Current GM of World of Light. When it comes to writing, there's nothing I love more than imagination, engagement, and commitment. I'm always open to talk, suggestion, criticism, and collaboration. While I try to be as obliging, helpful, and courteous as possible, I have very little sympathy for ghosts, and anyone who'd like to string me along. Straightforwardness is all I ask for.
Looking for more personal details? I'm just some dude from the American south; software development is my job but games, writing, and trying to help others enjoy life are my passions. Been RPing for over a decade, starting waaaay back with humble beginnings on the Spore forum, so I know a thing or two, though I won't pretend to be an expert. If you're down for some fun, let's make something spectacular together.
When the Psychic Pokemon began to recount the course of events that brought him all the way across the World of Light to this very moment, Big Band had been standing up, but by the time Mewtwo finished the detective felt like he needed to sit down. From what he said, L clearly hadn’t been exaggerating when she described the offensive launched against Alcamoth as war; what Mewtwo spoke of was an all-out invasion. Huge armies, massive airborne battleships, and the bleeding edge of murderous military technology, with a staggering death toll to match. It was hard to imagine, especially given Big Band’s somewhat outdated perspective. Neither could he assign a face to any of the names Mewtwo mentioned. Nevertheless, the gravity of this woeful revelation weighed heavily upon him. A few moments passed between the gathered fugitives, in silence and in grief.
Along with the anguish, however, came anger, and thanks to the rest of Mewtwo’s report, an opportunity. Alcamoth’s finest fighters had emerged from the fog of war to confront the enemy’s masterminds in the high-up perch where they roosted, and made them pay dearly for their crimes. While it did Big band some good to hear that Smash City’s avengers had managed to exact some vengeance against the Consuls, the end results sounded anything but definitive for either side. Both Mewtwo and Red agreed: with L back home in Edinburgh with her tail between her legs to lick her wounds, it fell to this motley crew of Seekers to finish the job. His rational side knew that nothing about the situation surrounding the Aether Resort had really changed, but Band could see the fire in the eyes of his teammates. He could feel it, heating up the room. The fate of ill-fortuned Alcamoth had ignited the will to mete out some richly-deserved justice inside them, and he’d be lying if he said that same feeling didn’t burn within him, too.
He took a deep breath in through his nose, his eyes closed to think, then out as he fixed Mewtwo with a firm stare. “I ain’t gonna argue. L’s got a hell of a lot to answer for, and I sure don’t mind askin’.” Agreeing to do something about the unconscionable Consul did not mean throwing caution to the wind, however. “But let’s make sure we don’t do anythin’ stupid and hang ourselves out to dry. Right now, there’s only us four. No way to get in touch with Peach or the others. Same goes for Frisk, Albedo, and Lucia. We sure weren’t expectin’ a chance like this to come along outta nowhere. If we run off on a wild goose chase, we might lose our shot at L, so if we’re makin’ a play it’s gonna be as a four-man band.”
Instinctively Band glanced around, peering throughout the Pokemon Center for any sign of eavesdroppers or other threats. Then he continued. “For a bit I forgot you got it easy when it comes to movin’ lots of folks at once, Red,” he mentioned to the superhero. “We’ll be relyin’ on you to get us up there, then. I can fly well enough, but I only got one seat, and it sure ain’t for passengers.” The detective narrowed his eyes. “Once we’re up, we gotta find her fast. Don’t want any more guards on our case, whether they got guns or Pokemon. My main concern…” After clearing his throat, he lowered his voice just a touch. “Is N. I figured this might be a trap from the start, and just ‘cause she’s real hurt don’t mean it ain’t. ‘Catch more flies with honey than vinegar’, y’know? Makes sense she’d see him after goin’ out on official business anyhow. Plus, you said y’all took care of four of her ‘beasts’.” He raised an eyebrow at Mewtwo. “Was that all of ‘em? How many you think she still got?” Once supplied with a response, Band went ahead and wrapped up his precautions. “All I’m sayin’ is, it ain’t outta the question that we’ll be runnin’ up against two Consuls for the price o’ one. But if y’all are game, let’s make it a killer quartet..”
If everyone was in agreement, it was up to Red to kick things off once the Seekers retraced their steps to the waterfront.
As the squadron of Bipeds splashed toward them, backed by that lumbering Goliath, Tora and Poppi could enjoy only the briefest lull in the action. The rain had picked up, turning from a light shower to a downpour, and when the murky, roiling heavens flashed with lightning, hundred and hundreds of marching machines were revealed through the haze. Thunder roared high above, and across the battlefield the booming report of Susie’s missiles answered in kind. Neither Tora nor Poppi could see her, only the destruction wrought by her electricity-infused onslaught. Behind them, they were vaguely aware of rambunctious shouts and incessant gunfire. Azure flame split the dark as Zenkichi blazed a trail through the horde, the warpath he mowed through the Machines and punctuated with huge blasts of Almighty light. Given the sheer numbers they were up against, the Rust Crew ditched their strategy of background support to plunge into the enemy ranks aboard their truck. The heavy-duty hauler crushed smaller Machines like soda cans while Marshall and Big Bo fired away, their environment so target-rich that they scarcely needed to aim.
That was all behind Tora and Poppi, though, and their moment had come to a close. The gang of Bipeds stampeded them like raging cattle, Were he and his shield much larger Tora could have held them all off as a living barricade, but his diminutive size made it all too easy for the Machines to circle around him, so the pair had to rely on offense. He bludgeoned and bashed, eating hits for breakfast in order to doggedly strike back, while Poppi hacked and swung. Only when sure of stabbing through two or three Bipeds at a time could she go for a thrust. Often enough they overlapped on the same target, though that also led to an inadvertent extra blow to an already-beaten Machine. This frantic melee went on until the Goliath reached the pair and made its presence known with a megalithic punch, smashing through a couple Bipeds to send Tora soaring with a panicked cry. “Meeeeeeeeeeh!”
“Got you!” Poppi dove like an all-star goalie to try and save him. She caught him and the two hurtled backward, Poppi shielding Tora as they bounced along the ground. Thinking quickly, the Nopon fired a Boom Biter at the ground to launch them both upward, giving Poppi a chance to slow down and stick the landing. “Nice one!”
Machines cruised toward them, filling the air with marbled pink projectiles, but Tora pointed straight at the Goliath with his wing. “Nopon delivery system, go!” He hopped over onto Poppi’s back as he passed her the Drill Shield, who used it to launch two Riot Gun shots at the Goliath to tide it over, before boosting forward. From atop her back he swung his hammer at every Machine in their way, felling Small Fliers left and right, as they closed in on the Goliath. It raised its massive hands and brought them together in a calamitous clap at the perfect moment, but its metal palms didn’t quite meet in the middle. After a tense second, Poppi’s superstrength parted the Goliath’s hands to either side with such speed that the titan staggered back. “Meh-meeeeh!” With a battle cry Tora springboarded off his creation and fired his shield’s thrusters to hurtle the last couple dozen feet and drill straight into the Goliath’s chest.
As Poppi landed and raced toward it, the Goliath found its footing. It snatched Tora before he could fully breach its chassis, and as the Drill Shield tumbled to the ground, it squeezed him like a stress ball. “Pop-! Pi-! Help!” Tora wheezed, his eyes bugging out with each squeeze. Gritting her teeth, the artificial blade snatched the shield and span it up like a buzzsaw. The Goliath pulled its arm back to throw Tora off into the horizon, but Poppi blazed upward at maximum thrust with the shield extended, and sawed through its narrow upper-arm at the last second. Cut loose, the whole arm -and Tora- went flying, arcing through the air until Poppi caught it on her shoulders. Tora plopped down on top of it, shook his head to clear the stars from his eyes, then hefted his hammer. “Full throttle!” With a shout, Poppi used her superstrength to cast the arm like a giant javelin, hurling it through the air to finish what Tora started by caving in the Goliath’s torso. A mechanical groan echoed out as the sparking hulk fall backward, crushing a handful of other Machines as it slammed into the ground.
While the two waged their war, Giovanna had stepped up to the plate as well, and with the serious, pragmatic manner that befitted a professional. Dealing with one hundred opponents minimum might sound like a tall order, but in the end, you only needed to do the same, simple thing one hundred times. Like stamping a form, making a copy, or dotting an i. And this was a lot easier -and more fun- than filling out paperwork.
The secret agent carved through the battlefield like lightning. With Rei at her back, she dashed across the ground and slid in with a triple kick, her leg firing like a machine gun. Bangbangbang. Three craters appeared in the Large Biped’s body in ascending order, and with a strong turn kick she blew the Machine’s electronic innards out its back. One. A Quadruped stabbed at her with its bladed leg, but she went low and Rei swept its legs out from under it, sending it to the ground head-first. Giovanna’s leg then shot upward in a burst of dust, and the Quadruped’s front half ripped off to disappear into the sky. Two. A Reverse-joint took aim at her as Medium Bipeds charged in, but after a flying knee to the first one she kicked off it with burning legs to stomp, melt, and jump off each one’s head in turn. Three, four, five. With her flying dropkick Trovão she shot through the Reverse-joint’s flurry of projectiles like an arrow, unimpeded, to slam into its face. A Roman Cancel kept the pressure on, and the next second Giovanna had wound around its head like a snake, her electrified fists plunged into its neural processors. ...Six.
By the time her target hit the ground, Giovanna was already gone. A Biped with a sword chopped at her and got nothing but air. Giovanna took out its legs with two quick low kicks, leaning on a prone Rei for support, then flipped the Machine head over heels with a rising kick. Another attempted to block her with its scrap-metal shield so its buddies could pincer her. She flipped out of the way and nailed both with a withering Sol Poente split kick, then beat the shielder’s block with a throw and finished it off with a spinning Rei crescent. Without giving her a second to breath, another Quadruped raced in, forcing her to guard against its flailing legs. It whipped around to follow up with a mule kick, but Giovanna blew straight through it with a well-timed, upper-body-invincible punch. As it teetered over she leaped herself forward with a flying snap kick and bodily launched it off the ground, straight into an incoming Legpower. Medium Bipeds surged around her, but so too did the power inside her, and with a green flash she merged with Rei to unleash Ventania, scrapping them all with her whirlwind breakdance. By that time the Legpower recovered enough to challenge her, but despite its legs’ size it just couldn’t compare. Giovanna dodged its stomps and kicks, putting cracks in its armor with every punish, until a final Sepultura shattered the Machine’s oversized leg into metal shards. As it fell she smashed the earth with her powered gloves, then rose in a series of fiery flip kicks only to shoot down again in a burning dive. After knocking the Legpower onto its back, she rode its burning body down the road for a few hundred feet, and all the small fry in her way quickly found themselves reduced to spare parts. Once it came to a stop Giovanna was on the move, the force of her incredible legs clear-cutting the machines like so much timber. She squashed spiders, broke horses, and ravaged raptors between entire courses of Bipeds, all dispatched with the same impersonal, pragmatic precision. Only the fliers remained well beyond her reach.
Meanwhile, Tora and Poppi were clearing a path of their own. With the Drill Shield’s bit extended, its thrusters engaged, and Poppi pushing up from behind with her own rockets, Tora bored through the Machines’ ranks like a mole through the earth, a constant spray of sparking scrap in his wake. While the two didn’t finish off everything they hit this way, they racked up a lot of kills and managed to sow chaos through the horde for a solid thirty seconds, until finally their momentum came to a halt against a hunkered-down Multileg. In an instant the two found themselves completely surrounded By Machines on all sides, weathering a storm of blows as they tried to defend themselves. It was too much, however, and after a moment the pair were dogpiled, buried beneath the machines that grabbed and held them while the others pummeled, slashed, and stabbed away. “Poppi!” Tora cried as the tide of metal swallowed him up. “Defense not work….mmmmph!”
Orange light suddenly shone from within the pile, quickly building in strength, and after another moment it exploded in a shower of molten slag. Poppi QT burst up from within in a blazing uppercut, her mode and elemental core both Poppiswapped out. Then, hovering in midair with her Masterpon clinging to her back, she popped open the Mech Arms to take a page from Susie’s book and bombard the whole area with missiles. When they fell to earth Tora took hold of the Mech Arms, the pair switched from Block Tank to Evasion Tank and ready to rumble.
Tally (Tora & Poppi): Medium Biped x 41, Large Biped x 18, Goliath x4, Legpower x2, Multileg x14, Reverse-joint x7, Quadruped x8, Small Flier x5, Medium Flier x2 Total: 101 / 200 Tally (Giovanna): Medium Biped x 23, Large Biped x 11, Legpower x3, Reverse-joint x5, Quadruped x9, Multileg x6 Total: 57 / 100
Not until their yellow glare shone upon him did Goldlewis, fixed on either shooting at the camera or jumping between L.I.F.T.s as the situation demanded, notice the Cleansers’ appearance. “What in Sam Hill is that!?” he roared over the scream of the rails and the groovy synthwave. While he flinched from their antimutagenic light after one accosted Midna in its gaze, it turned out to have no effect on him other than some minor discomfort. That didn’t mean that he could rest easy, however. The half-man, half-car monstrosity gained ground as it pursued the L.I.F.T, its brawny arms outstretched to seize the team’s’ mode of transportation and wrench it from its track, oblivious to any harm it might cause itself in its single-minded attempt to send the Seekers to their death. With a frustrated grunt Goldlewis performed an about-face to bring his Skyfish and Thunderbirds to bear against the Cleanser. Loathe as he was to prolong this ordeal, the camera would have to wait.
With the supply of Session Pounds cut off, though, the members of the group who struggled at long range could refocus their efforts on the Cleansers as they appeared. Even with their spirit powers stripped away, both Midna and Geralt were still seasoned warriors with a bevy of magic and experience under their belts. The Twilight Princess’s plus-size arcane explosive proved wonderfully effective, blowing the first Cleanser almost all the way back into the void on hit. Only by a twisted miracle did it avoid a violent derailment. The Witcher, meanwhile, stopped another Cleanser in its tracks just as it reached one of the L.I.F.T.s with a combination of deft swordplay and good use of his Signs. Try as it might, the monstrosity wouldn’t be getting a good grip on any L.I.F.T with Geralt on it. That left one track unattended, with a third and final Cleanser en route to sabotage it, but an intervention proved unnecessary.
After helping Benedict, Blazermate took the lack of opposition from the camera’s direction -as well as what seemed to be a slight relaxation on its part- to nail it with a Medabeam. That full-force blast, stacked on top of the bullet and erosion damage dealt to it already, was just what the team needed. The ActionMaxx Camera gyrated wildly, giving off a boatload of curious red energy, and the entire tunnel seemed to distort. After another moment the entire scene just blipped away, returning the Seekers to exactly the point where they started: standing on a single L.I.F.T. in a dead-end tunnel in front of a solid wall, an ordinary-looking camera in front of them. With the Altered World Event finished, the recorder displayed no more anomalous activity, and the subway system was back to normal. As normal as it was going to get, anyway. Only one thing was different: the presence of a VHS tape at the feet of the tripod, titled ‘The Seekers of Light in: Swift Platform!’. Goldlewis didn’t recognize the archaic technology, and even if he did, he sure wasn’t touching anything else in here. “Let’s get the hell outta here,” he grumbled.
Party: Goldlewis, Midna, Geralt, Blazermate, Benedict Encounter Reward: +15 EXP This was an instance of altered reality, so the enemies were not real and don’t give spirits
The team reunited with Karin, who happened to be looking down a different dead end when the others wound up taking an unexpected ride, then proceeded through the tunnels. After a few minutes the echoed sounds of voices reached them, and Goldlewis called out, “Hello? Anyone there? We’re friendlies!”
“Hello!” a no-nonsense voice called back. “Be with you in a minute!”
After a few moments the Seekers made contact. As Goldlewis expected, they turned out to be a Psych-OSF platoon, this one under the command of the man who’d responded to him earlier: the dignified Captain Seto, his manner and manner of dress the consummate battlefield professional. His soldiers introduced themselves as well. The rather curt glasses-wearing blond guy was Shiden Ritter, the lackadaisical girl with pink twintails Arashi Spring, the friendly redheaded airhead Sam Boole, the dapper lavender-haired man Lucian, and spiky-haired dude with a conspicuous lack of shirt Akira Tadokoro. This platoon seemed to have a thing for face masks, being featured by three of the four male personnel. “Seems like we’ve been encountering more people than Others down here this last hour or so,” Seto remarked. “Though, you don’t exactly look like Psych-OSF personnel. May I ask who you are?”
“Goldlewis Dickinson,” the veteran replied, not missing a beat. “Former Secretary of Defense? We were sent down by Konoe to make sure everythin’s hunky-dory down here. Think of us as consultants. We been busy, too. Sounds like y’all got it easy.”
Seto cleared his throat. “Ah, forgive me, that does ring a bell. We did just take down a Major Other known as a Gunkin Fisher a few minutes ago, and we were wading through Others for a while, but yes, it seems like we’ve managed to clear things up. The operation must be coming to a close.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Goldlewis gave a nod of approval. “Did y’all happen to link up with any other squads down here? We’ve been looking for Luka Platoon in particular.”
Brows raised, Seto nodded quickly. “How fortuitous. Yes, in fact, they assisted us against that Other. Hurry this way and you may be able to catch them.” He pointed the Seekers down the tunnel his squad came from. “Good luck and farewell.”
