[center][h3]Esaka’s Pools Tier / VS Tyrant King, Rage of Dinosaurs, Moebius R[/h3]
[b]Setting:[/b] Clear Friday Afternoon
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (294/150) Level 11 Big Band (230/110)
Bowser Jr, Rika & Amaterasu’s [@DracoLunaris] Primrose, Therion & Pit’s [@Yankee] Sakura & Juri’s [@Zoey Boey] Captain Falcon’s [@Double] Yayama’s [@Chevaleresse] Grima’s [@Goggy]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1468 / 943[/center]

As Band took this brief opportunity to catch his breath before round two began, Q picked himself up. The masked giant moved ponderously, almost unnaturally, with all the graceless raw power of Frankenstein’s monster. Once in a crouching position, he rose with a loud, rough grunt, the sound of which sparked the notion in Band’s mind that his opponent might be mute. A speechless powerhouse, more monster or machine than man…even though Band won the first round by a decent margin, the detective did not plan to underestimate the opposition. As the one-sided beatdown he’d received from Potemkin that morning had demonstrated, the pace of a fight could change at the drop of a hat. Big Band tipped his own at Q as a sign of respect, received no acknowledgement, and readied himself for battle once more.

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

Once the Heavenly Principles bade him begin, Q advanced in his typical careful manner: an ominous and measured stride interspersed with frequent crouches to ensure his guard was ready for any mid or low pokes. Band moved a half-step back to maintain his distance while charging, then threw out a risky move: a light Take the A-Train. “Hit me…!” He scooted forward and, in the midst of Q’s well-rehearsed defensive pattern, scooped up the man of mystery for a couple jackhammer-like trombone slams. “...Two times!” Once Q got spat out, Big Band followed up with the only move he could: his go-to Blockbuster, Super-Sonic Jazz. “Horn crush!” Reinforced by a giant french horn, he blasted forward and rammed his opponent back, who went tumbling with a sort of strained growl. Band’s quick thinking had earned him a healthy leg up, but it left him totally dry on Dramatic Tension, and it would take a lot more punishment before Q stayed down.

Band approached, and as Q regained his feet with an eerie stiffness, the detective leaped into the air. Q was more than ready to swipe him from the sky, but not for his fedora-wearing foe to defy the law of gravity with a midair double jump to bait out the anti-air. Q’s uppercut whiffed, and the next instant Band landed mere inches from him, hard enough to shake the whole stage. With no choice but to guess, Q went for a throw tech and successfully pushed away the halves of Band’s bell as he attempted a combo-starting grab.

The detective, determined to keep his momentum, deployed two trombone slides for Glissando but got stuffed by Q’s High Speed Barrage. That flurry of three open-handed swipes just about slapped Band silly, but he did not take leave of his senses. Unwilling to relent, he pulled back just enough to try and counter-poke Q with Brass Knuckles, only for Q to deftly parry it and reply with his Super Art, Critical Combo Attack. “Hm! Hm! Hm! Hm!” He dented Band’s frame in a series of four full-force rush punches that sent the two-and-a-half-ton cyborg flying all the way across the stage as Q taunted. Band landed heavily, slid right across the pool tiles, and flopped over the edge of the arena into the water.

[i]ROUND TWO: Q WINS![/i]

It actually took several minutes (and the help of a couple bystanders, including a big British [url=https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/71f37e7b1477.png]punk rocker[/url] and a deceptively strong [url=https://i.imgur.com/dtgN1sd.png]mint-green girl[/url]) to haul Band onto the stage and expel enough water from his systems to function again. Iron Lungs weren’t exactly meant to go underwater, after all. After giving Birdie and Annie his breathless thanks, and standing to face to his motionless opponent, Band was forced to see Q in an entirely new light. It was easy to forget about ring outs in the heat of the moment, and if Q’s equivalent of a Blockbuster basically guaranteed one, it was no wonder the seemingly one-dimensional brute had gotten this far in bracket. At the same time, though, his place in Losers meant that his strategy could be defeated. Band just needed to adapt.

“Alright, I got the message,” the gumshoe spat. He flung open his trench coat and deployed a whole symphony's worth of instruments, draining the last bit of pool water from their valves, bells, and tubes. “Gimme half a chance, though, and I’ll have ya singin’ a different tune.”

