DracoLunaris

(((( Hero Complex ))))

I'd be game. Is the idea that you have 1 person per Archetype?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nor was Band following him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not something they had time for

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chaos Aligned

Juri and Edward
Words: 866 (+2)

For Edward

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”I can punch it” Rika added simply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chaos Aligned

Juri and Edward
Words: 3250 (+4)

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So he ducked.

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

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

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

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

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

It was uncanny.

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”Ugh, fine.” Juri followed through.

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

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

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

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

”Hey!”” Juri swore at Edward.

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

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

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

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

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

”Just watch it!” Juri sneered.

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

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

wordcount: 1,075 (+2)
Amaterasu: level 8 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (11/80)
Location: Curien Mansion

Amaterasu’s ears twitched as she heard Harry’s muttered comment about maybe messing up with the noise making. If only, she thought, he’d practiced some self awareness before announcing their position.

Still, she was quite sure she could handle whatever came their way, or could move fast enough to let Stine handle it again, and so went back to sniffing for clues.

She nearly instantly regretted it.

The wolf scrunched up her nose at the onslaught of scents (undeath was never a pleasant one, but at least she’d been expecting it) and then toughed it out and got to sorting through the mess of smells for anything useful.

Animals, quite a lot of different kinds, were what she first picked out, which implied that the manor was abandoned more than the undead did. Some fiend could be responsible for those, after all, but if they were, they hadn't had the forethought to reanimate a zombie cat to hunt little creatures reclaiming the land from civilization, or a zombie maid to clean up the intense amount of bug smell.

Then again, maybe it was just a very big bug responsible for that, and it had eaten all the reanimated cats and servants the homeowner had thrown at the problem.

Served them right if so.

Other than nature, there were a lot of strange scents she had no idea what they were, which was pretty common. None of it smelled pure however, be it spiritually or physically… which was also sadly pretty common.

It was a miracle that she even found any person smell under all of this, but divine as she was this was entirely expected. She traced it up the stairs, then back down and over to the right. As she was about to set them off that way in pursuit of her clue, mainly by just going there and letting the others follow her, her ears twitched again as there came a pattering of feet coming from the left hand door, exactly opposite where she was now sniffing around.

She pivoted, hunching down into a combat posture, only to be confused as the sound of footsteps revealed itself to seemingly have no source, even as it went through the door and started coming down the stairs. That even she could not see anything was most bemusing, and she thought it might be an illusion of sorts, but it turned out there was definitely something there which promptly grabbed Harry and started to make a run for it with him in tow.

Invisible to the others, a divine bead flicked fourth at the goddess’s will, one which sailed clean through where the unseeable creature should have been, and then slammed into the opposite wall, fully cementing that whatever this thing was, it was untouchable.

It was also getting away.

The goddess took one glance behind her at the door her carefully sniffed out lead was leading through, mentally sighed, and then bolted after the humans to join their attempt to catch up with Harry.

He was, at least, not that hard to track, and between him yelling and his ‘distinctive’ scent she perfectly traced the path of his kidnapper.

The wolf caught up with and then overtook the other two pursuers with ease, but having to pause at intersections to check where Harry had gone prevented her from getting up anywhere close to her supernatural fast top speed.

One casual plank pattering later, and she burst into the kitchen, barely registering the frog with the knife till the last moment. It was, frankly, just too absurd. Animals were innocent beings, and entirely capable of seeing her godhood unlike the mortals who needed to believe to do so, so that one would try and strike her, and with a knife of all things, took her entirely off guard.

Still, she reacted to avoid the blow on instinct nonetheless, though it was a close thing. The wolf leaped to the side as it came at her, pausing time briefly to draw her own slash across its incoming knife, deflecting the blow just enough that her dodge could complete and she could get up on top of the counter.

Goblets spilled off of it as she kept on moving, bursting out the door. There she paused briefly to sniff the air, before following the trail without a thought about how those trying to do the same were faring.

She continued on, past hallways blockaded by oversized spiderwebs home to equally oversized spiders, which suggested the existence of similarly oversized insects on which they predated. Those hypothetical large flies could have been the source of that smell she’d smelled earlier, she thought, as she continued on. It was only after she’d raced past that she considered that maybe these beasts too would be aggressive to one such as her, foolish as that would be.

A problem for later.

For now, she continued on through a path that was fortunately free of any slowing webs, for if there had been any Harry would have been dragged through them and cleared the way, and finally caught up to the man.

Rather than finding him in any danger however, she found the man stuffing his pockets with valuables. Now she wasn’t exactly above this sort of thing, she’d gathered treasure from the ruins of the deadzone for the sake of making charitable donations (to both the needy and to her own stomach) but this really was not the time for that in her opinion.

She paused at the harry-shaped entrance to the room to gawk at him for a moment, before sneaking in close and barking at him to announce her presence in a way she very much intended to spook him. Then she glanced back to give something close to a ‘can you believe this guy’ kind of look to the others, only to find/recall that they had been left in her wake.

That was something of a blunder on her part, but she was fairly sure that they'd be able to handle themselves better than Harry, even with his earlier surprise performance, so at least there was that.

To resolve this issue, she’d get Harry moving out into the hall door via head shove, before brushing her tail against the much larger treasures he wasn’t able to carry inorder to store them in her divine armory. It was fine that she was doing this, unlike him she was much faster at it and wasn’t going to be weighted down, and she was only doing it discreetly so she didn’t have to deal with questions such as ‘“where’d that entire grandfather clock go?” rather than because she might feel ashamed of her two faced-ness regarding her judging of him on doing this exact same thing.

Then she joined Harry out in the hall, and did her best to try and divine where the others might be. To do so she raised her snout up to try and catch a whiff of them, while her ears perked and listened for shouts or the clank of the metal found on and in their lost companions. If that failed, well, there was always their own scents to work backwards along towards where Kit might be waiting.

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

wordcount: 4636 (+5 exp)
Bowser Jr: Level 14 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(286/140)
Rika: Level 10 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(202/100)
Lvl 14 Geralt (117/140) -> (122/140)
Lvl 10 Roxas (10/100) -> (15/100)

While traveling, the wild wastes gang came across a curious sight, or, rather a curious sight came across them.

