Lugubrious

Infactorium: A New 4Xpansion (Overlord RP) [DISCONTINUED]

I just realized what happened with my status update. I'll chalk it up to typing on my phone being screwy. Anyway, post is imminent.

Infactorium: A New 4Xpansion (Overlord RP) [DISCONTINUED]

Work's been rough since I got back from vacation on Monday, but I'll be 📯 NG tomorrow morning.

World of Light

Team Mao

Location: Al Mamoon Northeast - Rocket Inc.
Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Mao’s @Potemking, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Laharl’s @Dark Cloud, Joker, Mona, Fox, Necronomicon, Braum

Ciella’s radial riptide scattered the entrenched rebels and allowed her newfound allies to surge forth in her wake. To prevent her enemies from regaining their foothold enough to punish the newcomers’ collective headlong sprint into the action, Sectonia unleashed magic of her own to trap the Resistance fighters in a field that cut their speed in half and left them sitting ducks for the greater numbers of her own team. Their attempts to counterattack despite the slow found further impediment from the Vibrava’s Bulldoze and Bug Buzz, and the Seekers could proceed unchallenged. Mao and Laharl bore down on the Dragonborn while Midna charged at Jinx and Fuse to split them up, with Jesse’s super-sized office desk aimed to help put the minigunner down for the count.

At the same time the Phantom Thieves rushed the last two rebels down, with Braum at their front to absorb incoming fire and Necronomicon at their back to propel the whole group onward. “Support incoming!” the Persona called. “Speed up!” At her command the prayer spell Masukukaja took hold, increasing the speed of all four. Though the gunners opened fire and the Dragonborn produced a bow, the combined efforts of Ciella, Sectonia, and Necronomicon allowed their team to score free hits on the opposition. Mao’s thrown sword might have ripped the Dragonborn a new one if not for his bow, which took the hit from Mao's weapon and split on Dragonborn's behalf. Brash as his maneuver was, Laharl managed to land both blazing strikes right afterward, dealing a chunk of damage with each that the final Star strike from Mao turned into a boatload. The swordsman flew backward, as burned as he was battered, and a moment later Jinx joined him, smashed by a chair and then Jesse’s desk in quick succession.

At the same time, a hailstorm of pain from Mona’s slingshot as he rode on Braum’s shoulder culminated in a heavy shield slam from the man himself, followed by a blast of Zorro’s gale winds for good measure. Shadow struck out at Fox but only managed to trigger the swordsman's counterattack, receiving a flurry of cuts from his colorful new katana before Joker followed up. He came down with a spinning overhead slash and an unceremonious kick to send Shadow on his way. The rebels slid to a stop against the back wall to see a wall of enemies advancing toward them, with Sectonia’s minions filling out their ranks.

Amara’s fist struck the ground in slow-motion rage. “We’re toast if this damn slow keeps up!” she belted out as quickly as she could.

Beside her, Shadow rose to his feet, glowering like his life depended on it. “I’ll handle this.” As the dark hedgehog rose into the air the energies of chaos itself swirled and pulsed around him. After one revolution he faced the incoming Seekers in defiance, and growled, “Chaos...control!”

A wave of crackling power expanded outward, Shadow at its epicenter. Unblockable, undodgeable, it washed over the invaders and twisted their time without mercy. The inexorable distortion bogged the Seekers and their allies down to a crawl, making the half-speed Resistance fast by comparison.

With the tables turned, the rebels rose to see their enemies barely moving. Shadow floated above them all, his concentration vital to the time-field's sustenance. “Remember, stasis,” he snarled. “So just patch yourselves up. Then we'll break it together and finish this.” Dutifully the Dragonborn put away his weapons and conjured restorative magic from the palms of his hands to restore his whole team to full, while the rest reloaded their weapons. As infuriating as that was, Joker at least figured that meant the jack-of-all-trades Dragonborn would be deprived of magic, but his hopes were dashed as the warrior pulled out a blue potion and chugged it.

Guns at the ready, the rebels sauntered right up to the Seekers, full of confidence. “Heeheehee,” Jinx giggled, a minigun in one hand and a rocket launcher in the other. “Didja think you were the only ones with some tricks up your sleeves? You jokers musta had it easy 'til now. Shame you'll be too busy paintin' the walls to learn your lesson!”

Amara lowered her own weapon and spread her arms. Magic welled up at her back and took on the form of six tough-looking, primed and ready to let loose one hell of a beatdown. She squared up against Ciella, took in the rabbit lady's enraged expression, and gave the sort of grin only one about to deliver long-awaited comeuppance could muster.. “You've been ridin' our asses long enough, mega-bitch. 'Bout time you took a nap. But you can rest easy knowin' that Spirit of yours is gonna look good on me.”

With a shrug and cocky smile Fuse unshouldered his rifle, then took aim at Midna's head. From his current position, a shot straight through her head would score a collateral shot on Jesse. Evidently he hadn't taken kindly to their thrown furniture. “Sorry, cuties. Them's the breaks.”

“I'll squash the bugs.” Shadow extended his open hand, then clenched it. “Time, resume your flow!”

Chaos Control ended with a bang. Streams of lightning from the hands of the Dragonborn joined the fusillade of gunfire from Jinx and Fuse, while Amara pummeled Ciella with a flurry of blows. Only Shadow acted on his own, teleporting to Sectonia and Necronomicon in quick succession and bringing them with him. A moment later the three floated above the building itself, with the hedgehog dealing his collected enemies a kick to disperse them. He smirked at them, crossing his arms. “Shoulda been more careful. Bad things happen to those who mess with time.”

Necronomicon reeled, taken totally by surprise. “Yipes! I'm not a combat Persona! Sectonia, can you cover me while I get away?”

“It's no use trying to escape.” Shadow pulled out twin pistols, holding them akimbo. “You lost the moment you challenged me.”

The Persona reeled. “Gahhh! He's so edgyyy! Change of plan, let's take him down!”

Down in the office building, things weren't quite as dire as Joker first thought. Unlucky for the local Legend, Fuse's first shot struck Midna's Fused Shadow right in the eye and failed to penetrate. Then she was free from the grip of distorted time, allowing Midna to move enough to stop subsequent shots being lethal. Everyone got a taste of Jinx's minigun barrage, and though the individual shots were by no means show-stoppers, the damage racked up quickly. The Dragonborn's lightning hurt a whole lot, but he couldn't keep it up for long. Knowing that her team's onslaught would peter out, Jinx elected to finish on a strong note and fired her rocket launcher to blow the Seekers to kingdom come. Yet despite all the punishment coming their way, the invaders were far from beaten. Braum's unfaltering shield helped his team weather the storm, and together the Phantom Thieves shadow-dashed back out from cover, ready to help the Seekers fight back.

And fight back they did, starting with Ciella. In the midst of Amara's barrage she brought up a leg as if to knee her attacker in the jaw, which the brawler deftly swerved to avoid. Ciella then brought the leg down in a water-infused stomp that swept Amara's feet out from under her while they weren't planted. The skillful Siren caught herself before she could hit the ground, but a moment's reprieve was all Ciella needed. She swung her longbow like a club, forcing her foe to catch it with her summoned arms, then blasted forward on another riptide that drove Amara before her. She continued until her torrent slammed the Siren against the back wall, smashing through the area an earlier impact had cracked, and both disappeared into the conference room.

With two detachments gone, eight marauders stood against three rebels. As Mao and Laharl rallied to go another round with the Dragonborn, the warrior unleashed another Shout, but the Heart of the Freljord laughed in the face of unrelenting force and planted his shield. With unyielding fortitude Braum withstood the dragon's fury, giving the little Overlords the chance to get past their enemy's magic and go toe-to-toe. Even when backed into a corner, however, the Dragonborn wielded a vast array of talents and weapons that would demand everything his opponents had.

That left five against two, and the Phantom Thieves had no intention of letting anyone else do their work for them. “The crazy lady's ours!” Mona declared as he, Joker, and Fox raced forward through a torrent of gunfire.

His announcement seemed to amuse his prospective opponent. “You wish!” she derided. As the Thieves dashed between cover she reduced the desks and tables to splinters one at a time, eyes and smile wide with livewire energy. A trio of shots rang out from Joker's new pistol and narrowly missed her spindly frame, eliciting another laugh. “Gotta get closer than that, boys! C'mere 'n get Jinxed!”

Meanwhile, Fuse looked uneasily between Midna and Jesse, an ordinary-looking man matched up against two supernatural powerhouses. “Now hold on a second ladies, I think we mighta got off on the wrong foot here...!” He broke off and performed a hero dive behind a row of mostly intact cubical dividers, moving quickly so that Jesse couldn't just snatch his cover away. When he got to his feet he held a futuristic pistol in his hands, apparently tucked away there for later, and he ran he wasted no time opening fire to get his opponents' heads down. Several shots struck Jesse, inflicting more than enough damage to get her below the threshold for a Friend Heart. Midna could free her now, but if she did Fuse might make it to a better position, and who knew how many more guns he had hidden around.

