A bit of respite from the zombie horde chasing the group was welcomed. The survivors cleared out taking the teleporter and the last of her group, mostly daxter, made their way to relative 'safety'. It was a good thing Donnie could cleanse everyone of their disease before they went to the land of adventure, otherwise there could potentially be a second Dead Zone, which wouldn't be good at all. It was kind of nice having a moment to relax, even though Blazermate didn't need to rest, it was still nice not being in constant danger and the others seemed to think the same.

Heck, Daxter, being one of the last to make their way to this tower, just flopped down on the floor exhausted. And knowing that the Land of Adventure was just a teleport away helped with people relaxing. Sure some survivors, or rather, one, didn't wanna take it in case they broke it, but that was fine. This area looked safe enough, and it sounded like Doom Guy outside was keeping things at bay. Still, even if this was a place for repsite, a medic's job was never done and people still needed healing.

Most of all Ms. Fortune, who had found her own way here. She wasn't in a good shape, although Blazermate's healing didn't work super well on her for some reason. And that reason became obvious very quickly as Fortune relaxed a bit too much and just... fell to pieces! "I thought she kind of looked like a zombie, but I wasn't going to say anything." Blazermate said, poking one of Fortune's legs out of curiosity. She wasn't hurt by falling to pieces, but this explained why she wasn't as affected by Blazermate's healing she figured.

Due to her combination of refusal to rest, being strewed about the room, and just being tired, Ms. Fortune couldn't really say much as Nero collected all of her body parts with a vacuum before putting them in a bag and sending her through the teleporter before going through himself. As the amount of people in the room got smaller and smaller, Blazermate looked around to examine it a bit more. She had seen the things in the tubes that were around the room, but was a bit too preoccupied to get a closer look at them. They didn't look like statues at all, but were people, or aliens, or bugs, in tubes put on display? Blazermate couldn't see their vitals while they were in stasis, so she didn't really notice them on the way in. "Hey guys, think they're still alive? If we have to deal with things that are, or worse, than that horde later on, we could probably use more friends." Blazermate said, smashing the tubes of the four things in stasis.

She moved up to the tank with the ornate insect lady in it and smashed it. Like Blazermate thought, once they were out of stasis, she could actually see their vitals and if the others were like, or worse, than this lady, then these people were in some serious trouble. When Blazermate approached Sectonia, she opened her eyes, awakening from her stasis brought coma not in the best of shapes. Looking around, Sectonia saw Daxter, a living tree monster not too dissimilar from some of the monsters outside, and Blazermate, with her demonic arm to her side, the tongue retreating back into the shield as she had used it to smash open the tank.

Before Blazermate got a chance to begin healing the queen bee, she got up and attacked. She was pretty injured, so her attacks were slow and weak, Blazermate getting knocked down as she was barely able to bring the suffering arm shield up in time to block a sword strike. Seeing her enemy fall to the ground, Sectonia flew towards the down Daxter, ready to stab him as well.

Blazermate debated a bit internally. On one hand, this could be a new part, on the other, considering who this bee lady was attacking, they must've had quite a hard time here and they needed all the help they could get. Deciding that the help greatly outweighted what Blazermate figured would be a flying part anyway, Blazermate shot a friend heart out of her healing hand at Sectonia, causing the bee queen to fall back to the ground in a daze, her frame falling a bit haphazardly over the downed Daxter.

"So uh... hope that sedates this one so she'll calm down. Guys, careful when opening these pods. I kind of forgot how much of a hell hole this place is and what these guys must've suffered through. This one was on death's door as it was." Blazermate said, healing the queen bee a bit, but only enough to bring her to a less injured state, instead of being on death's door.

Geralt grunted and rolled his eyes at the Courier's words, utterly unconvinced that he had things handled. "Only thing you've got is this table covered in liquor." He snarked. The fact that the three living glasses were still, well, alive was a bit annoying, admittedly. He wasn't expecting it to be that easy, all things considered, but a man could dream, couldn't he?

Still, the counter-attack wasn't exactly life-threatening. Geralt watched the plume of alcohol flow up into the air, seemingly in defiance of all logic and physics, and rolled out of the way, the liquid splattering harmlessly on the table where he'd previously been. "What the...?" He muttered, looking at the two that weren't being attacked yet. The Courier and his newest companion were focusing on the wine glass and the floating olive, so Geralt figured that he'd go with the bigger threat. Which was the smaller one, in this case, he figured.

Rushing in at the shot glass and grunting as he swung his sword, Geralt's eyes narrowed when his opponent instead leaned forward, pouring more rum on the ground. Geralt found himself unable to properly dodge in time as not only did his sword swing miss, but he felt his Quen shield being drained by the liquid. It wasn't enough to shatter the barrier, but it was more than enough to damage it.

Cursing, Geralt grabbed a hold of the bastard's oversized nose and flipped his sword in his hand, slamming the pommel into its face, right in between its eyes.

---

Michael woke up slowly, rubbing his eyes as he returned to consciousness. He stared up at the ceiling, his vision blurry. Where...where am I- oh, right... As he lie there, the memory of last night began to return to him. His head was still sore, but he felt in better shape than he was. I could really use an aspirin or something right now... He turned to his side, looking around the room. Franklin's bed was empty, and his items were gone, indicating that he had already woken up and left. Baba was still asleep in the corner, seemingly undisturbed by Franklin leaving and Michael waking up. With a groan, Michael sat up, moving to the side and standing up and off the bed. After taking a few minutes to get all his clothes and gear back on, Michael stepped out the door, taking a look at Baba as he exited. "I'll, uh...get you something to eat when we get back. If you even need to eat..." Shrugging, he stepped out into the hallway, and walked downstairs.

After finding out, to his disappointment, that the inn did not serve breakfast, Michael stepped outside in search of something to eat. As he exited the building, he took a moment to take a deep breath and appreciate the morning sun. After the harrowing fight, he was glad to be back in the rustic town. However, the moment would be interrupted by noise from down the street. Turning in its direction, Michael saw a number of people, some of them looking pretty beat up, huddled around. "The hell..."

Walking over to the area, what he heard only made him more curious- and worried. Dead Zone? Zombies? What the hell is going on here? Where'd all these people come from, anyways? He kept his distance from the group of people, opting to instead observe from a distance. Before he could ask any questions, he heard footsteps behind him.

Turning around, he saw Franklin running out of the guild hall, his eyes wide. "Mike!" He cried out. "Man, you gotta see this- something's going down at the guild building. Something crazy." He gestured Michael to follow him, then ran in the direction of the guild hall.

As they entered the building, Michael's eyes went wide as he saw what was happening. "Whoa, what the fuck?" He blurted out, staring at the...hole? Portal? Whatever it was, that had appeared on the floor.

"I don't know, either, man. I was walking by, and I saw Bowser and the others talking to the guildmaster dude, right? He was mad at them for some reason, something about a bet...and then, all of a sudden, this thing opens up, and it sucks them all in!"

"...oh, shit. That son of a bitch...he betrayed us?"

"Worse than that. You know how we thought that big ugly thing we killed was Galeem's lieutenant? Well, turns out this guildmaster guy might be the real lieutenant after all."

Michael stared down the portal. "Right under our noses, too...damn. Guess...guess we're gonna go down there and fight him, huh?" He sighed. "Can I at least get something to eat first?"

"You'll be fine, fatass. Now, c'mon, we got no time to waste." With that, Franklin suddenly leapt forward, jumping down into the portal. Michael, grumbling something under his breath, stepped forward after him and jumped down as well.

Two shots and the flying olives went down, shrinking in on themselves and into nothingness. Durability was not their strong suit. Their maker, the martini glass, fared better against Gaige-tron's acid. Among all the varied materials one might encounter in the world, few withstood acidic corrosion better than glass. Only because it was high-strength could the acid affect Martini's silicate surface at all, and even then the destruction of its outermost alkalis left a porous surface that slowed down corrosion even more. It hurt, judging by the living glass's shocked reaction, but it couldn't possibly melt through before one or more party members died of thirst. As such, Martini could keep spawning olives, so 6 kept shooting them down.

Meanwhile, Geralt used his shield sign to weather a rush of liquor from Rummy and get close enough for retaliation. He grabbed the drunkard's noise with a honk and smashed the pommel of his sword in between the stubby glass's eyes Cracks blossomed outward from the surface as Rummy gasped, but instead of shattering the surface simply bent, like safety glass. Still, Rummy's eyes just about rolled back into his head. “Oooooogh...” he moaned, falling back into a sitting position. “Gonna....I'm...buh...” The highly-directed impact damage right to the noggin did just the trick; one member of the Tipsy Troop was down.

Behind Rummy, Whiskey grimaced. “Ain't had enough, eh? 'Ere then—straight from the top shelf!” His top came loose and he started blasting whiskey upward, but instead of a single stream, he launched large globules in quick succession, each subsequent orb readjusted for wherever Geralt ended up after the one before. This time, dodging the brew would be no easy feat.



Mere moments after the hatted child arrived in the enormous toy machine and hooked herself to its ceiling, the cymbal monkey began to stir. He hooted and chattered, smacking his instruments together to send yellow musical notes flying around, no doubt some sort of projectile. From a slot on the ceiling, a large array of playing cards descended to slide over the machine's glass window. Arranged in four columns and three rows to make twelve total, they faced Hat Kid for just over a second -revealing that two apiece featured matching symbols- before flipping over to become indistinguishable.

Mr. Chims went limp, and the claw arm holding him began to move. It carried him around the space in the machine in a random pattern, bouncing off in a different direction when the monkey hit a wall, the ceiling, or the floor of creepy toys. If Hat Kid hit two cards and got a match, he'd wake up in a noisy fit to smack his cymbals again, but if she got two mismatched cards, he'd shudder as the arm started to move him faster, gradually increasing both the likelihood of Hat Kid getting hit and and force at which he'd hit her.



One by one the teams started emerging from their fights. Tora and Poppi arrived first, receiving an intrigued look from Gneidxick. “Put the screw on ol' Phear Lap, huh? Well, that bonehead could barely fight anyways, and looks like he still roughed ya up pretty good!” he taunted, noting Tora's sizable bruises.

Bowser and Junior got back not long after. They were joined by Kamek, who came down from above with a few spirits so that his friends could make a selection from them for breaking. Gneidxick twisted the end of his 'stache. “Heh. You bozos seem out of breath. Pip and Dot musta given ya quite the workout, even if ya worked them out in the end.”

When Peach, Ace Cadet, and Linkle appeared, Gneidxick started to look a little annoyed. “Hmph. I figured you'd smoke Wheezy, anyhow. Let's see if you're still smilin' after round two.”

