DracoLunaris

World of Light

wordcount: 938 (+6) ( -5)
Midna: level 7 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (49/70)
Location: Sandswept Sky - all the way down the mountain and back to the train

”That should be far enough” Midna said to herself, and in a sense also to the soaring titan, after a harrowingly rough and blind ride away from the bell. She cut off the sand flowing from the twilight realm that was veiling the world around them and brought back the clear blue skies of the Sandswept Sky, revealing them to be slowly sinking down towards the cloudlayer and the cold winds below, and that they were not alone.

”I’ve still got this Sec!” she yelled at the bee queen who had followed after them, even as the titan also caught sight of her and began to perform a slow arch in an ineffectual attempt to collide with the comparatively insect sized insect woman.

”Oh no you don’t!” Midna shouted at it, as she slapped her chest with an open palm and drew out a friend-heart. She didn't even have to throw it, the wind catching it the moment it formed and dashing the pink bundle of power into the titan’s forehead a heartbeat later.

”Ok, now comes the hard part” she said as she banished her blade and held up her hands and told it ”See, not armed, not going to hurt you anymore. We just needed to rough you up a bit so we could free you see? Now you should be all healed up. Good as new and remembering wherever you were from.” Not entirely sure if her words where being understood, the princes lowered herself down and along the colossus’ horn and awkwardly pet it on the head while insisting ”no need to fight or anything, we’re friends now”

She was about to tell it that it could simply leave when, below, the great bell rang out a single note that shook heaven and earth. ”Guess they went and rang it huh? Wait what?” Midna asked in confusion as the bell somehow kept ringing, over and over and over again, which as Midna tried to picture the physics of the situation, did not seem like it would be a safe thing to be in the middle of.

”I was going to say goodbye and leave you be, but I think my friends need help. So could you help me out, just this once?” Midna asked as she gazed into the nameless colossus’ eye, searching for understanding.

When the titan came swooping to the rescue, it came bearing Midna sat into the slightly saddle shaped grove in its neck, the princess gripping its neck ridge and directing it as best she could as they swooped down through the swarm of bat things and thunderous noise of the clanging bell, that was shaking everything apart. She hoped the old guy had gotten clear or got grabbed by someone as she waved with her shadowhand for them to come aboard her new friend, the princess looking just a tiny bit smug about being right about the sky snake’s true disposition while coming to their rescue.

There were only a few seconds available to get aboard the swooping beast, but the heroes were no slouches and so all were aboard before it soared back up into the sky. Once up there they could look down below, and see the true boss revealed. At first it was unclear what the giant thing they had dislodged from the mountain using the ringing of the bell actually was, but as they dived after it it revealed itself to be… Another giant worm.

”Huh. You really made a good decoy for that thing huh? No offense.” she told the peaceful sky wyrm as they burst through the bottom of the cloud layer before adding ”If this isn’t some kind of double decoy anyway” as the others immediately decided it had to die. Midna at first couldn’t tell much about it other than it was big but once she’d gotten a better look at it, the giant maw sporting thing certainly seemed like it would be dangerous by nature, contrasting it with the entirely harmless looking and acting sky titan, which would have been reason enough to take it down if the uniquely blood red fire in its eyes didn’t apparently mark it as a guardian that was.

Midna was however entirely in agreement with not using their sky worm to fight the dirt worm ”Don’t worry, I won't put you in anymore danger, just drop us off and you can go back to soaring through the skies and looking majestic while doing it like before” she told it, while using a shadowhand to wave down at the inhabitants of Tostarena Town to make sure said town wouldn't be a danger either. Last thing they needed was to spook someone down there into shooting at them.

They swooped down low as they could safely go and then, after giving the colossus one last pet on the noggin, the princess tossed herself off of the titan, using her levitation to slow and control her fall till she hit the sand. Then a moment later she was riding through the town, racing on the back of her wolfos while removing her X-Naut uniform to prevent herself from being knocked out by heat stroke while wearing them.

They blitzed through the crowd of onlookers and then into the shade of the town, at which point the princess simply vanished from sight as she dissolved into the shadows and blinked from one to another to reach the train.

The princess hopped out of the shadows of the machine they were going to use to stop the threat they had technically unleashed, and then once aboard and staring at the railway gun realized that ”I have no idea how this thing works!” before wracking her brains and deducing that Well it’s a big gun so it needs equally big bullets right? Do we even have those?” before going looking for said big shots. If that failed, well, she had the ammo synthesizer which might, might, produce a single shot. That would be better than nothing, but certainly not a solution, as would leave them all pulling a Razputin style plinking strategy for most of the fight.

Either way, by the time the others had arrived, the princess would have found out if this plan was a dead end or not, and if it wasn't, she’d have shells on (shadow)hand to load under the guidance of an actual firearm’s expert.

