@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN@Stern Algorithm@TruthHurts22@Lugubrious

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Linkle had only had her breathing room for a moment before the ranks of the fish monsters surged forward and enveloped her in battle, eager to avenge the numerous arrows now sticking up from their scaly hides. One of them came at her, it's cutlass flashing across the distance between them even as she ducked. She rammed her bow up against his stomach, rewarding his bravery with a with bolts that went so deep you could hardly see them. One of his compatriots brought his own cutlas down but she rolled backward as the weapon dug into the wood of the bridge.

Then, from over the shoulder of the one that pushed her back, came a wickedly barbed spear. She hadn't seen it coming as it bit into her shoulder, but instead of pushing the fish man yanked his catch forward. The two fish men in the front, one now wobbling with its hand on its stomach, made way as Linkle was pulled into the middle of the group. The head of the spear ripped wetly from her flesh, sending her stumbling forward into range of another fishman man, waiting to impale her on the tip of it own spear.

What were these guys doing, taking turns?

Linle raised up her bows to make him pay for it but luckily for her the dragon boy from earlier came to her rescue from out of nowhere, his sword sinking deep into the side of the fish man that had been waiting for her. Linkle spun on her heel, slamming the fish man's other side with the back of her boot and driving him further onto the dragon boys sword. That was the que for the swordfish behind her to attack, bringing his cutlass across in a way that she was barely able to duck.

This was it. This was her type of fight. The type of fight where you needed eyes in the back of your head because you never knew which direction you were about to be attacked from. Where throwing attacks all over the place was a necessity, just to buy yourself some breathing room from the enemies all around you. So battle began in earnest, fish men attacking, Linkle countering, not unlike a dance except in this one the only reward you got in the end was the faCt that you were still standing. There were less of these guys than she was used too, but were stronger, they clung stubbornly to life, and had unfair tricks they liked to use. She noticed that whenever one of the swordfish in front attacked that spear from the back wasn't far behind, waiting to pull you in to get mauled by its fellows. It was a simple tactic, but a smarter one than she had ever encountered from her enemies, and the unsettling anticipation of the spear awarded the swordfish a few light cuts in her side and across her arms that she she normally never would have given up to foes like this. it could have been far worse if she hadn't seen that botched attempt from earlier. Still, through it all, Linkle was smiling. There was nothing that could sour her mood in this type of fight.

At least not until she heard a gasp of pain over the din of battle, and remembered the other thing about fights like this; if you're not around to protect your allies they're going to die. She dodged to the side as the spear came again, getting a look over the fish man's shoulder to where it had come from.

The other boy, guild boy, was definitely not a dragon. If he were she felt like he definitely would have dragoned out by now, considering his situation. He wasn't used to this type of fight, that much was obvious from the state of him. Linkle hardened her face and, as a fish man's cutlass sought her again, dodged over the side of the bridge onto the ice that the dragon boy had so kindly showed her. She slipped slightly, skidding a little to far before regaining her balance. The ice bobbed as she ran across it, using it to bypass the fish men she'd been fighting, bounding across the ice sheet toward the house sitting on the lake before jumping back onto the bridge behind the battle. So that the group of them that had been fighting her and Gran were all in front of her.

Then she charged, and as she charged she held up her bows and waved them back and forth, spraying bolts at every monster of the bridge. Gran and Euden could feel the air from the bolts as they flew past, but miraculously not a one of those arrows ever plunged into them. With every bolt that found its place in the scaly hide of a hideous fish monster Linkle could feel momentum building, the energy of the fight flowing into her. Building, building, waiting to explode.

Lickle slid between the legs of one of the monsters fighting Gran, stood up next to the boy, and went off like a bomb. She fired forward and backwards, then to both side, then spun in a circle shooting at everything around her. Then came the fire, and the power, flowing out a Linkle in a burst that seemed to pass over the boys even as it slammed into the fish men.

The situation wasn’t looking too good, if the Courier were to admit it. The dinosaur monster wasn’t so receptive of him as most critters were. He thought that maybe if it weren’t for the offering of meat, the thing would have already been at his neck. Even so it was clearly a highly aggressive monster, looking for any reason to strike. His hand gripped his shotgun in its holster, ready to pull it out and fire the moment this creature moved, as it would undoubtedly come down to a fight. No befriending this hombre.

“I’d cover my eyes if I were you!” shouted a voice from afar, startling both the Courier and the monster he was attempting to tame. The dinosaur used some bizarre quirk of its biology to focus a blast of concentrated sunlight right at his eyes, but luckily the Courier was an adaptable fellow. Rather than be put off balance by the sudden warning of this stranger, it gave him the ample preparation he needed to do exactly that.

Time seemingly froze to a standstill as the Courier activated V.A.T.S., allowing him to observe the dinosaur creature in an extremely slow motion and pickout the best strategy. Its head seemed to be unfurling some sort of reflective membrane. In the slow motion he could already see how it was gathering light for what he presumed would be some sort of blinding tactic. Amazing quirk of biology this thing had, and very deadly when paired with those talons. Luckily, technology was on his side, as was luck. He had enough time to queue up 2 shots with his shotgun on the critter. Target head: Probability to hit - 95%

BOOM BOOM!

Two shots quickly blasted from the shotgun, depleting all its loaded shells and rendering the weapon useless until it could be reloaded. V.A.T.S. deactivated in the same instant as the creature came flying at him with razor sharp claws exposed, and he rolled off to the side. In his place manifested the large robotic striker Bastion in humanoid form, steel body ready to receive the damage and gun ready to unload into the monster.

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Jak emerged from the van with Daxter on his shoulder, the two firing finger guns at one another playfully. Ratchet had since put away his new shotgun and was conversing with the others on minor small talk, nothing important, when Nero decided that enough preparations had been made and it was time to go kick some ass.

”Hold up,” Jak interrupted before they all head out, clearly bothered by something. When he spoke, it was uncomfortable and he avoided eye contact. ”I owe everyone an apology. I’m used to running in guns blazing and taking everything out without a problem, but that doesn’t seem to always work here. What I’m saying is, I guess if I’m the best there is on my world, I shouldn’t underestimate the dangers posed by the best of everyone else’s worlds too. So I got hurt when I had other ways to kill those things without the same risk and… Sorry that I made myself dead weight.” He met the other’s eyes for the first time, glaring in both determination, and anger. ”Nobody is going to have to come to my rescue again.”

Ratchet had to chuckle. ”Is that actually some humility from you, Jak? I’m surprised! Hahaha! I guess you’re forfeiting the contest to me, then?”

Ratchet and Jak clapped hands together, squeezing in a firm grip. ”Not on your life, furball.”

”Don’t underestimate us just because Jak had to get a bit sappy for a minute! I’m still the same hard as steel bad boy I’ve always been, capiche?” Daxter added.

”Sure, Dax.” Ratchet released his grip from Jak, who did the same, and the two heroes followed Nero through the cathedral plaza.

Up the stairs and out to the opening, a large creature stood silent and lonely amidst the gothic background. The ent looked to be a fearsome foe indeed, though also a passive one. It did not seem to recognize their presence, allowing them all to get setup however the group decided was best. Recognizing the enemy as being made of wood, Ratchet pulled out the bombbuilder as his main weapon for the battle, hoping the heat from the blasts might set the thing on fire. Jak pulled out his trusty morph gun and set it to the Vulcan Fury.

Then Nero called the monster out, and the battle had begun. Ratchet quickly took aim and fired two proximity mines at the ent’s feet, where they immediately exploded a safe distance beneath Nero as the demon hunter pulled off his own combo. Jak began to unload with rapid fire the high speed, high penetration rounds of his Vulcan Fury, sending more than 40 rounds of blue eco into the ent in just a couple of seconds. That was, until…

Click

Out of blue eco? Gah! Jak swapped the morph gun over to the Blaster mode and rolled away from a small group of hollows that sought him out. His roll jumps propelled him several meters at a time, allowing him to build distance, then take them out before they even got close. Once the hollows chasing him were blasted to smithereens, he turned back to the ent.

Meanwhile Ratchet had swapped out the bombbuilder for his trusty old omniwrench, standing at attention as the hollows began to swarm around him. He gave a couple warning swings to keep them off, but the creatures were not so easily dissuaded. They all jumped into Ratchet at once and… Moved right through him?

”I love this power! Zer0 had style!” Ratchet decloaked right behind the ent, Reaper in hand. He unleashed a shot of Hell energy directly into its back at point blank, all 6 shots concentrated together to hit the enemy.

In response to this, or perhaps to Nero, the ent slammed its arms down to create a shockwave in every direction, the whole plaza rattling with the force! Jak, being a good distance away, was able to spot the telegraphed move and hop onto his jet board and ride the wave out no problem. But Ratchet being so close and relatively easy to harm…

“I’ve got you, Ratchet!” Clank reaffirmed, appearing on the lombax’s back and taking on jet form. The little robot propelled Ratchet high up in the air to avoid the shockwave.

”Thanks, little buddy!” Ratchet said back, now taking another shot with the Reaper, down toward the ent’s head.

With all their shopping finished, Blazermate followed Nero and the rest of the party into the courtyard that held the odd looking tree. At the request of Nero, Blazermate began to set herself up in the area as there was about to be a fight. Finding an area with some height to it, she summoned the Engineer, who began to construct his sentry and dispenser. Since this looked like it'd be a much worse fight than the Suffering, she figured that Ratchet would love a dispenser for his weapons, as she knew it gave him lots of ammo.

Thanks to her testing with her arm earlier, Blazermate was able to call some of the nearby undead to her side. At first, she figured that her sentry would attack them, but as they were following her commands to the letter, the sentry just beeped as it looked back and forth, looking for a hostile target. Following her testing earlier, Blazermate injected a few mindless undead with the mutagen that the arm drooled from its maw. "This feels... so unnatural, but good." Blazermate said a bit darkly as she mutated some of the mindless undead into stronger forms that the group had seen earlier.

With the group's preperations complete, Nero instigated the fight with, what looked like a huge walking tree with tentacle branches for a beard. As a low roar came from the tree creature, much smaller beetle-like trees came up from the ground and rushed the group "And here I thought the zombies were weird!" Blazermate said as the sentry beeped, locking onto the nearest target and opening fire. Pointing at the monster, she commanded the undead that listened to her to attack it. While she couldn't really control them beyond that, she didn't really need any advanced commands either.

