Member
DancesWMonsters
Archmage MC
Dyelli Beybi
TruthHurts
FujiwaraPhoenix
Bingelly
XoXKieroBombXoX
darkred
Zoey Boey
StarlanceEsaka’s High Tier / Middle Tier
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (149/150) Level 11 Big Band (49/110)
Amaterasu’s @DracoLunaris Roland’s @Archmage MC Zenkichi’s @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN Pit’s @Yankee Sakura & Juri’s @Zoey Boey Captain Falcon’s @Double Harry and Kim’s @Eviledd1984 Terry’s @Terry Bogard Yayama’s @Chevaleresse
Word Count: 1417 / 1478
It took a few moments just for Nadia to fully take in the sight. The hall before her wasn’t so much a secret passage as it was a gallery for sneakers, each wall no less than thirty feet high and arrayed with athletic footwear of every style and color conceivable. Luminous chandeliers shone down from above, and eight or so shoe-fitting stools littered the vermillion carpet floor. This collection could have easily been part of a posh department store, but with it hidden away behind a secret door, Nadia could only conclude that this must be the personal horde of a single enthusiast: the ominous man whose image hung behind the desk. There were hundreds of pairs of sneakers in here, and she couldn’t even begin to guess how much they were worth, perhaps made even more valuable by who owned them. Either way, the cat burglar had just hit paydirt. “Jackpot.”
Once she got over her amazement, Nadia worked quickly. She’d worked enough jobs to know that secrets often came part and parcel with surveillance, traps, and silent alarms. Thinking quickly, she turned around and made a beeline for the trash bin under the office desk. It contained only a few scraps of paper, which she dumped in order to pull out the white trash bag and fluff it up to its maximum size. Then she returned to the giant-size shoe closet and began to stuff as many matching pairs as she could inside. She seized the sneakers and packed them in until they began to strain and stretch their plastic membrane. That added up to just twelve pairs of shoes, and as much as Nadia wanted to collect more, even she knew not to get too greedy. “Twelve’s still pretty good,” she muttered. “Besides, he’s got hundreds. If I purr-loined a few, I bet he wouldn’t even miss ‘em!”
With one last, longing look at the sneaker smorgasbord, she ran back out into the office with the trash bag over her shoulder. A quick tap of the hidden button closed off the shoe gallery again, and for the first time Nadia began to consider exactly how she would be getting out of here. “Hmm…” Her bag of stolen goodies wasn’t too unwieldy, but it would complicate any exit, especially if other people were involved. Getting back down with the CAT fighters the same way she came up would be trickier with the extra burden and imbalance of the sneaker sack, but she didn’t need to ascend anymore–just to descend without going splat against the ground. That seemed way better than any options that involved freefall or climbing, so the feral jogged over toward the balcony doors to leave.
At that moment, the doorknob rattled. Nadia froze, her eyes as wide as saucers, and the next second someone kicked through the door with a terrific noise. She turned, aghast, to see the very same man whose portrait hung on the front door to the sneaker collection, that man with slicked-back black hair and a trench coat made from purple alligator hide: Kazuya Mashima. The moment he laid his red glowing eyes on Nadia and her bag of kicks, he bellowed something threatening in a language she didn’t understand -the first instance of this happening that she could recall- and transformed into a purple winged demon. With a yell, he fired red lasers from his eyes that swept across the room and straight toward the intruder’s head.
Of course, Nadia popped her head off to narrowly avoid the beam, then turned and sprinted away from him at max speed. “Hey! I’m not devil-ain here!” Rather than stop to open the balcony door, she plowed straight through it with a tremendous crash. Sirens began to go off as she ran for the edge, Kazuya flapped after her. “Harbor Demon! HURRY THE HELL UP!” Her striker appeared in front of her to deploy some CAT fighters, but it was too late. When Nadia heard a heavy footfall and chanced a look back over her shoulder, Kazuya was already there, his deadly fist on its way. “Wagh!” Instinctively she held up the bag, putting it between herself and her attacker.
“Hm!” Kazuya stopped short with an angry grunt, his terrifying strength halted in an instant as he refused to destroy his sneakers, even to slay their thief. Nadia used that second to fling herself from the balcony, followed by the CAT fighters as the Harbor Demon disappeared. Kazuya returned to normal as he walked to the edge of the balcony and laid his hands on the railing. He watched as the feral took the sack in her mouth and used Charge to zip up to and grab hold of the CAT fighters, then glide away between other buildings. “Hmph.” His face twisted into a nasty smirk as he pulled out his cell phone, then began to dial.
