[IC] World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Videogame Crossover)

[Lugubrious]

Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion

Harry’s @Eviledd1984 Amaterasu’s @DracoLunaris Chosen Undead’s @Simple Unicycle Level 11 Big Band (29/110)
Word Count: 969

Though Band had been more machine than man for a long time now, enough of his original self remained that a chill still ran down his spine at the sight of the mannequin. It stood half-visible in the doorway as motionless as a statue, but the bob of its coil betrayed the abrupt cessation of remarkable speed. The metallic twang of its spring, an intensely unnatural sound, did not help matters either. Even a tempered veteran who’d witnessed all manner of human atrocities in the underbelly of New Meridian, who’d fought countless undead abominations during his storied career at the ASG Labs and with the Seekers, could be taken by surprise. Band’s only consolation was the fact that this new aberration had, for some reason, stopped in its tracks the moment he laid eyes on it, frozen like a deer in the headlights.

Why it didn’t move Band couldn’t say, but the fact that it did gave him a chance to breathe and compose himself. His eyes narrowed and his brows tightened as he assessed the situation. With no time to waste, he had to tackle this problem head-on, and in the best way he knew how: with brute force. “Thought you’d pull one on me, didja?” He threw open his coat, deploying a giant mechanical arm. “AHAAY!” He cannoned forward and drove his Brass Knuckles through the doorframe to hit the still figure center-mass. Wood splintered and flew in all directions, but Band’s momentum stopped cold. Despite his jaw-dropping pneumatic strength, the mannequin did not budge. Only its head moved at all, rocking gently back and forth from the blow, the stare of its eyeless sockets derisive as Band withdrew his fist and confirmed that the only damage he’d done was to himself.

“Hmph!” The detective snorted, stepping back. “Guess it ain’t much of a horror flick if the monster goes down easy, huh?” As he considered his options, he began to edge around the coilhead. It didn’t move until he decided to test it by looking away. Even a quick flick was enough to make it turn toward him, its head bobbing as it froze once more. With that thing in his way, he’d have to go the long way around the huge pit to get where he needed to go. Unless…

Band waltzed up to the coilhead and deployed two halves of a giant brass bell. They slammed together around the creature, and with his line of sight cut off, it became mobile again. Unfortunately, it seemed unable to break free of the bell, so after giving the monster a solid ringing for good measure, Band swung the bell out over the pit. The coilhead dropped through the open bottom and disappeared into the darkness below. After putting the bell halves away, Band gave the abyss a curt nod and continued on, not eager to be here when all the other critters that heard his bell’s chime showed up.

After exiting the room with the pit, he passed through a T-shaped junction with a handful of padlocked cabinets, past a bathroom with candles arranged around an eerie portrait, and into a multi-story living room with a confusing, U-shaped layout. It occurred to Band while stomping up and then down the stairs that at no point could this mansion have ever been a livable space; it seemed more like a dolled-up maze than anything, and unfortunately for him, the labyrinth had served its purpose. He was lost, with no clue which direction would lead him closer to his allies. Spotting something, he quieted his breathing and pulled to the side to let a six-legged, stitched-together homunculus crawl past, then pushed through the door it came through as stealthily as he could.

On the other side lay a small square courtyard, with an empty chicken coop, a tree, and a couple gravestones, hemmed in by stone walls on all sides. Overhead hung the starry night sky, which was damning evidence for this mansion being its own magical space, but the bigger surprise was the presence of another humanoid right in front of him. “Gah!” Only after readying himself for combat did the surprised detective realize that the knight he was looking at was Kit. “Oh, it’s you!” A sigh of relief issued from him. “There y’are, I been lookin’ all over. Where’s the wolf?”

As it turned out, unfortunately, Kit and Amaterasu had been separated, and without the wolf’s nose to guide him the warrior had been wandering the mansion as blindly as Band had for the last few minutes. “Well, we got each other at least. Better stick together.” The two went back the way Kit came to try another route. Down a different hallway hung a number of spider webs, as large and thick as blankets, and their owner was on the move. A zombie had wandered into its strands, and the moment it detected a vibration the Bunker Spider pounced. It paralyzed the corpse with its venomous bite, then strung it up in a cocoon, still struggling feebly. Band eyed the least web-strewn passage dubiously. “Our friends coulda gone that way, but I don’t like my chances of squeezin’ through there,” he whispered. He couldn’t see the full spider anymore now that it had crawled up into the rafters, but the tip of one of its legs on a web told him it was still there. “Tell ya what. If ya wanna try fightin’ it, I’ll back ya up. Or, I could try bustin’ through that locked door back in that courtyard. No tellin’ what we’d find though. Or what’d find us.” The choice of how best to proceed was Kit’s.

Deeper in the mansion, Amaterasu had managed to track Harry down, and though there weren’t any more monsters in the study where the ghost dropped him off, the detective was still in a predicament. Everything he’d stuffed into his pockets and clothes was valuable, but it was also impractically shaped, not to mention fragile. The simple act of moving without breaking anything would be a challenge, and as if his outfit wasn’t loud enough, all the clinking and clacking of his purloined goods would make the man into a walking windchime. Still, he somehow managed to shuffle back up the stairs from the basement study and into the lounge above it with only minor losses, at which point he and Amaterasu were confronted by two doors to choose from.

Amaterasu knew which one to go through to retrace her path, of course, but before she could lead Harry through, a squat creature emerged from a tiny air vent on one wall. With antennae, four wings, and red compound eyes, it was definitely the source of the insect scent she smelled earlier, and it was definitely interested in Harry. It did not attack, but it scuttled around him, fixated on its clothes. The greedy gleam in its eyes suggested that it wanted something, and if not satiated with an offering of loot, the bug would take wing and attack, at which point the detective could definitely bid the rest of his ill-gotten gains goodbye–if not his life alongside them.

That wasn’t all, though. A few moments after the bug’s arrival, the door Amaterasu had been planning to go through creaked open, and through the gap issues a gang of killer gnomes to sink their little pickaxes into whatever intruders they could.

[Zoey Boey]

Collect Call

Lvl 10 Sakura Kasugano (77/100) and Lvl 8 Sandalphon (24/80)
Word Count: 3,112 +4

While Sandalphon was by no means opposed to exploring the Paved Wilderness with a few fellow Seekers of Light for company, there were some tasks she needed to attend to, and some that she couldn’t put off any longer. Today’s checklist involved several long-distance inquiries made with various contacts from Midgar.

In the wake of the dystopia’s abandonment following the loss of the reverse-engineered machine god Tycoon deep beneath the Arahabaki city computer, and by extension the infinite supply of mako energy that Tycoon’s control over spacetime provided, the inhabitants of Midgar had been scattered to the winds. Some -mostly those with children and families of their own- fled to Gutsford, and Sandalphon suspected that the university town was rather overpopulated as a result. Some industrious sorts moved to seize the means of production at the Satis Factory to the east and start their empires anew. Some went further afield, across the bay to the city-wide fiesta known as Carnival Town or the strait to Everdream Valley for a more peaceful, pastoral existence. Others braved the lingering remnants of the Machines to colonize the Valley of Ruin, and many stuck it out in the dark and quiet ruins of Midgar itself, fighting over the scraps. Many had simply spread out from Kunad Highway, though, establishing their own settlements all over the northeastern peninsula.

Always one to deal with bigger problems right away, Sandalphon first reached out to her subordinates in the old DespoRHado unit, now returned to their roots as YoRHa. Their memories, artificially and remotely preserved across multiple existences, told her everything she needed to know about her time in Sundowner’s PMC. From the date when it started, Sandalphon could easily extrapolate how long it lasted. Most of the time she spent on the line with YoRHa constituted more personal inquiries, asking how everyone was doing and what were they up to. Hearing that the androids were slowly learning to live lives of their own, and that 2B and 9S were closer companions than ever, Sandalphon felt palpable joy.

Once fully updated on YoRHa, Sandalphon got in touch with her contacts in the Lateran Church, up to and including Pope Yvangelista himself. The old Sankta had a long memory, and it was old records that the archangel was interested in. Unfortunately, his memory didn’t seem to extend as far back as she hoped, and by now Sandalphon could guess at the cause for his supposed lapse. It wasn’t hard to confirm her hypothesis: that the Yvangelista she originally met all those years ago had died and been replaced, born anew in the eternal cycle of the Endless Now. In fact, nobody she called seemed to date far enough back to supply her with the details she needed. Fortunately, a clerical institution like the Lateran Church tended to keep consistent records, so she didn’t need to rely on her former coworkers’ memories. Once the data had been fetched and fully assembled, Sandalphon thanked the clerics with a heavy heart. That mood persisted throughout her brief and somber call with Giovanna as she told the special agent the bad news. After that, there was just one more call to make.

This time, she reached out to just one person. Wherever the young, spirited martial artist known as Sakura Kasugano happened to be across the Dystopiascape, she would hear an angelic chime as Sandalphon’s sigil manifested next to her ear. Simply touching it was enough to accept the call. “Hello? Ms. Kasugano? This is Sandalphon. How are you?”

Sakura was sitting cross legged on a jagged rocky outcropping overlooking the outskirts of the Satisfactory. Her hands were on her knees and her eyes were closed, expression serious. When she heard the ping, she animated back to life, glancing around. A few moments passed and she recognized what was going on, tapping the button next to her ear.

”Ah! Sandalphon-san! It’s good to hear from you.” She replied. ”And, uh, I’m well! …You?” She asked.

The sound of Sakura’s voice turned Sandalphon’s pupils into carets, though naturally that didn’t transmit through her spirit link. “It’s good to hear from you too. I’m glad you’re doing well. I myself am…managing.” While the archangel didn’t feel the need to go into more detail, she wasn’t about to lie and say that all was well. “I’ve kept in touch with some contacts among the Midgar refugees, so I know that the populace is doing admirably well, given the circumstances. We have not spoken since our parting, however. I would be interested in hearing what you and your friends have been up to.”

Sakura leaned backwards, setting her hands on the dirt behind her and staring up at the sky. She hummed, collecting her thoughts. ”Well, let’s see. I got some cool new duds.” She said, shaking her shoe.

”Like, my shirt has my name on it now. So that’s pretty cool. I got it for helping someone set up a tailor shop and protecting it from some monsters.” She explained.

”And then store credit got me the rest.” She said. ”I’ve never had ‘store credit’ before! It’s been pretty cool to hang around one place, see it come together, get to know everyone, you know? And building and making things is way easier in the World of Light than it is back home. Things just kinda poof and click together. It’s still hard work, but it’s like, easy and fun.” She let some sand run between her fingers.

”’Admirably well’ is right, I think! Karin-san loves this kinda stuff. Like bossing people around? And I guess she’s pretty good at it. Me, not so much, I just kinda go where she tells me.” She said.

”’Ciri-san and Yennifer-san are here. I wanna say they’re Geralt-san’s…wife and daughter? But honestly I’m not sure.” She shrugged. ”But they’re cool. Everyone’s been a little busy for sparring, though. Ciri-san is so good at fighting monsters I don’t get to do much of that either.” She said.

Sakura sighed. ”So I’ve kinda been taking it easy today! You ever meditate much? It’s pretty cool once you get good at it, that’s what I was doing when you called me. N-not that I’m complaining, of course!” She clarified.

“I see. I will not apologize for disturbing you, then,” Sandalphon remarked, mildly amused. “I have not attempted meditation, myself. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I have not meditated successfully. I understand that it involves quieting the mind and achieving inner peace, similar to putting a computer on ‘standby’ mode. Doing so have proven rather difficult for me, however. If I am not ‘on’ I am ‘off’, which is to say, asleep.” She paused, considering the possibility that Sakura wasn’t interested in her eccentricities and foibles. “...It seems Karin was even better suited to the role of leadership than we hoped. The people of Midgar are fortunate to have her. I hope there have been no troubles?” There was no shortage of capable fighters among the refugees who could handle monsters, but issues like disagreement, division, and competition weren’t so easily handled.

Sakura tilted her head at Sandalphon’s description of meditation. ”Uh, yeah, I guess so?” She said. ”I didn’t get it at first, either, it’s pretty hard. But also it’s not nearly as hard as it sounds. ‘Inner peace’ is a big ask. It’s not quite that, it’s just, y’know, chilling with yourself for a while.” Sakura explained.

”Karin-san would describe herself as a born leader. Back home she has her own personal army of ninjas and servants and controls the biggest business conglomerate in the world.” She said with a little roll of her eyes. ”If you ask me, her ninjas are kinda second-rate, but don’t tell her I said that.”

”And like there’s a little bit of trouble? But in times of hardship people are willing to turn to a strong and fair leader. At least that’s what Karin says. I dunno if you noticed but she’s got a bit of an ego on her.” Sakura chuckled. ” But things are crazy and she’s smart, so, whatever I guess. It’s not like she doesn’t delegate.” Sakura shrugged.

Sakura sat up and rubbed her face. ”...I definitely needed the break.” She started, like she was qualifying a future ‘but’ statement. But she felt a bit embarrassed to continue.

“From the campaign?” Sandalphon was always quick to put two and two together. “I understand, if so, and you’re not alone. Practically the whole team was on standby at a few different outposts over the course of the last week. We only reconvened last night. Unfortunately, we find ourselves missing a few important contributors.” Having sensed but not confirmed a possible direction the conversation could go, she refrained from dropping anything stronger than a hint.

”Yeah, it’s just-” Sakura scoffed, her face reddening. ”I did this whole goodbye, like a total dork.”

”I never know what I want. That’s always been my problem.” Sakura facepalmed lightly. ”I’m a big waffler. Now it feels like it’s too late. Even if I did want to rejoin, I don’t have any magic balloons and I don’t know if I can just set off and walk around the whole continent like I used too, right?” Sakura asked.

Having recalled that Sakura hadn’t been present for the encounter with Moebius Z about Everdream Valley and the subsequent introduction of the Avenger, Sandalphon was quick to provide reassurance. “It’s never too late. Since we are connected, I can teleport to you to deliver a Fulton device, which I assume is the ‘magical balloon’ you alluded to. After that, we can arrange a pickup. Currently, the Seekers are making use of the Avenger, a large aircraft that now serves as our base of operations. It is the home of the Lost Numbers, an organization formed from the descendents of previous Seekers.” She paused in the hopes of forestalling information overload. “I imagine you will have much to catch up on, but we have the remainder of the day to do it. I am sure that many, especially those deployed to the Under previously, will be eager to see you again.”

Sakura had shot up to her feet. ”What, really? Wow!” She was excited, but also confused. ”I dunno if I got all that but the giant ship sounds cool! That’s so smart. Gosh, it really only has been like a week.”

Sakura’s tone turned sheepish again. ”Sandalphon-san, I’m a little nervous. What do you think the Seekers are gonna do next? Something without horrible monsters or politics. I mean that’s like a big ask. But like really really horrible monsters like giant skinny horrible babies and giant monster chefs that turn you into a baby, or really complicated election cycles with lots of arguing and like depressed people? Like what are the chances of that?” Sakura asked.

”Because I tried my best but I dunno if I’m much good at that stuff.” She admitted, tapping her fingers together.

Then Sakura shook her head, smiling and setting her hands on her hips. ”You know Sandalphon-san, if there was a Seeker hierarchy, I’d probably have more experience than you! But you’re really smart, I feel like I wanna ask you things. The Seekers really need someone like you. I mean even this magic radio— I had to buy them, like actual physical rinky dink radios at a shop and I thought I was the bees knees for a cruddy idea like that. This is much better. If it wasn’t for you I’d be poof, in the wind! It really would be too late. I’m glad you joined.” Sakura said.

For a little while, Sandalphon kept quiet and let her contact continue while she tried to think of the best way to reassure Sakura while still being realistic and honest. Before her fusions, she would have been quite incapable of addressing such an emotionally-driven internal conflict, and even now the right answer eluded her. If circumstances demanded that she involve herself in another situation like the haunted Dead Zone, for instance, she knew she’d be highly averse, but ultimately she knew she’d persevere because that was her duty. Would that argument hold as much water for a real human as it would a constructed servant, though? As the seconds wore on, the praise directed in Sandalphon’s direction distracted her from her musings. She couldn’t help but smile somewhat–another consequence of the meddling with her soul, but maybe for the better.

“Nonsense. If I’ve learned anything about humans, it’s that the bonds between them are far stronger than mundane matters like distance. If I am smart or capable, it is merely because I was created this way, a mere echo of what humans were able to achieve through their own hard work and ingenuity.” Sandalphon paused. The faint sound of footsteps through the miracle line suggested that she might be moving. “While I can extrapolate the data I’ve accumulated into a great many things, I cannot predict what the future will hold, and I cannot assure you that there is not more horror or complications to come. If anything, I would have to hypothesis that there will be. However, everything I’ve seen indicates that you -and the other Seekers- are up to the task. I doubt there is anything you cannot overcome.”

”I’ll do my best.” Sakura said.

At that moment, a pillar of radiant blue light descended in front of Sakura. It shone for only a brief moment, and when it vanished, Sandalphon herself was standing before the martial artist, brought to her side across countless miles by the lingering strength of the bond between them. The archangel looked slightly different than how Sakura remembered her, but just as with Sakura, the core of her being remained. In one hand she held a Fulton device, and the other was extended in the girl’s direction in a gesture of invitation. When Sandalphon spoke, her voice lacked the watery resonance inherent to her communication miracle. Instead, it contained a trace of uncharacteristic warmth. “If it’s any consolation, at least, there is no city in the World of Light larger than Midgar, and statistically speaking, the odds of another entering its election cycle are low.” A shadow of a smile passed over the archangel’s gray lips.

”That’s a relief.” Sakura said, rubbing the back of her head with a sheepish grin. At this point she was pretty used to the whole ‘Fusion’ thing. Her mental image of Sandalphon readjusted accordingly. She took the Fulton device and started looking it over in her hands, lifting it up to look at the dangling harness.

”...My parents made me, too, but I still get to take a lot of the credit, y’know.” She said, like she was letting Sandalphon in on a secret.

“Hm. I see.” Sandalphon tilted her head slightly, curious. Could she claim credit for much of her life..?

