DracoLunaris

the Alliance of Liberty City

Might have to take inspiration from that X-Files episode you mentioned and have Stalker just happen to be a bystanders in one of said situations. Breach the surface, wander into a building, immediately get caught up in a hostage situation. A lovely welcome to earth

the Alliance of Liberty City

Stalker

Archetype: Alien 2 (Aliens)

Name: [A scent approximately to that of a strawberry]
Alias: Stalker
Age: 30
Powers/Skills:

• Duality of the self: Stalker is a giant alien bug, and yet at the exact same time an indistinguishable from human woman. How she appears to others depends entirely on their own perception of her. If they expect to see a bug, they see the bug, if they expect to see the human, they see the human.
  
  Most humans, by default, do not expect to see a giant space bug walking around, and so will see the human until she does something that makes it clear that that is not all that she is. At that point, it will all depend on if they see her as a monster or a person.
  
  Stalker herself, of course, knows she is both things at once, and indeed that there is no separation between the two. Thus she can walk through a normal door one moment, and use her claws to smash it open the next. The top image is the best approximation of this, visually that is possible, but truly, she is both, at once, and at all times, and there is no need to ‘change’ or ‘transform’ between each form, because they are both already there.
• Tirmin Physiology: Stalker’s species are large imposing bug creatures, strong and durable, but by no means invincible.
  
  
  
  • Leap tall buildings in a single bound: Stalker’s wings are not strong enough to allow her to fly, at least in earth gravity, but she can launch herself skywards with them, and then glide down from tall heights.
  • Bug skitter: her many limbs allow her to stride around at high speed, and climb or cling to unorthodox vertical positions.
  • Crapace: her bullet resistant chitten can endure limited amounts of small arms fire
  • Reinforced talons: the ends of her limbs are long, durable, and spear point tipped, making them great for stabbing, yes, but also for blocking and bashing.

Weaknesses:

• Fish out of water: How do humans work? Why do they communicate via air noises? What is ‘money’ how/why can it be exchanged for goods and services
• Hunger of the two: Being a big bug and a human at once takes a lot of energy, and thus a lot of food
• Buy spray: icky
• See what you want to see: If someone can figure out the trick of her dual nature, then they can change the state she is in a way that favors them, which could be very inconvenient for her. A strong enough will could, for example, punch past all her defences, and strike the entirely mundane human form.

Equipment:

• Object duality: Tirmin technology takes advantage of their own dual nature, some examples of which are listed here
  
  
  
  • Cloaking Field: Taking these principles to their absolute limit, Stalker can both be somewhere and not be there at the same time. At its most effective, if a person does not expect her to be somewhere, she is entirely invisible and intangible to them. However, this does not apply to the world, so she still makes sound, displaces air, radiates heat etc. These traits can be used to work out where she is, and once someone has worked out where she is, then she is there, and fully visible.
    
    Once seen, she can’t vanish from someone’s sight till she can get clear of it. This could involve obscuring herself in a smoke bomb, or ducking behind an obstacle, letting her ‘reactivated’ the cloak.
    
    Pretty energy intensive.
  • Tunnelers: a simple plate that can be pressed against a surface to induce duality in it, making it so that it is and isn’t there, allowing the creation of tunnels that only exist if you know they are there. Very useful for breaching the surface sneakily
  • Bags of Double Holding: storage units that contain 2 sets of items in the same amount of space.
  • Hairpin blades: A pair of weapons styled after her bug legs, usable for the same blocking, shoving and stabbing as them, ensuring that her human form isn’t entirely defenseless, though they are very much a weapon of last resort. As the name suggests, they are also, at the exact same time, a pair of hairpins.

Personality: Inquisitive, Ignorant, Playful, Determined, Skittish
Appearance: bug form
BRIEF Bio:
Stalker is a scout for a species of bug aliens called the Tirmin, specifically for a hiveship of theirs that got itself stuck in a cavern beneath Liberty City. Most of the Tirmin onboard are still in suspended animation, save for Stalker, and a number of scavenger bugs that make up the emergency support crew, all of whom were woken up by the captain upon the ship's arrival. This last survivor of the ship’s actual crew then perished from her wounds, wounds she had suffered in the daring escape from an authoritarian regime from a far off distant section of space with which the Tirmin had been at war.

‘Had been’’ being the key words, for the war is now lost, and that is why they have fled to earth, having blindly fired themselves far further through hyperspace than it would normally be safe to do so, using a black hole as a slingshot to thrust themselves far beyond the reach of their destroyers (or so they hope).