A few minutes later, Nadia touched down in a random Low Tier back alley. Her treasure bag hit the ground as she doubled over with her hands on her knees, exhilarated and breathless. “Whew…holy shoet!” She took a moment to catch her breath, then stretched her arms and flexed her sore fingers. Things had gotten dicey toward the end there, but when it came to heists, a win was a win. It did surprise her that Kazuya hadn’t used those devil wings of his to give chase, but she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The next part, selling her stolen goods, would be less fun. Hopefully the folks down here in the Low Tier would be about as unscrupulous as she was, and not call the cops the second they laid their peepers on a sneaker. With a sigh Nadia hefted her bag over her shoulder and headed off to find a buyer.
As Big Band prepared to go, he got word from Zenkichi via Linkpearl about Banishing Flats, including the room rate per night. Though he still wasn’t totally used to using the World of Light’s most common currency, Band knew that six thousand zenny wasn’t chump change. He quickly counted up the cash he’d received while playing, and to his relief found that it added up to seven thousand, one hundred and thirteen zenny. It would be enough to last him one night at least, and with how little sustenance his real body (or rather, what was left of it) needed, eleven dollars’ worth would probably actually be enough for dinner.
It took only a few minutes for the detective to track down Banishing Flats, since in a stroke of good fortune, it happened to be right next to the park he’d been playing in. About one step up from a roadside motel, it took the form of a boxy, square building with three floors, but with a theme that became obvious the moment Band saw the giant wrestling belt with the hotel’s logo suspended above the main entrance, and the triple ring ropes in place of both railings and fences. The sight put him in a good mood before he even reached the front door. While seldom able to attend NMO wrestling events in person, he often tuned in to reruns whenever they appeared on TV, and he could appreciate the spirit of the sport. All the action, spectacle, storylines, personas…it was all just good, dumb fun.
How different would things have been, he wondered, if he became a wrestler instead of a cop? If he’d been bound for a big sham either way, at least wrestling would have been fun. He did have a special grab or two in his arsenal, even if he wasn’t a proper grappler, so if nowhere else, maybe he’d fit right in to Banishing Flats.
When Band stepped inside, a miniature wrestling ring bell went off by the door to announce his arrival. Behind the front desk, which was stylized like a sloped commentators’ table, the Mecha Zangief clerk came online. “Privet!” it greeted him in a loud Russian accent, somewhat garbled by a low-quality speaker. It flexed its robotic muscles, performing a few different poses. “What can Unit Two do for you today!?”
A quick look around confirmed no sign of Zenkichi, so Band assumed the other detective must have already left to drum up some dough. He pulled out his newly-gained cash and handed it over in order to pay for a room. Instead of a room key, Band was handed a wrestling belt with the room number emblazoned on the front in what must be fake gold. Since he couldn’t put it on, he grabbed it in a mechanical pincer, then deployed a second in order to bid the Mecha Zangief farewell with a tip of his hat. He left the receptionist to continue flexing and stomped down the right-hand hallway, grateful that his room seemed to be on the first floor and that he wouldn’t have to navigate any stairwells, which he suspected would be neither big nor strong enough for someone like him.
On the way to his room, he passed by a window, and when he peered through it he realized that Banish Flats had a central open-air courtyard that the second and third floors could look down at. It featured a thin, plus-shaped sidewalk in the middle of four genuine wrestling rings, each elevated and outfitted with corner posts and ring ropes. Even though the dark sky heralded imminent rain, there were still a couple wrestlers out there doing their thing. In one ring, a blonde bombshell in studded black leather was grappling with a bombastic, muscular Draph with a red outfit and big horns, while in another, a brawny Frankenstein’s monster was staring up into the sky. When Band followed his gaze, he witnessed an older, tattooed wrestler launch himself from a third-story window and land the mother of all body splashes on his opponent. The slam made an immense racket, and it left both grapplers stunned for a few moments, but after that both managed to pick themselves up and laugh it off. Band shook his head and moved on.
When Band found his room, he held the belt up to the scanner. The light flashed green, and a click signaled that the door was unlocked. He swung it open to reveal a short hall made to resemble the ramp on a wrestling entrance stage, complete with miniature pyrotechnics that went off to welcome him for the first time. On the left lay the bathroom, the right the closet, and straight ahead the bedroom. The four-posted bed actually had corner posts and ring ropes of its own, which he hoped could be detached. Not that he’d have much luck fitting into this place anyway. Band ducked inside, made his way to the bed, unbuckled the ropes on one side, and sat down with a sigh. Thanks to lunch at Pao Pao and his break in the park he hadn’t been on his feet all day, but he still felt pretty tired, and his stay in Esaka would only get more hectic from here.
A few minutes later, Zenkichi contacted everyone again to let them know that he’d gotten his hands on some money and was coming. Band joined in once he finished. “I’m at Banishin’ Flats myself. Just got a room. It’s by a park on the Middle Tier’s northeastern side, overlookin’ the marshes. Look for a big square buildin’, three floors, and a wrestlin’ belt over the door.” He pulled down the blinds with a little mechanical arm to peer out at the park. It was even darker than before, and the winds were picking up. “Better hurry, y’all. It’s gonna be comin’ down in sheets any second now.”
