In the swamp where Egrioth had sunk after death, in the waters that had been tranquil since that day, something shifted and stirred as something rose from the depths. Earth bulged, and then exploded as three things burst from it, a witch, a stone, and a grotesque lump of flesh that pulsed with both life and power.
“Your a tricky beast, hiding this away in a leg of all places” the Breaker told the outer beast’s still beating heart “and ya would have gotten away with it, where it not for … whatever this is”
She glanced over at the rock that had poked into the heart while she had been attempting to harvest more flesh so she could use it to curse yet more outer beasts, causing it to spasm and give its existence away. It was by no means a natural stone, this was obvious due to the symbols carved upon it, although carved was perhaps the wrong word. It was as if something had pressed the symbols into it all at once, compressing the stone rather than cutting it away.
“Hmmm, now what does this say? Hmmm. Hmmmm?” the goddess hummed and hawed as she tilted her head to and fro while attempting to read the symbols “Ah yes, I think I see. It is you, your power outsider, that is written here. Pain. Hurt that can harm even I, a pain I know quite well sadly and-ow”
She paused in her musing as something jabbed her in the side of the head. She raised her hand up and grasped at it, only for her fingers to be prickled, forcing her to tear them away. Then she steeled herself, grabbed the source of the pain, and tore it from her face before tossing it into the waters, revealing it to be her riding goggles, now warped, half turned into the translucent purple curse energy of Egrioth.
“Hmmm, well that’s strange” she muttered, before glancing back at the runestone and immediately understanding what had occurred as the same force that had warped her goggles attempted to warp her now unguarded eyes instead
“ack, what a nasty drawback you have” she complained as she glanced away, before thinking for a moment, and then tipping the stone fully into the water, before reading again. The marshland’s waters themselves twisted as she read through them, but the sheer volume ment a single learning had little impact, and soon enough she knew Egrioth’s heart from the runestone spawned by its energies.
“Interesting, interesting … Now what in the world do I even do with this information, huh?” she asked, before thinking for a moment and then snapping her fingers in memory of something she had seen from on high while orbiting the world.
“Ah so that is what that was. One moment please” she requested of the heart, before blasting across the sea of origin to the other example of these stones she had seen. There, through a veil of mist, she snooped on Rúnaritari’s diary, and then once she had digested everything she thought she had a pretty clear idea of what the goddess had been going for. So after a quick pit stop to collect a bucket full of R’kava goop, she returned with a plan in mind
“Thank you for waiting dear” she told the heart, as she set down the bucket, as well as a small pile of knives on a convenient rock, before telling it “now let’s see if we can’t get you to cooperate, and cut you down to a more portable size to boot. I’m hardly going to lug you around as you are now, am I?”
If the lump of still living muscle could feel fear, it would have. Instead it simply suffered as the Breaker began carving runes into it. She too suffered, mainly because what she was trying to do kept warping her knives into unusable twisted things, and even then they kept breaking against the godlike flesh of the heart, resulting in what was very much just torture rather than anything productive.
An increasingly frustrated Breaker cursed and swore, and then was suddenly replaced by the Maiden who screamed out “I can’t take it any more!!!!” in frustration as she grabbed all the broken knives, and the bucked, shoved them all into each other somehow in order to produce, of all things, a chainsaw. The blade whirred, R’kava running slick across it, before she began carving into the heart, rendering onto it not a rune they had learned from either stone, nor one written in the khodex, but a simple ring shape that was, functionally, because of the power of repetition, hers.
Or, to put it another way, she carved the runic equivalent of slang or a gang tag onto it.
“There, that’s how you do it!” she declared, before passing off to the mother who hadn’t really been paying attention to any of this, and was rather surprised to find a wiring blade of godly harm in her hands. She stumbled, complained about this “reckless nonsense!” and then only after the other two badgered her did she carve a circle onto the heart.
The breaker followed it up with her bisected circle, and then proceed to go to down on the rest of the heart, carving a massive network of runes all across it, forming chains of curse runes linking the three, which when completed began squeezing and contracting inwards, shriveling the heart, contending its power tighter and tighter until the massive organ was the size of a walnut.
“And there we go, understand who’s in charge now, little thing?” the Breaker enquired as she picked up the heart in one hand and gave it a squeeze. In response a massive sea of translucent purple arrows formed around her, all pointing inwards at the goblin goddess herself. And yet, with a simple “no,” and a flaring of the runes carved into the heart, she willed them all to turn arch up into the air, and then rain down on a poor unsuspecting outer beast that had survived the battle here only to foolishly come to inquire as to what was causing all the noise, the rain of arrows resulting in it to feel so much pain that its nervous system exploded and it expired.
“Much better,” the breaker declared, before producing a mundane little locket for the heart to be set into so she could hang it around her neck. Then she proceeded to stash her new craving implement, strapping it to her bike for safe keeping. That only left the giant rock as a loose end, only for it to subsequently mysteriously appear in the ruins of Tricity, along with detailed instructions about how to not lose your eyeballs and a copy of a certain goddess’ runic journal as an added bonus.
Start 15 mp
4mp to claim Witchcraft: Mastery over witches and their craft, which is a rather diverse discipline conforming more to an archetype, an idea, than a strict code or doctrine. Witches are in touch with tradition, and the power that tradition entails. Witches have familiars. They brew potions. They cast complex rituals under moonlight. They curse their foes. They fly through the air. Most importantly, they wear pointy hats.
In the context of existing magic systems however, Witches are in touch with reincarnation, the power of cycles, rune craft and the evolutionary fuel R’kava the most. They are very much about indirect power, such as enhancing the body, creating artifacts or cursing those of their foes, rather than chucking fireballs around.
Gained as reward for participating in Hell in Heaven: the Heart of Egrioth (godbane artifact) : shriveled from titanic size to small enough that it can fit in a locket, the heart of this Greater Outer Beasts still beats, and grants the wearer the ability to wield its curse magic to cause pain even to the gods. Its translucent purple power can come in the form of storms of arrows, great building sized ballista bolts, sweeping blades and other mimicries of weapons of war, as well as producing simpler explosions and energy fields. Though these attacks do not cause physical damage, the intense levels of pain can themselves be lethal via causing circulatory shock.
2 mp witchcraft (boosted to 4 by wheels) to make the godsbane item the paintsaw, a chainsaw like device capable of drawing for a bigger on the inside well of R’kava set inside of its hub, which is then slathered on the blades so they can be used to paint/carve without needing to dip the brush. It’s a godbane so it can be used to tattoo divine flesh. The base witchcraft keeps the inevitable warping effect rune carving causes from actually damaging the device’s functionality, while wheels make it nice and slicy.
1 mp (boosted by witchcraft) to teach the people of Tricity about runes. Witchcraft boost used to make a copy of Rúnaritari’s diary runestone, which contains a fair amount of basic grammar and fundamental concepts.
End mp: 8
Asheel digs up Egrioth’s heart, and a runestone that has formed next to it due to its immense magical power (which is a thing that can happen). She uses that to learn about curse runes, then goes and finds Rúnaritari’s diary holy site and learns some of her thought process on how runes should work from reading. Finally she returns, makes a godsbane chainsaw come tattoo needle, and converts the heart into a godsbane of its own using runecraft. Then as an added bonus she drops off the rock, a copy of Rúnaritari’s diary rock, and a bunch of notes on how to use em in Tricity so they can do rune stuff.
Giovanna / Midna’s @DracoLunaris vs Erendira Quinn / Commando / Annette Durand / Parnell Word Count: 5,823 (+6)
Midna had dodged and weaved in pace with Giovanna, or rather her wolfos had, until they’d reached the conveyor belt. At that point, said wolfos got shown up by the agent’s own spectral wolf as she used it to burst ahead, while her own only made slow progress.
Fortunately, the princess had other options, and so promptly decided to approach the problem from outside of the design parameters, by hurling herself off of the side of the conveyor, and then being caught by a swooping flygon that had replaced her wolfos, and upon its back taking to the skies.
The pair swept forwards, rising up above the laser drones and blasting a few of them from on high to ease their allies running of the laser gauntlet, before swooping down to land down next to her. As she dismissed the flygon, Midna began to make a half jokey suggestion about Giovanna using the lovely little garden as a place to take a short rest, only to be interrupted when something came flying down from on high towards them.
Midna took a half step back, concerned that whatever it was might be a bomb, before glancing at Giovanna and then copying her nonplussed response, assuming that she knew what the pod’s deal was. She had to admit, she was still a bit surprised when it turned out to be a personnel deliverer, but her mask/helmet combo covered the accompanying look.
”Alive if we can?” she murmured in query to Giovanna as the bike wielding leader told them to stop or else, before summoning, catching, and starting to charge Hanabi’s old Prometheus polearm with electricity as her own equivalent of a taunt.
The secret agent shrugged casually. “Sounds like a lotta extra hassle.” Dealing with brainwashed allies and friends was one thing, but these goons were choosing to fight -and possibly kill- her of their own volition. Turning sideways, almost backwards, she raised her hands with fingers splayed like claws and gave her foes a sidelong glance. Rei swirled behind her, teeth bared. “I’m not that picky.”
”If we can” she reiterated. She wasn’t going to risk much, but there was an opportunity to disarm, or simply cripple and then run, she’d take it.
Seeing the two ready to fight, Quinn turned up her nose. “Hmph. Very well. I don’t mind doing this the hard way.” Couching her lance in the crook of her left arm, she extended her right with a dramatic flourish. Behind her, the Commando flicked the safety off his machine pistols, while Parnell pumped his meaty-looking shotgun and Annette powered up her scatter laser. “Brynhildr!” Erendira cried, springing into the air. Beneath her, a wellspring of cosmic pink and blue energy manifested a sleek, supernatural motorcycle. When Erendira landed in the seat its engine roared and it shot forward in a burst of speed, an opalescent shield conjured before it. As Parnell and the others sprinted behind it, the enemy team’s tank raced across the battlefield with lance extended to scatter their opponent’s formation and leave them wide open.
”Two can play at that game” Midna countered, summoning and mounting her wolfos steed with a burst of more subtle twilight glow. Then with electrically thrumming bo staff tucked under one shoulder, she counter charged, facing the biker to an impromptu joust that was entirely out of place.
Said glorious bout was sadly interfered with when Annette thrust a seemingly empty hand towards Midna, or, rather, her steed, causing the wolfos to stumble for a moment as its mind was assailed by hallucinations. With the princess’s urging and tugs on its fur, it had enough confidence to charge on relatively blindly, but its mind was now ripe for further interference.
