Down the road from the guild hall, the area surrounding Blazermate's teleporter had become quite the center of attention. Three total strangers, looking harrowed and smelling funny, were being attended to in close proximity to the device. Shortly after his arrival on the scene, the Houndmaster had observed his trusty wolfhound balking at the odor coming off the survivors and ordered that nobody get too close. During his time venturing through the perilous bowels of castle, warren, weald, and cove in preparation for assaulting the Darkest Dungeon, the lawmen encountered no shortage of blights, poisons, and plagues, and the villagers had heard enough vague but horrifying recollections to trust his insight in such matters. Visitors could talk to them, however, and that was just what they did.

The oldest of the escapees, an animate coin with arms and legs, treated any inquirers to an endless tirade that fluctuated between rattled recounting of events and ornery complaints. Cooper Chance, spurred on either by adrenaline or stress, babbled excitedly. Feng Min, who looked the worst for wear but somehow seemed the least mentally affected, did her best to explain to the Houndmaster and the others what happened, but there was a problem. When Linkle dropped by to ask about her friends, the survivor shared what little she could. “I'm sorry, but I was barely with anyone else. I...I was trapped in a different nightmare, a pocket dimension or something, until this kid in a mask rescued me and Dwight. Then we were in a big hall in this museum place with a bunch of people.” She paused a moment, trying to remember. “I...saw the bear, and the robot girl, but nobody else you mentioned. A giant horde of zombies was attacking, and everyone was going crazy. The police chief picked me to get on the teleporter first, but...” she glanced at the machine, motionless and nonoperational. “Something must have happened to stop the others.”

Her voice shook for the first time as she finished speaking, dreading the thought that she could help but entertain: that everyone else, including Dwight, who'd been through hell alongside her, was dead.

---

“Broggypon look...cagey,” Tora observed.

Poppi nodded, frowning. She and her masterpon sat on opposite sides of a small, circular table, and on the table stood the little creature that had been encapsulated in her pokeball for almost a whole day. Though small in stature, the Croagunk managed to be imposing in temper, treating the pair with nasty, distrustful looks after its initial rage wore off. The purplish marks on Poppi's unliving face and Tora's mech arm, hastily used as a shield, stood as testament to the little guy's fury. For her part, Poppi didn't quite understand the problem, since she figured that it couldn't have possibly been starving or dehydrated in that time. While no expert on pets himself, Tora took up the task of explaining.

“Erm...well, it like this,” he began, his voice prompting the Croagunk to turn on him. “Animals not like machine, which give good results so long as fueled properly. They need affection, exercise, stimulation,” he listed off the points using his wing-feathers to count. Since they stopped at three, so did his list. “Tora not know how little ball work, meh, but quite possible little Brog been bored, cramped, and alone for many hours.” Saying it aloud, the Nopon couldn't help but feel sorry for the little guy. With how busy he'd been with the karts at the time, he actually had no idea that Poppi went and caught herself a pet. The idea that she kept something from him didn't sit well with him, but Tora put that feeling aside for later.

The news made Poppi's face fall. “...Oh.” After a moment she stood up, drawing the Croagunk's attention. “Poppi is very sorry, brog. Not know enough about animals to take care of Croagunk.” As the pokemon watched, she moved toward the guild hall's door and opened it. “If brog want to leave, brog can. Poppi understand. But if brog stay, Poppi will do much better!” Brows furrowed, she nodded in a determined way.

For its part, the Croagunk looked unconvinced. It shot Tora a sketchy look, but for the moment did not move. Tora took that as a good sign and produced his last Tasty Sausage from his pocket. “Here!” he said, unwrapping the dried meat and offering it to the pokemon. “Tora love Tasty Sausage! So yummy-yummy! But because of that, Tora giving it very meaningful, meh!” Skirting away from his wing, the Croagunk refused to take it, so Tora laid it down on the table. Poppi reached the table and watched with intense eyes. The Croagunk huffed and turned up its nose, only for its belly to rumble, crying out for sustenance. At first the pokemon tried to pretend it didn't happen, but after a moment it hung its head, sheepish, and took the food to eat. Tora smiled ear to ear and clapped Poppi on the shoulder, who looked overjoyed. Even if she and her Croagunk didn't get along yet, there seemed to be a chance to make up for her ignorance and become friends.

Someone barged in through the open door, prompting the three to look. None other than Courier swaggered in, flanked by a bulky machine riding high on one tire. “Ooh,” Tora said appreciatively, assuming the robot to be the gunslinger's own creation. Of course, with that inelegant chassis and rudimentary framework it was nothing compared to his Poppi, but something about it prevented him looking away in disinterest. The face plastered on its screen seemed awfully familiar, but Tora couldn't remember a name or anything. Someone he'd seen for a short time, perhaps, to whom he was never really introduced. 6 gave an introduction now, but it didn't ring a bell, so all Tora said was, “Drinking in morning not healthy, but par for the course for druggypon, meh.”

Another commotion brought the trio's attention over to Bowser, who'd just made a show of slamming down a jar full of colorful spirits onto a table in front of where the guildmaster and Peach seemed to be talking. In a twist of irony he was coming to her rescue, both offering the proof the smarmy guildmaster asked for and trying to impress her. For his efforts he earned a snicker when he needed a reminder from his own kid to properly showcase the Brachydios spirit. He made a bit of a mess retrieving it too, allowing the others to pick over the selection.



Still, regardless of its clumsy delivery, the monster's remnant was just what the doctor ordered. The sight of it struck the guildmaster dumb for a moment, but after the Ace Cadet egged him on, the dam broke and he smacked his palm with a fist. “Drat!” he muttered, fuming. “Double drat! Why, I oughta...”

All of a sudden his anger evaporated as if it had all been an act. Clearing his throat, he stood up straight, placed his hands on his hips and looked between the assembled heroes, all watching him. "Well, lookee here! You seekers actually pulled it off...but you made me lose a bet!! And for that, you ain't seein' the big cheese just yet. We're gonna play a little game first!"

The guildmaster grabbed his collar and pulled. His coat came off in one motion, impossibly smooth, and leaving him a silhouette surrounded in darkness. He whirled the coat around himself, wrapping it up before clapping it between his hands. When he held his fingers up, a pitch-black coin lay nestled between two of them. Using his thumb he flipped it into the air, and when it hit the ground, it expanded into a huge black circle that covered a wide section of floor. Bowser, Junior, Peach, the Courier, Gaige-tron, Tora, Poppi, the Croagunk, Ace Cadet, Hat Kid, and Geralt were all above it. The next thing they knew they were falling, plummeting down, down down through infinite darkness.

Then came bright lights, and a moment later the falling heroes hit something soft and green. Tora hit it face-first and bounced, confused and alarmed but unharmed. “Mehmehmeeeeh!” he wailed, bouncing one more time before coming to a stop. Poppi, having used her boosters to land, would have rushed to help him up if she wasn't utterly amazed.



Carpet, nylon, booze, smoke, and sweat. Suits, cigars, chips, and cards. The heroes appeared to be an utterly enormous casino, so gigantic that what they might have mistakenly thought to be grass was in actuality the surface of an immense poker table. Stranger than the casino, however, were its occupants. Instead of people, a throng of well-dressed skeletons and demons patronized the place, jostling and chatting as they filled themselves with liquor and fumes and thoughts of winning it big as they tried their luck at slots, craps, roulette, blackjack, poker, and baccarat. Worse still, while nobody seemed injured by the fall, a quick look upward would be just in time to catch the hole they came through closing up as though it never existed.

An ugly laugh resounded from one side of the table. A figure rose from behind a board game, the last of the darkness draining away from his body to reveal the guildmaster's true form.

A lanky man in a tacky purple suit towered before them, but instead of a head a die rested on his shoulders, and its front bore leering seafoam-green eyes and a villainous grin. He slid a deck of cards from his sleeve to perform a card trick, flitting them back and forth between his hands. “Nahahahaha! Well now, how d'you do down there? The name's Gneidxick. Things're different in this world, but I'm still the devil's right hand man.” He clapped his hands together, crushing the cards into a pink die that hovered just above the table, spinning. “Lemme introduce you to my friends. Rough 'em up and you can roll for points. Get ten, you win. Keel over, you lose!” He laughed again, eyes gleaming. “Let's open the game!”

Around the edges of the giant table, ten oversized poker chips rose up to become portals. On their other sides lay a diverse assortment of arenas, and various enemies waiting within.





A bonk on the head from Ratchet's wrench left the fire-spitting pyrobat dazed, which meant easy pickings for Death's scythe. That left only the red arremer, who looked more put out than angry or afraid. Unlike the myriad zombies and demons assaulting the police station, this monster did not seem hellbent on the heroes' deaths. In fact, Firebrand felt like his parade has been rained on. With his playmates down and these two a little too combat-capable to be any fun, Firebrand decided he could get his kicks elsewhere. He spat out a few well-aimed fireballs to get Ratchet and Death dancing, then flew backward out of the ruined lounge with a burst of mocking cackles. The next moment, he was gone, and with the horde overrunning the RCPD, the heroes needed to beat it, too.

As Firebrand took to the darkened sky, he could get a good view of the dilemma facing the police station. Survivors and fighters poured of the backside, a tight-knit group moving quickly, while a staggering abundance of monsters smashed into the station's front, a ravenous, malevolent tsunami. Two more arremers rose from the throng to join him, and together the trio took off after the interesting group. Firebrand was excited. It'd been so long since he'd crossed paths with real, living people. While an endless sort of fun, they also provided a potential path out of here and back to the Demon Village. If they got killed, that was that, but he was interested to see how this struggle turned out.



As electrifying as his performance was, Eddie's rhythmic devastation did not help his allies still inside the station. Worse still, he quickly found himself taking on far greater numbers than he expected. He'd assumed only a contingent coming around the police station from this angle, but like a crashing wave the gigantic horde seemed to spill around the station front, no doubt bottlenecked at the main entrance by those still in the main hall. His righteous lightning fried wave after wave of undead and low-level demons, but the tide showed no sign of stopping. As his fingers got sore from his furious playing, Eddie started backtracking toward the window. He needed to pull back.

Just a feet feet away, on the other side of the station wall, Jak recognized the quickly deteriorating situation himself and called upon the darkness. A roiling energy ball of dark eco blossomed to life between his palms, and with a bellow he hurled it through the incoming zombies to blast apart the wall and reveal another avenue of escape. A moment later a rain-soaked Eddie flopped through the window and rose to his feet, bleeding from the broken glass. “Too many. Let's blow this joint!”

The group started to move, but the wraith had other ideas. Having been floating behind the survivors, wary of the new arrivals, she seized the perfect chance to act. As the four ran for Jak's improvised exit, the wraith swooped forward toward Tess. It happened in an instant; Jones and Eddie spotted it in time to witness, but not to prevent. The cruelly hooked, heavy silver gleamed hungrily as it flashed through the weak light. Tess screamed as the blade cleaved through, not just lopping off an arm at the elbow but cleaving straight through her torso as well. Her lower and upper halves hit the floor in a murky pool, and Jones ground his teeth. “No!” he growled, reaching into his coat. He withdrew a heavy-barreled revolver of exotic make, leveled it at the wraith, and fired.

A thunderous rapport and withering flash signaled the annihilation of the wraith's head. With a spectral shriek her ghostly body faded away, leaving a spirit behind. All around zombies were incoming, swarming like piranhas. Jones moved with uncanny composure and grace, sliding forward to grab the spirit as it floated softly to the floor. He span around, took a step, and knelt to jam it into Tess's chest. A brilliant, prismatic light burst to life inside the infested corridor, pushing the horde back for just a moment. Jones looked down into the light, watching Tess's face disappear into formless radiance. “I hope you'll forgive me,” he murmured before standing, his face grim. Another couple second's hesitation and he'd be overrun. Without looking back he ran after the others, stuffing the unusual pistol back into his coat as he went. Behind him, unseen, the dying woman changed, becoming something altogether different. For better or worse, Jones knew, she would remain.



Hearts pounded, and heavy breaths tore through ragged throats. The cluster of fighters and survivors paused for a brief time while its leadership discussed which route to take, making use of every second to try and recuperate some stamina. Every single one of them knew that the horde could not be far behind. Only one person kept running: Nero, who made a beeline for a nearby phone booth. What could ever be important enough to warrant a phone call in this situation, few could guess.

The debate itself was very brief. Blazermate and Donnie recommended the left, and with every second on the clock counting, Howard agreed immediately. “Alright, we'll do that. No sense tangling with Chimeras, not with a group this size.” Kazooie took the opportunity to announce -with an understandably coarse undertone, given the circumstances- that she and her partner would be taking the middle route, which would get them to the tower first. While he hadn't seen those wings in action, Howard wagered that they'd protect the pair from falling, but the same couldn't be said for the survivors. An overly-strong gust of wind, or a sudden attack by flying demons or chimeras, could spell messy ends for anyone too intrepid for their own good.

Jill approached him next with troubling news, the look on her face telling the police captain that a few more moments were necessary to share it. “Sir. We lost four civilians in the escape, the Black Mage, and the masked kid. There's also no sign of Olivia or the new guy she was with.”

