For a moment it looked as though Therion was going to make some sarcastic remark to Ms. Fortune when she mentioned going after the rest of Kazuya's stuff, but part way through opening his mouth to do so he paused, his tail swishing as he actually considered what she said. Knowing her she might have just meant it as a joke, but once the man was gone his stuff did have to go somewhere, right? Might as well actually be them. It would be a great last laugh, too. "...good point," he begrudgingly agreed. Those, and whatever else valuable they happened to find.

Rather than spend time discussing future plans or potential tactics, it behooved the group to start getting a move on. Towards that end, the feral directed them all through the village towards a building that stood apart from the bulk of the rest.

"Very subtle," Primrose remarked as they neared the stable, looking up at the huge horse head structure that stood above it.

Some were more enthusiastic about the suggested travel situation than others. Pit went right over to the edge of the stable to get a look at all of the animals, glancing over at the feral once to say, "nice find!"

While he leaned over the fence posts, Therion walked the length of it to give the potential mounts a more scrutinizing look. His eyes moved from the wulgs to the white wolf in the Seekers' party, wondering if they couldn't just use her as a ride for one of the lighter members.

Primrose kept a little back, not too worried about the quality of the animals. She intended to hitch a ride with someone else, and suggested the same to the rest of the group. "I recommend pairing up, if possible."

It would save some time on learning, make it less likely for the group to get too separated, and even if her friend was rich enough to foot the bill it would save her a little money too. Primrose glanced at Nadia after hearing the slight hesitation in the other woman's voice.

"Interesting, isn't it? I wouldn't have guessed it." she said. They wulgs especially seemed odd choices, but they must have been docile enough if they were kept with the giant chickens. Without a road to follow there wasn't much choice, though. "Hopefully its a smooth ride... I fear having those cars and ships really spoiled us."

It had been a while, but she recalled long trips on horseback to be rather unpleasant. Still, she couldn't imagine an animal better suited to the task; so when Nadia went in to talk to the stable master, Primrose wasn't surprised to see that Therion had chosen a horse out of the options for species. When he led it over she did raise a brow at the type he picked.

"This one?" she questioned, to which Therion nodded.

"It's just as sturdy as the others and comes with extra equipment," he said, tapping the nose of the gas mask it was fitted with. The hors flicked its snout away. "Some kind of filter I think. Might be useful."

Primrose couldn't argue his logic, though she did give the hors a more squinted look. The creature appeared able to see out of those dark lenses that covered its eyes, because it tilted its head towards her and looked back. Fair enough. It's size was certainly capable of accommodating two passengers at any rate.

Meanwhile, Pit was considering his own choice. He'd driven chariots before, but hadn't actually ridden a horse himself. Unless Phos and Lux counted, though Pit thought they'd be offended to be considered mere horses. The badger looking thing was neat, but he couldn't decide if they'd be a comfy ride or not. They had fur, but would probably get hot now that the sun was coming out. The chocobo seemed like a pretty good in between choice.

Pit called the closest one over to him. Up close they were pretty cute, and their contour feathers soft. Although living in a stable with a bunch of different animals, it seemed like the chocobos couldn't preen themselves enough to keep up with the dirt and dander that got kicked up. It might not have been immediately apparent to others, but as a feather-haver himself Pit could tell.

So, after petting the chocobo he started to expertly comb his fingers through the bird's feathers, smoothing bent barbules and untangling ruffled down while brushing out the dust from stable living. He moved from its neck to its breast to its wings, smiling as the chocobo cooed in contentment. As he worked the longer flight feathers, he wondered if they could actually be used to fly. The wings themselves were pretty small compared to the bird's body though, much like Pit's own, so he guessed not.

In the middle of his allopreening, Ms. Fortune emerged from the stables main area with the bill settled and a chobobo of her own led by the reins. "Good choice!" he told her. "Oh, and thanks for getting them for us."

Procuring stuff like this should probably have fallen to him, but unfortunately he did not have a windfall of cash, illicitly gained or otherwise.

After the rudimentary lessons for whoever needed them, the group was off. Just before leaving Pit waved at Big Band (and anyone else staying behind). "We'll be back soon, with one less Consul to worry about! Hold down the fort in Esaka for us 'til then!"

Pit urged his chocobo towards the front of the group, happy to blaze the trail. He didn't normally navigate, but he didn't have to - if they started veering off course, a quick check in with the Goddess of Light with an eagle eye's view of her ward would be able to point them back in the right direction.

It had been a while since Therion had ridden a horse, but he found he remembered the gist of it. Unsurprisingly Primrose chose to ride with him, sitting side saddle. If gave her a nice view of the landscape passing them by.

When the group eventually had to take a break due to their way forward being down, the dancer slipped from her spot on the horse and stretched out a little. Her core was strong enough that the side saddle posture didn't cause her any soreness just yet, but longer rides would certainly be testing her. She felt for the Seekers that had never done any riding before and would have to suffer the muscle stiffness.

"Based on the map, the Tyrannian Plateau is a day or more away. I don't think we'll even need to go half as far so long as we can find a decent spot for an ambush," she commented, looking ahead from their higher vantage point in the hills. "Not to mention if R decides to take a scenic route and we have to change direction..."

She didn't really forsee that happening based on what little she knew of the man's personality, but technically it was possible. Pit nodded his agreement. Having yet to dismount, he glanced around the area from the broken bridge to the fields to the sparse people and creatures to see if there was another way forward. It would be good to at least go a little farther, he thought. Thankfully there was one among their group that had a simple solution to the present stop: just fix the bridge. While Amaterasu got to work, Pit piped up.

"We're still too close to some settlements though, so let's keep going! Thankfully we've got the Goddess of Handiwork on our side!" he said, throwing a cheeky smile Amaterasu's way. Her help with that sort of stuff really was invaluable though, so he'd have to remember to throw some more gratitude her way.

"I'm gonna see if I can get a better look around," he said next, steering the reins of his bird towards the hillier river. Even if Amaterasu finished her repairs before he returned, it wouldn't take long to catch back up. As they trotted off, the little blueberries and their strange mission came into view. The scene was intriguing, so he made a beeline there.

---

The monster rider had frozen still as a statue when suddenly approached by a woman apparently prone to rambling, but she didn't look offended, only surprised. About part way through Anais' hurried words, Kayna loosened back up and swallowed the food that had been in her mouth. Then she took another bite. And one more, her brows knitting together as she chewed, sorting through and thinking over everything Anais was saying. When Avmar the velocidrome (who'd finished his first omelette in one bite) leaned in to sniff Anais curiously, Kayna made no move to stop him.

"Urmf, shorry, I wash chinda-" Kayna started, then paused to polish off her food, wipe her the back of her hand across her mouth, and then smile at the stranger. "Ehehe, sorry, the stomach called. Yeah, I'm Kayna! And this is Avmar."

She shifted, placing her hands on her hips with the little bag of food hanging from one wrist.

"Primrose, the dancer? Yeah, I know her! So you're all friends of hers?" Actually, hadn't there been a Grimm back at Meridi-at-Hanz too? It had been a little bit, but it was hard to forget the day a trio of gigantic monsters had attacked the city. She was pretty sure the circus that had pulled in was called the Grimm Troupe or something like it... who would have known all the people from back then would have become friends! Maybe she should have stuck around a little longer!

"Nice to meet ya, Anais. I'd be happy to help you out, but..." Kayna pursed her lips, tilting her head up to the nearby mountain. "I've never met him. I've heard about him but I don't know 'what he's up to'?"

She looked back at Anais, amused at the phrasing now that she'd repeated it herself.

"I didn't know he had fans. He travels a lot, but he's around right now, I think. I've gotta meet with the Beastmakers today but if you don't mind walking and talking, I'll tell you what I've heard about him!"

Kayna then blinked, glancing down at Anais' crutches. Her smile turned a touch sheepish. "Was that insensitive? I'm a wild country girl so I'm not really used to... uh, nevermind! Avmar can give you a lift, if you want, but if you're good I'll fill you in while we head my way!"

The velocidrome gave a bark of agreement before nosing into the bag for his next snack.

While Nadia had no idea what Amaterasu was doing or how she was doing it, her work on the bridge quickly convinced the feral of two things: that Nadia didn’t need to do anything, and that she did in fact have some time to do what she wanted. Two of her favorite things! Without any contrary evidence, Nadia accepted this state of affairs straightaway. “Aaaalrighty! Well, I wooden mind helpin’, but I’d definitely get board, so, if you’re not gonna rope me into fixin’ the bridge, I’m gonna stretch my legs. Just be careful not to fall in the water, or you’ll get planked-on!”

Chuckling to herself, Nadia turned tail and sauntered away. She gave a friendly greeting to the young vendors from the village but left them for the Koopa Kids to chat with as she walked upriver, mostly curious about those round blue critters atop the cliffs upstream but eager to see whatever this lovely little valley had to offer in general. As she walked along the riverside, a spray of water prompted her to look back over her shoulder and see Rika skating across the sparkling current. That reminded her that her own rigging pack was still sitting in the NMO dojo’s locker room, along with her boxcutters and blade case. Dangit. Missing out on the fun of waterskating was no fun, but now that the catgirl had fused with Maya’s spirit, she actually did need her dual blades back sooner rather than later. Still, as long as the Seekers’ afternoon journey didn’t have lots more water in store for them, it’d be fine for now.

Nadia’s attention quickly turned to a handful of small, colorful fish she spotted swimming in the river. “Ooh~” She knelt by the edge of the water and considered how much bother it would be to try and catch some. Her time at Bancho Sushi in Mafia Town had really brought her around on raw fish, but Bancho was a long, long way from here, and it would take a while to dry out if she got wet. Still, she enjoyed just watching them, so she crouched there for a few moments longer. “Here, fishy, fishy…if you came straight to me, it would be very e-fish-ient…”

With the journey halted, Grima had ended up taking a walk, not even intending to go anywhere specific. Yet she still ended up walking upstream as well, her eyes staring at her reflection in the water as she walked. Eventually, she came across Nadia, nearly continuing on her way without a second thought… At least, before she sensed something of note on the catgirl. A faint trail of an immortal life, ever-so distinct from regular mortals.

And if it was notable enough to get her attention, it was enough to try and investigate further.

“Hunting for a quick meal, I suppose?” Grima asked calmly, taking a step to stand at Nadia’s side, still facing the water but glancing to the side to look down at the catgirl.

The feral glanced up, not used to Grima’s voice. Although the swordswoman didn’t exactly look friendly, the fact that she’d approached Nadia to initiate conversation was a good sign. And if Nadia could get along with Ganondorf (or at least reach enough of an understanding to hunt pigeons with him) she could probably get along with anyone.

So naturally, a little teasing was in order.

“Huh? Catch and eat raw fish, like some kind of animal? Just what do you take me for?” Nadia feigned indignation for all of three seconds, then relaxed with a chuckle and a grin. “Haha, just kiddin’. Although it’s true I’m not big on raw fish, actually. Unless they’re made into sushi by Chef Bancho. Now that’s good eatin’.”

Her tail swished from side to side as rose to her feet on the riverbank. Her height had shifted slightly thanks to her latest fusion, but as it stood, Nadia was slightly taller. There was still something offputting and a little intimidating about Robin that she couldn’t quite place, but Nadia put her apprehensions aside, and her hands on her hips. “So, ‘water’ you up to? I was gonna check out those li’l blue guys upstream. Looks like they’re in a pickle of some kind.”

