@Lugubrious @Zoey Boey @DracoLunaris @Gentlemanvaultboy

Doom Slayer

Level 2 Doom Slayer/ Level 1 Isabelle

Location: Dead Zone/ Island off of the Eryta Sea

Word Count: 620

The Slayer made his way through the hallway not feeling the effects of the radiation; moving into the room where the heart of the gore nest was. He was familiar on how to deal with the heart; usually he would smash a panel which would result in the heart being destroyed. Without a level or anyway to destroy the heart; he followed the others hoping to find some way to destroy the heart. He wondered why things couldn’t be simple; back in the day he wouldn’t need to go through all of these hoops. Back then he all he would have to do is find keycards and kill demons. Standing behind the door with the others; overhearing the demonic noises he pulled out his shotgun cocking it loudly.

Nodding his head towards Nero; this would be a piece of cake for him. Rushing at the demons in front of him, noticing the snake like a demon slithering around the room. “I hate these bastards” He muttered to himself, noticing the armor pickup on the other side of the room. Springing into action firing off a few shots from his shotgun; it seemed he was getting a little rusty with his aiming. Moving towards the armor pickup while keeping himself covered; making sure that the snake demon did not get the jump on him. Reaching out his hand towards the pickup grabbing it; he could see his armor becoming repaired including his helmet being repaired.

Quickly putting back on his helmet and focusing on the snake demon. He would have to admit this demon was quick but the Slayer could hold his own. Closing the distance between himself and the snake; once he was close enough he gripped the snake’s neck trying to snap it’s neck.

/////////////////////////////////

Isabelle made her way onto the living ship; finding it to be quite fascinating since she had not seen such a thing before. Looking around at the people who joined her onto the boat; all of them came from different walks of life.She assumed all of these people were fighting for the same cause; and if so then she would gladly help them to the best of her abilities. Noticing Link and Linkle; She was excited to see them since she had conversed with them some time ago. “Hello Mr. Link and Miss Linkle I hope you two are doing well on all things considering” She made her way over standing in front of the two. She knew that because of the displacement and not the usual invitations that she would send to them.

Turning towards Princess Peach, Bowser Jr and Kamak; people whom she had met before but was more aquentented with the princess. “Hello princess; it is nice to see you again. How have you been?” But before she could make conversation with her she noticed that Sakura went overboard. “Oh dear do not worry Miss Sakura i will help you” The small dog made her way over to the side of the ship.

Searching through her pockets for anything she could use to save Sakura; pulling out of her infinite pockets random items. Things like envelopes of mail, bug nets, hats, furniture and random junk. Before finally pulling out a flotation device; throwing it out near Sakura hoping that she would hold onto it. “Grab hold of it, Miss Sakura; Can i please get some help pulling her in?” She asked the others. She was not the strongest so she would need help pulling someone twice her height and weight onto the ship. Once Sakura was finally safely on the board; the dog pulled out a towel and a pair of dry school girl outfit. She hoped no one was going to ask her why she has a school girl outfit in her pocket.

Even for those among Yellow Team who couldn’t fly (which made most of them), the adjacency of the Eryth Sea to their destination made for a painless, largely quiet trip there. It wasn’t as convenient as, say, teleporting, as the other teams had done, but not everyone had the luxury of being so close to their target region’s border that they could simply cross over it on foot. Fox kept a pace or two ahead of the grounded share of the squad--those that were officially part of it anyway. The masked teens and their cat moved and worked at their own pace, seemingly uninterested in uniting their efforts with the collective beyond what was incidental to the conditions of their travel.

The downhill trail through the tight mountain pass bled into the hot, sparkling dunes under blistering, sedimentary air exacerbated by the sun made somehow brighter with the transition--all previously obscured by the range of peaks leading there. It was enough to prompt Fox to mask himself with his collar bandana for the first time in… well, perhaps ever. His eyepiece--not terribly useful under the current conditions--picked up just as much detail as his squinted eyes hand-shielded from whistling dust winds, which was of course very little, but enough to faintly discern a great silhouette snaking around the distant summit. The question (one of several anyway) was whether or not they would actually be able to cross the vast desert on their own power to make it there, or be in fighting shape by then should they manage. For lack of a better way, Fox was just about to hazard it until the youth gang’s feline transmuted itself into a passenger friendly vehicle and, at Tora’s plea, graciously allowed the grounded number of them aboard with a friendly disclaimer of possible discomfort.

Fox, for one, was quietly grateful for being lent a ride, none too bothered by the occupancy shortage or lack of cooling. In line with the others, he slipped off his flight jacket to expose his bare, now sleeveless fur to what cool air there was to take in while they were sheltered, and would make a point to don it again after stepping out into the buffeting sands. In the meantime, while everyone else was getting familiar, Fox zoned out into the HUD of his headset trying to find any viable line of communication he could between him and any of his comrades. Alas, all that showed up was a shortwave, one-way radio receiver on the Courier. Still, mixed results were better than none. At least Fox could potentially talk to him, if not vice versa.

After a minute the car came to a stop, bringing Fox’s attention back to his surroundings. He stepped out of the van and donned his bandana and jacket once more, and he began to survey his surroundings while Morgana rested. It seemed they could use an adjustment to their heading, seeing as they had made no visible progress. The teenage gang and a couple of others deliberated on which direction to take. Toward the mountain following the sun lay their apparent destination, but the gang seemed to have other plans first. Peering into the distance where the sandstorm worsened they could see a great mechanical ungulate slowly treading a circle in the sands, and while it showed no immediate signs of aggression or hostility, one look at it made it difficult to believe that it wasn’t potentially dangerous.

“Wherever we go from here,” Fox began aloud to no one in particular/anyone who was listening, “my guess is we’ll have to get past that to get there,” he said alluding to the giant clockwork camel. As well as that, the roiling movement beneath the sands some short ways off didn’t escape him either. “And maybe more…” he uttered more softly this time. Already he was running through a headful of scenarios for the most likely inevitable series of engagements they were in for. As no one had yet approached the lone woman posted up at the totem-lined path, Fox decided to be the first, hoping she might have (and offer) some insights. “Anything you can tell us about this place? What we can expect to run into?” In his inquiry, Fox opted to dispense with the introductions and salutations, taking the woman from her bearing to not be much for them.

Sakura grabbed ahold of the rope and began to climb back onto the ship. Her red face got even redder as the kid turtle leaned over the edge and literally pointed and laughed. Sakura giggled alongside him, because let's be real, it was pretty funny. Still, it was embarassing and made her look stupid. So it was some conflicting emotions. With Isabelle, Geralt, and Sakura, she was quickly back onboard. She tumbled over the edge and put her back against the rail. Her wet hair flopped into her face and she brushed it aside, her big round eye squinting from underneath the soaked strands of brown hair.

"Thanks, Mister Geralt, thanks, Miss Isabelle." She said gratefully, rolling up and squeezing her short shirt and wringing some of the water out. Her shoes squeaked against the wood and Sakura stuck out her tongue, making a disgusted face. Wet socks was one of the most unpleasant feelings in the world. She took off her shoes and socks and stuffed the socks into the shoes. She frowned at the acrobatic display of Bowser Jr and tried not to take his teasing too personally.

Sitting down with her legs crossed, Sakura was just underneath eye level with the cute talking dog lady. Sakura smiled at the sight, but the smile quickly turned puzzled. Reaching out, Sakura accepted the towel but was a little hesitant with the school girl uniform. "Wh..." She was about to ask where she got it.

It seemed Sakura thought against it, though. "Um...arigato." She said, rubbing the back of her head and smiling. She folding the outfit and set it down a few feet away from her sitting position. Casually, she flung off her old uniform, leaving her comfortably in the workout gear she kept underneath. A red top and red bloomers nicely matched her red fighting gloves and her red shoes. Red, one could infer, was a color Sakura liked.

Using the towel to wipe off her face, she wrapped it around herself while she dried. "Phew. Water's pretty chilly." She commented lightly , trying to play it cool. Sakura wasn't one to shy away from attention but...it had been a long time since she had pulled a blunder like that. She was proud of her physical capability so getting dunked on by the universe like that was a nice reminder to stay humble.

Blazermate wasn't really made for driving cars. Heck, she could barely keep her head over the steering wheel and push the pedals due to her height and the oversize-ness of the car! This combined with her lack of knowledge of actually driving made her driving erratic. She knew to stay away from anything that was solid, and her erratic driving did have one benefit of leaving a much bigger path of destruction for her team to follow even if the smell would be horrendous. She would also more or less blast the tesla cannon on top whenever it was charged to also clear the way, as they made their escape from all the flood and made their way to the last root, the 2nd root seemingly have already been destroyed by... something... Which was nice, but still, very odd.

As she was sort of leading the way with her comendeered vehicle, some of the more intelligent denezins of the dead zone were trying to come at her to stop her rampage. Thankfully as they were out of the 'Flood" area though, she could use her Suffering arm to call some zombies to attack the ones trying to attack her and her party as she drove. Although she wasn't sure exactly how many zombies were in the area, the flood had been doing a good job of eliminating most of them and making it so she couldn't control any of them and it appeared there were more demons around since their last visit. Sort of made her cool upgrade seem... less cool. Also, why was she driving this car she was so ill equipped to drive? She hoped one of her other teammates would take the wheel from her so she could set a sentry up top.

While there was some resistance, from Linkle of all people, to the idea of bailing in short order the gang was out the door and retreating from the tower and towards the region’s third miniboss. Contrary to what Bowser was hoping, getting outside did not solve the flood problem.

”IS THERE NO END TO THESE THINGS!” He roared while using his non spirit carrying hand to pick up a flood combat form in-order to use its body as a mace to beat several others over the head with.

The fact that their new ride had smashed into the building should probably have given away the state of the outside world, but then the king was never the smartest, and he had had a lot to deal with indoors with the undead swarm and the utter pain that had been the two fireproof Pokemon combat forms. Their spirits were now his, clutched in one hand and still unused, mainly because the King could not hear himself think to decide how to use them over the sounds of battle and the blaring siren attached to the top of the stolen shockdozer. The siren was so annoying that it somehow acted as a weapon, knocking warrior forms and infectors off of the car whenever they tried to clamber on top of it.

While some of the gang could squeeze inside the vehicle, Bowser stayed outside. Even shrunk down it would have been cramped, and his spiky shell would be something of a hazard as the machine veered to and fro thanks to Blazermates erratic driving. So he stayed outside and sized himself back up to make himself as tough as possible. Fortunately, the vehicle was slow enough that he could just about keep up on foot. Unfortunately, that meant that theirs was a rather slow getaway, one that the hordes of flood found outside were able to swarm them during the start of their escape. While the front of the dozer made quick work of anything standing right in the way, it was the sides and rear that were where the danger lay, as skittering infestors and clawed combat forms tried to grab on to the vehicle as it passed them by and climb on.

These Bowser was more than capable of helping clear, the King periodically pausing his advance to bathe each flank of the vehicle with his firebreath, before rushing to catch up again. The fire torched infectors and combat forms alike when they tried to get onboard, reducing them to burning corpses and then ash in quick succession, leaving a trail of spirits in the wake of the team as they plowed onward and outwards.

