Ganondorf had not left the stagecoach just yet. His body was still rather sore from the near-trampling he took in his previous fight against the elephant carcass. His current condition thanks to the Gravemind spirit was already proving itself to be a nuisance, even after only just one day. Also in the stagecoach was Sandalphon, who thus far had taken it upon herself to stay with the ride even as the other Seekers were fanning out during their travel through Krat Zoo.

When Ganondorf joined her in the stagecoach's interior, Sandalphon gave a nod of acknowledgement but didn't talk to him straight away. Instead they coexisted quietly, if not silently, thanks to the clatter and creak of the wagon, and the intermittent yelps of the rat outside. After a bit, though, the archangel gave voice to the question that had been running through her mind.

"A question if I may, Ganondorf. Given the precarious but powerful position the members of Moebius find themselves in, it's reasonable to assume they would resort to anything to prolong their own existence. For the sake of preparedness, I wanted to ask: in your world, has there ever been anyone who successfully cheated death, to your knowledge?"

”Hmm.” The warlord hummed, his brow furrowed with thought. He was currently eating a fruit that he found among the Seekers’ food rations to try and help his regeneration process along. ”Such magic certainly exists in my world. And it can even take a number of forms.” After another bite, he looked closely at the Triforce humming on the back of his right hand.

”The Triforce, for instance. Even a single piece such as the one I carry grants great power. But if all the pieces were held together? Then legend states it can even grant the holder’s greatest wish. I imagine something like immortality would be child’s play.” He paused to take another bite of fruit. ”But there is power to be found in death and undeath as well. There are many such cases in my world of the dead continuing to linger in the form of Poe spirits or undead creatures called ReDeads. If anyone from Moebius hails from my world or has a cursory knowledge of such things, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that they might try to use such methods to maintain themselves.”

Sandalphon pursed her lips, her pupils in the shape of inverted triangles. Lingering as an undead was not an option, and it seemed well beyond her to claim even one piece of the Triforce, let alone three. For the sake of keeping up pretenses, though, she continued with her clinical inquiries. At the very least, these methods would hopefully be impossible for Moebius as well, so long as they did not hail from Ganondorf’s world. “And these are the most practical methods you’re aware of?”

”They are what I’m… most familiar with.” Ganondorf clarified for the archangel. ”Hardly practical, of course. But then again, achieving eternal life rarely is, is it?” He gave her a knowing expression as he scarfed down the remaining bits of the fruit he had been eating. He considered grabbing another one to further along his regeneration but decided against it, thinking it better not to burn through rations so quickly.

”Perhaps an alternative is to simply join them?” Ganondorf suggested with a wide grin, the pretenses slipping for just a moment. ”That is what the Seekers’ previous leader did.” He added in reference to Princess Peach.

Sandalphon’s pupils changed into vertical slits. “The princess had been transformed into an Other, and subjected to constant, extreme mental pain, to the point where she couldn’t even think without consuming a serum synthesized from human brain matter. Subjected to such torment and despair, it is not a surprise that she would take any alternative.” She looked away, her expression cold. “My point is that there are far worse fates than death. Barring any explicit brainwashing, Moebius are still immortal parasites. Such an existence could twist anyone into a monster.” She placed a hand upon her chest. “My existence is of little consequence. I am not interested in eternal life, especially if it would make me into a tool for evil.” Considering who she was speaking to, she might have entertained the thought that Ganondorf wanted to become Moebius itself, if not for the implied thralldom to Galeem.

In some other iteration, Ganondorf would have certainly joined Moebius. Not this one though. The warlord had already developed a burning hatred for Moebius and thus wouldn’t be caught dead among their ranks. ”I’d heard of her unfortunate… transformation.” Ganondorf finally said, ”Though I must admit this is the first time I’ve heard it in detail.” He paused for a long moment before finally adding, ”Truly a shame.”

”Well,” Ganondorf said, ”Whatever it is you’re planning to do with this knowledge you're gathering, do use it wisely, won’t you?” He asked, deciding he’d regenerated enough and got ready to get out of the stagecoach. ”I’d hate to have to sit through another dull discussion about electing a new leader.”

Sandalphon turned pupils like asterisks on him. “Are you sure? Without me in the way, your claim would be much stronger.”

”You would think that.” Ganondorf conceded, ”But I think we both know there’s enough people in our ranks who simply would never be persuaded to trust me.”

Question marks greeted his response, as if he’d piqued her curiosity, but Sandalphon did not feel comfortable enough with her understanding of human emotion to inquire further.

”Let’s just say,” Ganondorf said, ”That the well’s already been poisoned. By that Twilight Princess, and by Bowser to a lesser extent.” With that, he departed from the stagecoach so he could rejoin the other Seekers and resume exploration of the Krat Zoo. The damage he’d sustained from the elephant fight earlier wasn’t completely recovered. But this would suffice for the time being. Ganondorf made a mental note to himself to invest in carrying spare food to eat for recovery in the future to avoid these kinds of annoyances.

Blazermate, having been controlling the ever growing zombie meatball, was informed that the Raindrix hauling the stage coach were getting weary of the giant zombie. It was getting big after all, and it was getting spooky. Maybe it was time to get rid of it? She'd prefer not to, but maybe if the zombie got really big her shield wouldn't command it anymore? Well, she could always build up another one. So when Sandalphon informed her of something in front of the stage coach, alongside Edward's idea to keep the zombie in front of them, Blazermate said. "Oh, if theres something down there, I'll send my zombie down to investigate." and with that, Blazermate told her meatball to roll down into the basin and investigate what was down below. Granted with how slow it was, Ace would probably figure things out long before it got there. Perhaps they could just leave it there... its not like it could roll itself out very easily. Although that being said, she was sure Sandalphon or Sectonia would want to smite the thing themselves. They were free to do so if they wanted once it was stuck.

Sectonia meanwhile was looking around for more points of interest and while some caught her eye, they were pretty far away. She could investigate or point them out later, depending on where the stage coach was going. But for the mean time, she stood guard over it. She overheard the conversation Sandalphon and Ganondorf were having, being partially in the stage coach at the time. While she couldn't really add too much about the power of undeath, as she had very little interest in raising the dead, she could add her own little anecdote to the whole conversation. "What Mobeius does to extend their lives is quite negligent. The core principle; leaching off the life of others to extend ones own, is sound. The problem is the wanton abuse and destructive nature of how they go about it. If the world didn't supply them with an infinitely respawning mechanism, they'd destroy the world and themselves given enough time."

While she wouldn't outright say that Sectonia herself extended her life and those loyal to her using this method, she knew that you could do so in such a way that your subjects never knew or cared. "Even if we have 10 years, and that was all funneled into a flame clock, with how much fighting goes on it seems like the way mobieus does things is incredibly inefficient." She herself had mostly perfected this method, and could make a lot out of very little. No subject would be against losing a single year of their lifespan when that year would be when they were old and unable to do anything but sit and wait for death, but she supposed Mobeius having nearly infinite resources in their eyes didn't care about such things as efficiency or reviewability or stability.

”Puppeteer of… Death?” Roxas muttered incredulously at the announcement with a shrug of his shoulders. ”Sure, why not?” He’d been keeping pace with the stagecoach for a while now, but soon spotted Heismay waving him over and inviting him to run ahead.

”You got it.” Roxas said, accepting the offer. As a result, he and Heismay had basically sped their way through the Endangered Species Zone. The human carcasses that noticed them were too slow and unintelligent to hinder them. And as a bonus they would have their backs turned once the stagecoach and remaining Seekers reached them for easy pickings. That left Roxas and Heismay able to dash through the zone almost unhindered.

But it was after they entered the Rainforest Zone and rounded the Boardwalk that things suddenly got… complicated. There was yet another elephant carcass - if it could even be called that - to deal with, but there was another outsider here as well. A girl shooting volleys of fireballs in an attempt to take down the monster. Heismay was quick to offer his help and jump in, and Roxas was inclined to do the same. But rather than leap in immediately, Roxas knew they had to play this smart. If this was anything like the carcass he and Ganondorf fought earlier, then the Nobody already knew he had some buddies that could help mitigate the danger.

”Turbo! Shocker!” Roxas called, throwing a pair of Poke Balls that released his Revavroom and Rotom respectively - and the Rotom was still currently in its Refrigerator-shaped Frost Form. ”We could use some help. Turbo, use Screech! And Shocker? Use Double Team and follow up with Confuse Ray!” Both Pokemon eagerly complied. Turbo revved her engines and sped forward to get within range for Screech. Meanwhile Shocker started darting through the air and leaving behind countless afterimages that would throw off the accuracy of any attack thrown at it. After that, Roxas himself vanished on the spot.

Once she was close enough, Turbo let loose with an ear-splitting shriek by revving her engine in a high enough pitch. The resulting sound-based attack sharply lowered the defense of the attacking carcass. And at roughly the same time, Shocker made its move - appearing right in front of the crocodile head and flashing its eyes with Confuse Ray, quickly teleporting out of the way before the maw could snap on it. And then, as if perfectly timed, Roxas reappeared directly behind the crocodile head, the StepSword’s energy blade ignited.

”Gotcha!” He shouted, tagging the crocodile head with his StepSword. But Roxas’ assault was far from done. While still hanging in midair, Roxas brandished his Keyblades and performed a series of follow up strikes that he ended with a powerful Cross Slash. He might have tried to take it further, but had to make sure he was out of the way when a volley from Mukou came surging in. As such, Roxas let gravity take him back to the ground and hitched a ride on Turbo to put some brief distance between himself and the carcass while it took the blasts from Mukou.

Once Turbo screeched to a halt, Roxas hopped off of the Revavroom’s chassis and recalled her to her Poke Ball. ”Thanks, Turbo. That was great work.” He praised the Pokemon as he took a brief moment to survey the situation. Mukou’s fireballs struck true. And it looked like Heismay was going in for a followup but was suddenly hosed by a retaliatory frost breath attack!

”Heismay!” Roxas cried, concern washing over him for the well-being of his new friend and ally. And as soon as the dust cleared from the previous attacks, Roxas vanished and was on the move again, this time with Shocker flying beside him to provide support. When he reappeared, Roxas again tagged the crocodile head with his StepSword. ”Leave my friend alone!”

This time Roxas really laid into the carcass with a flurry of furious Keyblade strikes. He even summoned a cluster of virtual cubes that he used to launch himself around and keep his aerial assault going. ”Electro Ball!” Roxas commanded, his Rotom darting around alongside its trainer and tagging the carcass with Electro Ball while Roxas launched around and slashed at it with his Keyblades. The confused carcass was still muddled thanks to the earlier Confuse Ray, resulting in its attempted retaliation only ending with self-inflicted damage. ”Haaa!” Roxas hurled both Keyblades at the crocodile head with extra oomph before he finally let himself fall back to the ground.

Once there, Shocker blipped in next to its trainer, awaiting a command. ”Light!” Roxas chanted, using Oathkeeper to share his own Light with the Rotom by his side. ”Let’s end it, Shocker!” Roxas said, instinctively performing a very specific pose as if moving automatically. Whatever he did, it caused a lot of energy to gather around Shocker.

“Roto-to-to-to!” The Pokemon cried as it finally unleashed the attack that was charged up by sharing Light with its trainer. A powerful blast of crackling electrical energy shot forward like it was fired from a cannon. The blast hurtled forward and crashed directly into the elephant carcass, resulting in massive Electric-type damage that finally appeared to be what felled the beast. Roxas watched as the carcass perished in the same way as any other, leaving behind a Spirit.

”Phew!” Roxas said, panting as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, ”Thanks Shocker, that was awesome. Return!” Roxas praised as he recalled the Rotom back into its Poke Ball for a well-earned rest. At this point Roxas dug in his bag for one of the 5 Mana Potions he borrowed from the Avenger and downed it. It didn’t restore his MP right away, but it significantly shortened the wait time for his charge to run out.

That allowed him to regroup with Mukou and Hesmay after he scooped up the elephant’s spirit and immediately spent his MP again. ”Heal!” He chanted with a Keyblade held aloft over his head. This caused a little bell to sound over the trio’s heads as green spectral leaves washed over them and healed the damage they’d sustained. ”Is everyone okay?”

As the group continued, following Blazermate getting her unsettling zombie golem thing out of the way, any carcasses that happened close were swiftly put to sword. The walk -as they were back to a walk now, given the layout and danger around the area- was not leisurely in the slightest, but there was at least free time enough to look around and get a sense of where the path might take them. Heismay pointed out those distant flames and left with Roxas to look into them, and Ace pointed out the massive greenhouse that stood behind a tall, thick earthen wall.

"Once we swing around that way we should definitely check that out," he said. They still needed their secret weapon after all, and so far hadn't spotted any wild grown in the forests they'd traveled through or hunted the reindrix in.

The speakers around the area crackling to life and delivering a message from someone Sandalphon had aptly dubbed the 'mastermind' was a surprise, but the vague threat was not followed up on immediately, so the Seekers were left to keep their guard up even more as they progressed. Ace sighed. Just one more thing to look out for.

He considered going ahead to help clear out the way forward, though Edward's golems were doing a fine job of it - and once Geralt had returned from discovering a survivor among the zoo's ruins, he opted to follow the dreadnought's request to investigate the rather suspiciously healthy looking animal. He could have backed the Witcher up in this, but there was one other thing that the Seekers' leader informed them of. If she thought it important enough to mention, then someone ought to look into it.

"Strange like dangerous?" Ace asked her, already preparing to depart from the caravan to check.

Sandalphon tilted her head slightly as her pupils became loading rings for a brief moment. "Indeterminate. It's not a life sign, and what I can read seems low-yield, but one can never be certain." Her pupils narrowed into ovals as she glanced at Ace. "It is most likely magical in origin," she advised him.

Ah. Of course it was. There was a pause, hesitation clear in the hunter's expression. After a long moment of weighing the pros and cons of investigating, Ace pulled a smile back onto his face. It was perhaps less sure than his usual ones, but it was there all the same.

"Thanks for the heads up," he told Sandalphon. Knowing ahead of time had proven to be really helpful when confronting the mystical, even if it was impossible to truly know what the expect. And maybe he was still feeling a little confident since his experiment with the amulet had gone well, because he followed with, "I'll chill go check it out just in case. Besides, if I really wanna get over this thing I gotta freeze the opportunity for some easy exposure therapy while I can, right?"

He stepped to the edge of the emptied river and then slid down the steep embankment, drawing his sword and shield if only to be on the safe side. As the archangel has suggested and Geralt had demonstrated earlier when he doubled back for the wolves, it was a good idea to clear out as many dangers in this area as possible; for the Seekers presently here in case their neglect in ensuring their surroundings were safe led to an ambush, for the allies trailing behind that would have had to contend with whatever they left behind, and for future travelers on the that they could make a little less dangerous.

The iced over dry river bed didn't look much different from the bottom than it had from above. Though the water way had clearly been carved by human hands, once upon a time if looked that great lengths had been taken to make the river as natural a habitat as possible. The ground was hard packed sand, now frozen completely over and producing a soft crunching noise with every step. Smooth water eroded rocks large and small lay scattered around the basin, along with once-sunken logs that hadn't yet crumbled away from the elements. There were grates in the embankment wall that had probably been camouflaged when the river ran, and likely were part of the mechanism that pushed the water along in the first place. It might have looked nice at some point in time, filled with aquatic life. Now, there was nothing here.

Like, literally nothing. There were no carved runes or glowing circles, or anything else that indicated to Ace there was some sort of mysterious magic around the area. He wasn't the best at figuring that stuff out in the first place, so he was trusting Sandalphon's senses, but to his eyes all looked clear. The hunter wasn't about to let a job go unfinished though, so he took to looking around a little longer. Only when he stood at the deepest part of the river basin, a relatively wide area compared to the rest of the canal, did something happen.

Ace's scoutflies reacted first, stirring slightly in their cage and shifting from their green hue to a more subdued, blue-ish one. Then the soft sound of a chime filled Ace's ears, followed immediately by a shimmery flicker around him. Even with the heads up going into the empty river, there was no stopping the swell of anxiety at the sudden magic spell going off, especially when it was accompanied by movement.

The Cadet swung first before anything else, a hard and fast backhanded slash as he twisted around to actually get a look at what had happened. His sword collided with something, briefly solid before it yielded to the blade's edge and all but melted away. The hunter caught a glimpse of soft white wings before it was gone completely.

"Huh?" he said aloud to himself. That couldn't be all, could it? He hadn't felt any hex cast upon him when it died (thankfully), so what was that about? He turned back and spotted a pair of ephemeral butterflies floating off in opposite directions, white but bathed slightly in the blue light still showing through cage affixed to the hunter's coat.

Ace watched them for a moment, trying to puzzle out what their purpose was, if any. They couldn't have been a natural part of the exhibit, assuming the zoo had been normal even after being brought into this world's quilt and it had just degraded over time. As some kind of alarm system they seemed redundant, since this Markiona person already knew the group was here. Still, in the interest of not taking chances Ace raised his slinger at once of the butterflies and fired it. The chain shot out and the claw at the end snatched the insect mid-air, clamping around it and swiftly snapping back to rest in its holster, its capture target snug between the metal claws. Even with the odd situation Ace was elated to see Gemma's tune up had worked out, the speed and accuracy of the slinger increased enough to snatch distant things on the move. Unfortunately, the tool was still built for digging into tough monster hides, rock faces, or catching the hard-shelled backs of his own world's insects - so the clutch claw had actually crushed the butterfly, and this one too faded away before the hunter could get a proper look at it.

One more shot, he thought, flicking a small lever on the slinger and swapping it over to the net attachment. He wasn't sure if he should be destroying these butterflies or not, but he at least knew he didn't want to leave them alone. He shot the slinger once more, and this time the capture net flew out and closed around the last butterfly before it got too high up. It remained intact as it was pulled back in, and the Cadet gingerly pinched the insect's thorax between his fingers as he drew it out of the net.

It was large for a butterfly, and it was pretty. Ethereal, even, as it almost looked to made of delicate light. Definitely not natural, but neither was it hostile. It hardly reacted even as Ace turned it over to look at the pale designs on its wings. He considered what to do with it (bring it to someone else that might be able to deduce more about it, maybe?) when he thought he heard another, far off chiming sound. He was reminded that this thing was probably something like the summons of his allies - created from magic. And so, since it wasn't really alive anyway, Ace gave in to the urge to simply crush it in his hand. Best not leave anything to chance.

He hadn't been expecting an item to form like when crushing a spirit, so when he felt something smooth and heavy come into being in his closed fist a fresh wave of goosebumps formed on his skin. He snapped his hand open, on the verge of just chucking whatever it was, but he was not greeted with anything sinister. Instead, a beautiful opalescent stone sat in his palm.