Grima held her tongue to avoid stating that she *did* think of her as a kind of animal, as she did all mortal life. But she (or more accurately, Robin) restrained her from saying so. Instead, she simply sighed at Nadia’s pun, “I am simply taking a walk. We have time to spare due to the bridge repairs” she pointed out, now slightly turning to the upstream again to see the blue creatures ahead, “...Do they need help? If they were smart, they would simply try to find another crossing. Or simply wait for us to fix our bridge then use that.”

“We-he-hell, not everyone has the luxury of an intellect like ours,” Nadia confidently told Grima, who was too new to the team to be familiar with the kind of intelligence quotient Nadia brought to the table. “And even if they don’t, I figured I might as well check ‘em out, see what they’re up to. Never know what you’ll get if you step off the beaten path.” So saying, she led the way by continuing upriver, hopping and climbing up the elevation changes when necessary. “This one time, we were fightin’ our way through this giant evil flesh tree, and I leaf no stone unturned. Got into this little lab thing and found a couple pistols made of meat that shot bone bullets. They didn’t work that great, but they were purr-etty cool!”

Nadia rotated her head all the way around to raise an eyebrow at Grima. “So whadda you do? If we’re gonna be teammates we oughta know each other’s strengths. Me, I’m a scrapper. Whoever we’re up against, I get in close and cut ‘em up, fast as lightning. You’ll see.”

“Pistols made of meat? Human ingenuity to create the most needless weapons of war never ceases to astound” Grima thought to herself, letting out a sigh as she found herself instinctively walking alongside Nadia, her body moving on its own, “I am many things. A mage, a swordswoman, a strategist. Alas, I appear to have lost much of my skills during the recreation of this world… But nevertheless, I remain strong enough.”

After only a minute or two, the duo finished their short climb and reached the rocky ridge upriver from Qingce Village, where a pair of rope bridges spanned two opposing cliffs. Nadia got a better look at the round blue creatures on the near side, which glanced at her when she arrived but otherwise did not react much to her presence. Though their bodies seemed identical they featured a variety of eyes, nose colors, legs, and hairstyles, and all seemed focused on the situation at hand. The cliff on the far side sported two stone faces, and when a zoombini with sunglasses attempted to cross, it sent the poor thing flying back toward the rest of its companions. More worryingly, it loosened one of the four remaining pegs that for some reason kept not one but both bridges up. Nadia inspected the spot, incredulous. Even she could see how dumb this was…who designed this thing? As she watched, the zoombini that got blasted stepped back up and crossed the other bridge without issue, where it joined two other zoombinis with yellow noses on the other side.

After a moment, Nadia’s eyes went wide. “Wait…is this a puzzle!? Oh no.”

“... This is insultingly simple. These bridges are tied to specific traits to these creatures” Grima pointed out, gesturing in the direction of the cliff faces, “The yellow nosed creatures can move without issue over a specific bridge. Which tells me that the faces do not react to certain physical traits. So, you figure out what they don’t react to and cross appropriately. Or, you can simply take the easier option” Grima explains, raising a hand to aim at one of the cliff faces, several rings of magic appearing around as she prepared a magical blast.

The stone face shifted to an expression of terror. “Wait, wait! Can’t we talk about this!?”

“We can’t help being allergic!” the other face cried.

Nadia was all for cheating, but the please of the cliff faces made her feel bad. Theirs had to be a pretty sucky existence, but not so bad that it warranted putting them out of their misery. “Uh, hang on, one sec!” she said as she stepped forward, motioning with her hands for Grima to settle down. “There’s an even easier option than that! Watch this.”

The feral grabbed two zoombinis, tucking one under each arm like a basketball, and crouched down. She pumped blood into her ankles, increasing the blood pressure sharply, then after a moment allowed her seam to separate enough to let the pressurized blood out. As a result she launched into the air, leaving a bloody trail behind as she soared over the gap between the cliffs. After landing with a roll in the grass near the other zoombinis, she dropped the two off and dusted her hands. “Five down, one, two three, four, fivesixseveneightnineten, eleven to go!”

The pleas of the cliff faces normally wouldn’t have stopped Grima. But Nadia’s request to hold on was effective enough for the Fell Vessel to let out a sharp ‘tsk’ and quickly disperse their magic, “I will not be putting that much effort for this” she commented, yet reached down to pick up one of the zoombinis with a yellow nose by the head to guide them to the bridge. Had she possessed proper wind magic, she could easily just blow the zoombinis to the other side, but the slow way would have to do.

Although, Nadia’s performance was interesting. Grima had noted the blood trails that erupted from their feet. Evidently, they did have some strange biology. The next time she did something like that, she’d have to pay closer attention.

… Nevertheless, for now she simply organized the zoombinis to a proper order to get across the bridge. Hopefully the threat of death would encourage the cliff faces to hold their breath.

Even with Grima’s minimum effort, the two made quick work of the task at hand. Nadia ended up having an even better idea than manually ferrying two zoombinis across at a time: hyper-extending her arms by stretching out the muscle fibers that linked her segments, which allowed her to more-or-less grappling hook the critters across. In the end, while the rather rough treatment of the zoombinis left most of them a bit discombobulated, all of them wound up on the far side of the canyon with the bridge still intact.

The zoombinis gathered around Nadia as she patted their heads one by one to make sure all were okay. “You guys good? Those faces nearly ‘blue’ you away!” Their made happy gibbering noises endeared them to the feral somewhat, and she ended up feeling pretty glad that she made this particular detour. Her feelings only improved when one of the zoombinis offered her its colorful baseball cap. “Oh, thanks!” Nadia put it on more to show her gratitude than anything, but with it on her head she did get a faint impression of being just a little bit sturdier. After that, the zoombinis began to trickle away, resuming their logical journey. “See ya later!”

At the same time, one of the stone faces addressed Grima. “Ahem! Please, allow us to thank you for sparing us. Here, this is yours.” He made a chewing motion with his mouth, then hawked out an object. It flew up from the gorge and landed atop the cliff at Grima’s feet: a hard stone with the power to boost the equipper’s rock-type moves.

… A stone was a pitiful tribute to someone like Grima, and for a moment she debated destroying the faces for the insultingly simple offering. Yet, she could feel… Something of note within the stone. So she restrained herself, simply kneeling to pick up the stone and then placing it within her cloak, already turning around to return to the rest of the group with Nadia.

The catgirl ran over across one of the rope bridges, but luckily the stone face on that side wasn’t allergic to felines. She fell in alongside Grima as the two began to retrace their steps downriver toward the broken bridge, anticipating that it wouldn’t take Ammy much longer if she wasn’t done already. On the wait, Nadia spoke up again. “So, I guess you’re a no-nonsense, shoot first, ask questions later kinda gal? There’s a guy on the other team named Ganondorf, I bet you two’d get along.” If the Fell Dragon hadn’t already realized, Nadia was something of a chatterbox. “I’m pretty sure he wants to rule everything once this is all over though. Some of us wanna take out Galeem to put things back how they were. Others would rather take over the World of Light for themselves. Me, I dunno…what’re you hopin’ to get outta all this?”

“I don’t intend to rule if that is your concern. I would much rather undo this farce and return to the originals. But that is a far off goal. For now…” Grima tilted her head slightly, pondering just how much to divulge to the feral. Pit already knew plenty, but did he seem like the person to lay out all her goals in one conversation?

… Yes, actually.

“... This vessel is but a tool to interact with the world. My true self is locked away. So, I help you Seekers with your long term goal… You help me be free from my chains. Everyone wins, as they say” the Fell Dragon says with a shrug, continuing on without care. The Seekers were clearly willing to work with other individuals similar to her, so there would be no issues with them knowing some of her intentions.

HEADER WIP

The Omnic shook snow from atop his head, fog now clouding his vision in every direction. Had they found themselves caught in a blizzard? And how far had they been separated from one another that no one else had been visible? The shadowy peaks in the distance clearly were projecting their presence larger than in reality, but everything in Ramattra’s haze felt off-center in his circuitry.

Clamboring to his three appendages, Ramattra placed his hand on his temple- trying his best to make out anything within sight. Impossible. The snow obscured so much of his vision that he could only see as far as the red lights from his eyes beamed outwards, the only reliable source of light. With a sigh, the Omnic refused to stay stagnant in such a perilous position, and began marching forward.

He dare not call out for any of his allies- the storm was sure to cover over any of his words and the risk of avalanche was impossible to gauge. Even Kashmir remained tucked neatly within its pokeball, the Omnic dare not lose one of his only allies left…

But as he continued, the scenery began to form in front of him- the crest of a mountain slowly revealing itself from obscurity… was this truly the peak of the mountain? No. If this was the top, he would be along with his allies, ready to face whatever threat they met, this was too simple of a resolution… had Ramattra’s mind been manipulated? This all feels too natural, but yet, he knew his calling lie here, atop the mountains for an investigation.

Then there were… familiar buildings… they made up the entirety of his view- save for the odd shade casted below by the mountainous terrain around, sights of the ground distorting into blank space and nothingness. Looking over the edge, Ramattra was more than sure that tumbling over would mean his doom. King’s Row felt… so real, yet, everything felt like a dream.

With a blank expression the Omnic turned to examine whatever visible rooftops were in the area, hoping to find guidance in his disorientation. Climbing over piles of mountain-made rubble and across board-planked catwalks over neighboring buildings, Ramattra began to make something out in the mist- an impossibly large clock tower suspended menacingly over the residing abyss below. Had the clock tower always been so tall, or had Ramattra simply not visited this area in quite some time? What was so important about this place again?

Ramattra decided it best to investigate the tower- inspect what had made it so peculiar in his mind, and see if anything stood out. The abyss below shifted indefinitely, intangible shapes slowly coming into form, as the scenery behind him dispersed to fog. He didn’t even acknowledge the fading mountain scape behind him as he mindlessly climbed up ladder rungs, and used his monk-like flexibility to navigate harder leaps as he scaled the tower’s interior.

Much of the cataclysm that caused the tower to fall apart seemed to be the result of neglect, though obvious holes in its infrastructure struck the Omnic curious. With a thorough blink, he continued climbing up the tower against his internal dialogue’s opinion. It was oddly vacant- only the sounds of odd birds and distant meowing drew his dazed attention… meowing… why did that feel so familiar as well?

The higher he climbed, the louder the sound resonated within the tower’s chambers. He had lost track of how long he had been climbing. Many of the walls were ruined, and provided no meaningful support across gaps in the worn infrastructure. If it wasnt for the little bit of dexterity his history as a monk gave him, and his additional leg, Ramattra would be struggling a lot more to reach the top. The yowling that echoed stopped once he mounted the last edge, a short, porcupine-like cat stood on guard, perceiving the Omnic as an unknown. It was large for an ordinary cat- nearly able to come up to the Omnic’s torso, and battle worn in its tail and ears. Unsure how to approach the creature, Ramattra simply ignored it, nodding his head stoically as he pressed further upward. “I don’t have time for this. I need to reach the peak of King’s Row.”

With a curious cock of its head, the small feline used it’s catty-dexterity to follow the Omnic further, now intent on keeping up with Ramattra. The lone commander assumed the creature would perceive him as a threat initially, though it’s standoffish nature seems to be more of a product of harsher conditions. With an unlikely observer now in tow, the Omnic crawled himself onto the floor of the final level of the building- the scene before him rapidly unfolding out of the obscurity that the fog and snow provided.

