“Ow-ow-ow-ow!” Tora wailed as he hopped across the end stone after Poppi. Each step landed one foot on another trace remnant of the dragon's acid, which made for a problem unique to those who -like him- happened to be going barefoot. His little nubs didn't have a lot of surface area to burn, but that meant a little acid went a long way, so the panicked Nopon flapped his wings to get as much air time as possible while racing toward the spot where his companion crashed down. “Poppi Poppi Poppi!” he yelled, closing in on her position. As he came she turned toward him, proving that she at least remained functional, but Tora could see at first glance that the damage to her leg was severe. Rather, the entire lower half of one leg was gone. Where it could be was anyone's guess; more than likely it flew off the island and into the abyss. Luckily for the artificial blade she couldn't feel pain, with the closest approximation being the registration and ensuing alert of damage, but it hurt Tora just to see his masterpiece wounded.

He babbled nigh-unintelligibly for a few seconds before Poppi cut in. “Am alright, Masterpon,” she assured him. “Core systems unharmed. But balance off, and flight capabilities limited. Overall fighting power decreased. Poppi is sorry, Masterpon.”

Tora squeezed her in a hug, relieved that she hadn't suffered more critical damage from the fall. “It fine-fine, Poppi. You did lots of damage with big, super-cool attack!” He replayed the move over again in his head and remembered its function. “That level two blade finisher, right?” After Poppi nodded, he broke into a determined smile. “That mean just one more round before nasty beastypon can't wind-smack friends again!”

The artificial blade pointed behind him. “We better hurry!”

He turned in time to see the results of the Ender Dragon's wheeling spin attack. Blazermate, who happened to be along the side of pillars facing Tora, took a glancing blow from the dragon tail that still left her rattled. Donnie somehow avoided getting pounded, but his ride wasn't so lucky. A handful of others, however, received the full brunt of the dragon's strike, either from its tail or the wall of air that followed. The Ace Cadet, Fox, Hat Kid, Peach, Banjo, and Kazooie went flying, gaining no height but sailing outward at high speed. Thanks to their position relative to the Ender Dragon's, each and every one ended up headed for the edge. About half of the group escaped it, however, most of them embroiled in some sort of conflict on the ground level. Now that Tora got a good look, he could see his friends fighting off a swarm of endermen. Must have gotten aggro'd by stray fire, he reasoned. Things seemed to be going well, with rapid warps leading up to a combination attack between Linkle, Bowser, and the force of Sectonia. But if they were all killing endermen, who was dealing with the dragon? As much as he wanted to help, he needed to assist Poppi first.

Before he could, Cuphead pelted the leviathan with a worrisome yellow liquid, the Courier's rifle gave a fearsome triple report, and Jak plunged down onto the Ender Dragon in a dark dive. With the freshly-wounded dragon not fully re-oriented from her attack, she proved vulnerable to an strike from above; Jak's weight and power proved to be more than enough for the job. He slammed her to the ground and unleashed a wave of darkness, dealing a hefty chunk of Jarate-enhanced damage but endangering Link at the same time, who clung to the dragon's tail. Following the wave, Euden jumped into attack, and had already started leaving red-hot slashes in the beast's hide by the time Donnie's warning reached him. In just a moment's time the flying machine crashed down, its unguided course far too inexact to hit the dragon's head, but the explosion that followed was nothing short of spectacular. A brutal pressure wave ruptured organs and cracked bones already ravaged by Jak's Dark Bomb and the Courier's bullets, then raced outward to knock the nearby fighters off their feet, and close behind it followed the fire and shrapnel. The Ender Dragon was devastated, but the withering blast rocked Jak, Euden, and Link just as badly if not worse. Euden and Link disappeared together on the Cadet's remaining Palico carts, whisked back to Lumbridge.

While Tora couldn't see all the details, he knew it was past time to get back into the action. “Here!” He opened his toolbox and produced some spare materials. It took only a moment to weld a makeshift lower leg for her, and another to carve it down to an equal height with her other leg. They wouldn't be flying any time soon, but at least she could run. “Okay, let's go!” They rushed back toward the battlefield, plowing across the end stone with as much haste as they could muster. Up ahead, they spotted the other heroes continue to eliminate enderman, a group at a time rather than one by one. Some took potshots at the dragon, but on the whole the leviathan managed to recover unopposed. “Uh oh.” While Tora agreed with removing the enderman menace, not paying attention to the giant dragon was a bad idea. He watched Donnie try to engage her as she rose, only for the injured monk to be batted aside. Worse still, a portion of the heroic company had been scattered by the wheeling strike, and without the miracle of flight Tora could do nothing to help them. Nothing, except...

He and Poppi entered the inner battlefield, skirting by one of the obsidian pillars. A Mech Arm popped open and released a flurry of missiles that flew up to burst against the Ender Dragon's onyx scales as she rose back into the air. Though not nearly as strong as some of the other heroes' projectiles, the missiles got her attention, and the dragon swooped down. She thrust her powerful, clawed limbs at the heroes on the ground as she flew overhead, primarily gunning Bowser but also threatening everyone else down there, especially those distracted by their extermination of the remaining endermen. The Ender Dragon hit the ground running, then turned just enough as she neared Tora to raised a massive foreleg above him. Sucking in his breath, Tora locked the Mech Arms together, sat down, and braced for impact. Poppi stood clear, channeling ether to form an extra layer of protective shielding, but even she was uncertain. All too soon, the dragon brought her limb down on the Nopon like a sledgehammer on a hamster.

End stone shot out in every direction. The weight of the slam half-buried him in the ground, creating a tiny, circular crater. If Tora hadn't seated himself, his legs would have been crushed beneath him, but instead his super spongy body held strong. Still, he was so jarred by the crushing blow that he couldn't do anything but block again even if he wanted to. With the heroes behind her and her badly-wounded head inaccessible, she lashed her tail to bludgeon any comers as she raised her forelimb to slam again. Poppi winced as a second mighty blow buried Tora completely. “Masterpon!” She froze as the dragon opened her mouth, purple acid welling forth to blast the pair into oblivion.

Tora groaned, silently pleading for his allies to deal a decisive blow. There had been no set-up or grand plan, just the urge to protect and the will to take the pain that others could not. His arms fell limply to the side, his guard broken. “Poppi...go...”

The machine shook her head emphatically. “Poppi will not abandon master!”

“It fine...” he rasped, somewhat surprised it was taking the dragon so long to build up acid. Maybe she did have some limits to her output. “Tora use special skill and survive. If still go south, cattypons will save.” Even while saying that, though, he wasn't quite sure. Knowing one had a trump card was one thing, but staring death in the face and trusting in that card to survive was another. If this worked, he had to move. He couldn't close his eyes. He watched, rigid with fearful anticipation, as the acid bomb descended upon him.

A moment later he was flying through the air. Grin and Bear It had activated, granting him a few moments of invincibility. He hit the ground with his little legs on overdrive, running like his ass was on fire. “One HP! One HP! One HP!” he screamed, in burning pain and flailing his wings wildly. Poppi half-ran, half-hobbled in front of him, moving fast. Unbeknownst to Tora, the Ace Cadet's Palico Rescue had been used up. His little feet narrowly avoiding puddle after puddle of leftover acid, carrying him onward against all odds, until his number came up.

Any second Tora's foot could splash in an acid puddle, smaller even than his trusty wrench, and that would be the end of him.



From the way Sakura fell down, one could be forgiven for thinking that she was the one slugged in the neck and bashed in the groin, but no, it was definitely Ryu. It hurt a lot, too. Still, as he labored to keep himself composed while working through the lingering pain, he felt as though he could guess what troubled her. Not everyone got through life with no home, no friends, and no family; few shared his lack of connections. Right now she was thinking, probably for the first time, about the state of the world and those she cared about. From her reaction Ryu doubted that they had resided with her in the Forbidden Kingdom.

The fact that she shouldered her uncertainty and fear in order to help him spoke volumes about her character. For her sake, Ryu attempted to part the grimacing mask that was his face with a reassuring smile. “I'll be fine,” he told her. “You, on the other hand, must be confused. Full of questions. I am afraid the answers I've found from my battles will not provide much comfort.” He extended his own hand to redirect Sakura's toward the brilliant, seraphic icon floating high in the sky, a long ways away. “That thing is Galeem. An evil god that changed reality. Most everyone in this world is under its spell, but now you are free.”

With a groan, Ryu got to his feet. He looked up toward the sound of incoming footsteps and spotted a familiar girl running over the bridge. She sprinted down the dirt path around the shady hill to where his duel ended. “I heard fighting, some kind of huge energy blast,” she explained as she arrived. With her close enough to converse normally, Sakura could see that the stranger appeared to be a robot, or at least a cyborg, despite the natural way she spoke. Curly glanced between the two fighters, noting their condition before her expression turned to one of surprise. “A sparring match, huh...? Wait, you beat him? Or was it a draw? As far as I know, Mr. Ryu's gone totally undefeated!” The subtly odd sunset red of her eyes shone brightly as concern replaced the intrigue in her voice. “You both look pretty banged up. Should probably take a break in the guild hall. Can I lend a hand?”

Ryu tried to gather himself to say something, but he was a little slow on the draw. A moment later, something strange stole the girls' attention. A cloud of smoke burst out of nowhere on the dirt path close by, and from it issued a wooden cart pushed by three bipedal cats. Curly's mouth hung open. “Felynes?” Atop the cart lay a robot that she couldn't identify. Ryu had seen it before, but knew nothing about it, and so watched in baffled silence as the cart got rolled toward and over the bridge into town, jostling and jerking with every bump on the way. Curly glanced at the others but found no answers forthcoming. “Well, whatever that was aside, do you two need any help?”



The Slayer approached the necromorphs and Rat King with his typical macabre relish, more or less ignoring the bone blades and pummeling as he pulled them apart. As one might expect of such a bulking, amalgamated monstrosity, the Rat King took a lot more effort to put down. Piece by piece the Slayer worked through it, trading blows as he tore off portions of the various bodies that composed it. After the thing took a flying slab from Minos, an undead body broke off of its lower section completely, which quickly proved far tougher than its humanoid size and fractional nature might imply. Nero, biding his time, blew a knee out with a well-placed shot so that the Slayer could take it down without having to think too much. By the time the gruesome Rat King rolled over, its killer's heart rate was up, and the Slayer wasted no time reintroducing Minos to the battle with a few good shotgun shells.

“Hmph!” the judge growled through gritted teeth. “I'll condemn you myself!” He flinched as one of the Slayer's shots cratered an eye, but five could do the job just as well. Using two hunks of the ceiling, one in each hand, Minos pounded at the Slayer over and over again.

Nadia saw her chance and jumped on top of the Rat King's corpse to get some altitude. “Hey, six-eyes!” she shouted, wearing a gleeful smile. “You gonna quit thrashin' yours arms sometime soon, or does the wittle baby want his bottle that bad?” Her enemy unleashed a wordless snarl, and she held her arms wide. “What, you mad? You couldn't hit me if you tried!”

Predictably, he tried. Minos swung both hands down at once to smash her flat, but Nadia ducked out of the way, and his fists burst into the Rat King's ripe corpse. They snagged on the twisted organs, fungal growths, and bones, stuck inside. Before the judge could pick up his arms Nadia split herself apart, linked only by muscle fiber, and cast herself over them. With her claws she anchored herself in the ground, and struggle as he might, Minos could not pick his arms back up.

V allowed himself a snicker as he snapped his fingers. The black of his hair dusted off, revealing white, and the air behind him cracked like glass. A hulking black arm burst from it, throwing shards across the battlefield, and Nightmare stepped into this dimension. With a hop V ascended onto the demon's shoulder, and by his guidance Nightmare raised an arm. Just as planned, Nero jumped and used his Wire Snatch to grab hold. Nightmare spun him around like a lasso, and at just the right moment, the devil hunter released his wire to shoot like a bullet directly into Minos' chest.

The Red Queen sank in up to the hilt, and Minos roared in pain. “You like that?” Nero hissed, his teeth gritted. “How 'bout this?” Using his good hand he wrenched his blade back and forth, back and forth, causing Minos' whole upper body to convulse with each twist. “Now you die!” He ripped his sword free in a spray of gray-brown blood and leaped away.

Behind him, Nightmare had already pitched forward onto all fours. Energy flowed into its terrific pink eye, the gathering glimmer seeming to darken the arena around it. Almost casually V extended a pointing finger. “Apocalypse falls.” There came a split second of deathly foreboding silence before the demon unleashed its beam. Particles of black and pink filled the air as the incredible energy billowed forward, a waterfall of annihilation. The lunatic ray melted straight through Minos' torso, and when it faded, the heroes could see straight through the cauterized hole and out into the city behind the courthouse.

Minos slumped forward, groaning. He came to a rest on his forearms, his head on the ground and his long, forked tongue coiled beside it. Were he a more conventional being and not a creature of hell, he would have been dead already, but some life remained in him. Nadia freed and reconstituted herself, flexing her arms. “Oof. Gonna have sore meowscles for a while after that one.”