He reached down and clapped his hands together in front of the game board, starting the pink die from earlier spinning once again. “Go on an' try your luck, wise guys.”

Tora went first. He waddled up to slap the dice with his wing and stop it spinning. It landed on a 1, and the chip on the game board slid forward one space accordingly. When the other groups tried, they got a 1 and a 2 respectively. That left the chip only four spaces forward on a thirteen-space board.

“Ohohohoho, hmm hmm!” Gneidxick snickered. “Guess it's back to the grindstone, see!”

Tora and Poppi looked tired. “Far too much nonsense for early morning,” the Nopon complained. But it couldn't be helped. With three of the chip portals dark and two currently occupied, five fights remained available. The pair and Croagunk went for the nearest open chip, which offered a glimpse at another game table laden with poker chips.

A moment later Michael and Franklin made their descent, landing unharmed despite there being no indication that they would after jumping into the pit. Gneidxick eyed them, more or less deadpan. “More reinforcements, huh? Ya missed the first round, but there's plenty of beatin' left. Fight one o' my friends, roll the die, get to thirteen and win. Real simple, right?” 'Simple', he said, but the dice-man's leer somehow indicated that it might be anything but.

---

To their surprise, neither of the two were injured by the fall. As they landed on what looked like grass but certainly didn't feel like it, Michael immediately looked up at where they came from, just in time to watch the hole close up above them. "Aw, shit..." Grumbling, he looked down, and his surroundings hit him at once. They were both familiar with casinos, but this was no ordinary casino. It was absolutely massive, towering over them like ants. The occupants of the oversized facility seemed to pay them no mind, caught up in their own games. Jesus...I feel like an action figure, looking around a kid's bedroom.

As he turned his head, Michael noticed that several members of the group were there. Looking up, he then noticed the... die man? Standing before them. He explained the game to them, and the two shared a look. "Right..." Michael said, turning to look at the portals in front of them. So, guess this is how it's gonna be...might as well get it done with and be ready for when he tries to stab us in the back. Again.

After a few moments, the two walked off in the direction of one of the portals, chosen at random. "Alright, well...we're gonna go take this one. Good luck to the rest of you." Unslinging his rifle, Michael made sure it was loaded before stepping through the portal, Franklin following behind him with his pistol at the ready.

---

“Blegh.”

The Cadet coughed and pinched his nose shut, his eyes watering from the heat and smoke. He definitely hadn’t been expecting this kind of arena, not paying very much attention when he’d ran in - and poor Peach! They’d definitely gotten the short end of the stick. In truth he’d been a little surprised to see her follow, but if the fight against the Brachydios proved anything it was that the princess was fearless. Besides, Cadet was more used to fighting in a group anyway!

He sized up the area as the dice hand set the top of the cigar aflame. The other ashtray was a fair distance away, but right now the hunter only had a melee weapon. He’d have to jump over to be of any real use.

“Aw, lame,” was Ace Cadet’s reply to Wheezy’s words, completely lacking in self-awareness. He dove to the opposite side of the tray as Peach when the fireballs came at them, swatting a few of the bat-things away when they swooped too close. Seemed like the range of Peach’s gun wasn’t enough, so that meant he’d definitely have to jump over. Cadet briefly judged the distance and nodded before he turned a grin toward the princess.

“No worries Ms. Peach, I can probably make it over there!” Yep, probably! He skipped backwards a few steps and took off with a running start before leaping the fiery chasm just as Linkle arrived through the portal. Cadet ended up crashing into a stray cigarette bat as he threw himself over to the other ashtray, tumbling to the ground and spitting out ashes as he got up.

"Princess!" Linkle said, sailing through the portal on wings of cucoo. She hadn't even landed yet, seeing the door the princess was headed for from on high and gliding toward it. "I'm here to save yo-"

She didn't have any time to finish, because she flew right into an incoming fireball. It popped, the burst throwing the cucoos up as Linkle tumbled down onto her back in the ash. Not a moment later the bats were upon her, swooping in and stinging her over and over with the red hot cherrys glowing on their tips. She kicked her legs and swatted at the agile creatures before she got just a little too frustrated. Her hair flashed a sparkling blue as she shot out her open palms towards the bats, and in an instant ice began to crawl over their bodies, wrap around their wings, and form an icy blue caps on their glowing tips. The weight and the cold seemed too much for the ones she got, and they clattered to the ground, where they were set upon by the cucoos who had come to a graceful landing while Linkle was in her predicament, while the rest retreated to a safer distance to try and think of some safer plan of attack.

Linkle pushed herself out of the ash, hacking and wheezing from breathing in it and the smoke, her clothes covered in black burn holes revealing tender red welts and her hair singed from the flame wheel she'd caught. She shook herself off and reached down to help Peach up from where she was. "I came to save you guys."

Peach accepted the hand gratefully. “Thank you.” She got to her feet, looking over at Mr. Wheezy as he laughed at the Ace Cadet’s ashy landing. After a few chortles, the giant cigar started spitting fireballs again at the close-range threat, evidently not too gifted in the creativity department. The hunter shook his head clear of ash in time to narrowly duck and avoid one ball of flame, on the defensive as the girls talked.

“Although, despite this hell...hole,” Peach said, fumbling through her attempt to sound casual and crass. “It doesn’t look like that much of a fight.” So saying, she leveled her scatterblaster at the swarm of unfrozen cigarette bats and fired, destroying almost every single one of them in a single shot. More would come, but all that stood between the young women and Mr. Wheezy was a little jump and some careening fireballs. “Team jump?” Peach offered.

Linkles face lit up. "You know how to do the rabbit thing? Yes!" She hopped backward, scooping up one of the cucoos under her arm, and got into a runners start. Peach had things handled over here, so Linkle wanted to get at that big smoky guy. She ran in place for a moment, then shot toward where Peach was waiting at a dead sprint.

Back on the other side, the red haired hunter was getting pretty tired of rolling around in the soot to avoid the chaotic fire balls. With a huff he raised his shield and let one of the flames burst upon it before charging in close. This dude - if one could even call him that - was nasty, but then again it was a living cigar. Cadet bounced off Wheezy’s body and let his sword loose, easily cutting through the dried tobacco skin.

"HYAAAA!" Came a scream from above as Linkle shot down, leg extended, landing a kick right between the cigar man's eyes. A spiderweb of ice extended from that spot as she kicked off, landing close to the Cadet. "Oh hey, it is you." She said as the cucoo that had thrown her at the height of her and Peach's team jump came fluttering down into the ash behind them. "I couldn't really tell. It's kind of hazy in here."

She jumped back as Mr. Wheezy locked his big old eyes on her and spit a new series of fireballs her way. "He's bouncy for a big monster, isn't he?" She said between dodges.

“Linkle!” Ace Cadet smiled and it would have been a charming expression if his face wasn’t totally dirty with soot. One the fireballs that missed the Hylian came his way and he deflected it with his shield, sending it towards a poor cigarette-bat and it burst into a puff of smoke and ash that rained down on them.

“Tell me about it,” Cadet responded, carving up the giant cigar wherever he could, “also, where’s the rest of his body?” The young man couldn’t help but be curious. He was getting a little better at avoiding Wheezy’s fireballs, and with every one the creature spit the faster Cadet was to get out of the way and back into hacking the guy up.

“At least he’s a one-trick pony!”

As if on cue Wheezy straightened up. He closed his eyes and burned up, dissolving into ash that sank in with the rest. A moment later the other ashtray rumbled and a mountain of the throat-scratching stuff rose up to reform the cigar man. Peach avoided getting flung into the fire by skirting around the ashtray’s edge. A great many cuts smouldered across Wheezy’s tubular body, but he had a lot of surface area and didn’t seem to be throwing in the towel just yet.

“...or not!”

Peach prepared to fire but Wheezy pursed his lips and blew, billowing ash up. The airflow forced her backward, and with the obscuring smoke she couldn’t see the edge of the ashtray well enough to stop herself. She teetered over the edge, and the sensation of falling filled her with terrified adrenaline. In an instant she used her new muscles to direct her scatterblaster behind her. It blasted downward into the inferno and its recoil pushed Peach up, saving her from falling. Unfortunately her recovery earned her no respect, and it left her unable to dodge the incoming fireball. Instead of taking it Peach brought her weapon around to block it, ruining the scatterblaster in the process. In the past the whole situation would have been too much for Peach, but now the princess was smiling. She flung the half-melted weapon at Wheezy before balling up her fists, ready to lay on the hurt.

"There's the rest!" Linkle said, pointing over to where a new Wheezy had formed to attack the Princess. She quickly flopped herself on her back into the ash to avoid the incoming fire. "Team jump!" She called to the Cadet, bending her knees and raising her legs off the ground. Without a moment’s hesitation the hunter mimicked what he’d only got a glimpse of before, launching himself off of Linkle like she was a human (or Hylian) springboard.

Ace Cadet sailed across the expanse a little more gracefully this time, smashing shield-first into Wheezy’s face. When he landed he noted the princess’ fighting stance and half-laughed, half-coughed with the smoke.

“You okay Ms. Peach?”

She kept her eyes on the cigar as he shook his head to clear away the dizziness from the bash. “Just fine. Let’s finish with this...buffoon.” Pushing off the ashes, she maneuvered toward the right. Wheezy hawked one fireball her way, but by now his basic attacks reeked of predictability. Peach sidestepped it before whirling around with a right hook. It tore right through the cigar paper and carved a sizable chunk of Wheezy’s gray ash out, which cooled off into white ash as it hit the ground. “Huh,” she said, noting how much more effective both it and the Cadet’s shield bash seemed to be than all his cuts. “He doesn’t have any vitals and he’s soft, so blunt strikes work best!” Straight away she started punching, using the brawling style ingrained in her by her fusion with Mr. Grimm.

Linkle fluttered over, clinging to her Cucoos legs to augment her jump, just in time to put the Princess's advice into practice. The second she hit solid ground she dashed forward, laying a flying kick into the body of the cigar before following it up with a spinning barrage of blows while he was focused on Peach.

For his part the Cadet sheathed his sword and cracked his knuckles. Normally he wasn’t a bare-fisted fighter, but his shield would be more than enough he figured.

“Nice thinking ladies!” he called out, nimbling side-stepping another fireball when Wheezy turned his ire to the other fighters. With a big wind-up he smashed his shield into the cigar’s leafy hide, drawing it back and driving it forward again. He wasn’t nearly as quick as the girls with his attacks, but all the same he was determined to get the job done.

The three-pronged barrage proved to be more than Wheezy could handle. “Oof,

ow! What gives?” he grumbled, starting to turn to ash again in order to relocate to the other tray.