[i]ROUND THREE: FIGHT![/i]

Q approached, and Band jumped. This time he lashed out with his Tenor Blast early, caught Q by surprise on the way up, then battered him with [url=https://mizuumi.wiki/images/5/57/SG_big_jlk.png]Jelly Roll[/url]. After the tambourine buzzsaw came the downward spike of Sweet Clarinet’s first hit as Band landed, a brief serenade from his [url=https://mizuumi.wiki/images/4/4d/SG_big_clp.png]musical triangle[/url], the surround-sound sonic blast of [url=https://mizuumi.wiki/images/1/10/SG_big_cmk.png]Bass Drop[/url], a kickstand-supported drop kick, and a heavy Take the A-Train to cap the combo off. “Shake, shake! Swing it! …Get hot! Lay BACK!” Without any Dramatic Tension he couldn’t finish with a Blockbuster, but it was a great start to the match regardless.

Of course, Q would be neither intimidated nor deterred. When Band pushed forward to pressure him, Q took to the skies and executed a somersault flop as he jumped backward. In the brief scramble that followed, the man of mystery seized his opponent and launched him several stories via [url=https://wiki.supercombo.gg/images/5/5b/%28qcadb%29.gif]Capture and Deadly Blow[/url]. An EX rush punch nailed Band as he plummeted down and sent him skidding, although not quite to the brink.

As he struggled for a split second to pick his bulky body up, the detective saw Q taunt again, decided that it must have some extra effect, and decided he was far enough away to do a little functional showboating of his own. Band whipped out his aerophones to play some Bagpipe Blues. For a moment Q wasn’t sure what to make of the loud, shrill sound, and by the time he figured that his opponent must also be able to buff himself, it was slightly too late.

He bulled forward with a heavy Dashing Leg Attack that Band blocked low just in time. From there, anticipating a brutal punish for his very unsafe move, Q made an unprecedented risky play: he canceled his recovery with the only thing he could, his Super Art.

Fortunately for Big Band, he’d already learned his lesson about getting impatient. In fact, he’d been thinking that this would be the perfect point in the fight -after two and a half rounds of defensive play- for Q to bet the farm on a dangerous gamble. Just blocking the rush punches wasn’t enough for Band, though. Instead, he watched carefully and parried each hit. Every wild haymaker slid right off the shimmering brass surface of his hi-hat cymbal. “Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope!” 

Finally, Band gave it everything he had. He unleashed a full combo from a Hot Socks starter, carrying his foe up into the air, back down, and up again. Every instrument in his arsenal came out to play, and when he finally opted to use his Sound Stun, the combo was only half over. His musical beatdown drew more impressed eyes and ears his way, until the sequence finally came to an end with his Blockbuster. “Super…Sonic!” Band blasted forward, but after a few hits flipped his french horn down to unleash a barrage of explosive Lokjaw strikes thanks to the buff from Bagpipe Blues. “It’s a good thing you know how to say ‘hmm!” he told Q amidst the flurry of wrecking ball blows. “‘Cause you’ll be thinkin’ on this one!”

[i]BOOM![/i]

Band’s fully-charged finisher hurled Q off the stage, heralding the end of the match’s brief but furious final round.

[i]ROUND THREE: BIG BAND WINS![/i]

As the detective let out his breath, the caps on his sides popped open to let off some extra steam. There were only a few yokai and other spectators around to offer him applause, but he couldn’t help but feel proud of what he’d accomplished, not just his first win in the Losers’ bracket but also one of his most impressive combos to date. Better yet, his tournament fights were all over for the day, leaving him the rest of the night to relax and prepare for tomorrow. 

“Guess all that trainin’ with Zenkichi paid off,” Band muttered as he turned to take his leave. If Q hadn’t deigned to give him a hand when he fell in the drink, the brute couldn’t expect one in return. His thoughts drifted to the interception team, now an hour or two away from Esaka and possibly already contending with Consul R. “Wherever y’all are, good luck.”

[hr]

Never one to respect a bad guy’s big monologue, Nadia had been ready to jump the little consul as soon as he showed signs of life, along with her pragmatic pal Therion. When his Moebius power struck her, however, it stopped the feral in her tracks. The sensation of transformation, of being rewritten to suit someone else’s fancy, was more than bizarre and disturbing. It was downright terrifying. Suddenly, yet subtly, her clothes felt different, the weight and texture of her hair changed, and she could feel two rigid sabertooth tusks against the insides of her lips where none had been before.

The last time she’d experienced such reality-warping power had been against another diminutive consul, P, in the Home of Tears. And to this day, she still didn’t understand his ability. He just did…something, and something awful happened to someone. This was different. Better, in fact. Whatever R had done to her, she still felt full of vim and vigor, ready to rip the reptile a new one. The real tragedy was that, with a lisp, she would have to keep her puns and one-liners to a minimum. Then again, if she had both brain cells fully focused on the fight, R would probably get beaten even worse than he would’ve been otherwise.

