---

(Never figured that I’d be doing odd jobs again…)

Phoenix’s time in Lumbridge had been interesting, to say the least. He felt like he stuck out like a sore blue thumb in this place. His attempts to ingratiate himself failed; not only was it hard to adapt to a life without the modern comforts he grew up with, but Lumbridge didn’t need a lawyer like him. Crimes were basic and suspects were just thrown into jail for a while. He was a complete moot point.

And that’s why Phoenix was standing at the entrance to the Guild Hall in the center of town, adjust his collar and cuffs over and over to try and stave off the heat. Since his attempts to strike up a law firm in Lumbridge never got off the ground, Phoenix was at the end of his rope. He needed money. The best way of getting that was through quests, though Phoenix tried to avoid questing. Way too dangerous for him!

“Maybe there’s some simple quests up today,” Phoenix said to himself, staring up at the Guild’s castle walls. “A delivery of milk. Or sheep herding. I can herd some sheep, definitely.”

Not far off, the indecisive first-timer picked up the attention of an onlooker. A small group of adventurers, their departure taking them past Phoenix as he entered, had left behind a young woman with long pink hair in giant twintails. Despite being alone by fellow quest-goers, the girl didn’t seem particularly bothered. Instead, she appeared to be deep in thought until her gaze settled on Phoenix, and an idea lit up her eyes. She stood up, headed over, and tapped on the older man’s shoulder. “...Excuse me?”

Phoenix was broken out of his introspection, already lost in thought about the best herding practices. “O-Oh, hello. Is there something I can do for you?”

The girl gave a radiant smile, closing her eyes for a moment as she did. “Hello there! I’m Hilda. Actually, since you offered, there kinda is something you can help me with. See, I was supposed to go out with a couple others on a job at the lake southeast of here, dealing with some fish. Thing is, I’m just no good at that sort of thing.” She threw up her hands, pouting helplessly. “Gross, scaly little things, wriggling around, ugh! I’d be totally useless. But, I’ve gotta go…” She made no request, instead letting the complaint hang in the air with a resigned expression.

Hilda, huh? Phoenix listened to her complaint, awkwardly side-stepping out of the doorway while facing her. “You have to go catch some fish..? Is that really that big of an issue?” (Then again, she does seem pretty delicate,) Phoenix thought. “I could do that for you, if you’d like, miss,” Phoenix said, straightening his back and fixing his tie.

Instantly, Hilda seized his hand in her and squeezed it. “Oh, thank you, thank you! You’re a lifesaver.” Letting go just as quickly, she scooted to the side to clear the way to the door for her new best friend. As he passed, she gave a genial wave and handed him her contract card. “Good luck out there!” Something occurred to her, and for a moment her brow furrowed. “Uh...and be careful! Some of those suckers can be preeeeetty big. Thanks again…!”

“Uh, thanks! You’re welcome?” Phoenix hurried out the door as Hilda motioned for him to leave, swept up in the girl’s enthusiasm. Before he knew what was happening, Phoenix stood right back outside, back against the Guild’s door. He stood there for a brief second, looking around and trying to piece his thoughts together. And then he realized something…

“Hey, you didn’t tell me which lake!” Phoenix turned to the door, yelling through it. He doubted she could hear him, though.

Not too far in front of him, a couple of boys were headed southeast as well, their movement bearing an obvious sense of direction in mind. Both wore light armor over their clothes, one blue and one red, and they shared an infectious sort of genuine spirit. Swords in tow, they journeyed onward as a good pace, discussing strategies for taking out fish in with enthusiasm and intensity. Phoenix didn’t pay them a lot of mind for a moment, but then he caught a bit of their conversation.

“Fish?” Phoenix looked in their direction, then down to the card in his hand. “Oh! Hey, wait up! I think I’m supposed to be going with you!” Phoenix sprinted after the boys, waving his contract in the air.

He probably should’ve asked himself why they had swords and armor if they were just catching some fish.

---

The kids accepted the lawyer, a weird but nevertheless welcome fellow since his arrival in the town, with open arms and set off again in earnest. The trio’s trip encompassed primarily rolling plains, with long grass billowing in the wind and only a few scattered creatures here and there. Wildflowers bloomed in the green, and to the east they could see the fields of wild wheat no doubt to be the subject of their own quest before long. chocobos dug around for gysahl greens, pokemon like bunnelby scampered between burrows, and herds of goats roamed rocky knolls. No threats presented themselves beneath the warm afternoon sun, and the invigorating stroll soon brought the three to their destination.

After cresting a hill, a blue expanse stretched out before them. Since the weekly rollover, the region had been scouted a fair bit already, with reports describing the verdant growth around the lake and the few odd amenities both near and upon it. In particular, a colorfully-roofed structure floated on the water, home to a couple clowns running an amusement service.

It was around now that Phoenix finally realized that this wasn’t an ordinary fishing trip. He’d grown suspicious when they arrived at the lake and he noticed not one of them had any fishing rods or spears on them. “Are we getting supplies in that big house?” Phoenix asked, looking to the pair for approval.

Gran and Euden shook their heads, looking grim. They hastened down the hill, approaching the water’s edge with Phoenix in tow. A number of floats and bridges provided a route to the funhouse, and the boys hurried across. Barely had they set foot on the first float than the water began to bubble, and from beneath the surface rose spear-wielding wretches neither fully human nor piscine. “There! Let’s take ‘em down,” Euden called, drawing his sword. Nodding, Gran did the same.

Bubbling abhorrently, the monsters moved in to attack. Luckily for Phoenix, his two armed comrades divided the fish’s attention, giving him enough time to backpedal away from the aquatic monsters. But more bubbles emerged along the floating bridge, surrounding him as he broke away from protection.

(Way to go, Phoenix. Run away from the only people who can keep you alive.)

Letting out a fearful cry, Phoenix rushed further up the bridge, tripping and stumbling his way across the buoyant platforms and towards what he hoped was safety: the floating house.

Geralt gave the Koopa King and his cronies a nod and a small wave as his goodbye, making sure they knew exactly what they needed to get for Mina. Wouldn't do for these new folks to ruin his good reputation, after all. He figured he'd be a bit more useful fighting actual monsters than hunting, however. It was his actual job, after all.

Linkle's pit stop to see her birds was actually somewhat endearing. Apparently she would have to get them back, though. He'd see if he couldn't pull some strings about that later, actually. No reason to keep a girl from her chickens.

While the group was going about the journey to the lake, Geralt decided to make sure he knew where everybody stood in terms of combat and teamwork. "All right you lot, before we actually get to the lake, I'd like to know how you fight. What you can do, how quick you can move, how well you can work together, all that. These fish-like monsters sound like Drowners, and they're a fierce fight. Known of plenty of folk who got caught by one and never came back. This is what I used to do back in my world on a daily basis. I'm a Witcher. We hunt monsters, protect folk for coin. I've got two swords. One silver, one steel. Silver's for monsters. Steel's for men and beasts." Pulling up his crossbow for a moment, he continued.

"Also have this hand crossbow. Don't let the size fool you, it's got the strength of a full-size crossbow. The draw weight is too strong for a normal human to handle. Which brings me to the next point. I'm not human. Not quite. Witchers...well, we're given mutagens to enhance our natural abilities. Gives us better reflexes, stronger, quicker bodies. We heal from injuries that would kill a normal man. Even have potions that can quicken the pace. I also have some poisons, as well as the know-how on how to make more. If I have the right ingredients, I can even make small bombs. Have a few of those on me as well. Grapeshot explodes into a bunch of metal pellets. Dimeritium stops the use of magic in a small area. That one's real useful for spectres and the like."

Taking a breath, Geralt shook his head. "Maybe a lot to take in. To keep it short, I'm stronger, tougher, and faster than your average man, and with the gear to boot. I can make all sorts of things to take down any monsters or beasts we come across, but only if I know what I'm dealing with. Unfortunately, a lot of the wildlife here is out of my experience, so I'll be comparing them to things I am used to dealing with. I can also track things by scent, so if we get lost, I can usually tell where we've been." A quick, appraising nod, and he finished. "That's the quick version. Any questions before we get ambushed by a bunch of fish people?"

Now was the perfect time to be ambushed by fish people.

Unusually for the Courier, he was worryingly silent for a pretty long stretch of time. Leaving the guild hall accompanied by Bowser and Linkle, they met up with a strange new man who looked like he came right out of an old Groknak the Barbarian comic book, with fantasy style armor, medieval weaponry, and strange eyes suggesting he wasn’t quite human. He had a gruff, grizzled appearance to him that matched the Courier’s own, and the mailman felt something of a kindred nature to this “witcher,” if not in ability then in theme. He could feel this Geralt (as he introduced himself) felt the same way. Maybe there was some sort of psychic connection between those who died and came back from the brink? An unknown connection? Bah, these weren’t the sort of thoughts he normally cared for.

The koopa king’s wizard rejoined them as well, saying he had visited the Master of Masters, which instantly caused the Courier’s blood to boil. The red in his face would be visible to anybody who even half paid him any attention (ironic for a professional gambler to have such a terrible poker face!). According to Kamek, the MoM had no relationship whatsoever with the local guildmaster, and their similar wardrobe choice had more to do with a primordial force of evil magic in their world than any particular group. Naturally the Courier found this claim to be highly suspicious, but he couldn’t write it off as lies so quickly. After all, the best liars knew when to include the truth to bolster their lies. Damn, if only he knew magic himself, then he might be able to figure out what the MoM was up to, or force him to tell the truth. Maybe he could learn magic. Either by being taught, or through a much faster way… With a spirit.

The Courier’s thoughts were forced back to the present as Din rejoined them alongside another dancer, who claimed to also be a fortune teller. This woman offered to tell all their fortunes, something that Linkle was all too happy to lap up. What the hell? The Courier wasn’t one to deny any free service, and who knows? The Forecaster back home was always right, and he was just a little kid. A psychic little kid that amplified his natural gift with a helmet sure enough, but a little kid all the same. Who knew what sort of results could come from a magical fortune teller who had more years to hone her craft?

The Courier watched the shadows move and listened to their master speak, interpreting the events. First a tall figure with long sleeves running in fear, then enveloped in fire. The fortune teller said that they would soon “understand the task” implying they didn’t fully grasp their current reality, which 6 thought was fair. But which task? Killing Galeem’s cronies to get to the ball of light itself? The quests this guild gave them all? Something they hadn’t even run into yet? The next vision was a bit more explicit, with what appeared to be Linkle and another long-eared individual, coupled with the narration that there would be a betrayal, but one that would be beneficial to them all. Curious. Could his own plotting against the Master be seen as a betrayal to the group? But what role would Linkle and this other individual play into that if true? Kamek reported that, according to the Master of Masters, his group wore animal masks. If that was a kernal of truth, then perhaps… The scene faded as both were attacked by large blades, only to be replaced by a separate scene of Bowser and Kamek, utterly unmistakable, with some statements about discovery and choosing sides (perhaps the betrayal earlier would fracture the group?). A smaller figure appeared to be absorbing a spirit, becoming, as the fortune teller said, “what was meant to be.” Fuck that, nothing is meant to be. Choice was the only thing that mattered. Finally the last image, a man and woman with swords, apparently about to battle? But they did not want to, according to the teller’s interpretation.

Apparently the adventure would be full of incredible revelations as they carried onward. Not unexpected, really. This was a hodgepodge of dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of worlds. There was absolutely no way they could have a full understanding of what was going on so early on in the game. Especially not when much of that exposition was given to them by him. Best to place down their bets and spin the wheel. After that, whatever happens, happens.

After that the fortune teller excused herself, leaving the group to mull over what they had just witnessed. The Courier kept his thoughts to himself, for obvious reasons, and didn’t comment on the others. Instead he focused on the flying alien spaceship passing overhead. Nobody else seemed to pay it any mind, so the Courier figured it must have been a local and didn’t bring it up, even as it disappeared over the horizon.



Since Linkle had agreed to accompany the Courier to go wrangle up some wigglers (which Bowser deemed as potentially dangerous and used in his own army, which meant that they couldn’t possibly be harmful) he decided to stick around with the group as they meandered and wasted some time. First was a trip to a kitchen, where Bowser was given a list of ingredients. Mmm, some down home cookin’, using whatever you found out in the wild. That was his style. His style, but not his quest. He’d leave such a “dignified” quest to the monarch.

---

Courier 6 was about to leave Lumbridge when Linkle (obviously) got distracted. He was about to reprimand her when, shock of shocks, she was attracted to a strange breed of chickens. He had seen pictures of these animals in books from before the Great War, but never in person. Like most animals in his world, chickens had gone extinct. Fucking nuclear wasteland. Linkle called them her friends. Really now? So she was good with animals too? This was just too precious to ruin with a good tongue thrashing. He approached and held his hand over the fence alongside the hylian girl, where a “cuccoo” landed on his hand and bawked happily. For the first time in a while he broke his silence.

”Heh. I reckon they like me. No surprise there, most animals take a shinin’ to me even more’n the master they’ve loved fer years. Don’t know why.” He turned to face Linkle and, with Din’s own affirmation, nodded in agreement. ”I’ll make a promise to ya, pardner. We’ll get yer little friends back no matter what, an’ I never break a pardner promise. If’n Boone or Arcade or any of the old posse were here right now, I know they’d tell ya what my word is worth.”

With that said, the Courier took off South, heading for the area where he was supposed to be catching up some wigglers. That was the plan he had laid out, after all. Go south, get wigglers, then head east to the fish monster problem. Two nearby quest areas in a quick pinch, yee-haw! Ah, but walking would take a while, wouldn’t it? If only they had a faster way of getting out there… That’s when the Courier spotted some of those giant birds that were roaming around outside the town. They looked mighty strong, and were certainly big enough to be a good mount! Better than his heracross, anyway. He didn’t imagine the giant beetle was a fast runner.

”Howdy birdies!” he hollered out, waving his arms. A small group of three chocobos stopped what they were doing to stare at the Courier, puzzled and curious. He waved them on over, an invite they took. Though they showed no signs of fear to the Courier himself, they did appear to be wary of his companions. ”There there, birdies. It’s alright,” he said with a drawl, patting the nearest chocobo on the beak. It cooed in appreciation, so he hopped on up without a fuss.

”Perfect. Y’all are welcome t’see if’n they’re willin’ ta let you ride them. In any case, I’m off to wrangle me some wigglers. Feel free to saddle up with me, either way I’ll be headin’ off t’the fish monsters right after. YEE-HAW!” And with that his chocobo mount took off South, running far faster than he had anticipated.