Team Kan-Ra

Level 9 Tora (27/90) Level 8 Poppi (97/80) Level 3 Big Band (17/30)
Location: Al Mamoon Northwest - Obelisk Temple
Yoshitune's @Rockin Strings, Fox’s @Dawnrider, Primrose’s @Yankee, Tora and Poppi, Big Band, Kan-Ra, Panther, Skull
Word Count: 1124 (Band) 1284 (Tora and Poppi)

Scattered by a surprise explosion and assaulted on all sides, Kan-Ra's team needed to act fast to avoid getting crushed, but they had just the right people for the job. With the protection of Big Band to the north and Tora plus Poppi to the east, Primrose seized the opportunity to perform an empowering dance. Her new scarf fluttered behind her as she pivoted and swirled, filling with enchantment as she did, until every inch of the lovely dancer and her garb alike shone with mystic energy. At her touch Band nodded, readying himself, but even the storied detective didn't quite anticipate what the heroine behind him had in store. With a grace that belied her sheer power Primrose channeled her magnified magic through her pyromancy flame, and as she struck the ground a fount of primordial, oil-black flame burst forth. It lunged forward like a predator on the hunt, a riotous column of abyssal fire, and wound down the corridor toward the petrified rebels.

Understandably perhaps, the rebels wanted nothing to do with it, and as they felt the heat of the dark pyromancy they jolted into action. Daisy ceased fire and bolted through the hidden door, followed by Earthquake squeezing through as fast as his circumference allowed him to. Barely a second later the Stygian blaze careened by, like a subway train past the platform, and the Resistance fighters sighed in relief. Sickle in hand, Earthquake poked his head through the door, and for his troubles took a heaping portion of brass knuckles to the face. With a garbled cry and a bloody nose he tumbled backward, which in turn elicited a scream from the much smaller rebel behind him, and as the two rolled down the stairs Band in the doorway, silhouetted by the torchlight. As surprised as he'd been to see the team's unassuming dancer conjure such a terrifying spell, Band didn't let that opportunity go to waste, and he wouldn't allow this one to, either.

At the bottom of the stairs lay an open room on what must be the fourth floor, and there Earthquake's immense bulk came to a stop, his ally pinned beneath his weight. With a little mechanical arm Band straightened his hat, then stomped down the stairs to finish the job.

“Ughhhh...” the heavy ninja moaned, rubbing his head. As he shook the stars out he saw the trench-coated detective that decked him duck out of the stairway. “You...!”

Big Band deployed a giant pedal that flipped forward and smacked Earthquake right in the belly. “Getcho ass up,” he scolded, and with a growl his foe rolled over. Doing so revealed Daisy partially cratered in the masonry, as unconscious as one could get. Band shook his head. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Little sister deserved a better shot than that.” He narrowed his eyes at Earthquake as the two giants squared off, a good old-fashioned showdown in the works. A grinding sound from behind him alerted him to a trick wall sliding shut to block the exit. “You gonna shoot yours?”

“Smug asshole!” the ninja growled. “I'll kill ya!” He hurled his chain-scythe at Band's legs, forcing a crouch-block, then jumped. With uncanny agility Earthquake took to the air, scraping up against the ceiling, then came down rear-first to squash Band the same way he'd done Daisy.

“Well, you needn't.” With Primrose powering him up as she planned, Band got ready to rumble. Earthquake's attack was so telegraphed that Band had no trouble parrying it for a little extra tension, but after hitting the ground the first time the ninja bounced back up for another slam, and if Primrose pelted him with magic she'd reveal a hidden trump card to Earthquake's ridiculous attack: normal attacks could not interrupt it. Armed with this new information along with his ally's buffs, Band opted to bide his time and parry the second butt-bounce. On his enemy's third and lowest bounce Band went in with Take the A Train anti-air command grabbed Earthquake right out of the air with a giant mechanical arm. Its trombone pounded twice for extra damage, then drove home a third impact like a pile bunker. The ninja bellowed in pain as he took another tumble, ripe for a follow-up attack from Primrose.

That extra punishment, however, pushed him over the edge, and with a shout of anger he threw down a smoke bomb. The next second he rolled forward from the smoke at high speed, a wrecking ball of destruction. Band raised his eyebrow, then stepped out of the way. Earthquake shot right by and into the solid stone wall behind him hard enough to send chunks of hieroglyphic-inscribed masonry flying. When the dust cleared he lay there, stunned, no extra work from either Band nor Primrose necessary. The detective sniffed and shook his head again. “Hmph. Jive-ass dude ain't got no brains, anyhow.”

He took a look around. This section of the temple's fourth floor didn’t seem adjacent to the central area, or very temple-like at all, for that matter. It was dark, undecorated, dingy even. It seemed a whole lot more like a dungeon, and since it could only be accessed by secret passageway, Band couldn’t help but wonder if this place harbored a dark history. His examination got interrupted by a sudden magic light and noise from Earthquake, and when he looked over he spotted a golden magic circle around the fallen man's body for a moment before both he and it disappeared. A second later Daisy followed suit. Band turned to the trick wall to go back, but it didn't budge, even when he punched it. “...Don't these usually open once the fight's over? Huh. Guess we'll get a move on and find some stairs deeper in.” He kept implicit his assumption that the other teams had things handled on their front as he turned back to head farther in.

What he found did not please him. The chamber’s solid construction gave way to a perilous bridge protected by nothing less than swinging axes. When he approached he discovered that the pit beneath went a long way down, though not so long that he couldn’t see the shine of mud at the bottom. He fixed the pit with an annoyed look, for all the good it did. “No way I'm gettin’ through that nonsense.” Even if his timpany boosters were working, he doubted he had enough room to rocket right over the hazards to the exit. To make matters worse, the only exit at the end of the bridge featured an honest-to-God spike ring, making the wall all but impassable to someone of his size and agility. He deployed a little arm to scratch his nose. “How'd those fools make it through...?”

---

While Band and Primrose attended to Earthquake and Daisy, the others had their own problems to deal with. After Yoshitsune's first attempt at a charge resulted in a sound pelting by red-hot rocks, Panther took the lead as she and Skull rushed down the west corridor, weathering Charnok's spells with ease thanks to her near-immunity to fire. Once Skull got in range he called forth his Persona to take over. “Captain Kidd! Run 'em over!” At his command the skeletal pirate hurtled the rest of the way atop his floating ship. Despite the rebels' best attempts to stop him Kidd dealt the pair a weighty slam. Charnok and Beast elected to retreat, hurried on their way by the rattle of Panther's new SMG. As their foes disappeared around the corner, the Phantom Thieves gave chase.

On the other side Tora and Poppi continued to mop up corpse spiders, smashing them to pulp one at a time. Kan-Ra lent them his aid by placing sand traps ahead of them, and when spiders scuttled by he called upon his sorcery to bring form scorpion tails and antlion jaws of sand from his traps. The magical constructs not only pierced and crushed the spiders but cursed them, making their jumps slower and floatier, which in turn made them easy pickings for Tora and Poppi. They made short work of the arachnid threat, but not short enough for someone's tastes.

A battle cry sounded out as Red leaped over Tora and Poppi's heads, landed on a spider, then jumped over Kan-Ra's sand traps to barrel down the corridor toward the rebels. Tora waved frantically to try and get her to stop, but the mercenary wasn't even looking his way. “ Meh, meh, meh! Wait, wait!” he implored her. “Didn't friend learn last time!? Let protectors go first!”

If Red heard she gave no sign, which Tora figured he should have expected. They'd worked together before, and it worked out well, but by now it was clear she didn't care much for his ideas of how teams should work—just the enemy before her. As she sprinted forward she fired her pistol again and again, her first shot putting a hole in the Witch Doctor's shoulder. The jar she held fell and cracked open at her feet, but before her spiders could cause any problems the young man behind her sliced through all four at once with a single sweep of his swordblade. “Step aside, old lady,” he told her as he brushed past. “This a job for Dante the Demon Killer.”

Beneath her mask the Witch Doctor must have looked affronted. “I am not so old, and don't you dare speak down to me! I know a thing or two that would leave you crying for mama, little boy.”

“Me?” Dante smirked. “Not in a million years.” As Red ran toward him he nonchalantly dodged out of the way of her shots, then squeezed off a few of his own. The twin handguns he manifested put out a boatload of bullets to soften Red up as she grew closer. He then switched back to his sword and swung it in a reverse grip, releasing waves of red energy that traveled across the ground. The mercenary dodged all three and came down on Dante with an overhead axe swing he only barely intercepted with his sword.