The sound of footsteps bade the heroes look up from their achievement. “So, that's the strength of a notable demon in another world's hell? And a king, no less.” Pandemonica approached, walking past the heroes and around the malodorous remains of the Rat King. She held a disposable cup of steaming hot coffee in her hands, and something seemed different about her. From the back the others could see her longer horns, and when she turned to sneer down at Minos, her slitted eyes became visible. “Pathetic.” She lifted up a leg and brought her heel down on the judge's tongue, evoking a weak snarl of pain. Grinning, she did it again harder.

Nadia was taken aback. “Uh...Pandy? What's going on?”

“Pandemonica,” the demoness corrected her, glowering. “I believe I said earlier: I'm not myself without my coffee. I doubt you'll enjoy making me repeat myself again as much as I will.”

Nadia bristled. “Say what?”

Shaking his head, Nero released his breath and turned away. “Hey, you,” he told the Slayer, trying to change the subject. “Finish him off already, wouldja? Just make it quick, time's wasting.” He remembered the nuclear fate scheduled to befall the city after that porter made his delivery. While he could very well die before completing his mission, Nero got the impression that he wouldn't fail. Despite being a normal human, that guy seemed like the reliable sort who'd pull through against any odds.

In short order the deed was done. Behind the courthouse, the Qliphoth root started dying right away. Deprived of a life source, it quickly turned gray, brittle, and crumbly, like the countless human victims whose blood the Qliphoth sucked dry. It made for a poetically fitting end to the tree, the sort of thing Nero thought V might appreciate, but the demonic tree couldn't grasp the ironic justice of it. Retribution would need to befall the mindless growth's master. “One down,” Nero remarked. “One to go.”

V looked up from his book. Whatever he seemed poised to say got crushed by Nadia, who skipped forward. “Well, hopefully she's as easy as this guy! We might be a buncha weirdos, but we sure get the job done, huh?” Having her back toward Pandemonica gave a pretty clear indication of who she considered 'we'.

Something she said prompted a sidelong glance from V. “'She', is it? If you have any knowledge of who the final root boss is, who you expect our help to deal with, it would be inconsiderate to leave us in the dark.”

“Uh...” From the look on Nadia's face, the feral clearly messed up. After a moment of consideration in consternation, she glanced back at Pandemonica to make sure she wasn't listening in, but the demoness appeared to be more focused on collecting Minos' spirit. The feral beckoned the others closer. “Yeah, I know who it is. I don't know her name, but she's the Skullgirl. A real strong woman who can control the dead.”

“And why must you defeat her?” V questioned. “You have demonstrated no interest in this region's ruler, like us or that odd group we worked with.”

“The Skull Heart,” Nadia hissed, as if the words were being squeezed out of her. “It can grant a woman's wish. Happy now?”

Nero's eyebrows went up. “Is that right?” His acquaintance nodded. “Huh. Now there's something you don't see every day.”

After slipping his book into a pocket V agreed. “Indeed. While I expect we will continue to help you, I must first ask what you intend to wish for.” His tone and the look on his face all said the same thing: this was a test.

Nadia, however, had nothing to hide. “I want to bring back the Fishbone Gang. My friends...no, my family. The Medicis butchered us, but I survived. So...its like my duty. I owe 'em that much.”

A moment passed before Nero nodded to himself. “Alright, whatever. One down, one to go. Let's get moving.” He made for the back of the courthouse, which presented a much easier route to exit by than the way the group came in. Pandemonica stood by, clutching her coffee. “...You coming too?”

She looked down into her empty cup, annoyed. “As long as you find more coffee. But if it's bad, I'll break your fingers.”

“Uh-huh.” Nero said, wondering why he bothered. He jumped through the hole in the courtroom wall and clambered onto street level. Nadia, V, and Pandemonica followed behind him. “Maybe Nico's got some. Probably just cigarettes though.” The streets looked mostly intact, so the devil hunter got searching for a phone booth.

“Smoking is Zdrada's thing,” Pandemonica ventured, starting to look a little tired. She watched him pile into a half-destroyed booth, deposit a quarter, and make a call. Glaring at him, she crossed her arms. “Now's not the time for chatter. Do I need...!?”

A nearby storefront exploded, and from the dust and debris careened the Minotaurus. The van spun around, tires screaming on the pavement, and stopped just short enough to make Nadia and Pandemonica jump in panic. A moment later the side door popped open, and a brown-haired woman in glasses leaned out. “'Sup?”

Nero went for the passenger's seat in the front. “Can you get us to the other root?”

“Can I?” Nico laughed. “This ain't some rinky-dink go-kart at the state fair. Get in.” Once everyone got inside, Nico floored it, and the crew was headed south.

@Lugubrious

Doom Slayer

Level 1 Doom Slayer

Location: Dead Zone

Word Count: 447

The Slayer jumped out of the way of the large creature's slamming fist; trying to dodge it and retaliating by firing his pistol at the eyes of the large creature. Being told to finish the large creature by Nero; nodding his head running towards the six eyed creature. Jogging towards him making sure to dodge the attacks; protecting the other's by focusing the creature's attacks solely on himself. Moving himself closer towards him and to end this quickly. Once he was c lose enough he kept firing his shotgun to try and blind him.

Of course to blind him he would have to move close enough to be in range of it's melee attacks; Once the large creature was blinded the Slayer made his way up it's body. Standing on it's head pulling out his shotgun and shooting on the top of it's head. Wanting to blow it's brains out and focus his efforts on the judge demon. With King Mino's death the demon slayer jumped off of it's corpse; Turning to face the summoner ignoring the cat demon and the lazy demon women. Grabbing him by the neck; Easily snapping his neck with one hand.

Walking with the group; finding certain members of the group to be quite annoying. Especially the cat and lazy demon. The contains cat puns made him rub the visor of his helmet; as if he was trying to pinch the bridge of his nose. Hearing about a wish that could be granted caught his attention; however this wish being only granted to woman. Unless he could change his gender right away he could not wish to reverse the invasion of hell.

Scanning the area he noticed the many store fronts; Noticing that one of the store fronts was of a game store. His eye caught a torn up game stand of a game called “MOOD”; A large armored character holding a shotgun and in his other hand was the severed head of a strange alien like creature. Shaking his head thinking how ridiculous this game looked to him. Noticing a small figure of the armored man which he found quite “Cute”. Picking up the figure and fist bumping the figure's tiny hand; Putting it away some place safe on his person.

Seeing the large vehicle coming towards them; wondering who the hell this woman was. Although it seemed she knew Nero and V; Which worried him a little. If this woman could get them quickly towards the root. Not going to complain and was just going to use these people as a tool to complete his goal.

The dragon was getting hit from all sorts of angles, although not as many as it could've with a few of the others aggroing and cleaning up the endermen. Although some attacks were better than others, and more effective or less dangerous. Blazermate and especially Sectonia were confused at how Donnie just used himself as a bomb to attack the dragon. Meanwhile Courier was the smartest of the group, just attacking the dragon at range. Still, all the explosive attacks that also did self damage made Blazermate sigh in aggravation. "Are you serious right now?" She said facepalming internally as she moved in to heal those who were self flagrant. Especially since those attacks caused the demise of Link and Euden, with Cadet's cats carrying them off.

Sectonia meanwhile just looked at the scene with sheer confusion. Who on popstar would willingly damage themselves to hurt their enemy just a tiny bit more? She could MAYBE understand it if it was a huge change in damage, but only a tiny bit? She just couldn't wrap her head around it and from the looks of it, even their healer Blazermate was frustrated at the situation as well. Although Sectonia figured that since they had such a strong combat healer, something that she, nor most, have ever seen, people were being far more risky. Still, looking at who the dragon hit and was trying to knock off the ledge, Sectonia went back onto catching duty, catching the Cadet, Fox, and Hat Kid as she flew about. Thankfully the kid and fox were light, even if she did have to smother the both of them into her chest to keep hold of them.

Blazermate meanwhile was healing up Donnie a bit until she saw who the dragon was attacking, Tora, and after a couple of hits, the onion bird man was... super critical? Wasn't he supposed to be a tank? Well, either way, seeing this, Blazermate instantly stopped healing Donnie and made her way over to Tora, who was running around still in the danger zone. In order to get to Tora quickly, she couldn't really dodge getting hit by a bit of the acid splashes that were going on, but she weighted this with her Medaforce level being fairly high.

"Seriously everyone is hurt now, I can only heal one of you at a time!" Blazermate cried in annoyance as she got her beam attached to Tora, essentially being in the dragon's area of attack like the bird onion in order to clear his acid debuff and heal him up so that he wouldn't die the moment he stepped into acid. Still, it'd take a bit to bring his health back up due to how low he was so she wasn't able to heal anyone else, and due to the damage she had taken her healing wasn't as effective as it'd normally be.

Thankfully she was getting Medaforce on all of this healing, and once she had gotten enough as she was close before, for a moment she stopped healing Tora to turn her medi gun on the ender dragon, firing a powerful laser beam at the dragon that, when it hit, would splinter into a bunch of smaller lasers that looked like Blazermate's medi-beam that'd return to her, healing her for the damage she dealt to hte dragon. With this done, she went back to healing Tora, sighing at the onion man saying. "I can heal you, but still take better care of yourself" Sadly it was a Level 1 Medaforce beam, so its damage wasn't as strong as she could make it, but she didn't want to spend all of her medaforce for a level 2 or 3 beam when she was using it more as a deterrent and to heal herself.

While Sectonia was escorting the trio who weren't known to fly back to the island, her minions were doing what they did best, attract whatever enderman they could and attacked them with their scepter-maces. They were very big, very bulky, and very slow thanks to their golden armor, but this worked in their favor as the Enderman were relentless and came to them instead of them needing to come to the endermen, making their defense of the koopa family much easier.

Jr’s silent request for aid was answered, as Linkle joined the fray surrounding Bowser’s self-inflicted endermen onslaught. The heroine ran into much the same issue Jr had, aggroing multiple endermen and having to deal with the consequences as being assailed by three warping foes at once, who popped in and out of the battle whenever they wanted in an incredibly dangerous and aggravating manner. Unlike Jr, however, she too could play that game, and so began a, to Jr, un-track-able teleporting game of cat and mouse, the three lanky fiends and the young woman duked it out in a way only those unbound from space could.

Where Linkle fought the endermen by copying their movement advantage, other reinforcements,in the form of Sectonia’s minions, arrived who could challenge their height advantage. The towering mace wielding ants dropped out of portals and if they could Jr was sure they would have yelled “pick on someone your own size” before laying into the equally tall but comparatively spindly endermen. They were big, they were tough, but, unfortunately, like Bowser, they were also slow, which meant that while they acted as an excellent distraction it meant they had trouble actually landing the blows that would end the skirmish for good. When they did hit they hit hard, allowing to krump the more badly damaged endermen with one blow, but after landing the first hit follow up hits were few and far between.

The feral fury of the Brachydios which had driven jr to charge the endermen with little strategy had burnt out by this point. This allowed the arrival of the ant minions reminded Jr that he had his own mooks he could use in this fight, and not just the gradually increasing number of Stus bubbling up from the goop splattered across the ground from his initial brawl.

”Koopa troopas! Get out here and support those ants! Goomba swarm, form up, I’ve got some special weapons for you this time!” Jr called out, summoning his own smaller but more numerous minions. The koopas immediately got stuck in as soon as they were out, charging the endermen warping around the antmen, fists swinging and turning their own swarming advantage against them. While the koopas weren't exactly strong compared to the towering foes and allies they were around, they were still able to cover the ant’s flanks, bopping the knees of endermen appearing out of reach of the giant insect’s spiked scepter and, as always, dying in droves in the process.

The minion’s of the Koopa Troop didn't really get to show their chops till Jr’s little scheme came into play, as the brawl was joined by the goomba’s who Jr had decked out with a new and deadly weapon.

Swoopin' Stu’s sat atop their heads.

The goombas charged the remaining endermen and then, when they got close, the Stus leaped off of them at the endermen, exploding on them in a shower of hazardous goop. The endermen rapidly got inked either by these attacks, or by clawing goombas with their own Stus already on top, popping them and getting their claws coated in the stuff. Jr laughed as the endermen’s predictable aggro was overwhelmed by the sheer number of (often exploding) targets which was, finally, enough to bring an end to the crisis. The lanky foes where either crushed beneath the ant’s maces or slowly whittle down by jr’s minions and the dot damage from the goop.

The only ones not dealt with by the minion team up were the ones chasing Linkle, who were instead finally dealt with when she lured them beneath Bowser’s foot, where they were promptly squashed by his immense stomps, much to the king’s delight ”HAHAHA. GOTCHA! THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR CHASING LINKLE AROUND!”

