Lugubrious

Hellsingers: Solomon's Miasma (Demon Slayer and Koudelka Inspired, European setting) [open]

Makes sense to me.

Hellsingers: Solomon's Miasma (Demon Slayer and Koudelka Inspired, European setting) [open]

The OP provides good details about the overarching setting. I'm more curious about where the PCs are and what they'll be doing. So far the premise seems to be 'your character is seeking to join the Hellsingers' and getting trained. Where does this take place, since the Vatican is sealed? What are your plans / mission statement after that? It could be that people see signing up for and training with the Hellsingers as a less-than-enthralling plan of action.

One other thing that came to mind. As a rule of thumb, a good 25% or more of players who sign up for any RP will either never post or make one post and then disappear, so with a maximum of 3-4 players the entry toll would hit pretty hard. People also might not like competing for limited slots. Far be it from me to tell you how to run your RP, of course, so please don't take my rambling too seriously.

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

Esaka’s Pools Tier / VS Tyrant King, Rage of Dinosaurs, Moebius R

Setting: Clear Friday Afternoon
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (294/150) Level 11 Big Band (230/110)
Bowser Jr, Rika & Amaterasu’s @DracoLunaris Primrose, Therion & Pit’s @Yankee Sakura & Juri’s @Zoey Boey Captain Falcon’s @Double Yayama’s @Chevaleresse Grima’s @Goggy
Word Count: 1468 / 943

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

ROUND TWO: FIGHT!

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

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

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

ROUND TWO: Q WINS!

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

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

ROUND THREE: FIGHT!

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

Of course, Q would be neither intimidated nor deterred. When Band pushed forward to pressure him, Q took to the skies and executed a somersault flop as he jumped backward. In the brief scramble that followed, the man of mystery seized his opponent and launched him several stories via Capture and Deadly Blow. An EX rush punch nailed Band as he plummeted down and sent him skidding, although not quite to the brink.

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

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

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

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

BOOM!

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

ROUND THREE: BIG BAND WINS!

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frozen Highlands - Moon Mountain

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

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

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

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

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

The Tale of The Dark Itself

Destination Reward: 25 EXP
Face Your Failures Achievement: Ramattra, Ace Cadet, Edward, Mokou, Heismay, Sandalphon
Achievement Reward: 5 EXP…and closure

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

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

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

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

Graveyard Orbit

After her dramatic exit through the saloon's window, Bandit landed in a heap of wood and glass debris. In a maneuver that would've carved up any flesh-and-blood burglar, she rolled sideways and scrambled to her feet to get a bead on her new surroundings. The last thing she needed was to leap out of the frying pan and into the fire, after all. For all she knew, there could be an angry mob waiting out here to finish what the drunkards inside had started and reduce her to squelchy scrap metal. Once her optical sensor re-calibrated to the bright afternoon sunlight, though, she found no hostiles poised to tear her limb from limb. Sure, there were a couple concerned passers-by drawn from the commotion inside the bar (not to mention the steady trickle of boozers from within, dazed and bruised as they licked their wounds) but for once the android wasn't staring down the barrels of any blasters. She sighed, letting out a cold puff of air from her neck hole, and rerouted her internal power off her combat systems. It looked like Bandit had successfully pocketed her ill-gotten gains and lived to purloin another day.

Having not properly copyrighted her escape strategy, however, Bandit quickly found herself with an imitator.

The android recoiled as one of the meatbags she'd been with crashed through another window and tumbled to a dusty, bedraggled stop nearby. To his credit, he didn't seem that much worse for wear, especially in comparison to the next unfortunate soul to be forcibly defenestrated. It was starting to get crowded out here, and if the bar brawl was about to be taken outside, Bandit did not want to wait around. Before she could beat a very hasty retreat, though, the din inside the saloon rather suddenly subsided. Bandit stood there for a moment, mentally optimizing her escape route as she tried to catch wind of what had transpired in her absence. In the end, she decided to plant her servos on the windowsill and stick her neck through the opening to see how the situation had evolved. After all, her prospects as a solo act seemed terribly shaky out on this inhospitable frontier. She'd seen the others' combat prowess firsthand, so there was no need to leave them for dead. In fact, she could easily imagine them taking control of the situation. When Bandit peered inside, that looked like just what had happened.

Over the course of a minute or two, it seemed, the locals had gone from trying to kill the marooned prisoners to entreating them for help. Not only that, but the huge fellow who would've happily put Bandit through a wood chipper a few moments ago was apparently what passed for a lawman 'round these parts. No wonder he hated her from the jump--cops like him could smell a wrongdoer from a mile away (which was her best explanation for how none of them gave her the benefit of the doubt, ever). From the looks of it, several of Bandit's accomplices were keen to forgive and forget the attempts on their lives as they accepted the townsfolk's request. Bandit could see the logic: if she and the others were officially helping the people here, the locals surely wouldn't try to kill them, and might even help them! Plus, if the hills here were rife with riflemen, going it alone would be even riskier than the android thought. With that, her own course of actions was decided. By the time Tarquin led Castleton, Kim, and Dusk back out into the sunlight, Bandit was out there waiting for them, posing like she owned the place (and hadn't just committed several misdemeanors). "Hey, pardners! Ready to wrassle us up some varmints?"

As the five set off, Bandit peered over her shoulder into the saloon where Charnud and Neri lingered. So, it would be the six of them from here on out, huh? No dangerous Ragon, no gassy space suit, no suave rogue, and no scary commando. There was safety in numbers, sure, but there were definitely some people the android could do without. Given the limited number of factions in play around here, maybe the ones who split off would turn up again later as adversaries. Only time would tell.

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

Forbidden Kingdom - Yellow Wind Ridge / Esaka’s Pools Tier

Setting: Clear Friday Afternoon
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (292/150) Level 11 Big Band (227/110)
Bowser Jr, Rika & Amaterasu’s @DracoLunaris Primrose, Therion & Pit’s @Yankee Sakura & Juri’s @Zoey Boey Captain Falcon’s @Double Yayama’s @Chevaleresse Grima’s @Goggy
Word Count: 2474 / 1659

Once the linkpearl conversation with the others about interlinks and R tapered off, Nadia returned her focus to her original goal: reaching the top of a pagoda in order to gain a vantage point over the borderland region. The gnarly peahat plants she’d awakened from their dormancy with a healthy sprinkling of pond water offered what looked like a perfect alternative to climbing the dusty old tower herself, although using them presented its own set of challenges.

For one, this ascent requires a lot of precise mechanical motion on her part. Every time, she needed to pressurize her arm by pumping blood into it, take careful aim, then slacken her muscle fibers as she released the blood in a controlled burst to launch her forearm. Once her claws sank into the root bundle on a peahat’s underside, she then needed to tighten the elastic muscle fibers that connected her disjointed forearm to her body into bungee cords in order to snap to her target. Pressurize, aim, blast, grab, retract, rinse, and repeat for a good dozen floating peahats.