Peach scowled. “This is going to take forever.” She moved forward to try and give the ash a sweeping kick, but Wheezy suddenly re-formed and blasted her with a fireball at point-blank rage. Its flames scorched her skin, hair, and clothes, but when they subsided there was more anger than pain. “Grrrrah! That’s IT!” Wild-eyed, the princess reached forward without thinking, plunging through Wheezy’s exterior. Her fingers caught on something, and when she yanked her hand free, she held the cigar’s spirit in her hands. Red and fiery, it struggled like mad. Straining to keep a hold of it as it fought to return to its body, Peach allowed the others the moment they needed to prepare a strong attack just for Wheezy when he returned.

“Whoa!” Cadet exclaimed, looking at the princess with surprise. He hadn’t known the woman long but he felt like he was seeing a new side of her. Warrior princess Peach! And better not to waste the chance, right? While the cigar was reeling, the hunter aimed his grappling hook at Wheezy’s elongated nose and pulled himself up once it caught. He didn’t have any fancy finishers, but he figured a well placed shield bash to the face should be more than enough.

"Hey!" Linkle yelled up to him from below. "How strong are you?"

The hunter paused in the middle of his wind up and blinked down at her. “Not to brag or anythin’ but pretty strong!”

That was all Linkle needed to hear. She said, extending her open palm toward the shield on the hunters arm and concentrating as hard as she could. Frost crept across the surface of it as it began to give off a chill, then ice began to grow and grow, spreading out to make the shield bigger. It doubled, tripled, quadrupled in size, its new surface studded with uneven bumps. Big, heavy, more like a small glacier than a shield. "That strong?" She shouted excitedly, fully prepared to add more in the name of making this cooler and more devastating.

Once the hunter got used to the new weight, wobbling a little on his perch and hefting the block of ice left and right, he peeked down at Peach wrestling with the spirit before giving Linkle a toothy grin.

“I can go bigger!”

Linkle grinned back. "Say when!" She poured everything she had into it, the shield growing slowly and steadily, not letting up until the Cadet was satisfied. The mini-glacier grew in size until the hunter only just struggled to hold onto it. He shouted back, “When!” and in one motion brought the huge ice hammer down onto Wheezy’s face.

Peach released the spirit just in time, awakening the cigar at the perfect moment to receive a monumental blow to the moneymaker. He sank back in the ash, lying against the rear rim of the tray, bruised, torn, and completely unconscious. Around the heroes the fires uniformly died down, as if the knob on a giant grill has been reduced to its lowest setting. While still hot, smoky, and thoroughly unpleasant, the bonfire arena was now at peace. Peach raised her sleeve to act as a filter as she took a deep breath, only to find it cut off as Gneidxick’s giant foot came down from above.

His shoe landed not on the heroes, however, but on Mr. Wheezy. He squished the cigar down, grinding him beneath his heel, until he’d been worked into the ash again. All the while, the sound of the highroller coughing resounded from above--evidently he’d been watching the whole time. The Gneidxick leg then departed, leaving the heroes with two full ashtrays, a couple lazily-circling cigarette bats, a portal back to the game board, and little else.

After nothing happened for another moment Peach exhaled. She seemed more or less back to normal.

Meanwhile the exaltation Linkle had felt when the Cadet had connected with his giant shield bash was dampened just like the fire when that giant foot had come down and ground the Wheezy into nothing. "What the heck? Wasn't that guy one of his?" She asked, aghast. "That's super evil."

That reminded her, there should still be something of hers in here. She looked around for the birds, starting to panic slightly when they were nowhere in sight. She brought her fingers to her mouth and whistled, and to her relief three dirty little heads poked up from the ash and shook themselves off before scurrying up to her. "Don't scare me like that, I thought you got stepped on." She said, radiating relief. She scooped them up into her arms before turning to the Cadet and Peach. "So, is that big guy with the box for a head…?" She trailed off, having a pretty good guess who it was.

“The Guildmaster, yeah,” Cadet supplied, letting the ice melt off his shield and using the water that fell from it to clean the soot off himself a little. “I didn’t think he was that bad a guy, but obviously I was wrong! Stepping on his own pal like that, it’s like, the opposite of groovios.”

The red head’s expression was pinched with displeasure both at Gneidxick’s actions and the continued foulness of the smoky area. Still, before making his way back through the portal he smiled and held a fist out toward the ladies.

“Anyway, nice work! You gals are great hunters - er, I mean fighters!”

Linkle returned the gesture, chuffed at the praise. "You know it! We're gonna show that lying slimeball how great we are personally, right Princess?" Linkle started to the portal before stopping and turning back to Peach. "Oh yeah, can you use your spirit powers to find the smokey guys spirit? I think it must be buried in the ash somewhere."

There was no spirit to be found, though. As Linkle stepped through the portal she wasn't sure how relieved she should feel about that.

---

Linkle was content to let somebody else roll the dice, because she honestly didn't even understand what sort of game the Guildmaster was playing. At least until Michael and Franklin dropped in too and the man explained the rules again for those late to class. The two of them acclimated rather quickly to the new game, choosing a portal before Linkle could apologize for not warning them off. She's just assumed everyone must have been down here. Tora and Poppi likewise got right back into it, stepping through a portal that closed behind them.

But Linkle was ancy. For all she knew, they were on a time limit here. They didn't have time for this.

"Hey!" She called up to the guildmaster, stepping forward and cupping her hands around her mouth to shout up at him. "Can't we just fight you? I know you can fight, we saw what you did with the smokey guy. Our friends could be in trouble, I don't want to waste time right now playing a game like this." There was something off about this, but she didn't know quite what. Standing here in this smokey room on a big table, surrounded by giant monsters and Stalfos, that giant blocky face looming over them, it was all so unreal but there was something else. Something that had been gnawing at the back of her mind since she'd started floating down here, since she'd first caught sight of what she now knew was the guildmasters true form. "Why even play around if you've got it out for us? Is it one of those things where we get brainwashed if we lose? Did the Hand tell you to do this?" She gasped. "Is this what happened to Din?!?"

Just at that moment her eyes shot wide as she realized what it was. Din was the key. It was something she never would have taken note of her encounter with Din last night wasn't still fresh in her mind. Whatever anger and urgency Linkle felt momentraily ground to a halt, replaced by pure confusion.

"No." She said. "Your eyes aren't red."

Yet another table awaited Tora, Poppi, and Croagunk on the other side of the chip portal. This one, however, boasted a couple points of interest. Its cloth was red, its patrons were close enough to actually be leaning on the table in all their inhuman, skeletal glory -which instantly set the arrivals on edge- and it seemed to host a living stack of chips with a cowboy hat. “Weeeell, lookie here,” he drawled immediately and with gusto, as if waiting patiently the whole time just to say it. “You ain't lookin' too fresh. Betcha just got done with one o' mah buds, huh?”

He meant it as a taunt, but Tora looked nonplussed. “Mhm. Horsey boneypon look much tougher than you, though,” he remarked. Croagunk let out a high-frequency croaking noise that might have been a derisive giggle.

“Whah! N-no,” blustered Chips Bettigan, looking less than totally confident all of a sudden. “I'm waaaay tougher than that skinless bronco.” He composed himself, giving a self-assured smile and closing his eyes dismissively. “Like, leaps and bounds. He don't even compare.”

“Uh huh,” Poppi said. She was looking down at him over her nose, which made for an impressive feet given Chips' height. After a moment her disinterested gaze abandoned him to scour the table, and together she and Tora exchanged a few hushed whispers. Then she turned back to address the minion once more. “In that case, Poppi can use full power. Ready, masterpon?”

Tora nodded, grinning. “Ready, Poppi!”

Chips' yellow eyes widened. “N-now, jus' hol' up one minute...”

“Go!” the pair shouted together as they launched into the air. Poppi boosted forward while Tora, with Croagunk in tow executed a explosive slam in front of himself with the Mech Arms to sent them soaring upward. Chips focused on the immediate threat presented by Poppi, hurling sections of his own body at her like tabletop-sized disks, but the Artificial Blade used her metal arms to strike each one with mechanical precision and strength. They ricocheted off her like hockey pucks and arced, one after another, back to rejoin Chips.

“What?!” the living stack exclaimed, baffled by someone striking back at him instead of dodging. He didn't realize that he'd forgotten all about Tora until the Nopon dropped from above, delivered punch after punch all the way down his body while the Croagunk atop him struck with a matching flurry of Poison Stings. “Ooh-ow-ooh-ow-ooh!” Chips gasped, glaring as Tora as he landed. “Why, you-!”

“Ready?” Tora asked Croagunk, completely ignoring their foe. The Pokemon nodded and crouched down, tensing its muscles, as it tried to copy Tora's motion. “Booming BUSTER!” The two rocketed upward with a flaming and poisonous uppercut respectively, flipping Chips into the air in an explosion of poker chips.

“Aaaaaaah!” he yelled, his component parts sailing up before dropping back down in a heap. Cheering, Tora offered Croagunk a high five. The Chips' chips, of course, levitated only a moment after hitting the ground. They moved to restack themselves, but Poppi was already prepared.

“Masterpon!” she called, boosting his way. She snatching him from where he stood, holding him tight, and flew into the air. After a quick loop to build up speed, she kicked her servos into overdrive in a huff of etheric steam and hurled her fuzzy inventor straight at Chips. He went forth like a ball from a cannon, screaming incoherently the whole time, and slammed into Chips' head belly-first. His momentum barely slowed as he bashed straight through the stack, bounced off the table behind him, and finally off of the suit of one of the giant skeletons before rolling to a dazed stop amid a pile of senseless poker chips.

“Oh, masterpon!” Poppi said, rushing to his side. She knelt over him. “You didn't even land super-cool punch!”

Tora burbled unintelligibly.

Smiling, Poppi leaned forward to pick him up again. “Still, masterpon pretty cool. Beat plastic pancakes no time flat.” This time she carried him gently as she returned to the portal, and after giving Chips a couple farewell kicks , Croagunk followed behind.



Not everyone, it seemed, was content to simply play along. In light of the pretty poor total for the three dice rolls, or maybe due to some other circumstance, the long-haired, rabbit-eared girl stayed behind to yell up at the highroller from atop his table. Unlike that irksome Courier fellow, she got straight to the point, leaving Gneidxick to ponder her proposition. He began his reply with a chuckle. “Hohoho, fight...me? Uh...” He paused, furrowing his brow in concentration, as if consulting some hidden reference. “Ain'tcha...wanna savor the time ya still got, instead of throwin' it away?” He let that simmer, falling silent until Linkle continued. “'Cause playin' around is what I do, doll. The dice roll, the fools play, and the house wins.” Something she said left him nearly as clueless as her, however. “Don't rib me, bread. I don't take no orders from hands. An' the only din I'm hearin' is a li'l snoot who don't know when to quit smackin' gums.”

