makes it way easy for Consul freaks to tell what she’s thinking. And if we invested in some ear pieces we’d be talking with each other even faster, so that’s not much of a skill worth lauding.”

On those two points Primrose definitely agreed, but even so she didn't think Sandalphon would be a bad choice for leader at all. "Keeping one's emotions from their face takes only practice," she said. She looked at Sandalphon again, appraising the archangel one more time before a small smile found its way to the dancer's own face. "No objections from me."

Juri pointed a finger at Junior. ”I vote for the baby turtle. It’d be funny.”

Ganondorf could already see where this inevitably was going and rolled his eyes. ”All this talk for things to more or less stay the same.” He grumbled to himself, ”What a waste of time.”

”You’re just mad the baby turtle got more votes than you.” Juri teased.

”To be fair I would’ve probably voted for Sectonia if Sandalphon didn’t like, become the obvious pick there. Or Bowser if he was here but he's... What is he even doing?” Blazermate asked.

”Fine, keep things the same.” Ganondorf said, ”But don’t blame me if you just end up with the same results as the Dead Zone again.” At this point he was ready to conclude this and get back to business already. His statement earned a harsh glare from Zenkichi, and a derisive scoff from Geralt, who was only preempted from a retort by the Archangel in question herself.

The archangel fixed him with a steely gaze, her pupils their default power symbols. “I learn from my mistakes, Ganondorf. The wellbeing of my team is my highest priority, and my failures weigh on nobody more than myself. If the team sees fit to trust me with such a role again, I will accept the nomination.” She waved her hand, conjuring light screens in front of everyone who hadn't already made a definitive choice. On it were the names of Junior, Sectonia, Ganondorf, Pit, Captain Falcon, and herself. “If there are no more nominations or discussion points, we can cast our votes via private ballot.”

”And I learn from mine, as well.” Ganondorf retorted, saying nothing more and simply letting the implication hang in the air as the voting began.

”Papa’d say otherwise!” Jr chipped in just for the fun of it, before handing in his vote for himself, and with Rika following along to vote for him too. Both also voted for Sandalphon with regards to her getting them through an otherwise lethal deadzone encounter.

A tiny smiled ghosted across Geralt’s face as he cast a vote for Sandalphon as the Seekers’ leader. Zenkichi did the same with a vacant expression, his face recovering but still somewhat pale. He cast his vote for Pit as acting leader of the Esaka expedition.

When Pit himself voted, it was quick and easy. He incorrectly assumed that people couldn't vote for themselves, and so he picked Sandalphon as the campaign's leader, and Captain Falcon as her second. He was the one who nominated the pilot in the first place, and he did honestly think the man would do a good job. And as for Sandalphon, on top of finding her smart, kind, and brave, at this point he trusted his fellow angel more than most, and he already was much too-trusting of a person. "There we go."

Sectonia obviously voted for herself, her pride wouldn’t allow anything else. But she was aware enough to see where the wind was blowing. This was more of a Peach situation so this wasn’t the first time. What concerned her more was what happened afterwards, wartime and overall kingdom leadership were totally different things. And as such she wrote that while she would accept it if Sandalphon won, she made it quite clear that this was for seeker operations only and not related to anything kingdom related and would much rather take over when it came to that aspect. But for managing the other team, she put Geralt for now. To her it was a split between Pit, Roland, and Geralt as her martial arts knowledge was very low. Although if Ganondorf had been on that team strangely enough she would’ve voted for him to be the leader of that team. He might be her rival in this endeavor, but he had shown he knew what to do if he had to do it.

Roland was unsure of who to actually vote for. If he had his choice, he’d want there to be a couple leader elections. One for now, one for after this was done, and one if they survived a few years down the line. Really voting for who led him was a new thing and he wasn’t sure what to vote for. Sandalphon would make a good operations leader, but Sectonia, Ganondorf, and potentially Jr. would make great leaders for what happens afterwards. In the end, Roland wrote that down on his vote. Sandalphon if it was for the war, and a request for a revote with his vote going for the three royals after all this was done based on how they acted at the end of all of this… if any of them survived. Although when it came to who led his team, he thought about it. Geralt was too similar to himself, and Falcon said he didn’t have the experience and while he wasn’t a bad choice, Roland felt that he might not slow down for others that needed it. Eventually he wrote in Pit to see how the angel handled things. Granted if either Pit or Sandalphon put on a crown of thorns and started going on about apostates he’d be the first to act…

Nadia scratched her head as she thought about the ballot for a moment, her thoughts not so private. “You're not a bad vote by any means, Big G…” He had good qualifications, but those weren't everything. In the end, who would be mostly likely to care about the life of an underling like her? “I think Sandy did her best.” She went ahead and voted for the archangel. As for the acting leader, the one who'd be her direct report, it seemed like Pit and Junior had the most support. Kind of funny given what she said about rugrats, but then again, Pit wasn't really a kid, right? She wasn't totally sure until she remembered that Juri said her vote aloud, at which point Nadia immediately chose Pit to oppose her.

Blazermate was an easy vote. For the Esaka team she put Jr. since he wasn’t going to lead the whole thing. She didn’t know the others all that well by comparison and she valued seniority. But for a main leader she put Sectonia as she wasn’t sure between everyone and just ranked on seniority. She hadn’t seen what some of the others had seen when it came to Sandalphon’s abilities to point out where to go, while Sectonia was a nice big meat shield for her to hide behind and heal. She didn’t know Ganondorf enough to make a good choice but did agree he hit hard when buffed. And Juri was just out. Falcon she knew nothing about. Granted if Bowser was here, her vote would go for him no question.

Sandalphon’s eyes became inverted triangles as she considered various factors. “Among our nominees are some of our most powerful fighters who would logically be on the frontlines. Being a leader as well would not only detract from their output but concentrate an enormous amount of value in a risky position.” Her eyes reverted. “Of course, leading from the front could also be considered an admirable trait.”

After thinking it through, Edward ended up voting for Sectonia over Sandalphon. The latter’s stated intent to flit between groups raised the issue of leaving his team leaderless, while in a battlefield situation at least, the nature of Sectonia’s powerset made her a commanding presence upon it if nothing else. Very much the kind of woman you could build an entire formation around, if the fight at the bottom of the demon tree was anything to go by.

As for the other team, he had to admit, he knew rather little about them barring what had just been said. Pit being the head of Palutena’s forces was certainly a mark in his favor however. The Captain’s supposed levels of experience with the situation was meanwhile pitted against his lack of experience, well, leading. That said, a leader was also about being the face of a team, and the man had the physique and attitude that would surely garner respect from the martial artists of the region that team was heading for.

On the other hand, Sandalphon did have a point about the issues of leading from the front and, in his mind, this was very much not the kind of group that needed the boost in moral/courage that that sort of action garnered.

Unfortunately that point mostly pointed towards the literal child who was the one midline supporter among the nominations. Quite the quandary.

”Junior’s smart from what I’ve seen. And I’d like to see Consuls try to predict what he does. Haha.” Juri was convincing herself, amused.

Her comment settled Edward’s thinking, and he went with Captain Falcon.

Someone who was having the same kind of hard time choosing was Ace. Ah man, this giggisux, he thought, squinting at the ballot screen. He had hoped the discussion over leadership wouldn't devolve into an argument, or become as tense as it had... he could still hope that once the voting was done that there were no hard feelings, at least. As for his own votes, he had to really think on it. Personally he didn't mind working under almost anyone, but he didn't want to give up his vote either. Everyone had preferences, after all. So he thought about it for a few long moments, weighing the pros and cons (at least the ones he knew) of each person. For the Cadet, a leader that fought alongside their squad was better than one that stuck to the sidelines. Someone who would stick to their bowguns if they knew they were right, but would also always take their comrade's feelings and ideas into account. Unfortunately for everything he knew about the six nominees, what he didn't know added up to a lot more... which meant his gut would be playing a bigger role in his choice than he'd thought. In the end, he voted for the two 'captains' - Falcon to lead the whole crew, and Pit for second.