Howard exhaled. The weight of lost lives hung around his heart like leaden chains. “We'll have to mourn them later. We gotta move. Everyone!” he raised his voice to address the crowd. “We're going left! Stay close and move fast. We're almost to safety!” His strong heart was cold with fear. Even if everyone made it to the tower, would it be the haven he described it as? It could be inaccessible, or worse, defended. Maybe it had automated defenses. Maybe the 'big guy' fox mentioned would rip and tear the survivors limb from limb. Maybe it was full of more monsters. I don't know a damn thing, he agonized. Was he driving these people toward their deaths?

An uproar from down the street forced him to look back. The horde was coming. Its interminable mass filled the street, just a couple thousand feet away. He shook his head and bellowed, “GO!” Anything could be waiting at the tower, but death itself was lurching the survivors' way. Anything was better than that. He led the charge as the group swerved left, headed for the infested left side of the sundered market avenue. His Legion manifested beside him, and when the undead came his way it cleft them into pieces with its immense axe. If Blazermate held true to her word, she could at least neutralize most of their undead attackers, allowing fighters to take them out with little effort and keep the survivors moving.

Nero drew up alongside Howard, firing his Blue Rose at any zombies that drew too close. His demonic bullets tore them apart, allowing him to converse with the captain remarkably casually. “Cheer up, old man. Things could be worse, huh?”

“People have died,” Howard growled through gritted teeth. He delivered a horizontal swipe to a zombie with the blunt edge of his heavy gladius, which shattered its bones and left it lying in a malodorous heap. He looked back and winced. The horde was gaining. Those in the back would not survive. “A kid has died. Your friend!”

The devil hunter shook his head. He took aim at a flood combat form, then adjusted it to hit a nearby streetlamp. Two bullets glanced off the metal and hit the flood from the opposite side, knocking it into a trash can. As he ran by Nero swung at it with the revved Red Queen, setting the contents ablaze. “Emergency pickup. I know someone.”

There came a terrific series of crunches and impacts from behind. A look back would turn up a familiar van plowing through the left wing of the pursuing horde, pulverizing undead beneath its fender and tires. Even from this distance the survivors could see the wide, white smile of the woman behind the wheel, and inside the van beside her were Joker, and Olivia. Zombies clung to the van, and demons lashed out it with claw and spell, but it shook off them all. “Woooooohoo!” Nico cried, breaking free of the horde and streaking toward the survivors with wet tires.

A few moments later she pulled up alongside the rearmost survivors, and slowed down, her doors flung open. Inside, Gene was ready to help people in. “Come on, come on!” he urged, and they came. The overweight, hat-wearing dragon climbed on top of the van instead, but Nico's vehicle bore the burden without complaint. Snarling and gnashing, the horde bore down upon the van, but the last civilian piled in and Nico hit the gas just in time for the frontrunner demon's claws to close around nothing but air. She accelerated toward the tower, maneuvering around the rest of the survivors and pancaking more zombies. The van would reach the tower first, but the runners were still vulnerable. More attacks came from the side, and the horde was never far behind. If the fighters could slow down the horde and fend off the attackers, it suddenly seemed possible that everyone could make it. One final stretch.

---

---

Level: 1
EXP 3/10
Word Count: 208
Current Location: Dead Zone, Sundered Market Avenue

---

---

Did he feel like crap being weaker than the rest? Yep.

But it seems that his luck hasn't left him yet. Even with concerns over the killer still bothering Joker, he ended up joining Nico and the other few who seemed to dissapear from the group in opening a path through the horde. By tearing through them with a van. Even if he was kiiinda worried about how much the van can take, then again his was also his pet cat, it was pretty fun.

Pushing his mask up onto his head, Joker helped Gene get the civillians into the van, before returning to the front. With the remaining survivors following them on foot, the thief wanted to find a way to cover them. Atleast to make up for making them worry. Then, he had an idea. Climbing up to the roof of the van, Joker put his mask back over his eyes and grabbed his gun. He summoned Arsene to use Eiha on the clusters of undead around the runners to, at the very least, knock them down for the fighters to get an advantage. While any demons, airborne or not, he would gun them down himself. They just needed to hold out a little longer.

It had seemed that the Courier’s dramatic entrance went, for the most part, rather unnoticed, as had his new robotic invention. Well phooey. Maybe he’d just ignore everyone else when they had something they were excited about then? Yeah, that’ll show them. Or maybe he could slip some jet into their drinks, get them nice and high. He smiled at the thought. Wait, no. Waste of perfectly good chems. Scratch that. Make them sit on a bullet. Yeah, that’ll show them. Well, except for Tora who seemed positively enthralled by Gaige-tron. Tora would be spared the Courier’s inevitable WRATH.

“Why don’tcha take a picture, huh? It’ll last longer,” said Gaige-tron to the noppan. “Or maybe you’d prefer I gave you something to remember me by?” The robot held up one of its long metal tube-like arms which morphed into a gun barrel--a gun barrel that was glowing a caustic, acidic green.

”He’s just admiring my handiwork, Gaige-tron, put yer big iron away.” the Courier ordered rather curtly, to which the robot immediately obeyed without hesitation. ”But the next time you call me ‘druggypon’ don’t expect me to wash the mud off. I may have to have words with ya, hombre.”

“Yeah! Don’t tell him what to do! You don’t regulate his life! ANARCHY FOREVER HAHAHAHAHAHA!” Gaige-tron’s arms flailed wildly upward like an inflatable arm waving air dancer one would see outside a used car lot.

The Courier hocked up a loogie and spat it on the floor, clearly without regard for whoever had to clean the place. ”It’s personality is based on Gaige, or the ten minutes I had to know her anyway, but it was made with the Omnic’s matrix, so it’ll learn and develop on its own. Free will an’ everythin’, exceptin’ how it’s gotta obey an’ protect me. Hard wired that program in.”

“That’s right, and I am NOT Three Laws compliant, so don’t get uppity with me, got it? Now then…” The robot’s voice went from harsh to sweet and gentle. “Who’s a girl gotta talk to around here to get some cocoa?”

”Oh, looks like we’re about to be gettin’ our reward fer last night’s work.” The Courier tipped his hat at the sight of Bowser presenting the brachydios’s spirit to the guildmaster, while noting that Hat Kid snagged a few spirits herself and crushed them while everyone else was distracted. Heh. Adorable kid.

But it seemed they would not be getting their reward, not just yet. The guildmaster became rather… Unhinged at what had just happened. He acknowledged they accomplished the task, but said that they had made him “lose a bet” so they had another hurdle to jump. That instantly caught the Courier’s attention, both for the gambling reference and for the implications. Lose a bet… He bet on our success with someone else? That means there are others out there keeping tabs on our quest. More black cloak assholes?

The guildmaster revealed his true form to them in that moment, casting off the black cloak and presenting the guise of a man in a very nice purple suit with a large die for a head. His very appearance reminded the Courier of old pre-war holotapes containing children’s cartoons. Was that what was under the Master of Master’s hood too? No, not likely, he decided.

Nobody had time to argue as they were cast down into a deep hole created by a coin from the die-man. The Courier let out a small yelp of surprise but maintained his focus as they fell. After a short period of free fall, everyone hit a soft landing. Gaige-tron scanned the area, but the first thing to hit the Courier’s senses was the thick smell of cigar smoke, followed shortly by the aroma of booze hanging in the air. Standing up and shaking his head to gather his wits about him, the Courier took a small swig from the whiskey bottle he still held in hand. All around were skeletons, imagery of the undead, sitting around in a casino gambling hall. The lights, the sounds of slots and dice, the felt of the poker table they all sat upon… For it was an utterly enormous casino! 6 shed a single tear, wiping it away with his finger.

”It’s like home,” he muttered to himself, breathing deeply.

“Gah! Oof! Whoah! Ah!” Gaige-tron bounced a couple times as it fell over, then righted itself back up on its wheel. “What’s the big idea?!” the chimera-robot called out. “We did your dumb quest, now give us the reward!” Apparently the fact that it was not present for the brachydios hunt, nor even yet created, was irrelevant.

The die man introduced himself with some bizarre name the Courier outright refused to commit to memory while announcing that he was “the devil’s right hand man.” Great, so this was a bonafide demon then? Eh, maybe not, he didn’t seem to fit that bill, not quite, as odd as a man with a die for a head was. More impressive and noteworthy was how he seemed capable of transporting everyone to a giant casino, or perhaps based on the die man’s own increased size, shrinking them down to a normal casino, then put on a display of magic by transforming playing cards into a floating pink die that moved all its own.

The die man explained that a new game was afoot. Ten portals opened from poker chips, each containing a minion of the die man’s. Beat one, and roll the die for points. Get 10 points, they win. Very interesting. Despite the obvious supernatural insanity happening, Courier 6 felt right at home here.

”If’n I’d known you were a gamblin’ man,” the Courier began, ”I’d have been havin’ a lot more fun.” He crossed his arms and, just like in the guild hall, spat on the floor. This wasn’t a loogie though, but a nasty black tobacco spit. It was plain to see for anybody with eyes and half a brain he was challenging the die man.

”I’d ask how we know the die ain’t loaded an’ that you’ll honor yer word an’ whatnot, but that all feels pointless, wouldn’ya say? Since y’all got us trapped down here an’ all, we ain’t exactly got a choice but to play against the house.” But the House never wins against me. “Y’see I, well, dabble in a bit a gamblin’ myself and to be quite honest I don’t particularly find these stakes to be… Interestin’ enough. So I’m gonna raise ya with a bet of my own.”

He took another swig of the whiskey, downing it all then casually tossed the empty bottle aside. ”I wager that we can take on every single one of yer little minions. Every one, and not lose a single person on our team. If we can’t beat’em all, or if we get ten points and leave before finishing off the rest, then you have my permission to take every single one of our spirits… But if’n we win, well, then you gotta spill the beans. Tell me everything about yer organization. The other members, what they want an’ how we factor into their plans, everything. And then I take your spirit.”

The Courier stepped toward where the giant die man was, an absolute behemoth compared to the tiny build everyone else had been reduced to. For a third and final time he spat, this time into his own hand which he then offered up to the sore loser guildmaster to shake. ”We got ourselves a high roller wager?”

”Oh hay. Cool robot.” Jr greeted the Courier as he arrived with the newly built Gaige-Tron. While a part of him bemoaned how the cowboy had been useful during the night while jr had slept like a very sad rock, most of Jr was too interested in their new companion to let his sadness drag him down for the moment. He pushed himself down off of the stool he was sitting on and wandered on over, pausing just long enough to let Mimikyu hop onto his shoulder from off of the sprite littered table.

He gave an impressed whistle as he examined the robot up close. As he did, he came to the thought that he and the Courier actually had a fair bit in common, what with their tinkering, minions leading and Pokemon training skills. It was, jr thought without much awareness or consideration of the other major, major differences the pair had between them, a shame they hadn’t interacted much before.

”Man you’ve stuffed so much gear in there” He noted with an impressed tone as a precursory glance revealed several weapons and mysterious contraptions bolted onto or into the machine. As he examined the robot Mimikyu hopped up onto the robot’s shoulders to have a look around. Then when the bot began to express her colorful personality the spirit eagerly joined in her wacky wavy inflatable tube man routine, waving its equally floppy limbs all about while sitting where Gaige-tron’s head should be.

”And you’re smart too. That’s so cool!” Jr said, rapidly switching his focus from the creator to the creation. Gaige-tron was something that had been lacking in the boys life recently, and that was chaotic fun. She was just the thing to jolt him out of his stupor, maybe for good.

”Hey Gaige-tron, so I’m Bowser Jr,” he quickly introduced himself ”and I’ve still got this minigun arm from an ice cream truck mecha we beat up laying around somewhere. Way too heavy for my car but for you maybe it’d work for you?” he suggested, mind suddenly coming abuzz with ideas where he’d earlier been failing to think of any that would stick just moments ago ”Oh oh, or maybe I could upgrade that weird pea gun you got with my magic ink! Juice em up with it and then when they hit stuff they go splat! Really goop up the works of who your hitting.”

Before Jr could bombard Gaige-tron with more ideas however, the argument over quest rewards came to a head.

---

While the prince had been moping and then inspecting the newly arrived cool robot Bowser and Kamek had been confronting the Guild Master, who had become highly resistant to their continued success. While combing through his king’s dumping of sprites on the table Kamek had considered that this was about more than just trying to hold out on giving them the sizable reward for the quest, but those suspicions had not adequately prepared himself for the Hooded figure’s dramatic reaction.

The Guild’s Master shifted suddenly from his standoffish and obstructive manner to a brief burning rage when presented with proof, only to snap back to being smooth as varnish moments later. There was little time to process him casually referring to them as “Seekers” and the implications of the existence of that name for their ilk or the fact that there were people watching and betting on their actions because just as soon as he had done dealing out dramatic reveals so the Guild master hit them with a more magical surprise. Darkness blossomed from the figure, which Kamek quickly guessed was the Dark Magic the Master of Masters had mentioned when asked about the type of cloaks the pair wore. Using this dark magic he transformed that same cloak into a coin that he flipped at the team before any could react.

Bowser was, predictably, floored by these events. Or rather de-floored. When the coin hit the deck it blossomed out into a hole or portal in the floor, dropping the King and most of the party down into a deep pit. Kamek, who had been using his broom as a walking stick, was the only one who could avoid plummeting down on his own thanks to his grip on it. Left hanging by one hand from his floating broom he acted quickly, dropped the Brachydios spirit and grabbing a startled Jr by the leg before the boy could drop away from the hole and into the darkness below.

”Don’t worry young Master, I have you.” Kamek told to jr as the boy dangled upside down in his grasp.