Over the course of the next half hour, his fellow Seekers showed up bit by bit. Nadia arrived toward the end of that period, and by then it was pouring outside in the park. She wasn’t too soaked thanks to the umbrella she ‘found’ on the way, and when she stepped into the lobby she found a number of her allies gathered there at a couple couches around a coffee table. “Heya!” She smiled as she greeted the team, folding up her umbrella. “You know, with how hard it’s comin’ down out there I figured most people would head indoors, but there’s actually tons of guys out there t-rain-ing still. Guess the rain makes fights that much more dramatic!”
She excitedly balled her fists with a big smile on her face, her tail swishing back and forth behind here. “So, you guys know why money’s called ‘dough’, right? ‘Cause everyone kneads it! ‘Specially people lookin’ for a roof over their heads. Lucky for you, this cat’s got the answer to all your purr-ayers. Check this out…” She reached into one of her special pouches and pulled out a huge wad of cash that she plopped down on the table. “Wha-bam! That’s three hundred thousand zenny!” Eyes sparkling, she proceeded to pull out a second stack. “Ba-boom! Six hundred thousand! Enough for ten people to stay ten whole nights! How’s that for makin’ cents?” She crossed her arms and looked smug, as if doing basic math was a feat that everyone should be proud of her for.
Band eyed her suspiciously. “And where exactly, Ms. Fortune, did you come by all this money?”
“So, get this,” Nadia shrugged as she held her palms up, as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say either. “I was wandering around the High Tier, mindin’ my own business, and I just happened to stumble upon all these sneakers, see? I figured, y’know, nobody wants all these shoes sittin’ around, might as well do my part and help, uh, clean up the city. Y’know? And, and, wouldn’t you know it, these sneakers turned out to be purr-etty rare. Once belonged to some big bad guy named Kazuya. After hearin’ that, I thought sellin’ ‘em would be a ‘capital’ idea. And sure enough, this trader I found just up and bought my whole stock!” She put her hands on her hips, her eyes half-lidded as she smirked. “Guess it’s my lucky day, huh?”
Judging by the detective’s frown, he didn’t believe one word. “Uh huh. Well, you don’t gotta cover me. I’ll be payin’ my own way.”
“Huh? Who said I’d be covering anyone?~” The cat burglar winked. “So, uh, what’s new with you guys?” Nadia breezily looked around at the others. “Got anywhere to go for dinner? Stuff to do afterward?”
The Midnight Walk - 2.2
Lvl 9 Sandalphon (26/90) Level 6 Heismay (29/60)
Edward’s @DracoLunaris Blazermate & Sectonia’s @Archmage MC Geralt’s @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN Ace Cadet’s @Yankee Roxas & Ganondorf’s @Double, Ramattra’s @XoXKieroBombXoX Mokou’s @Goggy
Word Count: 1579
Nameless Stagecoach
𖥞: 8/8 | 🛡️: 7/8 | Equipment: Stewpot/Windchime/Lamps/Vegetubes/(None)/(None) | Companion: Ratshaker Rat
Once the stagecoach got underway, Sandalphon mostly kept to herself, her attention divided between monitoring the outside world through her link with the other Seekers and studying the research material recovered from Markiona’s study. Of course, she happily put the papers away in order to converse with whoever approached her, whether just to answer a question like Geralt’s, to have a more in-depth exchange with someone like Mokou, or just to give an update on her mental map of the Frozen Highlands around them.
The archangel was glad that everyone accommodated her requests, and collected all the ergo everyone gave her -including the new crystal obtained from the alchemist caster spirit Ramattra crushed- into the pouch that Geralt obtained from Eryk. It was a good amount, although to her chagrin there was no way to tell if it would be enough for her purposes. Briefly she considered the logistics of revisiting Krat Zoo to acquire more. White Team’s journey would take long enough without needlessly retracing their steps, but now that Sandalphon had the coordinates, perhaps some of the Seekers’ reserves aboard the Avenger could be dispatched there. After all, despite her stated intent to clear the carcasses out, there was a good chance that Krat Zoo was one of the Consuls’ colonies, with a Flame Clock of its own. As long as that clock burned, carcasses and other foul creatures would continue to appear. In the World of Light, there was rarely such a thing as a permanent solution.