The two teams parted ways, with the veteran’s moving double-time. It didn’t take long to pass the junction where the battle against the Gunkin Fisher took place, but they didn’t slow down; heavy rumbles were shaking the underground, making Goldlewis worried about the possibility of a cave-in both for the sake of his team and Peach’s. Soon after, a hideous roar echoed through the tunnels that made the blood freeze in the veteran’s veins, spurring the group on even faster. Goldlewis pushed past his fatigue to keep on running, pounding the floor with one heavy footfall after another. Just what had the others gotten themselves into?
Suddenly, the six emerged into a large, open area. It looked like some sort of dug-out underground complex, like a quarry, long-abandoned and recently collapsed. Rubble littered the whole place, blocking off a whole portion of the otherwise square space, but Goldlewis cared less about the stage and more about the actors upon it. Another Psych-OSF squad, five strong, were faced by the biggest, most monstrous Other that Goldlewis had ever seen. It was a contorted mockery of the human shape, covered in greenery and swarms of live butterflies, with weaponized sashes and a head like a three-dimensional painting, an empty chair depicted inside. Above that bizarre aperture perched two cowled marble heads. It wasn’t just any OSF troopers this horrific Other was attacking, either: it was Sakura, Raz, and their teammates, although try as he mighty Goldlewis couldn’t see any sign of Peach.
First things first, though. “Here to help!” he bellowed, charging in with his coffin at the ready. Raz had managed to get the monster’s attention with his shots, but its size meant it could cover a lot of ground quickly, so everyone needed to hurry and make sure it didn’t reach him. “Let’s work together an’ send this bastard packin’!”
After Concetta left, Nadia got right back to trying to figure out her new tails situation. Having them be smaller and more flexible than the fish-tail she’d gotten from Oceanid was a welcome change. It had not only had it been unwieldy to fight with, but also thrown off her balance especially in the air, which only got more difficult after her fusion with Massachusetts made hangtime that much harder to achieve. And don’t even get me started on chairs, she thought wearily. Sleeping on her back last night turned out to be flat-out impossible, and she’d only managed to seat herself at Definitely Not Fried Chicken last night by turning her chair sideways. Though, leaning on the seat back with one arm did give her new monster friends a particularly sassy impression that she didn’t mind. Of course, everything was a trade-off, though, and in this case her new change also meant muscles at her disposal that she’d never had before. Nadia crouched down, span her head around, and tried to get her new tails to cooperate. After a few moments, she managed to curl two of them together into the rough shape of a heart, which made her giggle. “Nyeheheh…”
Before the team’s preparations concluded, Nadia found herself solicited by Ichiban. She quit goofing around, turned her head back around, and stood to face him. “What’s up, Itchy Buns?” At first she’d just taken him to be a local handyman with a daredevil streak, tagging along to the Soul Sanctum out of curiosity or a desire to help, but if he planned to stick with them to challenge a Consul he might be with the Seekers for the long haul. That very confrontation, however, was what concerned him. Nadia pursed her lips as she considered the man’s trepidations, one eye narrowed and the other’s eyebrow raised. It sounded like Ichiban knew the little guy, and he made it sound like P wasn’t all that bad. His obvious good intentions made the situation all the more frustrating. “I…well, I get he’s a kid, but no way he’s just some brat who doesn’t know any better. These Consuls are, like, Galeem’s henchmen or somethin’.” Right after she said that she remembered that Ichiban wouldn’t be able to understand her. Not with that sunset-red glow in his eyes. The cat burglar momentarily considered finding some other roundabout way to explain things, but gave up with a sigh. Too much effort. Not my problem, she thought. You’ll just have to find out for yourself, buddy. Besides, Ganondorf offered as good a reason as any, she supposed. Though Bowser’s reponse made her second-guess her initial, somewhat callous reply. After making a mental note to try and Friend Heart Ichiban during the fight if she could, she shrugged and added, “Look, offin’ a child’s the last thing I wanna do. But if this guy tries to kill us, we can’t afford to kid around. The bigger your heart, the easier it is to stab. Take it from me, I LITERALLY got stabbed in the back like half an hour ago. Not a knife feelin’!”
Ichiban also threw some shade at Gallo. Nadia glanced over to where the mage-scholar seemed to be engaged with Junior and Kamek in conversation. He did look pretty shady to be fair, what with that classic conniving wizard look, but the feral felt like he’d made his motives pretty clear. Up in the Soul Sanctum he made no bones about the pride and pettiness that drove him to vengeful, nigh obsessive scheming, nor that he shamelessly meant to use the Seekers for his own ends. Could be be planning to replace P as the city’s ruler? Maybe. To be honest, Nadia didn’t really care to analyze him further. Everyone had agreed that these Consuls were going to keep being thorns in the Seekers’ side in their campaign against Galeem, so getting rid of them would make things easier. Besides, the heroes could just beat him up too if he became a problem. So unless turned out to be one big, elaborate ruse that ended in a classic double-cross, there was no need to worry. Still, might as well offer Ichiban some reassurance. “Guess I’ll keep an eye on him,” she told him, though in her mind she thought, Why is he telling me this, anyway?
Before much longer, everyone was ready. Nadia had her blade case strapped on tight, and both her box cutter hilts and new dagger Athame in her belt. Once the Seekers marched through the garden of bioluminescent fungi, their softly-growing crowns umbrellas against the rain, Gallo gathered everyone together before the immense building’s majestic gates. “A few final words,” he began. “This tower -my tower- is magic in nature, and the space within it, convoluted. For starters, you’ll be pulled in the moment I open the door. It would be easier to show you than tell you, but suffice to say, once in you will not need to climb. Just walk. Those of you who mean to engage P in battle should head toward the light. Those who mean to finish him off, toward the dark.” He looked off into the distance. “...There is one final domino I must still erect. I will join the latter group in a few moments.” Gallo positioned himself beside the doorway, then extended his hand to push it open. “Go right ahead.”
Moving inward with startling speed, the grand oaken double doors slammed open. With a surprised Nadia flew off her feet, falling straight toward the yawning doorway as if gravity itself had reoriented ninety degrees. Caught completely off guard, she could do nothing but twist wildly in midair as she plunged into the insides of Gallo Tower. Once everyone was inside, the doors closed behind them.
Now alone, Gallo turned his attention back toward the mushroom garden, and waited patiently. After a few seconds, a dark portal opened up in front of him. Out stepped a figure in a black hooded coat, only a couple feet in height. “‘Ello, ‘ello,” she greeted him, her voice a youthful chirp. “Wotcha think, eh? Think they’ll do the job?”
Gallo exhaled wearily. “I must admit, I thought your prediction too good to be true, at first. Yet they not only came, just as you said, they also toppled the Agarthans in the span of a single morning–nay, in less than two hours. They may very well possess the strength to make my dream.” He coughed. “Our dream, a reality.”
The hooded girl chuckled. “See, I toldja so, didn’t I now?”
“Where’ve you been, anyway?” Gallo asked, unamused.
“Oo, me? I’ve just been playin’ with F, is all.” Smirking, the girl summoned a glowing blade of silver, cyan, and black, bedecked in hollow spikes, clock faces, and devilish detail. “Course, I play rough. Gave ‘im a proper runaround, I did. Needed to keep ‘im off our heroes’ backs while we deal with ‘is friend, after all.”
Gallo sniffed. “They want to let him live, you know. Too soft-hearted to slay a wolf wearing sheep’s clothing.”
“Well, then. Sounds like you’ll be needin’ this in case they muck this up.” From her pocket the girl produced a glowing hourglass. “Don’t go studyin’ it now, you bookish old git. And don’t waste it either, yeah?” Banishing her weapon, the girl crossed her arms. “We’ve gotta show ‘em they can be beaten.”
Only with a concerted effort did the mesmerized scholar tear his eyes off the hourglass’s beguiling glow in order to place it in his Inventory. He then turned his back, and headed for the tower’s door. “I understand.”
After a brief but terrifying moment, Nadia landed, and as always she landed on her feet. For a moment her head swam, her senses of orientation one hundred percent confused, but after readjusting she got a look around. Despite entering what she understood to be a tower, she and the others now stood in a huge, stone brick corridor, extending in a straight line as far as she could see in both directions, one way bright and the other increasingly dark. At first it looked normal enough, like a haunted castle from a cheesy vampire flick, but her keen eyes quickly noticed a couple abnormalities. The windows, for one, were oriented sideways rather than upward, and unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, the rain was falling sideways, in the direction of the corridor’s dark end. When Nadia looked up, she spotted something that left her blinking in confusion: the double doors through which the Seekers entered, neatly built into the ceiling.
“This is…weird,” she murmured, at a loss for puns for once. But only briefly. “I’ve been tryin’ to come up with a pun for like ten seconds now, but I guess a cat got my tongue. I’m pawstruck!” Against all odds, it really looked like gravity within the tower oriented sideways, against its back wall.
After a few moments the doors opened again, and Gallo came flying through. He landed on the ground with is robes fluttering, his tome in his hands. “Still here?” he asked. “There’s no time to waste. Let us be off. Just remember: the furnishings up ahead may…unnerve you, but you must not disturb anything. When you find Consul P, be ready for anything.” With that, he turned to proceed toward the darkness.
Nadia shrugged and turned the other way, headed toward what she assumed would be the top of Gallo Tower. Weird as this might be, it actually came as a major relief; just the thought of climbing hundreds of flights of stairs before a tough battle had been making her woozy. She, Ichiban, Sectonia, Ganondorf, Bowser, Rika, Jesse, Primrose, and Therion moved at a brisk pace, past numerous antique sofas, fireplaces, bookshelves, and candelabras. Everything seemed more or less normal for a solid couple minutes, but eventually the truth behind Gallo’s warning became apparent. They began to encounter what appeared to be young boys, all completely identical to one another, with blond bowl cuts that covered their eyes and blinking red lights on their heads, white shirts, red bow ties, gray shorts held up by suspenders, their expressions all frozen in an open-mouthed look of surprise between rosy cheeks. The first ones Nadia spotted were playing hopscotch on a pattern scrawled onto the stone brick with white chalk. Their movements were stiff, uncanny, and mechanical, and they often wasted time in a lazy manner between their turns. “Well, not really ‘unnerving’,” Nadia remarked, watching the robots closely as she gave them a wide berth. “But weird.”
It only got weirder from there, though. Robots turned up more and more often the further the Seekers went, engaged in all sorts of hollow activities. There were machines playing tag, jumping rope, drawing with crayons, doing arts and crafts, play-fighting, and more. There was a kitchen table surrounded by decorations where four of them sat with presents, the spot at the head of the table empty but surrounded by piles of half-eaten cake and torn wrapping paper. There were couches with TVs where robots sat waiting to play, the Player 1 spot always empty. There was a little movie theater full of robots, the best seat sticky with soda and popcorn but unoccupied, and a vacant stage in front of robots with their hands poised to clap. There were plenty of board game pieces and broken machine parts scattered around, too.
“Kinda creepy,” Nadia admitted after a while. She crouched down for a moment by what must have at one point been an incredible structure built from tiny plastic blocks, which now lay mostly in ruin. “But also…sad?”
The echoed sound of coughing caught her attention, and she stood in a hurry to catch up with and pass the others. After all this walking, the top of the tower lay nearby. Nadia gazed up at the ‘ceiling’, namely the massive red-tinted glass that shielded the face of Gallo Tower’s clock, though the clock itself seemed to by missing. From it a vivid crimson light poured down to bath what looked like a medieval throne room in its glow. At its center, atop the carpeted stars, on a plush red mattress in a purple bedframe, laid a boy. Though shaped like the machines the Seekers had seen so far, he wore futuristic red armor atop a dark gray suit, and his helmet resembled a pig’s, with its snout’s nostrils where the wearer’s eyes should be and a crown atop its head. The whole area was a mess, strewn with discarded amusements, packages, and wrappers, but Consul P just sat there, leaning on his arm.
“Miniooooons!” he whined. “I’m booooored. So, so, bored. Bored out of my mind! Get me something fun to do!” Looking down, he noticed the newcomers with a slight start. “Wait. Who’re you? Did my minions send you to play with me?” A hint of excitement entered his voice.
No doubt everyone had something to say about that, and Nadia didn’t hesitate to say hers. Hiding her thoughts behind a smirk, she withdrew Athame from her belt and gave it a twirl. “Actually, your ‘minions’ are takin’ time off. Purr-manently.” She replaced the dagger. “Not to alarm you or wind ya up, but we’re here to clean your clock. Y’know, face off. Throw hands? Strike one–that one bein’ you.” Laughing, Nadia sharpened her claws and clanged them together. “Your luck’s run out, P-brain. Big time.”
After everyone said their piece, P coughed a bunch, then straightened up in his chair. “You guys don’t like me? That’s too bad.” Suddenly, his bed began to rattle. It sprang from the ground into the air, sprouting arms, spider-legs, and two ferocious faces: a fanged one on the underside, and a crowned head up above. The bedmech, a terrifying combination of bed and mech, landed hard enough to make the tower rumble, and when the dust cleared, the Consul glared at the Seekers from within his protective casing. The lights on the heads of nearby Mecha-Porkies began to blink, and the machines turned to approach the budding brawl. “Anyone who doesn’t like me,” P announced. “Can just die.”
First things first. “Poppi?” Tora called, as much to get her attention as to make absolutely sure she was by his side. “Need focus on defense, meh. Please switch Alpha!”
“Roger roger.” Sparks flew in the rain as the artificial blade reconfigured. The sheer mechanical power of her Masterpon’s original design, combined with the heavy metal plating from Poppi’s fusions with the Armor and Chemtrail would provide the strength and durability the pair needed for a knock-down, drag-out battle of attrition. After a moment the gear shift finished with a hiss and a burst of steam, Poppi’s red cape flapping in the wind as she hefted her claymore onto her shoulder. “Alpha by name, alpha by nature!”
Tora pulled out his new hammer, and once Poppi constructed a Drill Shield for him, he hefted that in his off-wing as well. “Meh-meh,” the Nopon laughed, only a little nervous. A true heropon knew no fear, after all. “Time to begin!”
With Poppi at his back he started to move, advancing toward the horde of machines still a little ways off. He began to beat his hammer against his shield, the repeated slams satisfyingly loud. The racket bolstered his courage, even as the baleful red eyes of machine lifeforms locked onto him by the hundreds. The role Tora accepted and strove to fill was that of the protector, the ironclad tank who drew the enemies’ ire away from his allies and withstood whatever punishment they could heap upon him. Sure enough, his clamor did its job. After just a couple moments, the machines -moving at a steady march down the desolate avenue- broke off in twos and threes to sprint in his direction, their metal feet splashing through the puddles. A Legpower Goliath charged out at the head of the pack thanks to its huge, long gait, the terrific slams of its footfalls enough to make just about any heart quail.
But not Tora’s. He tightened his grip. “First one in fight…”
“...And last one left standing!” Poppi replied.
The Legpower closed in with terrifying speed and lifted its huge leg to bring down on Tora with a massive stomp. Its immense limb landed dead-center, but rather than squash the Nopon flat it stopped short, the pancake-making wallop blocked by a combination of Tora’s upheld Drill Shield and a channeled ether barrier from Poppi. As the barrier faded Tora engaged the thrusters to push back against the immense force crushing down on him, holding it just long enough for Poppi to slide beneath the titanic foot and put her shoulder against its weight. With a mighty push she and Tora threw the foot off, sending the Legpower off-balance, and a moment later Tora followed up with a Boom Biter fired from his shield to take a chunk out of its torso. Enraged, the Legpower aimed a giant kick at the pair, but they split to either side to let that death sentence pass them by. Noting a matching robot head on the Legpower’s underside, Tora got into position as Poppi hacked at the big machine’s leg joints with her sword. He deployed his shield’s drill and put its thrusters to full burn to fly straight upward, digging into the head. “Uppies!” he cried, and Poppi dropped her claymore to oblige. As the Legpower stomped around, she used her thrusters to buoy Tora up from beneath, allowing him to carve straight up through the Legpower’s innards and finally burst up through its top head in a fountain of oil, sparking circuits, and scrap metal.
“Meh-heh-heeeeeh!” he cheered as he landed in Poppi’s waiting arms, watching as the Legpower crashed to the earth. Of course, the minute it did it got stomped underfoot by the mob of Bipeds only just now catching up to the opposition, so Poppi put her Masterpon down and hefted her sword back up. The first Large Biped used the fallen Legpower’s leg as a springboard to launch itself at Tora with a double overhead slam. It pounded his guard two more times before he deflected its blow, opening it up for a massive horizontal slice from Poppi that breezed over Tora’s head to carve through the machine like butter.
As its upper and lower halves fell, two Medium Bipeds attacked. Tora ducked lower and hammered his assailant in the side of the knee, caving it in sideways, but the Biped replied with a blow to the head. It barely left a bruise, and armed with that knowledge Tora happily took a second minor inconvenience to finish what he started and knock the Biped’s legs out from under it. A second later he cracked its head like a watermelon, and that was that. Meanwhile, Poppi lopped off her attacker’s right arm as it went to punch her, then neatly transitioned into a horizontal cut. Without enough momentum, it lodged halfway through, so Poppi put her other hand against the embedded blade and began to rotate her torso. She dragged the machine around her in two full loops before bifurcating it with a final heave, which sent its halves flying off toward the rest.
