James realized what the guy with the robe had ordered the girl with the purple hair to do too late, as the sounds of gunfire reached them, echoing down the stairs into the subway as the Body Snatcher once more became an Egg Stealer and tried to escape. However, James wasn't able to just up and walk away as the sack had been left behind and an infected survivor crawled out. This had been something that James had worried about when Gnorc had revealed he was infected, that some bystander would either be too slow or get caught in a sense of false security and be infected. And now..."Son of a-You! Cloak boy! Watch this guy and don't let him move. If he does...hell, I don't know, find a way to stun him without touching him. I gotta go-" The block guy ran by and moved to go up the stairs, even though the Hunter tried to catch his shirt. "STOP DAMN IT!" Sadly it was a swing and a miss as the block head makes it to and up the stairs, which is shortly followed by further bursts of gunfire, and the sound of bullets hitting wood. While he knew he needed to help the weird man, he knew he needed to stop the form shifting Egg Stealer first and began to look around. There was a short moment of no movement but for his eyes, which rapidly searched for the blue cloak. He finally spotted it, dodging around a person who had just fallen down the stairs, but getting knocked over as the person scrabbled to get away from the shots. Seeing an opportunity, the Nightstalker sprints headlong at the recovering creature.

"Purple hair, help keep that guy in place!" Lunging at the Egg Stealer, James grapples with it, his knife in hand. This had to end and he couldn't let this thing get out into the city. Fortunately, James was a fairly nimble person himself, so trying to slip free wouldn't work in the Egg Stealer's favor as he would have to actively avoid the knife if he wanted to survive the Nightstalker's anger. As he tried to slash and stab the Egg Stealer, he hoped that Fox and the others got rid of the big boss and opened a channel to the anthropomorphic Fox once more. {Fox, need help on the other side of the wall. One of the heroes tried to send civilians up to the street and Guile's guards are doing their job, if you know what I mean. Also, umph, tangling with that infected enemy that tried to run earlier. Again, need help.} He makes another stab at the creature's face, hoping to finish it.

Dashing, domineering, deadly—Slayer cut quite the figure as he sauntered Gnasty's way, plans of attack running through his mind. His concentration on the idea of using Dandy Step to punish any move the repulsive brute made, however, availed him little when his allies took advantage of his distraction to move in from the sides and strike from afar with powerful ranged attacks. Void, ice, laser, and energy bombarded the great Gnorc, ripping into him before Slayer even got the chance to lash out with one of his newly-recalled techniques. Realizing with only a trace of distress that his presence in this fight would soon be obsolete, he picked up the pace to a powerwalk, intent on planting a Crosswise Heel in the damaged region of Gnasty's head. He never got chance; Fox and Naija struck once again, their formidable speed driving their finishing blows home and sending a him, battered, to the ground.

Naija set to teasing the fallen freak without delay, prompting an admonishing smile from the vampire. ”Now now, dearie. Our foe still draws breath. We must finish him now before he makes good his--!”

His words became reality with startling speed. Having regenerated enough to take action, Gnasty picked himself off and sprinted away from the heroes at a pace that would have traumatized any doctor of physics. With a final ejection of mutated green blood, the overgrown ogre disappeared into the hole through which he'd come.

”...Escape.” Placing his hand against his brow, the gentleman shook his head in mild disappointment. ”Ah, no matter. 'He can run, but he cannot hide'...isn't that the saying? Where he goes, we will follow, for the virus must be eradicated.”

Scarcely had he taken a few steps in pursuit before the familiar sounds of a train reached his ears. Slayer did not pause in his stride, but took note of the strange howl that accompanied the vehicle's whistle. How odd. He waved over his fellow warriors as he marched on, privy to the sight of lights down the tunnel. A moment after he reached the breach and began toward the tracks, he heard a sudden and meaty thwack that resounded off the walls, and his mind was filled with curiosity. Quickening his pace, Slayer arrived at the platform and beheld at once two incredible things: the inert remains of Gnasty Gnorc, and the phantasmagorical locomotive that had eviscerated him.

The sight bid him raised his eyebrows and almost displace his monocle. ”Goodness! What a sight.” Fascinated, he looked up and down the waiting train's length. ”Its haunting exterior reminds me...'tis the Halloween season, is it not? Perhaps this devilish contraption has arrived neither in malice nor benevolence, but as a harbinger of an even greater thrill.” He chuckled, realizing his overindulgence in wordplay. The battle concluded, he removed from his pockets a fresh pipe, which he proceeded to light with a flame-igniting snap of his fingers. As interesting as this development was, he was also eager to see what the others thought of this apparition.