World of Light

The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 1350(+3) (+4) (+30)
Bowser: Level 10 EXP: //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (209/100)
Bowser Jr: Level 9 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (179/90)
Kamek: Level 10 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(105/100)
Location: Limsa Lominscuttle Town - Kanzuki Beach
Feat: Rika

Rika rolled over in her bed as the morning sun peeked in through the window, grunted as the cords connecting her to her gauntlets to her back restricted her movement enough to stop her completing the roll, and then rolled back and just subconsciously put up with the morning sun while she doze back off to sleep.

Then in what felt like a moment later to the ship girl but was actually a lot longer than that there came a rapping on the door, followed by it opening and the most awful voice she had ever heard in her life rasping “Rise and shine! Breakfasts in twenty, so get washed and then come get it while it’s hot” to try and rouse them from slumber, and succeed all too well.

”Ah get lost Toad!” came a grumbled roar followed by a pillow being hurled at the poor servant ”what kinda time do you call this anyway?”

There was some more non vocal grumbling from the other two koopas who had, along with Rita herself, shifted a bunch of beds all onto the one room last night after meeting back up in Limsa Lominscuttle Town. After the horrors of the maw and the dread of the island, there had been an almost unspoken desire for closeness in the name of security and peace of mind, even here, in Preach’s idyllic castle. Then again, it had been under attack the previous day, but they’d still gotten some grief for their unexplained furniture rearrangement.

“I’d call it a nice lie in, and if the princess can be up at this hour, you lot can manage it too you know. Least if you don’t wanna waste all the chef’s hard work prepping a late breakfast for everyone” the toad, a surprisingly durable race to whom a king powered pillow throw was nothing, told them before closing the door and getting on with his day.

The call of breakfast was enough to get them all out of bed, the mass exertion of the previous day demanding fuel via tummy rumbling doing so better than any alarm clock. Covers being thrown aside revealed Rika dressed in a hastily borrowed nightgown of Peach’s while the Koopas were all down to their shells. Even Jr’s bib was gone as all of their clothes had been banished to the laundry room by the toads the moment they entered the castle last night. Only Mimi had retained her outfit due to a rabbid refusal to have it removed, the now rather ragged looking hidden horror finding her place on Jr’s shoulder almost as they all moved to get the day started.

This lighter outfitting looked a little strange on all of them on Rika, but none more than Kamek, who free from her robes had her new gangly humanesque form on near full display. Catching both Rika and Jr looking, the mage sighed and said ”I know I know. But I have a solution to this awkwardness I’ll be trying later” she before waving a hand to jar containing the Tonberry spirit (along with a few others front he weald) sitting on a bedside table, before chiding them both ”And stop staring, it is quite rude”

The jar was left behind in the room along with a whole host of items that they could not carry due to the lack of garbs. Everything from gold, wands, shears and a busted up clown car were piled up in the room to be retrieved once they had a way to carry it all.

After a brief detour to the showers to wash off the grim of last nights soggy adventure (during which a few toads debated whether the bedding they troop had slept in without showering was salvageable or should be burned) and once all cleaned up, they eagerly headed for breakfast, which turned out to consist of a near limitless pile of pancakes, something that got absolutely no complaint from anyone.

While they were at it, it being shoveling pancakes slathered with condiments into their gobs at varying rates of ravenous fervor, those making their stay at Peach’s castle got their own letter of invite, which was read to them by Toadsworth after he managed to get their attention.

“... Best regards, Kanzuki Karin.” the old toad concluded before adding “well isn’t that nice of her. I can imagine you’ll all enjoy a bit of time off, given the utter state I’m old you were in this morning?”

There were nods of agreement from the Koopas but Rika had concerns “Don’t we have other stuff to do? There’s still loads of bosses after all. And whatever happened to the fleet now that the Sun Princess is dead. Or what about the maw? Oh and those poor freed, uh, abyssal minions, what are we going to do with those? And-” she ceased her rapidly becoming rambling sentence when Bowser patted her on the shoulder lightly.

”That stuff’s important, yeah, but after something as intense last night it’s good to take some time off. Trust me, all our problems’ll still be there after we’re done with a bit of R&R, but we’ll be refreshed and better suited to socking em real good in the face because after a little break” the king assured her with what might not have been the best general advice, but which they most certainly needed as of right now.

---

After breakfast wrapped up, they did have to take care of a few last second chores. Jr painted some warp graffiti back to the Carcass Isle and then Bowser hauled their airship back to smash city first, which coincidentally opened up a permanent link to that misbegotten place should anyone want to go there via the main paint based teleport network. Then after that they linked up with Rika and Kamek who had gone cloths shopping, the ship girl so she could stop borrowing peach’s cloths (and who wound up getting near the exact same outfit she had gotten the last time she went shopping in the city, namely a knee length red skirt and black jacket studded with brass buttons) and Kamek because she missed her robes (and managed to find something similar in the form of the hooded robes of a white mage).