Linkle might have taken the hint and gotten going if she didn't realize something else. When she mentioned that his eyes weren't red, Gneidxick sneered. “Yeah, what else is new? Ya got a point, or d'ya just want your friends doin' all the heavy liftin'?”



The friends found themselves on a billiards table in a vast, empty space. Auroras snaked through the dark, and enormous billiard balls floated in the distance like planets and moons. A colossal billiards rack hung in that unusual sky, and ribbons of color meandered by the horizon like rivers on a map. One ball, however, hovered directly above the table and its many cues: the eight ball. After a moment of silence passed, two eyeballs and rows of teeth orbited in from behind the ball, forming a face that stared uncannily at the new arrivals. “That ain't a cue,” the entity rumbles, his eyes pointing at Michael's rifle and his voice a strangely resonant snarl. “You tryin' to hustle me?”

Mangosteen spread his mouth around his eight symbol, which slid open to reveal a brilliantly radiant psychedelic chaos of color. A similarly prismatic orb of light shot out at the intruders. At the same time, living chalks started to jump around the table, trying to come down on and stomp Franklin and Michael in the head.



Before picking another battle, Bowser and his son went ahead and annihilated the remainder of their spirit collection, including that of the reviled Thing from the Stars. Carrying all their loot would present another problem, but at least the risk of the spirits fading away and being lost no longer applied.

The Courier watched and waited, paying attention to how the battle was playing out. One of the Tipsy Troop had already been taken out by Geralt (which triggered the Courier’s competitive nature, he couldn’t let ⅔ fall to the witcher!) while he and his newly constructed robot Gaige-tron were barely putting a scratch on the martini glass. The robot didn’t seem to notice and was just unloading rounds, but with a quick voice command from the Courier the robot stopped firing altogether.

“It’s no use, I’m barely hurting it at all with my best weapon!” Gaige-tron complained.

”You didn’t fail, pardner. You gave me information.” He grinned while tipping his cowboy hat upward. He couldn’t be certain what they were made of, by virtue of being both alive and so durable. However the uselessness of the Revolution machine gun’s corrosive shots confirmed that these things were, in fact, made of glass. It was an amazing anti-acidic material with only a few corrosives being able to harm it very well. But glass had many weaknesses. The physical bond of the molecules was somewhat unique in that once glass was broken in one area, it compromised the entire physical structure of the rest of the object. Obviously these guys were a cut above any mundane glassware, but even Geralt’s powerful physical blow confirmed it: once these guys took a real solid physical blow, they’d go down like total chumps.

”Keep on the martini,” he ordered, taking off at a run. ”Knock it down!”

“You got it, hoss!” Gaige-tron shouted back cheerfully. It’s machine gun arm transformed into the pickaxe arm and the robot charged forward, weaving around to dodge and avoid the falling alcohol globs. Once it was close enough, it hooked the pickaxe arm around the stem of the martini glass and kicked its motor into high gear, pulling and yanking backward while activating the eradishield generator to create a physical barrier. If all went as intended, the martini glass, being top heavy compared to any other kind of glass, would tipp and fall, and the harmful alcohol washing out would flow around Gaige-tron’s shield.

Meanwhile the Courier took a different approach. He ran past Geralt, busy avoiding the raining alcohol, by completely ignoring the attack and soaking in the harmful alcohol. He bit into a pill placed in his mouth and swallowed, immediately feeling a surge of anger and rage welling up deep within, exploding outward! With it came a huge heatwave! His new custom chem, made from the ashes of Megadragonbowser, was seeing its first field test.

Burning with Inferno, the Courier jumped up onto the tall glass and grappled onto it like a crazed jungle man climbing a tall pillar. He embraced it in a tight bear huge, oozing harmful heat directly into his opponent by way of induction. ”GRAAAGH!” he hollered, climbing his way up the bottle’s body until he could hug his burning skin directly against its face.

---

---

Ratchet observed and watched as all the civilians, as well as the various fighters they had found in the police station, used the freshly constructed teleporter. He leaned on the omniwrench like a cane, using it to prop himself up, and glanced over to the engineer. ”Looks like we make a pretty good team, eh? Hope you like the modifications I added to your design.”

Meanwhile Jak was busy staring at the creatures that had been sealed away inside the large tubes. Experiments? He got some rather unpleasant vibes from the whole tower, but these stasis tubes in particular. They reminded him too much of the Dark Warrior Project, the darkest point in his life. Anger welled up within the eco warrior just thinking about Baron Praxis’s experiments on his body. He inadvertently let some of the anger out as little crackles of dark eco tingled around his skin, but a deep breath calmed him down enough that the process stopped. He didn’t need to let his anger consume him now and cause any trouble.

Blazermate, ever the curious bot, decided to smash open the tube holding some sort of bizarre alien bee creature, which immediately went hostile but was quickly put down with a friend heart (not that it helped Daxter’s case, who struggled beneath her bossom). Ratchet spoke. ”That’s not a bad idea. Any of these creatures could be valuable allies.”

Clank appeared, saying, “And there is no way to calculate which ones will be hostile enemies even after being freed.”

Jak stepped forward to the tube containing the weird alien jellyfish looking thing. ”Then we make them useful. I say it’s a win-win.” Without further ado he smashed the container with his scatter gun, holding the barrel forward and ready to utterly annihilate the creature in a single blast the instant it showed signs of hostility.

---

---

Level: 1
EXP 3/10
Word Count: 138
Current Location: Dead Zone, Argent Tower

---

---

Joker waited, watching the survivors for any sign of his target. But as the fighters then took their turn to teleport out of the Dead Zone, he came to the conclusion that the killer wasn't among them now. As much as the thief was glad that everyone was safe in the end, he wasn't ready to leave just yet. He had to find atleast something that could lead him back to his team, anything! He felt weak without his friends, and his struggle against the Doctor back at the police department could attest to that.

So he made his choice. Though Joker felt the need to let the rest know, so he would make them worry. He told the fighters that hadn't left yet that he'd meet up with everyone later, and that he had unfinished buisness there.

Blazermate kept herself an arms distance away from the bee lady she had freed and friend hearted. While she had seen others do this friend heart thing, Blazermate still had her nagging suspicions. Still, she made sure the bee lady was at least able to move. With a pulse of her cleansing protocol, she woke Sectonia up, keeping her shield arm at the ready. Dell meanwhile gave Ratchet a nod, offering him a beer from his chair, his work finished and his buildings not needing much in the way of maintenance.

Sectonia, meanwhile, was unbelievably groggy, as one would be after being released from stasis then knocked out with a friend heart. The first thing she noticed as she awoke was the dull throbbing of pain everywhere, although that was slowly draining away. The second thing was some... evil tree creature under her. She blinked a couple times registering that fact before hopping up into the air with a start, pulling out one of her swords again. It was at this point she saw a weird beam coming from herself into some... What was that thing? It was clearly healing her of some injuries, as she felt her vitality return, but... It was such a mish mash of parts.

Sectonia's confusion could be read all over her face about the situation. Blazermate meanwhile raised her shield arm in anticipation of another strike, which never came. "What ARE you?" Sectonia said, putting her sword down. It was at this point Sectonia collected herself and looked at her surroundings. She was in a weird building, one that looked like the start of some kind of spire or something. She then took inventory of all the others who were around here seemingly paying her little mind. The first thing noticed was that most of the creatures here, at least the ones not in tubes, were humanoid in shape. One looked like a rough boy with a bit of darkness to him, another was some kind of... fox thing? but oddly stretched and lanky leaning on an oversized wrench, another metal robot standing next to him with an oversized head, but not nearly as odd looking as the thing healing herself. She saw a shimmering... construction worker lounging in a chair? There were other various beasts and people about, all moving to a red circle of light emitting from a metal... thing... disappearing in a flash.

"I'm a medabot, -mate model. You don't need to worry about anyone here attacking you, we're all friends here." Blazermate said, gesturing for Sectonia to move away from Daxter. Sectonia noticed this, and scoffed. "You may have healed me, but I don't need to listen to such a creature as you." Even so, she did look down at Daxter who was coming to, and did skirt away from the ugly tree, weasel... thing. Out of everyone here, he was by far the ugliest of the bunch. Even the mish mash 'medabot' had a bit of class to it compared to this thing.

"So... My name is Blazermate. Who are you?" Blazermate said, putting her shield arm down and looking at Sectonia, noting how she sort of reminded her of Bowser. Sectonia looked at the medabot with one eye, getting a good look at her. After a bit, she said. "You may address me as Queen Sectonia, the goddess of beauty." Blazermate couldn't help but giggle a bit at the pretentiousness, but then Bowser was just a teleport away. "I don't think anyone in our party will call you all that. But Queen Sectonia or Sectonia will work. We have a King Bowser in the Land of Adventure. You two would love each other." Blazermate said, being casual and ending with a bit of sarcasm. Hearing this talk of a 'king', Sectonia scoffed. "I highly doubt that." She then relaxed a bit, asking. "So, where am I. This isn't Floralia."

"We're in the Dead Zone. Galeem, you'll see it in a bit, is a big ball of light that kind of... from what I understand... destroyed everything in a big flash of light then remade everything into its own world. I think we're going to head to relax in the Land of Adventure, which while it doesn't have any cool demon parts like this." Blazermate said, gesturing to her shield arm of the suffering, the shield having its tongue lull out. "It controls zombies. Its so cool! Although not the prettiest of parts, its really strong! Anyway, yeah, wanna come help us here?" Blazermate said, pulling the shield's tongue back in and looking at it questioningly.

Sectonia thought for a bit. A creature that destroyed everything in a flash of light? Yes, she did remember a bright light before waking up here. Such a creature, such power... she could remake a world of pure beauty! "I suppose your group could use more beauty. Especially if more of you look like this thing." Sectonia said, pointing at Daxter. "Very well, your Queen will deal with this... Galeem." Blazermate clapped in joy. "Alright. There is more information you should know before we get started." Blazermate said.