This left Jr in the perfect position to watch Bowser plummet into the darkness, his eyes bugged out, his mouth agape and his arms flailing wildly as he did so. Mimikyu fell too, riding Gaige-tron down into the darkness, it’s arms clinging to its disguise to avoid the cloth outfit from being swept away by the wind-rush of the fall. In that moment hopelessness reared its head in his mind because he was in exactly the same situation as he had been last night. Without his car he was unarmed and relying on Kamek to protect him, which was, in Jr’s mind, utterly pathetic. Yet as the tendrils of hopelessness threatened to ensnare his heart once more his eyes caught sight of the Brachydios sprite floating slowly down into the darkness and, far below, a few burst of burning light. He recalled the conversation he had overheard Kamek and Bowser have last night, about starting to absorb sprites for power, and saw possible evidence that the pit had a bottom within which his father was fighting, and came to a decision.

”Let. Me. GO!” jr yelled as he lashed out with a foot three times in quick succession, kicking his savior’s hand. Kamek yelped in pain and surprise as he dropped his young master, who plummeted down after the rest of the party. As he fell past the slowly drifting Brachydios sprite he grabbed it and then slammed it into his chest, the transformation taking hold as he continued to fall downwards. ”JR!” Kamek cried out in distress above as the sudden loss of weight made his broom lurch up, throwing him back into the guild hall and causing to crash onto the spirit covered table.

---

Down bellow the Guild master, who had revealed himself to be a dice headed demon serving card game master called Gneidxick. After shooting a few angry but ineffectual fireballs at the red nosed fiend Bowser got over their predicament with surprising speed.

”So kinda like Mario party then? Only with fights instead of mini-games. Yeah I can work with that.” He said casually after the rules had been explained before adding that ”This should be easy. Or really really really really annoying.”

It wasn't exactly the cutest aesthetics of the mushroom kingdom, and it might smell incredibly foul to the Koopa, but from board game tables to pinball machine’s Bowser had been in many a shrunk down situation and so this didn’t phase him at all.

The Courier also seemed to take this all his stride too, betting the dice headed honcho that they’d be able to take on every single miniboss without taking a single casualty. That they could do it Bowser had no disagreement with, his ego fully restored by a nights rest. That the Courier had tried to make this deal without any input from Bowser, who was supposedly his boss, he most certainly did take issue with.

He growled briefly at the cowboy to demonstrate his displeasure and then complained that, ”That’ll take forever.” before immediately making things worse by saying that ”I bet we can take two of these goons at once, no problem.”

---

Linkle nodded as the girl finished giving her what little information she had. At least a few of them were all right, at least for now. "Thank you. Try not to worry." She reached out to try and comfort the girl in her despair, but the sheriff reached down to grip her arm and sternly shake his head.

Right. Some kind of disease. It had been the subject of discussion while she'd been hopping around trying to teleport. She stood up, letting the man gently tug her back. "If it makes you feel any better that robot you mentioned is amazing at keeping people alive and my friends are all really strong. They'll hold out, no matter how many monsters come at them."

She tried to stay positive, but inside she was shook. This coming so closed on the heels of what happened to Din filled her with an uncanny dread not unlike what she'd felt on the farmstead. Worse still, looking at the teleporter made her feel powerless. It was a border of monsters over there, a veritable army from how the blond boy was babbling about it. That was her thing, that was what she did, and she was caught with the notion that if she could just get over there the problem would be solved.

She turned to the Houndmaster. "I'm gonna go find my friends. We've got a bunch of people good with machines, and at least one guy that's good at medicine." At the very least the Courier had made her feel much better last night. She looked down at the Rabbids that were hanging around now, unable to coerce anyone else out here. "Boys, you do whatever the sheriff says and if anything else comes out of that thing you come running. Make a lot of noise, we'll find you."

The three of them gave small enthusiastic salutes to the idea of making "a lot of noise," fully aware that the girl had no idea just how much noise they could make if they tried.

She just nodded and started sprinting back into town, hoping that the group was up and at the guild hall now. She knew at least the Courier was awake, he had ridden past a while ago with some new big robot on his tail but by the time she'd spotted him it was too late to flag him down he'd been going so fast. Between him, Tora, Franklin, and Jr, somebody should be able to get that teleporter up and running again.

She followed the fresh tire track up to the front of the guild hall. He was probably in there looking for the quest reward. Linkle hit the doors and threw them open, charging in to the room.

"Hey Courier, this is an emergeSWAA!"

She skidded to a stop at the edge of a hole in the center of the room, her arms pinwheeling wildly as she tried to keep from pitching headlong down it. She swung back, away from the edge, and fell over on her butt. Curiously she crawled to the edge of the hole and peered down into the darkness, only managing to make up some light st the end of the long shaft.

Her attention was pulled away from the hole by the sound she recognized. It was the long, semi-pained groan of a very old person pulling themselves up right. She looked up to see just that, the koopa wizard trying to rise from a table laden with spirits.

"Grandpa Koopa!" She called out, skirting along the edge of the hole to try and get to him. She reached out to give Kamek a helping hand while trying to keep at least one eye on the mysterious hole at all times. "What happened? Are you okay? Where's the Courier?"

Gneidxick sneered in displeasure as the Courier befouled his table, though the expression did not linger. Instead of running off to play, the gross man started talking. At least it looked like he understood his predicament, that he wasn't going anywhere without rolling some dice, but evidently 6 wanted to up the ante.

“Ohh, mmm, hmhmhmhm,” the sleazy manager snickered while Courier paused to take a drink. “A kindred spirit, eh? Now we're talkin'.” As interested as the words made him sound, he spoke without real enthusiasm. Perhaps the Courier was the bigger high-roller after all.

6 proceeded to state his proposal, wagering the spirits of his entire crew against all the information Gneidxick could must, plus his own spirit, much to the astonishment of Tora, Poppi, and the others. He extended a gunk-soaked hand to shake on it, but Gneidxick's was up twisting the end of his pencil 'stache in contemplation. Without a hood to hide his face his features were plain to see, and he looked conflicted. “Hmmm...temptin', temptin'. That's sure somethin' I'd do, ain't it...?”

His brows furrowed and his hand went still. Already, cracks were forming in the Courier's plan. This wasn't some thrill-seeking lunatic who'd bet it all just for the rush. He was thinking it over, weighing losses and gains. Worse still, Gneidxick displayed no hint of want when 6 mentioned the heroes' spirits. After a moment, he clapped his hands down on the table. “But things're different here. What's your grift, huh? I ain't jingle-brained. If ya knocked off the Brach without losin' a soul, my guns ain't hard enough to do it, either. An' finger my cohorts if I lose? That ain't gonna fly.” He put his hands on his hips. “I don't like them odds, bo. An' I play to win.”

For no particular reason he followed his speech up with a chuckle. “An' even if I didn't, I don't want your grubby li'l spirits. Jus' a few black eyes. So go climb up your thumb.” A playing card appeared in his hand, and with an expert's precision he slid it across the table. It went right under the Courier, sweeping him off his feet and onto the card, before flying into one of the portals.

6 emerged onto another large table, this one covered by an immaculately white satin sheet. A quick look around made him out to be in a dining area of the casino, with giant demons, ghouls, and a few people exchanging conversation over food. Directly opposite him, however, stood three oversized glasses of liquor, unruly and ready for a swell battle.

Kamek crashed onto the table and, dangerously Kamek realized after the fact, onto some of the sprites. Rather than mutating him into some hideous beast due to unwanted sprite absorption it instead simply made for a very uncomfortable landing indeed, as farming equipment popped into existence below him. The spontaneous matter creation shoved him off of the table again, preventing even more sprites from being crushed, or worse absorbed, and depositing the mage onto the floor just as Linkle burst in and started yelling about an emergency. Kamek was a bit to confuddled to actually respond to her shouting until the young woman offered to help him up.

”Thank you, Linkle.” the mage said hurriedly as Linkle pulled him up off the floor. He moved quickly to the edge of the pit and looked down it, worry clear on his face as he did so. When it became clear that nothing could be gleaned from above his agitated concern was replaced with steely resolution as the mage stepped back and retrieved his wand from his robes. As he did so a number of adventures echoed Linkle’s question, all of them rightly concerned, curious and/or confused by the Guild Master’s actions.

”Turns out there was more to the Guild Master than met the eye. He used dark magic to make this hole” Kemek explained as he used his magic to create 4 mirrored duplicates of himself. As he continued speaking he conjured 4 colored orbs and tossed them to the clones, causing them to take on a green, red or white coloration depending on the color of the orb. ”He was rather displeased with our success, held out on confirming our kill till we presented him with the Brachydios’s spirit. Then he became furious that we made him ‘lose a bet’ while referring to our group as ‘Seekers’. Finally he created this hole in the floor that swallowed up our allies and sent then plummeting down to badness knows where”

When Kamek finished explaining he had transformed the illusionary clones from distracting mimics to independently animated minions, one red, one green and two white. The silent magical constructs hadn’t been idle as they were formed and Kamek talked. The red mage had picked up the pitchfork off of the table, while the pair of white mages had cast light healing spells on Kamek to remove the light injury he'd received to his hand and back. Finally the green mage, (who had been made first), had decided the most supportive thing it could do at the moment was gather up all of the uncrushed spirits(and a weird skull with a white spirit embedded into it) off the table inorder to transport them down to the rest of the party.

”Who knows what dangers they might be in down there” the mage said as he and the clones mounted their brooms in preparation to descend and then asked the woman in green ”So. Will you be coming down with me? The white mages can give you a lift,” he said, causing the two healers to offer Linkle a hand each in-order to carry her down, ”or is this emergency you were shouting about a more pressing concern to you?”

---

Down below the courier's gamble was heard, considered and then finally dismissed by card based ejection into one of the portals.

”Gahahaha. Serves him right.” he chortled at the cowboy’s, in Bowser option well deserved, misfortune.

”Because I’m the boss here and I say we get to krumping this guy’s goons, whoever they are, without trying to make any more stupid deals.” he told the team despite the fact that he himself had just tried to make them fight twice as many enemies at once for absolutely zero gain.

Before he could turn to enter one of the portals however they were joined by jr. They prince's fall was far more controlled than his father's uncontrolled panic of a fall and as a result so was his landing which involved a ground punching superhero landing.

”Jr!” bowser called out to his son as the boy got up from the kneeling posture he had landed in as the boy quietly complained about having sore knees. Any further conversation was put on hold as the Koopas examined, with surprised looks on their faces, the changes that had come over Jr as a result of his sprite absorption. Most obvious to jr was the fact that he now had tougher blue scales on his arms and legs that made it look a bit like he was wearing a pair of matching pair of elbow length gloves and knee length socks. Said arms and legs were also a tad bit longer. Only slightly however, which Jr felt relieved about. He wasn't sure what he would have done if he’d suddenly doubled in height and been unable to use his clown car once he got back to it. Perhaps, he thought, he could absorb something small if he ever did get to big.

Obviously the change to his limbs (or here to unregistered change to his tail or change from green to blue coloration in places) was not what anyone else was focusing on.

At the sight of their master’s arrival Mimikyu abandoned their seat atop Gaig-tron’s shoulders and then dashed over to the transformed Jr. Upon arriving they hoped up, but instead of landing on Jr’s shoulder as they normally would they instead sat themselves atop the large horn that had formed on jr’s forehead.

”Wow. Hay. What is thaaaaat?” the boy exclaimed as the added weight in a place where wight should not have been able to be applied caused him to become fully aware of his new horn. He'd wondered why he couldn't see up any more. He reached up with his hands and patted it a few times to get a feel for its dimensions.

”Uh. Huh. Ok. Probably need a mirror to really get how I look. Hopefully it isn’t dumb? So how do I do the slimy boom thing?” he said out-loud before balling up his fists and tensing every muscle in his body to try and will the slime to form. Form it did, from all the locations it was able too.

”aaaand now it’s everywhere. Gross.” jr noted as slime leaked out from between his new rugged blue scales and out of the end of the horn. Mimikyu backing up swiftly as the slime began leaking down from the horns tip to coat its upper half.

Upon seeing the dangerous explosive slime forming Bowser shook the stunned look of surprise off his face and warned jr that ”That stuff explodes Jr!”

”Yeah dad I know.” he replied calmly at first, only to realize what his father meant a few heartbeats later.

”Ahhhhh! It explodes! It explodes!” he yelled in a panic and then began to violently shake his hands, splattering the volatile substance across the table in front of him while shouting ”Get off! Get off! Get off!”. Mimikyu clung onto Jr’s top knot as the boy proceeded to shake his head to do the same to the horn.

Bowser backed away hurriedly as the spatter zone started exploding in a piecemeal fashion, tearing up the felt surface in a series of small explosions erupted from the droplets of slime. Eventually jr realized that his hands hadn’t been blown off by this point they probably never would, so he slowed and then stopped his shaking. Then he examined his hands, noting that a small amount of green slime still clung to it in some places, He was fairly sure he hasn't made any more, so why, he wondered, hadn't it also exploded like the stuff he had sprayed everywhere

”Huh. I think it doesn't explode while on me?” he concluded.

A little bit of experimentation proved this and scorched the felt table top a bit more in the process.

”Well... That turned out OK in the end. Risky though. You could have gotten hurt.” Bowser said as the boy got the hang of his new powers.

”I’m fine. Its fine” Jr insisted.