With those affairs settled the troop strolled leisurely through the city, enjoying the sun, sea air, bustling clouds and complete lack of any nautical abominations assailing them while talking a lot about nothing of import.

Despite their casual pace, the troop actually managed to amble their way to the beach front property in decent time, likely thanks to the Toad’s wakeup call. The place they eventually reached was a fancy one which drew an impressed whistle from the king as they approached it.

”Nice place” he said, before sniffing the air and then salivating a little at the scent waiting through it ”mmm is that the barbecue I’m smelling? Because that smells goooood” he said despite their (late) breakfast having only been a little while ago.

Kamek made a lightly disparaging comment about them having just eaten while Jr hurried ahead, knowing full well that his dad would probably take a while loading up on the meats, and wanting to get some for himself before that delay to the queue for food set in. In doing so he ended up behind Nadia in line.

”Hi Miss Fortune! Cool Eyepatch” he said to her, before peeking around to take a look at what was on offer, while the rest of the troop rolled on in behind him and gave the catgirl their own greetings “Hello there” ”good afternoon” ”Hey, how’s it going?” before their host gave them her own welcome.

”Thank you for the invitation to your lovely, we are most grateful for it.” Kamek replied to this, before adding an ”Aren't we?” directed at the rest of the troop which got a round of not nearly polite agreements from the rest of them, the most egregious of which was Jr’s conditional ”If the food’s as good as it smells then yeah, definitely”

World of Light

wordcount: 931 (+2)
Midna: level 7 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (48/70)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Graveyard of the Peaks

”Thank you” the princess breathed a sigh of relief as she managed to get through to the others either directly with her words or indirectly via the thrives' ever useful long range communication system which was used to call Ciella off.

In short order after that, they abandoned their attack on the sky titan and rejoined the others on the ground, where they were dithering about whether or not they should ring the mega bell. She entirely got why they hadn’t gone right ahead and done it. Who knew what kind of thing desecrating the holy site of what seemed to be a cruel and spiteful religion might do?

”Have you considered checking down there” she pointed down below them ”in the bell itself?” she asked ”Because if I were going to hide a guardian somewhere, I’d do it in a deep dark pit like that” as that was functionally what it was. Who knew what was lurking down there? A hidden monster? An either dungeon? It could be anything, because the dark deaths concealed all, even to the princess of twilight.

Any further debate on the topic was interrupted, because Midna had forgotten one of the fundamental facts of this world. When a fight started, there was no ending it till someone bit the dust. While the sky leviathan had been content to soar around before they had provoked it, and it hadn’t had any way of attacking them while they were on it, it was still an absolute titan of a thing, which meant that now that it was roused and not trying to throw anyone off, it was spurred to attack with the only thing it had that could do damage. Its immense bulk.

The serpent came diving in with a vengeance, driving alongside it a mass of air while using its titanic horn as a battering ram to try and smash some of them to pulp. Utterly terrifying and dangerous to be on the receiving end of, yet still when you got down to it, an animal’s way of fighting. Like they had attacked a giant flying deer. Or at least that was Midna’s interpretation made as much to save face as it was logic, made while she was flipping end over end over the yawning void of the bell.

”Oh right, the stupid galeeming curse!” Midna complained after she realized what was happening while recovering from her fall with levitation. She’d been so focused on calling everyone off that she hadn't even considered how the false sun’s influence would force the thing to fight them till the bitter end now that they had attacked it. More stupid mistakes she had to make up for.

”Give it, and me, one last chance. I’ll try and draw it away from here and then free it” Midna shouted to the others, holding her longer knife‘s blade to her palm to charge it with lighting and re-summoning her Vibrava to act as her wings once more ”and if that doesn't work I’ll kill it myself!”

Then she darted into the shade of one of the bridges and a breath later appeared atop the titan once again via a shadow warp. This time she was prepared for the wind that had blown her off last time, and so her shadowhand immediately lashed out and pulled her close to its fur, which she gripped with both hands and clawed feed, while she held the charged knife in between her pointed teeth.

She began to scurry up its length, dragon claws sinking into fur, shadow hand grabbing ahead and pulling her forwards, levitation cheating physics and her Vibrava’s wings buzzing, She wasn't heading for the remaining weak spot, any of the already stabbed ones, or even the bags of gas keeping it afloat. No, she headed straight for the head and its horn.

What she needed to do was to get it to follow her. If she could get it out of range of the rest of the team before freeing it, then if it was a neutral animal, she hoped its survival instincts would make it stay far away from them rather than go back to try and kill them out of vengeance.

