[center][h3]Esaka - the Pools[/h3]
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (178/150) Level 11 Big Band (72/110)
Amaterasu’s [@DracoLunaris] Roland’s [@Archmage MC] Zenkichi’s [@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN] Pit’s [@Yankee] Sakura & Juri’s [@Zoey Boey] Captain Falcon’s [@Double] Harry and Kim’s [@Eviledd1984] Terry’s [@Terry Bogard] Yayama’s [@Chevaleresse] Grima’s [@Goggy]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2130 / 1499[/center]

Just a moment after their first round of kombat concluded, the two duelists moved to take up opposing positions on their shared stone stage. Purge stomped over to his spot, angry and eager to pay his opponent back for her unearned victory, his white-hot glare fixated on her as he gnashed his hands rotors together. Nadia, meanwhile, purposefully avoided his gaze as she waltzed over with her arms behind her head, her manner casual and carefree.

She was not, however, as lackadaisical as it might appear. Even though she’d won the first round by a decent margin, her opponent had proven that he wasn’t just some two-bit chump she didn’t need to try against. He was too heavily armed -pun intended- to be taken lightly. As nice as it would have been to have an easy-peasy first round, she wasn’t going to go easy on Purge, and to that end her mannerisms were as much a weapon as her claws. Her strategy was the same as always: get in her enemy’s head, get them to make mistakes, and take full advantage. All the while, she’d need to keep an eye on Purge himself. So far he’d been relying on his arsenal rather than any trained skills or mind games, but if the cyborg had more up his sleeve, Nadia would do what she did best: improvise.

[b]ROUND TWO: FIGHT![/b]

“Tin Cans!” Once again, Nadia called out Robo-fortune to start the party with a beam assist, but this time her pink laser missed as Purge spun up his heli-pack and took to the skies immediately. He hovered forward, firing a barrage of fireballs down at the two catgirls. While Robo took a shot to the chrome dome, then made herself scarce, Nadia raced forward. Bursts of hissing flame followed in her footsteps as she crossed under Purge. She hesitated for a brief moment, not sure what to do from this odd angle, and in that split second of indecision, her foe decided to nip any attempted anti-airs in the bud. He dove straight down, his hand-rotors whirring beneath him like lawn mower blades. At the same time Nadia shot up with Charge, a skyward bolt of yellow lightning. The two fighters collided in midair, with the feral re-materializing as she got dunked to the floor, while Purge flipped up, then fell, unable to regain control.

Although winded, Nadia recovered fast enough to launch an attack as Purge plummeted. “Heads up!” She pulled off her head in a spray of blood, then hyperextended that arm upward for a [url=https://i.imgur.com/nmeN9hW.png]remote headbutt[/url]. The blow popped Purge back up for a split second, allowing the catgirl to convert off the trade. Nadia dropped her head, then bumped it like a volleyball, which sent her head spinning in an arc like a flying sawblade. It caught Purge and hit multiple times, holding him aloft. “Skull’s out fur-ever!” A light [url=https://i.imgur.com/ZbLXs7y.png]Fiber Upper[/url] juggled the cyborg long enough for Nadia to snap up and flip forward after him, then continue the combo with [url=https://i.imgur.com/wIy88Ff.png]Footloose[/url], a kick followed by a hyper-extended knee. From there, she hurled him toward the ground with a [url=https://i.imgur.com/KwSeBvT.png]heavy heel kick[/url]. “Anni-heel-ate!” From there she double jumped backward, then spiked her head down.

“Gaaagh!” Purge hit the deck and rolled to hit feet in time to block the head shot, but that still left the catgirl’s head worryingly close, and he remembered what happened last time his opponent got him in this situation. He looked up to see Nadia airdash toward him, propelled by streams of blood from her thigh seams, and revved up his rotors at max speed. A wall of air stalled her momentum, causing her jump-in claw slash to whiff, and the next second both she and her head flew backward in the wind.