Captain Falcon waved his screen away and politely abstained from voting overall. He didn’t have nearly enough of an ego to vote for himself. And besides, he didn’t think it was proper for one of the candidates to be voting in this matter anyway. Too much personal bias. Meanwhile, Roxas spent an uncomfortably long time staring blankly at his screen. He really didn’t want to vote on this either, truth be told. Especially not after it started becoming a point of contention toward the end of the discussion. But in the end he hastily cast a vote for Sandalphon, figuring she had it in the bag anyway.

Therion also voted for Sandalphon, more just to get this part of the discussion over with sooner. They probably should have just started with a vote and things would have ended up the same way, only quicker, like Ganondorf had pointed out. If the thief had thought about his first choice more than just a few seconds he might have gone with another option. Other than the one instance of Ganondorf's anger issues and demonic form causing some friendly fire that Therion was unfortunately on the receiving end of, the man had treated him well enough. The same could be said of Sectonia, despite the whole 'minions' thing. But he hadn't.

And as for the second in command (again, symbolically; he doubted any of the prideful Seekers would actually listen to orders all the time, himself included) that would look out for the group headed to Esaka... well, if one of them claimed to be a literal army captain, who was Therion to argue against that? So Pit it was.

Ganondorf… just stood there, refusing to cast a vote. His arms were crossed, his boot was tapping on the floor impatiently. This was a farce, as far as he was concerned. There was no point in bothering.

Given how quiet everyone else was at the moment, his demonstration was rather noticeable. Nadia shifted in her seat uncomfortably; she knew Ganondorf wasn’t all bad, and she didn’t want to see him make a fool of himself. “Um…if anyone’s done here, there’s nothing to stop you from leavin’, I guess.” She somehow managed to refrain from making a pun about being im-poll-ite.

Seeing the Gerudo king having a bit of a harumph, Roland gave him a bit of a condolence as well. ”Pretty sure you're more a king than a war boss.”. Much like Nadia, Roland didn’t see Ganondorf as a bad guy. He'd offer the same comfort to the other two royals, but Sectonia had a hard expression to read across the room and Jr. seemed to be more accepting about what was going on.

”I quite literally led a victorious campaign in the Sandswept Sky.” Ganondorf said simply, ”I believe that makes me a rather effective ‘war boss’ by definition.”

”From what I heard you made a big diplomatic move there as well, boss.” Roland said, not arguing with what he wanted to call himself.

”Hmm, yes. It’s almost as though I am effective at being both king AND commander.” Ganondorf countered, pointing out that those two things were not mutually exclusive. Both could be true at the same time.

Which left only Primrose to complete her vote. Truthfully she was of the mind that none of the Seekers were beholden to the leader they chose, as none of them were being coerced to be there or to follow orders; she could and would do as she pleased if she had a serious disagreement with whomsoever they ended up with. Even so, she seriously considered the options. A united front behind a strong leader probably would benefit them.

Her dark green eyes laid on each of the candidates in turn, her gaze heavy. Though she had said she wouldn't object to Sandalphon being their leader, and still wouldn't if things turned out that way, now that it had come down to a vote... Primrose had to go with Queen Sectonia. She knew the alien bee had a peculiar style of leading, but as long as Primrose had known her Sectonia had proven that she looked after her own. She was bold and clever too, on top of being powerful, and though vain beyond anyone else it wasn't hard to talk to her either. She may not have been the perfect choice, but none of the candidates were.

As for Ganondorf, the dancer had seen his statecraft firsthand and had engaged him in a semi-productive conversation not long ago. She had, at the time, thought to revise her opinion on the warlord. Even now she still thought that there was more than met the eye with him and that he had changed somewhat, however... the way he was acting now turned Primrose away from possibly choosing him. This was a man who could lead to be sure, but who also seemed to feel he was entitled to that leadership. And she would always think derisively about such men in power.

She didn't know much at all about the other man on the ballot, and the children were just that. Even so, those three were the choices for co-leader that would take command in the Forbidden Kingdom. Primrose felt she knew the Koopa prince well enough that she was confident in not voting for him. He may make an excellent leader once he grew up, but right now she thought his heart wouldn't be able to handle the hard parts. Between Pit and Captain Falcon, both relative strangers to her, Primrose went with the latter to lead in Esaka.

Sandalphon consulted her screen. There were some votes missing, but she didn’t want to make a point about everyone getting their votes in, even if everyone’s thoughts did matter. “At this time I will assume everyone yet to vote has abstained. It seems we have one vote for someone who wasn’t nominated…congratulations, Geralt.” She quickly eliminated that submission. “As it currently stands, Sectonia, Bowser Jr., and Captain Falcon share a three-way tie for runner-up at four votes apiece. Five votes for Pit. And…nine for myself.”

Smiling, Nadia tapped her fingertips against her palm in a congratulatory golf clap.

Sectonia knew Sandalphon would win from the way everyone was talking, but it was good to see that some people respected her. She assumed the votes for Pit were to lead the other group so that didn’t bother her too much either. Although getting a tie with a literal kid, even if he was royalty was a bit… Well, as she thought it through she knew three people who voted for him and they were guaranteed and one of them wasn’t a serious vote so…

Roland wasn’t surprised, neither was Blazermate on that win. What did surprise Blazermate is that both of her choices were tied in third. She figured her votes really made a difference. Meanwhile Roland noted that Ganondorf came in last. Considering how people were around him, that wasn’t too much of a surprise, but hopefully he got at least 1 vote that wasn’t his own. Speaking of…. Roland had gotten an idea. A follow up on his voting request you could say…

”Hmm, well that’s that, then.” Captain Falcon said simply. You win some and you lose some. And honestly he wasn’t exactly super invested in the votes anyway. Either that or he was just very experienced and being a good sport about it all. A mix of both, really.

None of this was a surprise to Roxas, either. He just shrugged and continued to keep to himself.

Zenkichi gave a tiny smile and nod to Sandalphon’s election to leader, the knowledge that she would still be watching over them setting his mind a little at ease.

“I am grateful for your confidence. I promise to do everything I can to effectively lead the team on the difficult road ahead. For as long as I am able.” Sandalphon kept her acceptance speech short and sweet, not wanting to rub it in. She quickly moved the focus off of herself, as well. “And congratulations to Pit as well. The Esaka contingent will report to you for the time being, once everyone is deployed.”

”Yeah, right.” Juri said with a roll of her eyes.

Pit huffed at her, but in summoning all of the maturity he had that was all he did. He was glad that some of his allies believed in him enough to vote for him, and in time he was sure he could convince the rest of them too! So he turned to those that had chosen to venture to the Forbidden Kingdom with a smile on his face, laying a fist against his chest. "I won't let you guys down!"

Ganondorf exhaled and relaxed his posture a bit, ”If that’s all, then I’ll be taking my leave.” He said. No grumbling, no offered explanation of where he was going, just silent indifference. And just like that, he left and disappeared to some other part of the ship for whatever reasons were his own. Geralt watched him leave, his reaction earning an unseen nod of respect.

Jr was a lot less magnanimous in his loss than the king, letting out a sad ”Awwww” and a floor scuffing kick. Rika meanwhile gave a little ‘ohe well’ shrug, patted her brother sympathetically and tried to look on the bright side ”well at least Sandalphon won. And Pit seems nice I think? Plus, third isn’t bad?”

Third was, in Edward’s opinion, a rather absurd position for a child to have reached, even if what joint third. Such was the nature of democracy he supposed. It would never catch on.

Throughout the lengthy discussion and debate, the Lost Numbers’ commander had remained completely silent, absorbing and cataloguing every detail about the intriguing individuals gathered before him. “It’s settled, then. We Lost Numbers will strive to help however we can with the operations set to start tomorrow. For the worlds yet to come.”

He looked around. “Right now, though, I believe that Chef Brace has orchestrated a feast worthy of heroes, to celebrate another step in your campaign. Please head to the mess hall to enjoy yourselves. Afterward, those who wish to do so may attend the memorial service in Stolen Moments to honor the fallen.”

”It's a shame we have so little intelligence. We get more and more, but it feels like we get more questions than answers.” Sectonia said, thinking of the situation as a whole.

”You know, perhaps we should get some information from that person who says he knows a lot. He trades that information for spirits does he not? While I doubt he knows where this ‘source’ is, maybe we can get good information from him regardless.” Roland said.