”You alright down there?” he then asked, looking down at the heroine and his son, before quickly looking away when his gaze started to trigger Linkle’s uncomfortable enderman spirit weakness ”Right. Sorry. You're like a Boo now. Good job. All of you. Those things are super annoying”

”Yeah, you did ok, but it was mostly me” Jr said to Linkle and the ants, self congratulated himself, before adding ”and my minions” offhandedly to the list of contributing warriors.

There was little time for praise or self aggrandizement however, as the battle was still ongoing. During their little scrap with the enderman swarm the troop’s allies had been dealing with the dragon. A pair of massive explosions had been landed, rocking her to her core. Unfortunately those explosions had not ended the fight as their detonators might have hoped, and worse they’d taken out both Link and Euden in the process. Fortunately the cat stretchers got them as well and whisked them off to somewhere, though where exactly they were being evacuated too Jr realized he didn’t know.

”Pretty handy cats huh. How many of those things even are there?” Jr asked, before realising he didn’t actually know who they belonged to either.

This was followed by another airblast attack, which the troop tanked without issue, but which sent several of the party flying towards the edge of the island. The Cadet, Fox, and Hat Kid where fortunately snatched out of the air by the ever handy Queen Sectonia while Kamek’s toadies swooped in to grab Peach, banjo and Kazooie, one of the propeller headed minions grabbing the bear and princess under their arms and slowing their outward tumble enough to deposit them on the island’s edge.

The dragon wasn’t done though, and ended up targeting Tora, whom she reduced to quite a state that required Blazermate to ditch everyone else in order to focus on keeping the (admittedly surprisingly durable) ball of fluff from biting the dust.

With Blazermate busy with the beleaguered Tora, healing the rest of the party was left to, among others, Kamek’s final remaining clone. The White Mage magikoopa, carrying its wand in one hand and Poppie’s lost leg in the other, swooped in to aid the king. Bower instead directed it downwards to his defenders, to which the mage delivered aid via swinging its wand in their direction, causing a burst of green and green motes energy to surround them before raining upwards and dissipating, healing a smattering of Linkle and Jr’s injuries in an a pair of bursts of instantaneous healing magic before it needed to recharge.

While his son and allies were being healed Bowser charged into the fray in-order to prevent Blazermate from being crushed by the dangerous position the foolhardy fluff ball had put her in. Quickly reattaching the lucky bell, Bowser transformed back into Meowser the king crouched down on all fours and prepared to pounce. Tail swishing to and fro and eyes wide he began to rapidly gauge the distance between where he had been assailed by the endermen and where their foe was in the middle of trying to blast Blazermate and Tora with her remaining store of acid. Once he’d got measured, the titanic cat-like Bowser pounced, launching himself skyward with a complete disregard for gravity. He sailed high in the air, his arch easily bypassing the area the Dragon was guardian with her tail whipping and angling himself downwards, cat claws bared and mecha-mit talons deployed as he deceased upon her, aiming to strike her in the spine if she failed to avoid his strike.

Jr meanwhile wasn't going to have the luxury of going over the tail and so instead, got a bottle of water from his duffel bag. He took a swig and then said to Linkle ”After you”, gesturing in the general direction of the swinging tail weapon warding them away from the dragon’s body.

Chaos was the word here. One could hardly be blamed for getting lost amid the action, as much of it as there was to keep up with. Since the moment the last of the Ender Dragon’s healing stones were shattered she was harried relentlessly by the party, allowed not a second untouched. From all sides, brutal pummellings, focused fire, heavy bombardment and all other manner of devastation was brought down on the black drake one successive move at a time, yet she persisted still in spite of the apparent damage sustained over a short period. It seemed that any time the heroes got on top of the Ender, she would manage to shake them off, and her sheer enormity (to rival Bowser) made it near impossible to keep her pinned down.

The final hit in Poppi’s assault threw the Dragon’s head back, catapulting Hat Kid off with it. Between the mere fact that she was fighting a dragon (and, from the looks of it, winning), to standing atop it amidst the explosion from Linkle’s cast mega bomb, inexplicably unharmed, to now following Ace’s earlier example by grappling onto the beast’s tail, she had to admit to finding a thrill in the conflict. This was just the kind of thing adventures were made of, she thought. Nothing like seeing a teammate get maimed and being subsequently flung away with a batting tail spin to remind her of the reality of the situation. Of the several others affected, be it by direct bludgeon or the accompanying wind buffet, Peach and Banjo and Kazooie stood the best chance of immediate recovery; the pair already being airborne, and the Princess uniquely air capable.

The duo went no farther than the spires before Kazooie beat her wings back to halt their trajectory, righting themselves and regaining control, with Banjo politely waving off the Toadies. As a veteran Smasher and daring career fighter pilot, Fox had a considerable degree of aerial awareness not afforded to most. Certainly enough to get his feet behind and under him in preparation for an impending landing, one that halfway surprised him by coming sooner than expected when he hit feet first squarely into the palm of a giant royal bee. Though unacquainted, he recognized her from his initial cursory inspection to be an allied member of the adventuring party. He cocked an appreciative, affirming smirk at the relative stranger just as she caught the small, purple clad child in her other hand like a baseball mitt, and seeing as her hands were now full, reached out one of his own to clasp arms with the incoming Cadet. Catching the hunter in flight jerked him over by the arm a bit, but he was otherwise able to maintain his balance and footing in the Queen’s daintily gloved, disembodied hand.

“Think you can get us close to it… without stopping?” he requested, with due respect to Her Highness (and as an unfamiliar comrade), that they be brought to the Dragon at speed rather than simply dropped off. To the Cadet, still hanging on by Fox’s and his own grip, he instructed, “Hang on, and be ready!” For what, he didn’t specify, but trusted the hunter to understand by the time they completed their approach. Hat Kid tipped her cap out of her eyes to get a good look at the regal insect carrying her before takeoff, her expression shifting in stages from curiosity, to her joyous default, to excitement when they picked up speed. Meanwhile, Banjo and Kazooie were closing in as well from the other side, conserving their limited Feather supply until coming within their attack range.

Air rushed harshly past the heroes in flight like road noise as they made a beeline for the Dragon--incidentally by the power of a bee no less. Fox knelt down in her palm for stability, still dragging the Cadet on one side, and Kid sat up herself in similar preparation for whatever the daring vulpine had in mind. Whatever it was, she was eager to get in on it. In any case, she swapped hats and kept a vial swirling until then. On the last rapidly approaching stretch of their advance, Fox let out a forceful groan with the strain of exertion as he brought his shoulder back to underhandedly throw Ace toward the Dragon with as much might as he could muster for the maneuver, and whether assisted by Sectonia or by his own strength, he would go soaring in behind him.

Fox followed through on the toss with such force that it entered him into a long distance gainer, having used the entirety of his bodily strength for the stunt. While he was at it, he thought to whip out his sidearm to pepper the Dragon’s face to cover Ace’s approach. By then Banjo and Kazooie were close enough to blindside her in the temple with another Beak Bomb before having to disengage while they increased their altitude and realigned themselves for the next round. This was shortly followed by Fox zipping through the air at the beast’s head, stopping just shy of arm’s reach. This differed from his usual dash technique in that his trail was of starkly darker coloration, and wicks of flame emitted from him softly ahead of a brief glint to signal a sudden heavy explosion generated from it. He leaned into his fall as he went into Jet flight around the Dragon for a quick burst of evasive mobility, mounting her wing if possible.

Finally, Hat Kid, who launched at a much steeper angle, came down chasing the two vials she could get off before descending, switching to the Power Cap and charging her umbrella in freefall. Like before, she landed forcefully on top of the drake’s skull, this time jabbing the tip of her parasol into the hole left in it as she let loose a fully charged, Power-imbued Geyser Beam directly into it. In the best case that this yielded a satisfyingly conclusive result, the Cadet would hopefully be out of the blast zone, lest the result be decidedly less satisfying.

With everything going on from the dragon's deadly movements to their allies' antics, it was much easier to focus anywhere but Linkle while she and the Cadet zipped up with the slinger towards the top of an obsidian spire. Once they were safely away from the flood of acid, the hunter looked down over the top while the dragon was preoccupied. Thankfully it seemed like everyone had found a way to stay safe from the attack. Now, with the beast's tail caught and going nowhere fast, it was the perfect time for a counter attack! Before he could even measure the distance between the spire and dragon, wondering how exactly he would pull off said attack, the Hylian piped up behind him with a request for him.

"Yeah, of course!" The Cadet was midway through turning to face her when her words stopped him and he snapped back and facing away from her. I really hope those spirit changes aren't permanent! he thought. With a nod of his head and thumbs up, Cadet stood steady until Linkle landed on his shoulders and sprung up, sailing towards the dragon. Ace Cadet would say he'd done a pretty decent job of not looking at this enderman-infused teammates so far, or any enderman since entering the central island for that matter, but it was hard not to watch the girl soar through the air in front of him. Fortunately, there were several other things drawing his attention. It seemed like the team was making the most out of the situation while the dragon was trapped, her body lighting up with attacks of all kinds.

Too soon the enderdragon ripped herself from Bowser's grip and twisted her body like a wheel, threatening everyone on the towers with her tail. The hunter was prepared to hunker down and deal with another blast of wind, but he misjudged - he never did get that distance measurement after all. The dragon's thick tail made contact, colliding with the Cadet and knocking the wind out of his lungs. The force of the blow sent him careening from his perch and he tumbled through the air. The battle was flashing in his peripheral vision as the hunter struggled to orient himself enough to determine whether he'd have to brace himself for a hard impact with the ground or bring his slinger up to catch anything and stop himself from being flung from the island entirely. He'd just managed it - and the situation was looking more like the second option with every passing moment - when a very large and brightly colored queen entered his vision. In her palms were a couple more allies and a waiting hand. With no hesitation the Ace Cadet flung his arm out and grabbed onto Fox.

"Thanks," Cadet breathed, though he wasn't sure if his saviors would hear or not.

There was a great view of the island up here, and while everyone was throwing their all at the black dragon Cadet couldn't help but notice a few missing faces. They'd all been there before he'd been knocked off the spire, was it friendly fire or could they have gotten off worse with no one to catch them? Neither thought was particularly pleasant. Ask anyone back home and they'd prattle off that old story about why four was best number of hunters for one quest, let alone the twenty-some odd they had now, so bumping into each other was to be expected. On the other hand, the dragon had proven fierce... Cadet's gaze scanned the battlefield below, and finally yet another familiar movement caught his eye. One, two passengers on the felyne express back to - base camp? Where the heck would that be? Outside the portal back at the spiral mountain? Even further away in Lumbridge? Wherever they were going, Cadet knew it would be safe. Those cats took their job seriously. Although, usually they only took three passengers on the cart. Would they make an exception for such a large group? ...nah, probably not. Best not to risk it either!

Things were serious now. Fox advised him to be ready, and his grip tightened. "Ready and willing!" He had an inkling of what the other man - er, animal? Animal man - had in mind, an inkling that was more of a hope, and his wish was granted when he tossed in the monster's direction. Though the situation was still dangerous, and at any moment one of their crew could be struck down, a grin split the Cadet's face. The dragon was getting desperate, he could see it. After years of seeing monster behaviors close up, he could tell the enderdragon was raging, thrashing about with all her might and clinging to life. She was at her most deadly now, but the Ace Hunter was optimistic - it meant she was almost down!

With a much more controlled fall through the air, the Cadet kept a hand on the blade of the Master Bang and just as he touched down on dark scales of the dragon's head he drew it, slicing the beast up as he quickly moved away, past her horns and to her neck. It was the opposite path he'd taken last time he was on the dragon, now that everyone was on the offensive it would be better not to chance getting caught up in someone else's attack. Now the only question was where did he want to focus his own attack? He could help tear up the webbing of her wings, make it harder for her to take flight. Without that advantage, she'd be defeated in no time. The Cadet moved swiftly over the dragon's scales, but once he was in position between her wings something strange happened. A patch of her scales got darker... a growing patch. Wait, it was a shadow! The still super-sized Koopa King was overhead and coming down fast, so the hunter didn't stop. He ran down the enderdragon's back to escape the threat of being sandwiched between two giant reptiles. Just to be sure he'd clear the danger zone, the Cadet dropped down and slid along the rest of the dragon's back from her haunches down her tail, dragging his sword in one long cut down her hide as he did. What he wouldn't give for a pair of dual blades to really cruise, but the single sword was enough for now - his other hand was thrown out to steady his path.

That was that, then. The anti-material rifle was entirely out of ammunition until the Courier could find or craft some more, and the Ender Dragon (that damn pop-tart pooping rainbows) was still alive. While it was forced into the dirt and enveloped by that strange dark energy Jak sometimes made use of and then kamikazed by Donnie’s flying machine, the damn thing still kept going despite incredibly grievous injuries. The Courier didn’t think he’d be of any more help from here on. His pistol and the Ratslayer rifle were too small caliber to deal meaningful damage to that beast, while his shotgun would require getting up close and personal. Even though his natural abilities put him at the absolute pinnacle of human durability, even though he had multiple cybernetic enhancements pushing him past that line… No thanks. He was a gambling man, but that wasn’t a gamble he was willing to take.