“Wah! Blowhard!” Nadia flipped back and landed on her feet as Purge took advantage of the space he’d made to fire off two fireballs. The feral scooped up her head from where it landed at her feet, turned sideways to allow the fireballs to pass on either side of her slender profile, then rolled her head like a professional bowler. She ran after it on all fours, quickly closing the distance. Purge furrowed his brow, then executed a well-timed low kick to boot the catgirl’s head away. “Meowch!” He then pivoted around, borne slightly aloft by his heli-pack, and spun one hand-rotor behind him to throw out a surprise flying kick. His boot caught Nadia right in the sternum mid-dash, which made her eyes bug out. “PUH!” As she staggered, Purge landed and unleashed both flamethrowers in flailing serpentine streams, scattering gobs of burning fuel far and wide. With both her head and body caught in the inferno, Nadia took half again as much damage, and yowled in dismay.

The next moment her flame bath was over, and Nadia hit the floor only a few feet away from the water’s edge, her new outfit smoking. She quenched the residual flames with blood, then looked up to see Purge launch toward her in a whirling lariat, his flamethrowers at full throttle. Remembering that Fiber Upper couldn’t save her, she put up her guard and crouched-blocked the fiery lashes, her head safely behind her. When the lariat finally ended she sprang forward for a retaliatory slash, but Purge recovered fast enough to backdash, then engage his heli-pack to fly up and backward. As he loosed a couple fireballs to cover his retreat, Nadia gritted her teeth in a derisive smile. “You’re soar-ta annoyin’…” She ducked down with a spinning sweep, scooping up her head. As the fireballs flew past, she rose with Limber Up to kick her head into the air, then set it toward Purge like a volleyball. “But I’m not a soar loser!”

Blood blasted from her neck to shoot her head up at Purge like a missile, her hardened ears pressed together to form the point of a drill. “Hah!” The cyborg batted it aside with little effort, then fired up his flamethrowers for another bombing run. “Prepare…to BURN!”

Instead, Purge began to wobble in the air, his flight destabilized, and was forced to use his rotors to try and maintain control. Below, Robo-fortune had arrived, one arm extended up at Purge with a familiar metallic arch at its end. “Purr-manent magnet,” Robo declared as her [url=https://i.imgur.com/OSkc3IM.png]magnetic field[/url] reached full power. [i]Nyan-na-nyan-na-NYAN-NA-NYAN![/i]

“Whoa…whoa-oa-oa!” Try as he might, the cyborg could not resist the magnet’s pull. He lost control and tumbled down toward the catgirls in freefall.

With a huge grin on her face as she popped her head back on, Nadia waited for a moment, then bounced Purge off the ground with an El Gato axe kick as her copycat pulled back. “Take a bow!” She picked him up with her low claw thrust [url=https://i.imgur.com/Dcji6cW.png]Hand in Hand[/url], then stabbed her ears into the ground to batter Purge with [url=https://i.imgur.com/R5flmeI.png]Wheel of Fortune[/url]. The repeated leg and tail strikes pulled her foe closer, just as planned, which gave Nadia the perfect chance to make up for her dropped combos earlier. In a spinning motion she regained her feet, then caught her foe with an upward gut punch–one of Ángel’s Unchain starters. “Gotcha!” She continued the Unchain combo with a high kick, uppercut, and wild sobat kick. Finally, exhilarated by her success, Nadia capped her combo off with an Unchain finisher: she snatched Purge out of the air, brought both knees up, then dropkicked him backward.

The cyborg yelled as he tumbled away, sliding perilously close to the water’s edge. He rose as soon as possible, but Nadia was already on him. “Ssapo!” The toothy biofreak, recovered at last from his combo breaker earlier, leaped in for a mighty ground pound.

Nadia, who’d forgotten about him, went wide-eyed and stopped to block high. She intercepted the brute’s limbs as he struck her on the way down, but when he actually hit the ground, Ssapo’s big mitts created a shockwave that struck her low. “WHAT!?” Her astonished cry turned into a grunt of pain as she got swept off her feet and hit the floor face-first. Still thrown for a loop, Nadia rolled backward and put up her guard, only for Purge to charge forward, going airborne, and hit her with a downward buzz cut. “Gah!” He immediately went to repeat his flamethrower thrash from earlier, so the catgirl called in her Kameo to combo break. “Get meowtta heeeere!” Robo-fortune arrived with a [url=https://i.imgur.com/MgTX3Vd.png]frantic burst[/url] of electricity that separated both fighters, leaving them neutral but Purge still by the edge. That would be the last time Nadia could call on Robo this match; she was now alone. “Run-up overhead?” Nadia spat. “Who does that!?”