"So... You can see my parts no doubt. You can get cool parts too! Daxter there got a part, although I don't like what he looks like either. It was this MASSIVE tree thing that vomited all sorts of nasty stuff. Anyway, if you defeat someone under Galeems control, you can either do what I did and friend heart them." Blazermate said, pulling out another friend heart and holding it in her hand before putting it back into herself. "To free them from his control. Or you could take your battle reward and get a part... err... their spirit. You can take it into yourself for more power and get a part look to you, like me and Daxter and Ratchet there." Blazermate said, pointing at Ratchet. "Or crush it and get a weapon or something. Or you can make it your friend and summon them when you need their abilities, like Dell over there." Blazermate continued, pointing at the Engineer whos time was almost up, Dell chugging his beer and having a grand old time watching everyone enjoy his teleporter. "Three was another thing, but I forgot what it was. Anyway, you'll see people who are under Galeem's control as they'll have red eyes. They wont outright attack you, some you can chat with just fine! But yeah, thats how you know."

Sectonia rubbed her chin, absorbing all this knowledge. "I see... Well, I'll have a much more refined taste for these, 'spirits' than you and your allies there." Sectonia said, noting at how Blazermate both detested Daxter, and sort of regretted losing her beauty for more power, something Sectonia could understand but wouldn't condone herself. Extending one of her floating hands, Sectonia shook hands with Blazermate, Blazermate making sure to use her healing hand as her Suffering arm seemed to be acting up again with no zombies to control anywhere nearby. With Sectonia joining the party, Blazermate got to healing her up all the way before moving to Daxter. Sectonia was relieved that the aches and pains were disappearing, although she didn't really show it on her face.

A loud smashing sound followed by falling glass could be heard as Jak opened up one of the other tubes, getting ready to attack them if they were hostile like Sectonia was. Blazermate and Sectonia turned to take a look at the strange jellyfish creature Jak had freed, Blazermate scanning it while she put her beam on Jak, while Sectonia got her swords out much like how Jak had his gun ready.

Donnie, Ratchet, and Clank killed monsters left and right, but it was eventually clear that none of them could keep this up forever. But the tower was so close he could taste it! He only had to keep up this effort for a bit longer. He threw chi projectiles, Clank driving the motorcycle from his perch on his lap, while Ratchet let loose with more firepower than some platoons. Clank even used the blades from time to time. It made him proud. Right now, the three were working together as a perfectly-synchronized team, purging the horrors of the Dead Zone and making sure that none of these abominations got close to the civilians.

But all good things must come to an end. And Donnie was personally glad this one did, because then he got to see the man who he had heard so much about: A hulking man in green power armor. To say he looked dangerous was an understatement. Everything about him dripped menace and lethality, from the visor that obscured his face (seemingly stripping away his humanity), to his bearing, to the weapons he wielded.

And as the man took a step forward, Donnie contemplated whether he’d have to fight, a grin emerging on his face at the idea of going toe-to-toe with this man. But then he completely ignored them instead, choosing to fight the entire oncoming horde by himself.

It seemed the height of stupidity, but the Doomslayer had earned his reputation over eons of demon slaughter, a record that made Donnie’s scant time fighting the Burning Legion look like nothing by comparison.

Then there was the sheer brutality of how he dealt with the monsters ahead. The way the Doomslayer murdered an arremer got him particularly interested, what with how he ripped off its wing and jammed one of the wingbones all the way through its eye and out the back of its head. Distasteful, maybe, but incredibly effective.

The monk whistled. “Holy shit! I wish that guy was around when the Burning Legion attacked. He would have made it ten times easier!”

Then he walked inside, chuckling at the amazing display as Clank used the Treadblade to barricade the door behind the van.

As per Nero’s recommendation, Donnie began to disinfect everyone he could. Especially Ms. Fortune, who had taken several bites. Poor girl was likely halfway to turning by this point.

Then he realized something. The blood! Everyone was covered in bodily fluids from all the zombies!

“EVERYONE, BEFORE YOU LEAVE, LISTEN UP!” he yelled authoritatively, getting their attention.

He cleared his throat, and then spoke in a normal--but still far-reaching--voice, “My spells can disinfect people. Not objects. Everyone here is probably covered at least a few droplets of zombie fluids. Gene got infected with a zombie plague on the way to the police station, when a fat zombie upchucked on him. He’s cured now, like everyone else, but that means that we know it spreads through fluid transmission. We all need to have our stuff disinfected. Clothing, equipment, bags, everything. And that means I’m going to need people familiar with zombie plagues.”

“Leon, Jill, can you help?”

The rookie cop and the special agent lent their aid, the latter in particular confirming Donnie’s assumptions about viral transmission and taking charge to organize a cleaning detail. Argent Tower featured a small cafeteria, thanks to its remote location prior to its reuse in the World of Light, and its kitchen offered enough sanitation to get everyone cleaned off prior to teleportation. Soaked and cold was, after all, better than dangerously infectious. A line formed leading toward the kitchen, with its sinks, sprayers, and cleaning agents, and before too long the decontaminated survivors could escape through the teleporter.

Donnie, after the exhaustive cleaning operatijon, desummoned the Treadblade as he prepared to go through, opting to preserve it for future use by placing it in the Luggage. He desummoned the Luggage then, safely placing it in a parallel dimension, and then made to step on the teleporter, only to realize something.

That Black Mage, he had died, right? He didn’t trust the zombies and demons that infested this place with that spirit. They’d either consume it outright, turn it into one of themselves, absorb it, or turn it into an item.

And, as much as the prospect of absorbing someone else’s conceptual essence horrified him, what those demons would do with it was worse.

He was so close to salvation. All he had to do to get out of there was step on the teleporter and he would be free. But no. He had to do this, if no-one else would.

So, after a quick conversation with Nico, he had the van moved far enough out of the way that he could once again step into the street that had been filled with so much bloodshed not so long ago.

He strode forward with purpose, scanning the ash piles that comprised the bodies of the fallen for the Spirit he was looking for.

And eventually, he found it, clear as day. It floated right next to a random demonic Spirit. He crushed the demon’s Spirit under his boot. He cared not for its existence beyond what he could take from it, and hopefully that thing would be useful for what lay ahead.

In pure contrast to the way he had brutally crushed the demon’s essence, he took the Spirit of the Black Mage in his hand, holding it tenderly, like it was a priceless artifact or a sacred text.

He contemplated what he was going to do with it. He definitely didn’t want to make it into an item. Should he take the mage’s form or knowledge? That would be cruel to do to an ally, even if it was reversible. And besides, Donnie had always been a physical attacker. In battle, the mage would be better served at a distance while Donnie got in the opponent’s face.

So it was decided. Strikerhood would be his fate. He would save his ally from an eternity of oblivion, no matter what. That sentiment seeped into the prismatic mote of light before him, little by little, and the strength of the monk’s amplified the essence that he found. Like a torch lighting a sputtering candle, or water making a flower bloom, Donnie’s compassion restored that which had become almost nothing. He brought the spirit back, if not quite to life, then at least to existence.

It was...oddly beautiful. He hadn’t really expected something like this, but...he’d done it. He’d truly brought Black Mage back. That was...incredible. He’d have to do this more often.

It wasn’t long before the Black Mage appeared before him, as a specter. He didn’t speak much, apparently, but bowed gratefully before disappearing back into...wherever Strikers went when they weren’t manifested. His Spirit, maybe? He felt a magic bond of some kind between himself and the Black Mage, now. Like he had a guest of sorts.

Then as he walked back to the tower, he began stomping on more demon and zombie spirits along the way and scooping up the items. He was up to ten by the time he reached the doorway. He’d thought of a few things he wanted. A Mistweaver weapon or two, maybe a polearm or staff for if he ever got his Brewmastery back, probably a few guns for Ratchet, he figured Jak needed some Eco, and general reagents for his enchanting and engineering work. Unknown to him, Resonance was kicking in with every idle thought.

Then he put the items away, got his armor cleaned off for the second time, walked into the teleporter, and the world became a bright white.





Donovan hadn’t seen daylight since noon the previous day (not that he knew how much time had passed). The blazing sunlight nearly blinded him, forcing him to shield his eyes as they adjusted. He stepped off the teleporter, the sunlight becoming a bit less dazzling as he walked forward through the town.

It was a peaceful, idyllic-looking place. The polar opposite of the hell he had willingly, and stupidly, walked into.

But he’d think about that later. FIrst, he needed to get some food and board. He was exhausted.



The first thing Donnie did was head to the local inn, the Great Ton Pu, and use a fraction of his copious reserves of gold to rent a room for the day. Once he got inside, he performed the annoying task of taking off his armor and putting away his weapons.

The armor was kept on by a series of straps, all over the body. Most people wearing heavy armor, like knights, usually had someone else put it on, but Donnie’s gear was designed to be removed by the person wearing it. The monk was left in his undersuit, a padded outfit meant to attach the armor to. It was sleeveless. That was something he was going to have to fix, what with how often his arms were getting hit these days. The extra padding would at least protect a little bit more than bare skin.

He collapsed onto the bed, completely spent from the harrowing ordeal of the Dead Zone. His undersuit was drenched in sweat, and cold and damp from the cleaning it got, but he was too exhausted to put on anything else.

He lay there for a good, long while, barely moving. He could feel the minutes ticking by.

But he did not sleep. He was only somewhat tired. His muscles needed the rest, though. He had missed a nice, soft feather bed so much, and it had only been a day.

How much time had he spent in the Dead Zone, anyway? He didn’t wear a watch with his armor, he had no idea how much time had passed. He had certainly spent more than a few hours in the Police Station. Then there was the time spent in transit. It had probably only been past noon when he arrived there, and they had spent some time fighting zombies and demonic insects, then the battle with the massive treant...a lot of things happened even before the police station. Then there was the mad dash to the futuristic tower….

Gods, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was the next day already! And come to think of it, he hadn’t seen most of the Land of Adventure crew since he got here!

One thing was clear. He needed to get his bearings.

With all the energy and grace of an ancient, dying ogre with three limbs missing, he pushed himself off the bed and to his feet, staggering a bit as he did so. After putting his armor in his Luggage and changing into a set of town clothes, tying the sheathed Fists of the Heavens to his belt, he unlocked the door after briefly fiddling with the key, and then repeated the process as he managed to lock it behind him. He took a deep breath as he turned around and took the stairs, arriving in the lobby to find that the inn did not serve food. He’d have to go elsewhere.

And so, he walked around the town that he now knew was Lumbridge due to his talk with the innkeeper, and headed for the nearest restaurant. They paid for everything with gold around here, right? He had plenty of that.

He sat down in his town clothes at Mina’s restaurant and ordered some...wait what the fuck was this menu?!

Steamed hydra rolls?! BBQ DRAGON SHANK?! He had all kinds of questions, most of which MIna put to rest by claiming that those items were only on the menu in her world, because over there, dragons weren’t intelligent and adventurers could hunt hydras for food consistently.