”JAK!” Daxter cried out, staring right into the explosion caused by Donnie’s machine. ”I’m comin’ for ya, buddy! Please don’t be dead! I don’t wanna have to kick that monk’s ass for ya!”

Daxter hugged the side of the obsidian spire and slid downward. A few moments later and he touched the ground and took off in a frantic run until he came up to Jak, lying on the ground smoldering with burns all over his body. A cough indicated that Jak was still very much alive, but he wasn’t going to be participating in this fight anymore.

”Dax. Hey… Pal.”

”Save your energy, Jak! We’re not out of this yet!” the little ottsel pleaded, grabbing onto Jak’s hand. ”HEY! ROBOT LADY! IF JAK DIES I’M HOLDING YOU JUST AS RESPONSIBLE!”

Using what strength he still had, Jak held out the morph gun to Daxter, still in its root rot form. ”Dax. It’s time… To be a hero.”

Daxter’s jaw literally hit the ground in shock. ”ME?! You want ME to go running off after that friggin’ MONSTER and shoot it?!” He scratched his chin for a moment, contemplating. ”I mean, on one hand we’re Jak AND Daxter. On the other hand, my name hasn’t been on any of our game titles since the first one.”

Jak gave a pained look of confusion as Daxter nodded his head. ”Alright, you got it, buddy!” Daxter grabbed the morph gun, easily several times his size yet still somehow being capable of moving around and aiming with it like any normal sized person. He took off on all fours, the gun strapped to his back, until he closed some distance between himself and the dragon.

Meanwhile, Cuphead was busy rushing back into the thick of things entirely on his own with no plans and no backup amidst the chaos all around. He had initially started heading for Tora, knowing full well what the little guy meant as she ran around screaming “1 HP!” His help wasn’t necessary though, as Blazermate got there first and healed him before Tora’s unfortunate demise, which was for the best. Cuphead could bring the dead back to life, but only within a short window that got shorter every time it happened. Best to avoid such a situation altogether.

Instead he changed course for the dragon, firing his peashooter non-stop the whole way, peppering the drake with small energy bullets that did scratch damage. The damage could add up if given enough time, but the more important detail was how they added to Cuphead’s energy reserves. With a dash to avoid an acid glob and a leap into the air, Cuppy parried off another pink globule that went flying in his direction, adding another big burst of energy to his reserve. He felt it. He felt strong. That attack was ready.

”Gosh everyone, time to show off what I can do!” He flexed his arms, which sent a large bulge up along them like a bicep muscle, only to immediately deflate. He then began spinning in place, so fast that it held him aloft in the air! ”Tell me this ain’t the cat’s pajamas! Energy Beam!” A large beam of liquid blasted forth from Cuphead’s, well, cup head, straight into the dragon just after Hat Kid bounced off from her own attack! The beam held itself for a solid couple seconds, then Cuphead lost his momentum, the beam ended, and he landed back on the ground wiping his hands together.

As this was happening, a couple shots of root rot escaped the muzzle of the morph gun. They struck the dragon in the body, far away from the head where it would have any measurable effect, but that was enough. The gun began to beep, catching Daxter’s attention. He looked and saw that some sort of gauge had been filled up on it, a charge meter of sorts. ”Looks like it’s Daxter who gets to try this out for the first time!” he grinned, pulling the trigger. The fully charged blast of the rot gun launched forward toward the dragon...

---

Linkle glared coldly back up as Bowser looked down at the anti-endermen force now milling about her feet. She was already upset about having to fight the feeling of Bowser’s giant eyes on her wasn’t helping in the slightest. She felt her mouth start to open a little too wide for her liking, but luckily the big Koopa caught the hint and averted his gaze before Linkle did something she really would have regretted.

That was the only thing about this situation that made her any less upset. While they’d been cleaning up the endermen the dragon had come down, but not without cost. Linkle felt her guts twist themselves into a knot as Jr helpfully pointed out that both Link and Euden were getting carted away by the mysterious cats. “Maybe you should try and get some as minions.” she said, trying to force some cheer by telling herself that the two of them were at least alive. Really, though, she didn’t even know that. Who knew where the cats took people?

The dragon was able to pick itself up with minimal resistance, though, despite the sacrifices made to bring it down and had the gall to swipe at them as it thundered past. Linkle ducked out of the way as the claw dug deep into the stone, but the group that had fought the endermen was an afterthought compared to the latest duo to target the dragon. Linkle followed the volley of missiles back to Tora and Poppy and watched with horror as the dragon beat on Tora with the cruelty of a cat batting around a mouse, nearly having a heart attack as the Nopon was hit point blank with a blast of acid.

That tore it. Every aggravation combined to push her over the edge. The dragon, the endermen, her friends, even Jr’s self-congratulatory attitude all congealed into a dark, cold lump of ice in her heart.

She let out a breath she hadn’t even noticed she had been holding, and with it flowed out all the warmth in her body. After the stark experience with the Endermen’s terrible shyness she was able to notice easily. This coldness wasn’t hers. It belonged to someone else, and Linkle had a pretty good idea as to who. That didn’t matter right now, though. The only thing that really mattered to her right now was how to hurt the dragon. It whipped its tail back and forth in front of them as the others began their assault anew, hoping to ward them off. Bowser looked like he was going to avoid the tail entity, crouching on all fours and judging the angle of his jump. Linkle nodded to herself. Yes, that would definitely hurt the monster more than anything she could do. The best option was to help make sure that hit it. To stop the dragons movements. But how? Freeze it? Could she make that much ice?

Jr called her attention down again, gesturing at the tail for her to go first, but as she looked she caught sight of something else. One of the little goo creatures that Junior had summoned was skirting slowly around without a target. Curiously, an idea forming in her head, she reached out, touched the creature with the tip of her talon, and concentrated. Ice spread quickly through its watery body, and with a cracking sound the creature froze solid. She pushed the new ice sculpture in front of Jr. “After them.” She said, hovering over his shoulder just out of sight. “Send them to cover that things tail in goo, quick.”

Jr, momentarily regretting mouthing off to the now considerably creepier Linkle, blinked a few times as he looked at the iced Stu till he got the plan. He grinning with toothy glee before grabbing one of the Stus with one hand and snapping the fingers of the other.

”Primids Party! Let’s mess that dragon up!” he commanded, calling out the recharged striker squad. As they came into being he darted forwards to get into range of the boss, planting the point of his gadbrush to the ground as he ran and painting a trail across the ground clearing the route of any residual acid and forming a trail of goop out of which more Stus rapidly formed.

Once close enough he spun the gloopy creature around by its head fronds to build up momentum and hurled it at the Ender dragon. Jr’s first shot was followed up by a colorful barrage as the purple skinned troops of the subspace army followed their boss’s lead, grabbing more Stus and hurling them at her. The gang of vandal’s living paint balloons pelted the Ender Dragon’s tail, splattering it with the colorful inky goop, leaving it primed and ready for Linkle’s cold rage.

“Team jump.” Linkle ordered, turning and hopping up on the shoulders of two surprised Primids. The two bucked in surprise, but that was enough to send her backflipping over the lashing tail. At the height of her jump she pointed her crossbows straight down, the tips flashing blue as her hair as she unleashed a pair of ice arrows. The impact would have created ice anyway, but these also flash froze the goo coating the monster's tail and spreading out even to some that had splattered on the ground.

Satisfied, Linkle re-holstered her crossbows as she dropped and landed flat palmed on the ice. Summoning up her inner strength she concentrated and poured as much of this icy power of her as she could into it. Grow, grow, grow, she commanded it. It began to get bigger, merging into the ground. Just like how she’d kept the wind from sending her flying before she willed the ice down into the nooks and crannies of the sponge like rock of the island. To hold this beast. To make sure it couldn’t get away. To make sure it never tasted the sky again.

As she finished up she saw the darkness of a shadow pass overhead. She would have smiled if she could at the moment, thinking about what the Koopa King was going to do to this dragon, but she also heard a sound. A wet, meaty sound. She looked over her shoulder to see the Cadet carving a deep run into the dragon’s tail, and thinking quickly she refocused a bit. Turning and running up the tail she warped past the Cadet as they got uncomfortably close to one another, falling to her knees in a skid and digging her claws into the open wound. Ice began to spread in there too, filling the wound and spreading up it a ways before growing and growing the way ice does in the crack of a mountain to spread the flesh even farther apart.

Sakura felt a little bit better. Ryu was as perceptive as always. Sakura was, infact, very confused. But wow, someone really beat Ryu up. Like, someone villainous. But usually Ryu beats people up like that, so she stil wasn't entirely sure what happened. Her head was still swimming but she was blinking through it. He followed his gaze towards Galeem. Somehow, it felt like she had only just now noticed it, even though it was impossible to not see. The sight of it was awe-inspiring and made a pit drop in her stomach.

When Ryu mentioned it had her under it's spell, she dropped back a little bit and exhaled. That explained a lot. Her eyes were wide and she had a hand on her head. Heart racing, head pounding, hands trembling. It was a lot to take in. Normally, Sakura didn't believe in stuffing one's emotions down. But in this case, it was necessary to function. Shove, shove, shove, right into a bottle and stop the cap. There would be time to process this later. Right now Ryu was hurt, and there could be danger around any corner.

Suddenly, a robot lady approached, seeming concerned. "Uh, no, no. I didn't beat him. Not me. I would never hurt him this bad, even if I could." She laughed nervously, looking the woman up and down. Was she actually a robot? Sakura hadn't seen many of those, but she had seen people that weren't quite traditionally 'human' before, so she wasn't too concerned about it. Especially since the bizarre encounters she's had on her trip here were coming back to her. Sakura's composure was returning.

The japanese woman blinked at the strange side of a robot being carried into town by cats.

Okay, so weird stuff. Get used to it. The most important part, though... Sakura thought, her eyes trailing off of the robot lady and onto the glass angel in the sky. Is beating that thing up, from the sound of it.

She smiled lightly at the new person that Ryu seemed to know. Sakura joined Ryu, standing to her feet aswell. If he wanted, she would offer him a shoulder to lean on. "Hi, I'm uh, I'm new in town." She managed, stammering a bit.

"Eh...konnichi wa. My name's Sakura, I just came into town to fight Ryu... but there's no fun or honor in beating someone up who's already been attacked by someone else." Sakura greeted the stranger with a short bow.

"Yes, I could use some help. I need help with..." She hesitated, trying to find the right words. After a moment, she just settled for gesticuling vaguely at the entire universe. "I don't even know."

Through the dust and darkness there descended a metal angel, her arm outstretched, offering salvation to the Nopon on the verge of death. “Blaze-Blade!” Tora just about burst into tears of relief as his friend's healing pumped into him, quickly bringing him back from the brink. Given his impressive vitality it would take a bit for even her concentrated, single-target recovery to get him back into top shape, but he already felt fighting-fit. More than that, he felt like a hero. He's single-wingedly braved the daunting might of the dragon and tanked three brutal blows—a little Nopon like him, weathering that monster's strength! And it was a good thing too, since the Ender Dragon appeared less than eager to relent. After shaking loose the last driblets of her acid blast, she turned to pursue the inventor and crush him for good.

Tora rounded on the leviathan, flanked by Poppi and Blazermate. This time he doubted the angry, badly wounded dragon would try to smash just one hero flat, no matter how much one provoked her ire. As the Ace Cadet could tell, the Ender Dragon was raging. But Tora saw he would have to go it nearly alone. He spotted the others hurrying over, the last of the enderman horde taken off their hands by various minions. Between them and the end of the fight writhed the Ender Dragon's heavy, rock-hard tail, more than enough to to strike a careless hero down on its own. Both Donnie and Geralt took a solid but non-critical hit as they attempted to approach, the raw damage mitigated by their evasive abilities. The others, however, got through, and they put into motion plans to put the Ender Dragon to rest once and for all. Tora knew how he could help, too. He just needed a little more juice.

First to arrive was Sectonia, and the bee queen brought a couple troops with her. Fox flung a momentum-assisted Cadet, surrounded in laser fire, to smash against the dragon's crown. Banjo and Kazooie's Beak Bomb made for the second hit in the heroes' sky-high train of pain, and Fox's explosive Illusion Burst the third. After each hit the dragon reactively swung her head back to attack, only for the next beat in the heroes' killer groove to hit her head-on. Explosive vials softened her cranium up for an even more explosive Power Geyser, and in any other combo that blast would have capped it off, but this one was to end with a bang. A familiar princess sprang from the tower where she landed, popped her parasol for a boost upward, and cruised close enough to meet the Ender Dragon face to face. In her hand she held the revolver of Mr. Grimm, and with clenched teeth she pulled the trigger to unleash a screaming soul blast that utterly destroyed the dragon's eye.