---

---

The shoulder slap and encouragement from the pretty boy did nothing for Ratchet, mostly because what he assumed to be Ratchet wasn’t actually there. His hand phased right through the Dec0y hologram. The real Ratchet, invisible, was right up in the thick of the action already bashing the tank zombie around the head, standing atop its shoulders. His invisibility phased out as the Dec0y was spotted for what it really was, but he had already gotten several good thwacks in with his omniwrench. Unlike Gene however, he knew when to get the heck out of dodge. That beeping was signal enough, especially for a lombax who used enough heavy firepower weapons himself. With some well timed backflip hops he was safely out of the danger zone. Gene? Not so much.

The tank exploded violently, spreading ludicrous gibs all over the place. Jak landed, his wings dissipating into the air like a thousand little fire embers dying out, his light form doing much the same. ”Not the brightest bulb in the kitchen, are you?” Jak asked a bit more smug than was necessary.

”Yeah, we were all the way up in the sky and we still recognized the sound of a bomb! What a dingus!” Daxter added.

”Hold up guys, I mean, he took that bomb to the face and still walked away from it,” Ratchet reasoned. ”He’s probably weaker than normal, like the rest of us, and just went off of muscle memory. Maybe at his full power that kind of explosion wouldn’t phase him? After all, you broke your car trying to ram him earlier and didn’t leave a scratch on the guy.”

”Hmf. Fair enough. But he needs to watch himself, because I’m not pulling any of my punches.”

”Guys, guys, set that all aside and let’s focus on the important stuff!” Daxter intervened, sounding abnormally like the voice of reason. ”Who had more kills?” He narrowed his eyes on Ratchet with a condescending grin. Well, that voice of reason lasted all of two seconds, a new personal best. ”Because by my count your puny boom boom gun didn’t do JACK while I-” Jak glared at his friend. ”-I mean WE, took out a dozen, no, a hundred, no A THOUSAND slobbering zombies!”

Clank appeared to counter Daxter’s ludicrous claims. “By my observation the ensuing shrapnel of Ratchet’s explosions fell three nearby zombies, while Jak’s vulcan fury pierced through and destroyed thirty-nine. Would you like a visual playback?”

”Clank!” Ratchet shouted. The little robot ever so slightly recoiled back in surprise.

“... Not helping?”

”Not helping,” Ratchet agreed.

“Then pardon my intrusion.” Clank gave a little bow, then vanished again.

At about this time Nero called for everyone to pack up and head out. Jak and Ratchet were about to race each other over to the tank zombie’s spirit, only for it to have already been taken by one of the others. Damn, too much time arguing! Oh well, there would be others.

Nero pointed out some sort of spire that looked like it was made not from any normal construction material, but of flesh and blood. “Eeeewwww, groddy!” was the thought through Daxter’s head, but he didn’t vocalize it (for once in his life) as they were to be moving through quietly. Even he recognized the importance of not drawing attention to yourself when surrounded in enemy territory! So Jak and Daxter hopped back into the van while Ratchet got back into his kart, and they all took off.

---

The van came to a halt in less than ideal circumstances, the Blue Falcon kart right behind it. A huge crater blocked their path, necessitating a detour. Situations like these always seemed to be ripe with ambushes, so every hero was alert: Ratchet, Clank, and Jak out of vigilance, and Daxter out of sheer anxiety. The van’s detour took it through a graveyard, first busting down the gates and then bouncing around the stairs. ”WOAH WOAH WOAH HEY! WATCH THE ROAD YOU CRAZY DAME!”

”Oof! I don’t think the kart was made for terrain like this!” Ratchet commented as he followed behind. Something was knocked loose in the engine and parts of the frame cracked. Great that was going to need extra work. The engine began smoking and died, the kart slowing to a total stop near the van.

That’s when all Hell broke loose. A huge demon howled, bursting onto the scene and showing off its ability to turn corpses into yet another variety of zombie. ”Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Jak jumped out of the van, Daxter atop his shoulder. Ratchet sighed and hopped out of the now-dead kart, mourning its loss. Then another of these demons burst from the wall, knocking the van aside and into the void! Gasps came from all three heroes.

”We almost just died!” cried Daxter. Jak didn’t have the time to chastise his friend’s sense of priority, and Ratchet was already springing into action. Nero was displaying absolutelyinhuman strength by planting his feet and single handedly keeping the van from falling to its total doom, but this was taking everything the young demonslayer had, while enemies were quickly advancing on his position. Ratchet decided that he’d be up for some crowd control with his bombuilder, flipping right in front of Nero’s position.

”Locked and loaded!” he said, firing off a proximity bomb into the swarm to thin the numbers early and quickly. It landed directly on the corpse one of the suffering was in the middle of reviving, blasting the thing to smithereens and taking out a good chunk of the surrounding zombies with it… But the suffering only looked to be pissed off.

”Get’im, Jak!” Jak needed no encouragement. He lived for this kind of grim fight. His morph gun switched to blaster form and he unloaded shot after shot of high powered yellow eco into the swarm, each ball of energy burning a chuck out of the zombie it hit. He charged forward as he shot until he came face to face with the suffering that was about to charge.

”Prepare to die!” In a sudden surge of dark eco, Jak gained tremendous muscle mass, pitch black eyes, grayed skin, and long claws. Rippling with the power of dark eco, Dark Jak was ready to tussle with the suffering head on!

“ROOOOOAR!” The suffering slammed him aside almost effortlessly with two massive arms. Dark Jak tumbled along the ground, bouncing like a rubber ball.

”Jak? JAK?! What happened, buddy?!” Daxter shouted into his friend’s face, his own nature protecting him from the dark eco radiating off Jak’s body. Suddenly and without warning Jak’s eyes opened and he let out his own roar. Nearly throwing Daxter off, Jak jumped up and grabbed the nearest object to him, Ratchet’s broken down Blue Falcon.

”Hey! I was gonna fix that!” Ratchet’s protests went unheard and ignored. The metal and plastic began to warp, twist, and burn away. The dark eco arcing through Jak’s body destroyed parts, and altered others so the kart was unrecognizable from its original state. He charged forward, bashing zombies out of his way with the huge club until he came to the suffering again.

”RAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” Dark Jak smashed the kart, rippling with dark eco, right into the suffering with both arms, screaming with rage and adrenaline all the way.

Donnie had opted not to use the Disc this time around, instead choosing to stay in the back of the van, where he examined the item he had obtained from the Tank. It was a bizarre little thing. At first glance, he had assumed it was some kind of cursed trinket, what with the creepy black skull in the middle and what felt like the spirit of a human being inside it.

But as he analyzed it with his enchanting equipment, he soon came to realize it was quite the opposite. It was an ingenious yet disgusting device. This little stone was once a man, and it still held that metaphysical status even in its current state, which meant it could be affected by curses. When the enchantment inside was activated, it redirected a curse onto the soul of the person inside. He shouldn't have expected much better, frankly, from the Spirit of a twisted monstrosity like the Tank.

All of his adventuring instincts told him to throw this abomination into a deep dark hole where it could never be found, or better yet, find a way to free the poor bastard inside.

But as he analyzed it further, he registered that the soul inside was no longer conscious or aware, and there was no way in hell he was going to be able to free the hapless man any time soon.

He thought back to Gene, completely unaware that he had likely been infected by whatever plague was powering those ghouls. He had known that some of them were still alive. The tongue of the zombie that had grabbed him was still warm. Possibly some kind of insanity-causing curse?

He had no idea if what Gene was infected with was biological or magical. Zombies in his world were animated by magic, but the Plague of Undeath spread like an illness.

He was no doctor, but he had to try. Better than letting Gene succumb to homicidal insanity. So, full of trepidation, he packed up his enchanting equipment, palmed the black stone, and walked back over to the seating area, sitting down next to the brawler.

“Hey Gene? I’ve got something to show you,” he said. Something in his voice probably gave away that this wasn’t the “happy” kind of showing.

Gene was a bit busy scratching his skin at the moment. It'd started getting really itchy for some strange reason. What's up with that? It was starting to really freak him out. Despite his circumstances in his own world, he was usually really healthy, so why would that change now?

Did it have anything to do with that fat zombie that barfed on him? He really should've dodged when he heard that noise. Now he was getting screwed for it. And he had just washed it off! By now the goop was in the van's plumbing. Nero was gonna kill him for that.

His thoughts were interrupted by Donnie's voice. Gene perked up, looking at Donnie curiously. "Uh, what's up?" he asked.

“First, have you been feeling okay lately?” It was patently obvious what Donnie was referring to.

Gene blinked. Jeez, it was like Donnie read his mind. "Uh... Yeah, actually. My skin's been really irritated and itchy..." He moved his hand from his unarmored forearm, revealing that his skin had become ghostly pale. "... Oh shit. It wasn't like that before."\

“Yep, you’re infected. I don’t know if this will work, but I might have a cure. I got this from the big zombie.” He shoved the black stone into Gene’s hands. “Hold this in your hand and try to concentrate on the illness going away. I know it sounds like hocus-pocus, but trust me, I figured out what this stone does.”

Taking the stone that was shoved into his hands, Gene looked it over. It looked... Pretty damn spooky. But hey, it'd cure him! So that had to mean it wasn't that bad.

"Alright, thanks Donnie." With those words, Gene took the stone in hand, closed his eyes, and attempted to focus on the illness. To help him along, he imagined himself beating the crap out of it so it'd leave him alone.

A almost draining like effect appeared all over Gene's body. After a few moments, Gene felt... A lot better! The itching was gone. Opening his eyes, Gene looked at his forearm and saw that his skin's pigment had returned to normal. However, the Purging Stone was destroyed in the process. "Wow! It's a good thing we got that thing, or I'd have been a goner. Thanks, Donnie."

“You’re welcome.”

Holy fuck that actually worked. Donnie couldn’t believe his eyes. Either these zombies really were cursed, or the weird physics of this world let it go through anyway. Either way, Gene was cured.

Suddenly, the van flipped over. Donnie’s world hadn’t developed seatbelts yet, however, so he was not secured enough to avoid tumbling all over the place. “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

And unluckily for Gene, he hadn't even been in a car until today. Just like Donnie, he went tumbling to the floor of the van. "What the hell was that?!"

Donnie peeled himself off of Gene and looked out the windows. Yep, everything had gone to the Twisting Nether. Nero was holding the van off the edge of a cliff with one arm, the zombies were glowing green, and there were two nasty demons outside. The monk acted quickly. Fiddling with the locked car door, he managed to get it open.

Donnie summoned the Disc and flew around to the van’s front, pushing against it. He was in peak physical condition, but he didn’t actually have to do much here: Nero was holding the van in place, and the Disc could move freely in the air. So he could just command the Disc to move forwards and up, digging its lip under the van and helping him push the vehicle up.

“Let me help you out!” he got out, grunting with exertion as he pushed against the van’s grille with all of his strength.

Gene, for his part, managed to get himself steady enough that he could start climbing to the door Donnie had just opened. He looked around, seeing it was just over the edge of the cliff, enough for him to jump right over to safety, which he did.

The only problem? There was now a shitload of pissed off zombies and two really pissed off demons to account for. Gene looked around, wondering what the hell to do, when he remembered the God Hand. It had recharged by now, and it could help keep the infected off of the van!

Grabbing the Deistic Brace, Gene ripped it off, and felt the power of a God flow through him. Grinning, he rushed forward, delivering a leaping kick that tore through multiple infected.

"KEEP WORKING! Gene shouted to Donnie and Nero, while he began to clear out the various zombies. He only hoped the two demons would be attracted to him, somehow. Maybe...

Right! He could try and piss them off deliberately! During a lull in the combat, Gene focused on the two demons, sticking his arm out in a thumbs down and yelling, "Bo-ring!" As if on cue, the two demons started to look a lot more pissed off than they did before.

... So much so that they started running right to him. Screw it, he was invincible! For a little while, at least. He continued to attack the infected, and the demons if they got close enough. He could only hope it was enough.

The female Baurun nosed around the forest with the rest of the herd. Occasionally it used its tusks to dig up plump root vegetables but mostly it was gorging itself on herbs, berries and other easily accessible nutritious plants. Out the corner of its eye the boar like creature spotted something red and shiny moving. Its eyes darted to the movement only to find an apple now laying in the grass some way away from the other swine. The delicious, and normally inaccessible treat. The Baurun nonchalantly wandered over in the direction of the fruit so as to avoid alerting the others of the existence of its prize. Once there it carefully edged closer to the fruit, jaws opening wide to grasp it when suddenly.

*boom*

The pig startled at the distant explosion, flinching away from the fruit just in time to avoid having its skull pierced by a long energy claw that came spearing its way out of a neary bush. The extended finger remained pointing at the Baurun for half a second before it squealed and hurriedly backed off.

”oh come on!” Yelled bowser jr as his head popped out of the bush, which was followed moments later by Kamek and Bowser’s heads. ”Stupid stupid explotions!” he continued, but any additional complaints were drowned out by the rapidly increasing sound of hooves pounding dirt floor.

”I recommend we flee” Kamek suggested, before taking his own advice and turning tail. The two royals were hot on his heels as the Baurun herd rallied to defend its attacked member, becoming first a trickle and then a torrent of muscle and fur that stampeded after the turtles invading their home.

”Useless minions, left us with the hard job,” The rather small Bowser breathlessly bemoaned as he rapidly fell behind his two flying relatives as broom and clown car they weaved through the dense trees before escaping out into the open air.
”Almost. There” he grunted to himself before the horned Baurun smacked into his back. Armored shell and forward momentum kept him in once piece, but the king was nonetheless ejected from the forest rather than escaping it.

The king tumbled out of the woods flailing wildly before a clawed hand stabbed into the ground, arresting his rolling exit and he began to grow rapidly, dark magic and enlarge spell gripping his body now that he was free of the cramped forest. He quickly enlarged to a size where he dwarfed both the Baurun and trees alike before roaring angrily at their pursuers. The buff swine seemed unimpressed. This was, afterall, the third time they’d chased the koopas out of their home and they would not be leaving the safety of the forest any time soon. After a bit of snorting and hoof stamping they returned to the woods while the king struggled to control his temper.

”Remember to refrain from using your fire Sire. we’ll need the plants un incinerated after we handle the Baurun. So the last thing we want is a forest fire.” Kamek reminded his king from where he hovered. Once the swine left he lowered his wand and released the spell he had caste upon Bowser.

”I know” Bowser growled as he shrunk back down.

”and we can’t just demolish them all because we need undamaged sprites”

”I know!”

”Gah! we’ve been at this for ages” jr complained from his clown car, leaning back in frustration with his nose to the sky. ”and whoever keeps blowing stuff up ruined every plan you had” He paused for a moment to think before declaring: ”So I’m gonna go deal with that instead of wasting any more time!”

The prince pushed himself upright, grabbed the controls of his car and turned it up and away, flying towards the canyon.

”Young master it’s only been 5 minuits! Have more patience, we’ll think of a winning plan soon enough” Kamek called after him before sighed and pinching the bridge of his nose.