“Screw it, give me the dumplings, the steamed buns, the lizard tail, the curry, the gourd soup, and the sponge roll. And two glasses of ice water and a cup of coffee.”

“That’s...a lot. Are you sure you can eat all of that?”

Donnie looked at her flatly. “I have spent the last twelve hours without food, water, or sleep, fighting off hordes of zombies and demons inside of a destroyed city where the sun literally doesn’t shine. I helped kill a gigantic tree monster, calmed a rampaging ghost, and rescued a bunch of survivors trapped in a city garrison. Trust me, I can eat that much. And probably more.”

Mina laughed. “Well! After a story like that, I think I’ll give you a discount!”

One gorging later, Donnie was feeling...moderately full. To be honest, he was known to eat tons of food, both due to his upbringing on the Wandering Isle and the insane workouts he put his body through in the course of adventuring. But last night had been insane even by those standards. He was hoping he could take some time to at least sleep in the Brothers Grimm once this was over.

Then, he heard a commotion behind him. Turning his head, he saw a small army of what looked like adventurers passing him by.

He quickly paid for his food and walked over to ask about the commotion. A young man in plate armor responded, “Didn’t you hear? The Guildmaster turned evil and kidnapped a bunch of adventurers!”

“I’m new around here,” Donnie replied, “But I get the picture. I’ll go.”

“You’re not even in battle gear--”

“Trust me. I can help.”

And so Donnie went, following the crowd. Not having his armor would hurt when dealing with this “Guildmaster,” but he had a feeling that his friends were the ones kidnapped. If so, he couldn’t allow this to continue.

What. Was. Happening? The madman, the complete lunatic, the insane wildcard that was the Courier, had just bear-hugged the liquor bottle. He...genuinely had no idea what to do, aside from desperately try to avoid the spurts of alcohol that Whiskey was spitting out. It took most of his focus, but thankfully the Courier's absurd attack helped ruin Whiskey's aim, keeping Geralt mostly safe. A few splashes here and there had damn near burned out his Quen shield, but it was still trying its damnedest to keep him alive.

The robot-girl-thing was going to work on the wine glass, and the Courier...maybe?...had the big guy, so who did Geralt try and double up on? He frankly wasn't exactly keen on getting too close to that....whatever that was. Stowing his sword, Geralt decided that he would keep his distance and try and help out from there.

The witcher grabbed his hand crossbow and a bolt, drawing the weapon and taking aim at Whiskey. It wasn't as easy with the damned Courier groping the living bottle, but once he was confident he had a good shot, Geralt fired at the bastard, hoping it would give the Courier an easier time. He kept an eye on their little battle, though, looking for another good spot to try and give the lunatic man a hand.

After a bit of dice rolling the team wound up with a whole four points in Gneidxick’s game and a few piles of items that they’d gotten from the sprites. Kamek thought the pile of various crude farm related items was contrasted nicely with the resplendent stack of gold coins and crystal shards topped off with a singular glowing star. Separate from the piles of kings and peasants there was a third stack containing two unlabeled vials of liquid, three smoke bombs and a chunk of the Thing’s crystalline flesh that seemed to induce calm rather than horror.

”Well that was an interesting haul. Nothing immediately helpful as far as I can tell, but it should be rather useful once we get out for buying things.” Kamek said thoughtfully as he took it all in. Money was always useful, as where strange magic bits and pieces

”Oh hey. You got something to drink!” Jr chimed in as he rejoined them, before grabbing for a bottle of Laudanum

”I suppose we di- wait no!” Kamek began replying before realizing the possible danger of imbibing something that came from an eldritch zombie and making a grab for the bottle. Sadly his aged reflexes were far too slow to halt the Boy from drowning the liquid.

”Blech. Ok. yeah. That was pretty gross, why didn’t you stop me from-” jr began to say to the now very worried mage before pausing briefly to yawn and then continuing to complain, ”stop me from drinking that huh?”

”I tried” Kamek replied with an exasperated sigh before asking ”How do you feel?” as he picked up the other bottle and inspected its label less exterior.

”I’m fine… Well. Kinda tired. Too much running. Also still thirsty. Gimme that other one” Jr replied before making a lazy grab for the second bottle.

”What? No!” Kamek said as held the bottle away from Jr ”Young master you cannot simply go around drinking things from unmarked bottles like that. It’s dangerous! Right sire?”

”Huh what?” Bowser(who had been attempting to absorb the Starite
as if it was a power star while the other two Koopas argued) said upon hearing his name before replying, ”Uh. Yeah. Sure. Listen to Kamek Junior,” having missed the entire context of what they were arguing about.

”Gah fine,” Jr groaned in response, his speech having become rather sluggish, before adding ”Then I’m gonna go take a nap then,”

From this he could not be dissuaded and so after a few moments Jr could be found laying belly down on the plush carpet snoring away with his head and limbs tucked away inside his shell, with only his new horn poking out the front.

After he was checked by the white mage Kameks to make sure he did not require healing Kamek instructed his clones, Mimikyu and a summoned swarm of Dry bones (who crawled their way out of the explosion damaged section of the table) to stand guard over the boy while the two elder Koopas got ready to head for another portal.

While they were doing so Linkle pointed out something seemingly obvious that they had all none the the less glossed until she brought it to their attention. Gneidxick’s eyes weren't red.

”Huh. Yeah that’s weird.” Bowser said to Kamek before pointing out the other obvious thing to the rest of the group which was that ”NEITHER WHERE HIS’S GOON’S”

”Interesting. Putting this together with what he said before about losing bets and seekers it seems Galeem‘s conquest was not quite as absolute as it seemed. Maybe it’s the dark magic resisting cloaks that spared them? Or others got away however our pink friend did. hmm” Kamek pondered aloud as he stroked his chin thoughtfully.

”Ha. Yeah he did lose a bet to someone didn't he. Guess the house doesn't always win huh. Whoever bet on us winning must be way smarter than this blockhead.” Bowser said mockingly,

”Perhaps. It would be very interesting to meet more of this gentleman's gambling partners that I can say for sure.” Kamek noted before turning his attention back to the glowing portals ”Ah well, we can speculate and ask questions later once we have the upper hand. For now, as someone who holds the coveted title of Game Mage, I’m very interested in playing this little game of his. If you would also like to do so Sire?”

”You’re the only one uh, ‘speculating’ here but sure. Let’s go see who else he’s got in this boss rush of his.” Bowser agreed before shouting ”THERE BETTER NOT BE ANY TREADMILLS IN THIS ONE!” up at Gneidxick.

With that all said and done the pair stepped through another portal together, only this time it did not end up shutting behind them. They left behind a bunch of rather stupid minions (and Mimikyu) guarding the sleeping jr, a collection of items with varying usefulness and a glittering pile of treasure.

While the dry bones ambled around as was their proclivity, the white mage Kameks darted around healing anyone who came out of their portals injured and the red mage stood to attention over Jr’s sleeping form the green one approached the pile of farming items. It paused for a moment, magical automaton mind whirring away as it identified a pattern within the pile, and then set to work building something out of the items found within.

@DracoLunaris@Lugubrious@Yankee

---

Linkle looked back and forth as the Koopa's started speculating. Well, while one speculated and the other bragged. Bowser did have a point though. Linkle thought back to the fight she's just been in, and whether the cigar boys eyes had been some other color than the normal one. It was useless though. She hadn't really been looking that thing in the eyes, just being in that room had made her own eyes hurt.

As Bowser and Kamek chose their own portal and Junior got all tuckered out and nestled into the soft plush tabletop for the worlds most inappropriate nap, Linkle realized something important; she no longer had the option of yelling at the guildmaster. Besides, that comment about letting her friends do all the work stung. She didn't even realize that was probably the intention, to spur her into action.

"My point is," she said, her voice low so as not to wake the child. "You don't have to do this."

She turned around and started walking toward another portal, making a brief stop by the slumbering Junior and the Kamek collectives little building project. Junior had changed, she notice, his new features strikingly familiar. "Guess you wanted to be as big and strong as your dad, huh?" She said softly, whipping off her cloak and laying it gently over him. It sort of made him blend in with the table. "I'm gonna need this one back though, okay?"

There was no doubt in her mind that the boy would be fine. She'd be worried if he'd already gotten huge, but until that happened she was positive he was safe. There was no way the guildmaster was just gonna step on him. He couldn't. Destiny had plans for Junior beyond this.

As she stood up the white Kamek came up and worked a little magic, the red splotches she'd gotten from her close encounter with the the long white Keese on vanishing. "Thanks a lot, other Grandpa." She said. That just left the holes. She would need to find another tailor after this.

For now, though? Onward!

She ran up to the portals again, considering whether to take a portal she hadn't seen anyone enter or help someone out. She didn't enjoy the thought of leaving her allies to fight all on their own. It was an idea that had never felt right to her. If every monster here was on the same level as that smoky jerk then they weren't anything the individual members of the group couldn't handle, but that was no reason to get overconfident. Peach had almost gotten thrown into the fire last time, after all. She'd saved herself but it had been a close thing. On the other hand if they wanted to clear the game quickly it made more sense to take an empty fight, and Linkle very much believed this was a situation that needed to be over quickly.

She ran down the portals, staring through the outlines until she found one that didn't appear as though it had anyone in it yet. She nodded to herself, the turned to wave to the Kameks and Cadet as she stepped through.

Koopa king and royal wizard traversed their next portal to wind up on a colorful table in some sort of tent. Will starry patterns and royal silks, it gave an air of mystique only enhanced by the flowers and bones arrayed on the table's corners. Roses and playing cards floated aimlessly in the background, with one large ace of spades in particular hovering above the tabletop as a sort of platform, and an upside-down black top hat stood in a prominent position. Before any questions could be aired, Gneidxick's hand reached down from above and, with very little ceremony, pulled a rabbit from the hat.

This bunny was anything but cute, though. Wearing a bright blue suit and a demented grin as he rocked back and forth, he waved around a magician's wand. “Woohoohoohoohoo...hoohoo!” He span his wand and rabbit skulls faded into existence in circle formations around the intruders. A final flick of the wrist manifested them and started them closing in, with the grin of Hopus Pocus widening to reveal a mouthful of needle fangs as he did.



As brave as they'd been to confront the unknown by stepping through the portal, the friends had not been prepared for the bizarre scene found within. Maybe it brought back visions from last night, of a vast and phantasmagorical cosmos swirling with madness, or maybe they just had a phobia of billiards, but neither Michael nor Franklin took action before Mangosteen's glimmering projectile burst at their feet. The kinetic force and spraying colors knocked them off their feet, at which Mangosteen's great grin got even wider. “Bah hah hah? You lunks ain't never seen the likes o' me, huh? Get 'em, boys!” At the 8-ball's urging, the chalks bounded toward the two soon-to-be pancakes with glee on their faces.



