DracoLunaris

World of Light

The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 1,654 (+3)
Bowser: Level 9 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (124/90)
Bowser Jr: Level 8 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (50/80)
Kamek: Level 8 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (48/80)
Location: Bottomless Sea – the Maw - the Depths
Feat: Rika

Despite having initially insisted that he was an expert in these things Bowser rapidly lost track of the situation involving the diving suit claiming it was mirage, and his initially threatening posture became one of befuddlement, the King leaning on the hammer head and scratching his head with a finger as he tried to process this all

“There's lots of me too,” Rika offered when Blazaermate suggested that mirages might be mass produced, but that didn't really sync up with what was going on when she thought about it some more “Though, uh they all look like be but defiantly don't act like me, least not the me who is me now, which is kinda the opposites with your situation. You seem as nice as the other Mirage, just a bit confused. So. maybe not the same?”

Fortunately for both of them, and for the mockingbird, Sakura recovered from her stupor thanks to Geralt, and then moved in to help clear up the solution, showing the diving suit himself in his reflection, which his delusion did not extend to for some convenient reason. Whatever the case, the matter was resolved and the suit, now aware of its new existence, named himself Duerage.

“Well I think it's a great name, Duerage!” Rika, having been in that situation and knowing exactly how hard it was, said encouragingly to him. Bowser just shook his head, still confused but kind of instinctively recognizing that Durage had gotten a bad deal in life.

”Ouch. You know maybe Junior had the right idea sitting this one out. Speaking of which,” Bowser turned and then shouted over at the round sub ”How you doing in there son?”

”Good! I think I’ve got it.” Jr called back while giving the controls a final little test shoogle to make sure he did and then shouting ”Yeah, I've got it. We're ready to roll out! Who’s coming?”

The first, and possibly only, person to come over was Missfortune, not to hitch a ride but to give him her fan to use in-case of emergencies.

”Gee, thanks. Guess I’ll if I get crunched I’ll just hold my breath then huh. I mean I’m good at that compared to most people, I think? Koopa fizzy-ol-oggy. How is this thing powered anyway?” Jr said, giving it a once over, mostly to distract himself from the mental image his brain was helpfully creating of the nature of the situation that would lead him to need to use the fan, but not figuring anything out while doing so. Least if he was lucky it's inscrutability meant it would maybe be waterproof. It would, he thought, be very ironic to survive the death of the sub only to be electrocuted to death by Nadia’s well meaning gifted/lent item.

”So just me then huh? No one else? Fine! You’d have just slowed me down anyway” Jr asked after waiting for a few moments for anyone else, and then huffed when it looked like no one else was coming down.

“I mean I could...” Rika approached and offered but was shooed off ”No no you're fine, help Papa distract it and maybe give that thing a shot of two for me. Besides, if we do need to swim, that battery is definitely not gonna be safe to have with us.”

“It isn't?” Rika cocked her head in confusion

”Uh, yeah… seriously, don't go into the water with that on, it’ll shock you super bad.” Jr told her

“Ok I won’t.” Rika said, taking this in stride “So... Good luck? That’s what people say right?”

She got an appreciative nod.

”Go gettem son, Papa’s gonna make sure that stupid fish doesn't get anywhere near you. Speaking of that: Rika! Grab some of his stuff so we can taunt him with it!” Bowser called over from where he was in the process affixing the weird gross whatever it was that had been in the jar to the end of the shoddy fishing rod without touching it with his claws. This was not going well as his only tool for doing this was a hammer head, and, well the mess that would result of treating the thing like a nail was not something anyone wanted.

“That seems kinda mean?” Rika said, glancing over at the guy’s sad pile of things.

”He’s gonna be trying to eat me. He gets what he deserves. ” Jr asserted, before moving to close the hatch.

”Jr, one last thing! Here, Rika, give him this!” Bowser called out, before tossing Rika a black winged key he’d already taken from the fish guy’s things. He missed/she failed to catch it and it got way too close to falling in the water, but after that heart attack of a near miss, she picked it up and completed the relay by handing it to Jr with a “here”

”Huh. Thanks. Man it would have been bad to get down there and realize we needed to come back for the key wouldnt it” he joked.

“Yup” Rika said back as she headed over to the fish’s junk pile.

”Welp. Here we go for real” Jr said to anyone that might have joined him last second during the series of delays, or maybe just to Mimi who was definitely coming with him, and then battened down the hatch, made doubly sure it was secure, strapped himself into the pilot’s seat and then steered the sub to followed the two Mirage piloted robots down into the water.

As he started to set off Rika headed over to the fish man’s cruddy cubby hole, haphazardly scooped up the other jars, the doll, the cards and, failing to get much else out of all this, the whole tv which she then she lugged over to the King.

”Wow, didn't mean that too. Are you alright there? Gotta save your strength. Don’t wanna go mad from the hunger ha ha ha... urg.” Bowser tried to joke but the hunger gnawing at his belly was not really something that he could make light of. Rika shrugged in response as she set down the tv and then, on a whim, sat the porcelain doll on top to watch the water while she explained that “I thought maybe it’d make a nice splash?” right before Nadia made a far larger one by dropping a platform into the water.

---

”Goomba Shoes! What in the world are they doing!” Kamek cried out in alarm down below where he was with Frog, Link and the Moogle (apparently pretty useless as far as Kamek was concerned) where standing when the drop happened, and then their fishy host gave him something to really be alarmed about when he crashed out of the water in all his disgustingly horrifying glory.

The members of the troop who could see this all watched in horror as he launched himself out of the water at Nadia, but fortunately the big bad salmon fell well short of the clambering cat. Kamek was so relieved that it was only when she mocked it with the fact that she was too high up for him to catch that Kamek realized ”Oh. We aren't are we… Oh bother!” and then turned and waddled after Link who’d realized this much much sooner.

Rather than retreat all the way to the door, however, Link had stopped, and then started yelling out a plan to act as bait. ”Are you mad?! Wait you're a hero of course you are. You can stay here and risk your socks then. I am going back into the other room, thank you very much, and the rest of you should come with me if you're wise.” He said to the others, before doing exactly that. What was he going to do, after all, hope his shell gave the beast indigestion?

---

”Oh wow. Yup. Definitely the worst thing that could have happened happened. Ugly thing isn't he? Belch” Bowser commented on the big fish with revulsion to Rika who nodded while grimacing. The abyssal fleet had normalized her to some pretty gross stuff but this thing took the cake.

“I can try shooting him, but I’m not sure how well that’d work?” She offered. He was big, her shells small and limited in number.

”Guy’s covered in weak spots so go for it if you can hit em” Bowser replied

“Oh? Where?” She asked, not knowing the king was good at appraising things like this.

”Big googly eyes. Always weak spots on boss monsters. Remember that cyclops guy in the ocean? And the other cyclops guy downstairs? Massive eye weak spot. Good guys always go for em, so if we’re playing the good guys we should too.” Bowser said, tapping his forehead knowingly despite being wrong.

