Lugubrious

World of Light

Let's give this another shot, eh?

I'm going with a sorta amalgam here, taking aspects of the character from both the first and second game, not a lot of changes - allowing powers from the first game that didn't come over the second, and keeping a plot point that had been resolved at the end of the second, but still changes nonetheless!

Raz

- Name: Razputin Aquato

- Game Origin: Psychonauts

- Appearance: "My name is Raz, and today is my first official day on the job." 4'4" tall.

- Personality: Raz is surprisingly mature for his age, full of compassion and care for those around him and observant enough to cut right to the heart of the matter. He never turns a blind eye to someone in need, people who can't help themselves, always willing to lend a hand wherever possible, even if sometimes it's for the thrill of doing something important. Raz always treats people with kindness, approaching even the most flawed with the idea that they can be better, get help. Of course, Raz is still a kid, no matter how mature he comes across. For one thing, he's a massive dork, unable to control himself around his heroes and always having a quote from his comics on the tip of his tongue. He has a desire to be cool, often mimicking or imitating people he sees as such, though his lack of experience causes him to fumble the execution. It also makes him a bit gullible, easy to be swept up in the dramatics and intrigue of "cool", causing him to make bad judgement calls. But Raz isn't one to ignore his mistakes or brush them under the carpet. If he's messed up, he'll own up to it and do what needs doing.

- Background: Raz grew up in the circus, his family's own circus, a psychic in a family cursed by psychics to die in water, meaning he had to hide his budding gift from the outside world and only able to read the exploits of the famous government entity known as the Psychonauts. Until one day he was given a pamphlet for 'Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp', a facility run by the Psychonauts to train young cadets in the ways of the mental realm. So, obviously, Raz ran away from the circus to join the military.

After not quite sticking the landing on his arrival to camp, and having to learn everything he needed to become a Psychonauts in just one day before his parents came to get him, Raz had his work cut out for him. Oh, and then it turned out that Coach Oleander, one of the camp's counselors and renowned Psychonaut agent, was hatching a plot to steal the campers' brains to fuel world-conquering psychic death tanks. It was... awesome! An actual psychic threat that only he could stop! Which he totally did, by the way. He even managed to help four mental patients along the way and deal with the personal issues of traumas of himself and Oleander, reforming the man in the process, just like a real Psychonaut! Being officially accepted into the agency, Raz left camp the next morning having fulfilled his personal dream in just twenty-four hours. And then it turned out the grand head of the Psychonauts had been kidnapped, and Raz was going on the mission to save him! Things were definitely looking up for Raz.

Until they weren't. After a successful rescue operation and their arrival at Psychonauts HQ, Raz was confronted with the fact that he had only been a big fish in a small pond, the coolest kid at camp, and now he was in a much, much bigger pond, and he can't swim. Shunted down from "certified agent" to "intern to the mailroom guy" since, well, the guy who accepted him in the first place didn't really have the rank to do so, Raz was back at the bottom rung. He just had to prove himself again, and with the looming threat of a powerful and homicidal psychic, Maligula, and the possibility of a mole within the Psychonauts, Raz would have his chance once more.

To keep a long story short (and spoilers for a new game out), Raz managed to find out the mole, foil his secret plan to bring back Maligula, and was finally award with the title of Junior Agent, officially this time. Now all that was left was to figure out this whole 'girlfriend' thing he has going on...

- Specialty: Psychic offensiveness, supernatural recon, and mental health specialist.

- Level: 1
- Experience: 0/10

- Powers:

• Psi-Blast - One of the first things Raz learned in his training, Psi-Blast allows him to fire off psychic bolts of concentrated aggression. While these shots are pretty powerful and fly fast, Raz can't rapid-fire them, only able to get off 3 shots in quick succession, as it uses up his natural aggression and requires him to aggress all over again. They also can't fly too far from him, making them most effective at a close range.

- Strengths: (Things your character's always good at, or always can do; essentially, passive abilities or bonuses. You start with three, but you can add more in place of powers when you level up)

• Basic Braining - Proof that Raz is equipped to handle traversal in the mental realm. Having grown up in the circus, Raz has incredible athleticism and acrobatic skills, capable of twisting, spinning, folding, swinging, and balancing his way across any number of dangerous locales. He's also able to augment his natural abilities with his psychic powers, granting him the ability to 'double jump' as well as project bigger psychic hands over his own for hand-to-hand combat.
• Hard Headed - No, not literally. Raz possesses an innate mental defense system that even the most seasoned Psychonauts can't hope to penetrate. This makes him impervious to any mind-targeting attacks or ailments, of course, as well as protecting him from having his mind read or entered.
• Psychic Stowaway - Pretty soon after he first arrived at Whispering Rock, Raz met an agent by the name of Ford Cruller, a very famous member of the Psychonauts - in fact, he started the whole thing! Nowadays his own psyche is worse for wear, fractured following a psychic duel and leaving him unable to be himself unless near a large deposit of Psitanium. To help Raz along his way, Ford planted a mental construct of himself in Raz's mind, able to summon Ford to his aid whenever he needs it, like so. Since Ford wouldn't be able to leave Raz's head in this state and remain useful, he's really only there for moral support and tactical advice.

- Weaknesses:

• The Hand of Galochio - Due to an (ironic) curse upon the Aquato family name, Raz is cursed to one day die in water. This has manifested in the Hand of Galochio, a menacing hand made of water that will literally pull Raz under should he get too close to a deep enough source - even water made of wooden stage props or quilted fabric in mental worlds. Rather than a byproduct of the curse, it's actually a subconscious use of power from Raz, whose fear of the curse makes him control the Hand of Galochio without realizing it.

- Spirits: (See Spirits section for details. Start with none)

- Kindred Spirits:

• Lili Zanotto, Raz's newly-realized girlfriend and daughter to Truman Zanotto, Grand Head of the Psychonauts. Often hot-headed and prone to violence and pyromania, Lili will make it clear that she's not someone to mess with, fiercely protective of the people close to her in spite of her chaotic, rebellious nature. A gifted Herbaphonist like the rest of the Zanotto family, Lili is sure to stick by Raz's side through thick and thin.
• Kaname Date, a special officer working for ABIS, the clandestine branch of the Tokyo police force. A fellow secret agent, Date similarly enters the minds of other people in order to gather information that they're hiding, consciously or otherwise, and also has a friend taking residence in his head to act as support for his activities.
• Ben Throttle, the hardened leader of his biker gang, The Polecats, traversing the harsh desert of a post-apocalyptic future. While Ben and Raz have next to nothing in common, you could very well say that Raz, his friends, family, and the Psychonauts himself wouldn't have existed if not for him...

- Inventory:

• Psycho-Portal - A palm-sized device shaped much like a door. The Psycho-Portal is the bread and butter of the Psychonauts, enabling them to astral project themselves into the mental worlds of others through it. Simply stick the Psycho-Portal onto a person's head and let your projection get sucked right in to whatever awaits inside. If the target's brain cannot be entered for any reason, such as being too young or still under Galeem's influence, the Psycho-Portal won't stick to their head. In the World of Light, the Psycho-Portal is not limited to psychics, allowing for any Spirit to take advantage of its use.
• Helmet, Goggles, and Messenger Bag - Very important accessories for Raz for a multitude of reasons. The helmet and goggles are protective wear, of course, helping to fend off concussions or the poking out of eyes by girl scout den mothers. They also look really cool. The messenger bag is, well, a bag, where Raz stores his things, such as his Psycho-Portal, and where his merit badges are pinned to. Right now the only merit badges he has are his Basic Braining and Psi-Blast ones (not to mention his Oarsman badge), but he's sure he'll come across them all again!
• Honey Pepper Boar Bacon - a thick cut of bacon, the kind unique to the Psychonauts HQ. Raz uses it to get Ford's attention, his love for bacon so intense that he can smell it even through the small psychic hook he planted in Raz's mind.
• PSI Pops - special made lollipops for use by Psychonauts. PSI Pops heal mental health, letting Raz traverse mindscapes for longer without getting his astral projection kicked out. They also taste really good! Raz is able to carry three at a time.

@TruthHurts22

Overall, a good sheet. Gives the impression of a solid all-arounder whose main focuses on adventuring and mental health will bring a fresh perspective to the team. Hopefully he's able to heal more trauma than he has to endure himself. We can go over an entry point later but at this point in the RP it would be less straightforward to stick him in Blue Team, what with the situation aboard the Maw. But if you wanted we could probably make it work. Accepted.

World of Light

Dead Zone Recon II

Starring Banjo & Kazooie’s @Dawnrider, Pit’s @Yankee, and Yuri’s @Gentlemanvaultboy
Word Count: 6142 (+7)

Only after the trip across the Land of Adventure was about twenty minutes underway did Nero really get a grasp of its scale--and realize he’d made the absolute correct choice gunning for a vehicle to cross it with. These rolling plains, verdant forests, and breezy hills went on forever. The Bowsermobile made steady progress through the picturesque scenery under Banjo’s direction, skirting around craggy rocks and fording sparkling streams when need be, but they had a long way to go, and offroading was never a comfortable prospect. Nero dreaded running of gas but said nothing, since he couldn’t see how it would help. Instead he kept his eyes on whatever creatures he spotted from his rear seat throughout the course of the journey. Occasionally he glimpsed a creature from his own world, like buffalo or prairie dogs, but more often his searching eyes found fauna on the fantastical side. He could see prehistoric monsters from the long-necked giants to the raptors to strange ones that daffled his powers of description before they disappeared from his view. Unfamiliar birds walked the land or soared through the sky alongside bizarre mantas whose rumbling noises could be heard even on the ground. Once, an aggressive troll-like brute charged at the Bowsermobile from behind, but a number of well-placed shots from Nero and Pit convinced it to stay away.

Other than that, the trip across the Land of Adventure remained mostly uneventful. The majority of creatures that the team encountered seemed determined to mind their own business so long as the intruders minded theirs, and when the four encountered a small team of Lumbridge adventurers out on some quest they either greeted each other without stopping or simply moved along. Since they didn’t need supplies or have anything to do there the mercenaries skipped a stop at Lumbridge altogether and carried on northwest, until the green greens of the Land of Adventure finally gave way to arid badlands. It was about noon when the Bowsermobile finally choked its last, totally out of juice, and slid to a stop. Nero sighed and hauled himself from the car to land on the dusty road and stretch the cramps from his muscles. “Well,” he said, looking a few miles ahead to where an edifice of white concrete and gleaming metal rose stood alone, “We almost made it.” He regarded the weighty vehicle with a dubious stare, wondering if the others would be much good if push came to shove.

After a few moments of contemplation the devil hunter raised a finger and tapped it in the air a couple times, as if drumming up buried memories. “You know what, we might not have to push the damn thing. I remember seeing a giant, bright yellow truck at the gas station. It had to have been a tow truck.” He glanced between Banjo and Pit and settled on the latter. “Hey, you’re a speedy kid, right? Care to use all that energy to run down and let ‘em know we’re stuck out here?”

"I'm not a kid," Pit huffed. Despite the whole 'Kid Icarus' thing! He crossed his arms and leaned towards Nero, eyeing the devil hunter up and down. "Your gray head doesn't fool me, you're like, what, twenty? I'm probably older than you."

Nero rubbed his hair, a little embarrassed. “Ah. Sorry.”

The angel waved dismissively, taking no real offense. It might have been telling that even while Pit was rebutting the "kid" comment, his feet still started moving. He was a servant of a goddess, emphasis on servant, apparently. He thought Kazooie might be faster since she was a... roadrunner? No, what was it. Bre... something? Oh well. Considering she and Banjo were a package deal though, lugging the bear along might be tiring. "I'll go let somebody know!"

A half hour later the four arrived at Hammerhead. They were hot, tired, and sweaty, but things could have been a lot worse, and they’d made it to the waypoint Nero spoke of at last. Here they could rest and refuel both their ride and themselves before heading for the Dead Zone. The tow truck brought the Bowsermobile to a stop by a fuel pump and hopped out onto the tarmac. The truck driver, which he knew to be the daughter of the owner, gave the mercenaries a cheerful wave. “Y’all have a good one, folks! Lemme know if ya need anythin’!”

Nero waved her off, then wiped his brow. “Whew. Could use some water after that one.”

At their stop, Banjo withdrew the Lance from the floorboard that he had been using to reach the pedals from the driver’s seat and disembarked the Bowsermobile. He didn’t get in any hurry to refuel it, however, not knowing what the machine was powered by, and having never (canonically) dealt with refueling any vehicle he had ever driven. Not exactly the most acceptable excuse to be lazy for the moment, but he took it anyway to follow Nero’s lead on the afforded moment of downtime.

“Is that a restaurant over there?” Yuri said in between breaths, extending her finger out toward the nearby Grillby’s. The prospect of shade and a nice, ice cold drink sounded wonderful.

“Uh huh,” Nero replied, but his eyes only touched on the diner for a moment. Instead his focus lay squarely on the all-too-familiar van parked in front of the gas station. Though dirtied by ash and mucilage, dented and dinged all over, and scratched by monstrous claws in the course of its perilous journey, there was no mistaking it. A certain someone’s prized, tough-as-nails Minotaurus, in the flesh so to speak. A heavy sigh of relief welled up deep within the devil hunter, releasing the knotted-up tension in his core. “Go ahead, I’ll join ya in a second. Gonna see about our ride.”

"Aw, no more convertible?" Pit lamented. It had been kind of fun cruising around in King Bowser's car.

He was fanning himself with his wings, but it did little to fight the heat. He had no qualms about leading the way toward the restaurant, where hopefully it was a little cooler inside.

Nero made for the vehicle at a brisk pace, seeing nobody in the driver’s or passenger’s seats as he approached. When he slowed down beside it he thumped the door with an open hand. “Hey! anyone home?”

From inside he heard assorted thumps and clatters as fallen objects hit the ground, followed by a rush of footsteps. A moment later the door burst open, only narrowly missing Nero’s unmoving nose, to reveal none other than the sassy gunsmith he was looking for. Nico crossed her arms and gave a toothy grin as she looked down at him. “Hey, honey. Miss me?”

“About as far as I could throw you,” Nero told her, idly scratching his head, but his friend had no trouble at all discerning his true feelings. As she smirked he ran a hand along the van’s doorframe. “Guess you and your junker made it out of there in one piece, huh?”

With a haunted look she scoffed. “Barely! I beat that damn blast by just about ten minutes, give or take, an’ it still keeled my van right over and knocked me on my ass. Just about blinded me, too! When my head finally quit achin’ I went ‘n looked, an’ the whole stinkin’ city was one big crater. But it was startin’ to storm, so I flipped the van an’ hightailed it back here.”

