The heavily scarred titan of a man examined the trio who had answered his summons over a small desk in the room he’d commandeered for briefing away missions before shrugging. “Yer not exactly the type’a people i’m used to doing merc work, but seeing as we’re starting with the recruitment drive rather than any kinda dangerous stuff, you’ll do,” the merc captain said, in an accent only person in the room, (and notably this person was not Vandham), recognized as Australian.

The three heroes, all of whom had stood against Galeem on the day of their arrival, (and, admittedly, lost) were a bit disgruntled by this casual dismissal of their fighting ability, but while the disconcertingly blank faced Wii Fit Trainer and waist high Dr Mario let the comment wash over them like water off a duck’s back Zelda decided to actually have words about the matter, “I assure you sir, we are more than capable of handing ourselves.”

Vandham shrugged. “Maybe, but it doesn't matter. Place your going’s the only other area other than this one cleared of Galeem’s influence, least according to the details that got left with me, so unless you get real irksome none of the troops yer tryna muster should get rough. That said, it might be safe, but that don’t mean it’s not important. That turtle kid’s been using it as a teleporter hub, so it’ll be vital to secure the place, get everyone on side and the like. Make future operations a mighty sight easier. Got it? Good. Here’s the rest of the details on the place we’ve got, plus some priority targets.”

Zelda was presented with a short list of people and places to look into, one she’d seen a copy of pinned to an information board outside Vandham’s office, by one of Vandham’s assistants. The small cat-like creature with bat wings who sported a singular antena ending in a bright red pompom was called a moogle, and it did not fit Vandham’s aesthetic one bit.

“That’a said, we appear to be a missin’ someone,” Dr Mario said, “We can’t’a get this operation started without’a the whole team right?”

“Ah right yeah. Let me get them” Vandham said, before reaching down behind the desk and gently picking up and placing a toy poodle on the desk. The small dog looked at them with boundless love while the large handed man gently pet the cute we thing “May I present your fourth member, I’m sure he’ll be a huge hit with potential new recruit.s”

Zelda looked at her teammates to make sure they were also seeing this. Mario shrugged with hands and all while the Wii Fit Trainer approached the dog, telling it, “Come along, we’re going for walkies.”

In response the small dog happily hopped off the desk into her arms, before being put down on the ground so it could walk alongside them.

“Like I said, not what I’m used to working with, but I guess that’s what happens when I take my orders from a giant bee,” Vandham said to them, before reassuring them. “Still, I'm sure you’ll do fine. Report back to me when you’re done via one of these Moogle fellas.”

The man gestured to one of the cat creatures who happily floated over and formed a pact of mailstewardship with Zelda.

“Roight then that’ll be all. Good luck.”

---

“I’a wouldn’t let him'a get to you. We dont’a exactly look the part after all, and saving the worlds not exactly our’a day jobs, but I agree, he shouldn’t judge books by their covers,” Dr Mario told Zelda as they made their way to Jr’s warp graffiti, the little puppy happily hurrying along after them, his lead held by the trainer.

“I’m fine, but thank you for your words Doctor,” Zelda replied, “It’s not like I wish to go fight, goddesses know it's not my, well it's not my day job as you say, but it was rather rude to dismiss us like that.”

She got murmurs of agreement from the pair, but after that there was little time for chit chat, as their journey to their mission was a short one. A quick portal hop brought them to Peach’s castle with ease, the only problem getting their puppy to take the strange transportation method, which they resolved by picking him up and pushing him into it. Also catching him after the puppy excitedly ran off into the greens of 1-1 upon arrival, got into a tussle with a Poochyena and then fell into the moat. After that malarkey was over and the rabbid spectators they’d drawn had dispersed, they were ready to begin their mission.

The commotion they’d caused ment their arrival was not a surprise, and so once they entered the castle they were confronted by a cautious looking Toadsworth, escorted by Donkey Kong, Spyro and the kid who seemed to have elected themselves as the castle’s defenders. Watching from various hiding spots behind doors and furniture were the castle’s toads. This cautious behavior quickly disappeared among those familiar with Mario when they spotted the same named Dr among the Squad.

“Ah, master Mario, so good to see you again!” Toadsworth said with relief.

“It’sa Dr Mario actually. Me and'a Mario arn’t the same person. Strange, I’a know, but thats’a how it is.”

“Oh…” Toadsworth said, looking a touch concerned before he quickly examined their eyes and found them free of the light, “You’re still friendly though, aren't you? I can see the light of this ’Galeem’ is not in your eyes.”

“That we are. I’m princess Zelda, it’s lovely to meet you. We’ve come from Smash City Alcamoth, where we were freed from Galeem’s power by Princess Peach and her party of heroes. Quite a lot of us smashers there, along with plenty of others. Now Alcamoth is a haven for the free, and a staging point for our fight against Galeem,” Zelda spoke up as the group's unofficial lead negotiator.

“Is that so?” Toadsworth replied cautiously.

“Oh, oh yeah. I’ve seen her. And him. And her! She kicked me in the face?” came the shrill and rather grating voice of one of the toads. The first was quickly joined by several others, all who had been used as spore releasing counter moves by the princess at one point or another. Their words were bolstered by Donkey Kong's nods. Being smash contestants did not make them 100% trustworthy, villains like Ganondorf and Bowser were among their numbers after all, but it eased the tension that had been filing the room a great deal.

“And this Alcamoth is a safe haven you say?” Toadsworth asked.

“Most certainly. With the amount of freed peoples there, plus the defensive nature of the city itself perched atop a floating island, I’d say there isn’t a location safer than it in the whole world for those free of Galeem’s influence.” Zelda assured them. She hadn’t thought about that fact till now, but now that she did it was obviously the case. “Might I ask, have you had..trouble before? To induce this caution?”

“We’ve had a one or two…unpleasant visitors,” Toadsworth admitted.

“Yeah, but we took care of them,” injected Spyro, as DK punched his palm to make clear exactly how they’d been dealt with, and the kid twirled a new assult rifle that showed what had happened to the troublemakers afterwards.

“Yes. Like that. But to preempt you offering us a place there, it would simply not be proper to abandon her royal highness’s castle after she left it in our charge. Despite the dangers,” Toadsworth insisted, dutiful if rather nervous about the prospect.

“I understand that completely. And we won’t force you to move I promise. We’re mainly here for a recruitment drive, to see who would be interested in joining up to help us in the fight to take back this world,“ Zelda assured him.

“I see. Well there are a few other people who are freed from Galeem’s power who have taken up residence here. And a few whose eyes still glow. But I fear that if you convince them to leave, that would leave us even more unprotected.” Toadworth worried.

“I’d never dream of leaving you defenseless. In fact, seeing as I believe Bowser Jr has been using this palace for more of his teleportation paintings, this will likely be an important part of our fight against Galeem! Which means more of us would be stationed in this location to keep it safe. Right team?” Zelda said, glancing back at her squad for confirmation.

Dr Mario nodded from behind a clipboard he was using to note down all the promises Zelda was making on behalf of the smashers, while Wii Fit Trainer added “If that’s something you’d consent to of course. We wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Oh no, of course not. Only if you’d allow it.” Zelda quickly agreed.

“Hmmm. That does sound good,” Toadsworth glanced over at the castle defense squad, who all nodded with agreement after a few moments, “I can point you to our other guests, though I can’t guarantee they’ll all be interested.”

“That's great. We’ll take whoever we can get. So, who’s here?”

---

After they got a rundown of who was available, the team agreed to split up and check in with them.

Zelda first checked for Luigi in the library, but instead of finding the plumber she found the place ghost free and instead infested only with a group of Rabbids, who’d gotten in through an open window, and were in the process of making a mess of the place. The bunnies were shooed out of the room in quick order, a librarian toad rescued from under a pile of books and by them Zelda were directed down to the kitchen.

There she found the plumber chatting with Princess Daisy of all people. The princess was sporting one of peach’s dresses instead of her own own classic orange one. The one she had been wearing when everything went down was currently being washed and repaired, she explained, as it had suffered dreadfully on her journey to the castle. She had awoken in the dark forests to the west of the castle, and acquired an escort of goblin rangers to help her get there. Said goblins were in the middle scarfing down anything and everything the chef toad could make them, as was a very large rabbid. Daisy and the goblins’ leader, who introduced herself as Warchief Hollythorn, spent some time regaling the squad and Luigi with their adventures traveling through the woods over their own meals until Zelda brought up the prospect of joining the smashers.

“Explain this to me again, because what you’re saying doesn't make a lick of sense,” Hollythorn asked after Zelda tried to explain the state of the world to them.

“Yeah. The sun’s bad and mind controlling people? The world’s all messed up? That doesn’t make any sense at all?!” Daisy reiterated in a far more energetic manner.

“I. Well. Oh dear,” Zelda said, really noticing the red eyes of the new arrivals properly, and understanding personally what it meant.

Luigi, free as he was, did get it, but the less adventurous of the Mario Bros’ lived up to his cowardly reputation “I, well, I’da love to help but I’ve gotta stay. You know. Keep the kingdom and Daisy safe while my bro’s out adventuring.”

“Aw. You're sweet but I there’s a reason I’ve only got kidnapped once when it keeps happening to Peachy dear,” Daisy injected before flexing a tomboyish arm. Both Bowser and Peach might have had words for her regarding that, namely that Daisy’s kidnapper had proved to be considerably less persistent than the Koopa King, but Luigi wasn’t inclined to disagree with her bravado.

“Oh. Uhhh. Still. Covering the home front is’a kinda my thing” Luigi insisted, continuing to attempt to avoid the call to adventure “I’m sure my bro’d be up to help. If you can’a find him. He headed south I think, though Im’a not sure where he’s ended up”

Hollythorn gave the plumber a dirty look for his blatant cowardice, but still wasn’t really interested either “Look. We’ll think about it, okay, but we’re not going to risk our butts for whatever your weird cause is for nothing. Gotta think of my people here,” she gestured a thumb to her goblins. “And after what we’ve just had to slog through to get here safely, I’m not so sure I’m up for whatever this is.”

“Yeah. Give us girls some time for a little R and R before bombarding us with weird quest junk geeze,” Daisy agreed.

“Ok. I can see I’m not getting anywhere right now” Zelda said disappointedly, “just promise me you’ll consider it once you're recovered.”

“Sure”

“Ok!”

Zelda sighed mentally. She hoped the others were having better luck.

---

The good doctor found Henry in the Master of Master’s laboratory, and by the way he guiltily slammed the book he’d been reading shut upon Dr Mario’s entry into the room he had almost certainly not been invited inside.

“Ah. Greetings. Are you looking for the Master of Masters? Well I’m afraid he isn’t here,” Henry hurried over to Dr Mario and rudely shoved him out of the room again before the good doctor could see where Henry had trapped the master’s little assistant.

“You’ll have to come back later. Goodbye!” he insisted before slamming the door shut. And then bolting it.

---

“Thanks. I think I needed this” Minako Arisato told the Wii Fit Trainer between bouts of giggling as she pett the toy poodle sitting in her lap, who was trying its best to lick her face off. “But I’ve fought impossible odds before and it…well, it didn't turn out well.” The young woman said, before staring off into the distance, a pained expression returning to her face that the puppy had previously managed to chase away.

The Trainer looked at this with concern as the puppy pawed and whined at the traumatized girl before she gently put a hand on Minako‘s shoulder and asked, “Would you like a hug?”

After an embrace, a flow of tears and more kind words the Trainer left to rejoin her team without any new recruits, but she felt the interaction had been well worth her time regardless.

---

“I’m not a fighter. Well, I am a trainer, but I’m not the kind of guy who goes around saving the world. I’m more of a helper. A giver of advice,” Steven Stone, President of the Devon Corporation explained as he and Dr Mario (with emotional support from Nintendog) tended to an injured growlithe who’d limped into the castle, its pelt scorched by energy blasts. “And a supplier. Some of the people who freed this place I supplied with pokeballs for example. Haven't seen any of them apart from that young trainer Bowser Junior since mind, though he certainly took full advantage of my services. You said this palace would be a base of operations of theirs?”

“Yes. There’s a few other trainers there as well I think? There's definitely plenty of pokemon, and a few of them, like Pikachu, are on the mercenaries roster,” Zelda explained “I’m sure they’d appreciate any aid you could give.”

“On their own?” He got a nod from Zelda. “How strange. Well now you’ve certainly piqued my interest, your highness. If you give me a little more time, I’ll accompany you when you return. Just need to make sure this little guy’s back on his feet before we go,” Stone said, gently petting the clear eyed growlithe sympathetically.

“That’s okay. We’ve got one last stop on our tour.” Zelda told him.

“Where would that be?” he asked out of curiosity.

“The treasury.”

“Ah. Well I wish you good luck. I think you will need it. It was bad enough before that lanky gentleman arrived, but I believe the arguments over the treasure will be reaching a boiling point sooner rather than later.” Steven told them, before the sound of a small explosion drew all eyes to the door leading down to the dungeon, and the royal treasury.

---

The team rushed down the stairs into the basement of the castle. If they’d had time to think about it, they might have been confused by the sudden change of architectural styling. The fairytale princess look of the castle vanished and was replaced by a rather dark, dank and grimly medieval affair. Had the world not been turned topsy turvy, someone paying attention might have thought it a sinister secret, a veiled hypocrisy hidden under the peachy exterior. But the world was a mess, and those running through it had little time to contemplate it as they chased the sound of explosions.

Pinnacles of fitness and good health that they were, the Trainer and Dr Mario made excellent time, both barging into the treasury only a couple of moments after the first shot was fired. Inside where mountains of tresure that represented vast wealth in most places and basically nothing in a few like the kingdom’s neighboring bean bean kingdom. Four people had certainly decided it was worth fighting over.

The massive Roadhog was in the middle of brawling with the much shorter but equally fat Wario, the pair of heavyweights wrestling in a sea of gold coins near the back of the chamber and trying to beat the snot out of each other.

“It’s mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! My treasure!” Wario was yelling while punching Roadhog in the gut. The titan of a man didn't waste breath on words as he tried to gore the yellow clad criminal with his hook, his shotgun having been lost in the piles of gold in the opening moments of the brawl.

While their heavyweight allies battled up close, the other two members of the battle were keeping at range, standing at opposite walls of the treasury. The short, skinny and manic Junkrat was pelting his fore with his ball like grenades while ducking and weaving to avoid those very same bombs coming right back at him as Waluigi of all people batted the bomb balls with a racket with the skills of a tennis ace.

“Stop that you lanky twat!” Junkrat was yelling as he narrowly avoided being blown up by another of his own bombs

“You stop it, I could keep doing this all day weh-heh-heeeee” Waluigi laughed, twirling his racket and his mustache at the same time.

“Wow, hey’a now let’s stop’a this fighting!” Dr Mario called out for peace, to little avail.

“Get lost Mario, Waluigi's got this!”

“Yeah piss off doc! Parry this lanky!” Junkright called out while grabbing one of his disk shaped mines and hurling it towards the alarmed waluigi, who leaped to one side. The bomb never reached him however, as instead the Nintendog leapt into the air and caught the explosive disk like a frisbee.

“Ah! Puppy! No no no! Stop! That’s not a toy!” Junkrat cried out, as the small dog dropped to the ground and tried to drag the bomb back to him to be thrown again. The sight of the most adorable puppy dog in the world with a massive bomb in its mouth stopped all of the fighting in its tracks, because while the brawlers were a bunch of crooks and cheaters it took a real monster to keep fighting when a puppy was at risk of exploding.

“No. No. drop it. Drop it. Good dog” the smoking-haired bomber said as he managed to retrieve his bomb from the Nintendog. “Now, where were-”

“No. no no no no!” Zelda said as she stormed up to junkrat “Put that thing down! No more fighting! We are talking this out! By the goddesses the world’s been turned upside down by a malevolent god and your fighting over treasure like children!”

“Wow hey now lady,” Junkrat said, backing up as Zelda jabbed him in the chest with a finger.

“And you, what are you even doing here!” she exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at Waluigi “Shouldn’t you be back at the base, waiting in case you get called up?”

“Nobody tells Waluigi what to do! You don’t put up a bit of paper telling me where my main man Wario is and expect me to not help a brother out dealing with some stinky weirdos tryn'a take his treasure wah!”

“It’s not his, it’s ours! We finally had a deal till worked out you showed up and broke it you gangly freak!” Junkrat accused the taller Waluigi .