“But they had one, and this guy has like, tones?” Rika pointed out the flaw in his thinking

”Eeeeh, same difference” Bowser said, setting aside his own fishing rod based distraction for the moment and rolling his jaw in preparation for some fireballing ”Now let's line up our shots and when Link’s plan works out, we blast him good if he's still moving!” Bowser announced. He’d probably regret it in the long run, fire burned fuel keeping him running and he was running on empty right now, but if it’d keep his son safe? He’d tough through the pain, no question.

Rika wasn't worried about wasting fuel by shooting, not realising the battery wasn’t an infinite supply of power, and so instead she checked her remaining shell count before nodding and making the same kind of assessment. Better to spend shots now, even if they might need them laterer, than lose one of her friends to the slimy fish jerk.

---

Down below both other Koopas in the water, Jr flinched at the impacting splashes of metal and fish on water and then, after steeling himself, leaned to the front of his sub to hand signal through the window to the Mirages that he was ready to go down into the depths with them.

All they could do was hope the mayhem the others where stirring up kept them safe for long enough to get down and then back up.

World of Light

wordcount: 1,036 +2 -3
Midna: level 5 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////// (44/50)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon Northeast - Rocket Inc.
Interacting with: Jesse’s @Zoey Boey

Things were going well, Midna was thinking as she reeled her chair back to throw at the mustachioed gunslinger, the crazy blue haired one having already been decked by the Thieves’ new friend's own size up chair. The shadow hand surged forwards but just before she let it fly the red and black furred one’s wave washed over her. Time for Minda slowed to a crawl and she was frozen mid toss, but from her perspective the rebels accelerated to a frightful speed she could barely track, their actions a becoming blur and their words meaningless high pitched noise for a few for a scant few rapid fire heartbeats.

Then time resumed. Midna's throw completed and the chair flew forth and missed the repositioned Fuse by a mile, while the man himself casually pulled the trigger of his rifle he’d lined up neatly with her head from his new firing spit. The only thing that saved her was that, through luck or arrogance, his shot struck her masked eye rather than the exposed one. The one fourth of combined magical might the interlopers had used to challenge the sacred realm shrugged off the mortal instrument’s attack without issue, but the rest princess had no such invulnerability to rely upon. Incredibly alarmed both by the burst of speed and far to close call she’s just had Midna reacted on instinct, bringing the Fused Shadow’s hand back and grabbing herself with it, wrapping her body in the giant glowing mass of orange power. The subsequent bullets from both Fuse and Jinx pierced but entirely failed to penetrate through the magical hand based cocoon she'd made for herself, with any ‘wounds’ in it closed up in close to an instant as power flowed into the gaps made and pushed out or vaporized the spent shots lodged within. While they did the princess levitated herself off the ground and floated backwards, trying to find safety.

Had she been content to hunker down inside the orange shell she’d made she would have been safe from the entirety of the barrage but, knowing blindness was its own danger, the princess cracked open a gap between the giant fingers to peer out of her magical barricade with her armored eye. She flinched when another shot pinged off it almost immediately, but it was the lightning arcing out that first gave her pause as an unexpected feeling of dreadful premonition struck her heart and then, when the dragonborn swept it towards her for a moment, the electrical discharge caused her shaken composure to break.

Lighting wracked at her magic and her mind, causing her to let herself go, drop to the ground and bolt for physical cover in a tactically ill advised flight. Despite trying to guard her rear with her hand still, the shocking power found her shield as it chased her, arching into it and her arm as she ran, while two of Jinx’s shots snuck through her rattled guard and nixed her side and shield arm. Then her retreat ended as Jinx’s rocket launcher started to blow the group to kingdom come, one near miss sending Minda sprawling and tumbling out of the drying up shocking power of the Dragonborn, before the princess scrambled behind a pillar like the one Ciella had been using when they came in, though this one was further into the building.

”Goddesses that was stupid” she chastised herself through clenched teeth, not knowing where the bout of dread that had broken her guard had come from and still suffering from the stress of it, as she tried to get her electrocuted arm to stop shaking while, again, bleeding from bullet wounds. She was really, really, really starting to hate guns.

Still, as she caught her breath and tried to steady herself, the princess was given time to do so by the turning back of the tide towards the favor of the invaders. Two of the resistance abandoned the battlefield entirely to fight select members of the seekers own in the sky and deeper into the facility, leaving the remaining three deeply outnumbered.

Jinx was stormed by the thieves who’d been hiding in the shadows far better than she had the skill too, while Braun and the overlords bore down on the dragonborn once more (and goddesses was she happy to leave them to it), leaving Midna and the new, still Gleeming, Jesse to deal with the the mostly mundane Fuse. Unfortunately for them, while they where both supernaturally gifted one woman army destroyers, Midna was already hurt and stressed from the previous barrage, while Fuse managed to get some close to deadly looking shots off on Jesse after faking a surrender/attempt to de-escalate.

”Moblin wretch!” she shouted at the dishonorable bastard while ducking back behind her cover as further wingman shots pinged off it. Midna, having no conception for how many shots different kinds of guns could fire before reloading, or how reloading even really worked in general, was in no position to make a guess on when Fuse would run out of ammo and be in the middle of reloading when she moved out. The idea that he’d be running around looking for yet more preloaded guns instead of doing so didn't even cross her mind. As much as her vindictive spirit demanded she repaid the asshole for trying to blow her brains out and for his trickery with gratuitous violence, caution raised by that inexperienced and compassion for the dangerously injured Jesse won out. For the moment.

She tapped her chest, pulled out a friend-heart and hurled it across the room with her shadow hand while shouting ”Jesse! Healing! Catch!” at the woman.

Then she dropped Koga's smgs (which she’d taken predominantly to disarm him but where coming in handy now) out of the twilight relam and blindly (and incredibly poorly because she was basically using them based on observation of the weapons and nothing else) emptied each of their remaining clips around the corner of her pillar in Fuse’s very general direction to try and keep his head down for long enough for Jesse to get her own head back in the game.

Whatever she did afterwards, Midna would assist however she could.

World of Light

wordcount: 1,282 +3
Midna: level 5 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////// (45/50)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon Northeast - Rocket Inc.

Despite Midna’s agitation that they keep moving, there was more teaching to be done, as Prim gave the newbies a quick explanation of spirits, after which she dealt out some she’d acquired on her own adventure that were then used for item making. Midna’s growing impatience would have had her up and bailed to go on ahead if it hadn't been for Sectonia’s new hat, which she stayed to observe due to its rather remarkable effect on the item creation process; namely giving those that wore it something they wanted/needed/could use each and every time. A big step up from the haphazard if occasionally very interesting in an out of left field kind of way results they’d gotten before. It turned what would have been a gamble into a guaranteed good use of time up gearing some of their members for the coming fight. An excellent find by Sectonia, and well worth sticking around to learn about in the twilight princess’s opinion.

While they were at it the queen bee herself, who in a twist of irony couldn't use the hat herself, took a moment to complain about royalty having to do busywork to get by. ”You get used to it pretty quick, and if it has one upside it's definitely character building. I’m a better Princess now than I was before I had to retake my kingdom as a result of having a broader perspective. But going through all that two more times after that though? With first all of time and now all of reality being torn apart to set the stage? Can’t say I’m a fan.”