After launching his attack, Robin smiled as the monster reacted to his electrical based attack. But then he saw the monster retreat before releasing one of it's victims from his demonic sack.

And Robin knew that the victim was infected.

It didn't help either that he heard gunfire coming from ahead...and the paniked response didn't help. Because as a tatician who learned about platform city and it's many cultures, he also knew about codes of conduct. How some take extremes. Though to be fair, he had encountered such individuals in his own world before. Guile himself taught him a bit about hows soldiers were in his world in some cases as well during his very first appearance here.

But those "extremes"...Robin had hoped to not cross such lines...even now. But sadly, it already maybe too late.

James then gave him some orders to do whatever it takes to save this victim in general as he immedately rushed off after the monster. Robin had wanted to stop him but it seemed James was well-aware of what would happen if he got too close to that gunfire.

Now, though, this person needed help.

Taking out his heal staff, Robin got to work on this individual on the ground and focused it's healing energies on the victim. But in all honestly, all he could do perhaps was slow down the progress of the virus. Perhaps long enough for medics, healers or "first responders" to come down here and hopefully with the vaccine.

But again, that gunfire from before...the odds were against this fellow making it...which means...could he do it? Could he cross that line? Could he take this life if it mean't preventing the spread of this virus? He gave his life once to end Grima's existance but could he take one innocent life to save many?

Word Count for this post: 304

Everything seemed to be going okay. It seemed as though the creature wasn't following them, and everyone was going to get out in one piece. That was until the first survivor climbed the stairs and the sound of bullets being fired at an impossible rate (at least in her world it would be impossible standards). Shantae gasped as she quickly realized that whoever was up there was firing at the survivors. That's when everything went to hell again. Shantae whistled at all of the survivors loudly and she called "EVERYONE! Stay calm and stay where you are! If the monster appears again, so will the heroes! I'll help fight it off, but for now, you can't go up the ladder yet! We'll need the other heroes to help talk to...whoever is up there!"

Then Shantae spotted it. It was the egg thief trying to escape. Just as Shantae stated earlier, the blocky man appeared again and proceeded to go up and build more walls that were probably not going to be of any use against bullets once again, while trying to talk to the people who fired at the survivors. The heavily armored man also appeared and tackled the thief to the ground, with a knife in hand. She wanted to help him, but then he gave the command telling her to go and keep the someone from moving. She was reluctant because she wanted to help current survivors now, but she wasn't exactly in a position to say no. This armored man seemed to know what he was doing and what was going on. So it was probably best to help the other man who got out of the bag.

She called to the armored man, "I'm on it!" and she ran back to where the cloaked man was and she saw that he was healing the innocent bystander who was covered in black. She prepared herself in case something happened. The black on the bystander was not a good indicator, and she wouldn't be surprised if this Mugen Virus made this person attack. She was ready to use her hair if the bystander ever attacked the cloaked man.

Naija almost felt sorry for Gnorc as the Hero’s onslaught of attacks blasted and bloodied the big brute, toppling him over once again.

”So. Just standing there and taking a beating it is then”

She readied herself for the inevitable third phase of the fight and was flabbergasted by their foes decision to up and run, at surprising speed too. In her experience bosses always fought to the death, this self preserving attitude was completely foreign to her experiences of big monsters and so she sat flummoxed for a few moments staring after him.

After coming to her senses she was going to case after him but it was at this point that the horror goblin, sporting a fair bit of masonry and splintered furniture as part of it’s oozing mass thanks to her playing leapfrog with it earlier, made it clear that it wasn’t done with her, as it gave a bubbling wer roar and came at her, perhaps in an attempt to ensure its master’s escape was successful.

”You don’t go down easily do you?”

Freed from needing to stay close to Gork in order to attack and bait him into an attack, Naija was able to hop away from it, her powerful swimmer’s legs carrying her across the ground on swift and nimble leaps. Her bouncing gait keeped her just ahead of the disgusting blob’s many wriggling appendages and hungry mouths as she drew the beast away from the hole in the wall, a hole into which slayer promptly strolled into in order to chase after Gnorc. That left her, fox and the rather out of breath Cloud to deal with the three remaining goblins. In her estimation she would have the easiest time dealing with them due to her primarily range based approach keeping her well away from the may dangers that the gooey goblins could pose.