To that end when she reached the end of its fur she whipped her shadow hand out to grasp the crest above it’s head and then kept going. Claws clinging to stone chitin as she hung onto it and got her next hold with her shadow hand, till she got in front of its eyes and pulled her way up its horn so that she was dangling by her the bright orange limb ahead of its four malignant eyes like a lure.

She gripped the handle of her sword and pulled it from her mouth. Then she stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly while blasting lightning from the blade past one of the four red glowing eyes to get its attention.

”Galeem wants you to kill? So come on! Come and get me!” she yelled, blasting a few more times before opening two vast twilight portals on either side of her, from which the sands of an otherworldly desert began flowing, sweeping to either side of the titan and onto the air, blocking its peripheral vision.

”It’s just you and me! So chase me! Fight me! Try and destroy me as Galeem compels you to do!” she demanded, while dangling herself to one side of it in an attempt to steer the titan by getting it to follow her. If this didn't work, she’d have to try and actually fly ahead of it, and she wasn’t sure if she could manage that.

Either way, if she could, and it lived, she’d try and steer the titan away from the great bell, where the others were, keeping its focus on her by binding it to all else and provoking it with lighting blasts and yelling. Then, once out of sight, she’d free it. Apologize, if she could, for the misunderstanding, and then leave it to wander once again.

That was the plan anyway. Goddesses only knew if it was going to work.

Pokémon: Feudal Legends

_@LostDestiny

---

”Ah you're spoiling me… but I ain’t gonna say no to that now am I?” Sanzoku replied merrily to the offer of a free reading. It did feel a bit like double, no, triple dipping into the town’s gratitude after being both paid, and promised a favor by William as a result of her last minute intervention into the morning’s incident, but she wasn't the kind of person to turn down what was freely offered.

Besides, there was a caveat in the offer that balanced it out and which she was more than happy to accept ”And I’ll be sure to keep my ears peeled for the next time you need the cash too. Plus you can be sure I’ll be joining the choir singing the praises of your services after this bit of kindness” she said, referencing the now dissipated queue of her regulars that the sell-sword had been at the end of.

While the woman talked, her Houndour’s curious eye wandered to and fro between whatever strange human thing his trainer was up to and the haunter that may or may not be up to no good in the back of the stall.

Sanzoku hmmm'ed for a few moments while briefly thinking over the two types of card reading on offer before going with the latter as recommended ”I think I’ll go with the six then.” The past, as far as she was concerned, was dead. No need to drag her less than stellar early years up into the light again, even via cards. What really mattered to her was what came next in life, be it danger or fortune or, as was usually the case for her profession, both at once.

”So how does this work then, am I picking the cards or are you?” she asked with curiosity and the will to go forwards with however this was supposed to play out.

The Friestan Incident, a Fantasy Sci-Fi Fusion RP

Q-T Brackman

Things did not seem to be going well. The first reason for that was because Galmira did not seem to be particularly pleased about the death of one of her kind at the hands of these adventurers and who could really blame her for that. Q-T certainly wouldn't, seeing as she was plenty upset about it herself.

The second reason it wasn't going well is because ‘seemed’ was the core part of the sentence, because the dragon had switched to another language which left them in the dark as to what was going on, something that was basically Q-T’s fault because she had not even considered bringing the translator with them. It was presently hurtling towards them strapped to Neilsy’s jet bike, but it’d be minutes till it arrived and if things were going to go wrong, they were going to go wrong fast.

Especially because what Q-T could pick up from the mix and mash language using her own, modern language, translation routines was that Galmira had said, ”Something about ‘die fighting’?”

”Sorry captain, trying to signal box, even when get, will be slow. Will try to do what can,” the bot, who had started wiggling her antenna around to try and get a signal back to her friend and the box, said. She had had to scrap most of the grammar in her sentence because one of the native humans, a blond and very pleasant to look at woman who seemed to be ‘armed’ with a plethora of vials of colored liquid (possibly acids or chemical explosives or something more esoteric) began to respond at length.

”She’s… confused? Disappointed and dismissive?” Q-T began with something she could translate easily, which was tone and body language, something that might be redundant but the fact that this was the person’s attitude did not really make sense to the robot. It also worried her, so she felt she had to air it before moving on to hacking together a translation mostly based on individual recognized words.

”They were here for the meteor, us I think, and then there is mention of trespassing and demands for gold. They tried to talk? Then violence happened anyway… I’m fairly sure she’s just insulting the dead dragon now” Q-T said, getting the gist of what happened but missing/failing to pull out much of the nuance of the situation and similarly failing to grasp Catherine’s philosophical waxing that went along with it. The latter was likely for the best, considering how abhorrent the child of the age of peace would have found the alchemist's outlook had she been able to grasp it at all.