Her gaze shifted from the middle difference back to Sakura. “Oh, don’t activate that just yet. The Avenger too far away for pickup. You would be floating in the sky for some time.” She reached up a slender finger toward her ear. “I’ll call you again when it’s time. Around…five forty, I expect.” That meant about four and a half hours, plenty of time to say farewell to her friends here.

Sakura slapped the side of her head with a free hand. ”Oh, doy! I was totally about to leave without saying goodbye! So, uh, that works out.” She laughed, and then looked down at the far away factory. ”I’ll leverage my leaving to get one more fight outta Karin-chan.” She said with a resolute nod.

”Thanks for calling, Miss Sandalphon! I’d say it was good catching up, but, I guess we’re gonna be running together in the same crew again for a little while longer.” Sakura said.

The archangel bowed her head, which made her halo dip slightly. “It was my pleasure. I’ll be in touch.” With that, she warped away again in another pillar of light, and Sakura was left to her own devices.

”See ya!” Sakura waved Sandalphon off. Her body was abuzz with nerves and anticipation. In a choice between proverbial cabin fever and heading into the unknown, well, Sakura knew what choice she would make. Besides, the people here were safe and the big fight needed winning. Letting out a big breath, Sakura steeled herself, clutched the Fulton device under her arm, and hopped down the cliff face to meet her Midgar friends.

---

Azure light filled the Avenger Comm Center, and just like that Sandalphon was back. With the ship and its crew on standby, nobody else happened to be around to see the lightshow, so for just a moment Sandalphon stood there vacantly, not quite sure what to do next. The findings she’d assembled from talking to her Midgar contacts hung over her like a dark cloud, and her doleful conversation with Giovanna left a knot in her stomach that had yet to unwind. Somehow she’d managed to keep a stiff upper lip during her visit with Sakura, but now that she was alone, she could let herself breath. Maybe a visit to the cafeteria for some coffee and sweets now that the other Seekers had depopulated it would do some good. Then again, that young doctor had told her to reduce her intake, and he did seem rather intense…

As she considered her next move, the full spectrum radio receiver installed into one of the Comm Center’s walls buzzed to life. Always kept on to some degree to keep the chamber from getting too quiet, it picked up all sorts of miscellaneous and often conflicting signals, which generally amounted to nothing more than comfortable background noise. Now, though, Sandalphon could hear one voice loud and clear, belonging to a young woman who identified herself as Celica. Her tone alone implied some degree of distress, so by the time she formalized her call for aid, Sandalphon was already seated at the desk. She worked quickly to identify the rough location of the source, as well as to find the closest Seekers to the source. After figuring out everything she needed, she manifested five light screens to contact the right people.

“Attention, please.” She broadcasted her transmission to Juri, Zenkichi, and everyone else in the Highertower area linked to her miraculous network. “I have received a distress signal in your area from a young woman named Celica. She mentioned only that she’s taking cover behind orange cargo. Please consider finding her and rendering your assistance.” With that, Sandalphon signed off again, hopeful that her allies could provide the rescue Celica needed.

[Archmage MC]

Blazermate

Sectonia

Level 13 Blazermate (Holding 2 level up) - (113/130)
Level 12 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) (94/120)

Location: Hammerhead
Word Count: less than 750.

Sectonia, keeping herself mostly far away from the battlefield using her portals to provide support, didn't have a good look over the battlefield itself. So when the call came in to help escort someone who wasn't supposed to be there, Sectonia couldn't really do much to help on that front. Instead, using her portals, she summoned Antlers up and over the various skirmishes going on between the groups causing chaos and letting her allies do what they needed to do in order to get supplies and this new... asset? out. While being far out and lobbing essentially artillery support over the battlefield did make her a difficult target, but really she had to rely on her minions for the most part to cause chaos.

Blazermate meanwhile was having fun being on the offense for once, but her joy drive seemed to not be doing all that much as instead of releasing spirits when defeated, whatever she took out just ended up respawning. Sectonia had seen this before, but Blazermate had not. Speaking of seeing this, Sectonia started to use more blue antlers to freeze things and greatly delay their respawn than just take them out with green or gold antlers.

Although thinking about it, Sectonia had an idea and seeing motion coming from the highertower itself as well as sounds of explosives, summoned a red antler in the nest of the mercenaries. While they were great at holding things off with their advantageous position, having a fire bug dropped on top of them. In either a stroke of brilliance or luck, the antler used its fire before it was taken out by the mercenaries, causing a massive explosion as the fire lit an explosion cache greatly ruining their position for a bit.

Otherwise it was up to Blazermate and the others to actually make use of that game plan. The medabot having everything of hers ready to unleash at a moments notice as her and Zenkichi got close to the battlefield itself and in cover as to not be cornered out driving around in the open. Using their cover, Blazermate summoned her engineer striker to give them a safe zone to return to, before following Zenkichi into the battlezone itself. Hopefully they'd find this person they were informed on. At least her projectile shield could give the pair mobile cover that none of the factions could shoot through.

[MULTI_MEDIA_MAN]

Zenkichi Hasegawa

Paved Wilderness- Highertower
Lvl 9 Zenkichi (14/90) -> Lvl 9 (17/90)
Word count: 1,326 words

As yet another rocket flew past the Prowler, Zenkichi groaned as he dodged the vehicle to the side, sweat dripping from his brow. ”I’m starting to think this was a bad idea!” He called to Blazermate. ”I’m thinking we have to get in there. We’re too big a target on this thing.” Even with Antlers spawning in to distract the Psychos and the Mercenaries, they just seemed to keep coming.

”Alright, I’m getting us out of here.” He decided, pulling them back from this section of fighting. There was chaos all around them, so he still had to be careful in where it piloted the Prowler, but pulling a bit away from the Highertower at least meant that it was less densely packed with bullets and explosions. As the pair hovered along the edges of the battlefield, they saw more vehicles operated by the Psychos and NC troopers duking it out. The troopers had the edge in firepower and armor, but the Psychos had sheer insanity on their side. Their vehicles were neither practical nor sensible, rendering some of the more advanced tactics of the NC troopers moot.

This chaos was to the pair’s advantage, as they used the two factions’ focus on each other to avoid being targeted. An explosion from within the tower itself heralded Sectonia’s gambit with her fire antler, and the battlefield grew a bit quieter without the mercenaries holed up in their firing every which way. After a little while of evading danger, Zenkichi found a safe, quiet place to park the Prowler. If somebody found it later, that would suck pretty bad, but it made them a much larger target, especially when they got closer to the battle proper. And with the Engineer’s fully-upgraded turret guarding it, it would be fairly safe for a while. As they dismounted, a message from Sandalphon warning them of a distress call nearby.

”Valjean, Sukukaja.” He calmly ordered, his Persona granting the Phantom Thief an appreciable speed boost. With Blazermate’s speed matching from the medibeam, the pair were able to sprint from cover to cover easily for the minute of the buff’s duration. Ducking into one of the bunkers, Zenkichi ground to a halt as he saw a small group of blue and yellow-clad troopers forming up at the other end to make a break to another piece of cover.

“Hold one. Getting a warning that something just took out Charlie Squad’s Vanguard. They reported taking fire from the Northeast, then we lost them. Alright, change of plans. We’re heading that way to see if we can’t get eyes on and direct reinforcements.” The apparent leader of the group spoke loud and clear, completely oblivious to the pair hiding the entrance to the bunker.

Before they were able to move on, though, Zenkichi and Blazermate struck. Zenkichi activated Fury and popped out from behind cover with a pair of swings from Ragnell infused with Almighty energy, running in to hit the soldiers in melee before they fully recovered. He made it three-quarters of the way before a round of buckshot landed in his chest, sharply bleeding off his momentum, but the overheal from Blazermate’s medibeam kept him from feeling the pain too badly. He slammed Ragnell into the medic’s chest, knocking them back as bullets from the other soldiers started steadily draining his vitality. Deactivating Fury to slow the loss of life, Zenkichi turned to the others and hefted Ragnell, flames growing around the blade even as submachine gun shots and another round of buckshot hit him. Deciding he’d charged the attack enough, Zenkichi unleashed Eruption.

The explosion knocked the soldiers back, applying Hitch to all of them and hurting the already-wounded medic further. Zenkichi hurled Ragnell up, using Aether yet again to both heal himself and finish off the downed soldier, sending a wave of damage through the deathblow to the other Hitch-afflicted soldiers, who were still getting up even as Zenkichi targeted the next. Between the large blow from Eruption and the Hitch chip damage, the soldiers were on the backfoot, and they realized it. “Under attack from an unaffiliated assailant! Bunker 4, northeast exit! Need immediate backup!” The squad leader cried out, pulling out a frag grenade and throwing it between Blazermate and Zenkichi, who finished off one of the group’s light infantry, leaving only the squad leader and a second light infantry.

The grenade exploded a moment later, scoring Zenkichi’s back with shrapnel and dealing some light damage to Blazermate and him. “The hell’s this guy made of?!” The infantry called out, drawing his sidearm and firing a high-caliber shot into Zenkichi’s chest. The Phantom Thief grunted and slid back a centimeter. Another shot came, but Zenkichi tanked it with another grunt and raised Ragnell, stabbing the soldier and leaving him to dissolve into ash. Blazermate summoned Armstrong to charge the leader, bear hugging the man and crushing him violently before dropping him to the ground. He tried to catch his breath and stand, only for Armstrong to football punt him in the face, finishing the soldier off and turning him into yet another pile of ash.

Breathing heavily, Zenkichi rested his hands on his knees once his weapons dematerialized. ”Oh jeeze. That…took a lot out of me…” he groaned, giving Blazermate a thumb’s up when she kept her medibeam on him dutifully ”Ughh…thanks, Blazermate. You’re the best.” He sighed in relief. ”So, Northeast, huh? What are the odds that’s our tankbuster, huh?” Zenkichi mused, peeking his head out of the bunker.

The battle was raging around them. Rockets, streams of bullets, and the occasional energy projectile flew through the air, meaning that any random spot could be safe one moment, then a smoking crater the next. Still, if they were gonna find this person, they’d need to keep moving. He kept scanning the area, and found some orange a bit in the distance. ”That might be it…” he murmured, pointing at a large cargo cache with what looked like part of a strangely spread out vehicle hiding behind it. ”Yep, that’s it.” He chuckled. Did it really take a detective’s eye to spot that, or was it just because he knew what he was looking for, unlike those soldiers?

Regardless, it was time to make a break for it. The wreckage of the destroyed tank was off to the North, about a third of the way between them and the cargo, then from there the pair would have to dodge between a few smaller pieces of cover while not getting blown up. Thankfully, Zenkichi had a pocket healer, which made the whole ‘not dying’ part pretty easy, even when a passing vehicle turned its gun on them. When the pair hunkered down behind a large rock and didn’t attack, though, the vehicle found itself distracted by a minigun being fired at them from on the tower, Galeem’s influence forcing them to retaliate and leave Zenkichi and Blazermate alone.

From there, it was a matter of a hop, a skip, and a jump to the orange cargo crate, which Zenkichi ran up to before stopping to catch his breath. They’d kept the crate between them and that machine, so they would have to reveal themselves now. Just before they did, though, Zenkichi put his hand to his ear once again to contact Sandalphon. ”Sandalphon, Zenkichi again. Blazermate and I are about to make contact with what we believe is Celica. Stand by for an update. If things get ugly, can you please warn Edward, Juri, and Sectonia to keep an eye out for us so we don’t get blown up? I’m pretty sure this girl’s got a tank herself, or some kind of artillery piece.”

With that said, it was time to risk it all. He knocked on the cargo crate a few times, before sticking a hand out and waving. ”Uh, hey, Celica? We got your distress call. Please don’t blow me up.”

Short, sweet, and to the point.

[DracoLunaris]

Chaos Aligned

Juri and Edward
Words: 3250 (+4)

Through the eyes of his observer drones, Edward observed the ogre sized, or him sized now, archer with some interest. It was quite pitiable in appearance, boundin shackles and chains, and covered in scars, and even with his altered mental state, he could still feel sorry for its state. The drones were also incapable of attacking it anyhow, and so when asked if he was a friend, he made his observers simply bobbed up and down in a mimicry of a nod.

---

The pair popped out of a portal and onto the hovering forerunner pylon, and did their best to not slip off of its silvery surface, with Edward having to grab one of the three hovering panels to support himself. It was a good vantage point, but not a good spot to drop loot onto, as it’d all go tumbling off right away. As such they’d need to come up with a plan of action, particularly because all the good loot was already piled up onto payloads that they’d need to physically push into a portal due to the rails and wheels interlocking in such a way that a flat portal could not be slipped between the two.

From up here, they could get a look at 2 sets of these payloads: the red and blue mercs’, and the blue and yellow soldiers’ which both presented risk and opportunity in equal measures

Still, Edward did have a preference, and that was ”The ones by the tower itself seem more straight forwards. Taking down those armored machines would be time consuming”.

”I’m lookin’ for bombs. Either I find bombs or I buy bombs with the reward money.” Juri said, speaking tangentially related to the armored machines. She herself was balancing effortlessly.

”Alright, get me down there!” Juri said. When the portal appeared for her she leapt through, guns akimbo and looking to gun down psychos. With Edward’s support she darted to and fro, avoiding getting snuck up on in all the chaos. The psychos came at her weapons blazing, but she dodged under fire and returned it to keep them suppressed long enough to get up close and personal and break bones and spill blood. Crushing them into the dirt or smacking them into walls.

Just as she thought she made some space, a helmeted BLU Soldier came rocketing in from above, knocking her backwards with an explosive landing. He hopped daintily through the air and swung a green shovel at her, which crackled with dangerous energy. She interrupted with an anti-air and sent him flying.
“I’m gonna send you home to your mama in a box!” The Soldier jeered as he shoved a rocket down the front of his launcher, landing on his boots.

”You’re dead meat, soldier boy!” Juri returned, rushing after him. He fired a launcher at her feet but she jumped over it, causing him to sidestep the resulting jump attack. But he was slow and outclassed in melee distance, so she kicked and punched him until he found a space to shoot a rocket at his own feet and fly away, sending Juri rolling across the sand.

”Son of a-” Juri drew her pistols and fired at him as he flew away, filling his weakened form with holes. They weren’t as powerful as her melee attacks but he was already weak. He spiralled out of control with a manly shriek and splattered into a wall, turning into dust. ”Hah!”

Juri dove out of the fight and took some cover in a quiet spot, knocking a psycho unconscious to claim it. ”Those mercs are pretty tough.” She said to the drone following her.

”Honestly I’m just spinnin’ my wheels here, I dunno how to get those carts for myself. For some reason the fight just ain’t ending!” Juri complained.

“Screamin’ Eagles!” She heard a familiar voice. The BLU Soldier was back, coming after her from above with that shovel held high. She dodged backwards just in time, the shovel whiffing dangerously in the space she had just been. His follow up hops towards her were long and floaty, like a bunny, his shovel and sneer held with equal contempt.

”You!” Juri said. The BLU Soldier just laughed in response, and she did another pinwheel kick to knock him away.

”Death portal!” She exclaimed, asking Edward to make a portal that lead over a sheer drop. Before he could react, and with no ground nearby to rocket jump off of, he screamed again as he fell through and broke all of his bones on his uncontrolled impact.

”Well that explains it. I don’t know how I didn’t notice before!” She observed the BLU and RED mercs. They were very similar to each other, with RED even having its own Soldier. ”These freaks are just playin’ a game compared to the rest of us. Get me back up to you!” She said. She stepped through the portal and reappeared next to Edward ontop of the pylon.

”This is bullshit.” She complained, once again in relative safety. She watched, and a few moments later she saw the BLU Soldier flying through the air again, checking the spot where she had just been before rocket jumping away. When he hit a psycho with his shovel on a downward arc, the psycho was absolutely flattened and evaporated. No wonder he was trying to hit her with that.

---

Alongside helping Juri out, Edward sent his own much more blatant force down into the fray, opening portals to let half a dozen squads of bronze golems lunge out right into the middle of a gang of Blue mercs that had been about to get onto the payload, butchering them before they had even a moment to respond.

The vicious grin under Edward's helmet was quickly wiped away however when he sent one of these squads to claim the payload in their place, only for a detonation to resound as the sticky bombs hidden beneath it were set off by a Red Demoman who’d been biding his time, waiting to ambush whoever next tried to claim the spoils that where rightfully his team’s.

Speaking of his team, several others had been waiting for him to spring the trap, and they emerged now to assault the archaically armed golems. A Heavy opened fire with an accompanying cry of “Raaaaaahahahaha” riddling one squad with fire, while a nimble Scout darted in to just out of spear reach, taunting “ooo, close!” as they failed to stab him, before uploading his scattergun into them.

Despite their fantastical origin, the golems were reinforced against ranged physical damage, and so took these attacks surprisingly well.

The same could not be said of the Demoman’s fire, as the man swapped one launcher for another, and from it unleashed a series of pill shaped projectiles right into the center of a tightly packed golem squad, blasting them to bits in just a few shots.

The fourth and fifth members of this little crew where a Medic and a Pyro, the former healing the other such that it had little worry about running up too and getting poked by spear thrusts, the masked being’s wounds closing as they opened, and allowing it to freely melt the squad it had chosen to take on.

Edward did not take losing three squads of troops laying down, that was for sure. The Scout found his game of keep away sharply ended when a portal opened in front of the golems, and behind him, causing him to run right back into a spiked wall upon which he was impaled.

The heavy had a portal open to his side out of which a cannonball came flying, smashing him aside, while another opened above the pyro, out of which a Zombie Grenade dropped, pin pulled and ready to explode.

To his complete surprise however, before he could close the portal, this grenade came flying back out of it, the pyro having reflexivity hit the second trigger on its flamethrower to airblast the hostile projectile back to sender, seemingly empowering it in the process. Only the short fuse prevented it from taking his arm off, the grenade going off just out of reach, and merely causing him to stumble.

Given where he was, however, that was nearly disastrous, and he only just managed to catch himself in time to avoid falling. By the time he was upright, the Demoman had demolished another squad of his, and the Pyro another. Now both were bearing down on his last team.