”If you two want to go help deal with the thief or Gnorc go right ahead, I believe I can handle these three freaky blob monsters”

She also still had the things, the keys and the Phoenix Down she had rescued from the prize table, that the thief might have been after on her person, taking those too where it was racing about would be counterintuitive. Bet she stay away from the thief till it was dealt with, she didn’t want to be the victim of a sleight of hand thievery twice in one day. All she needed to do now, if the other two wanted to be on their way, was keep the three horrors from chasing after anyone who left. To do this she decided it best to get all their attentions at once and so she lead the battered one off towards each of the other two in turn that. These she pelte with brief flurries of energy bolts, deftly avoiding those she had already got after her while doing so, till both the beasts made her their target of scorn, drawing their attention from the other heroes and the two exits that could lead them to the un-vaccinated people.

”Come on, look at me you disgusting things!”

The enraged and scorched, Goblins rushed her, bumping and oozing against each other as they came at her in a wall of flesh and flailing tendrils, as she lead them towards the center of the room. There Naija bounded up onto the still intact ring’s rope wall, using it as a springboard to launch herself up and away from the monsters, turning mid air to rain down a concentrated bombardment of shots on the leading flesh slime, the raging energy of the shots vaporising eyes, limbs and chunks of flesh. Unfortunately, the goblins had plenty of those to spare, and while it was pushed back, it was far from dead.

Naija landed, now a little worried of her ability to deal with these in a timely manner. A swift hop landed her atop one of the corner posts, and from there she hammered the beasts as they tried to slime up the small wall past and the ropes that made entering the arena awkward. She managed to inflict some damage on all of them before the two healthier goblins seemed to change tactics, though whether this by accident or intentionally she could not tell, and tried to circle round the edges of the arena. Not willing to give up her elevated position just yet, as it was preventing some of her straight line shots from simply hammering into the ground as they wobbled along their flight path, Naija split her attacks, one hand’s worth of energy shots raining down on each flanker, slowing their advance.

This left the middle wide open however, and the goblin she had initially been dealing with, the one sporting bits of masonry and some now burning furniture, finally managed to enter the arena and charged straight at her, squealing and howling with hideous feral fury. Seeing this, Naija halted her rapid blasting and began to charge a bigger attack instead, waiting as it came at her. Then at the last possible second she leaped over the top of the monster, causing it to ram straight into the post as she let out a charged hex shot behind it, the 6 large charged shots hammering into it, pushing it forwards and causing the post to cleave it’s oozing body in half as it’s rear end was pulped by Naija’s energy followup storm of small shots.

”Die! Die! Die! Die!”

Finally after some cathartic overkill and screaming, the two halfs of the goblin gave up the ghost, the mess that remained of it unable to continue functioning as it had been effectively liquefied into a gory puddle This did nothing to deter its fellows, as the two, now on opposite sides of their fishy foe, charged up into the arena simultaneously. Naija couldn't help but giggle maniacally to herself as she prepared to face them, having fully succumbed to Energy form’s lust for violence she was now having a whale of a time.

Gnasty really should have known better prior to his raid what he was getting himself into. He now found himself downed, wounded (though temporarily), and exceedingly overwhelmed, facing the inevitability wrought by his hubris. The suddenly exuberant Naija teased and beckoned the fallen boss to retaliate as they had all expected him to do. He instead opted for the second smartest decision he could have made, aside from not showing up at all in the first place. He ran… fleeing back the way he came at a staggering pace that the Gnorc should reasonably have been unable to muster. Fox’s eyes widened in surprise at the display as the titanic mutant cleared their line of sight in no more than a second, but as far as he was concerned, Gnasty’s attempted retreat would be in vain. Him, Slayer, and possibly Cloud would be on him in no time, while Naija volunteered to stay back and deal with the remainder of the amorphous abominations that would no doubt continue to harass them if left unchecked. Fox then leapt from the overhead, shooting down two spotlights at their joints with the intention of dropping them on the other two mutants to give Naija less to deal with at a time.