”Ah yes, Ganondorf asked him a question if I recall. Although I was unable to claim any spirits in our last excursion.” Sectonia said, making a note of that for the future, although she didn’t know what to expect.

”I have some extras thanks to my books being unable to expire. I can give you one or two for your own questions if you want.” Roland said, helping more because he had no reason not to and so far he hadn’t seen anything that made him dislike Sectonia. Granted he was totally fine with authority unlike many of the others so her aura of authority didn’t bother him at all. She was already way better than the Head in the short time he knew her. Although Roland would say the same thing about Ganondorf if asked.

While not one to vocally give thanks to such a small gesture, Sectonia did nod in acceptance and acknowledgement. Roland handed her two books of Bugsnax, Sectonia having a bit of a perplexed look on her face as she saw the picture on the cover of the book. ”You met these food creatures recently?” Sectonia said, opening up a book to read about it and finding very little information in it.

”Yeah. They turned people into themselves by feeding their babies to them or something. Is that something that all the food looking things with eyeballs do?” Roland questioned. ”I don’t know. But that sounds horrible.” Sectonia said, with Roland nodding with her.

”Ew” Jr agreed, really grossed out about this treacherous food, before recovering to ask the question he’d thought of, which was ”Do you think we could find out how to smash those clocks from that guy?”

”Probably. But once we learn that, smashing them will be pretty quick. But first I’ve gotta see how this all works.” Roland said, a book in his arm.

And with that, everyone made their way to gather some information from their spirits. Having never used him, Roland and Sectonia had no idea what they were in for.

Luckily, the merchant in question happened to be in this evening. The squad of seekers found Vulgrim in his corner of the otherwise highly technological Spirit Chamber, surrounded by the lavish decor and occult objects one might associate with a soothsayer. The demon himself lay half-immersed in the Serpent Hole he used to travel in and out of the Avenger, reclining on a fine velvet cushion as he read the book How Wars Profit Nopon with the aid of a tiny pair of spectacles. The moment he spotted a group of solicitors, the volume and spectacles disappeared, and he tented his claws with his teeth bared in a typical snakelike smile. His rings and baubles gleamed almost as brightly as his emerald-green eyes. “Well well well, to what do I owe the pleasure? Not just here for a courteous social call, I take it?”

”I hear you're an information broker.” Roland said, having an idea about this guy just a moment ago. ”You give information for spirits. We just so happen to have a few spirits to trade for that information.” Sectonia would say more, but Roland said it all for her so she just nodded. Neither side balked at him being a demon. ”So how does this work?” Both presented the books that Roland had given them.

Handing over a book of Bugsnax, Sectonia asked her question. “How do you extend the 10 year time limit of a person here without finding the source or becoming a Consul or Nobody.” This was the most pressing question on her mind, and considering how important it was, she wanted it answered.

“The secret of immortality, bought with a blueberry? Hah! I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew.” Vulgrim took a bite out of the book, munched for a second, then set it aside. He did not look particularly thrilled. “Why don’t you ask that little nopon instead, hm?”

Well, this is how he worked. Welp, He made a point and while Sectonia wasn’t sure what to expect, having been denied so quickly was a bit embarrassing overall. Well, a better spirit hm? But even a denial gave information… information that wasn’t much to her liking if it was true.

Roland then offered his book of Wendigo and asked. ”How do you infiltrate the City that Never Was and bypass its aura that seems to make that impossible.” Having seen the city from his tenure at Merdi-at-han, it was this crazy looking place.

The wendigo spirit proved to be appreciably spicy, so it wasn’t entirely worthless, though it still tasted like paper. Vulgrim mulled over the question. “The Transmission is a sound. A frequency. If you don’t want to hear it, why not cloak yourself in a frequency of your own?”

Hearing that, Roland was very interested. His gloves canceled out noise so he would be one of the few who could actually deal with that city. But with how it sounded, it seemed like the blue reverberation would be there… or it would be something he made or something related. ”Of course that lunatic would be involved…” Roland said with a huff.

Roland then gave his book of Bugsnax and asked ”Will the organization of Nobodies obstruct the seeker’s mission like the Consuls do?” Roland was sure he knew this answer already, but wanted to verify it.

Vulgrim didn’t even bother with either the spirit or the question. He waved them away dismissively. “You seem to labor under the delusion that I am omniscient. On the contrary, all I offer is hearsay, and nobody is more elusive than Organization XIII. It’s rare that they’re even sighted.”

This was information that was interesting. Good to know he was nice enough to inform them on stuff he didn’t know. Even so, Roland took back his offered book.

Finally, Sectonia asked her question, giving her last book of Bugsnax. “In the region of the Highlands, where is a powerful item that would help us.” She thought about saying Spirit, but they were already hunting a Guardian.

“Now that is the sort of information I peddle. But for a single kiwi? Hmm…” He thought as he chewed. “I’ve heard tell of a corrupted sword recovered by treasure hunters on Mount Dragonspine, which seethes with the power of an ancient dragon. Perhaps that would offer the strength you seek, if you’re able to wield it.”

”Well, not the first time I've dealt with an information broker, but probably the first time I’ve seen him just eat what we bring him. I’ll be on the look out for better things. Anything that you prefer or do you just want it to be a surprise?” Roland asked, knowing full well that giving someone the proper information or even bait was essential to get useful things, and he’d rather do things properly next time.

“No more books, for one,” Vulgrim remarked. “If a spirit tastes like food, a book tastes like paper dipped in food puree.” He shook his head, his fingers tented. “As for what I would like…the bigger and rarer, the better. Oh, younger spirits too. There’s no substitute for…heheh, freshness.” The demon snickered.

Now that was something Roland understood. Not liked, but understood. This guy was like someone from District 23. Roland wasn’t much one for these unsavory types, but that's just how things went sometimes. ”Hm… Not much I can do about the whole ‘no books’ thing. Whatever I’m involved with turns into books that contain the spirits.” Roland then took the untaken book of Bugsnax and lit it on fire to see if what was released was what Vulgrim was interested in. Instead, its unspecified destruction resulted in a random food item. An item that, when it wasn’t taken, Roland scooped up. He then shrug and left, Sectonia having dipped out a bit earlier to save herself from being embarrassed.

Overall Sectonia, having never used this guy before, came out a bit embarrassed. If Roland was trying to make fun of her, he didn’t show it as even he was put off a bit with how little preparation he made. She’d remember this, but would let it slide if it came out this was an honest mistake from the Fixer.

Juri had tagged along, watching the encounter from the back. When Sectonia and Roland withdrew, she stepped towards them. ”That’s it?” She asked them. ”Do you got anymore of those you haven’t used? Gimme one if you do. Somethin’ he’ll like. I’ll owe ya one.” She said. She’d been dropping plenty of bodies but hadn’t thought to scoop up any spirits she wasn’t interested in merging with.

”That's all I could gather that I didn’t destroy myself. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect. But a foodie, even if he does have the personality of someone from district 23, I can understand.” Roland said, shrugging.

”I don’t know about you two, but I could go for a drink.” he then said, trying to change the subject and get people's minds off of things. Seemed he’d need to be involved with getting more spirits if he wanted more information. Although with how things went, the information that Vulgrim gave seemed to be less about overarching things, and more about ‘locations or how to get to locations, or items or how to get items.’ instead of more esoteric stuff such as enemy intelligence. So he was more like a traditional broker than something like he was at the Library.

”Damn it.” Juri gritted her teeth. Roland as he passed by gave Juri the food item he had gotten from burning the book of Bugsnax, a banana float sundae.

Juri blinked at the food item she had in her hand. ”What the hell am I supposed to do with this?!” She asked as Roland walked by. ”Feed the ‘war boss’, he likes food.” Roland said sarcastically as he made his way to the bar.

Seeing as he was with Sectonia, one of the royals, and both were heading roughly the same way at the moment, Roland offered a drink and a chat to the Queen. Sectonia contemplated it.

Pointedly, Juri started eating the banana float sundae herself. Where could she get some spirits? Edward? That line of thinking led her to remember those monster spirits Edward took that she could reasonably have claim over. Monster spirits, live monster spirits. The weirdo must like that, right? She raced to the spirit archive and procured an armful of locust spirits and the Rompopolo spirit. ”Hey!” She called out. ”Hey, Vulgrim. Sorry it’s not a freshly orphaned victorian child, but this should be enough to get me a good answer, right?” She asked, approaching him.