Of course, the others weren't wasting this opportunity. The Ace Cadet raced down as Linkle's cold spread up, and as the latter encased the distracted leviathan in ice the former cut her up. Wielding his friend's gun, Daxter dumped a withering load of root rot into the miserable beast, and Cuphead cleaned her clock with his magnificent beam. Tora, meanwhile, rocket-jumped using the Mech Arms' missiles to get close enough to beat up the dragon's chest, doing a pittance in terms of damage but charging his all-important meter. When Bowser took to the air, Tora knew it was time to get busy, and Poppi confirmed with a resolute nod that their store had maxed out. “Now, Poppi QT!” he called, passing his weapons. “Lay the hurting down!”

“Enemy cannot escape from Poppi,” the blade affirmed. She received the Mech Arms and jumped up so Tora could give her a boost. A little power from her remaining thruster got her all the height she needed. “Should prepare for total beatdown!”

The Mech Arms' silos stretched wide, and from each launched a dozen missiles at once. The wind-infused rockets looped, curled, and spiraled through the air, acquiring their target, then converged en mass on the Ender Dragon's chest. They lodged into the scales like porcupine quills, and for just a second sat there, primed and ready. Poppi landed beside Tora, and they posed together. “Noponic Destruction!”

All at once the rockets detonated, sending shards of scale and end stone spinning. Though no great shakes in terms of damage, it at least applied Seal Blowdown. This far into the fight, Tora didn't know if it would come in useful, but a level three blade combo constituted the most damage he could do. After that, he and Poppi stepped back to watch the show—for Bowser was coming down. His shadow covered the Ender Dragon, and the impact that followed was nothing short of bloodcurdling.

An immense cracking noise resounded across the island. Though the Ender Dragon had tried to move forward out of the way, the injuries that left her head a barely-functional wreck and her frozen rear half prevented her from avoiding the Koopa King's gigantic splash. Her tail broke off completely, and her back and legs were destroyed. Her hollow hit the air, a true siren's song. Yet still she struggled, clawing the ground as she pulled forward out from under Bowser's bulk. Visibly she was breaking down. Odd light leaked out from her flesh. All the energy that remained within her was gathering for a death knell, a majestic move recognizable to the Cadet as the hallmark of Elder Dragons: the Supernova. But this would be the end of her, an ability of desperation, beautiful only in its terrifying power. An indescribable noise filled the End as she collapsed in on herself in an awesome lightshow, until for just a split second all sound had given way to portentous silence.

Then the dragon exploded, the blast itself smaller than the levithan in life, but with a pressure wave that raced across the End at supersonic speeds. Everyone got smacked, but it didn't hurt that badly, and not one soul moved an inch backward. Somehow, the Ender Dragon's death knell amounted to little more than a firm thwack. For a moment Tora stood in shock, but his insight allowed him to piece together what happened quickly.

“Meheheheheheh!” he laughed, rolling on the ground. All the stress flooded out of his body as he guffawed. Poppi fell into a sitting position herself, no less relieved.

After limping over, Peach glanced at him, confused and a little annoyed. “What are you laughing at?”

Tora wiped a tear from his eye and explained. “Meheheh...that big boom...was mostly push power. Probably to throw everyone into pillars or off island. But Tora had Poppi Seal Blowdown, so big boom couldn't knock friends back!”

A large spirit descended not far away, an orb of roiling, oily black leaking out traces purple from within. Though it didn't bear the explicit image of the boss, that confirmation was unnecessary at this point. The Ender Dragon was dead.





Curly Brace nodded, full of understanding. As a veteran adventurer -or more accurately, adventurers' caretaker- of Lumbridge, she'd seen plenty of new faces come and go. Some didn't care about or didn't even seem to notice the incredible cultural mishmash going on here, but this Sakura needed some help. The machine lent her shoulder for Ryu to lean on, and together with his admirer she helped him toward the guild castle. Ever the tough nut, Ryu did not allow himself to be dead weight, and the trip went smoothly as a result. She used her leftover mental capacity to think about who might be able to get Sakura up to speed. While Ryu clearly knew the basics and boasted a talent for figuring people out, this girl needed someone well-traveled, who could tell her a thing or two about the state of the world. But everyone from that special adventuring group had...ah, not quite. Somewhere in town a few of them had stayed behind.

After leaving Ryu in the care of the guild healer and the company of whatever questers happened to be idle in the guild at the time, Curly led her new acquaintance throughout Lumbridge. Seldom did she manage a full dozen steps without greeting a familiar face. She waved to Eleven, exchanged pleasantries with Mina, and knelt down to hug a cucco being chased by a kid in glasses, and saluted the vigilant Houndmaster. Once back on course, she headed for the smithy, figuring that the heroes might have gone there. “Hey!” she called out, strolling through the door. The sturdy stone brick building foregoing a proper storefront for a down-to-earth look at everyday business, featured racks of smtihing tools and medieval weapons alike that shone in the firelight. “Ramonaaa! You there?”

A red-haired dancer lady, seated by the door, pointed deeper into the forge. “They're working on my keyblade.” Once inside it took just a moment to find the smithy sisters hard at work on a project. The weapon they appeared to be upgrading looked like a rod coated in flowers; how it held up under the duress of blacksmithing was anyone's guess. It certainly didn't look like a blade, but it did bear some resemblance to a key, at least.

The youngest sister spotted the visitors almost immediately, and she made her discovery known. “Hey, it's Curly! And...someone new! I think?”

Rena smiled, a little apologetically. “Pardon us, we do meet a lot of people. How can we help?”

“Have you seen anyone from that amazing adventuring team around?” Curly asked, her hands clasped in front of her. “We wanted to ask them for help.”

A vigorous shake of Ramona's head sent her enormous head of blonde hair swishing side to side. “Can't say we have. Did you check the new shop?”

Curly lit up as if remembering something. “Not yet! I was just headed that way when I saw Sakura here, actually.” She turned to her new friend. “Let's go and see!”

The new 'shop' turned out to be easy to find; it featured a whole herd of townsfolk crowded around. At the center of it all, behind his merchant's cart, stood a pig in overalls. “Steeeeeyep right up 'n have yerselves a ganda at theeeee finest produce in the Land of Adventure!” he oinked in a bassy, twangy voice. “Grown with tender love 'n care out in mah humble home, the beautyful Hamlet, these vittles satisfy like no otha!” A couple other pigs milled around, talking to the townsfolk. They did not appear to be locals, but somehow they fit right in, speaking to the people with a comfortable, self-satisfied ease.

Though the pigs caught her attention, Curly was more interested in a few of the onlookers. She spotted a middle-aged man talking to a vaguely familiar boy with fluffy black hair. She led Sakura his way, and once she got her chance, she greeted the guy with a wave. “Hey there. You're with that crew that came in yesterday, right? My friend here has a few questions for you.” Without so much as a warning, Curly surrendered the floor to Sakura. Although uninvolved, the boy in uniform remained nearby in silence, although he possessed a certain charm that made him seem trustworthy.





An acrid smell stung Nero's nostrils. Grumbling, he rolled down the window and looked out at the ravaged streets. “You have to do that in here?” Nico smirked as he tried to fan her cigarette smoke away. “It already smells like ass.”

“That's you,” she shot back.

Leaning out the window, he took a deep breath, trying to clear out the funk. Instead he got a potent whiff of decay despite the rushing air, and he looked ahead. Moving bodies dotted the road in front of Nico's van, some embroiled in conflict with one another. Nero narrowed his eyes at the monsters The demons he knew from his own Qliphoth misadventures as Empusa fought back against zombies. As the van got closer, the devil hunter could see that the shambling corpses had been overtaken by the parasites he'd seen earlier, both to a great degree and in great quantities. “Nico?”

She had already started to accelerate. “Hold yer tits, I see 'em.”

She maneuvered the van back and forth, but it didn't take long for thins to get choppy. After just over a second she hit a flood dead-on, barely making an effort to avoid it. Its juices and wriggling bits splattered over the windshield, although the van's wipers proved much stronger than they looked. Another one disappeared beneath the vehicle's tire, causing the whole thing to jerk abruptly, and a third right after brought the machine into two wheels.

As the van came down, the devil hunter rolled his shoulders and leaned out the window again, reaching into his coat. “Hey, you have to hit every single bump in the road?” Nico just chuckled, causing Nero to sigh. “Gonna ruin my groove.” He squeezed the trigger of the Blue Rose, blasting twin rounds into an Empusa just ahead. The Flood beside it blew apart the next moment, and its brethren turned to face the incoming threat. Nero fired again and again, pausing deliberately between each shot. On the driver's side, a Flood grabbed on and clambered up toward Nico, its grotesque claws reaching for her. Without looking she pulled out her cigarette and jammed it into the monster's head. The stink of burning rot filled the air and the monster fell away. All the while, the Doom Slayer could poke out of other windows or hang out the side door to take shots of his own.

Ahead, wreckage blocked the road. Monsters crawled across piled up cars and debris. Nero paused, a knowing smile creeping across his face. Nico nodded, and laid on the gas. Just before impact she wrenched the wheel sideways, hard enough for the van to ride up on just two tires and ramp off a totaled fourdoor and into the air. Time seemed to slow down as Nero flew out of the passenger's window, sprang away from the vehicle, and laid waste with repeated shots in every direction. In the back, Pandemonica panicked, flipped upside down amid flying objects by the barrel roll of the airborn car. Yowling all the while, Nadia's parts bounced around the interior. V remained in his seat, totally unfazed as he read on. Nico kept her cool, diverting her eyes from the road ahead just long enough to catch a cigarette in her mouth. On the outside, Nero circumnavigated the vehicle, ventilating the demons and Flood one after another. He slipped back in just as one of the other cars blew apart, lighting the entire street up with the explosion. Another second more and the van touched down, speeding away, leaving a scene of destruction behind. Pandemonica lay face on the ground against the van's rear, and Nadia in pieces. “That was...awesome...” she wheezed.

Sakura helped guide Ryu back to town. When he was left at the guild master's healing place, she waved at him as she left. "Bye, Ryu-san! I'll fight you once you're feeling better!" She offered excitedly, unaware that they already had fought.

Then Sakura followed Curly around town. She had seen some of these people before, but not while she was Sakura. Not, Sakura Sakura, anyway. She was under it's spell. If she was herself, she would have been trying to find people to help her find her family, or defeat that Galeem thing. At the very least she would have asked what the heck was going on! She tried to sift through her memories, but it was like they belonged to somebody else. A Sakura that looked, sounded, acted like her, but there was something missing. It was creepy. She remembered seeing herself in reflections, seeing her dull red eyes, and not thinking anything of it. Not really 'thinking' at all.

Sakura waved and said brief hi's and hello's to everyone that Curly did, trailing behind her as she investigated the town. Sakura liked Curly already, but she was a woman on a mission, clearly, so they didn't have much time to chat. There were all kinds of colorful characters that she would love to get to know. There were more stories and histories here than anywhere in the world. The people in this town looked like they weren't from Earth, or at least, not her Earth. Like from an alternate reality, a different world. It was amazing, and awe-inspiring. It made Sakura feel insignificant, but in a good kind of way. It was humbling.

But as time went on, and she saw more and more of the townsfolk, saw their dull red eyes, she thought about herself. How she wasn't really herself. They all seemed friendly enough, but the young woman slowly began to feel uncomfortable. Were all these people under Galeem's spell? Was her family under Galeem's spell, somewhere? Like puppets? Sakura's smile faded and she clutched her arms to her chest. Were these 'amazing adventurer' people also going to be under Galeem's influence? She wanted to go back to Ryu already, but not for the reasons she usually did. It felt like was surrounded not by people, but life-like drawings of people.

Finally they made it to their destination, and Sakura was greatly relieved to see the person Curly had in mind was free of Galeem's influence like she was. She smiled and then glanced around at everyone else. Michael could see the concern on her face.

Are these people the enemy? Would they want to kill me if said or did something against Galeem? What is Galeem? Who is this old guy? I guess I should start asking questions but...I don't want to say the wrong thing.

Sakura looked up at the older gentlemen, looked back at Curly and realised she had the floor. "Uh, uh...hello, sir. Is...is it safe to talk, here?" She asked nervously, quietly, trying to get her meaning across without explicitly stating it.

@Lugubrious

Doom Slayer

Level 2 Doom Slayer EXP gain 10

Location: Dead Zone

Word Count: 391

Slayer was sitting down thinking about many things; mostly of how the hell was going to save humanity once again. Sometimes he wondered if their was a point to saving them; because they keep fucking up over and over again. While in thought he heard the voice of VEGA speaking to him; “Their is a portal being opened by UAC; it seems they are sending you something” And all of a sudden a blue portal appeared inside of the van. And out of the portal with a loud thud a chainsaw fell onto the floor. Laying near the Slayer's feet; he picked it up admiring it. While admiring it he looked up and scanning the people inside of the van; a violent thought came into his head of him sawing all of the demons around him in half.

