It looked like the proprietor of the establishment also wanted them to leave, and Amaterasu wasn’t in any disagreement with her there. Actually leaving without getting chased out was kind of the problem, especially with the irate crowd’s Gleaming status. Truth be told though, she was more concerned about the sage who’d picked up on them breaking the rules of Galeem’s reality however. He was likely to be more calculatingly insistent.
Fortunately at least one person was on their side, which was the very small… person who’d poked her nose into this mess after Nadia got thrown into it. Probably an adult. Maybe. Height wise, child. Voice tone, difficult to judge because of the feminine pitch. Weapons and armor should have given it away, but then this was a world where people like Rika and Bowser Junior existed so that was most certainly not a given. Smell could have solved it, but they were just a little crowded so picking up on the substitutes would be difficult. Attitude though, that was quite adult.
Ultimately it didn’t really matter to her. She’d already gotten used to the idea that just because someone was unassuming in stature, that didn’t mean they weren't a force to be reckoned with, or unwise in word (not that the koopa kids were in any way contributing to that half of the equation, mind). Either way, respect was due, and the divine wolf would offer the armored stranger as much as she would anyone else.
The various betters, worked up as they were, were less inclined to be polite or respectful, but fortunately they immediately started getting their wires crossed as a result of her words.
The first instance of this was the big cybernetic bear insisting “Oh yeah, what do you know, pipsqueak! That fight wasn’t done at all because that guy’s still standing!” jabbing a claw at Captain Falcon, only for a goat cowboy to get up in his grill “You're only saying that because she’s just proven you’ve lost! So pay up!” prompting the two to start shouting at each other rather than the seekers.
Others soon followed suit, getting into arguments with each other over who’d won, and directing some attention away from the seekers.
The wolf inclined her head towards the small woman in recognition of her aid, but they weren't out of the frying pan yet, and there was still risk that they were going to go into the fire.
Two groups still had issues with them.
The first were mostly Yokai, such as a durable looking Eyellure who insisted that “It was still rigged!” while a less imposing looking Tsuchinoko in a Tshirt “Yeah these guys totally know each other, it's so obvious!”
The second was the sage and his two reploid minions who were circling around the crowd to put himself between them and the exit. As he did, he casually pointed out that “Their fight might have had an obvious winner, but the other did not” before addressing specifically Sakura and the captain “you two were in the middle of trading blows, only to drop everything upon seeing that blast. That should not be possible”
“Unless they were faking it all!” a long clawed ghoul of a yokai jumped in to insist, causing the man to sigh as the chant of “Rigged!” started back up amongst the other Yokai, and threatened to drag the betters back into the conversation.
Amtarasu padded through the center of their little section of the tea house brawl, which had been the worst looking right up until Nadia took out one of the walls via being hurled through it. She paused for a half moment, ears pivoting towards the hole. Then continued her steps when she didn’t hear the telltale sound of a body turning to ash, and instead heard Miss Fortune’s voice talking to someone.
Still, despite the hole, their spot was definitely runner up in terms of damage. Given the amount of fireballs and punches being thrown around several bits were on fire, while the center of it had been blown to smitharines by hers truly.
She briefly wondered if this was normal, or if they were really racking up the repair bill here, but dismissed the thought. She still had a man to free from the blinders of a false sun. A man who could still take a bit more of a beating she judged.
“Gotta admit, you’re tough enough, Ammy,” Terry complimented, despite the quippy tone in his voice, his drilling lower limb continuing to corner Amaterasu. “Too bad, you’re gonna be the second god whose ass I’m gonna whoop next.”
He might’ve been a little too bold by making such a statement because those would be the last words that came out of his mouth before swallowing the impact of the detonating cherry bombs. Loud rounds of booms entered his ears, as he found himself blasting towards the already wrecked wall behind, his back harshly colliding with the enormous decoration displaying the Chinese hanzi for ‘tea.’
THUD!
“Gwahhh–!!”
The brawny blonde bounced forth, reeling across the severely fractured floor before halting on his front. One by one, he could feel miniscule wooden shrapnels pouring over his head, flinching in response.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch!”
Initially striving, he managed to pick himself up after a while, obtaining a gauge stock in the process. His standing form faltered and wobbled after the impact, every fiber of his muscles straining. To make things worse, those wretched voices came to haunt him again, ringing aloud within his head.
Terry…
“Gwah..!!”
He instantly dropped down, knee nearly grazing against the ligneous floor beneath his boots. The stinging headache struck again, the sensation close to that of a piercing blade through the brain. Gone were the quips and funny remarks; he could no longer think straight. Gnashing his teeth, Terry placed both hands over the golden crown of his head, gripping and squeezing it as though it would’ve helped him calm the voices and the headache. Ready stance was no longer assumed, allowing an opening for his opponent to strike.
Unseen to all but the Yokai, Amatarasu’s devout beads formed up around her neck in a ring which began to spin rapidly for half a second, before all six beads were fired off in rapid succession when their rotation brought them between her ears.
What are you doing, Terry? Don’t just stand there!
You’re going to get us killed!
“Ungh–!!”
It was difficult to remain focused when the voices from the distant past continued to play by the back of his head. The six beads easily connected, each one of them covering every inch of Terry’s faltered frame before the final one rammed against his nose with a loud…
SMACK!
His head was knocked back, fresh crimson liquid flying out of his nostrils to taint the deity’s clear, white fur. The former KOF champion staggered back, his gloved hands reaching out to the crown of his aching head.
“S– STOP!”
Instead of towards Amaterasu, the urging word was more directed towards himself. He couldn’t tell where all these influx of long, suppressed memories came from, but they’d started to overwhelm him. The internally echoing voices… They were too dreadful and agonizing. The deafening screams and the noises of loud pounding fists, they were too much for him to bear.
Just get outta here and save yourself! We’ll meet again…
“No, no, no…” Terry weakly mumbled, his head faintly shaking. “Just… stop! Please!”
She was hot on their heels, rushing in to try and deliver a blow before he could recover from the unseen barrage, swiping with her sun-disk swipe before carrying the momentum of her charge into headbutt him in the chest in an attempt to stagger him.
Then she’d crane her neck around, grab the handle of her oversized sword Tsumugari (which she’d swapped out to float at her side) in her jaws, tensing as she charged a strike and then delivering a titanic side swipe with the flat of the blade.
Will you be alright, Terry?
I can promise you.
POW!
THUD!
SMACK!
Terry was still practically defenseless when each of the subsequent attacks managed to reach out to him, bashing his wobbling form from one attack to another. He was stunned, but yet to collapse. He could feel his heart pounding heavily yet gradually, almost as though it was close to bursting out under his chest. Absently, his boots teetered back, as he tried to assume a fighting stance but failed. He cried a plea—once again, to himself.
“Agh! Please…”
She then hopped back, switched equipment up again, and delivered rapid fire whips with her devout beads to keep him off balance as she reached a paw towards her chest, struggling with the motion due to her quadrupedal stance.
Odds were, she’d not get it out in time, and so had to resort to pausing time and dabbing two spots of ink onto his legs that’d result in a pair of inkbullets kneecapping the fighter. Then she gripped the friend heart in her jaws, lunged forward, and slapped him in the face with it (wolves weren't exactly known for their throwing capabilities), freeing him from Galeem’s influence (and undoing all the damage he’d taken, including the mess she’d make of his knees, in the process).
I should’ve known letting a son lose his father was a mistake. The concept of the King of Fighters revolves around you. A son found his father, separated through death, and the Legendary Wolf is made. I’ve seen it clearly now. If it wasn’t for you, these so-called ‘heroes’ wouldn’t have been inspired…
SNAP!
...And the sacred will of Gaia would have never been disrupted.
FWOOSH…
The echoing voice turned louder and deeper, as Terry received each and every fiery whip grazing against his bruised form. Once again, his vision flickered red and white, as he found himself cornered to the partly obliterated wall behind. The roar of the crowd and the rowdy sight of Nadia dueling with Asher and Yayama were completely ignored, replaced by internal exchanges of words occupying his mind—ones that emulated his voice and a certain other he found to be familiar.
Y– You bastard…
You see, Terry, you’re the root of all the problems surrounding this place. Branches of realities were created, the cycle of violence and vengeance repeated, all because you sent a madman deep into the depths of hell. Perhaps, I’d been too fixated on the three ‘Sacred Treasures’ to realize that they weren’t even the main obstacles. I won’t repeat the same mistake.
BLAM!
BLAM!
THUMP!
And Terry was brought to his knees, his lower limbs freely receiving the inkbullets that Amaterasu had summoned. He was severely injured, practically immobilized, yet he seemed to be a bit more pained by the headache and the internal dialogues he’d been striving to break out of. It was made worse when the friend heart managed to bash him in the face.
TAP!
Once freed from Galeem’s mind control, the flood of distant memories became even clearer than a cacophony of wretched voices. A gasp left his mouth, and his eyes opened wide. A series of horrifying mental pictures began to course into his mind, depicting the horrors of the slaughter that took place just moments before his original story had come to a halt. Three particular pictures caught his attention the most, two of which depicted Andy dying in his arms and Joe clinging to a fractured wall unresponsively. Following both internal sights was the silhouette of a man staring down at Terry with an eerie red eye and… what was that abstract entity over there? A shining figure with multiple wings? Isn’t that supposed to be a creature from a century-long scripture? Regardless, it was a surreal view to grasp, and he couldn’t handle the influx of information anymore.
“T– This is too much. I can’t take it anymore!”
Frightened, Terry wobbled around with hands still around the aching head, managing to stand on his feet after the furred deity had fixed his knees. A groan of agony left his mouth, and layers of translucent energy began to take shape around his gloved hands. Many of the visitors began to worry about his well-being, as he was still yet to retaliate.
“Oh, God… Is Terry-san okay?” asked the school girl, folding her hands hopefully.
Hrmm… This one isn’t good, remarked the mother bear, her munching fangs slowing down.
“But Mojumbo thinks this is delicious!” the Haitian man chimed, objecting to the mother bear.
“Yeah, right, it looks like we’ve found somebody more broken than the blonde fighter. I always knew all those cheap strikes he did were just a bunch of gimmicks. Nothing burgers, to be precise,” the geeky smark gave his two cents, fixing his stylishly glimmering glasses. “That wolf and the jacked redhead definitely need to be nerfed. Even the cat girl over there. A lot of these fighters are insanely unbalanced! It appears it will take a long while until my strive for a balanced Esaka comes to a conclusion…”
As for Terry, he didn’t quite mind all the words spoken by the visitors—both the good and the bad. His mind had already been occupied by the retrieved memories as we speak, trying to process each and every part of them. He dropped on his knees again, but not before having his back stumbling upon the fractured wall behind. An agonizing groan escaped his mouth, his gripped head hurling back. That same voice spoke to him again, emulating that of the red-eyed man moments before the merging of the worlds.
Rest well, little wolf! It starts with you, and it ends with you…
“No, no, no… Shut up! Shut up!!” he exclaimed, layers of energy surrounding his hands brightening. “G– Get out… Get out… of my… head!!”
KA–BOOM!
An explosive dome was constructed, surrounding Terry the moment he crushed the wooden floor with his fists. A crater was formed across the surface beneath, and every visitor within the proximity was hurled aback, though none of them was seriously injured. Moments after, the dome transformed into an enormous beam shooting through the roof, creating a noticeable cavity at the center. Wooden shrapnels began to shower the interior, though barely any of them escaped the eroding scorch exuded by Terry’s Power Stream. In the process, he’d accidentally used the only gauge stock in his possession.
Once it was all over, or at least the current outburst was, Amatarasu poked her head up from behind a table, and then glanced up at the teahouse’s new skylight.