What was clear though, was that ”I don’t think she’s much of a diplomat captain, so this, ah, might not end well”

Pokémon: Feudal Legends

_{Interacting With:@LostDestiny}

---

Having seen action first thing, Sanzoku felt more than fine in taking it easier in the morning than she had intended too. Oh they were still going to do some training, Marrow and her, but that could wait for a bit now. Instead she strolled back to the inn and picked up right where she’d left off, polishing off her now sadly cold meal while counting her unexpected payday.

”hmmm, not bad, not bad at all” she said to herself, as she neatly piled up the coins into countable stacks. Those would certainly keep her fed, watered and housed for a while longer than her existing reserves already would, but it also reminded her she should probably start looking for work again soon enough, which momentarily soured her mood.

”Ach, now’s no time to be worrying about money though is it Marrow?” she asked her mon rhetorically ”After you’ve cheated death another day and gotten paid for it, that’s when it's time to have some fun. Morning appropriate fun though” she still had some training planned, and she also had to pick up her order too, so day drinking was out of the question.

”Well we’ve got cash to burn and now that I think about it, all those merchants we help ‘ll be setting up show around now, yes? So about we see if there’s anything of interest before we check in with William” she said, and so it was that a little while later the sell-sword (who had taken the time to change back out of her armor after eating) and her pokemon found themselves strolling through the freshly open market, casually pursuing the wares on offer to see if anything caught their fancy.

Ironically it wasn’t one of the newly arrived merchants that ended up catching her eye first, but instead the white haired young women and her haunter who the sell-sword had seen already seen in the inn this morning and then after that during the little incident with the alpha Persian, who she now found manning a fortune telling stand, and a quite popular looking one at that. Both interested in the novelty of this and, subconsciously, hoping this might help with her current lack of direction, the towering woman joined the queue and, after a bit of gossiping with her fellow waiters in line, she met Himaru in person for the first time.

”So you must be the rarely in business fortune teller I’ve heard people swear by” she said warmly as she stepped forwards, presently holding Marrow in the crook of her arm so he could see what was going on, and then added ”now I don't know much about that kind of stuff, but I do have a little spare coin to spend so, tell me, what’s the fanciest bit of fortune telling you can do for me? Be nice to know if life has any more surprises or, ah, opportunities coming my way, if that’s a thing you can do?”

”Oh, and I’m Sanzoku Shōkan, mercenary for hire, pleasure to meet you” she belatedly introduced herself, before saying ”I’d pitch you my services, but you and your Haunter there looked like you could handle yourselves just fine out there this morning” knowing full well that the fortune teller wasn't the kind of person who would want/could afford to hire mercs of course, it was all just a lead in for the compliment.

World of Light

wordcount: 453 (+1)
Midna: level 7 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (46/70)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Graveyard of the Peaks

Just as she had predicted, the princess got plenty of grief for her attempt at preventing them from making what she saw as a mistake. She could maybe put it down to the fact that they had been in the thick of what felt like a fight for their lives when she had had time to observe, but it was still disheartening to be belittled like this by all of them, being called ‘crazy’ and a ‘bleeding heart’ wasn’t exactly pleasant, even if they did relent.

The generally kind hearted Tora being against this stung deeply, but she took particular issue with Sectonia’s comment, despite her agreeing with her suggestion at leaving it be for now.

”Last time my bleeding heart prevented several people from being needlessly killed. My only true failure of my was not being able to save each and every one of them from that goddess damnable floppy eared rat-” the Princess was prevented from completing her tirade against Ciella when the women herself unknowingly interrupted it by shooting a massive hole in the side of one of the titan’s air sacs, causing the dragon to suddenly lose a portion of its lift and begin sinking down towards the mountain.

”That lady is going to be the death of us all I swear” Midna seethed as she gripped the now sinking behemoth as it struggled to maintain its altitude alongside continuing to try and get them off.

”Could someone please call her off?” she requested, still clinging to the beast and holding her shadowhand over the fin defensively, and then realizing how this looked added ”It’s not that I don't trust you” technically a lie, she did not trust Band’s crazy friend/daughter/person for whom he was a social worker one inch, ”it’s that she and I don’t really see eye to eye… so could one of you maybe try and enlighten her? Tell her we’ll all be cursed if this dragon-worm-thing dies or something” she suggested, and then only after having done so thinking that that might actually be a real risk here.

It could be they had been about to kill some world’s own Spirit of Light or other sacred being, and if there was one thing they did not need, it was being censored by some god or other for that misdeed. Considering something akin to divine intervention had saved them from freezing to death, it wasn't the most unlikely of scenarios, at least in the princess’s mind as of this moment.