His near death experience had given the man an idea however. Another portal was opened by the Pyro and Medic team, but rather than his grenade coming through, it was one of the Demoman’s explosive pills.

The resulting reflection launched the bomb right back at Pyro’s own teammate, blasting him back. Then another, much bigger portal opened, and instead of a grenade Edward’s entire massive foot came through, slamming into the Pyro and punting it straight onto the braced spears of his final golem squad.

The medic attempted to stab him in the leg with a bonesaw as he pulled it back in, but it merely scratched off of his new Blacklight armor. In response to the insult, he promptly stomped the man into the dust, and then dropped a grande on him to finish him off.

The Demoman was last to go. The grenadier switched to the stickybomb launcher as he tried to grenade the golems again, ensuring that he had complete control over if his bombs went off, preventing Edward from killing him with his own explosives. He could do nothing to protect himself from a portaled in cannon round.

Threats cleared, Edward sent his golems to claim the payload, only for his scout drones to see something odd on his own body: a little glowing red dot, scanning about on it. It flicked up his hunchbacked form, over his head, and then slipped back down to it, resting squarely at the center of his forehead.

So he ducked.

A sniper round grazed his helmet, causing the shot to ricochet off.

His scout’s eyes frantically searched for the source of the shot, and found a Sniper calmly clacking the bolt on his rifle and preparing to line up another shot.

A grenade quietly dropped out of a portal behind made sure he would not get to take it.

With that threat taken care of, Edward turned his focus back to the payload he had been trying to claim, only to find his golems had been ripped apart by Scout that looked identical to one he had killed.

Right down to the obnoxious lime green highlights, and, of course, face, proportions, all of it.

It was uncanny.

Worse, his attempts to physically squash this insect were met by first double jumping dodges and then by shotgun blasts fired into his own portals.

Then an identical Pyro and Heavy showed up, which put him on course for getting the situation, right before Juri yelled the answer to the mystery at him, and demanded to be brought back. He obliged, because this did not seem to be working.

---

”It is insufferable, if valuable in its own way. If nothing else, I've acquired spirits for us” Edward noted as the streetfighter rejoined him up on top. Indeed, while the payloads could not be dropped into a portal, the slowly falling spirits of the ashed very easy to catch, and his increasing command over the portals had allowed him to catch and deposit several back over at the spot they had jumped here from.

He also added, after a moment, that ”The blue and yellow soldiers are also doing the same, or so I think. It would explain the amount of wrecked vehicles with their markings on them”

Right on queue, a reaver fighter rose up from the oil refinery’s vehicle bay and took to the skies. It strafed the dirty bomb crew with a gimbal mounted machine gun, forcing them to abandon a payload they’d taken control over, before turning its sights on the only other thing in its airspace: them.

”Problem” Edward declared this, right as two sets of hatches opened under each wing of the aircraft, and a flurry of missiles came streaming towards them. In response, Edward opened more portals into which the shots flew, blocking vision of the vehicle in the process, until it swooped round to the left, machine gun primed to unload on them.

”Peashooter!” Juri said, stepping forward and lifting one foot, casually drooping her other arm with a cocky grin. As the machinegun unloaded in her direction, the bullets that didn’t zip past her or ping off the metal beneath her were deflected as she focused her ki into a defensive Drive Parry, acting like a human point defense system as she parried the onslaught of bullets.

Edward’s portals closed as the rocket volley was sent off into the sky, only for the Dreadnaught to open another portal, catching the shots, and causing them to slam into the side of their sender, knocking it out of the sky.

”Solved” Edward said, smugly, before nodding towards Juri and saying he ”Appreciated” her parrying.

He then began to add that”But I think that proves this position is becoming untenable because-” only to be interrupted as some less than stellar sniper fire came up from the NC down below, clearly not best pleased with the destruction of their expensive aircraft, prompting him to duck down behind a defensive portal as he concluded ”We’ve been noticed”

Juri had slipped back a short distance as she blocked the machinegun fire, taking half knockback from every parried shot. She didn’t seem as concerned about the sniper fire.

”This is bullshit.” She repeated. She crouched down and reloaded her pistols before holstering them again. Juri lay down on her back, arms behind her head and one leg crossed over the other as bullets pinged up just a foot away. Just about then, Sandalphon gave everyone the heads up about Celica.

”Hmph. If everyone else heard that distress signal, it might be the distraction we need to scoop up some loot.” Juri theorized.

”It could also be another member of our team who’s ‘cut’ is getting out of this alive. This cargo she is around might be easier to extract than the ones on the rails” Edward replied, having more or less coated himself in portals now, before saying ”Either way, we should reposition so we can see what the other’s reaction to this is without getting shot at”

So saying, he dropped the portals, and then more or less at once opened several more to multiple locations in an attempt to throw off anyone trying to track them. Then he lunged through, blindly sweeping the cannon like a club as he did so.

”Ugh, fine.” Juri followed through.

On the other side was atop a building built into the rock face, and with a satalight dish sat atop it. There they found a pair of NC Infiltrators who had been sniping at them, and a set of power armor known as a max suit equipped with an array of three machine guns strapped together under one arm, and an industrial looking flak cannon on the other.

Edward’s cannon swing smashed into the Max suit, only to bounce off a riot shield shaped forcefield that the Max suit projected from one of its arms to protect itself. The snipers, meanwhile, scrambled to draw their pistols in response to their enemies rapid repositioning.

Juri blew past them both, pouncing on the snipers with Drive Rush before they could switch weapons. ”Comin’ atcha!” Any misgivings she had about coming her melted into glee as she inflicted both snipers with Weak, reducing their damage at the end of her Passion Dash. She cracked her leg into the calf of one to send him screaming to the floor, and came upon the other to launch her off the roof. The other sniper fired some shots at her from the ground, but she serpentined her upper body out of the way before coming for his throat with her fingers and turned to use him as a human shield for the Max machine guns firing her way. She could have parried of course but this was more fun.

As for why the Max suit was firing at her, well, Edward had just dropped into a portal after flubbing his attack. The high caliber burst was cut off a moment later however as a portal appeared above the MAX suit and Edward dropped out of it, smashing the suit and the roof in one fell swoop, and sending them all tumbling down into the top floor of the structure.

”Hey!”” Juri swore at Edward.

A few more NC troopers were caught in the rubble deluge, including an assault who was miraculously unharmed and pivoted her shotgun at Juri, but Edward was still focused on the somehow still intact Max suit.

”Durable, aren't you? I think I’ll take that” Edward told the suit’s wearer, before bringing an armored fist up and slamming it down into them over and over till the man inside broke. This took longer than expected as the towering man seemed to have difficulty with the excretion involved.

Still, in the end, it was done, and the Dreadnaught picked up and pressed the Max suit soldier’s spirit into his chest while indicating to the top floor’s now roofless wall and declared it ”Cover”

When the dust cleared, Juri let go of the unconscious NC shotgun troopers arm, stepping over her and dusting herself off. ”Y’know, I was under the impression you would be staying back and playing support. Your reckless ass busting up the place ain’t helping me.” Juri said.

Edward made an amused sound in response to this hypocrisy, before pointing out that ”I can hardly do that while actively under fire, now can I?” before pointing out that ”Besides, now we can observe and plan in peace” as he opened a portal to cover the stairs up to their level an opening the exit far far above them to ensure anyone who dared to poke their head through would have second thoughts.

”Just watch it!” Juri sneered.

”I’m watching everything” Edward replied, as he focused on his scouts, to try and get a read on the general reaction to the distress signal.

[Eviledd1984]

@Lugubrious @DracoLunaris

Word Count: 454
Level: Lv: 6 EXP: (3/60)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion

As Harry came out of the hole, he didn’t like the vibe of the mansion, as the kids would say. Humming loudly, sounding incredibly nervous as she did so. The occasional scared moaning breaks up the humming. The thing he had stuffed in his pocket jiggled loudly. Which would give away his position to the ghost that had grabbed him.

Harry screamed like a little girl from the bark. And he was going to punch whoever made that noise. But he looked elated when he noticed Amaterasu was behind him. “DOG!” He lowered his hand and crouched down in front of her. Kissing her on the forehead while rubbing her chin. Mating the fur on her head with his alcohol smelling kisses. Handing her some of the treasure so the load wouldn’t bog him down. “Okay, girl lead me to the others.” He said following her.

The detective luckily found a mace of some kind from a nearby suit of armor on a stand. This would be a great weapon to defend himself. Freezing in fear as he noticed the small creature coming towards him. His eyes looked at Amaterasu as if trying to signal her to help him. “Bugs, why did it have to be bugs…” He thought as sweat ran down his bloated face.

“Give it something, and perhaps it’ll go away.” His Volition said as Harry started fishing through his pockets.

“Or it’s gonna rip your face off and wear it as a mask.” Pain Threshold interjected. Harry disregarded this, thinking optimistically of the situation. Harry was searching in his pocket for anything he could give the creature. Finally, he found a golden ring hidden inside his pants pocket. Holding his hand out so the creature could take the ring.

“I hope this works.” He thought he was being reminded of something, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“I exist. YOU exist.” A voice spoke softly, sounding quite calming and almost reassuring. Oddly enough, this one didn’t sound like the other voices in his head.

“They're coming to take you away to the funny farm.” Shiver added while laughing, but it sounded like they were just saying, “HA HA.”

His eyes look at the gang of gnomes coming though a gap and towards them. “Ah shit here we go again.” He muttered under his breath as more creatures came to investigate their presence. It looked like he was going to get into another fight. He readied the mace as the gnomes came closer towards him. “Bring it on you little gnome fuckers.” Screaming out loud as they closer towards him. Swinging the mace to hit one of them, while also trying to kick them as hard as he could.

[Double]

Sky Blues

Lvl 8 Sandalphon (31/80), Lvl 5 Captain Falcon (26/50)
Word Count: 1335

When the Avenger first touched down, kicking up dust and sand in its wake, the area around the strange mountain had been drab and overcast, almost lifeless, but the winds had continued to blow in the hours since then. Their ceaseless circulation had ushered in a resplendent season of plenty, with the afternoon sun shining down from the radiant heavens on countless forms of plant and animal life. Together they formed a gorgeous tapestry, and from her vantage point on top of the airship itself, Sandalphon was content to simply stand and observe the stunning landscape. She could see for miles and miles, from the red rock canyons and buttes to the east across the yellow-grass plains to the northeast, and she could ponder the avocado-shaped trees to the north. In the distance, an old woman the size of an ant hung her blouses and socks on the clothesline attached to her hovel, and racecars scuttled along their tracks like roaches startled by a light.

No matter what she saw, though, the archangel could not banish the dreadful, gnawing sensation that she was wasting her time. That her time could be better spent elsewhere. For once, Sandalphon didn’t know what to do.

”See anything interesting?” Came the voice of Captain Falcon as he climbed up from the access hatch, now fresh from a nap he had just taken in his personal quarters that he shared with Geralt. Although he looked like he wasn’t expecting much of an answer. ”Yeah… this particular region doesn’t have a whole lot in the way of scenery. Mostly wide open spaces. Good for racing though, I’ll give it that.” Clearly he already had some familiarity with the Paved Wilderness.

Rather than look over at him, Sandalphon kept her eyes on the landscape. “I see all sorts of things that interest me. Anthills taller than houses. Shacks stitched together like quilts. Birds with the features of amphibians. Chitinous coral, capable of explosive growth. Immense stone formations shaped by eons of wind, like clay in a divine potter’s hands. Reptilian pangolins that move in herds. Avocados…” She paused, not sure how else to describe those surreal, tree-like growths. “And countless feats of engineering, each a marvellous union of function and form. Maybe these things are mundane to you, but for someone like me, it’s a whole new world.” She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, cradling her staff in the crook of her arm.

The Captain rubbed the back of his neck, ”I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.” He said apologetically. ”You’ve got a point though. I’ve spent some time in the Paved Wilderness before this so I guess that’s why I took its environment for granted.” He paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. ”I wonder if I could spot Death Wind from up here?” He mused, referring to an F-Zero track he could recall being located in the Paved Wilderness. It wasn’t the real Death Wind, the original track being located on its own planet in his world. But the one he briefly raced on here in the World of Light was a spot on copy of it, nonetheless.

“I'm not offended,” Sandalphon clarified. “It's simply a difference in perspective.” She paused for a moment, her pupils inverted triangles as she thought. “Actually, your perspective may be of interest to me, Captain. Our lack of acquaintance makes you an ideal candidate. If you're willing, I would like to offer you a hypothetical question.”

”By all means.” Falcon said with a welcoming gesture. ”Shoot.”

“Thank you.” Sandalphon considered her phrasing for a moment, her pupils in the shape of loading rings. Then they became pound signs. “If you were one day diagnosed with a terminal illness, and told that you had only a matter of months to live, how would that make you feel? And what actions would it prompt you to undertake?”

”Personally, I’d spend as much time as I could with the people I care about most.” The Captain answered initially. But after a moment of further thought his own curiosity got the better of him. ”Is this about that whole Ten Year Time Limit business?” He asked, ”Because that would change my answer slightly, and instead I’d be more determined than ever to find a way to solve the problem.”

After a moment, Sandalphon nodded. “I admit that was my real consideration, yes. Of course, the dilemma at that point is whether or not the problem is solvable in the time that remains. Or that solving it would change the termination date.”

”Valid points.” The Captain readily admitted. In spite of the subject matter, he was still remarkably good at keeping his spirits up. ”But maybe we aren’t the ones who were meant to solve the problem?” He suggested with a slight shrug of his broad shoulders.

Sandalphon’s eyes narrowed, her pupils changing to question marks.

”This ship and all of its facilities were built up, not by the Seekers, but by the Lost Numbers.” Falcon clarified, ”We’re only here for ten years maximum before we become reset by the system and our memories along with it. But them? They stick around, they keep going, with or without us.” Cap exhaled a long breath to give the sentence a chance to hang in the air before he finally concluded, ”Maybe this is really meant to be their fight? Their race to win?”

The archangel shook her head. “The Lost Numbers cannot win without us, or more accurately, those born of the system like us. They have neither the numbers nor the power to challenge Moebius. Moreover…” She paused, her pupils replaced by stress marks. “Were we to succeed, defeat Galeem, and restore everything, would those born in this world not cease to be? How could it be their fight if it is not their future?” For once, Sandalphon seemed genuinely perturbed. Almost distraught.

”Do you know that for certain?” The Captain countered. ”How much of a certainty is it - really - that they’ll disappear?” He pressed, ”We all assume that they would disappear along with this world. But at the end of the day, that’s all it really is - an assumption. Even the Lost Numbers themselves don’t seem to be a hundred percent sure what will happen to them, otherwise why would they be doing this at all?”

After a brief pause, Cap hammered in one more point. ”We’ve been told that people like us aren’t even real - that we’re just copies of the real thing for use in this system.” A pause, ”But are we, really? Could fake copies be capable of developing feelings for one another and bearing offspring? That sounds like something only real people can do, to me.”

While he spoke, Sandalphon averted her eyes. “Assumptions…yes. How foolish of me.” Her gaze rested on the savannah that stretched out across the dusty wilderness. “In the end, we have so few answers. All we can do is continue to fight as long and hard as we can, and hope that others will carry the torch when we’re gone.” The broad, vaguely optimistic statement coupled with her body language indicated that she had no more questions, and was not interested in further conversation.

Cap, able to read the room, offered a shrug and turned back toward the hatch he climbed up out of. ”Well, I think I’ll hit the gym for a bit. Just because I’m not out there right now that’s no excuse for me to be slacking off.” He said as he opened the hatch, ”Thanks, Halo. Good talk.”

[DracoLunaris]

wordcount: 3342 (+4 exp) (+1 rapport)
Bowser Jr: Level 14 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(290/140)
Rika: Level 10 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(206/100)
Lvl 14 Geralt (122/140) -> (126/140)
Lvl 10 Roxas (15/100) -> (19/100)

The wanderers of the western wilds began to come up on their assumed stopping point, the abandoned town/reststop of outback, its lonely and dust filled water tower coming into view as they swept around a series of high cliffs. This was something of a problem, as they had still not found the treasure that Rika desired.

As such they took a turn into the canyons, looking for metals and ores that might be able to be used to replace the pokeballs that they’d just used up. In doing so they came across a few things that might be of use. One was several silvery orbs simply laying out in the open, another was a very tall spire of stone which seemed to be scorched at the tip, and in that same area was coated with plates that looked an awful lot like the armor of a Balahara.

Another was a suspicious trail of bones, an oddity indeed in this world of ashen death, leading off into a narrow looking canyon that looked like an excellent place to be trapped or ambushed by some predator or other.

Finally, an odd light coming from the rock wall briefly brought their attention to a trunked creature they’d seen a few times, but never with glowing skin like this one had, poking its snout out of a small tunnel, before it vanished back inside upon seeing them looking at it. Out of curiosity, Rika sent one her scout planes in after it, finding that the cave it had escaped into got a lot more spacious after only a short distance, offering an opportunity to go spelunking with Trebhum if they broke their way past the initial tight squeeze.

”I can dig us in if we wanna go” Jr informed them, hovering up in his clown car and deploying a pair of drill tipped robo arms ”probably take a while though, n be super boring to do”

”Titan could probably lend you a hand with Stomping Tantrum to speed it up a little.” Roxas offered, ”Or if any of our other Pokemon knows Dig, they can also lend a hand too.”

”Not mine, but if you can make getting into wherever that is faster I’ll take it”

Transforming into Molar Boatworks Fixer, Geralt gestured to the cave. “Might be able to put this to some use in helping break through, as well.”

”I can punch it” Rika added simply.

With their might combined, the quartet made short work of expanding the tunnel into something they could all fit inside.

Within they found a deep and extensive series of caves and tunnels, from the ceiling of which hung stalactite like Gnakka's Guides that glittered metallically as Rika’s tail light both them and the cavern walls up. More rarely, they might find the sturdy blocks of ore known as Gnakka's Shield, and even more rarely an elusive and mineral rich Gnakka's Heart or sparkling crystal shards housing a baffling organic substance known as Intracrystalline Aggregate.