“YOU did earlier!” Snarling, Purge leveled his flamethrowers, as Nadia rolled her head off her shoulders, then kneed it into the air. As it soared his way, Purge instinctively aimed upward, struck with indecision. Then he gave up entirely and blocked just in time as Nadia bolted forward with Charge, rematerializing in an electric shoulder bash. “Zappy birthday!” The impact of Nadia’s head the next instant made her Charge safe, so she jumped over Purge and his panicked jab. Recognizing the cross-up, he whipped around to block the other way, only for the catgirl to perform an aerial backdash and cross-slash him on the original side. “Get mixed!” 

“GRAH!” Too close to the edge to take another combo, Purge brought in Ssapo to break for him again, which meant that both Kameos were benched. Nadia tumbled backward and rolled her feet with a smile on her face, feeling the momentum shift in her favor. Purge released another wind blast, but blocking significantly decreased the pushback, and when the cyborg took to the air for another bombing run, Nadia was ready. She dropped to the ground and fired off a heavy Fiber Upper behind her. “So long!” Of course her kick hit nothing but air, but snapping to her hyper-extended feet not only got away from the flames, but put her right in Purge’s path, and a double jump took her even higher.

As the cyborg stared up at her, eyes wide, she pulled off her tail and blasted out blood to plunge right into him. “Never say die-ve!” Nadia’s [url=https://i.imgur.com/MgmRLy2.png]Feral Edge[/url] took both back down to the stage, though only the catgirl landed on her feet. An upward slash launched her foe backward, and he slammed down with a [i]clang[/i].

Grumbling through gritted teeth, Purge spotted Nadia rushing at him again as he rose, and did what any self-respecting fighter would do: yell uproariously as he launched a fiery reversal. In a moment of uncharacteristic restraint, however, the feral held off attacking in order to lean back and raise one knee. Purge’s slammed himself into her knee, leaving him stunned, and with a laugh Nadia [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/snk/images/6/6e/Survivors_2002.gif]finished her Blockbuster[/url] by throwing him to the ground, dashing over him twice, and dropping a spectacularly theatrical elbow straight to the groin, which somehow caused an explosion. [i]BLAM![/i]

The Heavenly Principles didn’t need to count down from ten; they knew that Purge was down for the count. [b]MS FORTUNE WINS![/b]

“Wooooohooooo!” Nadia cheered as she ran around, her arms held high in elation. She even over and hugged Robo-fortune, who only let out a fizzy electronic sigh. “Y’see that, Tin Cans? We did it!”

Robo didn’t seem impressed, but then again, she was probably never impressed. “That should have been much easier than it was,” she deadpanned. “It was only the first match, as well. Two more before we’re even out of pools.”

“Hey, a win’s a win!” Nadia looked around to see if anyone had been watching, but she saw no sign of Primrose, Annie, or anyone she recognized. There were only a couple spectators around period, and even those were only around because her first match had been spicier than most fighters. Well, no worries. The farther she got in the bracket, the more people would realize she was worth watching. “My comeback tour has only just begun!” With one final glance at Purge, who had yet to move despite Ssapo’s insistent poking, she and Robo vacated the arena for the next couple kombatants to move in.

[hr]

As the two fighters squared up to begin the second round, Band took a brief moment to consider what he’d learned from the first. Rasputin seemed to be a zoner through and through, with a wide range of arcane projectiles, and thanks to those magic hands of his, his melee attacks had enough range to match the detective’s despite his smaller stature. Their first round had proved that getting in would be difficult for Band, but not impossible, and he had demonstrated that he could make his opponent pay dearly for it if he did manage to close the distance. This time, with Band more used to the sorcerer’s jump and projectile timing, the pressure would be on Rasputin to adjust.

[b]ROUND TWO: FIGHT![/b]

Band began with a light Brass Knuckle, sliding forward a short way as he threw out a huge, mechanical fist. Rasputin simply walked backward, perhaps wary of impetuous action after seeing what Band could do, which resulted in him blocking the Brass Knuckle at max range. Technically the detective was minus, but only just, and with the distance involved Rasputin couldn’t run forward to catch his opponent with a magic hand fast enough. Band blocked for a couple seconds as Rasputin slapped, microwalked, and slapped again, but after a moment he walked a touch closer than usual and surprised Band with a grab instead. Somehow, the infamous Russian managed to manhandle all two and a half tons of Big Band and throw him to the ground, then speedily retreat.