A Revaroom came hurtling out from behind a tall hill, hurtling across the desert floor with a shieldon clinging to its back. What it was fleeing became quite clear when a pair of pair of Tonglegrops came rolling after them, using the massive orbs of acid as wheels while their squat legs kicked them along. The grotesque things would have looked quite silly if they were small, but instead they towered over the trees and crushed everything in their path as they pursued their prey (music)

The chase didn’t look like it’d be directly intersecting them, indeed the Revaroom was actively turning away from them. In doing so however it was being forced to weave around terrain (while being careful not to lose its companion cargo) that its pursuers simply crushed beneath them, allowing them to gain ground.

Geralt hummed as he looked over at the ongoing chase, furrowing his brow. “Those things look…huh. You think those are Pokemon?” He asked the others. “There's this…sense of whimsy I'm feeling that yours have, too.”

”I dunno, maybe?” Jr called over from his clown car, before beginning to say ”I can check on my pho-” and then pivoting to ”-Roxas check it on your phone!” because he was, after all, driving.

”Looks like they are Pokemon.” Roxas confirmed after a few swipes and buzzes from his Rotom Phone. ”The one driving is called Revavroom, and the passenger is called… Shieldon. Looks like they’re both Steel types. And… hey, look! They’re not gleaming!”

At that moment, the Revaroom suddenly hit a bump in the road, and its diminutive cargo lost its footing. The poor shieldon went flying off, and careened head first into a rock. Surprisingly however, it was not the mon’s skull that broke from this impact, but instead the rock, which cracked into half a dozen pieces. This did not stop the metal headed mon from being very dizzy, stumbling around on the ground, and preventing it from getting back on top of the Revaroom that raced back to help even as the Tonglegrops closed in for the kill.

Roxas didn’t need any other cue. ”We have to help them!” He suddenly said before leaping right off of the whale. Before he could even hit the ground, Roxas vanished while in midair. In the next moment he reappeared behind one of the Tonglegrop and slashed it with his ignited StepSword. Roxas had no way of knowing that there was only one sure way to actually kill these creatures. So while his energy blade didn’t appear to be that effective, his sudden attack did have the benefit of getting the predators’ attention.

”Pick on someone your own size!” Roxas taunted after he dived over to put himself between the Tonglegrops and the Pokemon, Keyblades at the ready. The second Tonglegrop began to shudder before it vomited acid as an attack aimed for Roxas who was thankfully quick enough on the draw to react in time. ”Reflect!” He called, conjuring the Reflectga spell to catch the acidic vomit and then promptly returned to sender.

The result was the stream of vomit bouncing back up into the Tonglegrops’s mouth, which made for the second time Roxas had made a creature eat its own weaponised fluids. Rather than just having to swallow its own spit however like the last one had to, this one got a very unpleasant bit of acid reflux, causing the oversized monster to sputter and cough grotesquely.

This didn’t stop its momentum, however, the free rolling monster continuing to hurtle towards the boy.

”Huh? Uh, ok?” Rika said, not exactly getting why Roxas was doing what he was doing but joining in nonetheless, deploying her drones and unleashing a barrage of small arms fire at the one bearing down on Roxas. This beast had no lighting forged armor like the Balahara, and so the bullets were more effective, but it was still massive, and its skin tough, so the pile of bleeding wounds she inflicted were not taking down the titan.

It was the rockets, along with a bubblebeam from Dazzle as the mon followed a comment from his trainer who was power sliding towards the fight, that had the most impact. Together the pair applied enough force and pain that the Tonglegrops was forced to tilt to the side, and away from a direct collision course with Roxas and the pokemon he was protecting.

This also got the attention of the other one, which thanks to its tiny brain, saw larger prey in the form of the whale rather than a threat, and started to roll towards them.

Geralt leapt into the fray after the others, having taken a moment to transform into his Molar Boatworks Fixer Identity, pile bunker held threateningly towards the second approaching Tonglegrop. As it was still a bit away, he took the distance to channel Luminant Scythe, using the spell to deliver a moderate bit of damage to the approaching monster and get its attention.

The Tonglegrop pivoted directly for Geralt, accelerating as it rolled on its strange orb-like acid membrane. He was forced to dive out of the way, letting the creature slide past him and force itself to turn, its feet digging into the ground and bleeding off its momentum. Geralt didn’t let the moment go to waste, rushing in to stab and slash at its back with his weapon, though its sheer size meant that the attacks were hardly enough to do more than annoy it.

Thus it continued towards its prey, which didn’t get time to even line up a shot before it was upon it. Rather than get run over however, the whale dove down into the sand, while its creator launched herself into the air to avoid that same fate. Rike then had to frantically double jump and maneuvering thruster to the side to avoid the massive open acid vomiting maw that was still hurtling towards her, while her drone swarm parted around it like mist. Angry bullet spitting mist, the shots pin pricking the titan’s cheeks as they wove around it.

Then there came a thwip followed by a reeling sound as Rika Grabbled to the back of the beast and then wall jumped her way to its flat scalp, where she began to repeatedly stab it with her spear. Unfortunately, the thing’s skull was absolutely miniscule compared to its vast form, and so it seemed like up there there was mostly bone and air inside its head rather than anything vital, resulting in the ship girl mostly making her perch slippery with blood spurting from the puncture wounds she was inflicting and not much else.

The same went for her swarm that buzzed around it, peppering it with shots while holding back on the explosives due to the shipgirl herself being up there.

Still, 1000 cuts would do it in the end, they, and the pokemon, just had to avoid being run over in the process.

“Dammit, get back here!” Geralt grunted as the Tonglegrop proceeded to ignore him completely and target Rika and the whale. As the shipgirl mounted its head and began stabbing at it, Geralt approached from the back and tried a different approach. He circled around to its front and cast the Sign of Axii, focusing on it to try and override the Tonglegrop’s mind and turn it against its fellow monster.

Roxas, at least for a little while, remained focused on protecting the Pokemon. He accomplished this by first casting Aeroga on the Revavroom in order to help shield it and its passenger from incoming damage. Then he remained nearby and tried lobbing Firaga, Waterga, or Blizzaga spells at the Tonglegrop Rika had mounted - hoping for some elemental weakness to show itself. But none did, and it was hard to tell if the raw damage of the spells were even all that effective, like most attacks he’d tried so far.