That was, she thought, just a little bit more dramatic than what she’d gone through, and could only wonder what Galeem had been suppressing memories wise that would result in, well, that. Nothing pleasant, certainly, which made her feel a little bad about bringing them back.
She waited a few heartbeats to see if there was going to be anything else, then used a freshly refilled inkpot to fill in the hole in the ceiling. It would hardly do to have the damage dealt cascade into the whole place coming crashing down on them after all.
Then she glanced to check on the others.
Sakura had been exchanging blows with Captain Falcon, and was now struggling to put him into a headlock. Seeing Terry’s outburst, she exchanged glances with Falcon and disentangled herself from him.
”Terry-san!” She ran over. ”Terry-san, are you alright!” Sakura set a hand on his shoulder. ”I know it can be a lot to take in but- what’s wrong?”
Then, the beam dissipated into miniscule particles, ceasing the detonation completely. Terry dropped atop the floor, his knees managing to hold the weight of his toned frame. He seemed physically and mentally exhausted, energy draining and the headache losing its initial sting. Tears began to well up his eyes, as he lifted his weary gaze, the gleaming pair of crimson shades waning away to reveal their natural blue hue.
“I– I remember everything…”
The brawny blonde kept his lips parted, tongue stifling and words hanging in the air, unsure on how to describe each and every single one of the flooding memories coursing into his mind through the aid of the friend heart. Even now, he still failed to digest the brutality of the scenarios played by the back of his head. His gaze leaped between Sakura, Amaterasu, and the Captain before capturing the view of the nearby visitors striving to get back on their feet. The Power Stream must’ve been so awful, he thought, that it left quite a sizable clutter surrounding him.
”Everything?” Falcon asked, having joined Sakura in her concern for Terry - albeit more calmly and stoically. Did Terry actually remember Alcamoth? The Captain always assumed it was impossible to remember past iterations of oneself since he’d never seen that happen before. And if the bruiser actually did remember… The thought of remembering those kinds of events gave the bounty hunter a chill that ran through his blood.
Amaterasu had approached as well and, after a moment of thought, moved to sit down beside him, in the crater he’d created. She could fix that later, for now the best she could do was be close, rubbing the side of her head against his other shoulder as she placed a paw on his knee, and do what she could to help this emotionally wounded man.
”You, uh…” Sakura wasn’t sure where to start. But she figured someone had to. ”You’re in the World of Light now, Terry-san. The Seekers are trying to stop Galeem, the thing that trapped us all here in this strange world. It’s why we’re here in Esaka. Y-you don’t have to, uh, join us, though. If you don’t want.” She said, concern in her voice. ”It can be a lot to handle.”
Terry drew a deep, deep breath, trying to compose himself. Thankfully, his allies’ reassuring gestures helped him soothe the tension slightly. After moments of hesitation, he finally revealed what he remembered. “R– Rugal… H– He set us up,” he initiated, referring to ‘us’ as in himself and the rest of the KOF roster. “I was supposed to be in the KOF finals with Kyo and Ryo, facing that bastard and two of our foes. B– But then, a massacre happened. He summoned all the previous sponsors who got revived during the fourteenth tournament. We were helped by the other teams when things took a turn for the worse, but even then, we were still outnumbered. I fought and fought till I realized… I was the only one standing. Even the guys I told to run away, they… didn’t make it. They were caught, died trying, then piled on top of each other. I was bitter, furious, and shattered, but I couldn’t do a damn thing. Rugal was just stronger than I was. He crushed my bones, tore every fiber of my muscles, then told me that I was the problem. That KOF had to start with me and end with me. And then…”
The brawny blonde stifled again, too overwhelmed to recall the destruction of the world he once knew. Even he couldn’t believe the kind of nightmare he’d stepped into, partly preferring to keep the memories buried than resurfaced as the sights of his dying friends were too much for him to handle. He sniffled, fighting the tears by the lower corners of his eyes.
“And then… There was a blinding light showing right behind him, like he was about to finish me off in a blast. I thought I was about to die that day, but my mind refused to. Not after all the nasty stuff he’d done to all the people I loved and cared for. I think I weakly got up, staring him in the eye, pretending like I still had the slightest bit of strength left to retaliate. But it wasn’t just Rugal that I saw at that moment. No, no, no, there was something else. Something like… a Biblically accurate angel, I think. I wish I could get a better look at that thing, but man… the light was getting brighter and hotter that I couldn’t see anything past the ruffling wings. And the next thing I knew… I was here. With all the good folks I thought I would’ve never seen again,” Terry continued to elaborate, a moment of disbelief as he quizzically peered down. “And we all just kinda… moved on, like the massacre never happened. All that we were told was that we had to start over in this new town because South Town was, apparently, wiped outta the map due to some… ‘Earth-shattering’ catastrophe or something. But wait…” A newfound realization dawned on him, and his eyes went wide, gaze shifting up. “There’s no South Town here…”
The former KOF champion gasped, gloved hands covering the parting lips. He was devastated, betrayed, his heart shredding into pieces. The city that he grew up, defended, and resided in his entire life—the same one that helped launch his illustrious career in the fighting business—was never there to begin with, reduced to a mere fabrication meant solely to give this world’s KOF a richer history. There was no way he’d been living a lie this whole time, wasn’t it? He frowned, moving the now clenched hands away to reveal the gnashing teeth.
“I knew it! I knew that something felt off, but no one listened!” he exclaimed, his voice one of desperation. “They sold every story they were told, but I didn’t. When I started questioning stuff, they turned their backs on me, making it seem like I was a spoke on the wheels to the KOF dojo. And now, the only peeps that matter to me the most? My teammates and best friends? They’re… gone. Taken away from me like they had to pay for it!”
Huffing, Terry clumsily picked himself up, trying to keep himself steady on the fractured floor. The exhaustion was partly intact, his cheeks flushing in fury. “God, I hate my new life. Always knew I had to trust my gut,” he protested, smoothing his gaudy red jacket. “Now, y’all have to tell me everything that you know. Who’s Galeem? Why did he send us to this place called the ‘World of Light’? And… was I really ever meant to be one of you guys?”
Amaterasu took a relieved step backwards as the man stood himself up, and then a few more to give him and the two who could actually explain some space. Unfortunately, before they could, there came shouts from the upper floor of the teahouse, as the spectators erupted into an uproar.
“Why’d you stop fighting! I’ve got so much money riding on this bet!”one shotgun weilding bionic bear roared over the general hubbub, which was more or less along the same lines as the others he was shouting over.
One strange exception to this was a rather sage looking figure from nearby Shinjuku, who stood up a few moments after then general uproar began to demand the quartet “Tell me how you stopped fighting! That should not be possible!”
A pair of reploids flanked him on either side, one with a scyth the other with a mace, both of whom looked like they were about to ‘insist’ that the seekers answer their master’s question.
A moment later however the Yokai’s simple chant of “Rigged!” took over everything, and several people made for the stairs to take personal issue with the fight stopping by, functionally, forcibly restarting it.
Sakura lifted up her hands placatingly, a bead of sweat running down the side of her face as she stood straight up having listened to Terry’s story. She hadn’t expected Terry to be so sad about his uncovered memories, so this did throw a wrench into the works. Maybe it was naive of her, but Friend Hearting Terry and keeping up with the 2v2 at the same time was how she imagined it going down! ”S-sorry! We were gonna keep fighting, I promise!”
That was enough to slow the angry betters, but with the Yokai still chanting rigged (more or less for the fun of it now at this point) Amaterasu glanced towards the nearby hole in the wall and thought that maybe they should just get out of here. It wasn’t like they had anything riding on this fight.
Whatever they chose, they'd have to chose it fast.
There was a series of explosions behind Edward, but he was entirely focused ahead with a great deal of concern of what they were going to run into, and a secondary but still very large concern that they’d run into, or rather over, Heismay.
Fortunately, the man was not made into roadkill beneath paws, hooves and wheels, and the other end of the tunnel turned out to be a safe zone of sorts. A few bushes and lit lanterns where all that greeted them rather than any more hulking or lurking horrors, for which Edward was very thankful. As the Reindrix slowed and then stopped, the man released his deathgrip on their reins and pushed himself out of the seat.
He was winded after the fight, even if not as much as those who’d been running and fighting, but he still put in the effort to check on all the stagecoach pullers for injuries, self or enemy inflicted. Fortunately they were mostly ok, baring the one that had rammed the mandril, which had a few light scratches on it that he used his feather staff striker to repair.
After that, he checked the bushes for any sign of blight, before letting the Reindrix have a munch on the leaves as they so pleased.
As it turned out, there’d be some opportunity for the people to eat as well as the beasts soon enough, though unfortunately Edward did not have any food on him to add to it. At the moment. As it turned out, there was an opportunity to gather some to be found in the botanical garden, which was absolutely overgrown with plants, some of which turned out to be edible.
Edward, wanting to stretch his legs as much as anything, had joined the party on this little expedition without any golem forces accompanying him. Upon finding out there was succor to be gathered however, he changed his mind about that.
”You go on ahead, I’ll summon up some forces to sweep the area for everything edible rather than waste the time of more valuable hands on the endeavor. I’m sure the people back on the Avenger will appreciate any excess fresh produce we can gather as a result of that automation Edward said to the others, before finding a spot to perform the rituals necessary first to recharge his mana fuel cells, and to then craft the golems needed for the job.
Bronze and Copper would do. With the dense foliage and presence of explosive plants, inferno hounds were a poor choice, naturally, while cannons would cause collateral damage. Plus, the spear and helbard wielders were most suited to having their swords turned into plowshears. Or rather polearms turned into scyths, as spears were used as clumsy knives to cut the stems of tomatoes, ground cherries, and popcorn plants, while the helbards were used to hook around and pull down the star brambles.
Of course, this was Galeem’s world, and so Edward’s dream of using automations for peaceful purposes rather than war was always a distant fantasy. The toothy plants weren't exactly an issue, polearms were perfect for dealing with these statically positioned foes, but the Arche Puppets were another matter entirely.
Edward had audibly noted interest in these machines already, and though he’d avoided them while with the other seekers, now that he’d split off he was ever so interested in testing their capabilities. Plus, his golems weren't exactly capable of stealth anyway.
Their motions where, to Edward’s eye, nothing short of ”Remarkable fluidity”, as the one he’d sent a copper golem squad to engage artfully parried spear thrusts with its reinforced arms. Naturally, having seen the likes of Blazermate, Ramattra and so on, he was aware that his creations lagged behind other worlds, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t respect craftsmanship when he saw it.
He was especially impressed how, when it failed to make any headway against the wall of spears with its kicks, it backed off, baiting his golems into the sight path of another puppet, after which the two worked together to encircle the spear formation so that one could attack from the flank.
Unfortunately for them, once it became clear they were going to win, Edward broke his passive observation, aimed his magelock pistol at the one flip kicking a golem, and squeezed the trigger right after casting Designated Target on it.
The round punched straight through the cranium of the machine, dropping it as the sound of the shot echoed through the garden. Which proved to be a problem, because the other puppets quickly came running.
”Very clever creations these” Edward noted more with interest than concern, as he commanded his 2 other copper golems forwards to form a proper wall of spears rather than a lone flankable block.
The first pupped didn’t charge this, nor did the second or thirds, and Edward, unwilling to risk setting fire to the harvest, allowed them to do this rather than unleashing his real firepower. Soon enough the dozen or so former forest patrollers had formed up into their own formation opposite his wall
”Is that everyone?” Edward asked, rhetorically, before declaring ”Good. Now, let's put you through a proper stress test, shall we?” as the trees behind him shifted, the puppet’s gazes rose, and the two towering Bronze golems finally emerged from their distant hiding spot.