As everyone began to attack the monster, it let loose a powerful shockwave as it slammed the ground. Thankfully Blazermate kept her sentry set up a bit away from the fight so the shockwave didn't damage it much, but it greatly injured the undead she had commanded to attack the creature. Blazermate gracefully flew over the shockwave herself, much like Ratchet and Clank did. While in the air, Blazermate got a good look at the creature, and her scanners detected some strange things in the roots of the monster. "Hey guys, there are some strange things in the roots of that thing and the buildings." She continued to scan for the weakpoint of the creature, as she figured that just attacking it outright wouldn't be nearly as effective. After a bit, she continued. "The upper back is its weakspot!" when she was sure that was the weakpoint of the creature.

”I’ll be right back.”

Kamek announced while pre flight preparations where ongoing before vanishing a burst of smoke and appearing above a well reaped field. He glanced around a few times before spotting the tracks of a cart drawn by reptilian footsteps that must have belonged to his king leading towards a strange village full of narrow houses. The wizard sighed to himself as he noted the royal family had ignored him once again and wandered off before turning his broom towards the village and heading after them.

”Yeah, uh hu. Cool. Got it” jr said, nodding along as he struggled to grasp the particulars of the mayor's fancy talking. While most of it was useful, it was the last part about a terrifying beast caught his attention however.

”Think that's it papa?” he asked, referring to the theory of each area having one boss each.

The king didn't know and was frustrated by that fact as he replied ”It’s different from the plains one. So that makes two it might be already. Gah. How many big monsters are there out here? how are we supposed to know which is the right one!”

Jr shrugged. The pair then continued to listen to the pig and hamster’s conversation and learned about another quest, though this one would likely not earn them any prestige with the guild, and of a huntress who might be able to aid them.

Most of the group seemed eager to move on, stating that they had better get a move on with their task of hunting down Galeem’s lieutenants. Not that they knew where any more where, but hunting down green things for pig money wasn’t likely to help in solving that issue.

”HARD PASS. LUGGING THIS THING AROUND IS GOING TO BE A PAIN.” Bowser complained after they had bade the mayor goodbye, while jr pointed that ”There might be good stuff in town though?”

”If they do maybe we’ll come back. First though we're gonna check out this hunter lady. Maybe we can get her to do the rest of the work for us.” he said before glancing at the centurion ”YOU SAID YOU COULD HUNT RIGHT? IF THIS LADY DOESN'T HELP WE’LL JUST GO BACK AND BUY YOU SOMETHING TO HUNT WITH IF NOTHING ELSE WORKS. FASTER WE TURN ALL OF THIS INTO CASH THE BETTER ANYWAY.” the king concluded as he jostled the cart laden with gems and ores.

As they headed towards the inn there came a call of ”There you are sire!” from the sky as Kamek reappeared. ”my deepest apologies for taking so long, your army in the Dead Zone is meeting stiff resistance. They have little to spare and I’ve already offered to assist them for a little while longer as I do believe they are heading in the right direction when it comes to finding one of our targets.”

”Yeah that place is a mess. Its the tree right? Pretty obvious over there where to go.” Jr noted before grumbling ”So I guess it's good they're making progress while we still have no idea where to go… wait your heading back?”

Kamek nodded before asking ”If that's alright with you sire?”

Bowser nodded in turn before informing his advisor that ”We’re heading back to town soon. Getting rid of all this stuff. Meet us there.”

”As you say. Here. take these with you for the chef” Kamek replied, adding the small number of slime balls they'd gotten out of the nuclear creeper incident to the cart’s load. ”And also all of this. You might find a use for them in town.” he added, before depositing most of his other non essential items into the cart such as medical herbs and the foul smelling breakfast, which was carefully isolated from anything remotely edible in its own sack.

”Right. Oh and take this to help or trade or something.” Bowser said, before retrieving the half empty minigun that he didn't have any use for anyway. With a thanks the drifted closer and grabbed the weapons handle. He then hoisted the gun with surprising strength for a few moments before it shrunk down to a more carry-able size and was left hanging off of his broomstick.

”Also these.” Jr added, following his father's example by tossing the cartoonish black wick lit bomb and the strange crystal grenade he’d gotten from the dead zone to Kamek. The Magikoopa fumbled briefly with the two explosives before they too were shrunk down and placed in pockets.

”Thank you both. Be safe. I’ll see you both for dinner at the latest.” Kamek thanked and then promised his royal masters before disappearing once more back to the Dead Zone.

A few moments after he vanished Bowser facepalmed. ”GAH. Should have got him to shrink the cart.” he admonished himself before sighing and shaking the thought free of his mind. While they'd been talking with their wise underling the pair had fallen behind and so arrived at the inn last. Bowser set down the cart and, after thinking for a few moments, first grabbed a few gems of varying qualities form it and then summoned his minions. Mallet, Sledge and Heel all appeared before him and where ordered to ”GUARD THE CART”

Jr also dismounted his clown car and entered the bar. He first sent out and then attempted to get Mimikyu to guard his cart alongside his father’s minions, but instead the fake mouse snuck its way onto his shoulder the moment he turned to enter the Inn.

”Sigh. Fine you can come.” he told it, before he entered after his father.

---

Kamek reappeared just as everyone was finally finishing with their preparations. The demonic tree, perhaps a lesser kin of the vast eldritch location devouring the city Kamek though, had politely waited for them all to get ready. Kamek took the opportunity to summon his illusory copies and then he too was then ready to go.

When the teams self proclaimed not leader decided it was time to go and taunted the tree. In response the tree moaned dreadful, as if displeased at being stirred to life. But stir to life it did, as did a number of squat rag covered minions, that might have been its seeds, armed with crude weapons and far to many teeth.

Kamek, not wanting to be anywhere near the swarming little buggers, ascended upwards and then leaned forwards to grab the minigun. The weapon hugged the front of his broom, the shaft of which was slipped between its horizontal handle. The gun had then been shrunk, causing its handle to grip the broom and preventing it from putting the broom into a nosedive. This essentially turned the broom into a miniature A-10 warthog.

He tumbed the trigger, causing him and his four duplicates to let out a burst of miniature minigun rounds which peppered the minions charging their position. The weakened rounds did minimal damage individually, but the sheer quantity being hosed down at the minions still stung, gradually shredding some and giving others pause.

Then the Ent made its third move, stomping the ground hard to produce a massive omni-directional shock-wave, similar to the ones Bowser could produce after jumping. Some of the others flew over it as Kamek well could, but instead he bobbed down closer to the team.

”I can give a boost!” he called out, doppelgangers vanishing as he offered the real broom as a handhold to grant some upwards momentum. He hung there for a few moments and then, whether or not he had a passenger, rose up and over the shockwave.

(edit) all the other members of the team showed themselves to be entirely capable of jumping the shockwave on their own and so Kamek instead inadvertently saved one of Blazermate infected. the hunchbacked thing grappled onto the broom and road it to safety either by accident or design before hurling itself onward towards the ent like a deranged monkey that wanted to clime the most dangerous of trees. (edit)

As he ascended Blazermate called out that the roots had some strange things in them which was both helpful and unhelpful in equal measures.

”Strange things in the roots?” he asked, hoping for clarity.

The Cadet wouldn't be put off by the monster's intimidation tactic; he leapt forward, blade flashing out in front of him to slash at the Bird Wyvern's legs. Monsters were tough, but eventually the damage would stack up and it would have a harder time jumping at them. Speaking of them-

After hearing the sound of gunshots the red headed hunter looked toward the 'newbie' in the weird clothes, thankfully finding him seemingly uninjured on the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku's other side. The man was fast! He seemed to have good instincts as well. That was great news to Cadet, just meant he wouldn't have to worry about babysitting the guy while simultaneously fighting the 'Ya-Ku. On second glance, it looked like he actually did have a weapon too - though it was kind of on the small side for a bowgun. The Cadet could feel a grin working it's way onto his face just thinking about a bowgun that tiny packing enough punch to make a sound that loud. He wanted to try it out! For now though, he let himself ease into more familiar hunting habits, raising his shield and turning back around to face the direction the TziTzi-Ya-Ku had gone flying in but instead saw something decidedly unfamiliar.

"Uh," the Cadet couldn't help but let the sound escape from him as his eyes landed on the... metal man? It might have looked like a bulking suit of armor, but some of it's proportions - it's head, legs - were too strange to have anyone really believe there could be someone inside of it. Right? It was also way too big to be a palico. Well, the thought came to him, I have met some really big felynes-- Wait, stop, now wasn't the time to get distracted.

The appearance of the metallic creature had the Cadet hesitating for a moment but he assumed it was friendly for two reasons: it was currently facing down the monster and it was a huge metal thing! Man-made for sure, either a new hunting tool or something else that currently inhabited the weird world he currently found himself in. Either way, friendly. Hopefully... okay, better make sure.

"Metal Man is on our side, right?" the Cadet called with a quick glance back at the other - human - man. Although he should have probably waited for confirmation that the metal thing was indeed safe, instead Ace started making his way toward the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku's front, shield raised and ready in case the creature suddenly turned his way - which would be great, in fact, so he could land a clean hit on it. The Cadet used the butt of his sword's handle to bang on the shield a little in the hopes of drawing the Bird Wyvern's attention.

Wiping a bit of blood off of his face, Geralt sighed as he realized that he, and Linkle, would have to get that kid out of the middle of all those damn fish-things. Why these kids were so damn gung-ho about jumping into the middle of a horde of monsters was beyond him. Linkle basically told him that her entire fighting style revolved around surrounding herself with as many enemies as possible and just firing blindly into the crowd. What nonsense. Maybe wherever she came from, some people could get away with giving the absolute minimum care for their own well-being, but on the Continent, heroics got you killed. Much like they'd get this dumb kid killed if he didn't get there immediately.