”Shocker, give us a hand here!” Roxas called as he released his Rotom from its Poke Ball. It’s recently-acquired Frost Form made it look like a floating red mini-fridge with a purple aura around it. ”If we can’t hit it very hard, maybe we can confuse them. Shocker - use Confuse Ray!” With its usual cry, the refrigerator-shaped Rotom flew up enough to flash its glowing eyes at the beast. If this worked, then it had just as much chance of attacking itself in confusion as attacking normally.

The Revavroom, meanwhile, seemed to notice what Roxas was attempting and tried to contribute to the strategy. It let out an ear-piercing cry, using the move Screech to try and sharply lower the Defense of the Tonglegrop so that if it did hit itself, it would deal more self-inflicted damage. This of course would also make it more susceptible to physical attacks used by the Seekers as well.

As for the confused Tonglegrop, it tried swatting at Shocker like it was a fly buzzing around its head. ”Careful, Shocker!” Roxas cried, ”Use Double Team!” At this command, the Rotom began sharply flying around at blinding speed, leaving behind afterimages to confuse would-be attackers into hitting the wrong target and making itself harder to hit as a result.

The Tonglegrop, with their tiny brains, were incredibly susceptible to this kind of mental attack as it turned out, the confused one slashing its own claws by mistake, and then being completely blindsided as the other one came charging at it. The mind controlled Tonglegrop rolled forwards, claws both held in front of it, spearing them into the confused one, while Rika, still riding atop it, thrust her lance forwards and into one of its eyes.

Both titans proceed to furiously swipe at and acid vomit on each other, both inflicting heavy damage in the process, but the confused, half blind, elementary blasted and defenced down one lost that battle as one of its legs was torn clean off. It lost its balance as a result and went tumbling to the ground with a mighty crash that kicked up a great cloud of dust, obscuring both of them from view.

A few moments later Jr had Dazzle whip up a chill wind that swept the sand away, revealing the spirit of one Tonglegrop on the ground, while the other was half way through stuffing the severed leg into its mouth. It noisily slurped this down, and then turned its galeeming eyes to seekers, but made no move to attack, enthralled by the sign of Axii as it was.

Then Rika stabbed it in the head again, prompting it to dig its claws into the ground and to violently jerk its head back and forth till the shipgirl tumbled from her blood slick pearch. She stabilized her fall with her air based mobility, and launched herself towards the rest of the seekers with a vaultbreaker punch to avoid dropping down into reach of its claws, prompting the titan to roll after her and towards them once more.

Geralt approached the enthralled Tonglegrop as Axii began to fade, priming his pile bunker. As its mind returned, the monster was subjected to the explosive force of the harpoon-like spear end of the weapon launching out into its back, sending it toppling forward with a gaping wound in its back, prime for a follow-up.

Seeing as how the confusion strategy worked pretty well previously, Roxas saw no reason not to keep using it. ”Confuse Ray!” He called to Shocker, who made another approach to the remaining Tonglegrop in order to flash its glowing eyes into the monster’s face. And the Revavroom, without missing a beat, let out its cry again to use Screech. But Roxas decided to try to at least do a little more this time around. He took another of his Poke Balls and tossed it to his side.

”Your turn now, Titan.” Roxas told the released Golett, ”Let’s attack together. Use Shadow Punch!” And as the Pokemon winded up its fast, Roxas charged forward and vanished into a StepSword strike that instantly brought him in close range to the Tonglegrop. Roxas’s energy blade slashed at the Tonglegrop at roughly the same time Titan’s Shadow Punch connected, but Roxas himself followed up with a flurry of Keyblade strikes for good measure.

As Roxas and his Golett tore into the down Tonglegrop, which slashed its own face when it tried to take him down, Rika and Jr rounded the other side. The ship girl’s whale had surfaced beneath her, and now she, it, Jr and Dazzle all opened fire at close range, shells, missiles, bullets, magical metal and a bubble beam all slamming into its side in a great conflagration of firepower.

Beneath the weight of all of their efforts, the second titan was felled, collapsing into a small hill’s worth of ash with its spirit sat on top, much to the amazement of the two pokemon who’d been being chased.

Geralt breathed a sigh of relief as the second monster fell, giving the others a short nod. “That wasn't too bad, I think.” He grunted, turning to the two Pokemon that were running from the monsters. “And they're alright, too.”

”Hey… you two are safe now.” Roxas assured the Revavroom after he dismissed his weapons and recalled his two Pokemon back into their Poke Balls, ”They’re not gleaming.” He added, reiterating what he’d said earlier after identifying them on his Rotom Phone. ”They were born in this world, just like the Lost Numbers were. No telling how long they’ve been out here for.”

”It’s okay,” Roxas said, moving a little closer to the wild Pokemon, ”we don’t wanna hurt you. You don’t have to be alone anymore if you don’t want to be.”

The pair glanced at each other, and then the little shieldon stepped towards them in turn, followed by the Revaroom.

“They actually understand you, or just attack names?” Geralt asked Roxas and Junior.

”They’re pretty smart” Jr replied, which was not nearly as convincing as Dazzle nodding in agreement to this. Rika meanwhile was in the process of carefully climbing the ash-pile to retrieve the Tonglegrop spirit, entirely content it seemed with her distinctly intelligence-less machine minions.

”It’s up to you.” Roxas said, holding up an empty Poke Ball like it was an offer. ”I won’t make you come if you don’t want to.” There was a little hesitation followed by the Revavroom making a noise that sounded like an engine being revved up. Not a sound of acceptance, but of challenge. Its response could be pretty easily interpreted as ‘Prove yourself.’

”You want me to battle you for it, don’t you?” Roxas asked, ”Okay, if that’s how you want to play this. Come back out, Titan!” He re-released the Golett from its Poke Ball and the Shieldon hopped down off of the Revavroom’s back to give the Pokemon space to fight.

Geralt watched from the sidelines, impressed by the intelligence the Pokemon were showing. If he hadn't seen it for himself, he wouldn't have believed it.

”Titan - use Stomping Tantrum!” Roxas called. From what his Rotom Phone said earlier, Revavroom was a Steel/Poison type and thus was doubly weak against Ground type moves. But Roxas was about to learn the hard way that despite his big type advantage, the Revavroom was a lot tougher than he anticipated. Titan’s attack sent tremors that struck the Pokemon from below, but Revavroom was tanking it impressively. It simultaneously let out its piercing cry, using Screech while taking the Stomping Tantrum to sharply lower Titan’s Defense.