She wasn't exactly a fan of Fox’s negotiating strategy either. After she’d tried to be diplomatic and savvy with her dealing with the Grimleal Fox stepped up to drive a hard and sharp ultimatum about doing it their way or not at all. Weren't foxes supposed to be cunning, she thought with disapproval, though fortunately Fox’s method either worked or Kan-Ra wasn't put off by it enough to break off from her own deal of letting them help free the resistance to end this with less blood. Or less spirits technically. With that plan still on the table, what mattered now was planning and divvying up who was going where, though that had little impact on Midna. By the end of it she was still heading to the store with Mao and, a little later than she appreciated, they were soon off over there, Midna saving her energy by riding in the Demon Lord’s shadow once again.

By the time they arrived things were already in motion, though by the lack of spirits on the ground it looked like the stalemate they found just past the front door had established itself early on and had just kept holding on till they arrived to break it. Considering the invaders had consisted basically just of Ciella it was either a testament to her survival skills and sheer power, or an indication that those holding the door were better at laying waste to their own office space than they were at taking down to a single person.

Both turned out to be the case, though the resistance’s potency for collateral damage was far less of a flaw when there were now a dozen targets rather than one. Midna had popped herself out of Mao’s shadow to greet their rabbit-eared ‘ally’ but had to dive for cover almost immediately afterwards, hurling herself behind a nearby desk while fire pinged off her shield.

She made a quick tactical analysis from behind it and decided she did not like this venue. The large front windows and liberal lighting fixtures inside left far less shadows for her to work with. As did the sparks of gunfire, which could turn a dark spot to a light one in a, well, flash. Hiding was not an option like it had been the last two battles, an observation something a black and red furred thing decided to make conclusive but proceeding to use a new kind of gun to blow the ever living crap out of, well, everything.

”Goddesses!” Midna cursed as she scampered away on all fours from her desk just before it exploded, before bringing out her shadow hand and using it in conjunction with her shield to block gunfire when the palace she’d been aiming to go to also exploded. ”Since when could gun things do that! she barked in complaint from behind her self made barrier.

Then furniture started flying courtesy of one hell of a powerful armored yeller and, while Midna scratched a filing cabinet out of the air with her shadow hand and added it to her hunkered down position to weather the rest of the storm, it only added to the psychological onslaught of the fight. This was, as Mona yelled, insanity. The brain breaking noise and air full of death would have broken lesser mortals. Fortunately, they were heroes! (and villains) and through bravery or arrogance, when the call came to charge there was no hesitation to be found among them, Minda joining the frontal assault by calling out a sized up wolfos and then grabbing its tail to ride along behind it as it rushed forwards behind Ciella’s water wall.

Not that she exactly enjoyed charging under the battle-cry of “bring them despair!” so as they crashed towards the scattering gunners she cried out ”Cleanse them of the light!” to remind the others of their goal with what was in retrospect not a particularly heroic battle cry either.

She could workshop a better one later, for now her wolfos had born her to the very front of the front lines before disappearing. As both of the Overlords focused in on the shouty man and Sectonia warped time and sent out a swarm of buggy minions Midna brought out her own insect minion, hauling out her Twilight Vibrava from her home realm and sent it slamming forwards to land in between the blue haired girl and the Mustached man. Both of them had the heaviest looking guns, and as a result both where people she really did not want getting way to new cover form which they could open fire on them again. In their Galeeming state she did not put it past them to shoot into the melee that was forming, despite e the risks that would have for their friends.

The Vibrava buzzed forth, just barley able to fit inside the building due to it's souped up size, and then stomped the ground as it landed, letting rip a bulldoze that sent a shock-wave through the floor that shuddered bones and slowed the pair’s retreat. Then the bug lived up to its name, rapidly vibrating it wings and followed up its shaking of the ground with a shaking of the air, sonically bombarding them, and anyone else ahead or to the sides of it, with a Bug Buzz.

Midna hadn’t had an opportunity to bust a groove and empower herself with a dragon dance in the rapid fire carnage, and so, unable to speed blitz her foes as she had in her other mount-less fights, she followed up her pokemon’s aoe attacks by using her shadow hand to throw a wooden chair she’d grabbed on the way in at whoever looked like they were going to recover first. Then she grabbed whatever was nearby, likely the ruins of their defensive position, tossed it at the other. If they were hurt enough, or she got back up, she’d move in to try and restrain and disarm them. If neither of those happened, she was probably in trouble and due a retaliatory hail of lead.

World of Light

The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 1,044 (+2)
Bowser: Level 9 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (121/90)
Bowser Jr: Level 8 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (47/80)
Kamek: Level 8 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (45/80)
Location: Bottomless Sea – the Maw - the Depths
Feat: Rika

”Well, there’s your answer” Kamek said when they got a, ah, rather different kind of moogle than normal in response to Link’s call for one.

”Welcome to the Maw. It's, well it's rather terrible to be quite honest. It's taken the Blue team and turned us all into children” Kamek explained to the butt scratcher welding Moogle. Then he looked thoughtful for a moment, eyes fixed on the butt sctarcher as he did, before asking ”I don't suppose you can get us things from the outside of here? Tools, weapons, small portable allies. That kind of thing?”

---

”Yeah, cool, exactly what I was thinking” Bowser lied in response to Cadet’s suggestion of anchoring the fishing rod to make sure people didn't get pulled down if they got a bite. Then, when he was in the middle of trying to tip over the TV to use it as a climbing platform, Jr called out ”Oh wait, there it is!”, prompting the king to stop and look as his son ambled over to some kind of console or control panel that the cable they had been trying to follow looked like it terminated after exiting the wall again..

”Blech. Gross. It's covered in slime. ” Jr complained after he got a leg up from Rika to see what he was working with. With a disgusted look on his face he used his claws to scratch some of the disgusting ooze off of the labels on the control system to see what they were working with. Leaving the radio well alone (what was it going to do other than give away that they were climbing out of the depths to whoever was on the other end after all? Or that was his logic anyway. Trying to call for help certainly never did) the boy set to work wrenching the controls that related to the sub, using them to haul the little round submarine over the waterhole and then lowering it down into the water.

The entire process was entirely noisy, but at least it was quick and soon enough he’d dunked the sub into the water and they were ready to set sail.

”Ok, got it, you can let me do- wow” Jr began to say, and then was startled when Rika, who’s gauntlets he’d been standing on to get tall enough to even reach the console made for human sized adults, basically dropped him.

”Careful!” he complained to the ship girl.

“Sorry, but you're kinda heavy” Rika told him, shaking her now slightly sore limbs.

Them being over on the other side of the room meant that they’d missed most of what was going on with Sakura and the robot that had been Carl, but it was hard to miss what was more or less the girls profession of defeat that was the conclusion to.

Jr just kinda rolled his eyes at her horror, while Rika once again felt really bad for Sakura but, again, really had no idea what to say or do to help. She could relate to having been a burden and not wanting to kill though, but that didn't help, it mainly just made her feel bad too. Empathy, she was finding, was often a difficult thing to now have.