Band picked himself up to see a fireball already on the way. “Oh boy…” He hopped to the side, then stepped forward as Rasputin hurled more fire his way. The two quickly fell into the same pattern as before, though this time, it was less of a chase and more of a dance. Approaching Rasputin was a thankless task, but Band pursued it patiently. He bided his time for a few moments, then as his opponent landed after tossing down a midair fireball, unleashed his Giant Step once again. This time the giant drum pedal shook the stage while Rasputin was winding up for a lightning spell, which knocked the spellcaster off his feet with a surprised cry.

Band charged forward without delay, not with a move but just by sliding across the ground, a stream of sound energy behind him. Still a short distance away, he jumped forward, then attempted an ear-ringing [url=https://i.imgur.com/012lYKQ.png]Cymbal Clash[/url]. It dealt a heavy blow to Rasputin’s guard, jolting him just strong enough that Band could land without fear of retaliation. Now only a few strides away, he launched forward to follow up, and his opponent didn’t dare to try and stop him. He stood firm to block, but didn’t notice in time that Band’s fist wasn’t closed, but open. This wasn’t a Brass Knuckle, but a light [url=https://i.imgur.com/sn5MA1j.png]Take the A-train[/url], the detective’s trusty command grab. He scooped Rasputin into the arm’s inner tube, then hammered him twice with the built-in, piledriver-esque trombone handslide. The third hit shot his opponent back out, and after flying a short distance Rasputin landed like a heap of dirty laundry.

Rather than press his advantage, Band deployed his [url=https://i.imgur.com/kin06du.png]bagpipes[/url] and began to play. The mixolydian melody of the chanter harmonized with the strident single notes of the drone reeds, creating an unmistakable sound that swept over the World Warrior pools and brought curious gazes from all directions. Rasputin bore a puzzle expression as he got to his feet, but he wasn’t about to waste this opportunity. “Ice ball!” He wound up, then hurled the frozen projectile at Band. The detective finished playing just in time to take the ice ball head-on, then remained frozen as Rasputin ran up. The magic man unleashed a barrage of slaps, each hand enchanted into a giant yellow mitt, then finished by twirling forward. His robe rose like a ballerina’s skirt, slicing into Band repeatedly as the fragments of ice fell away.

The detective stumbled backward, but he planted his foot and stayed standing. In front of him, Rasputin loosened his robe, then ran forward with his hands held out as if to embrace him. Band knew a grab when he saw one, so he jumped forward just in time, his feet barely clearing Rasputin’s head. The man doubled over as he grasped nothing but air, seemingly dejected. “How could you reject…” He whirled around, a giant yellow fist of magic formed. “My love!?”

His arcane punch landed a clean hit to his foe’s collarbone, but thanks to the armor from Bagpipe Blues, it barely slowed Band down as he unleashed [url=https://i.imgur.com/IzHBd72.png]Overblow[/url]. A giant tuba deployed from his undercarriage, prompting a wide-eyed look from Rasputin. “Oho!?” The tuba struck him, then blasted him, and the sound stun left him reeling.

Band had plenty of time to confirm with a [url=https://i.imgur.com/wbaQVDw.png]saxophone uppercut[/url], and after that he sounded out a string of punishing wind and percussion instruments. “Riot!” He capped off that performance with a resplendent Cymbal Clash that knocked Rasputin down. With that combo’s Sound Stun already used, Rasputin could recover on the ground, though by now the sorcerer was hurting for certain.

Band plowed forward to pursue his opponent with a heavy Brass Knuckle, canceled it into Emergency Break, and instantly ate Rasputin’s cossack kicks on wake-up. His weighty chassis hit the ground hard as he failed to tech, so by the time Band rose, Rasputin was on him. The Russian went for a throw, but being just out of range he flubbed the grab. Band had expected the throw, so when it whiffed his attempt to throw break missed also, which allowed Rasputin to take another quick step forward and actually throw him. “Baloney,” the detective grumbled.