Hence the being stuck underground thing, and the crew perishing from the strain of barley keeping the ship intact over the high unorthodox voyage. Still, while the ship is a wreck, and most of its facilities and supplies destroyed, the precious cargo of its people has survived, and must now be cared for.

It was into these circumstances that Stalker and her minimalist support crew were awoken. Her mission: to take command of the scavenger core, breach the surface of this life-bearing world, and secure resources to allow her crew to first survive, and then to reawaken the rest of her people.

Stalker in question had been intended to be a frontierswomen before the war, and spent much of its depressingly brief duration in stasis traveling to a new world the Tirmin had intended to settle. The only battle in it she saw was a fighting retreat from that world, a desperate struggle to repel boarders, after which she was put into stasis. The captain and her crew sacrificed themselves to toss them into the great beyond, a desperate ploy to preserve their lives and freedom of their people.

Now it all rests on her inexperienced shoulders, but Stalker does not let that get her down. After all, this, exploring a new world, is what she was made for, not war. That it turns out it is already occupied and its natives have this concept called ‘private property’ that is an alien concept to the collectivist Tirmin, is going to make things a bit more complicated than figuring out what local flora is edible and which local fauna dangerous however.

Storylines:
Feed the Hive: Most of the food was lost in the flight and crash, meaning her first aim is to find a way to feed herself and her crew. The urgency of this task will make the arduous process of establishing diplomatic relations with the natives untenable, and so she’ll need to take first and ask for forgiveness later.

Repair the Hive: Stalker will seek to repair her ship, and will scavenge local technological resources to do so. The more she can repair it, and the more food she can acquire, the more of her sisters she can awaken to help her

A new home: Earth’s tech isn’t advanced enough to repair their hyper-drive. Will they find a place among its people, have to stay hidden or find a way to claim their own part of it?

Pursuers from beyond: That which the Tirmin have fled finds them and seeks to finish the job.

Notes: Yes, she and her kind are just Terminids, and therefor just Arachnids, but seen here from a third perspective rather than the one of their enemies (and, of course, with a human face attached to make them relatable)

As the storylines imply, I intend her to engage in gradually escalating street crime, and gradually gain an army of underlings to help out with it. Optimally, she and her kind will team up with either the heroes or the villains (depending on if either one can help her solve her problems) rather than stay entirely solo the whole time.

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

wordcount: 462 (+1)
Amaterasu: level 8 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (16/80)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion

Having raced ahead of the others (alongside Heismay), Amaterasu had missed the entire ordeal Big Band went through to get the other two galeeming past the ghost that she had ‘defeated’, including the incident with the friend hearts. What she did not miss was the roar of engines flaring to life behind her, prompting her to glance back, and then to dodge out of the way as Big Band came blazing through the air and then smashed his way through several walls, smashing a nice and easy sprint to the finish by following the wake of his devastation.

She’d been growing sick of all its twisty corridors, and so in her mind this served them right for getting in her way.

She then made good time galloping out of there, emerging just in time to see Stein annihilate a whole host of zombies with casual ease. His machine really was something.

They got to see what else it could do as it followed them along on their child finding quest, but not before the divine being got to feel smug about being praised by Heismay, her snout raised snootily and tail wagging.

After that, the Atom rolled on, with Harry on top, who Amatarasu hopped up to join in-order to save her stamina. She’d been running around protecting the foolish hero, it was only fair she got a break too.

While taking this ride, Big Band explained some things to Kit and Harry, but for whatever reason she didn’t quite manage to take this all in, and also, despite this, she didn’t find herself caring about her ignorance either. It must have just been dull and yawn inducing, or so her manipulated mind was convinced to think. Still, she had to agree with Heismay on his final comment on the matter, the world had no end of dangers, or so it seemed.

Case and point: the big lake that was in the way of them getting to the children, which was a bit of an issue for the goddess who, as for all her talents, wasn’t exactly a fine swimmer.

She was rather a wretched one, really.

Still, she had her ways of dealing with this. First she drew herself a massive lily pad in amongst the detritus that Heismay had gotten his floating log from, and hopped onto it. Then she drew a swirling loop, conjuring a gust of wind that would push her, and any other foliage floaters, out into the lake and off towards the distant cliffs that they were being led to.

With only 3 ink vials total, and a 9 second recharge time, it might take a while to sail on over, but she’d be more than capable of making it there, assuming there were no rude interruptions.

(((( Hero Complex ))))

We need male heroes!!!