This only got harder when she realized, upon grappling to the first plant, that the lift generated by its whirling leaves could not handle the extra weight instilled in the feral by the downside of her Massachusetts fusion, 2,700 Pounds of Justice. It was easy to forget since she didn’t look it at all, but Nadia technically weighed over three hundred and fifty pounds, which was enough to make any peahat she hung from start to sink downward. That gave her only a brief window after each snap in which she could perform the next one. Combined with inconsistent wind and Nadia’s own impetuous tendencies, and the catgirl ended up either missing her mark or outright falling from the sky seven or eight times, which demanded quick and clever use of her other abilities like Charge to salvage.

Still, it made for an engaging challenge if nothing else, and the minutes positively flew by. Eventually, Nadia finally did reach the top of the pagoda, where she seated herself on the sloped gray shingles with a tired but satisfied sigh to enjoy a well-earned sunbath. It was warm up here, pleasantly peaceful, and the view was excellent. Although Yellow Wind Ridge didn’t look like much at first glance, she could see all sorts of nooks, crannies, and creatures that seemed interesting enough to warrant a visit if she had the time. In fact, some of her allies had used their time in the area to do just that, delving into hidden lairs or warming up with a fight against a local menace or two.

The Seekers were here on a mission, though, and a little over half an hour, their communication sigils lit up again. This time, rather than talk to the interception team herself, Sandalphon patched them through directly to Poppi. The artificial blade’s voice was a little hard to hear over the sound of rushing wind, but her news was important enough that Nadia, Pit, and the others hung on every word.

“Attention, Gold Team friends. This Poppi. Consul convoy just entered canyon airspace, where Sandalphon said you waiting. Poppi and Grimm ready to down target, but Poppi batteries too low to fight too. Once consul out of sky, rest is up to friends on ground.” She paused for a moment as she cranked up her thrusters and began to accelerate toward the flock of airborne reptiles from behind. “Beginning strike. Over and out!”

Suddenly energized, Nadia hopped to her feet and searched the skies. After a moment she pointed toward the northwest, hopping up and down. “Oh, oh, I see them! Headin’ this way!”

While most of her teammates couldn’t see over the borderland region’s rocky ridges, Nadia’s vantage point allowed her to make out a large shape that looked like a big bird with a backpack or something, surrounded by a bunch of smaller birds. As they flew closer, chaos suddenly erupted among the flock. Crimson fireballs began to shoot out from the house on the quetzal’s saddled back, aimed at the pteranodons flying in formation around the giant reptile. Attacked out of the blue by what seemed to be their own boss, the argonian wingmen panicked. Some of them broke off to reach a safe distance, while others turned their crossbows or destruction spells on the mobile home. Only Poppi, closing the distance toward the convoy from behind, could see the truth right now: that a number of newly-summoned Grimmkin had emerged from within the structure to open fire on the unwitting guardsmen, almost impossible to see when in shadow.

Once the wingmen returned fire, of course, the consul relaxedly enjoying his afternoon snack inside reacted with equal parts confusion and fury. “What!? What’s happening!?” R threw open the front door and ran out onto the patio in time to see a few ice spikes and lightning bolts strike his mobile home. “Cease fire, you buffoons! This instant!” At that moment, however, Poppi boosted into view with her saber wrench in one hand and her umbrella lance in the other. She plunged the lance into a rider’s back, then as he writhed, slashed at the pteranodon beneath him to send both spiralling downward, then jetted away to avoid the other argonians’ wrath.

A creaking board from behind him prompted R to look over his shoulder. In the darkness of the doorway behind him loomed a black bug with a white face and scarlet eyes. R’s slitted eyes narrowed behind his mask. “This is your doing?” A bejeweled scepter appeared in his hand, aglow with magic. “It’ll be the last mistake you ever make!”

Meanwhile the ground team awaited R's convoy to crest the ridge, tense and ready for action. All except their captain, who'd been standing by in the middle of the flat land of the ridge. Clear of the rising stones and surrounded by nothing but sandy earth, it was the perfect take off point; and as soon as he heard Poppi confirm that she and Grimm were moving, he leapt up high into the air himself.

"Everybody in position!" Pit called. If there were any preparations the Seekers hadn't taken, they had better get it done fast. "We're gonna ground him hard and fast!"

A brief prayer later and the angel's wings began to glow with soft blue light, the same that formed the goddess Palutena's sigil-like halo. From there Pit rocketed higher into the air, turning sharply in R's direction once the consul's crew came into sight.

You have no idea how glad I am you got the Power of Flight working long distance, Lady Palutena!

I have some idea. It wasn't easy, but now that we've got you airborne... let's really put it to the test!

You got it! Let's go!

Pit hurtled forward like a comet. The convoy's guard seemed just as unprepared for a frontal assault as they had been from the rear and center, so when the angel blitzed passed a pair of them with his bow-blade flashing there was little else they could do but for beasts and riders to prepare for a collision course with the ground.

He sped up to meet with the artificial blade as she moved to dispatch another guardsman, giving her a grin and brief salute. "Poppi! Good to see you back in action! Can you handle the small fries while I take down this big lizard?"

A stream of lightning from the argonian mage atop the pteranodon slammed into a bright blue bubble shield projected by the artificial blade’s built-in generator. From the ash cloud hurtled Poppi’s lance, but the guardsman brought up a shield in time to block it. The drill bit on the staff’s end barely penetrated, but when Poppi triggered the magnetic retrieval system, the lance yanked the screaming argonian out of his saddle as the weapon flew back toward her. She gave Pit a nod. “Poppi got this covered!”

That prompted the angel to circle back around toward the quetzal. It wasn’t armored, but thanks to its size it boasted a lot of power. If Pit got swatted by its huge wing or beak, such a blow would be hard to recover from. As he studied the target, his gaze inevitably shifted toward the commotion on the front porch of the house on the quetzal’s back. There, Grimm and two of his Grimmkin were facing off against R, but what started as an assassination attempt had become a frenzied fight for the insect’s survival.

Protecting himself with a shield of elemental water that totally shut down the troupe master’s burn skills, R cast streams of blazing fire and scalding acid from his scepter. One after another, the Grimmkin were swallowed by R’s flame. Grimm warped into the air above R, hung there for a split second, then launched himself downward, shrouded in his cloak like a drill. Its point tore into the watery barrier, strong enough to disperse it, only to plow into an ice spell that left him frozen long enough for R to summon a rock and drop it on him. Crumpled like a squashed bug, Grimm lay on the porch until R picked him up by the throat and began to squeeze. “Filthy insect,” R spat, his eyes narrowing. “Time for you to go splat!”

Pit did not hesitate. Crashing the quetzal was important, and he had a window of opportunity to do it now while R was distracted - but there was no way he was going to just ignore a fellow Seeker in peril, even one he barely knew. He shot towards R, blade swapped for shields in a brief spark that left golden particles in his wake. With all the force of a battering ram Pit barreled in, one of the Orbitars aimed to crush the arm R held Grimm with while the other sought to daze him with a blow to the head with a dual Shield Smite. "Let him go!"

R proved much lighter than the angel might have expected. The blow sent the diminutive consul flying like he’d been hit like a car, crashing back through the front door of his mobile home. He tumbled through the living room and straight out the back patio, where he stopped upon colliding with the rear flower box. “Gyaaaah!” He lay there for a moment, dazed and dangerously close to falling off the quetzal, as Grimm gasped for breath.

