---

After beating another grunt's face in with a lamppost Jax looked up to see what looked like a giant muscular creature arise from the ground. As he peered further he figured out that it wasn't a creature, but instead a rather buff looking man with blonde hair. The first thing that came to the Grandmaster's mind was, Is that Ezreal's uncle? I've heard he's buff, but this is ridiculous! It's probably not him but- Jax's thoughts were interrupted by a giant tree, or a strand of trees to be precise flying right at him like a ton of bricks. Jax couldn't dodge this and instead got hit right in the face by a pine tree, it bludgeoned Jax's left side and sent him going far back into a building. The Grandmaster's helmet was completely smashed and probably unusable. He was bleeding internally as he batted an eye out to see the rest of the goons laughing at him. Jax coughed and blacked out for a moment, the Grandmaster seemed to be down for the count.

Suddenley, Jax was somewhere else. He was in a place filled with no ground and merely a bright light, was this it? Would the Grandmaster finally be retired? Jax as he was muttering to himself about possibly dying noticed a woman slowly walk into view. She looked a bit like Jax, she had long silver hair, blue eyes and a caring smile. She walked ever so closer as the empty space around them began to light up with various colors of red, purple, orange and yellow. Ugh. My head hurts. he thought, Who is she? Is she an angel? The woman walked closer to him and without any warning hugged him, catching the Grandmaster off guard. He was racking his brain to try and figure out who this was as it was obviously someone from his life. But who? The woman stood back up again, and he finally saw her face up close: she had a giant slash across her nose. It hit him, he knew only one person who had a scar like that.

Without thinking he spoke, "Mom? Is that you?"

"Yes, my little fighter it's me." The woman answered.

"Oh man, I thought I'd never get to talk to you again. How's Dad?"

"He's fine."

"Thank god, so why am I here? Am I finally dead?"

"No. You're near dead, but not quite I'm afraid."

"Don't feel sorry for me Mom, I didn't plan on dying yet anyway."

"You shouldn't, Jax listen to me- you got to get up, you're stronger than this!" The woman pleaded, "You've gotta keep exploring the place you're in right now. This world holds more than you think it does! It needs you my little fighter, get up and fight till the end- it isn't your time!"

"Alright. Let's go then!" Jax with new resolve said as he got up, "I love you Mom. Tell Dad I love him too."

"We'll always love you Jax, now get out there and do what your mother would do!"

"Kick some ass?"

"Damn right."

The vision faded and Jax found himself inside what he assumed to be the town's tavern. He saw people near him, cowering in fear at the raiders who were so close to their hiding spot. Not missing a beat the Grandmaster got up and removed his halberd from a nearby table, he told everyone to stay down as he emerged from the still steaming hole that had been left in the building. He arched his halberd back for a moment before spinning it around and throwing it forwards towards a large raider in the frontline of Bask's forces. With the sound of flesh being crushed in the raider fell to the ground while the halberd embedded itself into the ground near the obviously dead raider's feet.

Suddenley a loud voice boomed from the tavern it would be familiar to all those who knew him, "If you smell what the Grandmaster is cookin'!?" Jax jumped back to where he was previously, next to Saotome who was now out of the way. Jax stomped the ground in front of him and his halberd came flying back to him. He stood ready as he removed his helmet in front of people for the first time in 20 years. Jax had long ivory hair that was strewn into a ponytail, he had two bangs going out the front of his face, his eyes were as green as a verdant forest and on his face was a scar shaped like an X. The Grandmaster held his halberd up and then breathed in heavily, an amber glow embraced him as a the sound of magic began to schwing loudly. Soon, rings of light encompassed him as his resolve strengthened. This was Jax's ultimate technique: The Grandmaster's Might. Looking right at the obviously angry raiders Jax smiled, he turned back to his friends and nodded. Beaming he said to them all, "Aright, let's layeth the smacketh down shall we?" he said assuming a battle posistion and twirling his spear around behind him.

The sight of an immense brute filled Filia with a substantial amount of nope. Spinning on her heels, she schoolgirl began walking resolutely in the opposite direction. Sure, from time to time she enjoyed a brush with danger, but against a even with the power Samson afforded her she knew just be looking at the guy that she couldn't overcomb his raw strength, and would rather knot tangle with him. When he started to run toward the players, Filia jumped, yelping, into the air, and Samson performed an instant hair dash to put some distance between his host and his adversary.