Sorry this is a magical girl anime now /jk

(((( Hero Complex ))))

Stalker V2, less brain bending edition. Things are still 2 things, but they are now what you think they are.

Stalker

Archetype: Alien 2 (Aliens)

Name: [A scent approximately to that of a strawberry]
Alias: Stalker
Age: 30
Powers/Skills:

• Duality of the self: Stalker is a giant alien bug, and yet at the exact same time an indistinguishable from human woman. How she appears to others depends entirely on their own perception of her. If they expect to see a bug, they see the bug, if they expect to see the human, they see the human.
  
  Most humans, by default, do not expect to see a giant space bug walking around, and so will see the human until she does something that makes it clear that that is not all that she is. At that point, it will all depend on if they see her as a monster or a person.
  
  Stalker herself, of course, knows she is both things at once, and indeed that there is no separation between the two. Thus she can walk through a normal door one moment, and use her claws to smash it open the next. The top image is the best approximation of this, visually that is possible, but truly, she is both, at once, and at all times, and there is no need to ‘change’ or ‘transform’ between each form, because they are both already there.
• Tirmin Physiology: Stalker’s species are large imposing bug creatures, strong and durable, but by no means invincible.
  
  • Leap tall buildings in a single bound: Stalker’s wings are not strong enough to allow her to fly, at least in earth gravity, but she can launch herself skywards with them, and then glide down from tall heights.
  • Bug skitter: her many limbs allow her to stride around at high speed, and climb or cling to unorthodox vertical positions.
  • Crapace: her bullet resistant chitten can endure limited amounts of small arms fire
  • Reinforced talons: the ends of her limbs are long, durable, and spear point tipped, making them great for stabbing, yes, but also for blocking and bashing.

Weaknesses:

• Fish out of water: How do humans work? Why do they communicate via air noises? What is ‘money’ how/why can it be exchanged for goods and services
• Hunger of the two: Being a big bug and a human at once takes a lot of energy, and thus a lot of food
• Buy spray: icky
• See what you want to see: If someone can figure out the trick of her dual nature, then they can change the state she is in a way that favors them, which could be very inconvenient for her. A strong enough will could, for example, punch past all her defences, and strike the entirely mundane human form.

Equipment:

• Object duality: Tirmin technology takes advantage of their own dual nature, some examples of which are listed here
  
  • Cloaking Field: Taking these principles to their absolute limit, Stalker can both be somewhere and not be there at the same time. At its most effective, if a person does not expect her to be somewhere, she is entirely invisible and intangible to them. However, this does not apply to the world, so she still makes sound, displaces air, radiates heat etc. These traits can be used to work out where she is, and once someone has worked out where she is, then she is there, and fully visible.
    
    Once seen, she can’t vanish from someone’s sight till she can get clear of it. This could involve obscuring herself in a smoke bomb, or ducking behind an obstacle, letting her ‘reactivated’ the cloak.
    
    Pretty energy intensive.
  • Tunnelers: a simple plate that can be pressed against a surface to induce duality in it, making it so that it is and isn’t there, allowing the creation of tunnels that only exist if you know they are there. Very useful for breaching the surface sneakily
  • Bags of Double Holding: storage units that contain 2 sets of items in the same amount of space.
  • Hairpin blades: A pair of weapons styled after her bug legs, usable for the same blocking, shoving and stabbing as them, ensuring that her human form isn’t entirely defenseless, though they are very much a weapon of last resort. As the name suggests, they are also, at the exact same time, a pair of hairpins.

Personality: Inquisitive, Ignorant, Playful, Determined, Skittish
Appearance: bug form
BRIEF Bio:
Stalker is a scout for a species of bug aliens called the Tirmin, specifically for a hiveship of theirs that got itself stuck in a cavern beneath Liberty City. Most of the Tirmin onboard are still in suspended animation, save for Stalker, and a number of scavenger bugs that make up the emergency support crew, all of whom were woken up by the captain upon the ship's arrival. This last survivor of the ship’s actual crew then perished from her wounds, wounds she had suffered in the daring escape from an authoritarian regime from a far off distant section of space with which the Tirmin had been at war.

‘Had been’’ being the key words, for the war is now lost, and that is why they have fled to earth, having blindly fired themselves far further through hyperspace than it would normally be safe to do so, using a black hole as a slingshot to thrust themselves far beyond the reach of their destroyers (or so they hope).

Hence the being stuck underground thing, and the crew perishing from the strain of barley keeping the ship intact over the high unorthodox voyage. Still, while the ship is a wreck, and most of its facilities and supplies destroyed, the precious cargo of its people has survived, and must now be cared for.