Bowser grunted in disagreement before telling the boy that ”We’ll talk about this later. For now we’ve got to clobber gilgaflix or whatever his name is’s goons so we can roll that dice and win his stupid game. You ready?”

”Heck yeah I am! I’ll blast em into the next dimension!” Jr cheered, raising up his lightly slime covered fists confidently.

“Mimi-ku-ku!” Agreed his pokemon as it sat at the base of his horn. As they called out Mimikyu copied both jr’s pose and his power, two small patches of green slime coating the ends of their long tentacle arms.

”Great.” Bowser said before turning and looking at all the portals.

”Hmmmm. Which one? Eni. Meni. Mini. Moe! This one!” he announced, before stomping his way into a portal two steps to the right of the one the courier had been thrown into. After waving goodbye to anyone still left on the table Jr and Mimikyu hurried on in after him. Then the portal close behind them, trapping them inside with whatever oversized casino themed boss awaited them. Or as Bowser would have phrased it: trapping whatever sad excuse for a minion they found inside in there with the most dangerous father son duo in the world!

Jak quickly rolled into a long jump out of the hole he had made, which thankfully served as a proper escape and not another entrance for the horrifying masses of the undead and demons. Daxter ran behind, hot on Jak’s tail, all the while complaining about being too big to ride on Jak’s shoulder anymore. He paused a moment as Jones went out of his way to finish off the wraith then stick the ghost’s spirit into the survivor they had lost. ”Hey Shooty McBang Bang, we gotta move it! Oh hey, what are you doing? Oh. Oh that’s…” Daxter averted his eyes once he realized what exactly was going on. That was something he didn’t necessarily want to see.

Leaping down to meet up with Jak, it seemed that the rest of their group, the other survivors, and even some new reinforcements were coming in, ready and raring to go! ”Surrounded on all sides. Too many to count. A completely hopeless battle just to survive. I’m beginning to like this city.” Jak cocked his morph gun into vulcan fury formation.

”You just like seeing me have a heart attack, don’t you?” Daxter complained. Jak gave half a shrug with a smile, then roll-jumped over to Nico’s van where a well timed high jump situated him on top of it.

Now that he had setup a good spot for the high ground, Jak readied his laser sight for the massive horde coming from behind and-WOAH WOAH WOAH! The van started to shake back and forth as the hat wearing dragon clambered up on top. Jak practically had to dive to the side to give the beast the room it needed just to lie down. With a small growl Jak regained his footing, stepping on the dragon’s back and began unloading an ultra-fast torrent of high penetration blue eco rounds. Each shot went through at least half a dozen enemies, the power of which knocked some into the air, and of course the vulcan fury fired so fast that everything hit was hit by more than one round. Alas, as was always the case for blue eco guns it couldn’t maintain steady fire for long as all the ammo was depleted.

Jak swapped over to the blaster in time to witness Ratchet blowing huge swaths of enemies off the ground, courtesy of some sort of motorcycle driven by the monk. Jak frowned. No way that fuzzy lombax was going to beat his kill streak this time! Well that was fine, they could deal with the enemies coming from behind, and others could deal with the (relatively) smaller horde approaching from the front. Not many of them had the capability of taking on the enemies coming from above! Various winged demons and ambush zombies leaping from nearby buildings would hit them unawares if not properly dealt with, and Jak was just the man to deal with them.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Yellow eco shot and yellow eco shot fired off long distance with pinpoint accuracy, blasting lesser enemies to bits in the process. Bigger enemies took more than a couple hits but the blaster’s range was effective enough to cut them off from far enough away that it didn’t matter. That’s when a leaping zombie took a dive from a nearby rooftop, dropping straight for the van! Well, it’d hit the dragon first, which was also unacceptable! Three quick shots blasted it into chunks which rained down and bounced off the dragon’s scales.

He was about to shoot down a red arremer when it was suddenly blasted by Ratchet. Jak growled in frustration, then took in a deep breath. His whole body enveloped in a bright, holy light. Membranous wings of searing bright light grew from his back, and he took to the air. The morph gun swapped back to vulcan fury mode, now recharged from his own internal eco supply, and from the skies he let Hell loose on, well, Hell.

And where was Daxter during all of this? ”AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! THEY FORGOT MEEEEEEEEEE!” He ran as fast as his little legs could scurry (which, admittedly, was deceptively fleet), trying to keep up with the civilian runners, demons and undead constantly biting at his tail. His only true saving grace was the small shockwave emitted with every exaggerated step he took slowing his immediate predators down just enough that they missed snatching his tail by inches. And of course, his constant emitting of toxic spores, certainly no threat to the undead but to the demons with living physiologies… Well, Daxter was accidentally doing more than he thought or intended.

@ProPro

Geralt sighed in frustration as yet another condition was added to their little 'quest', and rolled his eyes. "Oh great..." He mumbled under his breath as the Guildmaster told the group that they didn't get to meet the "big cheese." Was he an actual cheese man? Was that just a saying? Would they ever even meet the cheese man? It was unlikely.

When their contact stripped himself of his coat, surrounding himself in darkness, and turned the coat into a coin of some kind, Geralt's instincts started flaring up. He had just put a hand on his silver sword when suddenly, the ground before them opened up into some kind of dark portal.

"FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-" Geralt's cry was cut off as he landed on the massive poker table, almost mistaking it for grass before noticing the giant skeletons and demons playing games around them. "Fuck." He finished. He waited as the newly-revealed dicehead man explained the situation. Of course. More fighting. More bullshit before they got to do what they needed to and move the hell on.

Still, it wasn't all that bad. NeedsDicks just wanted them to beat up a few of his lackeys, as some kind of test probably? (These villains were never terribly clever) And then the Courier opened his mouth, because of course he did. Drunk bastard. And just where in the hell did he get off betting their souls or their spirits or whatever it was they had here on this stupid game? Just as Geralt was about to tell him off, NeedsDicks did it for him. A card came flying through, yoinking the Courier off into one of the portals. Sighing, Geralt marched over to the portal, pointing at the others. "We'll take this one. Just...don't get yourselves killed."

Geralt almost laughed when he saw what was on the other side. Almost. This was too easy. It had to be. This was a joke. Geralt dropped his hand to his side, grabbed a grapeshot bomb, and tossed it between the glasses. Not even waiting for the smoke to clear, he strode forward and pulled his steel sword from its sheath, casting Quen on himself as he menacingly approached the sentient liquor, his eyes narrowed and angry. "Let's just deal with this and get back to NeedsDicks."

Seeing as the horde was getting closer, Blazermate took who'd follow her along the left path. Since this path was mostly zombies, she told everyone to stay in a tight group as she used her suffering arm to form a wall of zombies around the group that moved with them, slashing and killing any zombies that tried to attack them. She spent most of her focus keeping the survivors safe while the other fighters did their thing. Thanks to the ocean of zombies, even if any of her zombies fell, she could just add more to her horde. She also routinely bit a few of her zombies to make them stronger. While she wasn't super used to this power, it was fun for the most part. Zombies sprouting bone blades, spitting acid... Honestly things were going good til one of the zombies Blazermate bit lit itself on fire and ran into the crowd of zombies along the street setting whatever it touched on fire and causing some panic among the zombies on the street.

Zombies that could feel pain and had an ounce of self preservation fled in terror upon seeing the fire, avoiding the crowd altogether and running towards the direction of the Horde, while the zombies that didn't care either burnt up, or approached the group. Blazermate had to slap a few away with her shield, flaming heads going flying as the group advanced. Overall once they reached the tower behind the van that had driven through, the group was... alright. A few scrapes, a few bites, and more than a few scorch marks but nothing critical.

”Omniwrench, it does it all!” Ratchet cried out as his primary weapon flew back to his hand. He was ready to take on Firebrand, holding his wrench out like the large bludgeoning club that it was, while the pyrobat was finished off by Death. He could already tell that this enemy was a cut above the rest. Just because he fooled him once didn’t mean it was going to work again. Lombax versus demon, galactic ranger against legendary warrior, truly a battle for the ages was about to unfo-”Hey hey hey where are you going?! Get back here! I’m not done kicking your butt!”

Ratchet kicked a nearby piece of debris, frustrated. Clank spoke up in response. “It would appear this is our most opportune moment to escape. I suggest we capitalize on it.”

Ratchet nodded. ”Yeah, you’re right. Alright Death, let’s blow this taco stand.” With that Ratchet jumped out of the hole in the wall left by the legendary red arremer, the greatest warrior of the demon tribes, feeling admittedly a bit unsatisfied… But hey, he made it run away, so it couldn’t have been that cool of an enemy, right? Regardless, he met up with the other survivors on the streets, where as many as possible were cramming into-”Oh hey, the weapon chick is back!” … Nico’s van. Sigh. Being the narrator of comedic heroes with fourth wall interactions can be annoying when they interrupt you.

Donnie, meanwhile, was actually starting to get seriously tired of running. Certainly, his whole career was one giant exercise routine at this point, but even he had his limits, especially when just minutes prior he’d had to basically go full gymnast while wearing a full set of ornate leather-and-metal armor with his life on the line.

And besides, he had a way to make dealing with their pursuers so much easier: Why walk when you could drive?

He ran a good distance ahead of the group, and in a practiced motion, summoned the Luggage, pulled out a mount-orb, and dismissed the bag it came from in the span of about two seconds. Then, activating the potent magics in the orb, he manifested one of his most prized possessions: The Champion’s Treadblade.

This tracked motorcycle could go from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds, could get over rough terrain thanks to its tracked design, and most importantly, had two spring-loaded blades on the sides that could flick outwards with the press of a button with such force that they could chop a tauren in half.

It was his pride and joy. He only wished he had built this thing himself. And that it made its debut in the new world under better circumstances.

“OI, RATCHET!” he yelled, “HOP ON! WE’RE GOING TO THIN THE HORDE!”

Ratchet had just brained a zombie with his omniwrench when Donnie called out to him. He sideflipped over, firing a bone spike from his handcannon while upside down in the air to take out a minor demon that was too close to the civilian runners. ”Time to lock and load!” Ratchet cocked his Coyote shotgun then vanished entirely from sight. Despite this, another Ratchet seemed to be running straight into a horde of Flood coming from behind while Donnie could distinctly feel his treadblade react to a new weight getting on. Ratchet reappeared, coyote in one hand and bombbuilder in the other, as the second Ratchet exploded into a violent burst of electricity amidst a swarm of enemies.

Donnie grinned as he felt Ratchet get on the back of the motorcycle. He twisted the accelerator, sending the tracked bike screaming off into firing range of the horde behind the runners. A Hunter, hiding on top of a nearby roof, tried to leap on him from above, only to botch its pounce in a horrific way when Donnie pressed the big red button on the left handlebar. The left blade activated just as the Special Infected’s lower half cleared the top of the bike, cutting the Hunter in twain, messing up its leap enough to send it tumbling to the ground, and making its intestines spill out onto the pavement in a hideous, gory mess. As its still-living body began to go into shock, Donnie’s armored boot crushed its head just before the treadblade moved on.

“Gods I love this bike,” Donnie said as the Treadblade neared the enemy.

While Donnie focused on maneuvering, Ratchet was already hard at work unloading some hefty firepower into the hordes of enemies chasing them to ensure the safest route for the civilians still on foot. It was such a shame that the bombbuilder had such a tiny, limited ammo pool, because the big explosions were best for the situation. The bigger the clump of foes, the better as he fired off proximity mines into crowds until there just wasn’t any mana left in the gun and it had to recharge. The strays that got a bit too close got a blast of shotgun pellets for their trouble.

Once the bombbuilder was useless, Ratchet swapped out both his weapons, this time for the handcannon and the reaper. The good thing about having such an overwhelming swarm was that he never lacked in souls to power the reaper, and the spread shot could clear out big swaths of foes! The handcannon’s penetrating power was a boon too, but eventually it ran out of bone spikes and he had to switch to applying different kinds of ammo. Luckily the debris of their battle was plenty, so soon he was scooping up rocks, bent rebar, metal bits of shrapnel, and who knows what else and firing off with two guns like a madman.

“Pardon me, Mr. Donnie sir,” Clank spoke up, appearing on Ratchet’s back. “But I could not allow such an opportunity pass by without making a suggestion. I am fully programed to pilot any vehicle, but lack in certain physical attributes. Might I take over the driving so that you can assault the enemy with ranged chi attacks?”

Donnie thought it over for a second. There wasn’t a whole lot of room to maneuver with only a third of the street to drive on, and while Chi Burst couldn’t be used very often, this was the perfect opportunity to use Chi [/i]Wave,[/i] an ability that didn’t do a lot of damage or healing and you had to stay stationary for a long time to sustain, but oh boy did it have a large area of effect.

“Knock yourself out, but I can’t do these techniques as often as Ratchet can shoot. Cooldown period, ya know?” the monk said as he took his hands off the handlebars and prepared to cast Chi Wave. An arc of energy not unlike a shooting star viewed from a distance shot out of his hands and reached for the nearest monster, inflicting significant full-body magic damage, enough to send them crumpling to the ground, before it bounced to another, and another, and another, until it had hit seven targets.

Then, he would fire a Chi Burst, the projectile shooting through the swarm in a line, killing zombies and wounding demons as it went. He could use Chi Wave every 15 seconds, then Chi Burst every 30 seconds, but combined with Ratchet’s firepower, it would be enough to significantly increase their damage output.