“Keep them busy. We’ll come back for you,” offered Fox in compliance before following after Slayer in pursuit of Gnasty, likely surpassing the characteristically more diligently paced gentleman. Some few yards into the tunnel, the alarming cadence of railroad crossing bells and harsh clacking of wheel rods signaled the arrival of what Fox incorrectly suspected to be Gnasty’s getaway ride. He hastened regardless, arriving at the subway platform just in time to behold the unexpected, but timely appearance of a ghostly freight train on flaming tracks, as well as the aftermath. At least that meant their boss problem was taken care, but just in time for another to take its place. He received a call from Varrock informing him of the escalated situation on the other end with a request for backup. Fox cursed under his breath in response to the less than favorable news.

“Keep it pinned down! I’m on my way,” answered the vulpine with a sense of urgency in his voice as he set off toward the nightstalker’s location. It didn’t occur to him that he had perhaps rudely written off Slayer in his enthusiastic musings when instinctively rushing off to prioritize his duties without so much as acknowledging him, but crisis intervention took precedence in his mind. Hopefully, the gentleman would understand and forgive him for doing so. He cut through one of the paths connecting the tunnels to make good on time, arriving within the minute. Without stopping to analyze the full scene, he headed straight toward the sound of gunfire coming from upstairs, running along the rounded wall to avoid have push through the crowd of panicked civilians. At the end of his inverted stride, Fox would drop down onto the eroding wooden cube that one of the contestants was taking cover behind and raised his reflector, angling it slightly upward to avoid returning friendly fire. Having their own bullets fly over their heads would hopefully be enough to deter the containment unit’s unprovoked retaliation long enough to get their attention, but a clarified order from Fox to hold fire would follow, should the point not already be made clear. Failing that, he would have to fall back and try to connect directly to Guile--or whoever else would answer--to have the otherwise uncooperative units called off.

A sweat bead descended Cloud’s head when he watched Naija get carried away with killing the Gnorc mutants. At least she had drawn their attention and with everyone running to make themselves useful, he felt he should do the same. Cloud raced down the tunnel after Fox, hoping that the others were able to survive the egg stealer. The creature seemed small and harmless. It was fast, but what more could it do but pick a pocket? As Cloud came across Robin and Shantae, his mouth fell open in horror at the sight of the human crawling out of what looked like a sack but with teeth…

The man begged to be helped, but he was infected. They didn’t have a cure for it and if he was going to mutate like the Gnorcs or even Gnasty, then Cloud would rather not let the virus get that far. Closing his mouth, the ex-SOLDIER frowned. His hands trembled as he reached behind his head to grasp his Buster Blade. Robin was trying his best to slow the spread, but they all knew the mutation was inevitable. The least he could do was put the man out of his misery. He drew his sword and angled the very end of its slanted edge downward.

Cloud had to tune out the man’s begging. He had to tune everyone and everything out as his eyes narrowed with concentration. He thrust his blade into the back of the man’s neck, decapitating him as his head tipped over and from his neck began gushing a black substance. A black bubble formed, swelling outward before it popped dropping upon the floor with a splat, a black slug that started to swiftly squirm away. Cloud thrust his hand out to it, in an action that would have been a Bolt spell, but he was out of mana.

“Shit!” he cursed. “Kill it before it infects someone!”

---

The green Army men continued to fire upon the crowd as they continued to emerge from the metro. Minecraft Steve attempted to save them from the direct fire with a wooden block, but the block was too brittle to resist the rapid fire destruction of automatic weaponry. Green soldiers shot at the block and those humans who popped up around it. Eventually, the bodies lying at the entrance of the metro discourage anymore humans from attempting to climb that stairwell that was until James tackled the egg-stealer, revealing it among them.

“It’s the monster!” a woman panicked. The humans surrounding James and the Egg-Stealer began to flee up the stairwell once again.

The egg-stealer’s uneven, long and short, cube-like teeth were clinched in a vicious smile as its black Grinch-like hands struggled with James to keep his knife at bay. As it struggled with James, its strength started to increase. Its fingers elongated as its body grew beneath him, growing back into the tall and creepy body snatcher. Its teeth parted as its spooky laugh escaped the black abyss that was its face:

Hahaha!

Its fingers didn’t seem to stop stretching. They wrapped and coiled about James’s knifehand like snakes and wound down his arm, beginning to spread across his armor. If it hadn’t for the resilience of his gear, he would have felt the constriction attempting to snap every bone in his body. Its second hand grasped his other arm pinning him down, spreading across his body like weeds.

Hahaha!