A lone sniper, shrouded in a mysterious black fog, remained perched- somehow unaware of the Omnic’s presence as she continued angling whatever the scope was aimed toward. Ramattra took a single step- whatever trance the silhouetted woman ending immediately as she rapidly fired a line of automatic bullets from the transforming end of her weapon. Two of them landed squarely on his chest, causing the Omnic to wince in pain, before looking up to see the unidentifiable sniper propelled in the air- landing a swinging kick to his chest to knock him over, before lining his head between the barrel of her gun. “You are not who I was told was to be sent. Who are you, Omnic?” She spoke very eloquently, with a thick French accent. He had heard this voice before… but her face was impossible to place.

“Save your questions, sniper. I will stop you.” His voice was threatening- though he had no clue why this lone sniper had such an impact on his anger. As he was about to draw his staff for combat, the sniper was more swift, narrowly throwing a small magnetic chip onto Ramattra’s chassis, disabling him from using any of his major abilities or skills for 8 seconds. He was simply an Omnic now.

“You never should have bothered me. Now I have no guilt in killing you. First…” Ramattra tried his best to close the distance on his three legs, the sniper creating her sights again as she leveled her scope towards her target. Just as the Omnic could grab her arm, a single shot rang into the mountain, revealing what Ramattra had been trying his best to prevent all along… far in the distance, his former master laid now assassinated outside a service vehicle.

“Revenge. We were taught as monks that it was an unhealthy outlook, and leads to obsession… But if I had been there by my master's side.” The Omnic solemnly contemplated the silence, the shadow of a sniper seemingly watching as Ramattra put the pieces together. “If I had… stayed a monk. Perhaps he would have me, as his brother, to protect him.”

He contemplated his anger for a moment, before staring down at his adversary. She did not attack him, nor would provoke him any longer. His resolve was shaken. Then, her voice, as ethereal as a dream, spoken again in her accent. “You already charted the course and set events into motion, Omnic. You cannot undo death.”

“…But I may cause it.” As the hacking device malfunctioned, the Omnic was swift to enter Nemesis form, and squashed the shadowed sniper under his titanic fist. There was no dramatic damage, she just fizzled out of existence under his grip. The disoriented feeling finally began to disperse from the Omnic’s head as he realized a sensation he had never felt before… tears trickled from each of his red sensors- a realization that the adventure he had was solitary, and more dream-like than reality was. “Of course. I can’t undo what has already been done in my world.” The Omnic looked around, to see he had been buried in piles of snow in his neglect, his teammates just barely over the horizon. “But I suppose I should focus on returning to my cause.”

At the request of her friends and allies, Sakura was to find out more. Manipulating Ei-san into giving her more information was starting to feel bad. She had no problem lying to bad guys, but friends? Not so much. But Pit was right. This could be valuable information.

After the last exciting game, Sakura used some of her money to buy the two of them mysterious arcade sugary beverages.

”Hey! Um. Ei-san.” Sakura began casually. ”Would you rather be enveloped in a comfortable ignorance? Or, like, uh, be confronted by a harsh reality?” Sakura asked, making slow, deliberating gestures with her hands.

”Just, like. Hypothetically in general. I have a secret that I’m not sure if I should tell someone.”

Ei accepted the soda and took a liking to it straight away, her facing practically lighting up as the refreshing, saccharine drink graced her tongue. The question that Sakura chased it with did not net such an immediate positive reaction, but Ei chose to roll with it, presuming that this rather random style of conversation was simply a social norm she had yet to experience.

“Hm. That’s rather simple,” Ei replied off-handedly. “No matter how pleasant it might be, a lie is a lie. Ultimately, the act of deception necessitates a victim, and I do not intend to be anyone’s victim.” She paused a brief moment for another sweet, carbonated sip. “Reality, meanwhile, is something we must all come to terms with, however harsh and painful. Overcoming reality’s cruelty is the wellspring of all strength.”

Sakura nodded mutely. ”...Okay! Wow, good answer. Follow up question.” Sakura offered her a sip of her own drink. ”Between the two, what’s your favorite flavor, red or blue?”

Although never one to turn down a sweet drink, Ei took a much more delicate, reserved taste of Sakura’s drink compared to her own. She smacked her lips lightly and narrowed her eyes while staring off into space, as if engaged in an extravagant wine-tasting. “Both are intriguing. They don’t remind me of any fruit or natural flavor in particular. Were I to choose one, however, I think blue is my preference.”

”They’re supposed to be cherry and raspberry.” Sakura said. ”Buuut, you’re probably still right about no natural flavoring.”

”Well, Ei-san. Have anything else planned for the afternoon? Or can I borrow you for one last thing?” Sakura asked.

The lady smiled pleasantly. “Nothing more than wandering around the Pools to view more matches. If you have something else in mind, I’d be happy to accompany you.”

Sakura stifled her instinct to take a deep, preparatory breath. ”Great! In which case, we should meet up with another friend of mine. We like, uh, sparring.” Sakura began. She stood up and began to lead the way, tapping her Link Pearl.

”Hey. Pit-san. It’s me, Sakura. You remember that thing we talked about at Frame Advantage? That activity? Well, I have someone who might want to be involved in that thing we were gonna do. Do you think we could meet up somewhere?” Sakura asked. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face, her heart rate ticking up. Sakura cleared her throat, surprised at the extent of her anxiety.

It took a minute or two for the angel to reply, simply because he wasn't on his own this time. He could have been chattering with other Seekers, or... gathering his thoughts in order to realize what it was that Sakura was hinting at. When his response did come, it was with a tone that was not quite eager, not quite serious, but certainly willing to help.

"Oh, yeah, yup! That thing! Wink!" Which he must have said to make sure Sakura knew he was winking on the other end of the connection. "Where are you now? We could meet in Low Tier, or just outside the city?"

”Uhh, Low Tier.” Sakura said. ”The power company, Charge Partitioning? There’s some quiet infrastructural type areas around there we can meet up at.” Sakura said.

"Charge Partitioning, got it. I'll find my way there now! See you there!"

”Great, okay. See you there.”

By the time Sakura and her new acquaintance arrived, they'd find that Pit had gotten there first. The power company itself would not be their arena, but it was a good place to meet up first due to the hollow metal tower that stretched up from one end of the building. It was not even tall enough to reach the lip of the wall that separated the Low Tier from the Pools, but it was more than good enough to use for a better vantage point than the structure-crowded streets. Pit was perched on one of the beams, one wing curled over his head to shade his face from budding sunshine and the last few raindrops as he spied the area. Once he spotted Sakura and the stranger, he waved from his spot before hopping down and gliding over to them.

”Pit-san!” Sakura waved and jogged over. ”Pit, this is Ei. Ei-san, this is Pit.” She introduced them to each other, then tried to casually wipe her hands off on her jacket.

Not nearly as nervous as Sakura, Pit smiled and stuck out his hand for a greeting. "Nice to meet you!" he chirped.

“Good afternoon,” Ei replied with an affable bow of her head.

He gave Ei a once over to see if he could spot what Sakura saw in the woman that made her want to free Ei. She was probably really strong, since looks could be deceiving. Or maybe she was just really friendly and had some other cool power. Speaking of looks, though Ei seemed to be really pretty, the dark glasses she wore obscured her face - on top of being an odd choice for a rainy day.

"What's up with the glasses?" he asked directly with a tilt of his head. "It's not that sunny yet... oh! Are you like incognito?"

Ei tittered, one hand held to her mouth. “Although they are called sunglasses, it’s not the sun they guard against specifically; it is brightness. The clouds veil the sun today, but they were still quite bright, practically white in color. So, as counter-intuitive as it might seem, it is not so strange to wear shades on a cloudy day.” She pursed her lips in an apologetic smile. “Of course, it doesn’t help that I tend to spend most of my time in dim lighting inside. I’m something of a shut-in, in fact, so l’m seldom out and about. Sakura has been kind enough to show me around Esaka.”

"Huh. I guess that makes sense," Pit said. He really had no reason to refute it anyway, though it was a much more boring explanation than having a secret identity. He switched gears quickly, shooting a grin at Sakura. "Yeah, she's a great tour guide isn't she!"

Her rundown on the city's culture, the tournament structure, the yokai, and everything else had been pretty invaluable, plus she'd been nice enough to show some newbies around the dojos that first day, Pit himself among them. But, gassing the street fighter up for her guide skills was not the point of the three of them getting together right now. Sakura herself looked more like the sooner they got their plan over with the better, and Pit didn't disagree.

He turned slightly glancing over towards another road a block away, headed towards a quieter area where shops and houses gave way to chain gates and industrial buildings.

"I think I found a good spot for... um, our activity!" the angel said. This time he did not wink, visible or otherwise, but he did look from Sakura to Ei as the awkwardness of their roundabout way of alluding to beating someone up started to sink in. Pit had freed three people in Esaka so far, if he remembered right. One had already been in battle, but the other two he'd challenged himself. If Sakura wasn't being forthcoming, maybe Ei wasn't a fighter after all? "...do you like fighting, Ei? Like sparring and stuff?"

The lady clasped her hands behind her back as she considered the question, her long indigo braid waving in the light breeze as she walked alongside the others. “I don’t necessarily enjoy fighting myself, and prefer to watch others compete, but I do have extensive military training. Even if I tend to take a more passive administrative role, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to keep my skills sharp.” She tilted her head slightly. “Is that the ‘activity’ you have in mind?”

Her answer seemed to dispel any hesitation in the angel, and in reply he nodded animatedly. "Yeah! Glad you're up for it! That'll make things so much smoother, right, Sakura?"

”Yeah- yeah it will. Haha.” Sakura said. ”I really have no idea how strong Ei-san is.” Sakura said, and while her back was turned to Ei, as they all walked, she widened her eyes at Pit to impress the statement upon him. One way or the other, she really had no idea. Pit seemed to pick up Sakura's silent message, but as he wasn't worried he only gave her a shrug back.

Then she lightened her tone again. ”And, as a fighter, I’ve been really eager to find out. I guess I was just worried that…I dunno, it would be weird to just do it with you alone, Ei-san.” Sakura said with a weak shrug. ”And if you weren’t up for it, I’d fight Pit-san here instead!” She said. That made sense! Right?!

"Oh yeah, we never ended up sparring together after we said we would," Pit said, recalling their conversation on the first day in Esaka. Sadly now still wasn't the best time for that.

Ei winced slightly as she smiled. “Well, after seeing Sakura’s combat prowess in tournament, I’m rather apprehensive. But I’ll do what I can.”

The trio made their way through the street, eventually ending up in a slightly wider area penned in on one side by harsh steel infrastructure. It was probably as good a place to secretly battle and do some friend hearting as they could find on short notice.

Pit looked around before turning back to the girls. "I don't think we'll bother anyone fighting here."

“People here often fight in far more obstructive places than this,” Ei murmured.

”Yep. This is pretty much what I had in mind.” Sakura said. She stopped and turned and folded her hands behind her back. ”Ahem. So. Ei-san.”

”Fighting hurts and all, but it's a lot of fun. We don’t go all out during spars, of course. Just see what we can do. If you knock the other person off their feet, that’s probably a good time to pull back. But really, we’re all pretty tough, so don’t sweat it.” Sakura said, settling into a comfortable routine.