She offered him everything, having no other use for the couple of locust spirits and the Rompopolo. ”I’m looking for a guy named M. Bison. D’you know where he is? Are these spirits enough to get the answer?” She asked, her usual agitation accompanied by an unusual anxiousness.

Vulgrim looked over the offerings and selected the Rompopolo spirit to slurp down. “Hmm… oily. A tinge of poison…intoxicating.” He ran his claws along his chin as he gave Juri a knowing look. “Bison, you say? That name gets around. As it happens, you’re on the right track. You’ll find four kings in the Tiered City, and Bison is one of them.”

She nodded with a lick of her lips, her eyes flashing with a toxic resolve. No doubt, she knew where she was going. Before it was just a guess, but it was good to know for sure. And the tidbit about the Four Kings was useful, too. ”I knew it. Of course he’s sticking with that corny Four Kings crap. Wonder if he’s trying to restart Shadaloo…I’ll be back, when I get better spirits. ” Juri said, collecting the rest of them and hurrying away, grinding her jaw. She didn’t know where to, but she just had to walk.

While Juri had run off to pilfer the armory, Rika and Jr had been mulling over what they could get for their one Tonglegrop. Probably not, they guessed the way to break the clocks, that was for sure. So they went for something simpler that could help them be stronger.

”So we’ve got these cassette tapes that let us turn into other monsters, right” Jr started, showing the demon the of Undyne, ”and we even managed to fuse two of them together one time to make one mega monster. So do you know, like, anyone in or around the Forbidden Kingdom who works with these and’d know how to get better at fusion? Like a teacher, or some kind of cassette tech-nerd or something”

Somehow, the Tonglegrop spirit made Vulgrim’s skeletal face scrunch up slightly, as if he’d just sucked on a piece of sour candy. “Cassettes? Hm. They’re rather popular in Shinjuku, if I recall correctly. They say you can find anything there, after all, so maybe it has an organization for you.”

”That's it?” Jr complained, while Rika shrugged and pointed out ”It’s something. Probably wouldn’t have gone over there if we didn’t check this” before asking Vulgrim ”So how do spirits taste anyway? Like, that one seemed like it was sour, but there’s gotta be more to it, right?” very curious about the forbidden snacks they had all been feeding him.

“Now, now. You know how this works,” Vulgrim smirked. “ If you want me to feed your curiosity, you’ll need to feed me first.”

”Awww” Rika moaned in complaint, before recovering quickly from her disappointment, shrugging saying ”Oh well. Guess I’ll try and save you something you like best for next time then”

”Ehhhh. Given what he likes most is probably us, probably not” Jr replied, not sold on this whole thing given the vague answers, only to look horrified when Rika suggested ”Ohhh, you could unfuse and we could feed him Omori. He was young”

Vulgrim turned a questioning glance on Junior, wondering if he’d really perform such a callous act for such an insignificant factoid. If he had no qualms, of course, neither would Vulgrim.

Jr would not, but had difficulty explaining them to his sister who made several good points in favor of, well, maybe not the ethics of feeding a child’s ‘soul’ to a demon, but at least against staying fused with the spirit.

”Why not? It's not like he’s doing much in there. Pretty sure he’s why you got really scared under the water that one time too”

”Yeah, I mean. Sure. But I still wanna keep him anyway. I don’t like that he died”

”Didn’t you not like him?”

”It’s complicated” Jr replied, once again struggling with his emotions, before crossing his arms, raising his snout, and taking a hard stance that was quite simply ”I just don’t wanna”

There was a tiny moment of silence between the two, and then Rika simply shrugged and replied with an entirely accepting ”Ok”

Vulgrim reclined onto his cushions. “If you’re quite finished, I’ll take my leave for now.”

”Sure thing. See you next time” Rika replied, to which Jr added ”If your tip’s good!” before they both headed off to go get dinner.

Celica had been brought back to The Avenger, but she had no energy left after the events of the day. She had been allowed to go straight to the infirmary, where she quickly fell asleep, not even paying any mind to where or, what this place was. She was having one of the first good rests she had in a while. Possibly because it was the first time in so long she hadn't slept inside her Skell. But it helped her mind was free, and she could remember everything, where she came from, what she had lost. It wasn't the most happy of dreams, but subconsciously, she was just happy to remember the faces she had forgotten. The home that seemed so far gone. NLA, the city built from the debris of a colony ship, a human city, that she had come to call home despite not being one of them. And here she was again, in a strange place, but her time for realizing that would come.

In her dreams, she saw her team, and all the people of NLA. And then there was, fire... everything turning to ash, until there was nothing. It was just darkness, and she calmed in her sleep, until eventually, her eyes finally opened to this alien place she had been brought to, slowly sitting up, and rubbing her head. She looked around the unfamiliar place, as if it was the first time seeing it. It took a moment for her to realize she wasn't alone.

She saw that the door was open and that a dark humanoid figure is standing in the doorway, albeit with a slender body beneath a cloak and a large head with hornlike protrusions and a white mask. He seems familiar but the sensation is already fading. He would ask, "Newcomer. Are you awake?"

Her first instinct was to reach for her weapons, but she found she had none, or at least they were not on her person anymore as she looked around for a moment, but managed to calm herself down. She wasn't new to odd situations like this... most of her life had been appearing in new places. Many of them had become home in the past, she allowed herself to hope that might be the case here.

"I am. Who are you, and where am I? I can only somewhat recall being brought here..." Her voice was young, but spoken with confidence. It was as if her mental maturity was beyond her physical maturity, as she looked small and young, and even sounded young. But the way she spoke was more elegant, as if it carried the weight of respect behind it one wouldn't expect to find in someone who hadn't grown up yet.

The stranger flicked on the lights with a sharp claw. When the shadows receded, her guest looked a lot less intimidating all of a sudden, shorter and much lighter than even Celica herself. Only his overlarge head and the thin black sticks he had for legs could be seen outside of his cloak, and though his eyes still shone with scarlet fire, their blaze was much less harsh. This was no specter--it was just a bug. A big bug, but still.

"The previous newcomer. Grimm, master of the Grimm Troupe. A humble performer, pleased to make your acquaintance."[ Grimm bowed very low, then straightened up. "This is the flying fortress of the Lost Numbers, to whom you and your impressive contraption are honored guests. They call it the Avenger, and its purpose is the annihilation of Galeem, who burned our worlds to ash." He tilted his head, eyes narrowed in curiosity. "Perhaps they saw more in you than a victim in need of saving. Like me, a promising recruit in the war for reality's salvation."

Celica sighed at that, and shook her head. "I have been saved more times than I can count, by all different kinds. It's rare that anyone, especially humans, do not expect something in return for their aid." Though she had seen other beings, humans, as she found all too typical, made up the majority of what she had seen thus far. She had to ask what she assumed... "Am I to be a soldier then, to fight against this, Galeem? I suppose it would not be new to me."

Grimm's voice was raspy, sharp as a blade and uncomfortable inhuman, but when he spoke it was to offer reassurance. "You have a choice in the matter. As did we all. To dance to its tune. Or to break free of the cycle." He stepped out of the doorway, silent as the grave. "The mess hall is just that way. Why not say hello to your saviors, and make of them what you will?

Celica was quiet for a moment, before she swung her legs over the side of the medical bed, and managed to stand without much issue. Taking a deep breath, she nodded, and started to walk out, toward the mess hall so she could judge these people for herself...

The gang who’d been off getting rocks and fruits while the others scavenged for guns had their own hand-in to do, but while they weren't getting paid for it, it would still be worth the effort.

The doors to the shared engine room and RnD lab popped open, allowing Jr to scamper on into the room, followed closely by his sister who was never far from his side.

”Hey Prof! We got the stuff”

“Wonderful!” Professor Koa responded with a warm smile, “Just hand it on over to Dr. Yu and she’ll be able to help you do the rest.”

”Scamp evolved while we were out there.” Roxas reported, letting the professor see the new Pokedex entry for Boltund. ”And we found two New Life Pokemon, too. Revavroom and Shieldon. Uh… Geralt has the Shieldon with him, but the Revavroom is with me.”