Interestingly, these were all also found high up in the cavern walls, as if the lower hanging fruit, so to speak, had been stripped away.

It wasn’t only Rika’s light that lit up the caves however. Bioluminescent glowfruits that let off the exact same hue of light that the Trebhum also lit the cave. Speaking of the Trebhum the curious creatures could be seen from time to time, poking their bodies around corners to watch them, and then running or rolling away when spotted in turn

Geralt’s eyes darted around the cave, taking in all the sights. He pulled out his flask of Cat and downed a dose, his eyes widening to take in more light and grant him enhanced low-light vision. “Lots of crystals, but none easy to reach. Place has already been mined, clearly.” He mumbled with a small sigh. It wasn’t a big deal, given that these weren’t what they were after.

Without saying anything, Roxas recalled Titan back into its Poke Balls and called out Shocker instead. He didn’t give any commands, and instead let the Rotom’s natural glow provide them with slightly more of a light source within the cave.

Deeper in, they found not just a simple cave system, but instead something of a ruin, with stairs carved into the stone floor, and brick support pillars holding it up. They also found two statues of Trebhum. One stood in a pool, snout raised, and possibly would have worked like a fountain. The other was large, and of a Trebhum with a body that was entirely cube shaped, which stood before a sealed door with a cube shaped indent at the base.

This second statue also sported a small button that, when pressed, opened a second door that led to a crop of nutritious looking Organic Cubes.

Strange and mildly disturbing, Geralt thought, looking closer at the organic cubes. He did not enjoy their strange, sausage-like appearance. “So, aside from busting through, what, we just…look around for a cube?” He commented after turning away from the weird, and much smaller, organic cubes.

”I don’t know.” Roxas admitted, ”Tumblestone ore looks like elongated red crystals. So far we haven’t seen anything like that yet. If we had a single piece I could maybe get Scamp to track the scent, but… we don’t even have that to go off of, either. ”

Jr stepped between the cube shaped Trebhum and the door, and sized up, and then declared that ”Nope, that’s not going in there, too big. Weird. Looks like it’d be a block pushing puzzle but no, all we got are wrong sized cubes.”

”Why’s this one so big and cube shaped anyway? That’s just weird” she asked, before glancing back at the round bodied and distinctly smaller than the statue Trebhum that were still spying on them. They’d gotten a bit bolder as a result of the seekers paying them no mind, which got them a better look at the one that was shedding light and who had accidentally led them here. Interestingly, rather than, say, being smeared in glow fruit juice, the creature’s skin itself was actively glowing the same light as the fruits.

“Must’ve eaten one of those fruits. Wonder if we’d glow if we ate one, too.” Geralt mused with a slight frown. “Not sure I’m fond of the idea.” He added as an afterthought. He instead turned his gaze on the surroundings of the statue. His nose was overwhelmed with the same smell: that of these creatures. It was all over the place. While he could pick out individual paths here and there, the presence of the same scent in the socket gave him pause. “The socket…smells like them.” He offered the others, brows narrowing.

Roxas arched an eyebrow in confusion, ”So we’re… supposed to get the creatures into there?” He asked, in spite of how strange the idea sounded, ”Using the glowing fruit as bait… I guess?” Even to him it sounded like a ridiculous long shot.

“Might be. They’re not the right shape, though…” Geralt murmured, looking around the cavern until his gaze stopped on the ceiling. “No. Couldn’t be…could it..?” He continued, brows knitting. He pointed to a Gnakka’s Shield on the roof of the cave, gesturing Roxas’s attention that way. “Glowing fruit means glowing creature. But what if it eats something cube shaped?”

”You think so?” The Nobody asked, ”I know I’ve heard the phrase ‘You are what you eat’, but I’ve never heard of anything that took that literally before.” He said with a tilted head. ”Guess there’s no harm in trying. Wait, are we supposed to feed them one of those things came from pushing the button?”

Geralt’s mouth narrowed to a thin line as he nodded. “I was trying not to think of those, to be honest.” He sighed as he turned to the organic cubes behind the other doors. “But it’s worth a shot.” He scooped one of the cubes off the ground, before looking at the others. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Luring a Trebhum over wasn’t terribly difficult, and Geralt placed the cube on the ground and back away, letting the Trebhum approach on its own terms. It trundled forward, sniffing the cube before opening its mouth and devouring the thing whole, quickly mutating to develop a cuboid body. Geralt grimaced at the transformation, before quickly casting Axii on the creature. “Follow.” He gruffly ordered, and through the power of the Sign, it obeyed.

The Trebhum seemed to not be in any way concerned by its rather bizarre transformation, possibly due to the fact that the cube had filled its belly heartily, and so there was no delay in strolling forwards and inserting itself into the square shaped slot in the door.

At once, the door slid open, revealing a chamber hosting a ring of triangular pillars surrounding a pool of liquid off which motes of light drifted up off, clearly indicating a magical or mystical nature. Over-seeing this pool was an Incredibly large Trebhum, withered with age, and sat upon a raised chair or throne of sorts.

If the dedicated construction had not given away the intelligence of the being, then the way it looked up at the quartet peeking through the opened door, and then enquiring first who they were, and also how they’d gotten in here certainly did.

When Rika responded that ”We blew up the entrance” It became very concerned, both because that would possibly allow predators to enter, and also because it made their motivations very suspect. It implored them to both do no harm to the Trebum, and to also undo the damage they had done, and offered in return to share with them wisdom from the Trebhum memory cluster, which contained the shared knowledge of their entire species.

”Think it might know where to find Tumblestone?” Roxas suggested to his fellow Seekers in a hushed tone. ”Or are we asking about treasure and hoping to see Tumblestone along the way?” That essentially boiled things down to two likely options. They could ask about Tumblestone Ore, or the treasure Rika had mentioned wanting to find. The real point of contention was going to be figuring out which one to ask about specifically.

”Why would it only answer one question? We should just ask it everything” Rika replied, unsubtly, resulting in the elder Trebum, which belatedly informed them that it was known as Gurumo, telling them it would answer them specifically three questions.

”Welp” Jr said with a sigh before concluding that ”Least it's better than one” before adding that ”Don’t you need other stuff for some of the fancy balls?”

”We don’t know.” Roxas said, ”We only gave Dr. Yu a regular Poke Ball to reverse-engineer. So that’s the only kind we have the recipe for - Tumblestone Ore and Apricorns.” He offered a glance at Geralt, ”But if Geralt has any spares he could always give a Great Ball to Dr. Yu so she can tell us what ingredients we need to make those, too.”

“I can drop one off with her after this.” The Witcher offered, nodding. “Certainly can't hurt.”

”Oh. Probably shoulda sent him one while we were doing this or summin”

Gurumo, desiring to see the entrance to the Trebum’s hideaway repaired as soon as possible, acted proactively, caused the shimmering motes rising from the pool to start to flow into a shape of distinctly shaped fruit and enquiring if that was what they sought. The Trebum sometimes ate them, but the need to break through their hard outer shells made it hardly worth the effort, and the rotten forms were at best used for bait. Should they desire, it said, it could direct them to a little oasis tucked away in the cliffs that sported a small crop of them.

Roxas initially blinked in surprise, ”That IS one of the things we’re looking for.” He said, making sure the fruit they were looking at matched the picture that was saved on his Rotom Phone. When it did, he nodded. ”That’s one half of what we need.” He said, ”The other half is a long, cylinder-shaped crystal geodes called Tumblestone. I’m guessing there’s some in this cave system if we knew where to look for it.”

The Trebhum recalled something similar, with Gurumo calling up images of crystals until they got the right one, only to apologize that the crop of those that they knew of had been ‘processed’ by the Trebhum already, bearing one or two out of reach examples. They knew of places rich in surface ore that they had not been able to strip bear by themselves however, namely in a nearby hosting a creature known as a Articulated Angstok.

These creatures lay buried in the ground, and would then rapidly ‘grow’ more bone-covered limbs towards the source of prey, which they would grasp and then slowly crush to death. Quite dangerous to Trebhum, but perhaps not to the seekers, particularly after Gurumo hopefully displayed the creature’s hunting tactic to them with the motes.

”Probably all sorts of valuable rocks there then” Jr guessed, which placated Rika’s desire for treasure without spending their final question.

”Great, so we’ve got everything we need then?” Roxas asked, having no other questions in mind to ask Gurumo. He was ready to move on if the others were.

The elder, seeing that they had no third question, but honorable enough to hold up its end of the bargain regardless, offered them the helpful fact that yes, items such as the cubes would work on them, and also that the effects were merely temporary.

With answers and goals in hand, the seekers were led back to the entrance of the cave, and then reminded via trunk pointing that they’d promised to help reseal it in a way that would keep predators out.

”I can make a bunch of iron and paint and stuff I guess?” Was Jr’s contribution to that. Meanwhile, Roxas had no building or tinkering skills to directly contribute with. But Titan was strong enough for its size to help with some of the heavy lifting for small boulders and the like. Geralt, owing to his own mutations and the Orphan's strength, was also more than capable of helping to move and lift rocks and boulders.

In the end the sealed entrance looked like stones packed together like jigsaw puzzle pieces that were reinforced here and there by a mix of iron and Jr’s paint. It looked obviously sealed but hopefully strong enough to keep local predators from getting inside to cause the Trebhum problems while still leaving an opening just big enough for the Trebhum themselves to use.

After that, they were directed towards the Articulated Angstok infested ravine. Not that it was really needed, as thanks to the explanation of its nature, the trail of bones, or rather bone like detritus, leading into the narrow passage they had seen before now had a clear source.

Following the trail, the seekers thought they knew what to expect, only to be started as they turned a corner and came face to face with another Tonglegrops. Fortunately, however, this one made no move to attack them as it was, well, made of stone.

Why exactly anyone would make a statue of the ugly apex predators was unclear, and the presence of a metallic Tetrahedron in its mouth didn’t clear things up, but it was no threat, and that was all that mattered. As, ultimately, where the Articulated Angstoks that formed a forest of bone over a field of sunbaked valuable stones. Armed with the knowledge of the animal’s buried body, the clearing out of them could hardly be called a fight, as Rika’s Whale was simply directed to dive down into the ground so it could bite them to death without the seekers themselves raising a finger.

Upon their deaths, the forest of bones they had produced above the ground faded away, revealing a bevy of mineral wealth. Of greatest note to the pokemon training seekers were several crystal formations coming in red, blue and black varieties, but several other chunks of ore as well.

”Wasn’t expecting there to be different colored Tumblestones.” Roxas said, glancing between a red, blue, and black crystal formation. ”Our Poke Ball recipe calls for the red ones, but…” He looked at Jr, ”...maybe the other ones can be used for other kinds?” He suggested with a shrug. His assumption was correct, but none of them had any way of knowing that for certain.

Roxas released all his Pokemon from their Poke Balls, ”We found the ore we’re looking for,” He told them all, ”so you wanna help us with some mining?” This elicited some excited responses from his Pokemon who proceeded to fan out and start striking various formations they could find. Scamp bit into ores with his Bite attack to break them down; Titan used a combination of Shadow Punch and Tantrum; Shocker fired Electro Balls; and Turbo rammed into some with Iron Head.

Geralt followed suit with Tirn, healing the Shieldon with First Aid before the pair set about breaking free chunks of tumblestone: the former with the Hateful Flesh, now with its more easily-carried grips making precision cuts simple, and the latter with Take Downs.

While Roxas’ mons made short work of the tumble stone outcrops, and Rika went straight for the mysterious Tetrahedron, oversized gauntlet fingers plucking it from its resting place in the statue’s gaping maw without incident. She turned it over a few times, admiring its crystalline luster, before getting a confused look, pulling off her helm, and then pressing it to her cheek.

”Weird. It's warm” she noted, before putting her helmet back on and going to take a look at the other minerals on offer to see if any of them had any value. Not that she knew much about that sort of thing, so mainly she was looking for anything shiny.

She enlisted her brother, or rather her brother’s pokemon Dazzle for help with this, namely by having the sea-lion pokemon use gusts of chill wind to blow away sand and ash to reveal any treasures found beneath.

In the end, the seekers piled up their haul in one one spot in order to send it all back to the avenger via magic circle, and then prepared to head out to the oasis they’d been told about to collect the Apricorns.

[Archmage MC]

Roland

Level 7 Roland (21/70) - (Holding 1 level up)

Location: Hammerhead > Refinery
Word Count: less than 750

Infiltrating lower into the complex wasn't too bad for the pair with both of them being the stealthy members of the seekers. While Therion relied on traditional stealth methods, Roland just walked past the cultists not bringing much attention to them; his mask letting him blend into the crowd of the bugsnax cultists. Although this didn't work in less crowded areas, within the main complex this worked pretty well for the most part.

Speaking of the main complex, as the pair got into the main area, they found something horrifying. A ritualistic site with what looked like a force feeding machine as the central focus was sitting in the middle of the main room. Cultists were loading living bug looking snack food into a hopper preparing for a new convert to the cult, a forceful one. Once the hopper was filled, a nondescript humanoid was escorted out and placed into the machine, before being force fed bugsnax as the cultists made a ritualistic chant as the person was slowly converted to whatever the cultists were.

"Not the first time I've seen this. At least he didn't get turned into a gear." Roland said, seemingly in his element. Yeah this sucked to watch, but thats cults in a nutshell. While he could hide himself from the cultists, there was something he couldn't hide from. Invisible creatures were stalking around the area. Things that Roland didn't see until they crept up on him as he kept scouting the area, deciding to look for more information about what was here besides the bug cultists.

These creatures, Wendigo, seemed to completely ignore the cultists. They weren't security for them, it was more they just ignored them and the cultists ignored them. Instead, they were attracted to Roland for some reason, his perception mask only slightly working on them as they seemed to be lured to him by a sense of smell. While they didn't know who Roland was himself, they were only interested in what he was made of, not snax. Thus Roland found himself in a fight with one of these guards.

The wendigo were strong, but simple creatures. They could only attack by rushing at Roland or swiping their claws at him in a bestial manner. What made them annoying was, besides their footprints of blood, they were completely invisible even while attacking. This made them really difficult to predict at first. While things like this did exist in the City, they were pretty rare. Being unable to see the first attack headed his way, Roland got knocked into a wall at first being blindsided by the wendigo. Aware that there was an enemy around now, he pulled out his lance and thrust at where the blood footprints were, but heard his weapon get deflected by the powerful claws of the creature.

Jumping back to get some space, he then fired his new shotgun at the creature not only damaging it, but figuring out its 'weakness', that it was visible when taking damage for a short time. Seeing this, he followed up his shotgun blast with a swing from his demonic fire axe, setting the wendigo on fire and keeping it visible for his next few attacks. At this point he gained emotion level 2, and with it, gained Scars reducing or outright nullifying the damage of attacks on occasion with a woman's voice saying "It takes a strong will and courage to cut your own wrist.".

The wendigo retaliated, attacking Roland with its claws, however he countered it with his axe before swapping to his katana to dice up the creature. While strong, its attacks were simple and Roland had to just keep moving to duck in and out of its attack range. After a few more clashes with Roland's hammer and two hander, the latter finishing off the Wendigo after it had managed to overpower Roland's hammer, Roland gained emotion level 3, gaining Guilt, a young woman's voice saying "Dear, you seem to be quite… unnerved, aren’t you?" as well as the EGO Frost Splinter and a book of the Wendigo.

Now that things were starting to heat up, hopefully he'd find something useful down here. Looking over the burger he had just gotten, Roland remembered what the book had told him about the item and decided to give it a shot. While it was pretty ok, he felt his health restore itself almost like magic and after a quick look over to make sure he wasn't turning into a bugsnax, he continued onwards. Therion had apparently split from him, taking his own path instead.

[Lugubrious]

Paved Wilderness - Scorched Gorge

Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (63/150) and Chucho the Polterpup
Roland’s @Archmage MC Therion’s @Yankee
Word Count: 967

Although very annoyed at herself for forgetting all about her Harbor Demon striker and doing all that hard labor by herself instead, Nadia managed to get over it pretty fast. What’s done is done, after all, and if nothing else it might make for a funny story later. Plus, how mad could she be when she’d pulled off that ingenious Bunger wrangling idea so perfectly? Rather than bemoan her silliness, Nadia set her mind to her next task: getting the salvage sphere she’d extracted from Scorched Gorge to the people that’d pay her for it. This time, unfortunately, no bright ideas or forgotten abilities would bail her out. Without a vehicle to her name, much less one capable of hauling cargo, the task of transporting her salvage to a Ficsit depot made her previous Sisyphean struggle look like child’s play. This time, Ms Fortune would need help.

Hoping that nobody else would come along and spot her hard-earned loot, Nadia and Chucho left the sphere, retracing their earlier steps. Steeltusk was still sitting right where she last saw it by the road but this time the flashy red-and-black eighteen wheeler wasn’t alone. At some point while Nadia had been exploring the canyons, two bikers had pulled up next to the truck on their custom hogs and seemed to be lounging around, enjoying a late lunch. Both were darkly-dressed and sported desaturated green hair, but the solidly-built girl featured flashy gold ornaments all over her outfit and bike, while everything about the lean guy from his scarf to his shades to his leather jacket screamed ‘cool dude’. The newcomers had just been given cold drinks from the Steeltusk’s onboard bar by Piper, and as Nadia approached, her ear twitched at the familiar sound of crack and hiss from a frosty can in the truck driver’s hand.

Nadia hid her right arm behind her and waved with her left. “Hey!”

“Hey yourself!” The girl with the ‘king’ necklace grinned good-naturedly, her voice naturally somewhat booming. “You must be the cat thiren Piper told me about! Find any treasure?”

Cat thiren? Nadia could only assume that must be these folks’ version of a feral. “A little! Dunno how I’m gonna get it home, though!”

That seemed to make the girl crack up. “Ahahaha! You’re the act now, questions later type too, huh? Kitty after my own heart! The name’s Caesar, nice to meetcha! And this is Lighter!” She gestured at her companion. “Say hi, Lighter!”

“Hi, Lighter,” the guy replied with a smirk, giving Nadia a little two-finger salute.

