Geralt groaned as Blazermate's healing beam closed his wound, the wound disappearing in a mere moment. "Thanks for the help." He gruffly commented, giving the medabot a nod as he took off back into the fray, only to realize that the battle was essentially already over. Screwing his face up in faux frustration, the Witcher set about collecting a few Spirits from the Primids before sighing. He made sure to grab the Armight's spirits as well, wondering what he could do with them. He hadn't really stopped to think on these spirits much, let alone consider what they could do for him.

Still, now was, yet again, not quite the time to deal with that problem. They had more important issues to deal with, whatever those ended up actually being. This G-rank hunt was already showing to be quite the problem, and this was only the beginning.

As they moved through the canyon, Geralt found himself reminded of his short journey through worlds with Avallac'h. Strange landscapes that would have been impossible back on the Continent or the Skellige Isles. It was almost as if their path had been tailor-made to both allow them passage, and force them to abandon their vehicles. Curious as he found that, Geralt pressed on with the others. The tunnel they found themselves entering made him uneasy, too many memories of drowners and nekkers making residence in caves coming to mind.

As they came upon the valley, Geralt found himself somewhat perplexed at the massive stone head that watched over them. His own head cocked to the side for a moment, before the Master Hand appeared. The shield that appeared around him was both familiar and not, causing Geralt to frown. The voice that came out of nowhere shortly after, however, made the Witcher scowl. Did he say THIRTEEN? That meant they had a dozen more powerful enemies to fight, more powerful than anything he'd faced since appearing here?

Of course there were.

The bright flash of light nearly fried Geralt's pupils, but he averted his eyes, blinking as the tower faded into existence. "Wonderful." He deadpanned. Another sorceror. What was with those bastards and their towers, anyway?!

The figures atop it, however, gave him pause. Most of them were wielding weapons similar to the Courier's and Michael's oversized 'rifle.' Frowning as he vaguely recognized Link as yet another of those damned hero kids, Geralt sighed. There was no way he could get at them from down here. They were nearly a hundred meters up, and there was more than enough distance between here and just the base of the spiraling mountain where they could be picked off.

All that thought went out the window when Peach yelled, Geralt reacting without caring why. He moved, avoiding the incoming fire, and took cover behind the crest of a small hill, looking around for a way to get closer. He didn't fail to notice Euden getting speared by the strange projectiles, nor him turning into a gods-be-damned statue! If one hit was all it took, Geralt was at a crippling disadvantage. There was no way he could approach without getting shot, and he had nothing at hand that could help. A couple of grapeshot bombs, some dimeritium, Cat, and Swallow. Only his Hanged Man's Venom would be of any use, and that still required him to both get close, and cut them with his sword without being crushed to death by that giant troll with a bow!

Cursing to himself, Geralt looked to the others as they started using the resources available to them to create distractions, advance on their enemies, or in Linkle's case, rescue their ally.

Now's as good a time as any, he thought. As the others acted, Geralt charged forward, his eyes watching the enemies above, and broke into the rank of shambling once-dead humanoids that Blazermate had summoned. He wasn't one for necromancy, but he'd let Yennefer mostly get away with it, and this woman had just helped save his life, after all.

Besides, weren't these just...spirits? Not really living souls anymore? Just husks? Yeah, that was fine. Probably.

The sudden, drastic increase of danger, along with the instantaneous elimination of Euden, hit the newcomers like a sledgehammer. They collectively rushed behind cover. Two shots spaced mere milliseconds apart missed Bowser by just a hair, narrowly missing his head and shell as he pivoted directions. If two sharpshooters hadn't happened to pick the same target, one would have struck Banjo and Kazooie as they went up before taking shelter. Instead, one of Link's arrows arrived just late, pinging off the stone by Banjo's feet. Given the travel time of black arrows fired by the bow, he must have guessed their path and barely misjudged it. In a few moments everyone was gone, and the game had begun. The situation looked grim. Yet, the challengers would not be heroes if they let themselves be rocked by the realization of the challenge now facing them. Instead they rolled out, a number of the heroes immediately deploying their minions and proxies to distract and work against the snipers.

One of the trees swelled with magic, growing many times its size. Kameks flew beneath its branches, one of which took a shot the next instant from the Sniper. “Pah,” he snorted as he reloaded his bolt-action rifle. “Decoys.”

“Don't waste time on anything with more than one copy,” Imani advised, having just destroyed a Toadie. With no spirit of its own, the summon poofed into nonexistence like the Kamek clone her ally shot. A pack of zombies advanced from where Blazermate holed up, Geralt hidden amid their ranks, unknown to the snipers. She figured that Gough and Link together probably could take down the tree, but their focus would no doubt be better spent elsewhere. “Pick your targets.”

Wordlessly Quiet shifted her aim from the beetle attempting to lug Euden's trophy from where it fell, just as a couple Toadies arrived to help. Any hero spending time on recovery wasn't spending it on offense, narrowing down the number of threats the snipers needed to deal with and creating a neat order of priorities. If the heroes focused on revival, they would not win the race. She watched a transformed Bowser scamper across the open ground, almost fall to a led shot from Gough, and then disappear behind the tree. Everyone could hear the racket he created while climbing, making his course of action obvious. She did not worry. Despite the tree's newfound size even the reach of its thinnest, high branches fell short of the tower. If Bowser reared his face, he wouldn't be able to feel it for long.

A few sounds reached the snipers' nest, including the yelling of Banjo and as he floated up behind the protection of the mountain spires bordering the area, and the ringing of Bowser's bell, not nearly as loud as its wearer might have hoped. First to show up however, was the Koopa King's son, popping out from the canopy of the embiggened tree with a Pokemon at his side. The End locked on only to find out his quarry appeared with an attack already loaded, nothing less than a mimicry of Gough's own greatbow, and it fired the instant it hit sunlight. Copying a move at full power did not mean copying the skill it took to use it, however, and the speed with which Mimikyu loosed the arrow meant it didn't get any time to aim. Momentarily wary, the End judged that the arrow would miss the second it fired, and he pulled the trigger. He didn't even need to think about his choice of target; only one of the attackers showed off the ability to fly. Junior and his clown car went down a half-second later, Mimikyu flying off the rigid trophy as it plummeted. Its arrow hit the tower itself, lower than intended, shaking the structure and dislodging a few stone bricks. For a brief moment, the snipers could not fire as they focused on keeping their footing.

A couple seconds later, Banjo and Kazooie flew out from behind cover, having reached the apex of their Trowlon juice-assisted ascent in safety. The high walls surrounding the valley itself allowed them to get high enough without risk of getting shot, but now it meant they needed to cover a lot of air to reach the Tower. Imani scoped in on them and started to fire. Her shots came close -too close- but the duo kept up a constant torrent of aerial maneuvers to throw off the sniper's aim. Imani missed several times, reloading between each shot. The Sniper smirked, his gaze otherwise trained on where Linkle was hiding, and he shifted to the left to avoid a thrown Bytan Ball that bounced off the floor and over the other side. “Ya need a hand?”

“Shh...” Gough whispered. He seemed intent on something, but wasn't aiming at anything in particular. A Bytan ball bounced harmlessly off him, and he didn't even notice. “Someone talketh to herself. An attack hitherto unseen, thought to be able to eliminate us.” The giant briefly pointed at the boulder behind which Blazermate prepared her assault.

The End grunted, then shifted his aim to watch out for her. He didn't flinch as the last couple Bytan Balls hurled by Banjo rebounded off the battlements with twin pongs. Gough, however, wasn't done listening. “Thou art moving swiftly...” he murmured, albeit to nobody who could hear him. “Staying, it would seem, out of sight. Yet I need not see thee. The beat of thy wings...” After confirming his target, he nocked a great arrow and pulled back on his bow's mammoth string. “Betrays thee.”

He loosed his arrow at the hat of the giant Gruntilda head. It ripped through the old, improfessionally-laid bricks, collapsing the hat's entire upper third in a shower of dust and green rubble. In so doing he flushed Sectonia from her cover, perhaps even stunning her with the shock. In that moment Quiet took her shot.

Meanwhile, Banjo and Kazooie got a little too close. Link turned and loosed an arrow that practically grazed Kazooie's head. Imani stood unwavering in their path, her scope trained on Banjo. This time she wouldn't miss, and Kazooie knew it. Rather than take the shot she dove downward, narrowly escaping elimination as she went for the moat. Link stepped toward the edge of the tower and shot downward, his arrow exploding in spherical blue blast when it hit the surface of the water.

Next up, Blazermate emerged to unleash her medibeam. With nothing to go off but her own intuition, her attack turned out to be inopportune. Having lain in waiting, the End put her in his sights. She would fire the next second, and the End could have shot just then, but instead he gauging her trajectory with an expert's eyes. “Down,” he grumbled to Imani.

Having been frustrated with her inability so far to hit Banjo and Kazooie, the huntress was out of the zone enough to hear him, and she ducked just in time to avoid a brilliant ray of pure power blazing forth. “Whoa!” For a solid couple of seconds the beam remained, radiant in its deadliness, and the moment it petered out the End fired. Weakened by her attack and not yet back to safety, Blazermate went down.

Tora leaned back, having been using a bush by the cliff wall to shield his surveillance, and plopped down with his back to the rock by Linkle. He took a deep breath, unsteady. Already some of his friends had leaped into the action, and a couple paid the price for it by becoming trophies. He knew he missed the chance to rush out and start doing something along with the first wave, when the snipers' attention would be the most divided. Unfortunately, he just couldn't think of anything to do. Even Geralt, just about as close to an ordinary man as you could get with this group, used his brain by joining Blazermate's zombie pack. Tora couldn't exactly do that now, although even if he did he figured he'd stand out pretty strongly among that group. More or less on his own, with his steadfast partner Poppi several hundred feet away behind a hill, he lacked options. “What to do, what to do? Meh, meh, meh!” he fretted, watching Linkle drag Euden in. When he got close enough Tora moved over to help pull the petrified prince behind cover, at which point he took Bowser's advice and smacked the trophy on the base. A golden light shone from it as it dissolved, and with a vwoooooo Euden turned back to normal.

“What in the world was that? Some kind of cursed arrow?”

Though poised to shake his head, Tora thought better of it and just nodded. “Shootypons taking down anything that moves. If friends stand still in open for even short moment, we cooked.” He glanced over to where Poppi hunkered down. The artificial blade waved to him, so close and yet so far. Without her to channel ether into it, his drill shield retained only a fraction of its former power. After the way the black arrow went through Euden and his armor, Tora did not want to see if blocking worked. For the first time Tora regretted not getting any new powers or strikers.

At about the same time, Peach stepped out from behind Bowser's tree. Using a broken-off branch as a bat, she wound up and slammed a grenade in the direction of the tower, then dove for cover as shot from the Sniper blasted the ground between her feet. For that stunt time she called upon her vast sports history as Peach rather than any power of Mr. Grimm, and it did not fail her. The grenade zipped through the air to explode against the base of the stone tower, a home run by anyone's account. It didn't directly harm the snipers, or even leave them unsteady, but every little bit helped. And Peach couldn't really do much else.

That lit a lightbulb over Tora's head. “Meeeh,” he murmured, thoughtfully. “If friends keep at it, maybe can knock over tower. Am going to try it.” The Nopon gave a resolute nod, only to glance nervously at Linkle a moment later. “If Tora get hit, please bring back and cure!” After taking another deep breath, he re-entered the bush by the side of the boulder and prepped the drill shield. A moment later, a boom biter soared out to detonate against the base of the tower, doing a little more damage. There was a long way to go, but it could conceivably be done. Unfortunately for Tora, he didn't get the chance to celebrate. Instead a Sniper shot nailed him square in the face, and his trophy fell forward out of the bush.

As lightning fell down around the area - and directly onto his opponent - Ace Cadet took the few moments it was stunned to recollect himself. Those stick-like arms were tougher than they looked! It’s head was definitely the spot to focus his attacks on. Still, when the Greap raised it’s weaponry high in preparation for round two, it seemed the hunter’s first instinct paid off. He watched one of the thing’s scythe arms snap with pure glee.

”Haha, yes! Mess with the bull and you get the fangos!”

The greap was undeterred, but one sharp arm was much easier to dodge than two. Cadet’s blade flashed as he danced around the metallic creature’s spherical body, using any openings he could find to propel himself off it’s hard exterior and up towards it’s vulnerable head. Persistent, accurate strikes was the way of the sword and shield, but the battle against the greap was sped up significantly when a strange, segmented ghost floated over and screamed intensely enough to physically damage it. The greap rolled forward, clearly defeated, but just as Cadet was preparing for another battle the ghost floated back towards it’s new master: The Courier. Another friendly? Good news was good news and the red head raised a hand in thanks the cowboy’s way before finishing the great metal hulk off with a well placed sword between its eyes.