Pulling himself out of his daydream by pulling the cord of the chainsaw; as it came to life with a loud roar. Watching the saw running and the puff of smoke coming out of it. Turning off the chainsaw and turning his head towards Nico and the others. Finding most of them to be quite annoying in their own little way; although he was not the best company to have he had to admit. Watching her running over the strange creatures for before; the top of his helmet slamming into the ceiling of the van. Wanting to test his chainsaw he quickly revved it up; moving his body so half of it was out of the window. Revving up his chainsaw and sawing the creature in half. When he came back into the van he was covered in the creature's yellow blood; which covered the upper part of his body.

With the van moving about; the Slayer was fling out of his seat but stopped himself by slamming his feet into the side. He was sure he would leave a imprint of his feet but he didn't seem to care. Once the van was back to driving on four wheels; he dusted himself off and returning to his seat silently. “My head is spinning; let us not do that again” VEGA spoke up sounding disorientated. The Slayer meanwhile was stroking and rubbing the handle of his chainsaw.

For one of the few people in the whole town devoid of Galeem’s influence, Michael did not look comfortable. The expression on his face suggested that he didn’t expect in a million years to be addressed by either Curly or Sakura, and in a billion years to want to answer back. Now that the girl could get a closer look at him, ‘gentleman’ was a more polite than accurate way to think of him. His clothing was quality, but neither up to date in terms of fashion nor well maintained. His stubble, his hairline, and general manner all spoke to a former big timer grown old and fallen on harder times, which a jaunt through the World of Light probably didn’t help. The way he tended to avoid people’s eyes suggested a reluctance -or inability- to come to terms with all of the weirdness that surrounded him, and a desire to keep it at length.

Still, when Sakura spoke to him, he got her meaning quickly enough. Glancing around, he scratched the back of his head. “Yeah. Should be fine. The people just behave like themselves, as far as I can tell. Just don’t start any fights, ‘cause they sure as hell don’t back down from a fight, no matter who they are.” He went quiet and looked over at the pig merchants, making it clear that the burden of continuing the conversation lay on Sakura’s shoulders.

Sakura nodded, relaxing a little bit. Still a bit uncomfortable, but this person definitely seemed like someone she would pass in the street. Or at least give her weird looks when she was practicing her moves in public. "Okay, then, well...pleased to meet you!" She said, doing a polite little bow.

Sakura decided to just ask the big question first. "Is there any way to get things back to normal? Mister…?" She trailed off, giving the man a little room to answer her question and then fill in the blank with his own name.

“Uh, Michael de Santa,” the man replied, recognizing the prompt. In remarkable alignment with Sakura’s thoughts, he’d given her a brief but still visible look when she bowed. Evidently the gesture featured neither in his culture nor any he was familiar with. “And yeah, this guy called the…’Master of Masters’.” Michael recited the name as if it was ridiculous, which it was. “He told us when we arrived here that if we beat the champions of that angel ball thing, we can fight it directly. Once it goes down, things should go back to normal.” Now that he said it out loud, he didn’t know if he exactly believed it, either. At least in this world, though, it seemed like anything could happen.

A racket drew his gaze. Some ways down the town’s road, another pair of wooden carts pulled by cats approached the guild hall from the same direction as the bridge Sakura crossed earlier. A blonde teenage boy rested on both, one in blue and the other in red. At least one of them Michael recognized, and he pulled in a breath through closed teeth.

Sakura had listened excitedly, now that Mr. Michael de Santa had actually outlined a plan. Defeat the champions, then beat the final boss. It was like one of those video games her little brother played!

Sakura was about to ask another question when he turned to look at something. Her big brown eyes followed his gaze and she saw the carts. Being pulled by cats, again.

"What’s wrong? Are those good cats or bad cats?" She asked, looking back and forth between Michael and the strange sight. But Sakura had seen weird stuff in her time, so she was already becoming acclimated to this entirely new level of weirdness. Right now it was just inexperience and still some shock that was keeping her a little detached. Like some part of her was still holding onto the idea that this might just be a very vivid dream.

Michael shook his head. “I dunno about the cats, other than there’s a bunch of ‘em in this town here and they seem okay. But one of those kids went out with the others to take out the boss of this region this morning.” He frowned, his forehead creased with concern. “Must have gotten hurt. But it doesn’t make sense. There’s this...robot lady who was with them who can heal anything. And they went out in a monster truck. They must have been hauling him a long time.”

Sakura looked at the cats and the people they carried, and then back to Michael. Overall her head seemed to be going on a bit of a cycle. After a moment she raised a finger in the air, and then pointed it the cats. "Oh! I know. I saw them poof." She made a little poofing motion with her hand. She remembered them appearing on the outskirts of town with a robot. At the time she hadn’t thought much of it because at the time her brain decided to just skim over the bizarre occurrence.

"I dunno what I thought it was but, maybe those cats can teleport? I know like, three people who can teleport. Never any cats before, though. But I guess anything is at the table now." Sakura said with a shrug. She also noted him saying something about a robot lady and a monster truck, and a boss.

"So there are people trying to get things back to normal, though? Do you know when they’ll be back?"

An embarrassed look fought for control of Michael’s face. “Uh...yeah. The team I’m with. A bunch of us met over in another region, and then more came along as we went. I...well, me and Franklin, we...had some other stuff to do, but the others went across the plains this morning.” Regret tinged Michael’s voice. “I’ve got no idea when they’ll get back. They might just keep going in that direction when they finish. If, I mean. Last time we fought a boss, well...a couple of us didn’t make it. But I’m sure they’ll be fine. This time.”

As Michael spoke, Sakura glanced over her shoulder at Curly. Maybe she was being a bit presumptive, but from the way Michael spoke it sounded like he was one of the ‘amazing adventurers’. That’ll show her for judging a book by it’s cover! She assumed he was some American guy who lived in a big house in California and did nothing all day long, but it turned out he was actually an adventurer! What didn’t sound quite as good, though, was his mention of people not making it. He looked worried about them.

"Oh, well... You guys are pretty strong, huh? Do you think I could join? I could help!" She asked, preemptively adding on a bit of defence on her part since most a lot of people somehow got the impression that she wasn’t actually that good at fighting just from looking at her. Even if it was really dangerous, these people were the first path she had come across. If there was a fight to be fought she couldn’t just sit on the sidelines the whole time and do nothing. Maybe they could find her family along the way, too, if they travel great distances.

Michael nodded. “The others are strong, I’m just good with a rifle. But yeah, I’m sure they’d be glad to have you. I bet you have crazy powers or something, huh?” He only guessed, but by now he felt pretty confident in such guesses. In this world, anyone who didn’t fade into the background for sure had some kind of special ability. Normal people getting by with just their skills and some guns were a rare find. In a way it made him feel special, but the damage he’d done to his enemies so far had been with borrowed power. Michael the man was just a man who’d lost his edge. Trying not to feel inadequate, he told Sakura, “If you want to join the team, you’ll have a tough time catching up to them. They drove. There’s these Sesame Street-looking birds here that the people here ride called Chocolates...or something, but you’d need a car. Unless you can fly. It’s a big world. The kid who got sent back might be more helpful to ya.”

Above Michael’s head, off in the pristine blue sky, a wandering eye might catch sight of something out of place. It looked like a bird at first glance, but the shape wasn’t quite right. And with almost imperceptible slowness, it was getting bigger.

Sakura nodded along, her smile growing a little bit. She did have some pretty crazy powers! As he spoke though, she wondered how she was going to find these people. Let alone catch up to them. Still, it seemed like some of the travelling adventurers had returned somehow, so she could probably find out from them. Maybe finding a Chocolate bird would help?

Sakura chuckled a little bit."No, I can’t fly. Not yet, anyway!" She said jokingly, raising an eyebrow knowingly. "Well, thank you so much, Mr. de Santa. You..." She narrowed her eyes as she caught sight of the thing as it got bigger. "Do you see that?" She asked with a squint, pointing above his head at the encroaching shape.

What the girl said seemed like a joke, but Michael found himself half-believing it anyways. He didn’t get much time to think about it, though, as she seemed to spot something behind him. Desperately hoping he wasn’t falling for the oldest trick in the book and about to get punked, he looked over his shoulder. When he followed Sakura’s finger he saw that she wasn’t him for a fool. “Huh, yeah. What is that?” He narrowed his eyes, determining that whatever it was seemed to be getting closer. “Some kind of eagle maybe. Or a-”

“DRAGON!” Came a full-throated yell from one of the Lumbridge watch towers. The sentry waved for the villagers’ attention, pointing at the thing in the sky. “It’s a doggone fire-breather, dangit! Someone git over t’the guild hall ‘n holler at the adventurers! This ain’t a prank, folks!” A chorus of chatter and outcries rose in response, with a few of the townspeople making a beeline down the road for the castle situated there. The adventurers already out and about took to their heels, rushing to gather and equip their gear while heading toward battle positions. All the while the dragon got closer, descending straight for the town.

Sakura had startled, reeling back from the fact that she and everyone in town was about to be attacked by a dragon. Everyone was taking up their battle stations!

Oh, my gosh! Should I fight? I should fight, right? I should help! I’ve never fought a dragon before! Sakura looked around, whirling to try and find the right place to be. Eventually she tried to find Curly with her eyes and follow her, or failing that, look back to Michael for help. ”What should we do!?” She shouted, looking ready to zip off in any direction at any moment.

Everything was happening too fast. Pigs were panicking. Curly had already disappeared, having forgotten all about her new acquaintance out of panic for the townpeople’s safety. Adventures were pouring and stumbling out of the guild hall. But it was too late. The dragon hit the ground a little way from the town’s edge and slid for a short way. After coming to a stop, it sat back on its haunches and looked over the assembled people. Sakura narrowed her eyes and de-tensed a little bit. Not what she expected.

“Hello!” She exclaimed in a loud but distinctly feminine voice. “Sorry to disturb you folks, but have any of you seen my dear, sweet prince? Just a few moments ago I received this awful sensation, like something terrible happened to him…”

Sakura smiled, a little embarrassed for getting so worked up over nothing. The blonde-haired boy Sakura saw earlier stepped out from the baffled ranks of adventurers. He looked less confused, more embarrassed. “Mym?”

The dragon’s face lit up with joy. “Darliiiiiiiiiiing!” Power welled up within her and her body was consumed by flame. It blazed for a brief period before beginning to shrink, growing smaller and smaller. After a second it condensed into a beautiful woman in regal garb, bearing horns and a tail very much like the dragon who sat there a moment before. Without hesitation she launched forward onto her feet and sauntered straight to the prince, her tail swishing behind her. Before he could object he disappeared into an overaffectionate hug. “Oh, darling! For a moment I thought something bad happened to you, but here you are, safe and sound. As if the flames of our love could die!”

Euden worked to extricate himself. He tried to say something, but another boy beat him to it. “Euden, you didn’t tell us you had a girlfriend!” he ribbed him good-naturedly. His tease helped break the tension filling the scene, turning pent-up apprehension into relief as people realized that they weren’t due for a dragon fight after all.

”Don’t we feel stupid now, huh?” She said aloud to everyone nearby rubbing the back of her head. ”It was a nice dragon lady the whole time!” Sakura stated the obvious, shaking her head with a grin on her face. She felt rude, but it seemed like the dragon lady didn’t care much.

After a moment, Sakura realised she would probably have to go talk to that boy named Euden since Michael had indicated him as a member of the adventuring team. So she slowly made her way closer to the conversation, kicking at dirt with her sneakers and trying to subtly detect if the dragon lady or the two boys had creepy red eyes or normal eyes. Or normal creepy red eyes. When she got close enough, she could see without much trouble that the older boy and the horned woman both had Galeem’s red eyes, but those of Euden -as his friend called him- were blue.

As Sakura closed the distance, she looked over at Euden. Trying not to interrupt- but also, really wanting to talk to Euden- she spoke up. Here goes nothing!

”Uh, hey, hello. My name is Sakura, and I heard you were an adventurer?” She asked, her voice trending upward in pitch as it turned from a statement into a question. She made eye contact with Euden, and then brought her finger up to her cheek and pulled on the skin to emphasise her natural eye color. She did that a couple times, leaning towards Euden.

The crowd was starting to thin, its members going off to resume their own business since what was going on between the prince and the dragon was clearly none of theirs. For his part, Euden blinked at Sakura repeatedly, his expression quizzical. It took him a few moments to understand. “Oh! You’re also…?”

He put that on hold a moment to try and push his admirer off him, “Mym, please! Not in front of everyone!”

“Oh, of course, dear!” She hopped backward, clasping her hands together. “I will happily save all my love for when everyone’s gone.”

“Thank you,” Euden breathed. He turned to Sakura, sheepish. “Pardon us. I’m Euden, and this is Mym. She’s a friend I haven’t seen in a while.” The shapeshifter waved, winking as though saying the prince surely didn’t mean just ‘friend’. “I’d love to chat, but my friends are in danger. They’re fighting the zone boss right now, and I need to hurry back.”

Mym brightened up. “Do you need to go somewhere, darling? I would be overjoyed to carry you!”

