Geralt grunted as a wave of fire exploded out from Bowser, turning his body to take the resulting shockwave over his side. "Ah, damn that hurt!" He called out, shaking his body as he moved towards the Brachydios. The flames hurt, sure, but they went by quickly enough that he'd likely only have a few light burns under his armor, which would heal quickly enough anyway.

He did get to watch Bowser be absolutely pummeled by the larger monster, losing at least one tooth and a decent amount of blood, while being covered in that explosive slime the cadet had warned them about. While it was humorous watching the overgrown turtle-beast-man wipe himself off with those weird crystal people, the explosion that immediately followed it hurt just to witness.

Ignoring Bowser's predicament for the moment, Geralt paid attention to what the Cadet was saying. Hit the legs, knock it down, weaken the arms and face. Coulda figured that one myself, but any advice is better than none I guess.

While the Cadet ran directly at their quarry to get its attention, Geralt danced around and through the crystallized farmhands, removing limbs and parrying weapons as he did. He had no desire to get impaled by a pitchfork again, thank you, and took extra care to avoid those.

The kid would buy him enough time to get around them without getting turned into paste, right? He was a professional, like that other guy, the Azure Star or whatever? Yeah, definitely. He'd be fine. Geralt could avoid the pitchfork dudes.

As he got closer, the Cadet managed to reach the monster and fire his grapeshot bomb directly into its face, which Geralt took as the opportunity to charge in and aim his sword for the back of its leg.

Blazermate followed everyone else into the police station upon everything calming down. She picked up and began to carry the dispenser that Dell had created while he was summoned, telling her zombies to clean up the area and wait patiently for further instructions as she carried the healing building into the police station with her, the sentry still beeping as it looked for more targets to shoot with its limited ammo.

Blazermate wasn't too happy with getting crowded by these police station survivors, but they soon gave the party some room as they explained themselves and introduced themselves. Much like the people at the road stop, peach's castle, and everything, they were a varied bunch with some looking like people from Anime, others animals who knew some of Blazermate's friends, and some tough looking guys. All in all, until the cat lady came down, only Fox McCloud kind of looked out of place her.

Ms. Fortune caused Blazermate's scanners to go haywire. All in all, she shouldn't be alive with all the various injuries and weak points on her, but she also had something that kept filling her with life almost like she was some kind of... organic medabot? It was both great and disturbing all at once.

Ms. Fortune was more on Blazermate's mind than the apparently haunted area they were in. V had done some kind of skill or ability to sense the dark energy in the air, and ghosts weren't Blazermate's expertise at all. Heck, in her world ghosts were just a myth, but considering where they were, any B movie trope was probably real here. Thankfully her confusion as to handle the subject quickly went away as the survivors mentioned that they had sick and injured people. "Injurd? I can help with that! Plus I assume you guys need ammo." Saying that, Blazermate put down the Dispenser she was carrying. "This thing makes ammo for you and lightly heals you if you stand next to it/ask it for what kind of ammo you need!" As she said that however, she noticed that the display on the dispenser was all static-y and jumbled up. She hit it a few times, but that didn't do anything to fix it. "Although, thats not normal..." She said, poking the building.

Shrugging, she said. "Well, I'm sure it'll work eventually. I should go tend to the injured." Blazermate said, asking Max to show her to her new patients. "Nero, V, I think you guys know way more about this ghost stuff than I do. I'll join you when these guys are all healthy. Hopefully the dispenser works then so we can refill ammo for these guys. Probably going to need it to get to the teleporter." Blazermate said, following Max into their makeshift infirmary. Before she left the room, she said. "Donnie, might need you to use your magic stuff to get rid of any diseases. I can't do that." and she went off.

Night had fallen on the land by the time the hunting party arrived at the ‘color’-blighted grounds that quickly became their battlefield. The once fertile farmland was left now grey and petrified, its hollowed-out inhabitants wandering about it, both rendered lifeless by some unknown, unspeakable phenomenon, and a beacon of otherworldly color polluted the night sky through the gaping cracks in the barn that sat at the hill’s crest. The scene was aptly set for a horrible encounter. From the barn broke forth a twisted Eldritch mockery of life and form, its horrifying wail stabbing at the nerves of everyone who heard it and stirring the slumbering drake at the foot of the hill into a furious wake. Their chance at getting the drop on their target was now gone, and their problem, doubled.

The Cadet, the Witcher, and the Koopa King set upon the dragon, being the three most qualified and capable of the group for the job, while most everyone else broke off to deal with the abomination and its surrounding mob. Hat Kid was left with a choice: quantity or difficulty? Throw her lot in with the larger group to take care of the scarier, more numberable threat, or get between the larger ally and the quantifiably bigger threat while it was busy clobbering him with massive, missile-shaped fists that covered everything they hit in explosively volatile mucus? When put like that, her decision was made obvious.

She Sprinted her way up the hill some ways behind her team, bounding over the first line of husks and executed a series of consecutive Homing dives into those that followed, using them as proverbial stepping stones to keep her going forward until she was past the horde. Once she was, she used her spare jump to keep herself airborne while turning around to fire a large blue laser from her umbrella at the crowd of them to see that they didn’t follow her or the rest of her allies uphill. By then, Tora and co. were already on top of the Thing, and he was presently paying for his zeal. Seeing this, Kid dove toward Linkle, cancelling directly above her before landing to use her as a trampoline, giving her an extra boosted jump to make it to Tora.

As she arced through the air, her perception of time slightly dilated for a moment while she cycled through her headwear to select Terry’s Cap. She then landed with a gentle hopping step off of the Nopon’s head as she channeled her hat’s rightful owner’s power, thrusting her fist forward at a downward angle to throw a midair Power Wave right in the Thing’s face. Though her’s was but an imperfect facsimile of psychometrically borrowed technique, thus weaker, it would hopefully still phase the creature enough to cause it to dislodge its tubular maw. The same power was able to tip Sweet Tooth, after all. Assuming it didn’t, however, she still followed up her attack by kicking off of the monster's forehead into a retreating backflip, incidentally avoiding getting hacked in half by Franklin, Jr., or the Centurion.

She landed on three points, exaggerating her pose slightly, before standing and adjusting her cap with a smile. As stressful and unnerving as the situation was, she was still trying to act halfway cool, chipper and smug about it, doing her best to maintain her characteristically positive and playful demeanor in the face of the maddening terror they were faced with. Still, she took things seriously enough to fall back in with the rest of her teammates in preparation for the next round of combat.

Magnumus Agoston, Centurion.

Level 3 - (23/30) EXP
Location: Ancestral Farmland, Land of Adventure
Word Count: 276

---

It felt good to sink his blade and fists into the side of this thing from the stars. His allies were quick to join him, and Centurion felt bolstered by their presence. This was the positive feedback loop he had been trained to create and maintain. One of the most important skills of being a Centurion is upkeeping morale. Though most likely the brave heroes beside him would leap into Hell for the fun of the fall. Either way, he grinned as the blood spattered across the ground.

The creature's maw opened, and Agoston knew it was time for it's viscious reprisal. His eyes widened and his grin faded as he saw the insanity within the beast itself. A crystal surged forward and exploded into liquid upon him, bursting. It did not hurt, but he felt himself losing balance. His Phalanx would not protect as much against an attack such as this. He felt weaker. The damn thing was sapping his strength! Damn!

Gritting his teeth he prepared to return when the beast leaped far and away.

"COWARD! Get back here so I can gut you!" He taunted to the Thing, falling briefly to one knee. Groaning furiously he slammed his fist on his breastplate and surged forward, attempting to catch the thing.

"Agoston, chop the tube!" Linkle called out.

Tube? He thought. Suddenly he noticed Tora being attacked by, well, a tube. The damnable thing was sucking his life force out! Following his companion's command he rushed forward and brought down his gladius in a downward swing upon the leech, hoping to sever the disgusting umbilic connection between the beast and his furry ally.

With Bowser wounded by a slimy explosion, his human comrades took up his mantle. The Ace Cadet rushed in first, trying to get its attention. After smashing a farmhand into crystalline dust, the Brachydios complied, aiming a swipe at the monster hunter to get him off its flank. It missed, but scattered a few globules of slime on the ground. With the Cadet momentarily warded off, it glanced at Geralt emerging from a tussle with a couple farmhands, but its red-haired assailant demanded its attention. A bomb exploded in its face, provoking an enraged snarl and the full focus of the beast. It took a stop toward the Cadet and rammed its head downward, requiring a well-timed dodge to evade, and giving Geralt the opening he needed to slice into a leg.

His silver sword cut through the scale and flesh with much less resistance than he might have expected, but somehow it didn't seem to incur loss of muscular functionality. Displaying a remarkable short temper, the Brachydios turned to face him, backed up a touch, and charged while swinging his arms into the ground over and over. Having circled around to the other side, Euden sprinted in as its charge tailed off to stab at its underside. With every thrust his sword gave off a spurt of flame, and some sort of power flowed into Euden. The Brachydios, unable to effectively attack beneath it, peeled off to one side while swinging its tail. Euden raised his shield in time to intercept the scaly club, which rattled him and slid him backward but didn't cause any real injury.

As it readied itself, he shouted, “this guy just blindly goes after whoever attacks it!” It thundered toward him a moment later, and after a heart-pounding moment he threw himself to the side, evading its headbutt. The experience brought him close enough to its face to see its eyes, and they glowed with fury. “The crystals might be driving it into a frenzy!” A couple swings to its leg, then a hasty retreat. Hit-and-run tactics were serving the heroes well so far; trying to take it on directly, as proved by Bowser, was foolhardy. Euden, however, was too intent on another strategy to make note of it for the others. Keeping an eye on the beast, he said, “If I can keep landing hits, I can shapeshift and deal some serious damage!” Still intent on bashing Euden, the Brachydios licked its arms and came about again.

---

As much as its fleshy protuberance evoked the image of a leech, attaching itself to Tora to drain his vital fluids, the Thing from the Stars did not prolong the bite. Instead it withdrew its ignoble maw almost as fast as it had been projected, leaving its rotund challenger with a two-pronged parting gift: a fiendish blight and a rattled psyche. It was out for just a moment, but in those precious seconds Tora's allies, driven to act by opportunity or revenge, made their move.