“Oooh,” he drawled, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Nearly got me with-!” A headbutt from Red both threw and pissed him off, and with sudden strength Dante pushed her back. As he spun his sword morphed into a demonic axe, just in time for the two weapons to clash in a tremendous impact. Dante’s sheer strength won out, flung Red’s axe away, and followed through with an overhead swing strong enough to throw him into the air. The blow split the floor as a blade of demon energy carved forward, but Red twisted out of the way and leaped over. She grabbed Dante’s head and brought her pistol around to deliver a point-blank shot. As blood flew her wide-open eye blazed with victory, until Dante -very much still alive- grabbed by the hood, punched her in the guts, and hurled her back down the corridor.

Tora and Poppi ran as fast as they could, but in addition to corpse spiders the Witch Doctor invoked Grasp of the Dead to summon zombie hands. Their clawing grip seized hold of the protector’s limps and clothes, stalling until they could tear the hands off. As they struggled Dante jumped up and let loose Flush, bodily flinging Arbiter after the thrown mercenary. The axe’s weight buried it in Red’s chest in a spray of murky blood, provoking an anguished cry from Tora. “MEEEH!”

“Red!” Poppi cried, reaching out as Dante transformed his weapons into twin shuriken. In a sparking blaze that burned away her captors she transformed to QT Pi mode and rocketed forward, Variable Saber in hand. Tora grabbed hold of her scarf as she zoomed past and got yanked free. In the nick of time the two flew over Red and intercepted Dante’s Aquila, returning the cyclone blades to sender.

As Poppi stood in front to defend against incoming shots Tora bent over Red, and to his relief found her still breathing. “Meeeeh...she okay!” Nopon Rescue Service pulled her back from the brink, but she remained down for the count, and as long as Dante kept gunning for her, she wouldn’t be safe. Tora turned to join his blade on the offensive. “Alright Poppi, time for big revenge!”

“Easier said than done!” his companion warned. In front of her the Witch Doctor had conjured an entire household of horrible things to keep them at bay. Corpse spiders crawled across the walls and ceilings, undead hands reached out amid swarms of poisonous toads, and fire bats fluttered through the air alongside Dante’s gunfire. To say getting to them was a tall order would be putting it lightly.

Behind them, Kan-Ra’s smile did not fade. “I suppose I shall lend a hand.” Swirls of sand and blue magic danced around his hands as he raised them. Shadow seemed to fill the hall. “Mah...SU!” As he threw his hands up a wave of sand spikes sprouted before him, and much like Primrose’s pyromancy his magic raced down the hall towards his foes. The spikes skewered spider, toad, and hand alike in their relentless advance, and together Tora and Poppi charged down the opening they created. Their variable saber’s vibrant hum filled the air as it slashed again and again, dicing the pests Kan-Ra’s Shadow Spike missed. With a final blast they broke through and charged at Dante, but they hadn’t yet come to grips with Poppi’s new power. The swordsman countered with a well-timed upward slash that struck and carried both into the air. He pelted them with three air slashes, then brought them down with a drop slash. A ebony shotgun appeared in his hand and unleashed a series of blasts like fireworks, followed by a rising slash that popped them up for another brick-splitting swing from Arbiter.

At that moment Kan-Ra rose from the sand trap his Shadow Spike left behind and snatched Dante from behind with his bandages. He threw the swearing Nephilim against the wall, then as he bounced kicked him back into it, creating another sand trap as he did. The Witch Doctor leaped from behind, surrounded by minions, but Kan-Ra exploded in a burst of sand that blasted them apart and reappeared from his new trap only a little worse for wear. “Now,” he grinned as Tora and Poppi readied themselves with a switch to the blade’s Alpha form. “Let’s try this again.”

World of Light

Ms Fortune

Level 4 Nadia (69/40)
Location: The Maw - the Depths
Blazermate's @Archmage MC, Bowser's @DracoLunaris, Ace Cadet's @Yankee, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Frog's @Dark Cloud, Mirage’s @Potemking
Word Count: 1918

Like a cat at a mousehole, Nadia waited with bated breath. Seeing Sakura down in the dumps felt worse than nearly getting obliterated by the Abyssal onslaught out on Black Bay, and she hoped with all her heart that her wake-up call would jolt Sakura back to the irrepressible, never-say-die girl Nadia had come to know. Would that it were so easy.

The brave face Nadia put on for her friend fell as Sakura sputtered out more apologies. She wasn’t getting it. Maybe she wasn’t going to get it. Or maybe there wasn’t anything to get. “W-wait, hold on,” Nadia tried, “I’m sayin’ you didn’t kill him. It’s just a trick!” She let the weak declaration hang, unsupported. After all, she herself didn’t know for sure, other than the vague feeling that things couldn’t possibly be as messed up as they appeared. With no legs to stand on, how could she convince Sakura to accept such a different perspective? The Street Fighter probably saw right through her attempts to comfort her and explain things away, and shied away from the feral’s touch.

Nadia had failed, embarrassed herself probably, and in all likelihood made it worse. Her face burned and her guts twisted as she backed into the chain link fence. Stupid. Why’d I have to go and think I could help with stuff like this? She’d let this hero stuff go to her head. At the end of the day, all she was good for was fighting and stealing. She couldn’t be there for good people when bad things were happening to them. Dejected, the little feral looked away so that Geralt could do his thing.

Luckily, her inner turmoil got put on hold when she became aware of events unfolding over by the pilot seat. The diving suit that fell from the rack close by took on a life of its own, and as Sakura pointed out, not just any life, either. For a brief moment of near-absolute horror Nadia thought that Mirage’s soul had been sucked out by the machine and deposited into the diving suit, like an engine installed into another car. Worse still, that conclusion recontextualized the situation with Carl to be much worse than she desperately wanted it to be. Nadia stood, frozen, until she confirmed that it was Mirage’s voice still issuing from inside the techno-chair’s headcase, without any electronic interference. He hadn’t been soul-transferred; Mirage -the original Mirage- was still there.

She just about melted in relief, close to tearing up herself, but she managed to get a hold of herself. The team wasn’t out of the woods just yet. If Mirage still existed as a child, that meant somehow that this diving suit full of doodads and sludge was aping him with uncanny accuracy. It immediately started talking to the original, which Nadia realized in retrospect was probably a mistake, not that she or anyone else could have really stopped it. Made for a full-size human, the suit loomed larger than any of the heroes-turned-children, and as it grew more irate Nadia grew more uneasy.

At least Blazermate and Bowser diagnosed the problem quickly, the latter out of experience apparently and the first...because she was a robot? Nadia couldn’t say, but however the two managed to figure it out, she appreciated someone knowing what the heck was going on. It wasn’t the man she knew, but a machine mimicking him. Like a mockingbird. Somehow the chair copied Mirage’s mind and uploaded the copy into the nearest vessel, which would explain its behavior. Every response it gave made it clear that the suit thought itself the real deal, just like ‘Carl’ had. If it believed itself to be human to the point of seeing things that weren’t there, that dissonance could be a problem. Nadia remembered seeing enough sci-fi movies at the theater in Little Innsmouth to know that machines thinking for themselves was bad news for everyone.

At least this suit seemed to share Mirage’s helpful, obliging nature. If it had been Bowser in that chair they might have gotten an aggressive, assertive Mockingbird that wouldn’t cooperate to save its ‘life’, but luckily the pilot seat got one of the nicer bananas in the bunch. That gave Nadia a sliver of hope that the team could control or otherwise manage it somehow, but before they could do anything the real Mirage pulled himself out of the device to greet his Mockingbird face-to-face. Unfortunately they did not hit it off, and the subject of the real Mirage still being under Galeem’s influence came up instantly. “Aw, crud…” Nadia grimaced, rubbing her arm nervously. Maybe Junior had the right idea. Was puttering through the deep sea in a tin can surrounded by monsters and then drowning a horrible death really that bad compared to this?

Well, yes. Yes it was. But this wasn’t good either.

Behind her she heard the submarine hit the water, freed from the grasp of the ceiling arms, and though Nadia jumped she didn’t quite escape getting doused by the splash. “Yowch! That’s cold as hell!” she squealed as she dodged away, oblivious to the irony of her statement. As the submersible bobbed up and down she could see Junior inside, perfectly fine as he got the vehicle under control. Everything seemed pretty much operational on that front, but with nasty creatures on the prowl under there, would one manned vehicle really be enough?

Bella, meanwhile, had gone over to the console at the communications station that Junior used to maneuver the submarine into the water. As she examined it, Nadia watched her connect the dots. “Oh,” the teensy Abyssal observed. “We can use the arms to pick up the robot and put it into the water.” It seemed so obvious that Nadia might have beat herself up for not thinking of it sooner, if she were more self-conscious. Instead she felt a little more confident in the team’s odds. One more problem solved.

Her gaze diverted to Peach, who’d finished operating the conveyor belt to bring the BULL unit closer and followed in its footsteps(?) to rejoin everyone else in the Command Center. She arrived to find her group scattered and the walking, talking diving suit at the center of attention. “Eck-excuse me!?” she exclaimed, instantly on guard. Instinctively she raised her parasol like a sword. “What in the world is that thing!?”