Overhead, two Small Fliers and a Medium Flier began to circle, shooting down iridescent pink orbs at a middling pace. While moving to avoid them Tora came under attack by a Large Biped that windmilled its arms in a constant onslaught, forcing him to block until he came to a sudden realization. He positioned the edge of the shield in the arm’s path and watched with glee as the Biped rammed its arms down on its serrated edges. From there a good wrench was enough to part its forearms from its body, and when Tora twisted back he buried the shield into the machine’s lower torso, knocking it to the ground. An overhead hammer swing drove the shield the rest of the way to finish it off, though Tora quickly retrieved the shield to block the Fliers’ shots. Poppi boosted up to get them off her Masterpon’s back, extending her blade to stab through its rotors and into its body. After taking aim she hurled it from the sword into one of the Medium Flier’s four turbines, sending it spiraling to the ground, then boosted toward the last one to wreck it beneath her weight as she descended to earth like a meteorite.
As she came down with a bang, Tora bashed a sword-wielding Medium Biped’s head sideways with its hammer, then as it spun jumped into the air to come down with a front flip shield crush that crumpled the machine’s head into its still-standing body. He rolled off and right into a block against a Multileg Cutter. It sliced left, then right, then angled its blades downward for a double stab over Tora’s block. He angled his defense up just in time, only to be thrown for a loop as the Multileg then began a rapid spin attack. It blew open his guard as the sparks flew and began to smack him, only for Poppi’s sword to fly in and pierce straight through its torso. It ground to a halt as a trio of Bipeds closed in, so Tora tossed Poppi the shield to unleash a Blade Art–Noponic Axiom. Her Electric Core flared to life as the whirling Drill Shield sent forth a rippling cone of chain lightning, frying all four machines until they blew up in an impressive chain explosion. A Quadruped circled around the blast, but with the weapon in her hands the Artificial Blade could fire off Riot Guns, and it took just two to blow the Quadruped to bits. As Tora felled a Medium Biped with a solid battering from his hammer, Poppi noticed the Medium Flier about to take off again and got an idea. “Boost me!” Poppi passed the shield back to Tora, pulled her claymore out, and springboarded off him in a mighty somersault slash to finish off the quadrotor.
More machines charged in. Poppi charged through a Reverse-joint’s gunfire to challenge it head on, stopping its pounce with a terrific left hook to floor it before hacking away with her swordblade. Tora fired off Boom Biter after Boom Biter, blowing two or three Bipeds up at a time, but his third only staggered a Large Biped with a glancing blow while a Quadruped leaped over the blast. It ran him down and pivoted around for a nasty double leg kick, but Tora’s low profile meant he could sweep underneath the blow and then fly up with a rocket-propelled drill. It dug in as he flew in a short arc, flipping the Quadruped onto its back. Once they landed the drill bit stuck fast and the shield itself began to spin, Tora with it. “Meeeh-eeeeeh-eeeeeh!” he cried as he whirled around, holding on with a single wing with the hammer in the other. The Bipeds that closed in hoping for an easy kill instead took a brutal pounding and hit the dirt as smoking, dented wrecks. Only when a new flier shot Tora off did his wild ride come to an end, but as the Nopon rolled along the ground Poppi yanked the busted-up shield from the Quadruped’s body to hurl at the airborne machine like a flying sawblade.
The flier hurtled to the ground and blew up on impact. As the flame and smoke cleared, a Goliath closing in on the pair looked up from the wreckage to stare the dynamic duo down, then resumed its approach, surrounded by Bipeds and a handful of small, bug-shaped Drones neither remembered seeing before. They seemed different, but nothing the two couldn’t handle. “Not done yet, right Masterpon?” Poppi helped Tora to his feet and passed him a newly-constructed Drill Shield, which he accepted with a grin.
“Tora only just get started!”
Tally: Medium Biped x 13, Large Biped x 5, Legpower x1, Multileg x1, Reverse-joint x1, Quadruped x2, Small Flier x3, Medium Flier x1 Total: 27
While a seven-foot-seven, five thousand pound detective in a tan trench coat couldn’t be called inconspicuous with a straight face, Band did what he could not to stand out, or to stand in front of any Edinburgh civilians and block their view. A few more feet wouldn’t make a difference if his person of interest descended on that artificial island across the water. When L finally made her appearance, though, Band watched and listened to her with bated breath. So this is the woman I’ve heard so much about, he mused, his eyes on the tall, slender figure’s strangely ceremonial cherry-red armor and helmet. I feel like I know you already. Even if that headwear blocked her features, Band felt like he could safely say that this was the face of the enemy.
How many Consuls was this, now? He’d heard about N but couldn’t attach an appearance to the name, and he’d both seen and heard the Consul of the Metro, but missed out on his name. Then the one reported by the contingent who reached Twilight Town by boat, S. Two alphabetical aliases might have been a coincidence, but three was a pattern. Did that indicate the existence of twenty-six Consuls, all endowed with clear authority over some section of the World of Light or another? Their presence and purpose intrigued Band to no end. Virtually everywhere had someone or another in a position of power, but this felt different. With so many worlds involved, what were the odds that the same caste of people reigned in such different places, and so far apart? That smacked of something intentional. Galeem’s intentions? he wondered. If it possesses such faculties, instating stewards to keep a chokehold over the World of Light -and to quell any opposition- made sense. That meant getting rid of them made sense too.
Unfortunately he, Ace, and Red were in a bad spot to think about challenging her. From here, the Aether Foundation’s headquarters looked less like a paradise and more like a citadel, ringed by a gigantic, ice-cold moat. Band might be able to rocket across the freezing water to reach the island, maybe even with Red hitching a ride, but his power of transportation ended there. But even if all three managed to face L, with Lucia -currently attending to personal matters elsewhere in the city- and Frisk plus Albedo -cooped up in Grammeowster’s Kitchen with Sierra to avoid L recognizing them- thrown in for good measure, that might not be enough. Sure, L looked tired and wounded from her battle, but to Band’s world-weary eyes that looked too good to be true. If he were a betting man, he’d put his chips down on Edinburgh’s other Consul being nearby. Rushing in half-cocked at the smell of blood sounded like an easy way to spring a trap and get killed.
In the midst of Band’s musings, an unexpected guest appeared out of the blue. Mewtwo blinked in, gasped an urgent plea straight into the Seekers’ minds, and collapsed. Ace seemed to recognize him, his surprised exclamation letting the others -and bystanders- hear the creature’s name. The detective blinked -in the traditional sense- a couple times himself, then got to action. Already the crowd’s attention in their immediate vicinity lay squarely on Mewtwo. A warp like that would’ve gotten their attention even if he hadn’t been a legendary Pokemon, but thanks to that all eyes lay on him, and excited whispers filled the air. Eager trainers began to rummage through their bags for Pokeballs. The Monster Hunter quickly explained Mewtwo’s origin, and Band gave an urgent nod of understanding. He needed to control this chaos. “Scuse us, folks,” he began, turning to stand in front of Mewtwo as Ace began to carry him off. “Our friend here’s been travelin’ all day, poor guy’s all tuckered out.”
“Oh, it’s your Pokemon?” one of the nearby trainers asked, sounding disappointed. “Well, Mewtwos are very rare, you all should take better care of it!” She crossed her arms, looking indignant for Mewtwo’s sake. “Take a page out of the Aether Foundation’s book!”
“...Right.” Seeing that Ace had cleared the crowd with Mewtwo and was on his way back to base, Band looked around to make sure he wasn’t missing anyone. “Red? Hey Red, where’d you…?”
A voice from behind him got his attention, and the detective whirled around to see the superhero as he shouted at the top of his lungs across the lake. Balancing on the railing there was no mean feat considering his disproportionately large head, but Band found his audacity a lot more impressive. For a moment the stunned detective thought that Red was trying to confront L about her evildoing directly to bring her to justice, but Red opted for the thinnest veneer of subterfuge possible rather than none at all. While he managed to outstrip the volume of the crowd, which by now had died down thanks to their increasing dispersal, his voice had a long way to travel to get all the way to L on top of the Aether Resort. Band doubted she heard it, but he wasn’t about to let Red try again. He zoomed over, sliding across the snow-dusted stone brick, and snatched Red right off the railing with Take the A Train. Of course, he didn’t perform the percussive follow-up he usually did when landing this grab, and just rumbled back the way he came with his captive in tow.
“Ain’t no way you just tried to pull a stunt like that,” Band chided as he hustled to catch up with Ace and Mewtwo. “You wanna blow our cover or somethin’? That back there was a trap, one hundred percent. I betcha ten to one N was lurkin’ around there somewhere too. The last thing we need right now is the Consuls’ attention., and even if they didn’t suss us out, ya think she’d make time answerin’ questions for random nobodies?” After a couple dozen seconds the group got a safe distance away, so Band let Red out. “Look, I wanna know just as bad as you,” he admitted to the superhero. “But let’s look after Mewtwo here first. Chances are we can get the story from him.”
Before getting too far away from the Aether Resort, however, the group happened upon one of Edinburgh’s many Pokemon Centers. The boxy white building, roofed in red, before the trademark Pokeball symbol that identified anything and everything Pokemon. Mewtwo had fainted after using the last of his strength to reach Ace, but his red-haired acquaintance had the means to ease his pain: Lifepowder. A dose left Mewtwo lucid enough to recognize the Pokemon Center when he saw it, and while he couldn’t be healed by its machine as a free Pokemon, Band didn’t mind forking over some of the money earned from yesterday’s show to buy him a Revive.
Once administered the yellow crystal, Mewtwo would awaken on a red chair in the Pokemon Center, with the others standing by as the nurse’s kindly Audino took care of him with Heal Pulse. He’d still be tired, his PP painfully low, but his health was fully restored in no time. Once the Audino took her leave, Band stepped in. “You feelin’ alright?” he asked. “The name’s Big Band. We’re all Seekers.” He paused for a moment, swallowed, then continued more tentatively. “Don’t mean to rush ya, so take your time an’ all, but before we do anythin’ we’re itchin’ to hear whatever you’ve got to say about Alcamoth. Ain’t seen it myself, but it sounded important.” He narrowed his eyes. Red had mentioned Nelson evacuating people with the Virgin Victory, but last Band heard that airship was still undergoing repairs in that oasis outside of Gerudo Town. That meant that the inhabitants of Alcamoth might not have been able to evacuate during an attack.
“What happened?”
Underground Nexus
Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Peach, Luka, Dexio, Sina, Raz
The sight of so many Vase Paws shook Peach, but only for a moment. Even in a big pack, these Others weren’t anything she hadn’t seen before. Four of them charged her way, led by a swift-footed frontrunner that zigged and zagged from side to side. Peach white-knuckled her Scatterboom, tracing the monster’s path with the barrel of her weapon, but only after the Vase Paws lunged for her did she make the final, critical adjustment and fire. A thunderous report echoed through the collapsed nexus as her point-blank blast sent the shotgun flying back in a burst of blood-red flower petals, its smoldering corpse tumbling along the ground until it burned away.
Its fellows hopped over its body and closed in, the clack of their heels and the jingle of their tails an intimidating cacophony. The first one jumped at her, flying through the air as it lashed out with both legs in a double kick. Peach dodged to the side and let it fly past her to focus on the second one, following close on the other’s heels. It unleashed a grounded, straightforward door-buster kick, and Peach span past it, staying close. With an adrenaline-fueled heave she bashed the Other’s narrow waist with a melee from her shotgun, then as it stumbled ditched the Scatterboom for her parasol. The princess deftly flipped it in her hand and grabbed it in a reverse grip to reach out with its J-shaped holt and hook the off-kilter Other’s leg out from under it, dropping it to the ground. By that time the third Vase Paws reached her, and with her teeth clenched she managed to block its high roundhouse with the furled parasol. After two quick strikes to the body with the hilt she took hold of the handle with her other hand and jabbed it point-first into the Other’s center of mass to then pop it open, flinging the Vase Paws away.
The move took just a hair too long, however, and as Peach turned to face it the last one delivered a tail lash right to her cheek that left her seeing stars as her jaw stung. Peach leaned into the spin to avoid stumbling, however, and recovered just in time to lean back away from the Vase Paw’s backflip tail lash. “Whoa!” she yelped, almost falling over backward. On instinct she manifested Grimm’s revolver, and the moment the Other landed a screaming wraith slammed into it, instantly flooring it in a shower of petals and ceramic fragments. The first Vase Paws ran up and came around with a mighty spin kick that Peach just barely rolled under, but by the time she came to rest on her back she’d already taken aim with the revolver again. With a hideous cry the Vase Paws fell, one leg blown clean off, but its second-fiddle kindred took revenge as Peach tried to rise with a swift kick in the guts. “Oof!” she grunted, tumbling backward only to activate Levitation and spring into the air. Out of the Vase Paws’ range, the princess pulled out her launcher, and a rocket aimed at her attacker’s feet knocked it down. As she fell the third Other charged in to intercept her, but Peach paused her fall mid-air with her float ability and nailed its head with repeated kicks instead. Her barrage ended with a point-blank inferno from her re-manifested Scatterboom. That left just the second Other, discombobulated by her rocket’s splash damage, and when it ran at her Peach got a spark of inspiration. Borrowing Sina’s Cryokinesis, she froze a patch of the floor, watched the Vase Paws slip and fall. Peach sidled up and beat it down with her parasol until a bulb popped up from its body. With a grin, she manifested a golf club and lifted it up. “Fore!” Crash!
All four foes defeated, Peach straightened up and let out a heavy breath, then checked on the others. Sakura dealt with the lion’s share of the Vase Paws with ease, naturally. Sina had things a little harder -and positioned herself behind Sakura, somewhat- but had gotten a few kills of her own. Even before Peach had, she’d used an ice slick to topple an Other in order to line up an icicle kill shot from her arm cannon. As the princess watched, Sina managed to stop her last enemy in its tracks with a torrent of freezing spray. She then saunted her up and casually pushed it over to shatter messily on the ground.
Peach smiled. Another battle won. “Nice work, you two!”
In the wake of the action, Luka reached out through Brain Talk again, the connection a little fuzzy thanks to the blockage.. ”I’m not hearing anything. Everyone alright in there?”
”Just took care of them,” Peach replied.
Dexio’s voice entered her mind next. ”Thank goodness. We’re gonna teleport in there in a second, I’m using my seismic sense to find a spot that’s clear. Need to be extra careful, so it’s gonna be another few seconds.”
Peach nodded. ”No rush, we’re-”
In the corner of her eye–a telltale glimmer. Maybe it was her experience fighting a protracted campaign against the Rabbids back in the day. Maybe it was the showdown with the sharpshooters at Spiral Mountain. Or maybe it stemmed from the traumatic stress pounded into her head during the Battle of Blackwater Bay. Regardless, Peach recognized the glint of a sniper scope when she saw it. She said not a word, but her body moved on its own; her Scatterboom manifested in her hands as she turned to take aim at the threat.
There was a muted sound, and something hit her, right in the stomach. For a moment, it didn’t even hurt. Then she felt a powerful twinge, like nausea, and her gun fell from her hands. Her eyes went wide, and she clutched her midsection, frozen as if in shock. “Peach? Peach!” Sina called, jogging over, but her voice sounded far away. Even Peach’s own ragged breathing sounded muffled, as if from the other side of a window. The princess looked up, but a red scar blossomed across in her vision, blocking everything out. She spasmed once and, spreading from the impact point, her body turned to glass, laced by a web of cracks like veins. Then the air around her turned to glass, riddled by fractures, leaving Peach’s image distorted. Looking like something inhuman.
Then the glass shattered. And an Other appeared.
It was massive. Its mannequin body, vaguely humanoid but sutured together and twisted backward at the waist, its weight on its tiptoes and elbows. Red ribbons tipped with golden spikes extended like tentacles from a hole in its belly. Its hands gripped the sides of its head, a little shed with a throat like interior, an empty chair recessed within with a bed of blue pinecone flowers at its feet, crowned by two veiled busts with black wrought-iron crowns and a pair of antlers. Swarms of fluttering butterflies clustered on its thighs and beneath the eaves of its head. The Other towered above Sina, who stood stunned beneath a rain of glassy fragments, until the monster raised its atrocious head and slammed it down.
“Agh!” Sina cried as she got launched backward. She hit the ground hard and slid to a stop in the dust against some rubble, still conscious.
At that moment a blue flash heralded the arrival of Luka, Dexio, and Raz. “Holy hell!” Dexio shouted the second he saw the thing, followed by, “Sina!” he took off running, and the Other lashed its ribbons at him. He shielded his head and slid to a stop in front of his partner.
Luka gritted his teeth and hefted his hammer. “Everyone who can move, lend a hand! Activate Brain Drive, now!” So saying, he grabbed the cord that dangled from the left side of his collar. When he pulled it, his hood flipped up and shrouded his face in darkness. Red streaks flashed through the pitch and formed his unique Brain Drive pattern of two glowing triangles. This state of intense mental focus, charged up by all the combat thus far, would grant him greater speed, attack, and psionic power as he strove to face this new challenge head-on–before it killed them all.
You have obtained: Kins x530 The theoretical psionic currency attached to the owner’s personal record in Psynet and usable for all Psynet-based transactions, acceptable in most stores in Midgar’s Plates
Grenade x2 A handheld explosive used by (and against) machines thanks to the electric pulse that accompanies its fragmentation
Universal Pistol Ammo x4 Any sidearm that can be wielded and fired in a single hand can accept ammunition from this miraculous pickup for a full refill
Memory Alloy x2 Alloy composed of rare metals. Highly sought after by scrappers for its resale value, mostly to adventurers and soldiers who then use it to forge weapons, especially small swords
Machine core x3 A damaged fragment of the core of a Machine Lifeform, containing rare elements valuable to merchants.
