Member
Eviledd1984
DancesWMonsters
Archmage MC
Dyelli Beybi
TruthHurts
FujiwaraPhoenix
Bingelly
XoXKieroBombXoX
darkred
Zoey BoeyCease Resistance
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon
Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Mao’s @Potemking, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Primrose’s @Yankee, Yoshitsune and Sora’s @Rockin Strings, Tora and Poppi, Joker, Skull, Mona, Panther, Fox, Necronomicon, Braum, the Dragonborn, Fuse, Mordecai, Reinhardt, Shadow, Es, Ciella
Word Count: 8498 (+9 EXP)
The first floor of Rocket Incorporated lay in near-total disarray, littered with the pulverized, soaked, and gunshot remains of cubicles and office furniture. It made for a pretty meager rest stop, but at this point the tired heroes of Yellow Team couldn’t afford to be picky. Having not just completed but unilaterally survived their divisions’ separate raids, everyone knew the destination that lay ahead of them: the Palace in central Al Mamoon, sitting oh-so-pretty at the end of the grand thoroughfare, and within the city’s ruler, Validar. Even a few moments to rest prior to that momentous meeting did a lot of good for those run ragged by an arduous battle or extended sprint across the city.
Though united until today by the common cause of the Resistance, however forced that had been, Es and Mao ultimately shared little connection beyond their circumstances. Unlike Baz and Klee, whose personalities shone through even under Nastasia’s hypnosis, Es offered nothing in that regard. She had been the perfect soldier, never questioning, never caring. Any Overlord worth his salt had armies of such minions. Even now, a fugitive with an uncertain fate in store at the palace, she betrayed no will of her own. Yet even though it had been an unnecessary act, she’d gone ahead and reported on the others to Mao. Why, she couldn’t say. Based on her own observational data, Mao probably cared as much as she did. Maybe the people of the Resistance, with whom she’d spent the last month, were all she had. Regardless, Mao went on to explain a few things to Midna, the one soul among the Seekers he’d found himself allied with that he chose to confide in. In doing so he offered the briefest glimpse beneath his thorny outer shell, hinting that the black-hearted, demonic propagator of evil cared a little for his former allies after all. Or maybe Midna just imagined it.
Mao accepted Midna's resolve, nodding along with her accepting an attempt to get everyone out of this. Despite his own goals being narrow, he figured there were probably better uses for the less-evil of the Resistance members than sitting behind bars. More strength for fighting this false god in the sky meant everything in this situation. It'd definitely be in their best interest to add some of the stronger individuals from the Resistance to their own ranks, if at all possible.
"Don't get why she went for a widespread attack to begin with," Mao spoke in regards to Midna's doubts about having any reputation left with the Grimleal. "I'm sure they won't be happy knowing she tried to wipe us all out either, or at least the ones they hired as mercenaries." Unless they wanted to kill two birds with one stone, though Mao wasn't entirely sure about that. He had a bit of a bias for doubt and dislike in this situation, and his judgement was quite easily affected by that sort of thing. It was good to keep in mind that she'd risked killing them first, regardless.
”She’s a dozen candles short of a chandelier,” The princess shuddered, remembering the look of madness in the harpy’s eyes ”I’m not sure if it ever crossed her mind not to indiscriminate slaughter inorder to get the results she wants.”
In short order the gathered Phantom Thieves caught one another up, with Braum joining them as the odd man out. Though only with the group since yesterday, the big man had grown fond of the youngsters, and could not apologize enough for turning against them under Nastasia’s control. Naturally the Thieves insisted it wasn’t his fault, and Braum, too selfless to carry on with self-pity, accepted their forgiveness. He even swept up Panther and Skull in a giant hug, one under each arm, to let them know how happy he was that they escaped their own ordeal unscathed. “Next time, I’ll protect you all!” he pledged.
Tora, meanwhile, found himself approached by Sectonia midway through a post-fight diagnostic of Poppi’s systems. Under no circumstances could sand be allowed to accumulate in her joints, but for now he couldn’t afford to perform a full clean-up, so he consented to relaying his own raid’s events both to her and any curious listeners from Mao’s side. “Hihi, Sectonia,” he greeted her. Perhaps due to his ongoing dislike of her overbearing manner, he neglected to use for her a repetitious nickname in the way he did for his closer companions. “Tora and friends go down into underground temple, meh. Got ambushed by hideypons and split up. Not know what happen with everyone else, but Tora and Poppi fight at side of crusty mummypon against jerkface and witch who spawn all sorts of nasty-wasty creepy crawlies.” He shuddered involuntarily. “Meh-meh-meh! Yuckies. Well, after that everyone meet, get past puzzle, and go down into dungeon for big fight. Really tough fight against strong beardypon Tora’s size and jerkface from before. Poppi had go all-out, and they not survive.” At that point he couldn’t help but look a little remorseful, but mostly about Beast. It was very hard to bring himself to pine for Dante. The Nopon held up his new hammer, thinking it might impress Sectonia. “Tora got new smashy stick though, and Poppi get new Mech Arms, so that cool.”