The lady nodded. “Of course. I’ve spent many hours in the training grounds in Inazuma City. When we spar, we seek not to hurt, but to hone one another.” Standing tall, she held out her hand, and in a slight yellow flash summoned a wooden bokken to hand and adopted a defensive stance reflexively. “My hand-to-hand is very rusty, so I hope you’ll permit me the use of a blade.”

”I didn’t expect it, but I’m happy for it.” Sakura said with a stretch.

"Fine with me!" Pit said, summoning his own weapon. He passed the grip of his bow from hand to hand, fairly casual with it. Even if Ei turned out to be a lot stronger than she implied, with both himself and Sakura taking her on he didn't think it would be an issue. Not to mention if they had to get serious fast to bring her into anti-brainwash range, one friend heart would be all it took to get the woman back up to full health.

He spread out from the others, making a rough triangle that implied this might be a free for all even if the two Seekers would actually be teaming up. Maybe it was a little unfair, but ground rules were less important than destorying new friends and potential allies.

"Everybody ready! Round one... fight!"

Sakura let out a deep breath and got into her fighting stance. Fighting Galeem’ed up people was both predictable and chaotic. The unknown factor of how Ei’s behavior might change when the Curse began to influence her was why she brought Pit along.

”Here we go!” Sakura made a direct beeline towards Ei, her sneakers pounding the street until she came close. Then she shifted right and zipped in. Sakura swatted at warding bokken strikes and ducked away from offensive pokes. The flesh of her forearm met the solid weapon with satisfying, echoing clashes.

After the two exchanged hits a few times, Sakura got a feel for what was going down, the rhythm of the battle. Like always, the worries of the world melted away in a fight. Almost all of them. Sakura became a little jealous every time her angelic friend swooped in to take her place in close combat, or distracted Ei with pressure from his ranged attacks - the latter more frequent. . She began to muscle Pit out of the fight, and put herself between Ei and Pit so he wouldn’t be able to hit Ei without shooting Sakura in the back. Or at least that was her plan, but the light arrows being able to twist around her only slowed them down a little.

Ei fought methodically, but she struggled to keep up at times, so keeping Pit in play to distract Sakura was in her best interests. The lady’s swordsmanship exhibited clear skill, with quick reflexes and disciplined techniques, but she fought like someone who spent a lot more time practicing than fighting in the field. Her attempts to create and maintain space meant that Ei ended up retreating a lot, stuck on the backfoot and unable to properly dissuade fast-paced aggression. For now, the only supernatural ability she seemed to possess was some kind of blitz strike that allowed her to momentarily disappear in a flurry of slashes, but she would always reappear at the exact spot she vanished from. Despite Ei’s efforts, Sakura and Pit definitely had the momentum advantage.

“You’re both so fast,” she found time to gasp, her elegant appearance already somewhat disheveled by all the action. “Won’t you cut me some slack?”

”Yeah, Pit-san!” Sakura said, an edge in her voice. She sent a big fireball his way in case he wasn’t getting the message. One might argue Sakura was giving conflicting signals throughout this whole operation.

He had been more or less oblivious to the street fighter's pushiness, so her sudden turn on him was definitely warranted. The fireball exploded in his face and he fell back with a yelp, tumbling over once before popping back onto his feet not much worse for wear save the new smudges. The forced reset had Pit blinking at Sakura, who could focus entirely on her fight with Ei now, but it still took a couple seconds for him to actually grasp what had her worked up. She was a true martial artist, so of course she'd want to face an opponent herself and test her strength in a fair fight!

"Alright, alright! Slack it is!" Pit called from his new place on the sideline he'd been pushed to. He flopped down into a cross legged sit, his bow still in hand but the dull side thrown back to rest on his shoulder. He also threw out a friendly jeer. "But I'm swapping in if you start losing, Sakura!"

”Fine!” Sakura called out.

But Ei would find that even with one opponent removed, her spar with Sakura would not be any easier given the girl's renewed focus. The blows against the elegant lady began to pile up, and soon she was within that nebulous heart-range.

Looks like it was time to call it early. Sakura stepped in like she was going in hard, only to glide out of range. When Ei flinched, Sakura put her weight into a harsh kick to the leg to sprawl Ei onto the ground. Instead of withdrawing like she said she would, Sakura dashed forward. With an acrobatic aerial cartwheel over Ei, she produced a Friend Heart and plunged it into Ei’s back as she arced over her.

”Hup!!” Sakura landed on her feet, skipped a step, and turned around to watch with wide eyes if her gambit had worked. ”..!”

“Guh!” The sudden impact that smushed her against the ground forced a guttural, very unladylike grunt from Ei. It also sent her sunglasses skittering across the street. When the swordswoman gathered herself and pushed herself up with her arms, however, the eyes that shot a bewildered glance Sakura’s way were a lustrous amethyst purple, vivid in color and deep enough for a man to drown in. She blinked a few times as the afternoon sunlight hit her unshielded eyes, but after a moment she adapted and withdrew into a sitting position. “I…what? Whoa.” Her brow furrowed as her mouth hung slightly open until she swallowed. “This…”

”Yeah.” Sakura rubbed the back of her head and smiled sheepishly. ”We’ve all been there. Welcome to ‘harsh reality,’ Ei-san.” She gave Pit a subtle, grateful nod. Then glanced towards Ei’s distant sunglasses.

”Sorry for tricking you with this whole setup. But I couldn’t call myself a true friend if I kept you in the dark, could I?” Sakura said, sitting down next to Ei on the ground. Her brown eyes met with Ei’s. Any color was better than that horrible dull red, but purple suited Ei especially.

”Turns out, we’ve all got a big, big problem named Galeem. That big pillar of light that zapped us all into this made-up world, and has been wiping our memories over and over again ever since, while its curse keeps us blind to reality. That creepy thing’s got us running around like dolls in a playhouse.” Sakura sighed.

”Me and my friends and allies are here in our plan to stop it. I- I’m not asking for your help. I just wanted you to be yourself. Even if things are…weird now. Sorry about that, too.” Sakura looked away.

After a moment, a reassuring hand descended upon Sakura’s shoulder. “No need to apologize or worry about me. I’ll be alright. I’ve lived a long time. Such firm foundations are not so easily shaken.” Ei’s expression was as serious as an earth-shattering revelation deserved, and a little conflicted, but she gave no signs of despair or depression. “I should thank you, rather, for showing me the truth. I do mean what I said earlier about truths and lies. And…I appreciate what you said about being my friend. Really.”

Ei stood, then extended a hand to help Sakura up in an unnecessary but nice gesture.

Sakura smiled up at her and met her hand with a mighty clap. She pulled up. ”That’s good to hear, Ei-san.” Sakura said.

Pit stayed quiet and let Sakura do her thing, at least until both girls stood up. Then, seeing that things had gone well, he got to his feet himself as his face broke into a wide grin. He dismissed his bow and went towards them in a curve so he could scoop up Ei's sunglasses on his way and hand them back to her.

"Another successful freeing! Nice job!" he said, holding his hand up to give Sakura a high-five. "You too, Ei. Some people take it really hard. Glad your brain's back in the right place!"

Since she had shown she was able to handle herself, Pit considered inviting her to their current short term mission. After a moment he decided it wouldn't hurt to at least fill her in.

"Most of us are on the way to meet up and fight a bad guy that's helping Galeem keep everyone stuck, if you want in," he said. "Doesn't hurt to have more hands on deck! But we'll be fine either way! And when we get back, we can answer any questions you have. There's usually a lot of those."

Sakura was less eager. ”Like I said, you don’t have to help us. It can get pretty dangerous.” Sakura paused. ”...Right now we’re trying to defeat the Consuls who are, like, Galeem’s evil minions. I wanted to ask you more, earlier, about what you knew about this meeting coming up. A Consul coming to town?” Sakura asked.

”But, uh, yeah, if you have questions we’ll be happy to answer them, too. Obviously.” Sakura nodded emphatically.

Ei seemed mildly taken aback by the news. “Oh, that? You guys work fast. Nothing I’ve heard about any consul endears me to them, but if they are as bad as you say, it sounds like you’re doing the right thing. Sadly, I’m not sure I’d be much help on the front lines…but I wish you the very best of luck.” The matter of the Consul led into a question about where Ei got her info, which elicited a furrowed brow as if she were trying to remember. “Um…that’s all I heard, really. I must have just heard about it in passing.” She gave a shrug of resignation, aware that her response wasn’t very useful. “Consuls are an enigma. Shady and mysterious, but brazen and authoritative. It’s only natural that the rumor mill would concern itself with their comings and goings. Right?”

Sakura nodded. ”Okay, good to know. No worries.” She let out a sigh. ”Phew. I’m glad that went okay.” Sakura set a hand on her hip.

”Thanks for stopping by, Pit-san.” Sakura gave him a clap on the shoulder. ”I was so nervous.” She admitted with a little laugh.

"No problem, happy to help!" he said. Though if he didn't want to be late meeting up with everyone else though, he would need to get going again soon. "Are you gonna stay in the city too, Sakura?"

”Esaka? Uh, yeah. I’m still fighting in the tournament, I don’t wanna miss my next match.” Sakura nodded.

That was fair enough, Pit knew the World Warrior bracket was filled to the brim. He gave Sakura a nod of his own, then waved to both her and Ei as he left the two of them to themselves. "Alright! Good luck! And don't worry about us - we'll see you guys later!"

”Um...” Sakura looked at Ei. ”So…yeah! What’s the phrase? Walk and talk. Would you like to walk and talk, Ei-san?”

When offered a ride, Anais’ first instinct was to politely decline, but the words caught in her throat when Kayna’s partner gave what sounded like an agreeable noise. Actually…a ride atop that splendid creature sounded pretty amazing, and not just because it would spare her some effort hobbling through the city with her crutches. Avmar was no dragon, of course, but he had plenty of his own charms. After swallowing, Anais glanced back at Kayna. “Oh no, I’m not bothered. That plan sounds fine to me, and honestly, I’d love a ride. What a handsome fellow~” With a monstie around, the seamstress seemed a little more confident. With a little help, she climbed aboard Avmar, then set off alongside Kayna toward the Beastmakers’ Guild. At a leisurely pace like this, there was plenty of time for the rider to fill Anais in about R.

Though many might have looked at a boiling-hot sandstone city filled with prehistoric reptiles and dragons and been uncomfortable, if not outright intimidated, Warfang was an exciting opportunity for Poppi. Since she joined the campaign she’d been among allies pretty much twenty-four-seven, and even when other Seekers weren’t around, she and Tora were an inseparable duo. With her masterpon’s attention on his big project, though, she could finally strike out on her own for a bit, to go where she wanted and figure things out for herself. And today, she would need every bit of her processor’s power to solve the conundrum before her.

While the others might focus on the person of interest himself, Poppi had a different strategy in mind. If Consul R planned to travel, it stood to reason that he’d need some sort of transportation, and the artificial blade meant to find out what. Her first guess would’ve been some sort of airship, since she remembered the reports of the consuls who attacked Alcamoth flying via massive battleship. As she traveled Warfang’s sun-baked streets, though, Poppi became increasingly sure that no such technology would be found anywhere near here. All ‘technology’ here came in the form of sticks, stones, and ropes, powered by manual labor rather than electricity. With no other robots around, Poppi stuck out like a sore thumb, constantly drawing curious or wary looks. Most Warfang citizens seemed nice enough, but Poppi actually found herself missing Susie anyway. She, at least, probably didn’t feel out of place; wherever commerce could be found, Susie would be in her element.