“Nice to meetcha guys! You can call me Ms. Fortune.” Nadia couldn’t help but smile at Caesar’s earnestness. Coming to a stop, she crossed her arms to admire her reflection in the shiny gold hubcap on Caesar’s bike. “Wow, this is ‘wheelie’ cool! I’d love to ride a motorcycle someday, but I bet it’d make me ‘two tired’!”

The puns left Caesar cackling, but she seemed distracted by something on Nadia’s person. “Dude, what happened to your arm?”

Realizing what she’d done, Nadia’s brows shot up as she uncrossed her arms and hid her right behind her. “Oh, uh…”

“Probably ate some bugsnax,” Piper drawled from her barstool, sounding tired.

With the cat out of the bag, Nadia brought out her reconstituted arm reluctantly. “Oh, was that what that was? Eheh…” She grimaced. “Don’t suppose, uh, you guys know if there’s any cure for this? I’ve got plenty of meat on my bones as-is!”

Lighter inhaled through his teeth, shaking his head. “Fraid not. In fact, the infection slowly spreads, bit by bit, changing you inside and out, ‘til all that’s left of you is one big burger.” He held up his own half-eaten double decker. “Like this guy. Poor Jeffrey…”

Nadia’s jaw dropped, her eyes as wide as saucers.

Immediately, Caesar burst out laughing, and even Lighter couldn’t keep himself from chuckling. “You’re such a jerk!” She punched Lighter’s shoulder with more force than one might expect, but he seemed to brush it off. Then Caesar held up placating hands toward Nadia. “Relax, he’s just joking. It’ll wear off in, like, an hour.”

“Ask her how she knows,” Piper muttered, to which Caesar just shrugged.

Nadia emptied her lungs in a huge sigh of relief, her ears drooping. “Sheesh! And here I thought my jokes were bad.” She looked up at Piper, eying Steeltusk’s bar. “I could use a drink, if you guys don’t mind. Been dyin’ out here in the heat.

“Yeah, whatever you want, Fortune! My treat!” Caesar clapped a hand around Nadia’s shoulder with a big smile, very chummy already. “You tipped us off about the scavenger hunt, after all! Soon as Burnice and Lucy get here, we’re off. Gonna be livin’ like kings before the night is over!”

Quite powerless to resist Caesar’s strength or charm, Nadia allowed herself to be steered toward the bar. “Thanks! A rum and coke would be purr-fect!” She started rooting around for the ingredients, her tail swishing back and forth above the counter. “So, you’ve got more friends comin’?”

“Uh huh.” Piper narrowed her eyes as she looked up and down the nearby highway. “They’re running late, in fact. Should’ve been here already.”

Lighter pushed up his sunglasses. “Maybe Burnice started another fire, and Lucy’s having to bail her out.”

“Maybe.” Caesar plopped down on a barstool with a sigh, looking unconvinced. “No word from ‘em is strange though. I got a bad feeling.”

Nadia sat down a moment later with her drink, sipping it as she looked out across the wilderness. Nothing in the area seemed suspect, other than that refinery, maybe. “Hmm…”

Paved Wilderness - Highertower

Edward’s @DracoLunaris Blazermate and Sectonia’s @Archmage MC Zenkichi’s @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN Juri’s @Zoey Boey

High above the battlefield, at the top of Highertower, the simple but identifiable nod of Edward’s drone was taken as confirmation by the giant archer. In the midst of all the chaos unfolding down below, he seemed pleased to have found a friend, no matter how small and mute. “I help anytime,” he rumbled, taking hold of his longbow. From that point forward, as long as the drone remained within the giant’s lofty line of sight, it would shoot down piercing shafts the size of spears to skewer any foes foolish enough to attack the friendly drone.

While Zenkichi fought his way toward Celica to make contact, the ever-dutiful Blazermate in tow, word got back to the commanding officer of the New Conglomerate squad he’d slaughtered about the detective’s intercession. Within the fuel depot, a sharp-eyed sergeant pursed his lips in bitter annoyance. “That emplacement has been a thorn in our side since we’ve gotten here, and the moment we’re finally about to wear it down, reinforcements arrive? Tsk, tsk, tsk.” He turned to a subordinate. “Time to send in some backup of our own. Deploy the other Vanguard.” The woman saluted and scurried away, leaving the captain to monitor the map overview.

Less than a minute after Zenkichi reached Celica and her Skell, a booming noise resounded above their position. The next moment, a huge object crashed down nearby, narrowly missing Bunker 4. Before the dust even cleared, the fallen object began to move. Through the haze stomped a huge Vanguard-class Titan, over two stories tall and decked out in New Conglomerate colors. Its hatch popped open just long enough for Corporal LaRue to make visual contact. “There you are.” The hatch snapped shut, and the Vanguard lifted its immense Predator Cannon, big enough to make a nearby Heavy stare down at his Sasha in disappointment. As the minigun spun up, the mech’s loudspeakers made sure the Corporal was heard. “Time to flush you out, mon amie!”

By breaching the central building by way of a rooftop extending out from the rock the facility was built into, Edward and Juri were insulated from the firefight and vehicular skirmishes going on outside, but that facility itself was by no means secure. Though the psychos were holding onto it, the structure’s position on the battlefield meant it would be continuously besieged from both sides by mercenaries and soldiers hoping to cross the area on foot without getting sniped or run over outside. As a result the facility was hotly contested, with each close-quarters encounter in these halls unpredictable and explosive in its own way, especially if someone on a Ghost or Misha tried to drive through the central atrium from the open northern warzone to the underground southern warzone or vice versa.

The sudden arrival of Edward and Juri had put a stop to an NC incursion within this facility, but the moment of peace they earned was short-lived. While the tactician focused his attention on his scouts elsewhere, a Demoknight kitted out with the Chargin’ Targe, Claidheamh Mòr, and Broadband Bonnet charged up a flight of stairs on the opposite side of the central atrium. “HAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” He banked off the top of the stairs and went flying, arcing through the air like a comet. He slammed shield-first into the wall scarcely two feet from Juri with a deafening clang, stunning him for just a moment as he hefted his bloodstained greatsword.

In that moment, though, a metal hook latched around the Demoknight’s waist and yanked him backward. “Ach!”

He flew a good twenty feet straight toward a spot where a hulking masked psycho and singed maniac had set up shop. The instant the Demoknight got caught in Junkrat’s bear trap, he set off his landmine and Roadhog fired his shotgun. Together, both were enough to gib the Scotsman despite his innate explosive resistance, and Junkrat cackled wildly. “Hahahahahaha! Forty-four! Or…wuzzat forty-five, mate?” Roadhog just shrugged and crammed another fistful of scrap metal into his shotgun. Shrugging, Junkrat scowled at the newcomers, then shouted over his shoulder at the psychos pushing their payload into the underground zone for extraction. “Oi! Get a move on, you lot! Things just got a lot spicier in here! Heeheehee!” With that, he and Roadhog opened fire again, their deadly combination of traps, crowd control, lobbed grenades, and airburst shrapnel a recipe for disaster if any mercenaries, soldiers, or Seekers tried to push in on them unprepared.

Outside, the battle continued to unfold unpredictably, proving that nobody was totally safe. For the most part Sectonia had little to worry about, though one Scout in particular seemed incapable of leaving her alone. Very fast and agile, he would climb the Highertower and then use his Sandman to smack baseballs at anyone he could see, including Sectonia. Though he missed often, he seemingly found a new baseball every ten seconds, and a successful hit would leave his victim stunned--a dangerous proposition for anyone in the air. If he provoked someone into coming after him, his strategy was to slurp down some Bonk! Atomic Punch to become untouchable, then corner his assailant and wipe him out with a Grand Slam taunt for the one-hit kill.

Still, that Scout was ultimately just an annoyance, and could be ignored. The bigger problem was when a firefight at the outdoor battlefield's central oasis went south for a Heavy-Medic combo skirmishing with a squad of psychos. Just after the Heavy went down due mostly to his usage of the Brass Beast, a Wasp appeared out of thin air on the metal helipad that extended out over Empty Space, and the medic jumped in. "Time to practice medicine!" A moment later the highly mobile VTOL aircraft was aloft, its mountain machine guns and missile launchers making mincemeat of the psychos. "The healing is not as good as the hurting!" It wasn't long until the Medic, drunk with power, spotted Sectonia and flew over to fight for dominion over the Highertower's airspace.

[DracoLunaris]

wordcount: 658 (+1)
Amaterasu: level 8 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (12/80)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion

The shining goddess Amaterasu padded through the halls and up the stairs of the dull and dim maze-like mansion, occasionally glancing over her shoulder at the pocket stuffed form of Harry, a handful of treasure held in her mouth (she, again, could not be bothered with the confusion just stashing it would involve).

Rather than checking he was still there however, she was mainly doing so out of annoyance at every new loud sound or off tune hum that he came up with, all of which made it very clear that he was there, to her and to everything else.

If she was being fair, the fact that there were untouchable hostile creatures in this place wasn't exactly something she was happy with either, but still, it had proven to be a nuisance rather than anything else, so what was there really to worry about?

Well, as it turned out, there were a few more physical dangers at hand. For one Harry had a kindred spirit in the form of a big bug that wanted his treasure, and looked entirely willing to menace him for it. She fixed it with a disapproving stare, but otherwise was content to watch and wait to see if it would just accept the bribe and move on with its life. It was a natural living creature after all, and she had little interest in slaughtering those simply for the crime of being a bit pushy.

Natural was not a word to describe the strange little creatures that then came spilling out of the door she’d intended to go through, ones which came right at them with their pickaxes. Even still, they were alive, and so she initially hunched down and growled at them aggressively rather than go in for the kill. They clearly did not know who or what they were dealing with and so she magnanimously offered them a single chance to correct their current foolish mistake of trying to attack a being such as herself.

Then Harry hurled himself into the fray and well, she now had to protect his butt from being punctured by little pickaxes. Which was going to be a touch more difficult than it should be, given the narrow confines of the corridor, and the large size of her divine weaponry. She hardly wanted to cleave the man in two accidentally after all.

As such, she had to fight with more precision, which was a touch annoying. Still, if there was one upside to the current situation, it was that the effectiveness of the man’s simple club proved that she wouldn’t need to exert much effort to take these things down.

She darted after Harry, and then rather than engage the gnomes directly, she slipped around behind the man and then leapt up over the top of the little things trying to kill him, sailing overhead and out of reach of either of their swings. Then she unfurled her canvas, pausing the world as she looked down at it from on high (as in about a meter off the ground) and began painting her will onto it.

With three masterful strokes three straight lines were drawn through the gnomish horde, the divine being playing a lethal game of join the dots as these lines were painted such they would sliced through the maximum number of gnomes that those three lines could manage. Then time was allowed to resume, and she landed behind them, her paws making hardly a sound as they touched the ground.

A moment after she did, the cut gnomes’ two halves would fall apart and smash against the floor while she spared them not even a glance as they perished. She did look back after, however, either too implicitly say ‘are you coming?’ to Harry if they were all dealt with, or so that she could deliver a few rear leg kicks to the backs of any gnomish heads that were still intact.

[Captain Uni]

Level:
5
EXP:
4/50
Location:
Curien Mansion
Word Count:
633 (+1)
Interactions:
@Lugubrious

Kit had been wandering around rather aimlessly after losing track of the dog, still looking for her yet feeling hopelessly lost all the same. He kept shouting out "Wolf? Where'd you go?" or some variation of the phrase, each time feeling like he had just alerted all the creatures of the manor to his exact location. Even still, nothing came, which didn't really make him feel better.

Kit opened a door and emerged out into a courtyard, a quaint little place that felt a lot safer than the halls he had just been in. He scanned the area, looking for anything of use, and found the behemoth detective had just noticed him as well. “Oh, it’s you!” Band said, sighing in relief. “There y’are, I been lookin’ all over. Where’s the wolf?”

"She ran off ahead without me. I'm just hoping she's found the Icebreaker, wherever he is," Kit replied.

The detective seemed a bit sullen at that, Kit feeling about the same. The detective piped up, “Well, we got each other at least. Better stick together.” This mansion was a labyrinth of peril, death at every turn. Band was right; they'd have to stick together this time. After a short discussion the pair decided to head back the way that Kit had came and take another path.

It wasn't long before they found the web of a giant spider who snatched up a zombie that had made its way into the spider's web, first being paralyzed by the bite before being wrapped up into a cocoon of silk. Kit felt disgusted as he witnessed the process, unsure if he wanted to continue on. Band spoke up and offered to help him out with the spider or just break down the wall back in the courtyard. Kit pondered for a moment, before deciding to brave the spider. "Stay on guard. I'll confront the spider."

Kit marched forward, shield up and sword at the ready. As he stepped in front of the web, the spider slowly lowered itself down on a string, dropping down right in front of the knight. Kit slashed his sword at the creature, the spider backstepping and raising itself on its hind legs. It swung its legs at the knight, whose head was snapped sideways by the hit. Grunting, Kit swung his sword at the spider again, managing to slash off one of its legs.

The spider hissed, before leaping right at Kit and sinking its fangs into his chest. The knight shouted in pain, bringing a fist into the spider's head over and over to get it off of him, but it kept its grip on him all the same. Kit felt his joints locking up, still struggling with all his might to get the spider off of him. That was when Big Band jumped right in, throwing a massive fist into the spider which knocked it off of Kit and back several feet.

The knight stuck his sword into the wooden floor and grabbed the Estus Flask from his belt, taking a chug of it to help deal with the pain. He felt refreshed, if still a bit stiff, and grabbed his sword to continue the fight. The spider, seeming enraged, leaped forward again only for its fangs to meet Kit's shield. He bashed the spider with the shield, knocking it back, before going in with a swing and a yell. The sword cleaved through the spider's brain, killing it. The creature curled up on its back before imploding on itself and popping up as a spirit. Kit grabbed it and pocketed it, before turning back to Big Band.

"I don't think I would've survived were it not for you. You have my thanks. My sword shall be yours for as long as you have use of me."

Estus Charges: 3/5

[Lugubrious]

Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion

Harry’s @Eviledd1984 Amaterasu’s @DracoLunaris Chosen Undead’s @Simple Unicycle Level 11 Big Band (32/110)
Word Count: 1764

With how dark and cramped these halls were, neither Kit nor Band could fight at full strength, and any skirmish was bound to favor their unknown assailants. When it came to tackling the spider, their best bet was Band supporting from behind, rather than block off his comrade completely behind his bulky frame. Even with that tactic in mind, though, neither were quite prepared for the Bunker Spider when it scuttled from the shadows. Featuring far more than eight legs, the monstrous thing reminded the detective more of a house centipede than a spider, but there was no mistaking those nightmarish fangs–especially when they punctured Kit’s cuirass. Band moved fast to intervene and crumple the beast’s exoskeleton beneath the strength of his Brass Knuckles, allowing the Chosen Undead to retake control of the fight and finish the thing off. It was a brief but vicious exchange of blows, and despite his hardened nerves and body of steel, Band’s heart was pumping from the experience.

When thanked, Band shook his head. He didn’t need the knight doubting himself right now. “Nah, it ain’t nothin’. No need to go round pledgin’ fealty, either. I’m just happy to help.” Really, the two had gotten lucky, and not just for the fact that the spider didn’t seem to be venomous. With how volatile fights in tight spaces could be, it would be terribly easy to accidentally clip Kit with a strike and aggro him, given his gleaming nature. Band had missed his chance now that the knight had healed himself with an Estus flask, but he’d need to use a Friend Heart to free him the first chance he got. In a place like this, with any number of unknown horrors lurking around every corner, being able to flee would be the difference between life and death. “Those things are spirits, by the way. You got the right idea hangin’ on to ‘em, but I’ll tell ya what they do later. C’mon, let’s boogie before anythin’ else shows up.”

The two pushed forward through the hall with the fewest intact spider webs, reasoning that Harry would have torn through any in his path during his abduction. After so many delays, the pressure was on to find both their other allies and Heismay, so the atmosphere was tense. At the same time, Amaterasu was working her way back along the distinctive scent trail Harry sent, with the man himself shuffling along behind her. With the covetous bug satiated -for now- by his peace offering, it left Harry to his own devices. Naturally, he’d broken a couple of the valuables stuffed into his clothes while brawling with the gnomes, which turned out to be very fragile. None took more than a single hit to shatter like porcelain from either him or Amaterasu. Even picking one up and dropping it was enough to take it out. With that easy -and perhaps cathartic- run-in out of the way, they could seek out the other half of their team as well.

After about thirty seconds, the two pairs converged in a strange room. It was square, and decently sized, with black and white checkered tiles and a variety of cupboards and cabinets along the wall. It also seemed impossibly tall, with at least five stories between the intruders and the vaulted ceiling, with a narrow perimeter staircase winding upward one long flight at a time. It was difficult to gauge, though, since the only light in here came from a single bulb that dangled directly over a ten foot square pit in the center, its wire stretching up into the darkness. When the opposite door creaked open a moment after he stepped inside, Band readied himself for another fight, only to identify Amaterasu in the fitful glow of that lonesome bulb. “Aha! Found ya.” He let out the breath he’d been subconsciously holding. “Y’all in one piece still? Good. We been runnin’ into all kinds of creepy crawlies in here. And still no sign of…!”

Just then, the doors of the room’s cupboard and cabinets flew open. Out leaped at least a dozen human skulls, with tiny skeletal limbs, red glowing eyes, and implanted sticks of dynamite. “Oh damn.” Overwhelmed, Band whirled toward the nearest ones, trying to put together a plan. These targets were plentiful and small, and there was no telling whether or not they’d explode when hit. With that pit in the middle of the room, the team couldn’t assume a back-to-back formation, which meant they could easily be blindsided. As he watched, one of the skulls did a spin to light its fuses, then charged.

Then something happened. A whitish blur shot down from a high vantage point and struck the sizzling skull. It soared through the air, little legs flailing, and plummeted down into the pit. It happened so fast that it left Band blinking, confused. The next moment, though, it happened again, with another skull lighting its fuse and being summarily disposed of. The same blur streaked across the room again and again, handling the little bombs two or three at a time. Finally, when the last four lit up at about the same time, the white streak zigzagged around to capture all four before it came to a sudden stop in the room's center. The Seekers’ savior seemed to be a white-furred, batlike creature with big ruby-red eyes, small but strong enough enough to hang from the cord with one clawed hand while the other held the four struggling skulls by their fuses.