He took a moment, and a deep breath to quell the last of his nerves, as the scoutflies' blue light faded back to their neutral green. Ace held the sphere up towards the sky, trying to catch any sunlight from behind the clouds. "Well look at you," he said, rolling the stone over between his fingers. It looked like a gem of some sort, the kind that might just slot perfectly into a weapon... or perhaps useful for something else. though the Cadet was still confused about the whole summoned butterfly thing, he couldn't complain when this stone was the result.

A few moments later after ensuring there was nothing else at the bottom of the river bed, Ace's slinger wrapped around the remains of one of the iron bridges leaning out over the dry canal. He pulled himself back up out of the basin just as Blazermate's zom-ball was rolling over, avoiding the thing entirely as it swayed around the area. Now the old river was being used as a dumping ground apparently, cementing its defunct status. Since the stagecoach's pace had slowed considerably it wasn't long at all before the Cadet caught back up. When he arrived to find Geralt back and flecked with ash and blood, he told the man light-heartedly, "man, you should have picked the other quest!"

He showed off his prize to the group, willing to part with it if someone among them could appraise the stone.

After a pause to order (easier said than done for the divine wolf), Cap, Terry and Ammy headed outside, along with Mai. The latter was on her way out anyway, while the former trio headed to sign up at the registration combot that was found outside of the restaurant.

Given they were cutting it fine with the deadline, it was lucky that this one seemed to be out of the way enough to not have the biggest queue, the new team only having to wait on a self declared Goddess of explosions to get through her sign up before their turn would be up.

Which did raise the question, courtesy of Mai, of what this new team was going to be called. It wasn't exactly something Amaterasu could have any input into on the creation side of things, so she turned her snout to the two humans to see what their suggestions would be.

As she waited in a queue, Mai pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. She’d grown impatient by each passing moment. The brunette kunoichi was standing right behind Terry and his team, just wondering if she’d ever make it in time to register her own team, considering the time limit was nearly up. It didn’t help her cause when she’d been searching for Yuri and King prior to going to Pao Pao Café 7, yet somehow, the girls were nowhere to be found. Weird, she thought, but she was planning on registering their names, anyway, despite their absence.

“Hmph! How much longer is it?” Mai grumbled, her face cutely grumpy.

Terry snickered, glancing at his brother’s sweetheart past his shoulder. “Relax, Mai,” he reassured. “It ain’t gonna take long. When this so-called ‘Goddess of Explosions’ is done, best you bet it’s gotta be our turn next.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Mai rolled her eyes, even more exasperated now that she had to give ear to the self-proclaimed goddess’ obnoxious ramble. As was mentioned, she did, in fact, take interest in what Terry’s all-new, all-different team was going to be called. “So, you guys, what do you have for the team’s name?” she asked, the fan in her grasp pensively poking her mandible. “Because I still haven’t decided between ‘Team Women Fighters’ or ‘Team Super Heroines’ for my team yet. Is yours still going to be ‘Team Fatal Fury’ or do you have other names in mind, hmm~?”

“Well, that certainly is a fine question, Mai,” Terry admitted, then tilted his head, thoughtfully scratching his blonde temple. His mind was racing with possible names as we speak, and since Andy and Joe would most likely skip this year’s edition of KOF, naming it ‘Team Fatal Fury’ was, unfortunately, no longer a must. “Both you and I know we usually go by the name ‘Team Fatal Fury.’ Or ‘Team Italy’ during that one time we gotta represent a country. You used to be in my team, though, so you got the gist. But hey, different members, different vibe, amirite? So, yeah, I think we could as well come up with a new name, right, guys?” His blue eyes darted between Cap and Amaterasu, clearly gesturing at them to brainstorm with him as the trio waited for their turn. “Actually, I’ve come up with a bunch of names. ‘Team Hero,’ ‘Team Mark of the Wolves,’ ‘Team Art of Fury,’ ‘Team Smashers,’ ‘Team Maximum Mayhem,’ ‘The Wolves ‘n’ Falcon Connection, and, uh…” He hesitated, briefly stifling his mouth before quietly mentioning “Team Seekers” to both of his teammates and teammates only. “Whaddaya say, Cap, Ammy? Maybe you guys have better names in mind or should we just stick with ‘Team Fatal Fury,’ anyway?”

“Huh?” Mai narrowed her big, brown eyes, curious as to why Terry had to seemingly hide the last name suggestion from her. His voice was so low, she couldn’t even catch what he said past the word ‘Team.’ “Say that again,” she asked the hat-wearing bruiser. “I mean, maybe I can help you with naming the—”

“Say what? ‘Fantastic’?” Terry asked with a teasing voice, feigning obliviousness. He could’ve sworn he nearly let out a cackle at her puzzlement.

Mai sighed. “I always knew you’ve been hiding something from me,” she said with a dropped voice, pouting and puffing her cheeks adorably.

Amaterasu, with her much sharper than human hearing, had heard it just fine, and, frankly, she’d have been just as fine with that name. Ironically, the divine wolf in disguise was not one for hiding in the shadows. Let these ‘Consuls’ come, she thought, and she would show them the might of the sun!

Still, even if she didn’t hold any fear, that didn’t mean she had zero thought for subtly. Just not very much. Hence why when she paused time and scrawled on the nearest wall with her celestial brush she wrote down "Seekers of Fight” instead of “Seekers of Light” before giving a bark to get their attention.

“Yes, Ammy?”

When the furred deity barked, Terry’s attention instantly shifted towards the worn down wall with the words ‘Seekers of Fight’ beautifully written across its bricked surface. His opinion remained unchanged: that, for a ‘wolf,’ Amaterasu wrote immaculately well. His clear, blue eyes darted between the deity and the artistically written name suggestion before eventually fixating on the name on the wall with awe.

“‘Seekers of Fight,’ huh?” Terry asked, narrowing his eyes a little. “I dunno about you guys, but that sounds a hell lot like me. I actually like that, Ammy.” He grinned and nodded in approval before shifting his attention towards Cap and Mai—with the latter finally discovering part of the name Terry quietly suggested earlier. “‘So, um… Cap, Mai, whaddaya say? Do we agree to use that name right there?” he questioned, his thumb gesturing at the painted wall.

The Captain didn’t have any particular objections. The name was simple, snappy, and potentially marketable. All the things that typically made for a good team name.

“Wow, that’s… that’s beautiful!” Mai chimed in, finding herself mesmerized by how the name on the wall was painted, instead. Her eyes glistened, her expression one of astonishment and admiration. “It’s like… one of those Japanese calligraphy paintings in our dojo, Terry! Actually, I thought of ‘Seekers of Fury,’ but this one has a better ring to it. Did you write it all by yourself, Ammy?”

It was a touch belittling in the phrasing put, but the wolf still decided to look smug at her handiwork regardless.

Terry giggled, peering over Mai. “She sure did. She’s a special kinda wolf,” he told her, then leisurely approached the combot right in front of them. Thank God, he thought, the yapping annoyance was done with her registration.

“Alright, so, it’s a deal, right? ‘Seekers of Fight’?” the hat-wearing bruiser questioned, dropping his duffle bag before taking a pen and a piece of form provided by the combot. He didn’t forget to inform them earlier that he’d be signing up for the new KOF tournament with Cap and Amaterasu. He began by filling out the names of the members, his handwriting scratchy and barely readable. “Terry Bogard, Captain Falcon, and, uh… Am– Amaterasu! Yeah…” he repeated what he’d written, quietly and absently. “And for the team leader, who do you guys think should lead the three of us?”

“Oh, I thought you always registered yourself as the leader, didn’t you?” Mai teased, playfully poking the tip of her folded fan against Terry’s back.

Terry snickered, tickled by the playful gesture. “What if I told you, Mai, different members, different vibe?” he asked back, repeating what he already said while nearly swatting the fan. “Which means different formations and different strategies. But I dunno, you guys, should I be the one in charge of the team or should it be somebody else?”

Amaterasu had her pride, yes, but also the good sense to not try and suggest herself given that, well, all the issues that would entail in communicating anything. Also people would just assume she was a team mascot or something. So instead she glanced her snout at the runner up to the leadership race that had happened for the overall team, cocked her head to the side in inquiry.

It would certainly be less confusing if the man who went by Captain Falcon was also their team captain, but other than that she didn’t really mind either way as long as they could do the talking part of these things.

”Well…” Cap hummed with consideration, ”...I guess I already am answering to the title of Captain, aren’t I?” In all honesty, this was something the bounty hunter had not taken into consideration. It certainly could cause confusion with viewers and fans to have a team member called a captain who isn’t the actual captain. But at the same time, Falcon wasn’t nearly as familiar with the rules and intricacies of the KOF like Terry was.

”I admit I’m also not especially familiar with the rules.” The Captain added, ”But I suppose I don’t see any reason why I can’t learn them as we go. Terry? Any thoughts?”

“Hmm…” Terry stopped scribbling, giving both of his teammates’ notions and Mai’s a consideration. From the very beginning, he’d made himself aware that changes in formation were expected, given that this was an all-new, all-different team. They were even going under a completely different name, instead of the usual ‘Team Fatal Fury,’ so the shift in leadership was easily expected. He’d been a chief throughout his fighting career, after all, leading his prior team to semifinals more times than not. Perhaps, this was the right moment to pass the torch, he believed. “Well, you do look like a million bucks, Cap, I’ll give you that,” he admitted. “So if you think you can handle the job, then… I guess why not?” He shrugged, hands spread, giving the bounty hunter a smile of approval. “And don’t worry about the rules, though. Sure, they look complicated at first, but they ain’t exactly rocket science once you get the hang of ’em. I can show you both the ropes.”

”You got it.” Cap said with a thumbs up. ”I’ll do my best.”

With that in mind, Terry continued scribbling on the form, writing down Cap’s name as the leader of the newly formed Seekers of Fight. After the form was submitted, he gave both of his teammates a thumbs up, his smile so wide it revealed the glistening teeth beneath. “Alright, we’re all set!” he told Cap and Amaterasu before offering each of his hands to them for a “high five!”

Mai snickered, hiding her glistening, parting lips behind the now spreading fan. “Well, well… Guess whose turn it is now?” she asked the trio teasingly. “Now, if you excuse me, let me just—”

“Hold it right there!”

“Huh??” There was a deep yet feminine voice calling from the east of the registration booth. Was it intended for Mai or was it for everyone else? Nobody was certain until the kunoichi’s brown eyes followed the source of the voice, only to find a familiar tomboyish girl clad in violet tuxedo. She gasped behind the fan.

“King??”

“Mai??”

“Ha! About time!” the kunoichi cheerfully exclaimed, dramatically pointing the spreading fan at King. “I’ve finally caught up with you. Care to team up, ‘Ms. Sakazaki’?”

King flushed at the nickname since it was true that she was into Ryo, the oldest son of the Sakazaki family. Yet, despite the sheepish reaction, she chose to appear unfazed and tough like she always did. “Well, actually, Mai, I’ve been looking for you everywhere else for this exact reason,” she elaborated, rubbing the back of her head. “Though, before you ask, no, Yuri’s already with Ryo and Robert, so our third fighter will be…”

Before King could complete her words, a fine lady sporting a white hairband gracefully made her entrance to the scene, making herself known in front Mai and the likes. At first glance, she actually did resemble the Kazama lady Amaterasu had a chance to meet earlier, but in actuality, she was Chizuru Kagura, the heir of the sacred Yata Mirror and one of three chosen warriors to fight the Orochi during the aftermath of KOF ’97.

“Greetings, everyone,” Chizuru greeted, then bowed, her voice calm and soothing. “I believe it has been a while since we last collaborated, won’t you agree, Mai and King? Especially now that I can sense the presence of Orochi somewhere in this town…”

“Well, it’s always been a pleasure to help, of course,” Mai responded, her smile softening. “But… haven’t you sealed the Orochi with Kyo and Iori many many years ago?”

“It is true, perhaps,” Chizuru confirmed, gently nodding. “We did seal the serpent a long time ago, but recently, I can sense that the seal has begun to crack. I’m still uncertain if this recent phenomenon has anything to do with the Orochi finally breaking free, but even if it doesn’t, we still have to be careful. For what we know, evil forces are always around the corner whenever KOF is held.”

Nodding, Terry listened attentively, fixating on the newly arriving Sacred Treasure as she elaborated what she’d been sensing. While he’d always stayed in the background for the entirety of this ‘Orochi saga’ Chizuru had been dealing with Kyo and Iori, he couldn’t deny that something did feel off in the months leading to the new KOF. Not when most of his acquaintances had gone missing out of the blue, still yet to be found.

“Well, that sounds creepy. God knows how many peeps that cursed snake had killed during one of the earlier tournaments. We can’t let that happen, can we?” Terry finally chimed in, his voice one of concern. “I know that I can’t help much, but if there’s anything my team and I can do, just let me know, alright, Chiz?”

Chizuru nodded. “Hopefully. I do believe each and every one of us within the tournament needs to collaborate, eventually, especially now that—” She quickly stifled her mouth, realization sipping in. When her gaze fell upon one of Terry’s teammates, she seemed to recognize something. Something that felt… oddly connected to the myth of Orochi itself? “Good heavens! I can’t believe my eyes. You must be… Amaterasu in disguise, are you not?” she questioned, a mixture of awe and admiration in her voice as she bowed in front of the wolf goddess respectfully.

Mai widened her eyes, nearly gasping. “No way,” she reacted. “She’s that Amaterasu from… the Japanese folklore?”

“Wait, wait, wait! Hold on a sec,” Terry said, puzzled, raising his hands over his temples. “You mean to tell me that Ammy here really is a goddess?” He then glanced at Cap, remembering what the latter told him earlier.

”Of course.” Captain Falcon confirmed. ”I did tell you earlier that she’s a goddess in disguise, didn’t I?”

The divine wolf had tiled her head to the side in confusion at Mai saying she was from ‘Japanese folklore’ but though given she had just met another goddess with her name and domain it wasn’t quite as surprising to know that there were other hers out there. What was much less pleasant news was that there were apparently other Orochis out there, the divine wolf’s fur having bristled at the name alone. Scourge of the celestial plain, devourer of maidens, her reality’s Orochi was a blight upon reality and perhaps her most reviled foe.

Still, she had at this point recovered from the news, and upon being recognized and bowed too she raised her snout high and proud. Unfortunately there would be no clearing up the confusion about her being in disguise, a wolf was what she was, and the mortals not being able to see her divine trimmings was on them not her. It would take too many words.

Writing ‘‘Orochi will fall’ on the same wall as she’d used to write the team name however was a much more simple message to convey.

The writings on the wall only strengthened what Chizuru had sensed. This truly was Amaterasu responsible for sealing the Orochi thousands of years ago, she thought. Knowing that she was usually the one grouping the other Sacred Treasures to battle the wicked deity, at least both Terry and Mai could be reassured that Chizuru had a high degree of spiritual perception to recognize the sun goddess herself.

“Indeed, Orochi will fall. I can sense it, and it’s imminent,” Chizuru agreed before shifting her attention from the writings on the wall to the hat-wearing bruiser in front of her. “I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this, Terry, but your team holds the key to seal the Orochi once and forever. She has a direct connection to the ancestors of the Kusanagi clan. Perhaps, I should inform Kyo and Iori about this.”

“Oh, erm… Okay… Sure! Why not?” Terry answered, then shrugged, hesitantly smiling at the mention of Kyo. It appeared that Chizuru was oblivious to the altercation that both he and the so-called Mr. KOF had earlier, and it was for the best that she didn’t know it at all. “Guess we’re now the ‘Hero Team,’ huh? Who would’ve thought?”

“Well, in the meantime, I believe we should be registering now. Time keeps running, and we don’t have much time left,” Chizuru reminded, clearly towards her future teammates as she gave them a serious glance. “Mai, King, you two will have to meet me at L’Amor shortly. We will discuss this matter further. As for you Terry, I wish you and your new team the best of luck.”

“Why, thanks a lot, Chiz!” Terry thanked, his smile bright and wide again. He picked his duffle bag. “You, too. Hope your team and mine are gonna face each other in the next KOF. If there’s anything you wanna let us know, just hit us up at Pao Pao, alright?”

“Surely, Terry,” Chizuru simply reciprocated, giving him one last nod.

”Best of luck, ladies.” Cap offered the women as well. Ever a good sportsman. ”May the best team win.”

“See you at the tournament!” both Mai and King exclaimed simultaneously, waving their hands at the trio of Seekers.

After smiling and waving back at the trio of ass-kicking women, Terry began walking towards the front door of Pao Pao Café 7 alongside Cap and Amaterasu, readjusting his duffle bag around his shoulder. From the sound of it, he could tell that there had to be an interesting conversation taking place inside, though he couldn’t quite hear what any of the other Seekers said.

“Ah, my bad… Sorry if I haven’t explained to y’all more about the tournament,” Terry apologized to his teammates, his strides steady yet leisure. “Let’s just talk about KOF while we eat, should we? You can ask me anything about the rules and stuff if you’d like.”

”I know about the 3-man team rule.” Cap said, ”And that we’ll be fighting one after the other instead of in a tag-team fashion. Beyond that though, I could use a crash course.”

Amaterasu barked in agreement. She’d already had to adapt on the fly with her match Vs the other Amaterasu, it'd be nice to be forewarned this time. Plus she was all up for filling up her stomachs while they did the talking. All the running around and fighting worked up an appetite.

As the unannounced Organization member probably should have expected, the Seekers had a lot of questions for him. Nadia wasn’t one them, though. Interrogating him was no concern of hers, especially since the delivery of his pizza heralded the imminent arrival of the other orders. To her delight, her roast duck happened to be one of the first meals brought over, so while the others grilled the man in black Nadia got busy chowing down on succulent, crispy waterfowl. True to its name, the dish was both wonderfully aromatic and fiercely spicy, not to mention deliciously fatty. In order to eat with gusto, Nadia found herself obliged to guzzle cola in equal measure, both to quench the flames and offset the savory, somewhat greasy mouthfeel. After gruel and trail mix aboard the Avenger this morning, and a healthy amount of exercise on the way to Esaka, the feral had known she’d be hungry, but not until the duck hit her tongue did Nadia realize how famished she really was.

Still, despite enjoying her food, the catgirl didn’t completely tone out the others’ conversation. Her allies questioned the Organization member and received their orders one by one, then digested whatever information he’d divulged as they ate their lunches. Roland got almost nothing out of the man, then settled for talking about himself instead. His mention of angel wings struck Nadia as a little tactless with Pit in their midst, and judging by the team captain’s reaction, he probably felt the same way.