So, with no flying machines around, how would R travel? Poppi considered the possibility of him riding a dragon, but as far as she knew all the dragons around here were people, not beasts of burden. She might not mind giving a piggy-back ride now and then, but she doubted that majestic, powerful creatures like dragons might not submit themselves as easily. That left just one possibility, which she saw frequently enough around the streets of Warfang: riding a large monster, or ‘monstie’, as some locals put it.

Assisted by various helpful argonians and cavemen (to the extent their vernacular could explain things), Poppi gradually found her way to Warfang’s Bestiary. This wide-open, roughly circular structure served as not just a massive stable for the city’s many tamed creatures (created by the Beastmakers or otherwise), but a workshop where hide, fiber, and metal could be engineered into the various saddles and harnesses necessary to ride them. Poppi spotted agreeable parasaurs with colorful crests, towering dromas with troughs full of lumpy redsoil, and some kind of green-scaled gorilla frog thing. Poppi’s interest soon settled on a great tusked beast currently being fitted with a huge saddle, outfitted with something that was less of a seat and more of a small building. At the moment, the finishing touches were being put on by a well-built, taciturn wyverian man as a leather-clad hunter nodded approvingly. Poppi approached him.

“Hello! Is that yours?” she asked.

Unlike many of the people around here, Rex did not seem too put off by the artificial blade’s appearance. “Oh, yeah!” he replied enthusiastically. “Once this bad boy’s ready, I can go out on adventures for days at a time!”

Poppi nodded, looking impressed. “Very cool-cool. Is top-of-line saddle for sure.”

“Nah, this is just step one,” Rex explained. “If you get enough materials, you can get platform saddles for way crazier monsties. You should see some of the ones commissioned by the big shots around here. They’re basically walking palaces. Or even flying!”

Blinking, Poppi tilted her head. That sounded like just the sort of thing that a Consul might employ.

Rex was not done talking. “I’m looking for my little bro Maxwell,” he explained. “He went missing years ago, ever since our sister Lily got petrified. Most of us have given up, but not me.” He crossed his arms and turned to elaborate to Poppi, only to find that she’d disappeared without a trace. “...Oh.”

In Warfang’s citadel, Grimm’s infiltration was proceeding well. The wide, tall corridors, designed for the horns, wings, and tails of draconic sentries and illuminated by fitful braziers, offered plenty of places to hide. His feather-light footsteps did not echo, and if a guard happened to smell insect, what reason had he to believe that the keep had been breached by a living nightmare? Grimm skulked and warped his way through the chambers and passageways without issue, steadily seeking out the fancier, more well-furnished parts of the fortress where a pompous little overlord might be reasonably expected to reside.

In the upper reaches of the fortress the troupe master discovered some lavish living quarters, fit for a king, and in the opulent dining hall he found his target. At a round table laden with exquisite dishes sat a diminutive humanoid, only around four feet tall, with the unmistakable gray suit, cherry-red armor, and black cape of Moebius. The unique helmet on his disproportionately large head resembled a fanged reptilian maw topped with a spiral drill, and despite the other chairs arranged around the dining table, he seemed to be alone.

Grimm, carefully maneuvering among the rafters overhead, stopped directly above the Consul. His scarlet eyes peered down, identifying the back of R’s neck, then at his scythe-like claws. He could do it, right here, right now. In one deadly instant he could render the Seekers’ concerted effort moot with a single plunge of his claws as he wiped one more sorry member of Moebius off the roster. His gaze returned to the Consul, hungry and ready. From here, an assassination looked oh-so-easy.

…But no. That was pride talking. Everything he’d seen and heard about the Consuls indicated that they were all dangerous and unpredictable combatants. What reason had he to believe himself one’s equal? If he rushed into this, he could not only get himself killed but also ruin the opportunity for the others. Though it pained Grimm to be beholden to anyone, he knew he would be better off sticking with the plan. For now, he would stay right where he was to watch and wait.

In the middle of Grimm’s rumination, the doors flew open. Into the dining hall stomped a hulking blue brute with a huge wooden club, whose every step caused all the fancy furniture to rattle dangerously. “There you are, Crush,” the consul snapped irritably before downing the rest of his wine (through his helmet somehow, Grimm observed). “Is the Quetzal ready?”

His underling let out a series of growly noises that R seemed able to understand, as he cut Crush off immediately. “What!? Hurry it up then, fool! ‘Motivate’ the peons with that club of yours. If I have to come in there, I’ll be scraping off your sorry scales first!” He hurled a loaf of bread at Crush’s noggin, which bounced right off with no reaction. “MOVE!”

Even before Crush showed himself out, the Consul leaned back in his chair, groaning with one hand to his helmet. “Uuuuuugh. Dragons. I. Hate. Dragons.”

Grimm did not stick around to hear the rest of R’s tirade. Instead he departed, slipping through the doors before they closed behind Crush. Once he followed the brute back to this ‘Quetzal’, he’d know for sure just how the Consul would be leaving Warfang.



It did not take that long for Amaterasu to repair the rope bridge. Of course, many of the Seekers had wandered off to check out the river valley, but a good howl from the wolf goddess brought the scattered team members back to where they started. There was no time to waste, after all, no matter how pretty and picturesque the Qingce Village area was. If nothing else, at least, the humble settlement, its earnest townfolk, and the natural beauty that surrounded it were reminders of what the Seekers were fighting for, and what a victory against Moebius R today would bring them once step closer to achieving.



Sadly, the gorgeous environment would not last forever. After mounting up again and crossing the repaired bridge with Pit in the lead again, the Seekers took a hard left and traveled west along the riverbank to circle around the mountain ridge opposite Qingce. The river turned north alongside them and slowly spread, running over its banks, as the land quickly opened up into a sprawling floodplain of sunflower fields, willow oaks, and power lines. As the team traveled further, more and more of the land became immersed in dirty brown water thick with floating debris. Everyone slowed their mounts to a stop as they neared the end of the road, with only flooded farmland ahead and to either side as far as the eye could see.

A little late, Nadia remembered what that man from the Ashwat Village stables mentioned about flooding to the northwest. Unfortunately she’d already forgotten that he called it ‘Swopes Farm’, but she guessed that didn’t really matter. Whatever the case, the rain last night hadn’t been that bad, had it? Maybe this area was just always like this. As her chocobo came to a stop, she wrinkled her nose in disgust at the liquid beneath her. “Yuck, the water smells like crap. I mean, actual poop. Do NOT touch that stuff unless you’re, like, immune to disease or somethin’. And even then, it’d still be gross.”

Her wandering eyes quickly identified a possible explanation. Not too far downriver, she could see a large barn damaged by high winds and surrounded by fetid floodwater. Her eyebrows rose as she read the big sign above the building. “Wait, is that a pig farm? Eugh, no wonder. This isn’t just water…it swine!”

As she took a better look at the flooded area around the farm, however, she couldn’t help but map out a route across the sunken silos, waterlogged cars, fallen tree trunks, wrecked sheet-metal sheds, floating sections of fence, and haybales. It would have been a piece of cake for her to get across on foot, but she figured even her chocobo could do it. Hell, even the horses, probably. Of course, the sprinklers currently spraying jets of filthy water around complicated things, but what was life without a little challenge?

Nadia took a deep breath and turned her chocobo to head downriver toward the farm. “Well, we’ve come poo far to turd back now. Let’s get jumpin’!”



One by one, the other Seekers arrived, each as grim as the last. Edward arrived first, surrounded by troops and constructs, but the haunted look on his face told Sandalphon that visions of a painful past had hounded him, too. He greeted them flatly, mentioned nothing of what Moon Mountain’s shadows had forced him to relive, and wordlessly got to work. He replenished his forces, dispatched scout drones doomed to wander aimlessly through the darkness, and bent his talents to the task of breaking through the roadblock ahead with brute force.

Seeing Edward’s efforts, Heismay stepped forward through the crunchy snow. His height meant that he couldn’t lay a reassuring hand on the tactician’s shoulder, but he offered what little he could. “Easy, friend. If you dealt with demons of your own back there, don’t be afraid to take respite. Bury your feelings beneath work and you’re apt to burn out.” He glanced down as Scrumpy padded over to lick at Whopper’s wounds, only for the little thief’s brother to pounce on the tinkerer as if to say hey, I’m taking care of him.

“No tower stands forever,” Sandalphon vaguely agreed. If there had been any wind up here, her weakened voice might not have carried from where she stood. The lack of breeze took the edge off the bitter cold, at least.

Heismay added, “I may know what to do about the door, as well” Not a lie, but he mostly said it in the hopes that it’d persuade Edward to slow down.

Next to arrive was Sectonia, although she looked rather unbothered to Heismay. Had she been able to face her fears resolutely, the eugief wondered, or did she just not have any real fears to face? So far, the bug queen had not given him the impression that she valued her subjects, allies, or life in general beyond their usefulness to herself. Given her superficiality, Heismay amused himself with the notion that her greatest regret was simply not being richer or more beautiful. As he continued to keep an eye out, Mokou arrived with her Spheal, both in pretty decent spirits despite what the Phoenix must have gone through. Roxas and Blazermate joined the group looking a little roughed up, and the medabot more than a little stressed out, but at least they were both in one piece. Once Ramattra and Ganondorf brought up the rear, Sandalphon finally had a full head count.

Once everyone had reached the walled-in snowfield, Sandalphon posed the assembled team an important question. “Did anyone find a key on the way up? It could take the form of a small card, tablet, or perhaps a cube, that could fit into this device.” She showed everyone the mechanism by the locked door, but her efforts were wasted, as it soon became apparent that nobody had happened to obtain a key of any kind.

Once she reached that conclusion, Sandalphon reevaluated the team’s options. “Although Edward is willing to employ his artillery units, I fear that breaking through will involve a high degree of resource and time expenditure.” She turned her gaze skyward. Though she could no longer see the Frozen Highlands’ clouds beyond the inky abyss, she could see where the peaks that enclosed this snowfield terminated. “I understand that aerial circumvention is a serious and perhaps unfair request to make of our fliers, but it may be the most economic option.” She had not forgotten one particular teammate’s earlier allusion, however. “Unless the idea you mentioned seems feasible, Heismay?”

The eugief had been waiting, and now he took a deep breath of the frigid mountain air. He did not feel any readier than he did before, but there was no way around this now. He had already spotted a giant matchbox half-buried in the powder near the snowfield’s entrance, and given its presence he could not help but feel as if it encouraged, if not outright intended, a certain solution. After all, he could see burnt, blackened, flame-warped matchsticks littered here and there beside the path. After everything, the Seekers were still on the Midnight Walk.

With everyone’s eyes now on him, Heismay retraced his steps. He slid open the matchbox, pulled a fresh match the size of a torch from within, and struck it against the traces of red phosphorus on the sides of the box. After a few tries, the match sparked to life, and with the flame held high he slowly strode out of the snowfield and to the cliff at the end of the mountain path. His cats, following in his footsteps so far, hung back.