Thoroughly sloshed and by no means a combatant to begin with, Martini offered minimal resistance to Gaige-tron as the pulled off her maneuver and toppled like a bowling pin. Her booze flowed around the robot's shield as planned, and its depletion plus the impact left her dazed and sluggish as she lay on the ground. Her olive rolled out and lay on the stained tablecloth, no threat at all, and judging by her lack of motion Martini seemed just as harmless.

That left Whiskey. The defeat of his fellow Tipsy Troopers didn't appear to stir him up or anything; he continued to rain down whiskey bombs. While Geralt focused on evasion, the Courier took every hit that came his way—a glutton for punishment, it seemed, or maybe just intoxication. As high as his resistance was, 6 didn't get away scotch-free, thanks to the chemical burning and the raw impact of the heavy liquid orbs. With the power of Inferno, however, he gave Whiskey some burning back. “Whuh...aaaaah!” the glass bellowed, struggling to break free of the gunslinger's dogged grip. “Off! Off! Ow, ow, ow ow!”

His top came off and whiskey started to flow at a low pressure, gushing out to drizzle like a waterfall over the glass and his fiery hanger-on. A crossbow bolt to the eye, however, put an end to what precious little composure Whiskey had left. He fell over backward and hit the table hard enough to knock him straight out, and just like that the last member of the Tipsy Troop had been beaten.



Something about what Linkle said before leaving to challenge another one of his fights left Gneidxick staring after her, his near-two-dimensional face pulling together to form a morose expression. “That's where you're wrong, doll,” he said aloud and to nobody in particular, instead confirming it for himself. “I surely have to. If I don't keep on doin' what he did...what I did...that man, that 'other', is gone. Like he never existed. An' what does that make me, now...?” He laid his hand against his chest, teeth clenched like he knew they should be. No beat, no warmth, no signs of life. A hollow shell, an elaborate masquerade. “Nothin'. Nothin' at all.”

Peach and Ace Cadet watched, confused. The entire character of the former-guildmaster-now-known-as-Gneidxick had completed changed. He spoke in a flat tone, barely moving, and acting in stark contrast to the over-the-top, constantly active fellow from earlier. What emotion he did show seemed forced, like he knew that he should be acting a certain way, but didn't actually feel like it. The two looked at one another for any sign of comprehension, but neither knew what his deal was. Maybe he didn't notice the two were there? They had retreated behind one of the giant poker chips to recovery without drawing his attention. Peach in particular raced to try and figure out what he meant, but Gneidxick's words carried no import to her, only vague existential angst. Still, there had to be some clue.

After a minute or so Gneidxick turned his attention on Bowser Jr, deep in the clutches of a drug-induced sleep on his table. One of the casino's patrons, a white-haired demoness with one wing, a tall glass of purple liquor, and elbows on the table, had been watching for any action but fallen asleep from boredom. Gneidxick fixed his eyes on the young koopa without any sort of sign as to what he was thinking. “Would he...er, I have kicked a child while he was down...?” he ended up asking himself. Junior's guards did not appear to factor in to his calculation. Still, the matter took some thought to sort out. “...Naw, I don't think so. Hear that, half-pint? It ain't in the cards, so you can sleep easy.”

More time passed. Eventually one of the portals divulged its challengers, and Gneidxick whirled to look in eager anticipation. Unfortunately, while Tora was semi-conscious as best, neither he, his artificial blade, or her diminutive pet seemed much worse for wear. That meant another minion down for the count. Gneidxick sighed. “Cleaned Chips' clock too now, have ya? Big whoop. Odds were stacked from the start.” He shrugged an arm at the pink die. “Hurry up an' roll, chumps.”

Poppi laid Tora down by Bowser Jr and approached. Gneidxick found himself treated to a serious, determined look. “Big cube man have weak goons. Feel more like chore than boss fight. Why have to ruin perfectly good morning?” She punched the die.

“Three.” Gneidxick remarked, mildly aghast at his bad luck. With that, the challengers' point total rose to seven, just a half-dozen spaces away from victory. Since fights with Mr. Chimes, Mangosteen, Hopus Pocus, Pirouletta, and the Tipsy Troop were already in progress, it seemed impossible that the game would last more than another couple minutes. “Applesauce!” Huffing, the highroller turned up his nose at Poppi's question. “Like a tin can like you would know your onions. Machines ain't got a self to lose. Betcha wouldn't know a heart if it caved in that fake face of yours.”

Croagunk burbled angrily and looked at Poppi, asking to let Gneidxick have it. The blade, however, looked crestfallen, staring at the fuzzy green ground. After a moment, though, her brow furrowed. She thought about Rex and Pyra, Nia and Dromarch, Zeke, Pandoria, Morag, Bridghid, Vandham, Haze, and the rest. About Tora. A pink heart blossomed above her metal palm. She looked into the eyes of the purple-suited giant, unwavering, and told him, “You'd lose.”

Gneidxick was quiet. His lip curled, and he glowered down at Poppi. “You's lucky I ain't the envious type,” he said. “But you can bet I ain't forgettin' about this, either.”

It was a good time for a snappy comeback, but Poppi couldn't think of anything, so turned and went back to Tora to wait for the others. Peach, meanwhile, remained on alert. For a moment it looked as though Gneidxick would attack Poppi, but instead the highroller chose to bide his time. For now, she could only continue to rescue with her questions. Just as Linkle pointed out, Gneidxick did not have red eyes, yet he hadn't been freed by a Friend Heart and Galeem's attack had decimated everything in existence. Could he, like the Master of Masters who wore the same coat as he did, have been in a sort of non-existent limbo at the time? Peach knew that she would get her answers, one way or another, when this dangerous game was over.



Linkle's portal brought herself onto a roulette table in the midst of a great black void, curtained in red and carpeted by fog. Countless white gloves floated in the space, holding martini glasses, betting chips, and money. Three extra-large chips floated just above the table itself. Before the girl posed a tall dancer of golden metal, the frill of whose dress took on the shape of a roulette wheel. With her opponent present and ready to battle, Pirouletta bowed before starting to move. She whirled around in a dangerous waltz across the floor, threatening to strike Linkle down with swift, focused blows.



Jak's scattergun made short work of the glass holding tank before him, allowing the liquid suspension to rush out through the rupture and carrying the alien along with it. Exposure to the air garnered a reaction from the thing, but it began weakly, thrashing and writhing a little. It wasn't until about the fifteen-second mark that it levitated into the air. It barely moved in the physical sense, but it started generating an odd humming noise that undulated in pitch. All of a sudden the noise surged massively and a wave of psychic energy radiated outward, inflicting confusion on those who remained too close but doing no damage otherwise.

The last of the survivors, however, were evacuating well away from where the heroes were messing with aliens. Once everyone else went, the corpulent dragon tried his luck, and thanks to the engineering of both Dell and Ratchet the teleporter held. The dragon breathed a sigh of relief before vanishing to safety. After him, only fighters remained. Leon went next, then Val, then Kai, then Ukyo, Jill, Louis, Ghalt, Death -who'd been speaking with Jones in low tones before Jones' departure earlier-, and Eddie. Finally, it fell to Captain Howard to head through himself. He looked back at the heroes, who'd gotten the zaurum alien under control. “I wanted to thank you all. You really came through for us. If not for you folks, all these people would probably be dead. Come through whenever you like, but make sure you get some rest.” Joker told everyone that he'd be staying behind to take care of some unfinished business. Clearly Howard disliked the idea. “That's a terrible idea, son. Going back out there alone? I insist you come with us to safety, even if just for a while.” But Joker would not be swayed, and he was on his way before Howard could consider force. “Well...you stay safe,” he said, his tone suggesting exactly how likely he felt that was.

Joker stepped outside a moment later. Ahead lay the sundered market avenue, awash in the ashes and fading spirits of hell's legion. At the far end hell's janitor fought still, picking off the last few survivors of the horde. The Doom Slayer ripped apart the belly of a Mancubus, inserted the barrel of his shotgun, and sent the demon's vile head flying into several places at once. A Qliphoth Root stood to the north, and another to the south, and a good distance further in the southwest towered the immense Qliphoth itself. The branches of the colossal demon tree snaked up, up, up, through the perennially dark sky and disappeared into the clouds. With the monsters disposed of and the stench of death absent from the air, this stretch of the Dead Zone enjoyed a brief moment of peace. If not for the visage of ruin everywhere Joker looked, this could have been any other night in the city. But the peace did not set him at ease. Somewhere out there were his friends, Ryuji and Ann, and they needed his help.

“Admiring the view? A different sort of artist, seeing this, might want to make it a vista for a painting.”

To Joker's right, a man in a long black coat and gloves sat at the top of the stairs leading to the main door. He must have been looking at the young man given the direction of his head, but nothing could be seen in the darkness beneath his hood. He was leaning against a crate of some kind, his elbow on its top so that his hand could prop up his head, making him seem altogether comfortable despite the nightmarish atmosphere of the Dead Zone.

“Alas, I feel so hollow nowadays.” The stranger's voice sounded mournful. “Nothing inspires. Not even the bloodbath wrought by that savage.” He chuckled, dry and humorless. “I don't imagine that's why you're still here, though. Alone you stand no chance of clearing the way to this region's lord, let alone dethroning him. You must have a purpose of your own.” A wistful sigh issued from him. “I'm jealous. Tell me...what do you seek, if not the light?”

---

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Level: 2
EXP 0/20
Word Count: 257
Current Location: Dead Zone, Argent Tower

---

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Stepping outside, he was impressed seeing that the Doom Slayer had cleared out the majority of undead around the tower. The soldier was still at it even, getting rid of the remaining, so there was something Joker didn't have to worry about. In the moment of peace, he thought about what the Dead Zone could have been before everything went to Hell. Literally. The young thief was also reminded of back when he was still in Tokyo, though the thought was bittersweet concidering the circumstance.

He sighed. The sooner he can find his friends, the sooner they can all get to safety. He'll worry about hearing it from Howard later. Thinking about grabbing a few fading spirits on the way, Joker was about to head down the steps when his atention was turned to a black-cloaked figure on his right. He crossed his arms as the figure talked to him. "We had to prioritize getting everyone out of here over fighting the leader of this place. For now, atleast." The thief said, in response to his remark that Joker wouldn't be able to fight the lord of the Dead Zone alone. It wasn't really worth arguing about it at that point.