With the proposed plan of action already imperiled by another big problem, the Seekers in the clearing prepared to descend across the water to try and salvage the disastrous-looking situation down by the water’s edge. Roxas in particular launched himself from the precipice with an almost manic ferocity, using flowmotion to speedily navigate his way through the ruined, sunken landscape toward the machine-on-machine action. Despite their fatigue from the drawn-out Spider fight the three members of the Rust Crew set off in a sprint to circle around with Giovanna in the lead, dashing through the rain across the weed-riddled concrete. Tora jumped into Poppi’s arms, and the artificial blade took flight. With their comrade’s life in jeopardy against fearsome odds, the Seekers weren’t going to stand idly by.
Almost as suddenly as the crisis arose, however, it was averted. Enfeebled by the bite of Chillwater, doused with power-scrambling Purgewater, and surrounded by enraged machines that eagerly chomped and tore into the reinforced plate of her Business Suit, Susie bailed out right away. Not knowing where the group would be by now, she flew with her Transporter back in the direction of the parked -and currently abandoned- salvage truck, leaving her mech behind to suffer the machine lifeforms’ wrath. Only then did Roxas reach the fight, allowing him to bludgeon the futuristic creatures’ plated exteriors with the blunt ends of his keyblades. Rather than take all these well-equipped war machines head-on, however, he unleashed a grand parting shot. His Thundaga rippled across the metallic menagerie, electrocuting the Snapmaws with their Shock weakness but barely registering with the Shellwakers and Widemaws thanks to their Shock resistance.
Then, before the battle-ready beasts could bombard him with a fusillade of lightning and Purgewater-soaked earth, he fled. Roxas scrambled up from the collapsed riverbank toward the upper highway cliff where Pit still tangled with with a handful of howling Clamberjaws. A burst of healing out of the blue fixed the angel right up, allowing the pair to take on the last member of the troop without worry. The final machine fought bitterly with tooth and claw, jumping between walls and trees to afflict its opponents with concussive screeches and burns from hurled slag. Still, this was a fight that the boys could -and did- win in short order. Meanwhile, the machines at the riverside could not ascend to give pursuit to their enemies. Instead they regrouped, and with their precious cargo of base minerals, scrap metal, and chemicals secure the Shellwalkers made themselves scarce, dispersing into drains, tunnels, and so forth to return to base through the safety of the earth. The others resumed their processing duties.
“Oh,” Tora murmured, watching from afar as things died down. “Well, that good, at least.” The sooner the team could attend to the real cause for concern, the better. It wouldn’t be long before Giovanna, Marshall, Big Bo, Zenkichi, and Cain reached the remaining salvage truck via the semicircular upper route, where they would no doubt reunite with Partitio, Pit, Roxas, and Susie. With just one truck left, though, it would be hard to transport everyone, even if they could be assured they were headed in the right direction. Tora stared up at the Tallneck, annoyed that he lacked any sort of receptacle into which he could extract the mobile comm station’s positional data, until something occurred to him. “Meh-meh,” he muttered, thinking. “If Tora can gain access to machine mind, why not machine body? If Tora can control, friends have way to make sure everypon reach right spot!” He turned to his companion. “Poppi, take Tora up one more time!”
New Strength developed: PSI Override Tora’s staggering hardware and software engineering prowess has allowed him to tap into a vulnerability in certain animalistic machine lifeforms with his toolkit in order to Override them, giving him direct control over them as well as access to their data banks. Only one machine can be overridden at a time and Tora has to be actively overriding it, preventing him from doing anything else. The basic PSI Override means he can only access Broadheads, Chargers, Watchers, Striders, and Tallnecks
After a few minutes, the Seekers who’d gathered at the salvage truck found themselves approached by the towering Tallneck. Rather than attack, however, it stood harmlessly over them while Tora waved his wings down from the top. “Hello, friends!” he called. “We need hurry to intercept machines, meh! Anyone want ride?”
The Tallneck was surprisingly fast once forced to move at top speed, almost able to keep up with the truck given how often the vehicle needed to maneuver and turn, while the machine itself could make up the lost distance with shortcuts over rougher terrain. Consulting the stolen comm data often, Tora steered the Seekers through the Valley of Ruin, away from the flooded district and half-built neighborhood. Their path took them northeast, not quite back the way they came but close enough to make Giovanna worried–worried that while her team searched, the enemy force had already advanced toward Midgar. Unfortunately, she turned out to be right.
Tora’s directions brought the Seekers back to the edge of the Valley of Ruin, where the haunting remnants of a vast metropolis gave way to the barren no-man’s-land that formed Midgar’s immediate vicinity toward the south. A massive avenue, coated in rippling, reflective pools of rain, stood between two great rows of rusted weathervanes and derelict skyscrapers, crumbled and tilted off-kilter by the relentless ravages of time. Truck and Tallneck rounded one of these hulking husks and ascended a slope of sediment-covered rubble to crest a hill overlooking the street, and what the Seekers saw took their breath away.
Packed shoulder-to-shoulder as they marched down the avenue were hundreds and hundreds of Machines. Most appeared to be Bipeds, either Medium (about as tall as the average man] or Large, but there was plenty of variety to be found. There were handfuls of Goliaths over twice the height of the Large Bipeds, with gigantic hands capable of squashing cars flat. Some took the form of Legpower Goliaths, faster and more mobile with multi-ton kicks, and others Reverse-jointed Goliaths with gun arms, stubby tails, and raptor-like gait. Quadrupeds galloped on all fours with bladed legs, while insectoid Multilegs wielded cutters or cannons. Small and Medium Fliers hovered overhead on their single or quad turbines, too, with guns at the ready. Even among the basic Bipeds there existed some variety. Some adorned themselves with armor or warlike attire, and wielded a variety of handmade weapons. Most staggering of all, though, were there numbers.
“By my estimate…” Poppi began, not sure if she even wanted to say. “At least a thousand.”
Tora took a deep breath, shaking slightly. “Meh-meh…unfortunately, fact that they not reach Midgar yet is good news. Bad news is, this not half of it. There other group at least this big headed in direction of Detroit.” He furrowed his brow. “This army headed to Sector 07. Friends there not have DespoRHado to fight for them.”
“So it falls to us,” Giovanna murmured. “Well then. That’s what, a hundred each? They don’t look so tough.” She stifled a wry laugh. “Imagine if these were all high-tech baboons and hippos.”
With a final long breath to steady himself, Tora put on a courageous smile. “Hundred each not so bad!” he declared, wiping rain from his face before posing in a determined fashion. “Let’s give baddypons what-for!”
“We don’t have a lot of choice,” Marshall agreed. “But we’ve gotta be smart. Use everything we got to our advantage. Terrain, teamwork, you name it. Don’t let yourselves get surrounded, and shout if you need help.” Clicking his rifle’s safety off, he climbed up onto the truck. “We’ll stay ahead of them and cover you from behind. Mow down as many as we can, and make sure none of them slip through toward the city.”
Giovanna nodded. “Alrighty then. As Goldlewis would probably say, let’s git ‘er done.”
She, Tora, and Poppi jumped down from the overlook, sliding down the slope until they reached the rain-washed street. They turned to face the vast horde, a sea of clanking metal and glowing red eyes. Tora faced them with a smile, however. If he could do this, there wouldn’t be any more room for doubt in his mind; he would know that he was a hero.
Planning to lead by example, Goldlewis wasted no time bringing out the big guns. A tremendous bang reverberated across the surface of the L.I.F.T. as the UMA heaved the immense minigun out of the coffin and onto the ground. Goldlewis grabbed hold with his suitably massive mitts and lifted it up to open fire. His bullets flew toward the runaway camera in a withering torrent, but the anomalous doohickey didn’t just idle in place. It floated up and down and from side to side, and though the veteran’s gunfire put a couple dents in the camera’s exterior, a handheld minigun wasn’t well suited to adjustments in aim, and most of the shots ended up missing.
The others followed suit with whatever ranged weapons they had. While Midna managed to pull a revolver out of nowhere, the Twilight Princess was by no means a deadeye, and after emptying every one of its chambers the six-shooter offered nothing more than a complicated and unfamiliar reload process. Geralt took shots with his crossbow, but the rushing air that buffeted everyone in this tunnel either knocked his slow-moving projectiles off course or stopped them in their tracks and sent them hurtling back to sender. Blazermate’s sentry, meanwhile, was perfect for the job. Once built it started plugging away at the ActionMaxx Camera with a steady stream of well-aimed shots, but the arrival of giant signs and alternate L.I.F.T.s quickly spelled the end for that plan.
In fact, this new development forced a paradigm shift out of everyone, obliging them to stay on the move or be battered by tunnel obstructs straight into the yawning abyss. With a magic airdash at his disposal Goldlewis could take to the sky with the best of them, though he still needed to put in extra effort to keep his extra-large and easy-to-hit frame out of the path of oncoming signage. The Session Pounds added even more chaos to the mix, through Geralt and Midna’s efforts to intercept and dispose of the flying bombs lessened the threat they posed a good amount. Still, even with Panther putting in an appearance to swat the camera with lasers, the team’s already less-than-stellar damage output was only further hampered by the shifted focus to constant movement. Goldlewis couldn’t afford to stay put and belt out lead with Skyfish if a giant sheet of yellow-painted metal could cream him any second. His perceptive peepers did notice one thing, though: the ActionMaxx Camera itself inadvertently warned of incoming obstacles through its movement. If imminent signs would block two of the three tunnels within the next few moments, it would fly over to the third.
Noticing this began a strange, high-octane version of Follow the Leader, obliging Goldlewis and the others to race after it from L.I.F.T. to L.I.F.T. whenever it made a move. Doing this gained them some ground and afforded them better opportunities to take aim. Ever the pessimist, the veteran considered the possibility of a feint, but if this paranormal object possessed any intelligence it seemed wholly focused on filming the frenetic chase scene. Making the most of his Security Level when it filled up, Goldlewis unleashed as many level-three bullet barrages as he could. If this whole thing hadn’t happened underground, he mused, this would’ve been a perfect opportunity to Burn it Down with his satellite laser. In the midst of the chaos, the team managed to chip away at the camera’s integrity, reducing it by over half.
At that point, though, things got even more interesting. The trickle of Session Pounds came to an abrupt end, and something else took their place. Sometimes, the abyss behind them would belch out a chimeric being of rusted metal, gnarled horn, and sallow flesh, not unlike the Others encountered earlier but just different enough to strike the Seekers as particularly weird. Bathing the tunnels in front of them with the odious yellow glare of their headlights as they raced along the tracks, the Cleansers attempted to take hold of the L.I.F.T.s and physically wrench them off their tracks. Worse still, that awful xanthous glow came with a suppressive effect, hampering the spirit-derived abilities of anyone caught in their baleful luster. Their arrival and subsequent slow but terrifying gain on the L.I.F.T.s turned a salvageable situation into an incredibly stressful one in no time flat–which was about how long the team had left to take down the rogue ActionMaxx Camera.
Despite her positive outlook, Nadia had no doubts that the destruction and panic she’d helped cause -however small in scale- would draw the authorities like bees to honey, so she got a serious move on. Even if that piscine policewoman seemed more oblivious and friendly than sharp and authoritative, the cat burglar didn’t want to be spotted by her near the scene of any more crimes. With Omori following along, she proceeded deeper into the vast fairground district grateful for its unusual size. It took no time at all for her to immerse herself back into a part of the park with plenty of guests, where any rumors or alerts about an injured woman and a knife-wielding maniac on the loose met with either mild concern or brow-raised skepticism, and not much farther than that the panic died out completely. Nadia saw only fun-loving bugs and monsters enjoying their weekends with their friends and families. Some news spread like wildfire, it seemed, but others blew away like dust in the wind.
Nadia and Omori eventually wound up at the Amusement Park’s warmly-lit boardwalk, jutting out over the waters to the north of the district. Possibly due to its proximity to the Royal Quarter that lay just across the Home of Tears ’northeastern channel, this area possessed a certain air of class. All done up in pristine white, with nice railings and awnings, it offered a distinct vintage feel to many of the city’s modern monsters. To Nadia, however, its aesthetic rubbed her a different way. It almost perfectly matched the art deco era design of the boardwalk park back in New Meridian, and though she seldom got the chance to visit Little Innsmouth’s prim-and-proper, touristy counterpart, this place felt achingly like home. It even had a little ferris wheel! A wave of uncharacteristic melancholy washed over her. New Meridian might be a pretty awful place on the whole, but it was home, and she never thought she’d miss it this badly.
Once she got over her heartache, Nadia got down to business. As promised she bought Omori a cotton candy, freshly spun from the centrifuge. She did not indulge herself however, and she didn’t insist that he accompany her further. The kid could take care of himself after all, and Nadia still didn’t know if he liked her company or not. For a few minutes she just meandered the boardwalk, looking around. She saw plenty of carnival games scattered around, from bottle-knocking to whack-a-mole, but after a little consideration she turned away. The decision almost took her by surprise -who wouldn’t want to take a load off after what she’d been through with some fun distractions, after all?- but the more she reflected the more Nadia knew that she just didn’t feel like it.
As much as she put on a brave face for Omori, and the world at large, she wasn’t smiling on the inside. Not right now at least. Since arriving in the World of Light she’d done plenty of killing, but mostly monsters. Even the Abyssals were basically mindless tools of destruction, regardless of appearances. Always chaotic evil. But not so with Massachusetts or Kronya. They’d been foes that stood in the path she needed to tread, sure. Deadly combatants, and Kronya in particular seemed like a real piece of work. But they were still people. Maybe more of the ‘monsters’ she’d killed were real people too. Hell, if she met most of this city’s inhabitants in a dark alley she might not have thought twice about cutting them down. How much blood was on her hands? How much would be, by the time this was done? Was it all okay as long as everything went back to normal when the Seekers triumphed over Galeem?
What if it didn’t?
Nadia ended up at a table beneath an umbrella at the side of the water. She nibbled at a footlong coney stacked up with onions, relish, cheese, and ketchup, gazed at the spirit of Kronya on the table before her, and listened to the rain. What were these things? They were capable of extraordinary things. If Nadia commanded that this spirit fight for her right now, it probably would. She could bring that knife-wielding assassin back into being as easily as recalling a lost memory. But was that really her? Or, like the savage monsters like Idea that now served at her beck and call, was it just a puppet? She knew by now that if she died, she’d leave one of these things behind too. Someone else could take her powers, as well as a pinch of Nadia seasoning mixed into their body or mind. The feral’s eyes narrowed at the thought. Dying had always been a terrifying concept. Probably always would be. If she died before finishing this mission, it would all go to waste. Every drop of blood, sweat, and tears shed on this journey. No. I need to see this through, she thought. To see the World of Light whisked away, and everything restored just how it used to be. For the sake of everyone, of course, but mostly for herself. So that things could be simple and clean again–all the blood on her hands, rinsed away. Whatever it takes, she thought. I have to live.
Lucky, then, that survival came easily to someone who couldn’t die.
Nadia’s mood picked up as she ate her coney. It was a great mixture of flavors and textures, very nostalgic, and the chorus of rain on the ink-dark lakewater soothed her. Jokes, laughter, and noises of jubilation reached her from the nearby guests. It was hard to stay in a dour mood in a place like the Amusement Park. It also wasn’t the best place to be alone, in a strictly positive sense. A couple times Nadia found herself approached by random passers-by, including a group of friends about her age wondering if she wanted to join them and a couple young fellows who couldn’t just pass a comely catgirl by. It reminded her of her impromptu group last night at Definitely Not Fried Chicken; the people here sure were trusting and friendly. Though alternatively appreciative and flattered, Nadia had to turn them down. By now she’d spent more than enough time on herself, and she needed to meet back up with the other Seekers to continue the mission.
With two-thirds of the group plus their final objective in the Royal Quarter, getting over there sounded like the best way to start. Nadia skirted along the fairground’s northern edge until she reached the bridge connecting it to Fountain Central, all the while regretting the spurt of mopiness that tricked her into passing up the fair games earlier. On the way across the bridge, she spotted a couple people she knew headed in the same direction, although she couldn’t call them a sight for sore eyes. After hurrying to catch up with them, she pulled up alongside Ganondorf and Rubick and fixed them with an accusatory look. “Hey, where were you two all morning?” she asked, one eyebrow quizzically raised. “We ran into all kinds of crazy critters in the Soul Sanctum, then we had to split up to hunt down these local bozos called Those Who Slither in the Dark, ‘cept the one I got was slitherin’ in the Park. Kinda bummed me out too, got me thinkin’. Less a-mew-sing and more a-musing, if ya get me, heheh.” She couldn’t help but giggle, pretty pleased with herself for that one. “And now I find you were there too, all fun and games the whole time? How’s that ‘fair’, eh?”
Unfortunately, while the Great King of Evil possessed a great many remarkable qualities, a sense of humor wasn’t one of them. That led to a somewhat frosty trip for the mismatched pair as they headed toward the Royal District. All Ganondorf needed to know was that with the Agarthans neutralized following the other teams’ success, their target -Consul P- could finally be taught a much-deserved lesson. Rubick, however, left to visit some shops instead.
The majority of the Seekers reconvened before the gates of the garden compound that surrounded the base of the Clock Tower. Beneath the bridge that spanned its large pond lay the underwater pipes that brought several of them here, and the garden’s luminescent fungi illuminated the undersides of the great fragments of masonry that floated overhead, too steeped in magic to heed the laws of gravity. Past the gates, through the garden, and over the bridge stood none other than Iguana Gallo Valetto, shielded from the rain by some sort of charm. Behind him the grand doors of Gallo Tower lay unbarred, ready to receive the guests invited in by its former master. If anyone needed a refresher on the plan they could inquire with him, but after that anyone who wished to deal the final blow to P could follow him to the Consul’s bolt-hole. The rest need only track down and confront P himself, bereft of his Agarthan honor guard and vulnerable to the heroes’ machinations. The Seekers only need ready themselves and enter.