This exchange alerted Roxas to how tough the Revavroom actually was. ”Use Defense Curl!” Roxas called, trying to get Titan to regain some of its lost Defense. But the Revavroom had revved itself into action and was already barreling onto Titan. And before the Golett could finish using its move, Revavroom crashed into it with a powerful and hard-hitting Iron Head. Titan was sent reeling, nearly knocked out in one shot thanks to its Defense being so sharply lowered.

”Whoa, not good!” Roxas said, quickly recalling Titan to its Poke Ball before it could be knocked out entirely. ”Talk about strong…” Roxas murmured to himself as he weighed his options. Then he made his choice. ”Your turn now, Scamp!” He tossed the Poke Ball and released the electric puppy to battle. Scamp barked, but looked a little hesitant at the size of Revavroom. ”Don’t let it scare you, Scamp. Titan already got a big hit earlier - use Nuzzle!” The Yamper barked and charged at the Revavroom, doing exactly as the name suggested and nuzzling against it while charged with electricity.

Revavroom took minor damage but most importantly, became inflicted with Paralysis - cutting its Speed in half and giving it a 50% chance of not being able to move when it tried to attack. It did manage this time, using a move called Swagger that caused Yamper’s Attack to sharply increase while also inflicting it with Confusion. ”Try to shake it off, Scamp!” Roxas called, ”Use Fire Fang!” The Yamper shook its head and tried to bite, but hit itself instead. Meanwhile, Revavroom revved up and barreled forward - another Iron Head. Scamp was hit and knocked back several feet. But at least its Defense hadn’t been lowered like Titan’s was. But it still struggled to get back on his paws.

”Come on, Scamp…” Roxas said, trying to give as much encouragement as he could. ”Don’t give up, yet, we’re still in this.” Finally, Scamp was back on his paws again. His body flared with electricity as he barked with determination, unwilling to let his partner down. And then his whole body began to glow brightly.

”Wait, what…?” Roxas had never seen this before. As for Scamp, his glowing body appeared to grow a bit bigger and different in shape. Until finally it wasn’t a Yamper standing there anymore. Roxas’s Rotom Phone piped up.

“Boltund, the Dog Pokemon.” It explained. “The evolved form of Yamper. Boltund’s Strong Jaw ability allows its biting attacks to be especially powerful.”

”Evolved…?” Roxas was momentarily confused but a big grin formed when he realized this meant Scamp was stronger now. ”Let’s test those new jaws of yours, Scamp! Fire Fang!” Scamp - now a Boltund - gave a strong bark and charged forward even faster than when it was a Scamp. He managed to fight through the Confusion and hit the Revavroom hard with a Fire Fang - boosted not only by Strong Jaw, but also by the increased Attack from the earlier Swagger used against it. Revavroom veered back from the hit and tried to counter attack with Poison Jab, but sparks flew off its body as the Paralysis kept it from moving.

”One more time, Scamp!” Roxas called, ”Fire Fang!” Scamp barked and managed to snap out his confusion, then obediently ignited his fangs with flame for another fiery bite against the Revavroom. The Pokemon reared back again, now finally showing signs of being weakened. This, Roxas decided, was enough to give it a shot. He readied an empty Poke Ball and threw it. The ball arced through the air with a curve before striking the Revavroom, opening up and pulling it within in a glow of red light. The ball then hit the ground and began to shake. One. Two. Three. Click. The Ball stopped shaking and the light on the button darkened. A confirmed catch.

And before Roxas could even celebrate the catch, he was almost immediately tackled by Scamp who was happily barking and licking his face. ”Okay, okay!” Roxas said through his laughter, ”You were great, Scamp. I’m proud of you.”

”So, what you gonna call it?” Jr asked from the impromptu spectator stands

By now, Roxas had finally managed to calm Scamp enough to get back up from the ground. He picked up the Poke Ball that now contained Revavroom and scanned it with his Rotom Phone. The Pokedex App identified that the Revavroom in question was female, despite how mechanical and genderless it appeared to be. ”She kind of reminded me of a race car with all that revving up. Maybe… Turbo?”

”Cool”

”Neat” Rika added, before pointing at the shieldon who’d also been watching the battle with one of her gauntlet’s oversized fingers and asking ”What about that one?”

Geralt, watching in semi-stunned silence, nodded. “Huh.” He stated simply, watching on until a nudge against his leg caught his attention, the Shieldon nudging him with its plated head. “Think I might've caught its eye. What is it?”

The Shieldon hopped back, rearing its head at Geralt and letting out a small cry, scraping one of its feet along the ground. “What, you want a fight too?” He asked rhetorically, only to sigh and remember that they could actually understand human speech when the little critter let out another short cry, seemingly energized by the challenge.

“Fine. But you're fighting me, I don't have any others for you to fight. Understood?” The Shieldon responded by backing up a little, then barking out another cry. “Alright, then.” Geralt shrugged, drawing his steel sword. “Won't be easy, though.” he warned.

Taking the confidence as a go signal, the Shieldon immediately took a defensive stance, using Iron Defense to boost its defense, while Geralt used his own protective measures, casting Quen on himself and giving the Pokemon a once over. “Hmm, not bad. I can almost see the metallic gleam leftover.” he murmured, spinning his sword in his hand. He took the initiative, charging forward and letting loose a Demon Fang, a line of energy sliding along the ground and crashing into the Shield Pokemon.

It took the blow commendably, keeping a steady posture and retaliating with a Swagger of its own, sending a rush of powerdul energy theough Geralt, but also leaving him thoroughly discombobulated. He paused to steady himself, taking a deep breath to recenter and staring down the Pokemon. “Not bad.” He sighed, furrowing his brow and drawing Igni in the air.

However, with the confusion affecting him, Geralt's fingers missed the mark, and instead of erupting in a plume of flames, the Sign exploded, launching him backwards and shattering Quen. Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet just in time for the Shieldon to reach him in a charge, crashing into the Witcher with a Take Down for a fair amount of damage. Grunting, Geralt brought his sword down onto the Pokemon, the pommel of the steel blade slamming into its plated head and eliciting a grunt of pain from the Shieldon, who felt the pain from Geralt's enhanced strength through its defense buffs. It let out a battle cry and charged again, slamming into his shin and drawing a pained inhalation of breath.