It certainly wasn’t in a state to react to the Commando bashed one of his guns into one of several launchers he had strapped to his back, specifically one that was inexplicably made of cardboard where as the rest where much sleeker and modern. The built it yourself launcher proceeded to spit out a volley of 12 missiles that flew over the head of his charging comrade, and towards both of the seekers.
While some dived down towards Midna, who had to manually tug her steed to and fro to barely avoid them (but not the edges of their splash radii which clipped her steed) the rest flew onwards and then down towards Giovanna.
Part of Gio had wanted to jump astride her own lupine companion and charge at Erendira alongside Midna for a clash of epic proportions, but she wasn’t impulsive enough to heed that urge. Besides, she boasted neither a long lance nor an energy shield, so she didn’t feel confident giving the enemy tank a run for her money. Still, that motorcycle was badass, and as Gio dashed after Midna she kept her eyes on the opposition. If she intended to back her partner up, though, the Commando’s Seeker-seeking missiles further solidified Midna’s lead by forcing Gio to slide to a stop and block, which meant that when the two frontrunners came together, she couldn’t do much about what happened next.
Erendira’s lance had the range and accuracy advantage in a situation tailor-made for thrust attacks, and any hope that Midna and her off-kilter mount might have of landing a counterhit came to an end against Brynhildr’s shield. The lance pierced the chest of the wolfos, turning its forward momentum into extra damage as Erendira lifted it off the ground. It flipped over and landed on its back, dragged across the artificial rock garden’s rough surface for a couple dozen feet before Erendira raised her lance to send the poor beast flying.
“Sheesh.” Giovanna zig-zagged to avoid the makeshift projectile as she darted in, getting closer. Seeing her, Erendira swerved in order to drift straight into the secret agent with Brynhildr’s chassis. Gio narrowly jumped in time to avoid the maneuver, side-flipping right over Erendira’s head and striking a three-point landing on the motorcycle’s other side a second later. Her opponent came to a momentary stop out of melee range, but Gio had a way to hit her. She slammed the ground with a Seismic Hammer to cause a shockwave explosion beneath Brynhildr, but the move failed to unseat its rider. Engines revved, Erendira sped toward her. When Gio jumped, planning to bring down a dive kick and knock her foe from her seat Erendira eased off the gas and thrust her lance upward. It stabbed into Gio’s stomach, and Erendira performed a spin to whirl the agent around before launching her off the lance. She hit the ground and tumbled back onto her feet, one hand on her stomach. “Urk.”
She ended up practically back to back with Midna, who was a bit roughed up from the unhorsing, as well as, thanks to portal shenanigans, the princess’ equally chest stabbed Wolfos.
”Not the best start, so time flip the hourglass and start over” she declared, as she summoned her skywave striker, which immediately turned its gun to the floor and started a three shot volley of healing blasts. They needed to stick together to get optimum use of this however, which meant the enemy runners had plenty of time to close in. In response she brought out Roadblock, who raised a shield just in time to block a volley of pistol bullets, shotgun shrapnel, and a spread shot of laser blasts from them.
From behind that cover, the princess returned fire using less than accurate pistol fire followed up by a twilight volleybomb that prompted the trio of close range assault specialists to scatter and take individual more covered protected approaches. All three took at least a little damage from the arcane explosion, so Parnell got a head start on healing. Mutagen Shotgun at the ready, he held his fire to wait for an opportunity to deal some of his own and charge his Heal Burst.
This barrier did nothing to cover them from the bike riding Erendira however, who was in a perfect position to rear charge Midna’s defensive position. Knowing this, Giovanna turned to face her, a more serious than usual expression on her face. As crazy as work got for the Special Operations Unit, this was something she hadn’t trained for. Rather than charge straight at her, though, Erendira performed a wheelie and jumped her bike into the air with its rear tire engulfed in flame. “Better move.” Unable to protect Midna, she could only save herself by dashing away, and Erendira descended atop her motorcycle like a miniature meteor.
After the fiery impact she bounced twice, chasing Gio down as the Commando peppered her with bullets. That’s where Erendira got a little overzealous, though. On the second bounce Gio got a bead on the timing, then leaped up toward the threat rather than dodging away. She met her foe in the air, vaulted around Brynhildr’s chassis with one hand, and did an airthrow. Her legs locked around Erendira’s neck and she twisted around, hurling the surprised woman off her ride and into the ground. The moment she landed she cannoned forward with a Trovão flying kick, only for Erendira to right herself and resummon her motorcycle in front of her like a shield. As such Gio’s kick only knocked her back a little, and as the agent rose, Erendira mounted up. Unable to focus on one enemy like this, Giovanna clicked her tongue and dashed over to take cover behind a rock monument.
”Goddesses this is not going smoothly” Midna complained through clenched teeth, having resisted some but not nearly all of the fire damage thanks to a charm on her rosary. Her wolfos really wasn’t doing well either, as she’d only managed to get limited healing off before their skywave got blown away by the flaming impact. At least Roadblock was still up, though it was about to not be.
”Ok, time to switch this up” Midna said to herself, intending to switch out the wounded minion for something more durable that would actually have her back. Yet instead of hopping down into the portal she opened, her wolfos turned its now much to wide eyes upon her instead.
The princess barely got a moment to go ”Huh?” before her own minion lunged towards her suddenly, jaw opening wide before it sunk its teeth into one of her arms. Fortunately it managed to grab a magical instead of a fleshy one, but she was still too surprised and confused to react for a moment.
Then the shield dropped as Roadblock timed out, and she was in trouble. She struggled and punched her beast on the snout to no avail, before remembering that the arm that was being bitten wasn’t real. She canceled the spell, freeing herself even as she grabbed a nearby bolder with her shadow hand, and used it to haul herself up and out of reach.
The confusion as to what was going on was resolved by Annette, who, after Parnell forced the princess to drop down behind the rock to avoid being riddled with shotgun pellets, did a gesture akin to pulling on a lash towards wolfos, before pointing and sending the mind controlled beast running around the flank of the server towards the princess.
”Goddess curse psychics, down thing!” Midna shouted, jabbing her own minion with her bo staff, delivering a painful electric shock. As its mind was not its own however, the wolfos had zero survival instincts, and indeed it was to Annette’s benefit when it did get hurt, and so it came on still. Only a blast of sand to foul its vision prevented it from immobilizing her with another bite hold. Instead it just rammed into her, knocking her out of cover.
Both of them where promptly racked by pellets as the two shotgunners closed in for inorder to deliver more decisive close ranged kill shots. Cursing with pain, the princess opened another portal to summon her flygon, enlarged, which promptly grabbed her and soared through the air to deposit her at a different point of the battlefield, one conveniently near the rock Giovanna had just taken cover behind.
”She stole my wolfos!” she shouted to the other woman as an explanation as to why the beast was currently racing ahead of the two shotgun armed foes she’d just bailed on ”Also we need a plan!”
Giovanna’s gaze flickered toward the enemy team. Rather than speed her enemies’ way immediately, Erendira had picked up the Commando on her bike, then momentarily grouped up with the other two while Parnell switched out his shotgun for his rocket launcher. When he fired a single Generyst Rocket at his feet, it exploded in a burst of biotic energy, healing the whole team in an instant. Then they moved in, Erendira leading the charge with the Commando in tow, both protected by a barrier. “...No kidding.” Her mind was racing, trying to figure out an angle. She felt confident that she could outbox any one of these goons, but the biker would take some doing, and she couldn’t multitask. How would she get any of them on their own? Then she snapped her fingers. “If I can land a high kick on one of ‘em, I can take ‘em out. Guaranteed. Takes a whole second to do it though. Maybe you can grab one?”
And just like that, the two were out of time. A thin blue Phase Round shot straight Gio’s cover, missing her head by a hair. Her eyebrows shot up. “Huh.” Then Erendira zoomed in, circling around the pair’s cover. Sitting behind her, the Commando threw a frag grenade toward the Seekers, then opened fire at six rounds a second. “Tch.” Gio dashed out from her cover to avoid the grenade, right in front of Parnell. The futuristic paladin pulled the trigger, and while he stood a little outside his shotgun’s effective range, that blast still hurt. “Ugh.” She dashed toward him, then paused to block, rinse and repeat, but before she could reach him in this fashion Annette joined in. Then Gio was stuck blocking, the chip damage gnawing her health away.
”Knock them down! Midna commanded as she rolled to her feet, having leapt out of the way of the grenade. In response to her call, her 3 initiate strikers appeared, and then immediately retook the cover two of them had just abandoned, before charging up and then hurling psychic spears at the pair suppressing Gio. The mental attacks struck with surprising force, staggering the pair for a moment and cutting off their alternating shotgun blasts.
As they fired, the princess joined in on the spear tossing by hurling her boa staff at the incoming barrier protected duo, and though the impact was negated by their defenses, it prompted a trio of lighting bolts to strike down from the sky in front of it, bypassing the shield in the process.
Though she had briefly distracted the humans with mental and magical might, her wolfos was still part of their squad, and it came rushing in towards them on its own, still utterly uncaring about what little of its life remained. The most she was willing and able to do about that before it reached Gio was blast it with a sand attack to further foil its accuracy.
Given just enough of a reprieve to make a move, Giovanna picked her target and darted in. Going for the Annette meant that Parnell would be free to heal her, but that was better than getting double-teamed by two soldiers on offense. Plus, rattling the psychic might help Midna’s own wolf, who Gio definitely felt sorry for. The agent transferred her momentum to a speedy triple side kick as she leaned on Rei for support. Her pawprint shoe slammed into Annette’s belly, chest, and chin in quick succession, which flowed right into an upward crescent to pop the psychic off her feet. Parnell was coming, but Gio worked quickly, darting forward with her special dash Chave to flip forward into an enhanced Sol Poente. The ground bounce that caused allowed her to land and keep Annette juggled with a high knee, but a shotgun blast from her right suggested that she end the combo quickly. Gio knocked her foe away with a roundhouse, then turned to dash away from Parnell’s gunfire. She didn’t manage to avoid everything, but by zig-zagging the agent managed to close in on the healer in hopes of taking him out before Annette could stop her.