Pit alighted next to the troupe master, surprised that his attack had been so effective. That surprise swiftly turned to determination; with the element of surprise on the Seekers' side, maybe this fight would go way more smoothly than they'd thought. And with R already on the edge of his ride, maybe they wouldn't even need to bring the entire dinosaur down - if it flew on, happy to be rid of its master while they took just the man himself to earth, then all the better!

He did not pause to make check on or conversation with Grimm, especially as the angel did not have any sort of healing he could offer, but he did spare the bug a glance and a "good work, get somewhere safe!" before he sprinted towards R once more. He would make to snatch the Consul and drag him into open sky himself where he could then send the man into free fall.

Knocked off the quetzal, R plummeted downward, screaming bloody murder. After a second or two, though, he reached out with his Moebius power to control a pair of the remaining pteranodons. The reptiles immediately dived down after him, ignoring their riders as they picked up so much speed that the argonians passed out a few seconds later.

With the job far from over, Pit zipped down after them. He pressed a hand to the linkpearl, shouting over the wind to warn the others, "incoming! R's going down! And he's got some kind of elemental powers!"

The pteranodons managed to catch up with R and grabbed onto him to try and stop his fall, but by then he’d plummeted so far and so fast that they could only reduce the consul’s speed until all three slammed into the earth of Yellow Wind Ridge, to the east of the other Seekers’ current position.

Nevertheless, it did not take the heroes long to scramble to the spot where R struck the ground. As Nadia’s jog slowed to a walk near the crater, Pit touched down nearby, his Power of Flight exhausted for now. All eyes were on the dusty cloud kicked up by the impact as it slowly cleared, revealing R flat on his back between four ashen corpses, still very much alive. He stirred suddenly, wracked by coughing as he tried to pick himself up. His eyes glared up at the Seekers from within his helmet as he stood with the help of his scepter.

“You think…you’ve got me cornered, do you? Outnumbered? Outgunned?” R hissed. The purple core in his chest was glowing brightly. “Well…its the cornered beast that fights hardest! GRAAAAAARH!”

R let out a roar, and a high-speed pulse of energy emanated from his position. It rapidly expanded across the surrounding area, including all Seekers present. Almost everything in the vicinity began to change, from the nearby plants to the Seekers themselves. Metal weapons turned to wood and stone, clothes and armor became hide and fur, technology regressed to the stone age, and living things returned to their primeval origins. A weird sensation spread across Nadia as her outfit became little more than a fur-lined beast-hide poncho, and sabre teeth extended downward from her upper jaw as her hair and tail became wild and scraggly. “Whuh? What’th happenin’ to me!?” Pit’s angel wings became the scaly flaps of a pteranodon and his swords became a simple bow, amongst other changes.

R cackled deviously. “Behold my power, Revert! I’ve turned back the clock, reverting everything to its most primitive, prehistorical form! In other words, I’ve evened the playing field. And now…”

Purple power surged outward across R’s body from his core, completely dissolving his body. A moment later, a new body took shape from the Moebius energy–a much, much bigger one. After a few seconds, the energy coalesced into a demonic titan as tall as a tyrannosaurus rex. Holding a magic staff the size of a tree, Moebius R unleashed a deafening roar. “AHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Now, the ball’s in MY court!” He leered down at the reverted Seekers of Light. “Puny, would-be assassins! Prepare yourselves…for extinction!”

vs the Tyrant King, Rage of Dinosaurs, Moebius R

---

By the time Big Band retraced his steps from Ashwat Village to Esaka, the sun was out and the somber grey clouds that hung above the Forbidden Kingdom that morning were no more than scattered puffs of marshmallowy white against a blue sky. It felt a lot warmer in the sun’s rays, but not warm enough to require the cooling system within Band’s brass body as he trudged past the Aurumaton gatekeepers and into the Low Tier. His time in the Sandswept Sky, beat like a drum by the desert heat, had revealed just how insufficient and obsolete his onboard life support systems really were. On the whole, that mobile iron lung of his could use a LOT of tune-ups, but for now the Lokjaw upgrades from Lab 8 would have to do. Hopefully they would serve him better in his upcoming match than they had against Potemkin, since now that he’d fallen to Losers, one loss was all it’d take to eliminate the detective from the World Warrior tournament completely.

Thorough consultation of several of the city’s special bulletin boards allowed him to make his way back up to the Pools tier and to the designated arena where his next fight would take place. As a rule, the stages where Pools matches happened varied a lot in terms of shape, size, material, and quality, but this one actually impressed him with how meager it was. It appeared to be a simple cube, a good fifty feet in length and width, its top surface only a foot or so above the water, composed entirely of standard white pool or bathroom tiles with no other features. No spectators hung around the area, less due to the lack of accommodations than to the unknowns scheduled to compete. At the very least, two of the tier’s wooden walkways formed piers leading to opposite sides, so getting to the arena was easy. Since Band happened to be a little early, he plodded over, lowered himself down atop the tiles, and began to wait.

A few minutes later, his opponent appeared in unceremonious silence, no different in manner from any random spectator until he stepped onto the arena and revealed himself as Band’s opponent. As he rose, his ascent marked by an unflattering rusty creak from his joints, the detective lifted an eyebrow. In front of him loomed a masked man in a tan fedora and trench coat much like his own, who stood at an impressive 7’7”--in other words, exactly as tall as Band himself. This man of mystery looked much lighter than the bell-shaped cyborg, but still sturdy, not to mention menacing with his metal face and glowing eyes. Was this fighter even human? At least he fell five inches (and many steroids) short of Band’s last opponent, but the detective couldn’t help but wonder at the strangely consistent pattern of foes he’d been facing, at least since Balrog.

“Well, hello there,” Band greeted his opponent, his voice flat. “So you’re Q, huh?”

Q said nothing. Whatever he was, he was a man or machine of few words. Band didn’t mind getting straight to business, so a taciturn foe suited him just fine. “Strong but silent, I see,” he remarked, planting one foot behind him as he readied himself for combat. “Guess we’ll let our fists do the talkin’.”

ROUND ONE, the Heavenly Principles spelled out. FIGHT!

Both fighters anticipated a rush from the other, but they took different tacts. Q crouched down in a defensive stance, while Band hopped directly upward and extended his clarinet in downward stab in the hopes of counterhitting his opponent’s charge. After landing with a thud, Band sidled backward slightly, and Q stepped forward only to crouch down again. From the furthest reach possible, the detective unleashed Giant Step. The big drum pedal fell just short of hitting Q overhead, but the unblockable tremor caused by its impact with the ground took Q by surprise and knocked him down. Band took a big step forward as Q picked himself up and poked at his foe twice with the twin trombone slides of Glissando, but the man of mystery stand-blocked patiently.

Still testing his opponent, Band took another step forward to try and grab the other gumshoe with Heavy Toll, but Q seemed to anticipate the throw and jumped away, out of the reach of Band’s bell halves. Q landed within a few paces of the arena’s edge, so Band kept up the pressure. So far, it seemed like both fighters favored slower, longer-ranged moves over close-quarters rushdown, making for a methodical match-up. If Q was anything like Band, though, he had a surprise or two up his sleeve, so Band remained cautious. He whiffed his saxophone uppercut, Air Mail Special, and recovered just in time to guard as Q suddenly bulled forward with a charging slug aimed at his head. Having spaced his special move well, Q turned out to be safe, but rather than attempt a frame trap he simply crouched down again. That gave him all the time in the world to react as Band hopped forward to attempt a jump-in Jelly Roll, which lost to an upward punch that anti-aired him.