”Ah. We dealt with quite a few troubles of our own. Most notably their leader with the ability to mind control those even under Galeem’s light and that one.”” Sectonia said, pointing a thumb at Shadow. ”Not all of our targets survived either, but that is how battle goes. At least I got a couple new minions out of it.” She looked at Tora’s new hammer, which made her think about the spirits they had yet to deal with, before saying. ”Good weapon. Just remember I can make you get better items if you can hold onto your spirits. I’m sure you had a reason to crush them in the moment, but don’t forget about my little magic trinket here.” Sectonia said, making her Symbol of Avarice appear for a second before making it disappear.
Idle chit-chat couldn’t last forever, of course, and with duty calling both Ciella and Jesse were ready to start the trip. Everyone knew that Validar and his Grimleal waited at the end of the line, and it was hard not to feel at least a little trepidatious. It was a little like getting called into the principal’s office, or brought down to a police station, or summoned to court. Someone with power and authority awaited Seekers and Resistance alike, with over twenty lives hanging in the balance. Nastasia’s victims, remembering, stood ready to defend themselves in the face of devastating accusation. Tora certainly hoped it wouldn’t come to a physical confrontation; in a way, dialog and debate could be tougher than fighting. Still, there wasn’t any getting out of it. This mess needed to be put to right. The Nopon hopped to his feet, and everyone got underway.
Jesse assumed control of the conversation. Her first point was an important one, especially since Shadow had already woken up, kept in check only by his injuries and the iron grip of Braum, to whom he’d been transferred. “Execute me?!” he spat. “Don’t make me laugh. You only beat me in the first place because I wasn’t really trying. And you won’t like it if I do…” He huffed at the mention of Sonic, taking issue at the idea that he’d flee. “Quit comparing me to Sonic! All he ever does is run. Cowards run. I win.” Turning up his nose, he added, “Just bring me to whoever’s in charge and I’ll set things straight.”
“...Right.” Jesse replied. “Well, that’s good to hear. The last thing I want to see, Shadow, is you trying harder than you already are.”
Other than Shadow himself, only the Phantom Thieves, out of everyone here, could really follow everything the FBC director was saying about him and his game series. When she opened up about the bigger picture, however, even going as far as to mention that they were dealing with a bunch of game characters, the teens clumped together for a brief, hushed exchange.
“Hold up, she’s from the real world too?” Skull whispered, eyebrows raised.
“I mean, it sort of makes sense, given how normal she looks. She’s probably American,” Panther remarked.
Fox narrowed his eyes. “How do you explain her powers, though? She’s not a Persona user. And...if she’s American, how do we understand one another?”
“We’ve already encountered a number of ways to gain new powers in this world,” Joker explained. “Or there could be some other force at work. Just don’t worry about the language thing. Either way, we can back her up on this. What do you say?”
Mona, perched on Skull’s broad shoulder, nodded his big head as he whispered, “Yeah, let’s go for it. Just don’t tell the rest they’re not real!”
When Jesse paused to gather her thoughts, Joker spoke up. “It might sound crazy, but she speaks the truth,” he corroborated. “We’re from the same ‘world’, albeit different countries.” Glancing at Jesse, he told her. “Our phones don’t have a signal in this one, so there might not be the internet, but yeah. If we can access it, that’ll be huge.”
“That stuff about Wikipedia not being a valid source is bee ess, by the way…” Skull muttered.
“Isn’t it?” Jesse said to Skull. “When I was in school, I just got around it by using the resources that the people who edit wikipedia did.” Jesse doubted that she and the phantom thieves were from the same world. People like them would have been on the FBC’s radar, no matter how sneaky.
The boy’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s genius!” he exclaimed.
Tora scratched his head with his wing. “Does Poppi understand what friends are saying?”
His companion shook her head. “Not...really.”
Jesse went on to propose a new campaign: one of information warfare. She had a lot of ideas for how to pierce the fog of war, and a few hints about other pressing affairs elsewhere, but for now her suggestions just supported one underlying fact: that the World of Light was an overwhelming amalgamation, so chock-full of stuff that it kept just about everyone in a perpetual state of flying by the seat of her pants. Trying to make sense of and catalog it would be a mammoth undertaking, and one nobody was prepared for just yet. That left them back where they started: getting ready to meet with Validar.
The idea of building an information resource was appealing to Mao, perhaps not for the same reasons as Jesse, however. The idea of having access to so many test subjects from realms he'd never seen before was just so appealing! Turning into a spirit upon death was an unfortunate side effect in this regard, as dissecting pieces would be a bit more stressful if they could just disappear. He didn't have the proper equipment to keep subjects alive, either. So his studies would be... Majorly hampered. But, sometimes sacrifices had to be made in the scientific field. "It'd be an intriguing pursuit, to document the physiology of the creatures of this world." Mao mused, glasses fogging up from notably heavier breathing. Though mostly humanoid subjects were boring, there were notable exceptions, even in this very room.
Taking off his glasses momentarily, he used his coat to hastily clean them. "--Though, we have a more current situation to handle." He added, returning his glasses to their rightful place. "Anyone happen to pick up any of those spirits before we escaped? Might be a good idea to use them now, we might not get the chance later."