From above, Bowser Jr swooped down in his clown car with Kamek giving support. A fusillade of arrows from Linkle sunk into the Thing as he drew near, barely sticking in its surface. In the child's hand was a fire axe, gleaming with the color of madness, and in the pivotal moment before Junior struck his sorcerous friend enlarged the weapon with a colorful hex. Its huge edge slammed into the monster's body, too unwieldy to be swung with any precision, only for the handle to splinter and the head to barely sink in before falling to the ground. Whatever this bizarre shimmer was, it either signified or conferred superior protections, reducing incoming damage by a whopping approximate four-fifths.

Junior's companions, already on the attack, didn't have the time to process this. At the urging of Linkle while she ran around blowing up the crystalline aberrations, Agoston found his vigor and renewed his assault. Before he got to his target, a sniper round struck the vomitous being's back, knocking a few handfuls of crystal shards and a spray of meat to the ground. By the time he reached the Thing's head, its supposed weak point had already mostly receded, the leftover protruding flesh hanging limply below its skull. The Centurion's formidable overhead chop fell upon its head instead, cutting a mediocre furrow into its wretched flesh and slicing into part of the tube. Barely a second later, Franklin's flame-wreathed machete flew in from behind the warrior, clipping his helmet, and lodged in the face of the Thing from the Stars.

Next, Hat Kid arrived on the scene. Having left the group of farmhands in her dust with the help of her teammates' earlier efforts and an inexplicable azure beam from her umbrella, she got Linkle's help to team jump right into the action. She soared toward the monstrosity, changing hats as she did, and once in range let loose a short-range burst of earth energy into the Thing's head. When the flames cleared the next moment, she found that it had barely moved, and so used its noggin as a springboard to fly to safety. After her stylish landing, she could see along with the others that the overall punishment dealt to the Thing was substantial despite its protections; another round like that and it would surely give up the ghost. However, all the attacks to its head achieved no better results than any strikes elsewhere.

But there wasn't time to wonder or plan. The Thing from the Stars spasmed once more, and the alien saturation bubbled forth in arcane bolts. Mind-searing lightning swept through the heroes' ranks, seeking a place to belong, frisking their brains and burning their skin before departing skyward.



Then the menace shuffled forward, the damaged head not even facing its foes. It lurched forward, a limb like a beast cadaver retching crystal swinging around to attack in a vicious Vorpal Strike aimed at its enemies in melee range. The great crystal spike struck a glancing blow to Centurion and Hat Kid, who were blocking and retreating respectively, but it hit Junior full-force. His eyes filled with stars, blindingly bright and madly dancing, as he reeled from the critical hit. Then, leering, the nightmare raised its limb to strike again.



The sight of his young friend reeling from pain and the gnawing of madness reached Tora through his daze. “Junior!” Unbidden, Poppi sprang forward, her eyes grim. She seized a Mech Arm as she jetted by, flying forward to punch the Thing in the big limb's bicep, which housed its arm-beast's spine. Stiff as the flesh was, she felt enough give to grit her teeth and slam down on it. Then, like Hat Kid before her, she pushed off it with her legs and hovered backward to barrage it with a missile salvo. One after another the missiles exploded against the malignity's crystallized hide, but so focused was Poppi that she could not move out of the way of its haymaker in time. Like a gigantic club the side of the spike slammed into her torso, and Poppi shot backward into a nearby farmhouse. She crashed through the wood above the roof and disappeared into a dusty darkness.



Tora screamed. He looked on the verge of collapsing. There were husks lurking in every direction, he was weak from pain and poison, and his friends were being hurt. “Not...not happening!” He knew what he needed to do, but his nerves were shot. Shaking, he took off at a haphazard run for the farmhouse, beating off any farmhands in his way as he struggled to make his way to his partner. In his singlemindedness, he did not see the unusual husk floating a couple dozen yards away, the glow within already mounting to a fever pitch. Just as he reached the farmhouse, the crystalline cyst burst open, and the light bent.

The sky around the farmstead changed, filling with color that swallowed the night. In a mere moment the darkness was gone, and in every direction around the hilltop extended an infinite void of beautiful, haunting, ever-shifting green. It seemed as though the earth itself had disappeared, trapping the hilltop farmstead in an alien dimension beyond space and time.

For a moment Tora was overcome with awe, but only a moment. He was not broken yet. The green cosmos stretching out before him was dreadful, but the thought of losing Poppi was worse. With the new light, he could see inside the dilapidated farmhouse quite clearly, and after spotting Poppi hurried to where he lay. Miraculously, she didn't seem to be in critical condition—in fact, her ether furnace was operating unusually well. They shared a glance, realizing that both were still alive, and without a word embraced one another tight. Tora squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, and Poppi squeezed harder. “Thank Architect,” the Nopon mumbled, eyes screwed shut. His companion stroked his head, and relief filled them both.



A moment later, a crash from outside stirred them both into action, and after re-arming the pair rushed outside to rejoin the fight.

”Course I c’n use them,” the Courier answered Kamek in regards to the green herb and other items the koopa had brought back from the Dead Zone. He took them up, adding in, ”Long as they come from the land or a livin’ critter, I c’n make use of ’em. Sometimes I c’n combine ‘em together t’get the effects from both in a single dose, but amplified. Sometimes I c’n make somethin’ entirely different. Just gotta take a moment to look’em over an’ see what I’m workin’ with… But it looks like I won’t have that chance now.”

Everyone was heading out, urged by Bowser himself. The Courier shrugged. He would have frankly preferred they head out in the morning after some rest. It would have given him a chance to make some new chems, and even build that robot he was planning on. But if everyone was in a hurry to get battered and bruised without the proper preparation, well, what could he do about it? Even if they lost more of their number to this enemy, he wouldn’t die. He was a survivor, he’d make sure of it. The Courier holstered up, packed away his new items, and looked up… That stupid wiggler hat with a twitch of embarrassment in his eyes, then put it on (stashing his rawhide cowboy hat away in his bag).

”Looks like I c’n be running support in this upcomin’ battle,” he announced to nobody in particular but loud enough for everyone to hear. ”Since this hat’ll let me share my chems with you all without actually usin’ ‘em up on ya. Heh. Like a neat little package I’ll be deliverin’ ta y’all.” And with that everyone was loading up, either in their own karts or in the big monster truck. The Courier of course preferred his own transportation. He whistled and his trusted chocobo mount came.

”Good boy, Drumstick. Er, or is it girl?” He took a moment to look under the giant bird’s legs. ”Girl. Good girl. Looks like we’re off.”

---

The journey was invigorating for the Courier. Feeling the rush of air as Drumstick charged across the landscape, blowing through his hair. He gazed upon the new places he hadn’t yet explored, marveling at it all. So much back home was dead, or mutated, or both. The Land of Adventure was a breathtaking land indeed. He couldn’t wait to map out the whole area on his pip-boy. But it wouldn’t last and he started to pick out on something that wasn’t… Just wasn’t right. The land soon became desaturated, and strange crystals that he just knew didn’t belong started popping up. If there was anything the Courier recognized it was tainted land. But tainted by what?

Eventually everyone had to abandon their vehicles in order to proceed quietly, which left the Courier in a bit of an advantage since his bird could move around without making the noise of an engine. Together they kept up stride with the others, the Courier pulling out his Ratslayer rifle… Just in case. Then they saw it, their target. A monstrous beast, bigger even than the one he and the Ace Cadet had to abandon earlier! Bulkier, stronger looking, more fiersome! It seemed they had the drop on it until…

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The Courier’s eyes locked onto the Thing From the Stars and he froze. His chocobo froze. Something invaded his body like a virulent poison, paralyzing him in place: otherworldly fear. No, terror. Others acted far more quickly than he did, somehow shaking off the fear while he sat on Drumstick unable to engage the monsters before them. Even as he was left alone at the bottom of the hill it was as though nothing else existed but that horrifying abomination. The Courier heard his companions as though from across a great chasm, their voices barely echoing in the back of his mind. Finally his attention was demanded, breaking him out of the stupor.

One of the farmhands, tainted and corrupted by otherworldly powers, had crept up on the Courier and swung a shovel at him. The impact thrust his mind back into the present, back into focus, and thankfully did not hurt much as it failed to break through both his duster’s armor and his sub-dermal armor (even if it would leave a bruise). ”Piss off!” he said dismissively, spurring Drumstick into a full gallop and leaving the crazed farmhand behind.

Fucking aliens. He hated aliens. But it wasn’t the bigger, more immediate threat right now. There were plenty of them ganging up on that smaller target. The Courier would focus his attention on the big monster in front of him. He missed the advice the Cadet had given, about attacking the legs to knock it down or how its slime was explosive, so he had only his intuition and observations to go from, which admittedly were pretty good.

As Drumstick charged forward, The Courier activated VATS. Time slowed to a complete stop, allowing him to measure up his enemy. It seemed everyone who wasn’t Bowser was keeping their distance, and judging from the koopa king’s current state that was a damn good idea. He checked the chances of hitting various parts of the monster’s body with VATS, all of which were a very high percentage due to its sheer size, but he didn’t want to waste his stamina by queuing up automatic attacks. Instead he had a different plan.

GRX Implant operational.

Oh HELL yeah! The implant fed into the Courier’s brain the details: it had come back online and had its full storage of 5 doses of turbo ready to go. Now he could show his hombres what he could really do! As Drumstick approached the monster, the Courier jumped off from the bird’s back (which then stopped its trot). In midair the Courier called upon his first striker, the lakelurk, to appear directly beneath his feet. He used it as a platform to jump further forward and up, then dismissed it back into the ether from which it came. He still wasn’t high enough, or close enough, and so at the apex of this jump the Courier called upon his second striker, Bastion (who had recovered from the last battle after hours of rest), using the omnic as another jumping platform! Now the Courier was flipping directly overhead to the brachydios, Ratslayer in hand. Implant GRX: activate!