Geralt let out his breath with a cry, lighting crashing down around him and radiating outwards, bypassing the Shieldon's defense buffs and dealing electric damage to the Pokemon. It let out its own roar, taking a defensive posture again and buffing itself with Iron Defense, leading to Geralt sighing.

He shook off his confusion, and drew the sign of Igni in the air again, this time the attack going off without issue and bathing the Shieldon in flames. It stumbled back out of instinct, though its rock typing prevented it from taking super-effective damage. Yet again it launched forward with Take Down, though Geralt was ready and pirouetted out if the way, catching it on the way by with the blade of his sword.

The Shieldon looked at him with narrowed eyes, its breath starting to come heavily. Geralt looked over at Junior, Roxas, and Rika, raising an eyebrow. “Now good, you think?”

”Could be.” Roxas replied. ”Only one way to find out. Press the button on one of your Poke Balls to expand it and then give it a throw!”

Geralt did just that, taking out his Great ball and pushing the button on it. The purple ball expanded in his hand, and he threw it at the panting Pokemon. Upin impact, the Shieldon transformed into a red beam of light that returned to the Great ball, which shook once, twice, then three times before finally clicking to indicate a successful capture. “Huh. That was both easier and harder than I expected.” He admitted, rubbing his shin. “So, what's the deal with this one?” He asked the two resident Pokemon experts.

”It’s called a Shieldon.” Roxas said as he scanned the Great Ball with his Rotom Phone. ”It says this species is a very old one, like… a hundred million years kind of old. Pokedex says it’s thought to be extinct, but clearly it’s not. It’s a Rock/Steel type, and what it lacks in speed, it makes up for in defense. Looks like it has an evolved form if it reaches a high enough level.”

“Hm. Shieldon. Fairly on the nose.” Geralt commented, though his own nickname of White Wolf was just as obvious.

”Urg, why’s it all steel types” Jr quietly muttered in dejection, his team of fairy types further being countered in terms of any future friendly bouts they might have.

”Got a less nosy name?” Rika asked, not quite getting the expression, as she stepped up onto her whale, implicitly prepping to go.

Turning his head to Rika, he hummed. “Think so. Tirn. Means ‘steel' in Elvish.” He said, looking down at his Great ball. “Still on the nose, but only we know that.” He smirked a little, before shaking his head. “Might've just called it Roach, but I don't think I'll be riding it any time soon.” He mused.

”So you’re all still with me then?” Rika asked, rhetorically, before insisting ”Well let's get going already. We still need to find some treasure somewhere out here between all the monsters”

“Fair enough.” Geralt grunted, stowing Tirn's Great ball and climbing back atop the whale, making sure to cast First Aid on himself once he was up. Then he was joined by Roxas after the latter recalled the evolved Scamp back into his Poke Ball.

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

wordcount: 781 (+2)
Amaterasu: level 8 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (9/80)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands

It had not, perhaps, been in a goddess’s infinite wisdom to use up her last inkwell on that little hat trick, given that her assumption, that when the zombies where done the fight would also be done, had been very wrong. Fighting was noisy, and noisiness attracted attention, in this case that of a horrible multi-armed affront to nature.

It wasn’t it that she turned to face however, having to hope that Not Kim would be up to the task, but instead the source of the rumbling approaching from behind that her keen senses picked up before any of the humans. She hopped round, stance low, ears alert, fangs bared, a growl on her lips but she was not ready for the machine that came rolling through the gate.

She’d seen the wrecks of the mortal’s motor vehicles in the deadzone, but never in this life had Amaterasu set eyes on one in motion, let alone something that looked quite like this. She was briefly caught like a deer in headlights, before crouching and preparing to lunge and grab Icebreaker to haul him to safety when it started charging some sort of power. Fortuitously, the resulting blast of power took out the horrid creature instead of striking towards Not Kim, and then it slowed down to a standstill and a hatch popped open on its side.

As it turned out, this machine belonged to someone the big man knew, namely another big man who was apparently called Stein. The following conversation between the two large lads promptly filled her in on what they all were even doing here, namely looking for lost kids. It turned out putting her trust in fate had indeed paid off, as she was now exactly where she was needed to be.

She wasn’t the only one who was getting filled in on what fate had brought to this place for, as the knight had also walked that same path of destiny and stumbled right into a worthy quest indeed. Kit was his name, and that he immediately offered to help certainly got her divine seal of approval, which she communicated mainly via briefly meeting his eyes briefly before turning to go, rather than just ignoring him entirely as she would have otherwise had he not been worth her time.

Before she entered the building, however, she took a moment to feel smug about her plan of getting the hat working out as Icebreaker retrieved and stored it for her. Fate really was smiling on her, given that little mistake hadn’t had any consequences, and that her little stunt would surely have no future karmic consequences when the hat dried out.

None at all

Fully secure in her certainty, and blind to her hubris, the divinely wise wolf padded into the hole blown by Stein’s big machine, only to glance over at Icebreaker, or, rather, Harry, in a moment of surprise as she suddenly learned his actual name as he made a rather professional callout to the home at large to try and get the attention of one Mr. Heismay.

That latter certainly sounded like the name of a living person, and Harry treated him as such… Well, given the nature of the man, it didn’t exactly confirm that suspicion but it was certainly a weight of the scales in its favor. Which raised the question of why he was here, and why he was suspected of kidnapping children to this place of all places.

She very much did not like the implications of those bits of information, that was for certain. Some man stealing away kids and bringing them to a place probably crawling with the undeath? The mere thought of what reasoning he might have for doing so made her fur stand on end for a moment, before she steeled herself and set her mind to the task at hand with more seriousness than she had had when it had just been wandering alongside the stinky man and his metallic companion and seeing what might come of it.

With that in mind, while the humans called out to or scanned the halls, the wolf stalked to the side and to the door they hadn’t used to get in. There she put her nose to the floor in-order to begin sniffing for signs of the scent of the living that might have come in through the proper entrance to this place, rather than the hole they’d just blown, while her ears stayed perked up and alert for the sound of whatever trouble their announcing of their presence would bring.

If she found a trail, she’d follow it, and just assume the humans would follow after her.