“He’d never break a deal I made!” Wario retorted.

“It’s not even your treasure. It belongs to princess peach!” Zelda interjected, she and her team placing themselves between the two parties as the two duos of fat and thin got back together on either side of the room.

“So?” all four replied .

“You were going to rob her! Shame on you!” Zelda chided. When no shame was forthcoming from the crooks she switched tact “What were you even going to do with the treasure! The worlds a dangerous mess! It’s not like you have anywhere to stash it or spend it or even transport it.”

“Ehhhh...” “Ahhh...” “Uhhh...” three of them dithered while looking over the massive piles of gold while Roadhog muttered to his partner, “Told you this was a bad idea.”

“Hey. Shut it. Even a handful of this stuff would make us rich!” Junkrat insisted.

“Not’a really,” Dr Mario said “coins are’a pretty common in the mushroom kingdom. Exchange’a rates pretty bad for them.”

“What?!” Junkrat cried out, appalled by the fact that the Wario bros were nodding along to this and generally looking very discouraged as a result.

Before thinking it over as Roadhog stared him down and then saying “Well… even if that’s the case there's still the bars. Jewels? The emerald!… that you stole!” he said, jabbing an accusatory finger over at Waluigi

“Wah?! No, you stole it. Cheaters!” Waluwigi retorted, pointing a finger back at them.

Things started heating up again but before Zelda could find out what this emerald was there was a bark from the nintendog. The toy poodle had lost interest after the exploding frisbee incident had resolved and had been sniffing around the piles of treasure. Then, while the arguments had been ongoing, it started digging, tossing coins aside until it came face to face with a rabbid who had been buried within. The white haired creature raised a finger to its lips, trying to tell the dog to shush, but instead it yipped excitedly, drawing the attention of the crooks and heroes to the rabbid and, more importantly, to the green glowing energy overflowing Emerald it was holding.

There was a moment of silence as comprehension dawned on who exactly had stolen the treasure that had started the four’s argument.

“Get him!” all four crooks cried out, rushing the screaming rabbid, only to comically get in each other's way and fall in a heap, over which the rabbid ran screaming obnoxiously. The impact of the four men with the gold pile and the cries of the bunny spooked half a dozen other rabbids from the piles of treasure as well, all of which ran for it out of the treasury with the humans, and one dog, hot on their tails.

The mad scramble blasted out of the dungeons and into the main hall of the castle where the mad chase looped over itself into a chaotic mess, but in the end the rabbid’s evident refusal to leg it out the open castle doors meant that the Wii Fit Trainer eventually cornered the emerald stealer, lifting it up by the scruff of its neck and pulling the cause of the kerfuffle in the treasury from its paws.

“I have to say,” Stven Stone said as he walked over to them, the recovered growlithe padding happily along beside him, “I’ll be happy to see the back of these nuances once we leave. It feels like more and more of them have been showing up over the day.”

“Yeah! Dozens and dozens of them! They just forced their way in and refused to go back outside. They’re making a mess of everything,” one of the Toads told them, as a small group of them got to cleaning up the mess caused by the rabbid riot.

There was a bit of murmuring in agreement about that before the conversation began to turn back to the treasure. Before it could get anywhere however Roadhog spoke up and asked “If those things are all in here, then what’s keeping the robots in check?”

There was a pause, and then all eyes turned to the wide open castle gate. It was at that very moment that the first wave of robots, having either killed or driven off the last of the rabbids, arrived to besiege the castle, heralded by the rapid stomping of metal feet.

An advanced force of splicers and scouts rushed in through the open gates and assailed the humans inside. Pills, bombs, fists, magic, rackets, vengeful growlithe fire and more took apart the advanced force with relative ease, but it was only the beginning. The main force of Nulltrooper, Enforces, Soldiers, Medics, Heavies and Demos arrived shortly after and while it did not represent the worst of what the robots could offer, but the vast number of them swarming the castle still posed a major threat to the heroes.

The battle, far longer and more chaotic than any of the short skirmishes that had occurred between Megadragonbowser’s fall and the smashers’ arrival, drew in everyone. DK, Spyro and the kid came first to fulfill their duty as the castle's defenders, but even their reinforcements did not end the strife. Soon Henry appeared and began shelling the robotic horde with spells. Luigi fought alongside the at once strange and familiar partner of Dr Mario. Daisy joined in with Waluigi’s demonstration of how you could weaponize sporting equipment. Hollythorn and her goblins added much needed volume of fire, raining arrow and crossbow fire upon their foes. Even Minako pulled herself from her stupor long enough to bring her persona to bear against the malevolent machines, Junpei by her side.

The onslaught came on and on, and the defenders rapidly learned that the so-called castle was anything but. Barricades had to be erected by furniture dragged out of the castles rooms and tossed into the wide open entry hall. Attempts to raise the gates were quickly foiled as soldiers blasted the chains apart.

But the heros persevered. They fought hard and, as heroes do, in the end they triumphed. When it was all over fading spirits of countless machines littered the castle. So to did scorch marks and bullet holes. The danger of the world had come to the castle, and it no longer seemed like the sanctuary it once did.

“Are you hurt?” Zelda asked Hollythorn, offering the smaller woman her hand to raise from where she was sitting behind a ruined table. The goblin took it, wincing as she stood.

“Took one of those purple constructs’ shots. I’ll be ok.” She glanced over her troops, doing a quick headcount before sorrow found her eyes. “Can’t say the same for my women.”

“I’m sorry.” Zelda said, laying a hand on her shoulder.

“It happens. We’ll bury the dead and...” she paused and Zelda could see the woman was mentally bumping against the blocks put in place by Galeem. How could you bury a body when nothing but a quickly fading spirit remained? Zelda touched her hand to her heart and drew out a pink glowing copy of it.

“If you want to understand, take this. Let it free your mind and heal your spirit.”

The goblin looked at the magic suspiciously but then nodded. She grasped the princess hand in hers and understood the truth. Soon, they all did. The world was broken, and they couldn’t just sit here in this bubble and wait for it to all be over, and so the team had their recruits.

---

There was more to it, of course. Spirits needed to be swept up. Hollythorn collected her people’s dead and bound them as a striker squad, much like Jr did with his minions. Those who were still under control and also had escaped the battle unharmed were quietly split up and initiated into the ranks of the free. The rabbids infesting the castle were hunted down and freed as well. Work began to prepare for the next assault from the robot menace.

But ultimately, the mission had been a success so soon enough a Moogle popped up in Vandham’s room to give him a report the team had written together.

“Me an’ my big mouth.” he sighed as he read about the attack before setting the report heading over to greet the new recruits and take command of their newly acquired supplies.

Mission result:

Mercs acquired: Henry (Fire Emblem Awakening), Roadhog and Junkrat (overwatch), Kid (I Wanna Be the Guy), Luigi, Princess Daisy, Toad(s), Toadsworth, Donkey Kong and Wario (Mario) Warchief Hollythorn and a Goblin Ranger Unit (The last Regiment), Minako Arisato (Persona 3), Junpei, (Persona 3), Spyro (Spyro), Steven Stone (Pokemon)

Resources acquired:

New base: Peaches Castle,
Royal treasury supplies: lots of gold and treasure, one chaos emerald (green), one Super Crown
Spirits from mann vs machine bots and null sector robots (crushed):
Three quick-fixes, an assortment of default Scout, Soldier, Medic, Heavy and Demo guns, ammo and melee weapons from tf2, 3 plasma pistols (wrist mounted) + battery packs, 1 energy tower shields, 1 Viking Riotshield and matching smg + 9mm Soft Point ammo, 200 credits and a bunch of scrap metal

"Mission begins in thirty seconds!"

Thirty seconds of waiting, thirty seconds too many for the giant brute of a Russian tapping his feet in great anticipation for the match that was about to begin. Well, from experience Heavy knew that it would be more akin to a bloodbath than a normal match, but really what was the difference? Heavy was just eager to get out there and give BLU a piece of him and Sasha.

Thirty seconds until the members of Builders League United would begin their very bad day.

Heavy watched Knight step forward to the orange gate just in front of them, apparently installed to "give both teams a fair and equal chance" according to some kind of list of rules. Heavy had never seen said list of rules, and if there really were, there weren't anyone to enforce them. All the better, Heavy always liked a good fight, not a fair one. Heavy put down his beloved Sasha, the minigun, and stretched out his hands, popping the joints of his massive fingers. The clock continued to tick down.

"What, there is smell here?" Heavy asked the Knight with curiosity, giving the air a good sniff as he tried to locate this smell. Victory? No, Heavy could not smell it no matter how hard he tried. He'd never smelled victory, and the smell he did recognize was not that which Knight spoke off. "No comrade Knight, that is only smell of Sasha. I oiled her just after previous bloodbath."

The next question and lines conversation made Heavy more animated though. "Yes, where is the Doktor? We must have Medic ready to heal tiny, baby Inkling and others, unless they hide behind me and Knight." Heavy quiped back at Knight and Spartan, picking up the minigun again and swirling the barrel a couple of rotations. The gun must have weighed a figurative ton, which Heavy managed to both hold and maneuver around with ease, though not invincible with. That is why he got more animated at the lack of Medic, for he missed his good friend's presence. Who else would be there to heal him and make him credit to team?

Heavy would have agreed on his prefence with the healing beam of the Medic, had not the Administrator's voice cut through the heavy tension that surrounded them in their little caged spawn. Three seconds. Heavy turned around, eyes searching for his Medic. Two seconds. Heavy faced the gate again, his massive fingers clutching tightly around the minigun, muscles in tension and ready to move. One second! "Medic! Hurry, Doktor! We must run and fight!"

"Fight to the death!"

Heavy couldn't wait any longer for Medic, rushing out in a jog from the RED team's spawn, following Knight, the Raider and the Priestess out into the open. Turn left, continue forward and through several buildings, Heavy finally reached the battlefield proper. It was time, but not before Heavy shouted something back at the Knight and his inspiration song. "Comrade Knight, I am not fat, but am hungry for BlU skulls of enemy baby team!

Moving forward as fast as he could, which for a giant bear of a man wasn't too quick honestly, Heavy had to leave both Medic behind him somewhere still looking for his weapon back at base, but also a strange sensation in the back of his mind. Heavy did not know what it truly was, only that it was getting in the way of him killing those pesky revisionists of the BLU team. It was almost a memory, a whit of something refering to a previous life, or world? A bright light, death, then nothing? No, Heavy could not put his finger on it, not the least because he was holding said finger on the trigger of the minigun, ready to do some killing. If anything, perhaps he was hungry. He still had the Sandwich safely tucked in his pocket...Nah, it was probably nothing.

The advance continued until Heavy and the other fighters entered the middle section of the map - a big, open central plaza of what could have come out of ancient Egypt, with the old constructions, sand and pyramid in the distance. Heavy payed little attention to those details however. To Heavy there was only one important task to focus on now - the enemies entering his sight on the far western side of the map. "I spy with my little eye..." Heavy began taunting with his booming voice, a thick Russian accent laced with tremendous power and joyous fury as the powered up his minigun. "Cowards, I spy cowards! Tiny, baby cowards of BLU!"

Heavy ended his taunt by opening fire at the distant enemies, slowing his pace down to a crawl as bullets flew out of his minigun, aimed at the enemy team. This was his job, his life and world now. Nothing existed outside the dunes of sand just on the other side of the fence. There was only his RED team, himself and Sasha.

It was a good day to be giant man!

Midna exited the multicolored light show rubbing her poor abused eyes again. She had not been having a good day when it came to her corneas. After a few moments of recovery she had a chance to inspect herself, finding first that she had differently hued skin, warm bronze replacing the pale turquoise while the black where her true form’s outfit had fused with her body remained as it was. She was also significantly more muscle density than she had before. She’d gone from noodle armed imp to tiny powerhouse. She even had abs! Also, she was now wearing a skirt and, functionally, nothing else. Noticing Tora’s agape expression she covered her technically bare chest, faking shocked modesty for just a moment before laughing at him.

”If you think I look good now you should see what I look like when I break this curse” she teased him before continuing her examination.

A quick look over and a bit of hand patting found her over her remaining alterations. Gold bands on her arms that matched the shackle that bound her ponytail in style, earrings that where gold and neon blue instead of Urbosa’s gold and red, and, finally, Midna realized why her field of vision had still seemed off when she patted her face and found her nose had grown more prominent.

”I’m going to need a mirror. A normal mirror.” she muttered to herself before shaking her head, earrings swinging and bapping her neck and chin as she did so. A proper fashion analysis and suitable adjustment could come later. She’d taken this spirit for reasons other than a makeover.

”Now, lets’ take a look at you” Midna said drifted back over to the central core she was going to inspect before they were so rudely interrupted, and looked upon it with new eyes and knowledge. After a few moments of contemplation she grinned wide with confidence as she floated to its front and found the access point. Then she flicked her long hair to the side, infusing it with the fused shadow’s power mid swish and then driving a handless arm of magic into the center of the port.

Power, will and wisdom pulsed through the link in both directions as Midna grit her teeth in concentration, and then, all at once, it was hers. A hologram of a Shiekah eye formed in front of her own exposed eye. Through it she saw through Vah Naboris', seeing the shifting sands from on high. She also saw what it really was.

”It’s.. a weapon. A weapon to kill Gannon,” she said delightedly, if mostly to herself, as she withdrew the magical tendril and let the power within it die, her long hair falling back to hanging behind her. The magical eye remained, and would appear whenever the princess desired to command the Divine Beast, its will bound to her and the gilded Fused Shadow fragment she wore. She did so know, sending it lumbering towards the pyramid she had seen through its eyes, anticipating the request to travel to it. It was not much of a detour, she reasoned, and if she was going to take her own detour to find the mirror of twilight then it would hardly do to deny the Thieves their own little sidequest.

”And we are off,” she told those who had remained inside the central chamber, ”heading for a pyramid that's on the way to the mountain that those kids will want to look at”

”Also it seems safe to say we don’t have any healers. Guess you’ll have to learn to not get hit like me” she said cockily as she landed next to Primrose, Poppi and Tora, nodding in approval at the latter's decision to crush the spirit rather than let anyone absorb it or let it escape somehow. Standing next to them she found that she was now closer to the size of a very short woman in height, the top of her head being at around chest height on the two women where she’d been waist high before. Still a ways to go, the twilight princess thought to herself, but maybe this could work out with a few more adjustments.

”or keep an eye out for Recovery Hearts. You can probably guess what they look like. Maybe there’s some in containers in this place that might hold some? Or other useful things. Certainly feels big enough to have a secret or two hidden inside,” she suggested more practically, as she summoned one of her Wolfos and then used its fluffy body as a pillow to lean against, legs dangling over the side of the central platform with one crossed over the other as she lay back and rested her head on its soft fur. The issue of whether they would still be able to carry her weight could wait till she’d rested and recuperated from the fight, transformation and takeover of the titan’s systems. Maybe she could find something to fuse with them to make them bigger, she thought to herself, or perhaps her more muscular body might make that not quite so necessary anymore.

”have an explore if you like, I’ll let you know when we arrive, unless you want to stick around and have a chat with my charming self?” she suggested to the others as she half focused on guiding Vah Naboris and examining the desert through its eyes. A little bit of adjustment to the brightness had let her actually take it all in for the first time, free from the glare of the sun outside.

Coming up here had defiantly been a good idea.

---

It had worked. The horrible pink heart had fused with Dante as expected, and then both freed her and dropped her out of her huge murder fly form. Realization that the red team weren't her enemies also came instantly, which was in retrospect something Bowser perhaps should have been worried about not happening but what was done was done. The plan had worked and the incredibly dangerous woman was now on their side.

They weren't done of course, there was still the Slayer for one, but fortunately for the likely rather weary party (Bowser certainly felt like he could do with a break) V had that covered. A titan fell from the sky to duke it out with the slayer, hurting the marine enough that even when he came out of the brawl as the victor Blazermate was able to heart him without much trouble.

The rest of the outstanding issues fell to Dante, who casually decked and freed both V and Tess when both of them failed to recognize the fight was over due to Galeem’s influence.

With them down and on their side it was, at last, over.