Time slowed to a crawl, but this was different from VATS. This wasn’t just the Courier’s awareness moving at intense speed. He was still moving at the same rate from his own perspective, while to everyone else he’d appear to be a blur! The hulking monster below him, now nearly eye to eye, couldn’t hope to swing its large, cumbersome arm fast enough to swat him from the air. He lifted his Ratslayer, his rifle with high critical hit rate, and unloaded every shot in its 8 round clip directly at the brachydios’ face.

The Courier landed on the ground behind the Brachydios with a tumble, failing to stick the landing and rolling along the ground as time managed to catch up to him. 4 doses left. GRX refill in 24 hours. The implant communicated into his brain. ”Great, we’ll see if I need’em before then.”

The Courier scrambled back to his feet to run away, unwilling to see how well the brachydios took those shots to the face, but that still left Bastion who was not dismissed the same as the lakelurk. The omnic robot wasted no time shifting into tank mode and began unloading everything it had into the monster, having started this process even as soon as the Courier had used him as a springboard.

”Hey, this is easy!” Daxter exclaimed as the stone crumbled before his mighty stomp-jumps. ”Gah! MORE ZOMBIES!” He shrieked, failing to recognize that the swarm was helping destroy the stones, that they were the ones sent by Blazermate. Frantically he ran away, feeling great relief at having successfully dodged all of their nonexistent attempts to grab him.

Meanwhile Ratchet kept providing cover fire for the rest of the group, hopping in and out of swarms of foes and blasting them before hopping away again. His demon gun served him well as he could keep refilling its ammunition on the fly with the zombies and monsters it killed, grabbing up stray spirits and throwing them in for another soul-charged grapeshot energy blast.

But even with all their firepower and raw ability the heroes couldn’t hold off such a swarm forever. The survivors inside the police station called for them to get inside and Daxter had zero qualms with having an opportunity to save his skin. Ratchet looked around a bit sheepishly and thought, yeah, that’s probably a good idea. To give himself a better chance at getting through the throng of creatures unharmed, Ratchet activated his cloaking from Zer0, leaving behind the holographic dec0y to draw the swarm in another direction.Once Ratchet made it through the door he dropped the cloak, which caused the dec0y to suddenly spontaneously explode in a large burst of electricity!

”Woah! That’s new! Really cool too!.”

---

Up above at the top of the police station, another battle was raging against the Laguna angels. Donnie was able to hold his own no problem and with relative ease, so Jak paid the monk no mind as he continued waiting for the angels to get close, then blasting them with big cones of high-powered red eco. He watched with relative disgust as the cat lady dismembered herself to annihilate an angel in the most grotesque way possible. His eyes scrunched up and he bit his lip, looking over to his shoulder on reflex as if to say something to his best friend, only to realize his best friend wasn’t there. Oh. Right.

A new arrival signalled a change to the battle dynamic as a little cloaked figure began charging some kind of magic, and more angels looking like bizarre marble centaurs with chest-faces came in. Jak rolled into a long jump, landing on one of these angels like he was mounting a horse, then put the barrel of his morph gun directly to its back and blasted! The angel didn’t go down, showing how durable and hardy these enemies were, but it did blast off a nice amount of that chunky white marble stuff revealing something more fleshy beneath. It tried to buck Jak off, so he let it. Thrown into the air Jak used the momentum to go into a spin attack, whacking the angel repeatedly with his legs, fist, and outstretched gun. As soon as he landed he pumped another blast of red eco into the dazed creature, this time putting it down for good.

Another new arrival, this one some sort of long haired rocker type, urged everyone to head back inside. Donnie went, as did the ladies they had shown up to protect, so Jak decided to go down too. There was no point standing his ground alone after all. As they went Jak snagged the spirit of a fallen angel.

---

Inside everyone met back up again, along with a large number of survivors. ”Jak! I missed ya, buddy!” Daxter called out.

”Me too, Dax.” The two fist bumped. ”I didn’t like being separated. So listen, I was thinking we should get this thing reversed so we can stick together again.”

”Eh, I don’t know, Jak. I did pretty good out there like this. Really kicked some tail, if you know what I mean.”

Jak was taken aback. ”You mean you’re… Good like this? Wow.”

Daxter shrugged. ”I mean, I wouldn’t want this to be permanent. Seriously, I feel like a bird could perch on me anytime. I don’t want to have to keep an eye out for termites and woodpeckers for the rest of my life! Buuuut it really helped me, you know, keep Blazer-cheeks alive out there.”

Ratchet shook his head at this exchange, but before he could join in, the apparent leader of the police station survivors started filling them in on what the current situation was. Things seemed grim, but then V made them sound even worse by throwing in that the place was apparently being haunted.

”Haunted? Like, from a ghost?” Ratchet was almost in total disbelief. ”Sorry, but there’s no such things where I come from. Just, you know, aliens and robots and things.”

”Yeah, Dax and I have tangled with aliens too, as well as monsters and creatures that like to eat our gods, but ghosts are beyond my understanding too.” To emphasize Jak’s point, Daxter mocked a knife slit across his neck.

”I can definitely help with setting up more defenses though. I’m a great mechanic,” Ratchet offered. ”And I can really kick butt on the front lines.”

”Man, the mood in here is so sour and unpleasant,” Daxter threw in. ”It’s cramped, it’s dingy, you’re running low on supplies, and there’s the constant threat of horrible, terrifying death knocking down your walls. Remind you of anywhere, Jak?”

”Heh. Yeah. Haven City. Listen, my city was under constant siege from the metal heads. Demonic creatures that swarmed the stars and killed off the Precursors. It was overcrowded, constantly running low on eco, and morale was lower than dirt. But we survived, and we’ll survive here too!” With that, Jak pulled out the angel spirit he had grabbed back on the roof. Daxter looked nervous, but he needn’t have worried. ”Let’s see if this works…” Jak crushed the spirit and slapped it against his morph gun, banking on the weapon’s transforming properties to take it into itself.

Splinters bit into the boys flesh as they forced their way between his scales. Before him the ax head to which the disintegrating handle has been attached barely pierced the skin of their eldritch foe. As jr came to fully realized his predicament, namely far too close to a thing he had barely harmed with that finishing move, and grappled down for the controls the blade shrunk back to its normal size and fell down to the ground with a weak thud.

Others came in on the attack, each and every one of their strikes being dampened by the same horrible energy barrier. Yet they were doing it. Together they were wearing down the beast as more and more of the party got a hold of their senses and join the frey, eager to put down the thing messing with their minds as quickly as possible even as they risked their sanity to do so.

As jr grappled at the controls of his machine with injured hands the time came again like clockwork for the beast to wrack their minds with its horrible lightning. Jr clenched his eyes shut as he saw it build, felt the burning of his scales and in his veins. As the assault passed by Jr realized it wasn't quite as bad as it had been last time when he had been airborne but he didn't have time to dwell on this fact as the moment he opened his eyes again the scything arc of the Thing’s Vorpal Strike clipped past two of the others and then struck him in the chest.

The small boy was launched by the strike, his body striking the edge of his car as he left it and was sent tumbling to the dirt. Half blinded by the maddening light and pulsing of pain through his body Jr watched helplessly as the thing ready to finish the job, only for Poppi to throw herself at the monster like an avenging angel.

”Y...ng M..te.! C.. Y.u .ov.?”| someone tried to speak but him, but Jr’s ears were ringing to loud and his head thumping with too much pain to understand what was being said. A hand grabbed the collar of his shell and began to drag him backwards and away from the creature as it battled Poppi. For a moment there was hope as the mechanical maid wrought devastation upon the Thing from beyond the Stars with fists and missiles. Then it hit her even harder than it had him, sending the metallic warrior flying away to crash into a building, and Jr’s mind edged one step closer to breaking.

As he stared helplessly at where Poppi had been something small and yellow entered his narrowed cone of vision. Mimikyu, having landed far more gently than jr after the boy had been ripped away from beneath the Pokemon, approached the Thing and glared at it angrily. It was an absurd image, jr thought, the tiny poorly made Pikachu doll staring down an invincible monstrosity that could shatter minds and bodies alike with ease.

“Mi-mi-kyu-YU!”

As the light shifted and the world around them fell away Mimikyu raised up their long spectral limbs, but instead of lashing out at the they drove them down into the ground. For a moment it seemed like nothing happened, not even the ground was harmed as meters of black limb vanished into the ground. Then the circular surrounding shadow that the tiny creature cast from the light of the all encompassing green void split into dozens of individual shadows that grew longer and longer, racing towards and then under the thing. Shadowy tendrils suddenly lashed out from half a dozen large shadowy apparitions, reminiscent not of the mimicry of the popular mascot but the shapeless formless maddening thing that dwells beneath, rose up behind the eldritch horror to attack it.

(Mimikyue used Shadow Sneak!)

The specters’ long arms grabbed the thing, wrapping themselves around it like boa constrictors, endeavoring to crush the life from the thing that had dared harm their master. In doing so they also tried to hold it back so it could not seek to chase after Kamek as he dragged jr away from the Thing.

The wizard had flow down to the prince's side the moment he had recovered from the return to the stars and seen what the thing had wrought. Then once he realized jr was in no fit state to protect himself or even respond he tried to get him clear. Kamek’s doubles had vanished the moment he revealed himself as the true Kamek by grabbing jr and so his firepower was diminished as he blasted the farmhands in his way with his wand.

”Rise rise bones and skulls, give us a few just a few lulls!” Kamek chanted once he had blasted a moment of breathing room. The Dry bones rose from the ground and began a delaying action against the farmers, neither side capable of downing the other. Farmhands would strike down the skeletal minions clawing at their bodies, then take a Pause from Labor to recover, only for the Dry Bones to rise back up and begin the cycle all over again.


While the skeletons created a lull in the fighting around him Kamek reached into his robe and grasped one of the vials of Bloodwort tonic he had acquired from the dead zone.

Young master. Jr. drink this. please. his instructed Bowser jr, his words shaky and fraught with worry as he unstopped the vial and press it to the boy’s lips. Mercifully the Jr began to drink the fluid after only a bit more prompting, beginning a slow healing process. The process of imbibing the tonic was hampered somewhat both by Kamek’s unsteady hands and the way the earth was shaking.

”WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY BOY!” roared the source of the tremors. Bowser plowed through the hordes of farmhands as he raced towards the creature that had dared to harm his precious son. He’d come to his senses just in time to see the blow strike Jr, the boy having been one of the first things he looked for as he tried to regain his bearings. His face was a bruise, scorched, bleeding mess, his hand where pockmarked with scores where the explosives had lacerated them and he was vaguely aware that they were now probably trapped in another dimension, but none of this mattered to the father as he had immediately abandoned the battle with the Brachydios that had sullied his pride and instead rushed to his son’s aid.

He thundered past Kamek, Jr and Mimikyu, crushing several of the battling farmers and dry bones in the process. Then as he got in close he lashed out at the Thing from Beyond the Stars, the orange energy blades of the Mecha-Mit driving towards the thing to stab, grab, rip and tear it asunder so that it could never hurt his son again.

@Lugubrious@DracoLunaris

---

Linkle diligently went about destroying the crystalline abberations before they could explode or whatever it is they did, only stopping briefly to flop down on her back and use her legs to send the had kid flying through the air toward the thing.

It wasn't a hard job. They were just like big stones, you just had to blow them up. Simple. She'd just finished them off when that thing shot her in the back, pumping mortal terror through her brain that was getting harder and harder to shake off. It didn't help that when she looked back it was just in time to see Junior and Poppi knocked around.

Tora screamed, which was a worse sound than the clang Poppi made when she got hit, and ran up the hill toward where she'd disappeared. That's when things went weird.

She liked green. Green was a heroic color. It represented courage. She'd always found it very inspiring. It was her favorite color.

This wasn't her green. This sickly, swirling, disgusting color was anything but and it was everywhere. She was so distracted by the sudden change in scenery she didn't notice a group of the husk farmers converging on her, farm implements raised menacingly.

Luckily for Linkle Grandpa Koopa chanted a magic spell and all around her the dead rose from their graves, throwing themselves against the stony skin of the husks and distracting them from their target. She saw the...stalphos? Koopas? Staloopas! She saw the Staloopas trying their very hardest, but they just didn't have the strength to bring the farmhands down. The hillside turned into a stalemate, a perpetual battle between the dead and those that should be dead, while the thing screeched in the background and the distorted green swirled in the sky.

Hold on, was this actually a nightmare?

The thing that broke through the stalemate certainly was the stuff of nightmares. Brushed, bloody, and utterly enraged, Bowser charged through the fighting and past Linkle to take out his anger on the thing.

She looked down at the husk farmers he's smashed, already putting themselves back together as more crystals. She decided to preempt them this time, firing bombs at the area and breaking them before they were fully formed. Then, considering how little her arrows had been doing to the monster again, thought she'd be better served mopping up these guys before they realized the staloopas just put themselves back together whenever they went down and went after anybody that was actually hurt.

So she threw herself into the middle of the undead battle, the tips of her bows shining red as she swung her arms. Bombs flew all around her, exploding on husks but leaving the Staloopas miraculous unharmed and able to do other things.

She could feel power building in her with each hit the husks took.

Magnumus Agoston, Centurion.

Level 3 - (23/30) EXP
Location: Ancestral Farmland, Land of Adventure
Word Count: 359

Stress: 55/100

---

"Careful, Franklin!" Agoston called out surprisingly cheerily after feeling the helmet clink from his ally's flaming machete. Fortunately he had been able to fit it back on his head after he shrank down a little bit. In the meantime, this Thing would not go down, and he only just managed to push himself out of the way of a horrific attack. The sheer terror this thing emmitted was unbelievable. Agoston had not felt fear like this since he was boy. In a way this was reassuring, as the logical part of his mind told him it was some kind of magical fear. Not true, cowardly fear, but one instilled upon him. Nothing more than the animalistic part of his brain being poked and prodded at by some kind of alien force.

But this did little to calm his heart, and nor did it stop the idea of fleeing from pushing itself into his mind. Agoston once again attempted to steel himself, gritting his teeth and tightening the grip on his gladius.

"Keep up the pressure!" The Centurion commanded. He loudly slammed his gauntlet and blade together twice, creating a resounding clang that rose above the noise of battle. His allies beside him, Agoston surged forward. He went low, almost beneath The Thing from Stars. Since it seemed anatomy did not matter to this abomination, the Centurion decided he would simply attempt to seperate as much blood from the monster as possible. As much flesh as he could reap! He stabbed his gladius into the side of the beast and then slammed it with his left hand, trying to create a cavernous ravine of gore through the things body. Currently, the Centurion was too distracted to worry about crystals. He trusted his comrades to do something. Right now, the Thing from the Stars filled his vision and his ears, and was all he could focus on. Perhaps if he disengaged from the thing he could take a moment to compose himself, but Agoston was working himself into a frenzy, slashing, stabbing, and gutting the creature as much as he could manage. And he could manage quite a lot.

As the Brachydios slung it's slime around the area, the Ace Cadet managed to expertly dodge the globs that came flying his way. He wasn't part of the "Ace Hunters" by coincidence after all. However, even experts make mistakes every now and then. Cadet's focus was zeroed in on the Brute Wyvern, and as he kept his eyes on it to avoid the monster's incoming headbutt, he missed the creep of husked farmhands behind him. Cadet leapt backwards to avoid the Brachydios' head protrusion only to land directly in front of a group of the husks, who tore at the armor on his back. "Get off!" he snapped at the humanoid husks, spinning around with his sword to slice at the enemies in a circular slash. From the corner of his eye he saw the Brachydios move away to strike at another target, so he took a step to distance himself from the husks that had 'survived' his attack - and stepped directly into the left over slime puddle.

Crap, Cadet thought, finishing off the few husks around him before running back towards the Brachydios. He did a quick tumble forward in an attempt to get the slime off his leg, only to discover it wasn't that easy. Crap again! The hunter scraped the slime off with his shield and shook the metal plate vigorously to rid it of the volatile mucus (only serving to spread it around the area more) as he watched the others attack it. Euden's fire attacks he knew wouldn't do much good, and the Cadet quickly thought to himself how much he wished he had a water-element attuned weapon.

...oh my Gog, water, duh! The Cadet barely had time to think and give himself a face palm before the smaller puddles of slime he'd created finished changing color and exploded around him, further scorching his armor. Scrambling upright after the short distance he'd been blown, the Cadet got back into a fighting stance and took stock of the situation: Geralt, Euden and the Courier were all on the offensive. Bowser left to join the fight with the Thing, and... the entire place was suddenly surrounded by green? It was a bit disorienting, but Cadet squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to regain his focus. Euden's mention of "something something frenzy" nearly had the Cadet's heart leaping into his throat, but no, it wasn't exactly the same as the virus, at least he didn't think so.

"We need to keep it off your back, right? Can do!" Cadet called out to Euden, moving toward the young blonde to try and draw the Brachydios' attention back to himself. After a brief moment considering which area on the monster's body to target, Cadet settled for what he thought the best way to stop the Brachydios from attacking the apparent shape-shifter, or any of the others, was: getting on top of it. The hunter briefly looked toward the others and offered the advice that had slipped his mind earlier, "If any of you have any water-element attacks, they'd be a lot more useful!"

With that, the Cadet grounded himself and aimed the large claw attached to his slinger at the Brute Wyvern's back. The clutch claw was a rugged hook that was perfect for gripping to the hide's of monsters, and what better situation to use it in than this one? He fired it it, looking for a clean connection to pull himself directly on top of the Brachydios to mount it and distract it enough for the others to put work in on it.

While Geralt's attack was effective, it wasn't nearly so much as he'd hoped. This thing....it was like it didn't have muscles or tendons underneath that armor. That wasn't natural, but these beasts were hardly anything he'd dealt with before. Even in that world, he stuck to dealing with the Leshen, and then he was gone.

The Brachydios responded to his slash with a series of rampaging fists pounding into the earth as it charged towards him. A slow, predictable move like that was almost insulting. Timing his movement so that the monster didn't have enough time to adjust its trajectory at its speed, he dove through the air, immediately rolling as his body touched the ground. He was surprised to find that he was closer to being hit than he'd originally expected, but he managed to escape the attack unscatched, thankfully. It was unlikely he'd have been able to dodge had that been an outright punch, though.

Geralt, standing, nodded to himself as Euden called out his plan: keep the beast distracted so he could transform. Getting that dragon on their side, if even just for a moment, would turn the tides of their fight. He hadn't been paying attention to the other fight, but he did notice when that other, dangerous man from Lumbridge appeared, launched himself into the air off of his Chocobo, summoned some kind of strange huge lobster-crab hybrid abomination to jump off of, and then summoned an iron golem from thin air, as a stepping stone before unleashing a torrent of fire from some kind of explosive crossbow into its face.

What.

Shaking off the shock from what he just witnessed, Geralt took advantage of the opportunity that bought him. Quickly drawing the symbol for Quen, he smirked as the familiar protective field came into being around him. He then ran up towards the Brachydios again, making sure to quickly step back from its swinging tail before charging in to try to remove the appendage outright. That would surely get its attention.

In defiance of the hypnotizing whirl of the emerald heavens, the battle against the Brachydios continued. Finally stirred from his paralysis, Courier 6 acknowledged a newly-reactivated augmentation and prepared himself for a daring maneuver. While Geralt, the Cadet, and Euden kept the monster busy, he used his bird and both his strikers to boost himself sky-high, then kicked himself into overdrive. A blur of gunsmoke and muzzle flash, he pounded the surprised Brachydios with slug after slug. His bullets pierced scale, flesh, and the muscle beneath, and the monster howled. A moment later the Courier touched the ground, disoriented and unstable, but his foe was in no place to respond and Bastion picked up where he left off.