She leaned against the doorframe, running a hand through her hair. Nero guessed it left quite the impression, but his mission was to see that same sight for himself. “So it’s all gone? Everything erased by the explosion?”

“Not quite.” His friend narrowed her eyes. “It’s crazy, but somehow, the Qliphoth’s still there. Just pokin’ right up out of the middle and reachin’ right up to the sky, all alone. Thing’s tougher than a two-dollar steak, that’s for damn sure.”

Nero grimaced, shaking his head in disbelief. “Great. Well, guess we’re not done after all.”

Twice Nico blinked in surprise. “What, ya mean we’re goin’ back there? You go off your rocker or somethin’?”

Shrugging, the devil hunter told her, “The Seekers wanted to check to see if they still needed to take out the boss, and I volunteered. Was hoping to run into you on the way.”

“Aw, so ya did miss me! I ain’t huggin’ ya, though.”

Nero treated her to a derisive snort. “So can you give us a ride or not?”

“Hmm…” With a mischievous grin Nico stepped down from her van. “Maybe if ya buy me lunch.”

Though he rolled his eyes Nero turned in the direction of the diner, and Nico followed him after closing the side door. “Jeez, you’re gonna squeeze me dry. Well, come on. The rest of us went to get something anyway, so what’s one more addition to the party.” They crossed Hammerhead’s dusty lot and stepped inside.

It wasn't hard to find the rest of his crew. They were seated together at one end of the bar, where someone had taken the liberty of ordering a whole pizza for the group. The pie seemed to have just recently arrived, soft steam was wafting from it, and a squeak of "hot!" came from somewhere among the four.

Pit had a slice in front of him, as well as a milkshake and a plate of sweet cake, making for an unusual pairing. The angel was swiveling on his stool slightly, not even close to tall enough for his feet to brush the ground, and he looked over at the door when the bell chimed. He noticed their new addition and smiled brightly at her. "One down, one to go! Hi there!"

Though she didn’t recognize the angel Nico was quick to return the smile. “Heya! Looks like we’re already in business!” With Nero following behind, who was trying not to think about how Pit seemed to be enjoying his savories and sweets in the same mouthful, she headed over and planted herself on an unoccupied stool.

Once the devil hunter joined her she treated him to an expectant look until he flagged down the waiter. “‘Scuse me. A breaded cutlet, please. And...a Grease Monkey’s Schnitzel Sandwich for the, uh, lady.”

The fellow nodded and went off to tell the cook. Nico crossed her arms in mock reproach. “Har har. Just ‘cause I do work for truckers don’t mean I eat like one.” She didn’t seem too put off, however, and Nero said nothing further. Instead he took a look around, both to see if the bear, bird, and medium were getting on as well as Pit, and to check out Grillby’s other patrons. Given the remoteness of the place there wasn’t exactly a crowd, but he noticed a portly old biker, a blonde girl who reminded him of Cindy on her phone, and a group of three very lost vikings enjoying a midday feast.

Yuri, much like she had on the car ride over, sat with her arms and tucked in close to her body as she picked her way through an egg fried crustacean bowl. A cup of coffee, steaming hot as per Heat-Man prerogative, sat half empty beside a plastic bottle of water that was completely drained. Every time Pit swiveled in her direction she swiveled away just as slightly, turning the pair into an odd metronome. Still, she looked pleased as punch that she hadn’t been necessary to find Nero’s friend. “It’s a pleasure to see you okay, miss.” She said. “My name is Yuri.”

Cordial and cheerful as ever, Nico greeted Yuri with a warm grin. “Nice to meetcha too! Reckon grumpy here told y’all all about me, then? Gotta say I’m kinda surprised. Wouldn’t a-thought he’d go and make even more pals.”

“We’re just trying to do what’s best for everyone,” Nero gruffed.

“Uh huh, sure.” The machinist didn’t buy it for one second. She leaned over to make sure that Banjo and Kazooie were still in two pieces. “Hey again. You two remember me, right? I didn’t do any fightin’ out there, but if ya need somethin’ made or fixed up, y’all won’t be forgettin’ my artisanry.”

With a nod, Banjo assured her, “Yes, ma’am. We remember,” save for her name. “It’s good to see you made it out okay, Miss.”

Two more plates arrived at about that time, the breaded pork for Nero and the sandwich for Nico. Despite her earlier protests the machinist dug right in, and when her friend looked at her askance she shrugged in reply. “You’re just lucky I’m the kind of sophisticated lady what likes German food.”

Nero snorted. “That stuff’s about as German as you’re sophisticated.”

“Huhuh! Thanks!”

“Hmm… All this food looks kind of familiar,” Banjo casually remarked when a filling entree he could still eat with his oversized hands was set in front of him. Sparing the reference little thought, Kazooie began pecking away at the plate-load of a singular side dish that came with the order, while both wondered who would be picking up the tab and how.

“Anything useful you can tell us about where we’re heading?” she asked Nico between beakfuls, taking her on her offer to help in not the most gracious of manner (nor considering the specifics of the offer). “Like, do we actually need to go back still, or...” While the idea of a return trip to the freshly obliterated Dead Zone didn’t exactly scare her the way it probably should have, she would be less keen to find out upon arrival that they were backtracking for little to nothing. She awaited an answer, expecting disappointment…

With a mouthful of sandwich, all that Nico could say for the moment was mmph?

“There are still the people who are missing. Seven, now that we found Miss Nico.” Yuri said, thinking back to the list of names on the mission bored. She turned her attention back to Nico. “Did you see any evidence of them on your way here? Ratchet? Noctis? A Doom...Slayer?” She had precious little information about these people besides their names and the mental images that those names called to mind, which wasn’t a lot to go on. Beside her, Pit was doing a poor job of hiding his snicker at the last name she listed off.

After downing her food with the help of a drink of water. “Uh, Noctis, yeah. I was curious myself, so I done asked around a bit. Guess he an’ ‘is friends took our warnin’ to heart ‘n hightailed it outta the Dead Zone. Came by here while we were still muckin’ around in there, then went eastish. The others, I dunno.” She bit off another piece of her sandwich and set the rest down, chewing while she thought.

“Thank goddess.” Yuri said.

“As fer the Dead Zone, it’s basically a big honkin’ crater, but somehow the Qliphoth’s still standin’. Dunno how it survived the nuke, but there it is, right as rain.”

“Figures.” Kazooie responded flatly, Banjo nodding with a soft sigh. They both knew better than to think it would be that easy.

Nero bristled, his expression sour. “That means our target is too--the Dead Zone’s ‘boss.’” He shook his head ruefully. “Couldn’t just give us a break and go down with the city, I guess. Since we’re on scouting duty, we should drive there and see what we can. Clear the way for the takedown team.” Raising his glass he finished off his water in a few long gulps. Kazooie wasn’t the only one who wanted to avoid the place, they couldn’t push their duty aside. Not given the state of things.

"Wait, what's a kly-fodd?" Pit asked, looking between those that had seen it before. It didn't sound very fearsome, but if it could survive that huge explosion... and wasn't even the area's boss? "Are we gonna have to deal with it while we're on clean up duty? Is it a demon? Zombie? ...zombie-demon?"

“A demon tree, more or less,” Nero replied. “We’re just handling recon, so we’re not taking it down just yet. But we’ll probably still need to defend ourselves at some point, so don’t relax just yet.” The devil hunter took a moment to consider his current surroundings. “Or, get your relaxing done while we’re here, I guess.”

"Don't have to tell me twice," Pit laughed. He returned to his food, but thoughts about the "demon tree" were still spinning around in his head. He ended up looking back and forth between his plate and his companions, pausing in his eating whenever a question came to mind.

"D'you think it's weak to fire because it's a tree, or since it's kinda demon-y it's used to fire?" He turned to Nico, eyes bright. "Could you make a flamethrower? Oh, does Nero's hand already shoot fire?"

He stopped after the words tumbled out of his mouth, another thought suddenly popping into his head. "I guess thinking about it doesn't exactly count as relaxing. Hehe, sorry."

“Can it shoot fire though?” Yuri asked, genuinely curious now that Pit had asked. “Or rockets? Laser beams?” Apparently nothing was now outside the realm of possibility.

"That would be so cool!"

“Hold your horses, partner!” Nico laughed. “I don’t suspect the tree’s weak to nothin’ after takin’ that nuke, but if y’all need flamethrowers, ya got the right gal! I can fix up a simple doohickey like that in my sleep!”

At the risk of inviting a relevant practical issue back to the table when advised to relax, Banjo decided to get ahead of their travel arrangements. “So… do we still need both vehicles, or would we rather carpool there?” A prudent question to be sure, but it would be a lie to say he wasn’t looking to subtract further operation, care or maintenance of the Bowsermobile from his list of responsibilities. Better to leave it with more qualified people in a safer area, lest it turn out, in the worst case, that the wrathful king held it dear, but mostly Banjo just wanted to take the trip a little easier. With already another on the itinerary, he figured it would be difficult enough.

Nero thought about it. “I think we should all take the van. Plenty of room, more storage, more protection, more everything.” He noticed his friend wheeling her hand around expectantly, and with a quick sigh added, “And a better driver.”

“No argument there,” Banjo concurred amicably.

Yuri smiled at the decision. The Koopa car had been too cramped for her tastes. It was just a quick turn or a sudden bump away from her brushing shoulders with the person seated next to her, and there was an inherent risk every time that happened of her seeing something she wasn’t supposed to see. “None from me, as well. A friend of my mentor had a van he would loan to us occasionally when she had to travel for work. They’re very comfortable vehicles. It should make for a pleasant ride.” She had no idea what she was in for.

A few minutes more and the freshly refueled mercenaries made their way to the freshly refueled van. They piled into its shaded, temperature-regulated interior, and once all were aboard with Nero riding shotgun and Nico behind the wheel, their driver revved the engines. A moment later the weighty vehicle was rumbling down the open road, Hammerhead left in its dust.

---

The roads of the Paved Wilderness lead steadily northeast through arid, craggy badlands, past sandy riverbeds and giant caterpillars of hardy shrubs. Despite the blasted hellscape that awaited them at the end of their journey, Nico’s passengers couldn’t do much but pass the time until they arrived. The terrain outside, at least, offered some distraction. They passed anthills several times taller than the average man, complete with rather large ants. Much taller were the strange curled spires that rose above the scrubland, inviting much wonderment. Some time later the van rolled through a region that looked as though it was made of cheese, though how sanitary said cheese might be was up for debate. There certainly seemed to be a couple vehicles parked here and there, be they tourists’ camper vans or trucks for hauling off nature’s cheesy bounty once harvested.

Most eye-catching, however, were the manmade elements of the region. Racetracks littered the terrain, weaved over and around one another. At one point, Nico nearly had to swerve to avoid an odd-looking machine as it soared off a natural ramp nearby. As it flew through the air the group could see a vehicle styled after a grasshopper, which landed a moment later on the next part of its racetrack and sped off down the road. Those who took it on themselves to look backward would find a frog bot, a stag beetle, and a whole host of other animal-themed racers in hot pursuit. The frog pulled away from the others, a mechanical arm extending from its top to reach out and grab a pole that stood up from the ground. It span at high speed, rising higher and higher, and finally launched back in the direction of the track to overtake the grasshopper in an impressive display of both courage and skill. The centipede tried the maneuver too, but ended up missing its mark and wiping out against a wall of rock. As it exploded in a shower of twisted metal Nico glanced in the rear-view mirror, eyebrow raised. “Well ain’t that somethin’. Sure hope people weren’t actually drivin’ those, huh?”

“We can only pray.” Yuri stutterd out. She hadn’t seen the crash. She turned away and shut her eyes tight the moment she had realized what was about to happen but that hadn’t blocked out the terrible, familiar, sound of the impact. It made her feel queasy.

Eventually the wastes gave way to rocky hills, their coats of green grass suggesting that at last the mercenaries had left the Paved Wilderness behind. Along with it went the sunny blue skies, clear as crystal, in favor as gray cloud cover. The team drew closer to their goal in near-silence; both pleasant exchanges and idle distractions were behind them now that they could see their target. Nero, Nico, Banjo, and Kazooie remembered the Qliphoth from their time in the Dead Zone prior, the coiled demonic trunk that rose like a colossal pillar from the ruined city’s center, its highest reaches unwound to interlace with the lowest point of the blanket of darkness that hung over the Dead Zone in a mad spiral. Now, however, the Qliphoth defied comparison. It hung over the city like a colossal balloon, or another planet, moored to the ground by countless cords, its ‘surface’ the interlaced canopy threads of pale trees whose trunks came together to meet at a single core. Only its bottom reaches could be seen beneath the storm clouds, but it couldn’t be much less wide than the city itself. When the van reached a hilltop just beyond Redgraccoon’s outskirts, the team could step outside and see from that overlook what lay below the Qliphoth--or rather, what didn’t. Of the cursed city nothing remained. Just a crater. Ashen stone blotched by a vast tract of tar, the shape of which Nero thought rather resembled a gigantic handprint.

The devil hunter could hear the rumble of thunder. It looked like it was raining over the city, liable to sweep his group’s way any minute now. He sighed. “Well. At least there’s no more zombies.”

"Yeah but there's that! Jeez, you guys weren't kidding!" Pit had been openly staring at the Qliphoth since they'd parked. It was exactly as they'd described, a demonic tree, but was so much bigger than he'd expected. No wonder it had survived the explosion. He was surprised they hadn't seen it way earlier during the drive, but the storm clouds prevented that he guessed.

Eventually he tore his eyes away to look at the crater around it. "Looks like there's nothing else, at least from up here," the angel said, "we going to take a closer look anyway?"

As hard as it was to rip her attention away from the demon tree, once she did Yuri was far more disturbed in what lay below it. Barren and lifeless, nothing to draw the eye, except for the liquid and its disquiting shape. “Black?” she said to herself, transfixed on it. She raised the Camera Obscura to her eye and peered through it down into the crater, using the camera's meager zoom to get as close a look as possible at the tar. It couldn't be the same thing. The Shadow Spring was sealed, forever, but Yuri wasn’t willing to give that liquid the benefit of the doubt about being natural. Not with that shape, and not with the feeling she was getting. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as the chill coiled up around her spine like a serpent.