---

”WE’D HAVE BEEN FINE IF SOMEONE HADN’T TOTALED OUR NEW RIDE” Bowser commented pointedly when Nero talked about the now rather large size the red team had grown too and the inability to fit them all in the only vehicle they had left between them, ”SO I GUESS SOME OF YOU ARE WALKING WITH ME”

They might have expanded a fair bit by joining up with the gang of demon and devil killing experts, but it was immensely gratifying for the silver haired team who had probably been in-charge of them to immediately defer to his leadership, even if it was probably due to a complete disinterest in such a position the role on Nero’s part.

”WELL DON’T JUST STAND THERE. GET IN OR GET WALKING, WE’VE GOT A, UH, TREE TO PUT DOWN?” He hadn’t paid that much attention to the actual mission parameters, ”TO UPROOT! Yeah that works better. LET’S GET TO STOMPING!”

With that, the king did just that, lumbering off in the direction of the last root while people either packed into the van or followed his footsteps.

@DracoLunaris @Lugubrious

While Geralt found himself somewhat hopeful that they'd actually be able to get through this little job without having to sacrifice a bunch of poor bastards, he wasn't quite convinced yet. Their options, as far as he could tell, were as such:

They could lead just shy of a dozen or so people to the slaughter on The Maw, which they might be able to avert by hijacking the abominable vessel themselves. Either way, they'd need to people innocent people at risk to save the rest. Hardly conscionable, but it seemed like a damn good bet to get where they needed to go.

They could earn the trust of the locals, get themselves some kind of raiding party, or at least a group of people who could hold their own, and, once more, take the Maw. Likely storming the vessel again in this case, but with more support, and thus a better chance of victory. All they had to do was stop an immortal fleet of constantly-rebirthing evil. Geralt figured the odds of pulling that off were like his odds of beating the Wild Hunt. Possible, but not without careful planning, a great array of allies, luck, and raw determination on their side. Riskier, but if they could pull it off, it could very well guarantee their success.

And then there was the black sheep plan: Get an Airship (the very thought of which threatened to send Geralt's stomach into a fit), cross the Bottomless Sea with likely minimal help, and deal with things themselves. Utterly insane. Suicidal, even.

There were some variations, the most attractive of which was to get themselves an Airship, deal with the Abyssal Fleet, and lead a naval force to their target, but that was just the second plan with a few extra steps.

Geralt was, simply put, not happy with their options. Even the 'safe' options risked them being wiped out by their unknown foes. And each presented its own unique set of issues, killing people for their Spirits being one of them.

As Peach (Boy was he glad to know he could get away without any formality around her, kowtowing even a bit to Emhyr had been hell) offhandedly mentioned the difficulties of water travel, with the underlying solution to the situation, Geralt met her gaze. "It'd be rather convenient if we could, true." A small sigh. "Sadly, we're not blessed with such wondrous powers. Dammit, if only I'd asked Yen to tag along, we could have her Portal somebody back there. Wouldn't help with getting back much, but it'd solve half the problem." Left unspoken was the reason he hadn't done so, but that was hardly their business.

Still, they were dealing with quite the problem. It was then that Geralt realized their problem might be solvable without bloodshed. At least, part of it.

"Hey, Junior." Geralt called to the Boss's Kid, somewhat respectfully, but also clearly not exactly sure how to address him. "Those...portal things you can put down. Would you be able to drop one here that links back up to the Princess's Castle, or Alcamoth? That'd get us closer to solving this money problem we've got, at least." Leaving the question, he turned back to Peach and thought out loud.

"As for the Abyssal Fleet, this might actually be in my area of expertise. Breaking curses, spells, and other such nasty afflictions as endless resurrections is sort of my specialty. Witchers are trained to handle all sorts of magical and physical afflictions. The only problem is we'd need to learn more about the specifics. Things like how they resurrect, where they do so, when they attack, how they attack, what they look like, what kind of beings they are, what their weaknesses are, what made them this way in the first place. That sort of thing."

Sighing, he shook his head. "From there, you have to think about what the actual curse or spell did. Is it tying their soul, or Spirit in this case, to a place, an object, another being that's controlling them? Is it causing their Spirit to return to a central focus point? Is it simply using ambient energy to create more monsters?" He was on a roll now. "It could be a hundred different things, each with a dozen ways to stop or undo them. It's why most people just pay to kill the monster and be done with it. And why most Witchers just do that." The resentment in his voice was clearly audible at that part. "It's easier, and you don't end up sharing soup with a Wight." His jaw set for a moment. "Not fun, that."

"I think getting help's our best shot, though. I should talk to this Admiral of theirs, learn what I can about this Abyssal Fleet, see if I can't find a way to keep them from resurrecting. Won't be easy..." Under his breath, he continued. "Being a Witcher never is."

Looking back to Peach, he nodded quickly. "Anything else I should know before I go and get some info on our little beasties?"

If there was nothing, that was precisely what he was going to do.

The party was generally in agreement with Kamek and Jr’s suggestion of investigating the airship dock was the way to go. That said, Peach echoed Kamek’s concerns that recruiting a ship to their cause might be tricky.

”I hope that there might be a crew or ship heroic enough that a little heart to heart might, ah, convince them join our side” Kamek paused, and then added ”I’m winking behind these spectacles when I said convince”

There was little more to be said on the topic till they actually scoped out the ships, so while they traveled there the two koopa’s offered their own thoughts on the abyssal fleet.

”It would be useful to know if these ships are leaving spirits behind when they die. I can create entities without spirits, none of my illusionary clones or toadies are doing so when defeated, so a powerful spell caster could be the source of these ships if they too are spiritless. Simply recreating the old designs is also much easier than making something new each time, which would also explain why the same ships keep showing up over and over.” Kamek suggested

”Maybe they just have lots of one ups and respawn real far away? Or there's lots that look the same, like toads or goombas, and they live really far away. So this is like. 1-1 and Papa’s castle is all the way out in the deep Ocean. Or all the way round the top of the continent” Jr suggested, his input suggesting an unintentionally bleak option, predominantly due to the distances that would be involved in getting to and shutting down the abyssal fleet if he was anywhere close to the truth.

Both options were highly colored by the koopa’s experiences, either by Kamek’s own capabilities or by their fight against the unbeatable unstoppable force that was Mario, but perhaps there was something of use in them.

Kamek’s suggested method of getting a ride ended up looking both unnecessary and unattainable when they arrived in the docks. The ships were more civilian in nature seemingly, mostly fitted for hauling cargo for the purposes of making a profit. There were no hardy gangs of sky pirates or aerial explorers to be found here, or so it seemed.

”Where are they shipping things too or from that it can be so profitable I wonder” Kamek said when they were told that the ships were hauling freight for merchants.

It seemed unlikely they would be able to convince them to join their adventure or outbid the merchants right up until the point that Peach remembered she was loaded, having taken possession of most of Mario’s earnings from his heroics.

”Wait. He just gives you all his treasure?” Jr asked, bemused by the notion

”I suppose that explains why he and his brother live in such a small house together despite both of their treasure filled adventures” Kamek noted, mentally kicking himself for not thinking about the treasury sooner. He knew it was there, he’d even noted as such when he helped fill in Vandham on the places they’d been, but the idea that they could just use the princess’s treasure to help them buy whatever they needed had never crossed his mind.

As for how they’d get it, well, while Peach was at a loss for ideas Geralt was keeping a good track of his allies abilities and suggested Jr use his magic paint portals to make a way to pop back and forth from the town to peach's castle so they could get the money they need.

”What? Yeah I was just about to say that you don't need to suggest it!” Jr complained, having actually been thinking about the fact that the koopa troop apparently knew where Mario lived and yet had never done anything with that fact.

”I suggest you put it out by the docks young master. Rather empty and it will likely be where you will reappear when you return? I imagine we’d rather we not run into trouble by bypassing the customs office on the way out” Kamek recommended before Jr could even think about where he’d put the portal

”oh. Uh. Yeah ok.” Jr said, a bit ticked off

”and be careful coming back through the market, people might try to steal from you if you're carrying a large amount of gold up with you” Kamek added. He was fairly sure Jr would be safe so long as the prince didn’t start anything, but he still worried so he added one final thing, turning to the others and asking, ” If one or two of you would like to escort the young master when he goes it would be most helpful”

”Alright alright I get it jeez,” Jr said, before glancing over the others to see who was coming, and then heading back down, through the market and to the docks to do a bit of graffitiing

”wait i didn’t mean- oh never mind” Kamek said after them, but jr was in enough of a hurry and a huff that he didn’t hear. Kamke sighed and then turned back to the princess, ”So, now that we’ll have wealth a plenty, let’s take a look at what might be on offer shall we? Maybe we can upgrade one if nothing suits our needs if nothing fits the bill?” Kamek said, before glancing upwards at the sounds coming from the Sky's Hatchery and also suggested ”and perhaps we should take a look up there while we are at it?”

The mage didn’t entertain Peach’s unintended suggestion of boat murder for long. As a last resort perhaps. As a plan it seemed like an excellent way to get swarmed by the red eyed towns people with a rather low chance of success. Best cross the other options off the list first before going down that road, particularly because it would be the heroes, not the already flight capable Kamek and Jr, who would be the ones taking on those spirits and they would likely react rather strongly to the prospect.

---

Far away from Limsa Lominscuttle Town the little party of molecules that was Jr appeared above the drawbridge and then collapsed into the form of the prince and his car. He landed on the bridge, wheels of the car deployed, and came face to face with the wreckage of the robot attack, the interior of the castle littered with the scars of battle being tidied up by various toads as best they could

”Wow. What happened here?” Jr asked, only to have someone yell “Friend or foe! Show me your eyes!” from behind him

Jr whirled around and came face to face with a host of short green creatures, most of them female. Most of them were pointing either shotguns or crossbows at him, while the one who’d shouted at him had a fully drawn back bow pointed at him. Behind them the stones of the archway the engineer had used as a firing platform had been rearranged into a short wall. As Jr took this in a small team of of toads, holding small fold-able shovles and dusted in the dirt they’d been digging to make a moat on the other side of the wall poked their heads around the wall to see what was going on.

“You’re free,” the bow wielding goblin noted as she looked the ambushed koopa in the eyes, “but who are you?” she asked, not lowering her weapon just in case.

”What! How can’t you know who I am!” Jr growled back, affronted that these people didn't know who he was. Before he could get real mad and make a mess of things however, there was a shout from the castle entrance

“Oh hey, it’s Bowser’s kid! Don’t worry about him Holly, he’s not a threat,” Princes Daisy called as she came out from the castle, once again donning her signature bright orange dress, strolled up the bridge to meet them.

“aren't you kid,” she said as she stopped next to him ruffled his hair

”Hey, I am so too a threat! I’m strong and mean and dangerous!” Jr argued childishly, only to be interrupted by Tyrant who appeared in the air above him, having insisted on being next to come through, and landed atop his owners head

“Aww, who’s your new friend” Daisy asked, before petting the pig-like behemoth, who was much more happy than jr to receive the affectionate gesture.

”Get down from there” Jr told the pig, picking it off his head only for Mimi to appear and take his place. Jr sighed, and then noticed another collection of particles forming, one much larger than the two pets that had bopped him on the head.

The rest of the party coming with him arrived on the bridge one by one after that, forcing Daisy and Jr to move back and make space for them.

“Hiii I’m Daisy. Who are you?” the princess introduced herself and then asked once they were all here, always eager to meet new people.

”Wait wait wait. When did you get here? Who are the green people? Why is there a wall there now? What happened to the castle!” Jr insisted after introductions had been made but before Daisy could start chatting and direct them away from the questions he wanted to ask.

“Oh right. This is Warchief Hollythorn and her rangers” Daisy introduced the goblins, most of whom had either resume guard duty or working with the toads to keep digging their fortifications at this point, “they helped me get here out of the spooky woods to the west of here”

“As for the other two questions, both answers to that are hostile constructs, or robots as the humans call them” Hollythorn explained while keeping an eagle eye out for any more of the mechanical menaces.

The team then got a quick recap of Zelda and co’s mercenary mission and the battle that had ensued from the princess and goblin’s perspectives and were then told what had happened in the aftermath. After Vandham showed up via warp graffiti it had become incredibly obvious that having the arrival point being out in the open like that was a terrible idea, so they’d started trying to fortify the position so people wouldn't arrive in the middle of a robot hoard. Hollythorn had volunteered herself and her troops immediately to the task. After the losses they’d taken, none of them wanted to be caught flat footed by such an attack again. Hollythorn complained bitterly about how Peach’s home did not deserve to be called a castle, which Jr agreed with. There was a distinct lack of lava and traps and lava traps.

The rest of the new recruits were still inside, where Vandham was in the midst of signing them up with details of what they could and would do, as well as taking inventory of the castle’s assets.

“So. What brings you all back?” Daisy asked once they’d finished telling their story

”Peach wants some of her treasure so we can buy a cool airship” Jr told her

“Neat. Oh. You oughta know, there was this big spat about the treasury involving Wario and Waluigi I think? You know how they are. They proooobably won't take to well to you hauling it off now” Daisy warned him

”They’re just gonna have to deal with it” Jr declared, ”and we’ve wasted enough time here, there gonna wonder why we’re taking so long and I can’t be bothered with Kamek fussing about that”

Daisy quietly laughed about this backwards way of saying he didn’t want Kamek to worry then accompanied the party back down the drawbridge and into the castle.

“Well if it isn’t the little prince,” Vandham said as they came inside and into the view of the staircase where the mercenary captain was speaking with the new recruits, who were sitting on its various stairs. There wasn't a lot of furniture left in the castle after they’d used it to keep the robots at bay. “Don’t suppose you can make these portal things not drop people off outside of defensible locations. Ain’t exactly convenient when there’s hordes of robots outside”

”No,” jr replied simply, both unwilling and unable to explain the science or logic behind Professor E. Gadd’s magic brush before asking ”Why don’t you just go out and break em”

“Because we don’t know where they are based exactly, and we need someone to authorize a mission and form a four person squad to go find out” Vandham explained

”... I can do that right?” Jr said after a few moments of thought

“I guess, but I don't think a kid-” the mans started to say, only to be cut of by Jr

”Daisy, Wario, Waluwigi aaaaand Luigi. Go out there and scout. Find those robot’s base so we can smash em to pieces” Jr said, pointing at each one in turn and then commanding them to start the mission

“Whaaat, why us?” both Wario and Waluigi, who had been sitting on the stairs looking bored and uninterested said, while Luigi's response was “Oh uh uh uh, you sure you don't want someone else?”

”No. I’ve said it so go. I know what you guys can do, can’t be bothered finding out what these other bozos can do or if they’d be any good, so go!” Jr said, reveling in the ability to command people about like this,

“Aw yeah, finally some action! Come on Waluigi, we never get any action or adventures, now’s our chance!” Daisy cheered, the only person who looked genuinely enthusiastic about this

“Bah” the lanky scoundrel replied as he hauled himself off the stairs, but you could tell from the look in his eyes he was at least a little excited about it for the same reason as Daisy. Wario was indifferent to the concept of going on a quest itself, he’d been on plenty, but seemed to pick up on his partner in crime’s hidden interest and followed him to join the impromptu party, leaving only Luigi.

“Luigi, here” Dr Mario said as he pressed a hodgepodge med gun and accompanying backpack that he had been wearing into the plumber’s hands.

“Wernt-a you gonna use this?” the green plumber asked

“We’ve’a got’a spares” the doctor told him, giving him an encouraging pat on the shoulder “Keep them’a safe, ok?”

“I... Sure bro, doc, doc bro, I will!” Luigi said, donning the backpack. It was considerably cruder looking than the Poltergust he sometimes wore, but after a quick bit of instruction he was ready to assist his team from the rear.

”Right. You good? Now go!” Jr told them. Then, after Wario and Waluigi were out of the way, he turned and said to Vandham ”So, about the treasury. Peach needs to take out some money and we’re here to get it for her”

“Hey, wait a minute!”

---

After the other half of the former treasury dispute had been forced to sit down, shut up and stop waving the grenade and sticky launchers around the team found themselves in the treasury. Gold coins, bars, jewels and more from the plumber’s adventures lay piled on high in the large secure chamber, along with a particular crown and a emerald filled with immense power topping the collection.

“All right, here we are” Vandham told them “quite the haul isn’t it? Royalty. They sure are something else. So. How much do you need?”

”Enough for an airship!” Jr declared confidently

“And that’s how much?”

”Uhhh… a lot?”