Being a little behind, Harry asked what Organization XIII was, seemingly directed at her and Band. Busy with her food, she shrugged to tell him I don’t know, which honestly wasn’t far from the truth. She knew that the Organization existed, and that they seemed to be interested in helping the Seekers beat Galeem, but that was pretty much it. Band didn’t know much better than her, either, but at least he offered his fellow detective an answer. “From what I gather, a third party faction opposin’ Galeem, like us. Been around a lot longer than we have, though. Seems like they show up to steer us in the ‘right direction’, but whether that’s right for us or them, I can’t say.” Not the most glowing endorsement, but considering what he’d heard about some of the Organization members, his description was actually rather charitable.

While Harry ate and drank, Kim asked something else. “Nothing that you couldn’t look up yourself,” the stranger told him. “The Kings’ fighting styles are very heavily documented. You can find all sorts of videos, and even supposed counterplay, on the inter-knot. Be warned that knowing counterplay and putting it into practice are two very different things, however.”

Band kept up only the barest pretense of being interested in the meagre lunch he’d ordered as he listened to the questioning. Sakura managed to wheedle more from that man than Band would have expected, including his codename. Xilgrev, he mused. That scrambled-up hoo-ha ain’t like any name I ever heard. Ramaxi, Gneidxick, Hallextram. Do all these clowns have ‘x’ in their names, or what? Pit got some clarification about the circumstances in which the Four Kings would need to be beaten, while Zenkichi probed Xilgrev, trying to get under his skin only to wind up a lot more rattled than he was. Band couldn’t blame him for looking into the ten-year problem, since that was something hanging over everyone’s heads. If Band had a kid or two in that same boat, he’d probably be even more desperate.

When the questioning came to an end, Band mulled over what he’d wanted to ask. As Roland proved, Xilgrev could be quite tight-lipped unless someone appealed to his reason. He’d more or less already told the team that the Organization intended to help them defeat Galeem, which tracked with what Band knew of the Organization members in the Sandswept Sky and Deep Blue Sea. Unfortunately he’d been stuck in Edinburgh MagicaPolis while the Seekers conquered the Under and Dystopiascape, so his intel could easily be outdated, but the lack of outright hostility told him that his teammates were at least amenable to the idea of an alliance. All his thinking must have shown on his face, since after Xilgrev pushed out his chair and got to his feet, the darkness within his hood turned Band’s way. “You look like you have something to ask me.”

Band exhaled slowly. “Just one thing. You say y’all wanna help us beat Galeem. I believe that. But lemme ask you this. When we do whoop its ass, will that restore everythin’ to how it used to be?”

To the detective, a second of hesitation spoke volumes. Xilgrev knew the answer; he was just deciding how much of it to reveal. After a moment, he replied. “Not…automatically. That’s why we must take a passive role. Organization XIII is biding its time, so that when Galeem is finally gone, we can give this world the push it needs to get the ball rolling.”

Band snorted. “How vague.”

“Indeed.” Xilgrev waved wryly. “With that, I bid you farewell. Fight, win, and take every ounce of power you can get. You’ll need more power -much more- than you think.”

He turned to go. In the silence that followed, the slurping sound from Nadia’s straw revealed that her glass was now empty. “Uh, whoops,” she said unconvincingly, crossing her arms. “So…now that’s over with, and we’re all signed up, I guess we got the rest of the day to ourselves.” She grinned. “Could do with somethin’ sweet, though. Anyone got the ‘scoop’ on whether or not Esaka’s got ice cream shops?”

Band removed his hat and began fanning himself with it. “First order of business oughta be findin’ a place to stay,” he remarked. “I’m guessin’ we can’t crash at our dojos, after all.” Metal Revolution, of course, happened to be a lot less hospitable than the average dojo, but he couldn’t imagine any dojo offering lodging. “Plus, we got a lot to learn about Esaka and how things work around here. Might be worth it just casin’ the joint for a while. Y’know, gettin’ a feel for everything.” With enough experience, any cop worth his salt could tune into the very soul of a city, obtaining an almost preternatural awareness of how, when, and where things went down. Whether through the whispers in one’s ear or the shivers down one’s spine, a city could have an awful lot to say. Of course, that sort of understanding took years, and Band probably didn’t have a week. Still, having one eye open would be better than going in blind.

“Uhhh…” Nadia not-so-discreetly checked her magic wallet. “That reminds me. I ain’t exactly flush with cash right about now. Havin’ sushi every night in Mafia Town kinda ate into my savin’s.” She looked between Sakura and Terry. “Hey, I bet you guys know everythin’. How’s a girl make a quick buck around this town, huh? Are there, like…” She lowered her voice. “Underground fightin’ rings?”

A sigh issued from Band. He was not at all surprised. He couldn’t necessarily argue with her, though. In a city where everything revolved around fights, the Seekers’ options were limited on such short notice.



As it finally began to roll forward out of the Hall of Adventure, Sandalphon retired to the stagecoach for a few moments. She didn’t need to rest or anything since Geralt and Ganondorf did the bulk of the work when it came to pushing open the heavy metal door, but she did want to check on the stew pot, which seemed to have started bubbling shortly after the Seekers arrived at Krat Zoo. Sure enough, the pot appeared to be slowly filling, even though nobody had added any ingredients as far as she knew. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, the archangel chalked it up to some sort of magic, and estimated that it would be full by the time the team found a way out of the sprawling zoo complex, just in time for a midday meal.

Sandalphon remained in the stagecoach just long enough to exchange a few words with Ganondorf, whose newest quirk demanded that he replenish his biomass well ahead of lunchtime. Their brief discussion bore no fruit, so by the time the stagecoach reached the Endangered Species Zone, she was back outside in the wintry wind, her boots crunching the snow with each step. Just as planned, Roxas and Heismay had gone ahead to investigate the mysterious blaze in the Rainforest zone, and if its source proved to be half as ferocious as it sounded, even from this far away, Sandalphon suspected they’d need backup. Until then, though, the rest of the Seekers could contend with the carcasses roused and flushed out by the scouts’ sudden passage.

Though uniformly grisly, most of the mutants were of no consequence, since few of the area’s endangered species had been particularly large or dangerous creatures to begin with. The exception was the cassowary carcass, the flightless bird twisted into a vicious facsimile of its distant ancestors, the primeval raptor. Sandalphon lent a hand with that one, creating a blue tile she crouched over before setting her sights on the monster. Two well-placed shots were enough to put it down, though she took no pleasure in it. A fate like this struck her as especially terrible knowing that these beasts had been rare and precious in life. “What a waste,” the archangel murmured. With the carcasses taken care of, though, the Reindrix could be coaxed forward, and the stagecoach could inch further into the zoo.

At the same time, Geralt had devoted himself to studying one particular specimen. Even if the team hadn’t already seen a mangled giraffe corpse out by the main gates, the sight of one in good condition and barely bothered by its macabre surroundings would have invited suspicion. Sure enough, it wasn’t long after the Witcher entered the giraffe’s enclosure, and both disappeared from sight, that Sandalphon began hearing a series of warped, unnatural roars, accompanied by the telltale sounds of combat. She couldn’t climb the exhibit fence like Geralt did, but she could Vault over or warp inside if needed. Still, she decided to hang back and let the man do his job unless he called for her. The Seekers needed a leader, not a helicopter parent, and Sandalphon felt it necessary to demonstrate her faith in her team. When Geralt did contact her, she made the call without hesitation. Her comrades weren’t here to study whatever plague had befallen Krat Zoo, and it was all too easy to imagine the disaster that excessive scientific curiosity could invite. This place was too far gone for any cure; only scorched earth would set it to rights.

By the time the stagecoach fully rounded the Endangered Species bend and reached the boardwalk of the Rainforest Zone, the battle against the advanced elephant carcass had reached a fever pitch. The monster squaring off against Mokou, Roxas, and Heismay was a true abomination, even by Krat Zoo standards. It had been dangerously strong and durable before its nightmarish mutation, so the addition of almost a dozen assorted animal heads, all spewing freezing vapor, made it a foe to be reckoned with.

The same could be said of both the Seekers and their fiery new acquaintance, though, and the three were making progress. Heismay concentrated on keeping the nightmare’s attention, his longsaber gleaming in the overcast darkness as he slashed, dodged, and leaped. Outside of the occasional Mudo, the hermit was an obligate melee fighter, so he kept himself tantalizingly close to the monster’s snapping jaws while the others barraged it with elemental magic from a safer distance. It was a very risky business, since just one mistake could easily prove fatal, but the former Shadowguard knew what he was doing. “How simple!” he taunted as the horror’s crocodile jaws, twisted vertically, snapped shut mere inches from his red greaves. He delivered a quick slice to its jowls, his blade barely biting into the scales, then kicked off the monster’s snout. “Hyah! It’ll take more than that!”

He landed on the wooden railing of the boardwalk roundabout, staying only long enough to tense his legs and then spring again as the monster smashed through the fence. He narrowly somersaulted through a gap between Mokou’s pinions, noting that her fiery feathers were really starting to pollute the arena. This fight was too fast-paced to keep track of both the horror and whatever safe spots she left for him. After latching on to a dead tree for an instance, Heismay leaped away from an icy blast, only to clip a couple flying feathers. “Ack!” He extended his wings to catch himself as he fell, only barely managing to glide before he hit the ground. A quick pat-down assured him that his fur hadn’t caught fire, and the next second Heismay was off again before the carcass could catch up. Better to suffer the girl’s not-so-friendly-fire than a blow from that monster, he reasoned as the horror snapped at his heels.

His distraction gave Mokou the opportunity she needed. After diving in, the girl set off a tremendous point-blank blast that scattered sizzling, foul-smelling chunks in all directions and left a smoking crater on one side of her target’s upper body. “Can’t argue with results, I suppose,” Heismay muttered. Orange magic streaked across his body as he transformed, darkness roiling within the Thief’s palm as he prepared a follow-up. “Some darker arts!” His Mudo struck the carcass’s main head in its midst of its thrashing, knocking its bulk neck askew. Hoping to open the wound left by Mokou even further in hopes of severing the trunk completely, Heismay dashed in with the Thief’s curved greatsword at the ready. “How about this!?”

Too late, he realized that this area wasn’t the blind spot he thought it was. While Mokou’s detonation destroyed several of the horror’s heads, it had left others mangled, but still operable. As Heismay slid in for a huge slice, the head of a hyena split open to disgorge a freezing torrent. “Bah!” After disappearing for a moment in the blast, Heismay reverted to normal covered in frost, his movements slowed as the cold coursed through his bones. The next second, the monster’s neck swung back toward him. He was lucky to avoid its heads, but the sinuous bulk still batted him away. “Blast it!” Heismay slid into a snow drift at the base of the railing, where he languished for a moment, numb.

That misstep, however, gave Roxas the push he needed to pull out all the stops. A moment after the mutated colossus finally sagged to the ground, defeated and disintegrating, Heismay got to his feet, shivering but free from frost. “...Well done,” he managed after a moment, unconvincingly reassuring his ally. “I’ll be fine, but I would not decline some healing power, either.” Heismay rubbed his hands together, then tucked them into his armpits to try and warm them up faster. As Mokou approached, the hermit looked your way. “Greetings, miss. I hope you do not mind our interference. Your firepower is most impressive, and you no doubt had the beast in hand, but I could not allow myself to stand idly by.” He looked around, scanning the snowy gloom of the once-verdant Rainforest Zone for other dangers. “So, what brings you to this accursed menagerie? Its no place for children, no matter how powerful.”

Once Mokou set him straight, and informed him why she was here, Heismay held up his hands in sheepish placation. “Ah, forgive me. Where I’m from, elda are very rare, so I am a poor judge of age.” Of course, she probably wasn’t an elda, but hopefully she’d accept the excuse. He cleared his throat. “Ahem. As for your mission, I believe it’s one-third complete already. I was fortunate enough to find one viking, Erik, hiding in the Hall of Adventure.” After stepping forward, Heismay held his little hand up to shake. “If you’re amenable to joining forces, at least for the time being, we can continue the search and rescue together. My name is Heismay Noctule.” In a realm gripped by winter, Mokou’s firepower would be a welcome addition to the team, but she didn’t look hurt enough to be friend hearted yet. With any luck, the chance would come soon. At the clatter of hooves and creak of heavy wheels on wood, he glanced over toward the boardwalk to see the stagecoach approaching. “Ah, here they are now.”

With the advanced elephant carcass out of the way, and the zone’s mutant kangaroos cleared beforehand, the Seekers and their new acquaintance could continue. The staff center opened by Mokou could be seen and accessed by anyone else before they pressed on, as well. The Rainforest Zone harbored no other enemies of note, so only dreary, leafless trees and dead, frozen plants confronted the team as they moved. Though the winding, narrow boardwalk kept the stagecoach’s speed down, its pattern still distinguished it as the Midnight Walk, so Sandalphon judged that they were on the right track. Toward the end of the Rainforest Zone, they did run into another small problem at a fork in the boardwalk. On the right side was a dead end, another roundabout that surrounded the area’s largest tree. A few normal-looking birds still huddled on its branches, and a sign at the base of the tree read do not disturb the wildlife - no shouting or whistling. To the left, a bridge leading over a frozen river and out of the area had collapsed, but thanks to Sectonia and her crystals the problem was easily solved.

Up next was what seemed like the central location of Krat Zoo, a large food court themed after the nearby Safari Zone. In addition to a variety of food and drink stalls, as well as covered tables, it featured four small glass exhibits in the center, formerly the homes of tarantulas, scorpions, snakes, and turtles. Now, though, the whole food court lay in frightful disarray. No doubt something like the elephant carcass had rampaged through it. Sandalphon was tempted to request that the others loot the place, but she was skeptical of any food found therein being safe to consume, especially after the discovery of parasites. She did see something curious, though, and asked Edward to stop the stagecoach for a moment as it passed by. “Best to check to see if another viking is hiding here,” she told the team.

She herself did not search the buildings for any vikings, though. Against one of the reptile exhibits leaned the half-frozen corpse of a strange man, his pale, stony skin festooned with strange tubes and brass apparati. Her keen eyes spotted an odd canister half-hidden beneath his body, as if he’d died protecting it. Leaning on her gunstaff, Sandalphon stooped and retrieved it. “Some sort of storage device,” she murmured as she shook it, hearing something rattle around inside. A quick study of its workings led her to an intriguing conclusion. “Encrypted. Curious. I am tempted to puzzle out whatever secrets it might contain.” With one last look at the body and the food court, Sandalphon returned to the stagecoach and climbed inside. “It should not take me long to decipher it. Please notify me if anything requires my attention.”

Just beyond the food court lay the Safari Zone to the left and the Aquatic Center, but even a cursory examination was enough to reveal the problem that concerned both. At some point, the enormous tanks inside the aquarium had suffered enough damage that the thousands of gallons of water had broken through the glass, washed through the ruined building, and flooded the neighboring Safari Zone. After ascending a small, squat flight of stairs to the Safari center, the Seekers could step out the double doors and witness a large area with its entire central exhibit submerged. Now, the second-story wooden walkway was more like a boardwalk encircling a lake, and all the trees and towers meant for the primates that once inhabited this place protruded from the water. In order to make it to the zoo’s final area, where that huge greenhouse towered above the complex, the stagecoach and its Reindrix would need to circumnavigate that boardwalk.

Of course, that was easier said than done. A handful of mandrills remained, using the suspension bridges to run between the towers and pelt the Seekers with projectiles. If they triggered the gleaming Reindrix, the team would definitely have a problem on their hands. That wasn’t all, though.



After about thirty seconds, the water began to ripple, and a copse of trees in the water began to shake. Sandalphon, unbothered by the clank of projectiles against the stagecoach’s armor, immediately looked up from her cryptic vessel, then set it down and swept out of the vehicle. “Immense life signal detected,” she reported, her pupils in the shape of radar scanners. There wasn’t enough room for the coach to turn around. The only way was forward. “Get ready to move.”

The trees rose from the water, but the island beneath them wasn’t rock or dirt. It was scales–enormous, heavy, snow-white scales. The scales and ridges kept coming and coming, until a gargantuan, primeval head finally emerged from the water, the head of an unnaturally enormous albino alligator, with just two toes on his left front foot, and a snout wounded by some prior battle. His glassy, colorless eyes locked onto the Reindrix, and his jaws hung open, drool running out between his terrific fangs. A low, rumbling bellow issued from his starving belly, followed by a deafening, hollow roar. He flailed his muzzle and tail, destroying the primate towers and bridges in mere moments.

As shrapnel -and mandrill parts- flew everywhere, Heismay stood atop the stagecoach, his longsaber couched and his teeth gritted. “What in blazes is THAT!?”

Sandalphon vaulted onto the roof and landed beside him, her Hexagun in hand and her voice much more commanding than usual. “Edward, go!”

Sakura took a bite out of her kebab only to get nothing but wood. In a manic haze she had devoured her entire meal! Damn it, she did this way too often. Dejected, but ultimately satisfied, Sakura set down her stick and listened to the rest of the conversation.

”Bye, Xilgrev-san.” Sakura waved him off.

”I gotta admit, I’m a little concerned about the Organization. Can we really trust them to put the universe back into order if they don’t even know what’s good about it anymore? What if they mess up and make all kebabs as flavorless as they perceive them to be? What a dark world…” Sakura mused. ”We’ll have to get clarity on that before the job’s done, I think.”

She sighed, sitting back in her chair. ”Saving the multiverse is hard.”

Band brought up lodging, and Sakura nodded. Finding a place to stay was always a number one priority for any traveller. Though to be honest, Sakura had done a lot of crashing at other people’s places in her time. But Esaka wasn’t big on residential areas like that.

Nadia asked Sakura a question, and she smiled. ”I do know everything. Sakura-chan is omniscient.” She joked, tapping either side of her head.

”Of course,” She sat up straight and spoke up more clearly. ”The best way to earn money is to fight well and earn the adoration of the Livestream.”

”...But if you want…” Sakura glanced over at Terry knowingly, then leaned forward, lowering her voice conspiratorially alongside Nadia. ”I can show you to the Locals.” She whispered, eyes sparkling with mischief. Clearly she was taking some pleasure in acting as some shadowy ne’er-do-well, even though the existence of underground fighting rings was essentially an open secret.

”It can be pretty dangerous, though…” She said, mysteriously. ”Anyone can enter, people will gamble and bet, tensions can run high, and the fights are completely unranked. But if you want to earn some quick cash and you've got the skills to back it up? Then yeah, your instinct is dead on, Nadia-san.” Tapping her fists against the table, she bit on her lower lip. She had been wondering what she was going to do after meeting everyone here. Supporting her locals was a perfect way to kill some time, and more importantly, get into that fight she had been desiring since this morning.