”I did, but aren't you concerned by… you know what, sure, it can wait till this ‘debrief’ I suppose. But I'm going to have a lot of questions,” Midna said. Most of Jesse’s words had gone over head, primarily because half of it was terminology she had no frame of reference for as a result of being from a medieval fantasy realm. But the idea that people here were ‘fiction; hadn’t. But it looked like that would be put on the backburner till after they reported back to the local boss.
”Here” she brought out her shadowhand and used its palm as a portable table, before waving a hand over it and bringing the spirits of the fallen she had collected back from the Twilight Realm. A small pile of Vandals, along with the spirit of Orendi and the 2 in 1 of Shayne & Aurox.
“Oh!” Necronomicon interjected. “I zooped these up during that annoying elevator ride. Here!” From her insides the flying saucers withdrew three Craw spirits, a big-bodied Clubba spirit, two X-Nauts, and three Wizzerds. “There were more, but this was all I got,” she explained. “The yellow ones could use magic, so I prioritized them. They’re all kind of dinky though.”
Fox took note of the available offerings. “If we find ourselves with a spare of those four-armed infantryman, I could use a more potent assault rifle,” he requested. Remembering the last time the crew divvied up spirits, his kitsune-masked gaze turned to Sectonia. “You still have that rather ghastly headpiece that refines our treasures, yes? It would be wise to make the most of it.”
”Of course, even if it is ugly, it is too useful to get rid of.” Sectonia said, conjuring the symbol of avarice again. ”But I would recommend we wait until everyone is relatively healthy before using it, due to the damage it deals to the wearer.” Sectonia did have an idea of what the thieves were talking about, sort of. From the sound of things they came from a world that could see into other worlds, but couldn’t interact with any of them until Galeem melded all worlds. Not unlike what she was doing at her palace. They didn’t know everything though, seeing as they didn’t know who Sectonia was, nor Midna.
"Eh, don't worry about human mumblings." Mao brushed off Midna's concern, given the typical earth-dwellers from his own world barely understood anything to begin with, calling even demons like himself 'fictional' was nothing new. He crouched down, looking over the loot with a look of intrigue. His gaze fell on Shayne & Aurox as he considered his options, remembering the pincer attack they'd attempted back underground. He thought about the possibilities between what was laid out before them, before slowly sliding Nastasia's spirit out from under his coat.
Mao was stingy, but hell. Looking at Number Two's spirit was enough to make him pretty sick, so he wouldn't mind just getting rid of her. "I'll put this down, and take this?" Mao didn't seem to have shame in using these spirits, instead looking at them like prize-filled trading cards. In this case, Nastasia for Shayne & Aurox.
Making that exchange, he went to look at what his mind labeled as "Lesser Spirits", consisting of mooks from the ambushes in the elevator. Specifically remembering not killing anyone in that encounter, he eyed the general group and silently wondered who did. Figuring in the end it didn't matter, he grabbed a few that looked useful enough: The spirit of a Craw, and one of the Wizzerds pointed out by Necronomicon. "The cat healed me right before the fight ended," Mao commented to Sectionia, figuring he could take whatever pain the horror-themed hat dealt. "I'm sure I can use it long enough to get what's needed." If it did cause quite a lot of pain, though, that meant it could definitely have some alternate uses aside from looting. He'd keep it in mind as a tool for when someone was a little too reluctant to give information.
”And your sweet fixed me right up. Or enough to bear whatever this hat can throw at me” Midna added for her part, before suggesting ”It’d be interesting to see just how adaptable it is, so unless there’s any objections, I suggest we divy the duplicate spirits up as much as possible”
If there weren't she’d take one of the Vandals herself and toss one to Fox who had also requested one and there were, in her opinion, plenty to spare. Plus it would be interesting to see if his desire turned out exactly as intended. She also took an X-Naut before pointing to the spirit of Orendi asking ”what, exactly, did this one do?”
Jesse nodded her chin towards Orendi’s spirit. “Magic user. Like, a witch or something. Lots of purple laser beams and bolts. She tried to slow me down with magical barbs on the ground. Stuff like that. Seemed to be on the slower end though, in that most of my attacks were faster than hers. At least, that’s how I beat her.”
”Hmmm. Something else to test then” Minda said, as she picked up the spirit and examined the hatted four armed person within ”see if I can steal all the book learning needed to pick up new magic and skip right to the useful part”
“She was also super crazy.” Jesse added.
”If I can overrule a traitor’s mind I can do the same for a mad one too” Midna said with simple arrogance as she lifted the spirit up and pressed it to her head
"Fascinating!" He hadn't thought much on it prior, but seeing Midna's use of Orendi's spirit was a bit of an inspiration. Not only could he enslave these spirits as his own minions, but absorb them for their potential as well! This was somewhat similar to an empowering process from his own world, though all he could obtain from those were raw power increases.