Vandham sighed

”Just... Grab what you can?” Jr suggested to the others, before rapidly finding out that just hauling the stuff in their arms wasn't going to cut it if they didnt want to spill gold all over the market.

They where gonna have to figure something out.

Sectonia was a bit disappointed at the lack of healing from her allies here, but as far as she knew only Blazermate could heal people, so she guessed that made sense. Midna, being the bravest of the bunch, or rather, the most impatient, took in the spirit of the amazon warrior and transformed. This was the first time Sectonia actually saw someone take in a spirit, and this gave her pause about taking in spirits in the future. At least the imp became a bit more beautiful in her change, making Sectonia think about how these spirits worked in general. As she thought to herself, she missed Tora upgrading Poppi with her new shield dropped by the gerudo warrior.

Looking at Midna Sectonia said. "Indeed, you are far more beautiful than you were before. And you say your cursed? Hm...." with that being said, Midna gave a bit more context as to what they were riding, what it was, and that there might be some 'recovery hearts' here. "If we somehow find a red tomato with an M on it, that will also help. Just don't eat it as normal food, otherwise bad things happen." Swooping over to Premise, Tora, and Poppi, she suggested that the three of them look for these "recovery hearts" while Midna piloted the giant lightning camel.

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



Thanks to the efforts of her other allies, Blazermate was able to friend heart the Doomslayer, someone they knew could do quite a bit of damage if given the chance. After all, apparently him, Dante, and V had beaten one of the roots for the group which was incredibly helpful. As the red light faded from the visor of Doom Guy, Blazermate did what she did with Dante and started to heal him up too, making sure he was in tip top shape. "This friend heart thing is super useful but also weird. But we got two more powerful allies, huh Bowser?" Blazermate said, using him again as a ride. The Koopa king, ready to get going, kept everyone on track as they made their way to the final root that would expose the area boss to 'free' this area. Although freeing this area probably wouldn't do much with all the demons and zombies everywhere.

Speaking of Zombies, as they walked, Blazermate called out to whatever zombies she could as they walked to help them with the next root, playing with her mutation ability when she could. Although after mutating a zombie which sprouted a ton of tentacles, this made her note Bowser's transformation, making her say. "I wont lie bowser, you were way cuter without the giant tentacles on your back here." teasing the king a bit.

The young woman blushed a little bit, standing up straight and brushing some hair out of her face. "Oh, uh, okay. Peach." She quietly said, smiling. Princess Peach definitely seemed like a great leader. And she was a badass biker, too? She really had everything. As for the darker implications, Sakura didn't even consider them for a moment, for she didn't realise them at all. "Yeah. Being able to fly where you want must be pretty great." She agreed wistfully.

Sakura was secretly happy that Geralt was agreeing to their plan. Well, "secretly" was an overstatement, she seemed quite smug about it. Happy that they weren't going to follow the sacrifice play, Sakura was eager to help in whatever way she would. That meant, probably following Jr and Kamek to Peach's castle to pick up as much gold as possible.

"Well, I can easily carry about 450 kilograms. Not to toot my own horn or anything..." She said suavely, definitely tooting her own horn just a little bit. Subtly, she flexed her bicep. "But seriously, though. I've never bought like, a car, or boat, or anything, or done any uh, witching. But I have carried heavy things. Like this one guy named Zangief. So, I guess I'll follow you, Mister Junior." She hopped in line behind the Koopas.

She followed behind, bemused and baffled by the various colorful characters they met along the way. Sakura was going to try and stick to getting to know members of the Blue Team, and the Adventurers, for now. Otherwise she would get dizzy. There was something a little bit familiar about the green guy, Luigi. Had she seen him before, somewhere?

The money in the vault was...staggering.

"W-wow...I...I've never seen this much money before. I don't even think I've seen a real gold coin." Sakura felt her palms get sweaty as she smiled, taken off guard.

At Junior's request, she tried to gather up some in arms. When that didn't work, she tried using her shirt, lifting it and piling the coins in there. Better, but...she frowned, letting them all clatter to the floor. Sakura considered putting some coins in her student bag, but they would probably get lost in the folds and not a lot would fit in there, anyway.

"Well, look. Come on. There's got to be some wheelbarrows or something, right? Or some burlap sacks? Just a pushable wooden wagon." She mimed pushing a cart full of coins.

"As for how much money...obviously, we'd rather take too much, than too little. We can put the extra in a bank. That way, it would accrue interest." She explained. Then she frowned, crossing her arms. "Or at least that was what my mom always said, and why I never had any money to do fun stuff on summer vacation. I was looking forward to being 18 this summer so I could like, buy stuff. You know? But no. Instead," She laughed, a little shrill. "I'm doing whatever the heck it is I'm doing now." Every once in a while the absurdity of her situation gave her pause. Thankfully though, the young woman learned long ago to roll with the punches.

"So, yeah. Big cart. I'm gonna go find some at the...stables." With that, she rushed out of the vault of gold. Hopefully with the help of the friendly locals or her squadmates, she would return with a large, pushable wooden cart and several burlap sacks, some of which had been used for storing produce.

"Okay, let's fill 'er up!" She exclaimed. With that she took two of the bags and began filling them with gold. She would do as much work as she had to do and when they had a very sizeable amount of gold in the cart, Sakura picked up it's handles and offered to push it. "I dunno how strong you guys are, but...I'm pretty strong. Plus, I've been falling behind on my excercise routines recently so I could use a little work out." She rolled the cart back and forth a little bit.

Having decided to take a detour before meeting with the others, Geralt was relaxing with a stiff drink in a strange kind of bar where the patrons were free to sing along to various songs from the manifold worlds. Right now, a drunkard was trying to sing along to...something. The music was fine, but the man’s words were far too slurred for anybody other than a linguistics expert to figure out just what in the hells he was saying.

Isabelle was finishing up shopping for some furniture for her home; she had gotten some good deals for some chairs, lamps and couches. All of these items she put into her pocket; she was glad she had her infinite dimension pockets. Walking down the street she walked into a hardware store; checking the tools aisle on what kind would be the best tool to use as a weapon. Buying a sledgehammer and a crowbar which she thought would be useful for later. Coming out of the hardware store and further down the street. Wanting to finish off her shopping spree by having a drink and perhaps sing some karaoke.

Walking into the bar and taking a seat on the bar counter; “May i please have a whiskey sour” She raised her paw trying to get the bartender’s attention. Her eyes turned towards Geralt. “Hello Mr.Geralt” Smiling as she paid for her drink with bells. Taking a sip of her alcoholic drink making a face of grimace.

Cocking an eyebrow at her reaction to the drink, Geralt smirked. “Not used to the hard stuff?” The question was somewhat rhetorical, but the mirthful tone suggested he meant no harm.

“No not really; mostly I have a fruity cocktail of some kind; a drink where I cannot really taste the alcohol. I am guessing you are used to such harsh tasting drinks?” She asked ordering a glass of water to keep herself sober.

The Witcher let out a short chuckle. “I’m near a century old, Isabelle, and a Witcher at that. Nothing else even registers as alcoholic. Once in a while I’ll drink alchemical alcohol just to get that extra buzz.”

“So you never get a hangover or being black out drunk; mhm lucky” Isabelle tapped her paws on the counter top. She wished she would be able to not get a hangover from getting drunk. “Mr. Geralt, can I ask you something?” The small dog took another sip of his whiskey.

Geralt gave a quick shake of the head at the insinuation that he couldn’t get hungover. “Not quite, but it goes away faster and takes a lot more, or a lot harder alcohol, to get there.” At the question, he turned his body a little more towards her. “What is it?” He was probably being a bit friendlier due to the alcohol, but he also liked to think that it’d be quite the whoreson who ignored a lady so clearly in distress. Even if she was a dog lady.

“Do you think I am doing a good job with helping the group fighting Galeem? From what has happened so far; i feel like i am not capable of fighting as skillfully as you or the others” The small dog lady finished drinking her whiskey. Now drinking her glass of water; “I guess the second part of my question is am i doing a good job assisting you and the other” The hard liquor quickly getting to her head; making her cheeks become bright red.

Geralt sighed. Ah yes, this question. “Frankly, I’ve asked myself the same plenty since this whole mess started. I’m just a guy with a sword. We’ve got giant flying bug ladies, legendary heroes, people with crazy handheld cannons, a bunch of sorceresses, all sorts of insane fighters. Sure, I have signs, but I can’t use them nearly as quickly as other magic-users.” Shaking his head and finishing his drink, he shrugged.

“Far as I see it, long as you’re out there fighting with us, doing what you can, and making the best use of your talents, you’re doing more than enough. Seen too many folk just sit on the side and let people die because they couldn’t do anything on their own. Course they couldn’t, no one man can stand up to a damned army.” Quickly gesturing for a refill, he continued. “But if they all did something, they could tar and feather the lot and barely get a scratch on them. You may not be as flashy as the others, may not be able to turn into a dragon or shoot lightning from your hands, but as long as you’re fighting and helping us, I ain’t keen to tell you that you haven’t been a help.” Damn, Geralt was bad at this.

Isabelle motioning the bartender for another refill on her whiskey sour; “Thank you; i have not been in many combat situations. So i am worried how my effectiveness in a fight will assist you and the other’s in a fight” The dog took a long chug of her refilled drink before continuing speaking. “I miss the island...i miss the village and villagers...and i miss Mr.Mayor” Isabelle now looked sad; swirling her glass in her paw. Her gaze peering over towards the karaoke machine in the corner of the room; her eyes widen with excitement; “Mr. Geralt would you like to sing some karaoke with me? It would be comparable to singing along with a bard” She was not sure if Geralt had sung before; of course she did not want to force Geralt to do something he didn’t want to do.

Geralt thought over the request for a moment. Dandelion would be furious if he learned Geralt had gone singing with some ‘common wench’ in a random bar rather than him. That was probably why he nodded, in hindsight. “Sounds like it could be interesting. Don’t imagine I’m any good, but I’m sober enough to not make a fool like those other folk from before.

Isabelle smiled, finishing the rest of her drink before jumping off of the stool; walking over towards the karaoke machine hoping that Geralt was following behind her. Picking up the microphone and was looking through the many songs that they could sing. “Would you like for me to start singing first?Or would you like to sing a duet together?” She asked, turning to face him with a smile on her face. She wanted to not make the whole ordeal awkward; she wanted to have him feel comfortable singing with essentially a stranger.

Geralt followed the woman to the karaoke machine, giving her question some thought. He had no idea what was going on, other than that the machine would tell them what to sing and play the music for them. He decided to err on the side of caution. “You can go first. I’d like to see what this stuff is all about.” He answered truthfully. He had no pride to lose about not understanding this technology.

“Very well” The dog looked though some songs she could sing to start them off; most of them were quite good choices. However she wondered if one of her favorite songs was available for her to sing. Searching around for her favorite song on the machine; she finally found the one she was looking for with a smile on her face (youtube.com/watch?v=F5eEvfOyb7k&ab_ch… ). Starting to sing the song with an admirable passion; making sure to put as much effort as she could in a strange way trying to impress him. Once she had finished singing she held the microphone to the side of her body; “How was that?” She simply asked him, trying to catch her breath.

Geralt’s eyes widened slightly as the music started. He was...not sure what this was. The music felt...off, in a way. He wasn’t sure if it was his own tastes, the massive cultural gap, or the machine’s influence, but he felt some kind of wrongness in his heart at the music. It wasn’t bad, he could tell there was a kind of technical talent that went into it, but he couldn’t honestly say he liked it. Isabelle’s singing was...better, but she was no bard, as cruel as it would be to say. So he didn’t. “That was quite good,” the Witcher lied through his teeth. “Not quite what I’m used to, though…” Geralt added that last bit to hopefully explain away what was likely an odd look on his face. “What next?”

“Well would you like to sing a duet if you feel more comfortable doing before singing one by yourself?” The dog was looking through some songs they could sing together. It would take her a little bit of searching before she found something the could both sing. (youtube.com/watch?v=LnDwBrm_jsY&ab_ch…); Starting to sing the first couple of lines waiting for Geralt to join her in singing. Keeping a smile and a friendly demeanor while singing.

This song, at least, felt more natural to Geralt. It felt...more real. He gave Isabelle a few lines to get a feel for how things were supposed to work (Having completely neglected to during his existential crisis prior), before jumping in. His voice was...gravelly but smooth at the same time, paradoxically enough. Not terribly deep, but not high in the least. There was an unspoken weariness beneath the words he sang, though onlookers would likely chalk it up to him working within the theme of the song. Isabelle might have noticed, but she might not have. It wasn’t uncommon for older folk to sound a little more worn, after all.

All that being said, Geralt found himself pulled into the song more than he’d expected to be, and was even a tiny bit sad when it ended. With the faintest hints of a smile, he nodded to the machine. “I think I’ve got the hang of it, now.”

“That was amazing Mr.Geralt; would you like help picking another song? Or would you like to stop singing?” The small dog woman walked over to pat him on the shoulder; but because she was much shorter then he was all she could do was gently pat his leg with her paw.

Chuckling at the friendly display, Geralt shook his head. “I’ll pick one, but after that I’m going back to the bar.” Looking over the selection and recognizing exactly nothing, Geralt picked one that he thought looked like it might be interesting: (youtube.com/watch?v=e1UUAhZ3JzM). He spent a moment blinking owlishly at the eclectic music, before finding himself almost magnetically drawn to singing it. It was hard to tell if it was the music, the lyrics themselves, or that the song was originally performed by somebody with a voice not terribly unlike his own (unknown to him, of course), but Geralt found that the song came and went in what felt like an instant, and that he had grown a bit from the experience.

“Huh. That was…an experience.”

“I have to say you have quite an amazing voice Mr.Geralt; did you take any singing lessons in the past?” Isabelle asked him, accompanying him to the bar. She was impressed by his vocal work; it reminded her of the later works of Tom Waits. Once there she took a seat asking the bartender for another glass of water. Looking at the watch she was wearing she turned towards Geralt. “Do you think we should get out of here and meet up with the others?” She asked him.

Geralt had to laugh at Isabelle’s question. “No, my lessons were more focused on combat, brewing potions, and hunting monsters. I am friends with a Bard, but I’ve never known singing skills to be transferred like personalities among friends.” Getting a glass of water for himself, Geralt drank patiently, only stopping to answer his companion’s question. “I suppose we should. Don’t want to keep everybody waiting.”

“I think that would be for the best; i want to thank you as well for drinking with me and singing karaoke together. Ever since i first came here i’ve been quite alone...and being with yourself and the group; i do not feel so lonely in such a different place” The small dog paid for both of their bills. Walking outside with Geralt to meet with the others.

In no time at all Vah Naboris was off, its long strides making tracks across the desert sands. From on high a lot more of the vast, barren land could be seen, it if the heroes felt small before, it was hard not to feel infinitesimal after witnessing that grand view. Still, already coming into possession of a giant walking castle did wonders for general morale. The stonework of the place, its plentiful shade, and its distance from the absorbed heat of the sands even made the internal climate tolerable. As much as Tora wanted to relax after the brief but furious fight and be around Midna as she, well, existed, he knew he shouldn't be taking it easy. Thanks to Rapid Recovery, it took all of five seconds for him to heal to full completely, so he could muster no real excuse. Plus, Poppi appeared to be staring directly into his soul. “Thanks for offer friend Midna, but no matter how tempted Tora is, which is very, Tora have other matters need look at. Chat later, meh?” With a wave he waddled away, headed for the front of the camel with Poppi in tow.

After finding a suitable spot, he turned to his companion. “Okay, now that have moment and enough room, Tora can make more tweaks to Poppi system to prepare for use. Poppi, switch forms!”

She stood there for a moment. “Masterpon stop ogling friend Midna with surprising speed. Maybe you coming to senses about time and place?”

Tora shrugged as best he could with no discernible shoulders. “Tora wait for curse to be broken before going crazy. In end, though, Poppi more important. And cuter in QT Pi form! Speaking of?”

Poppi rolled her eyes. “Yes, masterpon...” In a flash of whirling sparks and ribbon, the small Poppi was replaced by her adult form. She laid down as the Nopon pulled out his tools, and in short order he got a good look at her ether furnace. “Meh, meh. Ether intake good. Tora dial up again and check stability.” With a little adjustment he increased the device's throughput. After an initial disconcerting noise and jolt, the furnace appeared to normalize. Only after a few seconds did the engineer let out his breath. “Whew, for second Tora thought poor Poppi about to scatter over desert.”