Edward’s instincts had been correct: the giraffe had been entirely not what it seemed, and he was very glad they’d found that out before it had had a chance to go after the Reindrix. Of course, the man who’d done so had gotten into quite a mess as a result of springing the trap, though fortunately a mostly harmless one.

”Much appreciated, Geralt” He told the trap springer in question upon his return, before getting them moving once more.

There was a slight bit of concern about the continued sounds of explosive violence coming from around the bend, but the copper golems he sent ahead found it to be directed at some sort of blighted crocodile by a fiery stranger. She, along with the two seekers that had raced ahead, dealt with the thing by the time they rolled around, putting his concerns to rest.

”I only saw the end of it, but good work you three” he called out as he steered the stagecoach their way, and bringing it to a slow and addressing the short woman who may or may not have been a particular lithe halfling.

”Quite the display of pyromancy that” he complimented her, before inquiring ”I don’t suppose you’d be willing to lend us some more of it while we travel through this blighted place? It could do with a bit of cleansing flame”

The next part of that trip was fortunately just dead rather than undead, though in a way that just heightened the tension and had Edward remotely poking the frozen foliage with his copper golems' spears in case anything was hiding in there. There wasn’t, but he refused to feel silly for his paranoia. Better to stab the suspicious bush than to find out too late it had an assassin hiding in it.

Speaking of suspicious, there was the do not disturb sign tree with the out of place living birds on it. Naturally said birds would have a better time evading the blighted fauna of the zoo than the giraffe, but it was still eyebrow raising. After all, what was there here to eat but blighted beasts?

Fortunately they could give this a wide berth, and so Edward did so, and had them head for the foodcourt with post haste. There, however, they stopped, at their leader’s request (and Edward saw no reason to naysay it) in order to have a poke around. Edward sat tight in case they needed to quickly get going, of course, but had some of the golems head into the wreck of the place to have a poke about, doing the drudgery of shoving debris around with their spears to see if anything of interest was to be found underneath.

Mostly he found rotten food, but there was also, inexplicably, a Comically Large Spoon. After pausing work to stare at it for a few moments, Edward guessed that it surely must have been some sort of painted prop, only for it to give a metal clang when he had a golem stab it with its spear.

After sending this to the armory (for its metal content if nothing else) he also found a broken news stand with one barely intact paper on it that turned out to be interesting. He’d hoped to find maybe some insight as to what had happened here, but instead all he found was a personal tragedy. The front-page story of the paper was 'COLONEL LITTLE DEAD - BETRAYED BY ANIMAL FRIEND' with the sub line 'World-famous gentleman explorer killed and eaten by 'eternal friend' Rex the Crocodile" which was a sorry end for the proprietor of the venue.

At first he thought that maybe the man had thought the crocodile to be more friendly than it truly was, as people did tend to over-personify things and that could be a fatal mistake if the thing was dangerous and not nearly as empathetic as it was believed to be. However with a second thought, he noted that given that this was the paper presumably written on the eve of the disaster, perhaps Rex had fallen victim to the blight, and this death was but the first, missed, sign of the total twisting of the zoo’s creatures (and guests) that would come before a new edition of the paper could be published.

A theory worth reporting, he thought, and as Sandalphon was conveniently sticking around the stagecoach, it was easy enough to do so

”I believe that the infection that took this place may have taken a day to take hold, given they had time to report what I think where the first signs of it occurring before it was too late” he informed her, having had the copper golems bring back the paper to show her, before suggesting ”Best we keep an eye on every one for increased signs of aggression, just in case”

Sandalphon paused her decryption to examine the newspaper given to her by Edward. "For me, the amount of evidence provided so far is not enough to solidify any definite conclusions about the nature of the blight affecting the zoo or its inhabitants. Take the two men we've encountered so far. Our friend here, Erik, has been hiding here for several days, but shows no sign of infection." She nodded at the rescued viking sitting in the stagecoach with her, who gave a somewhat uneasy wave. "On the other hand, the hunter that Geralt found, Eryk, was here less than a day, but spent it slaughtering carcasses and gathering ergo crystals. He evidently imbibed what he believed to be a cure, only for it to greatly exacerbate his symptoms."

She shook her head, her pupils in the shape of stress marks. "Still, heightened vigilance is a very wise course of action. I will continue scanning for any sign of status affliction, and once we're out, will use Angelic Wings to purge everyone to be sure. We should continue to search for informational materials in the meantime." She did not seem outwardly bothered by the fate of Colonel Little, but inwardly she couldn't help but feel aggrieved by the sorry twist of fate--provided that the paper was accurate. After all, in her experience publications often embellished the truth at the very least, and some in Midgar had stooped to outright falsification.

”As you say” he agreed, having not kept on top of the varicose reports of the state of affairs due to focusing mostly on getting their transport through the difficult terrain that was the blighted zoo, and glad their leader was fulfilling her role in doing so. At least he did not have to worry about Rex himself, as he assumed he had just seen it turned to ash by Fujiwara no Mokou and company.

He was wrong.

When the absolutely enormous gator emerged from the waters beside the boardwalk a little while later, he could only curse and then reply to Heismay’s shout ”Rex, I believe” with forced sardonic calm.

He was also wrong about this.

Regardless of the crocodile’s name, Sandalphon’s orders to go would have been the same, as would Edward’s response to them. He whipped the reins and had the leading inferno steed pull forwards with all its haste and might, the best he could do to make sure the Reindrix started running forwards right away rather than panic and try and split despite forward really being the only option.

They more or less trampled one of the copper golem squads in the process of this, but the rest were sent to help with the fight, including the one he had hauling the barrel of fat. Only a human body weight’s worth, but it was probably their best bet of being any help

”The barrel! Burn it!” he called out as he moved the barrel carriers move into the way of the drooling hungry mouth of the beast, before having them give tossing it in there their best shot. The other spears, meanwhile, moved to the edges and started stabbing. Their weapons wouldn’t do much good, but perhaps they might annoy it enough to be targeted instead of someone important, or stack a few armor sundering or burning debuffs on it via sheer volume of attacks. Before they were left behind that was

As this occurred, Edward focused more or less entirely on getting them to safety, which involved doing a loop around the entire outside of the enclosure, giving Tom ample time to swim across the pool to intercept. With the Reindrix themselves also focused on this, there’d be no fire support from them, and so if it was going to have any fire power protecting it the other seekers would have to put their backs into keeping up with it if they weren't riding along.

At least the Mandrils were dealt with, he thought, as he turned the first corner, right before a soggy blighted mass of monkey pulled itself out of the water, right in the way.

”Charge! Charge forward!” Edward demanded before the Reindrix could even think of panicking, sending them surging forwards, and prompting the front two to lower their freezing horns. That left the slight issue of the frontrunner having so such weapons, and so Edward had to swerve the inferno steed to the side at just the right moment to get one of the two sets of horns to impact with the mandri’ smashing it down, after which it was trampled under hoof.

The swerve, the impact, the poor footing, all of this slowed their course, and let the crocodile catch up, the beast surging forwards to lunging out of the water at his prey (the left back Reindrix), and leaving Edward with no way to intervene other than to cast Designate Target on it and to then pray someone violently deviated it from its course.

If they did, they’d be turning the final bend and heading down the straight line the sprint to the finish.

If not, there’d be no more stagecoach unless the chains attaching it to the Reindrix snapped.

Zenkichi depressedly picked at his food while Xilgrev spoke with the other Seekers, though the Nobody didn’t stick around much longer. With an ominously vague warning that defeating Galeem would not set things to right automatically, and that their journey would require much more power than even they believed it would- and that was a lot.

How unpleasant. The others started up talking again, Nadia asking about ways to get money before the tournaments started officially, through her usual lens of less-than-legal means. Though, in the grand scheme of things, participating in an underground fight ring wasn’t the worst thing. In a place like this, there might not even be any drug or human trafficking involved.

When Sakura replied to mention a group she knew and could introduce them to, Zenkichi released a bit of tension he’d been building up. No way that ray of sunshine was involved in anything truly unsavory. Mostly harmlessly illegal, sure, but actually malicious? Not a chance. Taking a few more bites to eat, Zenkichi sighed at the pleasant tingle of gochujang on his tongue. ”Okay, Terry, you picked a really good spot, I have to say.” He complimented their unofficial guide (Sakura was great, but she’d understandably been more focused on getting signed up and helping others sign up than showing them a good place to get food).

As his meal reached its end, Zenkichi took a long drink of his water, letting out a sigh of contentment. ”Hey, band.” He called out to his fellow detective. ”We could absolutely take a little tour of the place, see if we can’t get a good idea of how this place is run. Uh, no offense to you guys,” he offered to Sakura and Terry placatingly, ”it’s just that the perspective and demeanor of a cop offers some…unique insights and reactions into and from the locals. Like, who clocks us immediately can give a good idea of who doesn’t want to be found by the cops.”

As the beast died, Mokou floated back to the ground, shaking her cooked arm as if it was a minor annoyance, the black already fading away. Now that the carcass was defeated, she could get a better look at her two ‘helpers’, a kid and a bipedal rabbit of some kind. Odd, but not something she was completely unfamiliar with… And certainly not opposed to seeing, “I had it, but the help made it go quicker. Certainly didn’t expect to see anyone actively wandering here… But suppose it makes sense” Mokou says, idly kicking the ground as she paced towards the fallen beast, hands in her pocket and posture completely relaxed, as if she hadn’t just been fighting for her life mere moments ago, “I got asked by a little group a ways out here to help find a few ‘vikings’. Turns out the wildlife here is enough to deter most rescuers from actually entering” she comments, before turning “Oh, and for the record, I’m no ‘child’. If I were to wager a guess, I’m older than you by several dozen generations. Not that I mind, most make the same mistake” Mokou adds with a shrug, letting Heismay apologize as she lifted a hand out of her pocket, aiming it towards the fallen elephant before her. A few sigils appeared above her hand, rotating themselves into proper position… Before the carcass itself ignited into flames. A slow burn, nothing flashy, but the purpose was clear: Mokou was getting rid of the body, largely to ensure it never got back up again.

“Eh, sure. Not like I have a reason not to, and it ensures I don’t accidentally miss anyone” with a dismissive wave of her hand towards her fallen foe, Mokou turns back to Heismay, “Fujiwara no Mokou. You can just call me ‘Mokou’ though, I don’t much care for the full name anymore” the white haired girl greeted, taking Heismay’s hand and shaking it lightly. For a brief moment, a wave of warmth blew across Heismay’s form, dispelling the lingering frost from the elephant carcass.

With that, Mokou began walking towards the stagecoach, only stopping for a moment to glance at Roxas as she passed, “Pleasure to meet you too kiddo. Can tell you’ve got a bit of talent for magic. Keep it up.” she says casually, only to continue her walk to the stagecoach, glancing up at the man who spoke up to her as she approached: Military folk, by the looks of it, “Oh yeah, sure. Already agreed to help out with Heismay over there. I’ll just be taking a bit to relax” she says, giving a dismissive wave of her hand as she opened the side door to the stagecoach and, within seconds, crashed upon one of the seats, all decorum completely disregarded.

For a while, Mokou simply sat there, idly tapping her finger on the arm rest nearby. She wasn’t in a hurry, but with the lingering pain from nearly being torn in half, Mokou at least deserved a small respite. Even a healing spell from the boy couldn’t get rid of the feeling of near death. Yet, she didn’t stay lounging for long, as when the group had arrived at the empty, frozen food court, Mokou stood up with a grunt, dusting her shirt off as she opened the door of the stagecoach.

“Let me just check around here real quick, don’t want to miss anyone hiding out.” Mokou tells the others as she finally steps out of the stagecoach again, stretching a little before hopping to the cold ground and began her search within the frozen food court. For the most part, Mokou hardly looked around the open areas of the food court. Instead, she immediately made her way to the empty food stalls, taking a look around. For a moment, she actually seemed to put in effort in her search, looking high and low within the stalls that she investigated… Yet after about two searched stalls, the white haired girl simply let out a sigh, turning to the main area and cupping a hand around her mouth to broadcast her voice, “Hey! Any vikings around here? Rescue is around!”

In the seconds following Mokou's outcry, the dwindling echoes of her shout slowly gave way to the bleak blustering of the Highlands' icy winds, steadily working to bury the horrors of Krat Zoo beneath spotless winter snow. The phoenix was nothing if not stubborn, though, and after a moment, her persistence paid off. She identified movement, not among the food court's various stalls, but at the back of one of the small-animal exhibits in the plaza's middle. In retrospect, it made sense; those h, catering to arachnids and reptiles, had to be climate-controlled to keep them nice and toasty, and there would logically need to be some sort of hidden space in the exhibit's middle in order to tend to the habitats. As she watched, a maintenance hatch opened up, and a weathered face adorned by a winged, fur-lined cap and a voluminous blonde bear poked through. When the viking spotted a number of people alive and well, he squeezed out of the maintenance chute, crawled through the former iguana exhibit, and used a large round shield to break through the glass with a smash.

"Oof!" The tall, portly man tumbled to the ground. When he got to his feet, he towered over not just Mokou, but most of the Seekers. It was a wonder he managed to fit into that hiding spot at all. "Agh! So cold!" He shivered, his teeth chattering. "Thank goodness you folks came along. I'd 'ave starved to death if I'd been in there much longer. Don't s'pose you've seen me brothers around?" He glanced around the food court.

“I haven’t, but the group over there found someone named ‘Erik’, if that rings a bell” she says, walking up to the viking and lifting her hand, a small flaming feather quickly forming in her palm, “Take this, should warm you up a bit. Just don’t grab onto it directly, guide it with your hand” the girl says, letting the feather hover in the air in front of the viking before she turned on her heel, “Come along, we’ve got space on the stagecoach over there. Keep yourself nice and safe while we find anyone else.”

With the viking in tow, Mokou takes a moment to scan the area one last time before she begins to make her way back to the stagecoach, hopping onto the roof, taking a seat on top as the group continued onwards. She didn’t take up a watcher role even with her perch however, instead closing her eyes and letting the group continue on.

At least, for a bit, before the sound of rippling water and shifting trees caught her attention. Immediately, Mokou opened her eyes, just in time to witness the massive albino alligator rise from the water. The phoenix blinks in surprise, before a small smile forms on her lips, rather than the surprise from the others. The elephant was certainly a surprise, but whatever this creature was… It was clearly a cut above.

It took only a second for Mokou’s flaming wings to sprout from her back as the white haired girl took to the sky, a finger snap ringing out as four different flaming orbs formed into existence, barely wasting time before they began to rain flaming feathers down upon the beast. She didn’t anticipate them doing much, the beast’s hide seemed too thick and wet for her feathers to do much, but the first step to slaying a beast was to study it, and that was what she would do from her aerial advantage, harassing the beast as it thrashed about.

… Of course, Mokou was not oblivious to her ally’s own actions, and when Edward shouted out towards her, the phoenix gave a small nod, lifting her hand in a finger gun as she aimed towards the barrel in question. A small sigil appeared at her finger tip, and a small burning flame erupted to life, moments before she took her shot, a condensed beam of fire launching straight towards the barrel of fat as it neared the beast’s mouth.

Geralt gave Edward a nod as he got back in the stagecoach, sitting down on the bench. “Just don’t go messing with anything that looks normal.” He reminded the general, resting the back of his head against the stagecoach’s wall. Closing his eyes, he willed himself into a short meditative state, half-aware of the trundling of their transportation as it carried on through the zoo. When Heismay, Roxas and Mokou rejoined the caravan, his eyes opened when the stench of burned flesh tainted his nostrils.

Turning to the group, his eyes narrowed at Mokou, the apparent source of the stench, then he shrugged as she climbed on the stagecoach without a hint of hesitation. Just another stray the Seekers had picked up. He only wondered how long this one would stick around. He closed his eyes again and rested his head against the wall of the stagecoach, silently listening to the others. Not long after, Sandalphon called for the group to stop and look around the food court, which Geralt took as an excuse to stretch his legs again. He didn’t go investigating like Edward’s golems or Mokou, instead deciding to simply look around the area and give the birds flying around nasty looks. No point wasting ammo on them and risking a flock of parasitic birds attacking, but he didn’t trust that they weren’t more than met the eye.

Sandlaphon found a curious device under the half-frozen corpse of a man, which gave Geralt pause. Was his body brought here by Galeem? Was that order of monks responsible for his body being left? Or was this some other phenomenon that he was unaware of? Until they found the order, he supposed that it didn’t actually matter.

Climbing back onto the stagecoach, Geralt sat more normally this time, hunched forward slightly as they trundled along. When they started to be pelted by the mandrills, however, Geralt took action. Climbing out the back of the stagecoach, he hefted himself atop it and drew Oddysseus’s Bow. He fired at each mandrill until it either repositioned or died, then moved on to another, but he did not have long to do so before the colossal alligator burst forth from the water below. “Shit.” he mumbled, as the stagecoach’s roof became a bit more crowded with Sandalphon’s addition. He did the opposite of what she did, climbing back inside the stagecoach and joining Edward at the front. With the mandrills ahead slowing the stagecoach, Geralt chose not to risk firing upon and accidentally hitting one of the still-Gleaming Reindrix, instead transforming yet again, this time to Molar Boatworks Fixer, and intercepting the oversized beast directly. Even as the flaming barrel crashed into its maw, it charged for one of their Reindrix, and Geralt leapt into action.

His pneumatic pile driver charged, he landed atop the beast’s upper jaw and punched its eye as hard as he could, the explosive force of his attached weapon spearing into the fleshy orb. The alligator was successfully distracted, halting its attack on the stagecoach in favor of thrashing about to dislodge the Witcher. Despite his best efforts, Geralt was thrown from its body and landed in the water with horrible force. Thankfully he was wearing a wetsuit in this Identity, but now he was in the water with an aquatic reptile that could quite easily swallow him whole.

Treading water, he put a finger to his ear. “Sandalphon. I fucked up.” He reported quietly, before turning to swim towards the nearest tower and climb it to safety. If the others could buy him the time to do so, he could make his way across the boardwalks back to the stagecoach in short enough time. And if he got eaten…well, they’d see just how unkillable he really was.