There was a pause, and then the puppets rushed the spearwall en masse, hurrying to try and thin his force’s numbers before the bronze golems could close in. In response Edward shot one with his pistol, and then summoned his Reaver striker behind his spearlines. The oversized squid beast, towering over everything except the trees, raised its front tendrils and began to rain a swift series of tentacle strikes down on the puppets presently trying to kick their way through the spearwall.
Some had taken the flanks however, and Edward got himself directly involved to prevent his spears being pincered. He charged one that pivoted away from its attack on the copper golem’s flanks to instead deliver a flip kick his way. Rather than dodge out of the way, Edward lunged forward, portal dodging through the attack, before halting his momentum with a flap of his wings. He then pivoted around, entirely aware of where the Puppet was behind him thanks to having his creation’s vision as well as his own, and delivered a 180 swing with his weapon. He did so not with anything so piddly as his onehanded warscyth however, but instead delivering a cleaving strike with one of Ganondorf’s armory stored greatswords he’d retrieved while the battle lines were being drawn.
Not his usual style, but he did have the training, and the metal Puppets were, well, made of metal, and therefore tough. Just not tough enough to take a greatsword cleaving into them. Nor a sweeping helbard strike, which the Bronze Golem began delivering once it had reached the engagement, which swiftly cleaned up the remaining Puppets.
As impressively designed as they were, their combat style was truly artful in its grace and sophistication, Edward did have to wonder why they’d not simply been equipped with weapons instead. It would have been much more practical.
As it turned out, he’d soon enough find what looked like it might be an explanation up above.
After gathering up the spirits, healing up his golems, and putting them back on harvesting duty Edward caught up with the others, who’d had their own relatively onesided conflict with the Puppets found on the raised perimeter.
”I shall investigate the penthouse then” Edward said, in response to Ace investigating the other building, and Geralt sticking with Sandalphon.
Once up out of the treeline, Edward abandoned the catwalks themselves, and simply took flight, making a direct beeline for his destination rather than winding his way through the aerial maze, leading to him making it to his destination without incident. Within, he found the possible reason why the guards had been so interestingly designed: an (inert) puppet hanging suspended above a private study of some sort, all of which indicated that they had been the product of a person with an academic mind rather than a military one.
Edward might have the latter, but he could certainly respect that. Just not quite enough to not rearrange his mana cell usage to free up space for another Bronze Golem squad to be used to cut down the puppet so he could take a look at it up close and see what might make it tick. Or, might make it tick anyway, given it was presumably missing whatever spark had been animating the Arch Puppets.
While they were at that, he let Sandalphon know about the study, given that she might also find the study of interest. He then also got to itemising the collected puppet spirits
Legion Plug: An essential component in the creation of sophisticated weaponized mechancial limbs. Rare among puppets, since the vast majority were never intended for combat. In the hands of a skilled engineer, it wouldn't take much more than this to craft an exceptional prosthetic arm Vivid Ergo Crystal x3: A mysterious, bright blue power stone rich in some kind of strange energy. It can be absorbed by certain machines and turned into power Goldweave Bolero: A stylish, high-quality, and very expensive jacket worn by a female automaton. It is extremely flexible and, despite ostensibly being made of gold, surprisingly durable. While it won't protect its wearer, its embedded polymers can repair itself after sustaining moderate damage Neuro-polymer Canister: A container filled with a highly advanced plastic material which is akin to conductive liquid silicon. Also known as Red Polymer, his specific kind is able to reproduce all the physical processes necessary to simulate neurons, making it extremely valuable for the creation of hyper-capable neural networks in advanced machines, as well as the integration of their components Mind Map Copy: A storage drive containing a valuable deep learning protoform. These pristine 'tabula rasa' are useful for repairing intelligent machines that have suffered AI damage Codename Zarathrustra: An early working model of a pair of handheld orbital-application laser tools, Zarathustra requires the vacuum of space to properly function. Here on the planet it remains a sturdy manipulator suited for the handling of extreme low-temperature superconductors. When wielded on one's hands these lightweight gauntlets can deal electric impact damage at a fast rate Metal Head:The head of a machine with stunningly lifelike hair, if not for its metallic composition. While it lacks a face, with only a glowing slot on its front, the material composition of the faceplate suggests some sort malleability Refined Metal x2: Dense, high-quality material, perfectly suited to crafting E-Drug: A potent narcotic for artificial life forms. It disrupts visual and auditory feeds for upwards of half an hour, while also generating other random effects. Highly addictive
The results themselves were certainly interesting in and of themselves, but perhaps more the remit of the advanced mundane sciences in many cases.
He did wonder if the crystals would be usable to power the winged puppet however, though fortunately resisted this temptation given the potentially violent result of powering it up. An experiment to do after they’d looked at/packed up all the research material found within the study.
Appearance: The Oracle is a 20 meters long translucent semi insectile creature with a set of hand-like wings large enough to hold a person in a single one. The outsides consist of a softly teal glowing membrane sporting a singular large red eyespot. Any damage to the membrane will heal rapidly, with the new material emerging from the void within rather than from the surrounding membrane, meaning it could be skinned alive only for its skin to remember after a few moments.
Its insides meanwhile seem to be mostly filled with distant stars and this is entirely true, as is indeed what is in there, at least as far as any analysis known to mortal kind can ascertain. Functionally and mechanically however, it is mostly filled with nothing, and any object passing through this void will act as if it is moving through vacuum.
Membrane and void alike, can pass through matter as if it wasn’t there, which is convenient when operating in the cramped corridors of a dungeon.
The corpse, however, cannot do this.
This headless, sexless, nonliving yet perfectly preserved hominid body of otherwise unremarkable composition floating in its core where its heart probably would be is entirely, mundanely, physical, restricting its movements and representing the only way to inflict true death upon it.
Personality: The Oracle speaks in confusing religious jargon that can be difficult to parse at times, particularly given that it claims to speak for the god of fate itself, with all the frivolous randomness that entails.
It's also prone to performing illogical actions or making nonsensical changes to the dungeon in the name of ‘nudging the hand of fate into rolling a favorable outcome’ which often revolve around the holy number 8.
Naturally, as a (supposed) voice of their god, it thinks its demands and desires are incredibly important and is prone to either sulking or decrying that doom is upon them if things do not go its way. It will however quickly get over this and move on to the next new thing that totally actually needs to be done in order to gain the favor of fate. Also, fortunately, these demands, while odd, are often fairly simple, and might even be beneficial. Maybe. Certainly it will claim any good fortune is because of its efforts at any rate.
Given that its most reliable form of utility is as a healer, it's probably a good idea to keep it at least somewhat appeased.
Abilities:
Ocular ray: the void angel can shoot a beam of heat out of its singular eye. This can be used to either inflict or cauterize wounds at a distance.
Restoration: the void angel can phase its smaller hands into wounds and manually close them up, forcibly fusing flesh back to flesh to repair any damage. Be it internal or external damage, or even poisons or plagues, the void angel can set things back to the way they were. It cannot replace lost flesh however, and so that must be re-attached if possible. This is delicate work that requires the patient to stay still while it is done, making it an impractical method of dealing damage or performing burst healing.
Incorporeality: the void angel only touches this world when it wants to, rendering the majority of its body invulnerable to harm other than when it is interacting with the world (such as if it is holding something, attacking something or intentionally blocking the way to, say, its core). The corpse in its body is fully physical however, restricting its ability to just float through the terrain, though its sheer size means it can attack from the next tunnel over with relative ease.
Large: the void angel would be more at home in the ocean than on land size wise, and so has a great deal of reach as a result. It is relatively slow however, most often floating lazily through reality as if it has all the time in the world (which it probably does).
Roll the dice: the void angel can manifest dice out of nowhere, which it often uses to interpret the will of fate. Usually D8s. It can pray to the god of fate for a favorable outcome while rolling, which will result in stuff happening. Just. Stuff. Anything really. Probably beneficial. Hopefully. Try not to lose any limbs if you don’t want to end up with an ‘interesting’ replacement is all I am saying.
As Jr and Rika raced past the squad of 4 cops, brazenly breaking all the rules including the ones said cops governed reality (namely their ability to simply bug out of a fight) they got a few seconds of grace before they started getting chased. They took every hammering heartbeat of those seconds and pumped them straight into getting out of dodge.
Jr reached the portal first as planned and, expecting resistance, clicked his tape just before entering it. What emerged on the other side wasn’t a little kid, but instead the towering Dullahan that had taken all four of the elite cops to take down. Cops they’d left behind. That left only the rank and file to come face to face to the ethereal emerging from out of the black wall of the hollow where it cut into a street.
Specifically, it was a hollow ate up half of a road, with the other half absurdly still in use, only some concrete barriers blocking drivers from taking a swerve into the liminal space. Or at least that was usually the case. Currently the temporary traffic lights were both set to red and the cops had commandeered the real space half of the street, setting up a cordon while they waited for transport to arrive to pick up their prisoners.
A Dullahan emerging out from the hollow instead of their leaders caused quite a bit of alarm. The prisoners, cuffed as they were, wanted to be nowhere near this thing, while the cops were caught between stopping their panicked flight, getting away themselves, or just being stunned in surprise.
The sweeper unit in their employ had no such emotional foibles and immediately lunged into action, deploying circular saws from its hands.
Jr raised his new cassette beast’s shield in response, blocking the blow, only for the machine to hold the contact and for the saws to start to slice through the crystal bulwark.
That could have represented a problem for sure, but Jr was only here to hold the line for a breath or two while Rika hid behind him and tried to work out where they were. Or rather got Seek to do that for them.
“...”
”Got it! To the right!” she called out, prompting Jr to haul the robot’s saw out of the way and to click off the tape. He dodged to the side, avoiding the sweeper’s attempt to kick him and causing it to instead kick a magma mine. Then both kids were running towards the cops who couldn't open shoot at them due to the risk of crossfire, and who when they tried to deliver melee strikes instead found the pair leaping over them with their absurd platforming capabilities.
A monet later they landed, having cleared the cordon, and then started running. Behind them the elite cops emerged from the hollow, while sirens blared as someone reported in about a set of kids on the run. Which was going to make doing some shopping a bit tricky. Especially when they spotted one of the big digital screens that normally warned about hollows instead switching to footage of them, warning about "dangerous delinquents"
”Woops” Rika said, only really now cottoning on to how her actions had had consequences ”Guess this is why we generally don’t do this stuff”
”Doesn’t matter, stick to the plan!” Jr replied, before asking their stolen NetNavi ”We close Seek?”
“...”
”I see it!” Rika replied, prompting them both to make for an alleyway beside a building that had been partially eaten by the Hollow, but which was still standing. There they found a thin gap between the hollow and the wall, just as Seek had told them, and daringly slipped inside.
When the cops burst into the building via the front door a few moments later, and rushed towards the back rooms they didn’t find the kids. Instead they just found more of what was covering the inside of the building: masses of graffiti, the condemned building having been turned into something of an arthouse for the stuff.
Graffiti which Jr had added his own addition too: an M with two umlauts on top.
Half way across the world, and deep underground, the pair of kids materialised from a steam of paint globules, and then dropped down at the front gates of the Home of Tears, having traveled there via Jr’s warp graffiti.
The seekers had spent a fair amount of time in this, the greatest city of the Under, and it had all been eventful. Alongside scaling a tower filled with determination infused monsters, donating to an orphanage, cheese running and partaking in auctions, they had also slain their first Consul, P, here and inadvertently opened up a spot on their alphabetical roster for Peach to take his place.
In doing so they’d handed the town over to a sorcerous man named Gallo (who’s tower they had spawned in close by too) and he’d apparently wasted no time in demolishing the statue of the Consul that had once stood center of place atop a grand fountain found at the heart of the city.