“Oh?” Professor Koa blinked with surprise, “Congratulations on Scamp’s evolution Roxas, that’s great to hear! May I see the Revavroom you caught by any chance?”

”Sure.” Roxas said, ”She’s not exactly a small Pokemon, so make sure you’ve got room for her in your research area.” With that he released Turbo from her Poke Ball.

“Ah, so that’s a Revavroom? Fascinating!” Koa said, this being his first time seeing a Pokemon of this particular species. He began to use some of his own handheld scanning equipment to scan Turbo for any additional information not provided by the standard Pokedex App.

As Koa was scanning the Pokemon, Geralt entered the lab, giving the gathered trainers a nod. “Here I am.” He announced, unclipping Tirn's great ball from his belt and releasing the Shieldon from its storage. “And here is Tirn.”

“Ah, very good.” Koa said, “Just let me perform some initial scans before you go and I should have enough to research for the time being.”

Meanwhile the kids who’d not captured any new pokemon headed over to Dr. Yu. The sector hybrid, her complealty skin covering outfit a mix of labwear and colorful cloth, carefully put away the book she’d been reading and gestured to an empty spot on her section of the lab’s benches.

“Here please”

”Coming up” Jr replied, as he hurried over, hopping up onto a stool, and then started searching an called up armory controle circle to find the needed resources. It was a process that had the Dr leaning in to examine with curiosity, commenting that “Ah, so this is the power that has had Sagi running around ragged”

”Mmm hmm” Rika hummed in confirmation, before asking ”Why, can’t you use it?”

“Hypothetically, but the line between magic and psychic powers is a lot thinner than practitioners of either would have you believe” she replied, which didn’t really explain why this being the case would cause an issue. Before the girl could ask, her brother found their haul in the system, and summoned it onto the lab bench.

They all, including the doctor’s Audino assistant, then had to make a grab for and catch several apricorns that therented to roll off the edge of it

Once the offending fruits were suitably piled up in an improvised cordon, the hybrid doctor took a look at it all, her assistant handing her various tools to confirm that these were not some lookalikes and were indeed the real deal. This process was particularly focused on the tumblestones, the sky blue and black ones being unknown to her, and warenting investigation.

The end result was several beakers with light shavings of the stones in them, some bubbling away, from which the Dr drew the conclusion that “These are indeed of a similar mineral composition, but with some variation that makes them either much lighter or much heavier than what I need to now describe as a ‘typical’ tumblestone. The results of using these should be quite interesting”

This was the point at which Roxas caught up to the Koopa siblings, Koa having now finished his initial scans of Turbo and was now performing one of Tirn for Geralt in his research area. ”So what’s the verdict?” He asked when he entered Dr. Yu’s sector. ”Did we get the right stuff? Geralt should be here in just a minute once the Professor’s done scanning Tirn.”

“Indeed you did” Dr. Yu confirmed as her assistant put her tools away, before warning that “I can’t quite guarantee the effects of the new types of stone however. It will certainly change the throwing trajectory certainly, but beyond that it is possible they may induce more radical effects”

Once Koa finished up with Tirn, Geralt joined the younger Seekers with Dr. Yu, who Geralt was only properly meeting for the first time. Part of him was drawn to the Sectoid, though not in the way Dandelion or Triss might joke about. He blinked the sensation away, removing a great ball from one of his many pouches and presenting it. “Kids mentioned you might want a look at this. And what was that you mentioned about psychic powers…?”

The woman blinked her pitch black eyes, and stopped herself taking a step away from the witcher. It took a moment longer before she moved a gloved hand forwards and took the great ball with a claw like pluck.

“I’ll take a look” she said, before turning away and beginning to dismantle the great ball. Only then did she explain her circumstances.

“I have the capacity for psychic powers as a consequence of having a hybrid of human, sectoid and typhon dna. Most of it comes from the latter, however, and they are a species who feed on the consciousness of others, which means that to use my powers I would need to do the same”

The greatball was popped open by a screwdriver wielded as a lever, giving her access to its guts

“The act and sensation of either consuming or using the resulting powers are deeply repulsive to me, so I do not. It is a repulsion that extends to related things such as magic despite the lack of need to feed to do so. Yet it is still is a repulsion I have no interest in overcoming”

A brief sound of chilling interrupted her explanation as she took a sample of the material composition of the ball

“This is because, unlike the Typhon from whom I draw this power, I have a capacity for empathy. Not merely a mundane one, but the psionic abilities of an empath”

It was only here where she turned back to them, the dissected machine in hand. Her pitch black gaze meeting Geralt’s bright blue eyes, as she explained her initial reaction to him with “Quite simply, I can feel what you feel”

Throughout the conversation, Geralt’s focus began to tunnel on Dr. Yu. More specifically, her head. Unbeknownst to him, Karen Travers’ Brain Eater Psionic ability was urging him to copy her own powers, but Geralt took a deep breath and suppressed the unknown feeling he was getting. “I see. Sounds like a curse.” He instead replied, taking a step back.

“It can be. But it can also be enjoyable. If others are happy, for example, then so am I. It can also allow me to help process the emotions of others” her eyes, almost imperceptibly, flicked to the koopa kids for a moment before returning to Geralt. She took a breath, and explained “What you just experienced is a hunger quite similar to mine. I recommend against feeding it”

“Don’t exactly plan to.” Geralt retorted, sighing. “First time I’ve even felt it. Explains how Travers had so much power, though. Whoreson stole it from others.” A large part of his motivation for fusing with the Major General had been to return to being male and to temper the Orphan’s rage, but at this point he wondered if it wouldn’t be better to remove the Spirit and crush it.

Dr Yu shuddered at the thought, and then nodded in agreement, before holding up the dismantled great ball and saying “in happier news, i can conclude that there is little difference between the mechanics of this ‘great’ ball and a standard pokeball, it is merely reinforced with iron, presumably to make it more durable”

“Should you be able to acquire a supply” she began to say, only for jr to hold up a claw and generate a lump of raw iron in his hand, giving her pause before she concluded that “yes, well, that might do” before plucking the metal from the prince’s palm and setting about doing some quick metallurgical analysis to ensure that it was indeed simply mundane metal.

Roxas, who had politely kept quiet during the discussion, finally spoke now. ”It’s that simple?” He asked in surprise about the Great Ball recipe. ”Hmm, come to think of it…” Roxas pondered aloud, ”...I met a trainer back in Port Meridian who used another type of Poke Ball. It was black and yellow, and he used it to capture a dangerous Dragon Pokemon that was battling us. I wish I’d asked him what kind of Poke Ball that was.”

“There are numerous special types, as far as I am aware, but the professor would be the one to ask on any specifics” the Dr replied, as she set the ball down and pulled a tablet over to herself upon which she began to sketchup blueprints, saying “Hypothetically stronger materials might produce more durable balls, but it is hard to guarantee just how much more that would help, or if they’d have unwanted reactions with the other ingredients” while doing so.

Geralt hummed, nodding towards Junior. “You have to show me that armory trick. Not sure I got the memo on that.”

”Sure. All you do is this and this aaaaand thiiiis” Jr said, flicking out a series of gestures to demonstrate. Geralt watched closely, committing the action to memory.

”Is there a process for how we use our materials to make more balls?” Roxas asked the doctor.

“Leave them with me” She replied, glancing up from her blueprinting work, before informing them “I’ll do some work to get some prototyping work done and then get engineering to use the rest for mass production once I’m satisfied. Assuming all goes well, the results will be in the armory some time tomorrow”

As she explained this, her Audino assistant ambled off to put on a tea kettle by plugging it directly into a port in the ship’s reactor that had been looming over them this entire time.

”Sounds great.” Roxas said, ”Thanks for the help, Dr. Yu - It’s appreciated.” Then he looked between Geralt and the siblings and asked, ”When’s the meeting supposed to start again? We’re not running late are we?”

”Five minutes” Rika informed them from behind the portable game’s console she had been tapping away at during most of the poke-related talk.

“Then we better get going.” Geralt replied, gesturing to the door. “Thanks for the help.” He added, directed at Dr. Yu and Professor Koa.