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

Chaos Aligned

Juri and Edward
Words: 4508 (+5)

Edward surveyed the Locusts as they closed in on the massive six wheeled vehicle with only mild concern. He’d known they were there, and also that they were none too friendly thanks to them shooting the pair of scouts (that he’d sent their way to work out their intentions) on sight.

Thanks to his portal power, he could have simply bypassed them, but marauders, as he thought of them, were also, again in his opinion, free game. To an extent, his empires had run on the salvage of slain enemies, and so while some might have seen simply an obstacle to be removed, the dreadnaught, leader of a culture of reavers, saw here resources to be claimed.

Not that he intended to put himself on the line for them, his towering form was, he well knew, something of an easy target, but then that was what disposable assets were for.

One such asset had spotted the erupting battle and slowed her motorcycle to a halt, presumably considering whether to get involved or not. All she needed was a little push, one he was more than willing to provide.

Juri came out here looking for a fight, but not some crazy desert battle on an unarmed motorcycle. Especially since there was no obvious reward for diving into the fray, but if she lost her bike she could kiss her chances of finding any loot goodbye. She set a hand on her hip and stood up on her back as the fight moved away from her.

As a few of his scout drones closed in, their master opened a portal and stepped through, exiting a respectable distance for Jur. The now three people tall, hunched-backed, finger-covered winged Edward removed his helmet to reveal his mostly unchanged face as he exited, and then greeted her with a cordial ”Good afternoon Juri”

”Ewww!” Juri yelled in response. ”What the hell happened to you?! Did you fuse with the mold under the fridge?”
”A powerful demoness actually, one that gives me the ability to offer what you desire” he replied, before waving a hand and opening a portal. On the other end, they briefly caught sight of a confused locust as it drove past the hole in reality, before the beastial humanoid andit’s machine exited stage left, revealing the rest of the battle beyond. Before any stay or intentional shots could come their way however, the Dreadnought closed the portal, and concluded his offered devil’s bargain: ”Plunder acquired through violence”

Juri narrowed her eyes under her helmet at the new magical ability. That would make things a lot easier. She wouldn’t have to risk her bike, and wouldn’t have to worry about getting trapped on a vehicle. ”Humph.” She crossed her arms. ”Might be a good time. If you want a share of the loot, better make sure me or my bike don’t go splat.” She said.

”Can you keep up?” She asked.

Edward simply flicked a hand, a flurry of portals opening and closing, to demonstrate that he could indeed keep up. He then offered ”I can even send that back to the armory, to be retrieved once you need it again” because he’d rather not keep guarding it, and then asking as an afterthought ”Or would you like to ride it into battle?” because to him fistycuffs did not exactly seem like a fighting style suited to be used from (mechanical) horseback.

”Hell no, you had it right the first time. Drop me right onto that big sucker! If those guys are chasing it, it might have good loot onboard. I could nab it first.” Juri said, rubbing her hands together. She took off her helmet and rolled her neck, then sent her helmet on her bike for safe keeping. She rubbed her hands together.

”Ready when you are, Fingers.”

The man might have objected before, but he had come here for loot had he not? So instead he simply replied ”As you wish” before snapping his fingers for dramatic effect, and opening a portal directly under the streetfighter. The other end of it opened directly above the giant cannon the six wheeled base on wheels sported, very literally dropping her onto it.

”Kyaha-!” Her shrill laugh was interrupted as the noise was taken by the wind above the vehicle she was dropped onto.

Then with her on her way, the man turned a brief moment of focus to the bike she’d left behind, taking a few moments to initiate the armory recall sequence. As he did this, a squad of his scout drones zoomed closer to the battle, skimming around the periphery and doing their best to kite any attention they got so that Edward could keep track of what Juri was doing.

As both marauding seekers now saw, the owners of the vehicle turned out to be armored human soldiers called Gears, armed with bayoneted lancer rifles, Gnasher Shotguns and snub pistols. Not that either of them would care to find out any of these names.

A dozen of these Gears were in the midst of attempting to repel boarders, namely the flying Reaver squid monsters and their pairs of locust riders, several of whom leaped off the back of the beasts to engage their foes on foot. Armed with hammerbursters, or combat knives boltok pistols, these locusts where exchanging fire with or coming to blows with the Gears who had been firing from the banisters of their vehicle.

Things seemed to be going rather poorly for the Gears, one of whom went down right as Juri arrived as a bullet struck his chest. He did not turn to ash however, as his durable armor took most of the blow and gave a medic among the Gears enough time to toss a stim gas grenade to revive him.

By contrast the locust’s armor was far less advanced, one of them being turned to dust by a near identical bullet to the chest that had failed to take down the Gear, but they were big and tough, and glancing hits were not taking them down. And that was before the fling cannon mounted warbeasts got involved.

It was, all in all, an absolute mess of a situation, and Edward had put her right in the middle of it.

Juri landed and pounced up to the wall, clambering up it to get the top of the vehicle. Her eyes flitted about as she surveyed the situation, and concluded these Gears were losing up here. If she wanted the most amount of time to herself, she would nudge the battle so that neither side got the advantage too quickly. If there was any loot, it was going to be in some kind of cargo area inside, she guessed.

Juri sprinted along the top of the massive vehicle, leaping up to promptly snatch a passing Reaver pilot and kick it right in the face, sending the vehicle off course and over the side. ”Haha!” She cackled. Pissed off, the Reaver turned around to take another pass at her. Juri shifted from side to side, avoiding the bullets coming her way before sprinting to catch it, leaping up with a spinning cleave of her Ghoulsaw. A huge chunk taken out of it, both locusts moved to abandon ship before it crashed and burned, but they would find Juri waiting for her, and with a swipe and two kicks both locusts turned to ash. Juri snatched up one of their handguns and holstered her Ghoulsaw, moving along the top again. A green streak dragged behind her as she got to the other end with a burst of speed, sliding and dropping cleanly. The speed made it difficult for any participants in the pitched battle to lock their attention on her.