Meanwhile, the other two kept up the pressure on Midna. Still pretty comfortable even after the lightning strikes, the Commando kept on blasting, only pausing to fire off a defense-piercing Phase Round every three seconds. Erendira joined in with her own ranged attacks, first firing an aura spear from her gunlance, then sweeping her weapon to unleash a horizontal shockwave.
All but the piercing round slammed into an extended shadowhand Midna was using to ward herself, while that shot itself punched through, causing the princess to stumble and almost fall as she grappled with her Wolfos.
Then Erendira gunned Brynhildr to run Midna down, pincering the Twilight Princess between wolfos and motorcycle, yet at just that moment, Gio got her hands on Annette, pummeling the psychic enough to break her concentration. The wolfo’s to wide eyes returned to normal, and instead of continuing to try and bite her, its ears flopped down to its side and it emitted an apologetic whine as it tried to back away.
Midna didn’t have time to accept the apologies, instead shoving the beast down into a portal while she herself was launched upwards into the air via Skywave ascend, resulting in the pair going under and over the bike charge.
Unable to run her target down, and noticing Parnell possibly in trouble, Erendira broke it off and veered toward her teammates to assist while the Commando kept shooting at the princess as she and her striker reached the top of their arch.
Skywave dissipated under the hail, but rather than being left to fall, Midna was caught upon the back of her flygon who arrived via portal to replace the battered Wolfos. It immediately caught fire itself of course, but that caused it to emit bursts of homing needles that rained down on the two bike riders. The Commando returned fire, but without a shield to protect him from the back, he took a number of needles from the Flygon. It swooped down, almost matching the bike in speed for a moment, before slamming into the ground just behind it and quaking the earth around it with its impact. Thinking that Brynhildr was the target, the Commando planted his legs on the bike and leaped off, shooting down at the Flygon as he vaulted overhead. The impact unsteadied Erendira atop her motorcycle, causing her to swerve.
Ahead of them Annette picked herself up from her plumbing, and, having dropped her gun that was too short range to interrupt Gio’s charge of Parnell, reached out a hand towards her foe instead. Psychic energy leapt across the gap, sinking into Gio’s mind and battling her will for control of her fight or flight response, attempting to induce a brief but potent panic in her.
“Agh!” Giovanna stumbled, gripping her cranium. As close as she was to her target, she couldn’t suppress the urge to take cover, but with no hiding spots nearby she did the only thing she could: hunker down to block. Immediately Parnell laid into her defenses. His shotgun clicked empty, but right away he empowered himself with Righteous Fury, boosting his reload speed by 67% and his fire rate by a staggering 80%. The fusillade of shotgun shells started chewing through Gio’s guard with chip damage. Stuck in constant blockstun, she couldn’t stop Parnell using Heal Burst to patch up Annette either, were she even in the right mind to do so. Right now, there was only one thing she could do.
Gio unleashed her Burst. The omnidirectional blue wave radiated out from her, hitting Parnell and Annette right after. It didn’t hurt them whatsoever, but it completely broke their composure and knocked them down. That freed Giovanna not just from blockstun, but from the psychic’s panic. Even Erendira, already wobbling from the Flygon’s quake, had to slide to a halt. The tank wasn’t about to stop, though, and as she dismounted her bike she used her momentum to hurl Brynhildr right at Giovanna. “Whoa.” The agent threw herself sideways to avoid getting splattered, only to see Erendira resummon her daimon the next moment. “Man,” she groaned. Annette and Parnell (who still had his buff) were already back up, and now she had no burst. This way going poorly. Choosing the lesser of three evils, she dashed away from the gunners with Chave and toward Erendira, dodging her lance shots as she moved in. Hopefully Midna would see the chance for a pincer maneuver.
She did indeed, her flygon lunging forward, its claws glowing with purple draconic energy. The real prize, however, was a struggling captive commando who, having vaulted over said flygon, had failed to take into account its rider, who had lunged up and grabbed him out of the air with her shadow hand.
The two shotgunners where not happy to be left in the dust however, with Parnell firing a Generyst Rocket at the pincered Erendira in anticipation of the damage she was going to take, while Annette sent out the tendrils of another psychic attack at Gio, this one the same kind that had filled Midna’s wolfos’ mind with hallucinations.
Putting her faith in her teammates to deal with Giovanna, Erendira whipped around atop her bike with a swing of her lance to strike the flygon with an energy slash. That wasn’t enough to stop it though, and the pokemon pounced to return the favor twofold with its claws. Their struggle left her burned and torn, holding off the flygon’s claws with her lance held laterally for protection. Then Parnell’s rocket healed her, and she found the strength to push back. Brynhildr’s tires screeched as the lancer performed a flaming donut to slam the flygon with her motorcycle’s rear end, setting the ground alight as she did.
Once again, Gio found her assault cut short by the gunner’s interference. Her mind was not as weak as that of the wolfos, however, and the strength of her frustration helped her pushed back against the psychic attack. “Enough of this…” she growled, her jaw clenched against the pain as her vision swam. “Crap!” If she couldn’t fight Erendira like this, might as well go for the root of the problem. She brought her fist down in a EX Seismic Hammer, and the ground beneath Annette’s feet erupted. That knocked her down yet again, and Gio performed a high jump utilizing jets of air from her shoes, followed by a sigil-assisted airdash that kept her one step ahead of Parnell’s shotgun blasts. That left just one problem: Annette taking aim with her own firearm as Gio cruised in from above. She just needed to be faster.
“Fear on the wind.” Giovanna let loose Tempestade a little early, instantly altering her trajectory as she shot down with a supremely fast divekick. Rather than her target she hit the ground in front of her, but the shotgun blast went over her head, and Gio was in melee range at last. She immediately went with a low kick into low dust, and Annette hit the dirt yet again. Gio blocked a distant slug from Parnell, then hit Annette meaty as she tried to rise, sweeping her once more. Desperate not to take another humiliating, painful pratfall, Annette finally tried to defend her legs. In that full second of hesitation, Giovanna’s breathtaking charged high kick struck the psychic overhead and launched her like a baseball. Howling, Annette sailed into the sky, a swirling air current in her wake. “This is gonna hurt.” Gio smirked, crouched down, and soared after her.
With Gio having pivoted back to fight the shotgun toting pair, and apparently doing quite well, Midna was left holding the commando in her shadow hand with no one to land a high kick on him. Fortunately a different opportunity presented itself when her Flygon instinctively flapped back and away from the fire Erendira’s donut had produced, as the princess proceed to throw the commando down at his ally, and, in the process, the ring of fire she had just created.
Forced to catch her teammate lest he fall into her own hazard, the moment left Erendira vulnerable to Midna’s flygon slamming down into the ground again outside of said hazard to cause a second earthquake. As the ground shook and forced both foes to do nothing but hold on to the bike, Midna reached her shadowhand over to a nearby stream of coolant, dipped it in, and then surged the hand forwards, sending a wave of it splashing over pair, soaking and chilling them, while also extinguishing the flames.
The tremor dislodged the Commando, both from Erendira’s tenuous grip and the bike. He hit the ground, then got bruised black and blue as he bounced up and down. Brynhildr couldn’t stay upright, so its rider used her leg as a kickstand to try and stop a fall, which was painful. When the spray of coolant came, some of it splashed against Erendira’s weakened energy shield, icing it over like a windshield on a winter’s morning. As the chilled Commando got away with a tactical dive, Erendira wiped away her shield, leaving her open but able to see Midna as the screech of her tires drove her forward, lance first. High above, Gio went to work with uncommon gusto. Despite Annette’s best attempt to fight back, no amount of training could prepare her for this, and as she sailed through the air she took a rapid-fire barrage of kicks. Generyst Rockets from Parnell down below, more desperate than practical, whizzed by the two by a large margin as they flew. This damage was nothing to scoff at, but it wasn’t necessarily Gio’s end goal. After using up all her jumps between hits to keep her foe juggled, she finished with a stylish Burning Kick that blasted the psychic away in a burst of flame. Her trajectory took her over the edge of the rock garden module and over the long drop to Arahabaki’s jagged, piping-hot floor, turning a probable survival into certain doom. A second after Annette disappeared over the edge, Giovanna landed next to it, sliding up against the server rack wall. “Whew,” she sighed, turning around to find that she’d descended quite far from the action. “One down.”
Back in the action Erendira rammed head first into the summoned shield wall of Roadblock while Midna had her flygon steed leap to the side after the soaked in coolant Commando. In response to her doing so he fired a round that punched through both steed and rider, harming both, and earning him a shower of needles in the process. The damage that was caused was nothing compared to that he felt when the princess ripped a longsword out of nowhere in a crescent moon slash that flicked a bolt of lightning down atop of him.
Electricity arched over and through his coolant soaked suit from the first bolt, which was quickly followed up by a vortex of three pillars of lighting which spun around, trapping his body between them. As she maintained the storm assaulting the Commando, Midna’s flygon dropped into a portal beneath her, being replaced by her Darknut which arose to block the charging Erendira.
The biker was more than able to drive around this obstruction, only for the still summoned Roadblock to slam his shield behind her, drawing her attention. It was enough obstruction for the princess to burn through her power, leaving the unconscious body of the Commando to hit the floor.
Before Parnell could get a chance to revive him, the princess bodily leapt onto him, fingers glowing purple as she clawed and slashed at him, but not to end his life. Instead the rocket packs attached to his suit were severed, and then both them and his guns tapped by her un-clawed hands, stealing them away into the twilight realm.
A moment too late, Parnell’s rocket arrived. The princess leapt off of her foe, leaving him to stir awake, only to find himself completely disarmed and, unlike Annette would have been in such a situation, now a mostly worthless asset to his team.
At that point, the race between Parnell and Giovanna to get back into the action reached its conclusion. While the medic could propel himself into a superjump with his jet pack, Gio had both superhuman speed and Rei on her side. When it became clear he couldn’t beat her to the punch and help the Commando, his priority shifted to avoiding Gio. He altered his flight path and fired at Gio from above, forcing her to veer away. If he could supercharge himself again, after all, he could pin her down and chew her up at a moments notice. Of course, bullets moved faster than Giovanna, and taking even part a shot while trying to evade hurt like hell. Still, she managed to evade the worst of it, and Parnell’s jet pack wouldn’t last forever. He made for the computer garden’s biggest cable tree and tried to land on its upper boughs, thinking himself beyond Gio’s reach. He was not. The agent cannoned into the tree’s ‘trunk’ with a burn kick, partially melting the insulation. Then she struck the weak point with Thunder Knuckle, again and again. Parnell shot down at her through the trees while holding the wires tight, thinking his foe was trying to knock him down, but Gio stayed mobile and kept knuckling. After a couple seconds, she smashed through the last of the insulation and struck the wires inside with her electric glove.