Just like every other enemy, it poofed into the form of a glowy spirit, which the hunter collected. Somehow he managed to resist crushing it right away. He wanted to see what sort of item it would become - one of those big scythes? Or something more like a greatsword? Maybe even a big piece of armor? The mystery was exciting, but there were more important things going on at the moment. Ace Cadet was about to move on and rejoin the group, and if not for a glint of light on gold he would have missed the other item that had been left behind.

What the heck is this? he thought, picking the disc up. It was thick and slightly shiny. He took it with him as well. Might be useful!

”They weren’t so tough,” the Cadet remarked with a smile once he was back with the rest of the squad. His bruised torso said otherwise, and gave weight to the princess’ words. Best to go into whatever was next in top shape. Though far from dire straits, the monster hunter pulled a life powder from his bag and waved it through the air above him quickly. It’s healing dust dispersed around the area, giving all who breathed it in a little boost to their health. Then, they marched.

---

Once through the canyon and out in the open, Cadet covered his eyes with one hand and openly looked around. He let out a quiet "Whoa~!" as he took everything about the area in. Besides the "subspace" distortion and the... pretty questionable giant stone face, the area looked pretty nice. Like the kind of place that would be a ton of fun to run around in - and once they got through beating up whatever bad guy they needed to, Cadet made a note to come back and do just that. He'd have to get some insider tips about cool spots from the bear and bird duo who'd mentioned it was their home.

Of course, speak of the Deviljho, at that moment a massive white glove appeared over the curled mountain. The Master Hand wasn't an enemy that the hunter was familiar with, but it didn't take much to realize it was indeed an enemy. Unfortunately not the target of their quest, if the hand's own words were anything to go by. In another blinding flash, the hand summoned an entourage atop a mighty tower wielding bows and bowguns of various makes. The Cadet felt his optimistic mood from moments ago plummet.

At the call to scatter, the red headed hunter did just that. He took off running toward the nearest cover he could find, in this case one of the trees dotting the area. It was poor cover considering, but everything else going on made more enticing targets for the snipers.

Okay, Cadet breathed, peeking out in dismay to make sense of the situation. There was a giant tree and a horde of shambling creatures making for decent shields. That was good. There was a Linkle clone up on the tower, which was bad because that girl was tough. Euden had been completely devastated by the arrow attack, but it seemed what Bowser said was true - touching the trophy base reversed the effect. ...uh, wait, trophy base...? He tucked that train of thought away for later.

It was obvious that Ace Cadet needed to move up. He was much more helpful in close quarters right now, so somehow he'd have to make it to the tower - or, run support. Watching a few of their own get trophy-fied in quick succession made the decision easy.

Cadet pulled the smoke bomb he'd made the night before out of his pack and chucked it hard forward to cover his and anyone still in the immediate area's movement. As soon as the bomb hit the ground, thick white smoke spread throughout the area. The smoke spread wide and quick - it was designed to fool the senses of monstrous animals, but hopefully it would provide some decent cover against human opponents too. Once the smoke bomb was deployed, Cadet sprinted to where he'd seen Blazermate fall and hefted her petrified form over his shoulder. She was a bit heavy, but nothing he couldn't handle - and he seriously doubted she'd appreciate the comment anyway, no matter if she could still hear or not, so he kept his mouth shut as he made his way as quick as he could behind the newly giant tree. He slid to a stop and deposited the Blazer trophy on the ground. Without hesitation the hunter touched the trophy's base, and noted that it was indeed the same kind of thing he'd picked up earlier.

"Ms. Peach!" Cadet addressed her highness quickly, as he thought she must surely know about the whole trophy thing like Bowser had. Though, there was an unspoken 'I'm glad you're alright' in his tone. "I have one of those trophy base things, picked it up in the last scuffle. I was thinking - I mean, what does it do? Do y'think I could give 'em a taste of their own medicine somehow?" Being totally unfamiliar with the subspace activity himself, the Cadet was grasping at straws thinking he could reflect an arrow or something - but he wanted to help in any way he could.

Banjo and Kazooie’s gambit fell just short of success, but their move was not a complete bust. They survived long enough to get closer, more than once cutting it too close to manage it, and that was the first necessary step to achieving victory in this engagement. As per their fallback plan, they dove for the moat to save themselves rather than committing to a hit that otherwise may have not been worth the price. An Ancient Arrow, hot on the breegull’s tail feathers, was stayed only by a combination of physics and luck as it broke against the water’s surface, its detonation permeating them with a refracted, vibrant hue.

Being submerged in a natural sound dampener did not deprive them notice of the destructive activity going on around them--specifically the rupture of Grunty’s Lair. Banjo walked the moat floor with his hands for two pushes to duck into the cove as rubble fell crashing from the sundered monument, tremoring the earth above them with impact. They waited out for a moment to survey what they could of the action from where they were for long enough to be potentially (if only temporarily) forgotten about by the hunters. They came up under the bridge connecting the mainland to the mountain islet, where they could remain momentarily concealed/covered, to spot something most peculiar to them: a moped, seemingly unmanned, gently coasting downhill in neutral toward the same said bridge--almost as if it was being guided there…

Because it was.

During the chaos of the tower’s sustained bombardment, the Lair being part way leveled, and everything else going on in general, Hat Kid realized she had gone unnoticed, and saw it as her opportunity to get under the tower while hopefully keeping free of notice. She crawled slowly to the edge of the grass next to her scooter, just outside of arm’s reach of it, and as soon as she could confirm that no eyes were on her, she rolled out from the patch to the vehicle’s left side, facing AWAY from the tower. She stayed low to the ground, hanging from the vehicle’s off side with her Skull Cap on to condense her already small profile, attempting to stay out of sight while she softly nudged her scooter into motion by pushing against the ground with her foot (much like taking off on a skateboard). The idea was to provide herself with mobile cover to make her advance whilst ideally dissuading any hostile onlookers from firing on her. This, of course, counted on her movements being careful and calculated enough to give the convincing impression of accidental motion so as to remain inconspicuous.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the valley, Fox took the first opening made available to him by the shooters’ divided attention to pivot out of cover in a low, dead sprint for the mountain. With the first step he took past the outermost of the giant stumps that could shield him, he went from zero to Mach faster than most could blink in a straight, blurry line of translucent blue afterimages with a sudden burst of speed that would get him behind the nearest (normal-sized) tree to the mountain. He took two running steps up the tree, into its canopy, and sped out through it in the exact same manner toward the islet to put himself at the halfway point leading up. He kicked off of the mountain wall at speed, sending himself into a twisting layout for the hanging bridge. He aimed to grab a hold by one of the closer planks, carrying his momentum through to swing under, launch himself overhead, and zoom once more to hit the tower’s entrance at the mountain’s peak where the corkscrew ramp ended.

Undoubtedly, Fox’s approach was characteristically bolder, thus incurring greater risk, but if he made it, he stood to beat everyone else to the tower, as many corners as he cut to get there. Hat Kid wouldn’t be too far behind him. She stepped from her scooter, letting it continue to roll on without her as she deftly bounded over the moat crossing, foot scaling the wall upon contact. With another wall run she would be at the top, so long as she was careful to hug the walls and stay under the line of fire. The duo opted to pace themselves more diligently, in the sense that they wouldn’t be skipping most of the path unless they had to. Banjo pulled them up onto the wooden platform and broke into a hiking jog up the spiral path, keeping as close as he could to the inside as they made their ascent. Circling the mountain by its natural trail allowed them to look outward and get a read on the activity surrounding them as well as above them. And of course, despite their exercise in care, they wouldn’t be slogging their way to the top, and both would take care to keep an eye up and their legs and wings ready for anything they might have to evade--whether it be a shot from on high, or even another ally bombardment (in whatever form that may take).

With the battle complete, there was much rejoicing and celebration, but the war was not over by a longshot. The Courier beamed with pride at his newly acquired striker, the floow, but there were plenty of resources to go around still. ”GT, grab me some spirits to crush.”

“Got it, boss! Weeee!” the robot went rolling around, grabbing what it could, while the Courier made a stop with Blazermate to ensure he and his pokemon were fully healed. The rest of the group had definitely grabbed the lion’s share of the little spirits, and that was alright as far as the Courier was concerned. He may have been greedy, but the biggest prize still lay on the horizon. GT returned with 2 primid spirits, a sword primid spirit, a trowlon, and a boraboras. He crushed them all and waited for what he’d get.

”Reckon I could use a better weapon,” he mumbled to himself. ”Damn Galeem took me into this world with my weakest gear an’ I don’ much care fer that.” Just then a thought occurred to him. The other two normal humans (or at least for a given value of normal when he counted himself among the group), the criminals, were still hanging back in the big truck. Michael hadn’t been making use of that anti-material rifle much and the Courier remembered his own back home. The kick was mighty invigorating. Something told him that they’d be in need of that kind of firepower soon. Luckily, despite their checkered relationship, Michael agreed to lend the Courier the powerful weapon. The Courier tipped his hat in thanks and headed on out.

Meanwhile, Cuphead was zipping around the battlefield dashing to and fro. He had seen the use of spirits and it excited him! The powerups he always got were tonics and potions he bought from Porkrind’s Emporium, but this was so neat and different! He snagged himself a ticken and a couple bytans, then crushed them to see what would happen!

”Booyah! And that’s how it’s done Jak and Daxter style!” Daxter cheered, pumping his right hand into the air then crossing both his arms. ”Well, mostly Daxter, but Jak helped too. A smidge.”

Jak, of course, could only snort a small bit of laughter and roll his eyes. He put away the morph gun and gestured for Daxter to come with. His ottsel friend eagerly hopped back onto his shoulder and the two began walking alongside the rest of the group.

”Wait, so we’re not gonna grab any of those spirits? Try out a new gun mode? Get a striker?” Daxter asked.

”Naw,” Jak shrugged. ”The bigger and badder the spirit, the bigger and badder the power up. I don’t wanna waste our time with small fries anymore.”

”Oooh, I getcha! Only the best for the best! And that’s us!” Daxter offered a high-five, which Jak reciprocated.

---

Traveling through the maze-like canyons and ravines took quite a while. The likes of Jak and the Courier were used to long treks through wastelands and so they weren’t bothered much by this. The Courier even turned on his radio for entertainment, letting everyone get an ear full of classic music from his world. Daxter, despite being just as experienced and used to traveling as Jak, was far more impatient and immature about it. He let out a bunch of loud sighs intended to bother those around him. Cuphead… His juvenile and impulsive nature was the worst of the bunch. He couldn’t stop complaining the whole way, remarking that his feet were sore (and pulling off his shoe to prove it, showing off a swollen foot about 3 times the size of his shoe, visibly throbbing, which somehow fit right back in his shoe with no problem).

Something did happen eventually though. The landscape became familiar to a duo in the group, Banjo and Kazooie, who remarked on how home was in better shape than they left it. A curious statement, but the abilities of Galeem seemed to transcend time and space, so the Courier didn’t put much thought into it. Then it happened. The Mater Hand reappeared. The Courier, having seen the danger the giant glove posed firsthand, immediately pulled out Michael’s anti-material rifle, but the hand put up a forcefield before engaging with them. Grumbling, he knew better than to waste the shot.

The hand issued its challenge. With its powerful magical abilities a huge tower rose up from the ground and six challengers appeared atop it: every one of them a marksman. At Peach’s urgency everyone scattered, not that they needed to be told twice. Unfortunately their ally, the dragon man Euden, was struck by a black arrow and became a… Statue? Trophy? It was peculiar for sure.

”So that’s what the hand meant by ‘binary,’” the Courier remarked. ”Ya get hit, or ya don’t. Armor, defenses, they don’ matter.”

Then the elf boy’s arrow came crashing down in a large explosion. Luckily nobody was taken by it. Jak and Daxter had hidden themselves behind a large rock.”WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO, JAK?!”

Jak narrowed his eyes, peeking out from the side, then pulling back into cover. ”We can jet board between cover,” he said simply.

Daxter shook his head. ”Then the kid with the bow will blow our cover apart, and us with it!” Jak thought pensively about their options.

Meanwhile, the Courier was aiming down his sights with the anti-material rifle, scoping out their enemies. Linkle mentioned that one of them was “her,” so he assumed the elf bow was who she was talking about, just like the similar elf boys back in Lumbridge. His explosion making bow definitely proved to be a huge advantage to the enemy. Then again, that giant looked formidable by sheet bulk if nothing else. Wait, was it… Blind? That handicap proved to be a moot point as it launched a behemoth sized arrow with pinpoint accuracy. So it had some other method of detecting them… One of the enemies was an ancient old man, barely alive, but his aim was as true as the others if not moreso. This was quite the challenging pickle for sure.