With the duel beginning to accelerate, Band jumped again the moment he touched down, undeterred. He met Q in the air, who’d taken his leave of the ground himself, and to his surprise the Baritone Blast released from his centermost side-cap missed as Q performed an ungainly somersault stomp that sent Band crashing down. Once he hit the ground, Band teched backward, regained his feet, and brought up his music stand to defend against another, slightly different slug that probably would’ve beaned him overhead if he’d been hunkered down. After that Band hopped again, and Q crouched, only for the cyborg to whip out his tremendous Cymbal Clash to deafen Q with a disjointed overhead unperturbed by any anti-air jab. Finally, Band got to use his Sound Stun to leave his foe’s head ringing and allow him to follow up. He landed, zoomed forward a few paces for a Bass Drop, then unleashed a brief but resounding series of auditory attacks that ended with a classic Take the A-Train into Super Sonic Jazz.

Sent flying backward toward center stage, Q rose with a sizable life deficit but no signs of either fatigue or distress. Instead he halted Band’s attempt to use Bagpipe Blues with a swipe that boasted deceptive range, even for him. This he chained into an EX dash punch that did respective damage for a single hit. Upon recovering, Band jumped forward to perform his armored dropkick, 5000lb Slam, only for Q to see through it and parry it by puffing out his chest. That gave the man of mystery free reign to counterattack with a heavy barrage of swipes, clumsy but powerful.

Letting out a disgruntled grunt, Band pulled backward. He needed to not divert too much of his focus toward analysis, but he could already tell that Q had a solid grasp of fundamentals, with a fighting style that wasn’t anything fancy but boasted both offense and defense to spare. As he watched, Q performed some sort of move that prompted Band to guard, but no attack came out that he could see, which left him puzzled. Was that some kind of taunt? Or, like his Bagpipe Blues, did it confer some sort of advantage? Well, Band had plenty more knowledge checks of his own.

“Gimme a hit!” He burst forward with a heavy Brass Knuckle that Q wisely blocked, held back for a moment, then did it again. This time, though, his Lokjaw was wide open, so rather than guard a strike Q got scooped up by the command grab that was Take the A Train. “Slow train rollin’!” Its piston hammered him twice, then spat him out, and Band followed up with an extended explosive spring punch from his other Lokjaw for good measure. The detonation sent Q sliding dangerously close to the stage’s edge again. Band charged a Lokjaw punch that he sent flying over to try and finish his foe, but Q sidestepped after rising so that the blast would go past him, and with a nod Band pulled his arm back.

This round was almost his–Band could feel it. Now far away, he went for another Giant Step that forced Q to jump or be knocked down. He leaped closer, remained steadfast as Band plowed forward with a Brass Knuckle cancelled via Emergency Break, then tried to close the distance with his long-range swipe. His gloved hand glanced off of Big Band’s high hat cymbal as the detective proved that he could parry too. “Uh huh.” The Noise Cancel made a low hit from Hot Socks a no-brainer, and the ensuing combo ended with Timpani Drive “You’re gonna get beat!” The percussive beatdown proved more than enough to finish the round in Band’s favor.

ROUND ONE: BIG BAND WINS!

Calming his breathing, Band stepped back to let Q rise, then cracked his head from side to side. Q seemed like a good fighter, but it seemed like Big Band could do a lot more, and he was feeling refreshingly good. Only time would tell if the man of mystery rose to the occasion.

Frozen Highlands - Moon Mountain

Setting: Lunar Friday Afternoon
Lvl 10 Sandalphon (109/100) Level 9 Heismay (10/90)
Edward’s @DracoLunaris Blazermate & Sectonia’s @Archmage MC Ace Cadet’s @Yankee Roxas & Ganondorf’s @Double Ramattra’s @XoXKieroBombXoX Mokou’s @Goggy
Word Count: 866

Once the Man in the Moon showed his eerie, milk-white face, the hollow planetoid’s interior erupted into chaos. The Seekers scrambled to avoid an onslaught of burst-fire projectiles and black spike waves from every direction, forcing them to pay as much attention to their surroundings as they did to the boss itself. In this fight, speed was life.

Unlike most of her battles, Sandalphon had no safe distance to retreat to nor sniper’s nest she could hole up in to keep track of the team from afar. Since shooting the Man in the Moon in his giant eyes seemed no more effective than pinging his murky, possibly amorphous body, Sandalphon chose to prioritize her own wellbeing over sheer damage output, and to stand ready with her miracles available should her allies’ collective health fall too low. She did connect her ergo strings to Ramattra to lend him a hand with his own evasive abilities, but other than that and a couple opportune shots from her hexagun, the archangel found herself more than challenged by the task of evasion. As Roxas spread his Tailwind buff among more and more Seekers, though, its speed boost made it much easier to stay one step ahead of the chaos.

Even while obliged to stay on their toes, though, the Seekers were a force to be reckoned with. A fusillade of projectiles, from cannon shots and ignited arrows to divine power and spell bullets, slammed into the Man in the Moon in a non-stop barrage. In no time at all its oil-black body was burning thanks to the various fire and holy attacks headed its way. Although the lunar being did seem to possess a giant health pool, as one might expect of a heavenly body made manifest, it also presented an easy target if its enemies could get clear of its projectile pollution. The added firepower from the Seekers’ various minions, like Edward’s constructs and Ganondorf’s, made the first few moments of the fight especially painful for the Man in the Moon. Their poor evasive abilities made them easy pickings for the spike waves, though. Within a minute, the minions would all be gone. Except for the heroes’ new cats, who all seemed uniquely well-suited to the task of dodging these projectiles (when not addled by Madness, of course).

Once they became more familiar with the Man in the Moon’s attack patterns, as well as the frequency with which The Dark Itself felt inclined to interfere, the team’s melee fighters could leap into the fray with Roxas’ Tailwind at their backs. As speedy as ever, Heismay led the charge accompanied by three doppelgangers summoned by his Clone Art. His slashes did low damage, even when quadrupled, but every little bit sped up the rate at which the Man in the Moon’s health ticked down. Roxas, Ganondorf, and Ace (if the hunter opted to swap off his greatbow) hit much harder. Sectonia bade her minions to form a perimeter and help defend Mokou rather than employ her crystalline axe in melee range, but her spells punctuated her teammates’ efforts. Things seemed to be going well, but nobody was perfect, and the amount of hits taken from the various projectiles would only add up over time.

Heismay decided to pivot, foregoing the Man in the Moon’s body in favor of one of its hands. He darted forward, zigging and zagging to avoid crimson fireballs, then leaped at the giant limb in Assassin form. “Have at you!” His Lurking Nightblade cleaved into the arm like an axe into a tree, leaving a deep gash. The hand looked downward, its firepower diverted from the others, and focused its fire on the Eugief beneath it. Heismay weaved around, sacrificing his clones to briefly stun the hand again and again, as he continued to slash at the arm. After a few more strikes, the limb flinched and began to crumble. The eye in the hand’s palm went dark as it fell to the ground with a slam, which Heismay carefully avoided.