“Hnnnnghghghghghgh!” Parnell gurgled, electrocuted by his contact with the wires. He used his heal burst to undo some of the damage, but he still slipped from his perch a moment later, numbed by the shock. He landed on a lower ‘branch’ groin-first, making him see stars, and when he swung off the branch upside-down Gio finally got the satisfaction of laying him out with a big punch.
Roadblock had gotten the better of Erendira for a brief moment, but the striker timed out soon after. That meant all she needed to do was get around Midna’s massive undead obstruction in order to put her lance right where it belonged: between Midna’s ribs. Engine roaring, she circled around with her lance couched to fire shot after shot, then finally gunned it and charged forward, ready to chase Midna down and spear her wherever the Twilight Princess fled.
Instead of fleeing however, the princess held her ground and called upon the final set of strikers in her repertoire, her chilfos. Four spindly icey undead rose between her and Erendira, ice armored forms shrugging off the energy blasts as they raised a spear wall in the way of the charging mechanized cavalry woman.
Yet guarded by her shield, Erendira dared face the stone with her superior scissors. Icy polearms snapped upon impact with her defenses, and then frozen bodies smashed aside by her mechanical steed as she broke through Midna’s protection, and burst right into the space beyond. A space who’s ground had turned black as shadow, surrounded by a ring of orange.
Right before she could be skewered, the princess snapped her shadow hand’s fingers, causing the trap she had laid to spring to life, her dark energy zone stunning her foe, and empowering her minion to deal a final blow.
With magically aided speed, the darknut crossed the gap between itself and Erendira with a lunge, driving its massive blade forwards to stab it through the front of her bike, skewering the machine. Then, with its broad headed blade firmly lodged in the bike, it pulled both it and her back towards it, and slammed it's shield down on top of the rider in a knockout blow.
The difference between unconsciousness and head trauma was a fine one, however, and when Giovanna jogged up to scrutinize the concluded battle, it looked like Erendira wasn’t moving. “Wow,” she deadpanned. “I didn’t even really see what you did there.” Annette was history, the Commando was senseless, and even though Parnell was definitely still conscious, he was too injured (not to mention concussed) to continue. Giovanna crossed her arms, exhaling as her adrenaline drained away. “Guess we’re done here. That was kinda tough. Could’ve been worse though. Hopefully there aren’t any more where they came from.” Given just how monolithic a company Shinra was, however, she wasn’t going to put any money on that.
”Let me just grab some things” Midna replied while tapping Erendira’s lance with a finger, before jogging to collect her previously tossed bo-staff and grabbing any other still intact weapons while she was at it. Avoiding killing didn’t mean she was above robbing people while they were down.
Commando auto-pistol (x2): an auto pistol able to fire off 3 rounds a second, as well as firing a piercing phase round every 6 seconds. Unlimited ammo and no reloads necessary.
Mutagen Shotgun (12 rounds available): a 7 round capacity shotgun with 120 RpM
Erendira‘s Gun-lance: a long lance that, aling with being able to be used for stabbing, can also shoot small purple aura bolts, or swept to the side to launch a wide angle projectile. It must be charged by supernatural energy to use projectiles
Disposable Missile Launcher: a cardboard assembly that can be used to fire a swarm of 12 homing missiles every 45 seconds.
”Ok now we’re good” she concluded, as she regrouped with Gio and set about healing them a bit using Skywave (she could have used the last of Parnel’s rockets, but she’d left the launcher somewhere he’d be able to reach once they were long gone), before asking ”But what happened to the psychic one?” having to embroiled in her own bit if the fight to see Annette’s end.
“Took a hike,” Giovanna replied off-handedly. She did not elaborate further. A gun or two might have been useful, but her ally had gathered everything up like lightning. She didn't care to make a fuss about it, though. Her gaze lingered on Erendira for a moment, frowning. That woman was tough and probably wouldn't be down for long. She also couldn't help but admit that summoning a motorcycle was pretty badass. Still, might as well let sleeping dogs lie.
“Let's get going,” she said, summoning Rei to ride on. Elsewhere in Arahabaki, other fights raged on. The sooner the two reunited with the others, the better, something Midna readily agreed with, remounting her wolfos alongside the agent and then, a moment later the two were racing forwards once more.
Both Bowser and Rika had the same issue as Nadia, their kinetic strike module and gauntlets respectively unstrapped themselves from their arms and fell to the floor. For Bowser this was only inconvenient, the King promptly abandoning the punch enhancer in favor of charging in and proceeding to try and deliver a series of regular punches to one of Robin’s legs.
Rika, however, dropped to the floor alongside her gauntlets, dragged down both by the cables attaching them to her back, and by her need for their anti-gravity effect to support her naval warfare intended form. She scrambled to put her hands back inside of the gauntlets, while sending her ichor queen to fight for her, the massive wasp queen buzzing forwards, prompting Bowser to leap out of the way, giving the striker room to swing its massive blade at the same leg he had been delivering a beating too.
Back around Primrose, Jr and Kamek first dropped their casting implements (paint brush and wand respectively) before the prince himself hit the ground a moment later, out like a light, taking their way of undoing the slumbering curse with him. He should, it seemed, have kept that in their back pocket.
The prince slipped seamlessly from the waking world to the one he had just freed Primrose from, though of course he had no idea about any of this. Instead he glanced around, scratched his head, and then called out ”Hello? Where did everybody go? Is anyone there?”
"Hello!" a familiar voice from somewhere else in the room called, before an even more familiar silhouette appeared atop one of the low walls in the arena-like rooms.
”Mario?” Jr asked, surprised to find his dad’s (and technically his) arch enemy here. They hadn’t seen him since he wandered off to do his own thing at some point early in their adventure after all (and the Troop hadn’t run into him in smash city. Nor did they know he was dead).
"It’s a me!" the plumber confirmed, which left the prince rather relieved for all of half a second before the plumber leapt into the air in an arch that was even more familiar than anything that had come before, and promptly drove a shoe right down atop the utterly taken by surprise prince’s noggin.
”Young master? Young master! This is not time for dozing” Kamek shouted in the sleeping prince’s ear while shaking him, but to no avail.
”Oh dear.”
Defeated, the mage glanced too and fro till he found his wand, which he moved to retrieve inorder to use it to summon a set of toadies which he could use to at least transport the sleeping prince out of the battlefield.
Primrose immediately realized that this is what had happened to her. That dust had put her into a magical slumber. Maybe he would even have a bad dream of his own. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to wake him since no one else in their party had a counter spell or cure that she could recall. If only that lizard copycat had seen fit to come with them.
"I'll cover you, Kamek," Primrose told the elder mage. It was the least she could do since it seemed the prince had dispelled the sleep cast on her while the others had made sure she was safe. The dancer was now fully recovered and eager to destroy the 'Goodfellow.' Her lance had already fallen from her hands when she'd been put to sleep, but she still had her magic to fight with.
She gathered a swirling spiral of darkness in one hand as she stepped forward to better return the favor and protect the prince and Kamek. She closed her fist, sending the wave of shadow of her Night Ode spell to wash over the three enemies. Though large enough to crash against Titania and Robin, it did not reach Oberon.
Though Primrose's fellow Orsterran had appeared to be missing from the fight, his striker the junicorn rolled onto the scene at that point signaling that he was at least close by. His camouflage was far from perfect, but in the dark on the fringes of battle it was easy enough to remain undiscovered or ignored while the combatants had bigger threats to focus on.
Therion was not a strategist by any means, and all he could really glean from watching the three enemies was that they all seemed very troublesome. Not getting stuck in the middle of it had been a good call, but once his striker's timer ran out he wouldn't have much of a choice. As much as he might complain, and no matter how hard his instincts wanted him to flee, he didn't intend to abandon everyone to the fight.
The junicorn moved as a big iron ball rolling through the area. The goal Therion had given it was to get closer to the archangel in order to deliver its payload in the form of the lance on its head, while being less likely to miss - and it made a beeline towards that goal.
”You…” Ganondorf muttered, getting back to his feet after the interference of Oberon. Ganondorf glared at the ox-like warrior that Robin had summoned, ”You’re about to learn just who it is you picked a fight with.” he raised his right hand blade, a signal to his Moblin archers who then resumed their fire arrow volleys against Robin. The Gerudo King squared off against Oberon, sizing the armored creature up a bit before going for his first attack.
Ganondorf made a lunging thrust with his right hand sword. Immediately after he spun himself around with a circular slash utilizing the left sword. Then he briefly crouched down after the spin, in case Oberon attempted to retaliate. And then from that crouched possession, Ganondorf brought his right arm up in an attack that appeared to be fusion of his Gerudo Dragon uppercut and an upward slash with the greatsword his right hand wielded. That last hit aimed to launch Oberon upward, which Ganondorf would capitalize on if successful by performing a short series of upward slashes with his blades that would effectively juggle the enemy in the air a moment before finishing with a double upward slash delivered as a power attack.
When the two bruisers clashed, Ganondorf had the range advantage, so he struck first. His attacks clanged off Oberon’s Aegis, and each impact seemed to fuel the flames that ran through both weapons, increasing their critical and status chances. The warframe executed a horizontal swing with Silva while blocking the second blow, but the blazing head of his golden mace passed over Ganondorf’s head as the man went low. Immediately he carried the momentum into another bash that traded with his foe’s uppercut, but while both hit each other, only Oberon got launched. Still, Ganondorf’s follow-ups came late as a result, and he only managed to land two before his target fell out of range and performed an ukemi off the ground. Oberon rolled backward, then used an ability of his own. Hallowed Ground ignited a field of bright green flame around him with a ten-meter radius, burning and inflicting constant radiation damage for fifteen seconds. Of course, that was just step one. After setting up area denial, Oberon used Smite; with a crushing fist motion he detonated the vital energy within Ganondorf. That dealt radiation damage, caused a hard knockdown, and inflicted Confusion. While he dealt with that, the warframe prepared to return to Robin to aid in its fight against the other Seekers.