“Any time”

With the meeting concluded, Sandalphon could finally cross the main event off her calendar to the evening. There was much more to attend to, as always, but now the team had the benefit of a plan for what to do next, and a couple central figures to rally around going forward. Of course, Sandalphon was well aware that some members of the team disagreed with the final result, seeing another leadership role as a feather in their caps that they rightfully deserved, and/or had no plans of obeying her. Perhaps they didn’t see the need to heed another’s advice, or didn’t think she was qualified, or simply didn’t respect her. The results when she tried to reorganize the teams during the final battle in the Qliphoth were proof of that.

Still, she did not intend to be an exacting taskmaster, or to flex her authority for the sake of it, and knew that she could trust her subordinates in the majority of moment-to-moment situations. It would be up to her to demonstrate her abilities in the days and weeks to come in order to earn everyone’s trust. At the very least, she had plenty of experience with managing strong personalities, and not just with her old team in Grams. DespoRHado had been full of such personalities, from idealists to nihilists to sadists, all of them lethal and fearless, but her skills had earned a modicum of respect from even the likes of them. To Sandalphon, it would have honestly been such a relief if another Seeker had truly been better suited for this role. That would have allowed her to focus on her miracles or marksmanship for instance, or maybe even find a hobby. Ultimately, though, the archangel was a born leader, and if she was needed, she would rise to the occasion, even if she might have wished otherwise.

She’d been a little worried that the end of the meeting would cause a stampede to the cafeteria, but her worries quickly proved to be unfounded. A handful of Seekers went in different directions, such as downstairs toward the Spirit Chamber. Nobody had been planning to fuse or respec as far as she knew, but plenty had obtained spirits with which to barter for information from the local rumormonger. Sandalphon did not like Vulgrim one bit -angels and demons seldom mixed- but she couldn’t deny the usefulness of the service he provided. They had two very different methods of amassing information, after all.

It didn’t take an analyst to tell how tired everyone was, though. After the incredibly tense and nerve-wracking trudge through the timefall that morning, all the Seekers exerted themselves non-stop within the Qliphoth, and the Gravemind fight had been the heroes’ most demanding battle so far. Sandalphon couldn’t imagine what might have happened had the planners not fielded literally every Seeker they had. And after all that, most of them had gone off and gotten themselves into even more fights in the Paved Wilderness, with only a short break in between for lunch. How were those people still standing? It truly boggled the mind, but at least Sandalphon had a better grasp of their maximum output. Hopefully there would be more to their lives in this world than fighting all the time, though.

Naturally all of Sandalphon’s overthinking meant that she left the Bridge toward the end of the procession, and naturally Nadia could be found at the front. Even she was much slower than usual, though. After returning to the Avenger she’d plopped down in her room for a nice catnap -she hadn’t changed afterward either, so she was still in an oversized white t-shirt and black spats- but she was still pretty pooped. Nevertheless, the aroma emanating from the mess hall had Nadia psyched up, and for good reason. It had been a challenge, but Bracket Brace had conquered the gigantic truck hermit crab legs delivered by the Koopa Kids last night. Bracket had stir-fried a bunch of it with chopped iron and calcium-rich seaweed, slightly bitter kajime algae, and black vinegar to make a chewy and savory seafood dish, enough to make twenty plates. She had way more crab meat than vegetables, though, so the rest of it got sliced up into wedges and served like flower petals around cups of sweet and tangy cocktail sauce, placed in the center of each table and routinely replenished so that half a dozen people could enjoy each at once. The richness of the meal was further enhanced by about three dozen dinner rolls, and the smell of freshly-baked bread was wafting down the halls. In no time at all, the cafeteria was packed with both Seekers and Lost Numbers for a buttery feast.

Nadia had one contribution of her own, though. She crushed the two Bunger spirits and added the two cheesy barbeque bacon burgers to the buffet. Too tired to bother trying to think of a way to get one to Juri in particular, she settled for them being a general-purpose prank instead and just hoping Juri snatched one up on account of its rarity. Unfortunately for the treacherous feral, the itemized burgers had none of their original forms’ transformative power, so anyone who took one would receive nothing more than a delicious and decadent burger.

After obtaining a plate full of rolls, crab, and vegetables, as well as a tall glass of cola with ice, Nadia seated herself at the same table as Sandalphon, who had not joined the buffet line, but grabbed a coffee and sat down to pick at the central crab platter. Nadia plopped down right next to the archangel with a smile. “Hey boss! You don’t mind if I call you boss now, right? Seein’ as you’re officially the boss and all!”

Sandalphon shook her head. ‘Boss’ would be quicker and more efficient to say than ‘Sandalphon’ or even ‘Halo’ during battlefield communication, after all. “By all means.”

“You got it, bwoss!” Nadia teased, using the exaggerated inflection of a typical Medici mafioso. She grabbed a roll and chowed down, its insides warm, moist with butter, and pillowy soft. Tears practically welled up in her eyes. Where have you been all my life!? She sniffed, wiped at her eyes as she chewed, then raised an eyebrow at Sandalphon. “So. Gotta question. Very important for the upcoming operation, I think.”

The archangel nodded, her brows lowered as her expression turned serious. “Of course, what is it?”

“If you were a dessert, what would you be?”

Sandalphon’s pupils blinked off, her face as blank as a mask. Then her pupils returned as question marks. “...I’m not sure. I do like honey, but honey is a meal, not a dessert.”

Nadia’s eyebrows went up as she munched on a mouthful of crab. Huh???

Still thinking, Sandalphon ran a hand through her hair. She seemed to be giving the matter an awful lot of thought. “Abstract questions like these are not exactly my forte, but it is important to challenge myself.” She crossed her arms and looked at Nadia. “What do you think?”

“Hmm…” Nadia rested her head in her hand as she chewed. After a moment, she swallowed and pointed a finger at Sandalphon. “I think…vanilla ice cream, yeah!”

Sandalphon tilted her head, her pupils inverted triangles. “Why?”

Having not thought that far ahead, Nadia froze. “Because…uh…you’re really…white?”

Tora, who was just now passing by with his own plateful of feed and Poppi on tow, overheard and shot Nadia a questioning look. “Meh meh! Friend cannot just call person white!”

“Aw, go stuff your face, furball!” Nadia called back good-naturedly. Poppi rolled her eyes and kept Tora moving, so the feral turned her attention back to Sandalphon. “I mean, vanilla isn’t bad. It’s the classic, right? Goes with anything. Everyone loves vanilla!”

Although confused for a moment, Sandalphon seemed genuinely touched by that last statement. “They do?” If that was a dessert that everyone could be expected to appreciate, maybe she could try some with Zenkichi. Her pupils became loading rings. “...Vanilla ice cream, you said?”

“Yeah!” Nadia was gaining momentum now. “Vanilla with, like…bacon bits!”

That took the archangel aback. “Bacon? Do humans actually put that on ice cream?”

“They do!” Nadia insisted, grabbing another roll before turning a knowing smile on Sandalphon. “You do.”

She said it with such conviction that Sandalphon found herself unable to argue, so after cycling through a few symbols she quietly reached for a crab wedge to nibble as she pondered the implications.

The divine had a lovely sail across the lake on her wind swept lilypad, which gave her plenty of time to be amused by the other’s antics, at least after the first time Harry fell in. Once it was clear that he was not going to drown, she got to enjoy his suffering for a little bit. Then after a bit she started to get a bit sad at how often it kept happening, if not a little impressed at how he kept picking himself up regardless, and started using ink bullets to poking logs closer together so his jumps would be easier.

Band’s trip across was 100% entertaining meanwhile. Or 90% entertaining. The sight of the man sonically propelling himself through the sky was a marvel to behold, but she didn’t get the reference he made before doing it, giving him a confused head tilt till for his attempt at humor as he flew away.

After that, on the far shore, she had some catching up to do, but following in Heismay’s fleesteps was hardly a problem for her, the wolf leaping and double jumping her way after the man-bat with relative ease. As she got closer, her ears picked up the tail end of him and Big Band’s conversation, or rather Heismay’s spiel about monsters with hearts of gold vs monsters hiding behind masks.