@Lugubrious @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN @Archmage MC

Harry Dubois

𝒦𝒾𝓂 𝒦𝒾𝓉𝓈𝓊𝓇𝒶𝑔𝒾

Word Count: 561
Level: Lv: 6 EXP: (3/60)
Lv: 4 EXP: (5/40)
Location: Forbidden Kingdom - Esaka's Low Tier/ Pao Pao Cafe

Although Kim thought he could provide some helpful information to the stranger. But he shared the group's distrust of the man. He was not very forthcoming with the information that he provided about his group and the four kings. However, Big Band’s brief explanation gave him some ideas. The man continued eating his food quietly, staring at the man who introduced himself as Xilgrev. It seemed he would need to do some investigations on the four kings. And this would be something he would like to get Harry involved in as well. “ Harry, who had been half-listening to the conversation while eating his food. “Xilgrev? Sounds like a character from a bad fantasy novel. ” Harry said

The detective’s eyes moved over to the stranger. For a brief moment, studying every part of him and considered whether he should trust the stranger or not. But the way Xilgrev was eating pizza with a fork and knife didn’t sit right with him. He felt uneasy when he heard what his group would do after they beat Galeem, particularly with what he said about his group “getting the ball rolling.”

Harry turned to Roland and Zenkichi, wanting to learn a little bit about them and their world.

“ You mentioned before that you can do some pretty cool things. Is magic a thing in your world? ” Harry said. He felt bad for Roland, who seemed to have a pretty rough time back in his world. “ That sucks, man.” Harry gave Roland a sympathetic look. Wondering how different his world was from the other Seekers. And he was somewhat lucky that his world was not as bad as Roland’s. However, it was quite a low bar.

Zenkichi paused at Harry's question, taking a couple of moments to mull it over. "To put it simply, no. The abilities I have come from...hijacking the collective consciousness of mankind. I think. Basically, in my world, I only had this power in a sort of psychic world called the Metaverse. It's a place where beliefs and willpower are more important than actual reality. Valjean, my Persona, that big guy I summon when I do magic, is a manifestation of my inner self and it's through his power that I can do magic here."

Harry looked a little jealous since he would love to summon a punch ghost to fight along with him. But it was nice to think that someone with such amazing abilities has his back. And Harry did not feel so bad for joining Dan’s dojo. Perhaps he could learn some cool moves from Dan-Sensei.

Neither detectives said goodbye to Xilgrev, but gave each other a look of silent agreement. This agreement was that they would have to tread carefully from this point on.

The mention of where they would be sleeping for the night made Harry quite anxious. He felt similarly stressed trying to find a place to rest back in Revachol. He leaned in to whisper something to Harry. “Hi Kim, do you mind if I crash at your place? ”

Kim nodded as he would feel bad if he didn’t shelter his partner, who was the only person he knew from his world. The other seekers, he was not sure if he had enough room to fit most of them. However, he would help them find a place to sleep.

Blazermate was getting tired of the Mandrills everywhere. Without her zombie ball, she had to be a bit more defensive. While others dealt with them, Blazermate could hold her projectile shield up to protect at least one side from their attacks completely. Sectonia meanwhile could focus on the other side, summoning an Antler into their midst to cause some chaos while she rained swords from above and below. Really they weren't the big threat that showed up as the group made their journey through this menagerie of horrible experiments.

Instead the big threat that surfaced was a giant mean lizard surfacing from the nearby swamp. A foe that got everyone's attention. Being as large as it was, Sectonia had to start by summoning a golden antler to its side as Geralt, Edward, and Fujiwara, engaged with it. She'd start off by putting her Slow upon it to make its size more of a hindrance than a help and would be attacking it from the back as she had no reason to get super close to something that was bigger than her. Maybe when it was nearing death she could get close to scythe it, but for now she'd keep her distance.

Blazermate meanwhile went onto her healing duty as always. Granted as it was a single target there wasn't a whole lot she could do besides summon her engineer striker at mid range for him to start building his sentry, before healing whoever was engaging the creature using a mixture of her healing beam and her divine star projectile. Since she stayed at midrange from the creature, she saw when Geralt had tried something and failed with the creature leaping at him to swallow him whole. Well, Blazermate had something for that, and with a grabbing motion, she pulled Geralt to her with Leap of Faith, the massive jaws biting into nothing.

The creature then focused upon the Golden antler attacking its side with its hefty mace spinning to snap at it. As it did so, Blazermate moved to banish the antler, making the snap miss as the antler was held in a dark sphere for a few seconds. Once the effect ended, three golden antlers, two illusions and the real one, now began to beat the creature's head for a few moments until it recollected itself and spun around to whip them with its colossal tail, taking out the illusions and making the antler's shield fly out of it hands.

Blazermate did wonder how tough this creature was though. It wasn't a guardian or anything, and while it was large it was being attacked from all sides by all manner of attacks and wouldn't last long. Especially if her engineer striker managed to fully upgrade his sentry, being able to upgrade it without any harassment so far thanks to everyone else engaging with the beast and keeping it busy.

==============================================



Roland wasn't all that happy with his interaction with the organization member, but he did confirm a few things. Roxas was right, they were stubborn and annoying to get any clear answers out of, but that didn't mean he couldn't get anything even from someone stonewalling like this Xilgrev did. Although knowing who this man was before the whole change into a 'nobody' thing, if that is what happened and these people not just taking the name of a cabal Roxas knew. Well, he did mention that organization names were their previous name jumbled with an X in it. Ah, if only his co workers at the library were here, they could figure out this anagram instantly. There was an infinite amount of names and even if one sounded weird, it could be the actual name for all he knew.

Harry had taken to Roland's story thinking things were bad just off that. While Pit was concerned about it much like Roland thought, there wasn't much to be done. He figured that story was pretty lighthearted all things considered, but apparently even a simple story like that was downright horrific to these people. Were they all raised in an equivalent of a 'nest'? "Uh, thanks. I wasn't really trying to go for pity with that one though. That was one of my more lighthearted stories. There aren't many I can say over dinner." he said. Then the question of magic was asked with Zenkichi gave his explanation. Roland then gave his.

"It... really depends on what you say is magic. Yes it does, but at the same time it doesn't. We have these things called 'singularities' owned by one of the major corporations of the city, or a wing as we call them. They allow you to break all laws of physics through various methods like K corp able to heal anything including death as long as you got the money and the brain is at least somewhat intact. T corp being able to package and use time in nearly any method. M corp giving out devices that make you completely immune to psionics and psychic attacks, soul attacks, and cognitohazards. J corp able to lock and unlock anything even concepts... yeah. But then we also have Distortions which are really complicated but people who distort can sometimes use magic. There was a guy named Pluto who could do anything to someone if they broke one of his contracts and who had access to all sorts of weird energy attacks that used runes. They were really hard to deflect." Roland went on. He stopped there, but the way he did made everyone feel like there was a lot more he could say if prompted.

As Zenkichi thanked Terry for the restaurant location they had all partaken in, Roland agreed. "Always good to get a tour from a local about the local places." Granted, this went out the window when you were in district 23, but district 23 this town was not. Soon plans were figured out on what they'd do. While Sakura had an idea, Roland decided to go with Band and Zenkichi instead. "While I might not be a 'cop' like these two, what they are looking to do sounds right up my alley." Fixer work from the outside could be seen as cop work, but it was much, much more than that. It was anything from rescuing cats from trees to security to making contracts to breaking up terrors of the city... just as long as you got paid for the job. And his specialty was intelligence gathering.

"I've already gained a bit of intel about this city already. I can reshare what I know so we can get an idea of where to look next." Roland said, moving with the two to investigate the city.

Ace had tucked the smooth, opal-like stone into his pouch when none could offer insight into what it actually might be. He'd do a little experimenting later, when the group had made enough progress and were safe enough to make camp. For all he knew maybe it was just a precious gemstone, but even that would be fine. He had emptied pretty much all of his zenny (again) buying the traps and other supplies, so he definitely didn't mind holding onto something valuable in case the crew needed more cash.

He walked along with the stagecoach rather than ride inside since the pace was still slow enough as the reindrix picked their way along the path. Once they got close to where Heismay and Roxas had gone to investigate the flames up ahead, they saw their allies were safe and sound for the most part. And that they'd found the source of the fire, another person here in the zoo. She was a girl, or maybe just a short woman, with long white ribbon-tied hair who was not dressed at all appropriately for the Frozen Highland's biting cold. It didn't seem to bother her though. In fact the girl, Mokou as she'd introduce herself, was really quite casual despite all the monsters roaming around. Either she hadn't been here long, or she'd been here too long, Ace figured. It was still kind of nice to find someone that wasn't afraid or panicking, despite what it might have said about the Mokou herself. The Cadet jogged up to the coach's open door and hopped up to hold onto the side so he could lean a little into the opening and offer their newest acquaintance a friendly smile.

"Nice to meet you. Feel free to call me Ace. Welcome to the crew," he told her, even if it ended up that she decided to split after her rescue operation was completed. Until then she was part of the team.

He dropped off the carriage after the brief greeting, falling only a little behind as it pulled up ahead to an area that looked like it might have been some kind of canteen in the past. While not totally thoroughly searched, Sandalphon's intuition appeared to be spot on as Mokou returned with another viking in tow. Ace blinked at the man's massive form, but if both Sectonia and Ganondorf fit fine inside the coach then this guy shouldn't be a problem.

The actual problem came later, as they began to cross over a flooded exhibit. Ace glanced down into the water, somewhat surprised it hadn't frozen over. Was it deeper than it looked, or... was something living in it that churned the water enough that ice couldn't take hold? The Seekers were already being careful as they moved, so there wasn't much else to be done besides keep going. On that note Ace extracted his Breechshot to assist in taking out the infected mandrills as far ahead of time as possible before they became more of a problem.

There was an even bigger one already though, since it turned out that yup, there was definitely something living in the water. Something tempered by past battles, and huge enough that it had trees growing on its back, though whether for camouflage or from a sedentary lifestyle Ace couldn't guess. The way it lunged when it spotted the reindrix definitely did not suggest the latter though. Briefly the Cadet wondered if they could get out of this by just sacrificing a pal or two, but the Seekers were already bursting into action, himself included. Figuring that whoever was planning to stick close to the stagecoach would have their ranged offense covered, he swapped back to his sword and shield while Edward and Mokou detonated the makeshift bomb. Like Geralt he obviously he had melee in mind, intending to leave behind the casters and take the fight a little lower, away from the magic they were raining upon its back.

"Going in!" Ace called right before jumping from the board walk. He didn't leap at the monster like Geralt had, rather it looked like he was just going to fall into the flood. Normally that would be a near suicidal course of action when faced with an aquatic predator like this, but tons of hunters were trained to fight almost as well underwater as they could on land - naturally, Ace was among that number. Not that he was going to have to do that.

The ship rigging that had been folded in close to his waist and back expanded out as the hunter hit the water feet first. After the splash it was clear he hadn't sank in, and instead was standing on top of the waves, actually skating across them already as he got close to the leviathan. The two arms of his rigging flapped and seemed to flex as Ace then turned in an arc, firing the clutch claw at the monster's snout. The hooks caught on its nostril, and as soon as the chain went taut the monster hunter gave it a mighty tug. He was under no illusion that he could keep the gator locked down for long, but he was at least strong enough to yank its teeth away from his allies for a moment, give them time to get the coach out of harm's way, to beat on it a little, and for one of them to pull Geralt from the drink.

The alligator's maw jerked harshly towards the Cadet, dragging its head and neck with it. The hunter's gaze flicked around the parts of its body that weren't submerged. Normally a leviathan's weakest parts were its underbelly where the armor scales weren't as tough, though that was going to be a bit hard to reach while it was in the pool. Maybe they could drag it up onto land then, give themselves an advantage. Since they'd attacked it the monster was going to try and chase them down to finish the fight either way, so the best option might be to put it down here rather than risk fleeing with this thing behind them. Plus, well... those alabaster scales could end up making something pretty cool, if they got a hold of its spirit. Ace couldn't help but grin a little.

At present though Ace kept a hold on the chain, straining to hold the beast until it ceased trying to get at its quickly escaping lunch. Since the hunter clearly wanted the veteran leviathan's attention, it gave it to him - and only then did Ace release the claw and let his slinger reel itself in. With his weapon in hand he was more than ready to take the giant gator head on.

In the end, Xilgrev ended up giving them quite a bit of information. Some of it was what had already been assumed, now just confirmed more or less, and a lot of it was delivered dryly if not sardonically, but the Seekers had learned what they needed to about the Guardians of the Forbidden Kingdom. They also learned a little about Xilgrev, and the Organization itself. Emphasis on a little, but it was something - and it was this something that Pit's brain decided to latch onto as lunch was winding down and coming to a close.

The revelation that the world wasn't going to just spit everyone out and snap back to the way it should be, and that the Organization had this knowledge along with plans for what came next could have been a reassuring thought, but to Pit it implied that this was where the 'up to no good' part was going to come in. There was that, and then there was the seemingly throw away comments Xilgrev made to Sakura about not being able to feel sadness or joy. The remark to Zenkichi about having to give things up to join Organization XIII. And, of course, Roland's earliest comments to the robed man.

Was Xilgrev actually a Nobody, then? Roxas hadn't said that everyone, or even anyone in the Organization he was familiar with was one, but the information lined up. Pit was paying attention! And there was something else he was reminded of too, about the nature of Nobodies that Roxas told him about just last night: 'Us being ‘empty shells’ is what Organization XIII told us to keep us in line. Nobodies start out having no Hearts, but over time can… grow one as they forge bonds and experience things.'

If that was the case, then maybe not everyone in Organization XIII had suspicious ulterior motives. Maybe just their leader did, and the rest were following along because they didn't have another option. And maybe they could help those members grow their hearts before an inevitable confrontation between the two groups, since what Sakura said was a real possibility even if their leader wasn't the evil guy Roxas was convinced he was. If nothing else, Pit was good about trying to stay optimistic, so before the Organization member could disappear into the cafe's crowd Pit got up too.

"Xilgrev!" he called, still close enough that he didn't have to shout over the restaurant to be heard by the man. "Not being able to feel stuff, not having a Heart... that's not forever. If that's something you gave up, you can just grow a new one if you start trying to, you know. We could even help."

It sounded sort of sappy even to Pit's ears, but there was no uncertainty in his voice. He completely believed Roxas' words, so if Xilgrev actually was a Nobody, the even in this world they should still hold true. "So, uh, just remember that!"

At that, Xilgrev gave the angel a lingering look, seemingly at a loss. After a moment, though, he gave a dismissive grunt. "Hmph. Sounds like a real bother." As he left, though, he looked through Pao Pao's windows at a Japanese restaurant across the street. "Still..."

Pit stood where he was for a few moments, watching Xilgrev's retreating back. He had no idea if what he'd said had gotten through to the man, but he hoped so. For the Organization members' own sakes he hoped they could grow their own Hearts, even if it didn't end up helping the Seekers. It was as Sakura said earlier; just too sad to not be able to feel anything.

Afterward the angel returned to the table soon enough, and since everyone was finished up there were plans forming about what to do next. Pit wasn't going to lie, underground fight rings did sound kind of exciting to see. Sakura was probably going to be more than happy to join in too, and if more than one of them were going to fight then Pit could cheer them on. However... he knew what Band said made a lot of sense. Plus he did want to see more of the city itself, especially the Pools that Ms. Fortune mentioned. Plus once they had a base of operations, they could find Juri, Primrose, and Therion and let them know what they'd learned. And, Pit thought, he should probably get a phone if the linkpearl connection remained spotty if only just to keep Rika and Junior in the loop too.

His decision on what to do after lunch was sort of made, then. After tilting his head from side to side as a visible display of him thinking, Pit spoke up. "I'm gonna take more of a look around Esaka too! Once we find a good place to meet up then we'll all just get together again later. And we can do like a strategy meeting before tomorrow?"

Just on the off chance that the Kings did actually try something before the finals. Pit had honestly completely forgotten about trying to be sneaky in Esaka even if he did suggest disguises earlier in the day. The city had just been a lot to take in, on top of the whirlwind of learning about yokai, trying to sign up with dojos, and meeting up with Terry. Which really shouldn't have been as big of a shock as it was, but still. Oh, speaking of the muscular blonde-

"Thanks for lunch, Terry!" Pit told the man with a grin. Once the group got going and were out of the restaurant, Pit stretched his wings out. For now, more exploration!

The two sides stared each other down for a moment. On one side stood a turtle and a centipede. On the other three burly bandits, another three bandits with crossbows up in the second floor of the school building overlooking the, and an unknown number of other mooks currency running down the stairs.

In between, a dropped bag containing Jr’s Rotom Phone and the sentient NetNavi called Seek installed upon it.

You could have cut the tension with a knife, but the Rampaging Brute who led the bandits had no such time for weapons as subtle as that, and instead took a sledgehammer to the tension by bellowing “Don’t just stand there you wimps! Get them!”

Upon his shout, the two electrogauntlet armed boxer brutes charged forwards, and in response so too did Rika, wearing the form of the beast as she did so, a dozen or so legs skittering across the ground.

Behind, and above, the boss, the crossbow mooks raised their weapons, only to be drowned in a hail of lead as Jr summoned his Blodia striker, the massive mecha delivering an equally massive amount of firepower their way. Bullets ripped the already shattered classroom they were looking out of to shreds, and they fared no better.

Running under this hail of lead, Rika lowered her horns, not in charge, but instead to slip one into the strap of the bag Seek’s phone home was trapped in. She managed this and then lurched her head back up, leaving the bag dangling from the Beast’s horn. It also left her entirely exposed to attack.

The two boxers got into range and tried to use her as a punching bag, electrical gauntlets swinging forwards in a pincer strike combo of left and right hook. One hit home, sending the Bug princess staggering, only to face the wrath of a bug queen as Rike summoned the giant wasp woman that was her Irchor Queen striker, and had her slam down her meters long cleaver. The titanic blade was barely blocked by an electrified gauntlet, and it was hell on the thug’s arms despite this, but he failed entirely to block the follow up shank of her venomous stinger, which was speared into his chest.

The other Boxer didn’t even get to land his strike, as his fist was parried by a double sided blade which was then slashed into him, emitting a secondary slash of blood as it did so.

Still, that wasn’t enough to take him down, and so while his ally stumbled, veins on fire, he drove a second punch at Rika. She took this one as well, but did so better than the first, the shocking blow failing to interrupt her sinking her jaws into the man’s arm and drinking his vitality.

Behind Rika, Jr tossed up a pokeball, bounced it on his shoulder, and then caught the released mimikyu Mimi on that same shoulder while catching the ball back in his hand and stashing it once more.

As he got his own reinforcement into play, the thug boss got plenty more, as a handful of arsonists and raiders came spilling out of the building.

“Get them, get them!” Their boss demanded, prompting the raiders to close with Rika while arsonists fanned out and unleashed a hail of molotovs towards Jr. The boy took a half step forwards in response to this, and then surged forwards in a Magma rush, leaving behind an explosive disk that detonated dramatically behind him when the flaming bottles rained down on it.