“No, there is something down there. I can feel it. That crater is not empty.” she said anxiously to Pit, lowering the camera so as not to provoke anything. It was as she had feared when she had learned the name of this place. After an explosion like that, the only thing left were the ghosts. “I can’t tell how many, or how strong, but if we get closer I might be able to lead us around them. If not…”

She looked back at Nico, an idea inspired by their earlier conversation in the diner. “I don’t suppose you have a ‘ghost-busters’ arm stashed away in your van?” She asked. That was a cinematic special effect she wouldn't mind at all seeing in real life. “My Camera Obscura can drive off spirits if they attack, but I don’t know if all of your weapons would work on them.”

The inventor was forced to shake her head. “Sorry, hun. Ain’t a lot of ghosts where we come from, an’ bullets work pretty much fine on those we do got.”

"Guess you'll be depending on me then!" Pit said, puffing his chest out proudly. "I've got plenty of experience with spirits, specters, and all kinds of Underworld baddies. Ghosts won't be a problem!"

Yuri’s warning, meanwhile, had prompted some extra caution from Nero. The devil hunter couldn’t see what she saw or feel what she felt, but it was hard to deny that an odd feeling hung over this place, more palpable than those rainclouds. Even if he couldn’t see any active threats across the miles of desolation, the atmosphere was heavy, even disquieting. Like the sensation that gnaws one when visiting a site of historical tragedy, a place where vast amounts of people died. Nero knew that feeling from his last stint in Redgrave City, seeing all those flaky, human-shaped masses of bloodless matter. It was a heavy feeling.

“It doesn’t look like there’s anything else,” he confirmed Pit’s assessment after a few more moments. “Don’t know if we can get away with not taking a closer look, though. There could be pits or trenches we’re not seeing, or unstable ground, or hidden dangers of some kind. If we go back without at least trying to get an idea of any hazards, anything that happens to the strike team’s gonna be on us.” He rolled his shoulders and tramped forward, headed down the slope toward the crater. “Up here with me, Yuri. If there’s ghosts we’ll need you handy.”

The team proceeded in the direction of the Qliphoth. Though the rough terrain proved to be annoying enough to demand a bare minimum of attention paid to one’s footwork, it was hardly hazardous, and with no enemies whatsoever to be found the trek quickly got boring. Whether through instinct or response to that earlier sinking feeling, however, Nero kept his guard up and his eyes open.

As his crew drew closer to the crater he noticed only one real oddity, which took the form of the area’s vegetation. The land for a good distance beyond the crater’s perimeter on any side but the west -which opened straight into Empty Space- was green with low-lying grass, but that band contained no trees or shrubs of any kind. Way to the east lay the forest at the foothills of the mountainous area that eventually swelled into a range of peaks that separated the Dead Zone’s region from the Sandswept Sky. Its trees cut off in a notable abrupt fashion, not at the edge of the crater, but at the band. Though no botanist Nero thought that the trees right at the forest’s outer reaches facing the crater looked unwell; their color and stature set them apart. Some kind of radiation, maybe? Not a pleasant thought.

A grumble of thunder turned his attention forward, to where he could see a curtain of rain advancing out from the devastation to greet him. He peered into the oncoming rain, too paranoid to be at peace, and soon enough noticed something else that struck him as odd. He could see distant birds taking off as the wall of precipitation drew near, and they flew away from the city center with what appeared to be haste. And he couldn’t be sure, but Nero thought he saw the couple of flapping black dots that got caught in the rain suddenly fall but to earth again.

A handful of the crows flew overhead, their raucous cawing breaking his focus. Nero slowed to a stop, his expression cloudier than the sky overhead. Raindrops were starting to fall here and there, splashing on the grass and exposed stone. Suddenly he became aware of something descending a few hundred feet away. One of the noisy birds that had fallen behind now dropped to the earth, its wings and legs in the grip of spasms. A chill ran down Nero’s back. Something wasn’t right.

"Erm… Kazooie?" Banjo started, upon observing the ailing avian stock dropping like rocks in the rain. "You wouldn't happen to be allergic to rain, would you?" he asked in a half-assed attempt to rationalize the approaching phenomena.

"Not that I know of..." she replied simply, somewhat nervously. The sensation that something was dreadfully wrong was shared between them…

Yuri felt it too, and it piled on to her mistrust of the water. As a drop landed near her she instinctively took a step away from where it had fallen. “We should go back to the van.” She said, a sense of urgency rising in her voice as she began backing up. “There’s something wrong with the water.”

“Yeah, let’s go, go, go! Now!” Nero’s voice became a commanding yell that, along with the general sense of tension and disquiet, shocked everyone into action. The small group took off as if they had springs in their heels, sprinting over the disheveled ground back the way they came. Seeing the team headed her way in a real hurry, Nico quit lounging around the hood of her van and made for the driver’s seat. A moment later the engine of the formidable Minotaurus roared to life, but as it reached the mercenaries the swelling sound of rainfall was coming up behind them.

Like hellhounds at their feet, grasses and flowers sprouted from the naked earth in mere moments, growing to full size and then wilting in an impossibly short span of time. Frontrunner drops spattered against them. Just a few turned cloth ragged, then threadbare. A droplet’s touch could turn hairs gray, fray feathers, or age a body’s epidermis, making one’s skin thinner, paler, drier, less elastic, and even wrinkled or spotty. Of course, it lay beyond any unfortunate soul’s power to realize just what was happening, and they only felt the sting of what might as well be acid rain as it came down.

As Nero approached he could see slight blotches of discoloration on the roof of the van, but he focused instead on the door. Nico had thrown it wide open in preparation for abrupt departure; everyone could jump inside. But would that be fast enough? Nero, Banjo, and Pit all moved with superhuman speed, but Yuri had no such luck. The devil hunter turned and readied his Bringer to Wire Snatch the girl to safety.

Kazooie carried Banjo on the fleetest of feet in the scouting party, but in so doing faced her partner to the sky from which oily black droplets of stinging entropy fell upon him in their efforts to effectively outpace the encroaching storm that brought it. Banjo shielded his face as best as he could as splotches of grey burned into his fur, wore frayed threads into his shorts and backpack straps, and lightly weathered and rusted his belt buckle. Kazooie bounded for the van’s open doors, turning over to avert Banjo from further rain blight while she receded into the relative safety of his backpack, and Banjo tucked into himself to shield his from the rain and impending impact as he unintentionally became a living cannonball, clumsily barrelling in dangerously past Nico hailing them in.

"Ow, ow!" Though skeptical at first (after all, how dangerous could rain really be?), once the first droplet of water touch him Pit pulled his wings in as tight to his body as possible and ran all the harder. He was thoroughly convinced after that moment. What is wrong with this rain?! he thought, swatting at the falling water for all the good it did. He bodily threw himself through the doors of the van, probably leaving a dent in the interior where he'd collided with the steel. Dazed but unfazed, Pit scrambled up and out of the way, peering out of the opening. "Come on come on, hurry!"

Yuri wrapped her arms close to her body and kept her head down as stinging raindrops caressed her head and shoulders. Even the rain on Mt. Hikami had never been so accursed as to hurt like this. Was it the demon tree? The explosion? Or was whatever entity had left that print responsible? Regardless, all she could do was grit her teeth and run while knowing she would catch the worst of it.

Before she could get soaked, though, she felt something wrap around her chest. She could only see it was a wire before she was suddenly yanked through the air by a force strong enough to throw around whole demons. Luckily she was already mostly tucked in, so Nero was able to catch her and deposit her onto the van floor like a football. She looked up at him, breathing heavy, streaks of grey standing stark against the raven black of her hair. “Thank you.” She said.

Niceties could come later. Rather than reply to Yuri Nero hauled himself up to the front of the van, shouting, “Gun it, Nico!” even though he barely needed to tell her. Like an prodded beast the engine of the Minotaurus roared to life, sending the wheels into a frenzied spin that tore through the moss and loam of the former Dead Zone’s peripheral plains to speed the van on its way. The rocky terrain jolted it occupants violently, demanding their full attention just to avoid ricocheting around like billiard balls, but no amount of bruises compared to the threat of accelerated aging. With Nico at the wheel and the pedal to the metal, the van rocked and rattled toward and past the stormfront. It wasn’t long before they reached the road and could really start to pick up speed. The timefall, meanwhile, slowed down behind them.

Once the brutal jostling gave way to a smooth if not leisurely ride, and the mercenaries had the inclement weather squarely in their rear view mirror, they could steady their breathing and calm their frenzied hearts. Nursing a bloody scrape on his forehead, Nero cast one last, long look back, into the misty haze of deadly rain and the sky-high Qliphoth that loomed within. “Scary,” he breathed.

With the ice broken, Nico did not hold back. “You gotta be shittin’ me with that rain!” she fumed. “That bullcrap turned a coupla my curls gray and gave me a big ol’ wrinkle smack dab on my forehead! Lookie here, see? Just like my grandma’s, bless ‘er heart!”

“Caught a couple drops myself,” the devil hunter said dryly. “We got out in time, though, and we’ve got a hell of a report to give.” With a sigh he turned his gaze on the dusty road ahead. “And a long way back.” After wiping a backhand’s worth of sweat and dirt from his brow he got up, removed his coat, and went to hit the onboard shower.

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, Joker, Fox, Necronomicon, Braum

Without wasting time on deliberation, Joker’s two allies engaged the Resistance fighters that threatened his plan to go after Nastasia, and as ever Mao did not hesitate to get his hands dirty. Protected by his shield, Braum was just about invincible from the front, but with only scattered pieces of that navy blue armor on his person he could not boast an impregnable defense from other angles. Being much, much smaller than his target, the little overlord had only so many options when it came to picking a target, so with sword in hand he struck at Braum’s calves. After all, human fragility means that a single slice through the right tendon would topple the big man where he stood. In the heat of the moment and poor light of the arena, however, Mao only realized that his opponent happened to be wearing greaves when a metallic clang rang out and the impact jarred his hands.

The failure of Mao’s surprise attack alerted Braum to his presence, and as the demon backpedaled to avoid a guaranteed counterattack, the Heart of the Freljord spun to deliver it. The weight of his enlarged shield meant he couldn’t lift it fast enough to strike normally with, so instead he left it standing there and came at Mao with a giant hook. He poured enough strength into the dizzying punch to scatter Mao’s teeth across the arena, but the blow came slow enough that the overlord could flee the danger zone and live to chew another day. A second later his longsword carved through the air once again, this time aimed for a more exposed part of Braum’s body. The hunk of scrap metal that slammed into Braum’s back, nearly doubling him over, gave Mao the perfect opportunity. But even then he couldn’t catch a break. His steel drew blood, but even with demonic might stopped short of bone, stymied by dense muscles, tough sinews, and formidable gristle. And even as pain twisted his face, Braum threw his diminutive opponent a manly smile. “Come now, friend! It’ll take a lot more than that!” He then grit his teeth, and with bulging muscles lifted his oversized shield high enough to slam it into the ground, creating a tremor strong enough to throw Mao off his feet if he didn’t jump. In a way, his efforts seemed almost more like showing off than a real attack. Not every human, it seemed, was made of tissue paper.

After hurling some debris into the fight between Braum and Mao, Jesse turned her attention to settling her score with Sven. He’d hindered her with an unwelcome transformation last time, but without a brainwashed defender getting in her way, the FBC director saw no reason to change her plan. This time, it went off without a hitch. Electricity flew far faster than glass vials, and the old alchemist couldn’t prevent Jesse’s reality-altering revolver engorged his already-sizeable midsection. After only a handful of shots his stubby legs could no longer support him, at which point his last ditch attempt to throw a potion at Jesse caused him to teeter forward onto his stomach, where he could to little but wheeze and wriggle, totally defeated. Even then the parautilitarian took no chances, recycling the metal she’d pelted Braum with to nudge her corpulent opponent further away from the fight.

Joker, meanwhile, had reached his target. Though he’d launched into a sprint the moment he’d landed after jumping off Braum, kicking up sand with each footstep, he slowed as he got closer. In his peripherals he caught sight of billowing mist as it filled the colosseum. Remembering Ciella’s attack from the conference room, he readied himself for any purple circles or blue charged shots, but other than that did not trouble himself too much. It wasn’t just caution that took the wind from his sails right now, either; rather, the sight of Nastasia all alone invoked a mixture of contempt and pity. Without any allies left, the little secretary was trying to pick up one of the alien rifles a Vandal left behind, but it was too heavy for her. She couldn’t so much as get it out of the sand, let alone wield it. Joker approached at a saunter with his hands in his pockets, watching without sympathy as Nastasia strained to raise the weapon. “Out of bodies to throw at us?” Unceremoniously Joker kicked the rifle from her hands to slide across the floor, and when his own hand came down it held his new revolver, leveled at his enemy’s head. It was empty, but she didn’t know that, and a gun offered a lot more intimidation than a knife. Sure enough, Nastasia fell flat on her rear, whimpering. Though pretty sure by now that she needed to get her hands on his head in order to brainwash him, Joker remained a good six feet away. “Game over. Release everyone you’ve enslaved and announce your surrender, or else.”

The next few moments, however, made it a challenge to keep his focus on Nastasia. As it turned out, despite Jesse’s best efforts, Sven’s part in the battle had yet to conclude. Sectonia, generally annoyed by her nemesis and frazzled by the explosion of his Chaos Lance after she’d blinked out of the way of a direct hit, decided to take a little revenge for being used against Ciella earlier by doing a little using of her own. Sven craned his neck upward in confusion as the giant wasp appeared before him, only to disappear again a moment later. Her departure, however, revealed a sight that made his eyes go wide in terror. A nebulous vortex of distorted space, like a malignant rift in reality itself, bore down upon him like a bowling ball careening toward a lone pin, but something in Sven’s gut told him that he wouldn’t be spared. Spittle flew from his mouth as he shrieked, his panicked voice pleading, “Shadow, stop! STOOOOOOOOP-!”

His cry for mercy gave way to a wordless howl of death, but only for a brief moment. The next he was gone. Destroyed. The Chaos Burst tore through the arena’s metal floor, leaving a hole in its wake. A moment later Shadow flew back out, totally ignorant of what happened, to engage Sectonia once again. “All you do is run!” he snarled, and after curling up he launched himself at his foe in another Spin Attack. This time he did not use Chaos Burst, but relied on his Spin Attack’s homing ability to chase Sectonia down wherever she fled and slam into her like a spiked wrecking ball.