Stowing his crossbow and pulling out his silver sword once more, Geralt charged into the battle, impaling a Pelagic on his sword before it even realized he was there, pulling his blade out of its spine and stabbing at another of the monsters, which had only managed to turn in response to its comrade's death before the blade pierced its throat. The third Pelagic fared better, stabbing its spear at Geralt and forcing him to hop back a step to avoid the weapon.

Reaching out with his hand to grab the haft of the spear just below its tip, Geralt yanked it towards himself while stepping forward, catching the beast off guard and causing it to stumble a step towards him. Silver met scales once more as his sword pierced the monster's lightly-colored chest, a small part of the tip showing through its back. Geralt pushed the corpse to the side, drawing his blade from its body almost like it was a scabbard.

More had turned to him by now, leaving them open to Linkle's bolts, and between the two of them, Geralt had enough room to see Gran clearly, bloodied and beaten as he was. It also gave him a perfect view for Linkle's explosive burst of power, arrows and bombs and what seemed to be some kind of magic.

Okay, if that was what she was capable of, maybe it wasn't such a terrible idea for her to handle larger groups of enemies. "Hey, kid! Get over here before they overrun you!" He called out, to both of them, really.

As Donnie walked out of the van, carrying the Disc over his shoulder with his weapons sheathed, he observed the threat before him. A towering treant, obviously somehow cursed. It was a gnarled, twisted thing, with what looked like tentacles of wood stemming from what passed for its face. Like a wooden version of one of the Faceless Ones.

This was more like it.

It slammed the ground, causing a shockwave to rush right for him. On instinct, Donnie got on his trusty frisbee and ascended above the shockwave, before moving to engage.

He stood in the air, about thirty feet above the creature's head, before, almost on old instincts, summoning up the luggage and pulling out a bottle of something he had honestly forgotten he had. Booze. A fine bottle of it too. He'd almost regret throwing it away like this. But that was the point. It was Darkmoon Special Reserve, the signature brand of the Darkmoon Faire, which was only open on the first week of each month. While it was therefore one of the harder alcohols to get, it had a reputation (to the point of infamy, even) as one of the most potent alcoholic beverages ever made, on par with Nethergarde Bitter or Loch Modan Lager. This would work excellently for what he had in mind.

He tore off the cork on the bottle with chi-enhanced strength, then poured the whole bottle into the open air, right on the Ent's head. It flowed down onto its shoulders and back in limited quantities, though a lot of it went wide and spread to the rest of its body. It would have to do.

He then activated the next step of his (admittedly simple) master plan: Produce a book of matches, strike one of them, and drop the lit match directly on the Ent's head.

Then, if the tower of wood successfully became little more than an angry, flailing, overgrown bonfire, run like hell. Figuratively speaking, of course. He would be flying.

Tora and Poppi watched in passive silence as Agoston and Bowser jointly decided for the group, plotting their course. Despite the interesting Hamlet of pigs, it appeared that the group wouldn't be spending much time here. Once they investigated the hunter lady mentioned by the helpful swine, they would be on their way. Poppi supposed that whatever Lumbridge scouts explored the wheat fields must also have stumbled upon the Hamlet too, but if not, she could deliver some information about this place back to the guild. For his part, Tora wondered if this settlement -with all its civilization and establishment- would vanish in the Land of Adventure's next rollover, or if it would remain as a fixture like Lumbridge. What exactly would happen to these people if it did? The thought of such a temporary life terrified him. He wasn't the sort of Nopon to stick his (nonexistent) neck out and be a hero for strangers, but all these happy, industrious pig people couldn't just blip out of existence, could they? But what could he do to help? What would Rex do...?

After a few more moments of deliberation, the Bowsers and the Centurion proceeded toward the inn. Tora, however, stayed still, and a worried Poppi remained with him. A couple seconds passed, with Truffleston and his associated looking at him confusedly, before Tora spoke up. “Meeh...piggypon mayor?”

“Yes, young man?”

“Do know how Land of Adventure works?”

The strange question caught the well-dressed porker off guard. “Er, I fear mine understanding does lack.” Clearly, he was having some trouble understanding the Nopon dialect as well.

A couple moments to process the troubling news later, Tora continued. “Meh meh, Tora not know too well either, but here is gist. People tell that each week, whole land regenerate itself. Almost everything changed or replaced. Some stuff not change, but Tora not know why, meh.”

The mayor looked aghast. “Preposterous!” he exclaimed in disbelief. “Thy tale beggars belief. The Hamlet has stood proud since...since...”

Now in line with her masterpon's thinking, Poppi cut in. “Even if piggy mayor not believe, should really try in next few days to send folks west, past field and plain, to big town called Lumbridge. Talk with people, maybe try to set up road or route between Lumbridge and Hamlet. Maybe if connected with anchor, Hamlet not be lost.”

It was a leap of logic, but it was the best the pair could offer. Truffleston looked equal parts thoughtful and disturbed, and after a few moments he gave an assenting nod. “Very well. On the chance thou telleth truth, we will send envoys to yonder town. At the very least, trade doth fatten our pockets. But if thy warning spares the Hamlet some disaster, we will owe thee dearly.”

Tora and Poppi smiled. They wanted to talk more, but the others had already reached the inn, so they had to get going. Hopefully what they'd done would be enough.



The wiry-bearded pig behind the inn counter pointed a trotter up the stairs, signaling Bowser, Junior, and Agoston where to go. “By happenstance, thy quarry just returned, mayhap to fetch something. Seeketh her up there, though be careful. Hail, sir dragon,” he waved down Bowser in particular. “Thy bulky frame would crack mine pig-shaped corridors. Kindly detain thyself outdoors, sirrah.” By some miracle, the pig inn seemed to be much bigger on the inside than the outside, but it still wasn't big enough for Bowser. His kid, however, could follow the Centurion up the stairs and to a door left open by a guest planning quick egress.

Inside, they could see a lean woman in blue garb, leather gear, and golden armor. A dependable crossbow hung at her hip, but with her back to the door her face could not be seen. She'd thrown open the shuttered window, and as her guests watched, a huge eagle swooped down to land on her outstretched arm. The huntress stroked his feathered head before turning to face the newcomers along with her bird. Together, they stared the heroes down. “What do you want?”



Even as the killer pelagics threatened to bleed Gran dry, the heroic resolve of his allies galvanized them into action. Linkle, Geralt, and Euden attacked with renewed strength and determination, and the tide swiftly started to turn. The archeress whirled in an acrobatic dance of death, wheeling about from foe to foe in a storm of bolts and blows, her momentum preventing her from staying in any one place long enough to take another thrust or slice. Euden, after pulling his blade free from the scaly corpse Linkle helped to bury it in, backed off to let her take center stage while his flaming sword drove errant pelagics toward her. After a few moments she broke off to circumnavigate the fish mob using the ice, but leaving her allies at the pelagics' mercy was the last thing on her mind. After she circled around, Linkle unleashed a fusillade of bolts that raked through the enemy ranks but left her friends untouched. The wounded monsters could barely see Linkle coming as she then swept in and went off.

Piercing power followed by a wall of flame left turned almost all of the pelagics to ash in a matter of moments. Those who remained met a swift end on Geralt's blade soon after, its silver already wet from cutting them down prior to Linkle's outburst. All of a sudden, no enemies remained. The heroes' combined efforts had prevailed; the pelagics were no more. The last corpses, including that of the guardian, faded into ash to leave fish-faced spirits behind, and everyone could breath easy, from the wounded Gran to the elevated Phoenix.

Euden wiped his blade off on his sleeve, sheathed it, and stooped to help Gran. Everyone could see that the boy needed a healer, but for now all they could do was bind his wounds to cloth to keep the blood in. Meanwhile, the door to the floating house burst open, and from the aperture sashayed a pair of strange-looking clowns. The first had a cheery air, and the second a dour one, but right now both looked shaken yet relieved. “Phew!” Exclaimed the first. “You sure saved our bacon there! We don't have a lot to offer you, but as far as I'm concerned you can cannon ride or fly-by-fowl for free whenever you like!”

His friend nodded gravely. “Yeah, thanks. Really mean it.”





By happy accident, Hat Kid returned to the central chamber with her second painting only a few moments after Michael and Franklin arrived there as well. Any greetings or introductions were made difficult by the fire spirits, however, incessantly mewling for the puzzle-solvers to cast their loot into the flames and end their bizarre existences. Two pairs of retrieved paintings made a full set, so by the time the last bonfire consumed its corresponding painting and the rapturous fire spirits burnt out with grateful cries, the blaze surrounding the central alter died out completely.

The girl trapped inside had at some point awakened, though held captive by the flames and silenced by their roar, she couldn't do anything until now. Any confusion or fear went out the window as she threw herself at her saviors with teary-eyed relief, cramming them all into one big hug. “Oh, thank you, thank you! That was awful! I've been in there for so long!” Seconds passed with the group locked in her embrace, with only her sniffling breaking the silence in the now-dim room. After a little while, however, Tressa released them and stepped back, wiping the last tear from her eye. From the look of her, she hadn't many to spare; the merchant girl looked singed, sooty, very dehydrated, and hungry. Her skin was cracked in some places, and the red in her eyes flickered weakly. Without the others for support, she trembled from the mere effort of standing up. “Can we...can we go?” She asked, confusedly looking around.



The Courier's shotgun shells struck true, inflicting nasty wounds on the head of the Tzitzi-ya-ku, but the beast did not stagger. If the bullets pierced through, they did not inflict the damage one would expect. The monster's razor-sharp talonblades narrowly missed the evading Courier and instead carved through the gun arm of Bastion a split second after it appeared, the hideous sound of rending metal ringing out across the highlands. It was a work of a fleeting moment, but an impossible feat nonetheless to anyone who knew the first thing about materials and force. Metal could not be cut by blades. Yet, the frontmost half of Bastion's SMG arm hit the ground all the same, and the monster followed up with a spinning tail swipe that knocked the omnic on its back to disappear the next moment. Whatever this beast was, its inexplicably consistent attacks and resistance to being staggered suggested that it stood a cut above the average dinosaur.

Still, the blows to its head did seem to disorient the thing. When the Ace Cadet clanged his shield to draw its attention, the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku took the bait. It lunged at him twice, snapping its jaws.