Never one to be looked down upon, R wasted no time adopting a much bigger, stronger form for the fight ahead, but the Seekers were no stranger to larger-than-life enemies. Those massive mitts of his could probably squash Nadia like a bug, but he would have to catch her first.

Once they regained their composure in the wake of R’s Revert, the Seekers spread out so that no massive kicks, punches, or stomps could hit more than one of them at once. His first mighty stomp landed a moment after the Junicorn’s crimson lance pierced his armor, shaking the ground as sand went flying, but hitting nobody. Nadia circled away from the impact and around R at a breezy pace, considering her first move.

Thanks to Primrose’s combo dance, she felt chock-full of energy and ready for action. Her plan would probably be the same as always: dart in and out, deal damage, and avoid getting her foe’s attention. Thanks to the sandy area R crash-landed in, getting stepped on would mean getting buried rather than flattened. Nadia doubted she’d have to worry about it either way, but others, like Rika, might not be so lucky. It was up to the others, including her adoptive brother’s strikers, to keep R’s attention away from her while she sorted her gear out, and Pit started things off with a flurry of light arrows. Nadia doubted they’d do much damage, but she knew they’d hit their mark, so it was her time to join in.

Nadia streaked across the sand as a yellow lightning bolt, closing the distance in an instant, and unleashed the pressurized blood in her legs. She soared upward, leaving a splotch of blood-soaked sand behind her. For a brief moment she hung in the air behind the behemoth’s shoulders, her claws wreathed in electricity. Then, just after Moebius R took a solid slug from Junior’s petrified Blodia striker, she followed up her Charge with Battery. She struck with two critical slashes to the neck area, made all the more painful by Therion’s armor corrosive, and R gave an annoyed grunt. He reached one massive arm over as if to scratch his back, but Nadia was already falling, her hardened claws dragged down R’s spinal column like a housecat shredding a curtain. Before he could devote any more time to Nadia, though, R received Amaterasu’s painted power slashes and focused forward again.

After landing, the feral hurriedly dashed away from a titanic footfall, then joined Amaterasu’s efforts to wear down her foe’s legs. Hit and run was the name of the game, and Nadia made it a point to target R’s joints, even if they looked more like glowing power cables than muscle fibers in this form. 

Nadia and Amaterasu would be free to do their thing for a few more seconds as Yayama hurled herself up at R’s head in an incredible jump. Her petrified Shadowbringer dealt a heavy slash right between the titan’s eyes and surprised him almost as much as it hurt him, as if R had just run headfirst into a gigantic door. “BWAH!” Losing all her momentum mere feet away from her target, far from any surface she could use to springboard away, did not bode well for Yayama, however. The moment R registered her incoming, like a little horsefly headed straight for him, his arm was on its way up. Now, a second or so after her slash, his hand struck his own face in a gargantuan facepalm–with Yayama between the two armored surfaces.

The impact stunned the lalafell just long enough for her to fall into R’s waiting grasp. “Little pest!” His fingers closed around her the next moment, and after raising his fist he hurled her into the sandy ground. R raised one leg to stomp her, but quickly turned his bared fangs on Nadia as the feral slashed into his other leg with Furserker Purrage. With a growl he tried to flatten Amaterasu, then lifted the leg Nadia sliced to stomp her with it. As he brought down one leg after the other, like a child throwing a tantrum in a sandbox, the wolf and cat made themselves scarce within the cloud of kicked-up grit. That left Primrose and Pit at mid-range, so with a grunt R dug in one foot to kick a weighty tide of sand their way.

[center][h3]Frozen Highlands - Moon Mountain[/h3]
[b]Setting:[/b] Lunar Friday Afternoon
Lvl 10 Sandalphon (141/100) Level 9 Heismay (42/90)
Edward’s [@DracoLunaris] Blazermate & Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC] Ace Cadet’s [@Yankee] Roxas & Ganondorf’s [@Double] Ramattra’s [@XoXKieroBombXoX] Mokou’s [@Goggy]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 983[/center]

The already-frenetic fight against the Man in the Moon got faster at the halfway point, but the Seekers kept up. As Blazermate’s Malice mounted, and Designate Target got applied, ranged specialists like Sectonia and Edward’s cohort dealt even more damage, enough to make up for the dwindling number of minions. While the lunar being’s spike waves were something only quick reflexes, hard lessons, and an occasional save from Ramattra’s cat could mitigate, the eye-palmed hands and their burst-fire projectiles could be dealt with. Once parted from their arms, those hands still presented a real threat, but now instead of shooting orbs that everyone would need to deal with, they could be kited around by a single volunteer.