The artificial blade blinked. “Masterpon sense of humor need far more adjustment than Poppi. Saying such thing not great for mental state.”

Tora smacked his face with his wing. “Right, right, sorry! Was just...ah, bad joke, meh. Tora have full confidence in skills, so Poppi should too!”

The silence that followed was palpable. In it, desperate for some distraction, Tora happened to spot Skull nearby. The masked boy seemed extremely intent on Poppi, which Tora could understand—after all, even if not combat ready, she constituted a technological marvel. On second thought, however, his interest seemed...less than scientific, judging by his expression. Tora's temper instantly flared. “Hey! Gawpypon leave Poppi alone! She highly sophisticated friend and combat machine, not girl in dubious magazine!”

Skull balked, waving his hands. “H-hey-hey-hey, you've got the wrong idea! I was just, uh, wondering what you're...doing. Did you make...her?”

Proudly patting his chest, or thereabouts on his egg-shaped body, Tora nodded. “Mm-hmm! Well, Tora have help with some parts, but yes!”

One of Skull's eyebrows went up. “So...if she's a friend and combat machine, why does she look like that?”

Now it seemed to be the Nopon's turn to be flustered. “Meeeeh!? That just how Blades look! Tora already tell people in city-place! If rudeypon ever see other Blade, rudeypon understand!”

“And wait a minute, you know about the...uh, magazines?” The boy scratched his head, surprised.

Sweat beaded on Tora's head. “N-no...just...meeh....random, nonspecific example, yes, yes! To highlight inappropriateness of skellypon's attention!”

Still laying down, Poppi sighed. “Poppi feel very uninvolved in conversation for how relevant Poppi is to it.”

“Yes, sorry! Sorry again!” Tora shooed Skull away. “Scram! Tora have very scientific and technological adjustments to make!” He turned back to his companion. “Meh, meh, meh. Now, to increase hair fluffiness...”

---

Considering the size of the desert, reaching the oasis didn't take too long. Vah Naboris strode up to the pyramid and stood by the edge of the palm-swaddled lake that lay on the structure's east side. On the far side of the lake the heroes could see a bunch of ruins, and more interestingly, see a bunch of movement in the distance. The unmistakable rattle of gunfire carried up to them across the water. Even after shading his eyes, however, Joker couldn't quite make out what was going on. “Hey. Poppi, was it?” Doing his best to ignore her appearance, he directed her at the scuffle across the lake. “Can you zoom in on that? What's going on?”

The Blade dialed in her vision. After a moment she gave her report. “Two teams fighting in ruins. Convenient color-coding, red and blue. All red-eyes.”

Joker gave a noncommittal noise of acknowledgment. “Well, the Thieves will see to the pyramid. From here it looks like the we seek. If you all wish, you can check the fight. We may be able to collect a number of useful spirits without much difficulty. Midna, if you don't mind, set this thing down.” Once she decided where to do so, the Phantom Thieves disembarked and headed for the pyramid entrance on the east side.

Tora watched them disappear within. “Even though it seem like job for Thieves, Tora wonder if we should help.” A particularly noticeable crackle drew his attention back across the lake to the warzone. “Still, Joker right about spirits. If we going to check out, maybe Midna move walker over so friends don't have to walk around lake?”

Using her index finger Poppi poked him in the forehead. “They'll definitely notice us then, masterpon. Besides, with new drill we can probably boost across ground pretty fast.” She looked around at the others with arms crossed, wondering where the Courier was.”But Tora and Poppi defer to decision of others.”



As Heavy's barrage rumbled across the battlefield, the first wave of blues shrank back behind their cover. Then a big man with an even bigger shield pushed out of the doorway, blocking the minigun fire, and his team rolled out behind him. The Knight cursed his luck. “Damnation, the Shield again! And here I had hoped he wouldn't show his mustache for another day or two.” After a moment or two of advancing behind their ally's shield, two BLUs sprinted out up the stairs to the point. One was an Assassin with twin blades, the other a Soldier of fortune. The Shield made to follow, but a shot from RED's ramparts struck his leg, and as he hunkered down the Infiltrator repositioned himself. Gunfire echoed from the temple to the right, indicating a shootout there as well, but the Heavy had more pressing matters to worry about. The Soldier fired a payload of helix rockets at him and the Assassin slid in, somehow sliding up the stairs. She lashed out with her blades, running around him in a circle to avoid the barrel of the minigun.

Just before the Soldier arrived the Knight stepped out from behind cover to bash him with his mace, causing the man to grunt and stagger backward. He dropped a healing field on reflex, but standing still made him an easy target for Sasha. At the same time the Raider stepped forward to swing at the Assassin, who managed to duck under the axe, deliver a partying slice, and jump off the point. The Shield arrived just a little late to help his allies, finding himself suddenly alone on the point. Nevertheless he slammed the angry Knight aside and moved to bash the Heavy in the face, only for a crossbolt bolt to smack his target from behind. A burst of healing flooded the Heavy's system, and the Shield, thinking better of it his heroic stand now that support was on the way, dashed away. The Medic arrived just in time to watch the Poison counter-snipe the Infiltrator from the opposite ramparts, inflicting a deadly toxin that sent him scrambling for a health kit. “Guten tag!” the Medic greeted his friend. “Ready to practice medicine!”

He fired off a crossbow bolt of his own at the Poison, making her duck, while the Knight and the Raider got behind cover. At that moment the point unlocked, allowing the REDs to start capturing. “Das ist gut! Ze lead is ours,” the Medic remarked cheerily, switching to his beam to heal the melee fighters.

“So long as we keep it. BLU is rallying!” the Knight cautioned. The Shield was advancing again, this time with the Vanguard in tow, and the Assassin no doubt lurked nearby. In the temple the REDs could see the Dwarf flanked by the Totem, having evidently won the skirmish against the Cunning and Priestess in the temple. As the Raider growled something under his breath, and Knight shook his head. “Four to six! They're surrounding us!”

Foot steps sounded out from behind. “Lighten up, old man!” The Spartan leaped over the heads of the REDs on the point and slammed into BLU team's Shield with a hefty charge, knocking both him and the Vanguard back. A splotch of red ink raced between the legs of both the Dwarf and the Totem, with the Inkling emerging just long enough to drop a splat bomb at their feet before she dove back in and made her way to the point. After coming out she tugged at the Medic's coat, holding a bleeding scar on her shoulder. “Wawy!”

The mid fight then began in earnest. With both teams down two members, those being the Soldier, the Cunning, the Priestess, and whichever BLU went down in the temple, the prospects looked roughly even, and none could predict how things would shake out.



As it happened, funds weren't the only solved problem. Contrary to Peach's assumptions, Junior's portal-making ability apparently wasn't at its limits. With a clear route to the treasury available, a number of her teammates immediately voiced their interest in collecting the money. The princess figured it would indeed take a few hands to get the gold over here, but without something to spend it on they would simply by burdened with an abundance of highly visible funds, which in a crowded maritime city struck her as a bad idea. They needed to find a vessel. While most of her party thought about the retrieval, the taciturn Witcher turned his mind to the task at hand. Their new plan would come to nothing, after all, if they couldn't figure out how to put an end to this Abyssal Fleet's continuous renewal. As he listed off possibilities, Peach found herself increasingly grateful to have his skillset around—and him as well. “Very good thinking. Although, it sounded like the Admiral was just about to sortie. You might be better off asking any ships who aren't heading out with her. Maybe there's an infirmary around you could check.”

Kamek chimed in as well, mentioning the possibility of spirit-devoid minions. Peach nodded. “Good point. Sounds like a key part of our investigation should be these enemies' spirits. If they have them, and what happens to them when they're destroyed. A shame we don't have any craft right now, or fast fliers like Blazermate, Sectonia, or Poppi...we could see what happens first-hand.” An opportunity that they would have to miss hurt, but it couldn't be helped. Not unless she acted on those dark thoughts of hers, and she did so right now. But no, and hell no. The others dispersed, leaving her, Link, Cuphead, and Kamek. She considered what to do. “Considering our group and our mission, we can't really consider the hatchery. Even if there were enough flying animals to carry us all, and we could get them, I don't know if I could risk their lives flying over a stormy, monster-infested sea.” She didn't feel as sure of herself saying that as she thought she would. All things considered, wouldn't the mission be worth a few animals' lives? Well, not if the heroes got dropped into the sea as a result. “Okay then. Cuphead, maybe you could find and ask that Brineybeard? He seemed to love that ship, but pirates are greedy. Maybe he'd part with Shippy if we set him up for life. Plus, we could fuse spirits to the ship to make it stronger.” She nodded to herself, pleased with her idea. Hopefully it came together. “Kamek, why don't you check with the airship captains? That attendant might be wrong, after all. Link, let's you and me take another look around for ships. There might be a derelict sitting around we could buy cheaply and pay to repair and outfit.”

---

The captains of the airships present unilaterally rejected the idea of selling their livelihoods away to adventurers, prospective massive sums of money be damned. As lucrative as the deal seemed to be, one element remained missing that Kamek needed to grease the wheel of commerce: trust. Nobody put any faith in the Magikoopa's word, even if he assured them he could show them the money in person. That is, all but one—a man by the name of Balthier. He and his partner, Fran, whispered among themselves for a few moments after hearing about Blue Team's funds. “Well,” he said at length. “The two of us have been making do with this miserable Atomos for a while now. All skiff, no ship, hardly fit for a leading man. And piracy isn't exactly smiled upon around these parts...not that it's got anything to do with us, ahem! Now, from everything I've heard, going to this Bottomless Sea's pretty much suicide, so this amounts to throwing our Atomos away, but...mm, for that kind of money? We'll figure something out, eh?”

His companion said nothing. He shrugged. “Now, far be it from me to toss out a payday, but I feel like I should warn ya. It's a carrier, pretty fast but meant for fair weather. If you don't wanna be tossed around by storms, you'll have to fly close to the water, and then who knows what can reach ya. No weapons either. If that's fine with you, then sure, just fork over the cash and we're good to go.”

---

After some searching Link spotted a traditional-looking ship leaning against a seastack by the bridge toward the mainland, and made his way there. All his walking, however, ended up leaving him dissatisfied. It appeared to be in bad condition, and its captain, Yarr, didn't look much better. The little man milled around aimlessly, ineffectually trying to steal anything that caught his eye, and the hero got nowhere with him before eventually losing patience. He ended up heading back empty-handed, but not without something gained. Halfway across Limsa he became aware of someone following him, an unknown figure in a dark purple cloak. From the way the stranger moved Link could guess she was female, but other than that he had no idea. Determined to not allow any potential threat to befall his team, he resolved to deal with this matter himself.

Link turned downward, heading for an isolated fishing wharf. There, in a dead end drowning in the stank of sealife, he waited. Sure enough the stranger appeared soon after, rounding the bend where he waited. In one fluid motion the hero drew his blade, holding it level with his pursuer's neck. “Why are you following me? Identify yourself immediately.”

A tense few seconds passed before a husky giggle issued from the stranger's hood. “As you wish...”

She removed the hood, revealing a head of white hair, but her mask remained. Link's face betrayed no recognition, and the woman sighed. “Oh, darling. It hurts to see you've forgotten me.”

“I don't know you,” Link insisted. “Why did you follow me?”

“Ah, but I know you...” the woman purred. “I've been watching for such...a long...time. I know every bit of you...each and every one.” She approached slowly, placing her fingers on the blade and lowering it down. Reaching out, she brushed his cheek. “It's a miracle...out of all I've seen, this you never appeared to me.”

“This me?” Confusion filled Link's face as he recoiled. “What are you talking about?”

The woman tilted her head. “Darling, you mustn't be so distrustful. I only wish to know you better.” She shook her head mournfully. “I want to know your story, all your adventures. You'll tell me, won't you?”

Link said nothing as she slid closer again. “This new world is blessed indeed,” she murmured. “There are so many of you I feel as though my heart will burst. Truly, I'm spoiled for choice. Surely...one won't be missed?”

“What!?” The hero jerked back, but it was too late. The woman snapped her fingers, and everything went black.



Perhaps stifled by anticipation the trip to the final Qliphoth Root proceeded without serious interruption. Enemies stood in their path, but true to Nadia's prediction, Red Team rolled straight through them. Blazermate casually took over any zombies in their way, making them insultingly easy pickings, and the few demons that showed themselves boasted precious little power compared to the caravan of heroes. Nero kept quiet the whole time, thinking as he sat in Nico's passenger seat, only occasionally raising the Blue Rose to blast a hapless enemy. With Raidou atop his spider demon taking a majority of the potshots, and Blazermate's sentry sitting on top of the van itself, he didn't need to devote much brain power to anything aside from the world's predicament. Thirteen regions, thirteen bosses, one almighty overlord. It still hurt to think about an entity that could wipe away and reshape one world, let alone all worlds. Thinking reasonably, how could they ever oppose such a threat?

Did the answer lay in his uncle-turned-aunt, Dante? Just two fusions plus her former power made her strong enough to take on an entire team of heroes, some of whom had already felled region bosses, without fighting even close to seriously. Some of the heroes bore new features too, like Bowser, who now looked like a cheesy horror movie monster. Both seemed to be lucky in that their minds didn't change much, but how long would that hold? How many souls could coalesce into one? What were the repercussions? There were so many questions that he couldn't even begin to answer. Luckily people didn't really look to him for guidance, but he still felt responsible. Dante was about as far as it got from a leader, and Bowser...? Try as he might, Nero couldn't help but worry. Just what had he gotten into?

Some time later, the Minotaurus and its escort came to a stop in front of the library. Sprouting from its roof was the Qliphoth, a root of the unholy tree of twisted flesh. The next step in the heroes' journey lay below. Already, Nero could feel a tinge of cool, dry air, not unlike that which suffused the judgment hall of King Minos. It was a deathly air. He stepped out of the van and pushed shut the door. A gang of heroes stood on the threshold of the unknown, ready to face whatever waited beneath the building. Nero remembered what Nadia told him, her vague description of the entity awaited them should they defeat it. If she told the truth, the campaign might just end here. But was that what she wanted? Could she be trusted? Nero shook his head and took a step forward. Cross that bridge later.

Inside the library they found no immediate trace of their target, but instead a fresh crop of enemies, terrifying in their implications. They lurked in the darkness, hiding in plain sight: the mimics. Taking on the appearance of everyday objects inside, they waited to ambush the heroes at opportune moments, leaping with frightening speed from unexpected angles to viciously rip into the heroes. Progress slowed to a crawl as Red Team quickly switched to a scorched-earth approach, annihilating every book, pencil, and mug in the way. With fewer numbers and wide-ranging abilities the situation might have proved fatal, but the heroes adapted well enough to be able to search the premises. Those confident in their ability to identify and fight mimics went off on their own to speed up the search, inevitably tangling with the creatures as they sought a way down. Eventually someone did find a hidden staircase leading down into the darkness, and with V and Tess on guard up above the rest descended one by one.

The stairs led down, down, down, far below any would-be basement. Soon the presence of alcoves in the walls, laden with bones, told the heroes that they'd descended into catacombs. They did not crawl through pitch blackness, however. They found their path illuminated by ethereal tubes of glowing liquid in perennial motion, like soft, transparent pipes.

Like veins.

Finally the tunnels opened into a yawning, cavernous chamber. Alcoves lined the walls up, up, up, into the darkness where the webbing of veins didn't quite reach, and from the alcoves leered uncountable skulls. The same uncanny light glowed within them, making their gaze seem almost alive as they watched the intruders follow the tangle of veins. In this room, the air itself weighed down on them, heavy and suffocating, utterly devoid of life. An inexplicable dread nibbled at them like so many insects. The veins snaked through the emptiness alongside Qlipthoth tendrils, pumping their light to a singular point. In the center of the vast dark she stood.



A little girl loomed there, pale as ice, adorned with bone. She wore a maid uniform, but from it her bare ribs protruded. Her face showed a slight frown, but her eyes were a vivid crimson that cut through the dark. Within each iris lay half a skull.

Nero quietly moved to Nadia's side and bent to whisper to her. “This it?”

After a brief moment, she nodded. “It must be.” She took a deep breath and stepped forward. “The Skullgirl.”

The girl clasped her hands in front of her, gazing across the assembled heroes half-hidden in darkness. “I was wondering if anyone would come,” she remarked dryly, her voice flat and gentle. “I was not expecting everyone. Here to put me out of my misery, maybe?”