It was into these circumstances that Stalker and her minimalist support crew were awoken. Her mission: to take command of the scavenger core, breach the surface of this life-bearing world, and secure resources to allow her crew to first survive, and then to reawaken the rest of her people.

Stalker in question had been intended to be a frontierswomen before the war, and spent much of its depressingly brief duration in stasis traveling to a new world the Tirmin had intended to settle. The only battle in it she saw was a fighting retreat from that world, a desperate struggle to repel boarders, after which she was put into stasis. The captain and her crew sacrificed themselves to toss them into the great beyond, a desperate ploy to preserve their lives and freedom of their people.

Now it all rests on her inexperienced shoulders, but Stalker does not let that get her down. After all, this, exploring a new world, is what she was made for, not war. That it turns out it is already occupied and its natives have this concept called ‘private property’ that is an alien concept to the collectivist Tirmin, is going to make things a bit more complicated than figuring out what local flora is edible and which local fauna dangerous however.

Storylines:
Feed the Hive: Most of the food was lost in the flight and crash, meaning her first aim is to find a way to feed herself and her crew. The urgency of this task will make the arduous process of establishing diplomatic relations with the natives untenable, and so she’ll need to take first and ask for forgiveness later.

Repair the Hive: Stalker will seek to repair her ship, and will scavenge local technological resources to do so. The more she can repair it, and the more food she can acquire, the more of her sisters she can awaken to help her

A new home: Earth’s tech isn’t advanced enough to repair their hyper-drive. Will they find a place among its people, have to stay hidden or find a way to claim their own part of it?

Pursuers from beyond: That which the Tirmin have fled finds them and seeks to finish the job.

Notes: Yes, she and her kind are just Terminids, and therefor just Arachnids, but seen here from a third perspective rather than the one of their enemies (and, of course, with a human face attached to make them relatable)

As the storylines imply, I intend her to engage in gradually escalating street crime, and gradually gain an army of underlings to help out with it. Optimally, she and her kind will team up with either the heroes or the villains (depending on if either one can help her solve her problems) rather than stay entirely solo the whole time.

(((( Hero Complex ))))

You know what. I got way to invested into an extended MSPA reference. Lets simplify this, and lean into the Arachnid commentary, to just: you see what you think is there. Think she's a person? She's a person. Think she's a horrifying bug? She's a horrifying bug. She of course knows she is both and thus can do both human and bug things at the same time

(((( Hero Complex ))))

edit: V2 here

The Stalker

Archetype: Alien 2 (Aliens)

Name: [A scent approximately to that of a strawberry]
Alias: The Stalker
Age: 30
Powers/Skills:

• Object duality: A unique aspect of her species’ technology, the Stalker can be two things at once. Namely she is both a Giant Alien Bug, and also a humanoid alien. She can also interleave this, to have, say, her extra legs or wings show up behind her humanoid body should she desire.
  
  This tech can also be applied to other things, such as having an object that is both a gun and a key, or a wall be both made of solid stone and feature a tunnel.
  
  Notably, which state a thing is in is based on the perception of the person perceiving it. Confusingly, however, a thing will be the opposite of what that person wants it to be, thus requiring a degree of doublethink to operate it. Taking the key-gun example, if a person tried to shoot someone with the gun, it would be a key instead, and, vice versa, if they tried to unlock a door with the key, they would shoot it. Thus they must fire the key and use the gun to unlock the door. Similarly, they must walk into the solid stone inorder to pass through the tunnel, and the more they think that there is a tunnel there, the more they will smash themselves face first into a wall.
  
  This does not apply to the Stalker herself, as her own self perception overpowers that of anyone else (though it is still inverted) meaning she is what she wants to be at all times. This is unless, of course, someone can overpower her own willpower, or psychologically trick her into thinking she is in a different state.
• Tirmin Physiology:
  
  • Leap tall buildings in a single bound: the Stalker’s wings are not strong enough to allow her to fly, at least in earth gravity, but she can launch herself skywards with them, and then glide down from tall heights.
  • Bug skitter: her many limbs allow her to stride around at high speed, and climb or cling to unorthodox vertical positions.
  • Crapace: her bug form is very durable. Her humanoid one not so much.
  • Reinforced talons: the ends of her limbs are long, durable, and spear point tipped, making them great for stabbing, yes, but also for blocking and bashing.