There were others behind them, but for the most part, the monsters left in the vehicle’s dust could not keep up with the King or car. Those that did had to face Bowser’s armored and spiked shell, which shrugged off both attempts to strike him and the small arms fire coming from the flood’s ranged forms that had found vantage points and where trying to gun down the retreating Heroes.

While he was mostly safe from direct harm from the foes that could catch him, there was still the threat of being left behind. Even Bowser would be in trouble if left alone with the swarms, especially if some of their bigger, meaner, forms could catch him. Seeming to recognize this, the flood’s combat forms quickly switched from trying to claw or stab him to grabbing hold of him, claws clasping onto his short tail, legs or shell rim in an attempt to slow his retreat with their combined weight.

”GET OFF GET OFF GET OFF!” Bowser roared, shaking violently, tossing some of the hitchhikers asside but being slowed in the process. This brought a moment’s respite, but the flood came at him again, surging forward to ensnare him and drag him down. Unable to afford turning to fight them head on, as this would result in him being left behind anyway, Bowser needed some rear weaponry. Fortunately for him he had just the tool for the job.

Acting quickly, the king hooked a Lucky bell to his spiked color and transformed into Meowser. While now fur covered his body might be more vulnerable than his scaly skin, his shell was just as tough and, importantly, he now sported a long cat tail in place of his stubby normal one.

”HOW DO YOU LIKE ME MEOW! I MEAN NOW. HA!” Bowser yelled back at the flood, swiping his long, heavy, feline tail around like a flail, smashing combat forms aside and crushing infectors to a pulp.

Stomping forward on three paws, the massive cat King caught back up with the vehicle, just as it looked like they were clearing the worst of the flood. The masses of combat forms were being outrun, and the appearance of regular Zombies, controlled by Blazermate, seemed to indicate that they were getting back out into the regular zombie apocalypse blighted Dead zone.

This didn’t mean they were home free just yet. The zone had many other dangers (that blasermate couldn’t simply take control over like the zombies) one of which consisted of a swarm of weird bird bat creatures that came in to attack them, biting and dumping toxic gases on them. Bowser swatted at or toasted any that came close, but he wasn’t well equipped to deal with the agile beasts in the slightest, and so had to mostly grin and bear their onslaught and hope that others could handle the situation.

The Flood menace also clearly wasn't done with them as out of the left behind swarm roared three motorcycle riding combat forms, their motorized mounts equipped with two deadly looking side mounted chainsaws.

As the motorbikes closed in, Bowser inhaled deeply and then turned to let loose a new kind of fireball. Instead of the large or massive slow moving fireballs that the vehicles could easily dodge, Bowser launched dozens of smaller hot shots, which dropped to the floor instantaneously after they left his mouth, before racing across the ground towards their pursuers. To make sure they wouldn't just swerve to the side, he shot the flames in a spread pattern, each fireball sent to the left of the next so that it created a rolling wave of fireballs that he was sure there was no way to dodge. The flames streaked under the leading bike as it failed to react quickly enough to the new threat, igniting both its rider’s legs and the tires of the vehicle, causing it to lose control and crash to the ground.

”YEAH BUZZ OFF” Bowser roared, certain of his victory right before it was defied by their other two foes. Rather than barrel straight into the flames, the second flood form deftly bunny hopped his over the fire, gaining only light scorches for its troubles, while the third ramped off of a nearby car wreckage, launching themselves briefly skywards and soaring clear over the flames without a scratch as a result before hitting the deck again. The wave rolled onward, the fire fanning out as it spread, leaving gaps that the still pursuing Flood horde could squeeze through, resulting in only some casualties to its seemingly endless bulk.

The king clenched his fist in frustration, but eased up the pressure right before crushing the two spirit's he'd gotten from the confrontation in the ardent tower. Reminded of their presence, he knew what he should do with them.

”MORE POWER, LETS GO!” he decided, before slamming the spirits of the Blastoise and Tentacruel into his chest to absorb their powers as his own. As the transformation took hold he turned and thundered after the Shockdozer while the two remaining slicecycles wheeled around him before coming in too pincer strike the slow moving vehicle, chainsaws roaring and aimed for the more vulnerable tires.

The stranger watched Fox approach with a faintly guarded but otherwise blank expression, although she made no motion. Where a gesture sufficed for the others, it seemed, a spoken explanation need be in order for this one.

"It is very slow," she told him, her voice flat. "Getting around it is easy." Ignoring the camel, she looked out across the desert. "Expect? Heat, worms, pirates, holes. Dying of thirst. Snakes. Radiation. Bugs. Snakes. Falling off the mountain. Cold. Dying of exhaustion. Got it?" She looked back at fox, her expression begrudging. "I will watch. Intervene if I have to. Get to the top." With that, the mysterious woman floated into the air. She hovered for a moment, gathering energy, before shooting skyward in a blast of wind.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group prepared to set out again, banding about a few words concerning the thieves' search and what Poppi found. The blade, standing by the Morgana-car, took solemn note of Midna's request. The manpower and resources of an entire kingdom would, after all, greatly help the campaign, and of course Poppi figured seeing her kingdom again would make Midna happy. “Big circle building, many pillars,” she repeated, committing the description to memory, then smiled at the imp with closed eyes and a tilted head.. “Added to search parameters! Poppi will tell if Poppi sees it.”

Joker considered what Sectonia had to say, listening to the oversized bee queen through an open window. While he initially wrote off the mechanical beast as merely a somewhat interesting feature of the desert rather than an objective, Sectonia could be right. Nothing he heard or saw so far really confirmed that whatever Poppi saw circling that far-off mountain was indeed Galeem's champion. Although having one just wandering out in the open with no fanfare seemed a little anticlimactic, he couldn't put aside the possibility. “That's fair. We should check it to be sure. Alright, Morgana?”

The car swished his tail from side to side. “Sure, sure. As long as we're going, I've had enough sitting still.”

Tora pressed his face against the window, wishing he had a zoom function of his own right about now. In fact, he made a mental note to get some binoculars some time. “Tora is super-exciteypon to see giant mecha-creature. Let's go!”

Morgana obliged.

---

Twenty minutes of streaking across the desert sand later, the Morgana-car closed in on the target. From this range, everyone could see the details of the camel-thing. Its legs spiraled upward into its bulky body like inverted palm tree trunks, and ridges like the tops of keys inserted into wind-up dolls reached out from its serpentine neck in rows. On its back sat two domed buildings in place of humps, their windows lit. Most interestingly, instead of a camel head it sported some sort of horned mask with six round eyes, red as the setting sun.

Once the car got within a certain range, Val Naboris reacted. Its face turned to face the vehicle, and from the 'humps' in its back extended metal spires. Electricity arced between them, creating an orb.

The eyes of Tora, Skull, and Poppi collectively widened. “Uh, Joker? Maybe we oughta...”

“Yeah.” With a grunt of effort the thief cut the wheel all the way to the right, causing the Morgana-car to veer away from the machine. A moment later the electric orb ruptured, and a bolt of lightning dropped from the sky into the sand. The light and ear-splitting sound just about floored the occupants of the car as sand and shards of flash-fused glass flew in every direction. “Aaaaah!” a general yell sounded out, not least of all from Morgana, as the car made tracks to a safe distance.

“Are we gonna take it down?” Ann quickly asked, the less-than-sureness in her voice questioning the possibility of it. “That was like, Wild Thunder, and we didn't even get close.”

Tora listened for an answer from the group as well, offering nothing himself but a quick examination of Poppi to see if the electric exposure harmed her new form in any way.



After Sakura's brief trip overboard, ensuing rescue, and subsequent tending-to by Isabelle, Brineybeard gave his ship the go ahead to set sail. With all aboard, the living vessel got underway, smoothly cutting through the waves on its way to Limsa.

As the ship forged toward the floating city, peppered by the salty breeze and the spraying sea foam, the passengers could get a good look both at the bay and the ocean beyond. Water extended all the way to the horizon on either side of Inkwell Isle. For the most part clear skies prevailed, but clouds massed to the north, casting shade over a stretch of sea shrouded in fog and storm. None could doubt that this constituted the 'Bottomless Sea' spoken of by the mysterious woman in black, but nobody regarded it with particular dread. It made for just another obstacle on the road ahead, soon to join the many laying bruised and beaten on the road behind.

Some minutes into the voyage, Brineybeard left the wheel to peer over the side of the ship. “Ahoy!” he called, pointing down to the water. “Yer lucky day, mateys. There be shoals in these waters!”

Sure enough, the sparkling waves teemed with fish. Not too far away, a fishing trawler full of fishermen -curiously the only other boat sighted by the heroes so far- was awash with activity. Its anglers hooked fish after fish, nonchalantly tossing them over their shoulders to flop around the large center of their craft. Even stranger, two people appeared to by engaged in a battle in the middle of that area: a girl with blue hair and a clown. If this was unusual, however, Brineybeard paid it no mind. “If ye likes, grab me fishin' rods 'n have yerself a fishin'.” He pointed toward a box by the cabin.





As the heroes struggled to repel both Flood and lerks, the terrain started to change. The shockdozer was rolling into the south-east sector, the territory most affected by catastrophic seismic activity. Collapses and upheavals at some point in the tormented city's past left chunks of earth hundreds of feet above and below typical street level, and everywhere in between. As a result, storefront windows looked out over hideous chasms at isolated apartment buildings across the void, and terminal falls lay between the halves of sundered office buildings. The wide-openness of the scenery was quite the change of pace from the roads clogged with wrecked cars and living dead slogged through by some of the heroes before.



This did not make for easier going, however. Quite the opposite, in fact. As the heroes persevered into the hell-bent metropolis and city blocks turned into perilous precipices, their options began to fall drastically. After choosing against a street occupied by a pitched battle between Flood and a giant demon amid swarms of large, glowing bugs, the ground sloped downward. The shockdozer started to pick up speed, outpacing its natural maximum thanks to gravity's acceleration, and leaving behind both the combat forms and anyone unable to keep up or climb on. A slight incline to the right as well as down inched the vehicle closer and closer to the cliff edge, and the upturned earth at the end of the slope suggested the possibility of a jump across the gorge to the other side—and safety. An expert driver would need to take the wheel to even make it to the jump, let alone across.

Before the shockdozer got too far, a vile shape drifted between some buildings. By all accounts a Flood monstrosity capable of floating in the air, it hovered above the slope and began dropping explosive blisters. The fleshy sacs fell to embed in the already-dangerous road ahead, ready and able to explode when the vehicle got too near. Though sturdy, it could only take so many; problems were mounting quickly.



The Whiplash picked the wrong fight Though it dashed quickly and with a low profile across the ground to keep its distance and strike the Slayer from afar, he'd already bested a much stronger monster with more or less the same gameplan today. A few shotgun blasts wore it down until the pain and damage mounted to such a degree that it could no longer escape the Slayer's clutches and was seized by him.

With that dealt with, that left just the abyssal demon. It moved slowly but confidently, heading for the Slayer even at the expense of guarding the door to the lever that would restore power. However, it shrugged off every shot the Slayer put into it, not even so much as flinching. The tentacles atop its head carved through the air like whips, vicious enough to strip meat from the bone. Despite all his travels and travails, the Slayer got a sinking feeling—that this thing was unlike anything he'd faced so far. Still, the choice was his: the demon or the lever.