Meanwhile Clank had taken the controls entirely and piloted with expert skill, if he was a bit more cautious than Donnie had been before. The little robot preferred not to get close enough to enemies to have to activate the side blades whenever at all possible. Of course, with all the carnage going on there was often no other choice. None of this changed Ratchet’s plans, wherein every time enough time had passed to fill one charge on the bombbuilder he swapped back to it in a flash to fire off another proximity mine into the crowds of enemies then immediately went back to dual shooting the handcannon and reaper, scooping up spirits and debris as ammo along the way.

Ratchet spotted a demon flying around that greatly resembled Firebrand, another red arrermer. Still irritated that the last one took off, he made sure to fire multiple reaper shots up at the thing before it swooped down at the running civilians. Yeah, that scratched that itch!

Given how the Cadet had been recently enlightened as to exactly the kind of situation the multiple worlds were in, it really shouldn't have been that surprising to him when the Guildmaster pulled off his cloak and opened up a portal beneath the crew gathered in the guild hall. Then again, it was only yesterday - so, understandably, Ace Cadet was a little taken aback by the sudden developments and plummeted down into the newly opened hole in the floor. Thankfully, falling was something the young man was very familiar with. After the blur of colors passed by and the ground came up, Cadet rolled his landing and popped back onto his feet. A semi-soft surface, that was nice!

The view? Not quite as nice. Some kind of gambling den, with giant skeletons and over-sized, well, everything.

"Whoa, spooky!" the Cadet said, "Everybody okay?"

It didn't appear that anyone was injured, so the hunter turned his attention to the gigantic dice-faced man. Apparently, 'Gneidxick' was the Guildmaster's true form somehow. How did he fit underneath that cloak?? Dude was huge! Before Cadet could confront him, the Courier and Bowser had some offers to make him. Offers that he didn't end up taking, although the relatively light mood had the hunter chuckling at the proposed counter-deals. As the Courier was swept off and his robot and Geralt followed him, Cadet scratched the back of his head.

"So basically, we just have to battle some guys? No problem, right?" a small grin spread on his face as he reasoned that jumping right into a portal was probably the right thing to do. He was preparing to do just that when the Koopa prince joined them, looking different but also pretty familiar. Was he sporting a Brachy horn? He was distracted watching the father and son get a grip on Jr.'s new slime-based powers. So that was the result of fusing with a spirit? They could be crushed into weapons, kept as partners, or absorbed - Cadet filed in the info away, but all that really came to his mind was, "Radalos! You're like a mini-monster! You gotta let me get a closer look when we're outta this place!"

He watched the Koopa group go off into a portal and lined himself up with one at the same time. He'd seen first hand how competent the others were, and as long as whatever was waiting on the other side wasn't some huge impossible fight, it should be okay to split up. As Tora and Poppi went off, Cadet looked over his shoulder at Peach and Hat Kid and give the ladies a two-finger salute and a smile before he jumped into a portal.

@DracoLunaris@Lugubrious

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"You're kidding." Linkle said, he face falling as Kamek explained the situation to her. "Why right now? I just learned what's going on on the other end of that teleporting machine. It sounds real bad. I think we need to get over there but the dumb thing is broken and we need somebody to fix it." She looked down the hole, scowling. She'd trusted that guy.

Her mind was briefly taken off the guildmaster's betrayal by the door slowly opening up. In ran the three cucoos as the chochobo pushed the doorway open for them with his head. He surveyed the room curiously while they rushed eagerly up to her, hopping up and down. Ready and raring to go. She took a moment to watch them then nodded resolutely. "Right, just one more problem we have to solve." She said, scooping up the hoe and holding it over her head. The three of them jumped up and perched on top, gripping it with their little talons. "You don't have to worry about me, I can get down. You have to keep your hands free for fighting evil."

She approached the edge of the hole and was about to hop in when she had a sudden thought. "Oh, one thing first." She said, running to the door and squeezing her head past the chochobo. "Rick? Hey Rick?"

"Yeah?" She heard him call back from the chicken pen off to the side.

"The guildmaster was secretly evil and kidnapped all my friends. I'm gonna go beat him up, tell the sheriff for me?"

"What!?!"

She didn't stop to elaborate. There was no time for that. She ran back to the side of the hole. Deep below she saw a series of bright flashes going off at the bottom. That had to be a good sign. It probably meant fighting was going on already. "Okay. In we go!" With that she took a running start and jumped right in, the cucoos beating their wings wildly to slow her descent to non-knee shattering velocity.

Poppi nodded to the Ace Cadet's question, as might have Tora if he had any neck to speak of. Both knew that might not be the case if not for Gneidxick's discretion, however. The Courier really had some guts to just volunteer their spirits like that. Tora got the impression that the man loved gambling as much as any other vice, but no matter how talented he might be, such a move reeked of irresponsibility. In this world, the rules were different. Completely unforeseeable abilities lurked around every corner. If they wanted to save the day, heroes couldn't afford to brazenly rely on whatever tricks got them through in their own worlds. Of course, Tora doubted that 6 cared much for saving the day. During the trip so far his mentions of payment, typically from Bowser, did not go ignored. Being a greedy Nopon himself, Tora could relate, but this was different. The stakes were higher. This world needed heroes.

6 got his dues and the group began to split up. Given the language used by Gneidxick, who didn't even seem to want his casino's newest patrons dead, the driver-and-blade pair felt pretty confident about handling one of his bozos all on their own. Tora waddled off toward one nobody went to yet, but Poppi remembered something important and knelt to entreat her Croagunk. “Hello, little brog,” she said, getting its attention. The change of scenery seemed to distress the Pokemon, putting it on edge. Poppi beckoned to it emphatically. “Come with Poppi and Masterpon. Help beat up goons, work out frustration.” It neither seemed to fully trust nor understand, but in this alien place any familiarity was preferable to none, so the little monster followed the Nopon and Blade toward the portal. Tora led the way, pausing at the threshold to decide which foot to enter first with. It took him a moment, during which his face lit up with excitement at something, and then he plunged in.

The three stepped out onto what appeared to be a racetrack. Tora's first thought went to cars, but the dilapidated track appeared to be a checkered wooden board, bordered with a mere railing, and surrounded by both dead trees and grass. With a start Tora noticed the ghosts floating around among the weeds and in and elevated stands, spectators for the event soon to begin. Bizarrely, beyond the grass and trees were cave walls lit up in hellish hues of red and orange, as if the entire venue took place deep inside the bowels of the earth. “Meh...” Tora breathed, wondering just what he got into, before finding out just a couple seconds later.

A loud clattering noise forced Tora and Poppi to look up, and together they spotted their enemy. A large skeletal horse in a bright green visor and red bow tie sat in some sort of floating craft, not too unlike Bowser Jr's clown car. As they watched, a hole opened in the ground nearby, and Gneidxick sprung out with a starter's pistol in his hand and a grin on his face. “Ladies and gentlemen, we're off to the races!” he exclaimed. “Ready, set, go!”

Tora and Poppi readied themselves as he fired the pistol, and straightaway normal-sized skeletal horses sprang from the ground with brightly-uniformed skeleton jockeys on their backs to race down the track. Their bone-hard hooves threatened to wallop and trample the intruders, but Poppi had other ideas, and Tora knew just what to do. He jumped toward his partner as she boosted into the air, hesitating only long enough for the wide-eyed Croagunk to jump on. She managed to jet up and out of the way just in time to avoid the sepulchral stampede, but Phear Lap looked more than pleased for his challengers to have entered his domain. Immediately he started backing up, his hovercraft bucking like a wild bronco, and when Poppi flew toward him he ejected a blue gift from his ribcage. The present hovered through the air, using the ribbons in its bow like helicopter blades. Tora positioned himself on Poppi's upper back, holding on with his little arms while his wings reached forward on either side of his head, Mech Arms equipped. The first gift the pair evaded easily, but soon after they passed it the present exploded with the sound of ricocheting bullet into a hail of golden and pink horseshoes that flew out in every direction. They smacked the three challengers across the back, hurting a fair bit, but they kept moving forward. Soon they got in range, and Tora opened wide the Mech Arms' missile pods to start firing rocket after rocket at Phear Lap. After realizing what was going on, Croagunk started using Mud Slap, hurling globs of mud at the retreating skeleton. One by one the projectiles exploded against his bony body, but Phear Lap rode on, undeterred.

Tora kept at it until something surged upward from the track below, forcing Poppi to evade. They veered out of the way as a cyan-cloaked ghost flew upward. Both partners looked down. Below galloped an endless parade of calcium-rich horses and jockeys, but after every handful of jockeys, there came a horse with a ghost on its back. As they watched, one such specter springboarded off its mount and shot straight up at them. Poppi expertly maneuvered away, but at that moment an unnoticed gift launched by Phear Lap exploded, showering the challengers with painful horseshoes once again. “Ow, meh!” Tora exclaimed. “That going to leave bruise. Flying hard enough without pesky minions jumping around. Poppi, let's seal reinforcements.”

“Roger, roger!” A series of sharp clicks came from Poppi, and a dark aura flared to life momentarily around her core and weapons. “Hold on.” Tora complied, and Croagunk learned to as the artificial blade rocketed forward, her thrusters set to max. Phear Lap yanked a roll of dollar bills from his ride to use as a makeshift club, but before he could so much as raise it Poppi hurled Tora at him like an oversized dodgeball.

The Nopon his the skeleton in the face, dropped onto the flying machine's rim, and faced Phear Lap down with Mech Arms at the ready. “Okay, Nopon boxing time!” He threw out some body blows, one, two, then ducked as the bone horse swung his bill roll horizontally. Another few punches landed before Phear Lap swung again, this time adding a follow-up second swing that clocked Tora in the noggin. Shaking off the blow he kept at it, hitting until he needed to swerve right to avoid a hand smash. Meanwhile Poppi and her passenger Croagunk faced off against marauding ghosts, dodging and attacking until Tora gave her the signal. “Okay, juice stored! Let 'er rip!”

He tossed Poppi the Mech Arms, and she caught them before reading one large rocket each. “Poppi Missile!” she called, darting forward to audaciously bomb her enemy. Phear Lap reeled back, his skull spinning on its vertebrae, and Tora took back the Mech Arms to start the routine of gathering energy again. The racehorse attacked with newfound vigor, forcing the rotund engineer to his limit. Jab, jab, hook, uppercut, duck, jab, jab, duck, duck, hook, hook, hook, dodge right, dodge left, double hit. Poppi kept an eye on her masterpon, watching but not taking action until Phear Lap slammed both arms on his flying machine to make it rock back and forth, putting Tora off balance. With enough opening created, the horse manifested another exploding present point-blank to blast Tora away, but Poppi was ready.

She channeled her ether into him to create a shield around him, withstanding the blast easily, and Tora delivered an uppercut to Phear's jaw in recompense. The Mech Arms then sailed Poppi's way. “Now, Poppi! Round two!”

Poppi snatched the weapons from the air as she sprang forward into action. “Behold power of Poppi!” A spinning punch smashed into Phear's jaw, sending chips flying. Croagunk jumped forward and jabbed Phear in the nose with his poisonous orange finger before leaping back to grab Poppi, who then finished with a darkness-infused uppercut. It exploded in a burst of black and purple energy, throwing both Pear and his ride backward. Tora grabbed hold of the flying machine as it span vertically, completing two whole rotations before evening out. A moment later the gauntlets fell into his hands, and not a moment too soon.

The ghosts renewed their assault, and Phear struck back with a vengeance. He rained down blows on Tora, but the Nopon had a plan. Putting no effort at all into defense, he put everything he had into a constant barrage of punches all over his foe, barking constantly as he did. “Mehmehmehmehmehmehmehmeh!” Bruises, cuts, and welts covered him, but still he fought on, trusting in pure constitution while Poppi dealt with the spirits. Croagunk clung to her, flinging Mud Slaps mostly in vain. Tora finished the barrage by readying the Mech Arms and unleashing a nebulous blast. “Pow-pow Cannon!” Phear Lap clattered his teeth, dazed, and Tora stopped panting long enough to pass the Mech Arms one more time. “Here finale! All power to weapons!”

This time Poppi said nothing, instead zooming forward to equip the Mech Arms and hold them up. Ether energy flooded through her, and when she opened her weapons' missile pods, countless dark missiles shot out in a torrent that swept Phear Lap away. He fell to the ground in a spiral, catching himself just above the track, and. With a chatter he thrust a finger at the wear challengers as they approached, a command for his racers to take them down. But nobody came. Baffled, Phear looked around, but not so much as a single jockey appeared to help him. As he looked this way and that, confused, Croagunk leaped from Poppi to use Astonish as it fell, striking Phear with a startling sound. It proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back, as the horse fell back in defeat, sobbing with his money clutched in his hands. He looked as though he'd lost his life savings in a horse race, and certainly not in any condition to fight. Tora and Poppi landed about fifty feet in front of him, wondering if the brief but fierce brawl was theirs. “Whew, meh! That fun fight,” Tora said. Poppi, having had to put up with constant annoying ghost attacks, was unconvinced. Croaguk looked pretty pleased with himself, though. With the track clear and Phear beaten, Tora turned around to head back toward the portal, but not before giving the racehorse a wave. “See later! Next time, bet on Tora and Poppi!” he laughed before heading through, his friends in tow.