”Start shocking em Mimi!” jr commanded his shoulder riding mon, who responded by charging up an electroball and tossing it back at the arsonists. Jr joined in this ranged strike by forming and launching a series of spears their way, while also dropping off his striker Sho to hurl an electrified scyth at them as well.

He then used Roxa’s flow motion to smoothly leap onto RIka’s centipede back, and to then leap up and grab the bag from her horns, yelling out ”Got em!” to let her know she was free to fight unconstrained.

The bug shaped ship girl responded by slamming her horns down into the boxer thug’s helmet, cracking it in the process. She then backed up, spewing a spray of purple poisoning globules from her maw that spattered both the boxer and the incoming raiders, their exposed flesh especially vulnerable to the attack.

One of them still managed to come at them, the raider grabbing his electric baton in both hands and then twirled it around himself wildly, turning himself into a shocking spinning top.

Jr created a spill of iron ball bearings in response to this, spilling them over the ground and causing the already unsteady raider to go crashing to the ground. Rika then sunk her teeth into him, before savagely tossing him to the side.

She then roared and surged forwards to horn smash into the next raider before he could try the same trick, while Jr took a moment to rip open the bag of loot he’d gotten off her horn and free his Rotom Phone from it. ”I got em!” Jr cried out to his sister as the device floated up into the air with ghostly power, a relieved looking Seek displayed on the screen. They became slightly less relieved upon seeing the absolute devastation the kids had inflicted on the gang while they’d been trapped in the bag, and even less so when Rika took a molotov right to the Beast’s face.

At this point the thug’s boss was getting absolutely furious, but the clocking on that all this was over a phone tipped him over the edge. He hoisted his enormous pillar and stepped forward, ready to smash the miscreants flat. “That’s it–I’ll crush you myself! Any last words!?”

“Razor! Just one moment.” As the boss paused, a lithe figure, previously unnoticed, slunk out of the shadows and into view. It was a shady-looking woman with rat ears poking out of her dark hair, a fur-lined slate-blue jacket, matching platform boots, and high-waisted shorts with ripped stockings over shapely legs. As she sauntered forward, she kept her thumbs hooked lazily through the buckles that hung from her jacket from black straps, and a long tail, thin but muscular, hung behind her. In sharp contrast to Razor, she seemed completely calm, collected, and self-assured. “These little scamps aren’t worth you getting your hands dirty. Sure, they’re a little stronger than they look, but do you really want it known that big bad Razor had to go all-out on a couple uppity brats?”

Still seething, Razor turned toward his underling, seemingly tempted to curb her sharp tongue by venting his rage on her instead. After a second, though, he gave a grunt of acknowledgement. “Hmph. You ought to watch your tone, Jane, but you’re not wrong…” He scowled at the Koopa Kids. “What do you propose?”

“Why not leave these pipsqueaks to me?” Jane suggested.

“Oh?” Razor set down his pillar with a loud thump. “I’m surprised to hear that from you, seein’ how often you leave things half-done. Fine. Here’s your chance to really prove yourself. Wipe them out.” He crossed his brawny arms. “Or you’ll be next in line.”

With Jane facing the kids, they got the briefest window to see something that Razor didn’t: the shadow of disgust sweeping across her face. The next second it was gone, though, and Jane sallied forth wearing a sly smile. “You got it, boss~”

After two steps, the woman launched forward with inhuman speed, practically a blur as she zipped straight toward Rika. Only a metallic gleam gave away the sudden appearance of a unique, double-bladed dagger in her hand.

The ship girl had been a little too busy being mobbed by the remaining foot soldiers to see this look, but she was on the ball enough to spot the flash of light, especially as the other thugs pulled back. Still, the woman was too fast for her to go for a bite, and so she instead used Pustule Bomb once more, spraying toxic globules from her maw in Jane’s general direction.

Jr meanwhile had seen the look, and it had prompted a little ”Huh?” from the boy, but the half-seen sight of Jane racing towards his sister put it out of his mind as he started forming knives of his own using his ferromancy. He didn’t have time to use any before she was upon her however. Jane was just that fast.

Rather than stop short, Jane dodged into -and through- the poison globs with perfect timing, leaving behind orange afterimages. Before laying a hand on Rika, though, she went after two of the remaining goons one after another. With practiced ease, she swept the leg, then sent her targets flying away with a kick. Though still alive, both were too sore to keep fighting. “Clear off!” she crowed as she cleaned up the battlefield. “They’re mine.” In moments, the dance floor was just about empty but for Jane and the Koopas, with groaning enforcers scattered around the perimeter. The last one, taken by surprise, could only yelp as Jane locked her legs around the hapless woman’s spherical helmet and tossed her away with a flip. Without missing a beat the rogue stood back up, then darted Rika’s way once more.

In response Jr hurled forth his built up stockpile of iron knives, the several dozen ferrous shards hailing onwards Jane, each one warped in a blue glow. Using Astrid’s power he had them home in on the target, and then used Undyne’s to have those that missed suddenly reverse direction and launched back the way they’d come, though angled down so that they’d hit the floor before they hit either him or Rika.

For her part, Rika counter charged Jane, horns down, while also preparing to summon her striker Maria in the way of her if/when she dodged out of the way.

The Beast could cover ground quickly, but it wasn’t quite fast enough. Just before she could gore Jane on her horns, the rogue slipped to the side, afterimages in her wake. From her perspective time seemed to slow, while to the others Jane appeared to accelerate. She became a bladed blur, delivering several lightning-quick slices like orange streaks. When she reappeared, it was on the opposite side of Rika from Junior, clinging to the beast’s crimson carapace. In that moment the kids’ focus on offense rather than teamwork came back to bite them, since while Rika was focused on summoning Maria, Junior’s homing knives blindsided her on their quest to reach Jane. The woman kicked off her target and flipped away as the dark knight’s blood-red twin-blade slashed at her, and by the time Jane landed, Rika had reverted to her human form in a burst of static.

With a smirk, Jane hooked her thumbs back through her buckles, with no sign of her knife. “Cassette tapes and summons, huh? Here’s a little tip, kiddos–borrowed strength won’t ever make up for not knowing how to fight.” As she spoke, her tail snaked around the handle of a fallen shock rod dropped by one of the mooks. It buzzed threateningly, and after lifting it up, Jane darted forward once more.

She was right in a way in Rika’s case, as she had no idea how to fight the way she was right at that moment, namely with her bare fists. She did know how to move however, bullet jumping to the side before landing in a slide and grabbing a shock rod of her own, and then pivoting the slide on her heel, facing the foe and holding up her borrowed weapon defensively.

She was very right in Jr’s. The boy was all borrowed power, be it his papa’s, spirits or minions, but he still put it to work regardless, Magma Rushing back from her, leaving a mine in his wake, and then continuing to dash evasively, though no more mines were produced by the extra movements. While he did this, he started trying to form an iron staff while also commanding Mimi to “shadow sneak her” prompting the mon’s shadow to stretch up and rise up behind the woman to strike her with spectral claws. Far easier said than done with how fast she was moving.

Warded off by the magma mine, Jane went after Rika, reaching her right after the abyssal assumed a defensive stance. As she zoomed in, Jane went low, pivoting as she slid so that she arrived in backward kneeling position. Faced with the xeno-basher’s prominent descent, Rika would naturally lift her own baton to block the overhead strike without much difficulty. Thanks to her tail’s relatively weak grip, the weapon bounced off Rika’s guard, tempting her to counterattack. But that moment of vulnerability -in fact, the whole attack- was nothing but a distraction. A split second later Jane’s boot shot beneath the abyssal’s raised guard into her upper stomach to knock the wind out of her lungs, followed by a pivoting hook kick from the other leg as the thiren supported her weight with her hands. If a blow like that to the side of the knee didn’t floor her, it would at least leave her off-balance.

That momentary entanglement gave Mimi enough time to strike. While rising Jane couldn’t spring away to dodge, but she’d heard Junior voice his command, so she knew to be on the lookout. In the corner of her eye she spotted the incoming sucker punch, and in the brief moment afforded to her she twisted around to lift one leg in defiance. The reason why quickly became clear as a hidden blade popped out of her boot, allowing her to intercept the Shadow Sneak with a well-timed perfect guard. A loud clang rang out as yellow sparks flew, and Jane slid backward as she regained her footing. “Hah.” She grinned at Junior as her tail smoothly passed the xeno-basher into her right hand. “Guess you want your turn.” The next second she was darting toward him, eager to see what he’d try.

Jr’s first move wasn’t to defend himself but to cast ”Afflatus Solace!” on Rika using the crude iron staff he’d produced, the boy overestimating the injuries his sister had received from the confrontation.

Rika’s call of ”I’m fine!” as she pushed herself up off of the floor came too late, and the call of ”Watch out!” came after Jr was already moving. the boy dashed back, leaving no magma mine behind this time due to the cool-down, then leapt up, gaining inhuman amounts of height in the process. A foot briefly touched the top of the wall around the school that his repeated fallbacks had pushed him up against, before he leapt off of this too, combining it with another dash to throw a mass of speed into his attempt to get over Jane and to land next to his sister.

To at least try and dissuade her from leaping up after him, he had Mimi nail an electroball down towards her at the same time as he hucked a fireball. Paltry attempts at hitting her, but a distraction was all he wanted.

As Junior took to the skies, Jane followed him into the air with an impressive spring, her target only narrowly avoiding an electric clobbering. She leaped off the wall of the schoolhouse a mere moment after Junior did, but she’d lost track of Mimi during the scuffle, so the surprise electroball forced her to relinquish her pursuit and focus on a parry. Arcs of lightning discharged in various directions from the impact as she dropped back to the ground, away from Junior’s fireball. This was working out well so far; with such a deep bag of tricks, the squirrely youngsters could convincingly avoid capture, and by alternating targets, Jane could avoid triggering an Assault anomaly. Still, she needed to maintain appearances. “You can run…” With the xeno-basher in one hand and a dagger inverted in the other, ready to parry, she approached once more. “But you can’t hide!”

”Stun blast” Jr told Rika as quietly as he could, prompting her to step in front of him and raise her own stun spear at the ready defensively, while he raised up his iron staff and began to channel a spell. The plan was simple. She’d hold Jane back from Jr as he cast, but also make sure the ‘thug’ was held to a range that’d mean she’d still be hit when he finished casting ”Holy!” and unleashed an aoe blast 8 yards in radius sphere around him that’d stun their foe for 4 seconds. That’d give them time to pin down the nimble foe.

And if that didn’t work, Mimi’s copycat follow up might. And that didn’t. Well. Stalling worked for them too.

Jane dropped as she slid to a stop, digging in her bladed heel to halt her momentum as she watched the kids with narrowed eyes. When Rika made no move to attack, and no immediate spell went off from Junior, the thiren realized that he must be charging. “Hm.” With no telling when his magic would activate, or what it would do, there was too much risk of getting hit somehow. She performed a backward handspring, then dashed away to put some distance between her and her foes.

“Jane!” Razor thundered, irate, when he saw his underling backpedal. “Enough playing around! Finish them!”

The next moment the Holy went off, bathing the area in blinding radiance. Even though she managed to avoid the stun, Jane had to shield her eyes from the miniature supernova, her teeth gritted. “Neat trick,” she drawled. When she lowered her arm, though, she quickly realized that the kid’s critter was about to pull off the same trick. “Tch.” She clicked her tongue and retreated, forced to cede control of the fight’s pace. The light went off a moment later, leaving the combatants at a standoff.

“That’s it!” Razor activated his helmet, which folded out into a dome shape over his head. As its lights blazed orange, he beat his chest, activating an electric current in his armor. “You’ve wasted enough time. I’ll finish this myself!”

”Oh oh” Jr entoned, while Rika pivoted to face the new foe. Between him and the nimble Jane things were looking bad, and Rika immediately thought that they needed an exit strategy. As she began to voice this concern however, it was drowned out by a far louder sound.

“FREEZE!”

An unknown woman’s voice, amplified by a megaphone, resounded through the area. Razor stopped in his tracks. Sharp and authoritative, the woman’s voice continued. “Hands in the air! You’re surrounded!”

At some point during the fight, the situation outside its bounds had changed. The gang members watching from vantage points were gone, and in their place were Pubsec enforcers, their weapons trained on the hollow raiders. “WHAT!?” Razor looked around, bewildered, a tall woman with a dark, voluminous ponytail and a sleeveless, cat-eared shieldbearer stormed into the area, flanked by a large blue-and-orange Sweeper support unit.

As officers closed in from all sides, the woman lifted her megaphone to her lips again, her other hand on a colorful sidearm. “I said, hands in the air! All of you, now!”

Improvised weapons clattered to the ground as the hollow raiders surrendered. For a few seconds Razor stood still, a white-knuckled grip tightening around the handle of his weapon, but after another moment he let go of his pillar. It slammed down, and the veil of electricity around him fizzled out as his helmet deactivated. “Damn you.”

“Hey now, no swearing in front of the kids~” Jane sauntered forward with a teasing smile, completely unbothered by all the cops. With her thumbs in her buckles and no sign of her weapons, she tickled the underside of Razor’s chin with the razor-sharp tip of her tail. “Don’t want them picking up any of your nasty habits.”

“Traitor,” the gang leader snarled, veins bulging on his forehead.

Jane smirked as she turned around. “Gotta say, I’ve had some tough cons over the years…but this wasn’t one of them.”

After waltzing over to join the Pubsec officers, Jane leaned on the shoulder of the young man with the shield, who tried to ignore her without blushing to mixed results. At the same time, the lady with the megaphone spoke up again. “You’re under arrest for theft, assault, battery, illegal hollow operations, possession of illegal weapons, and murder. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney.” She furrowed her brows at Junior and Rika. “And…that goes for you, two. Hands up.”

That caused Jr to drop the taunting L hand gesture Jr was holding to his forehead, while Rika to fumbled the piece of candy was about to pop into her mouth. They stood frozen for a moment, the gumball clacking to the floor filling their stunned silence, before both, in sync cried out the same bemused question:

”What?!”

With the registration now completed, the Seekers of Fight had made their way back to Pao Pao Café 7. The trio re-entered the bustling interior around the same time a mysterious hooded man who claimed himself to be a member of the once heinous Organization XIII drew his strides away from the crew. While strolling, Terry got to stumble across Xilgrev, though not a word was exchanged by either man. He narrowed his eyes, thinking he’d seen the mysterious cloaked man somewhere in the past. Could this be the same man who trapped the former KOF champion inside a pocket dimension and turned him into one of his dateable waifus? He was unsure, but judging by the looks of the man, he seemed to be bringing an aura of wild, approaching storm and isolated black clouds around him. Why did he feel so motivated about fighting Xilgrev all a sudden? It’s not like he even knew what Organization XIII was, anyway, since he was quite a newbie.

“Terry, your double decked cheeseburger is ready.”

Quickly, his eyes darted away from the departing Xilgrev, as Richard caught his attention with the reminder. He wasn’t too sure just how long his order had perched there atop of the counter, emitting a trail of delicate fog in the midst of a long wait. One thing for sure, though, his stomach had been growling aloud, so he needed something to calm it down. The hat-wearing bruiser closed in on the counter, his biker gloved hand extending in the burger’s direction.

“Thank you,” Terry said with a smile, picking the plate bearing the tremendous weight of the multi-layered burger filled with slices of bacon and melting cheese. Its delicate scent entered his nostrils, and he could’ve sworn it almost left his mouth watering. “Mm… this is sooo good. Really screams the best part of the States, won’t y’all agree?”

The hat-wearing bruiser chuckled, sat down at the same rounded table the rest of the Seekers were sitting at, then dropped his duffle bag next to his chair, settling the plate of towering cheeseburger across the table’s flat surface. “Sup, guys? What do we wanna talk about?” he asked, grabbed his double decked cheeseburger between his palms, then squeezed it into a smaller delicacy with ease, the comical attraction slightly spewing the burger’s content all over his own plate.

SPLASH!

Terry gnashed his teeth, close to shutting his eyes almost reflexively. Small droplets of mustard managed its way across his shirt. “Oops… Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly before taking the first bite of his meal, his teeth drawing and munching the tip of one of the bacon slices between the buns. “Hope you guys enjoy the lunch, though. I knew you did, Zenkichi and Roland. Ammy, Cap, if you need anything to eat, just go ahead and place the orders, alright? I’m the one paying for today.” He could tell that the crew did enjoy their stay at the once legendary hangout spot in South Town, especially Zenkichi and Harry. Even Harry went on to order one of the biggest, goofiest looking beverages that Richard had to offer, and it really put a wide, amused grin on Terry’s face.

“He he… I saw what you got there, Harry. You really didn’t hesitate, did you?” he joked with a gesturing finger, stifling a laugh. “Man… I always love times like this. Really brings back the good ol’ memories.”

Suddenly, his mind went out to all those times he spent with his prior team and closed ones in the original Pao Pao Café after every tournament. He wished he could’ve had Andy, Joe, Rock, and Mary around, knowing they would’ve loved interacting with his newfound allies. Well, at least, Mai did, and he was more than grateful that she’d returned in one piece.

Yeah, right, it really doesn’t hit the same without you guys, Terry mused, drawing a deep, deep breath before taking a bigger bite of his cheeseburger. But we’ll meet again, I’m sure of it. Whenever and wherever that is. Just hang in there, alright? Mai and I are gonna find you.

Then, as Terry absently chewed his cheeseburger, a realization came across his mind. No, it wasn’t about his close acquaintances this time, but rather, the topic of the tournament he wanted to discuss with his new team following the registration. Although he was no longer a team leader, he wouldn’t want to leave his oblivious partners hanging, would he? And so, he swallowed the piece of meal under his mouth before glancing at Cap and Amaterasu alternately.

“Oh, right. So, uh, we’re supposed to talk about the tournament, ain’t we?” Terry asked, raising his toned shoulders slightly. “As you might’ve already known, unlike other tournaments, KOF’s a three-on-three competition where every competing participant fights in orders, instead of tagging each other mid-match. Well, at least, it used to be a singles tournament when Geese was the one running the whole thing, instead of Rugal. We called the format the ‘Team Battle System,’ by the way, and in order to win, we gotta defeat all three fighters of the opposing team. But if it’s vice versa, then, welp, it’s a game over for us, for sure. Usually, both competing teams will be asked by a combot to register the order in which their respective fighters enter the ring ahead of the match. Whoever gets to fight first in our team has to get into the ring with whoever the opposing team chooses to be their first fighter. When a fighter is knocked out or yeeted outta the ring, another one will replace them and so on and so forth till we get to the last fighter. Any questions?”