And they were off. The second leg of Kamek and Jr’s journey truly began as the captain’s vessel set sail out on the endless sea. While the aged Kamek quickly hunkered down in a spot away from the seaspray and wind, Jr initially rode the front of the ship, claws holding tightly to the banister of the ship as the wind and saltspray blowing in his hair. Mimikyu was forced to hold on tight lest her cloud-like body be blown away, looping one arm under and around jr’s neckerchief/bib to do so.

Despite the wind, both boy and mon eagerly took in the sights of the high seas and the refreshing sea breeze. It was a pleasant change from the Land of Adventure, though the dark clouds hanging over what had to be the Bottomless sea reminded any who saw them that this land likely held as many if not more dark terrors hiding out here than they had found in the shifting fields of the land they had just cleared.

Just when the sights of the sea and the islands floating atop it were starting to grow stale something new swam into view. Jr pulled himself upwards and hung over the edge of the ship a little in order to watch the myriad of fish schooling around the ship swim to and fro. At the mention of fishing from he captain Jr pushed himself back down onto the deck, causing Kamek (who had been about to pull the dangling boy back to sensible safety) to stumble back and away from him in surprise.

”oh! oh! I’ve got something just for this” Jr said as he quickly brushed past the mage, who was in the process of picking himself back up, and headed for his clown car. After rummaging around in its hammer-space interior for a few moments he pulled out a fishing spear he’d gotten on their first day in Lumbridge from a loot box.

”Bet you i can fish way better with this cool thing than you can with those rods!” jr said, as he hefted the spear and strode towards the edge of the ship.

”May I make just two suggestions young master? One, you might like to get a rope so you can get that thing back,” Kamek said, causing jr to pause right before hurling the spear into the ocean.

”Yeah, I knew that. I was just testing the weight is all” Jr replied, before going and borrowing the same rope that had been used to haul Sakura out of the ocean.

As the boy tied the the rope through a hole at the end of the spear Kamek continued ”and might I suggest that we turn this a game?” he suggested, thinking back to several fishing minigames he’d had people play while running Mario parties ”see who can catch the most, biggest and most interesting fish?”

”Sounds good. Coz I bet I’d win” Jr replied, despite having never spearfished before.

”Anyone interested? Perhaps to make it more interesting the winner could have the first claim on the spirit of the region’s boss once we acquire it?” he added. Prizes always made contests more fun and exciting in Kamek’s opinion, and what better a prize than one he didn't have to personally finance. A lot of the troops’ remaining money had gone into grocery shopping, which was, Kamek realized, still sitting in the Bowser mobile which itself was still sat on the approach to where the End used to be. A somewhat inconvenient location for a bunch of perishable goods.

”I’ll have to deal with that in a bit” Kamek muttered to himself, before putting the issue to one side and turning his attention to the bit of the ship being used or fishing, where Jr was lining up his first throw. With little finesse he hurled it at the sea the sploosh startling the fish and failing to hit anything.

”Perhaps you should stick to the rod young master? I think you’ve used one before after all” Kamek suggested, only to be brushed off by Jr, who hauled the spear up and had another failed go at it. The mage left the young prince to it with a shrug, and instead turned his attention to the other fishers to see how they were doing.

A few minutes passed, and the ocean wind and the blazing sun resulted in the soaked student being dried off quite quickly. Soon she was confident that she wasn't going to immediately ruin Isabelle's gift with saltwater, so she went ahead and put the replacement outfit on. Besides, her old one had been through a lot, though she had done her best to maintain it. But with no laundry machine or clean water to wash with, this new uniform was really a blessing.

"You know," Sakura said with a litte chuckle, "I joined my first big fighting tournament on a whim on my way home from school. I just showed up in my first year uniform. After that, the look just kind of stuck." She shrugged with a smile. She spoke to anyone nearby, anyone who wanted to listen. The memory had occured to her and she wanted to speak of it. Sakura was an open book, intentionally and otherwise.

"Same thing happened this time, too. Was on my way home from school...and then, I wasn't..." Sakura had accidentally made herself a little sad, and it showed on her easily readable face.

Fortunately, another distraction had presented itself just in time. Fish! Lots of em! Sakura peaked overboard and saw...a lot of fish! When visiting the harbor cities of Japan she would occasionally glimpse the mega barges that brought in their boatloads of fish. But this was a fantastical amount of fish.

"Ooh, wow!" Sakura exclaimed. But what caught her attention almost immediately was the epic battle happening behind the fisherman. "Hey! Hey look!" Sakura held onto the railing with one hand and pointed at the encounter with the other, and she was literally bouncing up and down. "Those two are having a street fight over there!" While in a fight, one didn't have much time to express how much fun they were having. But as a spectator her enthusiasm for martial arts was plain to see.

"I'm rooting for the clown! WOOOOOH! YEAH! Go clown!" She began pumping her fist in the air. Quickly this evolved into her punching, until she was doing a full on Shotokan karate routine on the edge of the ship. With strong punches, high kicks that were so high they borded on vertical, and ten foot leaps into the air punctuated by spin kicks that propelled her forward.

Upon realising she was missing the fight, she skidded to a stop and turned her attention back to the faraway fight, squinting at it. She gripped the railing and leaned far forward. Far, far forward. It almost looked like was going to go over again.

There was a bit of talking to do before they set out again.

”Midna appreciates Poppi helping Midna” Midna told Poppi, while mimicking the unusual self referential speech pattern she and Tora had for the fun of it, when she agreed to use keep her fancy eyes on the look-out for the Arbiter's Grounds.

”Unless you're from Hyrule or some place in the same world as it, it’s kinda unlikely that it’s the same mirror. Least if I’m getting the gist of this whole world tapestry situation right.” Midna told the large bee queen when she suggested that she might have been in possession of the mirror at one point ”And I’m fairly sure it spent all of its existence in the Arbiter's Grounds anyway.” she added with a shrug.

She also gave the queen some limited pointers on who’d be good for the missions, mainly endorsing Zelda (even if she wasn't a Zelda Midna knew, the two she had were an indication that the Hylian royal line had a good track record of producing affluent, wise and popular rulers if they’d lasted so long, and so she expected this one would have no trouble talking people into joining the fight). Unfortunately, most of what she knew about the other smashers was how far she could toss them.

Before they set off, the vulpine looking lad decided he wasn't satisfied with pointed directions and instead ran off to speak with the mystery woman in the dunes. There was a bit of tension, Midna was worried she might pick a fight when brazenly approached, but the lack of any panic, screaming or sounds of violence gave the impression that everything was ok, and even she couldn’t miss the lady blasting off into the sky shortly afterwards.

”Bold aren't you? Can’t leave a lady alone to stalk people in the desert nooo, ya gotta go talk to her and ruin the mystery” Midna said once Fox returned, mostly to hide the fact that she was embarrassed she hadn't thought to do that very simple thing.

”So... What’d she say?” she asked, genuinely curious.

---

After a bit more traveling the yellow team approached the giant camel, which meant Midna got to actually see what it was they’d all been gawping at earlier. The giant construct truly was a marvel of magical engineering, a wonder that put everything Midna knew about magic, and even what she had seen made by the ancient Oocca, to shame. She wanted to tear it apart to find out how it ticked, and simultaneously knew all she’d achieve in doing so would be to ruin the awe inspiring machine and be unable to affirm anything from the act due to the gulf in wisdom between her civilization and whichever one had built the Titan.

Before she could really take it all in, or start to recognize any of her own world’s magic system peeking out from her under the layers of sophistication, the titan took notice of them and things rapidly took a turn for the worse. The camel powered up some kind of lighting weapon and, after a few moments, let loose a thunderbolt to punish them for daring to get even slightly close to it.

The flash of light from the thunder strike obliterated the shadows in the car, dumping Minda back out into the light world and dropping her surprised form to the floor of the car. Her helm prevented any head injuries from the fall, and her low position prevented her from being exposed to any shrapnel, but this was little consolation for the Twilight princess ”Ahhh! My eyes!” she screamed, covering both her exposed eye and the Fused Shadow covered eye with her hands while letting out a long string of unintelligible Twili curse words.

After barely avoiding being obliterated by the titan’s lighting control the Morgana-car rolled away from the machine, which fortunately did not attempt to pursue them. The initial mood was grim, with Panther expressing doubts that they could take on the machine.

”I am (string unintelligible curse words) mad at this thing!” Midna complained angrily as she sat up on the floor. She pulled one hand away from her eye, then waved it about in her blasted vision before grimacing and putting it back over the eye again. ”Stupid walking temple. If anyone thinks they can get up I could hitch a ride… Or maybe we can wait till sunset and I can sneak up its shadow once it’s stretched out of its lighting range?” Minda suggested, before growling in frustration at the lack of easy answers, her former awe having been replaced with righteous fury and a lust for vengeance against the camel.

How long that anger would prevail remained to be seen, but for the time being Midna was 100% onboard any plans anyone could come up with to strike back at the Titanic machine, no matter how foolish the prospect of fighting it was.

A loud splash drew the Cadet's attention from the living ship. He spotted Sakura overboard, along with various safety devices thrown down to help her climb back onto the ship. Or "shippy," I guess, he thought, letting his thoughts wander off as they often did once it was clear that the girl wasn't in danger. Water logged maybe, but otherwise she seemed alright, thankfully. Ace Cadet chuckled along with Sakura and Bowser Jr., although the latter's tone made it seem he was more laughing at her, not with her, but regardless between her spill and Shippy's debut, it was a nice distraction from the bleak plan the hooded figure tried laying out for them. Though speaking of that plan, the hunter's mind was brought back to it when he quickly turned away from Sakura when she stripped off her uniform, even though she had a training outfit underneath. It was only polite, right? Facing the sea once again, the Cadet squinted ahead at the dark swirling path of sea a little ways off.

"Y'think that's the place the woman was talking about?" asked to no one in particular. He searched the waves for any hint of a fin or shadow, any clue at all about exactly what kinds of monsters they would be dealing with. Piscine Wyverns? Leviathans? Carapaceons? Or something like a big fish, or weirder? All he could see from the ship's bow was fog for the most part. Cadet dragged his eyes over the waves around the area too, but likewise didn't spot anything of interest until he was looking straight down over the rail into the water below. The flash of scales sparkled in his eyes. Many scales. A school of a fish?

Brineybeard confirmed that yes, the sea was teeming with fish in this area. Lucky day indeed!

"Captain!" Cadet exclaimed, leaving his spot by the rail and running up to the man, clapping the pirate on his shoulders with both of his hands. The hunter's face clearly expressed his excitement. "We can use your rods? Gargwawesome! Thank you!"

The Cadet hurried over to the case the captain indicated, eagerly removing the equipment from it. The took a few, intending to hand them out to the others aboard. Truthfully, the Cadet wasn't the best fisherman, but he wasn't the worst either! And fish were so useful! Their scales, organs, and bones could be turned into a variety of things, not to mention their worth as food. It would be interesting to see what kind of fish lived in an ocean like this.