”Then take the time together and then help after. It's fine. It could be worse, you could be Kamek who I am literally having to carry around.” Bowser said, trying to lighten the mood at his absent mage’s expense. It was probably too late and, in the end, it likely wouldn't matter because they suddenly had other problems.

One of the suits, filled with the same goop that had been on Carl/the helper, suddenly woke up and started talking like Mirage and then getting confused and annoyed about Mirage being round the corner talking to him.

Jr had said the chair was a bad idea and here they were, being proved correct, because clearly they were related somehow. He didn't bother typing to figure out how though. He was hungry, and tired, and grossed out and just. He was done ”Nope. Nope nope nope. I am not dealing wiiiiiith this” Jrs declared as he marched his way over to the sub he’d lowered and got inside. This was going to have to be someone else’s problem. He was going to keep moving forwards, because that was his way of dealing with all of this. So rather than entangling himself in whatever the suit mess was, he instead sat himself in the pilot's seat and started fiddling with the interior of the sub to work out how it, well, worked, while Mimi sat on his shoulder and watched with 0 understanding as to what her trainer was doing but mildly amused by all the twiddly sticks and flashy lights none the less.

”Oh great its a doppl... derpl... dapl... It’s a copycat! Ok. Stand back, I have had so so so many of these before and they are always bad news,” Bowser said in response to the whole citation and then stomped over, grabbing his hammer head on the way over, and put himself in between where Mirage was and the room the suit was in ”Look, I don't know who you think you are, but we’re just kinda trying to leave. So if you want out too, you can work with us, or you can walk out that door and leave us alone. Or we can have a problem” Bowser, holding the hammerhead like a cudgel (using one of the teeth as a handle and the smacking end as the, well, smacking end), bapped the side of the round end of it into an open palm as a rather clear message of what being a problem would entail.

“So, um, can we maybe not fight the big robot suit? I’m sure they’re just confused.” Rika said to Bowser even as she edged over to stand alongside Bowser with her guns sort of half cocked and ready just in-case things got ugly. However, as she really, really, really did not want to find out how Sakura was feeling right now, she tried to de-escalate the situation by saying “Hi, um, no ones impersonating you, there's just someone who sounds very similar to you in the next room? Called Mirage. What’s your name?”

World of Light

wordcount: 785 +2
Midna: level 5 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////// (42/50)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon

Midna rode in Mao's shadow as they zipped through town, and was pleased that her exposition skills were still up to snuff when all her talk went down smoothly. It was even a little nostalgic, though as she’d find out the overlord was cut from far different stuff than her Link.

”I haven't been able to observe/analyze the difference in depth myself, but they are more or less who they are, and they go about their lives as they would if they were home, though I imagine the cognitive dissonance between where they actually come from and Galeem’s adjustments to make then think this is where they are from has its influences on how they do thing, as well as the whole inability to back down thing.” She added a bit more about the Gleeming, but this was mostly speculation on her part, and then listened with interest about the nature of the Resistance.

They were a mixed bag apparently and apparently this “number two” had brainwashed the good eggs and made them fit in with the bad ones. That was interesting. Maybe it had been a mistake to blame Galeem directly for the resistance’s methods, though, of course, it was because of them that this number two could do this in the first place. Plus, if people couldn't back down, then would it force people who wouldn't kill to do so to end fights? And then warp their understanding of themselves in the process? Make moral people into killers? It was a disturbing thought, and it matched the little girl’s horrified response to being asked if she wanted to blow people up.

While she tried to psychoanalyze the more indirect effects of Galeem’s influence, Mao had easily managed to work out on his own why they had gone nonlethal, but she added a bit more context just because she could.

”We’re not above killing on principle, there's plenty of monsters out there that it’s best to just put down for everyone's safty, but yeah, the resistance is salvageable, so if we can avoid landing any killing blows here, that’d be for the best. If some of them are like you, tough, and able to see the bigger picture, then we want their help. This quest we’re on can always use more heroes after all” That would still leave the issue of the Grimleal. She didn’t really trust that they wouldn't get up to something evil once they were in uncontested control after all, but maybe they could snag some during the fighting and get them to see that same big picture too? She had her doubts, but there was only one way to find out if they could be on-boarded or not. Integrating them could maybe allow them to insert mercenaries from home-base into their ranks to act as moral compasses.

While she was theorizing their rush to the shop paused suddenly, Midna not needing to be told to wait because, as she was in his shadow, the Overlord was doing all the work moving them and, as a result, had complete control over their pace.

”Oh, goddesses” she sighed, rather exasperated, as she saw who it was who had caused them to stop. It was Lahral and, apparently, these two had a connection of some kind, being from the same world and having some power that was distinctive enough that even the Gleeming Laharl could pick up on the connection. What followed was a round of bickering, boasting and chest puffing, the context of which went over Midna’s head. What she did get was that, like Crow, Mao self identified as Evil and, by the fact that they shared a title, the other overlords probably also did? Midna asked herself if that was better or worse than the Grimleal’s lies/lack of self awareness about that fact, but if they were working with the seekers they were working with the seekers. She’d just need to keep a closer eye on them from now on.

”So yeah, as you can see, we do work with Gleeming people other than just Band... probably should do something about seeing as he’s not going away any time soon. Maybe it’ll do something about his rotten attitude” she said just to Moa, before pulling herself out of his shadow and then leaning an elbow on his shoulder while telling Lahral that ”Yeah, you 100% arn’t killing anyone on my watch Lahral. That goes for the people we’re about to fight too. Speaking of which, the hourglass is running low, so let's keep moving” before jerking a thumb back the way they had been heading. ”You two can deal with whatever this ‘Overlord’ business is when lives aren’t on the line”

World of Light

wordcount: 1,146 +2
Midna: level 5 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////// (40/50)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon

Midna gave the slightest sigh of relief, both because that her idea was being taken onboard on a provisional basis, and that she wasn't going to have to be the one putting it into practice. Her little speech had been about the limit her wounds would allow, and so she gratuitously settled down on the ground and let one of the clerics tend to her while the more intact Tora and Poppie did the example freeing.

As said clerics' worked their magic (Or faith? She wasn't quite sure, but either way they put parts of her back together with pulses of power, which, as with the Medic, was a far better option than risking bleeding out or getting infected by something even if she didn't know how it worked) the pair who’d shared her concerns stepped forwards and got to work freeing the girl and the teen (or at least that's what she guessed his age was?).

The results were dramatic. Far better than she had expected even, considering her encounter with Crow. Yes, the little girl was still concerned about her former boss (which was ok in Midna’s book but maybe not in Kan-Ra’s) but the horror she expressed about using bombs on people showed that Galeem’s twisting went even further than Midna had expected. Maybe these were just good people who had been driven to cruel ends by Galeem’s wretched influence, she thought? Their cause was, when it came down to it, just, but maybe they’d only gone too far with what methods they’d considered reasonable because of the Gleeming?

This line of thought gave her a fundamentally incorrect impression of Mao, who’s practically jumping at the chance to sell out his former comrades she took to be a result of him also being horrified at what he had done, rather than being horrified about having done those things in the name of someone else’s cause.