Before going in, Nadia paid a visit to the Koopa Troop. “Hey, could I borrow that thingie that focuses changes?” she asked them, Kronya’s spirit in her hand. “I need to see it in detail. In de tail, literally.” She pointed her thumb at her fish tail. “This big ol’ thing’s just been a giant pain. Figured it’s time I put it behind me.”
Notable spirit consumed: Kronya (Tail) The host’s tail has slimmed back down to the approximate size and shape of a cat’s tail, but also split into three. Orange arrow-shaped markings appear down their lengths toward the ends, where the tails broaden and flatten out into shapes somewhere between fish fins and scorpion stingers. These tails are articulate and can be used to grab and hold things, though not to the extent of hands, and when detached and/or hardened they make effective weapons. This spirit confers the Strength Swordfaire, imparting skill with short swords / daggers and a slight damage increase when using them. This spirit also confers the Weakness Impractical Style. Nadia’s hair now stubbornly covers her left eye by default, lowering her visibility somewhat and occasionally bugging her
Item obtained: Athame Increases attack and speed somewhat in combat against a wounded enemy. Temporarily weakens enemies' physical and magical defense on hit. Grants ‘Vantage’: while blocking an opponent’s offensive pressure, Nadia can counterattack with this weapon, essentially functioning as an alpha counter. This attack cannot lead into a combo
While the others prepared to storm the tower, Nadia found herself faced with the prospect of trying to get used to two new facets of herself: the feeling of having three tails, and the hair that now stubbornly hung over her left eye. The tails felt more or less alright after a few good wiggles, but her attempt to clip the new covering off led to frustration as her bang immediately regenerated. While doing this, she happened to notice an unfamiliar face among the crowd, breaking her concentration. “Oh, hey,” she said, waving to demon Bowser, Rika, and Therion brought back from Shambhala. “How’s it goin’? I’m Ms. Fortune.”
“The name’s Concetta Caciotta!” the airborne musician announced proudly. “Things could be a lot better to be honest, I’m gonna starve to death any second! The stuff we found in the bad guys’ base was basically tripe. At least I’m free, though. Who are you all and what’re we doing here?”
Nadia winced. “Oof. Sounds like we gotta lot of explainin’ to do.” Rifling through her pockets, she presented Concetta with a couple dozen Geo in loose change. “Here. We’re about to take care of some business, so why not go off and get somethin’ to eat? We can catch up after.”
“Hey, you’re not bad!” Concetta accepted the cash and clapped the catgirl on the back. “I owe you one, Fortune! When you get done here I’ll buy you a drink!”
With the most daring members of the group seconds away from breaching the tower, Nadia turned her attention to the gates after waving Concetta goodbye. “That works out pretty good, ‘cause dependin’ on how things go here, I might need end up needin’ one.”
Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Peach, Luka, Dexio, Sina, Raz
In a show of both inter-platoon cooperation and uncompromising strength, the ten Scarlet Guardians dispatched the Gunkin Fisher. It died with a final squeaky howl, its hoses flailing in every direction in a desperate bid to spread its all-important oil before its tank finally went dry and shattered to pieces as the rest of the Other turned to ash. Seto carefully collected the big monster’s spirit, then joined everyone else standing in a rough circle. “Good work, all of you,” he told them, the smile in his eyes making up for the battle mask that covered his mouth. “That was a Major Other, but you all handled in with finesse and, more importantly, teamwork.”
After sliding his batons into his belt, Shiden stood with his arms crossed. During the last part of the fight he’d found and broken a pipe in the area to flood part of it with water, then blasted the Gunkin Perry with a massive wave of amped-up chain-lightning. Striking the final blow seemed to have left him pretty chuffed. “You should expect nothing less.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Luka congratulated his own team. “We’re nearing the tail-end of the operation, I think. Let’s make sure to finish strong.”
Seto nodded. “We’ll head down the right-hand path then. Take care out there.”
“Knock ‘em dead!” Peach cheered the others on, waving to them as the teams parted ways.
Party: Sakura EXP: +5
The group proceeded down the left-hand path from the decrepit facility where they fought the Gunkin Perry. They encountered a handful of Pools and Pendus on their steady march through the underground, but nothing of particular note. Eventually, they entered a a mostly-empty tunnel that blazed with ethereal orange strings and floating fragments, slowly and even peacefully drifting through the open space. Though definitely psionic constructs, these couldn’t quite be called Visions without any sort of generator or source, other than maybe Psynet or perhaps even the collective consciousness itself. Disjointed snippets of information gathered here were the lingering traces hearts once collided, tantalizingly indistinct like half-forgotten memories. Hanging in the air were scattered thoughts, lost hopes, crushed dreams, hurt feelings, and so much more, all sanded down so fine that they might as well be dust. Were these, visualized by the ambient presence of Psynet, the treads that connected people? And were those shards then the tattered remnants of connections severed? Peach couldn’t stop herself looking closer as she passed them by, but it was difficult to get anything more than the vaguest idea of what sort of people left these traces here. Like footsteps in the sand nearly scrubbed clean by the relentless drudgery of the tide.
The princess wondered the people who left these psionic blips were even still alive. Would some piece of her remain here, adrift in this scarlet web, once she herself was gone? Just an echo, doomed to fade away? She took a deep breath and tried to clear her head. Thoughts like those weren’t going to get her anywhere. Surely, she reasoned, she’d leave a greater impact than this.
Luka Platoon emerged from the tunnel to find the train tracks stop suddenly at the edge of a large, open area. It appeared to be roughly square in shape, with a mostly flat floor and ceiling, both cracked and roughened up by dilapidation of the structure and shifts in the earth. “Some sort of underground parking garage, maybe,” Luka ventured. He noticed water leaking in through some of the larger fissures in the ceiling, and even felt a faint whiff of fresh air. He also noticed at least one other tunnel branching off from this area, lined with the distinctive gray of aged asphalt that indicated a former roadway. Fallen rubble seemed to be cleared off that path, however, and there were tire tracks in the disturbed dust. “Strange,” Luka murmured. “Have people been here recently? Why would anyone spend time in such an Other-infested area…?”
That aside, the mission of the Scarlet Guardians was to eradicate Others, and neither Peach nor Luka saw any Others here. By now Luk Platoon had spent quite a while underground, and given how long it had been since an encounter, the princess considered the possibility that the Psych-OSF had succeeded in making a clean sweep of the abandoned subway network. Unfortunately, that hypothesis turned out to be a little optimistic.
“Hold up, guys. I’m feeling something.” While the team lacked anyone with Clairvoyance or Precognition, Dexio’s Seismokinesis gave him a keener sense for any fluctuations in the earth’s surface, and after kneeling to put his palms on the ground he furrowed his brow in worry. “Something’s headed out way from one of the smaller tunnels. A lot of somethings, it feels like.”
Just a few moments later the others could hear the noise, a distant clamor of clacking and jingling that echoed through the tunnels. Luka gave the signal, and the team moved to surround the opening. Moments after that, the Others appeared. It turned out to be a massive pack of predatory Vase Paws, hungry and on the hunt for human brains. They swarmed out of the tunnel two or three at a time, forcing the Scarlet Guardians to back up or be overwhelmed. “Holy cow!” Dexio exclaimed, crouching down. “There’s no end to them! I’m gonna collapse the tunnel to keep ‘em from getting in!” He allowed his power to ripple through the earth, up the fractured walls and toward the fissured ceiling.
Luka’s eyes widened. “Dexio, wait…!”
With a calamitous shaking and a terrifying rumble ceiling began to come down. Though Dexio succeeded in his goal of blocking off the horde’s entryway, he also accidentally triggered a collapse. “You bonehead!” Sina yelled, running toward Dexio as a slab began to fall. Luka got there first, teleporting to grab the unlucky fellow and warp him back the way the team came in. As the roof caved in, massive chunks of rock and concrete piled up near the subway tunnel, trapping Luka, Raz, and Sina on one side, and Sakura, Sina, and Peach on the other.
Coughing, Peach fanned away the dust billowing in the air. Now a huge gap had opened in the ceiling to reveal the remains of a multi-level parking garage, mostly fallen to pieces, beneath a rainy sky. The muted daylight also revealed a massive rubble barricade blocking the subway tunnel, with no way through. “Raz! Luka! Are you okay?” There was no reply, but after a moment of critical thinking Peach switched to Brain Talk to repeat the question.
“We’re okay,” Luka’s voice replied in her mind. “But there’s no way through, and without a clear visual of the other side to see any obstruction, I can’t risk teleporting through. Can you see a way out on your end?”
Peach looked up, gauging the distance toward the new hole in the roof. ”Yeah.” While looking, however, she also noted the dozen-plus rising up from the dust nearby. ”I see a whole lot of those Others, too! We’re going to have to fight!”
”Hold on, we’ll try to find a way through to you!” Luca replied, his voice frantic. Peach took a deep breath and manifested her Scatterboom. This was going to be rough.
With a strategy in mind, the Seekers began the battle with the Spider in earnest. The Nopon and maid-robot, standing together before the giant war machine, might have seemed feeble and insignificant in comparison, but as long as they had one another they were never alone. In very short order their eight-legged opponent set the pace for the fight: pinning Tora and Poppi down on defense. While they could either avoid or outright tank the robot’s gunfire and laser-guided missiles, that ended up being about all they could do. The Spider alternated between long-ranged barrages and attempts to smash Tora beneath one of its legs, but despite the engineer’s best attempts to take turns of his own, his enemy effectively prevented counterattacks through a combination of massive size and proactive withdrawal. Unable to build up ether to use his all-important arts without physically hitting the machine, the pair couldn’t even begin to build up any momentum. Even if Poppi could do some damage by flying off on her own, she knew if she stopped channeling ether into them her Masterpon’s weapons would depower and he’d be a sitting duck with no barriers to protect him.
That put all the offense against the Spider in the hands of the Rust Crew. Though the borrowed salvage truck offered only poor acceleration and handling, Cain deftly wove between and around both the scenery and the Spider’s legs, giving his teammates as much time as they could to pound their enemy’s joints and underbelly with bullets. “Wish Rachel was here right about now!” Big Bo griped as he replaced his empty magazine, noting as he did the dwindling stockpile of ammunition in his hardcase. “A couple rockets to the gut would fix this bad boy right up!”
“We need backup,” Marshall agreed. His well-aimed shots sent sparks flying from the drive system on the Spider’s underside, but it just wasn’t enough, and after a moment Cain’s swerve around the wrecked remains of a gas station broke Marshall’s line of sight. “Steer us toward those two!” Risking a strafing run into the Spider’s line of fire, the Rust Crew drew close enough to Tora and Poppi to call out to them. “Hey! We’ve gotta lure this thing south to alert the others!”
“Roger!” Poppi called back. She pulled Tora up onto her back, where by clinging to her shoulders with his nub-arms he could still use his wings -and the Mech Arms they wielded- to protect them. With this method the duo began to lead the Spider on a dangerous chase back the way their truck originally came. The Rust Crew followed alongside the machine or in pursuit, wearing it down as best they could. When Big Bo’s ammo ran out, he swapped with Cain in the driver’s seat. A couple minutes after passing back by the crashed plane, which the Spider put a foot through with a callous stomp, a sudden blip rang out from a device on Poppi’s person. She reached down and pulled out the walkie-talkie Sakura had given her the day before. Someone was trying to reach her.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, not all the Seekers chose to back Giovanna up on her side mission. The secret agent felt as if she understood Susie’s behavior, as brashness often came hand-in-hand with self-motivation, but she didn’t quite get the nature of Partitio’s grievance. Was the team’s goal not to help the poor people of Midgar’s undercities survive in the hopes of reaching a better tomorrow, by eliminating the foes that threatened their lives today? Well, neither case really mattered to Giovanna. She was neither the Seekers’ team leader nor their public relations rep–just someone who got things done. Big groups weren’t her style, anyway.
Still, with neither a hacker to access the Prospector’s data deposit nor the numbers to assault it directly, she needed to come up with a different approach. Zenkichi offered to bait as many machines as he could away, with special emphasis on the Simians using the crane as their personal jungle gym. “Refreshingly professional,” she told him, and the simple plan was afoot. As the rain continued to pound the dilapidated neighborhood, Giovanna made her way to the crane and waited until the gunslinger got the Machines’ attention to climb. It was a long and arduous ascent, made all the more treacherous by the rain-slick rungs on the ladder, but minute by minute she neared the top. Not far from the crane’s base she spied massive pipes of steel beams encased in concrete probably meant at one point to be buried in the ground as sewer pipes, but which now lay stacked like fireplace logs by a half-excavated pit. If she could drop one on the data deposit, she reasoned, it would deal some serious damage and hopefully bring whatever these bots were planning to a grinding halt.
On the way up, however, the distant, echoed sounds of warfare reached her ears. Giovanna turned and, hanging by one hand as she shielded her eyes from the rain, spied chaos toward the north. The muzzle flares and sounds of gunfire, punctuated by the percussion of missiles, drew her attention to a massive mechanical arachnid a ways to the north. While she couldn’t make out its targets, she could make a pretty good guess. “Oh, brother,” she groaned, turning back to the ladder to pick up the pace. Once she reached the top of the crane, she slipped her walkie-talkie from her belt and dialed it in. “Tora? Poppi? Come in, this is Giovanna. What’s going on, over?”
After a moment she heard a reply. “Oh! I forgot we had this. Well, this is perfect! We’re fighting a huge robot spider. Us and the three soldier guys. We’re trying to lead it toward the rest of you. Can you give us a hand? Uh, over.”
Giovanna sighed. “Yeah, uh, we’ll do our best. I found a-!” She jumped as a smattering of bullets whizzed by her, crouching down behind the crane’s operation cabin. Way down below, the glow of a dozen pairs of red eyes confirmed that the machines had somehow sussed her out. Did they intercept my signal? she wondered, gritting her teeth. More worryingly, she could see that the Prospector had returned. It floated in front of the data deposit trying to access it. Giovanna’s eyes widened. Trying to cut and run? Forced to ignore the bullets sent up by the gunners on the ground, she jumped in the cabin and began working the controls. It took some trial and error, but she managed to send the hooks down to seize one of the heavy pipes.
Once again, however, noise from the north grabbed her attention. Tora, Poppi, and the Spider were getting close; she could clearly see them even with the rain. “Needing help soon!” Poppi’s voice came over the radio. “The robot stepped on the guy’s truck and sent it flying way farther than it should have! Tora and I have taken…ugh! …A lot of damage…!”
Giovanna glanced down at the Spider, then back at the data deposit. “Man,” she groaned. “It’s always something.” Turning on the walkie talkie, she yelled, “Bring it to the crane!” She then slammed down on the controls and raced out of the cabin. As the crane’s arm began to move down its corrugated metal catwalk through the rain and bullets. She leaped from its end to grab the metal cable with both hands, sliding down it as the elephantine contraption picked up speed. “This has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” she told Rei, to which the wolf spirit nodded, until finally the revolution of the crane’s swinging payload rammed the sewer pipe directly into the Spider’s left side like a runaway freight train. Giovanna jumped at the last second, and as she sailed through the deluge she watched the robot topple over, two of its left-side legs and half its abdomen totaled by the terrific impact.
Time seemed to slow down as energy built inside her. Her skin glowed green, her hair orange, and her eyes pure white. “Fear on the wind…!” she murmured as air built around her. “Tempestade!” Like cannonball she fired downward at a diagonal angle, screaming through the air to plow into the Spider’s drive system with a majestic divekick. It left a big dent, surrounded in crackling arcs of electricity, but it wasn’t enough. Giovanna bounced off, unharmed by any fall damage, and slid through the grass a short way only to hear the honk of a horn. She turned to see the Rust Crew’s truck barreling toward the Spider’s belly, with Poppi amping up its only redeeming characteristic (max speed) even further by pushing from the back with her thrusters. As its horn blared Giovanna cleared the way, and once Bo threw himself from the driver’s cab a final rocket-powered punch slammed the truck head-first onto the giant robot’s weak spot. KABOOOOOOOM! The ensuing explosion sent everyone within a thousand feet flying away, stunned by the shockwave, and when they finally looked back the Spider was no more.
“Woohoooooo!” Tora yelled, bouncing up and down. His bullet wounds were quickly fading away thanks to his out-of-combat healing, but he threw himself into Poppi’s arms for a massive hug anyway. “That so incredibly amazing! Tora and friends can do anything!”
With a weary laugh Giovanna crossed her arms. “I didn’t think that would work, honestly,” she admitted. “We just got lucky.” She narrowed her eyes at what remained of the Spider. “Also, using the truck for that? Not the best move. Now there’s just one for all eleven of us.”
“Way to rain on our parade,” Marshall joked. “We can just say the Spider destroyed it, which is pretty much true when you think about it.” After a series of high-fives and fistbumps all around. “I hate to be the one to say it, but as crazy as that was, I don’t think we’re any closer to stopping the Machine invasion.”
Cain shrugged. “One less giant war machine sounds like a win to me, monsieur.”
“Meh-meh-meh!” Tora piped up. “While up on building, Tora see long-neck steelypon near flooded spot with head like big radar dish! It might be way to tap into Machine communications, meh?”
“Worth a shot,” Giovanna told him, remembering the Prospector that by now had surely gotten away with all the data. “I have a feeling we don’t have a lot of time.