“I lost my way again,” he murmured, reciting the hard-to-forget words from memory. “It’s getting dark now. But the dark is a well of ideas, a blank canvas full of possibilities. The dark itself is the key. All I need is a little spark, and then I get what I need.” He stood at the precipice, staring down. He could see no land, no sea, no sky. Nothing but a pitch-black nothingness, an infinite void. Heismay swallowed. “It hungers for fire, so I take a match, I light it, and I offer it.” Slowly, shivering, he extended his arm, holding the torch over the void. “I give it freely. I have to…surrender.”

He dropped the match. In an instant, it disappeared from view.

Then, in the dark, two great eyes opened, accompanied by a surge of staticky white noise.



They stared, their chromatically aberrant gaze roving between Heismay and the other Seekers. Then, after another moment, something flew up out of the dark and clattered across the stone at Heismay’s feet. He looked down to find a technological-looking stone tablet the size of a playing card, then immediately looked back up at the eyes, wary of a distraction. But the eyes were gone, and after they vanished, the uncanny darkness surrounding Moon Mountain dissipated. The backdrop faded back in, with its snowy hills, stormy clouds, and distant seas. Heismay could see the jubilant, multi-colored lights of the Christmas Village, a lone pillar that he thought was the space elevator, and a burning settlement that might be Krat Zoo.

He backed away from the edge, took another deep breath, and hurried back to join the others. When he reached up and slid the tablet into the cube-shaped device, the gate rolled open, and the Seekers could proceed through.



On the other side of a short upward passage they arrived at the peak of Moon Mountain. It was sparse, with nothing but a stretch of bare gray rock that led straight toward the moon itself. The moon floated just over the end of the path, with a rough staircase that led up into a large, gaping wound in the planetoid’s underbelly. As they approached, slowly and carefully, with Sandalphon and Edward at the lead, the Seekers kept a tight formation. Their journey through the Frozen Highlands, and everything they’d experienced -from manmade horrors to joyous festivity to sobering reflection- had brought them to this place. To this moment. In the end, it was all just a stunt to attract the attention of the region’s challenge-hungry guardian, and it was up to the ten of them (and their creature companions) to make sure it paid off.

As the rest climbed the stairs, some with the help of others, Mokou flew ahead to become the first to lay eyes on the moon’s interior. Within the great globe, she found a domed hollow with a flat floor, completely empty except for one thing: a seven-pointed sphere with an impression like a fingerprint, its central mass about the size of an elephant, which hovered motionless seven feet above the center of the space.

Naturally spry despite his age, Heismay reached the interior second and spotted the strange object right away. He then scanned the area, listening for any signs of danger, as Roxas and Edward helped Sandalphon up behind him. “What is that?” he wondered aloud, peering at the object. “Could…could this be the sun?”

Sandalphon narrowed her eye at the thing. “What gave you that idea? We are beneath the clouds, and it is daytime beyond the Frozen Highlands. The sun shining upon the World of Light could not possibly be here.”

“I understand, but we are inside a moon,” Heismay pointed out. “It could be metaphorical. The Highlands are gripped by a curse of eternal night, yes? What better representation could there be than a sun, cold and dead, locked within the moon, a symbol of night?”

The archangel did not look satisfied with that explanation. “If we suppose that is the case, what do we do about it?”

At that, Heismay could only shake his head. “That’s where my wellspring of sage advice runs dry, I’m afraid.”

Within the still, dusty, deathly quiet interior of the moon, the Seekers searched for answers.

Mokou stands stock still in the entryway of the “Moon”, staring at the “Sun” that floated in the center. Kaene had rolled further into the structure, albeit hesitantly, as if even they could sense the strangeness of this place. Heismay’s comment on it being ‘metaphorical’ rang in her ears, the phoenix remembering many tales of a similar nature back in Gensokyo. While it made little sense to the traditional mind, many metaphorical suns could exist, even at the same time depending on the place. So it wasn’t as much of a stretch to apply the same logic to this construct.

So, if it was a dead sun, then it needed life.

“... Never done something like this before, but I think I have an idea” Mokou comments as she finally steps forward, casually walking past Heismay and the others, “If it’s a sun that has lost its spark, then it means that it’ll need something new to give it back” she comments, bringing out her pokeball, retrieving Kaene before her actual work began, the phoenix lifting herself into the air.

Floating up to the construct, Mokou lifted a hand, a fiery feather forming in her palm. Then, she willed it forward, sending the feather floating softly to the Sun… And once it made contact, the feather immediately dissipated, the particles that made its form being scattered and absorbed into the Sun’s surface with the greed of a man that had never seen water.

“Looks like it does need a jump start” Mokou commented aloud, rolling her shoulders and glancing back to the party, “Might want to take a step back. Reigniting a star, even metaphorically, is going to get a bit hot. So if you’re not fireproof, get scarce” the Phoenix warns the party. Then she let out a small breath and placed her two hands on the Sun, beginning to fuel it with her magic. Fire coiled around her entire being, snaking into the Sun rapidly. She knew that this Sun was going to take a lot out of her… And if she was anyone else, it might have demanded her very life to fuel it.

But she was someone with infinite life to give. So it was in luck.

While Amaterasu had managed to handle the first watery obstacle for the seekers, she wasn’t going to be able to do much about the next. No amount of repairs was going to unflood the landscape, nor was it going to be possible to purify the putrid waters given the sheer scale of the devastation.

Instead the others were going to have to do some mounted platforming, something Rika was deeply displeased about despite her brother’s confidence in his abilities. If the awful smell hadn’t ruined her appetite, then the justling in her stomach resulting from clinging onto the back of their gasmask wearing horse for dear life while it leapt from sunken truck to flooded house roof certainly would have. As such cooking practice had very much been put on hold.

Unexpected saviors came her way however, though at first it did not seem this way.

Upon scaling to the top of a sunken building to try and spot an optimal way forwards, few hazmat wearing people driving hovering bumper cars spotted them in turn. There was some distant shouting and pointing from the group, who then proceeded to zoom their way over.

Amaterasu had been quite some way away from them, her lighter form and ability to draw lily pads allowing her to take a different route from the steed riders (and thus reduce traffic on said rout), and so she only managed to overhear the very loud prince's side of the following argument.

”What do you lot want! Coz if its a fight you’re not gonna stand a chance! … We didn’t steal nothing, we bought em fair and square from some stable back that way! … Yeah, well, so what if they stole em before selling em to us, we didn’t know that! Go take it up with them! … Wait for real? One crummy horse for one of your cool bumper cars? Sign me up!”

By the time the worried wolf had made her way over, the deal had already been struck, and rather than getting in a fight, the koopa siblings had instead traded up, swapping the stolen horse for a hover car. Well, Amaterasu wasn’t entirely sure if this was an upgrade given she had no idea how the vehicles would operate on solid or bumpy ground, but both children seemed delighted with the arrangement. Jr loved the carnival aesthetics of the machine, while Rika appreciated not being jossled around by the living steed.

As the electric riders (and one horse rider) headed towards the next of the seekers who had one of their steeds, the koopa siblings zoomed ahead of the pack in their new ride, hovering over the putrid waters and clearing them in no time.

The wolf would have made good time chasing after them, no doubt, had she not come across a small barn mercifully spared from the floodwaters by its elevation. This would have been little solace for the occupants, however, given they were thoroughly locked inside it, with no owner in sight.

This the wolf rectified as soon as she became aware of the predicament, cleaving open the barn doors, and allowing the trapped pigs to trot out into the sunlight. Of course, once there, they didn’t exactly have anywhere to go. Not safely anyway. Pigs might like a bit of muck, but the filthy waters were too much, even for their standards.

As such, Amaterasu spent a fair amount of time painting the world, mainly by cleaving a side of the wooden barn off such that it landed upon a set of large lily pads she’d created in advance. This resulted in a relatively stable little raft, onto which she herded the pigs, before setting them all adrift across the waters, sailing their way through the wreckage till they came aground near where the koopa siblings had parked to wait for the others.

After growling at Rika who came to ask ”Can we have one of those to go in the stir fry we’re gonna make” she then sent the swine off on their merry way, taking naught but their Praise in return for her aid. She might not exactly be opposed to meat eating, she was a wolf after all, but she was also allowed to be a little selfish, and to her the strength gained from the pig’s Praise was worth far more than the single pork chop the child would have gotten out of her request.

---

Sakura sat up on a public bench along the streets of Esaka, setting her feet on the seat and placing the rest of her on the top of the back.

”...and some people don’t like the idea, of that, I think. Not being the ‘real’ version of themselves? But I have a hard time seeing it that way. Just because I don’t remember what I’ve been up to all this time, doesn’t mean I’m not the real me. I remember my entire life before all of this happened, you know? Feel the same feelings about it.” Sakura said.

”But what I have been, what all of us have been, is stuck. This world, and almost everyone in it, unable to grow, and to build a future. That’s what taking memory away does.” Sakura looked up the sky.

Then she rubbed her chin. ”If I had to guess, I’ve probably been fighting around Esaka all this time, occasionally running off to find Ryu-san. Probably getting smoked occasionally in tournament fights that go too far without anyone realizing, or picked off by the dangers of the outside world. Until the Seekers came along, that was probably my loop.” She shook her head and chuckled.

”Heavy stuff, huh, Ei-san? But then again, it’s possible this is the first time I’ve been put in the world, too. I have no idea if there’s a way to know for sure. Regardless, I’m free of it now, and I intend to be a part of the team to win it all.” Sakura said. ”Smash Galeem to bits and restore everything to the way it was.”

”Sorry. I started rambling. Where was I in my, like, explanation? Or do you have any questions? At this point I’ve heard the spiel like a dozen times.” She scratched her head.

All the while, Ei listened with an expression of utmost solemnity, with all the gravitas of a judge in court, as she stared out across the fishscale-shingle roofs of the Low Tier, like a shoal of carp endlessly circling the rest of the city. Beyond it lay a beautiful natural landscape, particularly in the west where the cherry blossom trees atop the twin peaks of Mount Yongou bloomed in radiant pink abundance.

After a moment, Ei gave her thoughts. “You admit your life has worth, and that you deserve to live. I feel the same way. Yet you fight on toward a goal that will end in self-destruction.” From the way she said it, it sounded less like a critique and more like an admission that she felt perplexed.

“There are many things wrong with this world. To change and to grow are synonymous with being alive, and being robbed of that…it is not the same. Yet, I can see the logic.” Her gaze settled on a couple little, round birds as they came to rest on an eave nearby. “There are certain things all of us hold dear. Things, places, people we love, perhaps grew up with. But time goes on. Heroes grow old and wither away, replaced or forgotten. Once glorious realms change hands or fade into obscurity. Old favorites never return.”

Ei’s expression turned downcast. “I’m sure there’s some part of us all that pines for those lost loves. That would pay dearly for their return and continuance. That yearns to witness them in new stories, to see growth and change, to see them shown to fresh eyes and experience the recognition they deserve. Even if none of it is truly authentic…it tastes good enough. It still satiates the longing. The nostalgia. Fills the holes those lost loves left behind.” Ei paused thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s what Moebius really is. A wistful…craving. A dangerous dream.”

After a moment, she gestured to the city. “And here, all those things can return as many times as they please. A grand toybox of playthings that never tarnish. Here, their fond memories mean that all their lost loves can live on, and on, and on. Even if it’s not quite the same.” Ei shook her head, then gave an awkward, somewhat resigned laugh. “Haha…really makes you think, huh?”