”Seeing as this was my idea, I’m sticking with you” she told him, adding herself to the team that would be raiding the store he’d talked about. She wondered which one it was. Had they been meters away from a hideout and not even noticed? That was very briefly going to get awkward if it was one where she’d dealt with the owner at all.

Before they headed out however, there was the sudden arrival of Primrose and company (who Midna was happy to see where all in one piece) to briefly deal with. The dancer noted rather bluntly that they’d made contact with the resistance in perhaps the worst way possible. Minda wondered if she was annoyed about not having a say in how this had gone down. Probably yes. She knew she would be, and in fact still was with how things were getting out of hand and having to be reigned in.

”You could say that, yes” Midna replied, rolling her right arm, now wonderfully free of claw gashes thanks to the cleric’s work, before adding ”But we didn’t even get to introduce ourselves before they threw this welcome party for us” jokingly.

Part of that they could at least change now with at least one, former, member of the resistance.

”I’m Midna, good to meet you. Also yeah, I can answer some questions while we get going” She introduced herself to the newly freed bleach haired, grey skinned, hylian-esque person, and then nodded her head towards the exit for him to lead the way. They didn't have a lot of time. One of these resistance members had escaped, and the fights around the other bases were sure to start as soon as the news of the failed ambush got out, if not sooner. When he did she followed him or, more specifically, his shadow, while giving him (and Band, if he went with them) a quick run down of their quest while hitching a ride to the store.

”If you want to see who’s fault this all is, just take a look at the sun,” Minda said, entirely unaware that this was a bad idea for lighters under normal circumstances as it was for her all the time ”and, I’m told, you’ll see the winged being known as Galeem”

”It dismantled all worlds with that light basalt you just remembered, and stitched everything back together in the mess we are now living in, and finally blinded everyone to the fact that that had happened. It also is the reason everyone else has red glowing eyes. Be careful around them. They're mostly themselves, but Galeem’s power means that once a fight starts, they won't stop fighting till they’re dead. Plus I think we’ve just learned that they’ll go to greater and worse lengths to achieve their goal than they would if they were able to remember themselves” They saw plenty of such individuals as they rushed through the city, the eyes of every member of every crowd glowing an unnerving red, the new theorized facet of the influence adding an extra ting of danger two each and every one.

”Long term plan is that we, and a few other groups of other freed people, travel round this round island we’re on to gather spirits and allies in order to gain power, and then use that power defeat the rest of these Guardians that dotted around the land which are shielding Galeem from harm. Then last things last we head to the center to take down that glowing pain in the ass once and for all in order to set the world back to the way it once was” she continued by spelling out their long term goals before moving on to the more immediate goals.

”Short term, if we can free both the resistance and some of the Grimleal we might, might, be able to resolve this civil war without any more death and get a bunch more allies in the process. We can only free people when they’re beat up, you see, and because of that whole, fight till the end thing, we can't just go around picking fights and freeing people without causing ourselves a whole heap of trouble. Don’t exactly want to try and take on a whole town after all. ” this was very much in line with Fox’s thinking, but after that she deviated back to her own

”Also, obviously, people who were evil before will be evil after, so there's always a risk involved with freeing people. If you're in a tough fight, free your opponent and they still want you dead? Well you’ve just freed them and taken off a blinder that might have been holding them back. Think that’ll be an issue with some of the others?” she asked their newest member, in case he had some insight about the general gist of the resistance. She didn't think it would, but best be safe rather than sorry.

---

The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 1,011 (+2)
Bowser: Level 9 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (119/90)
Bowser Jr: Level 8 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (45/80)
Kamek: Level 8 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (41/80)
Location: Bottomless Sea – the Maw - the Depths
Feat: Rika

Like Ms Fortune Rika didn't actually know how to handle Sakrua’s emotional plight, but that didn't stop her from doing what she could, which was hugging her friend back when Sakura gripped her. Doing so was made a bit awkward by her gauntlets, but she did her best to be a comforting presence anyway.

The ship girl didn't really get it. The heart had practically made her into a person, but here it had made the robot not a person? It was confusing and painful and she didn't know how to handle that either, which made her grateful that, while Sakura’s way of dealing with the situation was bizarre, and honestly a little traumatizing in and of itself (Rika was very alarmed when the schoolgirl smacked her head against the metal floor) it also let Rika deal with it by association. It was Galeem’s fault. Simple as.

Thoughts of revenge really were a great way to handle pain, be it hunger or death!

“It’s ok. You helped me too”, she told Sakura when her friend thanked her for being there, as little as she had actually done to help, and then headed into the com’s room with her friend.

After the debacle with the bloated fish guy she went to take a look where he’d gone, once again showing that Jr was overthinking things when she simply pushed open and then stepped through a gate in the fence without a thought in order to look down at where the old guy had gone. According to Blazermate he was apparently still down there, which meant that somehow, against all odds, Bowser had been right.

Picking up on the fact that people were weird out by his prediction, Bowser defended it by saying ”What? It’s the worst thing that could happen, so of course it’s going to happen in this weird nightmare of a place. Have you guys never watched a horror movie?” and planted said prediction firmly in the dumb luck category.

”You never let me watch horror movies… wait they’re like this? Yeesh. They sound really lame then” Jr complained, before quickly getting over his own complaint. Who in their right minds would have anything to do with this stuff for fun, he thought. Either way, they had other things to worry about. Like the wet guy pulling some kind of dry Bowser move on them as soon as they went down there.

Rather than keep staring down into the murky water waiting for that to happen, Bowser wandered off to start rifling through the guy’s stuff. There was a doll (creepy), a key item (which the king held onto) a bunch of toys and games the guy had presumably used when not staring at the tv (based on the abandon nature of the jigsaw the tv was probably his favorite pastime by far), a crummy looking fishing rod and a bunch of jars of stuff. Bowser took a sniff of the labeled one, went ”Blech” when it reminded him of Bracus and promptly left the rest alone.

All except the last jar, which had a very gross looking thing called a “Cadou” in it, which Bowser had the displeasure of having a hungry stomach growl coincide with him looking at it. Which made him feel sick. What kind of monster would… Bowser glanced at the fishing rod, then back to the disgusting thing and had an idea.

He hooked the jar and fishing rod under his arm and rejoined the others, now rather loaded down with stuff.

”Ok, don't look at the thing in the jar, but for distractions, I bet we can use it as a bait on the end of this fishing rod or something” He suggested, responding to an earlier comment by Peach about finding ways to buy the sub gower’s time to sneak down to the water controls.

“I can go down and scoot around and shoot to make some noise? If I stay close to land and Blazermate acts as a spotter she can probably make sure I don't get got by a big fish right?” Rika suggested in line with that idea

”Just as long as your safe kid” Bowser told her, which got him a confident nod in affirmation.

”We’ll have mirage’s sub robot thing too… we could chuck that in to make noise and be a distraction. Or maybe even just have it do the thing?” jr suggested, seeing as he was assuming he’d be the one doing the submarining. Then he had another thought, based on how Mirage was acting while wearing the fortunately not dangerous robot control system and suggested that ”Do you think Carl was just some guy plugged in like Mirage was then? Somewhere else though, and for like, way too long?”