Weaknesses:

• Fish out of water: How do humans work? Why do they communicate via air noises? What is ‘money’ how/why can it be exchanged for goods and services
• Hunger of the two: Being a big bug and a human at once takes a lot of energy, and thus a lot of food
• Buy spray: icky
• Unscrew the mindscrew: if someone can figure out the trick of her tech, then they can change the state of it themselves, which could be very inconvenient.

Equipment:

• Cloaking Field: Working on the same object duality principles, if the Stalker is considered as visible, she will not be visible, and if she is considered invisible, she will be visible. This can be very confusing, and can result in her flickering in and out of existence, or being simply hazy and hard to track, as the perceiver's perception rapidly flips and the inverse of said perception becomes true. However, if someone does not know she is there, then they assume everything around them is visible, including her, making her invisible to them.

Personality: Inquisitive, Ignorant, Playful, Determined, Skittish
Appearance: bug form
BRIEF Bio:
The Stalker is a scout for a species of bug aliens called the Tirmin, specifically for a hiveship of theirs that got itself stuck in a cavern beneath Liberty City. Most of the Tirmin onboard are ones still in suspended animation, save for the Stalker, and a number of scavenger bugs that make up the emergency support crew, all of whom were woken up by the captain upon the ship's arrival. This last survivor of the ship’s actual crew then perished from her wounds, wounds she had suffered in the daring escape from an authoritarian regime from a far off distant section of space with which the Tirmin had been at war.

‘Had been’’ being the key words, for the war is now lost, and that is why they have fled to earth, having blindly fired themselves far further through hyperspace than it would normally be safe to do so, using a black hole as a slingshot to thrust themselves far beyond the reach of their destroyers.

Hence the being stuck underground thing, the crew perishing from the strain of barley keeping the ship intact over the high unorthodox voyage. Still, while the ship is a wreck, and most of its facilities and supplies destroyed, the precious cargo of its people has survived, and must now be cared for.

It was into these circumstances that the Stalker and her minimalist support crew were awoken. Her mission: to take command of the scavenger core, breach the surface of this fertile world, and secure resources to allow her crew to first survive, and then to reawaken the rest of her people.

The Stalker in question had been intended to be a frontierswomen before the war, and spent much of its depressingly brief duration in stasis traveling to a new world the Tirmin had intended to settle. The only battle in it she saw was a fighting retreat from that world, a desperate struggle to repel boarders, after which she was put into stasis. The captain and her crew sacrificed themselves to toss them into the great beyond, a desperate ploy to preserve their lives and freedom of their people, the attacking ship still hot on their heels.

Now it all rests on her inexperienced shoulders, but the Stalker does not let that get her down. After all, this, exploring a new world, is what she was made for, not war. That it turns out it is already occupied and has this thing called ‘private property’ that is an alien concept to the collectivist Tirmin, is going to make things a bit more complicated than figuring out what local flora is edible and which local fauna dangerous however.

Storylines:
Feed the Hive: Stalk needs to feed her awake sisters, prompting her to first aim to find a way to feed them. The urgency of this task will make the arduous process of establishing diplomatic relations with the natives untenable.

Repair the Hive: Stalker will seek to repair her ship, and to scavenge local technological resources to do so.

A new home: Earth’s tech isn’t advanced enough to repair their hyper-drive. Will they find a place among its people or seek to replace them?

Pursuers from beyond: That which the Tirmin have fled finds them and seeks to finish the job

Notes: Yes, she and they are just Terminids, and therefor just Arachnids, but seen here from a sympathetic perspective (and, of course, with a human face attached to make them relatable). Also you should be mentally pronouncing it like the game, accent and all

Should I have gone without the mind-screwy aspect of her power? Yes. Does it give her the vibe of a gimmick villein of the week feel? Also yes.

(((( Hero Complex ))))

I mean if it worked it worked

Big rosters though are my jam.

Well it looks like your gonna get one at this rate

(((( Hero Complex ))))

A squad of archer and a pack of lone wolves does sound pretty funny tbh, but I get how that'd result in a lot of stepping on each other's toes if the peeps weren't carful. Also with the whole joke situation of 5 loners all sitting in different dark corners of the room waiting to be approached

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

wordcount: 3131 (+4 exp) (+1 rapport)
Bowser Jr: Level 14 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(294/140)
Rika: Level 10 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(210/100)
Lvl 14 Geralt (126/140) -> (130/140)
Lvl 10 Roxas (19/100) -> (23/100)

for seekers

Red Tumblestone 10x
Black Tumblestone 5x
Sky Tumblestone 5x
Enor Pearl 5x
Some particularly aesthetically pleasing diorite, andesite, and granite rocks
Tetrahedron

With a nice little haul of rocks of varying qualities, the team ascended the cliffs by awkwardly holding onto Rika’s whale while it swam up the rock face, and then found their way to the hidden oasis they had been told about.