This fountain was held instead, at least temporarily, into a podium of some kind, atop which Gallo himself could be seen, along with a few other figures, while all around them the people of the city had gathered.
Among the people up top, one was a stern looking Deer Woman was in the midst of being sworn in as the city’s democratically elected Mayor, if the campaign posters plastered on the walls where any indication.
”Guess the guy doesn't want to deal with actually running the place I guess?” Jr said as he watched this, to which Rika shrugged. She had a bigger concern on her mind, which was ”Think they all still hate us after F tried to get them to run us out of town?” because the crowd was definitely about the same size as the one that had chased them all the way across Crumble Canyon to the Pizza tower at its far end.
”Ehhhh. You know what. Maybe. Let’s not find out” Jr agreed after spotting the real Undyne in it, along with her mermaid guards, who’d been the biggest actual threats of that chase, before adding ”Plus they aren't gonna like us when we jump someone”
Rika nodded to that too, after which they went to have a snoop around the quiet streets for a good spot to do so, poking their noses into alleyways here and there till they came across something odd: A shifty looking imp creature hanging out in one of those alleyways.
Upon spotting their own shifty ways, it raised its head up a bit and grinned, before bobbing its head back to encourage them to come on into its back ally realm while the fish cops were all busy with frivolous ceremonies.
The pair glanced at each other, then approached, only for it extend a claw from its jacket to strike while a half dozen other imps leapt out of hiding spaces with a collective “boo!”
The combined barrage of Jump Scares left the kids flinched with fright, allowing the monsters to make a grab for their things, including, once again, Jr’s phone which Seek had been making a map of the town on.
The kids were a lot tougher than they looked however, and tanked the blows handily rather than being taken down for the count, after which they turned the tables on the would-be robbers. Soon enough they’d grabbed their stuff right back from the now fleeing lesser imps and got the taller trenchcoat imp, the Hopskin, knocked to the ground. Rika then pinned it there and gave it it a few socks to the face before Jr used one of their remaining blank tapes to make a recording of it.
”So… Now what do we do with him?” Rika asked once they’d gotten what they’d needed, entirely ready to just kill their ambusher. Jr however thought much more deeply about this, the days and past actions and consequences all weighing deeply on his mind before he gave up and just decided they should ”Stuff it in a trash can!”
So they did, because it was funny to them, leaving the trenchcoat imp struggling upside down with a face full of garbage while they made one last stop, which was just to go and buy a cheap rain jacket that would fit Undyne’s frame. It was only after they’d done this that the shopkeeper asked “wait, shouldn’t you be at the ceremony?” Prompting them to both hurry out of sight once more.
Thus, with all their preparations made, Jr painted them a portal leading back to Shinjuku, where Jr, wearing the form of Undyne with a long rainjacket over her armor, and Rika, wearing the form of a not at all suspicious looking Imp, materialized in front of the city, and once again started to make their way towards the tape store. This time, there’d be no distractions or run-ins with the law, they swore. Just as long as no-one tried to steal Seek again, and also just as long as no one recognized the distinctive device they were installed on as having belonged to the kids whose faces were currently on every screen in the city.
Surrounded by ashes and cops, Jr demanded to know ”What do you mean hands up! We aren't with these guys” while Rika did the exact opposite of what they were demanding they do and put two hands back on her ‘borrowed’ electrified fishing spear.
Immediately a half-dozen gun barrels turned Rika’s way. “What does that matter?” Jane drawled. “You’ve still committed every act Miss Zhu Yuan listed.” She glanced over at the ashen remains of the thief that the kids had killed after getting robbed on the run from their own theft. “Unless you’re of the perspective that stealing and killing don’t matter when you’re the ones who do it?”
Jr responded with a faltered ”um” while Rika replied with a slight tilt of the head and the words ”I mean, yeah?” said with complete honesty. Then she tilted it back to upright and added ”Not that you’d get it coz of Galeem and stuff, but we’re diffrent” as if she’d just got why there was confusion about that.
”Proooobubly should still do what they say even if they don’t get it” Jr said to her, as he dropped his makeshift staff. It wasn’t like it was worth anything to him anyway. Neither was the electric fishing spear, which Rika, after sizing up all the guns and glancing at Jr’s not too worried expression, also dropped.
“Smart kids,” Jane remarked smoothly. The Pubsec officers with their weapons trained on Rika relaxed somewhat, less overtly threatening but still vigilant in case of any attempt to break free.
Jr then pointed to Mimi, who was still sitting on his shoulder and who was far more attached to her stick than the kids had been to theirs, and said ”I gotta put her away too right? Seeing as she’s sorta a weapon.”
Zhu Yuan nodded, her expression serious. “Yes. According to protocol, we must confiscate all weapons, including your cassette players, and any subordinate creatures.” She did not apologize, but the woman clearly seemed unhappy, not in the sense that she thought what she was doing was wrong, but that it was a shame that two children ended up like this. “You will be held in a juvenile detention facility until your case can be examined. Cooperation will ensure the most lenient treatment possible.”
By that time, the other officers had finished rounding up and cuffing the hollow raiders, including Razor, who barely fit into the cuffs. Looking remorseful, Zhu Yuan herself stepped forward to cuff Junior and Rika. As this happened, Jane used the tip of her tail to poke the cat-eared shieldbearer in the ribs. “Alright Seth, let’s get out of here~”
“U-understood!” Seth turned and beckoned toward a bangboo with body armor, who’d been quietly standing by. When summoned, the little guy ran over, his ears flapping behind him. “Officer Cui, you’re up. Got the latest carrot data?”
Officer Cui nodded. “Nuh-ehn-nah (I’m ready to go).” It turned and tottered off in what seemed like a random direction leading further into the hollow. “Eh-ehn-nah (let’s get out of here!)”
Seth followed along as the cops and robbers began their march. “Alright, everyone! Let’s all get back to base in one piece!”
“And keep an eye out for ethereals,” Zhu Yuan cautioned.
Jr diligently popped off the pokeball, and used a beam to return a concerned Mimi to her ball before clipping it back onto the bandolier on his chest. He then diligently held up his claws towards the approaching officer as Rika looked increasingly concerned.
”You got me fair and square I guess, take me away” Jr said, maybe a bit too obvious in the setup for the following ”Psych!” as he whipped them back and summoned Blodia. Not to punch or to blast, but instead to rise up beneath both him and Rika, the large fingers of the mecha acting briefly as cover before it hurled the two of them high up into the air, over the school building’s wall, and clear across the street where they crashed through the window of a 4th floor apartment.
Glass flew everywhere as the two tumbled across the carpet, but the kid’s supernatural durability ensured that while cut, there wasn’t going to be any risk of them bleeding out in there.
”Oh good, you did have a plan” Rika said as she picked herself up, entirely unperturbed by the fact that that said plan had resulted in her getting hurt a bunch again ”What’s next?”
”Tapes!” Jr replied, plucking two out of his holdall and tossing one to Rika.
While a handful of projectiles followed the kids’ sudden departure, the cops were not able to give pursuit. By the time they even got close to the fourth-floor window that the two crashed through, the fugitives would be long gone. All told, though, ‘escape’ wasn’t the right word to describe what they’d done; without a bangboo’s Carrot data of their own to lead them to an exit through this ever-shifting maze, they would be stuck in this non-euclidean space. With no porcelume anti-corruption medicine, they’d be slowly permeated by ether until the worst came to pass.
“Oh, no…” Zhu Yuan put a hand to her head.
Jane stared after the fleeing fugitives ruefully. “Guess we’ll keep an eye out if they plan on coming for our bangboos. Otherwise…”
“We can’t leave them in here!” Seth objected. “They’re just kids.”
“We don’t have all day,” Jane corrected him. “The more time we spend, the riskier things get. Don’t wanna lose any more suspects or officers to the hollow, ‘kay?”
Though Seth wasn’t the only one with misgivings about the situation, he couldn’t disagree. The cops continued to follow Officer Cui, maneuvering through the urban labyrinth toward a temporary exit.
As they moved, they were shadowed by an unpleasant looking head sized plane that poked its camera around corners and fed their location back to the two kids sneaking around just behind them as well. They’d read up on this place after all (or, really, to be fair, they’d asked their stolen NetNavi Seek to remind them what the deal was) and so knew that they weren't getting out of here without following a bangboo.
Or following people who were following one themselves.
The crowd of cops + prisoners weren't exactly a stealthy group, after all, and so finding them again had been entirely doable. Especially because rather than run away, the pair had used a set of tapes that recorded the top and bottom of a Flukemon to squeeze into a hiding spot the much larger cops weren't able to check, let alone suspect they could fit inside.
How they were then going to break past them was a different question, but they’d come to it in time.
The procession moved through the hollow quickly, tracing a circuitous route through the nonsensically arranged streets, overpasses, buildings, and construction sites as fast as little Officer Cui could run. Despite numbering about twenty members of the police force and a little over half as many hollow raiders, they neither wasted time nor lapsed in vigilance, fully aware of just how dangerous these spaces could be. About ten minutes into the trip, the procession reached a city street unremarkable save for the presence of ethereals. A variety of jet-black, crystalline monsters roamed the area, the neon-green insides of their bodies shining with the prismatic light of nebulous ether cores that pulsed within their bodies. Some looked like animals, others plants, and others humanoids, wielding aberrant limbs or makeshift weapons, but all looked dangerous. When Pubsec stopped a safe distance away, Seth double-checked with their guide. “Cui, is this the place?”
“En, en-eh-nah (yes, just through here!)!” the bangboo replied.
Zhu Yuan took a deep breath. “Okay. Men, Unit Three, stand watch around the prisoners here. Officer Cui, you’re with us.” As Seth and Jane stepped forward alongside her, Zhu Yuan gestured for the bangboo to follow. “We’ll handle this.”
“Wuh-tah, wuh-tah (Ready to work)!”
Together, the four advanced. The ethereals noticed right away and rounded on the officers to attack, but it quickly became clear that these cops knew what they were doing. Seth took point, repelling even the toughest strikes with his shield before numbing his foes with knocks from his electric baton. “I can do this all day!” When given the chance, he turned the tables by inserting the rod into his shield, transforming it into a heavy greatsword that he swung with selfless abandon.
Against ethereals, Jane showed off a side of her that the Koopa Kids hadn’t seen. Her daggers carved through the monsters’ stony exteriors like butter, leaving behind yellow wounds. When any one foe built up enough, an Assault anomaly was triggered, finishing off any weaker enemy in an instant as they shattered like glass. “Want some more?” As Jane dodged her enemies’ attacks, she built up Passion that eventually ignited, turning her orange energy bright red. At that point, even the heavier enemies began to crack under the weight of her multi-hitting flips and spins that quickly built up Assault. For her, this wasn’t a fight; it was playtime, and these ethereals were just toys to her. “Don’t worry, this’ll be painless,” she told a four-legged Hati ethereal as it lunged at her, only to cleave its exposed core in half. “Psych~”
Unlike the others, Zhu Yuan kept her distance and fired at the ethereals with her strange gun. As she fought, the reason for the strange adornments all across her person became clear; each was a modular weapon part, which she attached to her sidearm as needed to make it a bigger, badder weapon. In quick succession it became a shotgun, then a grenade launcher, giving the ethereals a taste of their own medicine with weaponized ether. “We’re halfway there,” she told the others. “Keep up the pressure!” Officer Cui remained at her side to give her a hand with any ethereals that got too close, popping tiny, razor sharp claws out of his arms to tear their armor apart.
Soon, there was only one ethereal left, which Seth was softening up as he kept it occupied: a knight-like Dullahan, with a blade and crystalline tower shield of its own. Being a couple feet taller than Seth, the thiren was stuck on the defensive until Zhu Yuan and Jane stepped in. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensued, with the Dullahan vying to slash apart the catboy’s softer seniors while he strove to place himself -and his shield- in its way. After a few tense moments, Zhu Yuan sprang off his shield to kick the Dullahan in the core, which was enough to leave it dizzy.