Meanwhile, the wigglers had all sunk into the ground, and watched with slitted eyes for the danger to pass. An offputting odor was on the wind, one of bloodlust and slaughtered meat. To the practiced nose it suggested unrelenting tenacity, hailing from a grotto of carrion and rot.



As the battle began, Nero noted with approval that his comrades had elected to make the absolute most of the circumstances to whale on the Ent from moment one. Not a moment after his taunt signaled the battle starting, Ratchet lobbed a few proximity mines and Jak pelted the boss with a blue eco barrage. At the same time, Blazermate's sentry and newly-minted Swarm began their assault. The sight of the Medabot using her brand-new arm to control and mutate undead like the demons he fought minutes ago gave Nero pause, but as long as it worked he couldn't complain. Everyone dealt with the Ent's shockwave well enough, either clearing it with a leap, like Banjo and Kazooie, or taking to the sky altogether, like Donnie did as he zoomed upward atop his stalwart disc.

While the monk dug around for some booze to light up, the Ent's hollows went on the offensive, only to fall like wheat to the scythe to Kamek and the sentry's gunfire. For a moment, Ratchet appeared to space out, but the little hollows' axes passed straight through. While they struggled to comprehend what was happening, the real Ratchet appeared behind the Ent, his fearsome new weapon at the ready. The Reaper spat a torrent of hellfire to sear the towering treant's legs, the only part he could reach point-blank. His burning burst charred the wood and began a fire, but instead of spreading across the Ent and turning it into a raging inferno, the blaze stayed fairly confined. When Ratchet rose above the Ent courtesy of Clank, however, he could clearly see the weak spot highlighted by Blazermate: an opening on its upper back, full of red energy. A Reaper burst into that proved far more effective. At the same time, Banjo scaled the monster with his partner's help to rise high enough for a powerful Beak Buster onto the Ent from above. Together the attacks made the Ent mad, and a crackling cry echoed across the plaza.

It thrashed its enormous arms, threatening to annihilate the slow-flying Lombax should one hit. But Jak and Daxter could escape the Ent's range on the former's board, and Donnie hovered far enough above to evade its brutal fury. From a hidden reserve he poured strong liquor onto the boss's head, and after the monk struck a match he dropped the ember to light the Ent on fire.

The inferno, however, did not take. While the alcohol burned readily enough, the Ent did not go up in flames. It smoldered all over as the flame damage ticked away, but it exhibited no particular weakness. Its constitution, it appeared, was not your average wood. Some sort of nonflammable gas permeated it, a thick, heavy hazy. Whatever it was, Nero did not care. He sprinted forward, and when a flailing arm came near enough, he grabbed on with a Wire Bound and flew into the air. The demon hunter sailed through the sky like a kite on a string, only letting go when he reached the apex and could glimpse Blazermate's weak spot. Nero revved the Red Queen, making its motor sing with power, and hurtled downward in a spinning vertical slash. “Double DOWN!”

His blade split the glowing crimson core-wood, and without further ado Nero started slamming his blade onto the target again and again. The inelegant pummeling continued even as a pink must started to bubble up from the wood, and the Ent leaned forward. Nero noticed the change and prepared to jump off, but his sword stuck in the reddish muck. “...What?” Then the Ent convulsed, launching a blast of rotting pink gunge and gas that exploded point-blank. “Gaaaah!” Nero flew from the boss's back and hit the ground hard. He rolled twice, but the rot stayed with him. A furious, wet hacking cough wracked him, and the demon hunter couldn't get up. Meanwhile, the Ent continued to release blast after blast. Each payload shot skyward, arced perfectly, and plummeted straight toward its assailants. Two each flew for Donnie, Ratchet, Jak, Blazermate, and Gene, each sporting a sizable blast radius hefty damage, and full serving of Root Rot.

At the same time, Rot Warts started to emerge from the ground alongside a fresh wave of hollows. These bulbous Root, full of the same infectious miasma weaponized by the Ent, mindlessly rushed the nearest foes with a wheezing balloon-like noise to explode and leave behind a lasting cloud of Root Rot. Anyone inflicted by the infection would no doubt experience the same paralyzing coughing Nero suffered.

After unleashing its volley, the smoldering Ent stood up and lifted its arms for another shockwave.

Donnie swore. This wasn't a normal Treant-type monster. This was something else. That gas was preventing the flame from taking. He'd have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Then a pink mass shot straight towards him. Luckily, he was capable of avoiding the worst of it with a quick movement of the Disc, but he had been taken off-guard, and had breathed in a small amount of the gas as it soared by him.

He rapidly broke out into a violent coughing fit, unable to really move the Disc while hacking and wheezing. Thankfully, he had long-since learned to cast Detox whenever this happened. He was instantly cured, and rushed to Nero's aid.

He rapidly flew by, stopped, cast Detox on the demon hunter, and then flew back to deal with the Ent.

Obviously, if you hit the Ent too hard in one spot, it would release that gas. But what about its weakpoint? He could cure himself, so he might as well try it.

So, if he could get close enough, he parked the Disc next to the Ent's back. He got into a fighting stance, and then unleashed a full combo. Rapid-fire Tiger Palms and generic chi strikes to the upper back, followed by a Blackout Kick at full strength, a Rising Sun Kick to finish it off, and then he'd rapidly get the hell out of dodge before either the gas came out or he got splattered by the angry Ent's fist.

The key thing to figure out was, could he get away with bludgeoning damage without triggering the effect? Obviously, cutting too deep with a blade would hit the gas reservoir and spit out the infection, but maybe if he smashed the wood from the outside, it wouldn't do that?

@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN@Stern Algorithm@TruthHurts22@Lugubrious

---

"Yeah! How did you like that you whoersons!" Linkle shouted happily as the last of the fish men fell dead off Geralt's blade. "Hehehe, that's a fun word to say." Around them the bodies that were left on the bridge from her bullrush crumbled into black dust, releasing their small spirits into the air. She took a moment to catch her breath and give her crossbows a quick twirl before slotting them back into her boots, calming down significantly and starting to notice the ache in her shoulder. She looked and grimaced as she saw the blood staining into the green of her cloak. She hoped Lumbridge had someone who was as good with a needle and thread as that sweet old toad lady back at Peach's castle.

Other than that that vast majority of them were all right. Even Mr. Spikey Head, who was still hanging off the rope where that boat had been, seemed to be fine even though his predicament had been dire. "Nice job buddy! You can come down now." She called out to him, but for a moment it looked like she'd spoken too soon. The door to the house burst open and linkle almost drew on the pair that ran out, getting horrible flashbacks to that giant fiery screaming face that had tried to eat her and Bowser, but it turned out the two men were not only friendly, Linkle would bet her life they were fellow Hylians.

Linkle took a look around the lake again. If that was those guys shop, then did that mean they were standing on a piece of Hyrule? "Ha!" she said, puffing out her chest in pride. "We saved Hyrule from the fish monsters!"

She turned her attention to the most injured of all of them. Guild boy had done his best to hold of those monsters, but from the way he fought it was obvious he had been expecting someone to be there to watch his back and had paid for it pretty severely. Dragon boy had already helped him up and was busy tending to his injuries with cloth. "Hey, I think I can help with those injuries. You guys rode out to save a tiny little slice of my world, it's the least I can do. Besides, there are weird giant monkeys around out there. Can't let those catch you all banged up like this." She reached into her belt and pulled out the half-full glass bottle of Lon-Lon Milk, but then as she looked at the injured boy a thought crept into her head. No, she could do more than just mend his wounds. She quickly looked up, scanning the sky for any low flying centurions, then nodded and tapped herself in the chest with both hands

Pulling them away and raising her arms up over her head, a bright pink heart flashed into existence in her open palm. "Here you go. This is going to feel a little weird, but trust me." she said, flicking her wrists and letting the thing float slowly down into Gran like a balloon on the gentle wind.

If the heart freed him from Galeem's control and he didn't seem like he was freaking out too badly about that she'd reach over and steady him with a hand on his shoulder while handing him the Milk with the other. "I know this must feel strange, but drink this milk and it'll help close up those wounds of yours."

As soon as preparations were done, Nero goaded the ent on and drew its attention. As the ent turned to face the heroes and its hollows burrowed up from the ground, the fight was on. Gene mostly held back and dealt with the hollows, as Nero and the others attacked the ent. Ratchet threw a few proximity mines at it (and put to use one of the abilities he had gained from the fallen Zer0), Jak blasted it with his gun, and Blazermate's sentry and horde of undead began an assault as well. Overall, the fight was going well. As the shockwave came by, Gene quickly leapt high into the air, just barely clearing it... And falling onto his ass not long after, grunting in mingled pain and annoyance. He'd have to learn how to make a proper landing.

The battle continued on, with Gene's allies attacking anything that wasn't each other. Blazermate pointed out that the ent had a weak spot, right on its upper back, and the others took advantage of this revelation as soon as they could. Ratchet blasted it in the back while Donnie covered the beast in alcohol and lit it up; however, their attacks weren't enough to set the ent ablaze. It was, however, enough to make it mad. It let out a screech and thrashed its arms around wildly at whoever was near it.

As Gene put down another hollow, he noticed Nero soaring at the beast via a wire attached to one of its flailing arms. He retracted the wire just as he hit the weak spot, revved up his sword, and slammed down in a fiery spin while yelling "DOUBLE DOWN!" as a way to call out his move. It seemed that Nero's attack had worked, because now he was on the beast and pummeling its weak spot! Gene let out a cheer at the sight. Nero was killing it!

Then, it was all over in a flash. The ent released some sort of toxic gas that sent Nero flying backwards. Gene's cheers gave way to a gasp of shock. What the hell!? He didn't have time to focus on Nero though, as the ent shot more of the stuff at him and his buddies! Gene's quick reflexes saved him from the first blast with a fast sidestep, and he acted quickly enough to backflip out of the way of the other one. Covering his mouth with his hands, he sprinted through the gas as quick as possible to reach Nero. He noticed another enemy type starting to show up, as well as a fresh wave of hollows from the ground, but he couldn't let that distract him.