Sakura also brightened up, glancing at the dragon lady, Mym, and Euden, her friend. ”Oh, wow, you know that’s perfect because I- I want to come with you! I’m a fighter! I want to help turn everything back to normal, so could I come with, please? Euden?” Sakura asked excitedly, stumbling over her words a little bit. Truth be told she probably needed to do a bit of preparation, like going back to her room and grabbing her student bag. But if he was in a hurry because his friends were in danger, then this was her only chance. No way he would wait just so she could get a water bottle if lives were on the line. Sakura took more steps forward as she talked. ”Uh, Mym, too? Could I come with you guys please?”

Mym crossed her arms, looking put out. "I only wanted to carry my darling! To allow a human rider is a very serious act for a dragon. An intimate one, even!"

Euden have her a plaintive look. "Couldn't you make an exception? She can help us. We can't just leave her behind to walk the whole way."

Putting a hand against her cheek, Mym sighed. "Oh, dear...if you ask me like that, I just can't say 'no.'"

"Thank you, Mym." Grateful, Euden looked between the two women. "Let's get going."

After reaching a safe distance Mym transformed again. Almost tenderly she allowed Euden to climb aboard and take hold of her neck. When Sakura approached, however, Mym reared up and held out her clawed hand. "I'll carry you," she explained. "And don't worry, I'll be careful not to hurt you."

This was the first time Sakura had ever been talked to by a dragon. She felt like she was in a fairy tale or something. She looked a little apprehensive at first, looking at the clawed hand. Still, if riding on her back was offensive, it really was the least she could do.

Not like I’m afraid of heights or anything… Sakura reassured herself.

Sakura did another grateful little bow.”Thank you, Miss Mym.” She said, swallowing and letting herself get picked up.

Sakura was bad at lying though. Or concealing her true feelings. ”Just don’t drop me, please? I care about that more than I do about getting poked a little bit.” She added with a little bit of nervous laughter.

"You are welcome, and please rest easy," Mym assured her. "A dragon always appreciates someone with manners." Once her passengers were as ready as could be, she put her powerful wings to work and took to the sky.

The dragon's tail, encased in ice courtesy of Linkle, made for an excellent slide. With his sword acting as a rudder even while carving a line down the beast's scales, Ace Cadet smoothly slipped off the end of her tail and landed easily back on the yellow stone. No worse for wear after that stunt, save a cold backside, the hunter whirled around with his weapon brandished just in time to see Bowser body slam their quarry. The aftermath was brutal, but after everything the dragon had thrown at them it seemed fitting too. She screeched and flailed, but it was clear she was on death's door. The fight was gone from her.

...or not. A glow seeped out from between the cracks in her skin. It took a few moments for the Cadet to realize what he was seeing, and once he did he felt like an idiot. Fighting together with the myriad of characters in their party was so exciting and confusing that the Cadet got stuck in his own head space, and it frequently slipped his mind that the rest of the crew didn't really share his experience or knowledge. A near lifetime of questing with other professional monster hunters meant you only had to watch their backs, not school them on secret techniques dragons liked to use. Everyone was so close to it, it was way too late to warn them to get back, they'd never clear the blast area! Hastily the Cadet shoved a hand into his pouch and dug around for the last remaining lifepowder he had on him, hoping to save anyone from taking too hard of a hit when the energy burst out from the dragon.

Cadet was still as the shockwave passed over him. It was mildly painful, but that was it. "Uh... what?" he wondered aloud, surprised and just the tiniest bit disappointed by the lack of power behind the dragon's final gambit. The silence after the supernova was brief, ended with Tora's peals of laughter. The nopon's cheer was infectious. After the initial confusion, the fact that the monster's ultimate attack was reduced to... well, barely a shove, was pretty funny. The hunter found himself laughing too, and eventually he whooped and cheered as he was wont to do.

"Woohoo! We did it! A real live black dragon - put down!" The young man was merry, and he stabbed his sword through the piece of the dragon's tail - still half frozen - that had broken off and hoisted it over his shoulder. With his other hand he sought out the closest ally, which happened to be Bowser Jr. sitting nearby and refueling. He wrapped the little koopa into a tight one-armed hug and dragged the both of them closer to the rest of the group. Once nearby, he hefted the tail over his head into the air like a macabre popsicle in testament to the party's victory.

"I can't wait to tell the Guildmarm! Everybody was amazing! That was so... so radalos!" Cadet exclaimed, "and, uh, dangerous!"

He counted off the people he could see, making sure not to linger too long on Linkle or Geralt's forms, and was startled to see that there was one missing - ah, wait, the grumbles coming from his side alerted him to the missing person's presence. Oblivious and overly friendly, he still had the prince tucked close.

"Okay, everyone's still with us and in one piece," he glanced at Poppi's makeshift leg, "mostly. Definitely calls for a celebration when we get back! I'm hoping the others are waiting for us back in Lumbridge - I can't really think of anywhere else the palicoes would take them." He admitted the last part a bit sheepishly, but quickly followed it up for those worried about their missing comrades. "I definitely saw them get carted though, so they're safe and sound somewhere."

Cadet let the tail-sicle drop down to his side and he beamed at all of the gathered heroes. "Great job. G-rank quest: cleared!"

As the heroes wrapped their head around and could begin to appreciate their victory, the aftermath of the Ender Dragon's supernova continued to spread. It radiated outward through the end, further darkening the already-nebulous, scratchy sky. After a few moments, the wave seemed to reach some threshold, and the sky itself began to tear apart.

Tora, Poppi, and the rest watched in amazement as the static-ridden purple void dribbled down like paint over a canvas, developing holes that grew larger and larger until they became the rule rather than the exception. Where the emptiness went away, blue sky shone through. The light of day shone upon the heroes once more as the dimensional pocket dissolved, leaving them standing upon the pillar-profuse largest land mass of an End Stone archipelago, floating high above a beautiful inland sea fringed by pointed mountains. Somewhere in the range behind them lay Spiral Mountain and its surrounding valley, but few could possible turn away from a once-in-a lifetime view such as this. Before them were glistening, pristine waters more dazzlingly blue than the sky itself, hovering reefs flush with life, and at the complete opposite side, a sleek, futuristic tower big enough to house a city inside. The ripple of darkness flowed across the surface of the water and over the far shore, washing across the tower's exterior and the symbol emblazoned there, then vanished.

Unfortunately, another miracle proved far closer at hand—gravity. Out of the bizarre environment of the End, the islands possessed no means of levitation on their own. After a few moments coming to grips with the change in physics, the entire End Stone archipelago began to fall.

Once the situation registered with him, Tora waddled at full tilt toward Kamek to yank Poppi's leg from his clone and begin immediate repairs on Poppi's leg. He then waved his artificial blade over, trying to keep outwardly composed while his inner mind screamed madly. “Poppi sit now! Fix leg in jiffy!” He pulled out his toolbox and started to heat his tools. Luckily the damage appeared to be below the knee joint, so if he could just reconnect the circuits and reattach the frame the leg -and its booster- would be functional again. He couldn't gauge how much time he had before the island hit the water, and he didn't want to take time to make a guess. “Can someone hack off makeshift leg?” he asked without looking, hoping someone would be sufficiently unoccupied by the fall of the island to help remove the metal he'd emergency-welded to Poppi's stump for the battle. He'd already pulled out some wires from both ends for reconnecting, knowing he would need to revisit this repair job later for proper insulation or flat-out replacement.



The van cruised on without notable incident, though the weighty baboom of the Blue Rose and the occasional jerk as some poor wretch went splat beneath the tires provided frequent distractions. Nadia pulled herself together in the back, pretty much fine despite the turbulence. The same couldn't quite be said for Pandemonica, who managed to look even more frazzled and weary than usual. After suppressing a chuckle at the state of her demonic acquaintance, Nadia endured the somewhat awkward silence as long as she could until the cat's curiosity got the better of her. “So, big guy,” she began, questioning the Doom Slayer. “I'd be fe-lyin' if I said I didn't want to know what your deal was. Care to help meowt and fill me in?” Her toothy, amiable grin complimented her puns perfectly, and she hoped -perhaps against the odds- that the stoic, brutal, living battlewagon would liven up the ride with an origin story or something.

---

Linkle felt more than saw Bowser's impact with the dragon. From where she was she felt the shutter wrench through the creatures flank before, like a kid playing on a trampoline suddenly joined by a larger kid, it jerked under her and sent her flying off the dragon.

She landed on her feet on the yellow stone, giving her a front row view as the dragon built up energy before popping like a balloon, sending a wave of force over her that she needn't have even bothered bracing for. That was the end of Galeem's second guardian. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Tora's riotous laughter signaled the true end of the battle, revealing that he was the reason that the dragon's final gasp had been so pathetic. The cadet quickly joined in, contributing to the celebratory mood. She watched the Cadet intently as he hefted up Junior and his prize, reviling in the feeling of victory. She wished she could experience that right now. Triumph, relief, joy, even satisfaction with a job well done would be all right. Instead all she felt was cold, barring a slight spike in heart-rate as she felt his eyes swept over her.

She at least perked up when the Cadet mentioned their friends being all right back in Lumbridge. "Those cats belong to you?" she asked him, not taking to long too realize what he was talking about with regards to people being carted off. "Useful pets."

As if on cue there was suddenly a riotous clucking in the distance as three white shapes began running up to them, the dragon's acid finally cleared up enough so as to allow them passage without burning their little feet. The sight thawed her heart slightly and she bent down to greet them, only for the cucco's to bolt straight past her. She looked behind her, and would have normally been horrified to see various parts of their white feathers scorched back. "No." She said, warping after them.

She didn't reach them in time to stop the birds from fluttering up and slamming beak first into his already damaged shoe. They bounced off, of course, but they didn't give up. They threw themselves against it again and again, tearing at whatever part they could get at with their claws before Linkle got there. "Hey, stop that." she said, running up and snatching the leader of the charge out of the air. It struggled in her grip, still desperately trying to get at Bowser like the other two. "Quit." she ordered, turning the bird to face her and staring into her beady little...black eyes?

Oh, right. Just a moment ago she'd been sure she was going to have to either heart it or kill it, but no. This little guy had been exposed to the wave the dragon had released when it died. The only thing compelling it to fight was the standard cucco desire for furious vengeance. She almost felt relieved. Sticking the bird under her arm she reached out and scooped up the other two in her long arms, cradling all three as they struggled and watching the sky in anticipation. There didn't seem to be any incoming, though. Maybe more cuccos couldn't hear the call to action in this dark bubble.

A dark bubble that was rapidly dissolving from the looks of it. Beams of bright sunlight streamed down into the void as the darkness dissipated, revealing a startlingly beautiful view of a sparkling sea surrounded by mountains. In the distance islands like these floated above the water, a few man made structures set atop some. Unfortunately those islands were much better at floating than these. Linkle felt the now familiar sensation of freefall as the island they were on lost its fight with gravity and began falling toward the sea. Her feet lifted off the island as the island began accelerating, the furiously flapping of the Cucco's in her arms causing her to fall slightly slower than the rest of the island. She looked around at her friends, ready to toss one to anybody in need to slow their descent.

---

---

---

Link watched through his viewfinder as the red dragon flew further and further away, carrying with it the boy he’d been carted to this village with, a brave girl, and any hope he’d had of getting back to the battle in the timely manner.

SNAP

It wasn’t even the best picture of people riding a dragon he’d taken today, but he registered it anyway.

He had to admit, hearing a cry of “DRAGON!” had been the most energizing wake up call he could have gotten considering recent events. It had cut through the haze and confusion he’d had upon waking up in an instant, silencing all the pertinent questions such as “Where am I?” and “Did I die again?” going through his mind as he looked around what seemed to be a quaint, lovely village. Him and the other blond kid had gotten up with a start, hands on their weapons as they’d hopped down from the carts they’d been pulled in on, all ready to defend the town from the wrathful attack of what he assumed to be a monster.

Those assumptions had been challenged when they’d gotten a good look at the dragon and his erstwhile companions' whole demeanor had changed. He went from stalwart and ready to brave any danger to...amazingingly, sheepish and embarrassed. Less like he was about to fight a monster and more like he was about to tell a family member to please, please, put their pants back on and sit down. Just the sight of it was enough to rob the situation of all its urgency, and Link had slowed down to drift at the back of the assembled fighters as the boy had pushed his way through.

This had been a mistake for three reasons. The first is that he wasn’t able to capture a good picture of the dragon’s when it was still sitting on the ground. The second was that he didn’t have a front row view of her transformation and subsequent loving assault on her darling, though from what he could hear it had been exactly as embarrassing as the boy had dreaded. The last, and most pressing, is that when the dragon had offered to fly him back to the fight it wasn’t Link that convinced her there was room for one more. Instead he heard a young girl speak up asking to be taken to the fight. It had been at that point Link had started shoving his way through the crowd, but by the time he’d broken through the people in front the dragon had already taken off, leaving him to stare plaintively after them.