“This place is dangerous,” he warned the awestruck onlookers, his stern voice colored by a provincial French accent. “Full of all manner of disgraceful creatures. You should return from whence you came.” With that, he dropped the hissing skulls into the pit. They exploded violently, and when the flashes ceased, the batlike fellow was gone.

Band narrowed his eyes, thinking. For a while now, it felt like he was being watched, and now this stranger -the first intellectual being his team found in here- had swooped in from the shadows to save them. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine that the bat, stealthy and swift, had not just heard Harry the moment he first yelled out for Heismay but also been following the intruders ever since. Trusting in his intuition, Band decided to go out on a limb.

“Heismay? That you?” His voice echoed through the upper reaches of the room, and it garnered no response. “I know you can hear me. Look. The militia sent us after your head. Said you’ve been kidnappin’ kids. But I think there’s more to this story, and not just ‘cause you saved our butts just now.” Band searched the darkness as he spoke. “Morris told us there’d be no monsters here today on account o’ the sandflash, but that clearly ain’t the case. He said he saw you climbin’ into town late at night, but why would he catch ya climbin’ when you can move like that? Somehow didn’t mention you’re a little bat fella neither. And how’s a little guy like you steal kids bigger than you are, too? It don’t add up.”

A moment of eerie silence passed. Then Heismay’s voice echoed back down, giving no hints as to where its source might be. “I am many things, not all of them good, but I am not a kidnapper.” His voice was filled with indignant venom, as if the very idea of him doing such a thing seared his soul. “The world out there is filled with loss and pain, and I could not abide its cruelty. I thought it better to live here in solitude than in the embers of hell. At least the monsters here do not hide their true faces!”

Sensing Heismay’s pain, Band tried to read into his words. “So the village is hidin’ somethin’. It sounds like we won’t find the lost kids up here.”

“Indeed, you will not,” Heismay confirmed knowingly. “But you won’t find them in Martira, either. I don’t know what was happening down there, but I do know who put a stop to it, and I believe she has the childrens’ best interests in heart.”

Band raised an eyebrow. “So you know who’s been stealin’ ‘em?”

“Not stealing them. Saving them. From a terrible fate,” Heismay corrected him insistently.

“Oh?” Band had expected a second layer to the story, but a third? Now we’re talking. “And who might that be?”

For another moment, silence reigned. Then Heismay replied, hesitant. “I’ve gathered that you’re all outsiders to Martira. Genuinely concerned for the children, and able to understand that not everything might be as it seems. If I take you to her, and you see that the children are safe, will you promise to leave her in peace?”

“If this friend o’ yours stole the kids away to keep ‘em safe, then all we gotta do is fix whatever’s goin’ on in Martira so they can go back home safe and sound.” He squinted. “Assumin’ she lets ‘em.”

“She will,” Heismay told him. “She’s been taking good care of them. Once the problem is dealt with, she’ll bring them back.”

“If that’s how it is, then you have my word,” Band told him. “But if it ain’t, it ain’t just your ass, ya hear?”

“Very well.” The shadows stirred, and Heismay appeared. In full view, he seemed laughably small, but Band saw the sword slung across his back. “Then let’s go.”

As if in response, the lightbulb -and all other sources of light in the mansion- went dark. Band looked up sharply. “What just happened?”

Heismay’s eyes narrowed in the gloom. “The house doesn’t want to give us up.” He took off at a run, waving at the others to follow him. “Hurry!”

A creak issued from the doors behind the team, through which Amaterasu and Harry had come. A peek backward over Band’s shoulder gave him a terrifying glimpse at a shadowy figure with white glowing eyes and a huge ghost swaddled in a pitch-black robe. Something deep inside him told him to not try fighting these things. Instead, the detective burst forward in a stream of sound. “Don’t gotta tell me twice!”

Behind him, the masked ghost let out a harrowing shriek. With Heismay to lead the way, it was time for the intruders to run for their lives.

[DracoLunaris]

Chaos Aligned

Juri and Edward
Words: 866 (+2)

For Edward

Spirit consumed:
Max Unit
The host is 30% smaller and more upright. Sections of the host's clothes have become a synthetic mesh weave with futuristic heavy armor plates on top, including a helmet, pauldrons, gauntlets, and cuirass, all primarily blue with yellow highlights. The host's extremities are also completely armored if not purely mechanical. Both arms feature wrist-mounted weapons not greatly modified in size from their original versions. The host's personality is a little more dull. This spirit grants the Ability MAX Armaments, providing belt-fed machine guns and a flak cannon that can be fired at will, though they have limited ammo. This spirit also confers the Weakness Anachronistic Disharmony; the extremely futuristic tech of the MAX unit and the host's magical energies interfere with one another, increasing magical resource costs by 25% across the board and making tech weapons more likely to jam

”Not exactly what I wanted, but I shall take them” Edward said, flexing his new underarm weaponry, tossing aside the magelock cannon that was now thoroughly busted up after being used as a club and also, due both to his now smaller size (about 2 humans tall instead of 3) and still (unbeknownst to him) deteriorating physique, too heavy to wield alongside the two souped up guns anyway.

As he was focusing his sight outside, the demoman incident occurred and was resolved without any input from them, leaving him free to inform Juri that ”Our allies have gone for Celica, who either is or is piloting a giant golem, and is currently engaging another such golem. There may or may not be salvage to be found in the orange construction nearby” lacking much of the vocabulary needed to describe the mech fight going on by the orange containers.

”What the hell are you talkin’ about? Geez, you look ugly as hell. Did you fuse with the mech suit?” Juri sneered. She looked outside and scratched at the shaved part of her head.

”So, what. We get the loot. They save her. Fine, whatever.”

Edward ignored Juri’s petty insult in favor of blindly dumping flack cannon fire in the general direction of the psychos to hold them off, while crouching down to take a look out of the window to get line of sight on the impending giant robot fight. Not that they intended to get directly involved. Instead he focused on the container crates that were scattered around the area, looking for ones that weren't going to be good cover.

Then he picked a spot and opened a portal, stepping through.

They arrived near the back, putting them behind Celica’s position, with Edward saying ”We’re with those two” as he exited. He then adding action to his words by
peeking his head through a portal such that he could look down on the battlefield and get sight on the Vanguard mech, and before casting Designate Target on it to improve everyone’s accuracy against it, as well as making it briefly vulnerable.

Given that the seekers were committing to this fight, he also called his drones to him, the skimming machines darting towards the fight inorder to add additional stacks of Marked to the problem, the one that had to drop down from the hightower to do so (which Edward prevented from smashing into the ground by opening a portal under it so that it flew up into the air, and then caught at the top of it’s arch) being covered by the friendly giant as it did so.

As for their actual objective, that was the container crates, which were sealed by mechanical locks which were, presumably, why they hadn’t been looted yet. For other people, it would be a difficult task to crack them open under fire. For Juri? Not so much.

Juri rubbed her hands together as her green eye glowed, like the glint of greed made manifest. A big crate. Who knew what was inside? Luckily for her, the lock was electronic which meant she could crack it no problem. Her cybernetic eye took a few seconds and guessed the password, the lid popping open.

Some of the loot was damaged because of all the battle, but as for all the stuff left remaining, Juri got to work casting the armory spell to zip it all away back into their collective inventory. She paid no attention to Celica at all, clearly here only for the loot. She focused on the circles beneath each individual loot item, where they all blinked away into nothingness.

”See, this time it’d be more of an even split!” Juri quipped gleefully to Edward.

”We’ll tally it all up once we are out of here” Edward called back, using a combination of portals and the crates for cover as he laid down suppressing fire on the NC troopers trying to push their position alongside their mech.

[Sadu]

【Ｃｅｌｉｃａ】

Level:
5
EXP:
5/50
Word Count:
1,292 (+3)
Location:
Highertower

Celica was only slightly startled by someone being so suddenly close, and she responded by her machine going through a quick full transformation, changing from a giant tank, to an even taller humanoid machine. However... by this point, there were pieces missing, cracked armor, holes here and there, and more than one place were sparking and smoking. The whole thing was barely holding together, but it could still move, and had just a short while ago proven it could still fight. But it was definitely coming to the end of what punishment it could take.

What was previously the main gun in its tank form, was now a rifle mounted on the shoulder. It detached, being taken and held like a normal weapon, aimed down at the new arrival. There was a moment of hesitation, before Celica decided they weren't a threat, at least not to her. The weapon lowered, and there was a moment of silence, before inside the mech, Celica let out a huff. "Humans... it's always humans..." Well, one of them was anyway.

She was about to question why NLA had not sent a full Skell squadron to assist her, but right then something fell from the sky, landing in a puff of sand and dust. When all that faded, it left some other sort of machine. It was smaller than her own machine, certainly, and did seem a lot less advanced. But it had the advantage of not being damaged, while her Skell looked like it could explode at any second.

Still, the problem was that Celica was challenged, and still under the influence, she ignored both Zenkichi and Blazermate, as well as the two who arrived shortly after. Standing up straight, she faced the Titan, giant rifle in hand. If she were smart, she would have hunkered back down, and taken shots at it from the cover that had kept her alive all this time. Celica was, however, not a smart pilot. At least not when it came to in the moment decisions. Still, she didn't like to fight, so she didn't make the first move, waiting to see what the other mech did.

And so it was the Titan that lifted its weapon, and started to fire first, with squads of infantry pouring in around it. The smaller of the two machines started to charge forward, intent on rushing the position and not allowing Celica to use her cover again. Unfortunately for his plan, he hadn't expected that she wasn't even going to attempt to use the cover at all, and instead stepped out from the cratered scattering of cargo containers.

The Titan's weapon wasn't the most accurate from range, its pilot having intended to use it to suppress her, but she was... not being suppressed. Instead she was letting the stray, inaccurate shots hit it here and there, simply having faith that nothing too vital would be hit, or if it was, the armor would hold. If only her machine weren't so damage, she wouldn't even consider this opponent a threat!

She aimed her own rifle, with a few shots pinging off the armor she had left. She took a moment to think, and instead of firing dead center, she took a shot at one of its arms, landing an explosive shot, before triggering an ammunition switch and firing a followup shot that ripped through part of the arm that supported the weapon, causing it to wobble with sustained fire, and completely lose all sense of accuracy. With that taken care of, she remounted her weapon on the shoulder, and the two other weapons near the head lifted up.

Before she could do anything though, the other pilot seemed to have a very similar idea, as their own shoulder mounted launchers lifted up, and after a moment of scanning the debris, fired off a barrage of missiles targeting everything they possibly could.

Celica could have easily transformed her vehicle and sped past the barrage, allowing the missiles to hit the dirt behind her, but she wasn't the only thing that was being targeted. She didn't know why, but something nagged at her to do something about that, rather than leave the others to deal with it themselves. And so she adjusted her fire of the new weapons, and a spray of her own missiles launched. None of them were really targeting the other machine, but instead each missile intercepted one of the Titan's, causing a wall of explosions between them, and a screen of black smoke blocking visibility.

After a moment of hesitation, Celica's machine started to move forward, and passed into the smoke where the Titan was last seen. However, as she expected to cross to the other side of the black smoke, she instead found white smoke, sparkling with light. Before she could realize what it was, alerts rang out in her cockpit about electrical surges, and lights flashed and flickered as her machine started to bug out. Normally such a thing wouldn't effect something as advanced as her Skell, but as damaged as it was, everything that could prevent the power surges was either malfunctioning... or just plain gone.

When she next saw the Titan, it had a knife in hand... which by any person's standards was more like a giant sword. It came walking through the smoke at her, its arm having apparently failed to keep up the weight of its main weapon due to Celica's earlier shot, and now seemed intent on finishing off her disabled machine up close and personal. She heard a voice from the Titan, a cocky man's voice as he said "Real shame you had to come rushing in like that. Your Titan's pretty unique, I'm sure our engineer boys will have the time of their life taking it apart and putting it back together, nice and shining with the New Conglomerate colors."

Celica was working the controls of her machine, but it wasn't moving. She could hear it trying, but she couldn't get it to actually move, to raise a weapon to attack. It was annoying, with nothing but a knife her opponent was more vulnerable than ever, and yet nothing was working. "Come on... you were built for far greater threats than this. You won't lose against a pile of scrap like that."

The enemy pilot brought up the knife, right where he expected the pilot to be based on his knowledge of Titans, and with a grin said "The NC thanks you for your charitable donation." And plunged the knife into the Skell.

Whatever the knife found inside however sent a sudden jolt of built up electricity back through the Titan's arm, effectively reversing the EMP effect back on the one who had used it in the first place. It took a moment for the energy levels to even out, effectively using the Titan as a conduit to offload excess power, just enough for Celica to raise an arm and grab the rifle on the shoulder, and lower it down, right into the place she had seen the hatch open.

All the other pilot could say, was a short "Ahh hell..." before an explosion cleared away all the smoke around them, and the Titan fell back with a gaping hole run straight through it, crashing onto the ground in a heap of smoke. Celica's Skell stood over it, knife still stuck in the machine, which had gone just below the cockpit, leaving Celica safe... well, safe from the knife.

Her Skell wasn't moving now, sparking, smoking... something was probably on fire. And though the Titan was down, she soon realized that the infantry that had accompanied it were surrounding her, and her Skell was finally done for, not able to retaliate at all.

[MULTI_MEDIA_MAN]

Zenkichi Hasegawa

Paved Wilderness- Highertower
Lvl 9 Zenkichi (17/90) -> Lvl 9 (19/90)
Word count: 1,001 words

Celica, thankfully, did not blow him up. She, did, however, transform her mech-tank into a full-on mecha, making Zenkichi suppress a sigh. At least this one was on his side. Unfortunately, they didn’t get much of a chance to have a meet-and-greet before another mech, this one outfitted in the colors of the soldiers they’d taken out, dropped from the sky and began spooling up its giant minigun. Bit of an oxymoron, that. ”Oh come on…” he groaned as he summoned his Greatsword, all the better to block with.

Thankfully, Edward and Juri appeared through a portal at about the same time, and Zenkichi quickly backed up their claim. ”Friendlies! Those are, in fact, more friendlies on your six, even if they may not always act like friends.” The complaint about their earlier pilfering from the Gears was mostly toothless, as Zenkichi was much more invested in Not Dying to a Giant Mecha for, like, the third or fourth time now? This was getting to become a pattern and he was not a fan!

With reinforcements at its side, the NC Vanguard Mech began opening fire on Celica’s Skell, leaving Zenkichi and the others to deal with the squads of soldiers. Edward began firing back with his own weapons alongside his drones, and from the sky (presumably way up on the Highertower) came arrows the size of spears. How Edward managed to call in a giant with a bow for reinforcements, he did not know, but Zenkichi did know that this was his jam. A group of less-dangerous enemies and one big guy was the Phantom Thieves’ bread and butter when he was with them. Running in with Blazermate trailing on the heals, the fight was on.

With Preservation Protocol activated, Zenkichi didn’t bother to buff himself just yet. The moment would come, and with Blazermate healing him, he didn’t have to swap to Restoration. Gunfire filled the battlefield, shots flying at him, at the portals Edward had set up to protect Juri and the container, the Dreadnought himself, Blazermate, Celica, and just about any other free spot of air around. Even as small arms fire plinked away at his vitality, Zenkichi ran in. The Greatsword was dismissed in favor of his revolvers, and when he found a good rock to hid behind, he finally took cover and began popping out to return fire.

Revolvers, being fairly simple weapons, were also somewhat underestimated by guys like this. Oh, he couldn’t put out nearly as much volume of fire, that would never be under question, but Zenkichi could put out just as much hurt. As assault rifle fire slammed into the rock beside and dirt behind him, Zenkichi lined up a shot on the incoming combat medic and put a round in his plate carrier. It didn’t down him, but the momentary flinch threw off the soldier’s aim enough that Zenkichi could line up a second shot, to much deadlier effect. The bullet went right through the soldier’s head, crossing one target off the list. Turning his head, Zenkichi watched the NC reinforcements beginning to surround Celica before sighing and turning to Blazermate.

”Gonna drop a big hit in there, then we go in and clear up. Just follow my lead.” The medabot was more than happy to oblige, and Zenkichi popped out with the Greatsword in hand and Valjean behind him. ”Valjean! Let’s turn the tide. Agneyastra!” As a wave of lethargy passed over Zenkichi from his stamina dropping to perilous levels even as Preservation Protocol gave him a defensive buff, a trio of magical meteors crashed into the battlefield. wiping out a solid half of the NC reinforcements in a single fell swoop, leaving a vacuum he could fill.

To their credit, the remainder did not break and run. He wasn’t sure how many were under Galeem’s influence and had been hit by small arms fire or otherwise drawn into the fight, but not a one of the soldiers, even those in the rear, abandoned their squadmates. ”A pity.” Zenkichi sighed, as Armstrong, Sosha, and he broke into their lines and began causing chaos. Between Sosha’s dexterity, Armstrong’s nigh-invulnerability, their fire support, and Zenkichi’s healthy mix of durability and self-sustain, the NC squad stood not even a ghost of a chance.

Hitch blasts rang out with every blow Zenkichi landed, especially when he activated Fury and his attacks became AoE zones of devastation. An attack that hit three enemies hit each enemy an extra two times, as well as hitting all of their allies that he’d already hit. He had to keep his focus split between the soldiers to maintain the stacks of Hitch, but with Preservation Protocol’s defense boost still up and Blazermate keeping him topped off, even close-range shotgun blasts could keep the Phantom Thief down. It didn’t hurt that every once in a while, a giant arrow-spear would turn a soldier into a spirit in the blink of an eye, further harming their allies through Hitch.

It was…not a pretty sight, but after what was realistically not a terribly long time, the battlefield turned quiet. Zenkichi sighed as Blazermate’s medigun healed his wounds and he picked up the spirits of the fallen soldiers. Each wound was fairly small, but there were many. ”Thanks. We gotta get her outta here.” He said, gesturing to Celica. Putting his finger to his ear, he contacted Sandalphon yet again.