World of Light

The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 997 (+2)
Bowser: Level 10 EXP: //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (176/100)
Bowser Jr: Level 9 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (146/90)
Kamek: Level 10 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(68/100)
Location: Bottomless Sea – Carcass Isle
Feat: Rika

Link's suggestion drew their attention to the little fleet of abyssals Rika had escorted the two princesses out of. The wretched dregs of the fleet, broken amalgamations of shiprightery and fragments of human woman that stood there, near motionless and making little to no attempt to recover from the dual shock of liberation. They were the lowest on the totem pole, broken patched together husks and it was perhaps a blessing that they exhibited nothing akin to human intelligence.

“Hey. Psst. Is anyone home?”

Better they be mindless than have thinking and feeling people trapped within those twisted shells, or so Kamek thought as she watched Rika, who the mage had come to realize was something of an expedition among the abysall’s soldiery in that she had a form close to human/the princesses, try and fail to rouse any kind of personhood from them. At the very least, they didn’t attack either, simply stared at the shipgirl, as if awaiting orders.

That would have to do.

”I think they recognize you as one of the fleet’s leaders?” Kamek drifted over to say. They certainly seemed to be looking at her rather than either of the rescued princesses or even Bella who was keeping them company, ”Specifically Pacific?”

“Huh? Oh…” she replied, reminded of that unnecessary death. Kamek would have consoled her, and indeed she would later, but right now they needed to act.

”I know it may not feel right, but we should try and follow Link's plan. Take command of these minions, and we might be able to resolve this with less death and injury” she insisted

“Ok but how do I…” Rika began to ask how she should lead, before realizing she had an example to draw from. How good an example Bowser and his son were to draw from was highly debatable, but, well, that's all she had to go on.

“Um. Ok. So,” she began faltering almost immediately before clearing her throat and tapping into the bits of her hack job of a personality drawn from the Brachydios and the Pacific princess. Namely loud and stern.

She stepped one foot up onto one of the squat abyssals, planted her hands on her hips and commanded loudly “Abyssal feet to attention! From up into a defensive posture around me, on the double! Then hold your fire until I command it!” before glancing over at Kamek and whispering “was that good?”

The answer spoke for itself, as the wretched mass of ship-mutants crawled, flopped or hoovered towards her, forming, as rapidly as they could, a wall of guns and far too human maws in front of the tunnel leading towards the dead sea and their way home.

Of course, this shouting drew the attention of a lot of the other creatures as well, stirring them awake. They had to act fast, and Kamek did so by hovering up and over the fleet and shouting

”We mean you no harm unless you mean it to us! If you want to leave, you are free to do so. If you want answers, step to the side and we will treat with you once only you remain. If, however, you wish to die senselessly” he raised her hand and beckoned the true monsters closer to Rika’s new army ”come and meet your fate”

---

The smoke cleared soon after. The dead where tallied, the fled where long gone, and the friendly moved off of the walls they’d pushed themselves up against to stay clear of the fighting.

Of the living, there where:

One hulking river zora who briefly thought he recognized Link, and then when it became clear they hadn’t met before, offered to sell him a set of flippers like he had one of the hero’s past reincarnations.

Some incredibly ugly but otherwise unremarkable Lungfish Citizens who reacted to the whole situation exactly as a bunch of panicked humans would and had to be placated with promises of safety and modern conveniences.

Much less ugly but just as helpless band made up of various fish-folk who called themselves The Chirpy Chips.

A friendly talking fish who introduced himself as Freddy and asked if they’d be able to help him leave the restrictive tide pool he was in.

And finally a mermaid who seemed to have no issue moving around on dry land despite her lack of legs who called herself Irenes and who, along with the Zora King, and another mermaid called Yumei had kept the lungfish folk and (non combatant) musicians safe at the sides of the cave.

The dead consisted mainly of Pelagic Plague victims, Squirts, eldritch undead and Ocean Crawlers, along with some surprisingly dangerous dire penguins and dolphin wielding zombies. These spirits where piled up along with the Dreugh spirit and a fair number of fallen abyssal minions, while Kamek kept the Tonberry for herself.

The various xenophobic fishmen, from murloks to pelagics to aquatoids, had taken one look at this mess and decided to leg it in the name of self preservation, while the hulking diving suit had crushed everything dangerous near it with cold brutality and then left without a word, ignoring any thanks or questions called out after it.

”Well. That’s the end of that” Kamek sighed with relief, not knowing how much more of this she could take, before saying ”now maybe we can finally rest?” before wincing at Rika shouting “Minions, make way for the friendly people” to her remaining fleet troops.

As they obeyed and the friendly folk hurried over to ask questions about where they were and where safety might be found, and where directed back to the painting to get such things, Rika reminded Kamek that “We still gotta find New South, remember? Like Link said”

The mage sighed, gave the hero of the wilds a dirty look and then with a groan agreed, saying “Well at least she can’t have gone far.”

She turned out to be quite wrong about this.