Meanwhile, Sectonia weaving in and out was for the best as Titania turned her guns upon her. While the first shot missed, once Sectonia got close, the shots got more accurate until the third shot which hit home. She was a tanky bug, so she was able to retreat but it still hurt. The worse part was what came next, a spell that made her new axe fly out of her hand. It was at this point she learned that such effects weren’t actually as bad as they could be, as she could recreate her axe without needing to pick it back up unlike the koopa troop. Her antlers were also just floating helplessly from this power as well. Still, that could be quite the annoying thing, especially with this paper monster putting Jr. to sleep next.
At least Titania had to partially let go of her shotgun to use that power of hers, and Nadia was capitalizing on that. To make sure Nadia succeeded, Sectonia gave her a bit of haste to make her even faster at grabbing that stupid gun. She then buffed herself with her Chaos shield before going back on the paper goat again, blinking around to strike him with her large axe again.
Jesse wasn’t even going to bother with her Service Weapon seeing the trouble some of the others had. Instead she crossed her arms and flung the debris Nadia had used to jump to shred into Titania. “Rocks incoming, Fortune!” She warned beforehand. Keeping it simple she wrenched a rock from the stone beneath the dirt floor and flung it into Titania to smash into her ‘armor.’
Nadia perked up, her ears swiveling as she heard Jesse’s warning. “Got it!” She crouched down, then threw herself to the left in a blood-propelled dash. Though she saw the slabs headed her way, Titania made the executive decision to track Nadia’s evasive action in order to cast Tribute. Not sure what was happening, Nadia took a burst of impact damage -like a slug from a giant fist- that extracted a buff alongside a burst of blood from her body. The buff gave Titania Thorns, reducing her damage taken by twenty-five percent, just in time for the debris from Jesse’s shield to hit her like a stony shotgun blast. Wiping a little blood from her lips, Nadia grinned to see the warframe stagger. “Off to a rocky start!”
Titania wasn’t about to sit still and take any more punishment, though. She sprang into the air, narrowly avoiding Jesse’s next rock, then whipped out her own shotgun. The simple act of aiming in the air lowered her gravity while boosting her horizontal movement, leading to a very action-movie style of bullet jump as Titania took aim, first at Nadia and then at Jesse. Her Corinth thundered twice as the hurtled through the air, and when she flew into a pillar, she clung to it hands-free to unload her weapon’s alternate fire. A grenade flew through the air that Titania manually detonated to unleash an inaccuracy-inflicting Blast in an area of ten meters.
When her opponent took to the air, Nadia sprang upward to follow suit, but she quickly realized she couldn’t keep up with Titania’s aerial mobility. Blocking the first multishot left her in blockstun long enough that she couldn’t do much before hitting the ground again, at which point she watched the warframe sail away like a butterfly on the breeze. “Guess I shouldn’t take our advantage for granite,” she muttered. Well, if Titania was going to be flighty, she might as well join those attacking Robin. Nadia sprinted across the earthy, husk-littered ground toward the towering archangel to join the royals’ assault.
Robin had stayed mobile, trying not to just stand there and take whatever its opponents could dish out. After the Moblin arrows and the first spell from Primrose, it maneuvered to a safer distance, but Bowser, Rika’s striker, and Sectonia still managed to chase it down. Their efforts left a dent in its body, especially Bowser’s mighty mitts, but Robin did not buckle. Instead it lashed out with its huge hoof, repaying the Koopa King in kind with a hefty kick. It was the queen that really earned Robin’s rancor, though. Protected by some sort of strange matter that coated her as a damage-absorbing barrier, Sectonia warped in to cleave into its body again, and now the archangel turned her way. This time, Sectonia hadn’t retreated after her attack–a big mistake. “...Figments.” Nadia approached fast, but not so fast that she could stop Robin casting Fairy Dust on Sectonia. As the big bug’s gilded wingbeats slowed and she began to falter, Robin reached out with its free hand and snatched the sleeping queen from the air to hurl her body at Bowser.
Sectonia was fine with blasting this thing, as was their prerogative to dealing with bosses as it were. ”About time we can silence this thing.” Seeing this thing was made of paper, or something akin to that, she started by summoning her fire Antlers before she got in close to hit it with her axe and fire breath, dancing out when needed so Bowser could do his shenanigans as it were. Still, whatever he did to Primrose was a bit concerning, so Sectonia figured they were all on a time limit.
Fortunately, another royal had a solution to that problem, the koopa prince hurrying over to the sleeping Primrose inorder to cast ”Esuna!” on the dancer, a spell that could magically cleanse minor status effects. Even as she cured her, the prince also grabbed her with his free hand, aiming to help Nadia in moving her clear while she was waking up.
It had happened so suddenly. One second the dancer found herself unable to keep her eyes open; the next, they opened to an unfamiliar scene. Now, instead of the vaulted chamber where Ten Piedad had been laid to rest, she sat on the floor of a strange arena, half-melted candles all around. She remembered attacking Robin Goodfellow... had it warped her into a cell to take her out of the fight?
How irritating, she thought. Was this how most of the prison's cells were filled? Threats to the status quo faced down that demented mule-man and were trapped? Then, maybe, Yufusa had accidentally stumbled into Mercy Dreams and had been imprisoned the same way...?
Primrose approached the cell door, the only one in the room. She couldn’t hear any noise from beyond it. After a brief moment, though, she realized that she had more pressing matters than whatever might be going on outside. She wasn’t alone in here. Within the shadows, the shape of a man arose - a silver-haired man with the mark of a crow hidden beneath his cravat.
She stared at the man in disbelief. The last time she had seen him it was the moment of his betrayal revealed. When he had stabbed her, mocked her, and left her for dead. She hadn't expected to see him in this world. It was impossible that he was here, at the same place and time as herself and Yusufa.
This prison conjures up dreams. Nightmares. Of course none of it is real. If nothing else, this helped her really come to terms with the fact that the Yusufa in the silver-locked cell was a fake. And she should just ignore the fake in front of her - but then the man spoke.
"My dear Primrose..." He sighed, his tongue curling around her name.
She lunged at him. Her lance had been lost somewhere, but she had her dagger. It flashed forward, seeking the man's neck where that damn tattoo sat. He laughed and danced out of the way. She didn't expect him to retaliate with his own dagger - it cut the skin of her cheek as she threw herself to one side. She turned back to him, murder burning in her eyes.
"Simeon!" Primrose snarled. She hadn't had a lot of time to process what had happened between the two of them. After being awakened in Alcamoth, Simeon had been the first thing on her mind. The confrontation in the Obsidian Manse was the last thing that had happened to her in her original world. She had been lost, anguished. Angry. And then she'd set out to fix the universe.
Ultimately, whatever had happened in the past, what they had felt for each other and what could have been didn't matter. Her goal was still to eradicate the Obsidians. Simeon was one of them; their leader, the final crow. This shadow would be a good warm up for the real thing.
She collected dark fire in her hand and struck the ground, letting her Black Serpent spell give chase. She started on another spell when Simeon was suddenly in her face. He'd gotten past the serpent by moving in close instead of trying to run - and he had his own spell prepared.
"Rondo of Stillness." Dark magic slammed into Primrose, flinging her back. She got to her feet quickly, less graceful than usual in the face of her hated foe. She felt herself growling in annoyance, but couldn't hear it. A chill ran down her spine. She touched her throat, tried to summon her magic, but she'd been effectively silenced.
No matter, she thought. She held her dagger up in front of her, but before she could go back on the attack she felt her consciousness pulling away from her again. Confusion and hesitation took her, distracted enough that Simeon easily knocked her back again. This time he caught her before she hit the ground.
He held her loosely. One of his arms was cradled around her back, the other had taken hold of her dagger hand. He still held his own weapon, the two blades gripped tight and hanging menacingly over the both of them.
"How nice it was to know I'm still the man of your dreams," he said. Sweetly, smugly. His smile grew wider, showing his pearly teeth. "Alas, it seems our time together is up."
So that was it? She was being pulled out of the dream? No! She had to kill this man!
Simeon! She cursed at him in her head. Simeon! The nasty smile was still on his face, and he shrugged as if he had no choice but to let her be pulled back to consciousness. She struggled to get her feet back underneath her while in his hold, to thrust her dagger into his head while it was tangled with his, but blackness swallowed her vision once more.
As the boy helped, his papa and sister put themselves in between the sleeper and her 2 helpers to protect them from whatever the two humanoid enemies Robin had summoned could do, assuming they tried to take down the sleeping target, readying shields and defensive strikers. As a result it was instead Kamek who took advantage of Sectonia’s dancing away, as the mage proceeded to fire a multi elemental cosmic spray across the battlefield at Robin, hoping that at least one of the elements would tickle a weakness they could exploit.
Jesse sprinted forward, putting herself in front of her comrades. Noting the two warriors had guns, she figured they planned on using them in moments. So she put out her hands and ripped debris from the floor and bound them together with her paranatural powers, creating a Shield in between her allies and Robin’s bodyguards.
Coming to was slow for Primrose. Even though she knew what was happening around her wasn't real, she struggled to stay asleep all the same. Whatever inner demons she'd found in that nightmare, she wanted to stay and fight them.
"Simeon...!" Her voice was quiet and strained as her body woke up before her mind. She felt hands on her, jostling and moving her. She forcefully pulled herself out of the grasp, not quite realizing that her allies were taking her out of harm's way.
"Don't touch me." The words were a clear, dangerous warning. Nadia heeded them, jerking away as if Primrose had burned her hands. Then, the dancer’s dark eyes brightened a little in recognition of Ms. Fortune and Bowser Jr. Ahead of them, Jesse and the others. She touched her forehead gently as consciousness fully returned to her. "I...?"
”Hmph.” Ganondorf huffed with a grimace. He finally decided he’d seen enough. He held up one sword as a gesture to command his moblins to temporarily hold their fire. Then with a smirk he took off in a run toward the creature called Robin. He’d seen the sleep-inducing fairy dust attack and now knew to be wary of it. He would not be so easily caught off guard by it.
Rather than a direct forward attack, the Gerudo King instead anticipated some kind of frontal defense of riposte and pivoted himself into a side step. That side-step then led into a jump that took him up and allowed him to come slamming back down onto the creature from above with an aerial Warlock Kick that of course wrapped his foot and leg in a dark, purple-ish magical flame, ”Show me what you’ve got, creature! Do your worst!”