She parkoured over the side and went a layer down to where the doors led into the control room. The locked doors weren’t electronic, but that was no concern to Juri. She hefted her Ghoulsaw and brought it down hard on the handle with a spray of sparks, but it didn’t take long for the nasty weapon to start rending metal and digging into the locking mechanism. ”Open Sesame!” She cried out gleefully. This loud entrance wouldn’t go unnoticed by the Gear squad inside the control room, or the circling aerial Locusts. A streak of bullets came in towards Juri, who raised her arm and her shoulder as a bullet glanced off her body. A Reaver was coming in hot, but this one wasn’t going to get too close, and while she was on this balcony-like outcropping of the Mammoth she didn’t have much maneuverability to reach it.
Juri side-stepped the next few shots and then crouched behind cover as the bullets came raining in, the Reaver flying alongside the Mammoth from a safe distance. This was hardly Juri’s specialty, but her extreme hand-eye coordination went a long way in making it possible. She peaked over the edge and returned fire. ”How’s this?” She shouted, her boltok pistol firing off heavy rounds that stuck into the Reavers thick skin or sailed past the Locust riders. Still, they drew back and away as they returned suppressing fire, not wanting to let Juri get a bead on them. They stayed there long enough for another Reaver to show up. The squid beast itself and its two riders descended to meet Juri, apparently having figured out she was going to bust her way in, or maybe just going after a lone target.

”Oh, I’ve got time for all’a you handsome baldies.” Juri said, dropping her pistol and letting her Ghoulsaw hang at her side as she beckoned with her free hand.

As she was saying that, however, a portal opened above the reaver, and a massive armored fist smashed out of it and into the side of the Reaver, sending it careening to one side. As its pilot tried to stabilize it, he flew right into the grasp of another hand that reached out of a portal, grabbed the pilot, and then pulled it back through the portal, leaving the other locust one scrambling to grab the controls of the panicking warbeast.

It did not get the time, as the missing pilot then reappeared, coming hurtling at high speed straight into him, sending both locusts crashing down to the dust below.

”Haha!” Juri laughed.

Deprived of its intelligent riders, the Reaver lashed out wildly at the air with its tendrils, but by then the presence that had taken them had moved on to to other prey, as down below a string of hands reached down trying to grab a locust off of a chopper, before then opening and letting the riderless vehicle roll through once they succeeded.

Juri glanced at a nearby scout drone that flew in, knowing it belonged to Edward. ”C’mon! Need your portals to get outta there with the loot. ” Juri said. She turned away from the chaos and hacked into the door with her Ghoulsaw. As she split the door open, she was met with a shotgun blast to the chest that knocked her far back and clear over the railing. ”Oogh! She vanished from sight.

The Gear inside pumped his shotgun and stayed behind cover, but was surprised when Juri came in through the top of the doorframe like some kind of horrible spider and leapt clean over his shot and kicked him in the chest. A few more kicks lifted him off the ground and launched him clear across the room. He landed with a heavy thud, winded but not out. There were some shouts of alarm. ”Hello boys and girls!” Juri said, looking for an exit deeper into the Mammoth. She spotted a couple different doors, and fortunately the inside of this place was big enough to need to be labelled. Juri could see the driver and the rest of the squad responsible for protecting the interior and manning the turrets.

The driver had to stay concentrated, trusting her team to keep her safe while she kept them all from crashing. Two more Gears opened up, but Juri wasn’t interested in fighting. She dashed to the side, staying ahead of the bullets, and hacked open an electronic door. She waited for the scout drone to follow her and slammed the door shut behind her, locking it.

”You can open a portal inside here, right?” Juri asked the drone. And by extension Sandalphon who could also relay the message, but that would take a bit longer than the drone just ‘nodding’.

Unfortunately for her, the remaining drone (one had been destroyed by stray fire) looked her right in the eye and then glanced left and right several times in quick succession. The specific explanation that he had to see where he was opening portals would come later, but for now the message was clear enough. She’d need to get out herself.

”Good for nothin’ scrap heap.” Juri frowned.

As to where she’d found herself, it looked to be the bay that the little wheel tanks had deployed out of. Now sealed shut to prevent boarding through it, it was now mostly empty, and entirely uncrewed, except for a half dozen crates with the Ficsit logos on them. Four were fairly normal looking cargo crates, but two were a distinctive red hued design and sealed with a hefty padlock. Not the sort of thing you’d store common commercial goods, that was for sure.

Just as she was taking it in, a message relayed via Sandalphon arrived, one that had been sent to her when she’d first mentioned using Edward’s portals to evacuate the loot. It informed her that Edward would like to remind her that he's demonstrated how to send and receive things to and from the ship's armory, and offered to remind her how to make use of said ability to requisition the crates if needed.

Juri was rubbing her hands together, looking at the good stuff. ”Haaah? What the hell is he talking about?” Juri picked up one of the Ficsit crates and shook it around. She knew this was the area with the vehicles in it.

”I’m gonna hack open the bay doors. Could you portal all the loot out then? I can’t carry all these crates outta here. I’d have to stick around and clear the entire damn vehicle if we wanted all of ‘em.” Juri surmised.

The drone, which had just finished rolling its eye 360 degrees in response to the comment she’d made to its controller’s relayed message (which Sandalphon had taken all of the snippyness out of), paused for a moment, and then nodded twice.

Juri targeted the bay door control panel with her hacking ability and disabled the ‘close’ function, causing the bay doors to slowly begin to shift downwards. Immediately she was greeted with the sound of gunfire from the frantic battle outside. Not just that, but another door into the bay opened, four Gears coming to stop her from making off with the loot and opening up the bay door. If they were trying to maintain a defensive position, they stopped when they realized the bay door was opening. ”Finally got some nerve?” Juri taunted.

Three came in with shotguns, while one, a medic, stayed in the door frame to shoot his assault rifle. They spread out and began firing at Juri from three different angles. For the first three shots, she used Drive Parry to swat all three blasts aside with her leading foot, and then dashed to the side. She cracked into one Gears knee to send him toppling to the floor, and then jumped over another blast to bring her heel down on the next Gears head, before grabbing her to throw her to the side and to the far door where the medic was. The third Gear rushed Juri, and smacked the butt of his gun against her face, interrupting her grinning attempt to keep up her own offense. He kicked her to the ground, where the medic blasted her with a spray of bullets. Juri hissed as she took a few painful shots before she rolled out of the way.

By this point both tossed Gears had stood backup, but Juri pounced upon the nearest one and disarmed him with a furious few kicks followed by a chop towards his gun. Wrenching his arm out of his socket she turned him to face the others and used him as a human shield, two bullets smacking into his chest piece before the medic raised his gun with a swear. Juri launched this Gear towards the other one, downing him for the count and knocking the one that hit her earlier over.