The exclamation seemed to irritate the Mockingbird. ”Ugh, you too? You guys need to work on your comedic timing. Is this really the time for practical jokes?” In the silence that followed the red lights within its helmet swept over everyone present, their glow harsh. ”Hello? Did I forget to introduce myself? If so, then hi everyone, nice to meet ya, I’m Mirage. I like my Wingman, long walks on the beach, and not being called stuff like ‘copycat’ and ‘clone’ and ‘thing’. Again and again. Or being threatened all of a sudden. Is that too much to ask?”

Though wet and more than a little anxious, Nadia stepped up. “Hey, hey, hey, let’s take a deep breath here. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we’re sorry, alright? It’s just, the situation’s got us all a little, uh...frazzled. Its tough to tell what’s goin’ on exactly.”

”Yeah, I know.” The Mockingbird didn’t look convinced, although it didn’t look like much of anything, necessarily. ”Just...well, I know this is rich coming from me, but can we just take things a tiny bit more seriously?”

Bella cut the conversation short by activating the arm controls. It took her a little more experimentation than it did for Junior to make sense of it, but she managed to get the Universal Helper up and headed toward the drink, provided that Junior got the submarine out of the way and someone else got back behind the ‘wheel’ of the BULL. Considering their new company, however, Nadia wanted nothing to do with that contraption. She counted five more diving suits on the wall, and if that copying thing was a one-time deal, it would have ended with Carl. Then again, going down under with Junior sounded even worse.

Instead of moping, Nadia focused on what she could do to help. Something physical that made good use of her scrappy, alley-cat childhood. “So...since I’m sort of used to being hungry and I’m a good climber, I can go back up to the catwalks to try and distract the monsters and stuff.” She flicked her ears, the gears in her head turning. “There were some pinchers in the workshop I think. I might need some help to use them though. Ace, maybe?” The kitten implored her friend for aid.

Though still shaky, Peach focused on the task at hand rather than the Mockingbird. “Good idea. Once Junior gets going, we can put the robot in. The more stuff we have in the water, the better.” Her eyes landed on the life preserver stowed inside the submarine, in case of emergency, but she tried not to let them linger. “Then whoever gets clear can go for the controls. They’re at the very bottom, all the way to the right, going from the command center. Even someone walking along the bottom could get there.” This time she made a conscious effort not to look at either Blazermate or Mirage’s Mockingbird. She didn’t need to say anything about monsters, but everyone had good reason for not wanting to pile more lives into the submarine. “Good luck, Junior.”

Nadia knocked on the side of the submarine. “Here. Your biggest fan!” She offered Junior her precious tool. “If you have to get out of there, maybe it’ll work like a personal propeller.” With that, she made for the door, her own duty clear. After leaving the situation in the command center behind she made a quick detour back to Maintenance to grab a pair of bolt cutters from the table by the forge, then climbed back up the ladder to the web of hanging catwalks and bridges. Provided she got some help, she and her comrade could work the two handles of the cutters to shear right through the chain. One at a time they severed the chains, each snap echoing through the flooded factory and causing the weight of the attached bridge section to swing perilously. Once they separated the last one from the safety of a higher platform nearby, the whole thing plummeted downward. Its splash resounded through the whole area, but it was nothing compared to what came next.

From the water exploded a gigantic fish, more nightmarish even than the Megalodon from the open ocean, even if it wasn’t nearly as big. As it leaped toward the disturbance its mouth unfurled, a series of flaps studded with disgustingly human teeth, twisted and yellowed. More hideous by far was its back, covered in bulging, bloodshot eyeballs, with a handful of loose, wiggly tentacles poking out between them. Absolute terror possessed Nadia as the mutated monstrosity soared her way, and she turned tail to flee to the next platform, but the thing fell short and plunged back into the water. Its impact shook the Depths, and a few moments went by before Nadia dared to breathe again, but the first thing she did when she finally got her air moving was laugh. “Hah. Hah! Fishy bastard can’t reach us!” She turned to her partner in triumph. “As long as we don’t get too low, anyway. Let’s keep it up!” Bolt cutters in hand, she was ready for another round.

---

The stay-behinds’ new friend treated Kamek and Link to a look of mixed bewilderment and amusement as the Magikoopa explained Blue Team’s predicament, more as if he couldn’t believe that such a thing happened rather than how it happened. He didn’t spend too much time on exposition, though, and got down to business. Unfortunately, the Moogle wasn’t much help. “Agh, sorry, I can’t bring mucha anythin’ wit me. Just whatever li’l simple thing I got on hand.” After pausing to look at his back scratcher, the Moogle offered it to Kamek. “I got this though. Ya itchy or somethin’?”

When it came to the green-haired kid, the portly creature got a different request, along with a message to deliver. “Fiendlord...Magus?” he repeated. “Uh, sure thing pal, I’ll get right on that. Once I get back, I mean.” Warning an enemy that he was being pursued sounded like a bad idea, but hey, it wasn’t his place to ask questions.

Link then confronted the Moogle with another question, and he shook his head. “Nah, right before comin’ I scarfed down a whole bucket-a...uh, I mean, it ain’tcha business what I ate. But I’m good for a while.”

Cold Monastery

Location: Frozen Highlands - Alpine Skyline
Linkle’s @Gentlemanvaultboy

As one might expect, another flurry of questions flew from Linkle the moment Guerra went quiet. With a smile for the girl’s eager energy, he did his best to answer. “When he came, the Stranger was angry, rude, thuggish, even. It did not seem as though he were looking for a lost treasure or companion, no. More as if he was on the hunt. We didn’t anticipate his abilities, of course, and when our guards asked that he leave, he thrashed them. One he threw through a wall.” The Father’s features looked grim. Albedo felt no need to seek clarification on whether or not it had been an interior wall.

“The rest spent days in recovery, even with all the healers in this place,” Guerra continued. “Nobody could so much as scratch him. He could have taken this place apart plank by plank, sent it tumbling down into the misty valley, except he didn’t care to. Instead he combed the place, searching high and low for whoever it was he sought. Only the idols seemed to catch his attention. He intimidated them, but turned around and continued his search. Except for Skadi.” Rubbing his chin, Guerra looked out the window. “He questioned her, but even though she didn’t recognize him, something she said prompted him to attack anyway. The two fought, but he was much stronger, and afterward something broke in her. He never came back, but she changed. You’ll see for yourself what I mean,” he told Linkle.

Guerra sighed and clenched his fists. “I am no stranger to tyranny. To cruel people in power who treat the lives of good, ordinary folk like nothing. But until that day their power has been political, or that of numbers. To encounter a single, mighty being, whose raw strength there is no hope of opposing...a humbling, yet frustrating experience.”

He uncurled his hands and slapped his knees, getting to his feet. “Pardon me, you have no need for an old man’s complaining. I’d be happy to bring you to meet Skadi. It is good of you to concern yourself with respect, although if there is something this idol would like, I’m afraid I have no idea. She does not seem to have needs, other than followers perhaps, and she is not articulate enough to express wants. But it seems she busies herself with creating cryptic images and messages, so maybe she’d like drawing supplies.”

Albedo narrowed his eyes. “You keep saying things like that. Broken, changed, coherent. Do you mean to say she is mentally unwell?”

“It’s...difficult to describe,” Guerra admitted, the creases visible in his forehead. He rose. “Better to show you. This way.”

Guerra led his guests through the cozy halls of the third tower, exchanging greetings with other residents as he went. The sense of warmth in this place, Albedo realized, went well beyond its hearths and braziers. As he followed the Father he considered what the man said about gods and idols. In his home world, each nation dwelled under the auspice of an Archon, although the extent to which each Archon impacted day to day life differed. The Qixing of Liyue received intermittent guidance from their god, while the deity of Inazuma supposedly ruled the country as shogun. In Mondstadt, meanwhile, the God of Freedom never showed his face, and if he received the prayers of his church, never gave a sign. Seldom if ever did Mondstadt consider the Archons in his day to day life, not finding it a particularly interesting topic, but he guessed that if all a goddess did was stoke fires in a kitchen, he wouldn’t respect her much, either.

Shortly the trio descended some steps to enter the tower’s basement. Here the foundations mindled with the uneven surface of the mountain, so the area was neither ordlerly nor consistent, but what space was available appeared to be used for storage. Guerra strode past barrelled supplies and other goods toward an open area in the back. Neither lock nor key nor even door barred the way, so as soon as Linkle and Albedo followed the Father through the empty doorway, they could see the goddess for themselves.