”Run and gun!” shouted Cuphead. He took off, well, running and gunning. The little cup dodged and dipped and dashed right up the path, firing his peashooter power wildly up at the tower. With as weak as the shots were, he might as well have been throwing sand at the damned thing, but if one could throw enough sand, it would eventually have an effect, right? Still, this approach completely threw caution to the wind in favor of a quick, bold approach and certainly couldn’t last long… Aaaand it didn’t. The snipers had their work cut out for them and their attention divided among many foes, but Cuphead made himself far too easy a target. A shot from The End turned him into a trophy.

Explanations were given by those who had experience with this sort of thing, and everyone went off in their own strategies to overcome their foes. Some ran between cover. Some flew. Some made use of distractions. Jak was still contemplating the best move, when inspiration hit courtesy of his best friend.

”Boy, sure would be nice if we had one of those dark idols right about now. It’s a crazy madhouse out there!”

”Wait, what’s you say, Dax?” Jak gasped.

”I said our people are gettin’ massacred!”

”Not that, the other-nevermind. Dark idol. Dark idol.” Jak closed his eyes and focused. His hands began to pulsate with dark eco while Daxter bugged out and jumped aside. Amazingly, something began to form between Jak’s hands, and after several seconds it was complete! A dark idol!

”Wow. How’d ya know that was gonna work?” Daxter asked, hopping back on Jak’s shoulder.

”I didn’t,” he answered, and with that both of them went completely silent. The idol glowed for a brief second, and then the eco warriors completely vanished from sight. Jak made the most of the situation and darted out from cover, performing roll jump and roll jump for the maximum distance. He had to get closer, much closer, then take cover again.

The Courier had barely moved from his original cover. He had taken the opportunity to cross ground in bits here and there when he was certain they couldn’t fire at him, but he intended to be cautious about this, an unusual tactic from the crazy mailman. But the more he thought about it, the more his patented “so crazy it might work” insanity crept into his mind. Those black arrows didn’t actually cause physical harm, as explained by Bowser and proven by Euden, and they could be recovered, again proven by Euden. However those snipers still had to be dealt with and as long as his posse was on the defensive, there was no way they could gain ground.

”Alright ya brahmin brained ingrates!” he called out to everyone in earshot. ”Whatever’s about ta happen, ya damn well better bring me back!”

With that he grabbed one of his two pokeballs and released Bugfoot the heracross. “Hera?” it asked inquisitively.

”Git down!” the Courier ordered. ”Yer gonna use that horn o’yers ta toss me as high up in the air as ya can, no holdin’ back! Don’t worry about hurtin’ me one bit, put every last bit o’strength inta it! Got it?”

“Hera?” he asked again, puzzled. Upon seeing the steely determination in his trainer’s eyes, Bugfoot matched the expression. “Cross!” It pounded its fists together in excitement, then lowered its head enough for the Courier to climb on.

”Stay here an’ don’t come out until I say so,” 6 ordered not just to his pokemon, but to his chocobo as well. He quickly popped some mentats and coyote tobacco chew to maximize his mental processing and perception, then inhaled some jet to put his energy into overdrive. ”No matter what. Now then, throw me!”

“HERAAAAAA! CROOOOOSSSSSSS!” Bugfoot used Megahorn, throwing the Courier way up, blasting off into the sky!

At the apex of his journey, Courier 6 activated VATS and time stood still. There before him were the 6 foes causing such a ruckus, at the top of this tower. They were still a long way away, and a bit higher than him, but he managed to close a ton of distance to countersnipe them and now he had the perfect weapon for the job. Target: The End, head. Trajectory, distance, current unstable movement, probability of hit: 8%. Not good enough. What was the point of the tobacco and mentats if a headshot was only a measly 8%?! Target: The End, torso. Probability of hit: 19% That wasn’t fantastic, but it was significantly better. He repeated the process with all 6 targets, getting similar numbers for them all (except the giant for obvious reasons, which was a far more impressive 36%). It would take all his stamina to queue up 1 shot for each one, but that’s what he did. And then… Fire!

Blazermate, by her attack, was far more used to using this technique against medabots than other organics. While it did devastating damage to anything living, apparently Medabots and non medabots dealt with this differently. In her world, Medaforce attacks couldn’t miss, but it was always used against other Medabots so maybe these organic snipers needed actual better aim so they couldn’t just ‘dodge’ it. And she paid for this error by being turned into a trophy, (although temporarily thanks to Cadet hiding very nearby her choice of cover), due to the weakness that followed using a Medaforce attack.

Sectonia meanwhile, figured she was being stealthy. Although stealth wasn’t her style, she was far more used to just smiting her foes, but she didn’t really have any way of dealing with long range, one shot monsters just yet. However, her stealth, on her part due to being unskilled, and on the sniper’s part due to having someone who could hear her wings and strong enough to blow apart an entire tower in one blow, revealed her to the other snipers.

This did surprise her, but she wasn’t just going to stand still and get shot. Having covered enough distance to be within reasonable blink range. After a quick bit of surprise, she began her approach, rapidly blinking towards the sniper tower and dodging their shots, her voice coming from the afterimages of herself she left as she blinked randomly, approaching the tower. A mix of the optical illusions caused by her rapid blinks and her laugh essentially coming from each after image was being used in succession to mess up any sniper, even the big blind giant, so she could approach. Once at the tower, she blinked a few times, making it seem like she was finding an angle of attack. Finding one, she blinked behind the weakest looking one, the old man and slashed at him with her swords. Her blades cleaved through the air toward the elder’s unprotected back, the End not having moved an inch. How could he, given her speed? In a few blinks of an eye the Queen appeared, and in another the marksman’s life would end.

Instead a flash of steel cut across, ringing against Sectonia’s swords with force. “Hyaa!” The boy in blue moved quickly, and far more strongly than his size compared to her might suggest. Without even considering the possibility of a counterattack, Sectonia hadn’t braced for a clash, allowing Link to throw her off with a mighty push. With his bow on his back and a sturdy-looking steel sword in his hand, he took a step forward and thrust at Sectonia’s head.

While she wasn’t really expecting this young boy to be as strong as he was, nor as agile, Sectonia wasn’t a slouch when it came to sword fighting even if she preferred to use her magic combined with her swords and parried the boy’s strike at her head, deflecting it towards her non existent arm. This led to a rather short, but entertaining exchange between the bee queen and the hero of the wild as they rapidly slashed and parried each other. However, while Sectonia had two swords and the range, Link was a far, far better swordsman and got a few slashes off on the bee queen’s lower half, forcing her to retreat.

Just as she swerved backward out of melee range in order to disengage, however, a projectile hit her square in the upper back, a shout of “Jarate!” coming from Mundy, the sniper. It shattered in a hail of glass, and a splash of lukewarm yellow liquid soaked Sectonia through. Sectonia wasn’t fully aware of this until she had blinked back, hiding behind the giant sniper, at least, until she started to smell the substance that had hit her.

Now, in Mundy’s world, this Jarate technique is a form of martial arts that involves throwing your own urine at people to make them just regret life and greatly demoralize them. This wasn’t his world though, and while Sectonia took a second to process what he hit her with, when she figured it out, the giant sniper could hear the rage pounding through her form, her hands shaking in pure anger. How DARE that, that, ugly outdoorsman attempt to sully her beautiful form with his… Sectonia was too furious to even finish that thought. Instead she zoomed forward in a wrathful buzz, her sword outstretched to impale the bastard straight through the heart. Whack! Confounded, she looked down to find her would-be prey’s back turned, and her sword stuck in some sort of wooden contraption he was wearing. “WHAT!?” As she watched it broke apart and released a burst of electricity, but before she got the chance to feel it a giant hand wheeled around out of nowhere and slapped Sectonia straight into next week. She hurtled away from the top of the tower at comical speed, an unintelligible cry of rage bidding the snipers’ nest farewell.

The queen sailed through the air, her anger very clear on her stunned face as she whizzed through Spiral Mountain, being smacked towards the lone house and crashing through it. Inside the house, stood a figure with a monitor Well, more floated really, in front of a computer setup making his next game. He was completely unaware of the goings on outside, the house being fairly good at blocking out sounds and sights from outside. At least, until a large bee queen came crashing through the wall, knocking over Kazooie’s sleeping stand, bouncing off the bed and crashing into a nearby wall.

The living CRT monitor stared at the giant bug listlessly. “Well, well, well, a new player has joined. And...hmm.” Its screen flickered, as if running a scan. “Not counting cameos, a one-hit wonder. How thrilling. Well, I’m not in business anymore, so don’t bother asking for a sequel.” It glanced for a moment at the living computer mouse that approached Sectonia to sniff her. “...And I don’t have a towel, either.” Sectonia didn’t hear much of what the Lord of Games was saying, as a comibination of the trauma and her unbridled anger had her momentarily incapacitated. “Oh well.”

Blazermate, having been pulled behind cover and revived by Ace Cadet, shook her head to clear her senses. “OK, that was weird.” Blazermate said. So apparently her Medaforce beam wasn’t of much use here, and Ubercharge wouldn’t last nearly that long for anyone to get up there. Although Cadet did give her an idea, if she couldn’t heal, she could be on the recovery side of stuff. And Ubercharge would give enough time for that if a big hitter went down. But she’d need to generate charge, and people didn’t get hurt here. Peach looked just as put out as Blazermate, with the perceived uselessness in this situation. A twitch from her suffering arm gave her an idea though.

“Peach, Cadet, I think my Ubercharge could potentially make people immune to these shots, or it should, but I need to generate charge and I do that by healing injuries. But these shots don’t hurt people, so.... Can I injure you and heal you up to generate charge? I can tell how much damage I’m doing to you, so you're not in danger, but… well… seeing how easily defended those snipers seem to be from us down here…” Blazermate said, stating her plan to the two. As long as they remained behind cover, hopefully they could build an ubercharge in ‘safety’, which Blazermate could use to recover those who fell that weren’t so easily gotten to.

Peach treated Blazermate to an incredulous look, but she took a deep breath. “Well, it’s not like I have any other plans. No pain, no gain, right? Hoo...okay, hit me.” Blazermate nodded, and hit the princess fairly lightly, but harmfully at first to get a gauge of how durable she was. She kept her medibeam on her the whole time while she progressively hit harder and harder, but in spots that didn’t look brutal or anything, just hits in the arms or side that caused her enough harm that she didn’t outpace or underpace Blazermate’s rate of healing. At first Blazermate looked concerned with what she was doing, but soon that went away as her suffering arm thoroughly enjoyed what was going on, Blazermate at one point needing to hold a few hits as the arm was getting very bloodthirsty and attempting to do much more critical hits with claws outstretched. Either way, to the outside observer, it just looked like Blazermate was playing a game of punchies with Peach, although Peach didn’t punch back. ”Man, this is so awkward, there has to be a better way to do this.” Blazermate said, almost bored of the whole situation as her Medaforce climbed.

“Kyu kyu kyuuuuuu!” Mimikyue cried as Jr suddenly fell away from beneath her, his craft and body both frozen by the black arrow that had pierced straight through him. The jr trophy, which had him in his clown car leaning forwards and brandishing a fist plummeted downwards, clonking into the rock wall of the mountain before landing some way up the spiral pathway in the direct path of Blazermate’s oncoming undead minions (and their infiltrator). The near weightless Mimikyu meanwhile, with her cloudlike body, sailed gracefully onwards on their original trajectory until she smacked into the wall of the tower. She hung in the air for a moment, face planted against the wall, before sliding down to the ground and falling over onto her back, dizzy stars spinning around above her head.

Then things started exploding as Peach and Tora both followed up Miniky’s misfired shot to target the tower with a brief hail of bombs. The shots startled her to her senses, causing her to hop upright and rush in through the tower's entryway before the rain of bricks loosened by the explosions smushed her into paste. In doing so she became the first of the party to enter the sniper’s tower.

It looked like she wouldn’t be the last, as a quadrant of daring doers, not the least bit discouraged by jr’s failure, all made a rush for the tower. As Bowser watched from his safe spot just below the gigantified tree’s foliage Banjo and Kazooie , Fox, and the Hat Kid all made their own dashes towards the tower, each platforming like a pro while they did their best to not get shot. The king had been hanging back once he reached the top of the tree, engaging in a nonverbal argument with Kamek and his remaining action mimicking clones about when it was a good idea to do something that would expose him and what that might be.