Neither Shadow nor Sectonia got very far. After Ciella disappeared into her mist, Midna got busy trying to prevent whatever she had in store. Thanks to the healing received from Mona’s persona she could hustle over to the fight by the arena entrance without too much pain and enact a plan to reveal the Agito before she struck. The beat of her Twilit Vibrava’s wings swirled sand into the air, reminiscent of the storms she’d endured while fighting the Flygons the previous day, and Midna fanned the flames with some extra sand pulled from her own realm. Despite her front-row seat to Sven’s disturbing demise, she managed to whip up a bonafide sandstorm, purging Ciella’s mist from the bottom-most portion of the colosseum. With her machinations laid bare, the Agito couldn’t possibly launch her surprise attack.

It was a clever plan. But the wrong one.

Right on schedule, Ciella revealed herself, but not among the combatants at the bottom of the arena. Instead, she appeared at the top in a spinning flourish, then with wings fanned out and claws outstretched, began a quick charge. In front of her a gargantuan purple AoE appeared, covering the whole arena except for the areas beside and behind her. It filled much, much faster than the circular ones created by Hail of Arrows, almost fast enough that someone could blink and miss it. “Sink into the abyss of despair!” Ciella cried, and she fired.

A hundred arrows blasted forth, a veritable spike wall of water that stretched from floor to ceiling, flooded the arena in a single colossal wave. They pierced everything in their path, including support columns and the arena’s walls, creating so many holes that the entire structure groaned under the weight. Heroes and villains toppled end over end, a huge chunk of their collective vitality depleted in an instant.

After a few moments, a wounded cat reached out a plaintive paw. “Zorro...help him!”

As Mona’s Diarama went off, Joker coughed a mixture of blood and water, then got up to his forearms and knees. Soaked, sandy, and nearly skewered, he still lived, but his first thoughts were not of himself. “Fox? Fox!” Remembering his friend’s acid burns, he feared that not enough of Fox’s health remained for him to survive Ciella’s onslaught. His panicked gaze, however, landed on his friend’s outline, hurt but alive as well. “You made it!”

Breathing heavily, Fox nodded. “Before it struck, Mona managed to restore me.”

Joker’s eyes landed on the little thief. “Great job, bud. Seriously. Make sure you heal yourself up, too.”

“Sure thing,” Mona replied, wearing a smile despite his sorry state thanks to the rare praise.

The Phantom Thieves rose shakily, watching Ciella as she flew over. Assured of victory perhaps, she maintained her composure, even as that vicious spark still burned within her eyes. Nastasia saw her too, having staggered to her own feet ahead of most of the others and noticed the lack of barrier about her person. “My overshield…” Unprotected and alone, she looked around in fear until her gaze landed on a black-and-red hedgehog. “Uh, hello? Earth to Shadow? Save me already!”

Shadow grunted in anger, but he could not disobey. He teleported to Nastasia’s position, and the secretary jumped up to cling to him like a koala.

Gnashing her teeth, Ciella extended a claw. “No, you don’t!” A chunk of ice appeared above them, being one of the fastest attacks the Agito could get out, but even as it fell Shadow and Nastasia disappeared into distorted space. It devoured both ice above and floor below, and as Shadow propelled it forward from within Joker was forced to dive headlong out of the way, lest he share the same fate as Sven.

“Drat. I was so close…” As he got to his feet he realized that the arena itself was shaking dangerously. The damage already done to the support pillars and walls plus Ciella’s assault and Shadow’s destruction of the floor combined to make the whole place a lot less structurally sound. Entire sections of ground had been cut out by now, limiting the space non-fliers had to work with. How a hypothetical falling floor would interact with the Ciella’s Feral Shroud Joker couldn’t say, but he didn’t want to find out. “We’re on the clock.” A quick look around confirmed that Ciella seemed to be focused on the last of the Resistance, less a fight and more of a hit-and-run chase. It looked like Shadow couldn’t keep himself and his boss inside that black hole of his for long, although that hardly made up for him being able to pull all this crap in the first place. Whenever he emerged, disoriented by his blind charge, he invariably executed another Spin Attack at the nearest enemy that became another Chaos Burst on the way. That could be capitalized on. But how?

Joker’s assessment terminated on the spirit of Uncle Sven, floating above a section of uneaten ground. “There,” he said aloud. “Necro, tell me everything you say about that morph potion he used on us.”

After deflecting an incoming call with a muttered we’re kinda busy right now the Persona complied. “Based on my scans, it was a total physical change. No attack, no defense, none of my buffs, nothing. You were basically helpless. Are you thinking…”

“That’s a win condition,” Joker nodded. “If we can just tag them with that power, we can beat them.”

Necronomicon contacted him again. “Hate to rain on your parade, but there’s no guarantee that anyone’ll get that power from fusion. Even your luckiest Persona could end up with, I dunno, just that bouncy potion.”

Sighing, Joker readied his knife. Mona and Fox stood by his side. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way then.” The Thieves ran and jumped their way across the arena toward where Ciella and Shadow were going at it. This was the final stretch.

Tora and Poppi

Level 9 Tora (56/90) Level 9 Poppi (56/90) Level 4 Big Band (12/40)
Location: Al Mamoon Northwest - Obelisk Temple
Primrose’s @Yankee, Fox’s @Dawnrider, Yoshitsune and Sora’s @Rockin Strings
Word Count:

The news that the other half of Yellow Team was neither picking up nor returning Fox’s call was all that Tora and Poppi needed to ready them for another long run. When asked if the rest could help them out sans their resident space animal, they collectively stood behind Skull’s response. “Yeah, no sweat! We can go another couple rounds!” The boy smacked his fist into his palm. “You go on ahead while we mop up the rest of those Resistance jerks!”

“Take care now,” Panther added, addressing Fox, Band and Goldlewis together. “Make sure those goons don’t try any funny business. We’ll be back before you know it.”

Arms crossed, Azwel looked indignant. “Goons!? We’re right here, you know.”

Ignoring him, Tora jumped into the air, pumping his wing like a fist. “Meh-meh, let’s go!”

With the dutiful Es as their guide to the main base and Sora as extra firepower the Seekers ran off, leaving the stay-behinds, Grimleal, and Lautrec to sort things out. Throughout the proceedings the knight, freed from his jail cell down in the Khamoon dungeon only to be apprehended by the Grimleal as a precaution, had kept quiet, but after watching Yellow Team go he approached the remainder to explain his own situation and plead for his release. As it turned out, the Resistance had captured him while he was minding his own business and locked him up, waiting for their boss to come and hypnotize him. With Robin reluctantly backing him up, Lautrec received both a pardon and his release from Kan-Ra, and the embraced knight strode away with his brazen armor gleaming in the afternoon light.

---

It didn’t take much running for Tora, Poppi, Primrose, Yoshitsune, and the others to start feeling the fatigue accumulated by all their running and fighting since lunchtime. Luckily, Skull and Panther had a solution ready, which the dancer recognized as the same that rejuvenated them after their post-palace hospital visit. Al Mamoon, the fair desert city of anachronism, featured more than a few vending machines along its dusty streets, and the Phantom Thieves came to a stop in front of the first machine they found. “Okay, just a second,” Skull said, retrieving from his pockets the coins dropped by the shadows encountered in Madarame’s Museum of Vanity. “It ain’t just ‘cause I’m thirsty, either. This stuff’s got power in the Metaverse. It’ll perk ya right up, for real!” The machine rattled and dispensed an Udagawa Soda, which he pulled out before turning to Panther. “Whaddya want?”

“Uh, Earl Green for me.” Once the Thieves had their drinks, they stepped away from the machine to down them in a hurry. Sure enough, the beverages restored some of their health and spirit, replenishing enough stamina that they could fight at pretty much full strength again.

Though healthy as could be, Tora liked the sound of more energy, and stepped up to the machine next. He scoped out the choices while he scrounged up money. His options were Second Maid, a sugary lime juice, Manta, a salty-sweet juice cocktail, Earl Green, an energy drink based on tea, Ultimate Amazake, a liquid dessert of fermented rice, the banana-flavored Udagawa Soda, Miso Starfish (which appeared to be invertebrate brine in a can), and Dr. Salt NEO, a workout supplement. Predictably he snagged an Ultimate Amazake, which proved to be just a little too sweet for even his rather immature palate. Still, it did the job. He felt refreshed and ready to run.

Being relatively fresh himself Sora need not try anything, which was lucky since he had no money on him, but unless the rest wanted to lag behind they needed to slurp something down quickly. After that, they were on their way. Short and very quick, Es turned out to be difficult to follow, and holding back to make sure nobody got left behind didn’t fully solve the problem. With the work day drawing to a close the streets were crowded with people on their way home from their jobs, out shopping, or on the hunt for a place to eat. After a while of dodging and jostling Tora and Poppi nearly lost Es after a super-sized duo of futuristic wrestler and blue-collar alien separated them. “Not so fast!” Tora wheezed, running out of the way of a snake-in-a-mech. A musical fracas by the side of the street momentarily distracted him, but the Nopon managed to reorient himself on Es’s mop of blonde hair. “How much farther, meh!?”

“There,” Es deadpanned.

Not much farther ahead stood Rocket HQ, the office building that housed the Resistance’s primary headquarters. Judging by the skeleton crew of Grimleal acolytes, Yellow Team had come to the right place. Once through the open doors they came upon a scene of utter havoc, with acolytes here and there picking through an office space utterly demolished by breaking waves and wanton weapons fire. Laharl reclined in one of the few remaining office chairs, somewhere between sulking and relaxing. Tora ran over. “What you doing here?” he asked. “Where everyone else?”

Without a word the surly demon pointed in the direction of the stairs where he last saw Mao’s team. The rest was up to the Seekers.

Ms Fortune

Level 4 Nadia (97/40)
Location: The Maw
Blazermate's @Archmage MC, Bowser's @DracoLunaris, Ace Cadet's @Yankee, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Mirage’s @Potemking, Link’s @Gentlemanvaultboy
Word Count: 1634

Practically the moment Nadia went quiet, Mirage spoke up. He cut through the panic-fueled indecision and quickly got the situation back into perspective, noting the various options at hand before choosing one for himself. Rather than deliberate further, Geralt -looking a lot more mad than Nadia had seen him thus far- started barking orders. Nadia knew they had the right idea. There wasn’t time to stand around and think about what to do; they just needed to do something. With their numbers, they could afford to spread out and try some of everything. Ace seemed really out of sorts for some reason, appearing pretty much normal despite his accounts of changed arms, but the others leaped into action. The Koopa and Blazermate started attacking the door. Link, Geralt, and Mirage, armed with various weapons from nails to knives, fretted not about their own lives but forged onward into the unknown, squeezing themselves one after another inside the vent.

Nadia found herself envying their decisive selflessness, wishing she had it in her to be so noble. But self-deprecation could come later. Now was the time for heroics. “I’ll go around,” she announced. “Gonna claw those assholes’ eyes out!” As the boys and Mimikyu disappeared into the narrow passageway she turned tail, putting the locked door toward the south in her sights. Since Blazermate seemed more focused on Bowser and son’s attempt to beat through the door by force, Nadia decided to get the key. As she scampered toward the door she held her magnet up toward the central table, willing it to show the same power it revealed while fighting Moreau. Obligingly the key slid off the edge and into her waiting grasp. Though a little wet with blood for her taste she held tight long enough to chuck it at Kamek, who’d positioned himself right below the hanging padlock. A young koopa might not be able to do much, but he could grab and jump, and with all the energy his starving body could muster Kamek leaped upward to drive the key home. As he dangled he wrenched the key sideways, which both unlocked the mechanism with a satisfying click and slipped it free from the latch. He fell straight into Nadia’s arms as she ran below him, and with a swift kick the door swung inward. Though a small victory, the efficiency of the whole maneuver, having taken only a couple seconds, hyped her up. “Nice! One step at a time!”

Two steps into the next room Nadia’s feet flew out from under her, and she went down. A last-second toss spared Kamek a full-bodied splat onto the ground, hard enough to drive the wind from Nadia’s lungs. As she gasped the feral looked around, trying to figure out what happened. The ground was weirdly slick, and it quickly became apparent why.

This place appeared to be a washroom, its tiles soaked with soap suds that gathered into foamy drifts around the sinks piled impossibly high with dirty dishes. Still recovering from her fall, Nadia had a moment for an incredulous stare at the precarious pillars and pots, plates, and bowls, stacked way, way higher than even the tallest chef could reach. Her upward gaze brought her attention to a large porthole window above a white cupboard, although she couldn’t see anything beyond it but a deep, dark blue, occasionally interspersed with bubbles. Outside? she mused, having almost forgotten that this whole place was one mammoth submarine. Maybe her time on the docks of Little Innsmouth explained how she’d gotten used to the gentle heel of this place in the water. Her examination of the place also turned up two more doors to the east and west, with the westward one accompanied by what looked like a food delivery cart. If her spatial awareness served her well, that door led out into the hallway the crew originally came in through, the same one that bordered the dimly-lit cafeteria on one side. A big, smelly bucket labeled ‘scraps for Moreau’ on the other side of the door suggested that the kids weren’t the only ones served by that cart, either. Neither were the chefs the only ones at work. Throughout the washroom a crew of living forks and even a couple toque-wearing koopas seemed to be hard at work, so busy soaping and scrubbing that none gave more than a cursory glance at the intruders

Since none of them felt like getting in the way, Nadia focused instead on the other door. Going eastward, it granted access to a room directly south of the one the butchers fled to, which hopefully offered a north-facing door of its own. As she rose to her feet, however, Nadia realized that getting over there might be tricky. The soapy tiles might not warrant a second glance from those heavy-set chefs, but for a lightweight child they presented a real issue. Kamek might try asking the koopas for help, but time was of the essence, and Nadia planned to solve this problem herself. But how? Even if tiptoeing or dragging herself on her belly worked, the kitten knew, it would take more time than she had. Could she climb up onto the counters and go around the sinks, maybe? Or…

A lightbulb went off in Nadia’s head, and with a smile she knelt, then reached back to switch on her fan. The next moment she was sliding right across the floor like a hovercraft. In doing so she cut the trip down to just seconds. Ahead of her she could see light pouring both beneath the eastward door and through its keyhole, but rather than faceplant while trying to jump up and get at the knob with soapy hands the feral fixed her eyes on the slot on the side at head height. Dirty dishes came through to land on a small conveyor belt and be dumped into the nearby sink. Trying to jump would lead to another painful fall, but Nadia already had another great idea. Man, I’m on a roll! She shut off her fan, then while still sliding took it off and put it in front of her. After climbing on top she got boosted up to the conveyor. From there she could fetch her fan with her magnet, then push it through the dish slot before squeezing through herself. She nearly got stuck halfway through, no doubt thanks to all the food she’d gobbled up, but a little extra effort popped her through.