”Sandalphon, this is Zenkichi. We made friendly contact, though I think we’re going to need a lot of fultons for this…tank mech thing she has. Edward and Juri are getting some supplies to the armory, I think as well. Hard to tell with those two, we’ve all just been doing our own thing until we just met up. Regardless, we’re likely in need of a pickup of some kind. Not sure if the Avenger can reach us in time. If not, we can try to get her to a vehicle I pilfered and stashed out here. With Edward’s portals, shouldn’t be too hard, as long as we can get that mech moving, too.”

[DracoLunaris]

wordcount: 1,635 (+3)
Amaterasu: level 8 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (15/80)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion

After the very satisfying experience of smashing the last few gnomes into porcelain powder, Amatarusu managed to pick up the scent and sound of Not Kim and Kit. Both their metallic clanking and oily smell (be it armor polish or grease) were pretty distinctive.

She then led the way there, senses sharp for hostiles, but ultimately failed to pick up the ambush they all walked into before it sprung on them.

The skull-like things didn’t seem too dangerous to her, at least not until they lit their fuses, and she got what their deal was. Fortunately, she actually had experience dealing with explosives, and so swiftly paused the world, intending to cut those same fuses to neutralize that threat. When she did, however, she got an early glance at the bat-like being who’d darted in out of nowhere.

Suspended in the air, frozen in time, the bat-being was in the middle of dashing down from the ceiling. Not at them. But at the skulls.

It was also wearing well kept clothes, which put it well above the ghoulish aesthetics of anything else in this place, implying it did not belong, and adding credence to the idea that he was indeed going for their foes and not them.

As such, she gave it a chance to prove himself, and he very much delivered, grabbing and tossing the skull bombs into the pit with supreme speed that meant that she had to pause time every few moments in order to keep track of him doing so.

If only she had a celestial brush technique to slow down time. That would be ever so handy right now.

As a result of having as much time as she wanted to process what was going on, the divine was likely far less in awe than the others were when he finished up his cleanup, though she was still very impressed. Sure, she could have dealt with that herself, but she wasn’t going to nay-say him doing her work for her.

She’d sat down while he’d been darting, which was good, because she needed to be sitting down when the bevy of revelations came through, starting with the one where this was actually who they were looking for. Which was odd. He smelled like he looked, of bat (or close enough), and certainly did not seem like someone who’d fallen down some stairs either, which did leave the question of who the human smell she’d sniffed in the lobby had been.

Probably either someone who was now dead or was already a part of this place. The whole falling down stairs didn’t leave an option for much in between in retrospect.

At any rate, that was secondary to the whole string of revelations about the missing children, about which she had questions, but which naturally could not ask. Still, she got at least some of the picture, and it was not pretty, but things would only make sense once the missing sections were filled in.

Still in the dark about the exact nature of the missing kid’s disappearance, the gang were promptly dumped right into the dark as the lights suddenly went out. Certainly more of a problem for the others than for her, but the fact that the swift and competent Heismay took this as a sign to run was not reassuring.

Nor was Band following him.

Nor was the appearance of a massive ghost and a glowing eyed plant thing that did not seem to like being looked at at all.

Amatarasu was entirely confident she could take these things, but that wouldn’t really help, because the current threat to the humans (and maybe bat) was instead whatever they were about to run into.

Thus she too turned, and burst into motion, claws slashing into the mansion’s floor as she took off at a full pelt through it, overtaking and pulling ahead of all but Heismay in the process.

As she sprinted through the halls, pausing only to cleave through some more gnomes and fill in a bit of broken flooring with her brush, her paw pads were gradually joined by the sound of a piano playing that grew louder and louder till she burst into a room and the music suddenly stopped.

The music’s source turned out to be a yellow ghost with a massively oversized cranium that gave her an offended look for her rude interruption. She ignored it, glancing around the room, mainly looking for an exit, and found it to be a two story library of some kind. Its two floors, the upper consisting of a balcony/walkway around an open space in the center. Both of these sported many bookshelves around their walls, while the lower was host to a roaring fireplace that was maybe the only light-source still on in the building and, naturally, a piano, which the ghost had been playing.

Even more offended at being ignored, the ghost rose up from its seat and then with a sudden oversize and vindictive grin wafted its hands around like a conductor, causing the books on the shelves to leap into the air, swirling around before being hurled at the intruders by the polterghist’s powers.

Amatarasu gave her own offended bark as she leapt to the side of one tossed book, only for another to bonk into her. Or, rather, her godhood, which was a glowing barrier of protection that shifted from green to orange as it took one of the three blows it could absorb before she herself began to come under harm.

A total waste, in her opinion, given the books were being hurled with force enough merely to hurt and bruise rather than actually cause lethal harm.

Still, it was annoying, so she switched up her arsenal and lashed out with her devout beads towards the specter, the chain of golden teardrop shapes striking like a long reaching whip, lashing the specter that was very surprised that the holy weapon was able to harm it.

It was not dissuaded however, and instead retreated up to the second story of the room, which would force her to platform up after it if she wanted to take it down.

Not something they had time for

Up there it reached into its reserves of more sinister tomes, emptying the spell-book section of the library and sending these towards her in en-mass, which was a lot more control that it had demonstrated with its spinning and tossing.

Amaterasu snarled as these came towards her, but mostly ignored them save for scampering to and fro to avoid being struck,focusing mostly on scanning the room for a way to platform up to the second floor.

She was surprised, then, when the first spell-book, instead of crashing into the floor, paused and hovered the air next to her, unfurling and releasing a grinning skull lundged out of it at her from within its pages.

The spell dashed against her godhood, flicking it down to red. A moment later a far faster moving book unleashed a flurry of rusted weapons that slashed the final layer of her godhood away, leaving her exposed to harm.

That was more than enough to get her to take the threats seriously, the goddess switching from trying to go after the poltergeist (even as he kept pelting her with books) and to focus on these independently operating magical books instead.

She leapt over another skull blast, and landed on the piano, snapping its lid shut in the process and releasing a discordant mess of strings, before whipping her divine beads out with precision and lashing the offending tome once, and then incredibly swiftly bringing them around for another swing, the light, long reaching, fast swinging weapon perfectly striking the offending piece of literature from afar.

That didn’t help with all the other ones however, and so even as the enemy was dashed into ash and its spirit dropped, Amatrasu came up with a faster method of dealing with things.

She paused the world, and drew a circle, and then a single line through one point on the edge of said circle. Then she un-paused the world, and where she had drawn her shapes, a sphere of that same size, made of colorful patterned paper had appeared, one that had a fizzling fuse sticking out where she’d drawn the line. Because of how large she had drawn it, this cherry-bomb was also larger than she was.

Rather than wait for that fuse to time down, because the books might move away from her bomb, she then leapt for cover behind the piano and opened her scroll across the world again.

This time, she drew a line from the fireplace to the base of the cherry-bomb’s fuse, which caused flames to leap from the flames burning within right to that spot, bypassing the timer and setting off her explosive straight away.

The explosion created a horizontal circular shock-wave of smoke, and a fireworks display like explosion, a one with the kanji for "brilliance" at its center, which scattered colorful confetti all around. This divine blast ripped through the hostile magic tomes, knocked many of the mundane books off the shelves, and broke the piano’s legs, causing its body to crash to the ground with a clang.

Very smug about this little party trick, the goddess poked her head up over her barricade, and bore her fangs at the poltergeist in a mockery of the grin she had wiped off its face.

This, naturally, enraged the specter, but having just lost all of its magical tomes, it was back to hurling mundane books, which the goddess decided both she and the others could just weather.

Thus, as she exited stage right, the others would enter to find a dozen or so spirits of books laying around a scorched carpet, and around them a confetti covered wreck of a library. From above, a steady stream of hurled books then came flying, hurled by a very angry poltergeist that was willing to take its frustration out on anyone and anything that it saw now that the main target of its ire had fled.

[Archmage MC]

Blazermate

Sectonia

Level 13 Blazermate (Holding 2 level up) - (114/130)
Level 12 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) (95/120)

Location: Hammerhead
Word Count: less than 750.

While being both skyborn and away from most of the fighting kept her off the list of priority targets, it didn't keep her free from targeting at all. Granted there were only two groups that gave her any attention... One being some skinny man trying to hit her with a small baseball but having great difficulty hitting a flying target with such a slow projectile. The other however was of a much bigger threat, a gunship manned by a crazy man Sectonia had seen before... This world of light was confusing and she'd really need to mull over what this meant as he was not only bombing those below, but once he saw sight of the queen, started to open fire upon her as well.

Well, there was a reason she was staying out of the main fighting below, she knew how much gunfire hurt. So she used her Chaos Shield first chance she got and took on this threat right away. Of course this stopped her sword rain and minion summons on the battlefield below, but this wouldn't take too long. Something she had learned is that most machines made to fly weren't that durable nor could challenge her mobility in the air. And since she saw this thing as a threat, more because it threatened her ability to leisurely throw chaos at the ground below, she moved in to intercept it.

Tanking the oncoming machine gun fire with her Chaos shield, she focused to make a rain of swords around the gunship itself to limit its mobility and speed so her followup attack could land. Of course it didn't stop the ship from shooting her, but her followup would as she began to rapidly blink around the ship to confuse it, before appearing behind it as it swerved to dodge a sword to strike it with lightning and a death pulse. While the lightning did some instant damage, once the Wasp and its pilot saw where Sectonia had appeared, they made distance outrunning the homing death pulse.

It would spin around to shoot Sectonia again, at which point she followed through with the rest of her plan in blocking a couple shots with her swords and shield before blinking again. But this time blinking below the ship and before it could escape this time, hitting it with a Reaper's Scythe to keep it in place as she stabbed at it from below and allowing the death pulse from earlier to hit the ship. With a swing from the reaper made of the death of the battlefield below, the ship exploded and the medic pilot gave a long scream as he fell from the sky and landed on the ground in a... well only ash and his spirit remained before he soon respawned.

Blazermate meanwhile had been doing her job and healing Zenkichi and the newcomer, but she was kinda ready to make a big play herself. "Hey, if I put up a shield, can you guys go and grab a crate and run so we can get something done instead of being stuck in this eternal fight? I can give an uber if you want as well." She then activated her projectile shield to give Zenkichi and Celcia cover so that they could move to grab some loot.

She still had a lot of other abilities she could use as well, but they would have to be used when she saw someone to use them on.

[Yankee]

Food Processing I

Level 7 Roland (24/70) & Level 10 Therion (280/100)
Word Count: 2674 (+3)

When Roland and Therion had first pulled up to the Refinery, the latter had been skeptical they'd find anything. When they'd broken in and fought off crazed food cultists with no lost cargo to be found, Therion got even more doubtful that they'd find what they were after here. And, once they'd gone deeper and discovered what could be described as a ritual site for turning people into food, well... suffice to say the thief was not optimistic about what else they would stumble upon.

So Therion had peeled away, took to the shadows, and crept off into areas of the Refinery that weren't as populated. Since they were already here, he figured that he might as well find something worthwhile to grab. Maybe this cult had a treasury or some other way to fund arming and clothing their ranks stashed somewhere around here. He'd left Roland on his own because from the way the man spoke about his past experiences in his city, it seemed like the Fixer was more or less used to this kind of thing and had it well in hand.

And if he didn't, well, that was a problem for the future.

The thief searched quickly but persistently, prioritizing staying out of sight even though his dagger was drawn and ready in the case he was spotted. His goal was, of course, what coffers he could find - but it wasn't very long before something caught his ear. A pair of female voices, ones that definitely sounded out of place...

He followed the noise until he came to another room. Two sentinels, their unnatural forms concealed by heavy robes of white, stood guard in front of heavily locked double doors with barred windows just tall enough that Therion could see inside. The cell within was lined with empty manacles that hung on chains from the wall, some of which were secured around the wrists of human prisoners. The loudest voice he heard belonged to a young blonde in a black leather skirt, jacket, and tube top accented with red, covered in bruises, but her words made no sense. “Cocktails, mixers, ice…the snacks are real nice,” she seemed to be singing to herself, perhaps in a state of terrified delirium. “Soda, sour mix, dry…I’m lit, you can’t deny…”

The other voice belonged to a rugged woman in worn-dorn survival gear, including a cap with goggles. While she was wearing mascara, she also sported a painful-looking black eye. Her primary concern seemed to be getting her fellow captive to shut the hell up. Additionally, the thief spotted one individual whose voice he hadn’t heard: a bespectacled fellow with a raven-black ponytail, decked out in wild western garb, maybe been some sort of engineer. Unlike the blonde girl he quavered in silence, almost rigid with fear of the fate these cultists had in store for him.

Therion spent a good few minutes weighing the options, his tail twitching as he stared at the captives and the pair of men keeping watch over them from his hidden spot. The thief could take on the guards and likely wouldn't have much difficulty in just dispatching them, but doing it safely and without alerting other cultists in the area was another issue. Leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves wasn't an option that could seriously be entertained, so in this case... probably best to reunite with his scavenger hunt buddy and deal with this together.

Therion picked his way back towards where he'd left Roland. With the way the other man's equipment worked it might have been more of a pain to find him again, had he not been aware of how his stuff worked. Therion came up around Roland's side, more than an arm's length away to make sure he wouldn't inadvertently startle the guy.

"Problem," he said. "There's a couple of live sacrifices down at the other end."

Roland had picked up his book of the Wendigo and was eating a burger when Therion showed himself, having been split up a bit to cover more ground. ”Ah, hm. They might know more about this place, we should probably help them out.” Roland said. He was more neutral about that situation if anything. It sucked that people were being sacrified and sure he’d save them, but not with any hero complex or anything. It was just another day and Roland figured he’d never see those people again anyway.

Either way, Roland got up and followed Therion down to the holding area. The latter motioned for the two of them to slow as they approached, and they peeked out to see the situation from the same place Therion had watched from earlier. Roland saw the prisoners with varying degrees of acceptance and or fear. He then turned to Therion and asked. ”Any idea on how to get them out besides fighting the entire complex? Unless you can give them some stealth, there isn’t much else we can do?” Roland then looked at the guards, saying. ”Regardless, we need to take out the cultists guarding them. I can handle that if you can open the doors. My way of opening locked doors is silent but noticeable. ”

Therion shook his head. "We already cleared most of the way from here to the entrance, they don't need to be stealthy - just fast."

Not that the thief could bestow speed upon them either, and didn't plan to pick up any of Primrose's dancing any time soon. Therion jerked his chin towards the duo of guards before continuing. "So if you want to handle the guards, draw them deeper in so anyone else that shows up doesn't block the way out, then double back."

Therion was pretty close to calling this little adventure a lost cause as far as getting paid went, so bailing on it after rescuing a few people was perfectly fine with him.

”Fine, but beware of the invisible creatures with the blood footprints. They’re kinda rare, but they’re walking around and they like to sneak up on you.” Roland said, stretching his shoulders a bit before running off to cause a bit of chaos.

Using his initial stealth to get a free swipe, Roland silently ran towards the guards protecting the prisoners from the side outside of their sight. As he approached the first one, he purposely ran in front of them, dragging a dagger across their chests and making himself out to be obvious as he moved deeper into the complex to get their attention. Getting their attention that did, and they followed the intruder that had just slashed them. Therion could hear the scuffle that Roland was involved in soon after…. Well, the guards fighting.

Therion waited a few seconds more just to make sure the sentinels were far enough away, and that any additional attention Roland drew wouldn't first come to the jail room before he made his own move. He came up close to the bars on the door, getting a more accurate count of how many were imprisoned in case there were any he hadn't been able to see from his previous vantage point. His gaze lingered for a moment on the babbling woman, hoping she didn't have some kind of head injury or something that would impede them. The prisoner themselves could see his feline ears and single gray eye peeking out from his fluffy white hair before he disappeared from their view once more. Then, there was the quiet and subtle scrape of metal on metal.

Obstacle one was the door itself, and thankfully unlike the building's entry door its lock was not so sophisticated that the thief couldn't get through it. He resolved to invest in some training (or spirit shenanigans) specifically for those tech locks, but for the present he clicked the door open and slipped inside. The captives' salvation came to them in the form of a thin man decked out in black and purple, with a checkered scarf and one manacle tight around his wrist, though the difference between his shackle and theirs was that theirs had keyholes - which Therion swiftly exploited, moving to the closest person which happened to be the woman with the nasty shiner.

"You're all damn lucky we happened to stop by this place," he said. The road to the Refinery had been pretty devoid of other vehicles besides those sailing the skies, likely because of the fact there was a creepy food cult stationed here. His tail twitched as he worked the lock until it popped open, then moved on to the next person. "Do you know if there's anyone else locked up in here, or are you the only ones?"

When the guards had suddenly departed, their quick and sharp footfalls suggesting some sort of chance, the on-edge captives had all perked up. The survivor and the engineer both went on high alert, and even the biker’s singing trailed off. Then Therion revealed himself and opened the door. At the sight of a regular human -feline features notwithstanding- all three assumed that the newcomer must be there to rescue him, so their chains rattled as they strained against their manacles, ready for freedom. “Oh, thank God…” the engineer breathed, his shaky sigh of relief barely audible.

The survivor seemed to be made of slightly sterner stuff, and thrust her manacles toward Therion, holding them steady as she answered his question. “There were more of us. Lots more. You see my gun anywhere?” Once free, she made for the cell door, then scanned the room until she found a steel chest. “Bingo.” She tried to open it, only for run up against another lock. “Damn it!”

Therion freed the engineer second, who rubbed his wrists with a wince. “Thank you.” He furtively approached the cell door, then took up a position to keep watch over the area lest any more horrors creep from the gloom. “My bundle’s in there too,” he whispered urgently.