”Come on.” Bowser grunted, before stomping off after his son inorder to make sure he didn't get hurt by whatever kept blowing up.

Up and ahead jr had flown down into the ravine, following a rough path down its side a ways underground. After a minute or two, he discovered what he was looking for. He had not only found out what was making the explosions, but he had found two of their minions(Tora & Poppi), one of whom was being followed by a strange cubic four legged green creature with a very tall torso. Seeing an opportunity, and missing the fact that Tora was leading the creeper rather than being chased, jr pressed down the control stick of his clown copter and swooped in to the rescue.

As he approached he flicked one of many switches on its control console, causing a single arm to extend out one side of the car. Rather than the usual boxing gloves or more dangerous power tools this arm instead had the Synapse living rifle mounted on it. Or, perhaps more accurately, growing on it.

”Take this!” jr cried as they tumbed a trigger on the control stick, causing a series of wires running along the arm to pull the flesh trigger of the gun without having to handle the disgusting thing. A beam of lightning shot out, streaming wildy through the air as Jr struggled to aim his new lopsided weapon setup. Rather than being properly focused on it’s target the continuous electrical beam slashed across the creeper several times before it ran out of energy and needed to recharge. As the meat gun was pulled back into the clown car it became clear that rather than being harmed the monster seemed to have had absorb the energy, being engulfed in an ominous Blue aura.

”Uhhhh. I meant to do that!” Jr insisted as he hovered there unhelpful.

Though somewhat surprised to be joined by an unexpected ally at this juncture, Tora and Poppi appreciated his help, right up until it became clear his efforts hindered rather than helping. At first Tora thought that Junior was merely mucking up his work, unaware of his strategy, but when the creeper lit up with crackling electric power, it became clear that the Koopa’d done something much worse. “Uh oh meh,” the Nopon said, raising his shield and hunkering down behind it. Poppi responded by going full throttle, glowing gold as power surged into her Masterpon’s defense, and just in time.

KOOOM!

The charged creeper detonated with a deafening blast, throwing Tora and Poppi back like a football and a bowling pin. Their defenses mitigated the damage done to them, but the surrounding environment wasn’t so lucky. So enormous was the creeper’s explosion that, when the dust cleared, a circular cavern a couple dozen feet in diameter had been carved into the surrounding stone. Now looking more than a little worse for wear, Tora glanced around blearily. “Urk. Is Poppi okay?”

Pulling herself out from under him, the artificial blade nodded. She looked less than pleased, as though she’d seen this exact event coming from a mile away. When she turned to glare daggers at Bowser Jr, however, she found herself distracted by the wealth of ores and gems lying about on the ground, including a few her team had yet to encounter.

Tora noticed her silence and followed her gaze. Poppi noticed and turned away, but it was too late. With a look of vindictive glee on his face, the Nopon scurried over and scooped up a green crystal in his wing. He held it up to the light filtering through from the ravine and watched it glow a beautiful emerald. “Meeeh, so pretty-pretty,” he said, grinning as he started to dust himself off. “Tora call that job well done.” A thumbs-up went Junior’s way. “Littlepon very big genius!”

”Heck yeah I am!” jr replied proudly as he hovered down to the crater to inspect the riches revealed.

”Young master are you alright!” Kemek called as he caught up with the prince.

”Yeah yeah I’m fine.” Jr waved kamek off while another picked up one of the crystals.

”Turns out all the explosions where the marshmallow blowing himself to dig stuff up.” he explained as he examined his prize

Jr looked at the green glowing stone thoughtfully, then began tossing it up and down as he looked at the crater, then at another of the green monsters lurking in the distance and then finally at Kamek. A grin split his lips while he rubbed his hands together.

While the prince had been scheming his father arrived, stomping across the canyon floor to join the group. The king took a moment to take in the scene before flicking a hand towards Tora and Poppi. Heel the Rabbid materialised on his shoulder, rna down his arm and then hopped down to scrub away their very mild injuries with a few bursts of healing energy from its backpack.

”What’s going on here?” the king asked as his minion worked its magic.

”I’ve got a way to rake in the ore and gems fast as lightning!” Jr announced triumphantly.

---

Whatever alien thoughts a creature that existed only to explode where interrupted as the creeper was splattered with ink. With a hiss it turned to face its attacker, finding a floating vehicle with two arms sticking out the side. One had a super soaker filled with a black liquid while the other was engulfed in an organism that suddenly blasted it with lightning.

Whether it was pleased about the fact that it became supercharged by the attack or was even aware of the charge was unknown. Nor was it clear if the face jr pulled while sticking his tongue out at it registered at all but it began to chase after him regardless.

The living mining explosive successfully supercharged and baited jr turned his car towards the nearby cliff face. Atop it, hiding behind a pile of rocks, hid the rest of the party. As the sound of jr’s heli car came closer bowser and kamek’s heads popped out behind their barricade.

”Hit it!” the king commanded and the mage obayed

”cats eye and rotten fungus, this spell will make you humongous!” Kamek waved his want in a circle and then sent a blast of magic down into the canyon towards the creeper. After a couple of heartbeats it struck the creature.

For a moment nothing happened. Then the creeper began to grow. And grow. And grow.

The determined stroll became a series of thumping stomps as it continued its way through the new tunnel towards them.

Tora and Poppi’s eyes grew wide. Having collected the last of their ores and crystals, they fled as fast as they could. Poppi took off once she had enough headroom, flying out of the hollowed-out zone to hover in the open space of the ravine. She extended a hand, and Tora jumped to take it before the two boosted upward to a safe distance.

”Goombart! Now!” jr yelled as he joined the party, landing his flying cart behind the rocky formation and joining them to keep an eye on the proceedings.

At his command a lone goomba scurried out from where he had been hiding in an earlier created hole. “Hay! Hay! I’m walking here! Look at me! Hay” the unlucky goomba striker shouted at the titanic walking bomb as he changed its side and tackled it’s now massive leg.

“Hay you lanky Bobom wanna be you wanna go!” the goomba yelled as he picked himself up before seeing the creeper looking right at him.

“Hiss” went the creeper, its green flesh pulsing white

“Ho boy”

Once, twice, thrice, went the flashes, growing faster and brighter each time. Yet the fuse was also burned down more slowly and far more ominously than a normal sized creeper would have done so. While the prince and mage watched the impending detonation with manic yes bowser grabbed them both, pulled them down behind the rock and wrapped his arms around their protesting forms, placing his shell and the rock between them and the creeper as the flashes became a blinding strobe light.

KABOOM!!!!

The ear-shattering noise heralded the arrival of a cataclysmic explosion. Tons and tons of stone turned to dust, filling the tunnels, the ravine, and finally shooting out into the forest itself. It took a good while for the dust to begin to settle, and when it did, a hundred-foot diameter sphere had been hollowed from the rock. Water, stained gray, pooled in the bottom, collecting the resources displaced by the blast. Not only metals and gems, but a few spirits gathered together there, accidental byproducts of the devastation. There were bats, underground goombas, slimes, more slimes, and a strange creature. As the air continued to clear, Tora and Poppi returned, Poppi’s jets causing some billowing as she arrived. Her sack of materials was at the ready, and she went to work. Tora, however, waved the others over first. “Meh meh meh! As exciting as that was, Tora not think we should try again. Is more than enough goody-goodies anyway.” With that he joined her, hurriedly stuffing stuff into his sack. The koopas went down with them. While the others picked through the rubble for loot Jr summoned his squads of koopa troopas and goombas to hurriedly gather up as much of the goods as possible for him, the minions dump them into the clown car's interior while the boy himself absorbed the blue goomba sprites to add them to his army. Some worrying rumbles continued well after the blast’s shockwave would have died, and the Nopon suspected that what remained of the ceiling might not be holding up for much longer.

His suspicions proved correct when the ceiling began to shed. At first, only little pieces fell down, but soon chunks began to rain as well. Tora looked up, only to get bopped on the head. “Ouch, meh! Time to go!” He flung his sack over his back, turned tail, and rushed back toward the way leading up. Poppi and the koopas followed behind with goods in tow.

They made it with only a few moments to spare. Enormous slabs of rock and dirt smashed into the ground behind them as they ascended, leaving the cave-in behind. Noise filled the air, and tremors the earth, until an entire section of the forest itself collapsed into the ground, trees and all. Granted, plenty of forest remained, but the manmade disaster still rattled the heroes through and through. Panting, Tora wiped dust from his eyes and brushed it from his feathers. “Meeeeeh. Tora not think simple mining job get so big or dangerous.”

Poppi eyed the koopas and their accompanying sorcerer. “We are thankful for help, but help so dangerous that Poppi cannot condone. Please be less reckless.” Still, she bore a weary smile. “Did smith ladies also send to mine?”

”No way that was amazing!” jr replied as he began sorting through the assorted loot his minions had gathered. An unfortunate amount of the items where regular stones but there were still plenty of goodies.

”It was perhaps a touch excessive.” Kamek admitted sheepishly as he dusted off his robes. None of the koopa troop were concerned about the unnatural disaster they had wrought in the slightest, but the cave in had been a bit too close of a call for Kamke’s tastes. A small bag of sprites gathered from the crater hung from the front of his broom which he picked through as he explained that ”We were mostly passing by during another quest. We’re doing some work for the guild in town, trying to get in their good books so we can use their knowledge and contacts to track down the area boss. To do so we and the rest of the team are doing quests to climb their ranking system and reaping some quest rewards in the process.”

The mage picked the quest cards out of a pocket and showed them to pair.

”we need to do two of these before they condone us going after the ‘Terror of the plains’ quest. The saurian it mentions might be a guardian of Galeem, or it might just be a strong miniboss. Either way it’s a good way to gain influence in the area while powering up in the process.”

”We came here to the forest to do part of the ‘Food for the hungry’ Quest. There's quite the extensive grocery list involved that people are handling into various parts of as they come across them.” kamek explained as he began crushing the cave slime sprites, fishing for the slime gelatin item on the list. ”but we came over here to investigate the explosions. Then helped out seeing as the ladies left their quest with the guild.”

”AND BECAUSE NEEDING TO USE ’PRECISION’ TO TAKE DOWN THE BEASTS IS A PAIN IN THE BUTT” Bowser complained while the hammer bro’s picked through the massive fistfuls of materials he had brought up out of the crater. ”I’M NOT BUILT FOR PRECISION! I’M BUILT FOR CAUSING DEVASTATION!”

”That too. The boar and bull like baurun have been proving quite the tricky opponents to take down properly” Kamek explained.

The news left Tora and Poppi thoughtful. “So to hunt, need precision?” Tora confirmed.

Frowning, Poppi said, “Not our strength, either. In fact, of all of former friends, masterpon and Poppi probably least precise. Primary output is blunt force, after all. If only friends Morag or Zeke were here…”

A sigh escaped Tora. From time to time his friends escaped his mind, but he never really forgot. Rex and Pyra, Nia and Dromarch, Morag and Brighid, Zeke and Pandoria...how much longer would it be before the lot of them reunited? The urge to resume his search struck him, but he had a duty to uphold. Since Bowser’s group helped with his quest, he needed to return the favor. He put his mind to the task, reviewing the grocery list handed to him, and after a moment of consideration said, “Would be best to use lance or arrows. Or firearms.” A glance at Kamek’s bag prompted a third idea. “Maybe break spirits until we get one. But no, meh. Precision take skill too. Better to get plants and eggs and things, then find someone with right skills to tackle beasts.”

Everyone concurred, and split up to scrounge the forest for less-mobile goods. Even with the cave-in, the ravine provided a good chance to drum up cave commodities like mushrooms, and the field of wild wheat waited to the forest’s south whenever the crew moved on.

Magnumus Agoston, Centurion.

Level 3 - (23/30) EXP
Location: Lumbridge
Word Count: 276

---

Agoston found a nearby stream and looked at himself in the rippling reflection. His buzzcut was now tinged with steel white, and his eyes had a striking white core within the flames. His form shrunk, and to be honest he was glad for it. It would probably make it easier to fly if he ever wanted too, and being so tall made him feel clunky. He still looked just as strong as he was, though, which was excellent. Physical strength was always important to the Centurion, though in many other worlds it seemed a variety of other skills were very highly valued as well.

One thing he noticed was an immediate uptick in martial skill, similar to his own military training, but with extra tricks. He felt like he could take on anyone in a hand to hand fight. Agoston stood from the stream and boxed the air, finding himself moving with startling fluidity and explosiveness in his movements. It felt good. Ryu, even in his corrupted state, had helped the righteous cause with this gift.

With a new freedom in his joints, Agoston took the short walk back to town. He realized that the party was getting a bit discombobulated when he had a hard time finding anyone. They weren't a formal unit, they were all just stragglers. He himself had contributed to the mess. Walking into the guild hall he asked the guild master a question.
"Guild Master. Do you know where my friends went? In particular, how about the, uh..." He thought for a moment. "The big turtle one. Named Bowser, King of the Koopas, you couldn't have missed him."

@ProPro@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN@Stern Algorithm

---

Linkle turned and took one last wistful look in the direction of her cuccos as they left town. "I don't know what to say. Thanks." she said to her companions. She had kind of expected Din to offer her help, but the gunman was something of a surprise. After all, he'd mostly come along because this was a job, right? It touched her that he was agreeing to help with a problem that was so personal to her. She already had the notion of an idea of how to get them back, but considering everything else that had come of her brilliant strategic thinking having a solid plan be was a good idea.

She had been so engrossed with the thought of her girls that she hadn't even noticed the cat eyed hunter had joined them until he spoke up, causing her to jump slightly. Apparently he'd found the quests to the south more agreeable than escorting the koopa king on his hunting mission. As he shared a little about himself and the monsters he thought they would be after she sort of got lost in his eyes. The red of them. She wondered what might be the best time to do something about that, especially considering how dangerous the Witcher made himself out to be. Super strength, super speed, super toughness, potions, bombs. He even had an entire silver sword, which in her opinion completely beat out the silver arrow the hero used to finish off Ganon in the oldest legends.

He also had good taste in crossbows, though his was slightly smaller. She whipped out her pair, spinning them in her hands before leveling them at the sky. "I run in close and shoot monsters with these. Sometimes twenty or thirty monsters at once, I just get into the middle of the group and spray. Or get in front and spray. Or I shoot bombs at them, and they blow up." She considered something for a moment, and her confidence seemed to falter as she lowered her bows. Lately that hasn't been working as well as it used too, but I think that's just because we've been fighting so many powerful commander types instead of groups of regular monsters. Good news is I learned how to aim these recently thanks to a helpful rabbit." She spun with the bows in hand and fired off three bolts from each at a nearby tree, where they formed a shaky but mostly straight line up the trunk. She did this just by pulling the triggers, without drawing the bow strings back or loading any bolts in compleat defiance of how a crossbow was supposed to function. She grinned, oblivious to this. "See. So I should be able to do something now even if my usual moves don't work so long as the monster isn't made of metal. Or a turtle."