Nadia landed with a roll, realizing the moment she hit the ground that it wasn’t tile, but carpet, and a narrow stretch of carpet at that. She found herself on some sort of wide balcony, mostly wooden planks, that overlooked a long, two-story hallway running north to south. Speaking of north, Nadia looked that way to see no door leading into the kitchen where her friends had been taken, and smacked the carpet in anger. “Rats!”

A curious grunt sounded out from the other direction, drawing her attention instantly. Her eyes went wide as she spotted another hideous chef, twin to the first. Where his brother's face stretched wide, however, his mushed inward, forming a fishlike pucker beneath a mop of greasy hair. Having been leaning against and looking over the balcony in the southeast corner, a lit cigarette in hand, he looked over slowly enough that Nadia could skitter away just in time and hide behind a decorative vase. Her tail protruded, but the chef didn’t seem to notice. Instead he gave a heavy cough, put his cigarette out on the railing, and turned to take hold of a meal cart behind him, laden with a very large, bulbous sack. He pushed it into the room to the south and closed the door behind him.

That left just one option. Nadia scurried over to the balcony railing, where the carpet that extended in front of the washroom door proceeded over a bridge across the hallway, no doubt the way the second chef came in. As she crossed she spotted a dumbwaiter on the floor below, left side, right beneath the butchers’ kitchen. “Bingo!” It was currently open, with a few Volbonian waiters removing its contents to distribute throughout what Nadia just now realized must be a massive Japanese-themed restaurant. She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, I hate sushi.” Then again, what this place actually seemed to be serving revolted her a whole lot more. Furthermore, she recognized the decor--the same sort that she saw at the Maw’s entrance. The realization lit a fire inside her. We must be near the top! Once her friends were safe, they might actually be pretty close to escaping! She glanced back as the Runaway dropped down behind her, then looked back at the path ahead. Nadia just needed to get down there without breaking her ankles or alerting the staff. She couldn’t fit or break through the bars of the railing either, so that meant traversing the restaurant itself until she found a way down.

After crossing the bridge, however, she found that the trip might be a whole lot easier said than done. The moment she stepped inside the dining space she beheld a scene of breathtaking gluttony. Rows and rows of Guests, the same sort that waddled out of Tyl Regor’s sealab, sat hunched in booths and benches that creaked beneath their weight, shoveling food into their faces. Whenever one even got close to running out, a Volbonian came by with a ‘fresh’ platter to top off their never-ending feast. The sight robbed Nadia of her appetite, although she gulped in apprehension. It wasn’t hard to imagine one blindly snapping her up as she climbed by. Still, she had no choice. For the sake of her friends, the little feral sprinted onward.

---

After padlocking the door, Larry and his calloused accomplice hurriedly tied the hands (and in Bella’s case, the tail) of their new meat before hanging them by their ropes over the blazing cookfire that dominated one wall of the two-story kitchen they’d fled to. “No wiggling now!” Larry cautioned his catches. “Unless you wanna roast early!” Laughing, he sauntered off until a sudden uproar alerted the cooks to a concerted effort to batter down the door. “Huh?!” Taken by surprise, Larry motioned toward the stretch-faced chef. “C’mere, gimme a hand!” Together, the two dragged a laden cupboard in front of the door, blocking it so thoroughly as to crush and chance of smashing through. “Bahaha, no need to rush!” Larry cackled, patting the shelf. “Once we’re done with the appetizers, we’ll grab you for the main course!”

His laughing trailed off as a racket resounded up from the nearby stairs, and a moment later Chef Antoine appeared. “What the hell’s all this ruckus?” he seethed, wiping his fingers off on a bloody apron. “You both should be working, we’re barely keeping up as it is! The King of Cuisine does not disappoint!”

“Just some extra ingredients,” Larry leered, poking Bella in the tummy. As she whined, Sakura might realize for the first time that her friend looked both taller and heavier than she remembered. If she’d been a girl of four before, she now looked maybe six, or even seven.

Her attention shifted back to Antoine, who did not look pleased by Larry’s suggestion. “Lunatics, what use is meat like that? Woeful that it is, our clients care not for quality, but quantity! We must focus on greater portions!”

“Some King of Cuisine you are!” Larry shot back. “We oughta be proud of our craft!”

“Craft? What craft!? A back-alley bloodletter like you wouldn’t know quality meat if it hit you in the face!” Though smaller than the butcher, Antoine got right up in the man’s face. “And if you don’t finish your fillets right this instant, I’ll show you exactly what I mean!”

For a moment there was silence, save the crackle of the flames and the simmering of the cookpots. Then Larry turned away in a huff to head back to the giant fish he’d been cutting up for Fujimoto’s sushi, grumbling under his breath. Antoine glowered at the blocked door before addressing the stretch-faced chef. “Come with me downstairs. I need you to handle the pot roast.” The two departed, leaving Sakura and the Abyssals alone with Larry. In anger the butcher struck his cleaver against the bars of a cage filled with Aggrolls, Minimakis, and Noodlers, then grudgingly returned to his task.

---

The trip through the vents turned out to be more complicated than any of its crawlers would have liked. A few feet brought them to a T-junction right in front of the vent’s opposite end, but rather than a hatch it terminated in a grate, screwed on both very tight and from the outside. From there none of them could do much but take in the kitchen’s smells and the chefs’ argument, then turn to go down the other way. After another dozen feet it turned right and sloped downward at a forty-five degree angle, steep enough that it would be tricky not to fall straight down. At this point the sheer coldness of the metal also started to take a toll, hurting any exposed skin that came in contact with it. Nevertheless, the little heroes carried onward, making their way down to the main kitchen’s first floor. There the frontrunner found a miracle: a hatch rather than a grate. Through it he could emerge beneath a counter. They were in.

Immediately there was a problem. Beneath the counter lay five mousetraps, arrayed right around the vent. Three of them offered chunks of cheese, and two morsels of meat, but the cheese in particular provided a strong temptation thanks to its potent small and far less dubious origin. Unlike the food in the cafeteria, Mirage couldn’t just ignore this. It lay right in his path, demanding confrontation. Still, simple mousetraps would not be the end of the vent-goers’ story.

Once past them, the heroes had only the entirety of the kitchen’s first and second floors between them and their friends. On the first floor they spotted Antoine, stretch-face, and yet another chef hard at work, with the unfamiliar face single-mindedly focused on making sushi. Once he finished a batch and plated it, he pushed it into a dumbwaiter and closed it, causing the other side (presumably facing a restaurant of some kind) to open. The others worked on dishes of their own, including a jumbo-sized meaty lasagna and a huge pot roast. The roast featured a slab of meat far too large to be a child, but that did little to abate the newcomers’’ fury. They thought only of revenge and a way forward, but even that turned up a couple issues. Scattered around the place were Scalding Coffee Cups, superheated caffeine spirits that served double duty as chef stimulants and pest control. Though quite hot, they presented only a minor threat compared to the duo of Tempura Wizards who busied themselves using their magic to transform otherwise worthless scraps of food into tempura. It didn’t take a genius to intuit that the same might apply to any unwelcome guests. Still, with all of the stuff around there were a huge number of both places to hide and potential weapons to find, offering the heroes many ways to go about their business.

Old Mill

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

Albedo paused and quietly turned to face Linkle as she approached the cats. Though she possessed only good intentions, she did not let them off the hook easily, but instead did her best to make them realize the foolishness of their actions. As she revealed to them the degree to which she could have destroyed them and went on to describe the brutality a less merciful victim like the Stranger might inflict, the fuzzy burglars listened with round eyes and mouths agape. Her final words of advice provoked a vigorous round of head-nodding, the young gang thoroughly intimidated and ready to mend their ways. When Linkle asked for Albedo’s pouch, which the alchemist himself actually forgot about in favor of his sketchbook, one cat returned the stolen coinpurse sheepishly before scampering off to hide behind her toy drum.

A moment later the Skullgirl joined Albedo on the edge of the cat burglars’ loft, and received from her new friend an impressed nod. “Well done,” he told her, his voice soft and flat as ever, but Linkle could tell that he meant it. With the situation handled the duo, delayed but not aggravated by the feeling of totally wasted time, could leave the old mill behind. Without a windglider, getting down wasn’t as easy as it could have been, but neither Albedo or Linkle had too much trouble. Plus, during the descent they divert more attention to picking up pons, and by the time the pair reached terra firma all their climbing had amassed them a decent stash. “That’s probably enough for another badge, if not two,” the alchemist observed. “If you want to ride back over to the village and get them, feel free.” He held his chin in his hand as he looked out through the crisp alpine air at the lively little mountain town. “I had considered sketching the village from afar anyway, so I would not mind.”

Whatever Linkle decided to do, the next step of their journey lay on the opposite end of the old mill’s plateau, and it began by taking hold of the flagline that plunged downward into the sea of clouds that blanketed the misty valley. As he descended, hanging once more for his life from a mere rope, Albedo could feel the air getting steadily warmer. It remained cool, but no longer freezing, and he could appreciate the change if not the manner in which he encountered it. Before too long the clouds swallowed him up, and for a few moments he could see nothing but pure, unadulterated white, in every direction.

Then came the color.

Click for music

Emerging from the whiteness in a puff of fog, Albedo descended into a valley of breathtaking splendor. Below him stretched a forest of bone-white trees and vivid scarlet leaves atop a blanket of gorgeous wildflowers, their petals crimson, azure, indigo, and violet. Mossy green boulders dotted the tough, golden taiga grass. The flagline came to a stop at a tree in the front yard of a quaint little hut covered in clovers and yellow flowers, its white-bearded dweller out front tending to his garden. The sight of Albedo, moving gingerly among the flowers as if afraid to dispel some beautiful illusion, made him chuckle. “G’day,” he said, holding up a paw in greeting as he leaned on his hoe like a staff. “Lovely bit o’ forest, eh? They call ‘em the Wildwoods. Some folks live here ‘n there but for the most part it’s pristine. Makes every day a blessin’.”

“Indeed.” Albedo looked around slowly, trying to take it all in. “No matter what my time in this world amounts to, I expect I won’t soon forget this.”

With a soft smile, the gopher held onto his stick. “I reckon you won’t.”

His mission momentarily forgotten, Albedo left it to Linkle to inquire about Freya.

Persona - Soldiers of Fortune

Barney Rynsburger

As he barreled toward the demonic storks that stood between him and the grand courthouse doors, Barney found himself hoping that the shadow judge was right about one thing: that in life or death situations, even the most ordinary person could do amazing things. Although he couldn’t explain it, something had fired him up, reigniting that tiny bit of fight buried deep within him. Where just moments ago he stared death straight in the face, resigned to a messy end between the grisly canines of the Stygian monstrosity that Pondwater called Naberius, he now ran headlong into danger in the hopes of a new lease on life. Maybe it was the example of the courageous police girl, emerging suddenly from ominous, half-remembered dreams to confront the monstrosities with a wink and a smile. Maybe it was spite that fueled him, a semblance of the same anger that burned red-hot in the hearts of Nick and Jin against Pondwater’s callous philosophy. It might be adrenaline, or he really might be crazy. Barney couldn’t say. All he knew was that he was doing this. Dream or not, he was going to live.

The Shaxes both reacted once he got within range. Bright orange glyphs formed in the air around them, gathering some sort of power. Forced by the circumstances to just roll with it, Barney did not shy away until, one after another, both demons spread wide their wings to launch their offensives. Two blades of dark energy, awash in bubbling darkness, rose like shark fins from the ground and raced toward him. They ripped forward fast, but not so fast that Barney couldn’t realize that they traveled in perfectly straight lines. Rather than take his chances trying to withstand the accursed waves, the young man stepped off the line, allowing both to go right by. Without sacrificing any momentum he carried onward, barging right past the first Shax before it could strike back. It let out an horrid squawk of protest, but it was in the past, and Barney looked ahead to the doors. He tightened his arms around his head as he charged past the second shadow, dimly aware of movement in his peripherals. Nasty claws sliced into his tartan jacket and raked his sweater, but did not penetrate his thick clothing. A sudden pain lanced his upper forearm, right below the elbow, but nothing he couldn’t handle. The next moment Barney left the monster’s effective range, and another moment brought him right into the courthouse door with a slam.

As he began to push Barney realized an unexpected problem. It was heavy. “Aghhh, come on!” he growled through gritted teeth as he heaved his weight against it. He noticed nothing of the sort coming in, although considering the impact left in the concrete by the captain’s baton, the guards must have remarkable strength. Enough to make opening this door look easy. For Barney it proved difficult but, as the groan of the hinges announced, doable. Knowing the Shaxes could come at him any second, he shoved the grand door shoulder-first with all his strength. A crack of orange, dusky light appeared, and quickly the opening grew larger. With a grunt of triumphant exertion readied himself for a final push and to slip through.

At that moment, however, he heard yelling from behind him, and Barney couldn’t resist the impulse to look over his shoulder. What he saw took him by surprise, although in retrospect it shouldn’t have. The others had followed him. Even after Pondwater’s condemnation to all but certain death and being sandwiched between two groups of monsters, not a single one of them had slumped down, defeated. Instead, though battered and mentally taxed, they followed in Barney’s footsteps and made for the exit.

Though much smaller than Vincent, Dakota had risked his neck to help the older man out, the sight of which shot a pang of guilt through Barney for forgetting all about him in his rush to save his own skin, even though Vincent did get everyone else hurt. Together the pair hobbled straight for the storks that the bearded frontrunner left behind, with Vincent even mustering up a burst of energy to strike out at his attacker’s eye. With a screech the Shax flapped its wings, exposing its blood-red head and serpentine neck enough for the criminal to shove it away. Though it floated in the air under its own power the demon reeled, giving the duo an opportunity to get by. At the same time Mila clashed with the other one, whipping her leather jacket at the Shax while it lashed out with its rending beak and claws. Those same weapons snagged in the tough material, allowing Mila to stretch out its limbs as she swept by. With both shadows momentarily discombobulated Nick, Jin, and Caelum stormed through, avoiding direct confrontation. For a moment Barney feared that the schoolgirl, frozen by fear, would be lost, but Harriette risked her own life to take Alina by the hand and pull her along. She even bounced a couple shoes off the head of a Shax, delaying its recovery from Vincent’s push. No matter how they did it, in heeding the police girl’s words, the would-be defendants showed that they craved life just as much as Barney did.