Looking down at Shayne & Aurox's spirit, he felt a little disgruntled about the idea of inviting a human into his being. But, it was a sacrifice to reach at what really caught Mao's interest, which was her strange monster companion. Plus, a human that was willing to take advantage and fight dirty couldn't be the most pathetic excuse of their species. "Usually mixing and matching monster parts requires a lot of medical work. It can really be done instantly...?" With how Shadow had proven to be quite strong in his own right, it only seemed correct in Mao's mind to seek more power to be able to match such threats, at whatever it'd cost.
So the experiment commenced, without much hesitation. No better live test subject than yourself, right? He thought so anyways, as he took the spirit and forced it directly into his center mass, intently staring to see the result firsthand to the best of his ability.
Joker gave a tacit nod of approval concerning the new changes. From the outside perspective neither looked negatively affected, with Midna’s aesthetic in particular arguably improved by the overall reversion to an orange and black color scheme. Of course, the raid didn’t give anyone much insight into the personalities on hand, so any issues on that end would make themselves known sooner or later. “That just leaves their boss,” he said.
“Maybe we not do anything with that one,” Poppi thought aloud. “That way friends have proof for big meeting.”
“Ooh, good thinking, Poppi!” Panther told her, holding up a hand for a high five that the artificial blade tentatively returned.
Still concentrating on the leftover spirits to the point where he nearly tripped while walking, Fox remarked, “If there are no further objections, let us proceed to the itemization.”
Skull had no claim on any of the spirits involved, but like Mao he was interested in seeing what came up. “Ya know, now that I think about it, ain’t this pretty much just a gacha?”
“Totally! Futaba would be all over this stuff!” Panther chimed in, which garnered no visible reaction from Necronomicon.
“A protector?” Joker observed as he took off the painful Symbol of Avarice and handed it to Fox. “I was expecting a knife, but this works. Our enemies will just keep hitting harder.” He put it on and glanced at his friend, noting his brand-new weapon. “That looks heavy.”
Fox nodded, already feeling the strain. “It is. I don’t know if I’ll be able to fire it while running. Nevertheless, I shall take it.” He summoned his own default assault rifle from nowhere, tossed it in a passing trash can, and banished his new firearm.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, can somebody explain what all this is?" Sora asked loudly, motioning towards the spirits. "Are these dead people?" He seemed honestly upset. Looking through the remaining spirits, the keybearer let a tear drop. He was slightly relieved when he didn't see Kairi's spirit, or any of his other friends, but had trouble holding himself together at the thought that he might have just joined the bad guys.
Yoshitsune came up behind the teenager with a sigh. "Tell us about your world, Sora. We might be able to explain it to you better."
"I come from an island but it was swallowed up by the darkness," Sora began, "but it came back after I beat Ansem. I'd been searching for Riku and Kairi through many worlds."
Yoshitsune turned to look at the others with a silent plea for help.
“Meh, meh, meh! Spikypon need keep it together!” Tora said, waving his wings to try and calm Sora down. From the brief time he’d known this kid so far, he seemed like the straightforward and earnest sort who wore his heart on his sleeve, kind of like Rex. “These not people. They just monsters that attack us.” He waited as one of the spirit holders gave Sora a closer look at the four-eyed, four-armed, gun-wielding Vandal within.
After considering the scant details shared by Sora so far, Poppi added, “If there force of darkness in your world, surely there monsters like this in your world, too?”
"Then they're not all that different from Heartless or Nobodies?" he asked, seeming a bit more hopeful. "But why are y'all crushing them and absorbing them?"
“Muhh...yeah!” Tora assured him, although less than sure himself. Something about the way that Sora said ‘Nobodies’ was familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he heard it before. “In this world, smashing spirits gives handy-dandy items! And stuff in chest or head to get powers! But if do that, looks and brain also change, meh.”
"If not for the two spirits I already absorbed, I'd still have normal feet," Yoshitsune interjected. "These wheels have their advantages but they also have disadvantages." With that, he grabbed the vandal. "Having four arms could be useful, especially after I get my father's swords back from the smithy tomorrow."
Sora nodded, looking at the remaining spirits. "Will these changes stay after we go back home?" he asked, looking around at the others.
"I don't think any of us truly know," the samurai answered, "though I'd prefer not." That being said, he still held the spirit to his chest to absorb it.
Taken a little by surprise by both Yoshitsune’s willingness to take in more enemy spirits and Sora’s question, Poppi admitted, “Yes, friends not know anything for sure. As saying goes, we cross bridge when we come to it.”
“At very least, when we see Peach-Peach again, she can undo changes,” Tora pointed out.
While that went down, the others continued their looting. ”Hm... ” Sectonia said, muttering over the remaining spirits. The Wizzerds and Nastasia gave her the best idea of power. Nastasia could be very useful, although Sectonia didn’t want any part of looking like the secretary. But then, she wouldn’t need to if all she needed was that mind control power…
”You know, as long as we have proof of the defeat of the rebels, that is all we need. We, or rather I, could make good use of someone with her powers, and I’m sure we can all agree that we can make far better use of these spirits than anyone here.” Sectonia said, grabbing the Nastasia spirit. To reassure Poppi and Panther, Sectonia said. ”If I make her a Striker, I can just summon her for a ‘court appearance’..”