Robin hadn’t been the one to attack Ganondorf, however. Instead it was Oberon, and the strong-bodied warframe had bulled forward to bring the blue flames of his golden mace Silva down on the warlord’s head. Instead Ganondorf deftly dodged the crushing blow, then while Oberon momentarily raised his Aegis shield to defend himself from a counterattack, leaped away from it to target Robin instead. Unfortunately for Ganondorf, he’d earned himself an enemy that was far more mobile than he realized. Incensed, Oberon sprang into the air with surprising accuracy, hurtling after Ganondorf in a corkscrew leap. In the middle of his Warlock Kick, he took an aerial shield bash to the back, knocking him off course. Both flew off to the side, and Ganondorf had only the briefest opportunity to course-correct before Oberon followed up with an overhead slam from Silva to bring both himself and the Gerudo King back down to the ground.
Meanwhile, Titania had been more focused on the other attacker who flew in to attack Robin, that being Sectonia. With Primrose well protected by the Koopa Troop and Jesse, the sprightly warframe took aim at the swarm queen with her regal Corinth shotgun. With six punchy pellets, it had short range, middling fire rate, and a nasty propensity for critical hits made all the worse by a decently tight spread. With her first shot she missed, with the second she got a glancing blow on Sectonia, and with the third she scored a direct hit. By that time though, her target was backpedaling and the Antlers were closing in. Titania released her shotgun with one hand to cast Spellbind. This created a cloud of fairy dust, five meters in diameter, in the vicinity of herself, Robin, Jesse, Nadia, Primrose, the Troop, and Sectonia’s minions. Immediately, her enemies fumbled their weapons, and the Antlers floated into the air, surrounded by ghostly teal butterflies. Meanwhile, she and Robin became immune to status effects, and would be until Spellbind ended in sixteen seconds.
In the first few moments of the fight, Robin sustained a heavy axe chop, fiery breath, and a barrage of different elements. None of them seemed any more effective than any other, however, so while a smart move, Kamek’s gambit didn’t amount to much. With its minions already engaging the enemy, Robin followed suit. First it used Trick, inflicting Jesse with a random debuff, Melee Attack Down, for thirty seconds. Then the archangel used Fairy Dust again, this time targeting the major threat to its gameplan: Junior. The Koopa Prince immediately fell into a deep sleep, and around him the battle continued. One other thing happened, however. Within Robin’s strange corona, two of the ten empty diamond outlines now shone with vivid purple.
After seeing Primrose stir and confirming that she’d be okay, there was nothing else stopping Naida from cutting to the chase. When Titania’s Spellbind caused an unseen force to wrench her boxcutters from her grip, she didn’t even slow down. Instead she jumped onto Jesse’s barrier of torn-up slabs, claws sharpened, and pumped her limbs full of blood. “Nice trick,” she smirked, grabbing her right arm by the bicep as it spun up like a drill. “But I’m never unarmed!” She took aim, then fired at Titania. Rather than try to block, the warframe leaped upward on a conjured trampoline of energy, but Nadia was faster. On jets of blood she cannoned skyward, transforming her left arm into a white tiger’s as she raised it over her head. “Here’s your escape claws!” She descended with a strong slash that brought both back down, knocking the Corinth from Titania’s grasp.
The warframe landed and slid backward, drawing her Pangolin saber, while Nadia did two things. With her left she pulled off and rolled her head a bowling ball (which missed her target), and with the other she shot out muscle fibers to attach to her detached arm and pull it back on. Titania sprinted toward her, sliding to collect her shotgun, then rose to meet flashing claws with swirling blade. Nadia struck thrice in quick succession with Cat Scratch, each metallic clash gaining no ground. Only when the feral’s head flew in from behind Titania did Nadia manage to catch her off guard and land an El Gato axe kick that pushed the warframe back.
Rayne ended up accompanying Lewa out of the town to follow up on his plan-intent to find out what the guy’s deal was. As it turned out, he was looking for his family that had run off into the woods, which in hindsight was something of an obvious place for them to have gone. She did worry however that that could have meant the retreating heralds might have run into them, and so she agreed to join this search: “I might not have seen a regular forest for close to two decades, but I can still help out”
Unfortunately, the initial search did not prove fruitful, as no one was to be found in the outskirts of the town. Then the rain that had been threatening to fall began to do so, slowly at first, but picking up speed with every passing moment. It pitter pattered on Rayne’s hat (which was novel at first but quickly became annoying) as she floated nearby to the man, who’s calls she added to, but to no avail.
It was pretty clear that doing things this way wasn’t going to work out, and so after a moment of trepidation she brought this up beginning with a gentle “I don't think we’re going to find them this way,” before swiftly clarifying “sticking with you I mean. We can move much faster if we go on our own, and if they are out here, we’ll find them, I promise. But you’ll catch a chill out here, and having a building fall on you can’t have been good for your health either, so maybe I can send you back to town?”
If he accepted, she’d do as she had suggested, and if not, she’d remove her hat and offer it to him “Here, to keep the rain off, and maybe find some cover so that we can find you again, if, once, we locate your family. I ‘d hate to find them only to lose you in the process.”
Either way, as long as there were no objections to her (or them, if Lewa also wanted to race ahead through the forest) pushing forwards, she’d take off, blink dashing through the woods, calling out “The heralds are gone, it's safe now, I’m here to help you get back to the village!” and looking for any landmarks equivalent to the church where the rest of the villagers might have taken cover from the storm, be it the one of ravens or rain.
“Just hold on ok, I’m almost there” So said Ranye to yet another victim trapped beneath fallen rubble, the witch knight straining as she used Runedge to pry a fallen plank up, exposing a bloodied and bruised hand.
Using a foot to keep pressing the sword down, and in doing so keep the wood she had pried up held up, Rayne reached in a hand and grasped that of the victim, giving it a reassuring squeeze as she insisted that “I’ve got you”
There was a sob and a deeply relieved “thank you” muffled by the still uncleared debris, but that obstruction wasn’t going to matter. That moment of connection, physical and emotional, was all the Witch Knight had needed, and a breath after the Link was formed, she used it to whisk the injured person away, teleporting them out from the rubble, across the village, and into the hunter’s lodge as she had done with several more already.
She could only hope that someone there would know how to treat whatever injuries they had, because while her magic was born of the need to help people, or rather of people’s need to be helped, it could transport and destroy, but ironically could not heal. So the best she could do was try and make sure everyone was free before the rain started to come down and complicated matters.
That thought gave her pause, causing her to tip her head and hat back and just, actually look at the sky. The whole, unbroken, not near instantly fatal to be beneath sky. It had been more than 14 years since she’d seen one like that, indeed she’d never expected to see one again, and with all that had been going on, she hadn’t taken the time to just look at it, and take it all in.
The wide brim of her hat being in the way hadn’t exactly helped either.
So she took a moment, just a moment, and then once she had her fill she pushed herself to get back to work.
When she did so, she went to check if Lewa had found anyone that needed moving, and in doing so saw arrived just in time to see a man he had freed hurrying out of town, prompting her to enquirer “where’s he off too?” and to then listen to whatever instructions the Toa gave regarding how to respond to the situation.
Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic
The morning found Midna draped over the arms of one of the meeting room chairs in what was most certainly not a comfortable manner, but it was at least one that amused her. With their plan being to break into Shinra, and a warrant out for her arrest already anyway, the princess had given up on wearing any blending in clothing. It always got wrecked about half way through the day anyway, and as today was even less likely to be an exception than normal, she simply couldn't be bothered playing dress up.
The princess with nothing left to hide did however abandon her lounging when a delivery of muffins arrived, sitting up straight as she used her shadow hand to acquire a few of the sweet treats. She had a double chocolate one herself, which she found decadently delightful, while her flygon got a pumpkin muffin, and her wolfos a carrot cake one. The pokemon unwrapped its own muffin in its claws and politely nibbled away at it, while the wolfos simply scarfed down its meal within seconds. Plenty of honey was used as well, though in a more civilized muffin glazing fashion than the crass packet consumption (though admittedly she only caught onto this bit of culture after Goldlewis gave Sandalphon an odd look for doing so).
Sugar and starch consumed, the princess was raring to go, but before that they had a few bits of news to sit through, namely a one two punch of bad news delivered by Sandalphon and a surprise visiting Organization 13 member regarding the sucking of the life from outside of the city, an imminent invasion of it by a far more dangerous robotic army headed by a person called Nox.
”Well, I can’t say I didn’t see this coming after we struck the Vandelay campus at the start of yesterday, but I didn’t realize just quite how bad it had gotten by the end of it” and they where, at least in part, to blame. Nearly every part of midgar’s defenses was crippled, and even worse ”now we’re going to hit the last faction still able to put up a fight”
True, the plan wasn’t to take down Shinra, but given that both they and Nox were aiming for the same target, those forces were going to be split between them, meaning the existential threat was going to have far less in its way than it would have. Still ”If the guardians that much of a big deal, then if we can seize its power and turning it on Nox now that he’s revealed himself, that’s at least one part of Midgar’s issues is dealt a serious blow”
It remained to be seen if what was left of the city after that would be able to withstand all the others. That was assuming they even won, because they didn’t exactly have a giant train mounted artillery cannon this time to deal with whatever lurked down in the heart of the city.
”Well, no time to waste, so we’ll just have to figure something out when we’re down there” she had to conclude, before making a mental note to keep an eye out for explosives. If all else failed, she’d bring the Shinra building down on top of the guardian.
Given that she was the one doing the transporting to said building, Minda made sure to get to the portal point first, particularly given the sheer number of people that were coming along this time.
”Alright, first 5” she said, holding out a hand for each, be they real, magical copies, or her hair based shadow hand, before adding instructions for those that remained ”and then make sure we’ve got another five ready for when I get back so we can do this quick. But leave space in-case we need to evacuate as well”
In the end it took three trips, and though nothing went wrong with the first batch, by the time the last 3 people had been transported, Shinra was onto them. Their only consolation was that ”At least they didn’t work out how we vanished last time” because it could have been entirely possible for someone to work out that they’d gone missing in-between the daycare and down here and to have posted a guard or two dozen to greet them.
Instead, they had a head start on whatever the response was going to be, and the princess wasted no time in racing to the front of the pack atop wolfos back, filling her long-sword full of electricity as she rode.
Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic
“Double-shot of espresso, stuffed silly with sugar,” Giovanna announced as she sauntered into the meeting room, coffee mug in hand. “In other words, a doppio dolce.” She extended it for Sandalphon to take. “Enjoy.”