Amaterasu paused in her self imposed task of arranging cutlery to point at several brazilian menu items (a bowl of Galinhada (chicken and rice cooked in the same pot, a helping of Pamonhas (ground corn wrapped in in corn husks), a side of Farofa (fried manioc flour with butter, garlic, and onions) and some Pão de Queijo(cheese bread)). The wolf hungered, (she’d been living off raw wild fare for about a week before she’d met up with the seekers yesterday) and also had zero shame about taking advantage of both his hospitality and the rare opportunity to actually use a restaurant.

With that arranged, she presented two napkins she’d written on. One said “My Order” and was placed next to her cutlery arrangement, and the other said “Our Order?” which she put to both Terry and Captain Falcon.

It seemed that the first question was directed more towards the food, instead of the upcoming tournament. Terry couldn’t blame. Both Cap and Amaterasu seemed to be as hungry as he was. He grabbed the first napkin, inwardly reading down every menu item written down by the furred deity.

“Hmm… Whaddaya know? Looks like somebody knows their Brazilian cuisine,” Terry remarked, his bright, blue eyes scanning every cursive word decking the once empty napkin. He went on to grab the second one questioning both his and Cap’s orders, already finding the answer. “Good choices, Ammy, but I’ve ordered something, y’see?” He gestured at the squeezed cheeseburger in his hand, happily wiggling it. “So I’m already enough with having a cheeseburger for lunch.” The second napkin was settled, then slid towards Cap’s side on the table. “Your turn, Cap!”

”The beef tripe.” Falcon said without even having to think about it. ”All the way. It’s always been my favorite dish and it feels like it’s been forever since I last had a chance to eat some.” As for the other part of the discussion, Cap offered his two cents as well. ”So the REAL strategy comes in when we decide our fighting order. One person has to be the opener, which all but guarantees they’ll get KO’d eventually against a strong enough opposing team. And someone else will have to be the closer, which means they might not even get to fight at all depending how well the first two fighters do in a given round. Interesting!”

Amaterasu’s visible annoyance at being misunderstood dropped as, fortunately, the Captain had the same question, or at least topic of conversation. Who went when was incredibly important, and she wanted to know about what the conventional wisdom/general strategy was on that before she started speculating/planning.

“Nice choice, Cap! I can guarantee you’ll love what Richard’s cooking, though.” Terry then took a moment to give ear to Cap reiterating his explanation with his own words, then looked back to both of the napkins given to him earlier. It appeared that he was focusing a lot on his food that he misinterpreted what Amaterasu really meant when she wrote ‘My Order’ and ‘Our Orders.’ He let out a long “ohhh…!!” in realization, snickering in embarrassment.

“Ah, my bad. Sorry about that, Ammy. I thought you were talking about the food,” Terry apologized, the furred deity’s exasperation noticed. “I gotta agree with Cap here. That’s usually my strategy when it comes to determining the order. Though, I need to remind you guys that we can always change the order from one match to another as long as we get to advance to the next ones. I’d say, it also depends on whose team we’re facing here. The lesser teams are normally easier to defeat, so about one or two of us should be enough to sweep them all. Now if we face guys like Team Japan, Team Ikari, or Team South Town, that’s a different story because—from my experience—they’re some of the toughest teams I’ve dealt with. So, yeah, that said, I can be the one to open our first match to show you guys the ropes. Then, after that, we can change the formation depending on who we’re facing. Whaddaya say?”

Usually, Terry would’ve acted as the closer since he was the powerhouse of Team Fatal Fury, but for the Seekers’ first match, he figured he wanted to give them some kind of a demonstration to help them understand the tournament’s system directly. After all, some things were better demonstrated than they were verbally told, so he volunteered.

“And you, Ammy, I’d like to believe you’re the strongest in our team. I mean, you’re a goddess, after all. You could do stuff that we, otherwise, couldn’t do, being mere mortals and all. So, how about this… How about you act as our closer for the first match-up, hm? I think you’d do well,” Terry answered Amaterasu’s initial question, peering over her before glancing at Cap. “And now it’s up to you, Cap. You’re our chief. Just my two cents, but I think the order could be me, you, then Ammy for starters, but I dunno… Maybe you have better ideas in mind?”

The wolf gave a bark, on board with this plan, entirely because it flattered her pride. Plus, she was sure it’d really throw whoever had been fighting humans before to suddenly face down the likes of her.

Once in a while, Terry would shift his attention towards the other Seekers, all while helping his team place their orders when a Mii waitress approached. He reciprocated Sakura and Nadia when they talked in a conspiratorial tone, shooting back a playful smile at the former. As a fellow resident of Esaka, he knew where this was going. The locals were as rowdy as they could get, ‘gleaming’ or not ‘gleaming.’

“Ohoho… Now, we’re talkin’, aren’t we?” Terry asked with a hint of mischief, then leaned himself forth simultaneously, his back leaving the comfortable backrest. He chewed his cheeseburger slowly, as though building a theatrical tension. “About time, because I just came across one. Kinda. Guess now y’all know why I came here looking like a mess.” Considering the slight torn across the front of his shirt and his disheveled ponytail, all thanks to some space weirdos forcing him to combat them in a fight pit.

“Well, I’d say there are still many ways where you can make quick bucks in the city. Mind you, I often took odd jobs here and there, like working as a trucker, a delivery guy, or a construction worker for instance. Why am I still doing that, you asked? Because I do need an additional income while I’m not competing for a KOF tournament,” Terry added, then tossed the final piece of his cheeseburger wholly, chewing it with gusto. “And then, we have what we called ‘Bonus Games’ where you can test your might and whatnot. Usually, it’s both the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat dojo holding all that stuff where you’re challenged to break a pile of bricks or destroy a car with bare hands. And then, they’ll reward you with prize money when you get to complete the challenges with flying colors. Otherwise, you’ll only get half the money if it’s partly successful.”

”Sounds like easy money, to me.” Falcon said with an eager glint behind his visor. ”Bet I can destroy a car in just one Falcon Punch!” He said, flexing the muscles of his right arm for emphasis. ”But I definitely hear you on needing extra income sometimes. Winning Grand Prix trophies is great but sometimes that alone isn’t enough to pay the bills. That was one of the reasons why I took up bounty hunting on the side.”

That certainly sounded handy to Amaterasu. She didn’t regret her charity one bit, but it was a bit inconvenient to be utterly destitute, and so a bit of spare yen wouldn’t hurt. Or whatever the local currency might be. That said, there was one thing she thought might be more important to do before they fought in the tournament tomorrow, and that was to get Terry properly up to speed. Something they couldn’t do with that red in his eyes. The ‘Galeeming’ state, as it had been described,

With that in mind, she wrote up a single word napkin note. With 1 rod every 8 seconds, it paid to be conservative. Said note said, quite simply, “Spar?”

A simple way of going about getting him hurt, she thought.

Terry chuckled by the time Cap flexed his biceps, not knowing if he should feel impressed or jealous by the masculine display. Nevertheless, his own ‘pythons’ were still noticeably large, and he never shied away from showcasing them for the eyes to see. “Ha ha… Showing off much? Sounds like you got the gist, Cap. The bills ain’t gonna pay for themselves. Never mind, I used to have a kid to raise back home. His pops neglected him, so I took him under my care. But now he goes missing alongside most of the peeps I care for. Yeah, right, what a life, ain’t it? If losing a father and two ex-girlfriends ain’t enough, already…” he told Cap, his eased voice somewhat carrying a hint of protest. It was as if he could’ve never caught a break since the moment he lost his surrogate father—even worse now that his closest acquaintances were taken away from him.

When Amaterasu handed him another napkin, Terry accepted and read the only word written across its flimsy surface. It said ‘spar’ with a question mark, and by the looks of it, the three-time KOF champion seemed to understand what the deity intended to offer him, even though he obviously didn’t know the true intention behind the sparring match.

“‘Spar?’ Why not?” he instantly approved, casually shrugging. “Love me some good ol’ fashioned beat down with a new friend. But where should we do it, anyway? Right here at Pao Pao or…? Oh, wait, I think I have a better idea.” A confident smirk was played by the lower half of his face, as he pitched a notion to both of his teammates. “How about a handicap match between the three of us? Captain Falcon and Amaterasu against your friendly neighborhood ‘Mr. Fatal Fury’? ’Cause I need to see how my new teammates fight firsthand.”

Amaterasu cocked her head to the side, amazed by his self confidence given his earlier praise of her (presumed) prowess. Had that been a bluff? Was this one? Did he just really want to fight them two vs one for the challenge of it? Actually that fit, she thought. Along with his actual reason of course.

It’d make her ulterior motive more or less sure thing however, that was for sure, so she had no issue with this setup.

”Sure, it makes sense to me.” Cap said in agreement to the plan for a sparring match. ”Plus as Captain, I need to make sure I’m also appraised of what we can all do. So a quick match between us sounds like the perfect way to figure all that out.”

While waiting for his team’s approval, Terry didn’t forget to reciprocate the latter words that Zenkichi said to both himself and Sakura. He nodded in vague understanding, glancing at Zenkichi, Band, and Roland. “Yeah, it’s fine. I getcha. My girlfriend’s a private detective too, y’know. If only she was here, she would’ve been more than happy to help y’all with the investigation,” he told the detectives, a hint of longing present in his voice. “And that said, I’m game if you guys still need a bit of touring around Esaka. Now, now… what should I do first? Touring with you guys, training with my team, or… both?”

”And I’m Roxas.” The Nobody piped up, mirroring Heismay by introducing himself to Mokou, who went on to clarify that she was a lot older than she looked. After that it was Heismay who kept the conversation going by offering to let Mokou accompany them. Roxas had no problem with that, and just nodded his agreement before they set out to rendezvous with the stagecoach.

Along the way, Mokou addressed him briefly about his ability with magic. ”Oh, uh, thanks.” He replied. Roxas was not a mage or wizard by any stretch. Spells just happened to be one of the things he could occasionally draw upon with his Keyblades for extra help in a fight. A Keyblade Wielder that was more dedicatedly focused on magic? That was more Aqua’s wheelhouse than his own. Still, he wasn’t about to snub a compliment.

Roxas found himself returning to the Stagecoach around the same time Mokou did, meaning he caught Edward’s compliment about their good work. ”Thanks.” He told the general, ”That thing was no walk in the park, but we dealt with it together.” Speaking of the monster in question, Roxas was still holding onto its Spirit and gave the tactician a quick glimpse at what it was they were fighting earlier. ”Pretty nasty, huh?”

After that he settled into the stagecoach, in the seat across from where Mokou had sat down briefly. Since he had a moment, he decided to go ahead and do something with the Spirit he was carrying. There was no way Roxas was going to fuse with it, that was for sure. And ever since he learned about the toll having extra strikers meant for one’s time limit? He was kinda antsy about spiritbinding now too. That left one option. ”Guess I’m turning you into an item, then. Good riddance.” He said, with a shudder at the end. He donned the nearby Crown of Avarice onto his head and then clamped his gauntleted hands around the spirit in order to crush it.



”Mmph! Geez!” Roxas groaned when the oversized sword was suddenly crushing his lap. ”This thing’s… heavy!” Roxas managed to wriggle his way out from under the weapon’s weight but it was way too heavy for him to lift. ”Well, now what do I do with it? Hmm…” The Nobody rubbed his chin in thought before he caught sight of Ganondorf passing by the stagecoach.

”Hey!” Roxas called out to him, trying to flag the warlord down. ”You think you could help me with a heavy sword in here?”

Ganondorf was about to ignore the boy outright. But when the Keyblade Wielder mentioned a large sword, that at least was enough to pique his curiosity. The Gerudo shifted his pace to walk alongside the stagecoach so he could peer in at the weapon in question. ”Hm, not bad. You offering it to me or something?”

”I mean… if you want it, sure.” Roxas replied, ”Mostly I just need help moving it, it’s too heavy for me.”

Ganondorf grunted a gruff reply but leaned into the stagecoach regardless. Naturally he was able to lift the weapon easily and pulled it outside the coach to get a better look at it. After a few moments he gave a grunt of approval and a nod of acknowledgement to Roxas before he continued on his way.

”Phew, finally.” Roxas said, relieved to not have the sword burdening him anymore. ”At least someone can put it to use.” Any further thoughts were interrupted when the stagecoach suddenly lurched and rocked about from being attacked. ”That’s probably not good.” He said as he spring from his seat and hopped outside to see what the commotion was.

No, no it was definitely not good. It turned out there was a massive alligator living in the nearby body of icy water. ”Geez, who even put these animals in this Zoo, anyway?” Roxas asked with an exasperated tone of sarcasm. Obviously he wasn’t privy to the bits and pieces of the Zoo’s history that others like Edward and Sandalphon had been discovering.

That just left Roxas with figuring out his plan of attack. A monster that size with those scales would probably not feel his Keyblades or StepSword very much. And definitely not the RockGun either, most likely. What to do… what to do… Roxas snapped his fingers and grabbed one of his Poke Balls. ”Looks like another job for you, Turbo!” He decided, releasing the Revavroom and hopping on to ride closer to the shore of the water the alligator was swimming in. ”Use Screech!”

Upon the command, Turbo began revving her engines until they produced an earplitting screech of a noise. That would sharply lower the alligator’s defense, and maybe make it a bit more susceptible to others’ attacks. Roxas watched some of the others go on the move, and was especially worried when Geralt took a spill. But thankfully Blazermate was able to go in for the rescue. Then he saw the Ace Cadet literally skate on the water toward it and managed to harpoon it with claws attached to a chain. ”Careful, Ace!” He shouted to his fellow Seeker.

Roxas had to think. What did he have that could be of help here? The RockGun was his only projectile weapon, and neither of his Strikers offered much to the current situation either. Then Roxas remembered a particular move one of his Pokemon knew. But would that work here? Well, it was better than doing nothing! ”Titan!” Roxas called as he released his Golett from its Poke Ball. The ghost Pokemon struck a flexing pose in preparation to enter the fray.

”Titan, I need you to use Curse!” Roxas called, hoping against everything that this would work. Titan obeyed the command and conjured a giant ghostly nail that proceeded to lung back and stab it. It was a hard hit, taking Titan to half health. But if it worked, then the alligator would find itself on a ticking clock to its inevitable downfall. Curse status would reduce the monster’s health by 25% of its total every ten seconds. Roxas just hoped that that the move had worked, and that his friend could last through the countdown if it did.

---

When he departed from the stagecoach, Ganondorf looked around at the new area the Seekers were passing through. The first thing that caught his eye was the food court. In all honesty, the warlord hadn’t yet fully regenerated since his earlier tussle with the elephant carcass. If there was any food to be found in that area, then maybe he could eat some of it to top himself off?

When he got closer to the food court, Ganondorf was able to see that most of the food looked old and probably spoiled. He didn’t exactly know if the Gravemind’s spirit distinguished between good food and spoiled food. Judging by what he saw of it in the Qliphoth Tree, though? Ganondorf would probably guess that it didn’t. Still, that also meant the prospect of eating rotten food, which Ganondorf knew very well would still taste like death even if it was safe for him to consume.

In the end, he took two slabs of meat that he found in the staff center, but didn’t eat them. Instead he would hold onto them in case he needed an emergency bit of healing for some reason. He really hoped he wouldn’t need them, though, as the Gerudo could already imagine how terrible they tasted. Unfortunately, Ganondorf didn’t stick around long enough to realize a missing viking was hiding here, but that would end up being Mokou’s discovery later on.

When he was walking near the stagecoach again, Ganondorf was flagged down by Roxas and given a new greatsword. Apparently the boy must have gotten from another spirit. After he pulled away from the stagecoach with the new weapon in hand, Ganondorf gave it a few test swings. Seemed to work well enough. And upon closer inspection the weapon appeared to have some kind of mechanism that let it splash acid with its swings. Well that would certainly make for some rather painful damage to deal against enemies.

Part of him wanted to open another portal back to the Avenger to store one of his greatswords, but Ganondorf found himself unable to decide which one to send back. Litania had a useful enchantment, but the Sword of the Six Sages was a holy weapon that the Gerudo didn’t want in anyone else’s hands but his own. So for the time being, Ganondorf would just have to carry three swords instead of two, and made a mental note that he needed a place to privately store things once he was back aboard the Avenger.

All other thoughts were interrupted when something emerged from the water of the flooded exhibit. A giant alligator of all things. Massive enough to have trees growing on its back, in fact. ”Ha! Well, then! Maybe something will be a challenge after all!” The warlord laughed, brandishing his newly acquired Acidic Crystal Spear.

Of course, the monster was out in the water, and Ganondorf would be a fool to try and battle it there. But he wasn’t about to sit on the sidelines either. First, Ganondorf summoned a squad of Moblin Archers to loose volleys of fire arrows from the safety of the land. He doubted they’d do much damage to the creature, but something was better than nothing. Then, Ganondorf focused his dark magic and summoned the Phantom Steed that he then proceeded to mount.

Ganondorf’s Phantom Steed galloped him through the air and over the water at around the same time the Ace Cadet was making his attack run. There was also a curious rain of flaming feathers as well. Not that Ganondorf had to worry about such a thing thanks to his Ceruledge spirit’s Flash Fire ability. In fact, Ganondorf reached out a hand and deliberately snatched one of the falling feathers and let it ignite on him. But rather than harm him, it instead only made Ganondorf’s body flare up with a fiery aura that indicated that Flash Fire was now active and would be buffing all fire damage he dealt by 50%.

”BURN!” Ganondorf roared as his Steed loped over the Alligator’s head just before he inhaled a mighty breath. When he exhaled, Ganondorf breathed a powerful gout of fire that swept down over the monster’s face. He knew his steed wouldn’t remain active forever. So Ganondorf planned to keep his horse nearby the monster in the air until it was about to dispel so he could be within Bullet Jump range to make it to the alligator’s back. But for now, he just made a few galloping passes while spewing boosted fire breaths at the massive creature.

What Ganondorf did not know was that those two slabs of meat he picked up from the food court were originally intended for the alligator itself. Which meant that the alligator may very well smell the meat on him now that he was close.

---

The sled dashed along the tracks left behind by the stagecoach, the click and patter of claws against ice and slush echoing into the woods of the Midnight Walk. Ramattra continued to pilot the wolf-carried sled in place of Addux, leading the stranger back to the rest of the group, which initially was against the Omnic’s best interest. Still, after careful consideration, Ramattra realized that traversing without the rest of his group had left him without significant firepower. Even if he hadn’t temporarily “borrowed” Addux’s wolf-sled, travelling on his own, especially at night, was dangerous. The two were set for over a week's worth of travel, which would have taken longer had it not been for the particularly burly dogs carrying the sled. The Omnic and his new companion spent most of their travel time in silence, and only took breaks for the wolves to avoid any overexhaustion.