The body snatcher was soon able to rise to its feet without much struggle. It looked about for its sack. Was it hoping to steal James? The beast noticed it where it had left it and with its blurring speed that James would be able to witness firsthand, the tall creature had crossed the tunnel over to its demonic bag. The bag started to move. It raised its gaping mouth toward its master, acknowledging its presence and began spreading its mouth to receive its next meal.

When Fox appeared with his bubble barrier, the Army men dove to the street to avoid the fire that started reflecting back at them.

“Cease fire!” the green officer ordered.

The green Army men lowered their weapons as the green officer glared at Fox. He had some nerve thinking that he could order his men. They had orders from Guile! The civilians were dazed, tired, and terrified. They were pinned between the green army and the monster. It was an absolute nightmare.

As for Naija, if the Gnorc mutants had salvaged any cell of intelligence, they might have fled after seeing their buddy get turned into Gnorc pudding. But they remained in their pursuit of her. She was the only target in their sights seeing as the other heroes split.

---

GM Note: From here on out, all players will be required to keep track of their word count. XP will be awarded every GM post. Be sure to check the XP hider to see how much XP your character earned. Remember to keep your CSes updated. I have seen players slack in keeping their XP up-to-date and they have lost XP points because of it. I didn't take the XP away from them, they just didn't keep track of the XP on their own. It is YOUR responsibility if you want your character to level.



If a player is inactive for more than 3 days without letting the GMs know of any delays, then the player can be skipped over on the 4th day. If a player does not wish to post, then they can Mention the GM and let the GM know he or she "Passes" on his or her turn.

P.O.: James, Robin, Shantae, Naija, Fox, and Cloud.

Boss: Gnasty Gnorc
Health Status: DEAD
Location: Hell
Characters Directly Affected: None

Boss: Egg Snatcher to Body Snatcher
Health Status: Amber
Location: Putting James in a bind
Characters Directly Affected: James

Total Enemies: 3
Minions: 2 - Mutant Horror Goblins

As the Egg-Stealer had begun to transform and force the knife away from itself, it's fingers becoming nothing more than vines determined to squeeze the life from him, though his armor prevented it, the Guardian could already hear Zavala in his head as if the Titan was there, watching the fight happen. "Why did you run ahead without a plan or, more importantly, your fireteam? No plan ever survives contact with the enemy, but no Guardian can survive forever without his fireteam." James, as he felt the Body-Snatcher began to stand, wondered just how many times over the years he'd proven the old Titan right. As he moved to begin cutting the snatcher's fingers, although how effective that would be at this point was up in the air, Charger's voice came through. "You have your smoke bomb! Use it!"

The news put the now reinvigorated Nightstalker in a good mood, and as he reached his bag, which had begun standing up and opening it's mouth, the knife vanished from James's hand with Charger's help and a Voidwall grenade appeared in it's place as a smoke bomb appeared in his other hand. "Hope your bag doesn't mind a bit of indigestion, buddy." A confused look crossed the monster's face as he dropped the grenade into the sack's open mouth, which detonated a second later, void flames beginning to consume it from the inside out. At the same time, James tossed the smoke bomb at the snatcher's forehead, where it stuck for a moment before beeping and exploding in a black cloud laced with purple. When that happened, James would hopefully be released and dropped to the ground, where he would draw his Imago Loop as he rolled away from the ugly bastard towards a nearby piece of cover while the other heroes dealt with the Green Army Men, the remaining minions and the infected civilian.

Shantae looked up when she heard another pair of feet running towards them, and she saw that it was a swordsman from the tournament earlier. She couldn't do anything as Robin kept trying to heal the man, and the swordsman unsheathed his blade. Just seeing his trembling hands tipped the half-genie off as to what he intended to do. She couldn't watch as the man's begging seemed to grow louder and louder and louder...

Until...

Whoosh!

And silence...

Shantae kept the nausea at bay as the gravity of the situation made itself even more so apparent, to the point that it was obnoxious. She couldn't stand looking at the decapitated head of the bystander. Someone she couldn't help.

Then it appeared: a disgusting black slug fell from the neck, and started squirming and wriggling away. At the Swordsman's calls, she didn't hesitate. Anger towards this thing and remorse for not saving the bystander caused her to shout "Oh no you don't!" as she attacked. She whipped her hair at the slug, three times in an attempt to kill it. She wished she had that fireball spell so she could kill it with fire, but the hair was her best method as of now.