Seth surged forward first, battering it with a shield bash before plugging in his baton to bring down a leaping crescent slash. “You may remain silent!”
The next second, Jane darted in to follow up. “Hah, how d’you like me now” She disappeared in a blur, a tornado of slashing streaks ripping into the monster’s body.
Officer Cui jumped in next, barking like a mad dog. He threw himself at the Dullahan’s ankles on all fours, slashing again and again as he pushed his foe back. Finally, Zhu Yuan assembled her full weapon, unloading every missile it had at once. “Justice always prevails!”
The final blast demolished the ethereal, leaving only a spirit behind. Ashe she disassembled her weapon for travel, Zhu Yuan gestured for the other officers to bring the prisoners. Together, the full procession hastened after Cui toward a small fissure in an unremarkable corner of the street, visible only when they got within a certain distance.
Just before the battle finished, there was a click as Rika successfully recorded the Dullahan onto their platinum tape, having already burnt through one of the regular ones trying to catch its recording while the squad was going at it.
”You were right, she really was going easy on us” She said a few moments later once she’d snuck back to Jr, who replied”Mmm hmm. Seems like she’s smart too. Didn’t scratch us, or let herself get scratched. It was like she knew what’d happen”
She nodded as she passed him the new tape and said in concerned tones ”and now we have to get past them?”
”Yup. But just past. They’ve probably got more people on the other side n stuff, but trust me, we just need a liiiiitle bit of space and we’ll be free” Jr replied, being perhaps a bit more confident than Rika given she was the only one who had seen the fight itself thanks to her drone. Either way, the pair continued following soon after, creeping closer and closer to the exit.
First the regular cops moved out, then the prisoners, and then as the team of four moved to exit without looking back Jr and Rika came blasting round a corner, armory retrieved paintbrushes pressed to concrete letting them sail across the street at nautical speeds, blazing towards the exit while Jr called out ”Make way!” at the cops.
When she turned to look, Jane did not seem surprised. “Ah, there you are. Too bad this can only end one way.”
Zhu Yuan took a deep breath and took aim with her sidearm. In quick succession she fired off an ether shot at Junior, then Rika, trying to graze them both. It wasn’t much damage, but it was enough to trigger their aggression response. Or so she thought. Anticipating a final showdown, the trio spread out and readied themselves for battle.
”Owww!” Jr whined as his scales took the shot, before really hamming it up as he cried out ”You shot meeee! Now you're gonna get it! You're gonna pay! We’re gonna fight to the death now there’s no stopping it!” only to go ”Psych again!” as he swerved off course from what had been made it look like an attack vector and went straight for the exit, chain magma rushing forwards.
”Told you we were diffrent” Rika added matter of factly after Jr’s taunt, before stringing bullet jumps to also accelerate towards freedom.
“And then, I told the Sakazaki girl, ‘hey, babe, you look kinda cute, though. Wanna spend a night with the rising star that is the legendary Higashi Joe? Just you and me, and nobody else~’”
And there he went, doing what he did best, and that was being a showboating goofball of the trio. Ever since they parted ways with their usual hangout spot, Joe had been reiterating each and every moment he spent chattering with the all-female Team England, mostly boasting about his ability in attracting women. Both Terry and Andy were fully aware that Joe had always been a ladies man—or so he claimed to be. Nevertheless, they’d started to look overwhelmed by the endless rambling of their friend, as they assisted him with walking, their collective strides gently drawing back towards their hotel room. It really couldn’t help when Joe was awfully drunk, unable to think straight nor reconsider some of the stuff that’d come out of his mouth unfiltered.
“But then—this is what really broke my heart, by the way—she slapped me in the face. I was stunned, shocked, and flabbergasted. But she didn’t stop there. She slapped my other cheek, and the other one, and another one, only to then tell me that ‘I’m proudly taken, you perv!’” Joe recalled, elaborating the cause of the warm red handprints on both of his already flushing cheeks. “And can’t you boys tell? I was even more surprised! Like, my heart was about to stop beating right there and then when the gorgeous, oh-so-lovely Yuri Sakazaki turned down my proposal like that. Still, I refused to give up, though. And so, I asked her, ‘Who took you away from me, cutie pie?’ And from that moment on, it became crystal clear to me that I’ve been outraced by one of those scummy Kyokugen dweebs. That Robert Garcia… I swear to God, if I see him in the next tournament, I’m sooo gonna beat the living crap outta that spoiled punk!”
“Joe,” Andy warned, his voice exasperated yet composed, “please, just… stop, okay? We saw it, and we knew it.”
“Hey, hey, Joey, no offense, but you were trying to force a kiss, weren’t you?” Terry asked, his concerned eyes glancing sidelong at the drunken Joe. “I mean, if I was Yuri, I would’ve broken your nose, too.” He snickered, as the quip freely left his mouth.
“Aww, man…” Joe sighed, cheeks puffing and brow furrowing. “I thought you boys got my back. She couldn’t just treat this pretty face like that.”
“Oh, we got your back, alright,” Terry reassured, exchanging glances and amused smirks with his brother. “After all, who’s gonna bring you back to the hotel room if it ain’t us?”
Eventually, the trio arrived right in front of Room 92. Opening the door, the Bogard brothers entered with the assisted Joe awkwardly teetering between them, carefully seating their friend on the king-sized bed right across where their strides halted. He immediately collapsed, legs still dangling down the edge of the bed, as he spread his arms wide.
“God, I hate you two!” the Muay Thai champion muttered, then belched, still under the strong influence of alcohol. “Should’ve known I entered KOF ’94 by myself…”
“If you really want to test your luck,” the Shiranui ninja chimed, colliding his knuckles in a quiet thud!
“Guess that’s what a big bottle of Yamazaki Whisky does to a guy, amirite?” the hat-wearing bruiser quipped, then snatched his gaudy red jacket out of his torso, loading it over his shoulder. Suddenly, he felt like something miniscule had flown out of the pocket of his jacket. His sky-blue gaze quickly fell upon the floor, finding a shriveled picture of a young, verdant-haired lady sporting a glamorous white dress and a dark hairband. The memories of her flooded his mind once more. “Lily…”
Flawlessly hurling his jacket towards the coat rack nearby, Terry sat by the edge of the bed’s footboard, his shimmering eyes pensively fixating on the picture in his grasp. Andy, who’d been leaning his back against the wall across from him, took interest in what his older brother had been staring at the whole time. He seemed to understand that the charming lady in the picture meant to Terry just as much as their late father meant to them.
“Still thinking about her, brother?” Andy asked, glancing at him with a glint of sympathy.
Terry nodded. “Every single day, man,” he simply answered. “She was my first love. The girl of my dreams…”
“Ah…” Andy responded, eyebrows arching and arms crossing. “You… still talk to her in your dreams?”
“Sometimes,” Terry answered, then sighed, closing his eyes, “and all those times we talked, she always told me to… to move on, but…”
Andy’s face softened, taking notice of the barest hint of vulnerability that his older brother rarely showed. He drew out of the wall, then placed a reassuring hand over Terry’s shoulder, closing the distance between them.
“I– I’m sorry, brother,” Andy said with a hint of sorrow, almost as though he, too, had just lost a partner in Mai. He sighed along. “But, look, you’ve tried your best, okay? It wasn’t your fault that—”
“It was my fault!” Terry interrupted, then opened his eyes, his voice raised yet shaky. “I could’ve prevented her from falling, but I didn’t. I was too weak. Too slow. Too dumb to let her take such a risk. And all of that was to make sure that we were safe. Safe from Geese, safe from his champs, safe from… from anybody who’d been shooting Joe out cold that night.”
It was still vivid in his mind how the tragedy unfolded. The way Lily insisted on Terry and his comrades climbing down the ladder she’d provided for them first from the top of the KOF Stadium and even down to the derogatory terms that Geese used to scoff his first love when he caught her redhanded, it still felt as though it took place yesterday, instead of three years ago. But that was far from the worst part. Just when he shouted her name from below, the window shattered, and the figure of a woman was caught flying out of the top floor, absorbing the impact of a slicing projectile that left her critically scarred. A sound of a breaking skull erupted, a rough landing made, and fresh crimson fluid spilled all over the concrete ground. Lily was just laying there, drowning in her own pool of blood, though refusing to black out. The harsh descent happened rather abruptly that not even Terry was given a chance to catch her fragile frame.
The reigning KOF champion could still picture his horrors and tensions at the spine-chilling sight that night, as they blended into a singular concoction. He still remembered rushing towards the dying Lily, keeping her in his arms as if it would’ve done anything to keep her conscious much longer. He even managed to memorize her final words one by one, down to all the remorse and blame she pointed to herself for her indirect involvement in his father’s assassination. And then, those two words came across his mind.
I wish…
I wish. Terry’s inward reiteration sounded eerily rehearsed, as though those two words still haunted him to this day. Even worse since those were the last words that Lily had ever told him seconds before she ran out of breath. The words still hung in the air, and he had to live with the fact that his late lover would’ve never given him a proper farewell. And now? All that was left for him was to guess and complete what could’ve been said that night.
“I wish…” he finally spoke the words out, a sigh subsequently stifling. “God, I wish life wasn’t such a pain in the ass. It’s funny, don’t you think? Just when I was about to move on from Lily, I lost Sulia just months ago under similar circumstances. Even worse because I never even got to bury her. All the girls I’ve ever cared for, and they went away just like that, just because I needed protecting. No, we needed protecting. And hell, they thought I was invincible, like I was some kinda a ‘god of fighting’ or something. But in reality? Yeah, we both know I’ve always been the one losing out. ‘Legendary Wolf’? Heh. ‘Legendary Wolf,’ my ass. I’m just a chump, a loser, and… and a weakling who always puts his closed ones in danger.”
Andy took a moment of silence, trying to absorb both the sorrow and frustration vented by his older brother. There was a reason why he suggested they went on a vacation trip to Italy right after helping Sulia find every piece of the Armor of Mars. All those traumas and heartbreak, it must’ve been too heavy for the reigning KOF champion to recover from, especially when both incidents took place back-to-back in just a span of three years. Attempting to comfort Terry, he patted his shoulder.
“Terry, listen, you’re never a loser, let alone a weakling. To me, you’re the strongest rival and the best brother anybody could’ve ever asked for. You always got my back, and you never shied away from helping others. Sucks that you had to lose a girlfriend twice. I don’t think you deserved it,” Andy told his brother. “Lily was right, after all. No matter what you do, you can never bring her back, just like we’ll never bring father back after Geese was defeated. You have to move on, big brother. You don’t want to make them feel bad about themselves, do you?”
“I… guess,” Terry halfheartedly agreed with a stuttering voice, visibly fighting back the tears welling up his eyes, “but… the guilt, lil’ bro. The guilt. I still haven’t gotten rid of that. It’s like I’ve been cursed to live the life of a lone wolf, and that every woman I’m close with, they’re destined to die. It’s always been my mistakes one way or another. I knew I shouldn’t have met them in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, they would’ve still been alive today.”
There was that brief moment of silence again before Andy continued. “No, you’re wrong, brother,” he objected. “You’re not cursed. Nobody’s cursed. Just because you ran across bad luck once, doesn’t mean you’re bound to have the same fate for the rest of your life. If anything, I think you kind of saved them. Think about it, if Lily never met you, you think her life would’ve been any better with her having to do errands for Geese? Then, what about Sulia? You know how it was between her and her brother, and heck, if it wasn’t for you, who would’ve knocked some sense into him?”