Ace Cadet made his way down the line, offering a fishing rod to everyone: Geralt, Isabelle, Link, Cuphead, and Hat Kid. Although Sakura was busy with a martial arts routine and pointing out a battle on a nearby ship that the Cadet hadn't even noticed until now, he nonetheless offered her one as well. "Here, if you want!" he said, to each person. On his way to the pair of Koopas, Kamek suggested a wager for the area boss' spirit.

"Oho, interesting," Ace Cadet said with a grin. "I'm up for it! Biggest, coolest, and most-est fish?" He glanced at Bowser Jr. struggling with the spear and handed off a rod to Kamek in case the boy decided to change his mind, or if they laid down any rules which was the next thing the hunter asked about. "Are you thinking a fishing free-for-all? 'Cause I might have an advantage if we don't stick to fishing rods," he laughed.

To demonstrate, he strode over to the rail once more and switched his slinger from grappling mode to net mode. That piscine researcher would give me such a scolding for this, Cadet thought to himself. He reached his arm over the water, taking aim at a large group of fish. Once the school was close enough he activated the slinger and the net attachment shot out into the water with the same force it used to haul heavy hunters up steep cliffs. When the cable was reeled in and the hunter lifted the net onto the deck, there were several squirming fish inside of it.

---

Settled back in her seat, Primrose listened to the others talk. She had no recommendations to offer Sectonia, so she kept quiet. Sure, Primrose had some reads on most of the people in the Alcamoth, but they were all mostly the same: heroic types. There were precious few that the dancer had gotten to know beyond a passing conversation in a hallway. It was interesting to hear some opinions about the people she'd been spending her time with though. Even more interesting though was the queen's delegation. That man, Vandham, explained most of it before the three teams left, but a lot of it went over Primrose's head even if the whole concept intrigued her. In another life if she'd grown up to be the noblewoman she was meant to be, perhaps she would have enjoyed retaining knights and sending them on quests. Instead she was here, in another desert, listening to an colorful insect queen give instructions to a little flying pig with a bright ball coming out of it's head.

Focusing on the bizarre amused Primrose, and a smirk grew on her face the longer she thought about it. However once Fox joined them on the bus again, she wiped the smile away and instead fixed the furry man with an expectant look, raising one of her eye brows as she did so. A silent bid for information. He was the only one that spoke with the strange woman after all. Midna mirrored her curiosity - but the rest of the group was more enthralled with the giant mechanical animal. Once the group got moving again in a new direction, Primrose once again gazed out of the window, trying to get a better look at the thing as they approached it.

What an adventurous group, the dancer mused to herself. Frankly she would have steered clear of that thing and continued on toward the mountain if she were in charge... then again, her previous companions came to mind as they so often did, and she could easily see Tressa and Cyrus trying to convince everyone else to investigate such a strange contraption. Face with that kind of enthusiasm, Primrose might have caved.

Once the cat car drew closer to the beast, it was clear just how massive it truly was. Who could have built something like this? Primrose pressed her hand against the glass, watching the machine walk, then look towards them, then start building electricity... Oh, no.

Primrose turned away swiftly, her hands flying up to cover her head as the lightning crashed down nearby and rocked the car even harder than the erratic driving did. When the group had put some distance between themselves and the beast, Primrose caught her breath and looked back at it. Panther asked if they should try and tackle the thing while Midna (apparently in favor of attacking it) let loose a flurry of what Primrose could only guess were expletives.

"...that's strange," Primrose said after a few moments of watching the false camel continue moving on. "It's not chasing after us. It only attacked when we got close."

She turned her eyes back to her new companions within the car. "If it were alive that would be normal for an animal, but it is a construct. I would wager it's protecting something."

Something inside of itself the dancer guessed, considering there didn't seem to be any real landmarks nearby the machine. "...or someone," Primrose continued, "See the buildings on it's back? Perhaps it houses someone who controls it."

Of course, that was all just a hypothesis. After speaking her mind, Primrose looked towards the shining mountain and the leviathan that circled it. Would it be worth it to investigate this machine further, or just continue toward the mountain? If the creature was guarding some treasure, would that even be helpful?

"...who's to say the sun even sets here?" Primrose said, glancing at Midna before continuing, "I am of the mind that we should go on to the mountain, but if you all believe it would be worth it to have a look inside that creature... I would think our flying friends have the best chance of disrupting that lightning bolt." Primrose sat back in her seat, casually smoothing the fabric of her dancer's outfit. "And unless that camel has a thing for brunettes, I don't think I will be much help unless we get onto it," she finished with a small shrug. It was true, battling giant mechanical monsters was just a little bit outside of her experience.

Flanking round Bowser, the two motorbike riding flood revved their bike's handlebar mounted chainsaws and gunned for the shockdozer as it was in the middle of being swarmed by goddamn bats. In unison, they tilted their bikes to the side, bringing their sawblades low to the ground, aimed squarely at the vehicle’s large construction vehicle tires and, also in unison, they were each blasted by a torrent of water from behind. Losing traction and balance, the pair both lost control of their bikes, and hit the deck. Hard. One rammed its chest mounted infectors straight into one of its own chainblades, eviscerating itself in the process. The other survived its crash, didn’t last much longer than its compatriot.

The transformed Bowser, who’d pulled off his lucky bell to avoid the sprite’s effects sticking to the power-up’s form, came thundering down the road. His suit jacket buttons were straining thanks to his now rounder shell and small patches of damp had marred its shoulders underneath his new hydro shooting beaks(though with how much gore the battle had produced this was barely noticeable), but the king did not seem to mind. Instead he was laughing raucously, his new tentacle beard jiggling jollily on his chin as he crushed the surviving flood bike rider under foot and caught up with the Shockdozer. From the two ports on his shell, the twin Tentacruel beaks (two pairs of large blue pincers) emerged and tasted the air for a second time and found it fouled by the poisonous gases of the lurks. Two splintered reflections of the creature's mind ruled the new additions to the king and, now that they lacked their species usual poison resistance, they found this blight most fowl.

To Bowser’s delight, more than a dozen tentacles lashed out of his shell and began to assault the annoying bats assailing him and his minions with little input from his own focus. Where he was much too slow to catch the fragile speedsters, his new additions had no such issue.

”GAHAHAHA. POWWWWWER! I SHOULD HAVE DONE THIS SO MUCH SOONER” Bowser cheered as tendrils smashed and grabbed the Lurks around him, beating them down and causing their battered bodies to careen onto the ground or wrapping them up and dragging them to the Tentacrule’s maws, where their screeching was silenced with a deadly pincer snick. The alien bats scattered away from the king now that he was no longer an easy target, but the Crules weren't going to let them get away that easily. As their tendrils retracted back into Bowser’s shell their beaks swiveled skywards, twin tips acting like aiming reticles, and started blasting.

While the water wasn’t exactly a deadly substance, the high pressure streams were incredibly disruptive to the nimble. Just as it had totaled the bike riders, the twin Torrent’s smashed into the Lurks, knocking them off course and waterlogging their wings, causing several to crash and others to simply fall behind. Such too was the fate of the rest of the flood, as (after collectively and silently agreeing not to try to drive through an active flood vs demon titan warzone) the shock dozer hit a downwards slope and started ramming towards a ramp that they might be able to use to jump a ravine. Or use to plummet straight into it. Whichever event occurred, it was in the hands of those onboard and out of Bowsers, as he was also in the process of being left behind.

”HEY! NO! WAIT UP!” he yelled, but there was no stopping the car as it careened down the slope.

Bowser glanced behind himself at the flood hord, and found himself their only target. He also found himself no longer having to worry about friendly fire thanks to the Dozers rapidly increasing lead on him. As the swarm surged down the rap behind him, Bowser, instead of following the car directly, headed straight for the edge and then leapt. Once, twice and then three times in a hop, skip and then jump. His first two landings caused shockwaves, one of lighting and then one of fire. Each one rolled out across the ground, the rings ripping through the flood who were too tightly packed to all jump over them successfully. His third of the triple jump launched him up and over the chase towards safety. With lethargic pace, the Koopa king sailed through the air towards the other side.

”GAHAHAHA, LATER LOSERS!” Bowser laughed at the Flood as he left them behind on their own bank, before turning and actually looking where he was going, ”OH NO!”

There was a thud and jingle as the king impacted with the opposite side of the cliff wall, followed by the ear bleeding sound of cat claws scraping through solid stone. ”Phew. Close one” the Meowserified King said to himself, before slowly climbing his way up the sheer rock face and hauling himself up onto the flood free side of the gorge. There he unhooked the bell, wiped his brow and exhaled in both action and relief before turning and headed for where the shockdozer would have landed after its jump or, failing that, for the final root of the tree.

Taking her suggestion to heart, the rest of the group started to think of plans on how to get up there. Sectonia had one, but waited for others to say theres to see if any of them had anything better; they didn't. Although the weird shadow creature girl had an interesting suggestion about using the shadow of someone to approach the beast. "It seems a Queen must take charge here hm??" Sectonia said, bringing an end to everyone's meandering. Looking at the 'control spire' that the lightning came from, Sectonia waved her hands and attempted to conjure portals near the lightning spire to disable it or destroy it. But the creature was much larger than she anticipated and far out of range of her portal summoning, so she just looked like she was waving her hands for nothing. "Hm... Plan B then." Sectonia said. She tested something before enacting this plan and did a quick blink, watching her shadow as that was what the strange twili girl needed, and noticed that she didn't cast one as she teleported.

"Your shadow plan seems to be folly. If a single lightning strike brought you out of the shadow you were hiding in, how could you manage to hide in the shadow of others while they dodged lightning strikes?" Sectonia said, pointing a huge flaw in Midna's plan. Out of everyone here, Sectonia was the best of the bunch from what she knew to handle the lightning strikes and disable this mechanism so the others could approach. Then a thought occurred to her, what would be inside this thing? This irritated her a bit, as she now had to plan to carry another person with her. She only needed 1 hand to manipulate lighting using her staff, so this wasn't a useless plan, but she couldn't blink while carrying others with her. She sighed before saying. "Alright. Midna, if you want to ride in my shadow, you may. But if you can't keep up, I wont be able to save you." Sectonia said, addressing the imp before turning to the others. "As for you all. I can take one more up there with me. Who would like to volunteer?" As she said this, she summoned her staff that she channeled her lightning magic through. With the plan all set, Sectonia got to work.

Grabbing the first volunteer with her free hand, she got to work. Keeping herself out of the range of the camel, Sectonia flew around it until it was walking towards her, instead of her chasing it. With this, she began her flight, flying towards the Divine Beast. Her flying speed was pretty great, and it wouldn't take too much for her to force her way into the beast herself. Still, it would get a chance at hitting her with a lightning strike which the queen prepared for. As the air swelled with electricity, crackling and squeaking as the marker appeared over Sectonia and the charge built, she readied herself. When the charge was almost fully charged and about to strike, Sectonia began channeling her Lightning magic above her head, giving the lightning strike an alternate current to travel through that would divert it far away from herself, her shadow, and the ones below. This had the desired effect, as the lightning bolt came in, it rode her dark lightning, diverting the blast into the desert where it struck the ground harmlessly.

"Hmph, still no match for my magic." Sectonia boasted as she continued her flight towards the beast, the charging sequence seeming to take some time before it could beginn again. However, thanks to Setonia's planning and flying ability, before the charge could complete Sectonia was already at her destination. While she would've liked to fly directly into the lightning tower control rooms, those windows weren't big enough for her so she instead had to aim for the lower windows on the camel's sides that were quite large.