His adversary jumped upward to hurl down a fireball, which trapped Band in blockstun long enough for Rasputin to start swinging. This time Band brushed the assault off with a pushblock that slid Rasputin backward. “So what?” Taken aback, the sorcerer’s latest magic slap whiffed and carried him off-balance. He recovered just in time to jump away from and narrowly avoid a medium Brass Knuckle, then empower his foot with the same yellow magic that he did with his hands. That foot landed a kick to Band’s head that knocked off his hat, but the detective’s armor kept him where he was, and Rasputin couldn’t do much other than toss another fireball as he leaped away. “Hmph!” Tired of the same old song and dance by now, Band parried the projectile with Noise Cancel. “Yeah!” The next second, he cannoned forward with another go at his medium Brass Knuckle and decked Rasputin with a giant fist to the face.

The man tumbled to a stop, bruised and breathing heavily. Band wasn’t exactly a spring chicken himself, but he was in much better shape than Rasputin, judging by those gasps. “Sounds like you’re just about played out, pal,” he declared.

Rasputin wiped blood from his lip as he narrowed his eyes. “Love…” He wound up for an electric pitch. “Conquers all!”

He hurled the thunderball forward. Band hopped to the side, then charged forward, his Brass Knuckle extended. In this state, his foe seemed too weary to dodge. [i]Too easy.[/i]

That thought made alarm bells ring in his head, but it was too late. Rasputin’s body turned to stone, and Band’s mechanical arm smashed into it. The instruments made an awful sound as they crumpled, brass bits flying everywhere, and Rasputin promptly canceled into his other super, a full-force robe twirl that hit a half-dozen times. Band slid backward with a grunt, falling to one knee, and looked up to see Rasputin baring his upper body once more.

As his foe sprinted forward, Band sucked in his breath. “You ain’t got me!” Splurging all his Dramatic Tension, Band stomped the ground, deploying a wave of podiums. The podiums caught Rasputin in the act, buffeting him back before the last one launched him into the air. Each podium then opened up to reveal a trumpet, all of which took aim. “Strike up the band!” The instruments then began blasting out trumpet mutes in a brutal barrage, with Rasputin suspended in the air by the rubbery bombardment from below. After a few seconds, the podiums all receded, and the sorcerer hit the ground, not to rise.

[b]BIG BAND WINS[/b]

The detective let out a heavy breath. “We have come to terms,” he declared as he turned away, reconfiguring into flight mode to leave the arena. “See you, space cowboy.” With that he rocketed up on a jet of sound energy, landed on a nearby walkway, and made his way toward the nearest rest area. One down, many to go.

[hider=Tournament R1 Rewards]
[b]Fighters:[/b] Ms Fortune, Big Band, Amaterasu, Roland, Zenkichi, Pit, Sakura, Captain Falcon, Harry, Kim, Yayama, Grima
[b]EXP Reward:[/b] 10 EXP[/hider]

[center][h3]Outer Space - Orbital Space Station[/h3]
Lvl 9 Sandalphon (51/90) Level 6 Heismay (53/60)
Edward’s [@DracoLunaris] Blazermate & Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC] Geralt’s [@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN] Ace Cadet’s [@Yankee] Roxas & Ganondorf’s [@Double], Ramattra and Tenna’s [@XoXKieroBombXoX] Mokou’s [@Goggy]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2608

[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/p76VSWM.png]Nameless Stagecoach[/url][/b]
𖥞: 6/8 | 🛡️: 6/8 | [color=blue]◆[/color]◆◆◆ | [b]Equipment:[/b] Stewpot/Windchime/Lamps/Vegetubes/Lightning Rod/(None) | [b]Companion[/b]: Ratshaker Rat[/center]

As the Democrawler slowly disintegrated, its tentacles still feebly struggling, Eve slowly relaxed her fighting stance and allowed herself to breathe. Sandalphon, who was even more careful than her new ally, took longer to lower her hexagun’s barrel and stand up from her crouched firing stance. Though there was some interference from the leftover Naytiba biomass around the space station, her External Information Network picked up no signs of life from the Democrawler itself; it was well and truly dead.