The mad dash for the tower plus the bee attack and mad air the courier was getting all combined to produce as good a time as any for Bowser to make his move. He grabbed hold of as high in the tree as he could go and then increased his size as large as he could go, bending the top tree down as he did. Then with catlike agility he spun himself onto the now angled trunk before rapidly shrinking down in size and using the tree’s resulting return to it's original posture as a springboard to launch himself with one of his gravity defying leaps towards the tower. As he cleared the foliage he hurled his hat (which now had an E Honda sticker stuck next to the mallow one), which contained a hidden Mallet and Sledge, up at the snipers.

Functionally it was exactly the same ploy as jr had just made, and it ended in exactly the same way but fore one vital difference.

After his hat toss Bowser retracted into his shell, using the momentum of the throw to add a spin to it, and used his dark magic to maximize his size right before a black arrow pierced his body. Unlike jr however, Bowser had all the momentum he needed to complete his journey as the massive trophyfied turtle slammed into the twice exploded side of the castle, rocking it to it's core, before tumbling down into the moat below and producing a mighty splash with his impact.

While all this was going on the three remaining Toadies had, after helping move Euden, grabbed Tora's petrified body dragged him back into cover after he got shot before finally making a run for cup-head and began pulling him towards Linkle and co as well.

---

Linkle smacked her hand of Tora's base just like she'd seen him do for Euden, reviving the nopon in a burst of golden light. "I like the idea of destroying things, especially since they're not fighting fair." She said, lifting the fluffy boy back onto his little nub feet. Linkle couldn't see much from her hiding spot without poking her head out to get domed, but from the sounds of things the other might have decided that strategy was the way to go as well. Far be it from her to wade against the tide of people smarter than she was. Her range, sadly wasn't good enough to hit the side of that tower from where they were but maybe she could make it a little safer for Tora to implement his plan.

She laid her hands against rock wall, her hair flashing blue, and as she concentrated a large wall of frosty ice began growing off the side of their hiding spot, snaking its way across the open ground toward where Poppi was hiding out. Along the length of it there were some spots where ice didn't fill it, leaving roughly Tora sized holes dotting the length seemingly at random that let a person look out at the tower the snipers rested upon. Linkle kept at it, focusing on sending the wall as far as she could so that giant couldn't just wreck it all at once. Of course, there was on last element to add here.

"Girls? Festival Time." She said down to the cucoo's. The three perked up at once, dashing out along the wall. They each picked a hole and excitedly jumped up in front of it, giving a mocking "cucco" as they did before running to another and repeating the process. Linkle grinned. Her grandma had run this booth at the harvest festival every year, Catch the Cucco. The game was simple, all you had to do was catch the Cucco's when they popped out of the holes in a big table she laid out in the yard. Normally she wouldn't put them in danger like this, but it had been demonstrated very clearly that you could come back just fine. She hoped that with this sort of distraction at play Tora, and maybe Poppi if the wall reached that far, would be able to shoot at the tower with their bombs and missiles more safely.

@DracoLunaris


Shuffling along in the horde of undead, Geralt was honestly surprised to see how well the rushed plan was working. Although, he did have his compatriots to thank for that, as they were providing a wonderful horde of distractions. And even if they saw him, the man hardly would have seemed dangerous compared to the size changing turtle monster, the flying creatures, the GIANT BEAM OF DEATH Blazermate had fired, or any of the other wacky shit that had happened.

Frankly, Geralt was glad he was so utterly unremarkable right now. It made his job much easier. Frankly, he wasn't even quite sure of what he was going to do, but he had to decide quickly. Some of the others were taking the fight to the snipers, while others were trying to destroy the tower itself. Geralt only had a few bombs, but he supposed he could spare them if it helped put an end to this madness. While their opponents weren't doing any real damage, for now, Geralt did not want to imagine what would happen once they were all turned into trophies. It would only be a matter of time.

Still, onward the brigade of the damned shuffled, and Geralt sighted his next target- the Boss's Kid! As they slowly started climbing the twisting mountain-tower, Geralt nodded to himself. He'd grab the kid, smack the trophy base, and they'd get back to fighting.

And maybe blow something up. It was the perfect plan.

Taking a deep breath, Geralt rushed into action. He didn't even bother to worry about being spotted, if he was quick, they wouldn't have time to notice him, not with all the smoke in the area, as well. Grabbing the statue, Geralt lifted it and slapped the base, already turning to get back to his horde, gesturing silently after the Kid to follow. Calling any more attention to himself at this point would be....unwise.

Under the cover of white smoke the Ace Cadet retrieved Blazermate, reviving her behind the gigantified tree where Peach took shelter. The medabot's short-lived incapacitation came to an end as she found herself face-to-face with her savior and a sovereign, all pretty much pinned down. With the obfuscating cloud covering just less than half the distance to the base of Spiral Mountain, the trio couldn't rely on it to make safe their approach, so they were left seeking other options. Peach examined the gleaming disc the monster hunter somehow procured. “That looks like a trophy base. They appeared when we fought the Subspace Army a long time ago. If thrown at an enemy it could make them into a miniature trophy permanently, an actual collectible. But they need to be weakened first, or it'll bounce off.” She took the risk of sneaking a peak at the tower, but the snipers seemed otherwise engaged. “That might not be possible. Plus, it could also deny us their spirits. We could definitely use strong ones like those. “Sectonia made it to the top, but in despite the insect queen's size and power, she would need to content with Link up there. And from tournaments prior, Peach knew that to be no joke whatsoever.

At the same time, Fox sprang into action and Hat Kid made her intrepid move. With nothing more than her slender scooter as mobile cover, the child hoped to get close enough to gain entry to the tower, but she owed her success to Fox. At the moment the End was picking off Cuphead before returning his attention to Bowser's tree to search for Kamek, and with the Sniper, Gough, and Link all temporarily distracted by Sectonia, only Quiet and Imani remained to scan for targets. Quiet took her best two shots at Fox, and despite his speed got frightfully close, only narrowly missing him the first time as he bounded off a tree and the second time as he swung off the rope bridge. Instead her bullet severed one of the handrail ropes, leaving the two halved to dangle. Imani, meanwhile, was looking the wrong way. Fox made it into the tower's entrance, and Hat Kid reached the spiral path along with Mimikyu and Banjo and Kazooie, whose their knowledge of the terrain allowed them to navigate the moat and emerge at just the right spot. The four began their climb, and Imani took notice. Climbing to the edge of the tower, the crossbowwoman began to fire black arrows straight down, hoping to hit one of the invaders as they hurried upward.

A moment later, Sectonia's raid ended abruptly. No sooner did she get sent careening away from the parapets by Gough, however, than Courier 6 soared skyward, hurled by his heracross. All eyes who could spare a moment lay on him as he took aim down the barrel of Michael's own sniper rifle, the power of which anyone who braved the Mushroom Kingdom could attend to. In rapid succession he emptied the magazine, sending six lethal payloads toward snipers' nest below. The odds weren't great, but the Courier took worse ones, and this time his gambler's intuition paid off. One bullet struck Gough, elliciting a bellow of pain as the giant staggered. Four hit the stonework, blasting stone into slivers and dust, but nothing compromising. The last hit Quiet square in her bare back, killing her in an instant and blowing her spirit off the tower to float slowly down. In a lucky twist of fate, her death spared the trophification of Donnie a moment later, whose indecision plagued him so much that he had yet to emerge from his original cover.

Unfortunately, the Courier did not get to see the fruit of his labor. The Sniper, having professionally withstood the shock of several high-caliber near-misses, held his breath and pulled the trigger. A trophy of the Courier dropped from the sky, its momentum changed by the impact. He bounced off part of the wall, once more off the ground, and into the river. “Now that was a proper bloody rootin',” he whispered, chambering his next shot.

He then watched cat-Bowser explode from the tree, growing in size rapidly. “You prancin' show pony,” he grumbled, almost incredulous at the lack of foresight. Sights fixed on Bowser the moment he emerged, and fingers laid on triggers, but right away the Koopa King started shrinking again. The unexpectedness of it all bought him a precious moment in which to hurl his hat, but by the time he leaped clear of the bent tree and started to grow again he took a shot from the End and then the Sniper in quick sequence. With his momentum partially canceled by the forced of the black arrows, his markedly normal-sized statue span through the air toward the tower. His hat never made it, instead receiving an arrow from Link midway, and Bowser himself smacked into the structure hard enough to dislodge a few bricks before dropping. His fine plan, having grabbed too much attention from such competent marksmen, amounted to little, and his trophy hit the ground near the edge of the Ace Cadet's smoke.

Shortly thereafter Tora awoke, carried to safety by Toadies and revived by Linkle. By his own words he expected what happened to him, but he looked shaken all the same. “Meeeh...snipypons sure quick on draw...” With no more ammunition, he couldn't do much, so instead he watched as his rabbit-eared friend started doing something. Her long hair turned bright blue and with a wave of her hands she sent out a wave of ice. It traveled along the ground toward the hill where Poppi took cover, growing a wall of freezing crystals. Though not perfect, with a number of holes that would readily admit any black arrow that came by, the construct meant that Tora and Poppi could reunite. “Oh, thank you, thank you!” Tora sang, and after Linkle sent out her cuccoos as decoys, the Nopon rushed forward himself. He sprinted along the wall as fast as his little legs could carry him, huffing and puffing. Atop the Tower, Link aimed an explosive arrow at the newly-erected cover, but thanks to the commotion made by Linkle's birds he couldn't get a good idea of where to shoot. When he did fire, his arrow ended up blowing apart the central section of the wall just a moment after Tora got clear. A few seconds more and the inventor leaped into his blade's arms, reunited at last.

“Masterpon made it!” Poppi remarked, smiling wide. “Poppi thought masterpon would bite it for sure!”

Tora laughed it off, though in truth he'd just about had a heart attack, and he hoped nobody heard him scream over the blast. “Meheheh, Poppi worry too much.” When she set him down, he looked at her determinedly. “Hey, Tora have idea now we together. If switch in ice core, can use Blade Arts to create cover so we get closer.”

Poppi's eyes lingered on Linkle's ice wall for a good long moment. “Did masterpon think of that all by self?”

A sigh escaped Tora. “No, obviously not, that part from Linkle. And we can't just make ice, only do ice damage, so cover will be fog. Tora idea is once we get close, we switch Wind core and use Noponic Storm while flying up. With giant mist storm, no way can snipeypons shoot us. Then, release storm and drill into tower where friends bash it.”

After a moment Poppi nodded, her derision replaced by respect. She knew her creator to be a doofus, but that didn't mean he wasn't sometimes a genius, too. “Okay, let's do it.”

Soon after, a volley of missiles flew out from behind cover. Poppi QT launched ice-imbued missiles from safety not at the tower but at the area in front of it where the Cadet laid down some smoke, just moments after Geralt and Bowser Jr got out of it. When the missiles exploded, freezing ether filled the air, joining with the smoke to create a think cloud of twinkling silver diamond dust. Into the mist boosted Poppi Alpha and Tora, with the Drill Shield in front carrying Tora along with its own thrusters while Poppi pushed from behind. Once close enough, Tora leaned back, the signal for Poppi to use Poppiswap and switch to wind. “Noponic...”

“Storm!” The artificial blade flooded the Drill Shield with ether, revving its bit into overdrive. A whirlwind gushed forth, collecting the fog and spewing it upward in a tremendous torrent of freezing mist. Up into the cloud flew the pair, until the face of the Spiral Mountain before them gave way to stone architecture.”Brace self!”

Poppi twisted nearly ninety degrees, changing the duo's direction from up to forward. The next instant the drill hit stone, and empowered by the might of wind, it tore through to deposit Tora and Poppi on the tower's base floor, behind Fox but ahead of Hat Kid, Mimikyu, and Banjo-Kazooie. The Nopon spat out a mouthful of stonedust. "Ptuh! Yucky!" He picked himself and looked around at the tower's empty confines. The whole way up stretched various levels of scaffolding, and a crude elevator dominated the middle. Not a stair in sight. "Huh. Well, that worked," he remarked, wondering what to do next. He didn't honestly expect to make it this far; maybe the others really had the snipers distracted. "Fun too, meh?"

"...Yeah..." Poppi said, sounding dazed.

Mimikyu found herself inside the tower after she made her escape from the falling brickwork, and was soon joined by a fox, a bear, a bird, a kid with a hat and, in a rather explosive fashion, a hamster and a robot. She didn't know their names, but she did know that they were friends of her master, which was all that mattered. The big version of her master had even carried the hat wearing girl around along with her master when he’d been sad and the kid had been knocked out. She was, Mimikyu deduced, probably important, which was why when the black arrow shooting bad guys started attacking them again the cloudy ghost used one of her long arms to grapple up to the hat kid’s hat.