Donnie had thankfully reached Nero and cast a spell that seemed to help him out a bit by the time Gene arrived. He wasn't sure just why he was so dedicated to saving Nero, but then he remembered what it was that drew him to Nero in the first place. Some sort of strange bond between souls, worlds apart but with the same spirit at their core. Nero was recovering slightly from Donnie's intervention, but Gene knew there was something he could do to help.

"Uh, this might seem weird, so just bear with me." As if on instinct, he placed a hand on his heart then raised his arms to the air. A bright pink heart appeared in his hands. "Woah! Okay, here we go!" Gene passed the heart over to Nero. "Alright, stay calm, don't die. I've got an ent to beat the crap out of!" With those words, he headed straight for the ent.

Donnie had done some damage to it already thankfully. Now Gene just had to help finish the job. Placing a hand on the Deistic Brace, Gene ripped it off and felt the power of a god flow through him, as he had so many times before. Alright, he had to make this count! Approaching the ent, Gene circled around it from behind and then jumped up onto its weak point. Other people wouldn't be able to do this, but with the God Hand's added invulnerability, he'd be able to make a dent without having to worry about the toxin!

Taking in a deep breath to psych himself up, Gene grinned and then began to lay the beatdown on the ent's weak point. He hammered it with his regular combo, occasionally throwing in a kick when he felt like shaking things up. The rapid hits he had gone for with this combo helped immensely in laying down the heat quickly and efficiently. To finish off his barrage of attacks, he jumped up into a spinning barrel kick, delivering a final blow to the ent that sent him falling off of its back.

Backflipping away from the ent, Gene then focused on weeding out the Rot Warts while he still had some invincibility left. He just hoped that Nero would be alright.

Everything happened so fast, the Courier couldn’t see what all had happened in the exact moment. His shotgun shells had clearly done some damage to this dinosaur creature, but that didn’t seem to slow it down one bit. By the time he raised his head again, Bastion’s arm was on the ground and the robot was dissipating completely. The Courier’s eyes shot wide for a brief moment as he realized what had happened. Bastion would take some time before he could be deployed again, and in the meantime the threat of this monster was still looming, dangerous enough to cleanly cleave through solid metal. If it could do that, his own armored duster, not to mention his sub-dermal armor, wouldn’t be any better than paper. In an instant the Courier knew what this situation called for: he had to treat this creature just like a deathclaw, only smaller. And that meant it needed to be put down with as much firepower as possible, with extreme prejudice.

While the creature attacked the young man who had appeared and made a ruckus, the Courier dropped the pokeball containing his newest compadre, the donphan Ivories. ”Looks like ya got a chance t’show yer stuff, Ivories!” he said, pulling out what looked to be a normal bottle of water, but was in fact the chem Rushing Water. He downed half the bottle himself, then tossed the rest of the bottle into Ivories’ mouth. In an instant both could feel the invigorating properties of the water, increasing their attack speed by a very solid 50%! The Courier swapped to his magnum, not risking any more down time to reload his shotgun, and quickly fired 6 bullets into the monster as though the revolver were a semi-auto pistol! That on its own would have already been incredible attack speed, increasing his trigger finger by half, but he was a human.

Ivories curled up and began rolling at extreme speeds! The armadillo-elephant creature was already capable of rolling around at some absurd velocity, but increased by half? It used Rollout on the dinosaur! But would it be supereffective?

---

---

Things seemed to be going pretty well against the ent, all things considered! Sure, there were some hiccups, like the thing not catching on fire as they would have expected, but the minions it was summoning weren’t otherwise all that difficult to deal with and the slow, lumbering tree brute was easy enough to avoid. Ratchet even got a bullseye in that sweet, sweet weak spot! Clank’s rocket thrusters stayed on to let him slowly glide back down to terra firma, while he swapped weapons for the Coyote shotgun and cleared a landing zone from those little hollows. Meanwhile Jak was zipping around on his jet board, running over hollows and killing them off with the shockwave it was capable of generating. The things couldn’t even hope to touch him, while he made sure everyone had a better time hitting the ent without being accosted by such trivial minions.

Then everything changed when the ent let out a huge roar, and Nero was tossed aside like a rag doll. ”Uh oh,” Ratchet said, seeing the big globs of nastiness spraying everywhere. The nimble, acrobatic lombax jumped and dodged and blackflipped away, thankfully safe from getting struck. Jak was likewise able to avoid his own projectile with a well timed kickflip. But that severely changed the battle arena, the environment was going to be more difficult to traverse now. On top of that, more enemies, these ones of a completely different type, were now spawning!

”Great, more small fries.”

”Lock and load, Jak!”

”Don’t worry, I’ve got this one!” Ratchet fired off his shotgun at one of the rot warts coming right for him, blowing it to smithereens! Aaaand also releasing its toxic miasma right into his face. Ratchet immediately dropped to the ground, coughing and wheezing, his normally untouchably agile self unable to hardly move.

”Ratchet! I’ll save you, fuzzball!” Jak altered course on his jet board, but was too late. The ent prepared another shockwave and he had to ride it out on his board to avoid getting tossed to the ground. He pulled the stunt off expertly, but Ratchet couldn’t move. The hero of Veldin was sent flying, his fragile body breaking several bones in the process. Jak frowned, anger rising. His eyes turned black, his teeth became fangs, but only for a second. He hadn’t recharged his dark eco yet, and not even this rage was enough to trigger his Dark Jak transformation. Instead he calmed his mine to call upon another power.

Jak’s jet board shrank down and attached to his back as a Heavenly light transformed him into Light Jak, ethereal membraneous wings sprouting from his back. Jak took flight up high, morph gun still in hand in its yellow eco Blaster formation. From his new vantage point, Jak unloaded shot after shot of yellow eco into the ent’s weak spot.

Meanwhile, Ratchet was clinging onto dear life. His tenacity meant that no matter what injuries he suffered he could always move around at full power. Unfortunately that tenacity didn’t account for a body paralyzing goopy infection, just injury. But that didn’t mean he was going to go out like a pansy! A true hero would go down swinging, no matter what! One of the hollows approached, ready to finish him off. Ratchet coughed, moving the Coyote into place, and summoned the power to pull the trigger. BLAM! The hollow was blasted away, its life ended, but something else truly remarkable happened.

SECOND WIND

These words flashed across Ratchet’s visor, confusing him for a brief moment, when he felt all his strength returning. His wounds closed up, his bones knit back together, the toxic poison was expelled from his body. For all intents and purposes Ratchet was back on his feet as though nothing had ever happened! ”Wow. Heh. No wonder you kept calling yourself a badass, Zer0.” Ratchet pumped the shotgun, then charged back into the fray!

The king paused before the door after being helpful informed that he was too large to fit inside by the establishment’s bearded piggy inkeep.

YEAH I KNOW Bowser responded mere moments before he got himself embarrassingly stuck in the doorframe. With a snap of his clawed fingers the king began to shrink down to a much more reasonable size, leaking rapidly dissipating purple mist as he did before stepping inside after the others.

Inside they found the woman the mayor had described. Armed with a crossbow and a great bird of prey she was everything they needed. Fate had smiled on them in a way it never seemed to when they where the baddies, jr noted.

The king didn't pick this up and instead got down to business.

From his jacket pockets he plucked the quest card for the “food for the hungry” and the hunter gathering checklist they'd gotten for it and set them down together on the able together. He also took out the “ore or nothing” card and then he placed a handful of gems, half the ones he himself had collected, on the table next to them. The other half remained in his pocket for further bargaining purposes.

”MEAT. WE’RE GOING BACK TO TOWN PAST THE WOODS, YOU HUNT, WE HAUL. YOU GET PAID. WE ALL GET REWARDS AND PRESTIGE AND MOVE ON TO BIGGER THINGS.” he explained bluntly.

”We're so good at fighting that stuff dies too fast to let us get the juicy bits afterwards. Instead it gets blown to bits!.” Jr added helpful while his shoulder mounted fake rodent eyed the massive avian predator with unease.

”INTERESTED? Bowser asked in conclusion.



Thing where going well. The Team got in close and personal with the tree, scoring heavy blows on its weak point, while the wizard and sentry made mincemeat of the tree’s minions. It was looking like this might be a wash, the Ent’s attacks slow, it’s seedlings ineffective, until Donnie tried to set it on fire with a burning bottle. The attack, which seemed like it would be highly effective, was instead smothered by gas, which made it an apt metaphor for the way the fight turned as the Ent unleashed its second phase. It might be a big dumb looking hunk of wood, Kamek thought, but the tree certainly knew its stuff when it came to being a big bad boss.

In response to being stabbed a lot the Ent unleashed a barrage of artillery fire from its body. One of these shots struck Nero point blank, blasting him off of where he was viciously stabbing at their foe, harming and, more concerningly, paralyzing him. The boss also began to spawn more dangerous minions in the form of rot warts. The fact that the wooden Bob-ombs were a greater threat than their knife wielding allies was aptly demonstrated by ratchet being too close to a detonation and found himself smothered in the same paralyzing gas that had taken Nero out of the fight in one hit.

Fortunately both avoided death. Ratchet shrugging off his paralysis at just the last second while Nero was first cured of the paralysis by Donni and, a few moments later, of his possession by Galeem by Gene. A good call/catch by Gene, Kamek thought, as it solved the issue of the team’s local expert being under the influence of their ultimate foe. Still, the poison gas was no joke and from his elevated elevated perch on his broom, mostly safe from harm as long as he stayed out of arm's reach of the Ent, Kamek concluded that should more of their team go down at the same time it could be devastating.

Others where dealing with the rot warts when they could but where mainly focusing on targeting the ent’s weak spot. Rather than get in the way of the more aggressive team mates as they lined up to take a swing at the tree’s weak spot Kamek stuck to a more supporting role. The wizard began to swoop to and fro above the battlefield while using his wand to launch fireballs and magical blasts at the rot warts (edit) while mixing in the odd minigun burst(edit), picking them off from above not having to worry about the smaller minions getting in the way of his shots as he did it. This would have the combined advantage, in Kamek’s opinion, of preventing his allies from having to watch their backs too hard as they dealt with the great threat and stopped the spread of the paralyzing gas across the battlefield as he aimed to detonate the bombs as soon after they emerged as possible.