Flying into a blind rage, the Brachydios charged at his metal assailant and bulled into Bastion head-on. Unable to avoid the collision Bastion vanished on the spot, but his brutal fusillade made its mark on the beast. The others seized the chance to capitalize on the monster's outburst, starting with the Cadet, who slung his clutch claw at its hide to latch on and zoom in for a wild ride. Suddenly aware of its unwanted burden, the Brachydios started to struggle, trying to force the Ace Cadet off. Meanwhile, Euden rushed in, leaped up, and came down with a fiery plunging attack into the monster's tail. His blade bit through it, but it didn't leave behind a great cleft, and its blaze bore no visible effect. The Brachydios swung its tail, but while Euden dodged backward, Geralt pushed forward. Picking his moment after its momentum stopped, the Switcher swung full-power and finished where Euden left off, slicing the appendage off in a spray of blood. Another bellow heralded the achievement, and the monster bucked wildly, stomping this way and that as it scattered explosive slime. A globule stuck to Euden, who -having seen both Bowser's punishment and the Cadet's struggle- dove to the ground and hurriedly rubbed it off in the gray dirt.

On the other side of the battlefield, the Thing from the Stars reveled in the haunting halflight of its new environs. Looming like impending doom, it prepared to strike Bowser Jr again, only for a little, patchwork thing to stand in its way. Tendrils of darkness snaked into the ground, hidden for a moment, before rising beneath the Thing en masse. Its manifold, insalubrious arms lashed and clawed at the twisted flesh, and when their beating proved ineffective, they ensnared the thing in a crushing embrace. The Thing, however, wasn't the only problem on the field; the farmhands, spurred on by the state of the Thing, had regrouped and were pushing forward. Kamek summoned Dry Bones to find them off, while Linkle devoted her full attention to them. New husks made themselves known, including a couple foremen Stirring the Rabble to hit harder and striking from afar with vicious whips. Scarecrows also floated among their ranks, their hollow keening instilling a virulent Horror into those who heard it. Tora and Poppi, having rejoined the fight, winced at their terrifying faces but forged onward, fighting with all they had to keep the husks away.



Even with its enemies divided, the Thing was stalled long enough for a true avenger to appear, one empowered by red-hot, righteous fury after seeing his beloved son laid low. Despite his wounds Bowser thundered onto the scene and assaulted the Thing from the Stars with reckless abandon. His claws, both energy and real, gouged into its protected meat, and his blows smashed it in. The Centurion followed him into the fray, striking low as a whirlwind of punches and slices in a mad bid to bleed it out while Bowser went high. The Thing struck back, surging with sidereal lightning in the color of madness, but its frenzied assailants would not relent.



The battle reached a fever pitch. Bowser and Agoston attacked wildly, their for the only thing in existence, every cell in their bodies screaming for its absolute destruction. Linkle, Kamek, Tora, Poppi, Hat Kid, and the others staged a desperate offensive against the husks, madly beating back husk after husk, and all the while the stress mounted. Finally, something broke. Something essential. The sound, a single note of clarity in the chaos, rang across the battlefield, and the Thing's mephitic flesh sagged.

Limp, useless meat turned gray and stony as it sloughed off, falling to the ground. Along with it went the crystals, becoming clear and soft as the color left them. A great mass of the color welled up, bunching into one mass of madness that hummed and shook in the air before shooting skyward all at once. The lunatic ray cut through the void of green, the night sky surging back to replace the trappings of another dimension. Finally the color departed in a brilliant flash, but as it rose, a singular portion of the color fell back to earth, like a climber slipping from a precipice, and bled into the hilltop's soil.

The husks remained, as did the color, but the beast was gone, as was much of the farmhands' vigor. Slain for now, but it would live again in another time, another place. Nestled in the middle of the grotesque mass it left behind was its spirit, the chilling visage of the Thing from the Stars.

Tora went limp, falling flat on his back. His nerves were brutalized, and his head swam with the color. Dazed, reeling, and about to break, he could fight no more. Poppi knelt be his side, holding him close.

On the rooftop, Donnie had just one question for the strange self-dismembering cat-lady: “Do you always make puns about yourself in the middle of combat?” Well, actually, two. “And how do you even have the focus to come up with new ones while fighting? Do you memorize them in advance or something?”

Ms. Fortune winked at him. “Maybe, maybe not. Gotta think on your feet, you know?”

That said, other than that strange tendency, she seemed like an able fighter and a nice-enough girl. The woman with the ax, on the other hand...he got the feeling she would only be a burden. He had no idea how she survived this long.

In any event, once everyone was settled in the Main Hall, it turned out the station was literally haunted.

Donnie put a hand to his chin. “Well, I haven’t dealt with ghosts in a long time, and who even knows how the metaphysics of this world works. These ghosts could literally be from any world with an afterlife, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but…okay.”

“There are several types of ghosts where I come from. Regular ghosts, banshees, shades, wraiths, specters, wisps, the list goes on. The only real differences between them are how malicious they are, what species they generate from, and the conditions on which they arise. It’s possible to actually fight them with ordinary weapons if you encounter them, and you can actually put them to rest this way. They’re pretty easy to deal with if you know what you’re doing. The problem is…”

He looked at the radio.

“They don’t usually play these psychological tricks, and they don’t possess machinery like this. Meaning that it’s not a ghost from my world, and that means we’re going to be in for a world of hurt. My hauntings were the best-case scenario.”

Then Blazermate piped up, saying she would heal the people and asking for Donnie to help with the infected. “Yeah, we can help with that.” He looked at Louis. “Also, we need to know where you keep the infected. I can cure any disease or toxin with a quick spell, and I stopped someone from zombifying before. I need to get to them ASAP.”

The swordsman considered the notion for a moment, evidently deciding the new arrivals were worthy of his trust. “If that’s true, you can find the infected on the second floor, in the Art Room. East side. The wounded are though there.” He pointed his mechanical acquaintance in the direction of the main hall’s east door. Past the east office, through the press room. The Observation Room’s where people are being healed.”

Donnie nodded. “Got it.” He turned to leave. “Let’s go, Blazer. Art Room first, unless you want to split up.”

“if the injured aren’t infected, best to do the infected people first, then the injured. No one is so critically injured that another 5 minutes would kill them, right?” Blazermate asked, trying to gesture to the swordsman to guide them. He knew this place better than her and Donnie did after all. “Unless you think you can handle healing and curing them at the same time Donnie. Ghosts complicate things.”

___________________________________________________________________________

At the door to the art room, the well-built metalhead who’d appeared on the roof earlier stood guard. The dour look on his face didn’t exactly inspire confidence. “So, you think you can cure them? After everything I’ve seen I can’t deny the chance, but...things might be bad in there. We’ve been holed up here for a few days, and whenever someone is infected, we put them in here, restrained. Gave ‘em food and all, but yeah, it’s a bad deal. Still better than putting everyone else at risk.” Drawing close to the door introduced the heroes to a repulsive odor, seeping out from under the door. Reluctantly, Eddie unlocked it, and opened it to let the new arrivals inside.

“Worth a try at least,” Donnie said to the man, as he stepped inside. “Yeah, you’d be surprised at the stuff I’ve healed so far.” Blazermate said, stepping in after Donnie.

The first thing that hit them was the smell--rank, wretched, rotten. It was a pong of decay. Inside the Art Room was an awful display. A number of zombie corpses littered it, most attached to heavy furniture or the gallery rails with handcuffs, but a few signs of life stood out. Sitting on the middle of a circular bench in the gallery’s center, a woman watched the newcomers with weary, wary eyes. While she looked ordinary, a certain air of toughness clung to her, the badge of a true survivor. On the opposite side of the room, seated on a watchman’s chair, lurked a blue-haired samurai who glanced only a moment at the heroes, his sharp eyes flashing like a blade. Lastly, some twitching could be seen from one corner, where a bloody, mutated mess knelt, breathing fitfully as she held tight to a split arm with one hand, as if to staunch the grotesque wound.

After a moment the survivor spoke, her voice a southern twang. “Ya here to drop off? Or finish off? Ain’t much of us left, and I ain’t got much time.” As she spoke, the bite wound on the right side of her neck became visible, but she kept it mostly covered.

While Blazermate was immune to the acrid smells of the art room, she wasn’t immune to the ghastly looks of the place. Her scanners went off like crazy in this room, noting who was further along than others. “Phew, glad we came here first. Things don’t look so good here. Donnie, lets get to work. I’ll stabilize them, you cure.” Blazermate said, using her healing beam to stave off the most infected person, the survivor, infection while Donnie did his magic thing.

As for Donnie, his nostrils flared as the absolutely revolting smell of the place hit him. It was at least better than the city streets, but to say that one pile of corpses smelled better than another, bigger pile of corpses was like saying that an Abomination’s distended, rotting, exposed colon smelled better than Darnassus compost. They both smelled terrible, ranking them was splitting hairs.

In any event, onto the business at hand. Two infected humans and one...slab of meat. That one was probably too far gone, but it was worth casting it on her anyway, but only after the other two went.

“I’m not here to finish you off, and we’re not infected. I have a spell that can cure diseases, and I want to see if I can help you. Blazermate here”--he pointed to the robot with the demon-arm--”can track your status and can verify if the infection is gone. This’ll take about 16 seconds. Are you okay with that?”

“Just heal ‘em Donnie. Samurai-Sama there looks really bad.” Blazermate said, almost teasing Donnie.

“Look, I just wanted their consent, but you’re right.”

The pair had the attention of the survivor now. Something like hope shone in her eyes, a battle between cynicism and wonder. “If you think so, by all means.”

One cast later, his hands flashed, and his magic purged disease and toxin alike from the woman’s body. Straightening up, she blinked twice, rubbing a hand over her neck. The tingling and pain, the feeling of invasion...gone. “Well, I’ll be damned…”

“Glad to see it worked,” Donnie said.

Her reaction garnered the interest of the samurai, who stood and approached. As he did, he nearly doubled over, coughing up blood into the hand he slapped over his mouth. After only a moment his own treatment began, ridding his body of virulent bacteria.

Whatever changed, he seemed to recognize it immediately. Eyebrows raised, he murmured, “Shinjirarenai. Iyasa remashita!” Facing his benefactors, he bowed in respect. “Arigatōgozaimashita.” Hearing this, Blazermate gave the man a thumbs up, showing that she fully understood what he had said.