World of Light

The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 1,328 (+3)
Bowser: Level 10 EXP: //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (176/100)
Bowser Jr: Level 9 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (146/90)
Kamek: Level 10 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(66/100)
Location: Bottomless Sea – Carcass Isle
Feat: Rika

Soon enough, Jr had finished up his bit of artistry, though considering he’d painted the city several times over at this point, it was more by rote than by any kind of inspiration that it turned out so well.

”Good luck I’ll, uh, meet you back at Peach’s castle yeah?” He said to Kamek and Rika.

”Stay safe young master. We’ll see you soon” the mage replied with a tired nod, while Rika waved and said “yeah, see you soon!” and then a few moments later after jr had vanished into the painting she asked “Wait, Peach has a castle?!”

---

A swarm of colorful bubbles appeared in the air just in front of the entrance to Alcamoth and then coalesced into the form of jr, who dropped to the ground and nearly toppled over from the weight of his busted up clown car that he was carrying.

”Geeze I am tired” the boy complained, getting a “Mi kyu” of agreement from Mimi as he stepped forwards to let other people land. Just going off to bed was oh so tempting, but the little prince was too worried about his dad to throw himself onto the nearest soft surface. Or to be more specific, he was worried about what his dad would do as a result of him worrying about his son.

So he shook his head, yelled at the closest person he could find to get them to babysit his broken vehicle, and then pushed forwards, leading the way back to Limsa via another warp painting.

Upon his arrival, the prince looked up at the looming city and realized he might have a problem.

”Wait… where in the world is he gonna be?!”

---

Back on the haunted island Rika and Kamek lead the way in going to check out the state of the strange prostrating sea-folk/monsters. Or, to be more specific, Kamek’s doppelgangers lead the way well ahead of the rest of the group, because the mage would be damned if anyone even took a scratch at this late an hour.

Fortunately this proved to be unnecessary, at least initially. The scout clone meandered into the cave and found those within had been freed both from Galeem and from whatever power had been making them bow down towards the orphan and its corpse of a mother, but left dazed and confused by the result. Even the undead/mutated horrors and Pelagics which Kamek somewhat assumed would be hostile weren't doing much more than stumbling around or sitting still trying to recover their senses.

That said, soon enough they would regain them, and then this place would go off like a powder keg. The mage said as much to the others in a whispered tone ”We need to be very very careful here. Things could get nasty at any second”

“Then we’d better get the nice people out before it does…” Rika replied, before scanning over the mass of sea life and realizing that would not be an easy task at first glance. Kamek started boiling down the crowd of creatures into groups of things they knew were hostile and/or mindless, while Rika just went with the answer she knew was right, which involved strapping her gauntlets to her back and then moving into the mass of creatures, carefully picking her way through them towards the two dazed Princesses.

“Psst. Hey. Hi, I know you're confused and stuff but we need to go before things get messy, ok? You’ll be safe with us, I promise” She said, once she’d snuck up to them, gently taking each of them by a hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze, and then trying to gently guide them back towards the relative safety of the exit of the cave.

Kamek meanwhile wasn’t going to take the same risk, both out of self preservation and out of the pragmatism that someone needed to be standing back and ready to intervene if things did go wrong. So instead he was using his clones to test the waters with the other creatures. Or quietly eliminate the worst of them, which a pair of red clones were doing by shuffling around non threateningly and then point blank spell blasting the horrifically mutated victims of the Pelagic Plague into dust.

For the others she used a pair of greens as envoys to attempt to gauge their friendliness, which didn’t get any particularly good result.

On awoke an atlantean fish man by waving friendlyly in its face till it got his attention. The fish man took one look at the situation and then promptly mounted its giant lobster of a steed and rode it on out of there with nare a word to anyone else.

Another gently poked a Tonberry and offered its hand to shake, only for the deceptively cute creature shake its head clear, give the most fowl look at this stranger and then it draw a large kitchen knife from its robes with which it proceeded to shank the green clone, killing it in a single hit.

Then it turned and stabbed the nearest thing to it, which was a massive crab like Dreugh... and killed it in one hit too.

”Oh dear” was the mage’s understated response to this unintended first domino he’d tipped.

---

Out on the waves beyond Limsa, the Koopa King slapped himself fully awake as he heard the rumbling towards him from behind. The king, who had been sailing back along the route they had set off that morning at a painfully slow pace, turned, bristling for a fight, then growled at what he saw and proceeded to yell ”Go away! You couldn’t stop me going after my boy once Brinybeared, and you ain’t gonna pull it off this time either,” at the approaching form of Shippy.

“Ah give it a rest you stubborn seashark. You’ve not even gotten outa sight of the city” the old sailor shouted back, “besides, I’ve got your boy right here. Told you you shoulda just stayed put, ya had him worried sick, going off all on your own like that!”