Now, being Sectonia’s first Striker, she wasn’t entirely sure how the process worked. It was something about ‘forming a connection’ with the spirit? Now how she was going to do that, she wasn’t sure. However, it wasn’t as difficult as Sectonia thought, as just merely offering Nastasia a place as her minion seemed to be enough, Nastasia seemingly resonating with the count spirit Sectonia had absorbed earlier.
Besides Nastasia, Sectonia wanted to claim one of the Wizzerds as an item, however knowing how her Symbol of Avarice worked, she would rather have one of her minions break the spirit for her to get a better item. The downside being, no one here really used magic primarily like she did. ”As for the rest of the spirits. Do any of you use longswords or magic by chance?”
Mao held out his longsword, making a statement regarding Sectionia's question without even speaking. Soon after he returned it to it’s sheath, wielding his new spear in his newly freed hand. His height difference was a bit strange, though without a mirror he wouldn't be able to tell the full extent of the effects the fusion had on him. Within the same hand as the spear, a white glow became very apparent. Though he had no intent to release a blast, it was a bright enough engulf of his hand to display magical prowess. "Been using both pretty much since I got here. What, you looking for someone to use that hat-thing to get some gear?" The new seedlings of personality planted in Mao's mind made him wonder if he could get away with skimming anything off the top from this new looting possibility. But given his own three spirits produced a singular item each, it might've been too easily noticed to snatch anything. Shame...
”Precisely. I can’t wear it after all.” Sectonia said.
Mao still had enough health that he didn’t feel endangered by partaking in this task, so he nodded along with her response. ”Guess I can throw it back on for a minute. What’re we smashing?” He questioned, eyeing the stockpile.
"These 'magical' spirits?" Mao seemed amused, if not a little scorned by the fact he hadn't gotten what he thought of when his mind went to 'magical'. Flapping the rubbery glove around in one hand, he decided to state as much. "Don't know what kind of 'magic' was being sensed from these things, but all I got out of one was this oversized glove."
Sectonia looked at the glove, and after a few moments said. ”If I had that when I was fighting Shadow, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of you minions getting hurt from our fight.” Sectonia said offhandedly.
Mao slightly slumped forward, the information being just unspecific enough to be annoying. "Very specific." He responded, slight sarcasm in his voice. Until he realized, "Waitaminute-- You can actually tell what it does?"
”Yes, more or less. Would you like to know?” Sectonia said. With a reluctant nod from Mao, Sectonia stated. ”It can be used to start a ‘duel’ with someone which they have to accept, but once that's done, neither side can hurt anyone but their duel target. Plus it seems to enhance magic that enrages or causes things to focus you. Although I don’t know how you’d wear that, it's not made to be worn on your hands even if it looks like it’d go there...”
"Huh. That demon I turned into my servant has a power to enrage foes, I guess this hat really does improve what you'll get." The science behind it? Hell if he knew, maybe the lifeforce drain was a sacrifice to some other entity that blessed them with good treasure. He wasn't going to pass on it, even if wearing it was perhaps an emergency measure.
”Yes. Even though it's hideous, I have to admit it's too useful to throw away. ” Sectonia said.
”I swear it made that just to mock me” Midna interjected, having a distinct urge to flip the avarice hat the bird, which was something she now could not do now! Because the damn spirit she had absorbed had stolen one of her fingers. And made her shorter again! Yes, it was nice to get her old hair color back, but that was the only good thing she’d gotten out of it as far as she could tell at the moment. The last change became obvious as she pulled off the fused shadow to use the absurd hat on the spirits, revealing the eye beneath, which was glazed over with a dormant power she didn’t know how to access. Yet.
”Well you better not do it again” she told the hat, giving it a rap with her three knuckles as if this would convince it to behave, before getting to crushing the spirits she’d taken, (a vandal and an x naut) and adding one of the remaining Craws to the mix.
”Huh, interesting, interesting, ah fuck!” Midna swore as the massive wrought iron spiked club materialised in her hand and promptly dragged her to the ground along with it. After a few more expletives, Midna picked herself up, dusted herself off and removed the hat. Before re-donning her own however she gave the Bandana a once over before asking ”So, miss free magic appraiser, what’s this one do? If anything?”
”Increases your endurance to let you fight longer.” Sectonia said after looking at the bandana.
”Tch, and to think i wasted gold on appraisals” Midna muttered to herself as she donned the bandana and then slipped the fused shadow down on top of it. It was uncomfortably warm, but then again the entire climate was uncomfortably warm, so what was a touch more unpleasantness. It at least caught the sweat on her brow.
The final two items could be figured out with a little poking.
The ammo synthesizer was very intuitive, a few taps of buttons made it pop up with a request to scan a weapon for which to generate ammo, something Midna asked ”Hey, Jesse, do you want to have more rockets for your big explosion gun?”
“Um,” The redhead considered the heavy weapon on her back. “Sure? But would you mind holding onto it for now? With your magic powers? It’s kinda cumbersome. Not really my speed, anyway. I was thinking we could pawn it off for something more useful if we got the chance.”