As they approached, they heard the faint sounds of a croaking symphony, only to spook the chorus of Flowger when they came into view of the pool and end the music in the process. The flowery frogs splashed into the water, joining solitary lurking Fortifry and the swiftly zipping Arjibi found therein.

While these certainly looked like pokemon, and Jr’s phone identified them as such when he snapped a picture, it did so using a somewhat hacked in looking addon rather than the ‘official’ pokedex, which the prince considered ”weird”

Still, there was no mistaking the Apricorns hanging from several of the trees around the oasis, with the only thing even mildly in the way of them acquiring the hard shelled fruits being the stench of a few spoiled apricorns that lay half eaten at the base of the trees.

Other than those trees, and a few palms, the only other thing of note was the small shrine at the far end of the oasis, unassuming and weather worn yet enduring despite the ages that must have passed it by.

“Hmm. It's…nice. Not sure it was worth the climb, though.” Geralt sighed as he looked over the oasis and at each of the Fakemon that were hanging around. “Those look like what you described, though.” He continued, pointing at one of the apricorn trees.

”mmm” Rika agreed simply, before asking ”so, how we gonna get em down?” only for jr to already have a plan (for them at least)

”You cut em down, and I catch em!” was the plan, which consisted of Rika wiggling her helbard about up in the branches of the trees to chop down the shelled fruits, while her brother ran around underneath with his duffle bag stretched to catch them, making a game of the work.

Roxas, meanwhile, had his own idea. Similar to how they mined the Tumblestone Ore, he decided he’d recruit the help of some of his Pokemon. He released Titan and Turbo from their Poke Balls and pointed them toward the apricorn, ”Think you can help me shake some of those down for us?” Titan gave a thumbs up gesture while Turbo revved her engines in agreement. They each gently attacked apricorn trees, Titan with his Shadow Punch and Turbo with her Iron Head. And as for Roxas, he opened up the main pocket section of his trainer bag to gather fallen apricorns in or catch them as they were falling.

”Yeah, keep going guys!” The Nobody encouraged his Pokemon, ”We’re on a roll!”

Geralt followed Roxas's lead yet again, having Tirn come out of its ball and bash its head into the apricorn trees, collecting the fallen fruit and giving his Pokemon a grateful scratch on its head, earning a pleased chuffing sound from the Shieldon. After he had gathered what he figured was a fairly good haul, he turned to the others. “Anything else you needed? We'll have full bags before long.”

”A break” was Rika’s request, to which Jr agreed. Not just because they’d been doing work when the other had delegated to their mon, but also because they’d been traveling and fighting under the baking sun for a few hours now. With regards to that, they both thought the oasis, with its shady trees and chill atmosphere would be a great spot to take a quick break before they pushed on to the seemingly abandoned Outback gas station for their last stop.

“Then we take a break.” Geralt agreed, walking over to sit in the shade of a tree. “Nice to not have to fight monsters, or build a city, or worry about the fate of the world for a few minutes.” He sighed. “Normally I try not to get mixed up in all this ‘hero’ business. Not enough money, and far too dangerous. Never could say no to helping a friend, though.” He added, almost as an afterthought.

”I dunno, it can be kinda fun. Plus, it's nice to win sometimes” Jr said in turn, having parked his car, hopped out and settled down by a tree of his own. His sister had in turn settled down next to him, before wordlessly offering him one of her gauntlets. In response helped unstrap it without any questions asked, after which she unstrapped the other one herself, before flexing her wrists and cracking her fingers that were quite stiff.

The boy’s mon joined him as well, Dazzle flopping out of the car he’d been riding shotgun in, while Mimi and Peeka were released from their pokeballs. Peeka settled her large form down next to the pair of kids, while Dazzle popped himself into Rika’s lap, and Mimi into Jr’s for the purpose of being pet.

Roxas similarly let his own Pokemon out of their balls to relax a bit. And while Scamp chased Shocker around and Titan plopped down next to where Roxas was sitting, Turbo drove herself over in Geralt’s direction and proceeded to let Tirn ride around on her for a bit.. ”Yeah, but nothing beats a relaxing break.” He said in contribution to the conversation, ”Even back when I was in the Organization, the breaks I spent eating ice cream with my friends was the part I looked forward to more than anything.”