“Once you’re healed up. I’d recommend waiting outside the room there. Don’t want a re-infection from whatever is making Donnie uneasy in here.~” Blazermate said, happy with how well these two took to the medi-beam/detox treatment.

Donnie got the sentiment, giving him a thumbs-up. His hands flashed a third time, this time targeting the flesh-monster in the corner. Nothing appeared to happen. Definitely too far gone. Well, no use crying over spilt milk. But something had indeed made him uneasy, it just wasn’t the zombies.

“Hey, uh, Blazermate,” he said as he made to leave, gesturing for her to follow him out the door as he walked, “are you sure that swordsman was infected?” he asked as he gestured to the samurai. “Coughing up blood doesn’t appear to be a symptom of the zombie plagues around here….”

Guiding the survivor and samurai out, she said. “Yeah, he was. Although I think it was just a standard disease? Hard to say, this is zombie land after all, could’ve been a new disease. My readout doesn’t tell me exactly what they’re infected with, just that they’re infected. I’m not a nutranurse.” Looking back at the mutated pile, blazermate shrugged. “So, what should we do with that one? She’s not injured, but she doesn’t look like a healthy person. Wanna come back after we heal the infirmary people? Ask around a bit about this one?” Blazermate said, scratching her head in a bit of confusion.

“Yeah, we should ask around, but I think she’s too far gone. That or the mutations don’t just go away if the plague gets cured. Let’s head to the infirmary after we figure out where to drop them off.”

Gesturing to the samurai and survivor girl asking them to follow in both English and Japanese, Blazermate nodded. “We should take them to the infirmary though either way. I don’t think these guys will believe us saying they’re cured without one of their own also confirming. Zombies do that, if the movies are anything to believe.” She said, leading everyone to the infirmary.

“Good point,” Donnie said, and he made to follow her.

___________________________________________________________________________

With nobody posted outside, the Observation Room seemed readily accessible. Pushing open the door greeted the newcomers with the sight of a couple rows of beds, mostly unoccupied, and a few patients grappling with various injuries. Three looked lightly hurt, while two were flat-out unresponsive. Standing over them was a medic in futuristic gear, her countenance grim as she moved between the injured. New arrivals received a momentarily glance from her but no response as she continued to rush about, doing her work.

Walking into the makeshift medical area, Blazermate sighed, happy that people only needed healing here. “Ok, while the infected people weren’t my expertise, healing people is.” Blazermate said to herself. She noticed that there was already someone trying to take care of the people here, but all she seemed to be able to do was keep them stable. Waving, Blazermate said. “Hiya, we’re new here. We’re healers and was told you guys had a lot of injured. Let me see if I can help ‘em.”

The medic nodded. "Excellent. I've been having to make do with conventional for a day now." Eying Blazermate's medigun, she stepped back to let the machine work. Blazermate did just that, healing up the critical and going up the priority list as the two people Donnie had purified came in. “By the way. My monk friend here purified these two of their infections. We just want you to give them a look over while we heal these people.” Blazermate said, pointing her demon arm at the people behind her as she healed and used a revive protocol on one of the people who were unconscious.

He scanned the room briefly. One amputation, some gashes, a few people with mundane illnesses, and a bunch of people in critical condition. He only had Vivify and Detox, but as long as he rationed his stamina and took it slowly, it would be enough.

"Alright, let's get to work," Donnie said succinctly, promptly looking over each of the sick and wounded and applying magic until they were at 100%. As he worked, he progressively got sweatier and his breathing became more labored. Healing a room full of people without tapping into his body’s mana pool wasn’t easy, and he often had to stop to take a brief rest before continuing, all the while Blazermate kept pumping away with her Medigun. He felt inadequate, frankly. Then he remembered he’d killed a Titan and that went away.

The combined effort of the pair, expended steadily and thoroughly across the makeshift infirmary's inhabitants, gradually restored and stabilized them all. Val, a witness to magic and technology that might as well be magic, was clearly impressed. This appeared to be nothing short of a miracle.

"Well, that makes things simpler. Wish you were here this morning." A slight sigh escaped her, but Donnie's condition did not. Brow furrowed, she said, "If that took a lot out of you, I have an energy drink in there." She pointed to a desk in a corner, piled high with notes and medical odds and ends. "Precious stuff, but if you can just magic people back together, you're good for it."

“Thats all you Donnie. Medabots don’t get tired.” Blazermate said. Seeing her charge in uber growing, Blazermate continued to heal even healthy people, as it grew steadily. She hadn’t used this ability before, but from what she could tell, it lost itself at a rapid rate if she wasn’t healing someone.

“No, I’m not sleepy tired, it’s just like doing vigorous exercise. I’ll be fine after taking it easy for a bit, and water would be better anyway.” Donnie said, huffing and puffing as he took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow before putting it back on and fastening the straps.

Val shrugged. “It restores stamina, but suit yourself.”

Blazermate chimed in again, saying, “Oh, the place is haunted too. Maybe all of you could help us figure a way out of here as well? The people in the foyer are looking into it, so I figure more heads would help us figure this out faster.” This reminded Blazermate of what they had saw a few minutes ago, and she asked “Oh, speaking of people, Is that person upstairs in the infected room that looks super mutated a friend of yours, or did they become zombified?”

The medic shook her head. “I haven’t been up there, since I don’t do sickness, so I don’t know what or who you’re talking about. If someone turned and changed unusually, you told someone, right?”

Crossing her arms, Val glanced back at the desk. “Ghosts aren’t my thing either, but if there’s any information around here, it’ll be in there somewhere. I’ve been scribbling notes to try and keep records, but there were a few someone else made too. Now that I think of it, they were here before this I set up in here.”

“Well, no, we didn’t,” Donnie said sheepishly, “but if it’s any consolation, she’s not spreading the disease anytime soon. It turns out that my cure-disease spell gets rid of the zombie plague, just not the mutations associated with it. So even if she broke out, she’s not turning anyone even if she gets to you. Just a weird-looking zombie. However, while we should probably shoot her at some point, I just thought I’d talk to a medical professional first.” Blazermate nodded along with Donnie’s explanation.

Frowning, Val replied, "If this thing looked dangerous, you should report it immediately."

Blazermate shrugged, saying. “Well, if it was dangerous, it would’ve attacked everyone. It kinda just sat there in a corner minding its own business. And trust me, we’ve seen weird things out there that are actually friendly. You should see Bowser! He’s a giant fire breathing turtle monster!”

“Either way, she’s right, we should report it.” He turned to Val. “Anyway, do you mind if I look through these documents?”

“Yeah sure. Probably for the best, this thing is acting up..” Blazermate said, her demon hand spazzing out a bit at the fingers at strange intervals. So, I’ll go out and tell everyone the good news, and the bad. Hehe.” With that, Blazermate stepped out of the room, making her way back to the foyer to tell the other survivors about the thing up in the room and the good news about all their healed comrades. Hopefully Donnie could find something about these ghosts.

Digging through the medical records turned up nothing until, near the bottom of the mess, the monk turned up a couple pages of newspaper. Its distinctiveness among the notes caught his eye, but the cover story kept them.

Vile thieves! Old Woman Robbed and Beaten!
Neighbors reported a fight the night before!

March 8, it was reported to the police that Mrs. Chinda Manapaiboon, 60, was badly wounded and found unconscious. She was taken to the hospital before the police arrived on the scene. Investigators revealed that there may have been more than 3 people that inflicted such a brutal beating. Her son, Mr. Pichai Manapaiboon is believed to be the one leading the robbery…
(more on page 13)

No pages beyond the second were there.

To be frank, Donnie didn’t know the terminology at first. “Police” was a foreign word to him, but context clues got the point across quickly enough. “Police” was clearly the term for the city guard around here.

It was pretty clear what this was, though. A murder report, clearly intended for public consumption, in the city guards’ barracks. It wasn’t out of the ordinary. What was strange was a humble newspaper clipping was doing on a guardsman’s desk. Didn’t they have reports for this kind of thing?

Well, that’s the next step then, isn’t it? the monk thought to himself, grinning with satisfaction at finding the first clue.

___________________________________________________________________________

Heading back to the main foyer, leaving the samurai and the lady survivor back at the makeshift medical area, Blazermate found a few people still looking about. As Blazermate approached them, she said. “Hey guys!” When she got to a standstill, she put her healing beam on one of them and said. “Good news, we’ve healed up everyone and cured the infected. Bad news? One of them looks really mutated. Don’t know who or what they are, but they didn’t attack us so… are they a friend of yours?”

Captain Howard took in the announcement, briefly turned back to give a few parting words to Fox, then hailed Blazermate. “I don’t know who you mean, but if someone in that room changed drastically, we should take immediate precautions.” His right hand slid a folded-up rod from its holster on his waist, and he gave the android a firm nod. “I’ll do it myself. You’ll back me up in case it attacks, right?” Blazermate nodded, putting her healing beam on Howard as he moved up to the Art room with her in toe. “I don’t know if they’re aggressive or not, they didn’t attack us or the other people who we cured.” Blazermate noted.

Howard nodded. “But you didn’t get close, did you? Aberrations always wait for suckers to get too close, then spring the ambush.” After a brief exchange with Eddie Riggs he pushed inside. It a few seconds for him to overcome the grisly scene, but once he had, he settled on the thing in the corner. While it looked at least in part like a beautiful woman, he knew that it needed to be put down. In the middle of the device on his left wrist, a blue cube span and clattered ceaselessly, as if hungry for action.

As he raised his hand, his weapon changed, shifting into an energy pistol that he used to fire a three-round burst of blue bolts at the creature. She stirred the instant they struck, jerking to her feet and staggering forward. Unperturbed, Howard held his ground and changed his weapon again, turning it into a long greatsword with a blunt edge. As the monster lurched closer, Blazermate became aware of something appearing in front of her beside Howard, completely invisible, but there nonetheless. On Howard’s wrist, the cube had disappeared, and a chain reached into the empty air. The monster finally lunged, the top of her head hinging open to reveal a pulsating sucker as she attacked. Her arms cleaved the air, but instead of touching the Captain they bounced off some unseen barrier so solidly as to send her reeling back.