Her claw tipped noodle arm snapped up and looped itself under and around the yellow band of cloth, which the pokemon then quickly pulled her body of cloth and cloud up to. There she nestled herself atop the brim while holding on tight to her lemony griping point. She’d stay unless dislodged by the kid or by their enemies.

While the hat kid did whatever she was about to do Mimikyu brandished her fake tail, drawing it back as if to toss it up at the woman assailing those attempting to platform their way up the tower with her arrow shooting contraption.

“Mimi” the pokemon intoned, as visible bolts of yellow electricity were pulled from the battery on her back, down though her cloud like body and up along her arm before coalescing at her tail stick. There the energy raced up the lightning bolt shaped wand, before leaping out above it and forming together into an electro ball. The yellow sphere, that looked a bit like a yellow plasma globe with a core at its center surrounded with a translucent outer shell between which lines of energy sparked and drifted, hung above the wand for there for two of the hat kid’s heartbeat while the last of the energy filled it, before with a “kyuuuuuuuuu!” Mimikyu hurled the football sized sphere up at the crossbow woman. The electro ball angrily buzzed upwards, defying gravity as it raced towards its target.

Outside, Mimikyu’s master gasped for air after his trophy base was tapped, which mostly resulted in him coughing out the smoke surrounding his revival point. Jr glanced around, ready to complain, only to spot Geralt’s gesturing for quiet and stealth as he hurried out of the cloud. Jr begrudgingly followed suit, preferring to not get shot back into stillness right after he had been freed over whinging. The wheels of his clown car deployed, and the boy quickly whizzed his way after the Witcher into his undead cover. He got out of the cloud and into their mists just in time, as Poppi and Tora’s dramatic drill based advance blasted past them, stealing the smoke in the process.

The boy grumbled under his breath about this, and then followed after Geralt as they both hid among the undead crew who were marching their way up the spiral mountain at a steady pace.

Meanwhile the Toadies continued their trophy retrieval task, first heading out to retrieve the courier and then, if they still had the turtle power once he was delivered, trying to fish Bowser out of the pond. As before, successfully retrieved trophies were deposited behind Kamek’s mega tree.

Fox, Hat Kid, and the duo all three successfully made it onto the mountain, but two of the three had yet to breach the tower that sat atop its peak. A skewed wall run cut the child in midway up the mountainside, whereupon she miscalculated a second run up a taller wall that had her fall one or two of her heights short of the bridge. She would have to make the rest of the way up fairly, just as the developer ’nature’ intended, and keep her eyes up along the way. As she came around the mountain’s front side at the top quarter, the bowwoman above began raining down black arrows aimed for her and the duo on the bottom level directly below.

“WOAH!” she exclaimed in surprise, eyes wide, springing backwards to miss the first arrow by the brim of her hat (were she wearing it at the moment). She skipped back, flipped, jumped from the ledge, tumbled with her midair jump, and dove back to the ledge in a series of nimble, evasive acrobatics, then hopped back to her feet to dodge one more shot and sped off up the mountainside with her Sprint Cap on. Her being a closer target and acting unintentionally as a bullet magnet bought Banjo and Kazooie a slim opening to ascend to the point where she left off, where they then ended up drawing the bulk of the bowwoman’s fire--likely none too happy about failing to tag them the first time around. Though they were looking out for it more, they didn’t match the child’s grace or luck in advancing unscathed… or at all really.

Banjo rolled out of the way of the first couple of shots, managed to spotdodge another, and sidestepped a couple more. Try as they might to escape her line, however, the shooter methodically led her shots to pin down the grounded, less agile ursine, driving him to the edge where he lost his footing. Banjo caught a hold of the ledge with one hand, but as he reached with the other, an additional discouraging shot from Imani forced him to swivel out of its way instead. From their unfavorable position, the two were almost certainly doomed. What saved them (if anything) was Bowser’s spectacular gambit followed by Mimikyu’s retaliation, both of which would provide Banjo an ample window to pull himself back onto solid ground and continue upward. The Koopa King’s move failed, sadly, and his trophy glanced off the side of the tower and over Banjo’s head.

Banjo reflexively (read accidentally) reached to catch the trophy over the cliffside while moving, the weight and momentum causing him to tilt and sway dangerously. Upon regaining his footing, he might have hazarded using the trophy as a shield while carrying it with him, had he not caught it by its base. Reanimating light coalesced around the Koopa’s still form, and in a confused, unsteady panic, Banjo swung the reviving cargo overhead, the weight and loss of balance dragging him into a leaning spin over the ledge. Unsure what else to do with it, he haphazardly let go of the trophy on the upswing to let it fly/fall wherever; to let it be someone else’s problem. With his back to open air, anchored to the cliff by only his toes, he entered an imbalanced state of comical windmill arm flailing in a desperate attempt to recover, with Kazooie rapidly beating her wings trying to assist. Alas, the shock of Tora and Poppi’s forced entry through the tower walls tipped them into freefall.

“Yuh-oh! WOOOOAA-” His familiar throe would be cut off by their second dip in the moat today, happening within moments of each other. All the while, they were left open to any unoccupied snipers that saw fit to capitalize on their momentary vulnerability, provided they could make the shot in spite of the Blade and Driver’s disruptive stunt. Whether or not the duo would still be animate by the time they hit the water would depend largely on that. Assuming their survival, however, they would swim their way back to the crossing where they started before and try again, but this time employing corner cutting Spring Jumps at the back of the mountain (where fewer shooters now were) to bypass the zombie horde that were now slowly scaling it.

Hat Kid skid to a halt at the entrance as she turned sharply to enter seconds behind Fox. He spared a momentary glance around and upward before moving for the central elevator, stopping a step short when the foundations began to tremble. He directed his attention to the source of the disturbance in time to dive out of the way of what burst through the wall. Kid more fell than jumped aside in avoidance, but avoided the crashing drill all the same. It was then that she noticed the Pokemon tagalong for the first time as Mimikyu drifted gently back onto her head.

“OoOoh…” she squeaked with curious delight, eyes aimed to the top of her sockets at the unexpected passenger, and a smile to accompany her gaze. On the other end of the room, Fox rolled to a kneel, instinctively drawing iron sights on the two abrupt entrants before realizing who they were, then lowering his aim. As soon as they regained their bearings, he motioned for Tora and Poppi to move onto the elevator before activating it. The child then scrambled to her feet and lept for the rising platform to catch it on the way up, pulling herself and Mimi up onto it so they wouldn’t miss the first trip and be forced to wait. The entire way up--until reaching a point where Fire could carry him the rest of the way--Fox kept a ready eye out for whoever may see them coming.

Cadet listened to both the women with him, one explaining the golden disc in his possession and the other with a daring plan that he sincerely hoped would work after learning his own plans definitely wouldn't work. It was no skin off his nose though, they didn't call him the Ace Strategist for a reason. He tucked the trophy base away and peeked out from behind the giant tree whenever it wasn't his turn to be awkwardly pummeled by Blazermate as she recharged. Unsurprisingly the battlefield was changing quickly as their motley crew got nearer and nearer to the snipers' tower.

"Your, uh, army is getting pretty close," he announced to Blazermate, watching the rotted humanoids steadily march up the twisted mountain. The marksmen at the top of the tower were smart enough not to waste their energy with the things, instead focusing purely on the heroes. Most of their attention had been diverted to said heroes who had already made it to the mountain's path, but Cadet didn't dare think that the rest of them still in the field were safe from their arrows by any means. Still, he continued scanning the area. It was littered with walls and patches of ice, and a few more interesting things.

The monster hunter considered making another trip out from behind cover to gathered more of the trophyfied members of their group, but the tiny red Kameks were doing a fine job of that. He was sure they were all grateful the little guys were willing and able to retrieve the ones that had fallen into the water. Anyone else that had to swim with luggage was just asking to be shot. Once the Courier's trophy was safely behind bark, Cadet touched it's base to free him - but not before grabbing one of the toadies by it's foot and pulling it closer.

"If you guys can, get that - " Ace Cadet told it, and pointed out the shimmering spirit of the sniper that had floated down from it's perch, " - and bring it back here too!" The princess had said they would need strong spirits after all. He released the toadie and when it rejoined it's group to continue their rescue missions, Cadet decided he wanted to help out too. There was still one more small trophy out there. The redhead turned back to Peach, Blazer, and the newly revived Courier with a grin.

"I'm gonna move up! I think I can make it. Blazermate, if your plan works you should try and move everyone else up too - it's a lot easier for them to hit us when we're out here instead of in there!" His words were common sense, but he said them with confidence. As soon as the Ace Cadet thought he had an opening and the snipers were focused on the closer threats, he made his mad dash. What was left of the frozen walls made for decent cover for part of the way, but eventually the young man had to break into a dead sprint across the open expanse. On his route he expertly scooped up the trophy of Cuphead, catching it by it's base. His goal was, of course, the stone tower.

Blazermate through her abilities and Peach's cooperation with allowing her to build charge, built her ubercharge fairly quickly. People were going down at a fairly regular rate, although they had also managed to take out one of the enemy snipers due to how insanely risky thr courier was, so that was a huge plus. Much like the Cadet, with her full ubercharge, her healing arm crackling with energy, Blazermate looked over the battlefield. Her zombies were indeed getting close, and she thought it was curious that the snipers ignored them, when a few of them could climb, and others could probably do some damage to that tower. And sniping down at a 90 degree angle was not the easiest thing to do for any of the snipers up top.

Cadet pointed out the shining spirit on top of the tower. Blazermate looked at it to and said. "Well Cadet, we can get it after its a lot safer. Like with most of the snipers gone. But yeah, stronger spirits would be nice." Noticing Blazermate's ubercharge being full, Cadet went ahead with his plan to dash out, Blazermate following him as he recovered a few of their fallen commrades and their trophies. Blazermate was on high alert and would pop her ubercharge the moment any of the snipers fired in their general direction as she attached to Cadet, Cadet recovering Cuphead as he made his mad dash towards the tower. Blazermate, when she got close enough while latched to Cadet, would grab Bowser and try to revive him, popping her charge then if the snipers didn't preemptively pop it.

Sectonia meanwhile was still out cold in Banjo Kazooie's house, away and out of the sniper's sightlines. The Lord of Games, starting to get annoyed with the strange smell coming off the bee queen, started filling a bucket of water to wake her.

Donnie, on instinct, ran for cover immediately. His world was advanced enough to have rifles. Derived from muskets and blunderbusses, sure, but rifles nonetheless. Some adventurers were cut from the cloth of common hunters, using tamed beasts and traps to fight their enemies. And Azeroth had some gnarly wildlife to tame and sic on your foe, from grizzly bears to dire wolves to giant spiders and even dinosaurs. But the hunters themselves usually fancied bows, crossbows, or guns. Those that went without a pet were the deadliest of all at long range, expert marksmen who could effortlessly turn the head of a demonic warrior the size of a house into something resembling tomato dip before the thing could even get close, or often even react.

Hiding behind a nearby rocky outcropping, he began to formulate a plan.

There were six snipers, from his position. A big guy in armor with a greatbow, likely the toughest to take down. A slim thirtysomething with a wide-brimmed hat, glasses, and a deadly-looking and futuristic (by an Azerothian’s standards) rifle, though obviously non-magical. A twentysomething girl wearing very little clothing, armed with an even-deadlier looking rifle. An old man with yet another newfangled rifle, likely the most fragile. A young blond-haired man in a blue tunic and what looked like a Titan-made bow. He’d have to make sure he didn’t get hit by that thing, it looked nasty. Then there was an absolutely fabulous crossbowoman in a lavish fur coat. He had no idea what to expect from that one, but she was obviously a skilled sniper just like the rest of them. Fortunately, crossbows took longer to reload than those rifles, which were obviously of a similar design to Michael’s .50-caliber beast.

He waited for a while, observing the proceedings and biding his time until he could strike. He wasn’t very fast without his mount, and even with his mounts he’d be an obvious target. HIs best bet was Vivi, who thankfully hadn’t spawned this time, likely having the same thought process Donnie did. He wished he could talk to Vivi right now, but that would waste the little time the Black Mage had before he despawned.

As he observed the snipers, their weapons, the fact that revival was possible, and the chaotic attempts to get to the tower and end them (noting the Courier’s insane ploy with approval as it took out Quiet), he noticed something. That giant with the greatbow. He seemed to have an...unusually-good perception for being so far away from the enemy, especially with all the background noise of people breaking the tower walls and such.