She then turned to see the egg thief coming towards the bag, this time with the armored man in tow. He was going to put the armored man in the sack! Thankfully, the armored man seemed to have set the sack on fire before he could be shoved inside. Shantae took this distraction as an opportunity and she charged at the egg thief, making it the new target of her split-ends of justice. She attempted to land three more strikes onto the thief, and she prepared herself to dodge in case it tried to grab her too.

Robin was focusing on healing the victim when he saw Could come up.

He wanted to stop him. Tell him that he can save this individual. That he could make it...

But he saw the emotionless look on his face as he grabbed his giant sword.

...then...the awful decision Cloud Strife made for him.

The sight of what he saw...was nothing like he'd ever seen on the many battlefields he had been on in his world.

Worse, what came out of the victim caught his attention.

The one he remembered called Shante did what Cloud ordered and attacked the slug being. And just for good measure, Robin launched an attack of his own with his Thunder tome.

"Thunder!"

After seeing the slug whither up, Robin then looked at Could as Shante ran off to help deal with the monster with the sack. He wanted to get mad at him. That he acted too rashly. But he knew it wouldn't matter.

Instead, he put his hoodie back over his head.

"...come Cloud...we have to stop this...from getting worse", Robin simply said as he now was holding his heal staff and thunder tome, having placed his Levin sword in his cloak. He then ran ahead to assist the others.

Word Count: 207

Just as the two goo monsters were about to collide with her Naija deftly leapt into the air, flipping away from the grizzly impact in a series of backflips. The two blobs smashed together with a disgusting and surprisingly dull thud, as slimy limbs and bodies squished together in a confused mess. Naija landed on the rope of the arena and then used it it to catapult herself up onto the side of the arena’s pit. Landing there she looked down at the tangled mess of the two remaining goo goblins, a rather morbid grin on her lips.

Down below the two goblins gnashed and screeched at one another as they attempted to untangle themselves and Naija took advantage of this mess to pelt them with some more energy shots. The two blobs rapidly lost cohesion as they struggled under the bombardment, glooping together into a singular mass that turned then as one to charge the fish lass once more. Slamming into the wall surrounding the arena they scattered masonry about the arena floor and caused Naija to briefly loss her balance, caught as she was by surprise by the new bigger blobs speed. The reprieve from the burning barrage gave the slime the opportunity to ooze its way up the wall, forcing Naija to fall back from the edge as deadly tendrils lashed out to try and grab her.

Naija found herself between the ascending meat beast and the exit, from which the sounds of the confrontation with the egg stealer could be heard. This had not been part of the plan, as any dodging now might lead to the beast careen down the tunnel the civilians and heros had gone down. She had to end this here and now. But for that she needed more power, and so she retrieved from her inventory a Spicy roll which she had prepared earlier.

Naija then demonstrated that rather disconcerting (and impossible to describe) ability some of the people in the Arcade have to instantaneously consume an entire meal, be it wall turkey, an entire cheese wheels or, in this case, some spicy meat (notably not spiced meat, but meat that was inherently spicey) wrapped in seaweed and then somehow cooked in oil underwater using singing. The verse infused food caused the raw energy that took the place of her blood to boil in her veins, the flames on her hands grew larger, and hotter as she gained a temporary power boost.

The beast roared a bubbling putrid scream of rage and hate as it hauled it’s disgusting form towards its foe and, rather than running away, this time Naija stood her ground, hurling the empowered blasts at it. Red glowing comets twice the size they had been moments before raged towards the abomination, blasting chunks of the oversized meatball to giblets. Despite the rain of bolts tearing it asunder the beast continued on still, it's feral broken mind incapable of any other decision but violence, rage and fury. When it was almost upon her, Naija crouched down, charging power inside herself, but instead of leaping away as she had before and leaving those behind her to their fate, she leap straight at the beast, releasing the 6 shots just before the mass of the beast collided with her, just before the tendrils and fangs closed around her and tre her to pieces.

The back of the horror goblin exploded, the point blank charged shots all focused on one point tore a hole straight through its body, through which Naija flew, accompanied by a shower of gore. She landed on the other side as what remained of the Goblin crumpled. Its center no longer supporting its extremities the monster proceed to melt, turning to a putrid mush on the asphalt floor.

Naija looked over her shoulder and, seeing her foe defeated, sighed in relief before breaking down into a bout of breathless giggling. After a few moments she caught herself laughing and tried to get a hold of it, focusing on slowing her breathing as she tried to calm down form the exhilaration of combat. After a few moments she had a handle on herself once more and, after shaking or wiping off most of the gore that had come from the monster’s demise, she turned towards the tunnel, intending to go assist the others if there was still trouble afoot.