She holstered the bows back into her boots crossed her arms, pensively. "I'm not so good at thinking, though. Most of my ideas have ended up blowing up in my face." she said, thinking back to the Bastion. "I'm better when someone else is telling me what to do, so if one of you guys has a battle plan shout it out and I'll follow it. I've got really good hearing."

After a while of thinking about the monsters Geralt had described Linkle piped up again. Ih he needed to know about monsters to fight them effectively there was no reason she couldn't share some of the information she had. "We have fish people back where me and Din come from too. They're called Zora, but I'd never talk about them like that Sheriff did. I've never heard of them being a danger to travelers or being 'sag-mouthed.' The only Zora I've ever met was beautiful." Then again, she was becoming more and more convinced by this mixed up world situation that that one Zora had been the Princess Ruto talked about in the legends and not just a Zora named after her so maybe the others were more ugly than that. "If they are Zora, this could just be a misunderstanding. Unless they're River Zora, those guys are really territorial and they look like exactly what he described except for the walking like men part. I've heard they have fish tails, so all they can do is pop out of the water and shoot magic at passing travelers. So if you're ever near the shore and see a whirlpool suddenly form in the water, look out because that's a River Zora about to get'cha."

---

It wasn't long before they were out in the wilds, and it wasn't long after that that the Courier waved down a few of those giant birds. The man had a way with birds that she was starting to get a little jealous of as she saw the wariness in the birds eyes regarding the rest of them. Not to be outdone she slowly extended a hand. "Tsk tsk tsk, c'mere girl. Coo coo." she wiggled her fingers enticingly as the bird approached, reaching up to scratch the feathers of its neck the same place her girls liked being scratched. The thing shuttered, and let out a delighted KWEH!. "That's a good girl. You're just a big old cucco, aren't you? Aren't you girl?" The chocobo stepped up to her, shoving its body into her face. Lickle stepped back with a cough, holding her nose with her free hand while continuing to rub it with the other. "A big old stinky cucco."

The courier, though, ignored the smell and hopped on up on the birds back. Linkle, not to outdone in a contest of bird handling, ignored the smell and pulled herself up onto its back. The creature went WARK, and stumbled uneasily back and forth before Linkle patted it on the side a few times to calm it down. After that it went surprisingly docile, as though it was used to this. "It's fine." she called to Din and Geralt. "I think she likes it."

A thought occurred as she looked at them. She glanced between the pair and the one remaining bird. Of course, the passenger to bird ratio wasn't the problem. After all, Din had a magic goat that she could ride. Would that really be for the best in this situation, though?

"Sorry Din," she said, turning back to look at them as the bird started to move off to follow the Courier. "This one's really eager to get moving, it looks like you're just going to have to share with Geralt." She was right in the middle of giving Din a conspiratorial eyebrow wiggle when the bird suddenly picked up speed, jerking her back and almost off before she re-settled herself amd held on a bit tighter. "Good luuuuck!" she called back to her.

She was grinning like an idiot as the bird bounced along, the wind flowing through her hair. She wondered it maybe she could breed cuccos that were this big, or even bigger. They were already strong enough to act as a parachute if you were falling from a high place, and if she were able to give them as helpful and gentle temperament as these birds had they might just be the best mounts in Hyrule. Chocobos must have been a dream pet back in whatever world they came from.

"Oh no!" she said, remembering the shopping list and burying her face in the chocobos neck feathers. She was never going to be able to kill one of these things now that she was friends with one.

---

The spider, despite its terrifying appearance, fell easily to Michael and Franklin's combined firepower. The two quickly moved on to the next room, weapons at the ready. Fortunately for them, there didn't seem to be any more enemies there. Lowering their weapons somewhat, they moved on to the braziers in the center of the room. They could see someone, presumably the person they needed to rescue, stuck in the middle of the multi-colored fires. Franklin stepped forward and tried to get past them, but the fires spread out to block his path, somehow not burning him. "Woah!" He shouted, taking a step back in surprise. "What the hell?"

Michael instinctively raised his Uzi as the fires shot up, only lowering it once he saw Franklin was unharmed. "You alright?" He asked, and Franklin nodded in response. "Alright...well, this isn't the weirdest thing I've seen, but I don't know how we're supposed to get past this..."

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, the fire began to move. The two took several steps back as the fire began to shape itself into several vaguely foxlike creatures, dancing in the fire. Their singing caused the two to step back further, keeping a tight grip on their guns. However, the creatures just continued to dance around the fire, leaving the two alone. They lowered their weapons somewhat, sharing a look. "What the fuck was that?"

Franklin shook his head. "Something fucked up, that's what. But it sounds like this is how we're gonna get past that fire."

"I...I guess, yeah." Michael looked around the room. There were four doors, opposite the four braziers. "Probably in one of these rooms...let's try the green one."

---

The room across from the green brazier was small, and empty save for the objects in the middle of the room. The monoliths and the large flower between them drew Michael and Franklin towards them. As they got closer, they could see the writing on the flower. Michael squinted at it, attempting to read it. "Puzzle is five...is win, is you, is...winner? The fuck does that mean?" He turned to look at Franklin, who shrugged in response. Before he could question it further, drawings began to appear on the first monolith. Flowers appeared, and when they fell apart they left either words or objects in their wake. Once they stopped, they were left with the white rabbit-looking thing that Michael assumed was "Baba", a flag, three rocks that blocked Baba's path, and walls on both sides where several words lied. Michael took a step forward, looking it over. "So...huh, I guess this is the puzzle it mentioned."

Franklin took a moment to look around the room, noting the number of monoliths. "There's five of the...tablets or whatever, so maybe we have to do five puzzles to win. That's what it said, right?"

Michael nodded. "Yeah, that's what it said..." He crossed his arms, looking over the puzzle. It seemed simple enough, but there was no way he could see to control the puzzle. If I can just get it to move to the right a little... As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Baba moved to the right. Huh? He thought about moving it again, and Baba moved to the left. Oh. Well, that works. Looking over the puzzle again, Michael moved Baba to the right again, sending it into a rock, which it began to push out of the way. Once the obstacle was removed, he sent the rabbit creature towards the flag.

The moment Baba touched the flag, golden sparkles flitted across the monolith's surface, and the chalk faded away. One of the five petals surrounding the central dais fell away, leaving only four left. Without further ado, drawings began to appear on the second monolith. True to the friends' conclusions, it appeared that five solved puzzles would be necessary to earn a reward, presumably one of the paintings the flagellant fox spirits desired.



As soon as the puzzle was completed, Michael moved to the next monolith, watching as a new puzzle took shape. However, once it was finished, he frowned as he looked it over. It seemed impossible, the flag stuck on the other end of a wall, and moving Baba into it proved that it was, indeed, impassible. There seemed to be no way to win the puzzle, as the wall stopped him. Stop...wait. Michael's eyes turned to the set of words in reach- WALL IS STOP. After a few seconds, he smiled as the nature of the puzzle became clear to him. Walls stopped him...but what if he changed the rules?

Baba soon moved towards the set of words, pushing the 'IS' out of the way. Moving up, Michael's theory was proven correct as he passed through the wall with ease. Moving onto the flag, however, didn't end the puzzle. The reason was soon made apparent- the letters 'FLAG', 'IS', and 'WIN' were scattered around the room. It only took a few seconds to gather them together, and send Baba back towards the flag.

Michael's clever deduction rendered the second puzzle solved. On cue, a second petal fell away and the second monolith's scrawlings faded. The friends' expectant look toward the third revealed another scenario already taking shape.



This puzzle was...different. Where one would expect walls, there were instead rows of flags. In addition, Baba was seemingly nowhere to be found. In its place, was a segment of wall. After staring at it for a moment, Michael realized that the word for 'WALL' was in the place where 'BABA' usually was. Indeed, the segment of wall moved when Michael mentally commanded it to, just like Baba did. From there, solving the puzzle was easy, as Michael had gotten the grasp of how they worked. He removed the 'IS' from 'FLAG IS STOP', then moved the words to create 'FLAG IS WIN' and sent the piece of wall into the nearest flag.

Without delay, the fourth puzzle constructed itself for Michael to turn his attention to. Only two petals remained on the central dais locking it in place.



Michael frowned as he looked over the next puzzle. The path was blocked by two walls of skulls, and there was no obvious way to get past them or make them harmless. Scratching his chin, he looked at the only words available to him- 'WALL IS STOP'. His mind immediately went back to the last puzzle- while Baba was in no position to reach the flag, the walls were. Quickly, he put his plan into place. He removed the 'IS' from 'WALL IS STOP', and brought the 'WALL' outside, replacing 'BABA' with it. When he moved next, every piece of wall shifted with him, but he was able to get a piece of the wall to touch the flag.

The final monolith came to life as Michael's wall tripped the fourth puzzle's flag. This time, the whole surface changed color, taking on a bluish appearance evocative of the ocean depths. This, the last of the puzzles, would open the final lock once concluded, presumably giving the friends their reward.



The last puzzle, besides the oceanic theme, introduced a few new objects to the board. At this point, though, it didn't concern Michael too much. He felt that he understood how these puzzles worked well enough, and solving this one wouldn't be any harder than the others. After pushing the first rock out of the way, he took a moment to consider his options. While he couldn't get past the wall, he could use the 'AND' to take control of the crab outside and finish the puzzle. That would mean getting rid of the skull somehow. Hm...maybe I could sink it? He didn't exactly know what 'sink' would do, but maybe he could use it to get rid of the skull. First, he changed 'STAR IS SINK' to STAR IS PUSH', and pushed the star onto the skull. He then went back and changed it back to 'SINK'. As soon as he did, both the star and the skull disappeared, causing Michael to pump his fist in celebration. The next step was easy, pushing 'AND' and 'CRAB' to create 'CRAB AND BABA IS YOU', giving him control of the crab outside, which he used to touch the flag.

This time, when the flag got touched, the entire room began to shudder. As the fifth petal fell away, the monoliths retracted unto the floor, and the central dais rose. Its hollow inside, open on the direction facing the door, help a paint that depicted Baba amidst a hurricane of obstacles and words. Even though Franklin didn't step it to help, Michael's wits had proved enough to triumph over this puzzle.

The minute Michael laid his hand on the painting, however, the room started to quake once again, but far more violently this time. The monoliths slid up and down at random, and waves of black pixellation surged across the room. Drawn flowers bloomed, withered, and disintegrated in the air, their generation increasing in speed and intensity until they collected together above the raised dias. Then, with great force, the flower-singularity burst apart like a hatching egg. Onto the plinth dropped a white rabbit creature in all his three-dimensional glory. Still and silent, Baba peered down at the men below. Not a trace of red could be seen his eyes.

Once Michael had secured the painting, he moved back as fast as he could to avoid the sudden chaos the room was thrown into. The two continued to move backwards, trying to avoid the most dramatic effects. They could only watch as flowers bloomed and disintegrated, eventually coming together and bursting apart all at once. After they finished shielding their eyes, their eyes went wide as they saw what had appeared. Franklin turned to Michael first. "Is that..."

Michael gave a silent nod, taking a moment to hand the painting over to Franklin before stepping forward. Staring up at the plinth, he spoke. "Baba? Is that you?"

When he heard his name, Baba looked at Michael, but without much comprehension. Based on its lack of responsiveness, there didn't appear to be reason to believe he harbored near-human intelligence. Nevertheless, Baba eventually hopped down from the top of the plinth. Smooth and almost featureless save for his eyes, stubby legs, and equally stubby ears, he was a strange but rather endearing beast. After a moment or two, he happened to look at the painting Franklin currently held. The sight of himself triggered some sort of response, like a dog seeing itself in a mirror. A sketchy flower bloomed in midair above Baba's head, leaving behind a cube with BA/BA inscribed on each face. A moment later the word cube faded away, like chalk being erased.

Wholly unperturbed by whatever just happened, Baba looked away and started walking toward the exit.

The two were silent as Baba walked away. Judging by its reaction, Michael assumed that it didn't possess human-like intelligence. He didn't know what to make of the word-cube appearing and disappearing, though. Maybe it could be used like it was in the puzzles? He didn't know, but that was something they could worry about later. Nodding to Franklin, the two followed Baba out of the room and into the central chamber.

"Put that down for now. We'll get the other paintings first." Franklin nodded, putting the painting down near the entrance of the green room.

"Well, that's one. I'm guessing we're gonna need three more?"

"Yeah." Michael looked at the braziers. "Let's say...the pink room next?"

"Don't see why not. Hey, where do you think the kid went?"

Michael paused. He had completely forgotten about her. "I...I dunno. We'll run into her later, let's just go and see what's going on in the next room." The two began walking towards the room across from the pink brazier, but as they approached, Michael stopped and turned back towards Baba. "Uh...you probably can't understand me, but you can come along if you want."

The fight with the tank seemed to go pretty well. Sure Blazermate had to jump out of the way as the tank barreled towards her sentry on the trolly, but its fire, alongside the combined efforts of everyone took the beast down. Although having what was essentially meaty zombie bits explode everywhere wasn't great and Blazermate was caught in the splash zone like Gene was. "Eww.... Seriously?" Blazermate said after getting covered in zombie goo. But then... the smell came. Blazermate hadn't really developed much of a sense of smell, as she had never had it before, and until now really didn't have any reference point. At least not until now. "Gah, and how do you guys handle this stuff? I Really hate it." Blazermate said. She decided though that she could tough it out, shaking herself clean. She was clearly getting extremely annoyed with the whole situation, healing Gene almost subconciously as he was the most injured being closest to the exploding tank. Eventually everyone decided to move along, Blazermate propping the trolly back upright, fixed it and the buildings that fell of of it up, and followed the van.

What finally broke her though was when they came up to the crater of plant life. This zombie plant life and its pollen, combined with the lingering smell of goo, caused Blazermate to start sneezing. This was the final straw, and out of sheet annoyance she said. "And Now THIS? 'achu' This is horrible, 'achu' I'll be right back." As the cars stopped at the graveyard gates, Blazermate took her teleporter to head to the other team in the Land of Adventure. If she remembered right, Peach had something that'd let her fix this whole issue.

The land of Adventure was far different from the zombie town she was just in. Here things looked far more peaceful, pretty, and almost like a scenic sort of place, almost peaceful if it wasn't for the light of Galeem shining over everything.