When Susie descended on the partially-collapsed flooded district of the ruined cityscape in single-minded pursuit of the Shellwalkers that trundled along the water’s edge, her approach did not go unnoticed. A nearby troop of Clamberjaws spotted her and set up a racket of raucous hollering like the baboons their designs aped. The disturbance alerted the Shellwalkers, which turned to see Susie flying in for a melee attack. As she homed in on one, the only one of the three with antennae, the machine she targeted turned to face her with its bell-shaped left claw upheld, and with a surge of electricity a hardlight wall sprang to life. When the Business Suit slammed into the energy shield it held, at least for a moment, during which the claw-shaped Lighting Gun on the Shellwalker’s right clew blasted Susie again and again. After a few seconds though, the shield shattered, and as it bulled through the machine got bowled over. The clamps holding its crate on its back shattered, and it fell to the ground.
A moment later though, the Shellwalker rose up. First it reached out to pick up its crate with its Lightning Gun claw, which it placed and held on its back. Then, as Susie came back around for another charge, its antennae lit up and the Shellwalker emitted a loud, angry metallic warble. Every machine lifeform in the vicinity received the command, and the battle began. Susie’s return charge came to a sudden stop against the hardlight shields of both other Shellwalkers, which grouped together to defend the first, and this time she lost momentum before the shields lost power. The two fanned out, swinging both claws in massive electrified hooks, slams, and explosions.
With a fearsome roar a Snapmaw burst from the nearby water and lunged toward Susie, clamping its jaw down on the Business Suit’s left arm. Chillwater began to pour from the sac on its throat, freezing the metal and making it more brittle, increasing damage dealt by up to 300%, before the chainsaw teeth in its maw began to rip and tear. Susie’s rockets took to the sky and even felled a couple Clamberjaws, but the machines returned fire with a vengeance. Another Snapmaw hauled itself from the water behind Susie a ways off and began to rain down arced shots of Chillwater from afar, and if forced out of melee range the Shellwalkers would add to the mix with electric shots, potentially paralyzing if too many of them hit. Worse still, the bloat of Widemaws then joined the fray. One spewed out a barrage of sludge coated in Purgewater, capable of increasing susceptibility to elemental attacks while disabling the sufferer’s own. Another sucked up a bunch of rocks with its vacuum to hurl a much larger, more damaging sludge bomb that bounced, leaving Purgewater puddles, before exploding on contact with its target. The last charged into melee range, its quad-jaw unhinged to clamp down and drill into whatever it could. Badly underestimated and very angry, these deranged machines posed a real threat individually; together, their durability, damage, and elemental onslaught spelled disaster.
Tracking down the Tallneck Tora spotted took a bit of time, but those fresh out of the fight with the Spider were happy for the chance to take a breather. Once they reached the towering, giraffe-shaped machine in a tree-ringed clearing, Tora found that it ignored them, so Poppi flew him up to the top to plug into its neural network. The others waited nearby, but only for a couple minutes. Tora quickly returned to them in a state of panic. “We need go now!” he warned, flapping his wings in terror. “Now, now, now! Tora knows where they are, and all friends need go stop them, now!”
“We might have a problem,” Giovanna said, standing on the edge of a cliff. When Tora, Poppi, and the Rust Crew soldiers joined her, they peered down at the flooded district to see the entire local machine animal population united against Susie and Pit. It looked like chaos down there–a maelstrom of gnashing teeth, grinding gears, and elemental attacks. “I didn’t think she’d actually DO it.”
Poppi grimaced. “We don’t have time for this.” She spotted the other team’s transport on the other side of the collapsed valley. “We need to grab that truck, extract them, and intercept the Machine army before they reach Midgar!”
Dangerous as the Slippy Chinery was, engulfed in an inferno and wildly attacking anything it sensed with animalistic savagery, going berserk only prolonged the inevitable. Liking her odds more against fire than lightning, and more than able to stand the heat, Midna fought back against the Other’s wildfire with flame-quenching sand, thrown objects, and her Vibrava’s dragonfire. While the Slippy’s crazed rampage wasn’t exactly predictable, it was exploitable, and few were better at ruthlessly punishing a foe’s sloppiness than Karin. Ringlets streaming behind her, the street fighter sped around and behind the monstrous thing to land a critical hit on its unprotected hindquarters, leaving a big dent in its metal body and her hand sticky with sand-speckled oil.
Her poise-shattering crush counter did its job, though, and thanks to her efforts a patched-up Geralt could bury his blade into the Slippy Chinery’s tree-like head with a creaking groan. In a stroke of deadly pragmatic genius, the Witcher then blasted his sword with unrelenting force, and in a shower of sparks reduced the thing’s head to kindling. The rest of it quickly followed, burning away to cinders. Its body, only partially organic and bitten by the Suffering Shield in its metal back anyway, failed to resurrect as an undead. Geralt might still be hurting, but he and the others were victorious. One down, one to go.
When Blazermate left him to go pile onto the other Other for easy pickings, Goldlewis couldn’t help but click his tongue in disappointment. The Winery Chinery stood firm in its pool of electrified water, shamelessly staring the Secretary of Absolute Defense down as it hurled bolt after bolt of lightning. This was quite the conundrum he found himself in. While no shrinking violet, he didn’t fancy his odds if he took a dive in that water, not after feeling an Other-induced electrocution firsthand yesterday afternoon. But even if he could reach his foe with an airdash he couldn’t go anywhere from there, and that assumed the Other wouldn’t just backpedal if it saw him flying his way regardless. On the other hand, he couldn’t stand still long enough to bring his minigun or heligrenades to bear, either. So what was a man to do?
Goldlewis thought for a few seconds, then turned and ran away. He kept going, ambivalent toward the stray bolts that hit his back, until he disappeared inside the long-dormant subway train poking out of a dark tunnel.
The Winery Chinery stared for a moment. Then, forced to continue the fight until its enemy lay dead by Galeem’s despotic influence, it began to move. Walking carefully on its fingertips, it splashed right out of its sparking pool and climbed onto the tracks. Its prey could run, but it couldn’t hide, and it certainly wouldn’t find any safety inside this rusty metal husk. Before it could lay hands on the train to start tearing into it, however, it heard a deep, bassy uproar echoing from the tunnel behind the vehicle.
“Down the…system!”
With an ear-wrenching metal crash the entire train plowed forward, its wheels screeching along the tracks. The Winery Chinery, weakened from the beatdown it had already received, got splattered like a bug on a windshield. It got carried for a good hundred feet before the runaway train’s ride came to a sudden end against the caboose of a fellow train, reducing the Winery Chinery caught between them into red-black paste.
Two down, none to go. Goldlewis stepped from the darkness of the tunnel into the incandescent flicker of a fickle overhead light, dusting his hands. “Reckon that’s done with,” he announced matter-of-factly. Noticing that between them the other four managed to kill the Slippy Chinery as well, he smoothed his pompadour over coolly before jabbing a thumb backward down the tunnel. “Found a way forward while I was at it. Let’s roll.”
Party: Goldlewis, Blazermate, Geralt, Midna, Karin Encounter Reward: +10 EXP
The tunnel was dark, illuminated only faintly by a dim bluish light. While the Seekers found no enemies, this place presented an issue by itself through its mazelike structure. Its tunnels branched again and again, curving upward and downward, leading to many dead ends. Other than trial and error, only distant noises and faint tremors served to point them on the right path.
At one point, the team became aware of a red glow emanating down one particularly wide branching tunnel. Investigating it turned up a lone lift on rails at least twice as wide as the usual subway. The glow came from on top. Once Goldlewis jumped up, he spotted the source: an old video camera mounted on a tripod. “Hmm,” he murmured, stroking his whiskers. “Hey, y’all. What d’you make o’ this? It ain’t attacked us, and it might be useful, but this whole red aura is mighty threatenin’.” On further inspection, the camera quickly proved anything but normal.
It suddenly lifted into the air, floating like a marionette. It hovered off towards the tunnel’s dead end, only for the dark wall to split in half and open up, revealing an unfathomably long -and perhaps infinite- tunnel aglow with moody blue light. Music filled the air, and without further ado the L.I.F.T. launched forward, carrying Goldlewis and everyone else with it as it zoomed off down the tunnel. Behind them, the tunnel they came from faded away into an ominous black void. “Gosh…darnit!” the veteran hollered above the rushing air and retrowave beats, his tie and coat flapping in the wind. “Some kinda magic!” He pointed his finger at the camera floating ahead, which the UMA mirrored with a spindly arm extended from the coffin. “We gotta shoot that thing down!”
Of course, the only one in the group with a gun was himself, and his Skyfish had a strict timetable thanks to Goldlewis’ Security Level. The others wouldn’t want for something to do, however, as the tunnel soon opened up to either side. Additional L.I.F.T.s appeared running parallel to the Seekers’, which was good because very sturdy hanging signs soon started showing up in all three sections of the tunnel. Some were at head height, some at knee height, and some were big enough to block almost the entire tunnel. More Session Pounds showed up as well, manifesting from nowhere as if simply written into being by this altered reality, their plan the same as ever: to chase the heroes down and explode. At times one or two of the L.I.F.T.s dropped back into the void, making agile jumps between the swift platforms not just advisable but mandatory. This dramatic episode would only end once the Actionmaxx Camera, flying out a couple hundred feet in front of the L.I.F.T.s but occasionally drifting backward, took enough damage.
The stranded teens’ terrifying brush with a gigantic mutant frog might be over, but despite the restoration of the deserted island’s natural ambiance in the wake of amphibian onslaught, roaring wind, and freezing cold, Imogen hardly felt at peace. She doubted she’d ever be fully at peace again, in fact. Where at first she’d kept herself more or less together with repeated self-assurances that all this could only be the product of a comatose fever-dream, that theory didn’t explain everything nearly as well as she would have liked. Still, she clung to that idea. It was all that separated her from disaster as the walls of her worldview, built brick by brick over the course of many years, came tumbling down by this deathblow to her definition of normalcy. The monster being done with wasn’t enough. Imogen needed all of this to be over, and as soon as possible.
Daniel’s question stirred her from her miserable reverie. She knew the answer, of course, but she hesitated to reply. If nothing was amiss with the ocean after all, then the girl plunged into its shallows would’ve already arisen from the surf, shell-shocked and soaked but otherwise alright. But she hadn’t. Sofia was gone. That realization weighed heavily enough on Imogen’s own mind, despite how little the girl meant to her personally. Who knew how it might affect the others here? That guy with dirty-blond hair looked like a week-old balloon, pitiful and deflated. The news that someone had disappeared might be all he needed to pop. “...I don’t know,” Imogen muttered. Wherever Sofia had fallen, she wasn’t here anymore.
Speaking of Franciszek, though, where was he going? The fallout from the froggy fiasco had leveled much of the island’s foliage, which made his delirious crawl toward what looked like a spring more public than he might have liked. Imogen watched in horror as he immersed himself in the freshwater pool, seemingly trying to drown himself. “H-hey! Stop!” She mustered just enough manic energy in her weary muscles to run over toward the spring in a futile attempt to drag him out of the water, but by the time Imogen arrived he hadn’t just submerged himself–he was gone. “...What!?”
Of course, Verity did the only sensible thing and followed suit, vanishing as suddenly as Sofia had. “Aaagh!” Imogen yelped. This spring clearly wasn’t natural, why were people so willing to hurl themselves into the unknown?
Then again…this purgatorial place had betrayed no signs of either entrance or exit until now. Imogen emphatically did not want to stay here. Any minute another malformed monstrosity might drag itself up from the depths. Verity probably took the plunge because the same thought occurred to her: no matter where this spring might take her, it had to be better than here. At worst, it might lead to a demise more merciful than slow, agonizing dehydration on a desert island, or digestion inside some primeval beast.
As if to lay her concerns to rest, Victor suddenly appeared. He informed them about the endpoint of the island’s spring-based transportation system, that being a random bathroom in the school the teens left behind. The news let the lingering fear that clouded her mind leave her in a rattled sigh of relief. He must’ve gotten dunked during all the chaos, then jumped into the ocean again to return here. “Weird,” Imogen almost laughed. “Really weird. But I’ll take it.”
Daniel couldn’t definitively answer Victor’s question, but Imogen backed up his hypothesis. “Yeah, in there, I think. Same as you,” she told him, letting the others assume that Sofia escaped through the spring as well. Still a little loopy from the series of incredible events, she almost burst out laughing when Daniel basically said I killed a frog…with my mind. I killed a freakin’ frog with my mind!. God bless quippy dialog and its diffusion into pop culture. “I guess we should all get goin’,” she added. “Before any more monsters show up.”
Imogen went over and prepared to make her own jump, but stopped at the edge of the spring. Something was nagging at her. She turned around to see Maive, still unconscious and draped over the sand where Verity let her fall. Imogen furrowed her brow, but didn’t ultimately need to think twice about what to do next. A moment later she stooped over Maive, then worked to pull her up and support her with her shoulder. Thank goodness the other girl was small. “I’m gonna pay ya back,” Imogen grunted as she started to move, half-carrying and half-dragging her new acquaintance. “For forgivin’ me.”
Decrying any attempt by the others to relieve her responsibility, Imogen approached the spring and carefully inserted Maive feet-first. Doing that took some serious effort, but at least Maive was on the smaller and lighter side. After catching her breath Imogen jumped in herself.
In a blink, her surroundings changed. There was no fanfare, no magical interdimensional interlude, just a flash and then she and Maive were sitting in a girls’ restroom. To her displeasure Imogen quickly realized that, unlike her first strange journey, she was soaking wet and shivering from the air-conditioned chill. But she was back in the ordinary world, and that was a trade-off she was more than happy to take. Imogen nudged the body of the girl she’d brought with her. “Oi, you okay? Experience existential dread if you can hear me.” Hopefully the cold water had jolted Maive into wakefulness as well.
As Imogen prepared to leave, though, she became aware of another problem. It was late, it was cold, and she’d forgotten something important. Her beloved dark green overcoat still hung from a spar of driftwood on that phantasmagorical island. Given a little time she might’ve been able to dismiss this whole ordeal as a bizarre hallucination induced by the cafeteria food, but the loss of her coat smothered that coping mechanism in the crib. Without a coat, it would be a very brisk run back to the dorm indeed. “Ugh…crap.”
Together Luka Platoon charged forth to assist their fellow Scarlet Guardians in battle. As the team spread out on their way in, Sina helped pave the way with ice shots from her arm cannon, aiming not for the monstrous Gunkin Fisher’s shaggy fur or masked head but the red-tinted tank of simmering, sludgy oil on its back. Some of her shots went wide or hit one of its spines instead, but the sudden cold she introduced both siphoned off heat and weakened the glass as her shots piled up.
Peach slowed down once she reached a comfortable mid-range, far enough to react in time to the Other’s vicious strikes and dangerous oil sprays, but not so far that her Scatterboom lost its bite. Mr. Grimm’s revolver made an appearance as well, and the princess put it to use hammering the Gunkin Fisher’s hairy hide while her shotgun cooled down.
Naturally, Dexio rushed past both ladies to take the Other head-on. With an armored defender on hand to take the Fisher’s attention, Arashi could abandon the hit-and-run role of evasion tank and focus on the ‘hit’ part. While Dexio amped up his Seismokinesis to keep the ground constantly shifting beneath the Other’s feet, forcing it to fight to keep its footing almost as much as him, Arashi sped around as a glowing pink blur. Peach could barely even see her chainsaw as it cut streaks through the air; only by the gashes that ripped open in the monster’s torso could she be sure that Arashi passed by.
Arashi needed breaks, however, between usages of Hypervelocity, and that’s where Luka came in. He repositioned constantly with his Teleportation to avoid the Gunkin Fisher’s business end and escape its focus in order to bring his hammer down on its exposed flanks. With an enemy of this size, the savvy and mobile fighter enjoyed plenty of openings. More than anything else, Luka focused the raw power of his weighty weapon on the Other’s metal forelimbs. By denting the bars that constituted them again and again, he could gradually warp its arms to cripple both its offense and mobility.
Most of Luka Platoon naturally assumed that the wounded member of Seto Platoon would be fine under his role model’s protection, but like a true hero Sakura wasn’t going to take any chances. Her sudden appearance and the bespectacled boy’s side took him by surprise, though indignation came quickly and naturally to him, as if it were a default state. “The hell are you-!?” he griped as she took hold of him, pulling him away from the fight. “I can still-!” His protests came to a sudden halt as the sensation of restoration suffused him. Mistaking Sakura’s Tag Out for conventional healing, he seized his batons, ready for another round. “Don’t expect me to thank you.”
“Shiden, wait! Just listen to her, will you?” his commanding officer told him. Seto looked back over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed.
Shiden bristled. He couldn’t back down, not when he had something to prove. “Captain, this is nothing. I'm not just gonna watch from the sidelines!”
“I know.” Seto fixed his protégé with an intense look. “But I need you to work smarter, not harder. Take a few moments, reorient yourself, and come at the Other from a fresh perspective. That’ll impress me a lot more than blindly rushing forward.”
A comment like that from anyone else would’ve stoked Shiden’s fury, but he couldn’t bring himself to contradict the man he idolized. “...Right,” he finally agreed. “Don’t count me out, though. I’ll be back before you know it.” Without looking at Sakura, he backed off, maneuvering around the battle in a wide berth as he formulated a winning strategy. His next move would need to make up for this lost time, or he knew his battle rank would leave him bitterly unsatisfied.