Inside the camel was a lot more spacious than Sectonia was expecting. It was more of a giant cylinder than anything inside here, with various platforms around and what looked like to be energy pipes along some of the walls. Descending to the nearest landing point, she set down her passengers. "Now we need to disable those lightning bolts. Not sure if whoever is shooting them will fall for the same trick twice." the Queen said. Hopefully the others could come up with a plan, or their team could disable the lightning tower so the others could board this machine.

----------------------------------------------------------------------



Blazermate wasn't the best driver at all, and it was clearly shown to her commrades as before the vehicle started to gain speed by going downhill, Jak ran next to the vehicle and demanded that he take the wheel from Blazermate, which she agreed with as she moved out of the way before Jak almost shoved her off the control. Her hands and attention freed thanks to Jak and his far, far superior driving, Blazermate exited the vehicle and flew above it, watching Bowser leap the gap with his cat form as she flew above it herself. Jak, being a much, MUCH better driver than Blazermate, managed to make the jump thanks to the greater speed offered by both his expertise and the hill the shockdozer was traveling down.

"What is THAT?" Blazermate said, hovering down to land on Bowser as she pointed at the floating Flood monster that was raining explosives from the sky. From Blazermate's position there wasn't much she could do, but the flood was more interested in the Shodckdozer, which thanks to Jak, was being handled much better and could dodge most of its explosive mines. "C'mon big guy, we gotta keep up!" She said, urging Bowser forward as she called on Zombies to clear the way for the shockdozer by running into those explosive sacs far ahead of the shockdozer.

Satisfied that Sakura was safe, Geralt turned away chivalrously as the Japanese woman began undressing, an uninterested look on his face. Bowser Jr's mocking rubbed him the wrong way, but the Witcher didn't comment on it. He didn't want to annoy either the turtle monster thing or his father, and he'd done enough damage already by opening his fat mouth. Instead, he decided to cross the deck he was on and look out onto the ocean with a frown. I don't fit in with these kids. Even the Cadet comes from a world where dying is a major tragedy, despite the fact that they fight giant monsters on a daily basis. He sighed, ignoring the commotion behind him as they passed by the fishing trawler. It was only out of a sense of polite obligation that he took the fishing rod offered by the cadet, before setting it down aside where he stood.

Maybe I should ditch them and go back to Yen after this... He mused in frustration. It would be more pleasant than babysitting what were essentially oversized children. This was part of the problem of living so long: you stopped thinking like normal people. He couldn't tell if it was a fault in himself, or if the others were just plain naive. On the Continent, he could firmly say he was usually in the right, especially since the latest social trend that he bucked was genocide. But here? Maybe there was some better way to do things. Maybe they'd be lucky enough to not have to eat rotting porridge with a monster to lift a curse.

He wouldn't believe it till he saw it, frankly. Naivety like that got people killed. Got plenty of Witchers killed, too. Geralt was lucky to have survived as long as he had, pushing the boundaries of folklore and what risks he was willing to take to save people.

He forced his eyes shut and shook his head, bringing back the cold-hearted front he put up so often. If these kids needed somebody to kill for them, he'd do it, even if he hated every second of it. It wasn't like his soul could be more tainted, after all. The only child he could screw up was Ciri, and the Universe had saw fit to do that for him. There wasn't much of a downside to playing the bad guy here, that he could see.

Nodding, Geralt turned to the others and watched them fish. Kamek was floating apart from the others, watching them as he was. The old mage had gained the Witcher's interest before, but he'd never had the opportunity or the desire to speak directly to him, until now.

"Kamek, right?" He asked as means of introduction. "Can't quite recall if we've properly met, with everything that's happened. I'm Geralt. Had a question, actually. Your boss...he's loud, obnoxious, and frustrating...but you follow him and his kid so diligently. They command small armies, even if they are just spirits. Maybe it's just charisma or their raw monstrous power, but something tells me there's more to it. A fellow like you wouldn't just be swayed by a big guy and some honeyed words. So why do you follow him?"

@Lugubrious @Zoey Boey @DracoLunaris

Doom Slayer

Level 2 Doom Slayer/ Level 1 Isabelle

Location: Dead Zone/ Island off of the Eryta Sea

Word Count: 758

The Slayer made sure that the snake creature would not try to escape; slowing it down with his shotgun blasts. Once he was close enough he grabbed the demon by the neck, easily snapping its neck with a loud snap. He hoped that he would never have to face that thing again. His attention turned towards the strange spider-like demon in front of him; the demon seemed to be more impervious then he thought. His eyes peering over towards the lever; if he could get to the lever then he could restore power so the others could destroy the heart. The only problem he had was getting pasted that demon blocking his path.

The Slayer made his decision and moved towards the lever; covering himself by firing his shotgun. Keeping the demon distracted by his gunfire; he could see the shots being reflected but he could care less. Maneuvering across the room slowly towards the lever; the demon was not making it easy however for him to get to the lever. The bastard was trying to close the distance between them; The Slayer felt the demon’s hands on the back of his neck. Being thrown across the room which made him land on his butt; noticing his shotgun landing a few feet away from him. “God damn it” The Slayer quickly stood up reaching for his shotgun.

Once he got the shotgun in hand; moving once again towards the lever. Using both his pistol and shotgun aiming for the demon’s head while hopping backwards while moving side to side. Moving a bit closer that he could see the lever; but the demon was not making it easier for him to get to the lever. He was now close enough he could pull the lever; putting away his pistol and pulling the lever. He hoped this would be enough to help the others. “Now then…let’s party” Putting away his shotgun and pistol. Running forward towards the demon; jumping on top of it and starting to punch it’s head as hard as he could with his bare hands.

Grabbing the pinchers of the demon’s arms; slowly ripping off one of its arms and starting to beat the demon to death with it. The demon was not going to let itself be beaten; shaking itself violently but the Slayer kept himself steady by wrapping his legs around it’s body. Riding it like a bucking horse slamming it’s arm into the demon’s head. After what seemed like hours the demon was dead; and the Slayer made his way back to regroup with the others.

////////////////////////////////////////

Meanwhile Isabelle was hovering over Sakura, pulling out another towel from her infinite pockets. Wiping down the rest of the water from the school girl’s body so she was bone dry. After she was finished drying Sakura she turned her attention towards Kamak and Bowser Jr.; wanting to join in because she was sure there was fish in the water that was not on her island. Once again searching through her pockets, pulling out various items and dumping them on the deck of the living ship. In her small paw was a fancy looking fishing pole; something she had gotten form one of the villagers; how she acquired it she would not divulge if asked.

Watching the young koopaling trying and failing to try and catch the fish in the water; “You are doing a good job so far; but if i could give you some advice. Like Miss Kamak suggested you should be using a fishing rod; so the fish are not scared off when you use your harpoon gun” Quickly looking though her pockets to pull out another fishing rod; "Here you go; and believe in yourself and you will get all the fish you want" She said smiling still.

The small dog stood near the edge of the ship. Having thrown the bait into the water; waiting patiently for a fish to bite. She would not have to wait long as she felt something; her eyes squinted focusing on the fish she had hooked to her bait.

Reeling in the fish as quick as she could; making sure that the fish would not escape. She almost lost concentration from being almost uppercutted by Sakura. What she reeled in was a large bass. “Look what i caught; it’s huge” She smiled showing her caught to the others.

”Never sets? Goddesses that would be unbearable” Midna bemoaned in response to Primrose's suggestion that the desert day could in theory last forever. She shook her head, and put the dreadful prospect to the back of her mind. The comment was it a joke? It has to be a joke. She’s teasing me, right? had forced Midna’s mind out of her rage enough that she could think more clearly about their situation.

”You don’t put a giant lightning summoning artifact on something that advanced and leave it to wander around in the middle of nowhere if it isn’t carrying something important,” she agreed with Primrose’s assessment of the construct. Why else put that much magic into something if it wasn't going to be useful. Unfortunately they weren't any closer to cracking how to get into it, which is when the large Bee woman who had been flying outside the van informed them that she had a plan. She also derided Midna’s hitch-hiking idea, casting doubt upon her ability to follow through on it, something that did not sit well with the Twilight Princess.

”Now that I know it's coming, I can take precautions,” Midna forced herself to open her eye the one visible one bloodshot and squinting as she drifted up to confront the doubting monarch, getting right up in her face and almost certainly too close to her for comfort, ”So you do whatever your thing is Queeny and I’ll do mine.” she said, before giving the queen’s crown a flick with her finger and then vanishing from sight into the shadows.

---

Midna rode out the Queen’s flight in suspenseful ignorance. Her pitch black hiding spot safely tucked away from the light of both the sun and any flashes that might destroy more exposed shadows (like the one she had been in in the van when she had been ejected), which made it rather difficult to see what was going on. So instead she had to rely on audio cues to know when it was safe to emerge. When her ride announced that they had arrived Minda appeared atop Sectonia’s head, the diminutive imp floating up above her and wearing the Queen’s comparatively massive crown atop her bonce.

”It was a bit of a snug fit, but I’m lucky you have such a big head,” she said as she plucked the crown, who’s closed off shadow she’d been hiding in, from her head. ”Not my style either” she added after she made a show of examining it for a moment, before imperfectly popping the crown back in place atop the queen’s head.

After getting petty payback for the queen’s perceived slight against her, Midna floated towards the center of the chamber and took in the spacious interior of the camel while lazily stretching her arms above her head with her fingers laced together. ”Right see what we’re working with here. Wait...” Minda paused mid stretch as her eye met with a glowing eye symbol carved upon a structure built on a raised platform in the center of the cylinder ”Wait a second. I recognize that symbol!” not only had she seen it in several artifacts from Hyrule and worn by people like Zelda and Impa, but a similar symbol was also quite literally emblazoned on the back of her helmet and was often used as part of Twli symbology and runework ”which means this thing was made in my world?!”

She was amazed that this was even possible. Even when time had been shattered she hadn’t seen anything like it, ”Maybe I can figure something out?” she said, mostly to herself, as she drifted down to examine the core more closely. Now that she wasn't blinded by awe or an assumption that the creation was wholly alien she was starting to see some similarities between this (Sheikah) technology and that of the Twili.

Whether she’d be able to do anything with that similarity or not would take time to discover.

The enigmatic woman’s words to Fox were short and vague, sparing in details, but helpful enough in that there were elements of danger in her listing that he genuinely wouldn’t have guessed on his own. Particularly, her mention of cold and radiation stood out to him in that regard, as well as her offer to assist them prior to her abrupt takeoff. Everything else seemed obvious enough that he or anyone else could have predicted or figured it out. Even her given directive fell firmly in line with the party’s initial surprise assessment; that their goal in fact lay at the peak in plain view. One of them, perhaps.