The Medabot's newfound sinuses continue to plague her for a short while as she wandered the town, though the crisp breeze of the plains did wonders to clear away the wretched musk of the Dead Zone that clung to her. Luck proved to be on her side as she, without even needing to ask for directions, spotted Peach outside Lumbridge's castle-based guild hall. While the location might be expected of a royal, what Peach was doing was anything but. She appeared to be undergoing some sort of training courtesy of the town's courteous sheriff, a gruff-looking man with a giant wolfhound never far away. The Houndmaster was appraising Peach's performance of a couple strikes when Blazermate appeared.
When she spotted her ally, the changed princess excused herself from her new mentor and greeted Blazermate straightaway, though not with the same sweet merriness that she might have shown a day ago. "Hey. Hello," she said. "I've seen you around, and your ability as well, but I don't think we've ever really met. Peach, at your service." For a royal, she discarded her title with remarkable indifference, but the hand she extended to shake seemed genuine.

Blazermate liked how straightforward Peach was being. Like Peach had said, the two hadn't really met face to face and Blazermate only knew her from her speech in her castle, but she looked a lot more.... battle hardened now. Considering she didn't have to worry about learning a new thing, breathing, she was probably having a better time than Blazermate. Making sure her hand was clean, Blazermate shook Peach's hand. "Hello, I'm Blazermate. Nice to meet you ma'am." Blazermate said, giving her a polite bow. After doing their greetings, Blazermate said "You guys got the peaceful place huh?"

Getting down to business, Blazermate said "So Peach. This soul I absorbed on the battlefield in front of your castle has been very useful, but this whole 'breathing' thing it forces me to do is just awful. Especially when everything in the zone I'm around is just awful zombies and sneezing pollin. I remember saying you could do something about this? I think I installed this 'part' incorrectly." Blazermate wasn't going to give up the skills that the engineer gave her entirely, but she remembered that Bowser had a few striker spirits that did things for him, so Blazermate figured that since she only builds buildings and nothing thats really 'combat worthy' or mobile, summoning a striker would free her up to do other things.

Peach gave a grave nod. "I think so. Should come naturally. Uh...hold still." After a moment hesitation -squeamishness, even- Peach abruptly shoved her hand into Blazermate's chest. It sunk straight in, and both her hand and the area of Blazermate's body turned prismatic. Peach's fingers closed around something, and yanked it with all her strength. Prismatic energy flooded Blazermate's form, her new modifications all draining out in an instant. The next second the light died, and the Medabot stood just as when she arrived in the World of Light. Looking surprised and more than a little relieved, Peach looked down at the Engineer spirit in her black glove. "Whoa," she murmured. "Didn't know how that'd turn out. Glad it worked, huh?"

"Yeah. And way less intrusive than actually losing a part." Blazermate said, tapping her face plate, relieved that she didn't have to do that 'breathing' thing anymore. "I don't know how you fleshies can stand breathing. Its so.... annoying. Sneezing was the worst though." Blazermate said, giving Peach a bow. Trying to remember what the Master of Masters had said, Blazermate grabbed the engineer spirit out of her gloved hand at a request and tried to link, but not absorb, the spirit to make it a Striker. "Not sure how Bowser did this thing, but it can't be too hard, right?" She said, concentrating.

While Peach looked on, unamused, Blazermate attempted to bond with the spirit. Just looking at it hard didn't seem to do anything. After a few moments, the princess offered some advice. "If you want to bond with it, you have to make a connection with it. The others had an easy time with their minions and mooks, but that looked like a person. People are harder to persuade." She crossed her arms. "Try thinking about what you want from it, or need from it. Ask for its help. I don't think it can hear you, but if it can somehow feel you, I'm sure it'll respond."

Hearing Peach's advice, Blazermate concentrated on the spirit. Having been one with it for a time, Blazermate felt like she knew at least a little bit about Dell Conagher. "So. I know we just split up, but I still need your help. Your buildings are great, and would really be helpful if for me and my friends you could make them instead of me." While this would probably work for any standard lacky spirit, the Engineer was a bit more intelligent than that, especially since he was a mercenary, and Blazermate wasn't really offering him much in the way of pay. At least until.... "You know, I couldn't find any hats, but I could give you any I find if you team up with me?" Blazermate had known of the Engineer's hat lust after being joined with him for a time, but since she needed her hair to move in order to fly, there was no way she could wear one. But if the engineer was a striker....

After a short while of Blazermate broadcasting her feelings, the spirit began to change. It grew warmer and brighter, then started to move on its own. Some invisible tie bound the spirits of machine and inventor together, and it allowed the latter to take shape. From the swirling vapors formed the form of the Engineer, conscious for the first time since his death. "Hmm," he mused, taking a look around. "Don't rightly recall much, but it looks like I owe ya folks some. Guess I oughta stick around." He reached out to shake Blazermate's hand. "Feels like you're the reason I'm back. Name's Dell, I solve problems. Not problems like 'what is beauty.' That'd fall under your conundrums of philosophy." He adjusted his goggles and grinned. "I solve practical problems."

"Like building a tri mounted sentry gun to shoot people with, mostly zombies. I know, I was using your plans for a little while. Very nice gun." Blazermate said. "So, lets go solve the problem of 'too many zombies', partner." Blazermate continued, overjoyed that she didn't have to worry about breathing anymore. Plus she had her cute accent back, instead of that weird texan/japanese hybrid that she had a hard time making cute. "Thanks Peach! I'm heading back to make sure no one gets killed. Tell everyone I said hi. Zombie land is pretty crazy. Jr. should know, he was there, and its gotten worse since then. Although that might be because of the sneezing..." With a wave, Blazermate said goodbye to Peach and took her teleporter back to the Dead Zone to meet up with everyone else who was dealing with the ambush at the Graveyard.

"I'm back from my trip fellas, whats..." Blazermate started to say. As she overlooked the battle she decided to jump away from the Trolly to keep its teleporter up. Since she hadn't been there for the start of the ambush from a weird, green giant monster looking thing, she was mostly ignored. Flying up to a high landing, Blazermate summoned the Engineer to start to construct a sentry gun that would shoot the zombies from below. Sadly this also meant the dispenser had to be destroyed to be relocated up so that Dell could get enough metal to build everything, but that was neither here nor there. Floating down to join the battle, Blazermate put her healing beam onto Gene, who seemed to be the one that was most vulnerable. Especially after Blazermate had only just healed him up from an explosion beforehand.

After scrounging for a good half hour and collecting whatever they could, the two teams reconvened to head south. It took only a minutes to step out from the dappled light filtering through tree branches into the radiance of the afternoon sun, shining down onto the rolling expanse of golden wheat ahead. “Wow-wow!” Tora cried in delight, and he and Poppi raced out into the wheat. For Tora, it came up past his head, so to the others it looked like a tuft of hair running amok in the grain. Poppi didn't share his frolicking laughter, but she looked plenty happy as she jogged after him. At the far end of the field stood a decrepit windmill and nearby homestead. In the afternoon sun it made for a picturesque view.

Seeing this, Poppi pointed and suggested, “Masterpon, let's try over there! If this like farms at home, there should be tools to make harvest easy.” Tora nodded his approval at the idea, having been wondering exactly how he'd gather wheat himself, and took off through the golden sea.

He exited the field onto the farmstead's perimeter and instantly tripped. “Meh!” He turned to look and found the corpse of a humanoid rat creature, dead as a doornail, and scrambled back in panic. “MEHMEH! Wait, what?” As he got up, he looked at the thing again in bafflement. “Tora thought all thing turn ashy-ashy when dead.”

Poppi exited the field as well, looking at the cadaver thoughtfully. “Hum. Poppi thought so too.” She glanced up at the distant, multicolored aura of Galeem, hovering high above the void in the continent's center. “Maybe that was there when world was made.”

Tora gave a shake of his head. “Why would big baddy do that?” His companion didn't answer, so he gave a shrug before heading back toward the farmhouse. This time he kept a close eye on the ground, and as he progressed he noticed piles of ashes here and there. “These...ashes? So things were killed here. Maybe by adventurers, meh.” That or, something else had slain adventurers. Shelving the thought, Tora moseyed up to the farmhouse and entered the open shed. Inside, true to Poppi's prediction, there hung a selection of farm tools from a rack. Tora, unfortunately, didn't know which to pick. “Meh, this one?” he asked, holding up a shovel.

In silence Poppi opted for a scythe. “Like this. Or sickle, the one curved likes rings of Nia. Catch lots of wheat in big cut.” When she received a curious look, she added, “Poppi lean lots about vegetables from Pyra.” Tora, however, wondered a lot more about whether or not any living rats remained in the farm. He suspected that once the crew started harvesting, they would find out before long.



The route taken by the trio, with the help of their assorted mounts, brought them steadily closer to their goal. Just one hiccup presented itself: a gargantuan ape resting atop a knoll, surveying its turf like some sort of lord. With it unmentioned in their quests, the three were held to no obligation to face it, and steered clear. They were correct to anticipate further conflict down the road, as could be seen the moment they topped a hill overlooking their destination. The lake, ringed by plantlife and home to a few interesting structures like the one floating atop its surface, would have been idyllic if not for the desperate battle unfolding before they eyes.

Marble-eyed monsters had risen from beneath the lake's rippling surface in droves, attacking another band of intruders in waves. Two, a couple of teenage wielding their own swords, fought well enough from atop the floating walkway but were grossly outnumbered. A third stranger, older and far less scrappy, had fled to the colorfully-roofed house on the water and tried the door, with no luck. Even now pelagics closed in on him, cruelly-barbed spears at the ready. These aquatic warriors clearly possessed both strength and intelligence, making them a formidable threat in those numbers. If the new arrivals did nothing, those already embattled would be overwhelmed.



Agoston's request found the guildmarm in a bit of a state, sorting through contract cards and quest files as fast as she could, with predictable results. Still, the frazzled woman managed to piece herself together enough to indulge the man's request, inferring a bit on the side. “I take it you finished your quest then. I'll, uh, be sure to mark that down.” She heaved a sigh before brightening up again, as though she'd flicked some sort of psychic switch. “As for your friends, they took Miss Mina's ingredient quest. If I remember the details right, they'll probably be in either the forest to the east across a bit of plains or the fields south of that forest. Hurry and you can catch them in time to get quest credit!”



From a distance 6 could see that his hunt for wigglers brought him and his yellow-plumed steed on a crash course with the mountains forming the Land of Adventure's western border. As he drew nearer, however, he could see what appeared to be his real objective. Across a short span of rocky foothills, nestled cozily in the middle of the range, lay an extravagant zone of gigantic, unusual structures: the coral highlands. There, he would find the wigglers he sought.

Before he entered that lush, oceanic cliffscape however, the lowlands stood in his way. Luckily his long-legged new friend made short work of the uneven terrain. The inhabitants proved not so easily avoided. A gang of living bullets roamed the area, no doubt ranging from the bullet-shaped shacks on a nearby bluff. Though not excessive in number, each one of the keg-sized ne'er-do-wells sported a large handgun of his very own, and none cared too much to examine whatever caught their gaze before they started shooting.

Not far from where the ground grew moist and corals started to crop up among the weeds, a different sort of creature caught the Courier's eyes. A large, broad beast of stern stuff, the animal struggled against a couple of bullet bullies, who chuckled metallically as they dodge-rolled between cover and took potshots at it. So far the bullets' bullets appeared to be doing little damage, especially against the pokemon's back, but it already bore a number of shallow holes and cuts.



Ratchet and Jak's efforts held back the Swarm for a moment, but its dual commanders wasted no time in getting down and dirty. Even after getting batted aside by one of the Suffering as Dark Jak, Jak called upon the riotous power again to engage his nemesis head-on with an ally's kart as a weapon. His blow landed squarely on the big demon's shoulders, knocking loose a couple skulls, and the monster staggered back with a snarl. It wheeled about, using its arms in addition to its legs to pull itself around at high speed, and came at him with a four-fisted uppercut to send the empowered man flying.

Meanwhile, Donnie -having escaped from the van and taken a little weight off Nero's load- maneuvered himself atop his disk to help push from underneath. Trusting his allies to see to Nero's defense while he committed himself to rescue spoke volumes of his trust and courage, and he made sure not to waste this time. His own strength plus the persistent upward movement of his disk, which threatened to squash him between the vehicles, managed to start the van moving upward. Inside, Nico struggled to climb upward and out of the passenger door, now facing the sky. As much as she loathed to leave all her stuff behind, it wouldn't avail her much should the whole thing plummet with her inside, so she employed her muscles to get her out of the imperiled vehicle and onto solid ground. Getting there, however, meant little in terms of her overall safety. A whole array of monstrosities bore down on her, bent on sending the weaponsmith, her friend, and the van tumbling down.

Gene, however, rose to lend his strength to their defense. Having extricated himself from the van as well, he tore off the Deistic Brace to let the God Hand loose, and smashed through zombie after zombie. One man could only do so much, though, and Gene knew it. The Swarm moved at the Sufferings' command, directed to take the van down while ignoring the defenders if they could. He needed to get their attention.

His taunt's effect was immediate. A crowd of undead, though not all of them, turned on him while both Sufferings lent him their full attention. Brutal fists powered by packed demonic muscle converged on him, apt to pummel him into paste if not for the God Hand's invincibility.

Meanwhile, Blazermate had returned from her brief sojourn to a graveyard full of chaos. Her time fused with the Engineer gave her an instinctive understanding of what he needed to do, so she flew up to the building on the graveyard's left to give him a vantage point before returning to fix her healing beam on Gene. Any second now, after all, his God Hand would run out of juice, and the wisecracking fistfighter would be history. His gambit, however, gave the others the time they needed. Nero had almost pulled the van back up onto solid ground, needing just a few more seconds.

North of the fight, a skull poked above a gravestone. Its eyes, blue with red pupils, beheld everything going on across the way, and nothing about it pleased their owner. The skeleton held a hand to the side of his head, distraught. Whoever they were, those people needed help. But even though he wanted to, how could he? He'd already agreed to help the other skeleton, after all, and his beam could only do so much.

“whew. that looks rough.”

Mr. Bones looked over to see his acquaintance sitting on another tombstone. “you're not thinking of running over and being a hero, are you? call me bone-headed, but those chumps look like humans. they've been crushing zombies left and right. what d'you think they'll do to us?”

Bones ground his teeth. “I know, but... I can't jus' let folks be killed by monsters like that. It ain't right.”

His friend shrugged, smiling that smile of his, as though everything were a joke. “suit yourself.”

Having made up his mind, Bones stood up and charged down the graveyard toward the fight. From where they stood, the heroes glimpsed another enemy running their way, but the moment he arrived Bones cried out, “Here to help!” He held out a hand at a Swarm and unleashed a beam of blue lightning, destroying the undead on the spot. From his position behind the mob, he started lighting up small fry one after another, though he steered clear of the Sufferings.