Rendered speechless for a moment, Albedo could not in any sense say that what he saw was what he expected. Seated in the center of the floor was a woman in almost garishly colorful attire, striped pink and yellow and blue, with mint-green hair done up in pink-tipped pigtails, and a wealth of makeup and accessories. Seeing a grown woman decorated in a manner more fitting to a young child struck Albedo as more than a little strange. By her side lay a huge dog, but despite its size Albedo could not call the beast intimidating. It was pudgy and fluffy, with a chubby, comical face, giving him a look that the alchemist found resilient to classification. A creature more marshmallow than mongrel, he thought. The bizarre pair sat together in a mess of paper strewn across the floor, most of them bearing images of the dog along with a couple of inscriptions. Albedo couldn’t stop himself trying to read one, but the words didn’t make any sense, and the next few he attempted seemed no better.

Baffled, he looked to Father Guerra for explanation, but the priest could only shrug. Evidently this was what he’d been referring to earlier, and from the looks of it he could explain it about as well as the new arrivals. Guerra cleared his throat to get the attention of the goddess Skadi, who turned and brightened up to see her visitors. “Konnichiwa!” she sang. Her companion peered at Linkle and Albedo with a sidelong glance, and as Skadi realized she didn’t recognize either of them, she turned to her dog in excitement. “Here’s a treat: they are new! Oh, everyone is going to love you, Doge! You are just the cutest! Look at that silly face and them eyes!”

To Albedo’s further surprise her companion spoke, albeit in a dopey voice that sounded like someone pretending to be an idiot. “Much wow?”

“Yes, very much wow!” Skadi agreed. She glanced back at the newcomers, her eyes unfocused, then pulled out the picture she’d been working on and offered it to Linkle. Like the others it had a drawing of her dog, along with crayon scribblings that said very like such meme much laugh wow so doge. She beamed as she pushed it at the Skullgirl. “How kawaii is this?”

Guerra coughed. “Pardon us, miss Skadi. These two wanted to ask you something.” With the goddess more interested in sharing her images, however, his announcement received no response.

Infactorium: A New 4Xpansion (Overlord RP) [DISCONTINUED]

Sorry for the silence as of late. I've been trying to think about where I should go next. Unless I'm mistaken there hasn't been much progress on the repair of the Gorging Trough, so I'm not sure what else I can have Mae do. Perhaps I should send her to Faetalis to give a report of her mission with Gammaton?

World of Light

Team Kan-Ra

Location: Al Mamoon Northwest - Obelisk Temple
Yoshitune's @Rockin Strings, Fox’s @Dawnrider, Primrose’s @Yankee, Red’s @TheDemonHound, Tora and Poppi, Big Band, Kan-Ra, Panther, Skull

Through the residential district’s rows of housing Kan-Ra led his entourage in search of a particular temple. He moved with undeniable purpose, and it didn’t take him long to zero in on his target. Following him proved to be a little frustrating, if not difficult, since rather than slowly glide the whole way the sorcerer opted for a different approach. Instead he moved in bursts by placing a sand trap far ahead of him, which took the shape of a miniature cluster of sandy pyramids, and then exploding into sand to reappear from the trap. He repeated this process over and over again, fast enough to force everyone to hustle to keep up, including his acolytes. By the time everyone reached their destination more than a few were huffing and puffing, but there was no time to waste.

The temple in front of them lay comfortably nestled among a bunch of houses, and it seemed to be open. A number of Grimleal peacekeepers were already on site, loosely spread out around the building to avoid causing too much of a scene, but there was no sign of their commander. When Kan-Ra approached a couple underlings moved to greet him, exchanging a few quick words. The sorcerer bowed his head in thanks and turned to face the others. “The Obelisk of Khamoon,” he told them. “A local attraction, frequented by many for its serene beauty. Its lower levels are closed to the public for the sake of historical preservation, but some vermin have infested the place, regardless. Azwel has already begun his descent. Let us not delay.”

“Round two for pest control,” Tora joked. He and Poppi moved to the front of the group, Mech Arms ready for action, and Band stepped up right behind them. Kan-Ra joined him, and with their protectors in front, the heroes made their way up the stairs into the temple. It took the form of a single vaulted room rich in columns and archways, every inch of real estate covered by gorgeous carvings, patterns, and hieroglyphics. Reliefs of ancient beings, their animal heads almost lifelike in their detail, reached out from the walls in orderly rows. As fascinating as it all looked it seemed all too familiar to Kan-Ra, who pointed the way toward one of the temple’s two towers, the one in the bottom left. At one point a rope barred the way to a spiral staircase, but now it lay cleanly cut on the floor, the NO ENTRY sign on the wall discarded.

Tora stepped right over the rope and started down the stairs into the darkness; with Poppi by his side and a bunch of friends (and not-friends) behind him, he was practically fearless. The ice-blue glow of Poppi’s ether furnace lit the way as he followed the stairs to the bottom and started down a corner. Though this place seemed like the quintessential dungeon Tora didn’t really get the impression of a spooky derelict catacombs. “Temple remind Tora of oasis ruins,” he mentioned. “Stuff in good condition, not creepy. Like museum. If there no more icky-pooey deadypons to fight, Tora happy.” He looked sideways at Kan-Ra. “N-not that there, mehhh, anything wrong with undead.”

The sorcerer’s upper lip twitched. “Though I may not look it, I am alive. Clinging on to what little I have left, as it were. And I am not a mummy.”

Tora didn’t believe him one bit, but he wasn’t about to tell him that. Instead he led the way around a corner, and when he spotted some light up ahead, made a beeline in that direction. The echoes of some sort of clash hastened him on his way. He arrived at a three-way intersection, with the path straight ahead terminating in a balcony that looked out across a vast vertical space. The railing was tall enough that an adult woman could just barely peer out over it, so while Poppi picked up her Masterpon to give him a look, Band sidled up to the wall and leaned out to take the whole place in.

Decorated with massive hieroglyphics, the giant chamber extended a good five stories down, and at the very bottom a pool of bright blue water sat, still as the surface of a mirror. Up above a square hole covered by a grate let filtered sunlight shine down across the whole affair, and between the chamber’s depths and heights a massive monolith nearly spanned the whole space. Perhaps the temple’s titular Obelisk of Khamoon, it encapsulated the majesty of the place with the incredibly crafted birds and painstakingly etched runes across its shining surface, but Band could admire it later. As long as the Resistance was calling this place home, it was no more than a den of murderers and thieves. He busied himself searching for a lead, and by the time Poppi elevated Tora enough for him to see, Band found one.

“Down there.” He pointed down at a portion of the third floor, the first floor from the top to be open to the central atrium with the aid of supportive pillars and floor-to-ceiling tablets. He couldn’t make out exact details, but he could see bursts of blue and red light, either magic or enchanted weaponry. The flash and rattle of gunfire, however, was unmistakable. “Looks like your man Azwel already found himself some company. Let’s boogie.”

Poppi considered the problem before them. “Masterpon and Poppi can fly down, but not want leave friends. Or run right into trap.”

Since most of the group couldn’t fly or climb down, they needed to find a different way, and turned away from the balcony to consider the left and right halls. Skull looked between them but could find no difference. “Man, which way’s the right one?” he asked aloud, scratching at his dyed hair. “Man, I wish Oracle were here right about now!”

“We could try jumping down into the water,” Panther observed. “But that would make us sitting ducks if they’re all waiting down there.”

Kan-Ra’s brows furrowed over his glowing eyes. “We do not have time to waste. It may be wisest to-”

“Ether spike detected!” Poppi alerted the group, interrupting him. She looked up to see an orange magic building above the group. Grabbing Tora’s wing, she jetted backward out of the way. “Look out!”

A moment later the summoned meteor crashed down right where the team had been standing, splitting them four ways across the intersection. “Now!” a deep voice called out, and all at once the enemy appeared. Around the corners of both lateral hallways a pair of enemies appeared. From the left side a dragon mage appeared to start hurling fireballs that burned with the same flame that the meteor left behind. Beside him stood a surly-looking dwarf with a fearsome warhammer and a magic-looking shield.

Opposite them, a witch doctor in a horned mask threw pots that shattered to produce a swarm of corpse spiders that scuttled the intruders’ way. A gun-wielding punk had her back, but he seemed more eager to taunt than open fire. “Got your dumbasses! Any last words?”

His words proved closer to reality than one might hope as a secret door opened into the corridor Kan-Ra’s team entered by. It admitted a tough-looking woman with a hunting rifle who promptly started shooting down the hallway, while an ogre of a man almost big enough to scrape the edges of the hallway lumbered out behind her. After she fired her opening salvo, Earthquake stood ready to take on anyone who came toward them.

While Tora raised his Mech Arms toward the spiders, ready to get their attention and start squashing bugs, Band guarded against Fitzroy’s gunshots with his cymbal. “Bah! So much for gettin’ in n’ out.” He slid one foot backward, preparing to charge. “All we’ve got’s the spur of the moment, so unless y’all wanna paint the walls, we’ve gotta split and run ‘em down!” He narrowed his eyes at the enormous kusarigama-wielder downrange. “Watermelon Man’s mine, but I could use a hand with his friend.”