Something about that still seemed wrong, however. It was too easy, he thought. Not in the sense that he expected the path there to be smooth, easy, non-violent or direct, despite appearances of the latter. The problem he saw lay in not only the fact that it appeared that way to begin with, but also that they already met a willing guide and participant to their cause… in the war effort against Galeem. The burning crimson in her eyes made it hard to tell if she meant to lead or lure them, intentionally or not. Fox, fresh off of the influence as of earlier in the day, could speak to the more than likely absence of awareness in her. It was entirely possible that she had every intention of aiding them in the coming conflict, but equally likely that things could go wrong beyond her control by the time they got there. Thus, her insistence on seeing them there personally was to be heeded with cautious scrutiny.

With the woman’s summary departure, Fox paced back over to the van where the others were gathered, contemplating their next move while they deliberated on it. While Fox was a fan of getting the job done, he couldn’t help getting the same impression that they might be in some way ill-prepared, and a side venture or two along the way might do them some good. To the Twili imp's query, he answered, “What we already knew. We’re on the right track...” He paused for a moment, glancing back toward the mountaintop, then to the Divine Beast, and beyond. “But if we have anything else to take care of here, let’s do that first,” he said in agreement with the consensus (prior to knowing of it) to explore ahead of the main fight. “Just be sure to watch our heading, and our footing closely as we go. I doubt we’ll be alone out here,” he finished, echoing the woman’s warning as he made to enter the van.

For the following stretch of the drive, Fox kept a constant eye looking out for any otherwise unseen dangers that might be upon them at a moment’s notice. As they soon found out, however, the first threat they would face lay in plain view. As the gang started to get a better look at the great camel, so too did they fall within its notice. Whether the red of its eyes was natural to it or by the light of Galeem, one could scarcely tell, but they bore an unmistakably unwelcoming intent. Even from a fair distance, the swelling of energy could be audibly discerned over the heavy sandstorm that they were passing through, and at the first sign of it, Fox threw open the van’s rear doors to get a full visual on the Beast, aided in small part by the targeting system in his eyepiece.

He didn’t get a long glimpse of it before slamming the doors shut a second before the lightning strike, but it was enough time to see what he needed to. Anyone else who was looking for it might find it as well. What he found was that it drew in electrical energy upward through its feet--from the ground and/or movement--to power itself and smite oncomers with… so someone smarter or more familiar with it might hypothesize seeing the same. To him, they were just big, glowing weak points screaming to be shot at by any other like it he had seen in his lifetime. The only problem was he wasn’t sufficiently armed to considerably damage it himself--not without provoking some risk for a single hit (which wouldn’t discourage him from trying it if he saw the need to). While the question was going around about engaging the machine or not, he already had an idea about how to do that.

“Double back!” He directed to Joker and gang. “If we can get under it, and stay there, that may put us out of its targeting range. Six! This is Fox,” he called to the Courier over comms, knowing better than to prompt a response. “You and the other fliers fan out. Keep its attention divided. And if you have something heavy to hit it with, aim for its feet.” At the end of his call, he turned his attention back to the rest of Morgana’s occupants, looking for confirmation--that they had heard his command and of their ability to somehow help see it through. “The rest of you copy?”

The assembled heroes rested for a few moments, working to calm down their spiking heart rates. Nearly getting lightning-blasted might have bid the average adventurer to steer clear, but more than a few of the Yellow Team members were already thinking of paying their attacker back. Midna voiced her anger the loudest, apparently hurt by the flash of light, but Joker felt pretty similarly. He might have been fine putting the 'walking temple' in Morgana's rear-view mirror before, but now that he and his team nearly got fried by its potshot, he felt like taking it down.

Primrose established a little more of her character as well as her role in the mental space of the team by providing a voice of reason. The camel definitely seemed to act in self-defense, and it being an elaborate tank with a pilot tucked away somewhere made definite sense. And everyone did need to get a move on given the sheer distance the team needed to cover. But Joker could feel the general mood, and everyone wanted to teach that ancient mecha a thing or two. “It's not that big,” he reasoned as the team piled out. They lined up facing Vah Naboris, with Sectonia and the Courier overhead, sizing it up. “We can clear it out in a few minutes, probably.”

When Sectonia declared her intent to go and asked for volunteers, Joker obliged. Tora and Poppi also invited themselves on the condition that they follow behind Sectonia, who seemed to have a plan in mind. The rest got back into the car or fanned out at Fox's prompting, poised to use the opportunity the queen provided to get beneath the divine beast and disable it.

Joker watched the Morgana-car rev up and turn back toward the camel. Go time. He prepared his grappling hook and latched onto the oversized wasp's stinger when she took off, trailing behind her as she flew. While quick and stylish transportation, this also meant that in the case of a direct lightning bolt, his hook's cord wouldn't transmit the shock. Despite this knowledge he couldn't help but feel a little uneasy when the queen got into range and Vah Naboris started charging again. But Sectonia came prepared, and she cast her own thunderbolt to divert the camel's away from her. The blast went wide, but close, so close that Joker could smell the ozone and feel its heat on his eyes. Still, the queen bore him and Midna safely inside its hump.

He released his hook and landed on polished stone, and a moment later Poppi alighted beside him. With thrusters on her back now and a slender chassis now she could only carry her Masterpon like a beach ball, but Tora shouldered the humiliation. He quickly forgot about it as his dazzled eyes took in all the machinery within the divine beast. “Meh...so cool!”

Midna thought so too, at least as far as a certain symbol was concerned. The systems and inscriptions in here apparently struck her as familiar enough that she said she could do something with them. Tora couldn't say what that meant exactly, but since she started studying straightaway, he figured she would need some time. That meant that it fell to the others to keep her safe. But safe from what? Now that Tora thought about it, there didn't seem to be any security. “No defenses on beastypon inside? It Tora lucky day!”

“Not quite,” a commanding voice rang out from behind them. Tora and Poppi turned to see a towering woman sauntering the heroes' way, a magnificent sword and shield in hand. Behind her floated a strange creature with similar weapons that glowed a bright blue. Tora's eyes went wide, but he knew better than to stop and stare, Instead he bid Poppi switch to QT mode and readied his Mech Arms. “To challenge Vah Naboris is to challenge me. I am Urbosa, and as a champion of Hyrule, I will show evil no mercy!” She held out her scimitar, and the thunderblight behind her spiraled forward. It hurtled at Sectonia with a shield bash, then swung its hooked blade to try and chop through her narrow waist.

Joker pulled his pistol and fired several times. His rounds rang off Urbosa's shield as she ran forward. He dipped to the left just in time to avoid a deadly slash, then vaulted over Tora as he came in to block her second swing. With a grunt he grappled away, zipping past where Sectonia and the thunderblight tangled to safety on a higher platform.

Meanwhile, the Morgana-car wove between the great camel's legs. Unfortunately the divine beast could target beneath itself quite well, but a little panicked swerving went a long way. While Skull took the wheel, Panther called upon her own Persona. “Dance, Carmen!” she called, manifesting a woman in red atop the car to hurl fireballs at the hooves of Vah Naboris. Panther joined in on the fun herself, peppering the nearest leg with submachine gun fire.



Consenting to observe the 'street fight' along with Sakura, although not nearly as pumped. The pugilists in question certainly made for an odd pair, one a too-pretty, almost doll-like girl wielding some sort of electricity and the other a clown who might as well have been sculpted from clay. While both noticed the sudden jump in spectatorship, between the two the clown seemed to appreciate it far more. For whatever reason his paradoxically dour features lit up at Sakura's cheering, while his opponent ignored it. From that moment onward, however, the clown fought with renewed vigor. He busted out move after tricky move, gradually overwhelming the more traditional fighting style of his foe. By the time the fishing trawler went by he'd turned the fight around, and pushed his advantage with a leering grin on his face.

Sakura could move around the perimeter of Shippy and up to the steersman's platform to continue spectating, but Peach didn't move on. Instead she raised an eyebrow at Kamek's suggestion. “An intriguing prospect. From what we've seen so far, the boss spirits are serious business. They command great power and cannot be broken, after all. Given what that lady in black said, as well as the two so far, I'd expect it to be a huge monster, so I don't believe I'll be baiting any lines just yet.”

Still, when the Cadet offered her a rod, she accepted it without complaint. Turned him down would be impolite if not joy-killing, after all; even with a changed mind, Peach had an eye for these things. She watched as Junior attempted spear-fishing, which from the height of a ship's deck and the strength of a tyke's arm didn't pan out too well. The Cadet tried a different method too, but his net worked wonders on the passing shoal, hauling up an impressive batch of flopping black bass. Even Isabelle got in on the fun, quickly showing that even a desk-sitting secretary could have some serious fishing chops. “Wow. Amazing.” Peach complimented her, a little worried that her tone was too flat to be taken as genuine.

A few minutes of fishing went by before the shoal petered out completely, leaving Brineybeard's passengers with little to do save watch their destination grow closer. Bit by bit they could make out more details: the seastack foundations, the cloud-white masonry, the banners in the breeze, the townsfolk hustling and bustling across bridges and walkways. In fairly short order they found themselves in the shadow of the city on the water, Limsa Lominscuttle Town, with an energizing song reaching out across the waters.



Brineybeard cruised in to a dock, albeit one barren of dock workers and utterly devoid of other ships. Having a living vessel made docking easy, so the captain himself mostly walked to and fro across the deck. “Well, here she be! Good ol' Limsa. A livelier place ye'll ne'er find, mateys.” He eyed the passengers. “So, which one of ye caught the most fish? Wouldn't mind keepin' a few fer me dinner tonight, seein' as I hauled ye fer free 'n all.”

Peach said nothing for a moment, wondering what she ought to do. While getting familiar with the town couldn't hurt, the ultimate goal was to call forth the Maw. No matter who would be going aboard, that apparently meant having enough people around who wanted it. How strange. At the very least, she guessed that she should meet with Limsa's leaders. They should know how to proceed. “Captain, who's in charge here? Is there a...a mayor?”

“That'd be Admiral Merlwyb Blue..uh, Bloefhiswyn,” Brineybeard replied, his pronunciation less than dependable. “Still got me a sour spot fer that ol' screw after she cracked down on piratin'. She ain't the least bit flexible...”

“Good,” Peach cut him off. “Where is she?”

Brineybeard gave a grunt and shrugged, uninterested. “Dunno. Got an office somewhere, but I ain't gone by. Now if ye'll 'scuse me.” He hobbled off in a huff.

Frowning, Peach looked out across the sea and spotted a pair of incoming shapes zipping across the water. “What are those?”

Although Brineybeard stopped to take a look, the expression on his face made it clear he regretted it. “The new navy,” he grumbled before disappearing inside the cabin.

Peach watched, intrigued, as the incoming 'ships' drew nearer. As far as she could tell they looked an awful lot more like people than boats, but people couldn't skim across the surface of the ocean like that. Something buzzed over Shippy, and the princess looked up just in time to catch sight of a tiny green plane the size of a bird. The newcomers eventually swept into port, gliding up to the docks and stepping on with practiced ease. Fascinated, Peach walked down the ramp, waving to them. “Hey!”

Both looked her way. While definitely humans, and both girls, they possessed odd-looking attachments that did look like ship parts. The green-haired one waved back. “Oh, hello.”

Peach came to a stop and crossed her arms. “If you don't mind answering me, how did you do that? What are those parts?”

The girl's eyebrows rose. “Huh!? Oh, I'm sorry. You must be new here.” She smiled, giving a bow. The miniature green plane flew in and landed on one of her runways before it folded up. “We're ships. HMS Shropshire, at your service. And this is...”