“Hey, yeah. Maybe you just got him to get out of his own chair thing? That would be nice” Rika said to Sakura, accidentally punctuating how much wishful thinking was involved in that with her final comment.

”Maybe. Well. Even if we do just use the robot, we still want to get the sub down as like, more bait. And if we do go, like if we need to do land stuff down there, then I can drive it and I think Mimi can do her shadow thigh through the glass? So we are not 100% defenseless” he said, getting a nod from his pokemon that that would work. Whether it would be enough to hurt anything down there was debatable, but it was a reassurance to not be entirely helpless.

As for getting the sub down, Nadia’s strategy of just climbing up there didn't yield any internal release mechanism, but it did find a wire leading from it down somewhere that might have a release mechanism on the other end.

In response to this info, Rika and Jr both took up their respective strategies for getting in the cage again. The ship girl went looking for a door or hatch or something, while jr followed the wire itself and then tried to claw open the panel it led into to try and follow it. Unfortunately it was way up there in the ceiling.

”Give me a hand getting up, will you?” jr asked generally, but Bowser was more than happy to help, putting down his many gubbins (hammer head, mutant containing jar, fishing rod and key) before joining his son in his mission. First they tried forming a two Koopa stack and, if that didn't get them high enough, the king would casually wander over to unplug the annoying staticy tv so he could move it over to use as a footstool.

World of Light

wordcount: 910 +2 (+6) (-3)
Midna: level 5 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////// (38/50)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon

Minda’s tossing of her foe had the intended effect this time, with Koga hurtling through the air and bowling over the other masked ninja in the group as he tried to rise, collapsing both in a heap. Unfortunately the toss came too late to bail the big man out of his battle as he and the punk that was boxing him had both knocked each other out while trading blows in what she was sure had been an impressive bout. It was a shame she missed it trying to avoid being shot, which went for basically everything else going on.

Fortunately the others had similar or better luck as she had with their dueling opponents, and things were gradually coming to an end as Midna pulled back to nurse her wounds. Then things came to a very abrupt end as everything exploded. Fortunately for her, while Sectonia’s shield hadn't helped against the bullets or energy claws that had been involved with the fight she’d just had, it was a goddess send against the magical explosions and it being still around probably saved the princess’s life. That, and the distance she’d been putting between her and the fight due to her wounds, meant that Midna was merely blown out of the warehouse rather than to pieces, the princess landing like a ragdoll and then rolling over the sand outside. She lay there for a moment, before intentionally rolling over this time to get into a shadow she could hide in to avoid being taken down while she was, well, down.

Fortunately for them, while the blast had hurt them plenty, it had also been very indiscriminate. In fact it had hurt the rebels more than it had the seekers, some of who’s bigger and tougher members were even still up and kicking. Not that being down stopped the rebels from trying to keep up the fight, Galeem’s influence really showing its true colors to them for the first time as it seemingly prevented them from even considering surrender.

”No, stay down” Minda said, moving back out of the shadows once she saw the state of things and using her shadow hand (The only thing she trusted to use, as the rest of her body hanging rather limply in the air. She wasn't sure if she’d be able to stand if she tried, and her arms where either a bloody mess thanks to Koga’s claws or a bruised mess thanks to the pummeling her shield arm had taken. How Link had managed to keep his arm intact while blocking far heavier hits she could only wonder) to press Koga back to the ground when he tried to rise and keep fighting and then carefully bumping her feet into his dropped smgs to send them to the Twilight realm for good measure ”Give up. Its over”

She was hoping they could just wait them out, let the passive healing effect slowly stitch them back together while they decided what to do with the rebels, but unfortunately their battle, and the explosion that had ended it, had drawn the attention of the local authorities. As to be expected really, but it did complicate things. As did the fact that they’d apparently triggered the other raids by doing this, complicated things even more. The whole affair was rapidly escaping their hands and things were in motion whether they liked it or not.

Midna winced at the implications of what was going to happen to the rebels as she drifted over to where Band was, mind racing at how they should handle this. She didn't like the rebels, but she also didn't like the idea of the Grimleal being in power uncontested either, which was exactly what was about to happen. She didn't exactly like the implications of “drastic measures “ and “interrogation” being inflicted upon anyone by the cultists either.

While she was thinking, she tapped her chest and pulled out a friend heart, then moved to clap Big Band on the back with it. At the very least they could get him on board, in fighting shape and, hopefully, get some input from him on how to handle this situation.

”Here, this will help your wounds, and as a bonus it should clear up that little blind spot you’ve got” She said after the deed was done. It also gave her an idea, which she turned to propose to Kan-Ra.

”That ‘bloodlust’ you mentioned.” Midna began to say, still a little strained by her wounds even as they gradually closed back together ”I’ve seen it before. It's not natural or part of them. There’s a curse inflicted upon them by a false god that, among other things, prevents them from surrendering despite it being in their best interest. We can clear that and, in doing so, we can make sure this ends without you having to take such ‘drastic measures’. Something I think the Vizier would like considering his son’s one of them?”

It was best to try and do something to prevent unnecessary deaths first, Midna reasoned, and then, depending on how the removal of the Gleeming affected the rebels, then they could figure out what to do about the political situation and how it affected their greater cause.

”Once we’re fixed up by these clerics, we can see about helping clean up the rest of the curse at the other hideouts?” she added, more as a question/suggestion to the others this time.

World of Light

The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 1,430 (+3)
Bowser: Level 9 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (117/90)
Bowser Jr: Level 8 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (43/80)
Kamek: Level 8 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (41/80)
Location: Bottomless Sea – the Maw - the Depths
Feat: Rika

Kamek gave a sigh of relief when the troop made it to the end of the aerial obstacle course after their brus with the collapsing platform, and then shook his head saying ”ah, one of those days those two will be the death of me” to himself, but the smile on his beak chased away any gloom or doom in the statement. A reckless pair they might be, but they were also survivors. The mage assured himself they would be ok, and then also reassured an equally worried Tyrant of the same.

”Don't you worry, little one. You’ll get used to their antics sooner or later. The young master was climbing up the walls and along banisters since he could crawl after all. You have to trust them to take care of themselves eventually.” Wanton disregard for the dangers posed by gravity was an incredibly stressful habit of the young prince and, as he had said, at a certain point he’d had to just leave Jr to it and trust he knew his super-koopan limits better than the plebeian mage ever could.

While the rest of the troop busied themselves upstairs, mainly with recovering from self inflicted bruises, the mage had been expecting to just take things easy down by the water side (unless some monster came along that is, so it was safe to say the mage wasn’t spending his wait right next to the water, not by a long shot) but it turned out there was something he could do to be helpful. Somewhat. Namly answering the person who had been Frog’s question regarding his once and future curse.

”While you might say that I am familiar with curses, its more with the casting than the curing. Also I have to say this is a… rather amusingly poor time to ask about this considering you are not presently a frog and my magics are rather lacking at the moment. Nevertheless I can give you what I have in my noggin and we can think about what we can do if- no when- we are back to our old, older selves” The mage replied at length when asked if he thought he could help, before shutting up and listening to the brief tale of the former Frog’s quest against the the Fiendlord Magus and how he had been turned into a frog by said fiend.