Terry clicked his tongue, tightening his grip around the shriveled picture. “Saved them? By what? Freeing them outta this Earth?” he questioned with a stern voice. “Still, two innocent people lost their lives within three years, Andy, all because they fell for me. And I’m supposed to, what, sleep well, knowing that they’re in a ‘better place’ now?” He sighed. “I’d like to believe it’s meant to happen differently. But, I dunno, maybe life’s just toying at me the whole time. Like… like I’m some kinda action figure they like to pick and tear.”
“And what makes you think their lives would’ve been any better if they never met you? They suffered from fate worse than death, Terry!”
“Oi, lighten up, you two!” Joe exclaimed, barely recovering from his drunken state. He rested an arm over his forehead, still laying on his back atop the bed. “Again, you worry too much, Terry. People die all the time. And I bet they’re just happy to see us still intact after all the stuff that’s been going on since our first KOF. ’Least you boys managed to get some girls by the end of the day, while me? Heh. Who wants to be with Higashi Joe?”
Gradually, Joe sat out of his prior position, slightly tidying his disheveled flat top. He rubbed his eyes, yawned, then dramatically smacked his flushing cheeks with both of his palms. “Man… I’m so upset. It should’ve been me, not that Garcia dude,” he grumbled, still hurt by Yuri’s rejection. He hopped out of the fluffy mattress, his standing form clumsy and unsteady. “I wanna fight somebody. Anybody. How about we have some sparring matches? You boys think you’re up for the challenge?”
“A sparring match??” Andy asked, taken aback not because of the offer, but due to the fact that Joe didn’t seem to be in a condition to fight. “But, Joe…”
Joe quickly shushed. “Yeah, I get it. I might be drunk, but I still can fight like a champ. Learned some stuff from my boy, Hwa Jai, mind you,” he reassured. “And besides, we gotta cheer the other wolf up, don’t we?” His thumb gestured at Terry, referring to him.
“Welp…” Terry scratched his cheek, his eyes glancing elsewhere. He shrugged nonchalantly. “Since you asked so, sure... In all honesty, I have no prob fighting both of you right now. Gotta make sure that my team’s ready for KOF ’94, but, um…” He scanned the vicinity, noticing just how cramped their hotel room was. “Let’s just find somewhere more… spacious, should we? How about the basketball court nearby? Sounds cool, right?”
“See you around, Richard,” Terry said his farewell, as he gave the owner of Pao Pao Café a big wave. “And… your welcome, Pit! Hope you enjoy the meals.” And he didn’t forget to bid a farewell to the detective squad before they went their separate ways. “And you guys, best of luck with the investigation. Just contact me through the earpiece if you still have anything to ask, alright?”
Carrying his duffle bag over his shoulder, the hat-wearing bruiser pushed the front door open, parting ways with his favorite hangout spot alongside the crew. His teammates followed along. As he and Sakura had promised, they might like to show the remaining Seekers some of the underground fighting pits around the block. Being somebody who’d always craved for bouts, Terry was well informed about some of the places where the dark matches were regularly held, and it wasn’t long until they arrived by a far secluded spot just fifteen minutes away from Pao Pao Café 7.
“Yo, you guys, see that teahouse over there?” Terry asked, his finger gesturing at the Chinese-styled restaurant deemed to be the heart and soul of the rural area. “It’s Fengjian Teahouse. Don’t let the cozy exterior fool you, though. This place hosts some of the most extreme bouts around this side of the city, kinda close to those of a Mortal Kombat tournament. Ever heard of the shaolin duo named Liu Kang and Kung Lao? Yeah, right, they often go here to test themselves.”
Sakura stopped and spun on her heel. ”Woah, really?” Sakura asked, eyes wide. She had been walking at a quickened pace, leading the group to what she thought was the closest Local. Learning from Terry that there was another secret spot was an exciting development.
Amaterasu meanwhile cocked her head and perked her ears in response to them being described as ‘Mortal Kombat Like’ because she didn’t exactly want to have to worry about accidentally ending any mortal’s lives. She could only hope that was something of an exaggeration.
”Huh, yep.” Captain Falcon said with a small nod, ”Just like we were discussing earlier. Every sporting competition has its underbelly.”
“Damn right!” Terry answered all three of them, nodding back. He noticed Amaterasu’s concern, trying to reassure her and the rest of the crew. “But hey, take it easy, alright? When I said it’s close to the Mortal Kombat tournament, I didn’t say that you had to finish your opponent by the end of the bout. No, no, no, that’s just gross. Because what I meant is that it can be as brutal as it gets. You’re free to beat up your opponent real badly, though no killing’s allowed.”
From the first glance, the Fengjian Teahouse looked similar to one of those traditional restaurants normally found in Chinatown. It was built with bamboo and decked with a number of crimson lanterns and potted verdant plants from one corner to another. At the far back of the interior was displayed an enormous Chinese hanzi meaning ‘tea,’ as if to emphasize the restaurant’s specialty. If it wasn’t for some of the ferocious customers, barely anybody would’ve suspected such a place to be a breeding ground for unregulated competitions.
“Been here a couple of times before. I know the owner of this place. She’s a friendly old lady, mind you, and, um… oh, there she is!”
As Madam Bo welcomed the Seekers to her place, Terry bowed his shoulders down, snatching and gracefully keeping his cap close to his torso. A bright expression was plastered all over his face. “Good afternoon, Madam Bo, how do you do?” the brawny blonde asked, sporting the cap back around his head. “Just figured I’d like to introduce you to my new friends. Told me they’re looking for one of those fatali-tea combos you got to offer during the ‘Happy Hour.’” While it might seem like Terry was asking for the restaurant’s limited offers, he was, in fact, referring to something else that only he, Madam Bo, and some of the hardcore visitors understood. A secret code for something much more radical if you will.
When Madam Bo asked whether they’d like to sit upstairs or down, Nadia asked the crew quizzically, and Terry tried to reassure, having visited the teahouse a handful of times in the past. “Well…” he initiated, his sky-blue eyes traveling towards the gathering spectators overhead. “It’s usually more crowded upstairs. We don’t wanna hurt random peeps by accident, do we?”
Sakura had thought she was in on the secret lingo, being that downstairs was for fighters and upstairs was for betting, but now she was having trouble parsing who was speaking duplicitously and who was being genuine. She scratched the side of her head and shrugged, figuring when the punches started flying it’d be obvious.
As the decision was made and a table was shown, Terry complimented Nadia, giving her a thumbs up. “Good choice, cat! Now, watch and learn,” he told Nadia, slammed his duffle bag across the ligneous floor, then gave both Sakura and his teammates a gesturing glance before stepping forth to issue an open challenge. After all, he had a sparring match planned between the Captain, Amaterasu, and himself earlier. He clapped his hands, then whistled aloud to attract the attention of every rowdy visitor within the teahouse.
“Alright, I got nothin’ to lose!” he exclaimed, every desperate eye falling upon his standing form at the heart of the bottom floor. Beckoningly, we waved a hand at the crew for a show, while resting the other over his hip. “C’mon, people, are we gonna fight or what? We don’t have all day! Jeez…”
A gesturing wink was shot, and an abrupt cough followed, the scent of Madam Bo’s cigar piercing into his nostrils. He waved a gloved hand over his nose, trying to get rid of the trail of smoke emitted by the cigar. It appeared that the elder proprietress was oblivious to the fact that Terry had been allergic to such scent since he was little. Nevertheless, he was still exhilarated for the friendly bout ahead, believing that the Seekers could give him a run for his money.
Sakura smiled and clapped her hands together. Giving herself an encouraging double handed slap upside the head, she galloped over to meet Terry in combat. Obviously, it was important that they Friend Hearted him. But as a fighter, it had to be fair. Just jumping him in a back alley with everyone was an effective but anti-climactic last resort. ”Is this a team battle? Or a free for all?” Sakura asked. She and Terry probably weren’t doing a good job of maintaining cover that this was supposed to be a common bar brawl.
The divine wolf padded over at a more leisurely pace. She wasn’t some battle nut like these two, indeed after wolfing down all the late arriving food what she really wanted was to go take a nap, but she was onboard if it meant getting Terry free as soon as possible. Plus, she was interested to test their mettle, and to practice fighting against people who couldn’t see her attacks coming.
Her past life had been about fighting Yokai, the one Galeem had written her into had been about fighting demons, both of whom could see her strikes coming. These mortals would not have that luxury. Which is why she’d be keeping her sword firmly stored away, the wolf instead equipping her sun disk and devout beads instead.
So armed she padded to stand beside Sakura, making her position on the matter quite clear of who’d be fighting who (or so she hoped).
Thankfully for Sakura and Terry, Falcon was a little quicker on the uptake about what this fight was supposed to be. Didn’t stop him from rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles in anticipation. ”Well, if that’s how it works here then I guess I won’t question it.” He said. Spotting Amaterasu taking a position next to Sakura, Cap could probably hazard a guess as to what she was trying to say. ”So that’s how we’re doing this?”
He took a couple of heavy-booted steps over to where Terry stood and took up a position next to him, hitting his own fighting stance while giving a ‘come here’ gesture with his gloved hand. ”Show me your moves!”
Sakura grinned, hopping back and forth from front leg to back leg. She gave the big wolf next to her an encouraging hefty pat from the side. ”Okay, two on two! Terry-san and Captain-san against me and Amaterasu-sama! Let’s do it!” She said.
”Ready?” Sakura asked.
The divine wolf barked once for yes, and then hunched down into a combat stance, paws spread for stability, back arched as her unseen sun disk hovered above it, ready to be swung. This, she thought, would be interesting.
Terry grinned from ear to ear, peering over Cap then shifting his attention towards both Sakura and Amaterasu ahead. “Ha ha… Alright! Sounds fair enough. Just know that we ain’t some pushovers,” he approved, then took a couple of hops for a warm-up. He didn’t forget to strike his iconic taunting pose, readjusting his cap then waving his palm up and down one final time.
“Hey, c’mon, c’mon!”
The three-time KOF champion could hear the roar of the crowd echoing across the room, the noises so deafening they managed to make their way towards the upper floor. Supports were shown and bets were placed, each visitor rooting for each team. It seemed that the deafening roar managed to attract outsiders within the remote area, as more curious, battle-hungry maniacs flocked to the teahouse to watch the dark match unfold. Among those newcomers were a silver-haired Southeast Asian man sporting a traditional crimson mask, a red-eyed Haitian man resembling Dhalsim of the Street Fighter dojo, a ferocious mother bear with a cigar, and… a regular school girl? Really? It was beyond him how a high schooler was even allowed to enter such a dangerous place to begin with. Was school over already?
Regardless, if there was anything that the rowdy visitors on the sidelines had in common with Terry, they were still living under Galeem’s influence, yet to break free from their unfortunate gleaming state. Unbeknownst to any of them—Terry included—this seemingly friendly bout actually held a greater purpose than what appeared from the outside, and that was to free the former KOF champion out of the malice’s mind control. In their eyes, Terry might’ve looked perfectly fine, but in the eyes of those who’d been broken free…
Terry’s eyes were fiery red, scorching just as hot as his reignited fighting spirit. This was one of the clear signs that a person was still under Galeem’s influence. With his resolve now renewed, has his fatigue finally worn down? Only one way to find out…
Believing that all three of his allies were ready, Terry wasted no chance. Fighting stance assumed, fists swinging close to his temples, the brawny blonde drew a sizable portion of energy into his hands. He flailed the floor strongly, a brief spark flaring upon the collision between the charged fist and the solid surface as the energy was channeled into a crawling shockwave.
POW!
“POWER WAVE!!”
Thankfully, barely a single fracture was formed across the floor, despite the arduous impact. The shockwave traveled forth, heading in the direction of both female Seekers. Speaking of knocking down two birds with one stone here…
“Hey, Cap, you’re the one leading, right?” Terry asked his comrade, despite knowing the answer. “What’s the strategy? Because mine’s simply goin’ all out on both of these ladies.”