“Thank you.” The archangel seemed intent on doing so. She didn’t so much as accept the coffee from Giovanna as she did seize it, using both hands to grab the mug with almost feverish speed in order to press it to her lips and start gulping it down. Her eyes remained open as she drank with uncharacteristic intemperance, continuing to observe her array of screens so as to not waste so much as an instant. Then she set the mug down and, without missing a beat, resumed her work.
The display left Giovanna astonished, both eyebrows raised. “Whoa. Guess you were really fiending for the stuff, huh?”
Sandalphon did not look her way as she replied, her tone imperceptibly more terse than normal. “A comparison to a fiend is something of an aspersion on my character. Have I given offense in some way?”
Her response threw Gio for a loop, a mixture of confusion and incredulity on her face. She knew her tendency to not mince words sometimes led to unintended offense, but this was a stretch even for her. “Uh…no? I just meant to say it kinda looks like you got a coffee addiction or something.”
“I wouldn’t consider myself addicted,” Sandalphon responded impassively as she continued to type.
“I mean, have you tried stopping?”
Nodding, Sandalphon dragged a popup from her left in front and used both hands to upscale it. “I have. Unfortunately, doing so resulted in a migraine of such severity that I became unable to give my duties sufficient focus.”
Giovanna snorted. “That sure sounds like addiction to me. Aren’t you, uh, worried about your health?”
“Not at all. I’ve optimized my work schedule,” Sandalphon replied matter-of-factly. “I have determined the exact point at which my activities would result in long-term self-damage and how to consistently reach that threshold without surpassing it. Given the gravity of my work, and all those who depend on me, doing anything less would be gross self-indulgence.”
For a few seconds, Giovanna stayed quiet. Then she spoke up again, her voice a little harder. “I know you’re not human, and you seem like a smart cookie, but that’s a pretty stupid line of thinking.”
Sandalphon didn’t look her way. “How so?”
Giovanna furrowed her brows, her lips pressed together. “I mean, I know we just met today, so it’s probably not my place to say. But life’s about more than efficiency this, optimize that, you know? Plus, I dunno who you were working for before, but we don’t wanna see you work yourself to the breaking point. You don’t have to be happy if you don’t want, we’d be sure happier and safer knowing our guardian angel’s feeling good and rested.”
“Your constructive criticism has been noted,” Sandalphon told her. “Thank you for your concern.”
“Yeah? Well…you’re welcome.” Shaking her head, Giovanna turned and left, heading down the hallway. On the far end lay a room with a black and red ‘KEEP OUT’ sign, and that seemed to be where she was headed.
”Well I suppose you tried” commented a shadow leaning against one of the corridors’ walls, one that had been apparently listening in with its pointy ears.
The unexpected reveal prompted raised brows from Giovanna, though she only slowed down for a moment until she realized who that voice belonged to. “That’s a neat trick,” she said off-handedly, continuing on her way.
”Not quite as good a disappearing trick as yours, I’ll admit” the princess replied, her tone light despite the accusatory turn of phrase, and then observing ”because I’ve just realized I have no idea what you’ve been up to on your lonesome” before stepping from shadow to shadow to get ahead of Giovanna again and asking ”don’t suppose you have the time to fill me in?”
Imagining the effort it must take to make such a dramatic display of such a mundane topic made Giovanna amused. “What, don’t trust me? I guess we have been on different teams since we arrived. It’s a long story, kinda, but I don’t mind telling ya. C’mon, in here.” She stopped in front of the door at the end of the hallway, then peered around in the dim light. “I can let you in, but before I do you gotta promise me you won’t tell anyone what’s in here. Especially Goldlewis.” She crossed her arms. “Deal?”
Midna tilted her head to the side in curiosity, before nodding and accepting the bargain ”Well I can’t say no to that now can I? Deal”
“Aaalright, you’d better not come crying to me then.” Pulling an ID card from her pocket, Giovanna swiped it on the magnetic lock beside the doorknob. It clicked, she pressed down on the handle, and opened the door to dart inside.
Within lay what looked like an apartment bedroom in a state of shocking disarray. An unmade bed piled with pillows and blankets caked with long green dog hair, like the carpet. Laundry haphazardly piled throughout, like drifts of snow, and absolutely none of it folded. A desk that hadn’t been dusted since the stone age with a beanbag in front of it instead of a chair, the trash can next to it (which lacked a trash bag) overflowing onto the floor with crumpled receipts, bottles, and tissues, and at least a dozen empty plastic water bottles beside a monitor stacked right next to the PC tower. There were also crumpled beer cans. “Ah,” Giovanna sighed as she stepped into the pigsty. Rei manifested beside her and trotted over to the bed. “Home sweet home.” Once Rei jumped up, taking half the bed herself easily, she rolled over to have her belly scratched. Giovanna obliged, then turned away to grab a brochure with coffee stains from the bedside table. Rei, who wanted more petting, wiggled on the bed pleadingly as Gio pulled out her phone.
”So was it your need for a live-in maid what I was going to be crying about or..?” Midna teased as she joined Giovanna, before deciding to add to the mess via introducing a second wolf into the room, namely her still unmodified wolfos. As the beast padded over to introduce itself, tail wagging as it went, Midna found another shadow to half lean into, in a poor replacement for the floating lazily in the air she really wanted to do at this moment. There was no way this carpet was clean either after all, and she thanked the goddesses a fusion had given her sandals at some point.
The teasing was much less than Giovanna expected. After dialing and tucking her phone in between her chin and her shoulder, she gave Midna a questioning expression. “I’m getting takeout before I starve to death, you want anything?” She offered the brochure, which turned out to be a menu full of low-resolution images of various less-than-authentic Chinese dishes from orange chicken to pork lo mein to beef with broccoli, all very affordable. Various line items had been circled with different-colored pens in the past, and the stain that looked like coffee from a distance smelled faintly of soy sauce.
The princess’ stomach rumbled at the mere suggestion, and so she accepted the stained brochure with little complaint. That said, she wasn’t exactly familiar with most of the dishes, and so after examining it for a few moments just decided to request simply that ”I’ll have what you're having?”
“‘Kay, uhh…” After another moment, someone picked up, and Giovanna gave her order. “Two garlic shredded porks. Two tubs of wonton soup, two cartons of rice, aaand two tubs of spare ribs. Yeah, okay. My address should be on file, just buzz the sixth floor office when you get here. ‘Kay, great. Good night.” She hung up and tossed the phone down, watching Rei cautiously sniff Midna’s wolfos. While not aggressive, the wolf spirit didn’t seem playful either. Once convinced there would be no issues, she turned to Midna again. “You mind if I get changed real quick?”
The princess, whose visible eye was a little wide at the amount of stuff that had just been ordered, refocused upon being asked that question. ”I mean you can already see all of me, so I don’t mind” the technically but not actually naked princess replied teasingly, before offering ”Buuuut I can also turn around and look away if you insist” even as she did so without actually needing to be asked. Her wolfos meanwhile seemed a little disappointed there would be no play, but didn’t badger the other beast for it either. Instead it padded on back to Midna, who promptly used it as a seat while she waited for the other woman to change.
The princess’s little factoid resulted in a mildly surprised look. “Huh.” Once given the go-ahead, Gio changed with very little ceremony, and by the time Midna turned back around she was out of her rather unorthodox work attire and clad in a pair of green athletic shorts plus a black tank top that didn’t quite cover her midriff. She draped her work clothes over the back of her chair, then went over and climbed into bed to lay on top of Rei like she was a big, fluffy green pillow. “So, what did you wanna know again?”
”What you’ve been up too while we’ve been making a whole lot of noise” Midna reminded her, before herself being reminded of something, namely ”Also I’m probably not going to be able to help bring in the food, as I’m pretty sure I’m now a wanted criminal due to foolishly not killing someone”
Gio looked quizzical. “I don’t think the delivery guy’s gonna care.” Stroking Rei with one hand, she used the other to gesture and help her explain as she began to spill the beans.
“Well, Jessie got a call from Bridges. That, uh, probably doesn’t ring a bell for you, but Bridges is a shipping company the SOU is pretty friendly with, and they’re also working with a group called the Centennials to connect and protect different communities around the world. A couple days ago their ship got stuck in the desert way down southeast, but they finally got it fixed and flew back to base, some place called Alcamoth.” She paused, stone-faced, for a lingering moment. “Uh, after that, they hopped around the Land of Adventure a little bit, then headed up here to link up with us. That didn’t go so well though, ‘cause halfway here they got attacked. Some crazy guy in a flying chariot or something, throwing lightning. They got away, but something got fried in the process and they landed out by Port Meridian, west of here. They needed a hand, so Vernon had Duke fly me and the twins out to give ‘em one. Things got pretty crazy actually, but it ended fine, so after you’re all done here they’ll be ready to fly you…wherever, I guess.”
Midna nodded along with this explanation, before pausing and going ”Wait a moment” before asking ”Was the ship called the, what was it again, the Virgin Victory?”
“Uhhh, yeah, that sounds right,” Gio shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t really sweat the details.”
”Huh” Midna replied, before giving a single laugh at the irony of the situation, and then filling the other woman in on it ”Well if you had I could have let you skip the flying over part. Those people are with us, and I have a portal leading to the ship. Good to know they’re doing well mind, and thanks for helping them out when we had no idea they were in trouble.”
Giovanna pursed her lips. “Oh. Well…you’re welcome.“ She flopped back down into Rei’s fur, sighing. “That all you wanted? If so, you’d probably better stake your claim on one of the better rooms. Only room for two in here.” She patted Rei on the head.
”I mean I also want to eat now that you’ve ordered, but I can get out of your fur till it shows up if you’ve got things to do” she offered, thinking of maybe checking in with the VV’s crew just to touch bases, before asking ”how much do I owe you anyway?” lightly gesturing at the brochure to clarify what she meant.
Giovanna rolled her eyes back as she thought. “‘Bout twenty zenny. It’ll probably be about half an hour, let me know where you’ll be and I’ll get you when it shows up.”
Midna’s visible eye did the same when she got the answer, though not because she was thinking, but because she was looking somewhere else. A moment later a small portal opened on the ground next to her, and spat out a sequence of zenny that the princess deftly caught before handing it over. By the time she’d done that she had her answer, which was simply ”Back in the meeting room I suppose”
“‘Kay, see ya then.” With no particular interest in Midna nor inclination for idle talk, Giovanna relaxed, happy to take it easy until her late dinner arrived.