When she had some time to herself, Sandalphon took Markiona’s spirit in order to fuse with it. It was a good thing that she wasn’t interested in the puppeteer’s abilities, since everything suggested about the alchemists and Markiona in particular painted a very bad picture about her character, but a Skill fusion wouldn’t engender any new personality traits. Still, there would be changes, which she could more or less guess at. For a moment she wondered what Zenkichi would think, but she quickly put him out of her mind. She needed this spirit, and hopefully it would be the shortcut to the knowledge she needed to enact her plan. After breathing in, Sandalphon pressed the spirit into her forehead.
In the wake of the fusion, Sandalphon found herself possessed of all the knowledge she needed and more. Many of the new things she now knew worsened her opinion of Markiona considerably; that woman had been a true pioneer in the field of ethically dubious science. Still, she had what she needed, and she need not use anything more than that. Sandalphon quickly reviewed her papers with a fresh perspective, quickly connecting the dots she hadn’t been able to before. Now her plan was no longer a pipe dream, but it still wouldn’t be easy. That night, she would need to make some calls.
Sandalphon set aside the documents for the time being to try and install the vegetubes. While much more inclined toward software rather than hardware, the archangel thought she could figure these contraptions out. Even if the stagecoach lacked power, she could at least get them ready, since there wouldn’t be any time to lose when it came to preparing the mistletoe for Baldur. She undertook this primarily since there weren’t that many others around to help right now; few of the Seekers remained in or right around the wagon as it traveled, and fewer still once Edward stopped it in a snowy valley between opposing forces.
When Edward brought back the lightning rod schematic and a proposal, she approved his plan, then began following the instructions he provided to construct a lightning rod for the Seekers using coal recovered by Sectonia’s antlers prior to Krat Zoo. Having Geralt and Ramattra around to help made the process less painstaking, particularly when it came to construction via repeated hammer swings. Once the lightning rod had been erected, the three could set about figuring out a way to break it down and attach its functional parts to the stagecoach itself, without giving the black steel an electric current. It took a little trial and error, and a couple electric shocks that Sandalphon dutifully healed, but after a few minutes the lightning rod had been mounted on one of the coach’s four corner spires. It provided just enough power to run one vegetube, but with three more spires, the output could theoretically be quadrupled.
The exertion of building one rod had tired Sandalphon out though. Luckily, before she could reluctantly begin work on another, Heismay arrived in a hurry. He carried with him a half-dozen blueprints filched from Whitey Hooten’s base, including the Creature Chamber that would supposedly allow the Seekers to manufacture hybrid beasts of their own. “Impressive,” Sandalphon told Heismay as he tried to adjust to her new color palette. “Where is Edward now?”
“Still bandying about with Hooten,” Heismay replied. “Edward is empowering his forces, as planned. We should get moving before Hooten makes a move. Edward will catch up to us afterward.”
“Understood.” Sandalphon made her way to the front of the stageclock and climbed up to the driver’s seat. Although she’d never handled animals like this before, she’d seen Edward do it enough by this point that she felt confident she could emulate him, at least on the straightaway that the Seekers would be using to make themselves scarce. Once everyone was aboard, White Team got rolling again, just in time to clear the way for Whitey’s army as his star-bright beasts finally took the initiative against his foes.
After escaping the valley of impossible creatures, the Seekers followed the Midnight Walk across a barren, hilly snowfield. Except for the occasional rocky crag or lake of freezing water, it was wide-open and empty, without the plentiful coal from the previous area. It did have its own share of hardy, cold-adapted wildlife though, which now happened to be of special interest to the Seekers thanks to their acquisition of Sigma Technology. With his natural speed and stealth, Heismay was especially well-suited to acquiring samples. On several subsequent forays he collected samples from a penguin-like kairuku, a walrus-like horker, and a ferret-like chillet, which he brought back to the stagecoach for storage.
Eventually, the Midnight Walk brought White Team into sight of a distant village, with snow-dusted, green-tinted roof tiles and dozens of smoke plumes that spiralled up into the dark, cloudy sky. Between them and the isolated town, though, was a field of especially deep snow, through which the path snaked crazily. To make matters worse, it seemed like they weren’t alone on the road anymore, either. In front of them floated a procession of giant balloons, much too big to steer around, all of which slowly drifted down the Midnight Walk in a giant conga line. It wasn’t long before the frontrunners triggered what appeared to be the town’s defenses, an assortment of eleven turrets, cannons, and well-armed monkeys that stood ready to puncture as many balloons as they could.
Whether or not there were simply too many balloons for the rather inefficient-looking emplacements was anyone’s guess, but Heismay got the sinking feeling that those defenses wouldn’t discriminate between balloons and Seekers. As he steeled himself for yet another fierce battle, a second wind surged within him, a newfound strength forged by the fires of battle against Tom, Markiona, and so forth. The power of kings swelled within him, and the aching of his old bones fell away.
Reassured by the heroic resolve housed within him, Heismay stood tall, watching the balloons ahead pop one by one as the stagecoach advanced.