A couple seconds later, however, an eye opened on the back of the hand, and it levitated off the ground. Curling two of its four fingers against its palm, it began to float toward the nearest hero. It could no longer shoot projectiles, but it could still deliver a rock-hard wallop or seize a Seeker in its crushing grasp if approached.

Even once their sheer output dwindled a bit upon the destruction of their minions, the Seekers put out a lot of damage, aided by the Malice debuff applied by Blazermate. Just shy of a minute, the accumulated damage led to a loud crack as the Man in the Moon’s mask cracked. A huge fracture now split his face into three sections, and the pain seemed to awaken the being’s inner rage. His eyes began to glow red, and the pupil a brilliant white, as an angry flush suffused his mask. In response, the many eyes of The Dark Itself began to fly around en masse, and the pace of the Man in the Moon’s projectiles sharply increased. The Seekers were clearly making progress, but things were going to get worse before they got better. All the while the dormant sun continue to drink in Mokou’s heat, glowing brighter and brighter, a blazing furnace. It wouldn’t take much longer.

Hellsingers: Solomon's Miasma (Demon Slayer and Koudelka Inspired, European setting) [open]

I think you're striking on some great points of inspiration and I can't help but be interested in this unique blend of historical fantasy and gothic indulgence. I have a possible idea brewing...a man from British-colonized Botswana, instructed by Lutheran missionaries in subjects such as Dutch and devil hunting, who initially helped the diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes when the mines of his newly-established De Beers Group disturbed ancient evils hidden beneath the earth. After being recognized there for his skills he could end up bound on a ship to Europe in order to help quell the growing scourge up north.

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

Forbidden Kingdom - Warfang

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Y-Yes, sir!” the Yurble gasped.

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

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

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

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

Forbidden Kingdom - Swopes Farm

Setting: Cloudy Friday Afternoon
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (289/150) Level 11 Big Band (224/110)
Bowser Jr, Rika & Amaterasu’s @DracoLunaris Primrose, Therion & Pit’s @Yankee Sakura & Juri’s @Zoey Boey Captain Falcon’s @Double Yayama’s @Chevaleresse Grima’s @Goggy
Word Count: 1253

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frozen Highlands - Moon Mountain

Setting: Frigid Friday Afternoon
Lvl 10 Sandalphon (107/100) Level 9 Heismay (8/90)
Edward’s @DracoLunaris Blazermate & Sectonia’s @Archmage MC Ace Cadet’s @Yankee Roxas & Ganondorf’s @Double Ramattra’s @XoXKieroBombXoX Mokou’s @Goggy
Word Count: 798

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

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

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

Much to its chagrin.

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

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

VS the Man in the Moon…

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

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

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

...& the Dark Itself!

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

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

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

Forbidden Kingdom - Warfang

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

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

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

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

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

“Hello! Is that yours?” she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forbidden Kingdom - Qingce Village

Setting: Cloudy Friday Afternoon
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (286/150) Level 11 Big Band (224/110)
Bowser Jr, Rika & Amaterasu’s @DracoLunaris Primrose, Therion & Pit’s @Yankee Sakura & Juri’s @Zoey Boey Captain Falcon’s @Double Yayama’s @Chevaleresse Grima’s @Goggy
Word Count: 545

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frozen Highlands - Moon Mountain

Setting: Frigid Friday Afternoon
Lvl 10 Sandalphon (105/100) Level 9 Heismay (6/90)
Edward’s @DracoLunaris Blazermate & Sectonia’s @Archmage MC Ace Cadet’s @Yankee Roxas & Ganondorf’s @Double Ramattra’s @XoXKieroBombXoX Mokou’s @Goggy
Word Count: 1527

Cat Upgrades

Saranwrap:
Emergency (Active)
Run to the ally with the most missing health, trampling everything in the way

Baconator:
Sucker Punch (Active)
Once activated, the next time an enemy moves within reach, stop its movement with a melee attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Forbidden Kingdom - Warfang

Despite her determined announcement to get her teammates moving, Anais lingered in the vicinity of the marketplace for a few minutes after splitting up from Susi and Poppi. Her crutches did not give her the luxury of quick relocation, yes, but she also just wasn’t sure where to go yet. Even if she did remember Warfang’s layout from her childhood, and she most certainly did not, so much had changed that Tyrannia’s capitol might just as well be a new city. She figured she needed to get somewhere with a good view, but there was no telling if any of the grand towers that protruded from the sandstone cityscape were open to the public, or the private property of one of the four great dragon guilds. It would be hard for the factions in play here to be as cruel and ruthless as the district bosses back in Warfang’s Mokai days, but it paid to be careful in this region nonetheless. Its reptilians inhabitants might be cold-blooded, but civilized or not, tempers could flare as hot as the midday sun. And that was very hot indeed, so hot that the seamstress felt it increasingly important that she find herself some shade.

Already sweating, Anais made her way to a leopard-hide awning between a granite grillhouse called Tyrannian Foods and a cavewoman-owned prehistoric boutique by the name of Ugga Shinies, where she seated herself a respectable distance away from an elderly lady with bone jewelry and a theropod companion, who gave her an amicable nod. After carefully setting her crutches down, the seamstress rested to watch the marketplace as she tried to catch her breath.

There were so many people, human or otherwise, hustling and bustling about the place. She supposed that they simply must be accustomed to the conditions here. In the intervening years since her childhood here, Anais knew she’d gotten very acclimatized to the Avenger’s comfortably climate-controlled interior. It had been so long since she’d even seen combat…she loved peace, of course, but she knew she was made for more. As the child of a warrior princess and an elite warrior of the Sky Guard, fighting was in her blood. Nevertheless, she’d come to this dangerous place, the home of Moebius R an countless powerful dragons, unarmed. Well…with crutches under both arms, there wasn’t much room for her dusty old axe.

As she rested, Anais happened to turn her attention back toward the omelette stand Grimm took an interest in earlier. There wasn’t much of a breeze to carry tantalizing smells her way, but the food did look good enough to remind her that she hadn’t had lunch. At the moment, an eye-catching duo happened to be there: a sporty young woman and a splendid raptor-like dinosaur with bright blue scales and vermillion stripes. Even from here, Anais could appreciate its spiky fangs -made for skewering fish but perfectly suited for chomping omelettes- and its wicked carving talons, one per foot. Her gaze lingered longest on its saddle, reminding her just much she missed mounting up on a scaly beast of her own. She couldn’t help but be jealous of the Velocidrome’s rider…who, now that Anais looked closer, rather perfectly matched the description provided by Primrose prior to the mission. Her brown eyes opened wide. “Oh. Oh!”

Anais rose in a hurry and made a beeline for the other woman as fast as her crutches would let her, careful as always not to step on any tails. She caught Kayna mid-munch only a few seconds after she left the omelette stand and gave an awkward bow of pre-emptive apology for the words that then poured out of her. “Hi, hello, sorry! Are you Kayna? I’m an ally of Primrose Azelhart? She met you in, um, Meridi-at-han?” She paused only briefly to hope that she had her facts straight. “I’m here with some friends. Two metal girls, and a big bug named Grimm. We’re here for Consul R. Uh, here hoping to meet him, that is. Do you know him? Or I mean, know about him? You know, where he is, what he’s up to, when and where he might be going…uh, anything?”