Bringing his metal fist down hard, Tora pancaked a corpse spider with a squelch that turned his stomach, but the two that leaped at him next kept him from losing his edge. “Tora and Poppi take on nastypons this way!”

Kan-Ra joined them, but Skull and Panther focused on the dwarf and the dragon the other way. “C’mon, Panth, let’s teach these jerks a thing or two!”

His friend stuck out her tongue cheekily as she turned to face them, her new submachine gun in hand. “Won’t know what hit ‘em!”

World of Light

They cannot since they do not gain the required experience or prerequisite levels.

World of Light

There's been something of a miscount. Yankee did request one of the demon spirits, and since Primrose was at the Museum of Vanity Primrose's claim would take precedence. That leaves only one spirit, and it looks like Mao claimed it, so there isn't an extra for Laharl.

World of Light

I just named the teams after who's guiding them to their destination. As for spirits, since Laharl didn't participate in the Museum of Vanity, he wouldn't logically get first claim to the loot. And even Mao has been more cooperative than he. Getting a share of rewards may be another reason to cast his lot with the Seekers.

World of Light

Tora, Poppi, and Big Band

Level 9 Tora (24/90) Level 8 Poppi (94/80) Level 3 Big Band (15/30)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon
Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Yoshitune's @Rockin Strings, Fox’s @Dawnrider, Mao’s @Potemking, Primrose’s @Yankee, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 1887

So, without even a few minutes for everyone to compose themselves, they would be sent once more into the breach. Band gave a sigh that entered his mouthpiece and came out as a deflated-sounding musical note. Though in fact fully restored by the Friend Heart given to him, he would have liked at least a little time to settle down and fortify himself before more fighting. But people were already in motion, which meant he needed to kick it into gear, too. “No rest for the wicked, huh?”

Sand swirled beneath Kan-Ra, lifting him a few inches into the air. “Off already, hm?” His unblinking gaze fixed on Fox. “Robin is where I’m headed--a certain unsavory nook in the residential district. I’ll look forward to our cooperation, hm?” With that, he glided out, none too fast.

As the others took off Tora and Poppi lingered by Band for a moment, the Nopon’s protests going unheard by the frontrunners. “Wait! Just because Tora self-heal doesn’t mean Tora get stamina back!”

Band looked down at him and extended a giant hand, big enough to grab Tora and hold him like a basketball. “If you’re runnin’ on fumes, I can give ya a lift.”

Although he looked tempted, Tora ended up shaking his head. “No thanks. Tora not want be carried!” Band showed his respect for the decision with a nod, and the trio set off after the main group. Although the question of how the two teams would be divided lay on everyone’s minds, they jogged in silence for now so that the Twilight Princess could bring everyone up to speed on the state of things. The exposition Midna delivered to the newly-freed fighters, Band included, was a lot to take in on short notice. Suddenly there was a much bigger picture in play, and though the detective would need to confront it in due time, the game plan remained the same for now.

Together the Seekers, the Phantom Thieves, and Kan-Ra’s Grimleal made for quite the attention-grabbing procession, not to mention the space they took up, and as the convoy passed the entrance to the Bazaar the frontrunners came to a stop. Too short to see anything, Tora could only slow down in wonderment as he, Poppi, and Band made for what looked like an impromptu foot traffic jam As they got closer it wasn’t long before they realized, however, that the sudden stop was the result of a single obstruction. Worse still, it was one most people present could recognize and groan internally at: that precocious demon child, Laharl. Even worse, he had some sort of beef with Mao of all people, and the ensuing exchange did a lot to make both of them look like bad guys.

While the two came to terms the others slunk into the shade offered by the colorful awnings of the nearby buildings. Tora glanced back down the street to see Kan-Ra pulling up ahead of his acolytes, gliding on a wave of sand. His unblinking eyes went between the scene ahead of them and the rest of the stopped fighters. “My, aren’t we carefree,” he grinned. “You must be strong indeed if you truly plan to forge ahead without a strategy or preparation.”

Joker crossed his arms. “Now’s as good a time as any,” he declared, suggesting that the team make use of the delay. After Primrose somehow pacified Laharl a little, she offered the loot from the Museum of Vanity, and once she’d finished complaining Sectonia produced a ghastly-looking headpiece that she said could help with its itemization. Everything about it screamed ‘dangerous’, but Joker stared at the Symbol of Avarice with resolution in his eyes. “I’ll try it. Panther, would you mind…?”

The girl was already nodding, her pigtails bouncing as she did. With her friends around her changing wouldn’t make enough of a spectacle to attract unwanted attention, so in a flare of blue flame she donned her iconic mask and catsuit once again. “Ready to heal you if anything goes wrong.”

“You’re the best. Thank you. As for the spirit...” He looked over those offered by Primrose. “Jesse, you deserve the spoils from the eldritch monster. And the fate of Yuga should be yours to decide, Fox.” From the remaining six he ended up claiming the remains of a Nyabon. “I’ll try this spirit, if you don’t mind. Here goes.” Gingerly the young man took hold of the chest. He noted its big, floppy tongue, then put it on. He stood there, head covered by the ridiculous thing, for all of a second before its effect took hold. “Ow. Ow, ow.” Without further ado he crushed the Nyabon spirit, which shattered into fragments of light that quickly coalesced into a demonic pistol. The moment he felt its weight in his hand Joker pulled off the Symbol of Avarice.

Panther hovered over him, figuratively speaking. “Are you okay? What happened? Do you need healing?”

“I’m alright,” Joker reported. “It didn’t actually hurt that badly, but it kept hurting, and getting worse. Like grabbing a hot skillet on the stove.” He looked down at his new weapon, intrigued. “This looks pretty good.”

Band examined the unusual firearm with a seasoned eye. “That’s one mean-lookin’ hand cannon,” he said. “Careful where you point it, ‘less you like the idea of blowin’ someone back to stardust.”

The Phantom Thief Fox stepped up next. “Though he deserves it not, I will see if I can make anything beautiful from what that reprobate left behind. Like this?” He grasped Yuga’s spirit tentatively, then slipped on the chest hat and squeezed the mote until it broke. From its shards manifested a sheer black blade with edges that shone with all the colors of a painter’s palette. Once relieved of his headwear Fox stared at the weapon with reverence. “Magnificent…! Though I will not forgive him, I will relish this chance to better vanquish evil.”

Not counting the Shambler put aside for Jesse, that left five demon spirits, and though they didn’t relish the chest’s painful curse Mona, Panther, and Skull all expected a chance of their own. In particular Mona dreaded a sensation that reminded him of his head getting enlarged earlier, but nevertheless the greedy cat braved the Symbol of Avarice to turn a Dead Fish spirit into a Swordfish Rapier. With no need for her healing, Panther returned to her civilian outfit before converting an Inugami spirit into a sleek black-and-white SMG. Finally, Skull pulled a fearsome kanabo from an oni spirit. His eyes practically bugged out when he got his hands on it. “Holy crap, this thing kicks ass!” He looked over everyone’s treasures. “Wow, we all got stuff that works for us. That freaky-ass hat’s the real deal.” Only two spirits remained with which to utilize it.

Although the spirit-breaking left a number of his new allies better-armed, Kan-Ra did not look fully satisfied. “That is all good, but we have yet to decide who’s going where.” He tented his fingers, examining the gathered fighters. “If our new friend is leading the way to the office hideout, with Midna and the rascal alongside, my colleagues and I will assist Azwel with the other one. But since only I will enter to reinforce him, we could use some extra strength.” He looked at Joker, but the teenager looked to Fox, giving him the first pick.

“I’ll go with him. Joker and his team can take the other side, and split the rest of us evenly both ways. Where everyone goes is up to them, but keep your strengths in mind,” he reminded them, regarding their potential team composition. All he knew for sure was that the Thieves would stick together regardless, and that he had to separate from them to keep a line of communication.

Joker chimed in after him. “Actually, it might be a good idea if the Thieves split, three and three. We usually work in teams of four max, after all. And both sides need healing.” His companions saw the wisdom in such a move. “One bruiser, one mage, and one all-rounder for each time. I’ll go with Mao, alongside Skull and Panther. Fox, Mona, and Necro, can you go with...uh, the other Fox?”

“Aw, I wanted to go with Lady Panther!” the cat complained.

Yusuke, meanwhile, looked pensive. “Two Foxes, is it? A stroke of misfortune. Loath as I am to assume a different moniker, perhaps we should take a page out of Oracle’s book and call me Inari for the rest of this operation?”

“Uh...” Fox paused for a moment trying to process an appropriate affirmation before awkwardly, indifferently settling on “Sure.” with a head shake and a shrug.

Joker’s expression made it look like that left a bad taste in his mouth. “Hm. Let’s just switch everyone, then. Phantom Thief Fox and Mona with me, Skull and Panther with...Kan-Ra.”