Being able to see Bask clearly, however, caused Samson to see red. ”A mullet!” he roared, tugging on Filia's head as she landed. An arm formed from her hair and extended an accusatory finger toward the overgrown thug. ”Come on, kid! We can take this clown down while everyone else distracts 'im!” Torn between her promise to try and be a hero and every fiber of intelligence in her, Filia stood half-facing the fight, more than a little unsure. Her eyes fell instead on something else—a threat not yet noticed by the other players. Confusion flitted across her face as she beheld the Alca-Noise, and she pointed, saying, “Samson, what about those things? There are a lot of them, and they look like monsters. Nobody else is fighting them. Can't we go after those instead?” After a moment's consideration, Samson relented, and Filia took off running toward the Alca-Noise. When she got in range, Samson took on the form of a large hair-octopus, sending tentacles into the crowd of creatures to ensnare, crush, and throw about.



In reply to Juri, DIO gave a shrug before he summoned the World. The Stand reeled back and delivered a single brutal punch to the castle's reinforced wooden portcullis. Beneath its force the protective barrier splintered, but a few follow-up punches proved necessary to completely open the way. Stepping inside, he sighed in relief, his skin steaming slightly, and told his Korean companion, “That would please me.” He waited for Juri to join him instead, and after a moment, narrowed his eyes at the Overlord. Unbeknownst to the vampire, the metal behemoth had stopped halfway between the bay and the bastion, standing still in the middle of the field like a dumb statue. ”Not dragging your feet, are you, Overlord? The medieval surroundings haven't reverted you into a regular suit of armor, I hope? You're not useful to me inanimate.” He held his arms akimbo and turned back to walk deeper into the castle, leaving Overlord for now.

Ahead, nestled in a large and impressively intricate stone arch, lay a pair of fine wooden doors. DIO guessed that they led to the main hall, where even now the lord of this castle likely resided. Before either he or Juri could reach the doors, however, a large shape fell from overhead. At first glance, it appeared to be a man in armor, but something was off. Given his side and weight, contact with the floor should have crumpled the tiles, much less made a tremendous noise. Yet, this warrior landed softly, massive shield and glowing blade in hand. A red light shone ominously from inside his helmet, and like a spirit the entire figure rose into the air. DIO grinned, marveling at the enemy's gear's quality, and motioned for Juri to address the issue with a tilt of his head. Before them, the Pursuer hovered still, ready to cut down any man who went for the door.

Damian's attempt at motivating Hibiki to fight pragmatically was, unfortunately, the complete opposite of successful: the schoolgirl only seemed more aghast than she'd been before the Boy Wonder provided his assistance. Contrary to whatever logic he'd employed, the magical girl was not really motivated by the efficient and violent takedown of a group of thugs. Particularly as she did believe that they were worth negotiating with--if you were willing to try negotiating with someone who wanted to blow up the moon, why wouldn't you try simple thugs?

This lead to a reaction akin to a deer in the headlights when the apparently pro-wrestling thug boss burst out of a granary, pulling off moves that made no sense for a human being to be pulling off, before following it up with the far more reasonable 'use a tree as a club' that Hibiki supposed the commander could manage if he felt that the tree was necessary. He was able to support Tsubasa's sword at its largest without strain, after all.

The downside of being shocked into not fighting was that you were rather a sitting duck for being hit with the club--and thus the innocent people behind Hibiki were likely to be flattened far more thoroughly than she was. For the most part, this was prevented by Kyouko's intervention, though a quirk of the arc didn't take Hibiki entirely out of the range of the attack.

---

The train's arrival came sooner than the white-haired girl had been expecting... but not so soon that she didn't have time to finish the impromptu lunch that she still couldn't quite believe had come from a tree. Arriving in a medieval warzone was unpleasant and somewhat surprising after the modern school but the familiar sight of a figure in orange was reassuring... even if the idiot appeared to be doing nothing whilst getting attacked.

Chris transformed and stepped in to finish off removing the rest of the enormous man's club.



If she was still being followed by Krieg, there was no way that she was ever getting rid of the guy, not now that the skirt had opened up to reveal that, in fact, it was able to launch twenty four missiles in a single barrage. In this case, the barrage wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, but the muscled mulleted menace would find himself holding almost nothing but a lump of wood, with the rest of the wood (even the part cut in half) wrecked.

"Chris-chan!"