“USS Northampton,” the sporty-looking one said, her voice low.

Now what Brineybeard said, as well as the utter lack of boats around this seabound city, was starting to make sense. Peach also felt like she understood his attitude a bit better. If piracy was outlawed and traditional ships sailed no more, his entire way of life had either been regulated or antiquated. “I see!” she told the ships. “Nice to meet you. Maybe you could tell us about this city?”

“Oh, sure! You go ahead, North.” Without a word the green-haired ship's serious counterpart left. Shropshire raised her fingers and started counting off. “Well, up ahead is Mealvaan's Gate, which is customs and stuff, then the Arcanists' Guild, and Mimic's Workshop. Then Hawker's Alley, where they sell everything you could ever want. After that the whole place is split between the lower decks and upper decks. On the lower decks, there's Bulkwark Hall, where you can ride lifts to the Admiral's office, the Drowning Wench tavern, Sky's Hatchery, and the Airship Deck. Lower decks also has Fisherman's Bottom, but...that place really reeks. Upper decks has Seventh Sage imports, which are to die for. Oh, Bismarck! A restaurant with super-yummy food. There's also the Coral Tower, which is for the guard, Maelstrom command, where we ships report for missions, the Smiths' Guild'...and...uh...” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “'Missing Member'. It's another tavern,” she giggled. “Um, I'm sorry, I went on a bit there. Anything else?”

Peach shook her head, hoping her teammates got all they needed to from that. “No, thank you, that was great. Take care.”

“You too!” Shropshire hurried off after her teammate.

Turning to the others, Peach asked, “Thoughts, everyone? Or if you've already got an idea, go ahead and go, I guess.”



Water jets blasted and tentacles whipped, felling lerks and knocking back the speediest Flood. With a transformed, hydro-powered Bowser in the vanguard clearing the road, the shockdozer pulled away from its pursuers cleanly to accelerate down the slope. Unfortunately, that meant leaving their newly-strengthened bruiser behind. In the mean time, Jak more or less commandeered control of the vehicle from Blazermate, and the Medabot flew out both to lighten the load and attend to Bowser. Getting airborne gave her a good view of the incoming bomber, however, and she recognized it as serious trouble straightaway. Jak steered around the bulging gas sacs as best he could, but he possessed very little room to work with as the path got narrower and narrower. Before long he hit one, and the living mine dutifully ruptured in a burst of foul-smelling smog that would have sent the shockdozer spiralling toward the lava if it weren't so heavy.

A shriek echoed out from above. Anyone looking up in the direction of the Flood bomber could spot a ghostly figure emerge from above the cliff and dive down. Jak and Daxter would recognize the specter as one fought back in the Police Station alongside Jones and that helmet-wearing dog Caesar: a wraith. Yet something wasn't quite right. Its cloak wasn't blue but red—plaid, in fact, and two empty sleeves fluttered behind it. Brown hair spilled from the hood to flutter in the wind as she dove. Instead of flying for the shockdozer, however, the wraith swooped toward the bomber. She sank a twisted cleaver into its flesh as she passed and pulled, ripping it open. Wailing, the Flood abomination deflated like a blimp, drifting downward toward the molten rock far below.

A moment later, the ramp bottomed out, and the shockdozer hit the air. For a heart-clenching moment the mammoth of a vehicle sailed through open air. Then it slammed down hard on the opposite side of the chasm, hard enough to rattle bones and stun its passengers. On the opposite side the Flood washed up against the edge, a few unlucky wretches tumbling over, and a number of them jumping for it. Although the combat forms jumped disconcertingly far, none could latch onto and climb the sheer stone wall like Bowser did. With a hearty exhale the koopa king pulled himself up with everyone else, and Blazermate touched down a moment later.

Then the wraith appeared. She rose upward from below the cliff, cleavers in hand. ”Wait!” came her voice, an ethereal whisper. She dropped her weapons on the ground with a resounding clatter. ”Friendly.”. She pulled at her hood, and when the light fell within the heroes could see a face some would find familiar. It belonged to Tess, the woman sliced in half at the police station. A little embarrassed by her new appearance, she cleared her throat and let her hood shroud her face again. ”I was floating around for a while, but I heard the commotion just now. I was afraid you'd think I was a monster, but I saw the chance to help. Dead or not, I'm gonna keep fighting to keep people safe.”

At that moment a crack rang out, and the ground beneath everyone lurched. Maybe the shockdozer landed a little too hard. Tess grabbed her cleavers before flying upward toward solid ground in the form of the remaining half of a street. “Hurry!” she called. The street led south, in the rough direction of the Qliphoth root, although some sort of fleshy mountain stood in the way a couple blocks down the road.



Nero yanked his sword free from the disintegrating corpse of a Red Arremer and pulled off a Shuffle to dip backward out of the claw swipe of a Penance fighter. He slid forward again with a rising slash, then transitioned into a Streak that sent the foul thing flying away in quarters. In front of him, two Penance attacked Nadia at once, but the Feral deftly dropped into a split before rotating her torso to slice both across the gut with her new scythe, then switched it to spear mode to impale both the fighter on the right and the runner behind it. The remaining fighter swiped at her again and knocked off her head, only for the detached head to fly up and chomp into its eyestalk. “Bleh!” she spat as the demon writhed, watching her body get up to execute a revolving kick and take the eyestalk off fully.

Her head fell into her waiting hands and she popped it back on. “Geez, these things are gross!” A Penance ranger flew in from the hallway only for Nero and Raidou to plug it right in the eye at the same time, standing back to back. “Ooh, cool!” Nadia remarked, grinning, but the arrival of more Penance made her sigh. “Jeez, these things just keep coming! Is this flesh hive spawning 'em or something?”

Nero didn't answer. Instead he yanked an incoming fighter toward the group with Wire Snatch, allowing Raidou and Nadia to dispatch it with a slash each. Behind them came a beep, and they turned to see both lights on for the generator. “Slayer did his thing. Want to get that, Fortune?” Wasting no time, Nadia climbed through the broken window and jumped onto the generator catwalk. Once she pulled the big lever the core started power up immediately. Lights grew brighter, machinery began to spin, and the grotesque heart clinging to the device started to wriggle. Getting a bad feeling, Nadia turned to jump back out. The heart flexed and shuddered, twisting in silent pain, until the rising storm blew it apart in a harrowing shower of viscera.

Nadia yowled, narrowly avoiding getting splattered, as she clambered back into the control room. “Holy hell! Can't a girl cat-ch a break?” She grinned hopefully at Nero and Raidou, but neither laughed. Her face fell. “Aww, come on.”

Raidou blinked. “Er. It was good,” he tried to reassure her, his voice less than convincing.

All around them, the matter composing the gore nest was breaking down. In a nearby hallway, a chunk of flesh fell down to expose the second Sentinel crystal. Nero, however, was more concerned with the warnings scrolling across the various screens. “Uh, guys?” He motioned his head toward the big monitor. It read MELTDOWN IMMINENT. “Maybe we ought to get going.”

An explosion shook the facility, and the three took to their heels.

Apparently this Joker kid wasn't one for taking a ride in Sectonia's hand, instead preferring to grapple her stinger. To say this was a new way to carry someone would be an understatement, but it did leave her hands open. Upon entering the camel, Midna, the imp that could ride inside shadows, appeared on Sectonia's head playing with her crown. Although she didn't stay there for long, saying a smarmy line before placing her crown back and hopping off, this was still an irritating situation. However, before Sectonia could scold the young princess, she exclaimed that she recognized some of the stuff that was along the walls here, saying this thing came form her world. "Such a device needs more elegance. Stone like this is a poor excuse for beauty." Sectonia said, a bit of her annoyance from the previous situation still in her voice.

Tora, having caught a ride on the robot girl Poppi, had followed Sectonia, trusting her enough to divert the lightning, finding their way inside the camel as well. He noticed that nothing here was guarding this, and if on que, two foes appeared to challenge the group. One being a musclar dark skinned woman, and the other, some ugly creature that needed to be destroyed. Luckily for Sectonia, Thunderblight attacked her as the woman attacked the rest of the group.

Sectonia had only a small amount of time to summon her swords before Thunderblight charged her with its shield. She couldn't fully block the charge and took some damage from said charge, but it didn't knock her around allowing her to parry the swipe the creature was making at her regal body. "Ugly things like you will not exist in my kingdom." Sectonia said, deflecting Thnderblight's sword strike with her own swords before summoning one of her large rings of light in close range, having it swirl around her body like a saw seeing as she was locked in close combat with Thunderblight.



Everyone made it over the chasm safely it seemed, the flood unable to keep up. All that stood in front of htem wsa that explosive dropping flood, at least, until some kind of ghost thing attacked and destroyed it. Turning to the group, it called out that it was a friendly, revealing itself to be one of the people from the police station they had rescued earlier. With the path cleared and the Skulldozer pretty much totaled as it turned over, those inside escaping, the wraith lady gestured for everyone to continue down the street and finish off the last root, a few root guardians down the street.

"Thanks buddy!" Blazermate said, waving at the wraith lady as she rode on top of Bowser, healing him and keeping him and the others nearby overhealed as they charged down the street.

Jr was, to put it simply, not having a good time with being shown up by basically everyone else who was taking part in the fishing minigame but he was too stubborn to give up on his ill suiting fishing equipment.

”Come one come on! Stay still and get spiked!” jr yelled angrily at the fish as he hauled the fishing spear out of the ocean for the half dozenth time, but they didn't seem inclined to listen.

Mimikyu, who had plopped herself on the ships railing to watch the proceedings, looked up at her increasingly angry and tired trainer with concern, before extending a long limb and patting him on the shoulder encouragingly.

”What!” Jr barked, flailing his free arm in her direction, before snapping out of his building tantrum when she scooted back in alarm ”huh? Oh... uuugh this is just so frustrating” Jr said, making an excuse rather than an apology as he tapped the but of the spear to the deck and leaned on it, ever so slightly out of breath from the unfamiliar form of exertion. Mimikyu seemed to accept this as the closest thing jr would give to an apology at the moment regardless. She shuffled back along the rail and then cocking her head to one side with curiosity when the boy’s expression suddenly turned to a grin as he looked at her.

A few moments later a much bigger disruption came to the fishers as a ball of lightning crashed into the ocean, zapping particularly large fish and stunning or scattering those around it. A moment later the fishing spear sailed down, hitting the now stationary target with ease

”Ahahaha! Gotcha!” Jr cheered as Minmikyu bounced to and fro excitedly beside him on the banister. A few moments later Jr had hauled his fish out of the ocean and raised it above his head triumphantly. ”Hey. Hey look Kamek! I got one! Isn’t it the best!” he called over to the mage and minder, who called back some, slightly inflated if still sincere, praise”Well done young master. A grand catch and an innovative solution for sure.”

The prince's haul would remain singular in number, as the last of the fish were caught or fled soon after. Not that Jr had much energy to keep going and so for the rest of the journey he retired to his car, laying back in the seat with his feet up on the side as he watched the sea and slowly fed Mimikyu bits of a pokepuff.