With it out of the way, hopefully the rest of the organism up here would simply die off. In a perfect world the Seekers would go on to do their due diligence and erase all residual traces of the infestation themselves, much like how they exterminated the mutant carcasses in Krat Zoo, but Sandalphon couldn’t imagine the remnants posing much risk to anyone up here. All in all, despite this squad’s greatly reduced size, her excursion into space had gone much better than expected, especially considering that they’d faced an Alpha Naytiba. Sectonia had showcased the true destructive potential of her magic, but it was Ramattra who’d stolen the spotlight, serving as both powerhouse and protector. Of course, Eve had been no slouch either, and the amount of damage she dealt compared to Sectonia’s. Together, the four of them made for a small but elite force, and Sandalphon had triumphed. “Good work, everyone.” As Lily and Adam neared the group, untouched by the battle, the archangel brought out her gunstaff and began to cast Angelic Praise to patch everyone up.

It was about that time that a tremor shook not just the Central Core chamber, but the whole space station. Lily, already jogging the others’ way, looked around in apparent fear as she picked up the pace. “Eve!” she called, waving her arms frantically to get the swordfighter’s attention. “The Alpha signal, it’s all over the place!”

“What?” Eve’s brows furrowed together as she glanced back down at the Democrawler’s corpse. “We killed it, didn’t we? Although…” As Ramattra removed the monster’s spirit from its ashen remains, she could clearly see its prismatic light, but there was no sign of vivid red. Her brown eyes widened as she blinked a couple times in quick succession. “Where…is the Alpha Core?”

“Eve, behind you!”

She turned just as an enormous gray arm, not unlike the Democrawler’s, reached down from a huge lump of Naytiba biomass and snatched her in its grasp. As Sandalphon watched, stunned, the arm quickly slammed her against the floor and ceiling, then hurled her at one of the windows. The archangel’s visual calculus told her everything she needed to know about the imminent impact. Her pupils became empty rings as she turned to run. “Brace yourselves!”

Eve smashed into the glass. Cracks spread in an instant, and the whole window shattered, with Eve flying out into the vacuum of space. Alarms blared as the space station began to depressurize, rapidly venting atmosphere into the void. Lily, Adam, Sandalphon and Ramattra all lost their footing, which left only Sectonia able to maneuver.

The wasp queen acted quickly and strategically, prioritizing her most uniquely capable minions. As she flew away from the breach at top speed, headed for the entrance through which the Seekers arrived, she snatched both Sandalphon and Lily out of the air. Sandalphon grunted, winded by the sudden impact, but she was not content with being saved. The archangel cast out her left hand over Sectonia’s shoulder, her ergo strings reaching for Ramattra and Adam. She weather the excruciating sensation in her fingertips as the strings quickly extended to their greatest length, but they fell just short of Ramattra as he hurtled away. Sandalphon clenched her jaw, her pupils flashing stress marks, but quickly turned them to targeting reticles as she flicked them Adam’s way. Since he was much closer, the ergo strings made contact, but they failed to plug into his body.

Confusion and dismay crept into Sandalphon’s typically-blank expression as Adam got flung into space as well. Why could she connect to Eve, but not him? Were they not two of a kind? Two painful failures in quick succession, and possibly dooming both allies, left Sandalphon numb with shock. Over the roar of rushing air, she could just about hear Lily cry, “Adaaaaam! Eeeeeeeeve!” as Sectonia spirited them away through the access tunnel, and the lockdown doors slammed shut behind them.

A few seconds later and the three were back in the violet-coded atrium, where Sectonia released them. Both Sandalphon and Lily slumped to the floor, the former silent with blank eyes while the latter hurried to check her equipment. “They should be fine out there,” she announced, apropos of nothing, which elicited a bemused look from Sandalphon. “I mean, they don’t need to breathe, and they should be able to withstand the cold, yeah?” With no time to resolve Sandalphon’s confusion, she glanced down at her PDA. “I’m more worried about us. Something’s up with the station, the systems are all going critical. And the Alpha signal’s out of control!” She stood up, then beckoned to the other two as Sectonia helped Sandalphon to her feet. “I’ve got a route to the hangar. We’ve got to go!”

Sandalphon swallowed, then nodded. It was true that as a machine, Ramattra should be able to survive in space. If her hypothesis about Eve based on her ergo strings was true, she would be in the same boat, despite appearances. Logically that would go for Adam too, but her inability to connect to him contradicted that presupposition. She would just have to trust Lily, she guessed. While she could warp back down to the other Seekers right now, she didn’t want to leave until she could verify the others’ safety, so she breathed deep and took off running after Lily. If Sectonia consented to carrying them, they’d get there that much faster.