In Barney’s moment of hesitation he noticed something else, as well. A growing pain in his arm drew his attention to the spot that the Shax pecked with its beak, prompting a double take. Thanks to his adrenaline it hurt a lot less than it looked like it ought to, but it turned out to be a pretty bad wound. Blood gushed from a stab wound at least an inch deep, and the sight of it shocked him. “Ahhh...ahhh!” He clapped a hand on top of it, squeezing down on his torn jacket to try and stop the flow, but his mind buzzed from more than pain. He’d already been hurt, but just now things were really starting to sink in. Dreams and nightmares could be vivid, but they were ultimately as ephemeral as the imagination that crafted them. Things were unclear, constantly shifting, and seldom held up under scrutiny. But Barney’s breathing was ragged. He could feel the warmth of his blood, taste the subtle smokiness of the air streaming in from outside, hear every panicked footfall as the others ran his way, and see the steely glimmer of the police girl’s needle as she struggled against the demons behind them. This was too real. Maybe it wasn’t reality, but despite all his self-assurances, and the fantastical spectacle around him, this couldn’t possibly be just a dream. Something in the very core of his being told him that lives were really on the line.

Barney glanced back at the others, hesitant, but only for a split second. He knew what he needed to do. Earlier he didn’t want to consider the possibility, but now he had no choice. It was past time he started actually doing the right thing. As Vincent and Dakota approached he redoubled his efforts, pushing the door not just wide enough for himself, but for the rest as well. Once he had it open he pitted his full weight against it to keep it that way, and with his hand waved the others through. “Come on, come on!” he urged them. Only once everyone made it did he let go, and as the door swung back he glanced one last time at the police girl. She stood alone, surrounded by monsters on every side, with the Pondwater’s shadow himself bearing down on her. A dark shape much larger than the judge himself loomed behind him, and though Barney could see little in the brief instant afforded to him, something about even that momentary glimpse made his skin crawl. Then the door slammed shut, sealing everyone else outside.

Once out in the open Barney quickly realized two things: that what seemed like an age had in reality been less than thirty seconds, and that everyone had a long, long way to go before they could even start considering themselves ‘safe’. The Penitentiary of Indictment stretched before the group in all its inhumane misery, crawling with awful activity, and this time Barney couldn’t keep it at a distance for long. He, and everyone else, would need to confront the Proving Grounds as they sought to take the police girl’s advice. Get your sorry butts outta here, she’d told them. But where to?

Not to the right. The massive ray from the colossal searchlight atop the courthouse had settled in that direction, and as Vincent’s ill-fated flight earlier revealed, there could be no escape once in its glaring glow. Barney half expected it to sweep right on top of him any second now, but for the moment there seemed to be something wrong. It twitched violently, flashing red in a manner that suggested some malfunction. From here Barney couldn’t see the beacon itself, but he remembered what the police girl said. “She took out his ‘Vision’...the light!” he realized. “He must not be able to track us. Not until he gets back up there, at least. We oughta get as far away from it as we can!”

Since the docks formed a dead end in front of them, going left seemed to be the only option. Barney jogged away from the courthouse doors, trying to find somewhere, anywhere that the group could go. He took in the row of buildings across the Proving Grounds, identifying a few odd buildings out scattered among the jailhouses. His eyes settled on the small cathedral that he spied earlier, before entering the courthouse, and it struck him once again how bizarre it was that a godforsaken place like this would have such a facility. Then again, if this place somehow symbolized the real world as he suspected, maybe it stood for the little chapel squared away in a corner of the Barclay campus? Either way, right now the escapees needed a safe place to hide away from the guards. How exactly they would actually leave this hellish plane and return to the real BWU was a bridge the group could cross when they came to it. Barney raised his voice to offer his suggestion only to get cut off.

“Freeze! Hold it right there!”

Speak of the devil! From the direction of the beacon’s flickering light, more bow-legged, hole-faced guards were running. Judging by their cattle prods, they’d been monitoring the prisoners before the alarm was raised. Luckily they didn’t seem too fast, but there was no more time for deliberation. “Crap!” Barney practically exploded. “Run for the hills!”

Though he hardly intended to be a leader, he led by example. Though his wounds made running hurt, Barney had stamina to spare after a day of mostly sitting around, and with surprising speed he took off toward the left. Maybe it was his bias showing, but he didn’t really have a lot of options, so he fixed his eyes on the cathedral. Something about it called to him, and given the circumstances trusting his instincts seemed as good a plan as any. After just a few seconds he left the pavilion and entered the Proving Grounds. All of a sudden he felt like he was in a corn field. The chain link fences, topped with barbed wire, rose higher than he did, and the moment he ran in between two pens the alerted guards were sure to lose sight of him.

Of course, that left the guards who roved between or kept watch over the inmates themselves. Though his nerves told him to run like the wind, Barney heard running footsteps ahead of him, slowed to a walk to avoid attracting too much attention. A line of chained inmates trundled along the same path directly to his left, so close he could touch them, but not one among their number acknowledged him in any way. They just marched onward, their helmets bowed, focused solely on the inmate directly ahead. As the footsteps grew louder, nearing an intersection between pens, Barney ducked into the prison line. He hid himself as best he could, with the fence on the left and two inmates on the right. Though terrified that his red tartan jacket would give him away, Barney watched two guards run right by him. Hopefully anyone behind him followed his example.

The prison line marched on. Through the fence to his left Barney could see the machines, rigorously pumping unknown, venomous-looking fluids into the ports on the prisoners’ helmets, whilst sucking money out through the front. It was revolting, and though the inmates suffered in silence, they did not do so without consequence. Here and there Barney spotted shriveled husks, human bodies somehow deflated in an almost cartoonish fashion, like balloons. Some had been thrown over strung ropes like towels, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase hung out to dry. So too were the racks of ownerless helmets. It occurred to Barney to grab one for a disguise, but there were none handy, and his prison line was just about to enter one of the pens under a watchful warden’s eye. He slipped out and made a run for it, keeping as low a profile as he could. He got into a cycle of waiting, watching, and dashing, able to distract himself from the wound on his arm for now. If he could keep this up without being spotted, he could reach the cathedral in just a couple minutes.

World of Light

Alrighty, thanks for sating my curiosity. Kiryu is accepted!

World of Light

@Potemking Unsurprisingly, another great sheet. Everything seems to be in order. What really does seem like an implausible inability to kill is a double-pronged sword and one I'm sure will be interesting. I just have one functional question. To what does extent does Kiryu's refusal to hit females apply? To just humans? Humanoids, like say, Zora? All females of all species? Just sentient species? What about machines like Blazermate? A weird question I know, but one that bears asking.

World of Light

Ms Fortune

Level 4 Nadia (97/40)
Location: The Maw
Blazermate's @Archmage MC, Bowser's @DracoLunaris, Geralt’s @Multi_Media_Man, Ace Cadet's @Yankee, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Mirage’s @Potemking, Link’s @Gentlemanvaultboy
Word Count: 1813

Easy, Nadia, the excitable feral told herself, taking one breath at a time. Though certifiably creepy, this chef wasn’t nearly as bad as Moreau or Bongo Bongo. Getting around him might be tricky for a cutlet-sized child, but she had food in her belly and fire in her heart. I can do this. “We can do this,” she said aloud, correcting herself in a whisper strong enough for her gathered allies to hear but much too weak to reach the chopper’s ears. With renewed vigor she could afford to wear her most confident smile while she not just broke but totally annihilated the tension. “The steaks are high, and we don’t wanna risk a meat ‘n greet, but we’re stroganoff to make it through.”

Rather than waste time making her allies reconsider the value of their lives with terrible puns, Sakura got right down to business. The savvy girl shushed Nadia with a finger to her lips, then emerged from hiding with a plan of attack in mind. Spurred on by both the restlessness of hunger and an even stronger desire to contribute, she maneuvered across the room in search of a distraction. Nobody really knew what the plan was, if one even existed, but it was clearly time to hustle. After the chef proved to be pretty much fixated on his work, the rest of the children fanned out even more, crouch-walking to various hiding spots to avoid the telltale slap of shoes and soles against the cold tile. Assuming that the gaggle of kids would be heading for the unlocked door, rather than try and tear the chef away from his butchery long enough for someone to grab the key, Nadia circled around behind him going north. She almost scurried over the meat parcels piled up in the northwest corner, but realized that their paper wrappings would crinkle if touched, and settled for padding with almost cartoonish delicacy across the open floor.

Keen-eyed as ever, Nadia spotted Sakura as the brunette hefted a jar, and in a flash she realized what was about to happen. Using drawer handles like a ladder she rushed up onto a nearby countertop, then dove into a (mercifully empty) pot. Then a terribly loud crash shattered the peaceful quiet of the kitchen, and a sound erupted from the chef that froze Nadia stiff. It was loud, sudden, like the blast of an elephant, an abrupt yet windy scream that sounded almost as afraid as it did angry. With that outburst the chef spun around, cleaver in hand, and slouched forward toward the source of the noise. As they felt the ground hudder with every footfall the children scattered through the kitchen shrank into their hiding spots in fear. A moment later the chef came to a stop in front of the smashed jar, looming over the wreckage. In apparent frustration. He scanned the counter, looking back and forth. After a moment he seemed to note the shadowy space beneath the countertop, just behind the debris, and with a grunt he knelt down to extend a pudgy arm and feel around down there for any unwelcome visitors. When his search turned up nothing, however, the chef gave a frustrated grunt and stood. With his loathsome head mere feet away from Sakura’s hiding place, he reached up sausage-like fingers into the folds of his chin, then beneath them, slipping underneath a layer of doughy, jaundiced skin to scratch at the flesh beneath. If the small street fighter risked a peek, she could catch the most fleeting glimpse of much darker, gray-blue skin underneath what could only be a ghastly mask.

Just then the east-side door slammed open, a commotion far less expected than the reaction of the chef. Into the room barged an even bigger butcher, albeit one more identifiable human. Foregoing the proper if rumpled chef’s attire of his coworker, he favored a shirt soaked by both sweat and blood stretched thin by his remarkable girth. “What was that noise?” he demanded, looking straight at the malformed chef. “You drop something again?”

The chef made an angry noise, somewhere between a growl and a honk, which left the newcomer irate. Two missing front teeth added a little hiss and a little spit to everything he said. “Bah, why’d I bother? Bumbling fool. Keep this up and you’ll be the next main course! Ahahahaha!”

Bellowing another elephantine retort, the chef reached an arm across the counter and swept up a whole stack of bowls, slinging them across the kitchen. Being made of cheap wood they clattered harmlessly against whatever they hit, be that the tiles, the door, or Larry Chiang himself, who laughed it off. “Ahaha, that’s right! Just like that...HEY!”

He thrust an accusatory finger right at Sakura, who in a most unfortunate turn of events the chef had unwittingly revealed. Whether she took off running or attempted to fight, the chef turned and lunged with impressive speed, seizing the wriggling girl by the throat and ankles. Like the jaws of a bulldog his meaty mitts locked around her, totally immovable.

The Abyssals reacted immediately and without hesitation. From her vantage point Rika appeared with guns at the ready, while Bella emerged from hiding with a spin, looking over her shoulder as her tail prepared to fire. Nadia, still hiding in her pot with only her fingertips, folded-back ears, and upper head over the rim, watched as the Abyssals took their shots. Just as planned, Rika blasted one of the hooks to knock off its load. With the nearest being one on the hookline, that meant dropping a meat parcel right onto the chef’s head, crushing his toque in the process. At the same time Bella shot the chef right in the chest. With an alarmed yell he flinched, staggering backward from the tiny explosion, but he did not drop Sakura. Larry, meanwhile, drew back his off hand and with a grunt of exertion hurled a kitchen knife straight at Bella. She got out of the way not a moment too soon, and the blade embedded in the wooden leg of a table behind her, but as she readied another shot Larry lowered his head and charged like a bull, arms extended. “MEEEAT!” he howled, zooming across the kitchen. Before Bella knew it he clasped a hand around the throat of her leviathan tail and hauled her into the air, dangling like a hooked fish. In his other hand hung Rika, grabbed by her gauntlets. “Live ones!” he marvelled, sounding surprised. He gave both a good, violent shake, quelling their struggle. “That damn janitor must be getting lazy!”

Nadia’s grip tightened on her pot. Part of her, maybe figuring that these crazy cooks could only hold so many kids, wanted to leap out and join the attack. If everyone struck at once, their numbers advantage would surely put them on top, right? But at the same time, her heart was beating wildly, like a drum in a hailstorm. Larry had just inadvertently let slip a small but crucial detail about the meat, one that chilled her to the bone. And even if she managed to shoulder that terrible knowledge, there were more practical concerns at hand. These enemies were tough, strong, fast, and perhaps worst of all, clever. When it came to horror, not being an idiot meant even more for predators than it did for prey. What could she honestly do?

Then again, could she live with herself if she did nothing? Although she’d known them for less than a day, these people were her friends. How in the hell could she cower and let these freaks turn them into hamburger? No doubt the others felt the same. Not one of them would stand idly by. As all the cafeteria kids except the Runaway fled Nadia clenched her teeth and leaped from the pot, her fan held up like a shield. “Hey, uglies!” she yowled, running over to a few loose carrots. “Over here!” With one airburst at a time she sent the carrots flying, a volley of orange missiles.

As soon as children started appearing in force, wielding various weapons, Larry reconsidered the situation. The arrival of Blazermate, however, sealed the deal. “Gah! They’re everywhere!” The outburst of his fellow chef caught his attention, and when he made a run for it, Larry followed suit with another armored charge. Nadia ran after them, not even thinking about what would happen if she actually caught them, but it quickly came to nothing. Amidst a hail of projectiles the butchers absconded, slamming the eastward door behind them. Nadia slowed to a stop as she heard a padlock click into place on the other side, at a loss for words. Just like that the children were alone again, down three of their number, and armed with the knowledge that the three little girls might end up as mincemeat any second.

“Ahahaha, you kids settle down, now!” came Larry’s voice from the other side. “We’re gonna take our time makin’ the most of our fresh meat! Just sit tight and wait your turn. Hahahahaaaah!”

With the way east sealed only two options remained. One was the locked door to the south, the key by the cutting board now unprotected. The other, Nadia realized as she looked around, was a tiny vent not too far from the door. She scurried over and yanked it open, but even after leaving her fan behind, she realized that she could not squeeze through. By the smallest of margins, she was too big. “Grgh!” she grunted, trying in vain to fit her shoulders inside. Even if she somehow manages to clear the entrance, she’d be too stuck to advance any further unless painfully shoved through one centimeter at a time. “I can’t…guh!” It took some help to pull her back out. When she stood, frustrated, she realized with a little surprise that she stood taller than any of Mirage, Link, or Geralt. “Wait, what? I thought...I mean, nevermind! We’ve gotta save ‘em! Hurry and squeeze through”

Peach laid a hand on her shoulder. “Just a moment,” she squeaked. “I want to save them as much as you, but not everyone can fit through there, and those butchers could be waiting right on the other side! If we blindly rush in we could be throwing our lives away!”