Nadia opened her mouth, but said nothing. She would have wanted to fight the Skullgirl on her own, but it didn't seem like that would be the case. It didn't feel right to challenge her like this. The aftermath would probably be messy. Between them, the devil hunters did not intend to make the first move just yet, despite knowing that this undead needed to be destroyed.

“Or are you here for the Skull Heart?” The girl's words froze Nadia in her tracks. She needed as few people in the know about that as possible, and now the cat was out of the big. Even if she cut in, the others would surely ask questions. She resolved to start the fight the moment one did, but maybe that could still be avoided.

She stepped forward, putting her hands on her hips. “That's right!”

The girl blinked slowly, wearily. “I'm afraid you cannot have it. I have much to do once I tidy up this...demonic root.“ Her listlessness only fomented the tension in the air. Everyone present could sense the power wafting off from her, an egregious malevolence held at bay.

”Yeah it worked out in the end,” Bowser agreed with Blazermate’s assessment of the fight and freeing of two of the demon hunters by her and him. If Dante turned out to be even half as dangerous on their side as she had as an enemy she’d be quite the asset. Bowser hadn’t tussled with the slayer, so he’d have to wait and see how the man shaped up in comparison. Probably fairly well, the dead zone demanded toughness from those who wanted to last more than a few minutes.

”Took a little something out of me to do it though. Not sure what. You felt it too right?” he noted, unable to put an exact claw on the price he’d had to pay to free another but knowing something had been given up nonetheless.

”Also I was never cute! I’m a big bad boss and don’t you forget it!” the king then insisted when Blazer commented on his loss in cuteness ”I can put them away anyway” he added, nestling the tendrils away in their shell apertures for a moment before re-deploying them, ”Just don’t wanna while we’re still in this place. Feels like nowhere is safe”

The king’s words might have been true, but the rest of their trip towards the root’s housing managed to be the closest to safe they’d had in the zone with how uneventful it was. Oh there where foes to be crushed, but compared to the initial gauntlet they were smallfry. The Flood would roll over them before too long, just as the Red team where now. It was still tense, there was always the worry that the next block might reveal some new actually dangerous monstrosity or another, but in the end they reached the library into which the roots of the great tree were burrowing into without any notable opposition.

”THIS IT, HUH? ALRIGHT, LET’S GET STARTED!” Bowser declared, advancing on the doors at the head of the group and dramatically kicking them open to find a very nondescript and surprisingly empty library within. ”RAAAA-huh?” The king had had his claws and tentacles barred as he entered, ready for whatever gauntlet was going to stand between them and the mini boss, but he was understandably confused by the emptiness of the library

”There’s... nothing?” he took a look about, but found nothing. No demonic warriors. No alien locusts. Not even the ubiquitous zombies were found within, which should have been suspicious, and likely was of the wiser members of the party. Bowser, however, simply mentally declared victory and started stomping through the room towards the closest staircase. He got about four meters before he got attacked by a black thing that had, as far as the king was concerned, come out of nowhere.

The four legged spindly mass of ooze or darkness or something that had been pretending to be a coffee cup grappled his face, and tried to stab out his eyes. The king shut his eyes reflexively and his scaled eyelids prevented the loss of his ocular orbs, but in his resulting blind panic he stumbled backwards, smashing ass backwards into a bookcase and got swarmed by book disguised mimics. Faced with an unfamiliar shaped foe covered in heavy natural armor, the mimics were just a moment too slow to find the king’s new vulnerable ears that the tentacruel tentacles could get to work. Engaging in tentacle vs tentacle combat the larger and venomous cruel tentacles rapidly prevailed and cleared the king’s face, stabbing, crushing and grappling the mimics in a flurry of action. They were going to get to work on the rest when the remaining mimics scattered, scampering way into the carnage the king had kicked up in his blind panic and rage. They almost immediately vanished from sight, masked by the small fires Bbowser had lit when he’d used firebreath to stop one of the mimics from stabbing him in the mouth. The Mimics hadn't given up, even if endless aggression had not been in their nature like all but the free never could. They were still out there in the mess, along with likely countless more their kind. Watching. Waiting. Ready it strike at a moment of weakness.

”WHAT WAS THAT!” Bowser roared, glancing around in agitated alarm at the suddenly empty seeming room, his nerves frayed and his body royally scratched up.

After the shock had worn off, the situation had been explained and Bowser had been told that no, they couldn't just burn the building down and hope that dealt with the situation, the king begrudgingly took point on the cleansing of the building. Flame breath incinerated countless volumes, an act that many would consider a travesty, along with masses of stationary and other library supplies as Bowser cleared out rooms and then used his shoulder mounted water cannons to douse the flames. It was slow and monotonous work, made even slower by having to wait out the smoke clouds it created, but it cleared safe zones for those who didn't feel up to risking it in the prop hunt nightmare alone to stay safely inside, and provided launching off points for those who dared to face up to the challenge of hunting for the last miniboss.

After what seemed like an eternity someone found a hidden way down and Bowser gladly abandoned the latest room he was slashing and burning to join the team as they descended into the dark. Down and down and further down still they descended following the roots of the great vile tree even as its own tendrils met and interwoven with veins of neon blue liquid stretching up out of the depths.

At the source of the glowing pipes and at the end of the roots, in a chamber filled with skulls who’s eyes glowed with undeath and surrounded by accursed power they found her. She was a monster, a lich, a mockery of life, an instrument of ruin and entropy. She was also a cursed little girl.

”What happened to you kid?” Bowser asked with unusual softness, but even he could piece together the basics from the Skullgirl and Nadia’s brief back and forth. The Skull heart had happened to her and, whatever it was, Nadia had come to claim it.

”We are not killing a kid,” Bowser growled at Nadia and then with his mind ticking in overdrive, he tried to convince them as to why they wouldn't need to ”She said she’s going to “clean up” the root, WHICH IS ONE OF THOSE MET-A-FOR THINGS RIGHT? WHEN YOU SAID 'CLEAN UP' YOU MEAN DESTROY RIGHT? LIKE ITS A MAID JOKE OR THEME THING NOT A ‘I’M GOING TO DUST THE DEMON ROOTS AND MAKE THEM NICE AND CLEAN’ THING” he shouted the question before going back to loudly whispering to the red team

”Which means we don't have to kill her to get the boss. Plus, we’ve got Kamek and the Master of Masters and a bunch of other people who are smart at magic on our side out there and Peach can do this spirit manipulation thing now so if you really want this skullheart thing we can get it out of her somehow. I’ve had plenty of evil artifacts in me, heroes always find a way to get them out,” He insisted, a lifetime of being thwarted being turned to hopeless optimism in the dark pit they found themselves.

"Oh, right, an airship. Heh." That was a good suggestion. It wasn't like the Cadet was unfamiliar with airships, but there was just so much ocean around that he hadn't even thought of them. Although he wondered if an airship would be able to weather the literal storms over their destination. Kamek's off-hand suggestion of giant birds was pretty intriguing alternative, but it seemed to be shot down immediately.

As the group made their way to the airship landing, they all chatted about their theories. Frankly, the Cadet himself had no clue. Magic was not even a thing where he was from, so what he knew of all that supernatural stuff was limited to what he'd experienced in the world of light. "Evil dimensions," "curses and spells" ... not really in his wheelhouse. Giant monsters yes, spooky ghost ships no.

"I'm sure we'll figure it out," he said, not letting his lack of mystical know-how bring him down. "And once we do, just point me in the culprit's direction!" He finished off his remark by swinging his hand in a chopping motion. At his feet, BB squealed loudly in approval.

Fortunately there were others ways in which the Cadet could help out: manual labor! He was pretty damn strong, so lugging a bunch of treasure back to Limsa would be a piece of cake.

"I'll tag along!" he volunteered, already heading in the same direction was Junior and Sakura. "I wanted to check on something back in Lumbridge anyway. Oh, and--" he turned back towards the rest of the group. "I vote for Shippy by the way. That thing was cool! Maybe it can even eat spirits like whatever they got up in the hatchery?" It was an outlandish suggestion, but even he hadn't missed the way Peach and the others looked at the navy girls and how easy they could fly across the water. Getting one of their spirits would be morally questionable, and buying some winged monster and fusing with it might produce some weird results - but maybe feeding it to Shippy might make it into an airship!

Not dawdling any longer, Cadet hurried after the other two and through the freshly painted portal courtesy of the koopa prince. Once back in Lumbridge, he bid them to go on ahead. "I'll meet you guys there, I'm just gonna check in with the smithy sisters first."

Ace Cadet made his way through the town, smiling and waving to all of the familiar faces. BB was faithfully at his heels. I guess that merchant wasn't kidding about these little guys following you around, huh? He couldn't help but make a quick detour to the Guild Hall to check in with the Guildmarm, maybe show the little behemoth off to her. Despite the "guild master" being gone, or maybe because he was gone, she was busier than ever unfortunately.

The forge was also seeing some business, and when the Cadet entered the establishment the middle sister Ramona was hard at work on a piece like she so often was. Though she didn't raise her head from the task at hand, Ramona noticed him come in and greeted the man with a grin.

"Hey, a hero returns! How's the prince doing?"

"Prince...? Oh, Euden?"

"Yeah. I'm sure you're all busy but it's been a while and Renee was getting worried."

"Um, who was getting worried?" The aforementioned Renee came out from one of their back rooms, giving her sister a look. The youngest smithy turned her attention to the Cadet, clearly eager to hear what he had to say about their prince either way.

"He's fine! We all split up but if I see him again I'll tell him to come say hi. Or better, you guys should come visit that city! It's so radalos!"

The siblings rolled their eyes, but they were glad to hear that Euden was well. Ramona finished shaping the piece she'd been hammering at and passed it off to Renee, who carefully took it into the room she'd come out from to begin the cooling process.

"So, you picking up? You wanna see what we made out of those tails, right?"

"Yes!" the Cadet chirped enthusiastically. Seeing the beautiful weapons and armor the craftsmen came up with was pretty much his favorite part of being a hunter. Well, the action was fun too, and helping people was great... but the gear though. His eyes were practically sparkling as Ramona laughed and went about collecting his commissions.

"Thanks for the extra materials you dropped off last time by the way, they went a long way," Ramona said as she sorted through the finished pieces. With protective clothes covering the items to differentiate them from the others for sale, Ramona laid out three on the counter. With no ceremony she unveiled the first item, an intricate looking hammer. It was unique and expertly crafted, but...

"Why's it so small?"

Ramona balked. "What do you mean?"

"It's a hammer meant for fighting, right? It looks amazing! But shouldn't it be like..." the hunter trailed off and spread his arms apart until they were practically stretched as far as they could go. "...???"

The blonde blacksmith stared at him for a few seconds before she scoffed. "Not everyone is used to those giant things. In fact you're probably the outlier. Trust me, that hammer is really strong. If you don't want it I'm sure we could make a pretty penny with it."

"Wait, I didn't say I didn't want it!" the Cadet said quickly, bringing his arms down abandoning that argument. He picked up the hammer and admired it up close. It was really cool, even if it was small. It fit snugly in the waist belt of his armor.

Ramona unveiled the remaining two items at once, one being a draconic looking headpiece and the other a beautifully dark long sword. The Cadet's eyes were drawn to the sword, and a giggle came from the other side of the room as he ogled it.

"Want to upgrade?" The voice belonging to the eldest sister Rena asked. She nodded at the scythe strapped to the Cadet's back. "Unless you think you can carry all that with you, we'd be glad to take that scythe off your hands."

It's not that I can't carry it all, but... the Cadet thought, furrowing his brows. He was physically strong enough to carry them all - every weapon he had right now were relatively lightweight compared to, say, a great sword or a chargeblade. However, carrying all of it and whatever else he came across would start to get cumbersome quickly. He drew the dark scythe from his back, looking over the blade. It was a really cool weapon, but that long sword on the table was magnificent. Man, I really need to get a storage place. Maybe they'll give me a permanent room at the Alcamoth? Until then... "Yeah, let's do it."


Thanking the sisters for their work and trading his Dark Scythe for the Nightsky Ripper, the Cadet and his minion went to join Junior and Sakura back at Peach's Castle. He stepped through the portal and made his way through the building, finding the treasury pretty easily thanks to the noise being made inside. He arrived just after the cart did, and he had to take a moment to admire the literal piles of treasure.

"Whoooa, this is like Kulve Taroth levels of gold," he commented. Welp, better get started. The Cadet dutifully grabbed the remaining burlap sacks and started shoveling gold into them. Thank goodness he downsized somewhat, the unwieldy shape of his previous longsword would have made throwing the bags over his shoulder very uncomfortable. BB snuffled around, eventually making his way onto the cart with a single golden ring hooked around one horn. He sat down in the treasure pile that was loaded onto the cart already and didn't look like he'd be moving any time soon.

At Sakura's comment, the Cadet chuckled. "I'm pretty strong too," he said, clearing downplaying himself. He had no doubt that Sakura was strong even though he hadn't gotten a chance to see her in action yet - she wore a skirt and short sleeves so her muscles were pretty clear to see. "We should have an arm wrestling contest some time!" he suggested, hefting a few of the bags and getting ready to venture back. "You in, Junior?"

---

The unfortunate news that the group lacked anyone experienced with healing had Primrose sighing. She'd foolishly assumed that with such a large and diverse group that at least one would be, but that was not the case. The dancer pulled out her dagger and reached down, cutting some of the fabric from the edge of her cloak away and into strips. Before Sectonia dismissed her antlions, Primrose crouched down beside one to collect some ice from it. The ice melted quickly in the desert heat, but that was what she wanted. She used the water to wash her wounds before she wrapped them as best she could, missing the firm but gentle touch of an experienced caregiver like that of Alfyn, or the immediate pain relief a cleric like Ophilia could provide.

Before her thoughts got anymore wistful, Primrose regarded her new companions. They were so different from the ones she'd come to know back in Orsterra... and getting even more different, she thought, watching Midna's transformation with a single eyebrow raised. It was certainly interesting to see that process firsthand. It gave Primrose the slightest bit of pause as she thought about her own plans to get stronger, but she buried that hesitant feeling as soon as it appeared.

Tora approached her, bouncing to get her attention, and Primrose smiled down at him. "Thank you," she said, her voice genuinely grateful. "It's nice to have someone appreciate the art for what it is." Primrose enjoyed dancing even now, in spite of the way she was brought into it. She was good at it too.

She let Tora take the Thunderblight spirit, and didn't ask about "Din," though she kept the name tucked away in her mind. She presumed that Din was another ally of theirs, that perhaps she'd meet one day.

As Tora went off to fiddle with Poppi, Primrose looked out across the desert. Those kids were all talking about a pyramid, some more animatedly than others, and Primrose thought she heard a few mentions of a "her" sprinkled into their conversation. Are they looking for someone? Attacking the camel was already a detour, even though it proved useful transport, but Primrose couldn't begrudge another detour if it was a chance to find a missing loved one. That would be cruel. She was silently glad when Midna announced that she was navigating the beast in the pyramid's direction. Midna herself came over soon enough, teasing just before offering some useful information.

"I suppose so," she agreed with a smirk. Another time she might have liked to play around with the imp a little more, but Midna's mention of recovery hearts and treasure chests piqued Primrose's interests. "As lovely as that sounds, I think I'll take the first option," she said. Before leaving she nodded to Sectonia, heeding her advice. 'Don't eat the tomatoes with an 'M' on them.'

The dancer raised a hand in farewell as she left the group, making her way into the belly of Naboris.

The inside was made of the same ceramic-like material as the rest of the beast, not that that came as a surprise. There were windows, ramps, and spirals all around. In some places there were small dark obelisks similar to the one Midna used to steer the creature, and Primrose wondered what they could be for. There was a shallow, rectangular indent at the base of them. Curious... Finding no way to interact with them, she moved on. Primrose explored a little more, walking up and down ramp and around corners, trying not to get turned around but the strangeness of the interior. Eventually she found the containers Midna must have been talking about. She approached it and touched the lid gingerly. Nothing seemed unusual, save for the chest's glowing... so she lifted the lid, finding a small bundle of arrows inside.