The bright, distorted, percussive pattering of automatic gunfire against reflective hard light sounded off its necessary cessation as bullets returned to their source at an angle intended to spare. As anticipated, the blockade troops took the hint to cease fire once it occurred to them that they were essentially shooting at themselves. A shame that they had to be prodded into stop to actually pay mind to what they were doing, but sadly, the realization came but a minute or so too late; damage was done, casualties resulted. Behind Fox lay confused, frightened, wounded innocents--some presumably dead--who wanted nothing more than to indulge in a thrilling night of gladiatorial entertainment, now victims of a harsh, unforeseen coincidence, with more harm than help from those meant to rescue them from it. This… was unacceptable. They were supposed to help see to preventing this, not causing it! Now that Fox had their attention, he was keen on reminding them of that.

“What the hell are you all doing,” he inquired assertively, all the while trying his best not to completely compromise his composure. “You’re under the Council’s orders to evacuate these civilians… SAFELY!” He gestured behind him to the fallen civilians--none of which appeared to be infected, but gunned down without a second thought regardless. “You think they’re safe here?!” Beyond the cluster of bystanders are Varrock, Shantae, Robin, and Cloud dealing with what used to be an Egg Stealer. Fox doubled back in a running start in their direction as he quickly wrapped up his displeased address to the soldiers. “We’ll take care of the quarantine. Get these people out of here. All of them. Now!”

After hurrying his way through the civilian huddle, Fox lept from the midpoint of the stairwell towards the Body Snatcher, now (hopefully) disoriented from the blast of Void smoke to its face. After releasing the Nightstalker from its grasp, Fox would air dash toward it to swiftly reduce the distance between it and him to zero. The motion trail that followed him darkened, wicks of flame subtly cloaked his form, and as he came to a stop directly above the creature, a dim glint signals a spontaneous eruption of explosive force inexplicably generated from the vulpine. Ideally, it would suffice to dispatch what would turn out to be the last of the remaining threats in the arena.

---

The cracks from Shantae’s whip-like hair snapped the slug across the ground as it rolled and leapt into the air until finally splitting in half from her final strike. The two pieces of slug melted into a black bubbling pool that evaporated in the air, putting her and Cloud somewhat at ease. There was still the issue with the Body Snatcher.

James was in a bind with the diabolical creature whose white teeth were curved in a wicked grin as it laughed on its monstrous decibels at his struggling. As he began cutting at its tendrils, they immediately grew back, merely elongating where they had been divided. The Nightstalker struggled to drop a void grenade into the hungry Snatcher Sack’s mouth only for the tendrils to wind up his arm and secure the active grenade to his hand. The Body Snatcher’s red eyes gleamed with sadistic excitement. He was about to see quite the dramatic explosion.

The Body Snatcher was unable to attack the half-genie while it was occupied restraining James. She may not have been able to see how she had entered within the grenade’s blast radius. Cloud had abandoned his sword to swiftly race toward her in an attempt to retrieve her when a voice boomed throughout the tunnel, resonating with power.



An arrow of crackling yellow energy shot through the tunnel like a comet. Its bright glare caused the Body Snatcher’s frown to slump and its red eyes to dilate in shock before the arrow passed through it like a hot knife, dropping James and leaving nothing but its loosened black finger tendrils wriggling all over its body like worms. Cloud had managed to grab Shantae and turn her out of the attack’s path. His hands were on her shoulders as he motioned out of its way, feeling the hot energy warm his side and soon back as it soared by.

Standing at the head of the tunnel with Fox and the crowd of frightened civilians was Guile. Smoke was rising off his massive vein-strewn arms as he glared at the heroes and what remained of the Body Snatcher. His hands were curled into large fists and blue eyes glinting with anger. Beneath his blonde, flat-top of justice was a hard frown as he demanded, “I wanna know what happened down here!”

Cloud released Shantae and looked over at Guile with a frown of his own except it hadn’t been anger but embarrassment. Had this really been their fault? If they had never shown up to the Smash Arena, then they would have never been able to save Sparx. The SOLDIER remained silent. One selfish desire to fight had led to saving A Bug’s Life and how the entire situation had led to Gnasty Gnorc and the Body Snatcher—he had no idea! Where to even begin?