The divine in wolf’s clothing could relate. She’d not be here, helping out, had the three humans rejected her presence like the townsfolk had after all. Of course, part of this was the result of her difficulty in communicating, but she did her best to share her comradery with Heismay’s circumstances by padding over and settling down next to him as they watched the others try and climb up.

She also gave Harry a bit of a breeze of his own to try and help dry him off, cold as that might be, once he finally reached the other side of the lake.

Once all back together they headed for a dark cave, in which Amatarasu’s pupils widened as far as they could in order to drink in the light. Even then she could see only slightly better than the others, making her pad forward carefully just in case there was something lurking in the dark. If it was spooky for them to come this way, she could only worry about how scared it would make a child, even if the fact about them being taken here for their safety was true.

Fortunately, there was light at the end of the tunnel, light which revealed a collection of haphazard homes decorated with artwork that likely belonged to the children they were seeking.

Amatarasu kept her ears perked and her senses sharp, just in case there was some incredibly elaborate trap going on here, but given that Heismay could have simply left them wandering around the haunted mansion for who knew how long if he’d wanted, it seemed unlikely that they were in danger. The sounds of childish voices coming from one of the doors certainly seemed to agree with that, and the sight of them after it was opened up confirmed it.

A moment later they were inside, and the divine was being pet all over her sleek white coat by a whole host of grubby little hands. Had it been anyone or anything other than children, she might have snapped at them, or at least backed off, but she was willing to suffer through this indignity for their sake.

Though she was rather overwhelmed by the petting, the chattering and scents of many strangers crowding around her, she did her best to take in the room to see if she could pick up any clues about this very large ‘Molly’ person.

Though she could hear nor see anything unusual, even with her sharper senses, there was the distinct scent of spiders in the room, which was odd, given it was as neat and tidy as a palace housing this many kids could be. Certainly no cobwebs in sight, or at least anywhere near enough to produce this distinctive a smell. Having learned from her prior mistake in tracking the bat smelling rather than human smelling Heismay however, she now had a guess that this scent belonged to a spider-y person.

While the Original Amatarasu might have drawn a connection between this guess, combined with Molly’s supposed size, and had the Spider Queen she had once slain come to mind, for this one the Chaos Witch Quelaag was instead her touchstone for the concept of giant spider woman.

Neither of these were particularly nice beings to be compared too.

The lack of any kind of demonic scent prevented any jumping to conclusions for this, but the divine did wonder how exactly such a large spider woman, assuming that was what she was, was doing all the things she was supposedly doing. Between feeding herself and all these children, getting them all the things toys, paints and such, and breaking into town to kidnap/rescue them in the first place, she certainly had her work cut out for her, and she had to wonder how anyone could have missed her doing these things.

She could have run around and tried to find out on her own but, well.

Being pet was actually kinda nice.

After feeding the demon in the ship’s bowls for a lead about tapes, the koopa kids headed back up to get some grub. Gurb which turned out to be stuff they themselves had put on the menu. Well, them and Geralt, but Jr at the very least was willing to claim credit for people having food on the menu.

It was a touch late for that to add to his extremely unearned shared third place in the leadership contest however, and so soon enough the pair had plopped themselves down to eat and began demolishing two very hearty portions. Growling kids needed plenty of fuel after all.

Roland, even though he had left Vulgrim before the koopa kids, came in a bit late as he took a quick look at a few people to see how they felt about the ‘election’. While he wanted to talk to Ganondorf or Sectonia, the latter had gone to get herself ‘beautied up’, as Roland understood it and the former was a bit difficult to find. But as he went to grab some food, food that had apparently been made from a list of food that Seekers had requested, he saw the two koopa kids.

Grabbing a toasted sandwich made from ‘what the other seekers liked, but in sandwich form’ to see what everyone else liked, Roland made his way to the two kids. Unlike the two of them, he didn’t have a ton of food, only a large sandwich and accompanying products. ”Hey, whatcha eating?” Roland said, casually sitting next to Jr and Rika.

”Cwab” Rika replied through a mouthful of cocktail sauce coated meat, to which Jr added ”That we got for everyone!” before noticing that the man wasn’t actually having some, interrupting his pre-canned spiel.

Rika took over, in a way, by insisting that ”Sss good” and to be fair the girl certainly seemed to be enjoying herself and her ‘everything on offer on one plate’ meal.

”Ah. Might go grab some. Had the feeling for a sandwich myself.” Roland said. ”I doubt you two have been to HamHamPangPang, but they’re sandwiches are pretty good. If we find ourselves at Midgar…. Assuming it gets fixed… I can take you there sometime. Glad that place at least transferred over in the whole mess.” Roland said, striking conversation.

”Ohhh right, you came over from that big place, right? What was the whole deal there?” Jr asked, to which Rika added ”n what happened to Peach? Turned into a monster or sumin before becoming P?” a point her brother had sort of not wanted to touch on.

”Well, yes and no. I guess here in this world yeah I did, although i’m from a place called City or The City, pretty simple. But yeah I can talk about Midgar and what I did there.” Roland said, grabbing a bite from his sandwich before he began.

”So, in Midgar, I was known as a ‘turk’, or basically a fixer hired by Shinra, one of the big leaders of that city. Zenkichi was also one. We were basically secret police or cops. Almost like I was a Claw… if Claws weren’t actually there in Midgar. I don’t know, do you guys have those?” Roland said, a simple subtle probing question.

”I uh, got claws, yeah?” Jr replied as he held up a clawed hand, while Rika happily informed him that ”and I've got some on my feet now!”

”Uh, I mean, they’re named after their claws. But they are super soldiers from my world that use various serums to heal, get stronger and faster, or rip you through time and space. I got hit by the receiving end of one of those attacks. Let me tell you, it really hurts.” Roland said, clarifying.

”So like a guard like Undyne?” Rika guessed, referring to a monster woman they had a tape recording of, and who Jr was fused with, before saying ”Fleet didn't need those. Everyone fought.”

”Guess papa had, like, some guards or stuff I dunno” Jr replied, not at all familiar with this sort of law enforcement thing, especially since the idea of police and cops was pretty rare where he came from. Not unheard of. But certainly not something most kingdoms had.

”Maybe like. The captains? Or… me! I’m a Claw!” he suddenly decided, looking very pleased with himself.

”I wouldn’t call a Claw a guard. More like… You did something the Head didn’t like or didn’t pay your taxes, so they sent a super powered cyborg soldier to ‘teach you a lesson’ Guards are more a Fixer or Feather job.” Roland said. He then heard Jr. talking about saying he was one, and Roland had to say something about that.

”You… are not a Claw.” Roland said. He then clarified ”That's a good thing, by the way.” Although this exchange gave him a lot more info than he thought. So Jr. was a royal that either didn’t mingle with people all that much, mingled a lot and was part of a ‘peaceful’ kingdom which was something Roland couldn’t believe, or was still young and didn’t actually understand things like that. If he had to guess, he’d guess the last one.

”Anyway, as I was saying… We had a big problem over there. It was called the Ever Crisis. Basically these three groups, all evil in different ways, were trying to take over Midgar. One turned people into monsters, which is what Peach got affected by. One of the factions of Midgar, the psychic police, really wanted to use them. They were pretty crazy, all things considered. Then there was a faction of robots trying to take over the city form the outside which corrupted Poppi and changed her to what you see now, and finally, a faction that was invisible unless you had some special goggles that infected you with some kind of ‘red shift’, which was really really bad. It turned you into a different kinda monster.” Roland said, giving a quick summary of Midgar.

”At the end of the day, most of the Ever Crisis was being propped up by the Consuls and the ‘good’ factions of Midgar, IE, Shinra, Armstrong, the Psi corps, ext… Strangely if I had to say, it was kinda like a war between wings… err… corporations. And we went to the source of power of Midgar and took out a Consul, made another one run, and finally took out a Guardian which Susie took.” Roland finished. He then bit more into his sandwich as he let the kids absorb all that.

”Sounds, uh, complicated. We mostly ran around caves full of squicky zombies, loads and loads of bugs, friendly people that got called monsters, silly pizza minions and undead dancer dungeons looking for bits of masks. With the odd freaky scary awful thing that Galeem just loooooves to throw in there”

”Freaky cookie baking grandmas, the weirdo head of the pizza tower, that super spooky jail thing with the angel who thought he was from a book instead of real” Rika added, before saying ”Still not as bad as the Maw though, urgh” which caused them both to shudder and unconsciously shuffle in their seats just a little closer together.