Jumping up and down, Mona exclaimed, “That still doesn’t solve my issue!”

Joker pretended he didn’t hear him. “As for the rest, hmm. Sectonia with me would make one flier each. Then Band with Kan-Ra would make one heavyweight each.”

The detective glanced at the mummified sorcerer. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. “Works for me.”

That left Tora, Poppi, Jesse, Red, Yoshitsune, and Primrose. Since the hamster and the android effectively counted as one, that made an odd number, and these three didn’t have much in common. If only…

“What’s this?!” A big voice brought everyone’s attention to the entrance of the Bazaar, through which a familiarly huge man with a familiarly amazing mustache was headed their way. Braum treated everyone to a smile. “Hello again, my friends! I just finished carrying crates around. If not for blazing hot desert, I would not have even worked up sweat!”

Joker clapped his hands together. “Perfect timing, sir! If Tora and Poppi go with me and you with Kan-Ra, both teams will have a defender. Then Primrose and Yoshitsune with Kan-Ra, then Red and Jesse with me, I suppose.” His gaze swept across those present. “Is that alright with everyone?”

Looking excited, Tora jumped up and down. “Okay. Sound good to Tora, meh!”

Fox chimed in to suggest a simple edit. “Swap shields with us,” he suggested. “Give us Tora and Poppi, and you can take Braum and keep Necro with you. That way we’ll still have a flier, and we need an ear on your side in case anything happens.” Moreover, if it meant Fox’s team ended up with a marginally favorable number, given they would have two Grimleal officers on their end instead of one, their odds may work out better should they decide to turn on them.

“That means an uneven distribution of Thieves, but...” The young man pointed out. “We probably can make it work. You okay with it, Skull, Panther?”

It looked like Skull was. “Aw, yeah! Some quality alone time~!”

“You wish!” Panther scoffed, though she didn’t look that scornful.

Joker nodded. “Good. And by the way…” He narrowed his eyes at Laharl and Jesse. “If there’s a good chance to free anyone who needs it, take it. All set, guys?”

Fox replied with a nod, then told them, “Good luck, and stay sharp!” With their teams (and loadouts) decided, Fox gave the official word to break for their respective destinations. “Let’s go!”

---

Team Mao

Location: Al Mamoon Northeast - Rocket Inc.
Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Mao’s @Potemking, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Laharl’s @Dark Cloud, Joker, Mona, Fox, Necronomicon, Braum

Looking up at the building, with all those stark glass windows, it was hard to imagine it as anything but a run-of-the-mill office building where old people without adventure or ambition filed taxes or tallied censuses or something. But then again, where better to put a secret than somewhere so normal nobody would give it a second thought, let alone a glance? Of course, none of this really mattered when the front doors lay in shambles, blasted open by a single piercing blow dead center. An inexplicably vast amount of water soaked the entrance area, while a cohort of Grimleal acolytes formed a perimeter around the building, keeping both a watch of the building and civilians away. There could be no doubt that Mao led the team to the right place. With Necronomicon among their number thanks to Jesse’s Tool Gun’s shrinking powers, the ten hurried inside.

They entered the building’s ground floor office sprawl to find a shootout in progress. Closest to the door stood a very tall rabbit lady with a longbow even bigger than she was., using a column as cover. Thanks to her position she spotted the newcomers immediately, and shared with Midna and Sectonia mutual recognition. The rest must be allies of theirs, since the Grimleal outside let them through without a scuffle. “Get down!” she yelled.

The next second a fusillade of bullets rained down on the entrance, forcing everyone to run for cover in a mad dash for safety. Gunfire struck anyone too slow off the mark, but that didn’t include the Phantom Thieves, who became dark blurs as they vanished into hiding. On the other side of the room stood a mustached gunman with a Flatline assault rifle, a minigun-toting lunatic, and a tough-looking brawler with a carbine. The man wiped his forehead with a robotic arm. “Aw hell, it’s a full-blown invasion! Time to roll out the welcome wagon!”

Next to him the minigunner cackled. “You nuts? We’ve got this! We’ll just rip ‘em up too!”

“There’s too many,” the third observed. “We should bring the fight to the basement!” At that moment Ciella ducked out from cover and took aim. Water magic built in her bow as she pulled taut the string, and when she released it five huge bolts of water rocketed forth in a spread pattern. They tore across the office space, flinging furniture and documents around in watery pandemonium. When they hit the walls they ricocheted, but the shooters took evasive maneuvers. “We’re on the back foot now.” Amara growled. She spotted Braum advancing in front of Ciella, his shield impervious to gunfire. “They’re gonna rush us.”

“Psh. I’ll handle this.” A lone hedgehog strolled out from behind cover, grenade launcher in hand. Without any hesitation he opened fire, laying waste to the floor space. The explosions confounded Braum and blew him back. When Shadow’s weapon ran dry, he clicked his tongue. “Hey, old-timer. Do your damn job!”

A warrior ran by him, inhaling deeply. There was a split second, like the calm before the storm. Then he yelled. “Fus...ro dah!” An enormous shockwave rolled across the ground along with his voice, throwing up a tsunami of furniture.

As desks and chairs rained down around him Mona clutched his head in his hands. “This is insanity!” he yowled. “We can’t even dash between cover if they’re hurling our cover around!”

Joker nodded as he watched a filing cabinet smash against Braum’s shield. “We can’t make progress in a mess like this. We have to split them up.”

With a sniff Ciella exited her cover. Bullets struck her but she barely seemed to react. “I’ll grant you this opportunity. Bring them despair!” She charged, carried forth by a tide of water, and like a wave against the shore soaked up everything that came her way before crashing into the gunners’ fortress. Then she welled her power up around her and unleashed an omnidirectional wave, scattering her foes.

The Phantom Thieves surged forth from hiding, Joker in the lead. “Now! Pick your fights and take them out, two on one!”

Ms Fortune

Level 4 Nadia (67/40)
Location: The Maw - the Depths
Blazermate's @Archmage MC, Bowser's @DracoLunaris, Ace Cadet's @Yankee, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Frog's @Dark Cloud, Mirage’s @Potemking
Word Count: 1438

After sitting down to rest on top of the hanging submarine, Nadia watched the others doing their best from her vantage point. The Koopa Troop plus Rika took her advice and started to trace the wire bundle that fed into the ceiling arm. Being more technically minded than his father or the Abyssal, Junior managed to track down a likely candidate in the form of the communications station up by the Command Center’s overlook window. It featured a bevy of switches and controls, and once the little guy climbed up into the slightly damp swivel chair in front of it, he could take a good look.

Judging by the sliminess of the terminal Moreau had gotten his hands on it a few times, but it wasn’t so crusted that he couldn’t claw some off and make out the controls’ labels in the poor light. Most of them related to radio operation, but there seemed to be one that could lower the bay’s safety cage. In the bottom right Junior found two levers and a release. One lever bore a label that read Submersible Arms and the other Arm Track. Both offered enough resistance to demand the strength of two hands, but moving the latter slid the arms’ mounting from over the floor to over the water, and when Junior pulled down the former the arms lowered the submarine as well. Nadia grabbed hold and hung on tight as the near-spherical vehicle descended toward the water, her ears flattened to try and muffle out the loud, hydraulic whine of the machine arms. It took only a few noisy moments for the arms to reach their full length and dip the underside of the submarine in the water. A couple feet of clearance extended to either side except for the one with the cage door, where the promontory provided easy access to the vehicle’s back.

Nadia clapped her hands. “Nice going, that wasn’t so bad! Now we just have to...actually go down there. Heh.” Though she tried to hide her fear of going underwater, the droop of her ears said enough. She shivered as she peered into the water. “It’s pretty dark down there. Won’t we need Blazermate to scan for the...uh, whatever we’re looking for? This thing might have lights, but that’ll make it a sitting duck for any monsters down there.”

Glancing between Blazermate and Nadia, Bella looked concerned. “Well...unfortunately, there’s a good chance any creature would be able to detect it even in the dark. Unless they’re less developed than the average fish, they can probably both hear and feel things moving through the water.”

“Gahhhhahaha...” Nadia groaned, giving a wry laugh. “Guess we’ll need to give the monsters something else to pay attention to.”

At about that time, Mirage’s efforts with the pilot seat were bearing fruit. In a twist of fate his new toy ended up connecting to the vacant shell of the universal helper BULL unit that now lay in the hallway. He could move its arms and crane its head around, but that seemed to be all--unless the others could use the conveyor belt the machine lay on to bring it to the water. Although Geralt wanted to help, he didn’t know the first thing about what Mirage meant by conveyor. Sakura filled him in on the second part, but from up above Nadia filled in some extra details. “No worries! I don’t know half of these gizmos, and I don’t even have an excuse. But a conveyor belt’s like a movin’ carpet, pretty much. And it just carries whatever’s on it whatever way it’s movin’. Doesn’t get much belter than that!” She grimaced. “Yikes, that was crap. This place must be gettin’ to me.”