Father and son stepped out into a white void crisscrossed and layered by vast arrangements of white and black dominoes. However visually striking their new surroundings, they did not get long to admire it. The ground beneath them, a rather narrow bridge of white dominoes laid side by side, started to move. Behind the koopas was a wall of spikes, an ever-present threat lurking behind them to skewer them should they not mind their pace. Every few dominoes as well came one with spikes on the top, requiring a hop to get over unless skewered feet ranked on their priority list. By itself the conveyer belt provided a danger if not a real problem, but the real problem wasted no time in presenting itself.

A swing descended from above to stop over where the domino conveyer began. Atop it sat a domino with arms and legs, its upper half sporting a male face and its lower half featuring a female one, complete with skirt and heels. “Pip!” the top shouted, to which the bottom added, “And Dot!” Together, in one uncanny voice, they said, “We're gonna have some fun!”

Pip raised his hat as if to greet the challengers, but beneath was a domino bird, with one eye on each half and a beak in the middle between its wings. It flew out with an angry tweet, trying to smack Bowser or his son and force them toward the spikes. A moment later, Pip leaned back as the living domino almost split in half, revealing a fanged mouth that spat out a glowing dodecahedron. It shot around, completely uninterruptible as it bounced off various dominoes, threatening to smack the koopas into peril.



The living glasses eyed 6 as he approached. “Wha? ...Who're you?” the shortest one slurred, full of rum and as red-nosed as one could get.

His much taller companion fluttered her eyelashes at the newcomer. “Heeeey there, darlin'.” She hiccuped, the stem of her martini glass wobbling precariously.

The biggest of the three scowled at him. “Hey,” he growled, his voice full of whiskey. “If you ain't...ain't gonna party, you ain't welcome 'ere!”

“Yeah!” the little guy agreed. “Have a...have a drink!”

He lost his footing and flopped down, face-first, in 6's direction. A tide of rum surged from him, rolling over the tablecloth to slam into 6. Rummy stood back up afterward, albeit anything but steady, and rocked back and forth on his feet. A second or two later, Geralt appeared from the portal, and after getting over his shock he chucked a grapeshot bomb at the Tipsy Troop. It exploded in their midst, blasting all three with a clearly painful wallop, but their glass did not just up and shatter. In reply Martini straightened up, trying to focus, and after a brief moment her olive divided in half. The second half flew up, sprouted purple wings and a red eye, and started flapping around and shooting eyes. Whiskey's eyes became spirals as he shot a beam of liquor upward to fall straight down toward the Witcher like a pillar of light.



The situation changed with stunning rapidity, but after Gneidxick revealed himself and explained, the heroes' task became clear. More fighting would be in order, and though things didn't seem anywhere near as dire as they had last night or even in Paved Wilderness, Peach treated the highroller to an icy glare. After the Courier's forced rejection, everyone took the hint to get on with the game, and dispersed toward the various portals. Peach took a chance to steady and look over Hat Kid, but found no sign of injury. Whatever their nonsensical means of conveyance, they appeared to take no injury from the fall. When she looked up Peach saw Ace Cadet motioning at her, which she took to be a sort of beckoning wave. She nodded and hustled after him, following into the poker chip portal with her shotgun at the ready.

After stepped across the two emerged. Instantly they were assaulted by hot, sooty air, feeling it, tasting it, breathing it in. They stood on a giant ashtray, about thirty feet across, that stood just a short way above a blazing inferno. Around the fiery arena swung a shifting, smoky miasma of well-dressed casino patrons, placidly watching the proceedings, and a hefty jump across open air stood another ashtray tower. In its ashes rested a giant head shaped like a cigar butt, complete with comedic long nose, waxed mustache, and teeth as yellow as his eyes. From above an oversized arm reached down, the purple suit sleeve implying it to be Gneidxick's, and in his hand he held a lighter. Mr. Wheezy leaned forward for Gneidxick to light him, causing the gray top of his head to flare up, and after Gneidxick removed his arm the living cigar grinned. “You folks,” he said, his voice a dry, gravelly grumble. “Look like you could use a light!”

He cackled as the flames turned up a notch. Cigarettes with bat wings, horns, and leering eyes flew up from the fire below, swooping lazily around the arena. Wheezy, meanwhile, puffed up his cheeks before releasing the first of many crescent fireballs, which span through the air in an unpredictable arc. Peach let off a scatterblaster shot at the cigar, but the distance rendered it ineffective, and the next moment she had to take a dive into the ash to avoid the fireball as it wheeled toward her.

At that moment Linkle appeared, having arrived to the Devil's Casino as the first of the heroes' reinforcements and chosen a fight to join. She arrived just in time to take a flame wheel almost full in the face, and the cigarette bats fluttered over to give her a proper greeting.



The survivors' mad rush to the tower fending off ambush after ambush, from all sorts of monsters and from just about every direction conceivable, staying ahead of the ravenous, unstoppable horde. Each fighter made every second count, every swung and every spent round of ammunition; with the stakes high and a gruesome death -more than likely followed by grotesque undeath- only ever a few seconds away, nobody could afford to give anything less than their all. Nero made the most of the Blue Rose's unlimited ammunition, blasting monster after monster as they reared their ugly heads, and his tidy handiwork allowed him a brief window every so often to glance back. There came the horde, terrifying and inexorable as ever, but he spotted something else, too.

He saw his companions at work, and what he saw invariably made him proud of those who'd accompanied him into this hell. From his vantage point atop Nico's van Jak rained a brutal fusillade of projectiles on the encroaching zombies and demons, cycling through mode after mode as he strove to protect his friends. The portly dragon also occupying the roof watched with wide eyes, not minding in the least that his hero used his corpulence to help deaden his morph gun's recoil. Ratchet and Donnie together manned a vehicle, usual-looking but still recognizable as a bike, and between them wreaked havoc on the speedier among the group's pursuers. With attached blade, projected ki, or overwhelming arsenal they carved up the monsters, helping to ensure the survivors could proceed safely. Joker kept the skies clear with his gun and the aid of his persona. Blazermate's converted undead fought tooth and claw alongside the defenders to fend off attacks coming from the side. They proved an invaluable asset; by lunging at incoming fiends and grabbing hold, they kept them still for a single well-aimed shot or slice from a defender to lay that particular threat to rest. Of course, Ghalt's shotguns typically vaporized the friendly undead as well, but there were plenty more where they came from.

Nero refocused, eyes on the prize. Not far now. The tower loomed ahead, a four-sided technological monolith with imposingly spiky battlements at the top, reaching up toward where the tower lights lit up a whirling centrifuge of dark clouds in red.


As he and Howard led the survivors nearer, they simultaneously noticed the carnage. Strewn all around the base of the tower were countless carcasses, most mutilated beyond all recognition. The pavement itself was slick with murky fluids. Nero took a deep breath and pushed on, readying the Red Queen. Ahead stood the main door, a giant sliding affair that lay barely ajar. The van had stopped close to the entrance, its riders and passengers disembarked. He couldn't see much within the building, but he could see something gleam as it moved. It stepped through the atmosphere, menacingly slow, and the devil hunter slid to a stop.

To call him a man would have been to do him no justice, but what else could it be but a man, beneath that heavy green armor, and featureless helmet? Yet danger seemed to radiate off him, hitting the survivors in the face like an overpowering odor. Maybe it was the gore that drenched his gloves and boots, or the shotgun held in his right hand, or just his deafening, inhuman silence. The group stopped cold, suddenly caught between a rock and a hard place, only about ten seconds ahead of the horde.

Nero said nothing. He couldn't think of a damned thing to say. But the big man started to move. He walked forward with a purpose in his stride, no sign of overt hostility. Nero and Howard stepped to the side, letting him by, and the survivors got out of his way. The horde approached, and the stranger picked up speed. He materialized a rocket launcher into his hand, leveled the end at the shrieking throng, and he fired.

Flame blossomed in the night. An entire swath of the horde blew to bits. The armored man said nothing, already making his next move. Two more rockets flew out to enact devastation before he switched to a LMG. Excessively large rounds ripped through the ranks of zombies and demons, blowing chunks out of the stronger ones before blasting them apart, too. He finished with a salvo of mini-missiles from an attachment on the weapon before stepping forward to confront an Antenora personally. A shotgun blast at the last second messed it up and sent it flying, but he caught it out of the air, pulled it back toward him, and punched clean through its midsection with a hook. More zombies raced toward him, but he used another gun to shower the horde with balls of electricity, then charged forward to rip an electrocuted hell razer a new one. A red arremer swooped down, attempting to pick him up, but the man proved heavier than it expected and pulled it down instead to tear off its wings. Whenever he got hands-on with a kill, various packets spilled out of the fresh corpse, replenishing his health, armor, and ammunition. He disappeared into the horde, but the slaughter continued, decimating monsters by the dozen. When Nero heard the roar of a chainsaw, he couldn't help but last. “Well, I guess he's got it covered,” he said, trying to break the ice. “Let's go in.”

Howard nodded, exhaling heavily. One man stood where nobody else could have, turning the tide against an entire horde on his own. Out there were bloodthirsty bugs, reapers, mechanical monstrosities, ghosts, and countless kinds of zombies, all the stuff of nightmares. But he was worse. “Yeah, let's. C'mon everyone, get inside!”

In a few moments the survivors all crammed inside. Nico managed to squeeze her van through the entrance, after which she pulled it up alongside the door as a barricade. It didn't seem so crazy that the man from before could finish with the horde and come wandering back, so V stayed behind as a lookout, but everyone else could breath a sigh of relief. They were safe.

“Blazermate, let's get a new teleporter up and running,” Howard said. “And if there's any way we can decrease the cooldown, do it.” Survivors stood by, collectively exhausted and hurt but ready to escape.

Nero waved to Donnie. “Hey, start disinfecting people. Don't wanna send any plague bombs to...uh, whatever place is on the other side.”

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Level: 1
EXP 3/10
Word Count: 260
Current Location: Dead Zone, Argent Tower

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With every fighter's combined effort, they all seemed to be making good progress fending off the horde. With the ground covered, Joker went for a full assault on the demons in the sky, alternating between Arsene's curse attack and shots from his handgun.

They finally made it to the entrance of the tower, when it seemed something, or someone caught some of the groups attention. He looked behind him to see what had caused everyone to stop; A strange, silent soldier, fully clathed in armor and gore. Joker was kinda confused. Was he friend, or foe? Or was he neither, and just happened to be there? Either way, they all knew by first glance that the soldier was dangerous, moving out of the way when the big guy charged forward into the horde.

The thief watched in both awe, and slight fear, as the Slayer made mincemeat out of undead and demon alike. The creatures didn't even get a chance to attack the guy without getting torn apart! Joker turned his focus back on the group when the Slayer dissapeared into the horde, continuing the carnage. Everyone made their way into tower, the thief leaping off the van to help barricade the door.

They were finally safe again, that was good, right? Looking around at the survivors, Joker reminded himself that the killer is still out there, still among them even. He leaned against the wall, keeping a firm grip on his knife as he watched the others, visibly anxious but focused. It couldn't be that easy, he knew better.

While a few members of their group were in the back holding off the horde and others were guarding some of the flank routes, Blazermate and Nero guided the survivors into the tower. At least until a big buff guy in a green sci-fi army gear, his face obscured by a thick helmet, stepped out of the tower just oozing danger. Blazermate just watched the man pay no mind to her and her group, instead seeing the horde that was chasing everyone and going on a slaughter fest. While Blazermate was contemplating giving him a heal after he took damage for the first time, he just punched the demon that clawed him in the face and was right as rain. "OK then... that explains a lot?" Blazermate said a bit absently as she shepherded the survivors into the now vacant, although corpsy, tower.

Blazermate summoned dell, everyone being relatively calm thanks to the doom marine's efforts in holding off the horde. telling him they needed a teleporter, the texan man bowed his hat and got to work, building a teleporter and a dispenser for the time being. "Alright donnie, teleporter is going up. Cleanse people before they go through." Blazermate said, gesturing to the teleporter being constructed and upgraded. When Dell was done upgrading the teleporter and dispenser, he'd then go onto making a snetry to guard their behind more out of looking for something to do more than anything. When all his buildings were upgraded, he'd summon a metal chair out of one of his toolboxes and relax in it, drinking some beer that the chair spawned with as his timer ran out.

While Dell was off doing his thing, Blazemate said to the group as they waited for the teleporter to charge up and send the survivors through, healing who was injured. "So... That guy that just passed us... Anyone else kind of notice he just went into the frey and started to annihilate stuff? Think there are more like him here? Gotta be, since I don't think zombies exist outside of this area." Blazermate said, trying to strike up a bit of conversation about what just happened and how the Doom Slayer was slaying more than demons outside.

When Bowser (who had increased his size to maximum in preparation for a fight) and Jr arrived on the other side of the portal what they found was both very familiar and yet utterly alien. The long narrow platform floating in a void littered with deadly obstacles was a rather common sight for the pair, it's just that most of the time they weren't on the receiving end of such an obstacle course.

”Pretty lame set up. Same trap over and over. No pits or jumps or,” Bowser began to say, immediately launching into a criticism of the stage, only to be halted when the arena lurched into life.

”Hay what,” Bowser exclaimed before realizing that they were actually standing on an auto scrolling convayorbelt ”Oh one of these! Yeah, that's why it’s so repetitive looking”

Jr, who had glanced behind them and spotted the massive spike wall they where now being dragged towards them, had no time for Bowser’s analysis of another stage maker’s art and instead yelled ”Papa! MOVE!” before taking off at a run before hopping over the first set of spikes. After glancing behind him in confusion and then noting ”, and there’s the thing to force us forwards,” Bowser took off after his son. Well versed in the art of jumping, it was pretty hard to get around their world if you weren't, the pair breezed past the first few sets of spikes. Things got a little trickier however when their opposition showed their face or, rather, faces.