Meanwhile, Sakura joined the fray with gusto, landing a strong kick before getting beneath the Gunkin Fisher to sear its belly with fireballs. The opening she made gave Sam a chance to send her spiders forth and jump in the Other to keep it occupied, while Akira laid into it with his mind-bending illusions to debilitate it with different status effects. Still, this monstrosity was nothing if not tenacious. It wasn’t going to just stand there with someone directly beneath it and take its lumps. The Gunkin Fisher jumped straight up and came down in a room-shaking body splash, then seized its head-hoses with its center hands and took aim at all the Scarlet Guardians in its proximity to bathe them -and the whole area- with steaming-hot oil. Dexio got coated, Akira took cover, Sam lost some spiders, and Arashi -moving too fast for her own good- slipped on the oil and went into a headlong tumble. She came to a stop in a pile of rubble, her expression more annoyed than hurt. “Ugh, this is too much work…”
At that point, however, both team leads stormed the scene. Seto, no longer burdened by Shiden, went on the offensive with Lucian’s Atmokinesis brewing up a storm around him. Lightning-quick, the Septentrion’s twin swords slashed, sliced, and stabbed in a deadly flurry, and Luka -borrowing Sina’s Cryokinesis- joined him in an all-out Teleportation flurry. Luka and Seto matched one another blow for blow in a spectacular thundersnowstorm. Their bombastic assault gave the other team members the time they needed to recover, and by the time the Gunking Fisher blew through the cloud cover to push the two back, all ten Scarlet Guardians stood ready to mete out some serious justice.
Seto clanged his blades together in a shower of sparks. “All troops…!”
“...Take it out!” Luka cried, hurling his hammer to begin the final act.
About halfway between the salvage site and the factory smokestacks where the Rust Crew planned to get a lay of the land, their truck briefly pulled over to let Tora and Poppi disembark. This particular part of the ruined city looked especially old. Botany had never been an interest of Tora’s, let alone a strong suit, so he couldn’t tell exactly, but the giant concrete husks of buildings here sported massive trees growing in, out of, and around them, some with roots big enough for a Metro Cat’s subway train to ride on comfortably. In fact, green foliage blanketed the whole area, with only stretches of ancient, cracked roadways visible between the swathes of bracken and grass. That probably didn’t happen overnight.
Gazing around at the post-apocalyptic environment, Tora had to remind himself that all this -as well as the World of Light in general- was a mere fabrication. Those enormous wooden spires hadn’t grown here over the course of centuries; they’d been plonked down by Galeem. Still…this overgrown cityscape came from somewhere. Some distant world of melancholy, meaninglessness, and loss that Tora couldn’t even imagine. Standing here reminded him of the feeling he felt when he stood at the graves of Vandham and Rex’s parents, wondering about the lives lived and lost that led to this wistful moment. So Tora couldn’t harden his heart to this scenery. But the knowledge of this world’s falsehood, or perhaps more accurately its shameless appropriation, drove him onward. As well as the rain that stung his eyes whenever he tried to look upward.
Poppi took care of the area’s verticality for him. Once she had her Masterpon in her arms, she ascended the nearest skyscraper in a series of rocket-propelled high jumps, from window to window and branch to branch. It wasn’t long before they reached a high, flat roof among the treetops. Judging by the rain that poured down through the highrise directly next door, its roof had caved in some time ago, so this seemed like as good a spot as any. Despite the rain, it provided an incredible vista of the surrounding area, including the flooded, collapsed district to the south. While Tora shuffled over to sit underneath a giant leaf, Poppi tuned her long-range optics to better examine the mechanical lifeforms working there, puzzled by their behavior. Most of the Machines she’d spotted in the Valley of Ruin so far just ambled around aimlessly, but not these ones. They didn’t emulate the behavior of the animals they resembled, either. Instead they appeared to be working, each with some sort of goal in mind. The Clamberjaws roved the streets and foliage in aggressive gangs for wrecks to disassemble, not too unlike Midgar’s salvagers themselves. Widemaws collected and processed raw minerals from the landscape. Snapjaws imbibed and detoxified the bodies of water they basked in, launching pods full of the extracted chemicals onto the shore. Finally, the crablike Shellwalkers carefully collected the resources that the others gathered, sequestering them in the different compartments of the huge cargo containers on their backs. As Poppi watched, one of the Shellwalkers turned to leave the machines’ work zone, crawling down the river.
“Strange,” she said aloud. “It’s almost like they’re all working together to collect different resources. But why?”
Tora thought about her question for a moment. “Meh-meh-meh,” he murmured. “Well, it sound like Ever Crisis is big-big battle of attrition, going on for long time. In war that big, both sides need way to refill ranks. Tora not remember who, but someone say something about Machine factories. It not occur to Tora before now, but it make sense that there units designed to gather bot materials, meh.” Narrowing his eyes, the Nopon waddled over to join Poppi at the edge of the building. “Maybe…if friends follow crabbypons, they lead straight to factory?”
“That makes sense! Should we go back down and tell the others?” Poppi asked him, spooling up her thrusters for flight mode.
Tora shook his head. “Right now, factories not friends’ concern. If Machine invasion about to happen, we need worry less about units not built, and more about units already built.” He lifted one wing and pointed at a point a little farther to the west, toward a wetland responsible for the tributaries that created waterfalls into the flooded gorge. “Look there.”
A solitary larger machine lifeforms could be glimpsed there, slowly patrolling on a predefined loop. It reminded Poppi of Gormott’s native Garaffas, albeit with a very broad, disc-shaped head sporting multiple antennae. “Tora was just thinking,” her Masterpon continued. “There have to be way Machines communicate over very long distances. Was looking for relay station of some sort, but then Tora see tall-neckypon.” Scratching his chin, he looked up at Poppi. “It seem important. Tora want try access it like with truck. If nothing else, ride-around on mobile vantage point might be fun, meh!” Shaking water off his fur, he gave a cheerful smile.
The duo’s scheming came to an abrupt end when a terrific crashing sound resounded across the landscape from the north. After a brief shared glance Tora and Poppi raced across the rooftop to the opposite side, with the former sliding beneath the huge tree branch while Poppi jumped over. Immediately they saw that chaos had broken out at the defunct factory, evidently mere moments after the Rust Crew arrived. A colossal spider robot, with smooth plates of shiny white armor and an array of beady red eyes, had smashed its way out of one of the factory’s smokestacks in a terrifying show of destructive might. Naturally the Rust Crew opened fire the instant the mechanical monstrosity appeared, sending the sound of gunfire echoing through the rainy cityscape, but with their foe so needlessly large that even Big Bo only came up to its second ankle-plate, the trio were more focused on covering their retreat than actually fighting. Hounded by a hail of bullets from the Spider’s head-mounted underslung machine guns, the Rust Crew made a break for their parked truck.
“Oh, no!” Tora cried, jumping up and down. “Must get down there now, meh! Other friends too far away to help!” Poppi grabbed him, took off, and blazed through the deluge toward the unexpected boss fight. Squinting against the rain, Tora spotted red targeting lasers homing in on the truck, and he managed to trace their paths to a pair weapons systems that looked rather like supersized versions of the missile racks inside Poppi QT’s Mech Arms. If they managed to lock onto the truck, it would be a disaster for the team. “Poppi!” he called, having to yell to be heard over the rushing wind. “Need fight fire with fire! Swap to QT!”
His companion adjusted her flight path. “Understood.” Swinging Tora around to her back, she boosted into a shallow dive to swoop down over the Rust Crew’s truck, where she hastily dropped off her Masterpon before transforming in midair. A maelstrom of fiery sparks and red ribbons heralded her rapid reconfiguration into her more defensive form, the lethal adaptability of her Variable Saber replaced by mighty mechanical mights. The Spider locked on and unleashed a fusillade of missiles into the air, but Poppi held firm. She popped open her own miniature silos, locked on to the enemy’s projectiles in flight, and let loose her own salvo in response. For a moment the watery sky filled with fire, and the next second the chain-reaction of aerial explosions set off a spectacular fireworks display. “Fully intercepted!” Poppi reported as the smoke cleared.
After an awestruck moment, Tora and the Rust Crew rejoiced. “Hell yeah!” Bo cheered, pumping his fist. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, boss.”
“Simply breathtaking, mademoiselle!” Cain added.
After picking himself off the wet grass where he rolled to stop, Tora smugly put his nub-arms akimbo. “Poppi just that good!”
“Hold your applause, fellas. This is far from over.” Once he finished reloading, Marshall took aim at the Spider. The giant machine looked almost surprised to see that its targets survived the bombardment, but it was more than happy to finish the job. “Split up and keep moving! Don’t let it pin you down!”
Tora focused up, standing firm just long enough to get a bead on the Spider before its machine guns got blasting again. Poppi passed him the Mech Arms just in time for him to block a couple dozen rounds. “Tora see massive drive system on belly, meh!” he announced while hunkered down in defense mode, his guard enhanced by Poppi’s channeled ether barrier. “While Tora have it attention, hurry and give upset stomach!”
“The legs!” Marshall called out. “They’re only protected from the front! Shoot ‘em out to stop it moving!”
With the duo on foot to tank for them, the Rust Crew climbed aboard the truck, with Cain swinging into the driver’s seat to put the pedal to the metal. With a roar from its engine and a spray of mud from beneath its tires the vehicle took off, circling around the Spider to give the other two an angle on its joints.
The other half of the team’s truck stopped at a fork in the road. On one hand, the flooded ruin that Tora and Poppi surveyed from afar, with its crew of perplexingly animalistic machines laboring away at their harvest. Erosion there led to enough collapses to turn the highway there into a series of tiered cliffs leading down toward the water, meaning that if the truck went that way, there’d be no going back. Down the other road stood a much drier half-finished neighborhood with a much more militaristic -and coordinated- contingent of machines. Differing ideas on which route to take left the six at an impasse. Zenkichi suggested the left-hand path, and Susie the right. Pit didn’t mind the latter choice, apparently thinking that the team would make short work of all those machines. Roxas and Partitio didn’t take a stance either way.
That left it up to Giovanna to arbitrate. Sitting on top of the parked truck, she considered the others’ viewpoints in conjunction with her own, both literally and metaphorically. Zenkichi wasn’t kidding about hippos and crocodiles being dangerous, and the ones Giovanna knew weren’t augmented with heavy-duty plating and multiple onboard weapons systems. The mostly aquatic terrain looked almost as bad for business as the machines themselves. Watching a Widemaw vacuum up entire chunks of masonry and exposed sediment into a jaw like a hydraulic press, outfitted with multiple grinders and drills, did not make her eager to get in melee range. Luckily, they seemed about as disinterested in tangling with her, focused instead on their jobs. In contrast, the machines at the other outpost looked like weapons of war with their various firearms, spoiling for a fight. Their makeshift outpost smacked of reconnaissance. That seemed more relevant to the Seekers’ mission of stopping a machine invasion–a mission that it sounded like Susie needed a reminder of.
“We’re not actually here for scrap. That was just the cover story,” Giovanna said, her arms and legs crossed. Susie’s attempt to decide for the group, and to cement her chosen course of action by ringing up her business suit, sat about as well with Giovanna as her motivations for doing so. She doubted that Susie intended to give whatever she got to Midgar’s poor. “We’re here to find and deal with the Machines that are going to invade Midgar. Lining our pockets with ‘the good stuff’ should be our last priority.” Her tone of voice was blunt, and she pulled no punches. “I mean, hey, if loot’s more important to you than human life, whatever. A dozen giant robots is gotta be easier than one Loup-Garou, right?” Giovanna jumped down from the truck in the direction of the crane, glancing at the others. “I’m not your boss, so I’m not gonna tell you all to follow me, but I’m gonna see what’s going on over here.”
Opting for the stealthy approach to scope out the situation before taking action, Giovanna quietly entered the neighborhood on foot. Though originally drawn here by the crane that might serve as a vantage point, she now found herself more intrigued by the possibility of something else afoot in this location. She dashed between hiding spots at high speed, her eyes out for any Machine sentries. The weather lowered visibility in general, but not enough to disguise the bright, soulless red of the robots’ eyes, and the shine of their optics against the falling rain gave the perceptive a rough outline of their vision cones. She stayed outside to avoid any potential traps or security measures the Machines might have set up inside the buildings, but overall the place didn’t seem very fortified. Her suspicions of it being a temporary base seemed more on-point by the minute. With the cards stacked in her favor, she managed to follow a distinctive humming noise toward the center of the neighborhood. The guards were too plentiful for her to dare intrude much further without abandoning any pretenses of stealth, but she did find the source of the sound. A mechanical obelisk stood in the shell of an unfinished building, the panels on its sides sliding in and out.
As she watched, a strange drone the size of a car hovered up from an underground tunnel. It plugged one of its seven tentacle-like arms into the obelisk and transferred data over the course of about thirty seconds, then flew back down after the deposit to continue scouting. Giovanna began to regret telling Susie off; if this was some sort of data center, it might have information on the Machines or their targets, so hacking it would be worth the Seekers’ while. Without a tech expert on hand, Giovanna would need to destroy it, but that lay beyond her ability as a lone operator too. Maybe I can rope them into this, she thought as she glanced upward. She couldn’t help but picture something massive dropping from the crane’s outstretched arm and smashing the whole station flat. Or maybe…
Goldlewis’ face tightened as he put two and two together. Others ate human brains, and if he and his teammates stumbled upon these two at the tail end of a feast, it meant that the heroes had a couple fallen Scarlet Guardians to avenge. Once the Winery Chinery and Slippy Chinery detected their next meals, they wasted no time showing off their dangerous abilities. For the former, water and electricity made a deadly combination Goldlewis knew all too well, while oil and invisibility made the latter into a different but still dangerous problem. Of course, these powers came packaged with these monsters’ natural speed and strength, so it looked like the Seekers would have their hands full with their vengeance. “Work together, y’all!” he shouted as the team spread out from the entrance to avoid getting washed away by the Winery Chinery’s opening gambit. Another damn spitter. “Divide their attention, and don’t let ‘em corner ya!”
Midna worked fast to attend to the elephant in the room, that being the Slippy Chinery. While her sands hadn’t availed her against the extradimensional Chimeras, buffeting the surrounding area in a miniature sandstorm worked wonders against the invisible Other. The grains that stuck to its oily coating, rendered its trick of the light all but useless. Recognizing the danger, it went on the offensive before Midna could coat it more thoroughly. As she got smacked Geralt moved to support her. The Twilight Princess put a dampener on the vicious thing’s assault and struck back through clever use of her bottomless bag of tricks, and the Witcher tag-teamed the Other from the back, dealing appreciable damage. Things really heated up when the two lambasted the Slippy Chinery with flame. Its flammable coating caught fire instantly. As it burned its midsection -little more than a spine and ribcage full of fruit that connected the meshes of its front and rear thirds- became brittle and susceptible to attack. The strikes Karin pulled off as she joined the fray would deal serious damage to the midsection. At the same time, however, the revealed Slippy Chinery went berserk. Oil streamed from the holes in its limbs as it thrashed around, creating burning splashes with every blow, in a mad bid to pulverize its opponents before its damage accumulated past breaking point.
While his teammates tangled with the Slippy Chinery, Goldlewis moved to engage the other Other. “Over here!” he called, grabbing a Thunderbird drone from the UMA to hurl at the monster’s leafy head. The airborne explosive bounced off the Winery Chinery and blew up, putting its aggro squarely on Goldlewis. He barreled toward his target as fast as he could go, but while he cut an intimidating figure as he ran, his enemy had more than enough time to act. As it wrenched its facial value to unleash another spray Goldlewis risked jump and follow-up airdash to close the distance. Karin did her best to get the monster’s attention, but unfortunately the Thunderbird grenade meant that right now, the Winery Chinery only cared about Goldlewis. It adjusted its aim upward and rinsed him mid-airdash. “Aw, hell!” he groaned as he got blasted back into an overhead sign. He smacked into it hard enough to bring it down with him as he fell, and by the time the veteran regained his feet the Other was upon him.
Fortunately, Goldlewis found himself well-protected. Blazermate flew to his aid with her energy shield, and though it didn’t technically block the Chinery’s withering blows, it did punish the monster’s overeager attempt to capitalize severely. With a snarl the Other leaped away from the painful protection, crackled with electricity, and smashed its arms down to unleash a lighting wave. Even if the barrier didn’t soak up all the voltage, Goldlewis had recovered enough to block for himself by now. It gripped its valve again to let loose another torrent of water, but with Blazermate shielding him Goldlewis forged straight ahead, plowing through the flood to shoulder-bash the Chinery right in its stupid nozzle. It reeled back, taken by surprise, only to find the veteran’s coffin descending upon it like a blazing meteorite. “Try this on!” Goldlewis bellowed as he smashed the Winery Chinery against the floor, splaying its front legs out to either side. He dropped his coffin, the UMA thrust his minigun into his hands, and he unceremoniously pressed its barrel against the Other’s head to unleash a stream of bullets.
The point-blank barrage bowled the monster over, but it sprang to its feet to return with a vengeance. It brought its fists down on Goldlewis, right, left, then both, only to find that its attacks bounced off his impervious, ubercharged body. “Eeeeeeyaaaaaaagh!” He swung his massive coffin around like a lasso, pounding the Other again and again in a spectacular Behemoth Typhoon. While Blazermate couldn’t hold it still even with her shield thanks to the size and strength difference, she did act as a wall Goldlewis could bounce the Winery Chinery off of, allowing him to keep up his combo. Finally, a tremendous slam bounced it over Blazermate’s head with an OTG hit. “Crumble!”