To test this, he picked up a rock and threw it at another large outcropping nearby. True to his prediction, Gough turned towards it instantly. Unfortunately, that got him scanning the area and readying to strike him down once he picked up Donnie’s breathing.

The monk only had a few seconds at best to do this, he had to act now!

Willing Vivi back into existence, he whispered “Cast Stop on the giant, quick!” Having been carefully observing the situation, same as Donnie, Vivi reacted instantly, his staff glowing as he cast the spell. Vivi had only used up some MP from the previous battle, since he could only appear for a few moments at a time. This gave him fewer opportunities to waste it like with the zombie apocalypse scenario only a day earlier, meaning that he could absolutely make Gough stop in his tracks.

The spell spanned the great distance between boulder and battlements, and a black aura appeared in a cylindrical field around the giant sniper. Around him the air distorted, as though filtered through a heatwave, and Gough stood frozen in time. With his senses stopped as well, he could take no action whatsoever for a few seconds, giving Donnie the opportunity he sought.

“Now, cast Thunder on the old man and bail!” he whispered. “I’ll get us out of here!”

“Right!” Vivi whispered back, casting Thunder on The End and vanishing an instant later. Before the thunderbolt from the sky even hit the old sniper, Donnie was already moving, getting on the Disc and using the route Fox took, hidden by boulders and trees, flying low to the ground to make it to the tower. Of course, the puffy cloud trailing behind him was a problem, but he took the Disc into overdrive, hoping his raw speed would make him almost impossible to track when mixed with the dense cover of rocks and plant life. He’d make the tower in thirty seconds, tops.

In a flash a bolt of lightning dropped from nowhere, striking the End where he lay. The magical assault surprised both Imani and the Sniper, eliciting a yell of surprise from both, but it shocked the End in a far more literal sense. He didn’t scream, or cry out, or even moan. He just sprawled there on his stomach, his rifle clutched in his hands. A faint whisper issued from him, lost in the breeze. “I can return to the forest at last...” Then the ancient man lay still, dead as a doornail.

For a moment the other sharpshooters just looked at him, another of their number eliminated in the blink of an eye, but they quickly noticed that after the End’s heart stopped beating, something else started beeping. Unfortunately the two, rattled by their comrade’s death, realized what it meant just a little too late.

“Uh oh.”

“Bloody hell!”

BOOM! A fiery explosion rocked the top of the tower, sending both Imani and the Sniper flying into the open air. It dealt a powerful blow to Gough, halted as he was by Stop, and a second later when the effect expired the giant barely managed to avoid falling. The others were not so lucky. Imani fell about halfway before she righted herself and kicked off the tower, sending herself in the direction of the field by the waterfall. She hit the ground hard, but somehow appeared totally unaffected by the impact, and the next instant a smokescreen appeared to serve as shelter. The Sniper, meanwhile, plummeted while howling at the top of his voice until he hit the surface of the moat, allowing him to survive the fall, too.

Back atop the tower, Gough fought to steady himself. It’d be only a moment before he regained firm footing, but someone quick on the draw could find an opportunity there. Link, meanwhile, avoided the detonation entirely, having descended into the tower’s interior moments ago.

Donnie was only about ten seconds out from the tower when he saw the top of the tower go up in a fireball, feeling the shockwave hit him in the chest. His ears were even ringing. Thankfully, he’d been around enough battlefield explosions to keep his footing on the Disc, but he could also hear the Sniper screaming bloody murder as he fell from the tower’s battlements.

Four Celestials! Did that old man have a bomb tied to his heartbeat or something?! Donnie thought as he continued to move behind cover.

By the gods, he hated doing this. That poor old man didn’t need to die like that. Neither did the girl, who had her whole life ahead of her. The man in the hat didn’t need to be fighting them, and neither did the huntress, the giant, or the warrior.

He was going to end Galeem for making him fight innocent people. Even the Old Gods didn’t pull stuff like this on a mass scale like Galeem did.

But now that the situation had changed, what was his next move?

Well, as he was thinking this, he had already arrived at the tower, so naturally he chose to go up. There were enough people on the ground floor, and Gough was vulnerable.

Like a speeding bullet, Donnie, atop his flying Disc, landed a chi-enhanced axe kick to the back of Gough’s helmet, hopefully sending him into the drink or worse. This, of course, made him land flat on his ass given that the Disc was traveling upwards, but he commanded the Disc to deposit him on the roof and then desummoned and put it away in a practiced maneuver.

If Gough had recovered from that. The monk was ready to fight the giant personally. This would be a duel to remember.

The giant heard Donnie coming. He pre-emptively twisted so that while Donnie’s kick pushed him off the edge of the tower, his giant hand clamped down on its edge a moment later, and with incredible strength Gough hauled himself back up. After dropping the greatbow, he pulled out an arrow to use in his main hand. While little more than a long knife for him, it was a deadly lance to a normal man. With the other hand he removed a stone from his pouch, about the size of a potato, and without a word Gough flicked it Donnie’s way. It flew at him faster than a slingshot stone, and much heavier.

Realizing what the giant was about to do, Donnie rolled out of the way, though the stone grazed him in the middle of his somersault. That hurt! It even left a scrape down the side of his chestplate. Thankfully, it hadn’t been a direct hit. That would have been nasty.

But now it was the monk’s turn. Sprinting in an arc towards Gough’s right side, he attempted a chi-enhanced palm strike directly to Gough’s massive leg, followed by a Blackout Kick to his oversized knee, before making to disengage, anticipating a melee attack from the giant.

Gough didn’t seem to move, standing conspicuously still, with his direction of his head fixated on something over the monk’s shoulder. As if on cue, a deep, guttural voice sounded out from behind Donnie in alarming proximity. ”HELLO!”

Donnie flinched, running to the side and springing into a fighting stance to assess the threat, eying Gough in case he decided to do anything.

There was nobody behind him, just the broken shards of the stone Gough threw lying next to the battlements where it shattered.

But Gough started moving the moment Donnie changed his direction. He went low, extending his leg in a wide sweeping kick that took up an appropriately gigantic amount of real estate. As he went down, he scooped up his bow and nocked the arrow he’d never intended to use as a melee weapon. In one fluid motion he took aim, the bow held horizontally, and then Gough fired down into the tower itself. The great arrow blasted through the masonry, decimating Donnie’s entire side of the tower several stories down as it flew on its diagonal path.

Donnie’s moment of confusion cost him dearly as Gough’s sweep kick knocked him off of his feet. He rolled with the punches, even the blunt impact of the sweep rippled through his body. It didn’t break any bones, but he’d feel it in the morning for sure. He sprung to his feet in time to witness Gough nocking his arrow. Donnie, realizing where the arrow was pointed, dove towards Gough’s left side, avoiding the arrow, but only barely. He rolled, and stood, but he was only a few feet from the edge of the tower.

He grinned, realizing he was fighting an enemy who could actually formulate a strategy and not just some big oaf with a bow. This just got a hundred times more interesting. But he wouldn’t be fooled by that strategy again.

He sprinted evasively, noting the firing axis of Gough’s bow and making sure he wasn’t in an arrow’s flight path whenever Gough decided to fire again, or dodge when Gough decided to strike in melee. He was going to reach him, that much was certain.

And when he finally did reach him, he’d make sure the giant felt the chi-enhanced strikes headed his way. And if the giant tried anything? Disengage (or jump if it was a sweep) and Chi Burst from short range.

The Hawkeye looked listlessly forward, his unseeing eyes nowhere in Donnie’s vicinity. Only when the sound of footsteps reach him did he take action. Knowing the rough layout of the tower’s top following the destruction of a chunk of it, Gough knew his foe didn’t have much lateral room to work with. He lowered his grip on the bow and held it like a staff with both hands, then swept it horizontally to try and whack Donnie off the tower again.

Donnie, meanwhile, simply grabbed onto the bow, vaulted himself over the giant’s arms, and landed a chi-enhanced drop kick to the giant’s face before kicking off of Gough’s helmet, hurling himself into the air, and rolling onto the ground.

All of this roof-smashing gave him an idea, but how was he going to put it into motion?

Wait, motion! That was it! At Donnie’s mental command, Vivi popped into existence a few feet behind him, and seemed to know what was ideal for the situation, casting Stop on the giant once again before vanishing.

That sound...the sound that came before Gough was frozen in time a minute ago. The clear note of a spirit manifesting, temporarily taking form in order to act, reached the giant and clicked in his head. He nocked another arrow with great haste, aiming not at Donnie, but at Vivi, and let go of the string. The Stop struck him the next moment, but the magic struggled to hold him. Donnie opened up his Luggage to retrieve the ingredients for a powerful Gunpowder Charge, but the Stop ended well before it did the first time. All of a sudden the black arrow screamed forth once again. It slammed into Vivi, but instead of creating a trophy, the impact created a bizarre reaction. Vivi de-manifested into a burst of multicolored light that turned gold just like the gold light that made trophies, which hung there for a split second. The light then arced through the air, tracing the spiritbond, and the next moment slammed into Donnie. Before he knew what happened, he fell from the tower as a trophy, leaving devastation and a even more wounded Gough behind.

---

Linkle leaned forward with gritted teeth as an explosion ripped apart her ice wall in the middle, sending up a cloud of dust and icy shards that obscured her view. A small statue came tumbling out of the explosion, and for a moment she thought it might be Tora, but as the dust started to clear she could see Poppi embracing her creator safely on the other side. She let out a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding at that. She didn't need to look over at the statue that had tumbled away, the appearance of the other two cuccos told her exactly what that one must have been. Well, her plan hadn't gone exactly to plan but if experience was anything to go by that was probably just because it was a bad plan.

As she could see Poppi and Tora over there, probably scheming up a much better plan, she sent her beetle fluttering out to retrieve the bird that had gotten hit by the explosive arrow. That meant it was the Link up there that had taken the shot. The was surprising, she'd expected the giant to do it between the two of them. Maybe he expected the weird arrows he had not to trigger a revenge because he wasn't. technically, hurting them?

Luckily for her the Cucco was much smaller the Euden was, so the beetle had a mush easier time. It was able to actually pick this one up by the base and carry in through the sky back to her. She smacked the base, freeing the bird in a golden glow, just as Poppi and Tora put their own plan into action. Poppi fired off a bundle of missles, then picked up Tora and took off toward the direction of the tower. Linkle popped her head out momentarily to see the column of mist the two had created. She grabbed Euden's hand as the pair shot toward it. "C'mon, there's no better time!" She said, ducking out from behind cover and sprinting after them practically dragging Euden in her wake with the birds bringing up the rear.

Tora Poppi, with their head start and rocket boosters, reached the cloud of mist before them and as Linkle ran the whole thing started to spiral up until it became a tornado. The pair shot right out of the top, skipping all of the mountain trek that the undead were taking, then shot forward and crashed right through the tower. Linkle couldn't help it, she let out a whooping laugh at the sight of it. That was too crazy.

Of course This was a bad time to be celebrating. With the clearing of the mist Linkle could see the tower now and it's team of deadly shooters. She couldn't see Girl Micheal anywhere up there, or Link, but as she laughed she could see the giants head perk up slightly. He might have turned his giant bow on her and blasted their little group into a crater, but weirdly the big guy just seemed to...stop? Just held still. The rest of them could still clearly see her and Euden's approach but all of a sudden a bolt of lightning rained out of the clear blue sky and hit Old Micheal straight on, causing his partners to wince in surprise. The man slumped forward, and Linkle for a moment felt a sharp sting of remorse in her heart for the old timer.

Then he exploded.

The shock of the entire tower top going up in smoke brought Linkle to a standstill and sent Crossbow Micheal and Other Michel hurtling off the tower, the latter righting herself and landing somewhere off to the side while the former plummeted screaming into the moat. All sense of introspection was lost. "The Goddesses must be with us!" She shouted as she spotted Donnie rocket out and shot right up to the to of the tower on his flying disc and started to duel the giant. With every shooter hung up on something it was pretty easy to get right up to the base of the moat surrounding the mountain.

As they approached Linkle scanned the surface of the water, wary of any sort of aquatic ambush the man that had fallen in could be planning. She wondered if he could even think straight yet? She'd been caught in an explosion like that before and in had shaken her for quite a while. Still, better not to risk it. "Keep a look out. I'm going to try and get him to come up, kay?" She said to Euden. The Cucoo's seemed to get what she was going for, spreading out and scanning the surface of the moat with their beady little red eyes ready to caw a warning if they saw even a suspicious ripple.

She dipped a hand into the water and ice began to spread out over the surface. She didn't want to freeze over the entire moat. Leaving a enemy trapped under a layer of ice to drown was not only unheroic, but also incredibly lame. She still felt bad about the last time she had lamed out an opponent with water. What she was doing now wasn't dissimilar to her earlier ice wall. If Other Micheal didn't show himself before the ice spread around the entire moat she was going to leave a small hole for him to use so she could beat him while looking him in the eye like you were supposed to.