”I couldn’t just sit there, waiting and biting my claws off while… wait what did you say?” Bowser shouted back, only for his own tired mind to catch up with the latter half of Brinybeared’s sentence, just in time for jr to appear, hopping up and hanging off the railing to shout ”Papa!” at his dad.

The king blinked a few times and then went racing back towards the ship, jumping aboard and scooping up his son with a ”Junior! I’m so glad you're ok!” before the two embraced while the old sea dog laughed quietly to himself and turned them back towards the safety of the city.

---

Kamek carefully stepped around the dazed denizens of the weld and planted her wand against the back of the Tonberry’s head, the serial knife murderer fast asleep thanks to an expertly placed sleeping dart in its neck, courtesy of the End. The mage’s two red clones joined her, and together they put a permanent end to the endlessly vengeful creature’s life with bolt after bolt of point blank spellpower.

”Ech, I am quite sick of this place” the mage cursed as she picked up the spirit of it and the crab thing it had killed and hurried her way back towards the far end of the cavern, where Rika was trying to explain things to the two princesses.

”I don't suppose anyone has a better way of dealing with this, because I’m starting to think this might be a lost cause. Baring the two we've already pulled out of this mess, every one/thing in here does not seem to be of the friendly variety” she said, conscious of how her own attempt was causing a stir among the nearby survivors. Somewhere slinking away into the depths of the weld like the lobster rider had done, but while Kamek had done her best to dispose of the close by guaranteed threats, it was only a matter of time before things went completely pear shaped.

World of Light

wordcount: 709 (+1)
Midna: level 7 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (45/70)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Graveyard of the Peaks

Prompted by her guesswork the aerial crew surged forwards and aimed to strike at the three great glowing runes half hidden by the titanic wyrm’s ridge-like scales. Sectonia struck first and fastest, driving her blades into a nearby rune, causing a spray of black blood and a great cry of pain from the titan.

”Knew it!” Midna cheered as she saw this happen, and then braced for whatever retaliation was going to come in response to that wound. That response turned out to be… a corkscrew of a turn. While it might have been quite the effective shake off strategy, tossing the queen bee aside and forcing everyone else to cling on for dear life, but that turned out to be about it.

”Where’s the fury and the fire? The, I dunno, swarms of kees or something? Anything? What is going on here?” the princess asked herself as she drew closer, confused by the lack of any offensive abilities on the great snake. She was getting a bad feeling about this, one that only grew as the second rune was attacked and eliciting only more shaking.

More writhing from the wounded beast.

Then the time for reflection was over for the moment as Midna’s vibrava assisted flight caught up with the titan, and she shot out a shadow hand to grab hold and pull herself aboard.

She immediately regretted it.

”Oh goddesses, I think I’m going to be sick” the princess groaned through a hand cupping her mouth and puffed up cheeks as the shaking disturbed her recently filled stomach. With dragon clawed toes, hand and shadow hand gripping tight she fought for control of her body and after a few moments shoved down the nausea through sheer force of will.

After that first trial, it certainly felt like more of a life or death struggle now that she was aboard and climbing threehandidly up along its fur, vibrava wings buzzing behind her to keep her pulled down (or sideways, or up) into the dragon’s body, but it still felt like a reasonable reaction form a wild beast being hunted than a battle with a captain of the enemy.

Her extra limb, her vibrava’s wings and the power of her levitation certainly made her climb easier than it was for some, even if her light little body meant that every buck was ever more treacherous, and so soon enough she’d gotten to the last fin.

”Almost over. Almost done.” she muttered, still a little queasy, as she grasped the fin with an oversized shadowhand, and then heaved with all her magical might. ”Come on come on just a little crack and- gotcha!” she shouted as her heave drew the fin up just enough to open a little gap between it and the fur. Seizing this bit of progress, the princess summoned her two sized up wolfos on either side of her via portal to aid her.

After scrambling to find purchase on its back for a moment, the wolfos and wolf-dran both managed to sip their lower jaws into the gap she’d created. Then both clamped their maw shut around the fin and together, along with the princess, wrenched it upwards, cracking it open to expose the Sigil beneath ”like shellfish, and there’s the meat inside”

The princess drew the longer of her knives from the twilight realm, almost lost it to the wind for a second, and then hefted it to strike what might well be the final blow… and hesitated as her doubts suddenly crystalized at the last second.

”Ah… goddesses damn it I am going to eat so much grief for this if i’m wrong” she cursed with a sigh, before pulling back and letting the fin snap shut in front of her.

”I’m calling a timeout! We aren’t in any actual danger, so lets hang back and think this through, because something is off here, and I really don't want to murder some giant defenseless animal without being sure we actually have too!” She shouted out to the others while clinging to the fur for dear life, slapping a shadow hand down over the fin to keep it sealed shut, at least for the moment.

She did not need anymore avoidable deaths on her conscience.