Sakura dropped from her perch and casually flopped her head against Ei’s lap as she started to lay on the bench. ”It’s like when you finish a really good anime or something, and you’re like, ‘man, I wish i could wipe my memory and watch it all over again!’” Sakura said.

”But then it’s like, if you actually could, wouldn’t you just do the same thing again? And then it’s like you’re just sitting there watching the same thing, over and over again. You’ll never finish it. And then it’s like, if you never finish it, if you can never reflect on it, you never really watched it at all.” Sakura said.

For a brief moment Ei seemed startled, or at least surprised, by Sakura’s choice of headrest. After a few seconds, though, she smiled and tousled the girl’s short brown hair, like a grandmother might do to her grandchild. “That’s certainly one way to put it.”

Sakura smiled and pointed a finger up at Ei. ”And what do you mean, self-destruction? Worst case scenario I get my memory wiped. Already had it happen who knows how many times. What’s one more?” Sakura raised an eyebrow.

”Lost loves, lost places, forgotten memories…” Sakura shook her head. ”I’m not even twenty! I’m barely getting started over here. And my little brother probably doesn’t even exist right now. And my parents, my friends, all have so much more to give, too.” Sakura made a dismissive gesture. ”Nuh uh. Nope. No way. This whole thing is a universal karmic scam.”

That got a chuckle out of Ei. “Well…if there’s anything I do know, it’s that I want you to keep living, miss Sakura. If not for this world we would have never met, but now it’s like we’re friends. And it’d make me happy to keep doing…you know, friend-ly things with you. Despite the, er, circumstances.” The lady brightened up a little. “Oh, like dango! I passed a dango stall this morning…well, I did a lot more than pass it, I suppose. No matter, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind a repeat customer. Or a brand new one, if…you’re interested?”

Sakura smiled, and sat up straight to look at Ei. ”Dango? Here? How’d I miss that?” Sakura said. ”I’d love to!”

A beat.

”If you’re buying.” She added, flatly.

Ei winced a little as she smiled. “Well, eheh, it’s only fair.”

The two got a move on, quickly losing their view of the gorgeous Mount Yongou in the distance. In its place they received the full experience of wandering through the Low Tier, an unpredictable maze of narrow, irregular cobbled streets and blended architectural styles with few to no identifiable landmarks. Given the sheer size and cluttered chaos of Esaka’s downmost district, it was no wonder that Sakura had managed to miss a solitary dango cart somewhere. The greater mystery by far was how the newcomer Ei managed to internalize its location–clearly the lavender-clad lady had her priorities straight. It did take a while to actually track the cart down again, but the friends didn’t mind getting a little lost together. Wherever they happened to go, they found hole-in-the-wall restaurants giving off tantalizing aromas, little shops selling unique knickknacks, and street fights between gimmicky Low Tier fighters working off some steam. This place was nothing if not diverting.

Eventually, the two did find their destination, a rustic wooden stall tucked away in a hazy little alley where the mochi pounders could swing their mallets in peace without accidentally clobbering any passers-by. The stall, run by a handful of sentient cats, offered a plethora of colorful, steamed, glutinous pounded rice spheres on sticks, and visitors could choose any three dango they wanted to slot onto their sticks. There were dango covered in syrup, coated with sugar or sesame seeds, glazed, smeared with nut paste, wrapped in seaweed, grilled, fried, charred, rolled in flour, filled with veggies or tofu, flavored with mugwort, and more.

Ei went for a time-tested favorite: the classic pink, white, and green hanami dango. She also got three of them. When she asked how much she owed, however, the felyne behind the counter stiffened up for a moment, rubbed its eyes, then clapped its paws together. “Actually, mew are in luck! You’re our hundredth customer today, so we’re treating you to five sticks of dango on the house. Paw-lease enjoy!”

“Wow, how lucky!” Ei glanced at Sakura. “That means you get two! Which ones do you want?”

”Yeah! What? That’s crazy.” Sakura said. Something about this was suspicious. Did people act weird around Ei, or was it just her imagination? But it was impossible to turn down free food.

”Um, thanks?” Sakura said. ”I’ll have the Hanami Dango and the Mitarashi Dango. Sakura said, pointing up two fingers. ”Please!”

Sakura held the sweet treats, one stick in each fist. ”I’ve never gotten any free stuff like that, before.”

When the martial artist turned to address Ei, she found that her friend had already disposed of an entire stick’s worth of dango, causing her cheeks to bulge out comically as she worked her way through the chewy treat. “Shee, it’sh not all bad.” Realizing her bad manners, Ei held a hand over her mouth as she quickly swallowed. “Er, my apologies. I guess my sweet tooth is showing.”

”Impressive stuff, Ei-san.” Sakura said sagely.

Since the alley was a bit steamy and humid thanks to the dango cart, the two left the side-street with their spoils and stood out in front of a small grocery store where several monochromatic people of different shapes and sizes were shopping. Ei wasted no time in scoffing down another dango, but as she chewed her gaze wandered above the buildings toward Esaka’s higher tiers. Once she finished, she cleared her throat and gave Sakura a curious look.

“So…if your friends are going to be taking the fight to Consul R, are you planning to challenge Esaka’s consul, as well?”

”I…don’t know.” Sakura admitted. ”Right now, I’m just focusing on winning the tournament.”

”If the Consuls get in the way, we’ll go through them if we have to. IF there’s any plan to, y’know, take them out early, then I wouldn’t know.” Sakura said. ”...I don’t even know which one is Consul R. I’m pretty sure the spooky lingering person in all of those broadcasts is the Consul assigned to Esaka, though.”

Ei nodded, nonplussed by the news, or lack thereof. “Oh, R is the one I told you that rumor about earlier. Well, in any case, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you guys. And if I see Esaka’s while wandering around, I’ll come straight to you.” Somehow, all her dango had disappeared. In fact, Ei was already looking back in the direction of the steamy alleyway, maybe considering another round. After a moment she abandoned the idea with a longing sigh and gave her friend a faint smile. “Heading back up to watch some more Pools matches I guess. See you later, Sakura.”

Sakura huffed. There was something melancholic when a hangout session with friends was coming to an end. Even when you would certainly see them and do it all over again.”...Alright! I’ll see you around! Wish me luck. I hope this candy doesn’t get in the way.” Still holding onto some of her dango, Sakura waved with it and walked backwards waving a little after it had become unreasonable to continue to doing so.

Even though it had been a terribly long time since Anais had last ridden, it felt good -natural, even- to be back in the saddle. Kayna’s Velocidrome might be a far cry from a dragon, but they had plenty in common, and it probably worked to the seamstress’s advantage to get reacclimated using an easier, terrestrial mount. Avmar -whose vivid scales Anais happily stroked- proved a delight to ride, and kept up with his peppy partner with long, easy strides.

Though the two women originally set out to talk about Warfang’s resident consul, R, the conversation quickly turned back toward Avmar. Like any good pet owner, Kayna had a vast catalog of stories to enthusiastically share about her crested companion from years of partnership. She told Anais about their friendship with a talking parasaurolophus named Ralph, the time they found the giant omelette and Avmar ate so much he got a tummy ache, and their terrifying close calls with the colossal sauropod known as Dreadnoughtus. It sounded like the two had cultivated an ironclad bond, but while Anais couldn’t help but be jealous she never got the chance to befriend a ‘monstie’ like Kayna did, she mostly just felt happy for them.

She also knew, of course, that ‘storied’ individuals like Kayna and Avmar had certain ‘plot points’ in their lives laid out for them, a pattern they were always meant to fall into. Those two were meant to be together, and the logic behind the World of Light would always try to make it so. Things were never so simple for Lost Numbers like Anais, whose one-off lives were anyone’s guess. Lost Numbers could be anything…or nothing, which was so often how Anais ended up feeling.

With great reluctance, she turned the conversation back toward R. He apparently traveled often, never lingering in Warfang long despite it being the seat of his rule. When here he never held court or heard petitioners, and when not entertaining himself in the city arena his chief pastime was constantly squabbling with the city’s four guilds. Even then, though, R never evidenced any kind of policy or even objective, just a fervent desire to obstruct and sabotage the dragons’ efforts for no real reason. R seemed like a temperamental, irresponsible, and dangerous sovereign–in short, a typical consul. At the same time, his overwhelming concern with his own satisfaction rather than actual governance left the matters of day-to-day life in Warfang with the four guilds, which worked well enough for the citizens.

Sadly, Kayna just didn’t know that much about R. By the time she, Anais, and Avmar reached the Beast Makers’ guild, their conversation had turned back toward monsties. Before they could get into it again, though, Anais spotted Poppi jetting over the buildings and waved her down. “Poppi! Over here!” The artificial blade swooped down and landed close by, kicking up enough dust to make Avmar sneeze. After giving the Velocidrome a wary glance, and saying hello to Kayna, Poppi got down to business. “Poppi find out probable transportation for consul,” she reported. “It sound like upper-class Warfangers travel atop big-big creatures with platform saddles large enough to build mobile houses.” She crossed her metal arms. “If there no spaceship or limousine hidden nearby, that Poppi’s best guess.”

Kayna clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “Oh yeah, those things. I don’t really get ‘em. Being a rider’s all about the special bond between monstie and rider. Those rich folks buy critters, then work ‘em to the bone without even getting to know ‘em. Plus, sticking a whole house on their backs? That’s just cruel.”

“It does mean he should be hard to miss when he goes,” Anais surmised, turning toward Warfang’s fortress. “Unless he comes to visit the stables he must be going by air. But there’s no flying beast big enough for something like that, is there?” Her gut told her that only one creature could possibly fit the bill: an ancient dragon, perhaps brought to heel by R’s Moebius control powers. If that was the case, ambushing him on the road would be a lot more difficult. She pursed her lips. “I wonder if Grimm’s found anything yet.”

As it happened, Grimm had just entered one of the citadel’s largest and most well-guarded areas: the hangar. Situated behind one of the enormous stone faces that adorned the rotating fortress, it had housed the battle dragons of the Sky Guard in Warfang’s Mokai days, but nowadays harbored reptiles that better suited R’s tastes. Rows of saddled pteranodons, to be ridden by Argonian bowmen and sorcerers, made up the bulk of the agile fighting force although a few argentavis added extra bulk and firepower to their ranks. In the middle of it all, however, rested an enormous quetzalcoatlus outfitted with an extravagant platform saddle sporting a house, complete with chimney, porch, and flower boxes. To the beast’s credit it actually seemed to bear the considerable weight, but that couldn’t be comfortable. It was an absurd enough sight to prompt a chuckle from just about anyone but Grimm.

The humorless bug made his approach. Crush was already among the workers as they made the finishing touches to the house, unhelpfully threatening and distracted them. At least his green quadrupedal counterpart, Gulp, helped move materials around. Most of the argonians here were either involved in the project or tending to their pteranodons, so Grimm knew that he could skulk up to the house undetected. If he stowed away, though, he would be unable to share his discovery with his teammates, and they were the ones who could actually communicate with the Avenger and thus Seekers.

This was a solvable problem, though. He withdrew into a corner and summoned a Grimmkin Novice, then whispered his underling’s purpose to it in a raspy tongue. The masked bug withdrew in silent obedience to find the others and report to them. Grimm watched it go, then turned as the doors to the hangar flew open and R himself strutted in.