She didn't get far though, as suddenly loud crashing sound rang out. She looked up in time to see an entire portion of the tower blasted apart, the arrow that did in slamming down nearby as an avalanche of rocks spilled forth. She stood quickly, gave a sharp whistle to call her cucco's, grabbed Euden again, and dived away from the water as the rocks crashed through the ice and into the moat. She felt fist sized rocks pelt her shoulders and back as she retreated toward a small tree, skidding behind in and kneeling for cover until the avalanche had subsided.

Looking back at the devastation she didn't want to think about how that had felt for the people actually inside the tower. Rocks and wood off all shape and sizes littered the area. It would have made good cover if the shooters were still on top of the tower. She wondered briefly how crazy that fight up there must be to do something like that. Surly that was the last move, right? Who could have won?

The question was answered moments later as a trophy tumbled down from the tower, bouncing off the mountain and landing amidst the rubble. Donnie. That meant the giant was stood up there, alone, with his devastating shots. Linkle had a sudden, disturbing though; what if he decided that the tower was lost and fired one of those arrows straight down, destroying the tower and everyone within it? "We need to stop that giant." She said, staring at Donnie. "I'll get him."

She dashed out of cover, making a beeline for the nearest piece of big rubble. Unfortunately most of those were nearer to the base of the mountain, but if she could get there she would move between the rubble in order to reach Donnie and free him.

Geralt and his undead horde of cover slowly continued up the mountain, the Witcher paying little heed to the kid he'd left behind. Bowser Junior could look after himself. While the others enacted big plans, leaving behind walls of ice and fields of mist in their wakes, Geralt thought smaller. More discreet. It was the better part of valor, after all. So he refrained from any rash actions like breaking away from the group to attack, or anything silly like that.

Until the explosion, that is. That threw everything out the window. It was massive, leaving a tremendous cloud of smoke above them. No sooner than the proverbial dust had started to settle, Geralt broke out of his cover in a dead sprint, his heart pumping methodically and powerfully. His superior physiology had him reaching the top of the short mountain in no time, and as he reached the plateau summit, the Witcher's hand reached behind his back and drew his steel sword, ready to face the enemy. Instead, he found some of the others making their way into and up the tower, trying to similarly infiltrate the enemy's position. "Alright, then, let's finish whatever the others managed to leave behind." He snarked, rushing into the tower.

The inside was...bare, to put it simply. Even with a hole in the side from the two metal golems and debris scattered around the floor. There were candles lighting the place, sure, but not much else. A little ways from the entrance was a wooden platform, as well as the others, gathering at the platform. Looks like he made it.

Tough as they were, it didn't take long for Tora and Poppi to reorient themselves after their dynamic entry. A number of loud sounds rang out from above as they ran a quick equipment and injury check, making them wonder what exactly was going on. The tower itself shook a couple times, which didn't bode well considering that the path upward appeared to be only the rather primitive-looking wooden elevator. Unfortunately for the pair, the lift itself seemed to be at the top of the tower. Something that looked like a terminal stood by the spot where it ought to be, but before one could try it, a silhouette darkened the doorway.

Tora and Poppi whirled toward it at once, expecting an enemy, but the shadow turned out to be a somewhat familiar face. Fox hadn't been with them long, and they had yet to exchange any real words or share a meal together, but he was definitely an ally. Tora exhaled a sigh of relief, relaxing his shield arm. “Whew! Thought Fox-Fox was baddypon for sure.”

A few moments later, additional comrades appeared on the scene. Hat Kid brightened their day, followed shortly by Junior's Mimikyu, the animal duo Banjo and Kazooie, and a moment later Geralt backed them up. The climbing team made it through Imani's gauntlet unscathed. That made seven, as good enough a strike force as anyone could hope. Tora grinned. “Hooray! Now let's get up there and kick butt, meh.”

He waddled over to what he assumed to be a terminal, but quickly found out that it bore no features whatsoever. It had no lever, no button to press, nothing. Confused, Tora felt the post with his wing, but turned up no hidden notches or pressure plates. After a moment, however, the ropes and pulleys creaked into motion, and from way up above the elevator began to descend.

“Ah, Masterpon find hidden button?” Poppi asked.

“No, no,” Tora said, a look of consternation on his face. “Tora not do anything.” The artificial blade glanced at him curiously, but ended up turning her full attention on the lift, her arms raised and at the ready. Feeling antsy himself, the Nopon took a step back and raised his shield. Another tremor shook the tower, much stronger than before. The clatter of stone pieces striking wood sounded out from above, and dust shook loose to plummet down to the tower floor, extinguishing several candles. A few seconds later, the elevator reached the ground floor, slowing down to come to a stop. Atop it stood one of the six, the boy in blue, staring at them with a blank expression and weapons drawn. Tora's black, almond-shaped eyes went wide. “Uh oh!”

Link sprang forward, raising his sword. “Hyah!” Tora moved his shield to block it, but his foe didn't even try to hit the shield. Instead he lashed out with a kick, planting his boot solidly on the surface. While Tora stood strong, in that brief moment he was caught off guard by the unexpected strike, and ended up putting too much focus on holding his arms steady to keep the back of the shield from hitting his face. Link performed a sideways shield bash that span Tora to the side, then followed it up with a horizontal slash into the Nopon's side, then an upward slice. Poppi sprang forward to deliver a flying punch, but Link held out the hand of his shield arm. He held some sort of tablet there, and from it blossomed a golden light that stopped Poppi in her tracks with conjured chains. The light then turned blue, and a glowing round bomb manifested that Link hurled into his grouped enemies to detonate.



“Gagh!”

With great difficulty, the Sniper grasped hold of the shore and pulled himself out of the half-frozen slushy water. He shivered mightily, and swore even harder. “Bugger me, that's freezin'! That bloody old wanker, why'd 'e blow up like that!?” Once free of the water, he got to his feet, looking around warily. Nobody in sight yet, at least, but he gave it only a couple moments before his foes descended on him. As such he stowed his rifle, knowing it'd be of little use now, and instead he produced his submachine gun and kukri for his main and off hand, respectively. Meant as backup weapons should a Spy, Scout, or intrepid rocket jumper intrude on his isolated position, those weapons would be the stars of the show now that sniping was no longer an option.

The Australian sprinted for a nearby tree, shaking off the last of Linkle's ice. He planted himself against the wood and scanned his surroundings. Of all the angles of attack, however, he didn't think to glance upward. “You look nervous.”

“Crikey!” The Sniper just about dropped his gun, but the sudden visitor turned out to be Imani. He breathed a sigh of relief, but looked pretty pissed. “What was that for!?”

Imani dropped from the branches to land beside him. The barrel of her oversized bowgun nearly touched the ground when she held it casually. “We're two down and our giant friend's not going to last. We'll have to work together if we are to survive.”

Hanging his head, the Sniper groaned, “We still don't know why we're bloody here or have to fight these lunatics in the first place!”

A cold, dispassionate gaze fixed on him. “That matters if we live. Get it together, or you will not.”



Nero heaved a sigh, and wondered what time it was.

It had been the afternoon when he, V, and Nadia traveled through the teleporter to Argent Tower and set foot once again in the Dead Zone, the city-sized nightmare swathed in eternal night. With a small, agile, and elite group, the three made quick progress once they decided where to go. Nadia maintained an irritating degree of ambiguity about her goals, which apparently commanded such importance that she needed to accomplish them as soon as physically possible, but not so much that she felt the need to share the specifics. The feral only suggested that she sought a very powerful enemy somewhere within the city limits in order to retrieve something from it, and offered a name: Bloody Marie. That name rung no bells for either Nero or V, but destroying the strongest residents of the Dead Zone constituted a necessary step toward taking down the tyrant who ruled over it all from atop the colossal Qliphoth tree at the city's center. That meant hunting down one of the two remaining Qliphoth roots and eliminating whatever lurked at its base. Nero figured it was a fifty-fifty shot, and since that was the best Nadia could get, she didn't argue.

Since none of them wanted to get caught in another trap like the police station, they made sure to stay outside as they traveled. The city streets, of course, contained vast hordes of undead, and things looked even worse down there than they did before. While the various zombies and things tended to ignore one another, the fleshy monstrosities that the heroes encountered before harbored no such compunctions. They attacked any undead with meat on them, infesting them like parasites and taking control. What at first seemed like just another virus had become a crashing wave sweeping through the city and its shambling population, a veritable Flood of horrors. Looking down at the streets from one of the rooftops his team had been sticking to, Nero couldn't help but shudder. This place needed to go.

“Ready yet?” Nadia asked V, who stood by a swirling crystal of blue demonic essence. He remained focused on the crystal, and did not respond. A moment later the thing burst and Griffon reformed, squawking uproariously.

“Gaw-lee! Anyone get the number on that gargoyle?” He glanced around as he flew over to V to land on his shoulder. The roof of the derelict hospital was thick wish ash. “Huh, guess its number came up. Good work, kids.”

Narrowing her eyes at him, Nadia gave a toothy grin. “What, no apology for claw-king out early? You're purr-etty shameless.”

Nero waved his hand, not taking his eyes off the street nearby. “Hey, come here.” The mall from which a Qliphoth root sprouted lay just down the road, but his eyes were on a lone vehicle speeding down the avenue. Its rider directed the bike past abandoned cars, rubble, and zombies, navigating the cluttered street expertly. Some sort of glowing orange container could be seen strapped to his chest, and something that looked rather like a bodybag seemed to be strapped to his back. He had good reason to hustle; a few seconds after he rounded the corner convenience store and came into view, an enormous demon came after him. She moved like a sea serpent, winding through the air in pursuit of her target. The devil hunter sighed. “Up for a quick detour?”

V stepped up beside him. “Where evil lurks, I must destroy,” he said in an offhanded manner.

Nadia came up on Nero's other side. “Might as well. Geez, I'm bein' a real hero today, huh?”

Without another word Nero jumped, and Nadia followed right behind. Griffon lent his wings to help V down easy, and while descending he watched Nero launch his wire to snatch Echidna's head. It latched on, provoking a surprised “What!?” before the devil hunter zoomed in to deliver a dropkick to her face. “Gaah!” The impact launched her into the nearby apartment building with a crash, sending masonry flying all over. Nero landed, followed shortly by Nadia -who used a streetlamp to slow her momentum- and V. Echidna tore herself free from the building and treated her challengers to a wrathful scowl. “Who dares?”

Nero leveled the barrel of the Blue Rose at her, but he looked perplexed. “Hey, I know you. Didn't you get your ass handed to you a couple years ago?”

Fury and confusion took over the demoness's features. “Your insignificant insults have no effect on me! Though I will tear your body to shreds!”

“Huh, I remember that line, too. Some real deja vu.” He glanced to the left to see the biker escape to a safe distance, then come to a stop. Nero turned back to Echidna. “Here, a token of our reunion.” He opened fire, and the battle began.

@Lugubrious

Doom Slayer

Level 1 Doom Slayer
Location: Dead Zone
Word Count: 398

The Slayer was not sure where he was, the last thing he remembered was collecting his thoughts after killing the Icon Of Sin for the second time. The blinding white light he thought he was being teleported elsewhere, he thought this was some sort of surprise attack. But he found himself in a strange place, he could not identify it as a place on earth. A robotic voice spoke up inside of his helmet, "Judging form these readings i detect a strong demonic presence in the area" VEGA the A.I he had uploaded before destroying his core spoke up.

Their was a sinister smile on the Slayer's face, "RIP AND TEAR, UNTIL THEIR'S NOTHING LEFT!!!" Another voice but one that was in his head screamed in his ear. Looking at the equipment he did have on him, he had the bare essentials. Including his pistol, combat shotgun, wrist blade and meat hook. He was hoping he had kept his baby, his most prized weapon the BFG. Walking towards the city. "Please be careful Slayer" VEGA's voice sounded quite concern, the A.I had became quite sentimental to the Slayer during their adventure.

As the slayer made his way into the city, he could see it reminded him of demonic ruined earth. From the distance he noticed the zombies and other demonic beings. Cocking his shotgun and walking closer towards the hoard, opening fire on them getting their attention. As they slowly scrambled towards him, he felt his blood boiling because he knew his battle was ETERNAL. Mowing though the hoard, punching, ripping body parts and shooting the demons.

Their was blood splattering all over his suit, which he didn't mind and actually enjoyed the smell of blood. Carnage and death was all he knew ever since he first saved Phobo's from the demonic invasion. He noticed ahead of him another group fighting a large dragon like creature. "YOU ARE HUGE, THAT MUST MEAN YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS" The voice spoke in his head wanting to murder this creature.