After a moment the monster slid to a stop against some turnstyles. It staggered to its feet and grabbed its valve again, this time with both hands, and promptly wrenched the faucet right off. Water poured from its insides, quickly pooling around it. A moment later lightning danced across the Other’s body, electrifying the water around it. “This shit again!” With the ubercharge spent, Goldlewis backed up from the waters edge. Noticing the weakspot mark on his adversary’s hindquarters, he brought out Skyfish to try and finish the Other off from afar. It promptly hurled a bolt of lightning at him, which both counterhit him and wasted his Security Level. “Dadgummit!” he snapped, his lip curled in frustration. While the Winery Chinery was clearly hurting, he couldn’t finish it off without getting fried thanks to this water hazard. Not without doing something clever.
With the whole platoon’s combined firepower, the Rainy Rummies didn’t stand a chance. Some of the Scarlet Guardians took hits from either the Others’ umbrella attacks or their lightning bolts, but as long as they didn’t get waterlogged first a few zaps didn’t pose too much of an issue, allowing everyone to outmaneuver their foes as they more than outmatched their firepower. Once the last Rummy fell, the team spent a brief moment collecting their spirits, as per standard protocol. Seven Rainy Rummies, three Rat Ruts, one Exonerator. As platoon leader, Luka carefully stored them all inside a specially made canister.
Party: Sakura, Raz Reward: +5 EXP
“You took out two Rat Ruts on your own!?” Despite lacking Raz’s iconic eyewear, Sina practically goggled at Sakura. “We had to dig deep just to deal with one! I’m so jealous!”
Dexio rubbed the back of his head, a little sheepish. “And here I thought I was the team’s physical powerhouse.”
“No need to make comparisons, you two,” Luka chided gently. Weight Hammer in hand, he moved to the front of the group, walking along the edge of the flooding. “With how competitive it can be in Psych-OSF sometimes, I can’t say this isn't a race. Nor can I say that it’s a race we start on equal footing. But the important thing is that we run it together. We’ll all grow stronger as a team.”
Peach gave an enthusiastic nod. Part of her wished that she, as a leader in her own right, had been the one to say something like that, but she was also grateful to have someone else filling the role for a time. “Absolutely! We’re not trying to show each other up. We’re trying to lift each other up!”
After everyone took a quick breather, the five got underway. This abandoned tunnel network was a vast labyrinth, and even with all the different squads deployed down here today, Luka Platoon had a lot of ground to cover. As they proceeded the floodwater in the subway tunnel soon receded and the earth dried out, but all things considered Peach liked this area a whole lot less. What began as stray stretches of cobweb quickly became gigantic tangles and tapestries of spider silk, big enough to entrap entire subway trains, complete with bulbous cocoons hanging from the ceiling. Peach thanked her lucky stars that a few of the overhead lights in this tunnel somehow seemed to be working, since without them to illuminate the way it would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to bumble into and become hopelessly ensnared in these sticky nets. Of course, that left just one big issue: whatever artisanal weavers were capable of spinning webs this big.
What the team found here weren’t spiders, however. In an open area amongst the webs were three Others that Peach recognized as members of the slime-like Pool family, although they differed visually from the Bile Pools and Scummy Pools she’d seen so far. These ones featured artificial aluminum plant fronds, and five pink bulbs branching off from the curled trees on their heads. While Pool-type Others had been pretty consistently weak in Peach’s experience so far, the sight of these particular specimens made Luka wince. “Doppel Pools!” he called out, teleporting forward. “We have to act fast, or-!”
As he appeared above one Pool and brought his hammer down, the Other split into three that quickly spread out in different directions. Sina took a few shots from afar with her Refrigerant Ring arm cannon, but missed due to the distance. The other Doppel Pools divided into three as well, and as soon as possible all present copies began to shoot blasts of impure water. “Only one of each trio is real!” Luka called out. “It’ll just keep replacing any fakes we destroy, too. If only Tsugumi was here to give us her Clairvoyance.” Without any way to tell the originals from the doppelgangers, he, Peach, Dexio, and Sina could only try to brute force the solution.
Ultimately, there were only three Others though, and once flushed out they weren’t too tough to dispatch. With the interim threat quelled, Luka Platoon got moving again. This time, as her squad swept through the tunnels, Peach gradually became aware of noise from up ahead. “I think I hear…people fighting?” Voices, explosions, the discharge of weapons–it sounded pretty definitive. Luka nodded, and the team picked up the pace until they came upon a larger underground chamber where a boss battle already seemed to be in progress.
The first thing Peach saw was the Other, and though all Others were both bizarre and intimidating to some extent, this one took the cake. It resembled a huge, shaggy-haired, six-legged beast, with cagelike forearms tipped with red rubber gloves and a strange masked head with keyhole-like sockets. Metal garden hoses sprouted from its body as both a mane and tails, and on its back -within a bed of long spines amidst green roses- lay a red tank full of viscous, boiling-hot oil. So tall that Peach’s head would only reach the very bottom of its mask, the Gunkin Fisher looked like a fearsome opponent, but she could see another squad fighting it with everything they had. Septentrion Sixth Class Seto Narukami used twinblades and his electrokinesis to fight with careful precision, safeguarding another electrokinetic, the baton-wielding Shiden Ritter, who looked like he’d taken a bad wound. Peach recognized the pink twintails of Arashi Spring as she blitzed around with Hypervelocity with her chainsaw, Innocent Rabbit Hug. She did not, however, recognize the green-skinned redhead who appeared to be commanding a small swarm of giant spiders to fight on her behalf. Oh, that’s where they are, Peach thought, creeped out as she was impressed. She also spotted a man in a stylish suit of OSF red and black augmented with gauntlets, boots, and a grimacing facemask of blue-green metal beneath his ruby-red glasses. With Atmokinesis he created localized weather phenomena, mostly rain, and as Peach watched he managed to wash off a quantity of movement-impeding oil that the Gunkin Fisher blasted Arashi with just before the Other tried to crush her beneath its massive weight. The last member of Seto Platoon looked to be a young man with a spiky plume of hair, long coat, and studded scarf. Akira Tadokoro worked to manipulate the monster’s mind with illusions created by his Hallucikinesis, but he succeeded in making the Gunkin Fisher a little too angry, and got whipped by its tail-hoses for his efforts. It looked like this team could use a hand.
“Luka Platoon, moving to assist!” the team leader announced, and Peach hopped to it.
Regardless of whether or not Sierra might have any more slivers of useful information for the Seekers, Band backed off to let her rest after her initial explanation. She needed some time to decompress, and the detective needed time to think. That was just as well, since for now the small team had nothing but time. With the EMPD out in full force after the dramatic incident at the Noumenon, and no doubt whipped into a frenzy by the showdown with their top dogs, it’d be a good idea to lay low until the whole thing blew over. Or at least, until nightfall, when the dead would rise and give local law enforcement a far more widespread -and far less complicated- problem to worry about. It looked like the team might be at odds with the police from here on out, but that was nothing new to Band. It had been a long time since his early retirement from the force; since then, as an operative of the supposedly shuttered Anti-Skullgirl Lab 8, he’d gotten used to working in the shadows.
After getting his thoughts in order, Band began to play music to pass the time. He selected some chill, low-key blues just to set the mood, and though he only intended to practice, the rehearsal of a skilled player sounded nice enough. His slow, jazzy notes filled the restaurant’s upstairs habitation and drifted down to the diners below, where they complimented a cozy, altogether pleasant experience. Eventually, Ace returned from his chores and conversation downstairs with food for everyone, which Band gratefully accepted. He might not need nearly as much sustenance as his massive frame would suggest, but the flesh-and-bone part craved a good meal as much for the nutrition as a reminder that, underneath all the brass and bionics, he was still human. It helped that Grammeowster’s cooking was to die for, hearkening back to warm, homemade dinners on the cold winter nights of childhood. Just one mouthful of roast chicken and savory potatoes filled Band with warmth, and he relished it with his eyes closed. “Mm-mm,” he murmured, smacking his lips. “My compliments to the chef.”
When the sun went down, the Seekers went to work. They went their separate ways in search of any sign of the Skullgirl, or any leads on their new enemies the Consuls. Band moved through the streets of Edinburgh with an abundance of caution, careful to be as inconspicuous as a trench-coat-clad titan could as he swept each area, giving each and every pitch-black nook and cranny in his path at least one cursory glance. He looked over his shoulder almost as often, wary of any potential pursuer. The light of magical streetlamps provided ample light in certain areas, but elsewhere he relied on the dim, eerie glow of the scar-faced moon high above. Unlike New Meridian, this city seemed to be a remarkably clean and well-kept place, thanks perhaps to the abundance of magic that made everyday chores and appearances easy. Of course, that brought any abnormalities into sharp relief, and it wasn’t long at all before Band found his first gang of skeletons. There were three of them, clad in tattered clothes, and they meandered together in a small group along the sidewalk. Silent except for the rattling clank of their bones as they walked, they lurched along without paying Band any mind, and the detective didn’t bother them either. There seemed to be some semblance of purpose to their movement, although he wondered if those bones might be aping the motions their owners made in life. He tailed them for a few minutes until they reached some sort of office building. They rattled the knob, but after finding it locked, turned back the way they came.
At that point Band moved on–he did have somewhere to be, after all. He continued through the streets to his destination, spotting more skeletons as he did. Some wandered around, scratched at dumpsters or doorways, or ran down the roads as if they had somewhere to be. At one point Band spotted a group of five standing in a circle around a magic car, motionless. He couldn’t see anyone in the car, but the sight disquieted him nonetheless. Not all of the skeletons were permitted to go about their business unimpeded, however. Some of Edinburgh’s citizens closed their blinds and cowered in their beds, but others took to the streets themselves to challenge the undead with might and magic. Band skirted around two separate large-scale scuffles where local mages were mopping the floor with skeletons before he finally reached the spot. Crashed against a magic streetlamp was a familiar van, its engine dead and the driver long gone. The detective’s nose drew him to the driver-side door, where he discovered a lot of frozen light-blue goop on the sidewalk and the vehicle’s exterior. Despite the darkness, he also found a number of burn marks, several of which even now faintly smoldered with pink embers. No doubt about it, he thought.
Moving to the back of the van, he ripped open the doors. Inside he found four cages, just as he expected, and inside those cages were four rotund, terribly dispirited Spheals. At the sight of Band, however, their sad eyes light up with joy. “There y’all are,” Band crooned, using what he hoped was a soft, sing-song sort of voice to comfort the scared Pokemon. “Don’t fret now, I gotchyou. There’s someone I think ya oughta meet.”
The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, Band could be found in Grammeowster’s Kitchen, seated in a corner booth with the table removed to accommodate his size. He held a pot of coffee in one hand like a normal person might hold a mug, and with the other he paged through the morning newspaper across his lap. As happy as Sierra’s reunion with her Spheals had been last night, and as cute as the sight of her asleep with her four best friends all snuggled up with her had been, Band now wore a rather severe expression. None of the other early-morning customers dared come near him, but when his fellow Seekers approached, he quickly opened up about what he found.
“Although I wouldn’t call my time ‘wasted’, I didn’t turn up much in my investigation last night,” he began. The others’ efforts had been similarly fruitless, but that was understandable. Edinburgh was a huge and unfamiliar city, and the heroes couldn’t be expected to stumble upon the critical path every single time. That wasn’t to say, though, that they hadn’t missed anything. “Take a look at this though. Looks like somethin’ else went down at that big library after nightfall. Somethin’ serious. Accordin’ to eyewitnesses, a whole boatload of skeletons showed up. The police still there cleanin’ up ended up tanglin’ with ‘em, which went on until a strange girl showed up.” Band narrowed his eyes. “A pale girl in green, with hair and rabbit ears comin’ outta her hood like icy-blue fire. They say she wiped out the cops in an instant, includin’ that fool I laid out. ‘Kurtis Stryker’. But get this. Right afterward, a Consul showed up and fought her: Consul N. There ain’t much details after that, but it says that despite both fightin’ tooth and nail, neither won. The Skullgirl escaped into the night. Sure tries its damnedest to make N look like a hero though.”
Albedo furrowed his brow. “As expected of one of the World of Light’s rulers. Thankfully it sounds like he wasn’t able to defeat Linkle, but the fact that she’s using the Skull Heart’s power is cause enough for concern. We need to find her tonight, before the situation worsens.”
That wasn’t all, though. Flipping back to the front page, he brought the others’ attention to the main story. The headline read Edinburgh MagicaPolis declares war! “Check this out,” he read aloud. “Consul L announced a state of emergency yesterday after receivin’ word that the foreign city-state Alcamoth had begun a campaign to overthrow world leadership and destroy the world itself.” His tone sounded grave. Even though he’d never been to Alcamoth, the crumbs he heard about it from other Seekers made it sound important. “In response to this clear and present danger, L vowed swift and decisive action. While her plans must remain confidential, Edinburgh citizens can rest assured that her forces are more than sufficient to overcome this adversary. Provided all goes well, we can expect to hail her triumphant return to Aether Paradise at approximately one o’clock today.” He looked up at the others, raising his eyebrow with a frown.
Lucia’s eyes widened. “Wait just a second. Aethah Paradise as in Aethah Foundation? The hell’s L doin’ at a consahvation centah?” She gasped. “UNLESS…the Aethah Foundation’s just been a front this whole time!? All that cute and cuddly stuff with Pokemon ta boost theah public image, but L’s in chahge doin’ all kinds of screwed-up stuff?“ Scowling, she cracked her knuckles. “Maybe we oughta pay those dahtbags a visit.”
“This might be a trap,” Albedo cautioned immediately. “L might believe that Frisk and I are dead, but by now the Consuls must be aware that several of their enemies are somewhere in the city. If they do indeed control the presses here, this may be an attempt to draw us out.”
Big Band harrumphed. “Bastards must be pretty damn confident callin’ us out like that if so. Worst part is…well, they might have our number. If not for that flashbang from Ace, we mighta all kicked the bucket back in the Noumenon. If we nearly got outmatched by N’s pet project, chances are we ain’t strong enough to fight him straight-up. Still.” He folded up the newspaper and slapped it down. “We don’t gotta go loud the minute we get there. Long as we play it cool, we might learn a thing or two. If there’s gonna be a crowd, we can blend in. Sound like a plan?”
Contrary to the newspaper’s report, L didn’t return at one o’clock. Instead, it was almost three by the time the people in the crowd began to a spot a purple-and-cyan Galaxy dropship flying in over the snow-dusted buildings from the southeast. It made a low-altitude beeline straight for the artificial island known as Aether Paradise that floated due north of the city’s humongous central pumpkin, in a circular body of water within the city itself fed by countless canals. While this lake wasn’t much larger than the island itself, no bridges spanned it to create a walkable or drivable connection from Aether Paradise to the rest of Edinburgh, leaving it accessible only by water or air. Thus, the citizens that did turn out to witness L’s triumphant return clustered along the railings that surrounded the lake on the east side, hoping to catch a glimpse of Edinburgh’s most important woman.
Finally, the Galaxy set down on the structure’s eastern helipad, and when the rear doors lowered L herself walked down the ramp to a chorus of cheers. She waved like a celebrity on the runway, but even at this distance Band’s sharp eyes could tell that something was off. She moved stiffly, as if in pain, and despite her attempts to hide it she walked with a limp, favoring her right leg. That, plus the extra time it took her to get here, convinced Band of one thing: things hadn’t gone quite as well as she might have hoped. He also noticed some people who came out from inside Aether Paradise to receive the dropship on the landing pad, which included a scientist in white with big green goggles and -much to Band’s exasperation- Wicke.
“Good people of Edinburgh MagicaPolis,” L’s voice rang out, amplified via some magic. Practiced -or maybe forced- charisma oozed from every word. “Thank you all so much for your support, both here today and every day. It is your tireless effort that has made our fair city the shining diamond of the frozen north, and inspired me to do whatever it takes to see that it never loses its luster. Today, I am proud to tell you that your city, your loved ones, and your tomorrows are all safe and secure, for the looming threat of Alcamoth is no more!”
More cheers echoed across the water from the people, reaching a fever pitch. L bowed her head, full of gratitude. “Thank you, Thank you! And I assure you. Now that I’ve laid your fears abroad to rest, your fears here will soon follow!” With a final wave, L turned to strut across the helipad toward the central building of Aether Paradise, still noticeably limping.
Current GM of World of Light. When it comes to writing, there's nothing I love more than imagination, engagement, and commitment. I'm always open to talk, suggestion, criticism, and collaboration. While I try to be as obliging, helpful, and courteous as possible, I have very little sympathy for ghosts, and anyone who'd like to string me along. Straightforwardness is all I ask for.
Looking for more personal details? I'm just some dude from the American south; software development is my job but games, writing, and trying to help others enjoy life are my passions. Been RPing for over a decade, starting waaaay back with humble beginnings on the Spore forum, so I know a thing or two, though I won't pretend to be an expert. If you're down for some fun, let's make something spectacular together.
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Current GM of World of Light. When it comes to writing, there's nothing I love more than imagination, engagement, and commitment. I'm always open to talk, suggestion, criticism, and collaboration. While I try to be as obliging, helpful, and courteous as possible, I have very little sympathy for ghosts, and anyone who'd like to string me along. Straightforwardness is all I ask for.<br><br>Looking for more personal details? I'm just some dude from the American south; software development is my job but games, writing, and trying to help others enjoy life are my passions. Been RPing for over a decade, starting waaaay back with humble beginnings on the Spore forum, so I know a thing or two, though I won't pretend to be an expert. If you're down for some fun, let's make something spectacular together.</div>
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Yankee
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kapuchu
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Nallore