“Alright, we’ve wasted enough time!” the consul yelled as he approached the quetzal. Behind him followed a personal assistant, an elderly Tyrannian Yurble, hauling a huge suitcase filled with R’s stuff. “Guards, mount up! I’m sick of this place already, we’re moving out!” He turned to bark at the struggling butler. “Hurry up, Smithers! I’m gonna need a good washing to get all this dragon-stink outta my scales!”

“Y-Yes, sir!” the Yurble gasped.

Grimm scuttled out of his hiding spot and made a beeline for R’s mobile home. Well before he reached his destination, the plateau’s rotten ruler would receive a nasty surprise.

Back outside, Poppi and Anais -having bid farewell to Kayna and Avmar- were startled by the sudden appearance of a Grimmkin. The ghostly bug whispered to them, almost impossible to understand, but Poppi did her best to interpret the razor-sharp, slithery rasps made by its inhuman mouthparts. “Giant quetzal leaving soon with consul?” She blinked at the Grimmkin. “How soon?”

As if to answer her question, a loud rumbling, grinding sound issued from the fortress. The mouth of one of the huge stone faces was opening. After a few seconds, the batlike silhouettes of mounted pteranodons began to spill from within, at least a half-dozen pairs in total. Then a huge flying beast as big as a stealth bomber emerged with a house on its back, soaring into the air. “That our cue,” Poppi declared, boosting into the air with her leg thrusters. She gave Anais an apologetic wave. “Am going after it. Call for pickup from Avenger.”

With no time to waste, she rocketed off into the sky to follow the aerial convoy from a distance. As she ascended, she dialed up her first contact on her built-in communicator, hoping that the roaring wind would drown out her voice. “Masterpon, let commander know. Target is on move. We have our heading.”



The flooded farmland presented a tricky challenge with disastrous consequences for failure. To Nadia, getting punched to pieces by Kazuya sounded like a much better fate than taking a tumble into that rancid, polluted water. Unfortunately, the feral wasn’t all that familiar with the jumping ability of her chocobo steed just yet, so she couldn’t trust it like she could trust herself. This was one situation where the gung-ho catgirl knew she ought to slow down, be careful, and think about the best course to take.

Junior and Rika were bound for the central pig barm, using a series of floating or half-submerged objects as stepping stones to get across. Their steeds were not the most agile creatures around, but their gas masks meant that the vile smell pervading Swopes Farm didn’t bother them, so they could focus fully on the task at hand. That said, Nadia figured that she shouldn’t follow in their footsteps. Crowding any one route would make it that much easier for the Seekers to run into one another, mess with a required platform, and so forth. Plus, it looked like they’d already managed to attract the attention of some men in little hovercrafts, fitted with the same masks that adorned the Koopa Kids’ horses. That smelled like trouble -insofar as Nadia could smell anything other than pig muck- so the feral wisely decided to steer clear.

After giving Grima a curious glance, wondering if the swordswoman’s hidden depths would come into play here, Nadia took a look around. A little ways to the north, near where the ridge of low mountains on the western side of Qingce Valley, Nadia spotted a handful of familiar blue shapes carefully hopping down a steep trail to arrive at the water’s edge where there happened to be a handful of large, yellow toads. “Oh, those guys again. And…” She narrowed her eyes, then prodded her chocobo to move forward. She’d seen plenty of critters throughout the journey thus far, but these toads didn’t look like ordinary wildlife. They sported interesting patterns shaped like flowers, green lilypads of various shapes, or stripes of solid color. In front them, a great many lilypads floated atop the floodwater, each with its own shape and colored flower.

As Nadia approached, she watched a zoombini climb up on a toad with the classic lilypad shape, the circular one with a triangular cut-in. The toad immediately set off, bounding across the field of lilypads. At certain points it made a sharp turn to the left or right for no reason that Nadia could see, but eventually it reached solid ground, where the zoombini got off.

Next, a zoombini mounted a toad with a pink stripe. It too began to spring from pad to pad, and this time Nadia noticed that it seemed to stick to only lilypads with pink flowers. After a few moments, though, the toad reached the end of the road. Surrounded by only cyan, yellow, and red flowers, the toad leaped onto a red one, only to plow through it and dive headfirst into the water along with its passenger. Nadia watched for a few seconds, but neither reemerged.

Nadia crossed one arm beneath her chest, rested her elbow on it, and then rested her chin on her fist in a thoughtful pose. The lilypads looked promising at first, but there was clearly something up with them that meant getting across wouldn’t be so simple. As another zoombini stepped up to try its luck, it looked more and more like each toad could only use lilypads that matched their patterns in some way, so Nadia turned her attention to the lilypad array. While she might be able to snag a toad ride herself, she didn’t want to leave her friendly, obliging, and expensive chocobo behind. But would the lilypads work for her?

She gave her mount a good look, stroking his feathers. “Well…you are yellow, like the toads.” But what was her chocobo’s ‘pattern’, which dictated the kind of path it could take? If its pure yellow plumage meant it could cross atop yellow-flowered lilypads, there did seem to be a winding path that offered a way across.

It was definitely a gamble, since Nadia had no way of knowing how this world’s logic worked, but she supposed that even if her chocobo splashed down, she could still probably leap off its back to safety. No way it can’t swim, she told herself. And it already kind of smells! It was worth a try.

Nadia drove her mount forward, toward the edge of the nasty water, where the chocobo slowed down nervously. The feral glanced at the remaining zoombinis dramatically. “If I die, just remember that Ms Fortune was toad-ally awesome. And don’t frog-et it!”

With a squeeze, Nadia urged the chocobo forward, and with a panicked tweet the big bird jumped. For a heart-stopping moment, Nadia thought both of them were headed for a smelly splashdown, but when her mount’s talons touched down on the yellow-flowered lilypad, it held. Nadia breathed a sigh of relief, patted the chocobo’s head, and praised his courageous spirit. “Good job, bud. Despite appearances, you’re definitely not chicken!” From there the two hopped onward, careful to steer clear of titanic tattooed toads, until they finally reached the other side.

Once on the far shore of the floodwater, Nadia reconvened with the other Seekers. Others could conceivably use the trails blazed by her or the Koopa Kids if they didn’t find their own ways across. It wasn’t long after the feral arrived that the team got their long-awaited phone call from Sandalphon via her angelic sigil, conveying what the team deployed to the Tyrannian Plateau had learned.

“R is officially en route, traveling via air from Warfang, the plateau’s capitol,” Sandalphon reported. Wherever she was, there seemed to be a slight echo, as if she were in a large cavern. Other voices could be heard faintly in the background. “He is traveling via quetzal, a giant flying reptile, with a house on its back. He is accompanied by a retinue of twelve airborne guards. Two agents, Grimm and Poppi, are on hand to assist with downing him once he nears you.” The archangel paused. “Proceed due northwest through the borderland between Tyrannia and the Fields of Gold. By my calculations, he’ll be in eyeshot within thirty minutes.”



Up ahead, the terrain beyond Swopes Farm dried out significantly as the temperature increased closer to Tyrannia, becoming a rugged badland patched with scrubby grasses and dotted with towering, windblown pagoda ruins. Yellow Wind Ridge appeared to be an inhospitable borderland with few to no settlements, making it an ideal battleground. It was still too early to tell exactly which dusty hill R would crest, but the Seekers could still make preparations for the ambush. This region offered several threats that could interfere with their business, after all. These were the froglike Lang-Li-Guhh-Baw, who wielded the power of lightning from his little oasis, the freakish, fossilized Earth Hound in a large gravesite, and bands of roving rat warriors around the area. Nadia decided to head for the nearest pagoda in the hopes of attaining a vantage point from which she could keep watch for the incoming consul.



A quick once-over of the hollow moon’s insides by Heismay confirmed what Sandalphon’s sight and scans had indicated: this strange space was totally empty, save for the cold, stone sun that floated in the middle. Of course, that did little to set the eugief’s heart at ease. Throughout the course of his life, he’d developed a strong, trustworthy instinct for impending danger. Combine that with a pessimistic streak that proved accurate all too often, and Heismay often seemed to possess a sixth sense for where and when fighting would break out. And right now, his instincts told him that this place, barren though it seemed, was the perfect spot for a battle against something very, very big. In fact, though he was tempted to dismiss it as mere paranoia, he could swear he felt some sort of presence here. As if something lurked nearby, unseen, for a chance to strike, just waiting for some kind of trigger. As for what that might be, there were only so many options.

Maybe the others felt it too. Though on the surface it seemed like a good time for a break, out of the bitter wind and the reach of remorseful memories, none of the Seekers really settled down. Instead they sharpened their blades, reloaded their firearms, used consumables, and kept a sharp eye out. Even the cats remained alert, their ears twitching at every echoed footfall as their tails curled and uncurled restlessly. So when Mokou volunteered to try and ignite the dead sun with her immortal flames (which made more sense thematically rather than logically but suited the end of the Midnight Walk in Heismay’s mind) all eyes were on her as she floated forward. Once in position, Sandalphon gave her approval, and the kindling began.

Mokou blazed bright, pumping a torrent of fire into the seven-pointed stone from below. Gritting her teeth, she mustered her own scuttled spirit and gave it more and more of her power. To Sandalphon’s surprise, the sun actually drank in the phoenix fire, increasingly aglow with radiated heat as Mokou continued to burn. Around it the air began to shimmer and swim, and the hollow moon filled with light.

Much to its chagrin.

The incandescence illuminated something within the darkness that hadn’t been there before: a mask-like face of cratered moonstone, with black eyes, a long spike of a nose, and a huge, leering smile. Sandalphon’s eye widened as she saw it, and a quick scan told her that this was no illusion. “Contact! Repeat, we have contact!” she warned the others, an exclamation point in her eyes as she summoned her hexagun.

Heismay’s blade was already unsheathed. “I knew it.“



The hollow began to shake as parts of the floor began to crack and splinter upward. From the moonstone emerged four giant hands the size of trees, each with an eye on their palms. Those eyes began to glow, and after a second a barrage of three crimson orbs shot out of each for a total of twelve, all with slightly different trajectories. “Hup!” Heismay dodged away from one, then backflipped out of another’s pass. When he saw a projectile headed for Sandalphon, he bullet-jumped the archangel’s direction in order to parry the shot with his scythe.

Unblinking, the Man in the Moon unleashed a thick wave of spikes, as pitch-black as his own body, that spread across the floor like a giant ripple. Sandalphon grabbed Heismay by the back of his coat with her off hand, then used Vault to sail into the air, where she slowed her fall with Heavensent to stay safe from the spike wave. Heismay saw an opportunity and took it. “Here we go!” He leaped off Sandalphon, glided through the air, and brought his scythe down on the Man in the Moon’s mask like a pickaxe. A few light gray chips went flying, and Heismay kicked off his foe’s face to get some distance. “Hah!” He shouted as he landed. “Is that all?”

A burst of white noise rang out from all around, and in the shadows opened a dozen giant, aberrated eyes. Surrounded in smoky blackness, they hurtled through the air of the hollow like vengeful spirits, leaving dark trails behind them.



Heismay gritted his teeth. “The darkness…it hungers for her fire!” He took off running, determined to stay one step ahead of the abundant spikes and projectiles.

As the Seekers scrambled, Sandalphon called to Mokou. “Whatever you do, keep burning!” she instructed the Phoenix. “Beckon a new dawn, and banish the darkness!”