“But we’re practically throwin’ theirs away if we don’t! Ugh!” Nadia kicked at a nearby table leg in frustration, predictably stubbing her toe. “Ow, oogh!” She shook her foot out and winced after placing it, her anger plain to see. “Well...what are we gonna do? Push through? Go around? Look for a key? This might be the only way in!”

Doing her best to keep her composure, Peach did her best to come up with an answer, giving the others a chance to do the same.

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

Thanks for the notice. I wish Enkryption a swift recovery.

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, Joker, Fox, Necronomicon, Braum

Evade Ciella, overwhelm the opposition, and take the hypnotic mastermind Nastasia down--the mission was simple enough, if not easy, and since every second counted the team got right to it.

Reunited from their separate brawls all across the alien colosseum by the Agito’s wide-ranging Floor of Despair, most of the Seekers ran at full tilt straight for the cluster of still-standing Resistance fighters, and none more so than Mao. The demon had noticed a certain bothersome someone way out of position, and with one victory already under his belt Mao powered through his wounds to run Fuse down. Another grenade flew his way, but by now Mao knew what to expect, and with a high-flying maneuver he came down on Fuse in a brutal plunging attack. In pragmatic fashion he threw restraint to the wind, counting on a follow-up Friend Heart to undo the lethal wound inflicted by his swordblade, saving the life of the unfortunate grenadier. And in a lucky break, things turned out exactly the way Mao planned. Overwhelmed by the physical shock of being dumped at death’s door only for it to slam in his face, Fuse collapsed, and Mao could rejoin his allies’ charge with barely a break in the action.

Though almost as scared as she was impressed, Necronomicon offered Mao some praise for his work. “Whoa. That was a risky move, Mao, but you really pulled it off!”

While her compatriots moved in for an all-out clash with the Resistance, Sectonia kept her focus squarely on Shadow. They’d been mutual thorns in each others’ sides throughout the entire conflict, though whether out of a desire to spare their teammates a particularly troublesome opponent or just out of spite was up to interpretation. Either way, neither planned to back down now. Shadow could feel that the climactic moment had appeared. Now, he knew, he’d squash this bug once and for all. “Alright, bee-yotch. You’ve had your fun, but playtime’s just about over. Any last words?”

As a matter of fact, Sectonia did. Though aware of the fact that Nastasia had him under control she made her best attempt to try and incite a rebellion, playing on the ego that so clearly oozed from his every pore. With a double dose of mental manipulation at play, however, Shadow was unmoved, as he quickly demonstrated. “Oh? How about I claim your spirit as a trophy once I’ve dispensed with you? Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick. In fact, if you blink you might just miss me. Chaos Boost!”

A burst of red and white power surrounded him, becoming a swirling aura. He raised his hand in what was by now a familiar motion, but rather than a Chaos Spear he brought forth a much larger Chaos Lance, which he hurled at Sectonia. Though it seemed dodgeable, if she tried anything less than a dedicated attempt to avoid it, she would soon find that this attack need not hit her directly to be effective. Once in range it exploded, detonated mid-flight by Shadow with enough sheer power to stun anyone it hit. Shadow then threw himself forward in another Spin Attack. En route, however, he tapped into his Chaos powers once again. “Chaos Burst!” Around him space itself distorted, creating a miniature black hole that the hedgehog then hid himself inside. Totally untargetable, he guided the singularity of destruction Sectonia’s way, limited only by his inability to see where he was going whilst within distorted space.

While Sectonia tried to deal with that, the two sides down below closed in. Braum raised his shield, and though Reinhardt would have joined him, his broken shield’s partial regeneration meant it would break too fast if deployed too early, so the knight kept it in reserve for now. That turned out to be a mistake. He scoffed at gunfire and shrugged off low-level spells thanks to his futuristic armor, but one well-placed shot from Jesse’s tool gun shrunk him where he stood. The process was so disorienting that he could hardly react in time to the second jolt, and before he knew it the giant paladin stood no taller than a Weimaraner. At that point Jesse’s tunnel vision would have earned her a sound punishment under normal circumstances, but a quick appraisal of the enemy force told her that they sorely lacked in the long-range department, so she did not relent. Instead she battered Reinhardt with a projectile, failing to send him the hundreds of feet she envisioned, but dealing a chunk of damage nonetheless and, more importantly, removing him from the fight. One down, three to go.

She turned her uncanny gun on Sven, but by then her laser focus left its mark. Rather than the alchemist’s belly her enlargement ray struck Braum’s shield as the defender practically flew in front of his ally, and before Jesse knew it Sven had soared into the air. “That’s enough, lassie!” Flying above Braum’s head, he let fly a Chaos Quaff, an enormous glass jar of liquid sorcery that shone a distractingly radiant yellow. With low energy, no hovering, and not enough time to switch to Balloon again, there wasn't much Jesse could do. The bubbling brew shattered at her feet and splashed across a wide area, dousing her, Mao, and Joker in its magic. Instantly the three were polymorphed, transformed into adorable creatures. Mao became a horned critter, Jesse a marshmellow cat, and Joker a sheep, all three fluffy, small, and utterly harmless. That left only the Dragonborn and Fox still standing, two on three. Sven landed, shaking potions with both hands and ready to fight. Funny he might be, and homeless definitely, but he was not to be underestimated.

Braum slammed the ground, causing a fissure to form, and through the resulting instability Sven charged. He flung vial after vial, creating small magic explosions with each. Though incredibly hindered in their new forms the polymorphed trio had to dodge as best they could, but even then only a couple seconds passed before Sven whipped out some Acid Flasks. “Yah!” he cried, hurling his caustic concoctions to sizzle and sear. But the gleam of a prismatic blade cut one short, and though drops of burning acid struck his face and clothes Fox stood firm. He sliced through the second vial, and as the third flew straight for him he assumed a counter stance. The smash of glass against his head triggered a brilliant flash, and when his katana slid back into its scabbard Sven flew back, his belly covered in cuts.

Victory was short-lived. Fox fell to his knees, scorched by acid. “Gyagggghhh…” he gasped through gritted teeth. “That did not...go according..to plan!”

Seeing him in distress, Braum charged forward. The brainwashed guardian shoved the wounded Sven aside and ran straight for Fox, his enormous shield poised to smash him to a pulp. The Dragonborn jumped into help, but his lightning and swordblade found an immovable object, and he too fell by the wayside. Just when Fox’s death seemed certain, however, the effects of the short-lived Chaos Quaff wore off. The afflicted poofed back to normal, just in time to save Fox’s skin and take down the last enemy between them and Nastasia.

Joker reacted fast. “Jinx, Riot Gun!” His new Persona appeared in a burst of maniacal laughter, unleashing a torrent of gunfire from her minigun. The bullets hammered Braum’s shield, doing no damage but imparting enough force against its increased weight that she slowed him down. While this happened Joker charged, sprinting into and then up the wall of stone before him. He rolled over the top and came down with a stomp right to Braum’s nose, stunning him long enough that Joker could springboard off him and toward his real target: Nastasia. Sven and Braum were the others’ to deal with.

All the while, Midna did her best to hog Ciella’s coveted attention all to herself. When yelled at from the shadows but not attacked, the Agito covered her momentary bewilderment with a thundering repartee. “Your threats, empty as your head, ring hollow!” she resounded. “The hypocrites of the so-called Resistance--murderers and scoundrels who stained their hands with the blood of innocents and decreed it righteous! And your miserable band, so convinced of your own strength, but undone by a simple ploy I showed you once already? Hah! I despair for you all!”

Wherever Midna’s voice issued from, Ciella immediately turned to loose a five-shot spread of enchanted water arrows, their azure glow strong enough to scrub the shadows in their vicinity. They bounced off the floor, pillars, and walls, ricocheting unpredictably. If Midna revealed herself, however, Mona could patch her up with a burst of healing from his dashing Persona’s Diarama. When nothing happened for a while, however, Ciella’s fury died down, and though alert she stopped firing off arrows. “As I thought...a fangless phantom, cowering in the dark! Well, come on out if you dare. I’ll put you out of your misery!”

For a moment the ‘fight’ between Shadow and Sectonia caught her attention. In her eyes both were enemies, and neither expected a third party’s interference. In that moment Midna finally appeared, a spin tile in hand that unceremoniously hurled the harpy right into one of the arena walls. It hurt her pride more than anything else, but Ciella’s frustration was palpable. “Grrah!” she snarled. “Impish brat! Every second of my time you waste, your precious friends falter, and the enemy inches closer to victory! It’s past time I ended this. Mist Veil!”

A wave of fog expanded outward through the arena, and despite her gigantic size Ciella disappeared completely. In the eddies and swirls of mist her movements could not be cleanly discerned. In mere moments the Agito would appear to release her devastating attack. Everyone needed to finish this now.

Tora, Poppi, and Big Band

Level 9 Tora (56/90) Level 9 Poppi (56/90) Level 4 Big Band (12/40)
Location: Al Mamoon Northwest - Obelisk Temple
Primrose’s @Yankee, Fox’s @Dawnrider, Yoshitsune and Sora’s @Rockin Strings
Word Count: 1892

Though the Grimleal construed their offer as a choice, for most of those present, it was really no choice at all. Not able to discount the possibility of further executions on Azwel’s part, and more wary now of the sneering Kan-Ra, Tora and Poppi instinctively took a protective position in front of the other fallen Resistance fighters. They felt bad enough about the deaths on their own hands during the life-or-death battle minutes ago, and with their former enemies now defenseless, they refused to allow any more killing. Likewise, Goldlewis and Big Band -formidable obstacles by themselves, let alone together- kept an eye on the strange bellows they’d been acquainted with. The Grimleal, however, seemed to give the matter no further thought. When Fox moved to treat Robin with a friend heart, neither Kan-Ra nor Azwel batted an eye. Instead they made for the dungeon entrance, but as the researcher left, possibly to summon the acolytes, the sorcerer remained behind.

Groaning, Robin picked himself off the ground. With a sleeve he wiped at his face as if trying to clear away the remainder of the fog that clouded his mind. When his eyes finally blinked open, they landed on a familiar vulpine face. “Ah…” He rose into a kneeling position, massaging his neck as he did. Though a changed man since Fox last met him, he looked at the pilot with recognition in his eyes. Thanks to a sharp mind Robin was quickly piecing things together, but the weight of so many realizations and memories still made it difficult to formulate his thoughts. “I...forgive me,” he said at last, looking between Fox and the Phantom Thieves. “Even if my mind was not my own, it was by my hand that much pain was wrought, and for that I can only offer my deepest apologies. I know not how you dispelled this hex, but I am exceedingly grateful, nonetheless.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Skull told him, his jovial manner making it clear that neither he nor Panther took it too seriously.

His friend nodded, her smile encouraging. “Yeah, no problem! This kind of thing’s been happening, like, literally all the time.”

The sight of blonde pigtails reminded Robin to look back down at Tharja, who still lay at his side. He leaned over and laid a hand on her shoulder, shaking softly, but she barely stirred. After a moment the tactician looked back at Fox, his plea easily guessed. “I hate to ask more of you when you’ve already done so much, but if at all possible I would want Tharja restored, as well.” A conflicted but telling expression took over his features. “She’s become...well, rather important to me.”

“Heheh, good mornin’ heartache,” Band chuckled, before growing serious. “Don’chu worry ‘bout a thing, Mister Magic, we’ll get her fixed up. In fact, I bet we’ve all got some heart to give, right folks?” With a look around the detective conducted a quick headcount. “Three, four, five. Not so bad, as long as we spread the love around. Don’t want anyone gettin’ too beat.”

Poppi raised her hand for attention. “Six actually, friend Band. Poppi trapped gun lady in jail cell.”

“Oh, yeah!” Goldlewis snapped his fingers. “Knew I was forgettin’ somethin’. Jus’ be careful, she’s still got ‘er gun in there.”

After considering all the potential subjects his team could free, Tora gave a grimace. “Do friends really need heart big baldypon? He very nasty to Rose-Rose!” With a resolute shake of his head the Nopon put his wings akimbo. “Tora not do it!”

“Don’t be childish,” Big Band scolded him as he moved toward the titanic ninja. Copying what the others did, he managed to produce a friend heart on his first try and slap it into Earthquake’s gut. As the bandit stirred, Band continued, “Even if the guy’s a scumbag, he was under both the Resistance’s brainwashin’ and Galeem’s control. We don’t get to call the shots when it comes to people’s lives.”

“Meeeh…”

“Ga-what now?” Goldlewis scratched his head. “Uh, either way, I don’t think any of these guys’re gonna get justice ‘round these parts.” He glared at the Grimleal. “Not with varmints like them around.”

Like it or not, Big Band came to the same conclusion. Whether corrupt or just cruel, the administration led by Validar was one he couldn’t abide, and from the looks of it the rest of the Seekers felt the same way. “We’ll jus’ have to take it up with Validar. And be ready for anything.”

As the Seekers spread out to distribute liberation, with Tora and Poppi going to tear down their handiwork in an effort to take care of Daisy, Robin remained at Tharja’s side. She, Sora, Es, and the Witch Doctor still needed a heart from someone or another, and the tactician waited to see who would step up to the plate. A nudge at his side prompted him to glance over and see Drippy, returned from his hiding place, and though Gleaming he lacked the hypnosis placed on all the Resistance members. “Looks like we’ve still got a shot to expose that rotter Validar, eh?”

“Perhaps,” Robin replied, uncertain. “If it were up to the Grimleal I’m certain all your lives would be forfeit, brainwashing be damned. Validar might spare me only so that I might become a vessel for the Fell Dragon, Grima. But I’m not going to let that happen, and it would appear that this odd group may be our salvation. The campaign of the Resistance may have been a sham, but given the strength and moral fiber of these ‘mercenaries’, revolution may yet come to Al Mamoon.”

Drippy nodded enthusiastically, jungling his nose-lantern. “Tidy! Don’t you fret mun, we’ll have ouer day yet!”