The person taking up their usual spot of villain on the right towards which they would have to advance where, in fact, two people sharing a massive domino shaped body and which was riding a swing that descended down from nowhere. After introducing themselves as Pip and Dot and then immediately went on the offensive, sending a domino bird after Jr while the much larger Bowser had to contend with the lazily bouncing dodecahedron.

”Ahahaha is that it!” Bowser laughed before slapping the energy shot with the energy buckler projected from his mecha mitt. Instead of being batted away as he had intended however the uninterruptible shot tore through the energy shield and was only prevented from tearing a hole straight through Bowser's hand because his had hit it with the edge of the shield rather than the center. Instead it simply singed furrow through the scales and flesh on his hand. ”GAHH!” Bowser cried out in surprise and pain before ducking into his shell, which thumped down to the ground just in time to avoid being torn through by the unstoppable shape. A moment later he popped out again and had to put in a burst of speed to avoid a collision with the ever advancing spike wall.

Meanwhile the domino bird swooped at Bwoser Jr. The boy dodged to the side hastily while narrowly avoiding the spikes he’d just jumped over and then he had to sprint to make up lost distance while shouting ”Mimikyu keep it off me!” as the bird came in for a second pass. Sat atop Jrs head where his new horn met his hair the small rodent did as instructed, its elongated tendrils lashing out to slash at the avian playing piece’s two massive eyes. When struck it swerved off to one side, partially blinded and squawking in pain as it did so, giving Jr enough time to take a leap over the next set of spikes. As he did so he extruded slime from his hands, gathered up a mass of it and then, once he’d landed, gathered it up between his hands lobbed it at their foe with a hadouken like thrust. The pair, swinging merrily, tauntingly, ahead of them, guffawed loudly as the splatter of goo barely made it far enough to stain the conveyor beneath them. They laughed even more when the goop rolled back towards the troop, forsing them to dance around the substance lest it blow their legs off.

The one upside to this was that Muimikyu copied jrs attack, using it to slap goo over the bird as it continued to harry jr. The subsequent blast took it out, right in time for Pip to summon another from beneath his hat.

”OH COME ON!” JR complained loudly. His frustration only grew hotter and hotter as the two continued to run on the treadmill while narrowly avoiding the infuriating harassment coming from Dot and Pip. It didn't help that they initially failed to find a way to strike back. Mimikyu and Jr’s attacks didn't have the range to strike their foes while Bowser didn't have enough time to stop and charge up fire balls thanks to the barrage of birds, shapes and ever looming threat of the spike wall behind them.

The pair were left sweaty and nerve wrecked by the constant pressure and, in Jr’s case, increasing angry at the extremely frustrating combination of attacks and the fact that ”I. Hate. Exercising!”which he yelled at the world in generally, before shouting at ”Get down here so I can punch you in your stupid faces.” at Dot and Pip specifically.

Laughter was the response. “No no, keep running tiny I’m sure you’ll catch us eventually. Your soooooo close! You just need to keep running for a few more minutes I swear.” Dot mocked him.

“Yeah you’ll have to get up here if you wanna hit us. Good luck with that you ugly tortoises!” Pip added.

”GAHHHH” Jr raged in response to the taunting. There where a number of ways of dealing with the problem that he might have thought of, but under the influence of his anger Jr instead picked the most reckless and cathartic one. ”Throw me at em, I wanna bash their faces in!” he demanded

“What?” the pair asked together, only to screech “What!” far louder when Bowser responded with a casual ”Yeah alright” before grabbing his son by the shell, leapt up into the air (as Mimikyu bailed off of the soon to be projectile and onto his hat) and then lobbed him at the domino duo who where two surprised to try and do much of anything as the child rammed into them. The pair reeled from the impact, and then Pip screamed as Jr rabidly sunk his teeth into one of his arms to avoid falling.

“Ahhh!” the pip cried as Jr grabbed the rope of the swing with one hand, while with the other he began to repeated punch a slime extruding fist into Pip’s face.

“Get off him pipsqueak!” Dot demanded as she attempted to kick Jr off, only to receive a foot full of spikes from jr’s back and some retaliatory kicks from to the forehead as a result of her attempt.

”Yeah that’s it Jr. smash em up!” Bowser cheered as Mimikyu swatted at the last bird pip had put out from atop the king’s back.

“You idiot. Stop being punched in the face and just.” Dot began to say before Pip’s voice joined hers and together they growled “bite him back!” before the central maw loomed open to chomp the boy. Cries of alarm from his father and Mimikyue gave jr just enough warning to drop out of the way. Blindly. It was a miracle he didn't skewer himself on one of the sets of spikes scrolling below in the process. Instead he simply landed hard and was left panting dryly as the mass of slime on Pip’s face exploded. Red slime from the first punch detonated, vaporizing or set off the rest of the unprimed goo, sending Pip reeling but neither unhorsing the pair nor putting the man out of the fight just yet.

As their foe tried to recover from the blast Bowser scooped up his son could be dragged into the spike wall, wincing as their spiky, now blue, shell grazed the wound the the dodecahedron had inflicted earlier.

”Again,” jr growled horsley ”I can take it”

”Nah, you did enough already. I figured how this fights is meant to go now anyway. See I got other things to throw exept you.” Bowser replied before grabbing the annoying birds and lobbing it at the pair as right as they finished recovering from Jr’s attack. The squawking bird sailed through the air and smacked Dot in the face.

”Bullseye” Bowser cheered as Jr climbed up his arm and onto the back of his shell.

Pip, his face blackened and scorched by the explosion, and clearly furious about that fact, removed his hat and then began violently shaking it with one hand, popping out bird after bird from it's interior. “Take this you jerks!”

“Wait no you moron you’re just giving them more ammo!”Dot cried out in alarm as the miniature flock swooped down toward the troop. In response Bowser lashed out with the mecha mit, catching one of the birds while it’s blade scythed through others. Just as quickly as he had caught it the king threw it back again, smacking dot in the face a second time, much to her chagrin. Then as jr and Mimikyu fended off those birds that had tried to circle around he hopped over the next set of spikes, grabbed a second bird mid flight, and then upon landing hurled it at Dot.

“Stop that you imbecile!” the furious woman yelled at her partner after the third consecutive bird slammed into her. When he didn't immediately cease his avian onslaught she began kicking him repeatedly in the face while yelling “Enough. With. The. Birds!” Before they could resolve their dispute however, the pair were hit by a mass of flying hat thrown by the now completely un-harassed Bowser. The pair were sent reeling and this time it was enough to cause Pip to lose a grip of the ropes of the swing entirely. Arms falling they toppled down onto the road, Dot’s head smacking into the back of some spikes as they landed. They weren't enough to pierce her hardened exterior, but they were more than enough to knock her out cold.

Pip, left unable to walk by dot’s unconscious state and being dragged straight towards the rapidly advancing troop (who paused only to collect Bowser’s hat), raised his hands in the air and yelled desperately at them “stop stop I give up!”, causing both the conveyor belt to jerk to a sudden halt.

”Wait... What? YOU DO?” Bowser asked between heavy breaths as he slowed and then stopped his advance. He was already so used to the no surrender attitude of the Galeem possessed that this bout of self preservation came as something of a shock.

“You win!” Pip insisted before pointing a finger to the side of where Bowser had stopped at where a portal suddenly opened up leading back to the central area. “You can go spin the dice now, hooray for you!”

Bowser glanced at Pip, then at the portal, then back at Pip again. ”YEAH ALRIGHT” he replied to Pip’s relief and Jr’s surprise, pausing only to add ”OH AND 6/10 DEATH COURSE, COULD USE MORE VARIATION,” before stepping back through into the central room. Upon arriving he promptly collapsed onto the plush surface of the poker table.

Jr’s alarmed cry of ”Papa” was joined by a call of ”Oh no Sire, are you alright!” from Kamek. The mage, who had been in the middle of demanding to know what was going on after Linkle had vanished into a portal that closed behind her, rushed over to his king while flanked by his two white mage clones.

”I hate treadmills” he responded simply as he had a nice lie down on the soft table surface. Jr slipped down of of Bowser’s back as Kamek got close, himself also rather tuckered out by all the running, which meant it was relatively easy for him to get clear when Bowser produced an explosion of green spores in response to being healed by the white mage Kamek clones.

After that incident had been resolved (it’s source quickly being discovered to be an interaction between magical healing and the mushroom badge Bowser had gotten from a loot box the day before) the group resolved to sit back and wait for the others to return from their fights so Kamek could provide them with healing and the two royals could get some well deserved rest after their time on the oversized running-machine of domino doom.

As they waited Kamek and Bowser proceeded to crush their way through the rest of the pile of sprites, lest they start to fade away, while explaining the situation both down here and far away in the Dead Zone to each other. Meanwhile a thirsty Jr tried to find out if anyone had brought anything to drink down into the pit with them.

The Courier frowned as this die-headed idiot rejected the bet, saying he didn’t want a gamble he could lose and only played to win. This rubbed the Courier the wrong way entirely and in an instant all the respect he had for a supposed kindred spirit went out the window. That wasn’t a fellow gambler at all, that was a cheater. A liar. A despot looking to extend his reach of power and influence. Not anybody the Courier would want to associate with. However he also said that he was only looking to give them some black eyes, so without any hesitation the Courier drew his revolver and whacked himself right in the face, instantly feeling the intense throbbing of a blacked and bruised eye.

”More’n happy to oblige ya, hombre,” he said rather plainly, but his insane antic didn’t seem to impress the giant casino manager. In fact, the man went out of his way to send the Courier into one of the portals by using a giant playing card. Gaige-Tron let out a yelp. “Master!” The automaton rolled in after him, arms already morphing into weapons.

Inside the Courier shook his head to regain his senses, though the pounding in his eye didn’t help matters much. Then both eyes lit up in utter ecstasy as he was met with what would be his opponents: three giant glasses of living liquor, just as lively as the casino’s master. Gaige-Tron came in ready to unleash Hell, but its master held his hand out to stop it from going wild. The three glasses spoke, clearly drunk off their rockers (though 6 imagined that was likely their natural state), accusing him of not wanting to party, then the smallest one attacked.

”Hombres, I don’t think you can handle my kind of party!” The Courier braced himself as a flood of rum came barreling his way. He opened his mouth wide, ready to receive it in what was probably his dumbest decision of the day (though that remained to be seen, day is still young after all). A good deal made it into his mouth, where he happily swallowed, but of course his body was flooded with the stuff and it burned. The rum knocked him on his ass, not in the usual way but from the sheer force of it, and caused some damage to his skin.

“Master! I would have thought someone smart enough to make me would be way smarter than to just stand there and take that!” Gaige-Tron chided, rolling over to him and helping 6 back onto his feet. Despite it all he still had a wide, shit eating grin plastered across his face.

”T’ain’t nothin’ to be worried about. Now it’s an even fight!” And then Geralt appeared through the portal and chucked some sort of bomb at the three glasses. ”Fuck! Dammit Geralt, I’ve got this!”

The bomb seemed to harm the living glasses of alcohol, but curiously it didn’t shatter them. Either they only looked like glass, or they were much more durable than normal glass due to being alive. Of course considering they looked like old holotapes of ancient cartoons, the Courier couldn’t rule out that they were just straight magical either. Regardless the three began a counterattack, specifically targeting Geralt.

”Time to see how sturdy they are. Melt the martini’s stem,” the Courier ordered. Gaige-Tron squealed in delight and began firing acidic rounds from the built in Revolution straight for the martini glass’s stem, right above the base. Meanwhile, the Courier fired his revolver at the flying olive, aiming straight for the red center.

---

---

Despite everyone’s best efforts, the hordes of demons and zombies weren’t letting up and they could only last so long. Thankfully the target of their escape was night: a tall tall tower. As they approached they saw something that was a great sign of fortune, or perhaps a portent of disaster: gore, guts, and mutilation. It seemed that a small army of monsters had been killed, no, brutalized in the area. But was the thing that did it friendly?

They didn’t have to wait too long to find out. From the air, Jak spotted a humanoid figure clad in high tech futuristic armor of a green color. Ratchet saw the figure in the distance as well and he was a bit concerned. Thankfully as they passed by any concerns were relieved when this armored figure up and completely ignored them, instead choosing to focus solely on the oncoming army and… Began a one man slaughter?

Jak didn’t stop to question this suicidal idiot’s motives for diving head first into a giant army of monsters. If he wanted to die so bad then fine, so long as the soldier bought them enough time to make it in the tower. Ratchet was more concerned however and wanted to double back to help the soldier, only to see with his own eyes that not only did the soldier not need any help, Ratchet would probably only get in the way.

The Doomslayer ripped and tore his way through horrors unimaginable like wet paper, blasting some, smashing others, and using his bare hands to separate cranium from torso. The few hits he did take were instantly rendered moot as his sheer brutality created healing items on the spot. Ratchet’s eyes went big, then he relaxed and turned back toward their goal.

Meanwhile, Daxter was still running on foot barely keeping ahead of the horde behind him. ”I-HUFF-HATE-HUFF-RUNNING!” He saw the green-armored figure charging straight toward him, ripping and tearing apart the forces of darkness as he went, and suddenly Daxter’s adrenaline kicked into a new gear he didn’t even know he had. The Doomslayer’s hand reached out toward Daxter’s face!