---

By the end of their travels, Ramattra and Addux had finally arrived at a zoo that had seen its share of better days. Seeing as there were smashed gates and the twisted carcasses of animals, it was clear that the Omnic and his passenger were closer than ever to their destination. It would be in Ramattra’s best interest to reconvene with Sandalphon about the status of Kit and Celica, who were now retired from the mission after the elimination of Scrapbeak. Ramattra wished he had returned with more than a bag of scraps and a mysterious hooded figure, but if Addux did have some relevance to the Seekers, then just maybe he would be able to guide the team to their goal and provide Ramattra with the information he needed.

The trail of the coach had led through a “Hall of Adventure”, where the mangled corpses of mutated animals littered the parks and exhibits surrounding the outdoor areas. The concept of zoos always irked Ramattra. Something about creatures being captured for human entertainment never really sat well with him. He pretended this was one of those “rescue and release” rehabilitation zoos to ease his mind about the matter, though, given the state of the animals lying on the ground, issues were worse than an ethical concern. If he could make facial expressions, a wince of disgust would’ve stretched over Ramattra’s face. “What on earth could have happened here…” he said with his stoic voice rich with dread.

In the nearby distance, a rumbling roar filled the lively woods, attracting Ramattra’s attention away from the recently deserted Hall, and following its lead to a hulking white reptile, angry with what group members had yet to split off. Hopefully, the Stagecoach being parked nearby was enough for Addux to recognize Ramattra’s allies as the Seekers and aid them with the fight against the large reptilian mutant. The bag of scrap and information about Kit and Celica would have to wait for another time.

With Xilgrev gone, the Seekers arranged around the table could let their guard down somewhat and return to more casual conversation as they finished their lunch. For the most part, the team members divided their attention between chatting about their worlds and deciding where to go. Now that the matters of dojos and signups had been taken care of, Band wanted to get a better look at Esaka by walking the beat at his own pace, and he quickly recruited his fellow detectives to the cause. Hopefully with him, Zenkichi, Harry and Kim on the case, and Roland along for some extra muscle, the team could get a workable idea of how life happens in the Tiered City. Band nodded at the assembled investigators. “Right on. Once we’re all done here, let’s head on up and take a li’l looksie at the Middle Tier.” With very little left of his real body to sustain, Band had already finished the morsels he’d ordered, but with plenty of daylight left nobody needed to rush their meals.

Nadia, meanwhile, cracked a gleeful grin as Sakura strung her along a bit, one hundred percent on board for her fellow fighter’s secretive antics. After a little build-up, Sakura finally spilled the beans, much to Nadia’s delight. As one might expect, the feral laughed in the face of danger. “Hell nyeah, sign me up! Guess there’s always gonna be people willin’ to put their money where their mouth is, rules and regulations be damned.” She crossed her arms, her eyes bright. “Once I’m in the mix, these fights won’t just be underground, but pun-derground!”

Once everyone finished their food and Terry took care of the rather substantial bill, the Seekers could set off on their afternoon activities. Sakura and Terry led the way back through Esaka’s Low Tier in search of hidden fight clubs. While said establishments didn’t necessarily advertise their presence on account of their less-than-legal activities, and seldom kept to a consistent schedule, Terry knew the area well enough to recommend one spot infamous for hiding in plain sight–one that even Sakura might not know the true nature of. After a circuitous fifteen-minute trip through the tier, the battle-hungry Seekers arrived at Fengjian Teahouse, a two-story wooden structure of antique Chinese design decorated with red paper lanterns and a variety of potted or hanging plants. One by one the Seekers filed in, peering around at the interior. It took the form of one huge, heavily-furnished square room with a single staircase leading to the second-floor mezzanine, from which a number of guests -and yokai- looked down over the balustrade while calmly sipping tea. There were fewer patrons around the first floor, and most of those sat at tables against the walls, with the exception of a half-dozen standing at the central bar. Nadia could see plenty of alcohol behind the bar, so she guessed that this place served more than tea. She couldn’t see any fighting rings or basement stairs, though, so where were the fights?

“Makes sense that these fights would be in the Low Tier,” she told the others. “They’re not high-cals, after all.”

“Welcome,” an old, white haired-woman with a faded pink dress and lit cigarette greeted the newcomers as she approached. “I am Madam Bo, proprietress. What can I get started for you?”

Nadia took one more quizzical look around before she treated the old lady to a sly grin. “Heya. We’re lookin’ for somethin’ a little spicier than leaf water, actually. Care to ‘spill the tea’?”

Madam Bo gave a knowing smile as she looked over the newly-arrived group. “Oh? Hmhmhm.” She took a drag of her cigarette, then rubbed her fingers together. “Well, whatever you want, this isn’t a charity, you know…”

“Uh…” Nadia fished around in her belt pouches. It took a moment for her to produce a handful of zenny, the last bit of cash she had.

Though she looked disappointed, and unconvinced by the feral’s sheepish grin, Madam Bo pocketed the money. “Ah, thank you, dear customer. Here’s the ‘tea’ then, as requested.” She shrugged offhandedly. “My humble establishment is plagued by a terrible reputation, you see. For whatever reason, we seem to attract an awful lot of ‘kombative’ customers. They have a strange habit of lurking at that bar there.” She pointed at the central bar with a cigarette. “If a man orders a drink, it seems like it’s only a matter of time ‘til another joins him to do the same. One thing leads to another, and they invariably come to blows.” Madam Bo gave an overblown sigh. “The nerve of some folks, hm? If you can’t handle your liquor, you shouldn’t be here to begin with. As for rumors of betting going on upstairs…” She waved a hand dismissively. “Nonsense, I assure you. Just nonsense. So…” The old lady pursed her cigarette between her lips and crossed her arms. “Where would you like to sit? Upstairs…or down?”

While Nadia wasn’t always the sharpest tool in the shed, she was hearing Madam Bo loud and clear. “Ohh, I dunno,” she looked around at the others, feigning indecision. “Downstairs sounds purr-etty good to me, right guys?”

The proprietress bowed her head. “Of course. Please be careful.”

As Bo showed the Seekers to a table, Nadia noticed just how many eyes were peering at her and the Seekers. The stares of the drinkers at the bar looked especially intense, and Nadia returned the favor with a probing look of her own. Right now, she could see four prospective fighters waiting for a challenge. One happened to be a bipedal panda from Esaka’s neighboring bamboo forest, a gourd of rice wine in his paw. Another was a badass black lady in pink and black leather. Not far away rested a muscular brawler with long ginger hair and a chip on her shoulder, as if daring the onlookers to take her on. A serious-looking fellow in flashy red lounged at the bar as well, very composed. Above all of them loomed a living statue with a broad-shouldered body of stone and bronze beneath an orange jacket. There were other fighters waiting in the wings though, so if any Seeker issued an open challenge of his or her own, there was a chance someone else might swoop in to accept it. Meanwhile, spectators looked down from the top floor, eagerly waiting for a fight to break out.

It hadn’t occurred to Nadia to fight and free Terry instead, so if someone else wanted to officially bring their new friend into the fold, they’d need to handle it themselves.

---

At the same time, Band’s group was traveling upward through the tiers. There seemed to be no restrictions barring intra-tier travel, so once the detectives found a lift, they could ascend to the picturesque but empty Pools and shortly thereafter to the Middle Tier. If the Low Tier had been a sprawling but underdeveloped village, mired in the past, this new level was a modest but modern Japanese town, its buildings smaller and less upscale than those of the shining metropolis one tier up, but still quite nice. Sandwiched between extremes, this tier probably represented what life looked like for the average, middle-class Esaka citizen, free from the Low Tier’s poverty but unable to break into the High Tier’s elite. It also boasted actual streets, if not vehicles, so the new arrivals could set off along the avenues to see what they could find.

As he stomped along, surveying the scenery, Band workshopped a handful of questions he wanted answers to. None concerned anything he’d consider sensitive information, so he figured any random civilian might be able to answer them, but there were still right ways and wrong ways to go about asking. More than anything, he wanted to learn more about the Four Kings, who Xilgrev had fingered as the Seekers’ true targets. After all, these co-Guardians really broke the mold; they weren’t giant monsters hidden in some remote, perilous place, but actual people. That said, he couldn’t imagine such rich, powerful, influential old men out and about in public. Band paused as he looked up at the four huge, multi-million-dollar skyscrapers protruding from Esaka’s Top Tier. More than likely, the Kings spent their days staring down at their domains from the lavish balconies of those ivory towers, with well-armed security details between them and any potential intruders. Still, it didn’t hurt to ask.

When Band’s group came to a stop at an alleyway at the edge of the Middle Tier’s large Chinatown Marketplace, he figured now was as good a time as any. He approached a redheaded martial artist in magenta who was practicing with her nunchaku, watching for a few moments before clearing his throat. “Scuse me, miss? Don’t s’pose you’d happen to know much of anythin’ about the Four Kings?”

“The Four Kings?” The young woman relaxed, tucking her nunchaku under her arm, and scratched her temple. “No more than the next girl, but yeah, I guess. What’s up?”

The detective motioned his head toward the Top Tier. “Those towers, they belong to the Kings, right? They mostly stay up there, or do they come down among us common folks sometimes?”

Kim shook her head. “Nah, they stay up in the Top Tier. Sometimes they make announcements from the railing up there, surrounded by their goons, but that’s about as close as they get to the rest of us.”

“For the men in charge ‘round here, they sound awful reclusive,” Band remarked.

Rolling her eyes, Kim let out a dry chuckle. “Yeah. Unless you’re press or, like, a chef or something, the only way you’re gettin’ up there is if you win their tournaments and go for the ‘Boss Fight’. Boss Fights go down on top of the kings’ skyscrapers, they’re always super hype.” Kim pumped her fist with a confident smile. “That’s gonna be me someday, you know! Once I win World Warrior, I’m gonna chuck that Bison bastard off the roof. Things are gonna change around Esaka, mark my words!”

Rather than mention his own participation in World Warrior, Band gave her an encouraging nod. “Sounds like a plan to me, sister! Good luck out there, and thanks for the info.” He made as if to go, then looked back at Kim, one eyebrow raised. “Oh, uh, one more thing. You ever seen anyone in pinkish-red armor ‘round the city? Wearin’ a funny-lookin’ helmet and a big black cape?”

Kim’s furrowed brow suggested that the description rang a bell. “Huh…maybe? I think I’ve seen someone like that watching the tournaments sometimes. Usually on finals day, never far from one King or another. That’s all though, don’t know her name or anything.” She shrugged.

“Huh, interestin’.” Band tipped his hat to bid Kim farewell, then moved on. By now, the other members of his little investigation squad had spread out to make some inquiries of their own, but were all in the same general area still. Spotting a temple surrounded by loitering yokai that sat on the edge of the tier at one end of the marketplace, Band began to head over, keen to learn more about Esaka’s strange spiritual economy.



When the first wave of Seekers opened fire (literally, in Mokou’s case) on Tom, Sandalphon lent her efforts to the barrage. Purple arcane rays from the tip of her Hexagun pelted the giant alligator’s head, but like the plumes, Radiance swords, and many of the team’s other projectiles, they didn’t amount to much. The enormous beast’s leathery, scaly hide, inches thick and soaked with ice-cold water, shrugged off magic as easily as it did the elements. Turbo’s Screech helped a little, but not enough to make a huge difference. Tom’s resilience really hammered home the idea that this was no ordinary animal, and as demonstrated by the foliage growing from his back, it wasn’t just a matter of disproportionate size. When Sandalphon scanned his vitals to confirm how little damage he was taking, she got an odd reading from him, very unlike the horrific mutants she’d observed so far. He gave off an almost spiritual aura, in fact. Whatever his nature, though, the fact remained that he meant to swallow the Reindrix whole, and the archangel doubted that he’d stop there.

She continued to shoot as the panicked Reindrix picked up the pace, urged on by Edward. They were fast, but the path to safety on the other side of the flooded Safari Zone was long, and Tom would have plenty of time to attack. As her ammo drained and the alligator failed to transfigure, Sandalphon quickly came to the conclusion that her new weapon’s polymorph effect simply wouldn’t work on such a huge, magical creature. Keeping a cool head, she stowed her Hexagun and thrust her hand at the incoming behemoth. Icy mist curled around her gloved fingertips as a Frost Lock sailed across the water. The frigid cluster smacked Tom between the eyes, spreading ice across his scales, but it would take twelve seconds before a second Frost Lock could freeze him.

By that time, Tom was dangerously close. The copper golems meant to delay him got thrown against the rocks or into the water as he smashed against the boardwalk behind the stagecoach, destroying the only way back to solid ground. A moment later, the Engineer’s sentry and the majority of Ganondorf’s moblins followed suit. Unable to attack from afar, Heismay stood his ground atop the vehicle, his teeth clenched as his grip tightened around his blade. As much as he hoped that a well-timed Dark Sword from his Archetype would deter the beast, he knew that Tom would be nigh-impossible to stop once his massive bulk built up momentum, whether Sectonia cast Slow on him or not. Before Tom could get too close, however, the newcomer Mokou ignited Edward’s tallow barrel, knocking the gator off course with an extravagant fireball. Finally, after the tactician marked Tom with Designate Target, Geralt jumped in as a Molar Boatworks Fixer to pile drive the behemoth right in his glassy eye.

KABOOM! With a roar of pain, Tom recoiled, putting every ounce of his strength into wrenching Geralt free as he beat a hasty retreat. Heismay breathed a heavy sigh of relief as the stagecoach thundered on, narrowly saved, but Sandalphon spotted the Witcher as he fell into the freezing water. Even before his report she knew he needed help, but for once the archangel had no idea what to do. Neither her healing miracles nor teleportation nor freezing nor razor wires could be of help in a situation like this. Fortunately, as White Team’s leader, Sandalphon need not rely on her strength alone. “Sectonia, he needs a rescue,” she commanded.

Floralia’s queen was preoccupied with spellcasting, but Blazermate picked up the slack by yanking Geralt from the water with Leap of Faith. In so doing the Witcher managed to avoid Tom’s first bite, but since Blazermate was airborne and not really strong enough to carry Geralt’s new form, he wasn’t safe for long. As they struggled to maneuver toward safety, Tom burst from the water with his maw wide open to snap up both Geralt and Blazermate in an instant. At his size, the gator didn’t need to chew or tear one bit, but simply swallowed the pair whole.

Tom’s stomach was, however, not what the two might expect. His insides turned out to be even bigger on the inside, and full of all kinds of random things that Tom had eaten to try and satisfy his agonizing hunger, from buildings to vehicles. There was also an infestation of thorny dark vines that amassed on the far side of the organ in a large, nasty-looking tangle that pulsed with malevolent crimson energy. Judging by how the thorns pierced the flesh around them, the tangle had to be causing Tom no end of pain. Of course, getting over to it to investigate further would be tricky, and not just because of the abhorrent smell in here; as Tom moved, the stomach acid pooled in his belly sloshed around, threatening to consume Geralt if he wasn’t careful.

Outside, the battle continued as Tom shook off Sectonia’s antlers. An anguished grimace overtook Heismay’s face when he saw two Seekers seemingly get eaten. He’d known these people for less than a day, but he was loath to see any of them fall, especially with such jarring suddenness. “Damn it,” he seethed, tightening his grip. The stagecoach was only halfway around the Safari Zone, and Tom was swimming toward it once more, driven by his muscular tail and insatiable hunger. Ace and Ganondorf were doing their best to hold the gator back with a mix of raw strength and empowered fire breath, but after snapping at Ganondorf to drive him away Tom doggedly pushed toward the easier, more appetizing targets in front of the stagecoach. Resolved to not fall in the water like his predecessor, Heismay readied himself to leap to the wagon’s defense in Geralt’s stead. “Come, then, and do your worst!”

Meanwhile, enough time had passed for Sandalphon to use her Frost Lock again. As she readied it, though, she scanned again, leading to a couple surprising discoveries. For one, Titan’s Curse had taken effect, but it wasn’t draining 25% of Tom’s health every ten seconds–it seemed to inflict a value equal to 25% of Titan’s, a much lower number. It wasn’t all bad news, though. “They’re still alive in there,” Sandalphon reported through her comm line, having confirmed Blazermate and Geralt’s status by attempting to reopen a comm line to them. “Hang in there, you two. I can warp in to heal you if needed.” Her pupils became reticles as she narrowed her eyes. “Everyone, I am about to attempt a freeze. Concentrate fire on the frozen target to increase damage taken upon thaw.” If everyone lent a hand, the Tom would suffer a severe enough Dissociation to stagger even something like him.

After calculating the perfect timing and trajectory, the archangel hurled her Frost Lock forth and froze the giant gator solid, inside and out. Courtesy of Sandalphon’s Cold Storage skill, the freeze would last two seconds longer, but that still only amounted to five seconds total in which they could rack up damage. After that, it would be up to the Seekers to keep Tom busy until the stagecoach reached the safety of the tunnel at the end of the boardwalk.

“No quarter!” Heismay shouted, having leapt from the coach’s roof to follow the Frost Lock through the air. His faith in Sandalphon’s plan gave him first dibs as he landed on Tom’s icy snout a moment after he froze. “Ee-yah! Yah! Yah-yah-yah-yah-YAH!” As he slid down the massive reptile’s length weaving in between the trees on his back, Heismay slashed again and again. His longsaber’s blade did not bite deep into the frosty scales, but the eugief gave it everything he had, and his teammates joined in with gusto.

After five seconds, Tom broke free from his icy shell, and Dissociation kicked in based off all the punishment dealt by the Seekers during that time. The giant gator took a boatload of damage and reeled, half-conscious as he sank in the water. Still sliding, Heismay ramped off his curled tail just in time, then glided through the air to land at the end of the boardwalk by the tunnel. “Hurry!” he shouted back. “This way!” Even as he spoke, though, the water began to stir. It was up to the others to keep Tom busy while the stagecoach raced toward the finish.

At some point during the fight, Ramattra and an unknown Organization member appeared from the direction of the desolated food court on a dog sled, unable to follow the stagecoach any further on its path around the flooded Safari Zone thanks to the damage dealt by Tom to the boardwalk. Chaos was unfolding in front of the two, and while at least they weren’t in much danger, they couldn’t unite with the Seekers this way. “Hmm…” Addux crossed his arms. “I can get us over there.” He glanced over at Ramattra, wondering if he’d try to help from here beforehand. “Just say the word.”