Baffled, the creature attacked again, beating uselessly against a whatever shield that appeared around the smirking policeman for a few seconds before he went on the offense. Howard swung his X-Baton overhead, then thrust with both hands, pushing his enemy back. It charged forward the next moment, but he pivoted with his sword’s weight on his back and came down with a crushing overhead smash. An upward swing then sent the thing tumbling back, and as it hit the bookshelf it bounced forward again. Howard grabbed the chain and swung it. Whatever it was attached to whirled about him before zooming forward, wrapping the special infected in the chain before swoosh-ing straight back to the Captain. A blue glimmer appeared for just a second, and Howard took the chance to hurl the chain forward. His unseen companion dashed in, the air split apart, and a giant slash appeared through the creature’s torso--and the entire bookshelf behind her. Sliced paper fluttered about as the monster looked down at itself, confused, before falling apart into two pieces. The halves rapidly turned to ash, leaving a spirit behind.

Howard relaxed. Whatever had appeared to assist him had gone, perhaps back into that device of his. The core sat in the middle of it once again, shifting in place. “Well, that’s one problem solved.” A quick look around confirmed what he saw earlier. “And it looks like there’s no more infected. Not in the way I woulda hoped, but…” Trailing off, he shook his head and turned to leave, collapsing his X-Baton as he did. “Neat! Didn’t even need to heal ya.” Blazermate said.

___________________________________________________________________________

Blazermate followed Howard back to the hall, skipping along.

When she arrived back at the Main Hall, she found Donnie waiting for her. “Hey Blazermate, I found something!” He walked up to her and handed her page from the newspaper. “This newspaper clipping was in the notes.”

Giving her time to look it over, he said, “A man killed his 60-year-old mother in an assault and robbery case. This is useful, because that’s definitely the kind of tragic death that would spawn a ghost, and Val said that this was here before she set up, so odds are good records on the man were kept here back when the police were active. We might be able to use this to find out more about the haunting.”

He then turned to Captain Howard, recently arrived. “I think we should head to the Record Room. We might find documents on the robbery case there.”

Howard gave a nod. “Go ahead. Let me know what you find.”

After a few seconds, everyone dispersed. Blazermate and Donnie went together toward the stairs leading to the second level, in the direction of the infected quarantine. V slunk off quietly, but Nero remained just long enough to give Ratchet an incredulous glance for his pronouncement about ghosts. “Well, we don't exactly deal with ghosts, either...” Still, if some thought their talents best used elsewhere, he couldn't really object. While V went west, Nero went east, leaving the three duos still in the main hall to go about whatever business they deemed best. The survivors nearby received Jak's words of encouragement with weary, halfhearted appreciation, and watched as he smashed a spirit against his morph gun.



The last fighter into the RCPD, Gene, had meanwhile reunited with the hatchet-wielding lady from the roof, and the two disappeared into a side room in a heated debate.

---

About twenty minutes later, everyone rendezvoused in the main hall. Nobody could avoid noticing that something was amiss with the lights; power fluctuations had begun to occur, and the air had gotten warm and humid. Fresh from the makeshift medibay, the Observation Room on the first floor east side, Donnie presented his findings to Blazermate, Captain Howard, and anyone else in earshot. While he spoke, Nero came through the west side door to the reception room, a bundle of papers in his hand. After sidling up he listened to the remainder of the explanation, and once it concluded, cut it with his own report.

“Might not need to,” he interjected. “Found this in the Records Room. Listen.” Holding it up, he read aloud for his companions. “Illegal race ends with a steel bar through an eye. At 2 AM tonight, Yasothorn police force was chasing illegal racers through Yasothorn highway. The capture took place with some had fled the scene.” He swallowed, shaking his head. Evidently, the grammatical errors were part of the material. “One of those is Mr. Pichai Manapaiboon, who ended up with a steel bar piercing his left eye through a skull when crashing into a truck. Mr. Pichai or Tae was the main suspect in many motorcycle theft cases and the police are gathering all the crucial evidence...blah, blah, blah. Point is, it sounds like the sort of violent death that might cause a ghost.” Suddenly aware that everyone was looking at him, he glanced around with a stern expression before adding, “I don't know much about karma, but if this guy hurt his family, he's prime ghost material according to the radio. Right?” Not normally one to talk so much, he looked around for confirmation.

Louis and Ms Fortune, having been listening closely, nodded at the same time. “That follows,” the Revenant confirmed. “Still, it leaves us without any concrete information about to how to stop this apparition.”

“We'll just have to turn the place upside-down,” his Feral friend suggested. “And fast. Whatever this thing is, it's coming soon. Fur-st stop, the library.”

“I'll go down to the garage,” Louis declared, apparently unconcerned by the danger that entailed. “We cannot afford to leave any stone unturned.”

Captain Howard chimed in after that. “Interrogation, break room, east and west storage, dark room, operations, safety deposite, chief's office, and private collection rooms need checking to. I've got to stay here, but you...” He pointed at Leon. “And you.” An extended finger indicated Lucatiel. “Take a look around.” Howard waved at the newcomers. “And you all can take your pick. We need to get this dealt with before the next wave comes.”

---

---

Level: 1
EXP 0/10
Word Count: 269
Stress Level: 0%
Current Location: Dead Zone, RCPD (Library to Main Hall)

---

---

Normally, anyone who would ever stumble into a place infested with hellspawns and the undead would try their damnest to escape with their lives. The place he ended up in just screamed apocalypse, but Joker had a reason to stay for a while or two. Residing in the police department's library with some of the civilians, he ran down the information he had obtained so far. There was a serial murderer among the survivors, who's been behind a string of kidnappings. Joker wasn't able to get anything concrete, aside from that it was a man, brandishing a knife, that can teleport and manipulate time in zones. The time zones can slow things down, and replay events.

But who would have that kind of ability?

He did ask some of the survivors about it, and even if they saw anyone from his team in the area, but nothing helped much. Joker couldn't help but worry about his friends. If they were targeted by the culprit, then that there was enough for him to deal with the guy himself! He couldn't just do nothing about it!

Either way, he had enough of a break for a while. Joker made his way to the main hall to overhear some others talking about...a ghost? Was the building haunted? They seemed to be investigating that themselves, so maybe he could help them out. Could find something that'll lead to the kidnapper, after all.

So Joker walked over to them, giving a small wave with one hand in his coat pocket. “Is it alright if I help?” the thief asked, looking around at the others.

Blazermate listened to the info that Nero and Donnie had come up with, and could only shrug with the rest of them. "Where I come from we don't deal with this kind of stuff. Sure there is the occasional evil organization, but they tend to border more on the line of goofy rather than brutal." She said. "But yeah, we should get rid of these ghosts. That way we can teleport you guys out of this walking dead nightmare."

A kid approached the group with a spiffy outfit on him. Blazermate waved to him, as he appeared to be a late arrival of this station's survivors. "The more the merrier. Do I know you? You look familiar..." Blazermate said to Joker, a bit confused. There was a medabot fighter that looked like him, but she couldn't put her finger on it and shrugged.

Seeing as Louis was going to one of the more dangerous areas, She decided to tag along with him, putting her healing beam on him as it started to crackle with energy. "I hope you know what we might be looking for, because I kind of don't. Looking for something bloody might not work, what with zombies and all..." she said, half commenting on the situation, half hoping Louis had some idea on exactly what was going on considering his indifferent stance on this matter.

@Lugubrious

---

Linkle grinned weirdly as she duck back under the swing of one of the husk farmers looking to take her head off. It was because one of the staloopas was clinging to the things back, slamming its skull over and over into the back of the things head. All around her things like that were happening. It was weirdly comforting to have these things around beating on her enemies. She'd thought the fight earlier today had been nostalgic, but a allied army was really the missing element needed to make a fight like a sick parody of what she was used to.

Then again, she didn't have to feel bad when the staloopas died because they just put themselves back together!

The oddness of that though gave her pause for a moment, and almost got her hit by a hand full of stone seeds the farmhand pulled from his overalls and threw her way. She slid back this time, narrowly avoiding them as they hit the ground with a series of popcorn like pops, realising color and a vile yellow gas that disaster quickly. Another Farmhand came up beside her and swung at her head but she jerked back and avoided that one too, her bow tip flaring red as she delivered a point blank explosion that scattered the farmer into a million pieces. A second bomb blue up the crystal already forming as more farmhands advanced and made her move again.

It was weird how naturally her body moved when these things came at her. A battle in the middle of a large group like this was like a perilous dance where you'd have to trip and hurt yourself a few times before you learned all the steps. This dance, though, felt familiar. Something in the rhythm of their movements, the timing of their advances, and the ordering of their attacks, made her feel like she had already learned this dance. The music was different but the steps were largely the same.

It suddenly hit her like a hoe to the side of the head as one moved forward from behind another and swung, nicking the side of her head and leaving a cut across her temple. "What do you guy have to do with the fish people?" She said, more bewildered that in pain from the strike.

Her line of though was broken as Tora and Poppi exploded back onto the scene, slamming into husks with gusto. Her immediate thought, slipping in right in front of relief that they were okay, was offence at them intruding on her perfect nightmare. They might get hurt by these things and if she was being perfectly honest Linkle did. Not. Think. She. Could. Deal. With. That. Right. Now. Not in this swirling green, not while fighting these fish husks, and not while looking at their weird floating friends.

Because they'd killed enough of them to draw out the commanders now, and so the tempo got faster. The ones with the whips drove the farmers forward, one of them even powering through a barrage of bolts to slam her in the stomach with a forward thrust. She gritted her teeth, spinning around and sending the the thing clattering to the ground with a heel to the side of the head. At that moment a whip came flying over the farmers shoulder, flexible as rope and yet hard as stone, cutting through the undersuit and skin underneath to leave a deep bleeding gash going up her leg. She faltered, stepping back from the thing and firing off a pain of bombs at it. When the dust cleared, though, it was cracked but standing. Commanders were made of tougher stuff.

Worse than them were the scarecrows, whose wordless visages alone tugged harder at the already fraying edges of her psyche. It was made all the more terrible when she heard the Thing arc with lightning again and felt the bolt shoot right up into her mind and push her to the edge. She stood now on the brink, ready to fall. Whether she broke or bounced was up to fate.