@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN @Lugubrious @Gentlemanvaultboy

Din was pleasantly surprised to see that Geralt had chosen to come with her and Linkle instead of the Koopas; though she had expected the Courier and the Centurion to meet up with them by now, that turned out not to be the case. Din looked dreamily at Geralt as he introduced himself,, followed by Linkle, but when it came Din's turn, she didn't miss a beat, "Name's Din, I'm a dancer. Well, sort of. My dance has the magical power to heal and revitalize my friends. I can also...perform weather magic." Obviously, she couldn't tell him she was the Oracle of Seasons, though she doubted it meant much in his world. "I guess I can fly too now." She gestured to her wings. "Otherwise, I'm pretty quick on my feet. Me and Linkle come from the same world, though different times, I think. So I don't have any additional insight to add concerning Zora, I mean, whatever your world's version of fish people are."

When they encountered the Chocobo, Din appreciated the set up Linkle was trying to help her with, but she wasn't so desperate to get close to Geralt that she needed to resort to such simple tactics. Besides, she had confidence in her own charm, and hoped to win him over slowly. And she already had Gogoat, so she didn't really have an excuse to share Geralt's ride, unless it turned out he preferred to ride Gogoat with her instead of the birds. Din could also sense Linkle's reluctance to slay one of these birds as part of the quest, and maybe by not riding one, Din could remain emotionally detached and do the deed when the time came. Having spent her life with a traveling performing troupe, Din had had her fair share of rustic experiences, and slaying an animal for meat wasn't entirely foreign to her.

As they arrived at the lake with the floating house, Din noticed the people in trouble. The ywere also being attacked by their quest targets, so Din assumed there would be no objections to starting. First, she cast the Spell of Winter, creating icy patches between the main body of pelagics and the two sword-wielding youths. Din imagined that wet fish creatures would be more susceptible to the cold.

The journey to where these wigglers were hanging around wasn’t too long, especially considering his new stead, and allowed the Courier to survey the land quite a bit. With the map on his pip-boy updating automatically with the landscape around him, it was only a matter of time before he had a much more accurate and impressive lay of the land than that rudimentary, not-to-scale paper drawing they had found in the castle. Maybe he could sell copies of it to the guild or other locals as he continually updated it?

Thoughts of an easy buck aside, he had to marvel at the wondrous landscaping around him. Rolling hills were one thing to a man used to a flat desert, but hills made of coral? No sight had ever compared before, not even the beautiful canyons and trees of Zion Park, where he had met Joshua Graham. Coral, he wasn’t sure what it was at first. Instinct told him it was some manner of alien land, but the more he looked it over the more he recognized it was very much an earthborn phenomena. He had been to the oceans of California, swam in the waters and seen coral, but very little of it remained after the Great War. It took a few minutes to click what it all was around him, but once he understood plenty of options raced through his mind. He would take some samples of the coral to place in his pack, no doubt he’d be able to craft some nice chems with it, as well as grabbing some fungus and moss along the way. Once he got past the lowlands, that was.

His stead seemed a bit hesitant to cross through, wary of something. ”What’s the matter, Drumstick?” he asked, assigning the chocobo a name. It shook its head, feathers a bit ruffled, but continued to march forward at his insistence. He knew to keep a lookout, what with this animal’s instincts recognizing danger. He just didn’t expect that danger to take the form of giant living bullets with guns of their own, merrily taking potshots and just about everything in sight!

The first sign of these bizarre creatures came from the gunshots. Soon as he heard that, the Courier was put on high alert. ”What in the hell?” he mumbled, stopping his chocobo in its tracks. ”I’ve tangled with aliens, mutants, ghouls, magic, ghosts, an’ all manner o’crazy shit, but I never thought I’d see the day a bullet pulled the trigger itself.”

Some of the bullet creatures caught sight of him, and that meant going on the defensive. With their big handguns they fired, but thankfully the distance meant their sidearms couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. The Courier dove off Drumstick and urged it behind a big rock, where it dutifully followed.

Scoping out the situation, he had to make some choices. ”I could probably take a bunch of hits if’n I just charged in, but could get overwhelmed. At this distance my revolver and shotgun won’t hit shit, and that machine gun I got from Gaige chews through ammo so fast I’m already close to bein’ out. Luckily…” 6 pulled out his Ratslayer rifle and the spare box of rifle ammo from that loot box Peach had demonstrated earlier that day, more than enough to take out all the targets pinning him down and still keep going. He brought up his rifle, aimed down the scope, and fired.

BLAM!

The first of the bullet creatures died without any fanfare, and its companions didn’t stop to mourn. It was as though these creatures were utterly obsessed with just blasting away anything and everything they could with those big goofy smiles, like taking lives was a fun pass time. He didn’t much care for that. Blam! Blam! Two more down, the second scoring a critical hit.

With the threat neutralized, at least for now, 6 stood up from his cover position and signalled for Drumstick to follow. He moved slowly and methodically rather than riding his oversized bird, so as to not be a larger target and attract the attention of more bullet creatures. A few dozen meters through the foothills and something new caught his watchful gaze, just before the coral hills. A wild Pokemon! At least that’s what he assumed it to be. It had the same “feel” to it as the other Pokemon he had come across so far. It was surrounded by bullets, pelting it with constant barrage of… Well, little bullets. Gah, these creatures made keeping a straight line of thought impossible!

This absolutely couldn’t stand! Still keeping the element of surprise, 6 deployed his eradishield generator, not for himself, but in order to keep Drumstick safe from any stray gunfire. He had no intentions of staying out of the fray. ”YEE-FUCKING-HAW!” he cried out, charging forward with his shotgun in hand, pokeball in the other.

”Heracross! Throw me up!” he yelled, throwing the ball a little ways ahead of himself. Heracross, having had time to rest and recover from its earlier fight, popped out raring and ready to go! The Courier jumped up on the back of the giant bug’s shell, who launched him high into the air with its horn! BANG! BANG! Two shots went off from the shotgun taking out two bullets.

”Let’s go, Bastion!” he cried, still in freefall. The robot striker manifested around the Courier, allowing him to ride atop its shoulder. It landed on the ground with a heavy, shaking THUD, gun in hand. Bastion recognized the threat against a beautiful creature of nature and unloaded its firepower into the bullets, spraying around in an arc. Many fell, but others were nimbled and dodged around, taking their own potshots.

Most of the bullets failed to do any real damage to Bastion, while a couple hit the Courier. He winced in pain, getting shot was never pleasant, but he was used to it and his sub-dermal armor protected him from most of the injuries. The donphan was clearly surprised at the sudden arrival, but it didn’t attack or lash out at the robot or man now standing directly in front of it, recognizing the Courier as a friend and ally. Instead the donphan narrowed its eyes on the nearest bullet, curled up into a ball, and began spinning like a revving motor. Faster and faster, but not moving anywhere. Then suddenly, as though someone had just taken off the brakes, the donphan rolled out, trampling the bullet into the ground.

The fight was far from over, and many of the bullets remained. Happily, insanely dodging around and shooting, a stray bullet hit the Courier in his neck, where the armor was weakest. ”Gah!” he gasped, clenching the wound. Careless, he had been too careless. That little bastard had done pissed him off and that was the last mistake he’d ever make. Responding to his mental commands, Bastion threw the Courier at the offending bullet. Just before colliding, the Courier swung his Equalizer pickaxe with all the force he could muster, piercing the creature through and planting it firmly in the ground to die.

Another bullet hopped up right in front of the Courier’s face, absurd happy grin that it had, and planted its gun right up against his forehead. In that instant the Courier flashed back to that night Benny had kidnapped him, shot him in the head twice and buried him in a shallow grave. Could he survive a third bullet to the head? As fate would have it, he wouldn’t need to find out. Heracross came from nowhere and swung its arm at the bullet like it was doing some sort of karate move, like it was trying to do some sort of Brick Break. The bullet died in an instant, chopped in half by the large beetle protecting its trainer.

”Good on ya, Heracross!” 6 commented, tilting his hat up. ”I should give ya a name, shouldn’t I? How about Bugfoot?” Bugfoot danced happily, apparently ecstatic at the new name.

Courier 6 took a glance around to measure the state of the battle, only to find there was no more battle. The bullets were all dead, each and every one. The donphan and Bastion were busy cleaning up the rest while he was congratulating Bugfoot. Even Drumstick recognized the danger had passed and come out from the cover of the eradishield. ”Good work, y’all,” he assured. Bastion vanished, becoming a spirit once more.

6 approached the donphan, holding out a stimpack. ”I reckon ya could use some healin’, an’ so could I. We’re not hurt too badly, so this one should be able to cover us both. What do ya say?” The donphan nodded in acceptance, though it seemed to be rather disappointed at having to take his generosity. The creature seemed to be a very proud one, very self-reliant. Still, it was nothing but relieved as its wounds closed up with the use of the stimpack.

With both of them healed up, the Courier pulled out his second, and last, pokeball. ”Yer a pretty tenacious one, ain’t ya? Remind me a bit o’myself. Want to join my posse?” The donphan looked from the pokeball to the heracross and narrowed its eyes on the giant bug. It let out a grumbling roar and lifted its trunk up, as if to challenge Bugfoot. The normally happy and eager heracross recognized the challenge and pounded its fists together, then took what could only be described as some sort of fighting stance. ”Oh, so y’all wanna fight each other, do ya?” Both Pokemon gave what sounded like a positive response. ”Well I wouldn’t mind lettin’ y’all have a brawl together here’n there, so long as we got the time and place, but this ain’t neither right now.”

Both Pokemon looked back to the Courier, then to one another, holding their gaze for another moment until, ultimately, they relaxed themselves. The Courier casually tossed his pokeball at the donphan, who didn’t struggle or fight against it one bit. He officially had his second Pokemon partner. ”I’ll name ya Ivories.”

He then looked all around at the fading spirits of the bullet creatures, placing the pokeball on his belt. ”Awright, time to get crushing these spirits.”

---

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”Don’t worry, I can keep them off your back!” Ratchet called out, determined to prevent any of the zombies from interrupting Nero and the others’ efforts in rescuing the van. With the bombuilder’s limited ammo regeneration he decided it would be better to, for the moment, switch to another weapon. He pulled out the handcannon. ”Ew, this thing is gross,” he commented, feeling the warm fleshy weapon in his hands. He took aim at the nearest undead shambling its way over and pulled the trigger. Less of a machine setting off and more of a biological retching, it fired out a long shard of some sort of bone which pierced through the zombie. ”Bingo bongo, and that’s one out!”

But of course, more were coming. Quickly he stuck another tooth-like shard into the gun and fired. Then again, and again. They pierced with remarkable power, sticking through multiple zombies and upping his death toll. ”We’ll catch up to Jak in no time!” he happily exclaimed. Only, uh oh, he ran out of shards to fire off. Well something like that never took Ratchet out of a fight! He pulled out the small pistol and removed its clip, tossing the handgun back into the hammerspace from whence it came, then loaded the bullets into his handcannon. No doubt this biological gun had far more firepower than that tiny pissant gun anyway.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Bullets fired out, casing and all, striking the zombies as they approached. Just as he expected, they were fired off with more power than the little sidearm they were originally made for. Unfortunately zombies were swarming in on his position in greater numbers than he could take down with this weapon. That was, until Gene insulted them which somehow attracted the attention of most of the swarm. ”Huh. Guess he’s so annoying that even the brainless don’t like him.” Ratchet shrugged and swapped back to the bombuilder. So long as they were all converging on Gene, they’d tear him to shreds the second his invincibility ran out. Two proximity bombs were fired into the amassing group, blasting them to smithereens by the dozens! But that only left enough charge in the bombuilder for 1 more proximity bomb. Not even enough for a remote detonator.

Dark Jak crashed into a tombstone and stopped moving, leaving deep cracks in the rock. A four armed uppercut from the suffering would have, and should have, killed him if it weren’t for Mar’s armor, but that didn’t mean he was feeling great. Hell, if it were his regular form and not Dark Jak that took the blow, the armor wouldn’t have been enough to save his life. Bottom line, he was lucky to have both on his side at the moment of impact, but bones were definitely broken. Dark eco leaked from cuts and open wounds, arcing out his body, utterly destroying the nearby plantlife. Jak was breathing heavily as Daxter sat on his shoulder, watching in silent open-mouthed terror as two skeletons conversed nearby.

Daxter couldn’t hear what the bone heads were talking about, they weren’t close enough for that, but skeletons too? Oh great. Wait, what was going on? One of them was charging in? ”Watch out! There’s a skeleton coming to-”

“Here to help!” Lightning blasted a zombie, then another and another.

”Nevermind!” Daxter shook his head in disbelief. What a day, am I right? ”Alright Jak, we’ve gotta get you back in the fight! Now… How exactly are we gonna do that?” Daxter tapped his chin, looking over his injured best friend. Still in Dark form, Jak wasn’t much for conversation or ideas, but clearly he was too injured to get up and charge back into the fray. ”I got it!”

Daxter crawled behind Jak to where the jet board was holstered on his back and activated it. The advanced machine expanded outward, hovering above the ground, now with Jak sitting atop it. The little ottsel grabbed the base of the board and adjusted it, aiming just right until it was facing the horde of zombies and, more importantly, the suffering. Then Daxter slammed his palm on the “turbo” button, sending the jet board flying across the graveyard like a racecar!

”Have a nice trip, Jak!” he called out, waving. Whew, that was a lot of work. But now nobody could say he didn’t help out, right? And he got to stay out of trouble too! Beaming with self-assuredness, Daxter almost missed the saliva dripping onto his shoulder from behind. ”What, now it’s raining? Who said it could rain toda-YAAAAAH! Wait for me, Jak!” Daxter barely dodged out of the grasp of a zombie, running away with both arms above his head.

Meanwhile, the jet board did its job of zooming Jak straight into the fray. Injured and unable to run around, Jak could still move his arms without a problem. He steered the jet board up into the crowd, bouncing off a zombie’s back, then threw himself off it in middair right above the suffering he had tangoed with a moment ago! ”I SAID DIE!” Dark Jak landed atop the beast, which reacted to his presence with a roar and a buck, but Jak wouldn’t be so easily tossed off. Already he sank his dark eco claws into the suffering. With his other hand he tore at the demon’s flesh, ripping out large chunks and tossing them aside, dark eco flooding the wounds with every slash of claw. After only a few seconds Jak pierced into the suffering’s brain and the demon let out its final death throes. It collapsed in a heap as Jak rolled off the side, his body shrinking, his skin returning to normal color.

Jak was left surrounded by enemies utterly exhausted, devoid of his dark eco powerup, his partner scrambling around in fear.

”Uh-oh. Clank!”

“Right away, Ratchet!” Clank manifested with his jet boosters and took off to help out Jak. Small and weak he may be, his metal body would at least keep him safe from the zombies.

“Is this one?”

”No”

*poof*

“How about this?”

”No”

*poof*

“this?”

”No!”

*poof*

“this?”

The bored looking Magikoopa perked up at the sight of this latest in a long line of minions queuing to have their findings examined ”yes!” he shouted before grabbing the bundle of rhubarb from the Goomba

*poof* went the striker, it’s task completed.