By then, if Naija was able to avoid the Sonic Cross or even see it as it passed through the tunnel, she would have been able to come across the scene of Guile’s sudden appearance. After countless of civilians were getting mowed down by the Green Army Men, he knew he had to get involved because someone or someones in the tunnel were failing. He had no idea why he had received an emergency call in the middle of the night—and in Platform City of all places (a place he liked to believe he kept safer than a vault). All the Smash participants had some explaining to do. What was even more interesting was that the Body Snatcher’s bag was still alive and laying there helplessly on the floor. It was unable to feed itself. It needed someone to feed it.

---

GM Note: From here on out, all players will be required to keep track of their word count. XP will be awarded every GM post. Be sure to check the XP hider to see how much XP your character earned. Remember to keep your CSes updated. I have seen players slack in keeping their XP up-to-date and they have lost XP points because of it. I didn't take the XP away from them, they just didn't keep track of the XP on their own. It is YOUR responsibility if you want your character to level.



If a player is inactive for more than 3 days without letting the GMs know of any delays, then the player can be skipped over on the 4th day. If a player does not wish to post, then they can Mention the GM and let the GM know he or she "Passes" on his or her turn.

P.O.: James, Shantae, Naija, Fox, and Cloud.

Boss: Gnasty Gnorc
Health Status: DEAD
Location: Hell
Characters Directly Affected: None

Boss: Egg Snatcher to Body Snatcher
Health Status: DEAD
Location: Hell
Characters Directly Affected: None

Total Enemies: 0
Minions: 0

Naija set of down the tunnel the others had gone down, leaping along the tunnel in a series fo quick hops. It was while doing this that there was a sudden flash of light as a deadly glowing arrow soared down the corridor towards her as she was mid leap. Trapped, unable to change her trajectory, she could only watch as it hurtled towards her, closing the distance in a heartbeat before it missed, flying far beneath her. She landed, shaken, tensing to leap out of the way of the follow up shot, but after a moment it became clear it wasn't coming. A little flummoxed Naija picked up the pace, jumping from wall to wall to race down towards the group.

Najia landed with a dull thud behind the group, spoiling for a fight that it quickly became apparent was not to be had. Instead she found a bunch of dead people, a dead thing that was probably the egg stealer and a very angry Guile. Rather confused and a little concerned she unknowingly echoed Guile’s question

”So I destroyed the blob things. What happened here? Did we get them all?”

At the same time she displayed energy form, returning to her natural turquoise complexion. Then she noticed the hungry bag on the floor and, out of curiosity, picked it up.

”also what is this thing?”

James grit his teeth when the Body Snatcher caught the grenade and wrapped it up in his tendrils. On the plus side, the flames themselves wouldn't hurt the Nightstalker and the baddie with personal space respect issues would get a nasty surprise, but the down side was that the initial explosion wasn't going to feel great to the Guardian, and he winced slightly in preparation for the explosion. "Next time, use your smoke bomb first, you dunce." As James went to make a retort, Guile's voice echoed through the tunnels, shortly followed by the yellow arrow of energy passing through the body snatcher and missing James's chest by inches.

When the now dead Snatcher released him, the Nightstalker wasted no time in rolling away from the grenade that was now free to fall and finding cover behind a piece of stone from it, which wasn't a moment too soon as it went off and coated the ground in glowing purple flames while he looked over his cover at the sight of an angry Guile, who soon demanded answers, James left his cover and walked through the Void flames before taking up a spot in front of the soldier.

"Moneybags sold information to this guy called Gnasty Gnorc, apparently a villain from his world. Said Gnasty Gnorc also paid for the capture of Sparx, this dragonfly, also from his world. So we saved the dragonfly, Gnorc punched his way through a wall and, well, chaos erupted. A short spat with his minions had him reveal he was infected, which was when I called you. Short version, the civvies ran, we fought Gnorc and his minions, who I hope are all dead because I came out here after that asshole you just killed, one of the new guys told the civilians to run out of the subways after, and I'll admit I was vague, I told them to keep them safe and the Body Snatcher infected a civilian who is now..." casting his gaze around, the Guardian found the infected person beheaded and grimaced behind his helmet, but pushed on. [color=SteelBlue]"Dead. That resulted in your Green...guys here having to shoot the fleeing civilians. You saw everything else I know or,"[color] he beckoned at the dead Body Snatcher, "caused it. The bear in question should still be unconscious in the remains of the Smash Arena."