”Sugars good” Rika replied in muffled agreement, the girl having taken the first opportunity, post hand freeing, to pick out a slightly melted treat from a pocket and proceeded to stuff it in her mouth.

“Our usual indulgence of choice was of a more intoxicating variety.” Geralt chuckled, half-remembering some of the drunken shenanigans he had gotten up to with the other Wolf school Witchers, as well as Dandellion, Zoltan, Roche, and others. “It’s nice to win, sure, but I’ve spent 80 years winning fights and hunting monsters. I’ve found the moments between those hunts to be the most important. Not that you can afford to think about that when you’re staring down a Fiend or a Leshen.” He shrugged.

”Eh, I guess” Jr supposed, the child clearly not convinced that this hero stuff wasn’t all that. The other child meanwhile was more curious about what the Witcher had said first, asking ”Why would you eat something that toxifies? Is it some kind of tasty poison?”

Geralt paused, contemplating for a moment what kind of influence he wanted to be on these children. In the end, he chose honesty. “Plenty of reasons people drink alcohol. Some people drink to forget the parts of their lives that they hate. Some drink because they feel wrong without it. Takes a while to get to that point. More people drink because it makes it a little easier to act a fool, to let go of your pride and your better judgment and just…exist. Do the first thing that comes to your mind. People get older, more set in their ways. Drink helps them loosen up sometimes.”

He paused, watching the Pokemon play with a small smile. “It also makes it easy to say things you think but wouldn't dream of admitting sober. Helps you come up with stupid little ideas to mess with your friend's wife, for example.” He let out a chuckle, remembering how they'd messed with Yen, and how pissed she'd been after. “I wouldn't recommend it until you're full grown. And maybe with Kamek around. That is, if you can even get drunk…” He muttered, looking over to Junior and Rika. “Alcohol might not work the same on you as it would us.” He gestured between himself and Roxas.

”Why no- oh, not human” Jr replied, answering his own question before he finished it

”What do you mean, not fully grown?” Rika asked, with a frown that was twitching just a bit, as a rage that was not her own bubbled up in response to the misinterpreted insinuation that she was short.

”As in we’re gonna get bigger as we grow older? You're like, what a teen or sumin so you’ve still got a way to go, right? Not that you’ll get as big as me an papa probably but still. Unless you’ll become as big as an actual boat?” Jr said, guessing at how the ship girl’s probably very weird physiology.

”Oh” Rika replied, anger dissipating back to neutrality, before she added ”I dunno if we do that. Don’t think we ever lived long enough to find out” with just a dip of sadness, before bouncing back to a more enthusiastic ”But I’ve got two more things to look forward to when this is all over!”

”Mmm”

”Are we still even going to want things to go back when this is over?” Roxas suddenly asked out of the blue, ”What if we’ve all become too used to this world? Or we decide we don't want to risk letting lives born here disappear?” By now Scamp had settled down and appeared to be taking a little nap with his head resting on Roxas’ lap, as if acting as a living example of what the Nobody was getting at. Would Roxas want to put things back in a way that meant he didn't have his Pokemon anymore?

Geralt hummed, thinking on the dilemma Roxas was proposing. “Way I see it, either we let this world of endless war continue, or we try and change it. We were brought out of Galeem's thrall and shown the truth. Honestly a good chance that we can't turn things back to the way they were before. But if Galeem isn't stopped, it can keep stealing people from worlds. We don't even know if the worlds we came from are even there anymore. Might be whoever stops that thing just ends it for us all.” He sighed.

“But those are the kinds of risks you take stopping something you don't fully understand. The kinds of risks I took on a daily basis as a Witcher. Most important thing I learned is that you have to try to do the best thing you can. Leaving things to sort themselves out is the worst way to go about fixing anything. Ain't saying you shouldn't think about it. Or try to find another way. Just saying…if you decide you want to sit back and let others sort things out, don't be surprised if you don't like the choices they make.” Geralt shrugged. “It's often ugly when things change. People get hurt. But people get hurt if things don't change, too. You have to decide for yourself if the change is worth it. If pain now means a better life later. Or if dealing with that hurt will be more worth it.”

Rika, for one, had an entirely firm view on the matter, which was ”I’m never going back to how I was before I was free. Not into the Moebius thing. Not back to whatever place I was from. We’ll make something new, and I’ll never be someone else’s disposable peon ever again”

”and I’m not gonna lose my sister!” Jr piped up in agreement, prompting the serious looking Rika’s lips to tilt up into a little smile before she gave her brother a one armed hug over his shoulders.