”GAH! I’M NOT WITH THEM I SWEAR!” The ottsel-turned-ent dove under the Doomslayer’s outstretched arm to safety, but he was never the marine’s real target. The gloved hand grabbed the face of the demon right behind Daxter, then tore said face clean off and shoved it down the demon’s throat, where it then had its jaw forcibly removed. Of course Daxter didn’t know any of this, for he was too busy running for his life to look backward and see that what he thought was a crazed psycho trying to kill him turned out to actually be a crazed psycho that just saved his life.

Moments later everyone had made it inside the tower, where the door was barricaded by Nico’s van as well as Donnie’s motorcycle. Jak’s light form dispersed, though he kept his morph gun at the ready just in case. Ratchet hopped off the cycle and Clank vanished. Ratchet then got to work on helping the engineer build that teleporter, partly so that it would go by faster, and partly so that he could add the same modifications he made originally to make them 2-way.

Daxter collapsed on the ground, breathing like a dead horse. ”You all… Forgot me… Uuuuuuuugh.” But in a second he had caught his breath and was back in his usual animated top form. ”I don’t know why anybody runs, ever. Jak, next time we have to flee a huge army of slobbering abominations, LEAVE ME THE JET BOARD!”

Jak shrugged, smiling. ”Hey, you made it, didn’t you?” Daxter’s eye twitched.

Untouched by exhaustion, Blazermate permitted herself no delay in heeding the police captain's suggestion. She summoned Dell to start the new construct building, and this time, thanks to his dispenser, he had the resourced he needed to upgrade it fully. With Donnie and his disinfectant abilities on hand, the teleporter was soon operational. With a little corralling from Howard, Jill, Ghalt, and Leon, the survivors formed an orderly line and began to evacuate. One by one they stepped on the platform and disappeared in a shower of sparks. Only a few of the heroes knew where it led, but the others all figured that anywhere would be better than here. Dreaming of rest, plenty, sun and safety, they stepped into the unknown.

Of course, the fighters hung back to ensure the civilians got to safety, though with the cacophony of howls, moans, and explosions still outside, it did not seem like the Tower would be breached. A few of the better-off civilians stayed back as well, including the portly dragon. “Don' wanna risk breakin' that thing bah steppin' on it,” he explained in a thick Louisiana accent. “'Least, 'til the uthas git t'safety.” That left him, along with the others, the liberty to look around the lobby of the Argent Tower. Expansive, futuristic, and well-furnished, it managed to be utilitarian and sophisticated at the same time. Perhaps most impressive of all the lobby's features were the four great tanks arranged symmetrically, serving as the bottom of pillars that stretched upward toward the ceiling.

Inside each was a remarkable creature, either dead or kept in stasis to serve as decoration. First among them, in the tank closest to where the teleporter went up, was a four-eyed, large-headed saurian with vivid dark red scales. Going clockwise, the next tank contained a bizarre, white, apostraphe-shaped alien with drifting tentacles and a floating yellow orb. The next housed a three-legged beast with a long tail, a second mouth on its end. In the last resided the most beautiful specimen, a majestic insect with wings like wrought gold.

As the crowd of survivors thinned, Nero approached Ms. Fortune. The moment she arrived she'd plopped down with her back against a desk, breathing heavily. While the devil hunter ran at the front of the crowd, she'd helped to guard the left flank, nearest to the infested market and the buildings beyond that. That meant constant fighting, and from the looks of her it had taken quite a toll. Gashes, burns, slices, tears, and bite marks covered her, and she had been bleeding heavily. Whatever it was that kept her alive despite being dismembered clearly allowed her to feel pain and take more damage. Blazermate healed her wounds, but they healed oddly, and it appeared that she'd lost a lot of blood. “You don't look so hot,” he told her.

Fortune looked at him blearily, then puffed up her cheeks in a pout. “Aww. I'll have you know I'm a real head-turner in Little Innsmouth,” she joked weakly.

With a roll of his eyes, Nero stooped. “C'mon, let's get you through the teleporter. Won't do anyone any good to have you fall apart on us.”

The unintentional joke made her chuckle. “Heheh, you're funnier than you look. But I can't.” Her face got serious. “I need...to find the Skull Heart. Beneath the tree...in the library. For my friends...” She tried to rise, but instead ended up falling apart into a heap, unconscious. Her head rolled across the floor briefly before a black boot gently stopped it.

“Goodness. How...visceral,” the accented stranger said, reaching down to pick up Fortune's head. He held it up, peering at the girl's exhausted features from the inscrutable inside of his coat's black hood. “Poor girl,” he murmured. “After all she went through to defend us.” Nero walked up to him and the stranger gladly passed the head over. “Keep her safe, and give her a chance to rest,” he told the devil hunter. “If she means the place I think, she'll be headed for the root a way south of here.” He extended a gloved finger to point at the southern wall. “There's something strong there. To the north, too. As long as they remain planted, the demon tree is locked up tight.”

Nero treated him to a long, narrow look. “...Thanks for the tip. Knew that already, though.” The crowd near the teleporter had thinned, and soon the fighters could head through as well. After a moment of silence Nero turned away, activating his Buster Arm to sweep up all the pieces of Ms. Fortune. He rummaged around behind the desks for a while, eventually turning up a carrier bag, which he deposited the pieces into. When he placed it on the teleporter a minute later, she went through without a hitch. When Nero looked around for the coated civilian, he could not find him, so with a shrug he went through the teleporter himself soon after.

He emerged into blinding sunlight, almost falling over. Nero rubbed his eyes with the knuckles on his left hand, then looked out across the Land of Adventure. Idyllic fields and countryside, green trees, blue sky, white clouds. All around were the other civilians who'd escaped from the Dead Zone, some celebrating, some collapsed in fatigue and relief, some just sitting back and taking it in. Nero took a deep breath of fresh air, and allowed himself a smile. The nightmare was over.

For now.

Even after knowing about them for three days now, Hat Kid still wasn’t quite sure what to expect from her first use of Spirits, but the surprise factor was part of the fun for her… as fun as haphazardly smashing the ephemeral remnants of dead peoples’ life essences for material gains could be considered. While the Guildmaster was acting strangely salty about their success in completing the task that he assigned them, Kid was pinning the lens to her hat like a badge and inspecting then absentmindedly juggling/balancing her other two rewards, only half listening to the adults talk while she waited for them to finish. She stopped what she was doing when he addressed the party present, her attention seized by the mention of losing a bet, followed by the ominously broadcasted intent to “play a little game first.” The next thing she knew, the table she was standing on tilted halfway into a conjured circular abyss as her and her compatriots were perilously dropped into the darkness of whatever awaited them at the bottom. Surely, none of the other guild patrons saw this happen…

Her landing was far less graceful than one might have hoped for or expected from the child, faceplanting hard onto the gigantic felt table after failing to open her umbrella in time to slow herself. In contrast to this, she held a blind hand up to catch the still floating parasol as well the two items she was playing with on top of each other, performing a perfect balancing act with them without sparing the necessary effort; feat of natural agility to follow a less characteristic display of unflattering clumsiness. She sat up to put her weapon and items away and take stock of the escalated situation. The Guildmaster--now revealed--emerged from the commanded dark to present the heroes (and villains… and in-between) the terms of his impromptu “game”. Now he definitely had her attention.

So, he wanted to throw them into a gauntlet because he lost a bet? If the nonsensically named high roller knew much of anything about any one of them--even individually--he probably would have known better than to bet against their success (well… maybe except in their case). Hat Kid was simply thinking that he ‘needs-ick’ to let them go before he ends up losing again, unless of course he lived for the rush of risk that came with the territory of gambling, an enthusiasm for which the child did not share. She wasn’t terribly big on losing, especially in high-stakes affairs she didn’t ask to be a part of, and even less was she keen on having her own stakes unilaterally upped on her behalf.

Though admirable was the cowboy’s attempt at hustling the house, ”permission” to reap the party wasn’t his to give, and was objectionable on that principle alo-oh, good! He’s been drinking too, this early in the morning, so he’s certainly in his right mind to be gambling everyone’s souls away. Bowser had a slightly better idea, but failed to amend the prior one in presenting it. Clearly, no one else here seemed to have Hat Kid’s experience when it came to boss rushes. They were hard enough already without putting your soul on the line (which she did, despite having lost it previously), or taking on more than one at a time (which she ALSO did). They didn’t have time for this! There was an entire world/s that needed saving, and they couldn’t afford to risk it for: at worst, a cheap thrill; at best, a chance to tug on a gloriously overloaded plot thread they’d rather not unravel (not that they had the slightest clue about that).

Thankfully, the dealer was smarter than to call either of them on their bets, declining in decisive fashion by sweeping the Courier away into an arena portal at random. His message was clear in that they didn’t have much of a choice in the matter beyond who they each chose to fight first. Less clear were his true intentions, because Kid didn’t buy that he was simply out to punish (rather than kill) them. What would the lesson be--don’t fulfill your mission? Well… given that their mission was essentially the liberation of the multiverse, that would actually make sense in this case. Perhaps, he aimed simply to test them, but admitting his own force to be inadequate probably wasn’t the best strategy. From a gambler, one would expect a more convincing bluff… or was that part of the real bluff; some next level bluff? Either way, if he “played to win”, Kid was prepared to disappoint him (again).

The others had not so much decided on their match-ups as they did simply confidently enter at random (forcibly, in 6’s case). Hat Kid was a little more discerning with her battle selection, though with admittedly little in the way of a basis. With the four occupied arenas fully stocked, she wasn’t left with much of a choice beyond going it alone, which she didn’t at all mind. When looking through the blurry haze of the remaining portals, she figured she could take a toy cymbal-monkey in a fight. She was sure of that with all of them really, but ultimately she decided to start there. Without further delay, she lept forth into the rift free of hesitation, the floor giving way to the deep, toy-laden chasm of a gigantic claw machine. Preferring to not find out what would happen if she dove into it, she didn’t let her graceful forward fall last for more than a second before shooting her hookshot to the ceiling to find purchase on the claw rail where she could remain suspended, same as her foe. Luck seemed to favor her for being alone on this one, for she was either uniquely qualified for this fight, or among the only ones around equipped for it. She would find out soon enough, once the battle began...

---

With their choice of path separating them from the threat on the ground, and their other capable allies clearing the skies, Banjo and Kazooie were relieved of the need to do much else besides continue pressing on at full speed. Being dry on ammo and low on feathers made it more worthwhile to conserve what little they had left than spending any of it to potentially be in the way, what with all the gunfire being directed upward. They otherwise would have lent their own hands and wings to the effort, but they trusted this time that it would be well enough handled without them. The best they could do was beat them to the tower, as they were set to do, and deal with whatever threat may lay ahead of them. The localized Hell-sky circling overhead and the growing concentration of corpse-litter made for an almost deceptive prelude to what awaited them when they arrived.

The duo slid to a halt before they could quite make it to the tower’s towering doors, splashes of gory crimson staining Kazooie’s talons, followed by Banjo’s feet as they swapped positions. No one who arrived shortly behind them could blame them for what gave them pause, for they would immediately understand why. The lone figure to step forth from the hellborne megastructure exuded a palpable aura of raging menace that even demons would fear (so the legends that surround him say), and context lent further credence to the largely intuited sensation of dread. The sizable heroic force had a hard enough time fighting through this deathly hellscape together. To believe that all the death that surrounded them was solely the doing of this one ‘man’, alone, who showed no sign or intention of stopping what he was doing… Yeah, who wouldn’t stop dead in their tracks when faced with THAT?! It was difficult to tell initially what they should be more worried about: the pursuing horde, or him? It felt almost as if facing the former would honestly be preferable.

Luckily for the party (for the horde, not so much), they wouldn’t have to decide one way or the other. The hulking, olive-clad warrior made that decision for them as he strode forward past the heroes and survivors, caring too little to even pass a glance to any of them. Everyone else, on the other hand, more than acknowledged his direction, and made damn sure to step well out of his way without having to be told to. Willfully unaccompanied, he cut, shot, and bulled headlong through the tide of horrors and monstrosities, pushing them back with brutal might to (out)match their numbers, sustained in his merciless onslaught by nothing more than the furious carnage he wrought. Almost as much as they were astounded by the display, the group was safely assured that they were bought a plentiful opening to do whatever they needed to.

Once everyone was safely inside, the duo took one last reassuring look around outside before shutting the doors behind them. The bear and bird hung back with the rest of the heroes while the civilians exited a little at a time through the teleporter into (literally) greener pastures… where they would be quarantined by understaffed personnel technologically ill-equipped for such a task. Well, it was at least a step or several up from where they just came from. A short delay of inconvenience wouldn’t trouble them by comparison.

While waiting, the duo couldn’t help overhearing Fortune’s stubborn plea to Nero about her reason for being there, and why she refused to depart in spite of her current inability to continue. The bear and breegull looked to each other thoughtfully while recording every detail, promising quietly to themselves to search for this ‘Skull Heart’ on her behalf. They didn’t have much past a name and their best guess as far as what it looked like, but a heading and a proper name was usually all they needed. In the meantime, they were left with the decision of where to go and what to do from here. Were they to join the exodus for respite, even if only for a moment, have a look around where they were to see what they could find, or just… wait to see what happens next?