The princess got the message, and proceeded to go find a way to kill 30 minutes. First she tried to get in touch with the crew of the Virgin Victory, but while her portal to the ship worked just fine, there turned out to be no one aboard. While mildly concerning, the fact that the ship seemed to be neatly docked next to a perfectly normal (and not, say, in the midst of burning to the ground) port town surrounded by massive amounts of farm land didn’t indicate anything was amiss. If she were to guess, it would be that the crew had found lodgings within the town, which would make finding them a pain. So instead she simply left a note letting them know she’d been here, and then headed back to base.
She arrived back at the meeting room with ten minutes to spare, according to her watch, and found the Sandalphon still within, now slumped over the meeting table in her chair, asleep. The archangel‘s eyes were still open, displaying softly blinking Zs, and her mouth hung open as well.
Midna couldn’t tell if this was funny or disconcerting.
Either way, she hung around for a few more minutes, then sighed and went and found a blanket to softly drape over the overworked archangel, lest she get cold overnight. That successfully burned the last few minutes, at which point the food had arrived, nice and punctually.
There was, as she had predicted, far too much for someone her size. Fortunately she had a pair of beasts to help her with her plentiful scraps.
She used the brief resulting burst of energy to perform repairs on her Darknut minion, doing so in the Seiran Clinic to avoid waking anyone with the hammering she had to do to get its psychically warped plate-mail back into any kind of working order. As for the thirty foot tall mecha wolf bear, she had absolutely no idea where she was going to start with repairing that, and thinking about the enormity of the task was enough to take the legs out from under her, and for the exhaustion of the day to fully catch up.
Having failed to take Giovanna’s advice about securing a room, the princess once again found herself on a couch, but with the warm and fluffy companionship of her wolfos, this wasn’t half as bad a way to spend the night as it could have been.
It certainly couldn’t be worse than last night’s nightmare, or at least so she prayed.
Initially things looked grim for Rayne’s hunt for survivors, as she came across only bodies. Yet at the same time she came to realize that they didn’t add up, as there were far fewer dead than the number of houses suggested there would have been living here.
Her resulting guess was that either there was some kind of stronghold, or the two children they’d found hadn’t been the only ones who’d fled into the woods, and as it turned out, the former at least turned out to be somewhat true. The hunters lodge, or at least that was what she guessed it was, wasn’t exactly a fortress, but between being just a bit out of the way and full of bow armed hunters, it had, fortuitously, allowed a number of people to survive.
While initially suspicious, a combination of her raising her hands to show they were empty (not that this actually demonstrated she was unarmed due to how her magic worked, but the thought was there) and her very distinct from the Herald’s garb quickly got everyone on the same page. After a man named Jeire introduced himself, thanking her for her and the group's help (causing her to gain Link in the process) and then gave her a quick low down of their situation..
“Mine is Rayne, and of course I’ll help” she immediately agreed, before pausing for a moment to think of how exactly she’d do that and landing on “I’m going to get right back to looking for other survivors, and I’ll move them.. here? Or wherever you want them. But I’ll also let the others know you're here and in need of aid. At least one of them has some kind of healing powers”
That was, she knew vague, and she began to apologize “sorry I can’t say more than that about them, we got sort of thrown together and-” before cutting herself off and refocusing “- I’ll tell you about our deal once no one else needs help”
With that she gave a little wave of farewell and then moved back out into the village, floating up into the air to see if she could get a better idea of where any other survivors might be from up there. It was while she was doing this that Lewa spotted her and then got her attention.
“Glad you're alive too” she called back down with genuine relief to the sentient golem, offering a wave of her own, before informing him that “I haven’t, but I've also just started looking for them now!”
As luck would have it, her drifting through the air for only a little bit longer found her line of sight of some of the others, the Knight Witch calling out “Lily! Sanae! I’m glad your ok” both to get their attention, and to fill Lewa on who she had found, before doing the same in reverse by telling them “I’ve got also Lewa over here too, and he seems to be in one piece”
“I found some of the people here in a hunting lodge or something right next to where we came into town too” she then informed all of them before asking “Some of them are hurt, so I don’t suppose you have any magic that could help with that?”
“I don’t, it's all for fighting, but I can teleport people with me, so I’m going to start searching for anyone else who’s alive, and will try to move or direct them to that lodge if I can. It seems like as good a palace as any to regroup and then get some answers once everyone’s safe” she then added, before pausing for any replies.
If they didn’t need anything more from her, the Witch Knight would get right back to searching for survivors, calling out once more, and covering both areas that she either hadn’t been to yet, as well as prioritizing investigating any damaged buildings that people might have gotten trapped in.
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
After exiting the marsh room and reporting in, the troop started to head down to catch up with the others. They didn’t end up running into any of the lanturn carriers fortunately, but they still managed to get held up from reaching the bottom of the prison when they ended up passing by a rather unusual door.
”Gah! Come on Galeem, it's not that hard to stick to one style!” Bowser complained as he gestured with both claws at a futuristic looking automatic door that had slid open as they passed by it
”I’m not so sure, it looks positively ancient in there” Kamek replied as he peered inside, both with his own eyes and with a wisp he’d sent to scout through the wall.
”Even older than you?” Jr joked, which got a groan of complaint from Kamek, at which point Rika had already waltzed into the room to take a look herself, forcing the rest of them to scramble to catch up. Fortunately, the princess didn’t prompt a massive battle with her recklessness this time.
Instead when the last of them caught up with her they found the ship girl poking a rotten, desiccated and also headless corpse with the butt of her spear, and wondering aloud ”Why are there zombies just laying about here? Are they sleeping”
”Ah, I think those are just, well, dead bodies. I believe some of the others mentioned running into these as well” Kamek explained softly, and then when Rika, who was functionally native to the world of light, looked confused, clarified ”They must have been like this before Galeem consumed this place, which is why they haven't turned into spirits, as that is something they themselves introduced as a feature of reality”
”Oh” Rika replied, as she ceased her prodding, before thinking for a moment and then declaring ”That’s weird”
Kamek wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, but with the ship girl’s worries about them getting attacked put to rest, they could all take a look around the room.
The dark round room featured a fair amount of futuristic looking alien technology, most notably being the pods lining the room, inside some of which the headless bodies Rika had been poking one of could be found. Despite this advance tech, Kamek’s initial analysis that it was old also turned out to be 100% correct, given the layer of dust that coated everything (at least until Bowser sneezed and sent a bunch of it blowing everywhere) as well as the fact that there were stalactites hanging from the artificial ceiling.
”This must have been abandoned for an eternity before Galeem scooped it up” Kamek guessed, based on the fact that ”Stalactites only grow a few cm in a thousand years you see, at least if I remember rightly”
”You’d think it’d stink less after all that time, sheesh” Jr complained through a nose pinched shut by an iron clothes peg he’d made, before grumbling and producing 3 more of those as a result of drawing attention to his innovation.
The source of the stink turned out to be the plentiful amounts of black goop slicked around the place, that others might have recognised as the stench of death, but which the troop just thought smelled bad in general. They avoided it as they explored the chamber, which resulted in Rika getting ahead of everyone again as she grappled or just sailed over the slime. In doing so she found herself up a flight of stairs, and before a glass window looking into a chamber filled with green fog.
A small device of some kind sat in front of it, one that produced static out of a speaker when its singular button was pressed. This latest piece of advanced machinery inside this clearly ancient place might have been existentially terrifying to some human or other, but Rika didn't know any better, while for the Koopas it was a whole lot of nothing burger. Aliens and ancient advanced (admittedly magically advanced) civilizations were nothing new to them after all. As such they were far more interested in what was on the other side of the glass than wondering about how in the world they place they where in could be in the first place.
”Maybe there’s keys in there? Or at least something useful?” Jr theorized, before complaining that ”This place has been a dump so far”
”Or it could be deadly poison” Kamek warned, pointing out the simple fact that ”The gas is, after all, green”
”But it isn’t purple, so it's probably just stinky, and thanks to me, we’re all protected against that!” Jr countered, flicking the clothespin he was wearing while taking credit for supplying the troop with stretch protection despite having had to be talked into giving it out in the first place.
Either way, that turned out to be enough of an argument for both Bowser and Rika to get right on down to business. Fists were wound back, and then, in tandem, swung forward, kinetic strike module and vault breaker punches landing simultaneously.
This only slightly cracked the glass
”Wow. That’s tough” Bowser said as he pulled his hand back and shook it, before deciding that the durability must mean that ”There’s definitely something important in there if they want to keep us out that bad” before both he and Rika got right back to punching the glass.
”Or something they want to keep in” Kamek worried, but as jr pointed out ”Eh, the cells outside didn’t budge at all. So if there is something in there it's probably weaker than the crazy people in there”
As it turned out jr had been right not to be worried, but not for the reasons stated. Instead when the glass was smashed open after several consecutive synchronous punches for Bowser and Rika, and the gas spilled harmlessly out, they found no prisoner inside. They did, however, find a set of armor that might have belonged to one. Or rather prison clothes, given the manacle and straight jacket components.
Rika, again, was first into the room, and, also as a result, also the one who ended up picking up the outfit. ”Ooo, I think I just got a bit stronger from holding this” she noted, before asking ”Think I should put it on? It's not like it’ll fit any of you I mean”
”Ah, perhaps not” Kamek replied, but not for any of the obvious reasons inherent with the outfit itself, but instead because ”that thing just fell out of it when you picked it up”
”That… is disgusting” Jr stated the obvious, before putting words to a feeling they all had but had no idea why they had it, which was ”So why in the world do I wanna take it with us?!?!”
Indeed, they seemed to know that leaving it behind was something they would regret, but hadn’t the faintest idea why. After a few moments of confused discussion on the topic, Jr ended up creating an iron box, into which the bile was awkwardly poked via more iron, and then promptly welded inside of.
With the source of the disgust stored for unsafe keeping, attention returned to the outfit Rika was carrying, her feelings on which she made quite clear ”No way I am wearing this now. Plus I guess it was never gonna make good armor anyway it's barely protecting anything. Maybe I can just kinda, carry it?”
”I could always shrink it down to charm size” Kamek offered, but Jr had a simpler solution, which was ”We could always just melt it down in that crucible thing Sectonia has?”
That got all around agreement, and so after they confirmed this was indeed all there was of value in the chamber, they set out to track down the queen and make use of one of her very useful items once again.
Fetzen
Frettzo
teenangstlife
Lord Zee
Neziul
Ariamis
rush99999
Simply Not Real
Shadowheart