Outside, in the vacuum of space, Ramattra found himself battered by pieces of debris as he hurtled away from the orbital station. Fortunately he didn’t take much damage, and he did just get restored by Sandalphon’s miracle so survival wasn’t his problem right now. He didn’t need oxygen to live, and his only organic parts -those gained from his alchemist fusion- were more or less reanimated flesh already. Spinning around in freefall was very disoriented, but eventually he evened himself out. Not too far away, he managed to spot Eve in a similar situation, seemingly unharmed despite her perfectly human appearance. That wasn’t all he witnessed, though, as he turned his gaze back toward the space station and saw it from the outside for the first time.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/SooVcJL.png[/img][/center]

Something truly colossal was clinging to the structure, practically engulfing it. From a tentacled trunk it has overgrown most of the orbital station like mold, and from the crown of its center mass sprouted four gargantuan, organic structures, crude facsimiles of angelic wings achieved through deliberate arrangement of mottled starfish arms and translucent jellyfish tentacles. From that central body, half a dozen enormous, bloodshot hazel eyes -unnervingly human- stared back at Ramattra and Eve.

“That’s…the real Alpha!” Eve whispered to herself, her voice silenced by the vacuum of space.

As the two continued to fall away, they began to pick up speed. At such a low orbit, gravity was still an issue, and at this rate it wouldn’t be long before the two hit the planet’s atmosphere. Space was survivable for them, but the enormous heat generated by reentry -upwards of three thousand degrees Fahrenheit- was another matter. 

From the direction of the space station, something was shooting toward them. It was a crude, rather defunct-looking [url=https://i.imgur.com/Lkj9Tjz.png]pink and white rocketship[/url], with Lily in the forward cockpit piloting, and Sandalphon in the rear cockpit as ballast. Sectonia, who could breath in space herself, was clinging to its fins, since by now it was moving much faster than she could propel herself in space and still accelerating as it approached the freefallers. If they had a plan, though, the rocketeers could not communicate it without Adam’s drone or a link to Ramattra from Sandalphon’s sigil.

Sustained by a vague hope that Sectonia could grab the two before the rocket returned everyone to the space elevator, the trio continued to approach, until a radiant burst of what seemed like sunlight went off behind the Alpha Naytiba in the distance. Just after Sandalphon looked over, the monstrosity’s main eye ruptured, and out flew a golden streak of light. As the Alpha Naytiba began to die, its immense body turning to ash from the center outward, the light streaked toward the Seekers. As it approached, Sandalphon could more clearly see the what appeared to be an [url=https://i.imgur.com/H7hE0nK.png]angelic knight[/url] about twelve feet tall, with three seraphic wings on its left side and three extra, spear-bearing arms on its right. Sandalphon stared, fascinated, until she realized that this being had no halo, and that its wings looked rather like the Alpha Naytiba’s. It raced closer and closer as the Seekers approached the planet, banishing its spears to reach out for Ramattra and Eve. Once it secured them, it wrapped the two in its wings, then began to heat up as it hit the atmosphere. Together, the unknown savior and the rocket descended into the night sky as two blazing comets, plunging through the high altitudes and finally back into the sea of clouds that blanketed the Frozen Highlands.

The rocket flipped around and fired its thrusters downward to slow down as it approached the surface, but the angel-thing descended as a meteor, barely able to decelerate before it slammed into the snow about half a mile from the rear exit of Spire 04. Once the rocket landed -its touchdown rough but survivable- Lily, Sectonia, and Sandalphon raced for the crash site. In the smoking crater, they found the angelic knight on its back. Its wings unfurled to reveal Eve and Ramattra, shaken but safe and sound. Finally, the tightness in Sandalphon’s chest could go slack as she allowed herself to relax. “Thank Ilia you’re alive,” she remarked. With a quick cast of her other healing miracle, Angelic Praise, everyone found themselves restored in a surge of spinning screens and divine circuit-runes.

Though Lily stared, wary, at the angelic knight, she could not help but notice that someone wasn’t here. “But…where’s Adam?”

The unknown being’s body began to glow, then dissolve into golden light. Sandalphon thought it was dying until she double-checked it with a quick scan, which revealed a familiar life signal beneath all the unidentified noise. “Interesting…”

When the light faded, a man was lying there. Though uncharacteristically shirtless, it was definitely Adam, although the three wings that dangled behind him as he sat up made it clear that [url=https://i.imgur.com/HrSLWhp.png]he[/url] wasn’t quite the Adam that the Seekers knew. At the sight of him, Lily beat a hasty retreat, and even Eve seemed astonished. “A-adam? You’re…?”