”I’ll save the ammo box for now then,” no point in getting a ton of rockets if they weren’t going to use the beefy thing. She took the weapon without question and sent it, and the ammo box, on their merry way. ”There’s lots of interesting stuff on sale in this town, so that’s a good call. If I come into any more gold I might tag along when you go. It could be a whole bonding experience”
Jesse shrugged. “All right, thanks. Yeah, we’ll do some team building. That’ll be...fun. Yay, shopping.”
That got a short snort of a laugh from Midna before she got back to investigating her spoils.
Finally there was the little picture of an x-naut which, when applied, gave the princess a perfect facsimile of the creature’s outfit. A bith of thought later would allow Midna to recognise its possibilities as a disguise if anyone needed to go incognito. Her first thoughts where ”Goddesses, it's hotter than a Bullbo’s butt in this thing”
Finished organizing his belongings for the most part, Mao could share Midna's sudden and crude opinion of the costume with his own flashy new scarf. "Turns out the hat doesn't give a damn about the weather, go figure it has another downside." Or this was just an inconvenient roll, perhaps the good RNG of the hat only went so far before it bit you in the ass. His scarf was quite nice though.
”Even with your aid, these spirits didn’t really grant me much of anything useful. Maybe this hat and sword will sell well… The cherries here though are interesting, I will have to save them for later.” Sectonia said, lamenting at the poor items she got from Mao crushing spirits for her. Seems like while the items were ‘useful’ Mao was all over the place in what he could do and use, making him a large grab bag of possibility.
If anything, his fusion at least made the sun a bit more tolerable. Maybe it wasn't the best feeling to have the sun directly beating down on your skin, though he wasn't as pale as he had been prior. His only real annoyance now was trying to figure out where to put his spear while traveling, when he already had a sword and it's sheath taking up space. "Gah," A noise of complaint came from the annoyed and now taller overlord. "About ready to toss this on the ground, it's in the way. Anyone else want it?"
”Here, let me try it. I can at least put it away in the twilight realm till we need it” Midna said, after doing the same to the x-naut disguise and massive oversized mace ”Same goes for anyone else who doesn't want to carry spare gear around… Just don't go around treating me like some pack mule, alright!”
With that laid out, Midna took the proffered blade and initially tried to use it one handed but to no avail ”eeh, going to need both hands for this big boy” which made the shield a very awkward to use at the same time. Still. A quick tap sent that back and gave the princess a chance to try out holding it at the ready in, with rather excellent form considering she’d never used one before.
”yeah, this’ll work for now,” she decided, before unceremoniously tossing it into a twilight portal ”screw carrying it around everywhere though.” She’d bring it out when she needed it.
Sora grabbed the last spirit and closed his eyes, trying to see who or what it was inside. Closing his eyes didn’t help him see what was right in front of him, but when he opened them again, he could take in the details of the birdlike Craw smugly housed within. "How would you like to help save the worlds?" the keybearer asked, smiling. And through sheer luck, it worked.
As the spirit exchange slowly came to a close and the group prepared for their march back to the Cowlipha's palace, Primrose emerged from the Rocket HQ with a certain Overlord in tow. The dancer had quietly excused herself after finding Jesse and the Phantom Thieves' words to be hard to follow, and now she reappeared having collected one of their allies. Laharl was muttering a number of excuses as to why he'd just been waiting topside while the others in "Team Mao" had gone below to battle, but they were falling on deaf ears. Primrose gestured for his silence and Laharl gave it to her, though not without pouting about it.
"Remember when I told you about that safe place across the desert?" she questioned. Laharl squinted his eyes suspiciously, nodding.
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Well, I was thinking there might be a new job for you—" Laharl scoffed, turning his nose up at her and cutting her off. "Thanks, but I'm above petty assignments!"
Clearly the little half-demon was in a sour mood. Primrose had thought that even with his strength, the Alcamoth would be a safer area for him. She pursed her lips, thinking, until a plan came to mind.
"I wouldn't call it petty," she said, "It will be important, only for someone that would be able to handle it..." She glanced at Laharl, who had cracked an eye open to regard her. "..."
"Assuming things go well with the Grimleal and the remaining members of the Resistance... well, for those that wish to help our cause outside of Al Mamoon, they'd need someone to lead them to the Alcamoth."
"Lording over minions? Haaahahaha, now that would be worthy of the great Laharl!" The half-demon cracked a toothy smirk, already confident despite not even knowing where he'd be going. "I'll be sure to give you directions there," Primrose added quickly, though Laharl didn't seem to hear her. "Haaahahahaha!"
Poor Robin... Primrose could only assume that the tactician would be returning there considering his history with Fox, and more than likely the one actually leading the way back. Hopefully he could deal with a little egotist along for the ride. But of course, before that the Seekers would have to secure the safety of Robin and the rest of the Resistance. The first step was confronting the Grimleal back at their headquarters.