She let out a nervous laugh and tried to calm down. “Ahah, excuse me. I’m moving too fast. Impatient. I’m Anais, Anais Partridge. If you are Kayna _{and I seriously hope you are} it’s, uh, a pleasure to meet you.”

Elsewhere in Warfang, Grimm was moving quickly. Even in a sunlit, sandstone city like this, the afternoon sun cast plenty of shadows, and the prevalence of non-human inhabitants played to Grimm’s advantage. He moved quickly, quietly, and thanks to his teleportation ability, non-linearly. In no time at all, he reached the base of the enormous, roughly cylindrical stone fortress that formed Warfang’s centerpiece.

It sat, endlessly and inexplicably rotating, atop a sort of sloped pedestal. Three quarters of it looked like rough stone, but one side had been painstakingly carved into sheer surfaces beneath six arched openings where stalwart Peacekeeper sentries stood in the flickering light of braziers. Grimm paused in the shade of a dragon statue as he peered up at the citadel. The entrance would no doubt be heavily guarded, but those lookout posts featured just one guard apiece. They would be on guard for any winged assailants that might attempt unlawful entry, but what about a small, scuttling shadow, crawling down from above? Grimm darted forward, his blurred form as indistinct and fleeting as a desert mirage, and began to climb.

Forbidden Kingdom - Fields of Gold

Setting: Cloudy Friday Afternoon
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (285/150) Level 11 Big Band (224/110)
Bowser Jr, Rika & Amaterasu’s @DracoLunaris Primrose, Therion & Pit’s @Yankee Sakura & Juri’s @Zoey Boey Captain Falcon’s @Double Yayama’s @Chevaleresse Grima’s @Goggy
Word Count: 2043

Despite her small stature, Yayama was sturdily built, enough so that the 7’7”, five thousand-pound cyborg Big Band actually noticed when she bumped into him. He did not begrudge her one bit, however, and when she greeted him with an update request he gave a nod of acknowledgement. “No sweat, there’s a lot to think about. Of all the challenges this world throws at us, Consuls might just be the worst. They got a whole lotta nasty tricks up their sleeve, and that’s just the powers all of ‘em have; there’s no tellin’ what ‘secret ingredient’ R’s bringin’ to our li’l shindig.”

Band gave a sharp, tense sigh and looked around at Ashwat Village. Ordinary people were coming and going, just another day of trying to make a living off the land and its bounty. “As for news, nothin’ much. Everythin’s quiet ‘round here. All business as usual, far as I can tell. I’ve pretty much been a city slicker my whole life.”

As he surveyed the scene, though, he spotted one person who didn’t stick out as she sauntered Big Band’s way, her calico tail waving behind her. The detective tilted his head in the catgirl’s direction, indicating the way that Yayama should glance. “I guess there’s one li’l bit of good news. Look what the cat dragged in.”

Nadia could easily spot Big Band among the steady parade of farmers, carts, and draught animals, but she didn’t quite notice Yayama until just before she came to a stop at the cyborg’s side. “Oh, hi.” Although her meeting with Band with reasonably well, all things considered, she dreaded the possibility of having to go through the process of admitting guilty, expressing contrition, and resolving to do better with every Seeker of Light that found his or her way here. Nadia quickly decided to not get into it and leave it to the dark knight to broach the subject, if she felt so inclined. Instead she gave what she hoped was a disarmingly friendly smile. “Glad you’re stickin’ it out with us. We’re an odd bunch, and it’s a sucky job, but someone’s gotta do it, eh?” She scoured her mind for possible puns to squeeze into her speech, without any possible racial insensitivity, but for the moment the catgirl came up short.

Only a few moments after the lalafell’s absent-minded arrival, Primrose made an radiant entrance to Ashwat, and seconds later her sticky-fingered companion showed up with a fresh new color scheme. Big Band’s titular stature made it easy for the comrades to find one another, and although it felt good to be reunited, the Seekers did not spend much time on idle pleasantries. Rather than the past, Therion put the team’s focus onto their future–specifically, one without Kazuya in it. Nadia’s faked death might mean she was off the villain’s radar for now, but the heroes would only know peace once G-Corp’s overlord was out of the picture for good. “Right,” she replied, limbering herself up as if she was going to get on that right now. “He made things purr-sonal. I’m itchin’ to make that bastard pay.” Cracking a smile, she winked at her fellow thief. “Plus, once he’s taken care of, the rest of his sneakers are ours for the takin’. No footwear ish-shoes ever again!”

Just then, another few reinforcements turned up: two captains (one by name, one by nature) and a twintail-sporting swordswoman. Unfamiliar with this newcomer, Nadia sized her up quickly. She looked fancifully medieval, in sort of the same vein as Yayama, and her eyes lacked Galeem’s sunset-red glare…even if they possessed another, subtly predatory glint that the feral couldn’t quite place. Nadia glanced at Pit for an introduction of some sort, figuring that an explanation fell to the person in charge, but the angel seemed more preoccupied with the task ahead. Well, the feral couldn’t really fault him for that. When Grima looked her way, Nadia gave a cheerful grin and a breezy wave.

By now, Nadia was actively checking the road that led south back toward Esaka, and sure enough, when she looked again she spotted a couple more Seekers. Bowser Jr, Rika, the wolf Amaterasu, and the Bogard twins made for the strangest assortment yet. They arrived to find the rest of their comrades talking strategy about what came next.

“Northwest,” Band corrected Pit. “And from what I gather, there ain’t any roads leadin’ that way. Which is actually good for us. If we catch R in the middle o’ nowhere, he ain’t got any innocents to drag into the fight. And I know for a fact that their teleports ain’t good for long-distance travel, so all we gotta do is catch him.” Of course, that wouldn’t be easy. The theoretical ambush depended on intelligence from the operatives in Tyrannia, but given the amount of ground to cover the Seekers would probably need to get started before they got word, or it might be too late to intercept R en-route. And once they intercepted him, it wouldn’t be right to say that things got easier from there, given how powerful and unpredictable Consuls could be. Still, there were thirteen people here now, almost every Seeker in Esaka. They weren’t planning to make it a fair fight.

When the conversation inevitably turned toward practical matters, Nadia spoke up. “Oh, I found a way we could cover some ground? Maybe? Over here.” Beckoning to the others, she led the way through Ashwat toward a special building. The giant, cobbled-together horse head atop it, as well as the pungent, heady odor of animals, marked as the stable. Nadia winced, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and took a look. There seemed to be three kinds of horses available: a reddish brown kind, a chocolate brown kind, and a kind with a very weird head. That wasn’t all, though. To the feral’s surprise, she also found a handful of giant yellow chickens also geared up for transportation. Finally, there was something between a wolf and a badger, with white fur that might’ve been majestic if it wasn’t so dirty.

Nadia seemed to be having second thoughts. “People really ride animals like these…?” She’d faced bigger and scarier creatures throughout the World of Light already, so the beasts here didn’t exactly scare her, but she did not relish the prospect of trusting her life to one. “Well, whatever you guys want, I can cover the cost. I’ve got a mount-tain of cash and I’m not horsin’ around!”