Ace’s Humbee really helped in this regard, but Heismay also took to this task readily, staying one step ahead of a hovering hand as the hunter’s archery inspired him to pelt the Man in the Moon with the Gunner’s Poison Shots. Those toxic injections, combined with all the burns he had already received, meant that the masked menace was taking some serious damage over time. The Seekers were gaining momentum, sustained by Blazermate and Sandalphon’s healing, and not even the loss of Edward’s ironclad would slow them down.

Despite the fight’s shaky start, the Seekers could feel that this fight was theirs. The Man in the Moon had no more tricks up his sleeve, and The Dark Itself either could not or would not lend any more assistance, so it was only a matter of time until that cracked mask of his came crashing down in pieces. As it happened, however, this fight would not last long enough for the Seekers to make that happen. Mokou, kept safe and able to focus on her kindling thanks especially to the Antlers’ and Ramattra’s efforts, finally accomplished her mission. The cold, dead sun, filled to the limit by her immortal phoenix flames, hit its boiling point. It blazed with such brilliance that the Man in the Moon recoiled, withdrawing his hands in a desperate attempt to shield its eyes as his ghoulish grin fractured. He tried to retreat into the shadows, but none remained any longer–the hollow moon was alight, the darkness and its baleful gaze banished. A moment later the sun rocketed upward, a skyward shooting star, to shatter the moon (and the Man with it) into giant, smoldering pieces.

The sheer grandiosity of the spectacle left both Heismay and Sandalphon equally stunned, powerless to do anything but watch as the shattered shell crumbled away and rained down across the mountainside, revealing the Frozen Highland’s wintry expanse and eternal night. Yet the reignited sun continued to soar upward, and a moment after it pierced the clouds, a gaping wound tore open the region’s celestial blanket. Dazzling sunlight poured through. It fell first on Moon Mountain, then spread across the land as the clouds burned away. Heismay flinched away from the light, shielding his sensitive ruby-red eyes behind his wing, Sandalphon turned her gaze from the sun itself to the Frozen Highlands, awestruck by the sight of the pure-white, diamond-sparkling winterland beneath the light of day. For a few moments she simply stood and saw that, despite the painful path she’d taken, where she’d been was beautiful.

[center][img]https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/e6010aed2fd5.png[/img][/center]
[hider=The Tale of The Dark Itself]
[b]Destination Reward:[/b] 25 EXP
[b]Face Your Failures Achievement:[/b] Ramattra, Ace Cadet, Edward, Mokou, Heismay, Sandalphon
[b]Achievement Reward:[/b] 5 EXP…and closure[/hider]

After a few seconds, and a bit of blinking, Heismay was able to squint as he looked around at his Seekers. Their foes were gone, and everyone seemed to be in one piece, so it appeared that Roxas has the right of it. “I believe you’re correct,” the eugief replied rather flatly. “Twould seem that the dawn has finally broken, as well. I suppose we’ve saved the day?” He looked a lot more relieved than he did joyful or triumphant. A win was a win, of course, but Heismay knew that his duty was far from over for today. He naturally turned toward Sandalphon as the archangel conjured another healing miracle to undo everyone’s battle damage. “So what’s next?”

“Now we wait,” Sandalphon stated. “Our trek along the Midnight Walk was long and hard, and restoring the region’s circadian rhythm is no mean feat, but it was always step one of our plan. This was a bid to get the land’s battle-hungry guardian to acknowledge our strength. Now that the gauntlet has been thrown down, we must hope he comes to accept our challenge.”

Carefully, she lowered herself into a sitting position in the snow, next to Mokou’s unconscious body to keep an eye on her. It was still bitterly cold up here, but the sun’s rays made a world of difference. Until the guardian arrived, or it became clear where the Seekers would need to go to face him, they would need to find a way to pass the time. Small talk wasn’t exactly Sandalphon’s strong suit

“...I said it already that this was quite the grueling journey. It might behoove us to go over some of the toughest challenges it presented, combat or otherwise, to glean what we can from the experience. Or…if anyone experienced any particular blessings, those might be worth mentioning as well.” She paused for a moment. “That…station, at the top of the ‘space elevator’. I had never seen space before that day. The infinite abyss, pricked by countless stars, the suns of other worlds. It was incredible, in a certain, cosmic sense. Although the immense monstrosity we witnessed up there was certainly not.”