”You’ll help, right?”

”Of course I will.” Roxas said without an ounce of hesitation, ”I wouldn’t wanna go back to before I had Scamp and the others, either.”

“A new world, then.” Geralt said, the weight of a century behind his words. “Won’t be the first time it’s happened, and I’ve a feeling it may not even be the last. Only reason they made Witchers in the first place is this happened a long time ago. Worlds collided, monsters ran amok, and people needed someone to save them. Instead, they just made another monster they could kill when it started to displease them.” Bitterness crept into his voice at the end of his words, but he sighed and let it disappear. “This world you want to make. Make it kinder than that.” He told the children.

That Jr’s response to that heavy burden was ”Don’t worry, Papa’s a good boss even though he’s a bad guy” was perhaps not the most reassuring.

Geralt just let out a laugh at that. “He calls himself that, and maybe in your world he qualifies, but he’s a better person than at least half the folk from my world.”

”None of the other badguys seem to care about anything -sept themselves. Consuls are all lonely jerks, the fleet were mean, so were those wasps, the freaky pizza guy, the necrodancer and stuff. So, yeah, a world with him on top is better for everyone probably” Rika agreed, before adding, selfishly that ”and it's definitely better for me”

”Hey! We conquered the universe once! We can be mean to other people n stuff!” Jr began, only to think back and recognise that, frankly, his papa was a better guy than most of the bad guys from his world as well. You only had to compare the koopa’s treatment of toads to the way the Shroobs or the Origami King had to see that. But then, that was sort of the point ”And besides all of that is that’s just coz he’s the best bad guy is all! All those other guys are dust, whereas papa is still kicking, and is gonna keep on kicking till we kick Galeem’s butt!”

“Can’t argue with that.” Geralt laughed at Junior and Rika’s confidence in their father.

”Uh, have you ever tried… not being bad guys?” Roxas asked with a tilted head, ”I mean… it’s not like you’re being bad guys now, right?”

”Well that’s coz there’s some bad guy who thinks they’re the bad guy but they aint’ so we gotta show them that they ain’t as big as they think they are!” Jr insisted, to which Rika just responded ”What?”

”Galeem’s a jerk who needs punching in the face” Jr summarised, before answering the first part with ”and I dunno, we’re bad guys that’s just who we are I guess?” because he really didn’t know.

“Aaaahhhh.” Geralt hummed, now with a little more insight into their mindset. “You want to be on top, in charge. Not told what to do. But you have standards, still. With how many times your father’s gotten himself in trouble just here with how often he tries to help people, I’m sure Kamek has his hands full.” Geralt chuckled. The old magikoopa reminded him of Vesemir in some ways, though he doubted Kamek got up to as many shenanigans as his teacher did.

”But Bowser isn’t the only one…” Roxas said softly, ”Ganondorf and Sectonia wanna both rule too. So… what happens when they don’t have a common enemy anymore?” He knew exactly what was probably going to happen, but he wasn’t going to be the one to say it.

”I mean, you don’t see anyone they care about, around either I guess? Like Ganondorf says he likes the Gerudo town people, but he didn’t bring any of them with him or anything sooooo, same deal as all the rest?” Rika said, having developed this philosophy on the fly, and now sticking to it, while Jr noted that they knew that that was coining ”Also he already stabbed papa in the back last time. Or I guess a different one of him did? But not like, Mobius coming back. He has his own whole, coming back thing going on or something? Anyway it's gonna happen again for sure”

He was less sure about the other of the pair however, saying ”I dunno about Sectonia tho. Papa said bad guy team ups always end with backstabbing so you gotta do it first, but maybe we can work something out? She seems ok? But if she’s anything like papa she won’t like being under papa so, um, I dunno”

“I figure either they'll play nice and split up to rule over their own domains, or try and backstab each other to stay in power.” Geralt mused. “Of course, if that happens I'm with you kids and Bowser. Better him than even Djikstra. Ugh.” Shaking his head of the unpleasant memory of his deceased friend, Geralt sighed.

”Neat”

”Nice. Thanks”

With alliances more or less accidently secured, and philosophy mused upon, the team settled into a mix of idle chit chat and just plain chilling, till rest was replaced with restlessness, and they collectively decided it was time to go.

Mon where re-balled, whales and cars bordered, and then they were off into the heat once more, down the somewhat stressful descent down the face of the cliffs. Once down they then off towards the abandoned town/pitstop of Outback, to check it out as their last stop before they headed on back to the place that had caused it to be abandoned (Hammerhead) via paint portal.