”Ah, frog polymorph. Something of a classic that, though not really my style. Regardless, without my sorcerous power, or any lab equipment, I can't exactly offer any specific solutions to your plight right now… well, other than getting issued by a princess, I think that's the equally classic solution to the curse. Other than that, finding some magical spirit, fairy or purifying hotspring of some kind known for breaking curses is one possibility, though if any exist at all in Galeem’s new world I do not know. Then, of course, there is the bluntest solution. Find your curser and force them to undo it. Or kill them if they don't. Not exactly easy either seeing as, I assume, you have no idea where they are.” Kamek shrugged, knowing that none of this was very... Specific. But he did have one last suggestion.

”Really, when it comes down to it, your best bet isn't me (though don't worry, I will see what I can do once we are free) but the mercenaries in Alchamoth. They have a whole host of knowledge and experience from dozens of worlds between them and even if they can't solve your predicament themselves, they might just be able to track something down for you. Some magical cure all or defrogifying spell. Galeem has toyed with all realities, something along those lines must have slipped in unless we are very unlucky.” he concluded, waving his hand around in a circular etc. motion when talking about the possible solutions that might exist in Galeem’s mixed up world, just waiting to be found. Those, he thought, were the boy/man/frog’s best bet.

---

Up top, the rest of the troop slowly pulled themselves out of the pile they’d fallen in after their failed attempt to force the ocean pressure proof door that was sealing them out of the control room. Much grumbling was had but, fortunately, no one was seriously hurt by the attempt. Nor where the troop hurt when the door into the maintenance room sealed shut right after they stepped inside. Sealing the Koopas in at any rate. Rika had had other concerns, namely shuffling over to Sakura and asking both her and the unresponsive helper bot “Are you OK? What happened?” regarding the depersonifying effect her friend heart had of the robot. Part of her sensed that her friend might need some comforting after the unexpected effect her kindness had and so she was there to provide if need be.

Inside the machine room the Koopas got to work trying to help find a way out, which resulted in very little help actually being provided. Bowser reacted to seeing the freaky fish person hybrid thing's picture by burning it, and then claiming the hammer head (and promptly ditching the magnet half for someone else to use once he got a few practice swings with it, using the fork on the back as a pair of handles and wielding it a bit like how a wrestler would wield a folding chair) while Jr had a nose around the printing machine to see if it was usable and if there where any templates around to be used in it.

Without their help, the room was reopened and power routed to the command center. The troop regrouped and left the machine room behind for the moment to seek out the foretold submersible bay. Said bay’s singular nature turned out to be disappointingly literal. There was one bay, which contained one very small submarine. Also a bunch of wet suits too big for them would fit in and, considering the suspicious goop content, even if theory could use them it would probably have been a very, very bad idea.

The limited submersible supply presented a question of who’d be daring the deep in it, but before it could be answered the group encountered a rather sad and useless looking/sounding old man who, after floundering on whether he should try and stop them or not, tripped and fell into the water. It was only after that that Rika asked herself why she hadn’t just shot him

”So. I don't know if that was kinda a funny way for him to go or just as sad and pathetic as he was?” Jr said after a moment's silence, which was followed by Mirage speculating that they hadn't seen the last of the sick looking codger.

”Yeah... Knowing this place, odds are he only looked sick because he was in the middle of turning into some freaky sea monster or something” Bowser suggested. Still, he was gone for now, so they were free to snoop around his room without consequence. Rika and Bowser took it upon themselves to take a look down into/guard the water the old man had fallen into, just incase they could see what had become of him/he came back and also to see if theory could see what lay ahead of the sub’s journey, while Jr looked for some saner way into the sub than what Mirage was doing with the freaky looking chair.

”You sure you want to be doing... whatever it is you're doing with that? For all you know it’s some kind of mind control chair or something.” he asked, as he looked for any kind of door on the cage, or a way to break/drop the sub down into the water, or even climb up into it first. With any luck all this would be far more forcible than the metal door that had kept them out of the room in the first place. ”Like maybe we can use your scissors to just cut through the fence or something?”

“Or I can just shoot it?” Rika offered from where she was peering down into the old man’s drowning spot, after which Bowser, who was wandering off to look through the old man’s personal belongings also offered to ”give it a good hammer whack. Or burn it all down!”

”Maybe. Hey, you know, maybe we can rip up some of the posts to use as a handle for your hammer? Or melt it down in that printing thing...” before shaking his head and resuming his investigation of the cage ”No, focus. We can do other stuff after the sub’s down.”

World of Light

wordcount: 1,142 +2
Midna: level 5 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////// (33/50)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon

The snapping jaws of her wolfos might not have caught anyone, but it’s shaggy hide did make excellent cover for Minda to get her groove on. The princess rapidly tapped out a duo of dragon dances to amp herself up, though she had to weave her steps to and fro to avoid the bomb lobbing punk’s indiscriminate hail of explosives.

When her dances ended the princess was pumped with power and speed. She’d need more than that to help win the day however, because when her wolf went home she immediately became the target of smg fire, forcing the princess to hunker down behind her new shield to avoid being perforated by bullets.

Acting fast before Koga could switch tactics or overwhelm her metal shield Midna summoned her shadowhand and made it grab at the sandy ground, hauled up a mass of it and hurled it at Koga. The sand and soil failed to stick together and strike him, but the disintegrating mass made him flinch as it flew at him and it also obscured his vision for long enough for Midna to dodge out of the way and slip into the shadow of the building itself to get out of his line of fire.

A quick glance from her shadowy hiding spot got her a good assessment of the situation. Band was still slugging through despite taking one hell of a beating as a result of drawing most of their foe’s attention. Fortunately his call for aid had been answered, and, though things went rather poorly for Yoshitsune as rushing in ahead of everyone else (or had he already been following them before the signal had been called?) got him a similar reception to Band but, unfortunately, unlike the big man himself the swordsman was less set up to just tough it out.

Midna winced at the sight, but also saw that it looked like Tora had that handled, and that Sectiona wasn't far behind him and ready to throw all kinds of magical aid. As the Queen added her absolute bevy of support to the mix, with elemental slinging minions, magic shields and healing auras being the least of it, Midna appeared on the side of the garage door furthest from their reinforcements. There grabbed the edge of the wall with her shadow hand and then slung herself around, using the mag-lev effect she had to slide along the floor low enough that her round shield could cover her whole body. Her unorthodox insertion into the fight was proven wise as she slid under the smg fire of Koga, who’d assigned himself to stopping her from getting the drop on them again, the lower reaches of the spread pinging off her shield and gilded helm.

When Koga paused the futile hail of fire to readjust his aim and strategy Midna lashed a hand out around her shield, hurling a spray of sand from the twilight realm at him. The Ninja guarded his eyes with a wrist, giving a moment for Minda to pivot her slide and then lash her shadow hand round in a low sweep at him. Koga’s guard had, however, prevented anything beyond a momentary blinding and so rather than flattening him Minda gasped as the Ninja pulsed with a little power and then leapt straight over the side sweep.