Into the sack of plant it went, which was getting rather full of what they needed thanks to the Koopa troop casting a wide if agriculturally illiterate net as the minions performing periodic sweeps of the forest as they traveled through it.

By the time the troop met up with Torra and Poppi the forest team had collectively gathered most of the plants they’d need from there and were heading to the mentioned location of the wheat they needed. As they exited out of the forest they found a lot more than they bargained for.

”Didn’t she say it was ‘wild’ wheat? Because this sure don’t look wild to me.” Jr said as they took in the golden sea surrounding the idyllic farmhouse and picturesque windmill.

”If it means more noodles for us I'm not complaining” Bowser declared before stomping forwarded and, with a sash of his mecha mitt, cleaving through the neck of the farming staple with its glowing blades. Both severed heads and broken stems immediately caught fire as if the still unsated weapon was spitefully spitting upon the very idea of being used as a gardening implement.

”NO WAIT STOP GAH!” Bowser yelled at the fire before violently stomping the crap out of it. The two smaller Koopas simply flew after Tora and Poppi as they descended into the golden forest.

Upon arriving on the other side the pair landed and dismounted from their respective mounts to investigate the dead rat with the others. Jr poked it a few times with the end of his paintbrush but the body remained lifeless as before.

”That seems like the most logical explanation.” Kamek said in response to Poppi’s theory of it being a relic from before the cataclysmic merger of worlds ”The skeleton mounted on the large truck still existed after all so perhaps Galeem simply took the deceased bodies as part of the landscape. As for the ashes, perhaps it was the work of the scouts who Mina mentioned finding these fields?”

There was a heavy thump as Bowser joined them, having leaped across the field in fits and bounds in an attempt to reduce the damage to their soon to be acquired harvest.

”Huh. Dead body.” Bowser commented as he joined them. There were a few moments of silence before Kamek changed the subject.

”So. Seeing as we are going to be here for a while I was thinking I could pop back to town and use the teleporter to see if i can get us a hunter from the other team? Or at least a hunting weapon. We don't exactly know where the rest of ours is at the moment, and they seem rather disinterested in” he suggested.

Bowser made a contemplative noise before nodding.

”Excellent. I shall return post haste” the wizard said before taping his broom to the earth and disappearing in a puff of smoke.

”Remember to watch out for the!” jr began to warn the old wizard about the state of the dead zone before he vanished. ”dang.”

”He’ll be fine. Come on let’s get to it.” Bowser ruffled his son’s hair and then headed for the tool shed. Inside where a variety of farming implements, the correct ones for the task at hand being pointed out by the robot.

By this point bowser had at least partially gotten over the embarrassment and indignity of being a plant gatherer and so the king took up a great scythe. Before getting to work he began to increased both his own and its size to get the job done as fast as possible.

Jr meanwhile, left in the shed after the others stepped out to get to work, had other ideas. ”I can put up with the whole foraging thing but farming? Really? A boy of my talents? Not on your life.” he complained to Mimikyu after summoning the Pokemon from its pokeball. ”So we’re going to go exploring and find all the wheat without having to do any work.. It’s a farm, they gotta have some cut down and store somewhere,”

The undead mouse impersonator did not understand exactly what the boy was on about but got swept up in his enthusiasm regardless and cheerful followed along after him as he wandered off.

”Jr!” came the call from a now rather large Bowser wielding an equally large scythe. ”Don’t wander off on your own!”

”I’m not. I got Mimikyu and my minions! Sides I’m just going to check out the windmill! Its like 5 meters away” the boy pointed up at the tall bladed structure near where the farming was going on before continuing on his way.

The king himself sighed before snapping his fingers and summoning Sledge and Mallet. ”Go keep an eye on Jr” he ordered them. As the pair scrambled off to escort the prince Bowser turned to his fellow reapers and attempted to make idle conversation.

”So… Who’s Pyra?”

---

”Hello, I was wondering if... Oh bugger”

After informing a passing Centurion of the location of the farming party Kamek materialized far away in the middle of a warzone just like Jr had.

In the Dead Zone the zombie hordes were closing in around the hero’s vehicles at the command of some hulking four armed brutes. There was shouting and screaming and a friendly skeleton and it was all too much for Kamek to take in all at once.

The old wizard immediately mounted his broom and took off skywards to get a better view of the battlefield. As he flew up he chanted ”One, two, three, which is the real me!” before a large burst of smoke engulfed him. When it dissipated there were now 5 Kameks instead of the one, and non where in the same place as the mage had been when he cast the spell.

With height and illusions gained he felt safe to take in the situation, and what he saw was quite the mess. Everyone looked to be in quite the pickle and so the mage had to make a quick decision of who to help. The van was being swarmed but had a lot of people guarding it. Jak was hurt and vulnerable yet had Ratchet leaping to his aid. Gene meanwhile was out on his own and surviving only thanks to a power that was rapidly fading before Kamek’s eyes. He needed the most help and was simultaneously in the best position to capitalize on that help and turn it into a victory.

With a spin of their wands all 5 Kameks unleaded a blast of colored shapes at one of the suffering before casting his enlarge spell on Gene, rapidly growing him till he stood as tall as the hulking brute bearing down on him.

”Whoa there you monstrous guys, pick on someone your own size!”

Magnumus Agoston, Centurion.

Level 3 - (23/30) EXP
Location: Lumbridge
Word Count: 489

---

Agoston nodded. "Thank you, Guildarm." As he was about to leave, Kamek appeared and the two had a brief but effecient encounter. Centurion thanked the wizard koopa for his guidance and began quickly making his way over to join Tora, Poppi, and the rest of the Koopa Troop. Ingredients, getting food. That sounded all find and dandy. Resources like that were vital for an army's conquest, though Agoston never handled the logistics side of things. Usually, he did the plundering, stealing, and burning of enemy resources. All's fair in war, he supposed. Still, that was different.

Things on his...homeworld (is that the right term?) were different than they here here. Despite the fact that this placed was embroiled in almost constant conflict, it was clear it was unnatural. People were trying to put a stop to it. The Centurion was born and raised in a place of eternal conflict. Peace was a dirty word or an unattainable dream. At least here, once Galeem is destroyed, there can be a happy ending. His Emperor had tried his best, but not even the Empire could take over the entire world, at least not easily. They had been making steady progress over the last 200 years, but this Galeem took over entire universes in a single day! Really made one think. About the nature of power and how one uses it. The Centurion glanced down briefly at his enhanced form and summoned great heat from within. Made one think indeed. He wondered if would keep the power he had earned when he returned to his homeland. What could he do with it? He could smite a thousand enemies of the Emperor if he so wished.

Or perhaps he could do something different. No time for thoughts like these now- Agoston didn't even know if he was going to survive all this nonsense. Best to focus on the current war effort.

Taking the guild masters advice, the now slightly less armored man began to hurry, breaking into a light jog. The forests to the east, or the plains to the south of that. Centurion, with the help of Kamek's advice, oriented himself to the south east. He had travelled considerable distances in his time as a a centurion. Marches lasted for months, journeys in total could last years. It was fair to say he had spent most of his life outside the Empire he fought to protect.

His Gladius was thankfully a bit more graciously sized since his recent slight shrinkage. He didn't mind at all. Now it was more of a short sword than an annoyingly small dagger. Still, he felt more comfortable with his fists than ever before. Heating these suckers up and smacking them with his new skill? They would pack quite the wallop- as long as he could get in range.

Centurion was on his way to reunite with the crew of people gathering ingredients for the hungry.

Geralt found himself thoroughly impressed by Linkle's weapons. They were capable of rapid-fire without any sort of reloading mechanism, and apparently of shooting bombs as well? His medallion did rumble a bit whenever she fired them, so he chalked it up to some sort of magical effect. Still, that could be incredibly useful for combat purposes. Her tactics might need some work, certainly, but her equipment was up to par without a doubt.

Din's abilities pushed her more towards the side of a strategic ally, one who could have a drastic impact on any battlefield from afar, and this "weather magic" of hers was definitely something he was hoping would be of use to them. Her healing dance, however, gave Geralt some ideas...both lecherous and practical. Yennefer would have his head if she could read his mind right about now. On the practical side of things, however, further supporting his natural regeneration abilities would be a great boon in the future, and it could allow him to handle an even larger variety of monsters in combat without having to worry too much about being killed by them. Between the bombs, the Quen sign, and his own abilities, he could probably handle a Fiend without oils, as stupid as it would be.

The short discussion over who would ride on which chocobos left him somewhat suspicious, especially after Linkle's...odd display of facial expressions. He didn't pay it much mind, however, when Din chose to instead ride her personal goat-like creature instead of with him. Frankly, he was a bit pleased, because the temptation was the last thing he needed right now. Well, that and a pissed-off Yennefer.

When they finally arrived at the lake, Geralt's eyes narrowed at the Definitely Not Drowners that were attacking two armed boys and an older man who was trying to escape to safety inside the floating house. Probably a wise decision on his part, as he was clearly not prepared for this sort of combat.

Quickly casting the Quen sign, Geralt sighed as he felt the familiar shield cover his body. He drew his crossbow and rushed forward, aiming at one of the fish-monster-men that was approaching the older man. Taking a deep breath, he aimed carefully and fired, his bolt lodging itself directly into the side of the creature's head. The monster, however, merely turned and angrily pointed its spear at Geralt, causing several of its kin to do the same, breaking off to attack him. "Damn, tougher than it looks." He cursed, drawing his silver sword and charging into the fray.

A pair of the monsters met him, jabbing spears as he dodged one and parried the other, sword coming around to slash at the attacker's scales. The blade cut lightly into its flesh, but the scaly skin of the creature proved to be more than enough to protect it from a more grievous wound. "Watch their skin! It's like armor!" He called out, once more avoiding an attack and this time driving his sword straight through the monster's gut, tearing it out to the side and exposing its innards. The fish-beast stumbled backwards, hate and anger in its eyes as it collapsed, only to be replaced by another pair of monsters, leaving Geralt outnumbered three to one.

Following the Tank’s defeat, Nero’s order, and his preceding admonishment of Gene and the royal quartet, the crew set off for the nearest of three Qliphoth roots that they were presumably set to take out. Nothing like the Rule of Three to make that much obvious. They wouldn’t be back on course for long before being forced to reroute around a kilometer wide, zombie infested sinkhole apparently formed from the explosive overgrowth of Hell-born flora. It was equally likely that this was but an incidental setback on the way to their objective or a machination of living demonic will set on hindering them. Either way, the coerced detour took them through a sizable strip of ruined memorial parkland that lay at the eastern edge of the province bordering space itself. Truth be told, it was closer to a grave field than graveyard, which, in a city dominated by demons, undead, and who knows what else, made it the place to be… to guarantee running into trouble.

Of course, there were zombies--some new--but they alone weren’t the real problem. Just when Nero was expecting things to be too easy, a more honest threat announced itself in the form of a hulking four-armed demon as it busted out of the doors of a weathered tomb to take control of the horde, followed in short order by an identical second of its like to ambush the demon hunter and his companion, knocking the van headlong into the abyss with Nico still inside. Thankfully, they were both fast in the ways they needed to be, lest she go on an unplanned voyage through the cosmos, but Nero wasn’t quite strong enough on his own to drag the vehicle from the cliff’s edge safely back to solid ground. He could only manage to hold the van aloft, which required all the strength and attention he could spare, leaving him helpless to defend himself. For the moments that followed, he could now consider himself lucky for having brought help along with him on his mission.

Ratchet and Gene went to work whittling away the encroaching horde, keeping them at bay while the monk assisted Nero with recovering/stabilizing the van, and Jak broke away to engage one of the demons one-on-one. This still left the other Suffering unoccupied; a fact that the duo saw fit to change. With Blazermate absently indisposed, Banjo was back at the ‘wheel’, running and batting down undead as he sped toward the demon, and bounded from his kart the second he came within range, leaving the Trolley and everything on it haphazardly parked wherever it stopped. The duo soared in, diving toward the Suffering as Kazooie spent their last three eggs shots before Banjo flipped forward and came down on the beast with wide overhead punch to its head. They hit the ground and immediately left it with a Flap Flip into Wing Whack, and while keeping their momentum going, Banjo slung his backpack upward in a radial arch, completing two rotations to drag his partner’s spinning wings like and elastic buzzsaw across the creature’s chest and face.

The duo’s agility and repeated blows stung the demon, but they lacked stopping power. With a grunt, the Suffering used its two left arms to yank itself sideways, pivoting as it did. The maneuver put it into a perfect position to attack Banjo and Kazooie as they were landing from their attack, and it swept its rights at them with force enough to send them skipping like a rock through a couple or yards of headstones and into the mausoleum that the creature broke from earlier. Banjo impacted with one of the four lantern posts that surrounded it, bending it into a ‘く’ shape and knocking loose two lengths of chain that connected them. The Suffering charged after them in pouncing, animalistic strides, intent on smashing the bear and bird into the stonework until Gene’s taunts drew its aggression away from them. They were lucky for this. If the demon could bat them aside that easily, they weren’t going to be of much use against it by themselves.

Perhaps demon killing was better left to professionals, but said professional was still busy needing help saving his friend, they noticed. Banjo picked himself back up, yanked the chains down from their remaining anchor points, crudely tied them back together in the middle, made wide loops at both ends, and sprinted for the van, twisting into Talon Trot to let Kazooie take over the legwork while he hauled a roll of chain in each hand. As they approached, Kazooie leapt running onto and from the Suffering’s back, and Banjo, still airborne, turned to lasso one of the chain loops around the demon wherever it would find purchase. He hit the ground sliding, throwing the other loop over the wheel around the rear axle before stopping himself against the van’s side just shy of the ledge. Finding his grip on the bottom of the vehicle’s frame with both hands, he grit his teeth and began exerting himself to assist the demon hunter in dragging the van from peril. With enough effort, Banjo’s strength alone could probably suffice without the need to attach a towline to the demon, but it didn’t hurt their chances to trick an enemy into helping correct a problem they caused.

@ProPro@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN@Stern Algorithm@TruthHurts22

---

Linkle's enthusiasm for this giant bird she was riding could not make up for the innate trust The Couriers mount had in it's rider, and no amount of cooing, neck scratches, and beak pats seemed to be make up the differance. Linkle watched as the gunslingers lead got greater and greater, eventually becoming a yellow speck on the horizon before vanishing and leaving her without a guidepost. She pulled out her trusty compass and scrutinized the way the needle swung to and fro around the middle. She nodded to herself, closed it, and pulled off in the leftmost direction that it seemed to be favoring leaving Din and Gearalt to follow her lead.

They rode on for a while, Linkle positive she was on the path to find that lost traveller, when they stumbled across a giant monkey monster taking a nap on a hill. It wasn't their job to kill that thing and it wasn't attacking anyone else, so they decided to give it a wide berth. They eventually crested a hill overlooking a...