While Kamek blasted away the hunchbacked jockey that the wizard had inadvertently saved, and which had miraculously avoided being squished or mobbed by minions, began its accent of the Ent, leaping and clambering up one of its legs with ape like agility.

With some orchestrated assistance from the demon, Banjo and his allies were finally able to haul the van back onto solid ground. Stumbling, he ended up halfway underneath it with barely an inch or two of clearance where he laid for a second to catch his breath until Kazooie pecked at his head to urge him up and out. She meant only to remind him that he was lying face up on top of her, but he would be glad in a minute to have not lingered under the tire of a reckless driver like Nico.

For sure, rescuing the van took a lot out of everyone involved, leaving all three needing a minute to recover. Fortunately for them, they would have one afforded to them by a now gigantified Gene to take all the Suffering’s hits for them, while Blazermate, having returned at some point, held down the perimeter with the help of her striker, Ratchet, Bowser’s wizard, and a skeleton that showed up out of nowhere and started shooting down the horde with lightning. To say the least, the situation had developed at a staggering rate while they weren’t looking. The monk, demon slayer, and even his driver, were keen on taking advantage of this, brutally dispatching the remaining demon and leaving what was left of the horde masterless once more. The duo were slower to act, missing the opportunity to contribute to the action; not that their contribution was needed, and it didn’t bother Banjo in the slightest.

During the short period of respite between the battle’s end and resuming their trip, the duo went to recover their vehicle that they had abandoned mid-fight (again) to set everything back up on it as needed before takeoff, collecting a stock of stray red feathers while they were at it. A shame they would miss the opportunity to get acquainted with their friendly volunteer ally, Mr. Bones, for he and his traveling companion--who, even from a distance, harbored a foreboding air about him--were just as ready as Nero to get going. Though, looking at the shorter skeleton, despite having no basis for believing it, the bear and bird couldn’t shake the feeling that they were somehow supposed to have met by now… or that they would eventually see him again.

Shortly after the skellies set off, Nero and crew did the same, only in opposing directions. Following closely, ‘safely’ behind the van would be everyone who wasn’t piled into it, which really just left Banjo, Kazooie and Kamek. With the trolley now free of Blazermate’s creations (except the teleporter?), vacant space was left in the bed that the wizard saw fit to take full advantage of, rapidly stockpiling it with a gathered assortment of loot, junk, and rubbish gained from destroyed spirits, and in so doing, impeding the driver’s view yet again.

Upon arriving at the cathedral, Nero went ahead of the others to investigate, stopping just short of fully entering the area where it stood to caution them against advancing just yet. Although, they lacked Nero’s instinct for identifying or dealing with the demonic, Banjo and Kazooie knew an impending boss battle when they saw one; the atmosphere was usually a dead giveaway. Either way, whatever the demon hunter saw was enough to give him a moment’s pause, and that alone was worth heeding. He then advised the party to take whatever time he would afford them to rest, medicate, and resupply as needed before going any further.

---

Following the demon hunter’s example, Banjo approached the statue, placing a hand on it, and him and Kazooie closed their eyes…

Their conscious visual awareness was taken to a heavenly backdrop on which a list of their moves--those unlocked and yet to be--were displayed with looping demonstrations for each of them.

“Check it out, Kazooie; all of our old moves are in here…”

The slightly surprising development of the statue working at all with them prompted Kazooie to open one eye halfway and cast a shifty glance sideways in both directions to verify her unaltered corporeal surroundings before dropping down into the dark of her pocket/storage space where she could better concentrate on the ethereal vision.

“Uh… almost. Where are the rest?” Kazooie added, noting the conspicuous absence of a certain few of their techniques.

“Huh… I wonder why they’re not showing up,” Banjo wondered while observing the same. After nearly a minute of further inspection, they would conclude that the absentee moves were tied to those on display that acted as prerequisites for them, such as Beak Bomb and everything following Split-up.

“Well, let’s at least get this back,” Kazooie piped up, alluding to Beak Buster. “We should have already had it by now anyway.” She may have been onto something. The system at work seemed to agree with her, given the triple-digit price point, making it the least expensive on the list.

“Erm… okay. How are we going to pay for it? We’re basically broke, last I checked.”

“With that...” ‘That’ being Red Orbs, indicated by a counter in the corner that, surprisingly, wasn’t resting at zero, contrary to their initial assessment. In fact, it just barely broke the quadruple-digit margin.

“Strange. I don’t remember us picking up any of that… and what is that, anyway?” Banjo, rightly confounded by the finding, speculated on how they could have come across the necessary currency, as well as what constituted such.

“Demon blood... I-I think,” Kazooie conjectured half hesitantly as she tried not to overstep her awareness with informed assumptions she had no reason to make. “Must’ve stepped in some along the way…” While oversimplifying it out of ignorance, Kazooie wasn’t exactly wrong. It would be easy to miss or ignore the crystallized essence falling from slain demons in the heat of battle for anyone who isn’t looking for it. Without understanding its value or knowing it had any, why would they be?

“Eugh. I could’ve done without hearing that,” Banjo declared, forming the wrong mental picture as he backtracked his memory to make sense of their gains. Shaking the thought from his mind, he returned his focus to the envisioned storefront of lost techniques and opted for the only one they could afford at present; Beak Buster. Upon confirming their purchase, another move--Bill Drill--appeared on the list with an accompanying preview right below the newly acquired one, confirming their suspicion about prerequisite unlocks. Satisfied and spent, they withdrew from the statue with scant enough orbs to bother Nico with. Physically manifested, it would barely amount to enough in size to match a dainty faberge egg, so rather than try to haggle and stretch their buck, they decided to kick back and put their feet up (figuratively, in Kazooie’s case) while they spent the remainder of their allotted preparatory time relaxing before the upcoming fight.

---

As the party proceeded up the steps leading into the plaza, the duo could almost hear that familiar ominous tune that preluded their past boss battles. The great tree creaked, cracked and moaned to life at Nero’s provocation, and with a mighty bellow, the non-diegetic music cut off, and the battle was officially underway. Banjo initially joined Gene in fending off the Hollows while others went to work on the Ent. Putting the thus far underutilized cricket bat to use, he held off their armed offense with his own, cracking a few of them in half with broad and narrow side alike, but it otherwise showed that he was unpracticed and unstyled in the use of melee weapons. Thankfully, they wouldn’t be on crowd control duty for long, as Kamek and Blazer quickly saw fit to relieve them of it, clearing the way for them to advance on the Ent itself.

Just as they started to approach, it lifted its arms above its head in anticipation for what the duo correctly guessed to be a radial ground-based attack, and responded accordingly by flipping over the shockwave while they continued forward. At the peak of their jump, a green, coin-shaped platform depicting an avian talon spawned beneath Kazooie’s feet, and they were held suspended in the air for a moment before launching high above the now hunched over treant, emerald sparks accenting their ascent. Kazooie flapped her wings to drift them closer toward the creature and position them directly above the glowing red weak point on its back that Blazermate had identified for them. Then, in defiance of physical law, the two inverted, tucked, and went into a forcibly accelerated freefall in which they instantly achieved terminal velocity, straight down, beak-first onto the Ent’s soft spot.

When Nero followed their example, they were glad to have bounced off on impact and not been in his way while he savagely whaled on the creature, but his fruitful assault didn’t go unpunished. With the last hit of his combo, he was sent from the treant’s back with an explosive discharge of toxic pink ichor that left him helplessly sick on the ground, unable to move. While others rushed to his aid, Banjo and Kazooie began Trotting evasively around the clouds of Rot left by the Ent’s bombardment and away from the Warts chased them with threat of the very same infection that ailed the demon hunter. They would try to draw them close enough to Blazermate’s sentry and through Kamek’s fireball volley to dispatch the diseased pests without having to risk themselves unnecessarily by dealing with them directly. Should they manage to shake them, they would double back towards the living tree, bounding over the second shockwave…

Where Jak went high, they would go low for its feet, where it--and no one else--was aiming. The red, venous cracks in its ankle stumps gave a similar, if lesser impression of weakness to the spot on its back, so while it was busy defending itself from Jak above, they would hit it from below where it (hopefully) wasn’t looking. Charging in out of Talon Trot, the bear and bird reared back and slammed into the treant’s feet with a running Beak Barge, trying their best to keep their momentum going forward with minimal loss. While creature was provenly made of tougher stuff, and would likely take more than one hit from them to topple it, the duo would try to see if they couldn’t put enough weight into their strike to ram at least one of its shins to splinters, trying for both if they could manage.

Many of Blazermate's cohorts were able to dodge the ent's shockwave, and even more capitalized on her pointing out its weak point on the back. Although things didn't go super well, the monster did take quite a hit and was really angry at getting hit so hard. Nero felt most of the pain of the retaliation of the ent, as it knocked him off and splat the guy and with a weird goo that paralyzed him, while firing off more globs at everyone, while summoning new minions and letting off another shockwave.

The minions worried Blazermate more than the shots of gunk, at least at the start. While Blazermate could dodge the first attack, the second glob hit Blazermate dead on, smacking her backwards into her engineer nest. While she took the damage from the exploding globule, unlike the others the paralysis effect didn't affect her. "At least I landed next to the dispenser..." Blazermate said as she picked herself back up. Since the Engineer didn't really need to repair his sentry in awhile, the gun shooting the new minions who quickly exploded upon being pelted by gunfire, Dehl was sitting in a lounge chair drinking beer and looking over the battle casually. "Well then..." Blazermate said, looking at her striker with a bit of confusion as she healed herself. She noticed that Kamek was also focusing on the minions, with Banjo/Kazooie also luring the minions both towards the sentry gun, but also keeping them away from the gun itself as it mowed everything down.

Since she was spending a bit of time near the engineer camp and healing herself, Blazermate figured that with her free arm, she could at least start commanding more undead to attack the ent. They were endless in this area after all, even if most of them seemed to stay away from this area. Using what she learned from meddling with her new arm, Blazermate called out to summon even more nearby undead, commanding them to swarm the ent. After she let out the call, the moans and howls of the nearby undead did start to converse on the area, but it would take a bit of time before they got here. The few undead who had survived the ent's attacks, including the Jockey that Kamek had saved, followed her command without question, either attacking the ent's roots, or in the jockey's case, attacking its face.