Dragon claws flared on her toes and gripped the sand, halting Midna’s slide and then letting her throw herself to the side as Koga took aim as he fell back down and rained fire down at her, shots clipping past her hasty dodge and ill practiced guard, and slashing at her skin, leaving a light gash on her arm and thigh.

The princess hissed with pain even as the minor wounds started to close back up thanks to Sectiona’s healing. She slid along the ground, keeping the momentum from the dodge going and portalled out her Twilight Vibrava to buy herself time and space. The enlarged bug buzzed out and tried to crunch Koga in its jaws, only for the Ninja to dash a short distance in the blink of an eye to dodge out of the way before turning and pumping the rest of his clip into the pokemon, forcing it to flee back to the twilight realm.

As the ninja dropped the clips from his now empty guns Midna rushed forwards, winding back a hand with dragon claws primed and ready to end this, only for the ninja to switch things up, dropping the dual smgs to their holsters and then flaring up three long energy claws of his own on each wrist and then counter charging her in turn.

The surprised Midna blocked the leading right hook with her shield, but the left claw slash outperformed her own, leaving the princess with an ugly bleeding gash on her right

”Goddesses” she swore, but unlike Koda she had an extra arm left. Her shadow hand slapped straight down in front of her, forcing Koga back and preventing him from finishing the job. As the Ninja backed up his claws flickered and died, whatever power had been fueling them running out for the moment. He grabbed for his empty smgs, but while he was trying to reload them Midna gripped the ground with her shadow hand where she’d slapped it down, and then hauled herself up and around and smashed both her feet into his chest in a colossa twinl kick.

The blow knocked Koga flat on his ass. The princess gave him a blast of sand as she retreated, but her shaky arm meant it went all over rather than mostly at his face, allowing the man to finish clacking two fresh magazines into his guns while he was on the ground and blaze fire after her.

Minda pulled herself behind her shadow hand, pumped up the size, and then advanced, using the magical limb as a shield this time. Koga tried to quickly push himself up in response but in doing so had to stop firing with one gun, giving Minda just enough space to shove the guarding hand forwards.

Koga got to his feet just in time and then looked and dashed to the side to avoid the backhand. Minda slid again and hauled her shadow hand after him, blocking the shots from the one still full smg with her shield again, and then finally managing to grab the slippery Ninja with her shadow hand. She gave him a crushing squeeze in her grip before hauling him round in her giant orange glowing grip and throwing the man at one of Band’s attackers.

She didn't immediately follow up the throw however, and instead moved to try and find some space to let Sectiona’s passive healing do something about the three large gashes crippling her right arm and slowly oozing her life out of them.

World of Light

The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 930(+2)
Bowser: Level 9 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (114/90)
Bowser Jr: Level 8 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (40/80)
Kamek: Level 8 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (38/80)
Location: Bottomless Sea – the Maw - the Depths
Feat: Rika

”Come on already, pull you stupid thing!” Bowser yelled at the magnet half he was using to try and pull a platform dangling from chains closer, the red beam from the bar he was holding like a rifle wiggling and wobbling over a bit of rusted metal but failing to have enough heft to move it. If it was just weak he could have just ditched the thing, but the king got the impression that it could be stronger if something was different, and the fact that he had no idea what that difference needed to be was incredibly frustrating.

”You ok over there dad?” Jr called back from where he, Rika (and Mimi) were making their own way across with a fair bit more speed thanks to their cooperative method of traversing the path.

”Bah. It’s this stupid magnet. Just ain't working right” The king replied, giving a harrumph and then giving up on the route he was trying to take and then yelling ”Hey, if any of you are still coming up, grab the other half of that magnet. Maybe they work better closer together or something” down at the stragglers.

”So what you gonna now do dad?” Jr asked

”urg, guess I’m going that way” Bowser replied, pointing at a much more rickety looking platform than the one he had been trying to move closer

Jr looked skeptical, but did not question his dad’s plan, which turned out to be a mistake. The King’s claws hit the deck and immediately an awful creaking started to echo from the rusted bolts holding the platform’s supports to the ceiling.

”Ho boy, that does not-” Bowser began to say as he took a careful few steps forwards, only for a dreadful snap to resound as the back most support bucked free, causing the back of the platform to jerk down towards the water below and almost tipping the king down into it. ”-sound good” he finished after just barely managing to recover.

”Dad! Run!” Jr shouted, though Bowser really didn't need prompting. Caution was thrown to the wind as heavy clawed feet pounded along the platform, followed by creeks and snaps as the entire rusted assembly came apart behind him, rust and metal splintering apart and falling to the waters below. As the last bolt slipped free the king leaped, arm outstretched for the next. Grasping, failing, and then finding living metal instead of dead.

“Eek!” Rika cried out as the weight of the king clinging to her outstretched and offered gauntlet dragged her down, only Jr’s on grip on both her and the platform they had been using preventing all three from plummeting down from the sturdier platform they’d rushed to and Bowser had leapt for.

It was a stressful few moments as first Rika and then Bowser were slowly hauled back up onto semi solid ground, the three (plus mimi who could do little to help) flinching at every groan and shudder of metal.

”That was close” Bowser noted matter of factly.

“Mmmf” Rika agreed, too stressed and out of breath to form a proper response, an attitude shared by Jr and Mimi, who both just nodded and, down below by, Kamek, who was quite sure he’d have suffered a heart attack if he wasn't so thoroughly de-aged.

The fact that they were so close to the end, and the concern that staying on one platform to long wold invite another collapse, got them moving soon enough and in relatively short order the four of them clambered up the ladder and reached blessedly solid ground which they all took the opportunity to just sit or lie down on for a few moments.

“I really hope that's the last of the jumping. How can you live in a world where this reminds you of home?!” Rika asked the two royal Koopas from where she was lying on her back.

”You get used to it” Bowser explained, before asking them both ”You both OK?”

”Yeah, you get used to it” Jr echoed as an answer, forcing the bravado just a little.

“Yeah. I think I’ll be ok. Just give me a few more moments, ” Rika replied. She was, at the very least, doing better than Carl, the legless robot that thought it was human. Or the human that looked like a robot? None of them really got it, probably because none of them (including Rika, despite her appearance) were human, so any real psychological importance of the term went right over their heads.

”If he wants to be called a human, he can be a human” Bowser decided after mulling it over for a bit.

“So can I be a human too? Instead of an Abyssal?” Rika asked, having got something of the wrong impression of the poor man’s situation by relating it to her own identity issues.

”If you want” was the rather simple answer she got from Bowser.

”Why not be a Koopa instead, we’re way cooler” Jr suggested instead

“Hmmm. I’ll think about it?” She replied honestly.

Either way, Carl’s identity dilemma was Sakura’s problem now as she decided to see if freeing him from Galeem’s light would help him out. While she was at it, they had to find a way through that didn't kill him. To this end, the Troop had a very, very, very simple plan.

”Troop! Square up. On my mark! 3. 2. 1. Charge!” Bowser commanded, and then with a cry of ”WAAA” “YAAAH” “MIMIIIII” ”RAAH” the three + their hanger on charged the heavy metal door in a collective shoulder-barge.