But it was getting to someone else a lot worse. Nadia’s eyes rested uneasily on Sakura as the other girl headed toward the pit, passing Peach on the way as she went to activate the conveyor. Sakura was muttering to herself about the situation. For a moment it seemed like she was looking on the bright side, but something was weird. Her manner and her words were discordant. The feral didn’t get much time to think about it before Sakura promptly threw up.

Quickly Nadia looked away, but her skin wouldn’t stop crawling. An uncomfortable tension filled the Command Center’s atmosphere, silent as the grave except for the patter of Peach’s feet as she headed back down the hall toward the terminal. Nobody wanted to deal with what happened, Nadia least of all. But something in her roiled. She couldn’t quite describe what or why, but it angered her. Most fundamentally she didn’t want to see Sakura upset--loveable, innocent Sakura, whose double dose of naivety and compassion was now making her suffer. It isn’t right, she thought. But things weren’t going to get any better. No doubt the road ahead would have even worse choices and consequences. Could Sakura walk down that path, like this? No. Nadia could imagine the poor girl collapsing and never getting up, the weight of one robot heavier on her heart than the fate of the whole world. And even if she did, the defeat in her soul might spell the difference between life and death the next time a monster reached out to grab her. If the world wasn’t going to change, Sakura would have to.

Nadia jumped down from the submarine, her bare feet smacking against the concrete. She scampered over to where Sakura knelt and grabbed her shoulder. “Hey!” she said with force, her anger unmasked. She shook the girl roughly. “Get a hold of yourself! Don’t you realize what you’re doing?”

Spinning Sakura around, the feral looked her in the face. “You’re giving them the win! This is exactly what they’re trying to do!” She craned her neck around to look at the others for support. “They trapped us in this place, full of awful crap. Its one big, nightmare funhouse, and we’re along for the ride! Everything in this place is designed to take our power away, to make us hungry and miserable, and to scare the bejeezus out of us.” Her expression softened as she squeezed Sakura’s shoulder. “I know it feels awful. I don’t blame ya. Butcha know why it feels awful? ‘Cause it’s made to! You’re the nicest out of all of us, so they’re goin’ after you.” She stepped away, pointing a finger right at her friend’s heart, then crossed her arms. “They think you’re the weakest link ‘cause you’re nice. You really gonna let them do ya like that? Give yourself up on a platter? A nice, tasty Kasugano Snack-ura? Come on! I thought you were tough!” Nadia instantly realized she’d probably gone too far by insulting the girl. But surely Sakura wasn’t going to just fizzle out and give up? That wasn’t the read Nadia got at all. The Street Fighter just needed a jump start to realize -or at least, to think- that she was being played. Then she could rise up against the evil that sought to oppress her, her fighting spirit renewed.

....Right?

At about that time Peach got the conveyor running. The device’s rollers ran its belt slowly but steadily, bearing the BULL unit toward the Command Center. Mirage remained wired in, but there wasn’t a lot for him to do but wait and worry about what was going on with the others. Rather, distracted by Sakura and the hubbub surrounding her, he didn’t notice a slight but growing combined sensation of headache and nausea. As eletromagnetism built within the pilot seat’s headcase, however, the discomfort worsened, until it finally spiked and disappeared. The surge’s abrupt departure left the poor boy disoriented and reeling but otherwise okay, rather like he’d suddenly recovered from a heavy migraine. If he examined the machine it would betray no abnormality, but the bizarre and unpleasant side effect would no doubt warrant some reconsideration on Mirage’s part.

While he dealt with that, something else was afoot. With a click the clamps holding one of the diving suits in place released themselves, causing the suit to flop over backwards and fall to the floor, startling Bella. It hit the ground hard enough to suggest some real weight inside the suit, although Bella couldn’t imagine what that might be. To her horror, the suit started to move on its own. She scooted backward with a muted cry as one arm slid across the ground towards the helmet, reached up, and rubbed the side of it like how someone might massage their temple. “Oogh…” came a strangely electronic yet familiar voice from inside. “That wasn’t fun…”

---

For a moment only silence greeted Link’s inquiry, which could only be understandable. After all, how could the cute, fuzzy, fairly-like Moogles of Alcamoth possibly appear in an accursed hellhole like this, who knows how far beneath the stormy waters of a monster-infested sea?

One did anyway.

With a magical poof a portly Moogle manifested in front of Link, apparently mid-way through taking care of a hard-to-reach itch with the aid of a backscratcher. “Whoa, ‘ey, what in the, ahum, ugh!” the creature exclaimed in surprise. His voice was weirdly deep and gargly for a Moogle, the sort one would expect out of some sweat-stained, pizza-eating, beer-guzzling middle-aged Manhattan apartment dweller, and not at all a mystical koala pixie. He waved with the backscratcher, trying to appear cheerful. “I mean, heyas! Moogle messenger, at your service, and, uh...wait a sec, who the heck are yous guys?” His gaze shifted rapidly between Kamek, Link, and Glen in utter confusion. “When did we link up with a buncha tots? But...whoa!” Flapping around in a circle, he took in the sights of the Depths. “What the heck’s this place?! This ain’t no daycare!”

Cold Monastery

Location: Frozen Highlands - Alpine Skyline
Linkle’s @Gentlemanvaultboy

As Linkle bombarded him with questions and details, Father Guerra held up his hands in surrender. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, little miss! Back up just a moment. Someone tried killing you?” He looked at Albedo for confirmation, but the Alchemist was in the process of showing sketches from his book and didn’t think to do anything but nod. “Invincible, you say…” He considered the casual manner in which the pair seemed to be treating the subject matter, as well as the young lady’s crossbows and the ominous feeling that clung to her. It took him only a moment to understand, and when Guerra looked back at Linkle he saw her in a new light.

“Pardon me, you’re clearly not ordinary people. Come with me.” He closed his book and set it aside, then stood and began to walk, leading his guests to a more private area by a window. When they sat again a slight change had affected his demeanor, some sort of tightening around the eyes maybe. The kindness did not leave them, but they held steel, too. This was a Father who could get down to business--a man who offered a sandwich to the hungry and a lead pipe to the evil. “I may be an old man, but I’d like to think I can help people like you. People who want to make the world a better place.” After accepting the sketchbook from Albedo he looked at the drawing while continuing to speak. “Everyone knows the Stranger. A force of nature. He came here once, searching for someone, but he did not find them. We are lucky he seems to avoid this place, for his capricious nature brings ruin wherever he goes. If you’re interested in him, well...” Guerra’s voice held nothing but seriousness. “You’ve found the right man. I’m not one to stand by while tyrants put people’s lives in jeopardy. So I’ll help however I can.”

With a shake of his head he passed back the book, his face apologetic. “Unfortunately, I do not recognize these symbols. If only you could do an internet search, huh?”

“A what?” Albedo raised an eyebrow. “What is an internet?”

“Ah, excuse me,” Guerra waved a hand. His guests’ clothing and weaponry should have given away their technology leve. “Something where I come from. It’s a system spread all over the world. As long as someone has a machine called a computer and a connection to the internet, anyone can access all the knowledge of mankind. Isn’t that incredible?” he laughed. “Not very good at it myself. In fact, the kids can barely put down their phones long enough to listen to my damn sermons…”

As he trailed off Albedo put a hand to his chin. “So all we need is a ‘computer’ and a ‘connection’, right?”

Guerra blinked. “Er. Yes, but I couldn’t tell you where to find one. Or if this place even has an internet. You may be better off asking around.” He put his hands on his knees. “If you do, you might have better luck asking an idol than a priest.”

Once again Albedo reacted with confusion, narrowing his eyes. “Do you mean in the second tower? We tried a few of the statues, but they were not exactly forthcoming.”

“Oh no.” Guerra shook his head. “I suppose I should use the colloquial term. Not idol as in statue. Idol as in...well...this place is frequented by a few pagan gods.” He looked between his guests. “Surprised? It’s a funny thing, actually. You might think they’re the stars of the show, but in reality, those ‘gods’ are treated more like bums. They have some power, yes, but they are not invincible, nor unknowable. They have needs, and desires, and flaws, just like humans. And like humans, they are deserving of our compassion, but not our worship.” He shrugged. “That is why I hesitate to call them gods, when there is only one almighty God, far greater than any human could ever imagine. But you’re not here for a sermon, eh?” Guerra smiled, relaxing into his chair. “If you want to talk to one, there are a few you may be able to find. Pele is amicable, and earns her keep stoking fires in the kitchens and forges. Mercury sometimes delivers objects or lost souls to our door. And then there’s Skadi, who lives in the basement of this very tower. She is not well, but she’s there.” Having said his piece, Guerra waited on a decision.