“I know this is a disappointment. I’m sorry, Eve,” he told her, his tone remorseful. “About all this. I didn’t mean to deceive you. My desire is the same as it always was: for humanity to achieve a state of peaceful coexistence.” He looked away, toward the wings that hung at his side. “Yet…which one of us could be called human? The androids that wiped out humanity and claimed that title for themselves? Or the Naytibas, who threw away everything that made them human in order to survive?” He shook his head. “You have every right to be mad, but…will you hear me out?”

Eve looked over at Sandalphon and the others, who remained impassive, then back at Adam. She seemed angry, but after a moment she bit back her anger. “After everything, and since you saved us…I suppose it’s only fair.” She took a deep breath, then opened her eyes again. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

With a slow nod, Adam began. “The truth is…everything that has happened until now, and even before, it began with me. I am the source of it all.” He held his hand over his bare chest, trying to ignore the cold. “My real name is Raphael. Raphael Marks, the creator of Mother Sphere, and after the war, the first Naytiba. I…pioneered the genetic engineering that turned humanity from a few doomed survivors into an unstoppable species, at the cost of everything. All I ever wanted, from the very beginning, was for mankind to thrive and prosper. But we humans were weak and afraid. Unable to accept your kind. And that fear led to tragedy.” He closed his eyes. “Now…I want atonement. Forgiveness. For us to heal. Please know that everything I have done, I have done sincerely.”

Eve’s eyes narrowed. “And what is it you’re scheming?”

“I’ve been researching for decades to find a way to coexist,” Adam explained. “A way for us all to become inheritors of the human race. An Android-Eidos with the most advanced Unisonous Hyper Body ever seen, and the ultimate Naytiba that has not succumbed to its hostile instincts. These are the two necessary ingredients…together, we can create the seeds of a new, evolved human race.” He smiled, then looked somewhat sheepishly around at the Seekers. “But this is no concern of yours. You’ve done enough for us already…I thank you, and wish you safe travels on the path ahead. As for us…” He glanced at Lily, then settled on Eve. “The choice is yours. I will await your judgement. All I ask is your fair consideration.”

Sandalphon pursed her lips, glancing at her allies. “We should go,” she said softly, turning away. In the distance, the rest of the Seekers had just emerged from the Raphael Space Center rear exit with the stagecoach, all accounted for. She offered Eve a final wave of farewell, then turned to leave her and Adam to write the final chapter of their story for themselves.

A few minutes later, the two groups of Seekers reunited. It was even darker than before, and the scattered flakes had turned into sustained snowfall. Even if the medics had healed everyone’s wounds, everybody was tired from a long day of combat and travel. At the very least, judging by the burnt-out matchsticks on either side of the long road, they’d returned to the Midnight Walk. Moon Mountain loomed larger than before; if Sandalphon had to guess, the Seekers were halfway there.

Heismay peered in the direction of the smoking crater, unable to make out much of anything from this far away. He’d recovered his poison-spattered parka from the battle against the Skullheads, and though it smelled a bit, it didn’t seem to pose any danger. “Looks like you’re all in one piece,” he remarked offhandedly. “What of our new friends? See anything interesting?”

For a moment, Sandalphon just stared off into the cloudy sky, her pupils empty rings. “You have no idea.” Her gaze drifted downward to Moon Mountain, then to where the Midnight Walk disappeared into hilly woodland to the north of these [url=https://i.imgur.com/3z41DMs.jpeg]expansive snowfields[/url]. “I think they’ll be fine, though. We should put some distance between ourselves and Spire 04, then look for somewhere to camp for the night.” With that, she circled around to enter the stagecoach, where a fresh pot of stew awaited her and the other Seekers. A few moments later, the Shieldrix took off running, and the expedition was underway once more. 

[hider=The Tale of Raphael Marks]
[b]Destination Reward:[/b] 40 EXP
[b]Tale Completion Reward:[/b] 10 EXP
[b]Making New Memories Achievement:[/b] Ramattra and Sectonia
[b]Achievement Reward:[/b] 5 EXP[/hider]