Gene, taking advantage of Nero's injuries, freed Nero of Galeem's control. And seeing as Nero was the most damaged, Blazermate would have to make her way over to the demon hunter to heal him back into the fray. Gene was holding off the minions, seemingly ignoring the gas they were releasing upon death. He also had no weaknesses Blazermate could see, so she figured it was an ability of his. As she made her way across the battlefield to Nero, Ratchet got hit hard from the minions swarming him, apparently going into a weird state, at least according to Blazermate's sensors, where he was bleeding out. Seeing this, she started to beeline for the little fuzzball, but shortly after he had gone into this state, he was back up, fully healthy. "Some of these abilities really mess with my sensors..." Blazermate thought as she gave Ratchet a slight heal and cleansing him of any paralysis before continuing to where Nero was.

Since she tended to stick to the air, the shockwave and minions didn't really bother her, being ground based. While Gene and Donnie were protecting Nero, Blazermate descended from the sky, putting her healing beam on the demon hunter to get him back into fighting shape. When she figured he was at least healed up enough, she revived him, waking him from his stupor. "Rise and shine sleepy, we sitll got a giant to beat!~" Blazermate said as she revived Nero, making sure she was a bit away from the giant, Jak and the animal pair attacking the ent head on. Blazermate would heal them if they got damaged, but she wasn't going to go anywhere near the giant monster. As she backed away from the giant, Blazermate reached an area covered in roots, with a few things trapped inside them. At first she didn't pay this much attention, more intent on dealing with the problem in front of her. But as she was about to leave the area, something within one of the roots caught her eye. A robot, much like the ones that were at the robot battle field where she had gotten the spirit of the engineer, but it looked different. Fully tangled up by roots, its wheel missing, the robot seemed broken ant battered, but in its hands was a healing beam weapon much like Blazermate's own healing arm. Seeing this as an opportunity, Blazermate ended the existence of the robo medic and absorbed its spirit into herself. She hadn't seen anything that could heal people until now spirit wise, so she hoped this new addition would do something to increase her healing capabilities.

Ooookay, the metallic being was defeated and gone was soon as it appeared. The Ace Cadet might have thought he'd imagined it if he didn't hear the scrap of the monster's claws on it's body or the thud of said body hitting the ground before it suddenly vanished. That was really weird but there wasn't exactly time to dwell on it. The Cadet grinned as the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku turned it's attention to him, flashing his teeth at the thing as it'd done to him earlier. He could hear the man from before on the other side of it yell something to someone, but he couldn't make it out. Yelling after the invisible metal person, maybe? Anyway, didn't matter. More importantly, he heard the explosive sound of what he could only assume was the loud bowgun from earlier, despite it sounding a bit different. If his suspicions from before weren't confirmed, they definitely were now - the other 'hunter' was a gunner! All the better to keep the monster's attention focused on himself, then.

The Cadet deftly countered the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku's first attack with his shield, sending it's face upward. He intended to follow up with his sword when a sharp smell suddenly hit him. It was familiar, but not in the good way the red head had been feeling before. In fact it was familiar in a distinctly bad way. He furrowed his brow. The Vale? I didn't see it earlier when I was exploring, wh--

Before the Cadet could finish his thought that perhaps something had changed, or even worse that they might have an uninvited guest on the way, he yelped out in pain as the Bird Wyvern's teeth sunk into the flesh of his right bicep, the arm holding his shield. He'd gotten distracted! Damn, and he had been working so hard at not getting distracted too. His earlier grin morphed into a grimace as he held onto the shield in his hand despite the pain in his arm. He lashed out with his sword now, aiming to slice at it's face and eyes. "Ugh," he grit out, "that was so not Ya-cool of you!"

Instead of responding to the stranger's question verbally, Bowser started rooting around for the quest card and some valuables. It made for an awkward silence, and since the group was in fact intruding into someone's room, Tora rushed to pick up the slack. “Uh, hello! Sorry to barge in, meh. Is just, we have super-urgent problem and Tora hear you just the ticket. We need...”

At that point Bowser interjected, having produced payment he thought appropriate for the job, and in succinct if overbearing terms explained his proposal. The dubious expression on the woman's face said exactly what she was feeling, but after a moment, she seemed to change her mind. “Well...I guess you lot seem harmless enough.” Had the Centurion accompanied the others inside the inn, Tora ruminated, she might not be singing the same tune. Ever since his change, he'd been a lot more menacing and forceful, and not exactly conducive to negotiations. “I also need gold to buy my items,” she explained by way of justification, assuming the others knew what she referred to. “I'll join you for an hour or two. So long...” The Eagle leaped forward, snatched up Bowser's jewels, and returned to her. “As you pay in advance.”

Since the deal meant no skin off Tora's back, the Nopon was all smiles. “Yay! Good to work with you, miss!”

“Quinn.” The archeress pocketed the gems, then gave her bird a stroke. “This is Valor. We're warriors of Demacia now, rather than hunters, but its a good skill to keep sharp. And you are?”

“Am Tora!”

“Poppi is Poppi!”

Following the others' introductions, Quinn got straight to business. The no-nonsense woman took the lead with a fearsome powerwalk, forcing the stubby-legged Tora to hustle just to keep up. In a few moments, the party was bound northwest for the woods where Bowser's crew needed to hunt for ingredients. It promised to be a good walk, out of the Hamlet and across both plain and field, so Tora got tired of the silence quickly. “Miss Quinn mention Demacia. Sounds like place. If talk about it with no provocation, must be proud.”

The huntress nodded. “Indeed. We are honored to be of service.”

Her assurance hung in the air for a moment, quickly making it clear that she wasn't the talkative type. Instead, Poppi saved the day by addressing Bowser. “So, if Poppi remember right, Bowserypon says is big villain. But while you are kind of mean, and always act like boss when never do any leading, Bowser never actually do bad stuff. Only good. Seem more like villain from kids' story.”

Tora scratched his head. “Now that Poppi mention it, that true. Good thing, too,” he chuckled to himself, closing his eyes. “Tora and friends are big heroes. Always end up fighting baddypons.” While he couldn't see it, Quinn rolled her eyes.

Nodding, Poppi continued. “So Poppi wonders. What most villain thing Bowser has done?”



Though exhausted, those present couldn't help but to feel elated. Gran and Euden shared in Linkle's joy of accomplishment, with the latter in particular chuckling when she declared the land saved. “Heh. We sure did.” Of course, he didn't know what she meant by 'Hyrule', but now wasn't the time for specifics. He found his happiness draining away when he turned his attention back to Gran, however. Everyone took a few hits from the vicious pelagics, but Gran -an ordinary young fighter by all accounts- got it the worst. It was hard to feel good with an ally so hurt. If only Cleo were here—the dutiful Sylvan would be able to patch him up in a second. None of these people, unfortunately, looking like healers.

As such, when Linkle came over with talk of aid on her lips, Euden found himself surprised. His confusion only increased when the girl revealed her healing tonic of choice: milk. Yet, as he watched an equally stupefied Gran begin to drink it, he saw it magicking his injuries away. “What? There's healing power in mere food?” He almost didn't notice as Linkle manifested a friend heart and delivered it to Gran before he fully recovered. Euden didn't notice any effects, so he could only assume the heart to be some sort of symbol of affection. Despite himself, the young hero couldn't help but feel a bit jealous. Though unusually short for her age, Linkle was pretty cute in a tomboyish sort of way. Shaking his head, Euden dismissed the thoughts as he extended a hand. “Wow. I can hardly thank you enough. All of you.” He echoed the gratitude offered by Fyer and Falbi. “Without your arrival, we would have been dead for sure.” Rubbing his neck in embarrassment, he smiled. “That Hilda girl made the right choice staying behind, I guess. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, the reward is yours. We should get back to town to get everyone fixed up.”

Once everyone was ready to go, the group began the return journey to Lumbridge. The ride operators waved farewell, one enthusiastic but both sincere. After a little hesitation, Euden headed over to walk by Linkle. “Er,” he began. “I've been looking for other people from my world for some time now, but found only a couple. I thought for sure you were a Sylvan,” he glanced at her ears. “But...after you mentioned 'Hyrule' I wasn't sure. You aren't from Alberia, are you?”



A quick, well-aimed cut to the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku's face from the Cadet's blade convinced it to let go, but it had no idea what was waiting for it. Having hypered himself up through the use of Rushing Water, the Courier emptied his revolver into the beast. Six blasts escaped its chambers in a few blinks of an eye, staggering the bird wyvern before it could jump at the Cadet again. For a brief moment there lay an opening for the monster hunter to sink his sword in deep, but the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku had other plans. It dismissively lashed out with a leg, sweeping backward to catch the Cadet's shield or ribcage with a talon and tumble him away. Then it rushed at 6, flashing teeth bound for his unprotected face, completely ignorant of the Pokemon careening his way.

The Donphan hit like a truck, and the monster gave way. It bowled over with a loud, chicken-like squawk, allowing Ivories to roll right over it. As it sped on, the Pokemon's path carried it onto the spongy, tarplike top of a plate coral, into which it promptly stuck halfway in thanks to its speed and weight. Writhing where it fell on the ground, meanwhile, the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku looked rattled. Broken bones from the impact and white scars in its beautiful scales from bullets were telling it that these wouldn't be easy pickings.





The swarm of Rot Warts emerged to a slaughter. Several heroes worked to keep the organic gas bombs from sneaking up on anyone, detonating them before they could get into range. With half of the heroes in the air or on the move, they zeroed in on Jak and Daxter, Banjo and Kazooie, Gene, and the Engineer. Kamek and the sentry's combined bullets burst the Rot Warts one after another, but Blazermate could feel the exact moment feel when Dell -lazing in that recliner of his- disappeared, his time able to assist her at an end. Just a couple seconds later, the minigun attached to the Magikoopa's broomstick started giving out clicks instead of bullets, and soon the sentry gun followed suit. That left the wizard with just his wand. The supply of Rot Warts, however, remained plentiful. Those killed left behind thick clouds of Root Rot, infectious with just a single breath. The battlefield was quickly becoming a checkerboard of hazards for grounded fighters.