Amaterasu wasn’t about to sit by and let them talk strategy. Or, at least, she was gonna make it tricky for Terry to focus on Cap’s idea. She hopped to the side to avoid the power wave, and then, when she landed, launched her devout beads forward in a rapid fire barrage of six football sized golden charms. Then she started to close in, claws digging into the wooden floor as she put on an impressive burst of speed, sun disk at the ready.
Indeed, Sakura wasn’t too worried about strategy, either, even if she could coordinate anything with a non-talking magic wolf. ”Shunpu!” As for her, she did a quick spinning kick over the Power Wave to gain ground and cover any offensive afterward. Shooting fireballs along the ground like that had pros and cons! As Amaterasu lunged forward, Sakura covered her and began to lob blue fireballs into the fray, looking to knock into her opponents from a distance. ”Hadoken! Hadoken! Hadoken!”
And so was shooting rounds of fireballs that traveled above the ground. This wouldn’t be the first time Terry fought somebody who shared the special move, after all. Ryo, Ryu, and Ken were some of the most notable instances, being your typical Shotos and all. In fact, he didn’t have to spam Power Waves just to tackle some regular fireballs.
Because all it takes is just one bigger Power Wave against three smaller fireballs, Terry. Do it!
And so, Terry drew a bigger portion of energy into his fist, all while awaiting Cap’s word of advice.
As for the Captain, he was about to suggest a strategy when the two ladies decided to go on the attack immediately. Well, have it their way then. Cap felt something invisible striking him but didn’t flinch from it at all.
Oh, shoot!
And the bounty hunter was ambushed by some kind of an invisible force. Big deal. It made Terry wonder if there was a spectral figure secretly assisting the opposing duo in the bout, though it could’ve just been Amaterasu showcasing her mystical prowess—one that he hadn’t quite gotten a grasp of just yet. Regardless, he had to act fast. The barrages of Hadoukens were nigh. With that in mind, he dropped a fiery flail, the motion stiffer than the prior attack.
“ROUND—”
A single Rounded Wave was unleashed to eliminate all three fireballs simultaneously. Or so, it was? In reality, Terry stifled his fist, his knuckles merely close to grazing against the wooden floor beneath. The fiery layer engulfing his fist faded. What could’ve been holding him back? As it turned out…
In addition, when Sakura started hurling her Hadokens, Cap used his superior speed to quickly put himself in their path and tanked them all. And yet, he took no damage at all. Indeed, the bounty hunter’s body gave a shiny gleam as the only subtle indication that one of his boons had been active this whole time - Mint Condition - granting him invulnerability for the next several seconds.
”I’m afraid you’ll have to hit harder than that!” The Captain informed his opponents before he started focusing chi in his arms and legs, hurling fire discs of his own in their direction that alternated between being high-aimed and low-aimed. ”Ryuugeki Sen! Ryuugeki Sen! Ryuugeki Sen!”
Sakura traded fireballs with Captain Falcon, both of them shouting at each other, a glint in her eye. Did he somehow have Sclerokinesis, too? He wasn’t even flinching! She was familiar with this kind of technique at this point, but the specifics were always a mystery. ”You have immunity, Captain-san?” She said aloud, for her teammates' benefit as well.
”Ha, not quite!” Cap answered like the good sport he was. ”Just a little something I picked up from our mission in the Dead Zone. 9 seconds of invincibility at the start of any fight I enter into.”
”Nine seconds!” Sakura exclaimed. Sakura didn’t want Amaterasu going in alone against an invulnerable opponent and Terry as well, so she Focused, absorbing the impact of one of Falcon’s fire discs and hopped over a low aimed fire disc before doing a more dramatic leap, looking to land closer to Falcon. Though she performed no attack as of yet.
Little did the Street Fighter know that getting closer was exactly Falcon’s plan. He was planning to use a Falcon Kick to rapidly close the distance but then Sakura’s leap made that unnecessary. Falcon’s eyes glinted beneath the visor of his helmet as he launched an opening kick that would lead into a blindingly fast barrage of standing kicks if the opening move connected.
”Gen’ei Kyaku!” The Captain announced, using yet another of Terry’s friend’s moves pretty much flawlessly.
Sakura landed as fast as possible, taking the hit against her shoulder and forearm, she slid backwards, defending against the kicks. She would just have to play defensively until the nine seconds were up.
“Woahhh…”
Terry was frozen, eyes wide at the rapid exchange of projectiles. He wasn’t just astonished by both the sight and his partner’s invincibility, but moreover, Cap’s display of the oddly familiar move. Truth be revealed, Ryuugeki Sen was a signature technique belonging to one of his acquaintances from the KOF dojo. And to think that Cap could execute the special move immaculately like one of those Kyokugenryu practitioners…
“Oh, shit! It’s…”
No time to talk, he thought. Terry might’ve had a lot of questions to ask Cap later on, but more importantly, he’d like to thank him for covering him earlier. Now that Cap had the Ryu girl under control, he shifted his attention towards Amaterasu, ready stance reassumed as he gave her a focused glare.
The divine wolf, her body low, simply ran under the high fireballs, while for the low ones, she paused time and got to drawing.
In the blink of an eye two streams of alcohol leapt up from a single glass of beer who’s contents did not diminish one bit. These snaked through the air and doused the fire disks, freeing the wolf to continue her charge in towards Terry, preparing to deliver a rightsided swing of her sundisk.
Obviously, Terry hadn’t a clue that the furred deity had been carrying a sundisk alongside her charging form. All he knew was that there was a white wolf simply trying to lunge in the direction of a bigger man that he was. Trying to test whose charging move was stronger, the three-time KOF champion lunged in the deity’s path with a hard-hitting shoulder tackle, swiftly closing the distance between them.
“POWER CHARGE!!”
The wolf’s eyes went wide as he lunged past her strike, the disk hitting him in the side doing little to stop his oncoming momentum.
Once connected, he’d turn his cap backwards, then ride his knee towards her smaller frame, sending Amaterasu leaping with him. In mid-air, he’d flail the deity down with a fiery fist, dunking her back across the wooden floor like a basketball into the hoop.
“POWER DUNK!!” he exclaimed moments before his boots touched the ground again. The brawny blonde turned his cap forth, its gaudy red brim casting a shadow over his gleaming crimson eyes. “Whew… Sorry, Ammy, didn’t mean to hurt you.”
The divine wolf’s eyes were dizzy spirals for a few more moments, the shocking combo of blows having stunned her (but, thanks to her now spent charges of godhood, not harmed her) before she blinked them and then paused time.
Within this paused time she had time to reflect that she had definitely underestimated her opponent as she scrolled her view around the paper world. As such, her initial instinctual retort of just ink bulleting him in the face was dismissed and she tried to be smarter about this. She needed a distraction, and with this thought her detached vision fell upon the hat he so loved to play with.
Yes, that would do.
She swirled her brush and then let time resume, prompting a powerful gust of wind to blow towards Tery, perfectly angled to catch the brim of his cap and to blow it right off his head.
She used however long she had to flip herself upright and onto her feet, before switching out her armaments. The devoid beads chained together and lashed out like a whip, the wolf now keeping her distance rather than trying to charge in, baiting him to do the same so she could try and parry her with her divine disk when he did.
Meanwhile, Sakura was counting the seconds in her head until Cap no longer had his invincibility. ”The longer a fight goes on, the more power I can tap into.” She said, looking to duck and block any strikes coming her way. Since Captain Falcon was being a good sport about explaining his power, she would give him hints, too. Though to be honest, she didn’t have any tricks as specific or as powerful as that one.
”I’m more or less the same.” Falcon replied after Sakura had blocked a triple spinning wheel kick he launched at her. ”And fair warning, whenever I use any of my super moves? It restores a bit of the damage I’ve taken previously.” He added, more or less giving her a fair explanation for how his Power Gauge worked in addition to warning her about the healing effect of his Vesicle boon. A moment later, the subtle gleam around Cap’s body flickered away and was gone.
”Looks like my nine seconds are up.” Falcon said, tightening his fighting stance. ”Ready to start the match for real?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he just launched forward along the ground in a blazing slide kick. ”FALCON KICK!”
”Woah!” Sakura crouched and met the move head on. Letting the power of the kick work in her favor, she diverted the force with a lean and shot out her own leg with a quick medium kick to punish him. She snapped her leading leg back in and swept out her other one to knock Falcon down to the ground. If that worked, she would hop up and be on him as fast as possible before he could get up all the way and knock into him with elbows and fists.
The Captain was indeed punished for what was admittedly an overextension. But he didn’t panic. Rather than try to stand upright, the bounty hunter instead scrambled to a crouching position. Then he put up his arms and generated his Shield to absorb what was intended to be Sakura’s followup before performing a quick dodge roll past her to try and reset their positions from one another. ”Not bad, Ms. Kasugano!” He complimented as he whirled around to face her. Then he lunged himself forward in a dive.
”RAPTOR BOOST” Cap shouted as he attempted to connect a fiery upward punch against Sakura. She’d be launched straight up a short distance if it went through.
”I try!” She said back. As Captain Falcon came in with an upward punch, Sakura put out a stop sign of a kick. Leaning backwards horizontally as she twisted her torso and shot out her heel to stuff Cap’s approach. She planted her foot and began to strafe around, galloping with a gliding grace. There was power in the way she navigated the field, and while her eyes were alight with passion there was no smile on her face, as she tried her hardest to win.
Now back to the scuffling wolves. The time might’ve paused for a moment, but oddly enough, Terry didn’t feel a thing. It was as though the time never froze for him to begin with. One thing for sure, though, Amaterasu had blown away the cap he so dearly held around his head, distracting him from the sight of her switching weapons and readying to retaliate.
”Hey!”
The brawny blonde raised his gloved hands, trying to catch the gaudy red cap but failing. It seemed that the arduous wind gust had completely carried the cap elsewhere, and when it did halt, it was already in the gloved hands of the prior school girl standing by the sidelines. She hugged the cap tightly, her excitement lingering in the air.
“Aww... Love you, Terry-san!” the school girl thanked him with a high pitched voice. “You’re too kind~”
And when Terry took notice of the sight, he played along with her, pretending as though he did toss the cap towards the crowd deliberately. “Uh... Yeah, sure! No prob! Nice catch, though,” he reciprocated, hesitantly nodding and smiling at the amused high schooler before refocusing back at his opponent. However, when he did shift his attention towards the furred deity…
SNAP!
“Youch–!!”
Her devoid chain of beads connected with his temple. Quite stiffly, in fact, and he wasn’t quite expecting it. The former KOF champion immediately launched backwards, then reeled across the wooden floor. Thankfully, once his reeling form halted, he was still able to pick himself up in no time despite the impact. However, when he was merely close to standing on his feet..
“Ungh–!!”
He was dragged down again, knee gluing to the floor, as a strong headache struck him. Alternately, the vicinity turned red and white in his blurry vision, and the voices from the long abandoned past began to echo within his mind—some belonging to him and some belonging to his friends.
Kyo? Ryo? What’s going on here??
S– See you… on the other side… T– Terry…
No, no, no… Andy, Joe, don’t go!
T– Terry… I’m… hurt…
Mary, stay with me, okay? Stay with me.
Gritting his teeth, he tried to suppress the headache with his hand firmly gripping his forehead, but to no avail. The voices refused to go away, their stinging echoes louder and clearer each time. The tensions. The dreadful cries. The agonizing shrieks. He thought to himself, what is this all about? Why did they sound so distant yet… eerily familiar? He’d rather not be distracted by the abrupt occurrence—not when there was an opponent ahead to deal with. He shook his head rigorously, trying as best as he could to shrug away the flood of wretched inner noises. His eyes blinked a couple of times, shifting from red to blue to gleaming red again.