The female gear and the medic opened fire, but Drive Parry made Juri prove impossible to hit, though it did lock her in place on the defensive. ”This is actually pretty fun!” Juri crowed.

By this point the bay doors had opened. Juri could see Zenkichi doing battle against the Locust bandits. The medic tossed a stim grenade to the two downed troops, and the standing Gear made a dash to the bay doors control panel. Juri interrupted her run with a slashing projectile that the Gear jumped over, but before she could find her footing Juri slammed into her with a running spin kick. Juri once again used her has a human projectile, wrapping her foot around her head, dragging her around, and launching her at the others with a kick. This time they managed to dodge, but the medic’s magazine had ran dry so he couldn’t return fire, instead dropping his spent mag to the floor and reaching for a fresh one.

The marauders outside had noticed the opened bay doors and were now trying to force their way past the battling LAVs to get inside. Juri glanced over her shoulder at the loot, expecting to see an escape portal or something better.

What she found was a portal opening underneath the loot, and for it to all tumble down into it. They had already crashed out of the sky after all, anything fragile was already done for. Then another opened, human height and ready for her to escape through and onto the patch of land beyond. Unfortunately, while the portal was static, the vehicle she was on was not, given its attempt to escape its attackers, and so from her perspective the portal began to run away from her and towards the incoming foes.

It also moved towards their fire, a bolt of which smashed into and annihilated the remaining scout drone, while the Gears behind her all scrambled to take cover from it.

”Better hurry” Edward casually called from the other side.

And hurry she did. Juri Drive Rushed forward, headlong sprinting into the trailing portal. ”See ya chumps!” She cried out before vanishing into it, reappearing with Edward. She dove through and landed on her back.

Juri clutched her stomach and guffawed, kicking her legs with impish delight. ”Ahahahahaha!” She laughed. ”Not bad, not bad!” She rose to her feet belly first, her head and arms dragging behind her as she settled bizarrely into a standing position.

”You’re not such a stiff after all, Edward!” She said. ”I like you better like this! With those portals and my skills there’s nothin’ we can’t steal.”

Juri excitedly made her way over to the boxes. ”We can keep the Ficsit boxes closed if we want for the reward, but I’m popping these two bad boys open for sure.” Juri pointed at the red crates. ”There’s one for each of us.”

”In just a few moments. I can only open portals where I can see with my own eyes, you see, and well…” the sound of approaching engines made it clear why that was an issue.

”So if you will follow me” he then added, and property solved the problem by opening a portal and stepping through, while the loot crates were simply dropped again. A few steps and a bit of weaving put them past the battlefield entirely, and in a nice secluded spot where they could inspect their spoils without fear of interruption.

”If you're amenable to a continued 50/50 split, then I can certainly see this being a fruitful partnership as well” He agreed as they walked, while being privately amused about the additional spoils of a handful of locusts spirits, a reaver spirit, and an undamage chopper that where currently sitting on his side of the scales, which he’d acquired and sent to the armory while she’d been busy doing the majority of this smash and grab.

A moment later, they were home free, Edward putting terrain in between them and any pursuers, and putting them closer to the high tower to boot, the scouts drones that had not run into the battle having already looped round and mapped out the terrain on the other side of it.

”Now then, let's see what spoils we have reaved, shall we?” the man who had already been no stranger to the idea of looting and pillaging for a higher cause before the demon’s curse said, gesturing to the two red weapon crates.

”More like 60/40. It was my ass on the line, after all. ”Juri said. ”But we can split the red ones.

”And what the hell were you talkin’ about back there? The armory?” She asked.

”I’d note that you’d have been unable to get away with the prizes without me, and would be stuck physically dragging through this wasteland. You performed your end perfectly, but this operation would have never been without my new power” Edward replied smoothly, before opening a portal and putting a hand through it, causing it to repeat on the other side of him, and then joking ”besides, I did risk life and limb, did I not?”

To actually strengthen his case, he then deigned to answered her question:

”With just a simple combination of gesture and will, you can do this” Edward explained as he flicking a hand and summoning a hovering menu suspended within a magic circle that listed the content’s of the ships armory, which he then showed her ”and retrieve objects from both the armory and the vehicle bay of the avenger”

He then stepped over to the other crates, and made a slightly more complex gesture, forming another hovering circle, explaining ”you can also do this, to send things back” before he then drew a line around the 4 regular cargo crates till it formed a ring. This ring flashed, and then formed a magic circle on the ground beneath the crates, a circle around which another ring started to form, which turned out to functionally be a loading bar, as once the ring was complete, there was a pulse of magic and the crates were gone. Or rather, as he showed her on the armory screen, now within the armory.

”It’s how I stored your bike” he then added, flicking the screen to scroll it to where her personal transport was listed, alongside one of the choppers sat next to it.

”Huh.” Juri mimicked the gestures to confirm they worked. To test, she picked her bike out from either.

”Not bad. I like that a lot. Make sure not to croak like that Princess did.” She said, impressed.

Then, flatly: ”60/40. Let’s just say I get one more crate than you. I couldn’t have done it without you, you couldn’t have done it with me. Difference being if something goes wrong, I’m the one who’s in danger while you’re safe on the backline running support. It’s hazard pay. If you wanna run any more ops like this with me, or anyone like me, I’d recommend getting used to that concept. Fixers and operators.” Juri said. Maybe it was the Sombra in her finally coming to surface, but she sounded reasonable and emotionally unaffected. ”Think about it. You know it makes sense. You can run a ton of heists like this without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, I’ve still got some yummy little aches from where those goons blasted me around.” She set a hand on her hip.

”Either way, I saw that Chopper. That counts.” Juri said with a nod. ”We can do 50/50 this time if you insist, but don’t expect me to put my ass on the line for you again. It’ll be a one and done arrangement. But give me that extra 10 percent and I’ll accept the greater risk for greater reward.” Juri said.

”Then we’d best aim even higher next time. Here” Edward said as he summoned his feather staff striker and had it heal her of her ”We can hardly have you anything less than 100% for your next mission” implicitly agreeing to the deal, before saying ”Now how about we find out what we’ve acquired” and turning their attention back to the still unopened red chests.

Juri grinned, happy she and Edward could come to an agreement. ”Hell yeah.”