Thoroughly left in the dust by the general conversation, Tora had been conversing with Poppi at the head of the group for a while now, but even she couldn’t fill in the gaps completely. Having spent most of her time away from him in the marketplace, she also lacked some crucial details about the current situation. Once everyone finished up with the spirits and Primrose deftly got Laharl under control, he put his own little plan to action. In her QT Pi form his beloved companion could lift her creator up and over her head quite easily, holding him like an exercise ball facing backward. Looking down on his friends, acquaintances, and circumstantial allies for perhaps the first time gave him a momentary satisfaction, and though he wouldn’t have minded making the moment last both for his newfound height and momentary break from walking, Tora quickly got to business.
“So, even after checking with Poppi, Tora still little lost,” he told the group at large. “Tora spent while tinkering with big-big steel machine in train station, then take care of nasties underground, then start fighting bad guys, meh. Not even time for afternoon snack. Tora know we going see biggypon named Validar, but can any friends sum up current situation? What is plan?”
“You’ve all done as they asked by helping them with their ‘Resistance’ problem. Now you need to go see about that train, right?” Jesse asked.
"There's also the question of what the Grimleal will do with the Resistance members that were captured. Since they were all under another's control, it seems... cruel to let the worst come to some of them." Primrose chimed in.
"Don't think many of the Resistance members expected to come out in one piece after dealing with the Grimleal." Mao responded, recalling his own time with them. "How much of that is a bias from our brainwashing, and the impression left from what happened underground just now, I'm not sure. They'll need a face to paint as the bad guy at the end of all of this, won't they? This could be a messy situation we're walking into."
"We?" the dancer questioned under her breath, a teasing smile on her lips. She didn't know Mao's stake in all this, and she'd assumed that he would walk away sooner or later, but 'we,' was it? She guessed the Seekers made enough of an impression to count another Overlord among their ranks going forward.
”They’re a bunch of sketchy cultists. Even I’m not certain you’d come out in one piece if they had their way. Probably try and feed you to their weird dragon god or something” Midna added grimly/jovially, before being more productive, ”But we know the number two was controlling people, Braum can even testify to it happening to him. So we have that as the solid basis for a case for letting everyone go” and then asking the other half of the team ”Speaking of number two, did you catch the number one who the little miss mind control was doing this all for? What was the whole scheme they had going on?”
"You and the Bee over there can testify as well?" Mao interjected, tone of annoyance over a hint of irritable sarcasm being either from him trying to save the lie they pieced together, the fact they let it supposedly happen, or just Mao being himself, depending on the perspective of the listener. ”Being individuals already against the rebels, all three claims will probably hold a bit of weight.”
Midna conceded this point with a shrug. Over at the fringe of the group, Ciella’s frown almost imperceptibly deepened. If the statuesque rabbit archer knew something, she wasn’t about to share it.
”I do have Ms. number 2 now as a striker. I’m not sure if she can testify about her boss, but we know that the chancellor's son was in the rebellion, so the number 1 could be him.” Sectonia said, saying her piece.
“We also have Necronomicon’s scans,” Mona piped up. “Being able to tell when we’re under status effects is one of her specialties, right Necro?”
The flying saucer, back to her much smaller and more convenient tire size thanks to Jesse’s tool gun, moved up and down in her best impression of a nod. “That’s right. I don’t have a record or anything, but I can demonstrate if needed.”
“We may need to explain how Strikers work in the first place, and maybe even have Sectonia use hers to prove that the brainwashing is real.” He glanced at the insect queen. “As for ‘why’...I can’t help but feel it’s a little too easy, but if you call her out, can you ask her? Name, boss, goal, that kind of stuff?”
”that is an idea, but who would we use it on?” Sectonia said, feigning worry. She really didn’t care who she used her new striker on, but she was worried it’d make her look like the rebellion #1 and the Grimleal people weren’t the smartest bunch.
Poppi snapped her fingers, remembering something. “In other hideout, little fairy mention something important. But if friends mention that, things go sour for sure...” she trailed off.
“Meeh,” Tora murmured, running through all the new information in his head. “So we meet grimmypon Validar, explain about blocky lady making people’s brains mushy-mushy, and say it all her fault!”
Joker gave a long exhale through his nose, shaking his head. “I doubt it’ll be that simple. The law doesn’t care who’s at fault or what’s really going on when they need someone to blame.”
“No kidding,” Mona agreed. “With our luck, it’ll probably turn out that the Resistance was set up by the crown or something.”
The thought made Tora grimace. “...Meeheheeh. If that case, this not turn out well at all.” His eyes settled on the palace ahead of them, visible over the many buildings of Al Mamoon. “Tora hope gun train worth all this trouble, meh.” The remark led Poppi to heave an artificial sigh of her own.
”I would be impressed if that was the case. It’d show a level of cunning and smarts they have as of yet shown.” Sectonia said.
All the speculation was getting tiring for Mao, figuring this was another fight one way or another. Either they fought to free the other Resistance members, or he'd have to fight for his own freedom, as well as Baz and Klee's, if they tried to give them up to the Grimleal. "I'm not taking the fall for that blockhead's mess." He remarked, glare focused on the palace. "They kept my peons captive after we got beat down, too. So I have to get them back." Speaking of that fight made Mao realize he’d probably be seeing Big Band again at the palace, and they’d assumedly be on the same side now. Thinking about how much the overlord was hurting last time, he’d consider this a good thing.