Therion would see the occasional ink attack coming from where Roland was fighting, first a wave of ink, then a blast of ink that drew a line on the ground before hearing one of the guards scream and make no more noise. Then the impact of a shotgun blast upon a wall, a bit more time, and another scream before it went silent. A few more of these happened before Roland was finished. He’d come out of the shadows a few moments later, a couple more books in hand and Emotion level 4. Granted the voice of the puppet that came when he gained Learning nor the indicator Roland got the EGO Wrist Cutter wasn’t heard as Therion was too far away from the fight itself. Even so, the thief couldn't help but wish that Roland had dragged things a bit farther just for safety's sake.

”These cultists being made of squishy food makes them kinda easy to cut through. Like… how or why would they even want to make themselves weaker? Like… how did this whole thing start?” Roland said, flipping through a sentinel’s book and finding nothing but more mention of snax. Whatever these cultists were doing was overwriting the people they were before fully and completely.

By that time Therion had freed the last captive, who immediately dashed straight out of the cell, her blonde pigtails streaming behind her, then turned left. “That’s the way they took Lucy!” she exclaimed, a little too loudly.

"Wait—!" he bit out, reaching to take hold of her shoulder and halt her steps. Unfortunately he grasped only air.

At that moment a cultist that had crept up after the others ran off and lay in wait since then burst from the darkness, grabbing the girl from behind. “Wagh!” For a second she struggled in the cultist’s grip, but before Therion or Roland could move to assist, she lifted her legs in order to use one shoe to spark the flint wheel on the back of the other. The next moment, she jammed that heel into the cultist’s foot. Flame gushed through the heel into the cultist’s constituent bugsnax, resulting in a chorus of screeches as it released its hold. With a gleeful laugh, the girl wheeled around with a spinning flame kick that took out both her assailant’s knees. It dropped into a kneeling position, and after sparking her other heel, the biker rammed it into the cultist’s chest with a powerful turn kick. A split second later, an explosive fireball went off in its center mass and scattered the burning bugsnax that made up its limbs and head around the room, wailing and aflame.

The biker girl tittered as she admired her handiwork. “Heehee! Up in smoke!” Apparently, even without a head injury or terror-induced delirium, she was still a little loopy by default.

With that problem quickly resolved, the older woman turned her anxious frustration toward Therion. “Hey, cat boy! Open this up so we can get our gear and get the hell outta here!”

“Nuh uh!” The blonde shook her head insistently. “Not leaving without Lucy! They couldn’t have taken her far!”

Though slightly taken aback at how he'd been addressed, Therion looked between the two women with his visible eye narrowed. It settled on the blonde.

"We'll find your friend and anybody else still left," he told her. The fact she could fight would be helpful, since it seemed she wouldn't be the type to wait outside. As much as Therion wanted to just get out of here too, it wouldn't sit right with him to knowingly leave someone behind at this point.

He then went over to the chest, kneeling down to quickly get it open for the other two. "I don't blame anyone that wants to leave now. Exit's down the hall and up a flight of stairs, on the right." After a beat he recalled that they'd just left the truck parked out there and added. "Don't even think about ditching us here while we're still inside, though."

For a second the survivor looked tempted, but she shook her head. “Safety in numbers. We’d be fools to split off now.”

Opening the chest revealed a handful of different weapons confiscated from various prisoners. The survivor immediately seized a sawed-off shotgun in a deathgrip, then stood by menacing the shadows with it. Once given a chance, the engineer retrieved a dynamite dispenser that he quickly attached to his belt. Most of the locker was occupied by a pair of large white fuel tanks attached to a harness and two baton-shaped flamethrowers, which the biker gleefully took and equipped. “Burnice, ready!” she grinned, testing the throwers’ pilot lights. That left two unclaimed items in the locker: a high-quality black baton, and an ornate bladed whip. They did not remain unclaimed for long, as the thief stashed them by habit before turning back to the others, ready to go.

”If their last member is deeper into the facility, we don’t have much time Therion. We’ve gotta get going.” Roland said, pointing a thumb at the place he was just fighting the prison guards in. ”C’mon.”

As the group made their way deeper into the facility, Roland said. ”But you're right, I hope they don’t take the truck. Running cross country kinda sucks.” Roland said, making a bit of a joke as they passed through the area where he had fought the prison guards. Splatters and lines of ink could be seen, as well as bullet holes in the walls and a gash from a large sword.

“We’re looking for a woman doctor named Emilia Blackwell,” the engineer informed his rescuers as they went. “Dark hair, glasses. Bloody apron…” He cleared his throat. “Um, my name’s Vergil, by the way. Vergil Olney? I know it, uh, doesn’t matter, but…just wanted to say thanks, again. If you wanna tell me your names, I’ll be sure to remember them!”

Why does he make it sound like a memorial, Therion thought to himself, though he did offer his name at the very least. "It's Therion."

[DracoLunaris]

wordcount: 3131 (+4 exp) (+1 rapport)
Bowser Jr: Level 14 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(294/140)
Rika: Level 10 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(210/100)
Lvl 14 Geralt (126/140) -> (130/140)
Lvl 10 Roxas (19/100) -> (23/100)

for seekers

Red Tumblestone 10x
Black Tumblestone 5x
Sky Tumblestone 5x
Enor Pearl 5x
Some particularly aesthetically pleasing diorite, andesite, and granite rocks
Tetrahedron

With a nice little haul of rocks of varying qualities, the team ascended the cliffs by awkwardly holding onto Rika’s whale while it swam up the rock face, and then found their way to the hidden oasis they had been told about.

As they approached, they heard the faint sounds of a croaking symphony, only to spook the chorus of Flowger when they came into view of the pool and end the music in the process. The flowery frogs splashed into the water, joining solitary lurking Fortifry and the swiftly zipping Arjibi found therein.

While these certainly looked like pokemon, and Jr’s phone identified them as such when he snapped a picture, it did so using a somewhat hacked in looking addon rather than the ‘official’ pokedex, which the prince considered ”weird”

Still, there was no mistaking the Apricorns hanging from several of the trees around the oasis, with the only thing even mildly in the way of them acquiring the hard shelled fruits being the stench of a few spoiled apricorns that lay half eaten at the base of the trees.

Other than those trees, and a few palms, the only other thing of note was the small shrine at the far end of the oasis, unassuming and weather worn yet enduring despite the ages that must have passed it by.

“Hmm. It's…nice. Not sure it was worth the climb, though.” Geralt sighed as he looked over the oasis and at each of the Fakemon that were hanging around. “Those look like what you described, though.” He continued, pointing at one of the apricorn trees.

”mmm” Rika agreed simply, before asking ”so, how we gonna get em down?” only for jr to already have a plan (for them at least)

”You cut em down, and I catch em!” was the plan, which consisted of Rika wiggling her helbard about up in the branches of the trees to chop down the shelled fruits, while her brother ran around underneath with his duffle bag stretched to catch them, making a game of the work.

Roxas, meanwhile, had his own idea. Similar to how they mined the Tumblestone Ore, he decided he’d recruit the help of some of his Pokemon. He released Titan and Turbo from their Poke Balls and pointed them toward the apricorn, ”Think you can help me shake some of those down for us?” Titan gave a thumbs up gesture while Turbo revved her engines in agreement. They each gently attacked apricorn trees, Titan with his Shadow Punch and Turbo with her Iron Head. And as for Roxas, he opened up the main pocket section of his trainer bag to gather fallen apricorns in or catch them as they were falling.

”Yeah, keep going guys!” The Nobody encouraged his Pokemon, ”We’re on a roll!”

Geralt followed Roxas's lead yet again, having Tirn come out of its ball and bash its head into the apricorn trees, collecting the fallen fruit and giving his Pokemon a grateful scratch on its head, earning a pleased chuffing sound from the Shieldon. After he had gathered what he figured was a fairly good haul, he turned to the others. “Anything else you needed? We'll have full bags before long.”

”A break” was Rika’s request, to which Jr agreed. Not just because they’d been doing work when the other had delegated to their mon, but also because they’d been traveling and fighting under the baking sun for a few hours now. With regards to that, they both thought the oasis, with its shady trees and chill atmosphere would be a great spot to take a quick break before they pushed on to the seemingly abandoned Outback gas station for their last stop.

“Then we take a break.” Geralt agreed, walking over to sit in the shade of a tree. “Nice to not have to fight monsters, or build a city, or worry about the fate of the world for a few minutes.” He sighed. “Normally I try not to get mixed up in all this ‘hero’ business. Not enough money, and far too dangerous. Never could say no to helping a friend, though.” He added, almost as an afterthought.

”I dunno, it can be kinda fun. Plus, it's nice to win sometimes” Jr said in turn, having parked his car, hopped out and settled down by a tree of his own. His sister had in turn settled down next to him, before wordlessly offering him one of her gauntlets. In response helped unstrap it without any questions asked, after which she unstrapped the other one herself, before flexing her wrists and cracking her fingers that were quite stiff.

The boy’s mon joined him as well, Dazzle flopping out of the car he’d been riding shotgun in, while Mimi and Peeka were released from their pokeballs. Peeka settled her large form down next to the pair of kids, while Dazzle popped himself into Rika’s lap, and Mimi into Jr’s for the purpose of being pet.

Roxas similarly let his own Pokemon out of their balls to relax a bit. And while Scamp chased Shocker around and Titan plopped down next to where Roxas was sitting, Turbo drove herself over in Geralt’s direction and proceeded to let Tirn ride around on her for a bit.. ”Yeah, but nothing beats a relaxing break.” He said in contribution to the conversation, ”Even back when I was in the Organization, the breaks I spent eating ice cream with my friends was the part I looked forward to more than anything.”

”Sugars good” Rika replied in muffled agreement, the girl having taken the first opportunity, post hand freeing, to pick out a slightly melted treat from a pocket and proceeded to stuff it in her mouth.

“Our usual indulgence of choice was of a more intoxicating variety.” Geralt chuckled, half-remembering some of the drunken shenanigans he had gotten up to with the other Wolf school Witchers, as well as Dandellion, Zoltan, Roche, and others. “It’s nice to win, sure, but I’ve spent 80 years winning fights and hunting monsters. I’ve found the moments between those hunts to be the most important. Not that you can afford to think about that when you’re staring down a Fiend or a Leshen.” He shrugged.

”Eh, I guess” Jr supposed, the child clearly not convinced that this hero stuff wasn’t all that. The other child meanwhile was more curious about what the Witcher had said first, asking ”Why would you eat something that toxifies? Is it some kind of tasty poison?”

Geralt paused, contemplating for a moment what kind of influence he wanted to be on these children. In the end, he chose honesty. “Plenty of reasons people drink alcohol. Some people drink to forget the parts of their lives that they hate. Some drink because they feel wrong without it. Takes a while to get to that point. More people drink because it makes it a little easier to act a fool, to let go of your pride and your better judgment and just…exist. Do the first thing that comes to your mind. People get older, more set in their ways. Drink helps them loosen up sometimes.”

He paused, watching the Pokemon play with a small smile. “It also makes it easy to say things you think but wouldn't dream of admitting sober. Helps you come up with stupid little ideas to mess with your friend's wife, for example.” He let out a chuckle, remembering how they'd messed with Yen, and how pissed she'd been after. “I wouldn't recommend it until you're full grown. And maybe with Kamek around. That is, if you can even get drunk…” He muttered, looking over to Junior and Rika. “Alcohol might not work the same on you as it would us.” He gestured between himself and Roxas.

”Why no- oh, not human” Jr replied, answering his own question before he finished it

”What do you mean, not fully grown?” Rika asked, with a frown that was twitching just a bit, as a rage that was not her own bubbled up in response to the misinterpreted insinuation that she was short.

”As in we’re gonna get bigger as we grow older? You're like, what a teen or sumin so you’ve still got a way to go, right? Not that you’ll get as big as me an papa probably but still. Unless you’ll become as big as an actual boat?” Jr said, guessing at how the ship girl’s probably very weird physiology.

”Oh” Rika replied, anger dissipating back to neutrality, before she added ”I dunno if we do that. Don’t think we ever lived long enough to find out” with just a dip of sadness, before bouncing back to a more enthusiastic ”But I’ve got two more things to look forward to when this is all over!”

”Mmm”

”Are we still even going to want things to go back when this is over?” Roxas suddenly asked out of the blue, ”What if we’ve all become too used to this world? Or we decide we don't want to risk letting lives born here disappear?” By now Scamp had settled down and appeared to be taking a little nap with his head resting on Roxas’ lap, as if acting as a living example of what the Nobody was getting at. Would Roxas want to put things back in a way that meant he didn't have his Pokemon anymore?

Geralt hummed, thinking on the dilemma Roxas was proposing. “Way I see it, either we let this world of endless war continue, or we try and change it. We were brought out of Galeem's thrall and shown the truth. Honestly a good chance that we can't turn things back to the way they were before. But if Galeem isn't stopped, it can keep stealing people from worlds. We don't even know if the worlds we came from are even there anymore. Might be whoever stops that thing just ends it for us all.” He sighed.

“But those are the kinds of risks you take stopping something you don't fully understand. The kinds of risks I took on a daily basis as a Witcher. Most important thing I learned is that you have to try to do the best thing you can. Leaving things to sort themselves out is the worst way to go about fixing anything. Ain't saying you shouldn't think about it. Or try to find another way. Just saying…if you decide you want to sit back and let others sort things out, don't be surprised if you don't like the choices they make.” Geralt shrugged. “It's often ugly when things change. People get hurt. But people get hurt if things don't change, too. You have to decide for yourself if the change is worth it. If pain now means a better life later. Or if dealing with that hurt will be more worth it.”

Rika, for one, had an entirely firm view on the matter, which was ”I’m never going back to how I was before I was free. Not into the Moebius thing. Not back to whatever place I was from. We’ll make something new, and I’ll never be someone else’s disposable peon ever again”

”and I’m not gonna lose my sister!” Jr piped up in agreement, prompting the serious looking Rika’s lips to tilt up into a little smile before she gave her brother a one armed hug over his shoulders.

”You’ll help, right?”

”Of course I will.” Roxas said without an ounce of hesitation, ”I wouldn’t wanna go back to before I had Scamp and the others, either.”

“A new world, then.” Geralt said, the weight of a century behind his words. “Won’t be the first time it’s happened, and I’ve a feeling it may not even be the last. Only reason they made Witchers in the first place is this happened a long time ago. Worlds collided, monsters ran amok, and people needed someone to save them. Instead, they just made another monster they could kill when it started to displease them.” Bitterness crept into his voice at the end of his words, but he sighed and let it disappear. “This world you want to make. Make it kinder than that.” He told the children.

That Jr’s response to that heavy burden was ”Don’t worry, Papa’s a good boss even though he’s a bad guy” was perhaps not the most reassuring.

Geralt just let out a laugh at that. “He calls himself that, and maybe in your world he qualifies, but he’s a better person than at least half the folk from my world.”

”None of the other badguys seem to care about anything -sept themselves. Consuls are all lonely jerks, the fleet were mean, so were those wasps, the freaky pizza guy, the necrodancer and stuff. So, yeah, a world with him on top is better for everyone probably” Rika agreed, before adding, selfishly that ”and it's definitely better for me”

”Hey! We conquered the universe once! We can be mean to other people n stuff!” Jr began, only to think back and recognise that, frankly, his papa was a better guy than most of the bad guys from his world as well. You only had to compare the koopa’s treatment of toads to the way the Shroobs or the Origami King had to see that. But then, that was sort of the point ”And besides all of that is that’s just coz he’s the best bad guy is all! All those other guys are dust, whereas papa is still kicking, and is gonna keep on kicking till we kick Galeem’s butt!”

“Can’t argue with that.” Geralt laughed at Junior and Rika’s confidence in their father.

”Uh, have you ever tried… not being bad guys?” Roxas asked with a tilted head, ”I mean… it’s not like you’re being bad guys now, right?”

”Well that’s coz there’s some bad guy who thinks they’re the bad guy but they aint’ so we gotta show them that they ain’t as big as they think they are!” Jr insisted, to which Rika just responded ”What?”

”Galeem’s a jerk who needs punching in the face” Jr summarised, before answering the first part with ”and I dunno, we’re bad guys that’s just who we are I guess?” because he really didn’t know.

“Aaaahhhh.” Geralt hummed, now with a little more insight into their mindset. “You want to be on top, in charge. Not told what to do. But you have standards, still. With how many times your father’s gotten himself in trouble just here with how often he tries to help people, I’m sure Kamek has his hands full.” Geralt chuckled. The old magikoopa reminded him of Vesemir in some ways, though he doubted Kamek got up to as many shenanigans as his teacher did.

”But Bowser isn’t the only one…” Roxas said softly, ”Ganondorf and Sectonia wanna both rule too. So… what happens when they don’t have a common enemy anymore?” He knew exactly what was probably going to happen, but he wasn’t going to be the one to say it.

”I mean, you don’t see anyone they care about, around either I guess? Like Ganondorf says he likes the Gerudo town people, but he didn’t bring any of them with him or anything sooooo, same deal as all the rest?” Rika said, having developed this philosophy on the fly, and now sticking to it, while Jr noted that they knew that that was coining ”Also he already stabbed papa in the back last time. Or I guess a different one of him did? But not like, Mobius coming back. He has his own whole, coming back thing going on or something? Anyway it's gonna happen again for sure”

He was less sure about the other of the pair however, saying ”I dunno about Sectonia tho. Papa said bad guy team ups always end with backstabbing so you gotta do it first, but maybe we can work something out? She seems ok? But if she’s anything like papa she won’t like being under papa so, um, I dunno”

“I figure either they'll play nice and split up to rule over their own domains, or try and backstab each other to stay in power.” Geralt mused. “Of course, if that happens I'm with you kids and Bowser. Better him than even Djikstra. Ugh.” Shaking his head of the unpleasant memory of his deceased friend, Geralt sighed.

”Neat”

”Nice. Thanks”

With alliances more or less accidently secured, and philosophy mused upon, the team settled into a mix of idle chit chat and just plain chilling, till rest was replaced with restlessness, and they collectively decided it was time to go.

Mon where re-balled, whales and cars bordered, and then they were off into the heat once more, down the somewhat stressful descent down the face of the cliffs. Once down they then off towards the abandoned town/pitstop of Outback, to check it out as their last stop before they headed on back to the place that had caused it to be abandoned (Hammerhead) via paint portal.