Meanwhile, Donnie and Gene visited Nero one after another, first cleansing him from the infection and then from Galeem's touch, before joining the assault on the Ent. Together the entire group hammered the Ent's weak point. Donnie delivered a rain of blows to the warmly glowing heartwood, and when Gene joined him a moment later, the two pummeled away together in a brutal flurry. Rosy miasma welled up from the wood, but while Donnie bailed Gene stuck around to keep the onslaught going. The God Hand let him press his advantage even while another salvo of rot rounds blasted up to fall like meteorites on the scattered heroes. From a distance, evading the organic mortar fire, Jak lent more than a hand with a yellow eco barrage. The Ent, hurting tremendously, let out another rumble. Banjo and Kazooie's Beak Barge, though not hitting a weak point, proved to be the final straw.

”NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG!”

Just as Gene jumped away, the wood on the Ent's upper back closed like a vice to block the vulnerability, and the monster slammed itself into the from of the cathedral. A tremendous crash signaled the destruction of its whole facade, stone and glass alike, in the monster's bid to get the pests off. Leaning into the broken building, it remained still for a moment. It did not think, but it could feel. It was a Root, part of the inexorable eldritch race that brought entropy to worlds beyond measure. Its foes were many, small, hard to hit with waves or minions on the ground. The Ent could sense that this wasn't working, but more than that, it could sense its enemies. It had no eyes, but it could see them still, possessed of the stink of wholeness. Of complacence. Like fireflies they buzzed around, near its legs, in the air...

There.

The Ent moved. It slammed its elbows into the building it had been appearing to slump against, propelling itself forward in a shower of dust and gas. Its right arm flew up and around in a colossal right hook, the momentum of its whole body behind the blow. Thousands and thousands of pounds of cursed wood hurtled into the way of Donnie's flight path to swat the annoying gnat from the sky. The force carried it forward, and a moment later its foot came down with an earth-shaking CRONCH on a group of Blazermate's undead. From the impact point rumbled a reddened shockwave, which sent ruptured shards of earth flying in every direction, including toward Banjo and Kazooie. It continued to expand outward, ultimately reaching and destroying the unattended sentry. The Ent's back, faced toward Jak, opened back up with a surge of Root Rot. Instead of shooting straight up to fall down, a number of rot-blobs cannoned straight toward Jak in quick succession. Finally, the treant clotheslined the remaining upper portion of the cathedral front, and a gigantic shower of rubble filled the sky.



A ways off, three pairs of eyes watched from the shelter of a side alley among the roots. Two of them watched the action with anticipation, but they looked to the owner of the third. For his part, the least of the three seemed more concerned with the book in his hand than the fight unfolding before him.

After the Ent's last attack sent debris flying, chunks of masonry were scattered across the plaza. One, the upper half of a statue depicting some saint, came a little too close; it blew straight through the storefront immediately to the trio's left, causing one of them to squawk in alarm. “Hey! Don'tcha think it's getting' a little heated in there champ? Wanna bail them out?”

The man whose shoulder the bird rested on gave a slight smile. “Great things are done when men and mountains meet.” A rogue hollow drew too close, and the man flicked his cane in its direction. His shadow moved, sliding across the ground like flowing black sand. It rose like a buzzsaw, neatly slicing the rotund plant in half, before returning in a flash. “Still, it would behoove us to show some consideration for our friends. Once I see how they answer this, we'll go.”

”Tch,” the Courier spat, rapidly reloading his revolver. Looks like that kid took a real nasty hit. Well, maybe that was a good thing? Would be easier to convert him back to the side of having proper senses with a friend heart and all. Meanwhile the monster was lookin’ none too pleased with itself, full of broken bones and all. If the deathclaw parallels continued, that wouldn’t rightly matter to this fiend; it’d keep on attacking until they, or it, were dead. But maybe it wasn’t entirely like a deathclaw? Maybe in such an injured state they proved to be far more trouble than they were worth as a meal?

Fuck that. It made the mistake of attacking him when he was being nice.It was gonna die.

Ivories was stuck up on the coral, but honestly that wasn’t too much of a problem. The donphan howled in frustration at not being able to properly thrash its foe, but the Courier simply pointed its home pokeball at it, causing a little beam of light to return Ivories back, then immediately deployed it again. It was clear that the brave, powerful donphan was looking for an outlet for its aggression at having gotten stuck up on the coral, and this monster was still a convenient target.

”Show me what else y’can do, Ivories!” The Courier pointed dramatically at the tzitzi-ya-ku.

“Phan! Donphan!” Ivories glared at the enemy and stomped hard on the ground, creating a shockwave that rippled toward the injured monster! It was as though the power of its legs alone were that of a Bulldozer! Not satisfied with its ground attack alone, Ivories used its extra speed boost to curl back up into a rolling ball and shoot high up into the air! It came down hard, uncurling from its ball form and performed a mighty Slam with its trunk!

While Ivories dealt with the injured, now hopefully dead, monster, the Courier rushed over to the Cadet. Snapping his fingers, a large red heart appeared which he then unceremoniously, and without warning, slapped into the young man. ”Howdy, yer all better now, call me the Courier n’follow me if’n ya wanna save the multiverse. If not, I don’ rightly give a fuck what ya do.” He turned back toward the scene of the battle, hoping to catch the end of the tzitzi-ya-ku.

---

---

The damage they had done to the ent so far was intense. The monster was angrily thrashing about, clearly in desperation to finish off the heroes before they could do much more damage to it. Debris flew everywhere, the creature’s noxious poisonous goop shot out like a cannon! Jak was in the perfect position to unload more damage into the monster’s weak point, but unfortunately it focused on shooting directly at him with its nasty rot, and his light eco wings were too clunky to make dodging and weaving a proper tactic. The only way he could avoid it was to rely on gravity!

Jak ended his transformation, deploying his jet board and landing on it with expertise. Of course, he couldn’t use his gun while balancing on the board, and its shockwaves were too weak to really do any measurable damage to the ent’s sturdy exterior. Instead it was back to kickflipping off the hollows and rot warts, planting shockwaves in their faces, in order to keep the swarming masses away from the other fighters.

Meanwhile Ratchet took the opportunity to do some of the most dangerous and skilled platforming he had in his entire career as a galactic hero! As the ent’s tantrum tossed large stone chunks around, he took a running jump up, aided by Clank’s jetpack. He kicked off of a falling stone slab and pounced from another, then another, all the while Clank measuring the trajectories and assisting jumps with small jet thrusts. After kicking off of five stone chunks Ratchet performed a crouched high jump, shooting up even further with Clank’s final burst of jet fuel before being exhausted (and therefore demanifesting).

Ratchet flipped high above the ent, twisting upside down. This was it, his big moment! He pulled out not one, but two guns from his arsenal! In his left hand was the Reaper, while his right held the Bombbuilder! Both trigger fingers twitched and fired, a cluster of demonic energy from one and a powerful remote trigger bomb from the other, both careening straight down into the ent’s weak spot! ”Kaboom!” Ratchet called out, flipping back over to land on his feet on the inside of the cathedral.

As his sword found it's mark and the Cadet escaped the teeth of the Bird Wyvern, the Cadet hopped a few steps backward to recollect himself. He readjusted his grip on both his sword and shield, preparing to dive right back into the fray. He was eager to get back into the swing of battle and make up for his earlier distraction, having almost completely put the thought of the ominous stench out of his mind as he spotted his opening. He took his chance - and the bait - leaping to strike at the monster's head again when it struck out at him with it's long and powerful leg. The Cadet caught the monster's claws in the side, it's talons tearing through his leathers and reaching deep, scratching the bones of his ribs. He let out a gasp of pain as he was flung backwards, landing hard on his back. The wind was knocked from his lungs and he laid still for just a moment before he scrambled back up, not sparing a second look at the bleeding wound on his torso.

Then, a dark blur whizzed by, lodging itself into the Highlands' signature spongy terrain. Now what the heck was that thing? Another strange being that seemed to appear from no where. It was curled up like some giant gray Konchu. Cadet, for once, didn't stop to ponder more about it: whatever the Konchu did while he was laid out had done a number on the Tzitzi-Ya-Ku if it's pained squeals were any indication. It was down, flailing on the ground, meaning now was the best time to strike. He noticed that, somehow, the weird Konchu had freed itself and was on the attack again, but before the Cadet could join in the newbie hunter rushed over to him... and not only rushed over, but produced some kind of glowing heart-shaped object.

"What-" The Cadet started, beginning to back away slightly because this whole situation was getting weird - even more weird than the last few weeks had been combined. While everything was slightly familiar yet new, it at least followed some rules. Random weirdos with appearing and disappearing weirdo-friends? Downright strange, considering everything. Cadet didn't get far before the man - The Courier - slapped him with the thing. It was warm and he felt it kind of spread throughout his body and brain, and even his spirit. The pain in his arm and side dissipated. What the hell?

"What?" Cadet tried again as his vibrant colors returned to him, and his memories came rushing back all at once. The Legiana migration, the airship, the dream of bright light - only to awake here in this strange land instead of Astera, the bustling little frontier town he'd grown to love living in. The people he knew, all scattered away like he was. Was I... brainwashed, or something? he thought. What the heck could do that? Was everyone he'd been talking to for the past few weeks brainwashed too? Was this guy - wait, no, this guy couldn't be because he'd just freed Cadet's noodle.

The red head rubbed his head, watching the downed monster and the... smaller, friendlier monster closely but focusing on The Courier because did he mention this was all very weird? "Courier, sure, sounds groovios. I'm called the Ace Cadet..." he paused. "...did you say 'save the multiverse?'"

---

In the aftermath of the fish attack, Phoenix managed to make his way off the hook, and didn't get cooked doing so. It wasn't the most graceful landing, and he was pretty sure he squished an eyeball on the dismount, but he was safe and sound on the floor. Literally. He crumpled to the wood floor once he was away from the fish guts.

"Normal...safe...fishless wood. I never thought I'd miss you so much."

He stayed for a moment, embracing the floor as everyone else licked their wounds and got acquainted, then slowly lifted himself up to his knees.

"...Wait. Has anyone, uhh, seen my shoe?"