A moment later, Band walked over from the local he’d been talking to. “Bad news, folks. It’s later than I figured, so there’s no way we’re gettin’ done with this before my next match. It’s either go without me, or I drop outta the tournament.” He peered at the various animals available for rent from the stable. “I don’t think any critters here want me ridin’ ‘em anyway.”

“It’s ok, we got this! Can’t fur-get the main mission after all.” Although Nadia had another match today herself, it would be late enough in the day that there should be plenty of time to deal with R and get back to Esaka before she got disqualified. “If twelve of us can’t beat one Consul, thirteen probably ‘dozen’ make a difference.”

The feral headed into the stable and reached for her magic wallet as she stepped up to the counter. “Hey there! We wanna rent some mounts for a li’l trip northwest, so you’re in for some ‘stable’ income!”

“Splendid!” The mustached man behind the counter clasped his hands. “Northwest, you said? Careful not to stray too far, I hear the flooding’s quite extensive, especially near Swopes Farm.” Shrugging, he gestured toward the available animal. “Well, we have plenty of horses, chocobos, and wulgs today. Which would you like?”

Nadia scratched her chin as she took another look around. “Hmm…well, the horses smell. Dogs and cats don’t mix. So how about a chicken? Er, chocobo?”

The man turned to whistle to a coworker, and after a moment or two she brought out a gallant chocobo steed with fluffy feathers and a brilliant dandelion color. The farmhand offered Nadia the reins. “How’s this?”

Nadia reached up to stroke the chocobo’s neck and smiled when he did not flinch away. “Poultry in motion!” She turned to look around at the other Seekers, her expression innocent. “So how does it work?”

After a good ten or fifteen minutes, the team’s mounts were paid for and ready to. Band, along with any other Seekers who couldn’t make the journey, stood by to watch the assorted horses, chocobos, and wulgs of various sizes gather at Ashwat’s edge, some riders much more confident than others. “Good luck, everyone,” he intoned, and a moment later the adventurers were off.

Within minutes of departing from Ashwat Village, the rolling golden wheatgrass gave way to a sprawling, watery rice field, where the streaks of sunlight through gray clouds shone down on glittering rivers, vibrants fronds, bamboo thickets, and trees chock-full of snow-white buds, all adrift in perpetual motion thanks to a fresh, ever-present breeze. Just as expected, no roads existed to show the Seekers the way, so they needed to rely on the position of the early afternoon sun to tell which direction to go. Conveniently, though, the wind seemed to blow at their back the whole time, as if speeding the heroes onward toward victory. In order to not risk drowning their mounts the team took advantage of the green, grassy stretches between the rivers, rather like roads in appearance. Bamboo rafts and giant lily pads permitted them to cross the waterways with a couple well-timed jumps. Other than the terrain itself, easily-startled beretsants, and the occasional farmer hard at work, no obstacles barred the travelers’ progress, making it an ideal time for conversation. They could also see plenty of interesting wildlife, from froglike Croajiro to watchful Kingambit.

After a good twenty minutes or so, the farmland got a little hillier, the groves of trees around the edges more dense, the farmhouses less frequent, and the horsetail reeds more prevalent. When the travelers exited a small rocky pass, they found themselves overlooking a beautiful fertile valley split by a rushing, deep river, too wide for even the sprightliest chocobo to jump over. The rope bridge, it seemed, was out. This valley housed a small settlement, though, which made it a poor spot for a showdown with R. If they meant to move on, the Seekers would need to find an expedient way across the river.

“Augh, my thighs are KILLIN’ me.” Once she dismounted, Nadia stretched, contorting her body in ways that should not be possible as she took a look around. It was a very pretty area, but they couldn’t stop and smell the roses right now. The locals seemed friendly, at least, and she could already see a farm girl and botanist duo possibly hoping to sell their wares to the newcomers. Upstream a ways, Nadia’s sharp eyes spotted a couple rope bridges stretched between rocky ridges. As she watched, though, one of the several small blueberry-like creatures attempted to cross, only for a face on the cliff she hadn’t seen yet to sneeze and launch the zoombini back where it came. “...Huh.”

Frozen Highlands - Moon Mountain

Setting: Frigid Friday Afternoon
Lvl 10 Sandalphon (102/100) Level 8 Heismay (83/80)
Edward’s @DracoLunaris Blazermate & Sectonia’s @Archmage MC Ace Cadet’s @Yankee Roxas & Ganondorf’s @Double Ramattra’s @XoXKieroBombXoX Mokou’s @Goggy
Word Count: 1693

Now much larger than the angry paripus rioters in his Assassin form, and given a second wind by his determination to keep his poor cats alive, Heismay steeled himself for action. With great effort he forced himself to turn away from the ghastly gallows that leered at him from within Moon Mountain’s shadowy alcove. From somewhere within the unruly throng he could still hear his long-lost son’s voice, his scared and plaintive cries begging his father to save him from the savage beastmen who’d trample him half to death and leave him to die, too far gone to be saved by the time his absent father finally arrived. This vision of the past stung Heismay like a dagger to the heart, and so did the act of abandoning it, but after the cats’ yowls of pain brought the eugief to his senses his anger burned much hotter than his regret. Whoever or whatever might be responsible for these phantoms, how dare they try and prey upon him, deceive him like this, with the memory of his boy. The past could not be changed, but the future had yet to be written, and Heismay would atone for his mistakes by not letting them happen again.

Even as he made to leave the sorry scene behind, however, Heismay realized it would be no mean feat. Between him and the upward path stood rows upon rows of paripus malcontents, snarling and gnashing their teeth like rabid dogs. “Leave us be!” Heismay took the initiative and sprang forward, unshouldering the Assassin’s curved greatsword for a wide, round slash that struck a whole row of beastmen at once. They faltered, stumbling backward, but the next second the crowd pushed forward again. Holding his cats close to his armored chest, the swordsman struck again and again to try and clear a path, but the horde would simply not yield. No matter which way Heismay turned, he found only more enemies out to get him, lashing out with cruel punches and kicks, stones, bricks, and other makeshift weapons. There were simply too many of them.

After a few moments he stepped back, tensed up, and then sprang upward in an attempt to leap clear over the crowd. For a brief moment his heart soared as he flew toward the open night air outside the alcove, only for hands to close around his feet and yank him back to the earth. “No!” He landed with a heavy slam as he attempted to cushion the cats’ fall with his Archetype’s large body, then rolled backward as the paripus threatened to dogpile him. When he sprang to his feet, pushing free from grasping hands, the alcove’s exit looked even further than before.

“Curses!” Heismay spat, his voice given a metallic resonance in his Assassin form. He glanced down at his cats to make sure they were still alive, then glared at the mass of rioters. “Paripus scum!” Unable to sustain his Archetype any longer, he reverted to his normal form, and backed further away with one kitten clutched in each arm. With every moment, every expenditure of magla, it seemed less and less likely that he’d be able to fight his way out of this. These obscure enemies, either no-selling his attacks or replenishing their numbers as fast as he reduced them, did not seem to follow the rules of combat as the eugief knew them. What, then, was he to do?