”Plus we took out the old P who was just some jerk kid really, and then, uh, might have let F get away because we were too busy gloating about taking down the Guardian instead of just finishing him off. You know. The usual bad guy thing” Jr concluded, as if taking down the area Guardian was entirely an afterthought.

”Right… ” Roland said, not discrediting the kids, but noting their adventure seemed like a stroll through a cartoon show or a really weird Star. ”Was the cookies from the cookie grandma or the pizza from ‘pizza tower’ any good?” Roland said, picking out something to chat about.

”The Pizza was good! Didn’t get any of the cookies, though. But those grandmas were just, so weird. So There was probably something wrong with them?” Rika guessed, to which Jr nodded in agreement. It wasn't exactly clear why the eldritch horrors that looked vaguely like grandma had been baking so many cookies, but it could have only been to sinister ends, of that he was certain.

”I see… Ah, a bit of a shame then. ” Roland said, munching on more sandwich. He then asked another question. ”So you beat P and did you beat F? You said he ran away? What happened there?” Roland asked.

”He was all sad and mad that we beat the Guardian, but we didn’t shoot him in the face before he got better and ran away. Really fast digger, so we couldn’t catch him after he left” Rika explained, still unsure why didn’t just blast him.

”Also he could rewind time and do like, plant stuff apparently. Never did straight up fight us though. Wrecked a lift, got a town to try and kill us, threw a bunch of infected people at us, stuff like that. Only reason we know how he fights is coz Kamek tried to take him one on one after he took out the lift” Jr added, before summarising his opinion of F by saying that he was ”A big cowardly jerk”

”I heard Sectonia babbling about how she ‘extorted’ F to get information on the other Consuls and thats why we knew A was such a problem. A bit of a shame he escaped though, Let me know what he looks like.” Roland said, giving the two the idea he’d stroke down F. Although much like Sectonia, he’d like to get info from him first if he could…

”Lost numbers already knew that tho, so we should have just shot him” Rika retorted, despite this argument being entirely based on massive amounts of hindsight.

”He’s got a mask like a sun or a flower. Or a sunflower. Plus usually has these green thorny vines coming from his back that he uses to get about”

Roland nodded, noting that he hadn’t run into anything like that, as well as how nondescript that was. Honestly, it sounded like they were hunting a consul based on a childs drawing in that regard. ”So you asked me about Midgar, what about where you're from? Whats that like?” Roland asked.

”Pretty different, I guess? I mean Papa’s kingdom is all, like, lava and volcanoes and we live in a big castle. I think it's pretty great, but Papa wants to take over the mushroom kingdom for some reason which is super boring, all grass and rolling hills n stuff” Jr explained fairly simply the dynamic of his home, before adding that there were ”Not many humans either. Some, but not like here where it's, like, allllll humans all over. We’ve got like Koopa and Goombas and Boos and all sorts of people, and that’s just Papa’s people. There’s like a people for every place back home, where as here its not like that at all”

Rika’s was much more scant on details, the former Abyssal minion saying simply that ”There was an ocean, and the fleet, which sent me to fight some ship girl, and then I died” because that was more or less all she’d know about it, which was why she was of the opinion that ”So whatever happens at the end of this, I’m gonna stick with my brother instead of going back there”

Roland had no idea what those things were, although with Rika’s story in particular, and how sparse she was on it, it sounded like she came from a rough place. As for Jr… He loved lava and hated grass? Rolling hills and such? Roland could only barely conceive of something like that as grass wasn’t green where he came from. In fact, there wasn’t any of it unless you were on the Outskirts, and that was mostly just dead or brown.

”So what did you two usually do where you come from? Although I got a feeling from the sounds of it Rika you don’t wanna talk about it. If so thats fine. Also, why is lava fun and grass isn’t?” That last bit was what confused Roland.

”Not much too it. I got made to die and then in a few days I did. I only really had my own life here, and that’s only after Kamek freed me. Galeem might have messed stuff up for everyone else, but for me, I wouldn’t be me without it. Kinda like the lost numbers I guess” Rika explained rather personally, while Jr’s own reply was entirely vibes based ”Coz its cooler. Or hotter. Or. Like. You just gotta see it”

”I see. I only saw this ‘Kamek’ for a very short time but that sounds good. Who is he?” Roland said. As for the lava thing, he really couldn’t wrap his head around it. He then noted Jr. and said. ”I’d just think there being lava everywhere it’d be dangerous and make you really thirsty all the time with how hot it’d be. Also come to think of it, who is Bowser Sr. ?”

”Wait, you never met papa?” ”Or Kamek?” the kids asked together, before both looking sad as they realized that it had been over an entire week since both left, and that this kinda thing was only going to become more common.

”Bowser’s our papa! He’s big, and strong, and funny and he’s the one who’s gonna kick Galeem’s light bulb butt and take over this whole world” Jr insisted, before adding ”Y’know once he’s done running around after Peach that is”

”And Kamek is papa’s not papa. He’s smart and does big spells and gives papa advice that he sometimes listens too” Rika explained, before adding that ”and he went to keep an eye on papa” explaining his absence.

Roland wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe he expected a bit more from the kids explaining things, but this was also a good insight. Well, much like he thought, these ones didn’t know the weight of what they were asking. He would internally complain about the votes, but knowing 3 of the votes… yeah that made little sense to do.

”Does your papa run around after Peach often?” Roland hadn’t met the princess for very long. Well, in a state where she could talk and wasn’t a monster. Although was that the same Peach or was that a coincidence?

”Yeah. Or. Well most of the time he just kidnaps her, and then Mario comes to rescue her. We all fight him but he always wins and then we do it all again” the prince replied, as if all this was just a fact of life.

”Mario’s a plumber with a red hat and he jumps on things” Rika added very helpfully

”Kidnap? So are you guys like a crime kingdom or something or is there something I’m not getting? Or are you guys like at war or something?” Roland said, a bit confused as to what Jr. said. Was he getting the wrong word or something?

”Huh? Oh” Jr said, realizing the missing info here, and explaining it really simply by saying that ”We’re the bad guys, and Papa’s the biggest baddest bad guy of em all”

”Oh…” Roland said, really not sure what to make of that one. The kids didn’t seem bad, but then Ganondorf called himself evil and he wasn’t nearly as evil as some people Roland knew. He’d need to observe more, which he’d have time to do later.

”So… what do you two want to do now? Well, besides eat.” Roland said, finishing his sandwich while the kids talked.

”Guess there’s that memorial thing but” Jr replied, before making a sound of uncomfortable displeasure, and saying that ”but it seems like it’d just be sad” and clearly not wanting to confront that emotion.

”besides, it's not like they’re really gone. They’ll just have forgot some stuff”

”Oh I didn’t mean like, right after this. But like, what do you plan on doing in the next few weeks and stuff. Like… are you going to look at finding an amusement park, or get people to join your kingdom or just do seeker stuff?” Roland said. He was restraining himself to not be sassy to the two kids like he might’ve been if he wasn’t trying to learn about them.

”Oh uh” Jr replied, looking a bit embarrassed by the misunderstanding, and then a bit huffy as he tried to think of a way to insist this was Roland’s fault.

Before he could do that, Rika answered ever so bluntly ”We’re gonna kill Galeem. Then papa’s going to take all its power and take over the world, and make it one where there’ll be no more horrible nightmare ships or ten year life spans or princesses using me like a disposable peon”

So, if Roland wanted to continue his inquiry, he’d have to see who this ‘Bowser’ was. Jr. was mostly a dead end when it came to his whole ruler investigation. But things were insightful all the same.

”Well… I guess we’ll see what happens. I don’t know much about him, so I can’t say one way or the other.” Roland said. He’d be up to chat about anything, but he was done with his ‘royalty’ sorta questions for now. All that was left was the other two, who he might be able to ask more direct questions.

”You’ll just have to meet him when he gets back!” Jr replied, with Midna agreeing with an ”mmm”. Roland gave them a nod.