”If the law doesn't have a clause for mind control, or even just leniency for coerced action, then it's a terrible system of laws… and the cult will definitely have a terrible system of laws.” Midna sighed ”Well I guess we’ll keep our guard up and try and talk it out, maybe convince them to do something like ‘exile’ the resistance if they insist on punishment, and if that doesn't work... maybe we’ll just have to be the real deal.”
“Starting a fight would be a bad idea.” Jesse said, deliberately not looking over at Ciella.
“That’s right.” Joker ran his gloved hand through his hair, giving Midna a pointed look. “We can’t just leap to conclusions or reckless violence. We’re also not in a good position to challenge his authority over the city, even if it's more corrupt than usual. We should just focus on the Resistance members. Once we expose the mass hypnosis there’s a decent chance we’ll be able to get them off easier. At least a few of them must have been upstanding members of society before being hypnotized, too.”
Mao looked away while biting his lip, realizing he was not one of these ‘upstanding’ society members.
“Oh yeah, good point,” Panther remarked. “Plus, that Robin guy said Validar’s, like, his dad. He couldn’t sentence his own son, could he?”
Hands in his pockets, Skull shrugged his shoulders. “He also said his old man wanted to feed him to a dragon or somethin’. He and that Drippy guy sure made him sound pretty damn rotten.”
Joker narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
Given her memory, Poppi stepped up to offer an explanation. “Right before big fight, Robin introduce little fairy with lantern nose. He say that big queen Cowlipha the way she is because of curse, which let Validar take power. Even after being freed and learning that Resistance goal was sham, Robin still want revolution in Al Mamoon.”
Mona shook his head, sighing. “Great, another can of worms. Well, if we decide to confront him about any of that, it sure won’t help our case.” He hopped up onto Joker’s shoulder, pausing as he wondered how long it’d been since he last rode in a bag there. He kept his voice down to avoid Ciella listening in as he whispered, “We’re not actually gonna try to ‘liberate’ this whole city, are we? Even if things secretly suck here, it might be waaay over our heads. We just need to save as many Resistance members as we can, grab that train, and roll on to Split Mountain, right?”
Mao adjusted his glasses. "As long as I'm out of here, I don't care how it's done. Especially since there's bigger fish to fry anyways." The biggest fish of all, perhaps, being Galeem. "So if that's through ditching this city for good, I'll take it." He huffed out a sigh, looking towards the ground. "Getting sick of sand, anyway. It's coarse and it gets everywhere.”
”We can always come back, preferably with Alcamoth’s backing?” Midna suggested, catching the general mood and offering up a way to disengage without abandoning the city to its fate.
That sounded good to Poppi. “Then let’s make sure we send detailed report back when meeting finished.”
"That does seem the honorable thing to do," Yoshitsune nodded, thinking things through, "and, if everyone else is ready to leave early, I could easily catch up along the tracks."
"Alcamoth?" Mao questioned, arms crossing his fashionably-bandaged chest. "That some sort of other place you guys are associated with?"
”It’s a city south of the desert, and fancier one too. Most of the heroes who aren't part of the east and westward vanguards are working out of there. Not an army, mind, but still we have quite a lot of people to draw from. Several times over the size of the group we have here, and they aren't slouches either” Midna explained in brief, before explaining that ”we could use them to hold this city, if we could get them across the desert.”
The samurai soon became lost in thought, looking between his party members. He had ideas. He just needed to think logically.
Mao let out a sound expressing interest, but simply nodded with only a few words to spare. [color=979CB2”Interesting, sounds like a safer haven than this place.”[/color] He’d not comment on holding this city, as it wasn’t in his personal list of objectives. Plus, probably not the greatest thing to be associated with when trying to potentially bargain with the city’s rulers, cult or not.
”Will defeating the boss up on the mountain change how this town runs like before?” Sectonia said, throwing that little bit of knowledge out there. After all, once the area was liberated there wasn’t too much reason to be here short of making it a part of her own kingdom, which would be tricky without more minions or self power.
Crossing her arms after letting Tora down, Poppi frowned. “If so, dark wave would have to be much, much bigger than one from last boss.” She looked over the city walls at the enormous, snow-capped eminence, still so far away.
Meanwhile, Sora leaned against the wall, watching, even more confused at what was happening. Grimleal? Validar? Alcamoth? Sora heard some strange names but nothing quite like that. He just had to match the names to what they went to. That couldn't be hard, right?
By now the large group, having parted the eventide flow of citizens on their way home from their workday occupations or out into the city for food or fun, was nearing the palatial seat of Al Mamoon’s ruler. A number of them found themselves retracing steps they’d taken in the morning, when they strode the grand thoroughfare for the first time, witnessed the magnificence of the Cowlipha’s alcazar, and felt the buzz of the city’s vitality. Now that the first traces of the desert sunset gleamed off its metal, however, they saw the place in an entirely new light. It had been quite a day, and Tora wanted nothing more than to find a nice-smelling restaurant to hole up and gobble his troubles away, but there was one chapter left before the Seekers of Light could close the book on Al Mamoon.