Breathing heavily, Heismay tried to slow down and think about this. For the moment, the rabble didn’t appear to be pushing forward, at least. He’d already gotten an inkling, based on how this encounter was clearly tailored to his painful past, that this was less of a combat challenge than it was some sort of trial or lesson. “But I’ve already chosen to make up for my failings by safeguarding these young ones,” he muttered, frustrated. “So why am I still stuck?”

Still wary, he tried to study the faces in the throng before him, searching for anything that could be a sign, a hint, or an opening. He saw nothing but murderous eyes and malicious, toothy smiles, ready to rip him limb from limb. More beast than man. “Tis all because of you,” he growled. “You people. You think yourselves victims, then turn around and trample those weaker than you underfoot, just as bad as your oppressors. Blindly tearing others down, in the hopes that it might raise you up!”

After tucking one cat along with the other under one arm, he began to gesture with angry indignation. “Look at me! The eugief tribe is outcast, worse off still than the paripus, and yet I made something of myself. Grueling and thankless it was, but I worked hard and gained a life that I could be proud of, something I could be happy with!” Tears congealed in his eyes as he gritted his teeth. “Only for you to take it away!”

The paripus began to push closer. Heismay shook his tears out and seized his scythe to brandish at the bloodthirsty throng as he began to retreat, one step at a time. “. For just a moment, though, his eyes darted back toward the gallows, to the limp figure that hung there. “Maybe you lost people, too. Loved ones. Sons and daughters, friends of your own. But what gives you the right!? To spread the same sort of evil you suffered!?” His back touched the uneven rock wall of the alcove, and he swallowed. “Maybe it was just an accident,” he guessed, a little too quickly. “I know…not every paripus is to blame for hurting him. But he laid there, on the street, for hours. How many dozens…how many hundreds of you saw him, broken and bleeding, and did nothing? Did not care?” His voice almost broke, but he choked back his grief to let out a fierce bellow. “So why should I!?”

Without realizing it, Heismay had lowered his scythe. When he looked up in the moment of silence that followed, he saw that the crowd had slowed to a stop. When he stared at their faces, he found not beasts, but mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, haggard, hungry, sick, old, and tired. Widows, widowers, and orphans. After a moment, his gaze drifted downward. The alcove was quiet.

“I blame the paripus,” he murmured quietly. “Of course I do. I must. But I mostly blame myself. For not being there. For my failure as a father.” He thought about the supposed nature of this trial and tried to work through his feelings. “This place…the final stop on our journey to the moon itself. Tis only fitting it would be our greatest challenge yet.” He shook his head with a snort. “Tis a mirror, isn’t it? A dark mirror. Reflecting the worst parts of us. What mountain is harder to scale than ourselves?”

He set his cats down and stroked their heads. “Hatred breeds hatred,” he thought aloud. “I’m well aware. Perhaps if I look at paripus and see only enemies, enemies are what I’ll find. So it’s up to you.” Heismay peered at the shadows, his gaze unwavering. “If you are beasts, I suppose you’ll try to kill me. But if you are men…you’ll let us pass.” The eugief took a deep breath, stowed his scythe, and walked forward.

His instincts cried out in alarm, and nervous energy filled his body, but as he approached the wall of legs and tails he found that he could slip through. It felt like making his way through a dark forest, albeit much more claustrophobic, but slowly he found his way through the crowd. His cats followed behind, afraid but trusting. After only a few moments, Heismay emerged from the alcove and onto a rocky ledge with the brothers at his feet. He stood, staring out into the void beyond the mountain for a moment, then turned to look over his shoulder. Behind him, the alcove was empty, a nook of nothing but stone and shadow. Heismay closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and began to climb.

Only a minute or two later, the three reached a relatively flat, recessed snowfield on the mountain slope. Heismay almost jumped to see the moon so close, only a couple hundred feet away. Had he already reached the peak? Up ahead, the path led through a narrow rock passageway to a round door in a wall of stone that seemed to block the way to the moon. When he approached he received his second surprise: that Sandalphon, of all people, had beaten him here.

“Hello,” he greeted her as he trudged her way. Despite the altitude, he felt no wind. He could see no clouds or stars, or sky at all, nor any horizon. It was as if Moon Mountain hung in an ink-black abyss, and it unsettled him. “Are you well? Did you encounter any trouble?”

Sandalphon’s eye looked empty, not even reflecting the soft light of her halo. “Only some unpleasant visions.”

“I see. And you overcame them?” Heismay furrowed his brow as the archangel nodded. “If I may ask…how?”

Sandalphon returned her attention to the strange, cubic totem by the door. “I simply informed them that they had the wrong person.”

The frankness of her response amused Heismay enough despite the bleak circumstances to elicit a snicker. “Hmph. Why didn’t I think of that?” He crunched through the snow to get a better look at the odd cube. “What’s that?”

“Some sort of archaic device,” Sandalphon reported. “It seems to accept a key. Did you find one on your way up here?”

Heismay shook his head, followed by both Baconator and Whopper. When he realized Sandalphon wasn’t actually looking at him, Heismay cleared his throat. “Uh, no.” His thoughts drifted back to last night, to the burnt-out shack near the Christmas Village. “Let’s hope one of the others arrives with it.” When he stopped speaking, the mountaintop fell dead silent, except for the occasional meow of the Seekers’ cats.

Graveyard Orbit

What could've easily been a brutal, one-sided hate crime turned into an all-out bar brawl as the newly-arrived prisoners made their stand against their alcoholic aggressors. Maybe the surly locals thought that the unfamiliar misfits would make for easy pickings, but James, John, Saeyon, and the rest offered staunch opposition in a onslaught of punches, projectiles, and makeshift weapons. Fueled by military rigorous training regimens instead of crudely distilled intoxicants rife with acetone and aldehydes, the newcomers fought well, and as the number of conscious Dhasath rapidly dwindled, the destruction within the saloon mounted. This establishment would probably go bankrupt from all the property damage...just what about the unwanted unfortunates could have possibly sparked such devastating vitriol?

Bandit didn't think too hard about it; what mattered to her was that her new 'friends' made excellent distractions. Their efforts gave the deceptively stealthy android almost free reign to scour tables and peruse pockets. In no time at all, Bandit racked up a handful or two of dirty banknotes, frayed and sweat-stained, several personal effects like watches and rings, and plenty of different coins. Ultimately, her spoils didn't amount to that much, maybe equal to the cost of a battery pack or three, if she was lucky.

Luck was seldom on the thief's side, however. Even if Bandit tried to not draw attention to herself, it was only a matter of time until one of the locals spotted her crouching beside a stunned drunkard and paused long enough to realize what she was up to. Bandit's optical sensor snapped up at the sound of a snarled insult and bore witness to an angry brute of elephantine proportions, thundering her way with a makeshift bludgeon in hand.

Without a word, nor even a second's hesitation, Bandit turned and bolted away in abject terror. She pulled over a barstool behind her in the hopes that it'd trip up any would-be pursuer, then expended some of her precious energy to rocket forward with her legs' built-in thrusters. The next moment, she through herself headfirst through a window (which shattered noisily) and into the street or alleyway beyond, ready to flee as far and as fast as she needed to. Maybe she could've gleaned a little more moolah from the aftermath of the fracas inside the saloon, but whatever paltry sum she might gain from her vulturism certainly wasn't worth her life.