Hmmm...

This hadn't been where Linkle was trying to go, but it looked like it was pretty lucky that they'd stumbled upon this lake when they did. There were people here, being menaced by a gaggle of grotesque fish people crawling out of the lake. Slimey, glass eyed, and definitely sag-mouthed. "Those aren't Zora." she said. There was someone she did recognize though, that boy in blue currently doing his best to fend off the fish monsters. "That guy is from the guild." she said, pointing him out even as her companions sprang into action. Din iced up the bridge between the boys and the attacking fish men, while Gerlt pulled off and impressive shot with his crossbow, pegging one across the bridge in the head with a single bolt and drawing off some of the fish monsters to fight him instead.

Linkle kicked at her Chocobo's sides, urging it forward. It charged down the hill as Linkle tried to steady herself standing upright on the moving bird. As it approached where the Witcher was engaged with three of the fish men she lifted her boot and pressed it down on the chocobo's head. The bird gave a distressed "WARK," and quickly lifted its head back up, bouncing its entire body in the process. Linkle used that bounce to aid in her jump, being practically thrown forward by the bird as it tore off to the side to stand at the edge of the battle field, warking and flapping its wings menacingly.

Linkle was glad that that had worked. It was a cool trick those rabbits had taught her. As she spun through the air she pulled out her crossbows, holding down the triggers and sending a spray of bolts onto the fish men attacking Geralt. She could see the weak link in one of their armor, the gash Gearalt had cut into ones stomach, and made sure to to especially put a few bolts in there as she flew over the group. She landed with a roll on the other side of them. She didn't have time to check if she'd made any significant dent in the monsters, springing toward the two boys on the bridge as soon as she got back to her feet.

"Get off the bridge!" she called to them. "They'll be able to attack you from all sides. Get back to the shore and help Geralt." She took a good look around, trying to spot ripples in the water to guesstimate how many monsters they were dealing with here, before focussing her attention back to the predicament on the bridge. The boys would probably be able to get away, she couldn't imagine their slimy feet would do them any favors while dealing with Din's ice, but if they lingered for to long on the bridge here the fish men were undoubtedly going to cut them off from their reinforcements. If they acted quickly, though, that shouldn't be a problem.

The problem was the older, spiky headed guy struggling with door. That guy was already cut off, isolated, demoralized, and in serious trouble. There was no way he wasn't getting trapped on this bridge, and if he got trapped here alone he was going to die.

She pointed her bows in front of her and fired at the monsters closest to the two boys, hoping to but they a little extra breathing room for what she had planned. "But first, do me a favor and help throw me over to Mr. Spikey Head." she called out to the pair. She kept running while firing, running toward the boys, hoping one of them would help act as a boost just like that chochobo had and send her flying over this second group of fish men.

If they did she was going to yell at the spikey headed guy to duck out of the way and shoot a bomb right at that stubborn door, to hopefully give them a place to retreat to and figure something out. She had better figure something out. After all, hadn't she just bragged about how she was good at fighting big groups of monsters?

Already winded from only a few moments' hard labor, Tora was glad for a distraction. He wiped his brow with a sigh, planted the butt of his scythe in the ground, and leaned on it as he replied. “Pyra is friend of Tora, and very beautypon, meh! Although, have eyes for only Rex-Rex, and actually almost never speak to me. One time, Tora tried to teach her how to be blushy-crushy, and didn't go so bad. Got shirt with her on it from somewhere, mehmeh, but don't remember where.” He leaned over slightly to whisper to Bowser, though it didn't come out very quiet. “Tora think Poppi hate it for some reason, meh!”

He didn't notice Poppi glaring at him until she spoke. “Tora awfully complimentary of Pyra all the time. Why never say such nice things about Poppi?”

The Nopon, avoiding her gaze, ran a contemplative wingfeather along his non-chin. “Er...Poppi very good at giving straightforward criticisms!”

Rolling her eyes, the artificial blade continued to harvest with her sickle. Her precise, mechanical motions were making short work of the labor, which suited Tora just fine. Tinkering over an exciting project for days on end didn't give him a second thought, but it appeared that even a short while of boring, manual labor left him fatigued. The pair, as well as Bowser and his son, continued working for a while until Tora -more interested in the scenery than the task at hand- spotted a figure entering the field. “Meh meh meh! Stranger alert!” When the newcomer grew closer, however, the Nopon recognized who it was despite a couple changes.

“Oh, it Centurion. Hello, friend,” he greeted. “Just in time to help wrap up wheat-gathering. With big arms, Tora sure friend could be super-helpypon!”

However, there came a rumble behind him. Poppi drew near, hauling a cart laden with wheat. It also held a number of other ingredients the group collected. She set it down and made a show of dusting her hands, saying, “Masterpon need not pass buck, job is pretty much done. Just one more from Bowser and we good to go.” She flexed her tired joints. “But maybe Bowser can pull cart. Once we finish dealing with village.”

Her words perked Tora up. “Meh? Poppi found village?”

She nodded. “On eastern side of field,” she explained, pointing. “There number of tall, thin houses. People too. Want to see?” The prospect piqued Tora's curiosity, but he felt tired enough already. The others could decide if they wanted to check this place out or take their haul home. He'd already forgotten about having to get meat.



Not a moment could be wasted. Din went on the offensive, capitalizing on most of the pelagics still being in the water by calling upon her Spell of Winter to freeze part of the lake's surface. While the cold annoyed the savage fishpeople more than it really hurt them, it severely impeded their movement, buying the youths a few critical seconds while her teammates raced to lend a hand. First on the scene came Geralt, whose Quen sign lent him protection as he loosed a crossbow bolt to dissuade Phoenix's foremost attacker. Before he knew it, several pelagics closed on him, threatening to gut him like a fish. He met them in a brutal melee, dispatching one with strength and precision only to find two more in its place. After witnessing the speed with which the Witcher killed one of their own, the two arrivals rushed him one after another, their cutlasses held high. The third turned its attention from Phoenix to wind up and hurl its spear at Geralt's back, intent on reeling him back with the harpoon's attached line.

However, Linkle entered the fray just then, needling over a dozen pelagics at once with her neverending crossbow bolts. The wounded one and the spear-thrower took the worst of it, both skewered by her projectiles and slumping into the half-frozen water. Her feat earned her some respect from Euden and Gran, embattled as they were, but too many pelagics stood on the bridge between them and the shore, and surely even with her archery skills one girl couldn't rescue the lost lawyer alone. If not for Din's efforts, they might have all been overwhelmed already, and these pelagics were no small fry. Any second now, they could still be overrun.

Seeing this, Euden chose to play the hero. Ignoring Linkle's request for a team jump, he took a deep breath. His eyes turned red, and swirling wind surrounded him as he unleashed his power. Into the air burst a huge green dragon, whose roar rang out across the lake. Once he had everyone's attention, he snarled, “HOLD TIGHT!” before beating his tremendous wings. Gran rushed to upend his sword and plunge it into the wooden walkway, and just in time. A wave of wind crashed over the bridge, knocking most of the pelagics back into the water.

The victory, however, proved short-lived. Just a moment later the dragon began to dissolve into ether, and with a strangled cry Euden plummeted toward the water. On the other side of the bridge, a loud CRACK resounded as a gnarled cestus broke the icy surface, and from the drink emerged a pelagic guardian onto the raft of the floating house.





With his companions at his side, the Courier could leave the remainder of the rocky foothills behind and enter the Coral Highlands. From moment one he could see that the whole place brimmed with life, and not just what non-radiated worlds would consider ordinary, either. Jellyfish bobbed through the air like balloons, and strange arthropods the size of crocodiles soared lazily through the sky. A great number of insects, amphibians, fanciful birds, and crabs inhabited the place as well. Though fascinating to watch, however, he did not find anything approximating the description he'd been given of a Wiggler.

That was, until he happened upon a lower area with some standing water. On the other side of the pool, a patch of sandy soil existed among the corals, and from this bank rose many long, noodle-shaped creatures with colorful eyes and flamboyant crests. Their appearance left no doubt that the Courier's Koopa ally had unwittingly deceived him; these were the Wigglers he was meant to find.

Aside from extending upward from their holes, they didn't do much until a noise from the coral underbrush grabbed their attention. A dark shape moved through the cover, advancing steadily until it emerged, and the afternoon sunlight shone off its gorgeous purple scales. While not too large, the monster was still heavy enough for its footfalls to shake the ground a touch. At its approach the Wigglers shrank down into their holes, fast as lightning. The Tzitzi-ya-ku, uninterested in the puny creatures, simply stalked by.



Dark Jak's onslaught against one Suffering plus Ratchet's bombs would have left Gene in the clear for when his God Hand wore off had one raging demon not remained, ready and willing to pound the martial artist into the dirt. Luckily, two guardian angels appeared just in the nick of time. A restored Blazermate swooped down from the perch where her Engineer assembled a sentry to pump her healing energy into Gene, while the not-so-familiar face of Kamek appeared from Blazermate's teleporter just in time to plant a hex on Gene that boosted him to Suffering size.

Meanwhile, the bear and bird lent their efforts to the demon hunter's rescue. Their mad Talon Trot brought them near enough to the Suffering while it whaled on Gene for Kazooie to leap up, putting Banjo in a spot to ensnare the beast in chains before cruising onward to help out Nero.

For its part, the demon did not take this development likely. With a guttural growl it started swinging, hurtling four muscle-packed arms at the man before it in a savage flurry. A couple seconds later it came around in a terrifying lariat, its arms cleaving through the air to crush flesh and shatter bone. At the end of the move it wheeled back out of the fight, kicking off the ground to fly through the air and land atop the mausoleum in the graveyard's center. In doing so, it yanked up the van partways, though the chains came off of it in the same jolt.

Gassed, it grabbed at nearby tomestones to hurl at the heroes indiscriminately. It threw two headstones before seizing a stone statue, breaking it into halves that it chucked one after another. The Suffering would have no doubt seized its own undead minions had Mr. Bones and Blazermate's sentry not been keeping their numbers down. With their efforts plus Ratchet and the others, there were few enough zombies that only the remaining Suffering stood out as a threat. In a situation like this, it could not threaten Nero without risking its own hide.

Thanks to Banjo's efforts and Donnie's continued help, Nero bellowed out the last of his strength and managed a final, powerful heave to bring the van up from the brink. He collapsed, hyperventilating, and Nico knelt beside him. “Hey! Y'alright there, champ?”

Wholly unable to speak, the demon hunter waved her off. He could still see the others, however, despite seeing stars, and he saw that the heroes had turned the tide. Jak's sacrifice, putting himself out of commission, had paved the way for a reversal of fortune that put the heroes in the right place to win the day. Still, they couldn't be too careful. Any complacence could lead to a sudden replenishment of enemy forces, or worse yet, getting made into mulch by the Suffering's mighty fists.

@ProPro@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN@Stern Algorithm@TruthHurts22

---

Linkle watched, wide eyed in awe, as one of the boys suddenly shifted forms and exploded into the air. She had never seen a dragon before but that was unmistakably what the magnificent green form floating in front of them was. Even the fish men had seemed to stop their advance momentarily at the appearance of a monster that was higher on the totem pole than them. She was so enthralled that, were the thing not as loud as Bowser, she might not have heard its order.

Linkle quickly looked around for something to steady herself with, but unfortunately for her the bridge they were on was quite sturdy and void of any cracks that she could dig her fingers into to get a grip. She saw the other boy drive his sword into the bridge itself and plant himself squarely in place. He obviously knew what his partner had planned, but Linkle doubted she could get the same effect by burying bolts in the wood and holding onto them. Without any other apparent option and ran up behind the boy and threw her arms around him, crossing her bows over his chest and gripping tight.

Not a moment later it was as though they were being assaulted by the fury of Faora herself. The wind blasted over them, causing linkles cloak to flutter like a rag behind her and nearly lifting her off her feet. Had she not had the favor of that self-same goddess of wind it might have, surly. After the moment, though, the gale subsided and Linkle was able to lift her head up.

As to be expected, most of the monsters hadn't been intelligent or fast enough to realize what was about to happen and had been totally swept from the bridge. She laughed as she pulled herself off the blue boy, but realized they'd have to act fast. They had an opportunity to retreat onto solid ground, but with the fish men still in the water they didn't have long. They had to get Mr. Spikey.

At least, that would have been the priority, had the dragon not suddenly disintegrated over the water leaving its boy to plunge toward the depths and the horrors lurking below. Linkles mind began to work fast as she watched him fall. There had to be something she could do, right? She racked her brain. Arrows were not powerful enough to push him, the bounce might but that wasn't reliable. If only she had a hookshot! Wait, maybe if she could get the guy next to her to team jump her out there she could get him and they'd fly just close enough to shore to-

"Linkle. Do not, under any circumstance, do that again..."

She stopped just as she was about to put that incredibly bad plan into motion.

"Be more careful, OK? If not for yourself, then for others. You can't expect to help anyone with a... well, you get the picture."

Right. She'd made a promise, hadn't she? About the only thing that would happen even if she pulled that off was getting herself killed, and leaving everybody else to fight these things with one less person. With what she knew she could, there wasn't much of anything she could do for the dragon boy. Then again, though, she wasn't the only one here.

"DIN!" she called out, picturing in her head those wings the girl had gotten from the mechanical bird. Din could do it, Linkle knew she could. "Grab him!"

The words were barely out of her mouth when another sound cracked though the area. Linkle turned to see a metal fist burst up through the ice around the floating house. A bulbous, bulgy eyed, dripping mas pulled itself up onto the walkway around the house, half muscles and half writhing tentacles, to menace the spiky haired man once more. She grit her teeth, levered her bows and fired off a pair of bombs at what had to be the boss of these fish men. Take him out and the others might scatter and retreat.

The Combination of Blazermate's Sentry and Mr. Bonez helping out kept the horde of zombies at bay. Blazermate saw that Mr. Bonez wasn't an enemy, and even if he was, Blazermate's sentry would attack him if he was hostile, so she didn't pay him too much mind. Not when Jak was so critically injured with his fight with the Suffering. But beyond all that, the most weird thing was Magickoopa coming through her teleporter, and turning Gene into a giant. "What the... ok then..." Blazermate said as the giant Gene went to fight the big monster. Blazermate meanwhile had to move over to Jak to heal him up.

While she was healing Jak, falling behind where Ratchet pulled him to and helping him fight off the occasional zombie that her sentry gun missed. Dell kept the sentry up and refilled, enjoying the carnage that his creation was causing to the zombies below. Once all the zombies were cleared out, the sentry having only the Suffering as its only target starting unloading upon the giant beast.

Thankfully since both Sans and Mr. Bonez weren't hostile, the sentry didn't even look in their direction.