Luckily for everyone, the greatest source of the insanity surrounding them screamed and fell. The disgusting color exploded out of the Things, seemingly escaping into the sky as it fell and sapping the will from the husks that surrounded them. She let out a loud, shaky laugh at the sight of it and the unfamiliar stars that now shone like diamonds in the sky. Goddesses, she had never though coming into this that she would be relieved to see those again.

Then she heard a soft plop and looked over to see Tora, flopped over, cradled in the arms of his Blade. An obvious target for even the demoralized husks. It was obvious where their attention was turning.

Linkle ignored the pain in her bad leg, sliding under another whip as it cut through the air aiming at her neck to make it to the pairs side. She looked around as the husks advanced, now that the three that had been fighting them were all grouped up. She waited for them to float and lumber forward.

"I told you I would pay you back." She said, feeling the power well up in her. She stared up at the floating, scarecrow like husks. "And I told you to stop making me feel things!" For the third time since coming to this world Linkle went off like a bomb, covering the area around her with a circle of arrows and a dome of firey force to put down any of the husk that were left that would dare try to hurt her friends.

Working together Bowser, the Centurion and Mimikyu assailed the Thing from Beyond the Stars. Held in place by the tiny mouse mimicker and having shown little inclination to dodge before then it was a target ripe for receiving Bowser fatherly vengeance. Claws slashed, grabbed and shredded the thing’s horrid flesh even as it unleashed its mind blasting power against its attackers. The two warriors soldiered through the stress and continued to hack and slash until all at once a threshold was reached the Thing’s defenses suddenly broke.

The body began rapidly decaying as the power within abandoned flesh to gather itself together for one final act. Bowser backed away hurriedly as green energy pooled together, the king worrying that it might be about to explode, but instead it blasted upwards, fleeing from its ruined body and returning to the stars above.

With the passing of the Thing from Beyond the Stars the hilltop was returned back down to the land of adventure from whatever unnatural place it had been ripped into for a few brief moments. Yet despite the madding threat’s removal its minions had only increased in strength, variety and number while the king had been focused on the Thing.

Kamek’s dry bones, who had been stuck in a deadlock against the farmhands, began to be overwhelmed as the newly arrived foremen arrived to bolster the rabble. Hiding behind their minions they lashed out at Kemek with their whips that sailed over the heads of both the farmhands and the slowly contracting circle of skeletal minions. Only aid from Linkle prevented them from being completely overwhelmed.

”Gah!” the mage cried out in pain as the tip of a lash struck him in the back as he shielded the slowly recovering Jr from harm. The mage wiped his wand around and yelled ”Buzz off you flea bitten farmboys!” at the offending forman, while blindly blasting a fireball back over the front-lines of their battle in retaliation.

Once again it was Mimikyue came to the aid of the beleaguered Koopas after it was sure the king and centurion had the Thing firmly pinned down in melee combat. The small spirit scooting around and between the legs of the dry bones and farmhands to join the Koopas while also dodging the shots and explosives that Linkle was indiscriminately raining down upon the undead friend and foe alike.

“Kyu Kyu!” they squeaked as they placed themselves opposite Kamek at jr’s side and began lashing out with its long claws at the closest farmhands, somewhat ineffective scratching at their faces with their lengthy limbs.

Kamek was happy both to have someone else at jr’s side and that the boy had found such a useful and loyal minion but quickly realised that they could apply themselves better. ”Good work cutie, but hit the ones skulking at the back with the whip instead, they’re the most dangerous,” he instructed it. Kamek was convinced that if they could destroy the newly arrived minion commanders they could break the back of the Thing’s remaining forces, and as a result prioritized them over the scarecrows even if he was quite certain he couldn;t take much more of their mind mangling screeches.

Mimikyu hearing this turned to look up at the mage for a moment tilting its head to the side a little as if thinking whether to obey this instruction.

When Kamek added ”It’s the best way to keep our young master safe,” the creature nodded and set to work. Its claws sunk into its now singular moonlit shadow, which raced out and under the melee before popping up behind a foerman like an assassin to strike it in the back with a dark claw. The spectral strike seemed to ignore the protection offered by the foreman’s petrified form, leaving great gashes in its back before the shadow snuck away to strike another foreman. Even with Mimikyu’s harassment sowing havoc among the enemy's minion commanders Kamek still feared that they might be over run. The circle grew ever smaller as the dry bone’s dry bones attacks were riposte by the empowered farmhands or they had their bones melted away by their blighted seeds. This fear ended when Bowser finished wailing on the Thing from beyond the stars.

With central threat torn to shreds and reduced to a pulp (which oddly had remained behind even as the thing both seemed to flee and be spritified simultaneously), Bowser turned his focus to take out the trash. Great waves of flames spewed from his swollen and injured mouth (quickly and painfully cauterizing some of the wounds inflicted by the Brachydios’ beat down in the process) and washed over the masses of crystalline undead assailing the squad from every side. While the crystal components of their foes where relatively resistant to fire the same could not be said for any cloth, wood and most especially hay making up their constitution. Thus as Bowser stomped around burninating the countryside he left swaths of their foes at worst incinerated and at best merely left actively on fire. Any who survived or looked like they might recover received a hammer to the face as Mallet and Sledge rode on their lord’s shoulders, throwing their namesakes at any monstrosities that needed a bit more work to put down or attempted to assailed Bowser from behind or the sides.

Bowser’s third striker was not part of that battle however and had instead, with the help of mallet, Heel the Rabbid Supporter team jumped over the monster’s assailing Kamek, Mimikyu and Jr’s position, landing among them to provide faster healing for Bowser’s wounded son.

With a pulse of healing energy from Heel’s medical backpack Jr’s physical form, kept intact by Kamek’s care and the steady stream of healing provided by the vitality potion, was restored to near working condition. Yet his mind was still a wreck. The Thing’s last return to the stars had broken something in his heart and soul and so even as his physical form was restored he couldn't help but feel like the situation was [Hopeless].

He sat up slowly and looked around, ignoring Kamek’s fussing as he took in what he had missed. The thing was dead, which was good, and his father was here, which was also good. On the other hand Bowser had clearly taken a beating, they were surrounded by even more rock zombies and they still had to deal with their actual target that was busy blowing up their allies some distance away. Jr sighed dejectedly as his mind focused much more on how things were going poorly instead of the bits that were going well.

He broke out of his listless gazing at the events unfolding when Mimikyu hopped onto his knee.

“Mimi?” they intoned with concern before cutely bopping its soft cotton filled head against the boy’s belly.

”Young Master? Young Master? Are you alright? Do you need more healing?” Kamek asked, and had been asking since jr came too.

”What? No. I’m fine” he muttered even though he wasn't entirely back up to snuff, pushing away Kemek’s hand as the mage tried to hand him some of the green herbs. Heel’s timer had already run out at this point (the Rabbid had healed all he could and even chucked a few bombs around before poofing back out of existence) and jr didn’t see the point of wasting what little healing items they had left on himself, useless as he currently was.

”Then are you able to fight? We could really, gah” Kamek was interrupted by the lash of a whip before finishing that ”Use your help.”

Jr took a look around for a few moments and then asked ”How? All my stuff’s over there,” before pointing at his clown car, which was in the process of slowly drifting away into the sky again after it had been relieved of its pilot.

”I.. Well. your minion sire!” Kamek urged the boy in while blasting a farmhand with his magic wand.

”Fine. Sure,” jr replied, unconvinced that they could be of any help. Yet with the halfhearted call of, ”Minions get out here.” he summoned his swarm off Koopas and Goombas into the perimeter anyway, suddenly packing it full of bodies.

”Go fight or something.” jr instructed vaguely while he gradually got to his feet while Mimikyu reclaimed their now by now familiar spot on his shoulder. The minions not immediately under attack glanced at one another before one of the goombas hesitantly asked “eey boss, you alright? Ya sound a bit down.”

”Meh” jr responded unhelpful and noncommittally.

“So uh. How we playing this? What formation we doing?”

”Don’t care.”

“uhhhh”

”Join the fight! Push back the rabble, link up with our allies and make sure you destroy the bodies of the zombies because they turn into bombs if you don’t,” Kamek commanded the squad in Jr’s place, spurring them into action.

“On it!” the minion army responded, before throwing themselves into the fray alongside the depleted dry bone forces, punching, kicking headputting and generally attempting to overwhelm the farm hands before stomping their remains into oblivion. They were a lot better at the second part than the first, due to being individually smaller and weaker than the farmhands, but the difference in height between the undead humans and Bowser’s minions made it easy for their allies to shoot or strike over their heads in order to help out the swarm who could then deal with the remains.

”We’re going to win this.” Kamek quietly assured jr with a clap on his Mimikyu less shoulder as he started blasting farm hands with clusters of colorful shapes shot from his magic wand.

”Like we always do,” Jr muttered sarcastically as he advanced after the minion horde, unarmed and disinclined to get stuck into the melee, Mimikyu riding his shoulder and continuing their shadow sneak attacks on the foremen.

---

"Sorry!" Franklin cried out, wincing as he watched the machete accidentally bounce off of the Centurion's helmet. Throwing machetes wasn't something he had practiced often, as he almost always fought with guns, and it showed. With a motion, the machete re-materialized in his hand. With a more careful aim, he tossed it at the Thing a second time, adding onto the wave of attacks the group was directing towards the creature. As the machete warped into his hand again, he stepped back as Bowser approached, attacking the creature. He instead turned to the swarms of husks, letting Bowser and the others handle the Thing. With the machete in one hand and his nine-millimeter pistol in the other, he leapt into the fray, tossing the machete in a wide arc to cut down as many of the husks as he could, before raising his pistol and trying to shoot down the floating scarecrows.

Still decently far away from the fighting, Michael's scope trailed over the enemies. He didn't want to risk shooting at either of the big targets yet, since the number of allies attacking them in melee made it a dangerous task. He instead settled his crosshairs on one of the foremen, seeing as they appeared to be leading the mass of husks forward. Steadying his aim, he pulled the trigger and fired.