"..." Primrose didn't recall anyone in their group using a bow. Still, she took the arrows with her. The heads of them were wrapped in something that might be useful. She moved on, spotting a few more chests that she knew she'd never be able to reach on her own. Chests tucked away or on the ceiling, even one dangling from a rope over the desert at the tail end of the machine. This is quite the perplexing place, the dancer thought as she continued exploring. She'd have to tell the others to collect the other things she'd missed, especially those of the group that could fly.

In the end Primrose was only able to open one other chest, the rest out of her reach. She was rewarded with topaz for her troubles, and on her way back she visited one last room, a rather large one off of what she expected was the main chamber of Naboris. Inside, at the very center, was something suspiciously heart-shaped. The recovery heart? Primrose went over to it, and when she took it and held it in her hands the heart container shattered, releasing whatever magic made it work into the room. Instantly the sting of the cuts on her arms faded away. Primrose blinked. It broke... I didn't think I was that rough with it. With the pain of her injuries gone, she unwrapped her makeshift bandages and saw that, indeed, her wounds were healed. Recovery heart indeed.

Primrose emerged from the innards of Naboris just as the machine was setting down. It looked like they'd reached their destination.

"There are still quite a few containers down there," Primrose mentioned, showing off the arrows she'd found (though she kept the topaz for herself). If any of the more nimble or flight capable among them wanted, they could clean out the beast before they left it. As for whether to help the thieves or not, and how do so...

"It seems like they're looking for a lost friend," Primrose said. She had no concrete proof that what she said was true, but she felt that it was. "I'd like to help them."

However... The dancer looked out across the lake at the battle going on, too hard to make out from where they were with normal human eyes. She wondered if those people would stop to attack the giant machine when they were already attacking each other. Even if they did attack, the great camel had already proved very resilient. Even when they'd taken it down earlier, it seemed none the worse for wear. Plus, moving through a battlefield could be very dangerous... on the flip side, like Joker mentioned, it could also be an easy way to pick up spirits. Primrose could be sneaky, stealthy even, but she was no thief or assassin. Being a dancer, she was better at standing out, not blending in... but if the fighters across the lake were focused on each other's colors, it might still be possible.

"Hm. A tough decision." Primrose mulled over it a few moments longer, closing her eyes and crossing her arms. "Perhaps getting as close as possible in the construct is best."

Ultimately, it was up to the group as a whole, but Primrose decided to cast her vote for stomping through the middle of the fight on the machine. They would be a walking target, yes, but she thought it would be relatively safer than going on foot. Perhaps once they were finished inside they could still go about collecting any fallen fighters too.

The battle was just beginning. No, not just a meagre battle, but a full-fronted war. A Patiotric War to drive out the neferious forces of BLU away from the Point in the middle of the desert battlefield, a clash of forces of red and blue. It was intoxicating! The Heavy bursts out in his loud, bass tone of laughter, surely echoing across the entire map and some distance away towards the pyramid and dunes surrounding them. This was going better than expected, though the Heavy himself rarely expected anything but a good fight. This was good, very good!

Heavy continued his suppressive fire from Sasha the minigun, watching with the greatest of glee at the sight of blue figures in the distance taking cover. "Cowards, baby cowards! Come and get me…" was Heavy's battle taunt, cut off by the next sight of something big coming out of the BLU's exit. A huge man with an even huger shield came ruining Heavy's day, the shield taking up most of his suppressive fire and allowing the members of BLU to continue with their advance. The Knight was right in his damnations. "Da! We must capture Point before big shield man do! Скорее!"

Two mercenaries of BLU were already at the point when Heavy had shouted to the Knight. Time as short, like Heavy's stubby little legs, so he ran as fast as he could fowards towards the enemy. The Soldier and the Assassin. Both focused their fury at the Heavy, who thankfully had been anything but an ordinary man, would have been very dead - Not big surprise! Rockets flew at him like the glorious Katyusha, and tiny Assassin of BLU lashing out at him with her blades. The pain was immense, but not more immense than the Heavy was, causing only medium injuries to the Russian Bear. Some of the rockets found their mark, fewer than the blades of the Assassin, like BLU Demoman, Sniper or Spy had caused him before. "Aawgh! Tiny Dagger Lady will pay!"

Heavy was ready to fight back the Assassin and Soldier as best he could, with a good pair of fistcuffs and possibly some good bite of the Sandwich, when his TEAM became great credit! From the cover of the side burst forth the Knight to mace the Soldier, while the Viking Raider took quick care of the Assassin. Heavy was for a brief second sad he would not get the joy of murdering them, but the sadness blew away as soon as it had washed over him. "The Point! Quick, get on Point everyone!"

The BLU Shielf was took quick for Heavy though, taking position on the Point. Worst of all he was making quick work of the Knight with too much of a mouth and not enough fist, according to Heavy at least. Breathing heavily and having dropped Sasha for his expected fight with other blues, Heavy was ready to face a rather painful demise at the hands of the Shield, only taunting him with a "It is GOOD day to DIE!"

That death never came, however, as Heavy felt a brief but sharp pain in his back. So brief in fact that it could only mean one thing. Heavy grinned broadly as he felt the healing power flow through him and watching his wounds bind themselves before his very eyes. His best friend in the whole world had just entered the battle. "Medic! You are great doctor! Let us kill BLU now!" Heavy shouted with morbid joy, picking back up Sasha and advancing on the Point.

It was time to do some heavy lifting.

The Point was slowly but surely turning red as Heavy and Medic stoon on it, revealing the RED logo emitted from the Point holographically. Soon the dynamic duo were accompanied with Knight and Raider, giving Heavy confidence that this match would be a victory for RED once again! "Good! Heavy was afraid this would be boring match." Heavy quiped back at the spooked Knight, feeling the weight of Sasha in his hands and the confidence in his fellow red team mates by his side. Outnumbered and surrounded? Heavy had to grin and chuckle. A deep, Russian, manly chuckle.

"They are no match for us! Tiny, baby men need more numbers than us to fight. HAHAHAHA!"

The sight of the Spartan charging into Shield's…well, shield, and Inkling dashing past and under the enemy team with an ink bomb. She reminded Heavy very much of his nemesis Scout. Friendemy? Rival? Something along those lines, if Heavy could remember who Scout was. GAH! Why were these strange thoughts so intrusive today? Heavy was there to fight, not think! Heavy shook the thoughts out of his head, turning to the Medic at the sight of a wounded Inkling. "Medic, care for Inkling! I have pain to give team BLU…"

An anger was brewing inside of Heavy. One not just brought forth by the slaying of two of their comrades, but by a primal anger that had rested in Heavy for many years. This anger he was about to unleash upon his enemies, both with lead and fists. "DIE COWARDS!" Heavy shouted at the top of his lungs, wirling up Sasha and unleashing a fury of lead down range at the Assassin who had made her presence known dashing back and forth in an attempt to unsmart the REDs.

It was too bad Heavy had yet to meet anyone able to outsmart bullet.

The gunfire surrounded the Assassin, yet was unable to ultimately kill her outright. Instead the cloak'n'dagger figure as forced to take cover behind an obelisk. Good enough, as Heavy then turned his fury towards the Shield. [b]Clik-Clik-Clik![/] Damned! Out of bullets! Heavy screamed out in anger, dropping Sasha to his feet as the Point turned completely red like BLOOD, charging the Shield. It was time to end this, as more of both teams fell around them. "You, yes YOU! I will squash you like bug!" Heavy taunted the Shield, raising both his fists up in a boxer stance, striking out at his shielded opponent with as much fury as he could muster from his Russian deep.

To the side of the Russian giant and the Shielded brute duking it out, stood the Spartan having taking up the fight with the Assassin. Behind them all still stood Medic, dillegently shooting Inkling with his healing beams after her grivious injuries. It was a bloodbath, nearly literary. Heaving loved it, truly loved it. Throwing his weight behind the next punch after the other, the fight continued around them. The Point was still red, but only for now. The Dwarf rushed at Knight, circling around him faster than any dwarf was supposed to hasten, while the Knight failed to land a crucical blow at his short-heighted enemy. Where the others? The Totem had fallen, defeated on the ground, while the Spartan got the stab in the back that only a true Assassin could inflict. A bloodbath indeed. How would this end?

Heavy's punches struck time and time again at the shield of Shield, each blow causing the fellow big man to kneel more and more. One last blow was needed to get the Shield knocked out, and it was Heavy's great wish to grant. After a series of blows from his massive fists, Heavy grabbed the side of the shield and pulled it towards him, causing it to flip enough for Heavy to lock eyes with Shield. Heavy grinned and laughed his usual laugh, showing his teeth to the soon dead baby man. "Nighty night, baby shield man!" With one last big punch, Heavy's fist flew straight at Shield's face, knocking the man back quite the distance, shield still held firmly in the man's hand. Whether the man was dead or simply knocked out was up for grabs, but for now there was only one big man left standing out in the field.

"RUN! RUN, I am coming for you all!"

”I’m not slow… ok fine I probably am, those ladies were quite nippy” Kamek said when Peach complained about the lack of fast fliers to chase after the ship girls. Neither Kamek nor Jr’s aerial transport devices were built to be the fastest in the land, just fast enough that it beat platforming around the mushroom kingdom.

After that the remaining heroes split up to investigate their Peach given task, with the airships being the one that was given to Kamek.

Unfortunately it turned out when Kamek had been completely wrong when he had said to Jr that they wouldn’t need the money yet. Not having cash on hand made it very difficult to get the time of day from prospective airship captains and crews, let alone begin discussing hiring their services or buying their ships for adventuring purposes. It seemed the summary of the situation they’d gotten on arrival had been entirely accurate. No one making money hand over fist running jobs for the merchants was the least bit interested in their dangerous quest.

This left Kamek with the bottom of the barrel, and down there he found a flying machine that was practically a flying van. While the ship itself turned out to be pretty unsuitable for racing thoughts storms, the owners of the airship turned out to be much more interesting than their transport.

”Oh yes, we’re all upstanding citizens here,” Kamek agreed when Balthier hastily denied any connection to piracy, not so subtly confirming that dealing with former pirates was not going to be an issue because when it came to the likes of Kamek, the pair were in good, or rather villainous, company.

”I appreciate you being upfront about the risks involved in using your craft like we need to,” he said after as he examined the machine and mulled it over and then decided that he didn’t need to decide quite yet. Indeed it would be rash to do so. Its not like he could pay anyway.

”My associates are currently looking into a few other possible options, so I’ll need to catch up with them before I commit to anything. I’ll be sure to let you know either way what our decision is by the end of the day,” He assured them, before bidding his farewells and heading back to meet up with the rest of the team so they could review their findings.

---

Over in Peach’s castle Jr’s hand scooping method was replaced by Sakura’s far more sensible methods of transporting the treasure, namly a hand cart and some big old sacks. Jr felt like he was a bank robber stuffing the sack full of gold, which was to him a very fun thing to think about while he worked away at shoving the heavy riches into the bag. The time it took for Sakura to get their new treasure transport gave the Ace enough time to get his trip to Lumbridge over and done with, the hunter returning with a little collection of new gear he’d gotten for his troubles.

The sword and hammer were neat, but his new horned headpiece was the real star in Jr’s opinion ”oh neat. Now you match” he noted, pointing from the horns down to BB’s own. Speaking of the piggo, Jr’s own behemoth managed to look awfully jealous of BB as the pig propped itself up on the gold cart with a new piece of ornamentation added to boot. This was despite Tyrant having been able to run around and play in the piles of gold with Mimi (who’d mostly spent her time surfing coins down piles of treasure) while the team collected their cash.

With everyone ready to go, jr grabbed his own overstuffed bag, hauled it up into his car. Then he jumped up and down on it a few times trying to shove it into the glove box before giving up and using the car (with its go kart wheels deployed) as his own little push cart. Tyrant immediately seized the opportunity and mounted his own gold filled chariot, sticking his nose up at BB’s own despite it being more fit for purpose. Then Mimi sat on his head in-order to use him as her own throne, putting the porker in his place.

”You bet I am” was Jr’s overconfident response to being challenged to arm wrestling, before they started the long hard trip out of the vaults and towards their destination. They picked up a small escort of mercenaries in the foyer, had to physically lift their transport carts for a brief moment in order to go through the paint portal with them, almost got squished from the drop at the other end of the warp, drew a lot of attention and urges to come shopping with their spoils that their escort were forced to shoo off while passing thought he shopping alley and then finally arrived back at the the spot they’d set off from.

As the mercs headed home and the party reassembled Jr flopped down onto the ground to take a load off his tired legs, ”Ok. I get the paper money those loot boxes wanted now, moving that much gold around is the worst!”

---

”I’m afraid the best we can get airship wise is an Atomos, which is functionally a flying delivery van,” Kamek infrared the group once they were mostly back together, ”It’s fast, but it won’t be able to take us through the storm unless we go close to the sea, and if we do it’s weaponless and armor less target for sea monsters,”

”That said, it doesn't need to stay that way. Ace and Peach's comment about feeding spirits to Shippy has me thinking. Even if we can’t buy what we need right now, that doesn't mean we can't get something decent and then upgrade it. Mechanically in the case of the Atomos or spiritually in Shippy’s or the sky hatchery’s case” Kamek hadn’t given up on the sky hatchery like Peach had. In his opinion getting some of the fighters their own personal flying mounts might be useful to let them get into fights rather than being stuck on the deck of some ship or other.

”There was a junkyard back on the islands the casino was on. We could fly it and see if there’s junk there I can use to soup up this titchy airship. If not that then the kart graveyard and whatever's making all those robots might work out instead I guess.” Jr said, interested in the idea but not not entirely convinced they had what the needed to turn the lame sounding Atomos into a storm chasing machine worthy of the Koopa Troop’s airfleet ”Shame we can't just crush spirits and get a compleat airship out of it huh”

”That seems outside the bounds of what they can provide yes, however on a more basic level it might be an option. If we acquire this airship, or avians, or Shippy, or any combination of the above, then we can use those as jumping off points. Roam the seas, gather powerful spirits for fusion or ship parts, and in doing so build ourselves up to a palace where we can face the final gauntlet of the storm. At the very least, if we want to investigate the abyssal fleet we need to get out there somehow and most of our options are likely up to the task of scouting the sea, even if they aren't up to facing the storms quite yet” He summarized.

Much like Premise, Sectonia knew nothing of this 'din' who was apparently a dancer that Tora knew. Although she vaguely recalls someone in Lumbridge being called 'din' but she didn't pay too much attention to that place as it were if it wasn't right in front of her after they denied worshipping her. She gave no indication that she even wanted to touch the thunderblight spirit, so Tora was free to do what he will with it. What fascinated Sectonia more than anything was how he was able to turn such an ugly thing into something that was.. while not beautiful, was a vast improvement while upgrading his mecha girl Poppi. "Hm..." Sectonia said to herself, making note of this mechanical skill. It could be very useful later. She knew Tora was a bit of a mechanic already, but this was the first time she saw him making something ugly into something not ugly, which really impressed her. Although all Tora could see onher face was a bit of mild intrigue. Which was already quite a different expression on her face than normal, so it was probably somewhat noticable.

She was snapped out of this by Premise taking her advice the wrong way about the Maximum Tomato. Sectonia quickly corrected the girl. "I mean don't eat them casually. They are great for healing but they will ruin your figure if you take too many. There are a few in my army that did just that." She said, not elaborating much further than that as she went off with Premise to look for some healing hearts.

After exploring the beast for a bit, Premise managed to find what Midna was talking about, although she got a few other items before getting a healing heart. Sectonia assisted her in looking through the area, able to get to places Premise couldn't. Although much like the dancer, she couldn't find much of use, finding a couple healing hearts but mostly finding odd gears, sprockets, and other metal bits she assumed were there to repair this beast if it ever got damaged as they shared a similar design to the innards of this thing. Still she took them with her and left with Premise, healed up a bit.

Soon the group came to the Lakeside pyramid, where below there was a huge battle going on with various gunfire and the like coming from below. Midna gave the group a couple ideas of how they could progress, and much like Premise, Sectonia suggested that they keep moving with the divine beast here. After all, she pointed out, if the things below attacked it, they could just shoot lightning at them. Although she did suggest that they didn't wade through the exact middle of the conflict below but picked a side instead.

With her suggestion being thrown out there, she flew next to Tora and dropped the Ancient machinery she had found. "Lets see what you can do with this later." She said. While she doubted she could use anything Tora could make form this, her curiosity got the better of her either way.