He signed in frustration as he lowered the Sheikah Slate. He wasn’t so frustrated at being left behind. All things considered, it might have been a better idea for him to stay out of the fight now that he’d been extracted from it. He looked down at his shield arm and gave a few swipes through the air, the practiced motion of his parry. He decided that something definitely felt off about it. He knew exactly what that technique was capable of. Even if it couldn't have stopped the dragon's tail outright he felt like it should have done something to mitigate the impact. Instead his shield had shattered on impact as though he hadn’t even tried. His diminishment, it seemed, went far beyond the runes on his slate being wiped out. If he went rushing back it was likely the most he’d contribute was being a body in need of protection. Whatever those cats were he was lucky they had intervened on his behalf, but he couldn't expect things like that to save him.

Haste makes waste. If you weren't careful the thing it wasted was you. At some point, when he’d been trekking across Hyrule loaded down with powers and gear, he’d forgotten that. He prayed that it was something the girl that had taken his place on that dragon understood because she had no idea what she was flying into.

Right now, though, he had another problem. A familiar one: how did he proceed from here? He supposed the first thing he should do was get his bearings. Where was he? Where had he been? How long had he been out this time? What could he do at this moment? The best thing he could do was ask the townsfolk what they knew.

Luckily for him as he turned to face the disseminating crowd he spotted a familiar face. Well, not so much the face but it would take a fool not to at least recognize the boy’s weapon. It was very distinctive, and he’d gotten a good look at it when the boy had stepped to the edge of the cliff right before Galeem’s light had wiped them all out.

Since the Sheikah Slate was already in his hands anyway he snapped a quick picture of the red, strangely blunt blade before catching up to him. “Hey.” He called out, falling into step beside him. “Shulk, right? It’s Link. We were on the cliff together. It’s good to see you made it out. Could you tell me where I am? I just got carted in with him,” He pointed out the red spec in the sky that represented Euden and his lady friends. “And he didn’t have any time to tell me.”

@Lugubrious

Doom Slayer

Level 2 Doom Slayer

Location: Dead Zone

Word Count: 292

Slayer was deep in thought; stroking the handle of his chainsaw. His mind wondering to quick images of him murdering countless hoards of demons and undead; one particular memory he had was finding the severed head of his pet rabbit named Daisy. This image was burned into his mind; his heart dropped into his stomach. The reason for his crusade against the forces of hell was to avenge her; that vengeance turned into protecting humanity form the demons of hell. His train of thought was broken by the voice of the cat demon speaking to him. Wanting to know a bit more about him; he thought they have fought quite hard together; but since they were demons he was not sure if he should speak about his personal life.

He was worried they would use this personal information against him; however his robotic companion decided to divulge that information to them. “Sargent William Joseph "B.J" Blazkowicz; Born 20th day of April. Former marine stationed at Tei Tenga with the Union Aerospace Corporation. Closing the portals created by the UAC on Phobos and on Earth; After defeating the Icon Of Sin for the first time he stayed behind fighting the forces of hell. Where he was given the armour to combat more dangerous demons” The A.I. Gave them a brief summary of The Slayer's backstory.

The Slayer shut off VEGA for the time being; he shouldn't turned him off after he killed King Mino. But the damage was done and the others had a slight insight into his past. If they were going to use his past to blackmail or against him; he would have put his chainsaw to use.

And then, with a final back breaking smackdown from Bowser, it was all over. Sure, there where a whole bundle of other attacks, including the flash freezing of her legs by Jr and Linkle that locked her in palace and allowed him to hit his mark, alongside a half dozen attacks that softened her up, but to the Troop, there was only one worthy of being recognized as the beast’s slayer.

As she began to disintegrate beneath him Bowser let out a victory roar to the heavens, accompanied by a gout of flame as the draconian banshee let out her death wail. Jr called out in unheard alarm as the dragon gave clear indication that she was going to explode in one final spiteful attack, but in the end he need not have worried. The dragon’s final gasp was a pitiful one, its power smothered by an ability of Tora’s that caused the blast wave to do little more than blow their hair in the wind as it rushed by.

”Wait. That was it? hahahaha” jr laughed in mockery before Tora had even had time to explain, mostly as a tension release valve, and kept doing so right up until he was picked up into a one armed hug by the Ace, a situation he did not approve of particularly much.

”What! Hey put me down you-oof” jr complained before being rudely interrupted by a high speed Mimikyu launching herself up at and into his face. The cloud filled mascot mimic bapped harmlessly into Jr’s cheek before wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug as she rubbed her fake head against his cheek like some kind of cat. Jr sighed with exasperation but let this happen anyway. At least, the boy thought, he got to rest his legs after all that excitement.

”Well done Sire, young master and you all! That’s two guardians down!” a slightly tired looking Kamek congratulated them as he walked towards them, using his broom as a walking stick. Despite having not done much fighting himself, the old mage looked more drained than most from maintaining his gigantifying spell for so long. That spell was now gone, and so the titanic king was gradually returning back down to his usual size.

As he did so, the same corruption cleansing shockwave that had followed the duplicitous doppelganger Mega Dragon Bowser swept across the void. Unlike at Peach's castle, where it simply freed the region's inhabitants, it instead swept away the dark realm the battle had taken place in, returning them to a world of blue skies and sunlight. It also found the heroes standing on a mass of stone located high above a mountain bound ocean, a mass of stone that decided that now was the perfect time to start obeying the laws of physics.

The island proceeded to drop like a stone, was both not in anyone’s best interests and also very rude of it. It took a few heartbeats for this to register, but when it did it caused a bit of a panic to say the least. Or at least it did in Kamek and jr. The mage, in instinctive self preservation, took off immediately and ended up hovering next to the Cucco borne Linkle as the island rapidly fell away from them. With a pointed finger, he sent his Toadies swapping back down, a pair of them grabbing the ace cadet in an attempt to rescue Jr while the others went looking for anyone who didn’t manage to find their own escape route.

Completely unaware of Kamek’s rescue attempt Jr instead forcefully pushed himself out of the Ace’s one armed hug and legged it for the remains of his clown car with a panicked cry of ”waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhaha!” Once there the boy grabbed the necro-smasher from his duffel bag, then pulled a small hatched (which Kamek had gotten from a root enemy form the dead zone) and the Slice Cutter out as well before shoving the two weapons into the hammer to refill its metal gauge. The mallet’s hunger sated in a wasteful but expedient manner, he began smacking his clown car with the repair tool repeatedly, battering away the damage done to it by the dragon battle.

The car sputtered to life and jr immediately boarded it and took to the skies to safety with Mimikyue clinging to him. In doing so he provided a perfect grapple hook based escape method for the hat kid if she had no other options available.

Bowser meanwhile, was a comparative ocean of calm. Or foolhardy self confidence. He picked up the spirit of the dragon that was laying at his feet and then flicked it towards the Courier to whom it had been promised when they entered the Land of Adventure.

”BETTER LEARN HOW TO FLY FAST COWBOY” he instructed before he flicked out a claw from his mecha-mit and cleaved it through Poppi's improvised leg, cleanly slicing through the material with the energy blade and freeing her up for leg repair.

Having rendered rapid aid onto his minions Bowser turned and high jumped into the air, sailing clear of the island and into the rush of air blowing up to its side as the mass of rock displaced it in its plummet. Bowser, heavy as he was, was slowed by this onrushing air. Then he deployed Carrie the Trowlon and proceeded to ride the winds using the shovel faced flying carpet as an aerial hoverboard, slowing his fall as he sought out somewhere to land that wasn't wet and /or about to be obliterated.

Hit after hit, blow after blow the dragon took a pounding from everyone. Cuphead’s energy beam, Daxter utilizing the morph gun in Jak’s stead, Linkle’s ice, and many more culminating in a giant slam from a mega sized Bowser, the ender dragon couldn’t keep up with the level of injuries being doled out to it after its healing crystals were destroyed. The dragon was in the midst of perishing before their very eyes, but something wasn’t quite right.

The Courier, still under the effects of his perception enhancing chewing tobacco, squinted at the dragon’s behavior. The cracks that began to form reminded him of something… Bad. Then it hit him. The dragon turned itself into a bomb! The Cadet realized this at nearly the same time and shouted a warning, but there wasn’t anything they could do at this point.

”Gah! Oh no! Jak! Get up, pal! Use your shield! Can you make your eco shield yet? I DON’T WANNA DIE!” Daxter took cover behind Jak’s prone body and tried to right him up, but the dead weight was too much for his little ottsel body to handle. Then, suddenly, Jak just sat right back up. He was still heavily injured, it hurt to so much as move still, but the life threatening burns and the deepest cuts were more shallow.

”Great, you got your healing back, BUT THAT AIN’T GONNA HELP US IF WE DIE!!!”

Cuphead frantically looked around for someplace to run and hide, but it was too late. Even for someone as fast as him, there wasn’t any cover he could get to in time. The explosion went off… And then passed over everyone without causing any harm. The Courier let it pass by, ruffling the hair beneath his hat, while Cuphead grunted like he was just slapped. Only Jak, still feeling every movement of his body, reacted in a major way, letting out a yelp of pain like he had just broken a bone. The small concussive force still hurt when every bit of his flesh was tender.

Tora and Poppi had done something to suppress the explosion, and a healing wave washed over them all just like back at Peach’s Castle. The Courier walked up to the nopon and ruffled his little ear-hand things. ”Mighty proud a’ya, little guy. Ya done good with our posse.”

The red in Cuphead’s eyes faded, becoming black. He stumbled back a moment, holding his head. ”Uh… What happened? Don’t tell me I went to the wrong side of the tracks again and spent too much time in the Devil’s Casino…” He looked around to see the friends he had made recently, whom he had indeed met back in the Devil’s Casino, but the last thing he remembered was fighting some snipers in a spiral shaped mountain? More immediately concerning was the place they were in, as the black nether-like sky gave way to a gorgeous horizon of color of wondrous imagery… And they began to plummet.

Without the other worldly effects of The End, the big rocks they were on decided to obey normal physics, and that included gravity. The Courier had never been in such a situation before and he had nothing that could possibly help, but he knew what he could get. He ran toward the spirit of the dragon, but before he got to it Bowser tossed it over to him along with a little jab about learning to fly. ”You ain’t whistlin’ Dixie, boss.” He had to admit, he didn’t expect Bowser to so readily part with the spirit, but the Koopa King seemed to be a turtle dragon of his word. Without the slightest hesitation the Courier pressed the spirit into his chest. Wings, wings, wings, wings.

Jak grabbed Daxter before the latter could run off screaming. ”I only used enough eco to get me back on my feet. There’s plenty left to fly.” And with that Jak was enveloped in a silhouette of light, ethereal wings sprouting from his back. Daxter breathed out a sigh of relief as they two took to the air. Jak steered himself toward Blazermate, hoping she’d get the hint that he still needed quite a bit of healing.

Cuphead had no flight capabilities, not without a plane anyway. Thankfully there were others that could help out, namely Kamek and his toadies, and Linkle with her cuccoos. Given the choice between them, Cuphead dashed to Linkle and grabbed one of the chicken creatures and held it overhead. ”Fly, chicken! Fly!”

And with one final combined effort ending with a strike from Bowser, the ender dragon was dead! At first it seemed like it was going to do some kind of suicide attack to take everyone else with her, but she couldn't muster the energy to do it before she died and turned into a spirit alongside the other endermen that the others had defeated nearby, Sectonia's minions making chittering sounds of victory. Blazermate was relieved to see that the combat was over and could begin healing up everyone so that no lingering injuries would occur, healing herself up first for what she had left to do before healing others so that she could heal at full efficiency.

Sectonia meanwhile didn't like the fact that she got nothing from helping with this fight. But at the same time this fight didn't even injure her at all unlike the one in Spiral Mountain, so she was still debating this fact as the others were celebrating. As she was doing that, Blazermate was looking at the others, they definitely needed healing. Poppi was missing a leg, Jak was face down and unconscious, and everyone else was hurt in various other degrees. But before either lady could come to a decision the bubble encasing the End, revealing the clear sky, removing Galeem's influence from the ones who were still under their influence, and before the islands fell, Sectonia was pretty proud of the view that was being made. At least until, well, the island started to fall and she had to swoop down to catch a few that couldn't fly.

Since Blazermate could fly herself, she wasn't too worried about the island falling, but she WAS more worried about everyone else especially the injured. Jak made it easier on himself by waking himself up and lazily made his way towards Blazermate as she made her way towards him, attaching her beam and healing him when he got in range. Sectonia meanwhile had caught a few of the non flyers, ignoring her minions as they fell to the ground, them disappearing in a puff of smoke when they hit the ground. "After this, you all owe me some tributes." She said with a sigh.

Blazermate, after making it so Jak wasn't so groggy, then aided Tora with fixing up Poppi with her healing beam so she could carry him so he didn't go splat. Jak was flying without much issue now, and Sectonia had grabbed a few others that didn't grab one of Linkle's chickens or weren't being assisted by Bowser and his family. So it was just her, Tora, and Poppi at this point who needed to be airborn to not suffer the falling island, and she could fly when they got a bit too low for her liking, or when Poppi was flying, whichever came first.