Once the former Resistance members had been restored, that left just a couple loose ends. One was the embraced knight still imprisoned closer to the stairs, but Tora and Poppi concerned themselves with a more personal matter. They held the spirits of Beast and Dante, one apiece. “Fight was very tough, meh” Tora told Big Band when he caught the detective’s quizzical look. “If Tora and Poppi not go all-out, we probably die.”

It was an excuse Band heard more than enough of during his time on the force. Crooked cops could spin up any excuse to explain away their dirty deeds. But neither the rotund inventor nor his companion stank of corruption, and Band gave them the benefit of the doubt. “I see.” He bent down to give the dwarf’s spirit a closer look. “Looks like a tough cookie. You gonna fuse with him?”

Tora shook his head emphatically. “Meh-meh, no way! Tora have dream other night that Tora fuse with old beardypon. Get weird legs and human nose! Blegh! In future, Tora only accept things with same shape!”

“Well, Poppi not want him, either,” the artificial blade declared, her own decision already made. She glared at the spirit of Dante with unconcealed contempt. “And not want this guy. There more important things than strength.”

“Why not break ‘em, then?” Band suggested with his eyes on Tora. “Your guy had a hammer, right? Might pack more punch than your dinky li’l wrench there.” The Nopon agreed and crushed Beast’s spirit, and a moment later Poppi followed suit with Dante’s.

For Tora and Poppi

Weapon acquired:
Ukonvasara
A war hammer wielded by Vikings and Norse raiders in ages past. Said to be the magic weapon of the Finnish thunder god Ukko, they’re said to strike like lightning and contain the power to both heal and harm. This blunt weapon does indeed inflict some shock damage on contact

And:
Eryx Chip
A core chip for Poppi QT that changes the Mech Arms, increasing their strength and utility. Bearing the same twisted, demon-red appearance as Eryx, these Mech Arms shoot missiles enhanced with demonic power, and their striking ends are the fists of actually functional hands, allowing Poppi to grapple with them as well as punch

Tora waved his new hammer around, a little disappointed. “It got much shorter, meh.”

“This actually really good,” Poppi observed, having changed to QT mode to try her new Mech Arms out. “Less unwieldy, more destructive, and can actually grab and hold things.”

Meanwhile, Skull was checking out the spirit of Charnok that Panther recovered. “You’re not gonna absorb him too, right?”

Panther shook her head, bouncing her giant pigtails around. “Nah. I get the feeling that if I fuse with any more reptiles, it’s gonna be messy. Only spirits that are both cute and strong from here on out!”

“Yeah, makes sense. Ooh, then what about her?” Skull indicated Es.

He received an incredulous look from Panther for his efforts. “You just want me to be shorter than you again.” Another possibility dawned on her, one that turned her expression highly judgemental. “That...or you want me bigger in another way...”

Skull shook his head wildly as he waved his hands, trying to placate her, although the slight reddening of his cheeks gave the game away. “N-no way, man! I was just thinking, she was pretty, um, pretty...uh, strong! And really fast too, with that giant sword! Y-ya know what I mean?”

At about that time Azwel returned with his acolytes, providing an escort for both Seekers and Resistance members alike. It was time to return to the surface.

Tora freed Goldlewis. Poppi freed Daisy.

---

After a long trek back up through the Temple of Khamoon, including an exhaustive number of stairs, the afternoon sun fell upon the group once more. Tora blinked as his eyes adjusted, having been deep underground for a little too long, and stretched. “Meee-eh! So good to get back out in open!” He brushed some dust out of his hair before looked around. “What now?”

“Now, we will return with the prisoners to the palace,” Kan-Ra informed the team. “I can only imagine that it is your destination as well.”

“What is it?” his comrade asked, having heard his name.

Kan-Ra grinned at him. “Oh, my apologies, I didn’t mean to address you. How foolish of me~”

As the researcher brushed him off, glowering, the sorcerer returned his attention to the others. “As I was saying, I can only imagine that the palace is your destination...also. Whether to collect your reward, or for other reasons. Although, your friends that went to join dear Ciella may not yet be done. Who knows how that turned out.” Not once did his leering smile diminish. “Rest assured we will watch over the prisoners until you all return, with the final third of their number.”

Every word eking out of the not-mummy’s mouth made alarm bells go off in Band’s head, but he did have a point. Since the boss of the Resistance wasn’t here, as Robin made plain on the way up, that meant she would be facing the other team. He did not trust the Grimleal with the captives, but he didn’t want to just assume that the other team had things covered, either. With time of the essence, he came to a decision. “Goldlewis, Fox, whaddya say we keep our new friends company while the rest run on over to the other base?”

Poppi tapped a metal finger against her cheek, thinking. “How we know where other friends are?”

“We need guide,” Tora answered, his eyes on Kan-Ra and Azwel. “Either Grimmypon help, or let Resistance member help us.”

With his arms crossed, Azwel looked displeased. “We are hardly beholden to you, my ovoid friend!”

“Now, now. I’m sure we could spare an acolyte or two to lead the way,” Kan-Ra smirked.

Band realized something. “Nuh-uh. Not gonna take a chance on ya leadin’ us on a wild goose chase. Seein’ as I’m somethin’ of a law officer myself, I’ll just take a captive into protective custody.”

For a brief moment it seemed as though an ever-so-slight shadow passed over Kan-Ra’s smile. “...Suit yourself.”

After a moment’s deliberation Es received the nomination, and in just a few moments more the former team Kan-Ra was off.

Ms Fortune

Level 4 Nadia (94/40)
Location: The Maw
Blazermate's @Archmage MC, Bowser's @DracoLunaris, Ace Cadet's @Yankee, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Mirage’s @Potemking, Link’s @Gentlemanvaultboy
Word Count: 1278

Blind and deaf to the world beyond her dinner table, Nadia savored her sardines for all they were worth. She popped in several entire fishes in at once, urged by her hunger to gulp them down quickly but able to eat just slowly enough to enjoy their salty, fatty oils, and the flavor of the tomato juice they’d been packed in. Still, in no time at all they were gone, and Nadia reached for the next closest morsels. She crunched up a carrot, wolfed down a wedge of cheese, and annihilated a tuna steak and had her claws on another sardine tin before she finally paused. “Oof,” she murmured, more from weariness than anything, and with a relieved sigh she stretched out to rest for a moment.

Though by no means stuffed and not even full, she felt infinitely better. The dire emptiness that made her take leave of her senses had calmed for now; the beast had been appeased. As she lay there Nadia took another, better look around the cafeteria. Most of the gaunt, unfamiliar kids still hid themselves in the shadows away from their boisterous guests, but one boy with hair covering his eyes approached them. Via pantomime he made clear to the new kids both his resolve to get out of here and a method by which they might do so, which gave the Seekers who refused to eat something else to hold on to. By Nadia’s estimation, Geralt, Link, Mirage, Sakura, Rika, Kamek, and of course Blazermate had yet to give in to their appetites, which cut the group approximately in half. Nadia, Bowser, Junior, Mimi, the behemoths, Glenn, Peach, and Bella, meanwhile, had partaken.

Did the feral wish she could have controlled herself? Naturally. She couldn’t help but flush a little in embarrassment when she pictured the others watching her binge. But she was a simple girl of simple pleasures. Good company, good sport, and good eating were what kept her blood flowing, aside from the Life Gem, of course. One of Little Innsmouth’s many axioms rang true in her mind. Food is life. Dying of a curse in the future could really suck, but that was then, and this is now. If there was any chance of overcoming this nightmarish place, she needed strength for the road ahead. She could not bring herself to regret her decision. As the others made for the kitchen door to unlock the way forward, she picked herself up from the table and hopped down to the floor, the unopened sardine tin held under one arm like a bookbag. With it, she could stave off hunger one fish at a time going forward, or even save the life of someone who collapsed from starvation. Nadia made just one more stop, recovering her fan from where Junior dropped it in his mad rush for food, as well as the magnet that slipped from her grasp earlier. It stuck to the side of the fan, and with the makeshift straps still intact she put it on like a backpack and scampered over to join her friends. Even after she arrived, however, she still didn’t notice that she was subtly, almost imperceptibly, taller.

It took a little boosting to reach the doorknob, since this place still seemed larger than it logically should be, but the key fit the lock. Tension filled the air as it turned, inner mechanisms sliding steadily, until finally there came the all-important click and the padlock dropped to the ground with a thump. The kitchen door swung ajar, a pale light pouring through. The Runaway slipped through the gap, paving the way for the others to follow. Behind them, a handful of the most intrepid children among the captive lot pressed up against the Seekers, willing to risk an uneasy fellowship for the sake of escape. One by one the quiet, nervous procession filtered into the new area, wondering just what fresh hell awaited them this time.

But all they found at first, when the wooden planks gave way to neat brown tiles, was an innocuous larder. With shelves full of sauces, spices, wines, raw vegetables of dubious freshness, and other cooking ingredients, it held little in the way of horror. Nevertheless, the hookline carried onward overhead, the packages that dangled from it swinging side to side softly as they traveled. The Runaway followed them through the open doorway, where a short hall formed a right-facing T-junction, and made a right turn. Treading as softly as she could, Nadia followed him, but she could not avoid glancing straight ahead in the direction the parcels went. There, she saw a small room of a much more grisly nature. Parcels littered it, some bent oddly, and a big one poked out of what could only be a meat grinder, which the hookline passed right over. Splattered gunk smeared the floor and walls, and from the pots and buckets of unidentifiable meat sludge by the grinder issues such a revolting smell that Nadia’s lip curled. She hurried on her way.

When she reached the next room, however, she stopped cold. Before her stood a much bigger, better-furnished meat processing center, a far cry from the deplorable grinding room next door, and it appeared to be the terminus of the hookline. A huge heap of cheesecloth-wrapped parcels stood in one corner, and rows of meats, from sausage links and hams to steaks and racks of ribs hung from hooks above the counters. In the constant gentle motion of the Maw they swung in unison, strangely hypnotic. Nadia’s eyes, however, lay not on the butchery, but the butcher.

He was a grotesque spectacle. With folds of doughy flesh about as yellowed as his ill-fitting uniform, a rumpled chef’s hat atop a blobby, distorted face stretched like clay to a hideous, sagging broadness, and eyes that bulged from their sockets as they stared listlessly in to different directions, he bent single-mindedly at his task. Again and again he hacked into a hulking mass of meat with his cleaver, splashing murky blood across his cutting board, pausing only to bury his hands in vats of salt and pepper to rub into the flesh by way of seasoning. In terms of height the horrible cook outstripped Blazermate by a decent margin, and in a way he unnerved Nadia more than any of the monsters that preceded him. Bongo Bongo had been a terrifying apparition, but existed so far beyond the norm that Nadia could scarcely internalize it. Moreau had been a wretched thing, and in his mutated form awakened a primal fear in the way that only an apex predator could. In comparison this just seemed to be a gross man with a big knife, but the way he was so uncannily almost human, but not quite, made her skin crawl.

At least he had yet to notice the uninvited guests piling up on one side of the butcher room, already spreading out to hide beneath tables and counters. Nadia wondered if they had enough manpower, child forms taken into account, to actually fight this grisly chef. Still, if she could sneak past, that would be her first choice. There appeared to be two exits: one continuing east and one to the south, which featured a deadbolt lock. The Runaway’s pointed finger indicated a shiny key by the cutting board on the table, but Nadia wondered whether or she could grab hold of a parcel and ride it across the room eastward if she clambered up the pile toward the hookline. Either way, the frontrunners would need to do something fast. There were too many would-be escapees to avoid detection for long.

Old Mill

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

When Albedo looked to his new friend he originally expected no more than a few spitballed ideas, but he soon got a lot more than he bargained for. In an oddly coincidental turn of events, Linkle recognized this place, if not from her own experience then at least from legend, and she wasted no time proving it. It became obvious that the obstacles of this section of the Old Mill would be no trouble for her, but in terms of exactly how the cheery Skullgirl managed to surprise him once again.

Rather than try her luck with the fans and falling objects ahead, Linkle manifested the power of ice, creating a frozen mass that promised to rise beneath the pair as long as she kept pumping magic into it. It was the exact same trick she’d pulled off to seal the Stranger in the ravine outside Snowdin, albeit in far less intense circumstances. With all the conventional running and jumping Linkle had done, Albedo had forgotten she possessed such an ability, perhaps foolishly, although the alchemist did not allow himself to waste any time with self-reproach. Nor did he make unproductive comparisons between Linkle’s icy elevator and his own solar isotomas, since while her method outperformed his in height and permanence, it also incurred a greater cost. Instead he rode silently, grateful for the warm coat that protected him from high-altitude winds and glacial chills alike, and waited to make the cat burglars’ acquaintance.

Linkle and Albedo arrived a few moments later, leaping from the top of the iceberg straight into the sneaky thieves’ hideout. Although little more than a corner loft with two sides open to the rest of the windmill interior, it managed to be a cozy little place. There were cushions, books, games, all sorts of things probably stolen from passers-by. The round window that provided a stunning view of the Alpine Skyline even featured curtains. So sudden and unexpected was the intruders’ circuitous method of entry that it took the cats completely by surprise. After seeing the sword in Albedo’s hand they jumped, yowling, and ran to hide among their pillows, toys, and curtains, but the paws and tails sticking out made their attempt all the funnier. Clearly the pint-sized pilferers never thought anyone would make it up here.

When he realized that the cats intended to do no more than cower, Albedo shrugged and went to retrieve his sketchbook, lying neatly on top of a small pile of other reading material. Linkle’s crossbows, meanwhile, could be retrieved from where the felines playing with them dropped them, that being on the floor. “Somewhat anticlimactic,” the alchemist observed idly. “But for the better. I doubt they’ll mess with us twice.” He moved to the edge, considering a way back down the mill, the possibility that Linkle might want to interact with the cats further lost on him.

Persona - Soldiers of Fortune

It's go time! With a little help everyone's got a chance to make a break for it. You've got liberty to both handle the flight from the courthouse and beyond it. It's a big prison, but with the Warlord's Vision down you can forge your own path out of the place. Coordinate an escape route, follow the leader, or whatever, but though the guards aren't that fast there are enough scattered around the grounds that it would be unwise to tarry for too long, or let yourself get cornered. If you find somewhere to lay low, however, you'll lose your heat and can stealth around.

There are a handful of landmarks in the prison grounds that may be familiar to you. Some, like the cathedral, the entertainment hall, the Egyptian temple, and the suburban home don't seem to fit the place, seemingly little worlds in and unto themselves. There are a couple more subtle anomalies though, like the open prison cell full of bodies, and the underground passages. Could one of them offer refuge or escape?