“N– Nice try, Ammy... I saw what you did back there. You sure got plenty of magic tricks up your sleeves, huh?” the brawny blonde asked with a dropped voice, then carefully stood, keeping his upright form steady. It seemed that he’d started to take a grasp of her mystical capabilities. “Guess Cap and Chizuru were right about you. You’re a goddess in disguise.”
From what he could perceive, Amaterasu seemed to be capable of making nature bow down to her will. At least, in a cosmic sort of way, hers was one and the same with the will of Gaia. On the side note, he’d like to believe that all those invisible forces bombarding Cap had something to do with one of Amaterasu’s capabilities, not realizing that they were part of her devoid arsenal. Thankfully for Terry, his instincts were keen, and he could always borrow a portion of energy from beneath Mother Earth. If anything, Amaterasu had savored the latter firsthand.
“Yo, Ammy, want me to give you another taste of Mother Earth’s power?”
Still, he knew he needed to be careful and trust his instincts, given that an invisible force could ambush him at any given time again. The brawny blonde circled his opponent, pensively sizing her up. Initially, he considered utilizing the Burning Knuckle against the furred deity, but given the stark difference between their heights, he opted for something more approachable. And so, he closed the distance with a sliding kick, slipping it under her unseen guard and faltering Amaterasu’s upright stance. As a follow up, instead of executing the usual high kick, he launched the deity with a medium roundhouse kick.
“FIRE KICK!!”
Terry sent himself skywards, trying to catch up with Amaterasu’s levitating form. He spun himself upside down for a drilling kick, clenching hands spreading and a lower limb folding close to the leading one. He might want to corner his opponent farther and farther towards the bamboo ceilings.
“RISING TACKLE!!”
It appeared that it could take a while for the match, possibly when one managed to break out of either the physical or the projectile exchanges. While battling Amaterasu, Terry could hear loud and clear the voices of the prospective challengers and betting yokais opining about the match in spite of the noisy colliding attacks in his proximity. A number of yokais witnessing his prior scuffle with Mondu and his champions were also present, chiming confidently.
“And thanks to ya boy Terry, I’m proud to say that I’m the richest yokai in the spirit realm after winning the last bet,” one yokai bragged with a smug grin. “And y’know what, my choice for this match is obvious.”
“So ya picked Terry,” the other yokai responded, preparing a bag full of silver coins for the betting game. “I gotta say, he does show promise. His offenses are sick, but that wolf thingy over there? Man… her attacks look so outta this realm! I think I’m going all in with her and the Ryu fangirl.”
“But dude! You gotta check out who Terry has as his partner,” another yokai pointed out, gesturing a finger towards the helmeted bounty hunter. “The visor guy over there? No cap, but I saw him take that girl’s fireballs and shrug ’em off like they were nothin’.”
“Gee… I wonder if it came with the helmet or something,” a yokai responded to the third one, his tone pensive. “But still, as a long-time Shoto main, I can’t go wrong with Sakura. She trained with the best Street Fighter boy, after all, so she must’ve shared his strength. On top of that, she’s got the speed to keep up with the rest.”
“Well, yeah, but wait,” the boastful yokai chimed, eyes widening in realization, “I thought Terry was a Shoto, too, nope?”
Meanwhile, downstairs, the crimson masked man carefully observed each of the fighter’s movements. He clenched a fist. “These combatants… All those years I spent mastering the ‘Inner Force,’ yet I have not seen ones so powerful and destructive before theirs,” he calmly opined, then echoed a reverberating laughter. “Very well... I, the ‘Village Champion,’ shall challenge one of these combatants soon. One of them shall make an ideal instructor for my ‘Defenders of the Motherland’ dojo.”
Hrmm… This one looks good, the skunky mother bear chimed with incomprehensible bestial noises, chewing the cigar between her teeth.
The school girl cheered aloud, her brown head decked by the prior hat given to her by Terry. “Ooh… this is grreattt–!!” she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling in exhilaration. “When I graduate from Seifuku Academy, I wanna be just like Terry-san and Kasugano-san.”
The gnarly Haitian man grunted. “Grr… Mojumbo doesn’t care. Mojumbo is hungry. Hungry for fights. Hungry for fl—”
An out-of-place geeky man shushed, frowning at Mojumbo. He crossed his hands as though playing with an imaginary arcade stick cross-handed, speaking like an obnoxious yet resourceful fighting game developer.
“Psst… Please, good sir, you’re disturbing the peace. I need to analyze this match,” he reprimanded Mojumbo before opining: “I think that blonde fighter is ridiculously unbalanced. His moves are too basic and cheap. No wonder he rarely moves past the middle tier in his dojo’s rankings. If we were to add him to the next ‘Divekick’ patch, definitely he would’ve been one of the fighters needed to be nerfed. And what’s with the helmet man having invincibility frames? Was that supposed to be a glitch?”
Mojumbo gave the geeky man a puzzled look, overwhelmed by the flood of alien terms. “Mojumbo doesn’t understand. Mojumbo doesn’t play puny video games,” he said obliviously before—in a surprisingly eerie tone—admitting: “but Mojumbo thinks video games sound delicious...”
“Ugh. Useless!” The geeky man sighed, shaking his head. Despite his commentary, Terry didn’t seem to mind him at all, as he focused solely on winning the match.
Back with the other match, Falcon grinned as he drank in the growing cheers from their audience. Although from what little he was able to make out between exchanging kicks with Sakura, it sounded like they were favoring her over himself. Well, that was fine by him. Anyone was free to be a fan of whoever inspired them the most. And if that happened to be Terry and Sakura right now? Well, more power to them. Cap was nothing if not a good sport about everything.
”You’ve got some fans up there, Ms. Kasugano.” Cap said during a brief pause. ”Bet they’ll be asking you for autographs when we’re done. Now then…” He brought his arms back to channel chi and expended a Power Gauge stock he’d built up. ”Let’s really turn up the heat!” He quickly shot his palms forward and launched another fire attack similar to his previous Ryuugeki Sen. But this one was bigger and more powerful.
”HAOH SHOUKOU KEN!” Sakura jerked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows in a quick, acknowledging ‘shrug’ to Falcon's words. Right now, she was focused on his capabilities as a fighter more than anything else in the world. Even freeing Terry had slipped her mind. Sakura was about to let loose a fireball of her own, but it was too late to channel any of her own EX Meter into it on reaction to the blast that shot her way. Bracing for impact she crossed her arms in front of herself and let the fireball slam into her block. Her sneakers skid backwards on the wooden floor.
As the smoke from the fireball was still clearing, Cap smiled and clenched his right fist, beginning to charge it with a combination of flame and lightning as he launched forward with his most iconic technique. ”FALCON…” He shouted as he made the leap to commit to the wind up of his attack. ”PUUUUUUNCH!”
Sakura lowered her crossed arms, peaking through her guard. Through the smoke, she glimpsed the good Captain coming down on her like a meteor. Too late! ”Yabai.” She said, and shifted to the right. Sakura diverted some of the strike and span out, tumbling through the air and over the ground. She bounced once and recovered mid-air, flailing her arms around as she tried to stop sliding. Eventually she stopped herself on a support pillar for the balcony overhead. ”Itai…” She complained ruefully, shaking out her left arm.
A moment later flames flickering on the floor leapt upwards in a stream towards a cherrybomb the size of a person. Said bomb had appeared out of nowhere behind Terry as he moved to corner Amatarasu, and it detonated just as fast. The resulting blast that launched Terry backwards (and a shower of confetti everywhere) was accompanied by a blinding flash and a dephaning boom for the slightest moments put to pause the battle.
The first thing to be heard afterwards? A Yokai yelling “Janky hitboxes and zero counter bulshit! Nerf plz!”
I've decided that Vaaska probably works better as an NPC, so I have instead made upper management/a healer because every party needs one of those
Also I am embracing the gatcha
the Voice of Fate (tVoF)
Rarity ★★★★★ | Void Angel| Level 1
Appearance: tVoF is a 20 meters long translucent semi insectile creature with a set of hand-like wings large enough to hold a person in a single one. The outsides consist of a softly teal glowing membrane sporting a singular large red eyespot. Any damage to the membrane will heal rapidly, with the new material emerging from the void within rather than from the surrounding membrane, meaning it could be skinned alive only for its skin to remember after a few moments.
Its insides meanwhile seem to be mostly filled with distant stars and this is entirely true, as is indeed what is in there, at least as far as any analysis known to mortal kind can ascertain. Functionally and mechanically however, it is mostly filled with nothing, and any object passing through this void will act as if it is moving through vacuum.
Membrane and void alike, can pass through matter as if it wasn’t there, which is convenient when operating in the cramped corridors of a dungeon.
The corpse, however, cannot do this.
This headless, sexless, nonliving yet perfectly preserved hominid body of otherwise unremarkable composition floating in its core where its heart probably would be is entirely, mundanely, physical, restricting its movements and representing the only way to inflict true death upon it.
Personality: tVoF speaks in confusing religious jargon that can be difficult to parse at times, particularly given that it claims to speak for the god of fate itself, with all the frivolous randomness that entails.
It's also prone to performing illogical actions or making nonsensical changes to the dungeon in the name of ‘nudging the hand of fate into rolling a favorable outcome’ which often revolve around the holy number 8.
Naturally, as a (supposed) voice of their god, it thinks its demands and desires are incredibly important and is prone to either sulking or decrying that doom is upon them if things do not go its way. It will however quickly get over this and move on to the next new thing that totally actually needs to be done in order to gain the favor of fate. Also, fortunately, these demands, while odd, are often fairly simple, and might even be beneficial. Maybe. Certainly it will claim any good fortune is because of its efforts at any rate.
Given that its most reliable form of utility is as a healer, it's probably a good idea to keep it at least somewhat appeased.
Abilities:
Ocular ray: the void angel can shoot a beam of heat out of its singular eye. This can be used to either inflict or cauterize wounds at a distance.
Restoration: the void angel can phase its smaller hands into wounds and manually close them up, forcibly fusing flesh back to flesh to repair any damage. Be it internal or external damage, or even poisons or plagues, the void angel can set things back to the way they were. It cannot replace lost flesh however, and so that must be re-attached if possible. This is delicate work that requires the patient to stay still while it is done, making it an impractical method of dealing damage or performing burst healing.
Incorporeality: the void angel only touches this world when it wants to, rendering the majority of its body invulnerable to harm other than when it is interacting with the world (such as if it is holding something, attacking something or intentionally blocking the way to, say, its core). The corpse in its body is fully physical however, restricting its ability to just float through the terrain, though its sheer size means it can attack from the next tunnel over with relative ease.
Levitation: the void angel does not touch the ground unless it so please, and instead simply swims through the air
Large: the void angel would be more at home in the ocean than on land size wise, and so has a great deal of reach as a result. It is relatively slow however, most often floating lazily through reality as if it has all the time in the world (which it probably does).
Roll the dice: the void angel can manifest dice out of nowhere, which it often uses to interpret the will of fate. Usually D8s. It can pray to the god of fate for a favorable outcome while rolling, which will result in stuff happening. Just. Stuff. Anything really. Probably beneficial. Hopefully. Try not to lose any limbs if you don’t want to end up with an ‘interesting’ replacement is all I am saying.
Might bump Vaaaska down a start given the quality of the other 2s now that I think of it. and maybe bump down the number of aaas too. if we don't get an actual 1 star then that is for sure what I will do
Fetzen
Frettzo
teenangstlife
Lord Zee
Neziul
Ariamis
rush99999
Simply Not Real
Shadowheart