While Jr had been having his fishing misadventure, Kamek had been speaking with the grizzled Geralt, who it seemed decided now was as good a time to make proper introductions via the medium of asking personal questions. Namely: the reason why he followed the royal koopas so diligently.

”I have served” Kamek began, before deciding that obfuscating the reality of the situation was somewhat pointless ”I raised Lord Bowser since he was a baby, and I have helped him do the same for his son,”

There was still something left unsaid of course, but explicitly using the F word was not something he had ever done, and he wasn't about to start now.

”Also I would not take those spirits as the limit of the King’s armies. The Koopa Kingdom is large and has many subjects and soldiers. We just aren't quite sure where they are right now” he added in an attempt to defend the king's actual credentials as a leader separately from his own personal loyalty, ”Most of us aren't exactly the most physically dangerous creatures, so his majesty's immense raw power and confident demeanor garner a great deal of loyalty front he minions, one that he repays with a, shall we say, gruff compassion. The royal family are a center of strength that makes the kingdom greater than the sum of its parts.”

Kamek left it at that. Instead of going on about, he turned the direction of their conversation around towards Geralt instead ”You're not the usual type of hero are you? The rest of this group seem rather typical. Plucky. Upbeat. Used to victory. Naive. Your experiences must be rather different to theirs for you to have clashed as strongly with them over this Maw business as you did.

---

The spot of fishing turned out to be the only major event of their trip across the waves, leaving Jr bored and Kamek quietly relieved when they arrived at the two tiered ocean city and docked with its bizarrely empty port. The explanation as to why would come later with the arrival of the ship girls, but first there was the matters of payment for the ride and the question who had won the fishing contest. Both brought up by and then conveniently solved by the captain himself at the same time, when he suggested they hand some of their catch over to him in return for him bringing them across the waves.

”You’d certainly be a good impartial judge for our little contest, though If i might suggest, you could also take size into consideration as well” Kamek recommended, happy to completely offloaded the responsibility, and potential controversy caused by that choice, of choosing a winner onto their captain.

”Yeah! Mine’s definitely the biggest!” Jr said, without actually having examined the other two contestants' fish. It was certainly large, Mimikyu had chosen her target well when she'd zapped it, but that also meant the fish was a bit like a cooked meal that had been left alone to cool for several hours when Jr handed it over to be judged.

After that they learned a bit about the town, first from Brineybeard and then from a member of the “new navy” who were all apparently humans with ship names and bits attached to them.

”They’re ships, who are also girls?” Jr muttered his tone indicating that he was trying to decide if the idea was incredibly silly or very cool and that that decision was a very serious one. Regardless of what anyone thought of this unusual naval arrangement, the USS Northampton turned out to be a very useful source of information, dumping a comprehensive list of interesting locations onto Peach when she asked about the city.

”Did she say Airship Deck? We have got to go there” Jr said enthusiastically when hearing about the eponymous airship station. It was no secret that the troop in general, and Jr especially, loved their airships.

”Wait those aren't also girls are they?” he added, before imagining what a koopa troop airship-girl would look like with a serious expression on his face before his eyes lit up and he declared that ”I want one!”

”An airship would certainly be useful, and considering that regular boats are largely antiquated and thus likely in short supply. One of those might well be our best bet if we want to travel around the Blue” Kamek agreed, missing the context of Jr’s declaration, which consisted of him imagining himself leading an army of airship girls blowing up the mushroom kingdom.

”That said, we are somewhat lacking in funds at the moment, or I am at least, so hiring one for an extended duration might be tricky. I am sure if we put our minds to it we can think of some way to acquire one however ,” Kamek said ”either by helping out the city, though that might be tricky for those of you who are landlocked if they don't use boats at all or we could try a, ah, more direct ‘recruitment’ method I’ve been intending to test out the viability of,”

He didn't go into more details as Jr butted in impatiently with ”Alright alright. Less words more going to look at airships”

”Just one more moment young master” Kamek insisted before addressing the group one last time ”I’d also suggest that, if we split up, we regroup at the Bulkwark hall in, say, an hour? Then we can decide if we want to go straight to this Admiral... ” Kamek paused and then tried his own hand at the pronunciation of ”Mer-wild Blue-his-win? Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn! Yes. her. Go to her about this whole Maw business or if we’ve seen anything that might be a better method of breaching the depths while we are here.”

After delaying just a little longer to hear any replies he hurried up after Jr, who had grown inpatient enough to wander off, or rather drive, up towards Mealvaan's Gate, which stood between them and the rest of the city. Hopefully they had nothing then needed to declare.

---

Bowser was joined in his narrow escape from the flood by Blazermate, who took up what was becoming her usual spot atop his back. The newly added tentacruel orbs gave additional spike free spots to stand, but the king had dissuade the shell dwelling squids from blindly harassing her with their tentacles.

”No. Stop. bad.” he told them, using his hands to shove the beaks of the squids back into his shell cavities, pulling the tendrils in with them ”Blazermate’s cool and I’m in-charge so quit it!”

With that resolved he thumped along the side of the cliff towards where the shockdozer had successfully landed after the flood blimp had been taken out by some kind of floaty bosomous specter. What had initially seemed like another instance of the chaos of the deadzone working in their favor instead turned out to be the arrival of an ally in the form of a dead woman who announced her presence and declared herself friendly to their cause while disarming herself in a show of trust. Bowser had no idea who she was, but was entirely nonplussed by her appearance or form

”SOME OF MY MINIONS ARE GHOSTS, SO IT’S COOL, he told her as he rejoined the party, right as the ground started to become unstable and denying them even a moment's rest, ”WELCOME TO THE ARMY GHOST LADY, NOW LET’S MOVE!”

With that, Bowser stomped onward, heading down the street towards the meat mountain that stood in their way.

---

Unfortunately for Midna, she wasn't going to be given the time to poke around and try to figure out what made the giant magical camel tick, as the device’s defenders arrived to expel them, their arrival perfectly ironically timed with Tora’s optimistic comment about the lack of any defenses.

There were two of them. One was a giant of a woman, lightly dressed and armed with a scimitar and round shield who announced herself as Urbosa, champion of Hyrule. Behind her hovered a malevolent twisted reflection of the bold and heroic champion, a machine filled with corruption and sporting a mane of red hair that caused Midna to recoil away from both it and the machine she had been about to examine. She could feel the malice dripping off it, unending hatred and dark power melded together into a blighted corruption that could only have one source if it too came from her world.

”Ganondorf” Midna snarled the words with bared fangs. There was, it seemed, no escaping the ever returning monster. There was no time to question why a self declared champion of Hyrule was fighting alongside this evil as both it and Urbosa attacked as soon as the champion had finished introducing herself. The woman attacked Joker, Torra and Poppi, while the Ganon fragment assailed Sectonia, leaving Midna a choice of what to do that had only one real answer. The fragment of the demon king had to die.

”There's only one evil here!” she shouted in response to Urbosa's declaration, and then went after Thunderblight.

Summoning one of her twilight wolfos from a portal below her she doped down onto its back and spurred it after the arch corrupter, its paws speeding both her and it along the precarious walkways of the drum like room they were in. With a deft leap from her mount Midna landed behind Thunderblight, putting it between her and Sectonia. Power surged through her helm and into her hair, forming a massive glowing arm from her ponytail as she rapidly advanced on the blighted creature. The hand was about half the size of her head, and thus about half of the size of how big it could have gone, but she’d judged speed to be more important than raw power for battling the floating thunderblight.

Once close enough her mount turning to the side and quickly slid to a halt while at the same she lashed out with the hand aiming to grab the sword arm of thunderblight and hold it it in place so that the queen could strike it without fear of retaliation.

”End it quickly!” she called as both she and her wolfos braced for the struggle with thunderblight that was to come.

Sakura almost slipped off the railing but she caught herself. Smiling bright she purposefully flipped over the side of Shippy and hung onto the railings from the other side of the ship. Then she hung on with one hand, and pumped her fist into the air. There were fish, a pirate ship, a street fight, a clown, the sun and the salty air! Oh, it was almost too much! Sakura flung herself back over the railing like the fish being tossed overboard on the other place's deck. Though it seemed they might not be able to see the end of the fight, it was fun while it lasted. Sakura was beaming brightly, having forgotten all her troubles as she was swept away with the spirit of adventure.

"This is--- ugh! Amazing!" She was beside herself. Sakura had never gone fishing before but watched her crewmates do so with interest, folding her arms behind her back and tilting her entire body with curiosity. Especially looking over towards Isabelle and her catch. Fish. "Fish." She murmered. They were dying.

Huh...sucks to be the fish. I guess I never really thought about the thing that needs to die before I get sushi or steak. Maybe I should become a vegetarian! Might be fun. Hmm...I'll think about it. I hate to say it, but I don't really care about the fish that much. Sorry little guy, I'm just not in it for you. With a shrug, she skipped over to the front of the ship to watch them reach their destination.

Sakura squinted as she saw the island city in the distance. "...Wow. It's beautiful!" She found herself grooving to the music, tapping the railing and pausing with the pauses, moving her shoulders up and town. She ended up dancing casually the entire rest of the way, in a loose free way and every once in a while transitioning into her favorite dance move.

From on deck, she watched Peach's curious encounters with a pair of women who were cosplaying as battleships, and had superpowers related to them. Well, she had seen more outlandish street fighters in her time, so dressing up as boats- and having the naval affinity to back it up- wasn't the weirdest thing in the world. Still, she hoped they didn't actually think they were boats. Because they weren't boats- they were people.

Brineybeard didn't seem to like them very much, and Sakura found herself feeling bad for the old pirate. "Bye, Captain Brineybeard!" She called out. "Hope you find some buried treasure!" Then she skipped onland. Once there she turned around and waved discreetly to the mischevious boat itself.

Sakura had heard from the boat lady had said but was overwhelmed with options. Turtle boy junior had already scampered off, and while Sakura was eager to do the same she really did not want to get lost. She looked to some of the people she had already developed a bit of a repertoire with, Isabelle, Ace Cadet, Geralt, and Princess Peach. She wanted to make sure someone also took care of the cuphead and the hat kid, and the green hatted boy seemed like a real adventurer who could take care of himself. So maybe Sakura just didn't want to admit she had more in common with the younger seeming members of the group than she did the hardened adventurers.

Sure, Sakura had travelled alone a lot, quite frequently. But that was on a world where she was 99% sure she wasn't going to get attacked by giant monsters or get sucked off into another mini-dimension. Here? Not so much. If she got separated from the group- goodbye adventure, goodbye chance to help save the world. There were actual stakes this time, unlike her previous world-trotting escapades. At the same time, though...there was an immense urge to just get lost in this urban metropolis. So much so that Sakura almost skipped off to follow Junior before she skidded to halt and jogged by towards the group.

She travelled toward the center of the group, trying to keep everyone in sight. "I, uh, I don't know where to go, or what to do." She chuckled nervously. "I just kinda wanna go dive in...Bulkwark hall, right? We meet up back there? Or somewhere else? It's just--I know I can get side tracked and--" Sakura glanced down and flattened the edges of her skirt. "Well, I'm trying to...responsible." She decided. It was clear that the idea was one she was inexperienced with, and with the eager tapping of one of her bright red sneaker it was clear she was resisting the urge to wade into a new, unexplored environment.