"And, well, you learn not to worry about the light when you stick to the shadows often. Anyways, I'm just looking for my friends. I was hoping my investigation into the killer hiding here would lead me to them, but I guess not." Joker explained, shrugging. "What about you? Any reason you're staying behind?" He asked.

During the Phantom Thief's response the hooded stranger maintained a polite silence, though his comment about light versus shadows elicited a slight tilt of the head. Joker finished by turning the question back on his questioner, which was fair, although the man in black could not guarantee reciprocity. Couched within his words, however, was another revealing piece of information, useful indeed.

“Well, I have nothing to fear from the vermin of this area,” the black-robed savant explained. “So I have no reason to waver from my assigned post. Just like those new friends of yours, I'm here to ensure the demise of Galeem's champion.”

He looked upward, to where a light shone in the distance, faintly visible even through the clouds. “Ah...the Lord of Light. That which made dreams a reality. Should we all be so fortunate!” He let slip another laugh, his accented voice low. “A pity you left before someone could free you from his grip. Still, far be it from me to turn you back. In fact, I may be of some help.”

The savant rose to his feet. “It just so happens I know where this man...this 'killer', has your friends. I've been tracking him too. He took a number of people, thinking that he might arrange a beautifully gruesome spectacle, but his heart was not in it. They're alive in a hotel, not far from here.” He extended a hand to Joker to shake. “With the two of us, we can save them. Me as the decoy, you as the operator. Shall we go together?”

---

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Level: 2
EXP 0/20
Word Count: 162
Current Location: Dead Zone, Argent Tower (Outside)

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Joker listened as the black-cloaked man told him his reason in staying behind, that he shared the same goal as the thief's new allies. Though he was aware off the winged-sun-god that dragged most of everyone into this mess, the thief was unaware that Galeem had a "champion". As the man talked about Galeem, he saw a faint light among the clouds in the distance. Though Joker rose a brow in confusion when he mentioned that he unfortunately left before someone could free him from the entity's grip. What could he mean by that, he wondered. Though he could ponder later, the savant revealed to the thief that he knew where his friends went.

His eyed widened when the savant explained that he was tracking down the same target as him, offering that they both work together to free them, and everyone else that the killer(?) took. Joker hesitated to think for a moment, then shook the man's hand. "Let's do it."

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YES! FALL TO THE GROUND! SMASH YOURSELF UPON THE FLOOR OF ANARCHY! MWAHAHAHAHA!” Gaige-tron delighted in the defeat of the martini glass, retracting the pickaxe arm into itself and rolling around in a circle flailing about in a mad cheer. The eradishield generator powered down and the robot looked on at what its master was doing, only to be… Not so impressed. “Master, why are you hugging that thing?!”

Of course as bizarre as it was, Whiskey was clearly in some intense pain, but there was only so much flailing a glass bottle could do to shake off a gripping predator. The Courier laughed maniacally right into the bottle’s ear as he pressed his burning flesh against the thing’s face. Then his fun came to an end as a single crossbow bolt shot into the bottle’s eye, knocking it out.

The Courier landed on the ground with a snarl, leveling his eyes to the witcher that had just been a nasty little “kill stealer.” The burns of his flesh revealed small patches of shining metal beneath the skin, glinting in the dim casino light. He spat out on the table and strode toward Geralt with clear murderous intent. ”What the FUCK was that?! I had that hombre, ya fuckin’ back-end of a brahmin!” He raised up his fist, ready to clock Geralt right in the jaw. His anger radiated more than he blazing heat of his body, and that already was enough to make a man sweat! But he caught himself. He held his fist in the air breathing like a winded horse.

After a moment the Courier put his hand down and growled, ”This chem needs some work on balancin’ the serotonin and acetylcholine. Too much aggression.” After a few more deep breaths the Courier seemed to have cleared his mind. He signalled for Gaige-tron to follow him back through the portal. Though he appeared much more calm now, he was still radiating heat, clearly under the effects of the chem he had just taken. He was able to calm himself this time, but any little thing could possibly set him off.

”Apologies, hombre. Ain’t good manners,” he muttered to Geralt as he passed by. Together he and Gaige-tron hopped back on through and reappeared before the die-headed asshole who started this whole mess.

”I’ll take a whack at that die, if’n ya don’t mind,” he said to Geralt. Courier 6 then smacked the pink die… a little more forcefully than was entirely necessary. He was going to be quite happy when the Inferno was out of his system. Too unstable.

---

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Jak watched carefully as the jellyfish like alien rushed out of the tank, ready to pull the trigger at a moment’s notice. For the most part it just flopped and thrashed around in place, like an actual jellyfish would once removed from water. ”Yeesh, not much of a threat or help, eh? Might be best just to put it out of its misery!” Daxter suggested. Jak took the advice into consideration, but then again the bee alien took a moment to recover from the tank too, so he didn’t want to be too hasty.

That proved to be a poor choice as after about fifteen seconds the thing rose up into the air, flying under its own power with no wings to speak of, and started to hum. Suddenly the hum became a shriek and psychic energy lashed out! It struck Jak, Daxter, and anybody else too close, washing over their brains with a wave of confusion.

”I’m a little teapot, short and stout!” Daxter began singing, wildly off key as he danced around drunkenly. ”Pour me some milk from the teat of a yakow!”

Jak stumbled around a bit himself, but did his best to keep the scattergun trained on the alien. He felt woozy, but it wasn’t going to completely negate his effectiveness in battle. Plus, the scattergun’s side area of effect made precision a total nonissue. He pulled the trigger, blasting the thing with a potent shot of red eco. The creature was blasted into the ground and died, while everyone recovered from the psychic attack.

”Woah, what was that?!” Daxter remarked, sitting up from where he had fallen off balance. ”Bottle that up and sell it to the slums and I’ll bet you can make a fortune!”

”Some sort of psychic attack,” Jak commented, picking up the spirit. ”I don’t think it did any lasting damage though.” He looked at the two remaining creatures in the pods, the long tailed alien beast and the red dinosaur looking creature. So far they were one for two as far as friendliness of the captives went, and even the “friendly” one started out attacking them and was unpleasant, to say the least. Still, he wasn’t going to step down from a challenge.

”Looks like you had some bad luck with that one,” Ratchet commented, approaching with his wrench held out. ”If I had to guess, I’d say this one-” he tapped his wrench against the tank with the long tailed creature, ”-probably isn’t sentient. Jury’s out on the other one, though. But I could use more guns to replace my lost arsenal, so why not join you?”

Jak nodded while Daxter rolled his eyes and stepped aside, wanting nothing to do with that madness. Ratchet smashed the tank holding the saurian, while Jak crushed the alien’s spirit into his morph gun and then smashed the tank holding the beast. Daxter opted instead to talk to the bee woman.

”Don’t think that I’ve forgotten about you miss high and mighty!” he said, pointing dramatically. ”I’ll have you know that I’m only like this because of a nasty tree spirit my friend forced into me. As my normal, glamorous self, they call me… Orange Lightning! Z-z-z-zing!” He took a heroic looking pose, one that would have been rather laughable even in his normal form, nevermind the added foliage growing from his fur. ”We’ll see what you have to say once I get back to Peach and she returns me to my hunky normal self. Besides, ya ain’t much to look at yourself, toots.”

Linkle looked around as she stepped into the room, her cucoos congregating around her feet. The ambiance was certainly different from the last room, but in its own way this was a whole lot worse. Being surrounded by a bunch of disembodied hands wasn't the height of comfort for her considering the circumstances.

Her opponent was at least more comfortable to look at. Tall and sleek, made of shiny gold instead of weird brown plant matter. Really tall. at least twice as tall as Linkle if she had to guesstimate. The golden girl gave a short bow, one Linkle returned, before taking a dancers pose and moving across the surface of the table with a quick one-two one-two motion of the feet that that let her gide over the green table-top as though it were made of ice. Linkle completely misjudged how fast the dancer would be coming at her, and there was very little room on this arena to maneuver. Linkle dashed to the side, her birds scattering in all directions with only one sticking close to her. One was unlucky, being caught by the swift toes of the dancer and kicked into a nearby stack of poker chips that collapsed around it. The dancer didn't seem to pay this any mind as she continued to pursue Linkle around the outer edges of the table, gaining ground with each deft movement.

Knowing it wouldn't be long before she got trampled Linkle bent down and scooped up the cucoo running with her. She threw it fluttering into the air in front of her like a shot put, jumping up after it and catching it by the legs. She and the cucoo swung forward, sending linkle flying into the air like a trapeze artist as she pulled out her crossbows. The dancer stopped her movements, looking up to see Linkle flying above her as the cucoo fluttered down into the rim of her skirt. Linkle twisted herself, spinning as she unleashed a rain of arrows straight down on her. She raised up her noodly arms to defend herself but they proved to not be up to the task. Only a few bolts were caught in them, the rest piercing down into the checkerboard top of her skirt or leaving need nicks and scratches in her body. She bared her teeth, from where Linkle wasn't entirely sure, and then stopped moving.

Or at least that's how it looked from Linkle's perspective. Linkle, though, was spinning. It took her a moment to realize but the motion she'd taken to be the dancer defending herself from Linkle's bolts was actually the preparations for a pirouette, and as she began to spin with Linkle she launched her counterattack. Ball appeared inside the dancers skirt and were launched straight up into the air at her. One slammed right through her bolt rain, catching Linkle in the shoulder and sending her twisting about. The another. Then another as she was juggled between them. It was like falling out of tree, sliding between branches as they all took their turn punishing you for daring to climb it. Then she felt something soft and feathery hit her in the gut and instinctively held on.

That dancer had thrown her own cucoo at her! The shock of the hit sent her straight up, through. She was knocked momentraily out of the juggle, able to see down through the through the balls. The tip of one of her crossbows flashed red as she pointed it down and shot a bomb arrow directly into the divet atop the dancers head, as though it were made for that. The bomb exploded, blowing apart the dancers headpiece and stopping her attack. Linkle quickly holstered one of her bows and grabbed the cucoos legs with one hand, parachuting down amid the balls that still rained from above.

The hit the ground and turned back to face the dancer, her golden body contorting back and forth ways metal simply couldn't. Her headpiece was a charred, smoking ruin. "I've got a friend you should meet. I feel like you guys would have a lot to talk about." Linkle said, trying to keep her opponent from seeing how much pain she was in. "So, do I win?"

The dancer stopped contorting, bolt covered hands gripping the crown of her head, and looked down at Linkle with black, angry eyes. "Nyet." she whispered, retaking a dancers pose.

"I guess that means no?" Linkle said, raising her crossbows again. She could already feel the bruises spreading across her body.

"Da."

"Okay. Say when."