The Slayer was quickly dispatching the horde, form where he was standing he could see what the other warriors looked like. These zombies making little effort in hurting the Slayer. Slowly making his way over towards the group fighting the dragon.

Mutually confirming each other as allies, as further clarified through the Nopon’s broken speech, Fox and Tora lowered their aim and guard respectively. Hat Kid was in the middle of acknowledging her strange new tagalong with less than the recommended level of apprehension for an unrecognized stowaway when two (to three) other invaders from their party entered the tower behind her. Banjo and Kazooie made it a few steps behind Geralt on account of their setback, fortunately clearing themselves of the moat ahead of Linkle freezing it over. Fox wordlessly called them up with a beckoning gesture. Before anyone besides Tora and Poppi could properly approach the elevator, however, a descending great arrow tore through the tower from above, reducing an entire quadrant of the structure’s upper half to raining debris with which to shower the intruders.

Any command to move would have been unnecessary, for those present were already making for cover to the nearest (intact) wall away from the above hazard. The following brief moment of stillness was accented with tension as the elevator proper had begun moving on its own. Alerted, Fox directed his sight upward to the lowering platform, both hands gripping his sidearm. When it reached the bottom, the blue-clad swordsman--the one Fox instinctively pegged for being the most dangerous of the enemy force--stood alone at the center of the platform, blade and shield brandished.

He engaged Tora with terrifying haste, leaving none of them a second prior to move or react, and Poppi, understandably slow to cover her Driver, was stopped dead in Stasis for her effort. The warrior followed with a vibrant blue explosive aimed for the group that Fox saw fit to intercept, dodging directly in front of it and sending it back with a quick pulse of his Reflector. He then bounded off and over the Stasis-locked Blade, squeezing off a three round burst of disorienting shots to accompany the reflected bomb, which the boy managed to block the blast from despite detonating it unexpectedly in his proximity. With reaction time like his, conically grouped potshots weren’t likely to hit him, but they didn’t have to. By then, Fox was on him the instant his feet hit the floor as he began laying on pressure with an aggressive series of relentless blows at blinding speed to beat the swordsman back.

Melee met metal in a momentarily even exchange of kicks and slashes. Link deflected Fox’s strikes with shield and sword alike; Fox ducked and sidestepped Link’s swings in kind. They traded like so for a handful of seconds, neither really gaining on the other until Link’s next swing passed narrowly over Fox’s head, his blade raking along the length of the sword at the vulpine’s back and throwing sparks in a glancing blow. Fox continued turning into his spinning step to throw the flat of his heel into the boy’s shin to drop him, then his midsection to crumple him, and finally finishing with a reverse roundhouse to his temple. The first two of the climbing strikes landed, but Link leaned in as he doubled from the second to duck beneath the third. His sword arm was tucked in from his last miss, unseen by the overzealous mercenary. A white sheen ran the blade from shoulder to tip with an audible ring, and on cue, he retaliated with a spinning horizontal slash that came out faster Fox could register, let alone respond to fresh off of an overcommitted whiff. For his trouble, the vulpine was rightly clipped with the attack and sharply swatted away.

With the brief moment allotted to him, Link stepped forward to strike Poppi. He hit her several times with his sword, but seemed to be holding back his strength. Still, the sight of it filled Tora with rage. “Poppi!” he wailed, and with his shield in one wing and his wrench in the other to mirror Link’s own weapons, he charged. The blinking golden light covering Poppi gave way, however, and the stockpiled energy delivered to her in stasis sent her flying into her Masterpon, and both tumbled away again. Though neither sustained any real injury, it’d be another moment before either could fight.

Link faced the others, ready for more.

Geralt smirked. There was always something about heroes that rubbed him the wrong way. Legends, fairy tales, grand stories of wonderful knights sweeping beautiful maidens and princesses off their feet and living happily ever after.

It didn’t help that he knew a few of those stories were true, and a few of them were convenient lies. A princess who had turned out to be a striga born of an unholy union, a troll who ate the valorous knight, a poor man betrayed by his kin, forced to kill his own wife under the spell of lycanthropy.

And he, the Witcher who cleaned up all of their messes for a few hundred orens. So yeah, heroes annoyed him a little. It was with a bit of pleasure that Geralt raised his hand and made the Sign of Axii, forcing as much willpower into it as he could bear, hoping to either take control of Link, or at least stun him. This kid was a legendary hero, so the Witcher knew it wouldn’t hold him for long, if at all.

He didn’t need to hold the kid, though. He just needed to distract him. Even a warrior with over a hundred years of experience could be killed by a pimple-faced teenager with a pitchfork under the right circumstances. He’d seen it firsthand, after all. If this was what the others needed to put the upstart kid down...he was more than happy to oblige.

The mind-bending hex reached Link, and soaked into his head. Its aura appeared around him, and he stiffened. A pained expression overtook his face as he fought against it. In that moment Geralt’s magic and willpower clashed against a mind that had lived countless lifetimes and held within the collective trauma of them all, a staggering aggregate of suffering, strength, and fortitude. Axii vied for control, but it found no purchase against the overwhelming odds. Instead the hex left Link reeling, disoriented for just a moment.

In that moment, a pair of the other attending combatants sought to capitalize on the opening afforded to them. Coming around the outer edge of the room, going from ground to wall to air in a sprint, Hat Kid propelled off the wall at speed and zoomed into the back of Link’s head, extending both feet at the moment before impact. She bounced over his head, falling away while winking at him with her tongue stuck out in mockery as he turned around too late to spot her, but just in time to see himself get struck with a clotheslining bear claw. Banjo doubled while Kid hooked onto the scaffolding to swing back around the way she came. She disconnected her Hookshot to launch herself like a bullet at the recovering swordsman, and the duo charged forth from his other side, throwing themselves into a rolling attack. Just as Link reoriented himself, the two attackers collided with him simultaneously--the duo bowling into him on one side, the child toppling him from the other. No pre-coordination went into the assault, but the remarkable degree of synergy on display yielded a solid result nonetheless.

At the end of their roll, Kazooie nabbed Link by the boot and whipped him into the air above them as Banjo sprang to his feet. He leaped skyward, catching the boy by his waist, lifting him over his head, and driving him downward as they dropped, aiming to drill him into the stonework head first. However, they met unexpected resistance. Link caught himself with his shield flat against the ground, causing it to crack and depress from the force, but stopping himself entering it. After a second of resisting, he broke Banjo’s grab by kicking himself upward and catching him with an inverted horizontal slice before landing.

The staggered ursine righted himself with a retaliatory Beak Barge that the swordsman parried with little issue, which meant violently batting aside Kazooie’s head. Banjo turned about to spare his stunned partner the incoming sword strikes that swiftly followed, taking the first three directly before raising both arms in front of him to cover his head, for lack of a better means to defend himself against an armed opponent. After sustaining the fifth or so gash into the thick hyde of his forearms, Banjo reached out to catch the swinging blade by hand, adding simply another step to his clumsy defense. Link then drove the edge of his shield into the desperate bear’s jaw, putting it between himself and Kazooie to ensure she couldn’t reach him over it after recovering from her head trauma. Banjo bore gritted teeth angrily as he attempted to pry Link’s arms apart--blood running from the palm of one hand, shield wood beginning to crack and splinter within the grip of the other. Before he could get the chance to open him up, Link brought his back foot up and forward into Banjo’s abdomen, heavily ramming the toe of his boot just below his sternum and up under his ribcage with force enough to lift the ursine off of his feet and send him and his partner flying back.

At that point Tora ran into the fray, brandishing the combined missile-launching fist weapons known as the Mech Arms. Casting defense aside to put up a blistering offense, Tora waddled forward while punching repeatedly. His shape combined with the Mech Arms made for a hard target, and while Link responded with a punishing sequence of slices and bashes, he was forced to give up ground. Behind the angry Nopon came Geralt, and the two circled around Link to force him to fight on two fronts. Make that three as he maneuvered his blade behind him to block a somersaulting strike with a tiny umbrella. She didn’t give him time to count her out, switching hats on the fly and chasing him with a Power Dunk that he managed to sidestep, joining the Nopon and Witcher in the onslaught. Steel rang and sparks flew as they traded blows, Tora’s offense insisting that Link focus more on him, yet even when the traveler’s sword danced past the bulky metal fists Tora barely batted an eye.

Link quickly found that he couldn’t prevent Geralt from landing hits without allowing the Nopon to simply start barging into him, or the child to acrobatically dance around his head to freely chip away at him, a massive annoyance. Bleeding from the cut of steel sword above his eye, Link clenched his teeth and bellowed, putting all his strength into a whirlwind spin attack. Tora recognized a knockout blow coming and stepped back in time to avoid the worst of it, with Link’s blade glancing off his Mech Arms. Trusting that Geralt would be putting some distance between himself and the deadly move as well, Tora got clear and hurled his weapons to Poppi. He saw before him a hurricane of gleaming metal, impossible to approach, but he need not approach. His own assault didn’t do any lasting damage to the Hylian either, but it need not do damage--only build up power for Poppi’s Blade Art.

Hat Kid stuck the landing in a backslide from being sent back by Link’s Spin Attack, a near miss for her. Unable to get closer, and seeing little point in doing so outmatched, she whipped umbrella around her in a semicircle, turning in motion with her recovery to face the hero in preparation for a ranged attack. The umbrella’s tip dragged the ground sparking with ergokinetic energy as she took aim, charging the weapon to its second stage before unleashing an empowered energy blast at Link. Much to her surprise, and misfortune, a well-timed shield reply was all it took for him to redirect the beam right back at her. Her eyes went wide in the brief microsecond of realization she had before being struck with her own attack hard enough to pin her against the wall at her back. She struggled to reopen her eyes as gravity peeled her from the wall face down onto the floor, barely conscious.

Tora watched as his blade partner unleashed a torrent of missiles at Link, hammering him incessantly. The chain of miniature explosions, a veritable fireworks display, went on and on even after Link stopped spinning and raised his shield to defend himself. When the last blast went off, Link stepped from the smoke with that shield of his no more than splinters. Battered and smoking, he threw aside the wreckage and in a flash equipped the ancient bow. “Poppi!” the Nopon called, but it was too late. A brilliant golden flash consumed Poppi, Banjo, Kazooie, and Hat Kid, leaving just Geralt, Fox, and Tora himself, armed with nothing more than his wrench. Gripping his sword with both hands, Link stepped up for another round.



Echidna started the fight with a spin, bringing her enormous dragon tail around to wipe the heroes away. Nero, V, and Nadia all leaped over the attack, with V relying on Griffon to get airborne. Seemingly heedless of whatever attacks the great demon might have in store for him, Nero launched into a Wire Snatch that brought him up close and person. Once, then twice he swung in the air, revving the Red Queen expertly on each blow. Echidna reeled back, and the devil hunter finished by launching himself into a burning plunge attack. “Double DOWN!”

A burst of dark magic surged forth, but Nero evaded it cleanly. A moment later Echidna was assailed by bullets of electricity from Griffon, making her snarl in anger. “Try some seeds on for size!” With a wave of her hand she launched demonic seeds at the bird, only for the cackling fiend to roast them in a dome of lightning. “GAH! My CHILDREN!” she screamed, and all of a sudden she dove straight for V.

Nadia’s claws sunk into the demoness’ scales. Finding good purchase, she began to run up the body of Echidna’s serpent half, slicing left and right with her own detached tail. V slunk out of the way using Shadow, so Echidna banked upward, sailing through the air like an eel through water. She thrashed to and fro, weathering a hail of fire from Nero and V, but Nadia would not let go. “Nyahahaha!” she laughed, holding on by her claws. “What’s the matter, not up to scratch?” When Echidna leveled off a moment later to barrel down the block, Nadia saw her chance. She detached her arms and loosened two long loops of muscled fiber to snag around Echidna’s horns, and when they caught hold she pulled hard. The demoness’ neck snapped back with a cry, and she veered upward in a backloop before crashing into the street. Nadia jumped free, guiding her flight with jets of blood from her ankles.

Echidna righted herself with a sweep of her tail and floated into the air. “Enough games!” Pointing her tail straight downward, she plunged into the ground like a giant drill, burying herself up to the waist. For a moment the heroes wondered why, but the next a number of spiked tendrils started cropping up from the ground, trying to spear them from below and then thrash them once they fell. The onslaught forced the trio on the defensive, though they worked to close in on Echidna herself. A few tendrils burst up around the somewhat nearby Doom Slayer too, putting him in jeopardy.