========================================



Bowser was just as relieved as Blazermate that their little trick stuff worked when it did. Although he commented on how he felt something 'leave' him when he did the friend heart thing. Blazermate, having done it a couple times, said. "Yeah, not sure what that is myself. But its not that much, as long as we save it for the big guys. Not like we'll be friend hearting these zombies." blazermate said, her zombie call bringing in a zombie that just stood there as it was cut down by Dante. "But yeah, I'm not entirely sure myself what its 'draining' from us, but whatever it is, we build it up pretty quickly as we adventure, so it can't be that important right? Its not like its taking away my medaforce or anything."

Soon after as they continued down their path, Bowser commented on Blazermate calling him cute, almost being offended while also showing he could retract the tentacles that made him 'not cute' in her eyes. "Aw, theres nothing wrong with being cute! But I guess in your circumstance it would be 'handsome' But cute sounds better. Can you imagine a lady being handsome? That just doesn't sound right!" Blazermate said, laughing a bit as a few more zombies were cut down as she rode the koopa king. He was right though about keeping the tentacles out, this place wasn't very welcoming at all.

Soon the group came up to some weird library building, needing to pass through it to find the core of the next root. However, this place wasn't all that it seemed. While things came to life to nip at Bowser, spooking him. While that was happening, Blazermate's scan was going haywire as pretty much everything in this building seemed to be alive and be an enemy. "WHY IS EVERYTHING ALIVE?" She said, having a bit of an information overload. Bowser meanwhile was being attacked by one of the mimics, its tentacles clashing with his. "Oh come on! Why did it have to be tentacles. Bowser, I've seen where this can lead... Be careful!" Blazermate said as Bowser was being attacked by one of the mimics, both clashing with their tentacles. Blazermate kept away as best as she could from the things all around them, raising her shield and keeping her beam on Bowser but sadly not having much space to evade due to all of the stuff around. Thankfully these things were annoying Bowser to no end, and he started to torch the place, wiping out a good number of these creepy things down in his fiery rampage. "uuugh. Why tentacles. Why'd they have to have TENTACLES." Blazermate said, as she relied on Bowser and the rest taking care of things, the building slowly burning down and the mimics hating fire. After awhile, they found an entrance that went down deeper towards the root.

Thankful they were away from the tentacles above, descending the stairs down to the part of this root the strange sounds of the mimics and their tentacles burning emanating above they followed the pale 'veins' of blue energy until they came into a large room lined with skulls, bones, and all sorts of nasty stuff. But even with all of that, these blue 'veins' joining at a base, the group ran into... nothing? Well there was one person there, a creepy looking girl in a maid outfit with skeletal bits sticking out in various places. The area itself just looked like undeath itself, and Blazermate could see a weird heart shaped weak point within this girl as if she wasn't even attempting to hide her weak point from the group.

Bowser seemed to have massive reservations about fighting this girl if he had to, not wanting to fight a kid. Funnily enough, Blazermate wasn't much taller than this girl, so her reservations weren't as much as Bowser as she just thought this 'kid' looked like an undead medabot if anything. A really powerful one, but still, they clearly weren't human after all. Still, Bowser's reservations lead to some very intelligent insights from the big guy. "Yeah what Bowser said. Are you going to destroy the root too?" She then listened to Bowser explain his plan, blazermate nodding, joining in on the whispering. "Yeah, that makes sense. Although time will tell if she'll even be friendly. She hasn't attacked us yet, buut... I got a feeling that might change soon." she said, pointing out to Bowser and the rest of the group the skull heart thing discreetly. "Well, the weak point isn't too hidden if we have to fight. And I have a good amount of charge from all the healing on the way here." She kept her healing beam on Bowser and was ready for something to happen, but keeping a neutral stance as she rode the king.

"What do you want to do after you clean the root? Want to help us with the big thing this root is protecting afterwords?" Blazermate wasn't too concerned with this whole 'skull heart' thing. If they came to blows that could be something they worked out afterwords, but it was more important to deal with the dead zone as a whole. Although she knew a certain bee queen who would probably love to have a free 'wish' granted. Although Blazermate highly doubted this object could even grant a wish properly.

@Lugubrious

Geralt nodded to Peach as she gave her advice on where to find somebody he could get answers out of. If the boss was gone, asking the grunts would have to do. Her suggestion of the infirmary was a good one, meant that whoever he got was likely to have at least fought a few of their mysterious enemies, even if they didn't give as good as they got. As of now, anything he could use would be worth the time it took.

Looking around, Geralt grimaced. Some of these...shipgirls...had it rough. Blood-soaked bandages covered a few wounds, though he imagined those were either already mostly healed, or lower priority. Assuming magic was more common with all these worlds mixed up, he'd be shocked if there wasn't at least one or two healers handling this. Homing in on a shipgirl who wasn't horrifically injured, Geralt nodded in greeting.

"Hey there. Name's Geralt. I'm looking for some information about the Abyssal Fleet. How they fight, how they die, what kinds of spirits they leave behind, that sort of thing. Can you help me?" Blunt and to the point. Typical Geralt.

Sakura enjoyed Junior's company. He seemed like a good kid. Kind of reminded her of her little brother. Well, if her little brother wanted to be some kind of supervillain. Sakura wondered if he really had done anything very evil. He didn't look like any of the evil people she knew. Even his dad, Bowser, seemed kind of nice. Compared to someone like M. Bison, who, though she met him only briefly, just gave her evil vibes. Sakura wasn't superstitious like her friend Kei. But if Kei saw Bison, she would say he had a malevolent aura. If that was real...she could definitely feel it.

(No way M. Bison would ever have a kid. Let alone a kid who actually seemed to love him! M. Bison probably kicks puppies in his spare time. That jerk. I'm glad I got to punch that guy in the face a couple times...and then saw him get blown up. Even though he just came back, later. Man, that was a really crazy Winter break.)

The Kasugano girl looked at the big pile of gold. It was a lot of money. More than she had ever seen in one place. For a moment, she wondered if Princess Peach would miss a couple coins. Maybe Mom wouldn't have to worry about the rent so much? The thought passed, and she felt guilty. It was the apocalypse. Peach was willing to spend all this money on their adventures, and saving the world. Including her mom. Stealing from her would be an immoral betrayal. Besides, back home, her fighting career was picking up. Once she started making money, no one would have to worry about that stuff anymore.

Cadet reappeared, and mentioned he was strong, too. He didn't look like a Street Fighter. Then again, many people told her the same thing. Also, he came from a different universe entirely. A medieval one, going from his clothes. "Okay, you're on! Hopefully we get some downtime on the way there!" She agreed, a pep appearing in her step at the thought of a new challenge. She giggled at Junior. She wasn't sure about Cadet, but she was definitely strong than Junior over there. So that one would be easy.

Sakura lugged the gold cart around. The weight wasn't the problem. Much like Cadet experienced with his weapons, it was the actual transportation of the objects that was the problem. Getting the cart and Junior's car through all the portals was very troublesome. It was all clanky and janky. Wobbly and bobbly. Sakura awkwardly followed Junior along with her cart of gold, biting her lower lip.

Eventually though, they were there. The girl gave a few withering stares at people who got too close to her cart. Then she exhaled, rolling her wrist. "Yeah! Where I come from, we wouldn't even need paper money. Peach could just use her debit card." Sakura said. She glanced at her two companions and wondered if they knew what that was.

"It's like, eto, a card? Where, you swipe it, and then, the machine knows how much money you have in your bank account. It's all digital. The numbers on the computer?" The last part of her explanation turned into a question. How did all that work? She never really thought about it that much.

"All the money is just, little numbers on a screen, which they reach and draw out from a computer. I think. But basically it means all the money weighs nothing, it's just a little card you have in your pocket. I had one, but I lost it. Then I got another one but it was stolen. Then my mom didn't want me to get another one until I learned to be more responsible. So when I got my job I- oh, hey, we're here!" Her utterly unhelpful "explanation" came to an end as she picked up the pace.

Now, she was listening to Kamek's plan. It sounded pretty good to her!

"Yes! We'll beat up opponents until we get stronger and stronger! There's no such thing as a shortcut when it comes to getting more powerful. You gotta put the work in, day after day! And when you lose, you learn your lesson, and..." Her enthusiasm faltered. She put a finger to her chin and looked at the ground. "Though, if we lose a battle in our ship, we'll all just die. So losing isn't really an option. Anooo..." She trailed off.

"Well," She giggled nervously. "That's what being a hero is all about, right? The training wheels are off." She concluded with less enthusiasm. A half-hearted smile on her face.

(I hope I do okay in a real fight. The last couple of times, I was with Ryu. He's not around, probably because he let me beat the tar out of him so I could save him. Can I be as brave if I'm not trying to save him?) Sakura thought to herself.

In her haste, Hat Kid missed the conversation Peach and company were having about acquiring a means of air travel as she drifted steadily further out of earshot, then sight. She would be disappointed soon after to find soon after reaching the heights at the outer edge of the city that her Hat would provide her no helpful guidance, as it was pointing directly to the Bottomless Sea. In fairness, it was functioning exactly as it should by generally indicating an objective destination. It just didn’t do her much good in this circumstance as far as finding a good way to get there.

After a second spent grumbling at the realization from atop a freight suspended up high on a winch, Hat Kid figured there was nowhere to go from there but up… literally. Her next move was to reach the highest point in Limsa. She didn’t know what to expect or have much of a plan for when she got there, but she made her two best assumptions about it. One, if nothing else, she would have a good vantage point from which to spot whatever she thought to seek out next. Two, if anything, or anyone else was up there with her, they probably flew to get there (unless they just so happened to be prodigal acrobats like herself).

As the battle went on, Vah Naboris edged closer and closer. Tora took the time to take another look at the machinery Sectonia presented him, and found it just as inscrutable as last time. “This stuff must run on magic, meh,” he muttered, which made Poppi look at him for a moment before turning her attention back to the battlefield growing closer. Her zoom feature allowed her to pick up the specifics of the fight, and she saw the fighters on the glowing red circle all start running toward the blue-coded side of the area.

“Hmm. Maybe fight winding down? Seem like blue side all but gone, red side probably go to finish off. Poppi vote not smash straight through. Since other friends in pyramid, no need rush, and it possible that in making so many angry at once we hit unexpected landmine.”

Tora nodded his head, pleased with his companion's reasoning. “Yes, yes! Poppi smarty circuits fully optimal! Who knows what powers people have, after all. As friends just see, meh, giant walkypon far from impregnable.” Hands on his 'hips', he nodded officiously. “Tora nominate Poppi go say hi! See if find anything useful. If Poppi judge small risk, Midna can just zap anyway, and we get spirits.”

Springing on her heels, Poppi test-fired her boosters, then summoned her Variable Sabre. The sleek red weapon caught the desert sunlight. “Masterpon wish is Poppi command.” After a few more moments, the advance party set out to explore Lakeside.

---

The giant man's bellow gave the Dwarf second thoughts. A moments' time passed as a lull in the battle, RED team having to choose between fortifying their holdings or pressing their advantage, and BLU faced with the decision of recuperating their losses or making another push. The lull came to an abrupt end when the Infiltrator's sniper rifle popped the head of the Assassin as she raced up the stairs behind the Medic to send him off to join the Spartan. Cursing, the Poison took aim at her opposite number with her crossbow, only for the Inkling to plow into her from the side. Just like that, an already bad situation for BLU left the remaining fighters severely outnumbered. “Bloody hell!” the Dwarf exclaimed, turning tail. “I'm not dyin' first game!” He pulled out a grappling hook and zipped away. The Vanguard lacked such movement abilities, however, leaving him at the Heavy's mercy now that the Shield was out of the picture.

No matter how one sliced it, the round was RED's for the taking. Although the Poison ended up getting the better of the Inkling, who toppled over from her toxins after fleeing for a health kit, BLU lacked the manpower to stage a comeback. It wasn't long before the timer ticked down and the announcer's voice rang out across Lakeside. “RED victory!” The sounds of cheers rang out from the loudspeakers on RED's side of the map, while booing echoed from BLU's. Red sparks flew from the REDs' weapons, giving them infinite critical hits to mop up whatever leftover competition they could find. After a short time the noises and crits stopped, and the announcer declared. “Teams scrambling in three minutes! Mission begins in six!”

As if on queue both teams' missing members sprang back into existence. With both gates open, as well as those to the rec center in the back, all could wander the map and get together to their content.

The Dwarf waddled by in a hurry, no doubt headed for the rec center's bar. Team scrambling and the accompanied break happened only a few times a day, so he clearly planned to make the most of it. He ignored the general gathering in the cool ruins, where members of both teams met to exchange friendly banter or angry glares, as the case might be.

The Assassin's steely blue gaze lingered on the Infiltrator, whose helmet hid his reaction. “Lucky shot,” she told him after a moment, which he only chuckled at.

“Hey, shouldn't have tried to style on Heavy same as you did me,” the Spartan told her. “Although, I was kinda worried he'd just let it happen twice.”

Waving his hand, the Infiltrator replied, “Aw, shut up. Everyone knows you need to take out the healer first.” He glanced at the Totem. “Uh, no offense.”

“No, no, it's to be expected. Really, the fact your Medic came late and Poison ended up focusing elsewhere instead pretty much won you the the point,” the Totem reasoned.

The Soldier, sitting alone by the doorway, leaned forward. He pointed to an oddly-shaped building standing rather close to the battlefield. “Hey, what's that camel-shaped thing? That wasn't there before.”



In Sky's Hatchery, Hat Kid found the titular lady herself, grooming her prized warbird Wrench, and all too happy to offer the newly-arrived child a greeting. “Hey there, little missie! Here to take a look at all the critters?” She waved a hand at the hatchery's various denizens. “Help yourself! Even if they look fierce, they're all friendly and hardworking, the best guys 'n gals a humble trainer could ask for.”

As Hat Kid searched, she found a giant parrot named Squawks, a Citrine Carbuncle, a Cute Fishron, a Tropius, a couple more warbirds, several Cheepoofs in a pen, Grandpah, Wiplump, and a crow demon.. That last one did not seem quite as friendly as the others, despite Sky's testimony; its beady eyes fixed the kid with a rather intelligent stare.

---

Geralt's trip to the infirmary quickly gave him a good idea of the sort of damage the mysterious Abyssal Fleet could do to Limsa's navy, and he didn't need to ask a thing. Ordinary wounds really only constituted the tip of the iceberg; some of the heavily-treated wounds endured by these shipgirls could only have come from explosive ordinance, and a savvy Witcher knew teeth marks when he saw them. Some of the bite wounds he witnesses were massive, the best logical guess for the source being a shark of some kind. Just what was the navy -and now his team- up against? He intended to find out.

He identified a target who appeared to be close to good health, likely soon to be discharged. The relative lack of severity of the bite wound on her leg meant she hadn't needed to change out of what could only be her typical attire, eye-catching and atypical as it was. “Yeah, I can tell you. Some kind of stranger, are you? Well, I'm Minneapolis. Pretty near the top when it comes to hunting those Abyssals, so I should know.” She sat up in her bed, sliding to put her back against the wall. “They arere monsters, plain and simple. Many are weak, unworthy prey that sail, relying on numbers. The weak ones look like machines, but the stronger they get, the more they look like us. Pale skin and black metal, more armaments and armor, some skating across the surface like we do. Worst of all are the demons, princesses, and fortresses.”

She crossed her arms. “Er, in terms of fighting, all have guns or cannons, some launch torpedoes, some deploy smaller Abyssals. Most of them have horrible jaws, either on themselves or their rigging, so they love rushing in and ripping us up. They will sink if we damage them enough. Die, like anything else.” She then narrowed her eyes, remembering what Geralt asked earlier. “i do not know know what you mean by spirits, though. They don't leave anything behind. When we kill them they dissolve. All the dust falls in the water and drifts away. No trophies. Just a pretty light show in the waves when it is all over.” She sounded mournful, but her face soon turned to frustration. “No matter how many I hunt, they always come back. The little ones I understand, since they could be mass-produced. But the bosses? So much effort, so many casualties to put them down, and then there they are again. Enough to drive one mad.”

---

After navigating the bounty through rather crowded thoroughfares and past a great many intrigued eyes, the money retrieval team met with Peach once more. Link had yet to return, but those assembled could scarcely afford to wait for him before getting down to business. Ever dependable, Kamek relayed his findings. “Oh, we actually found one? Good thing we didn't trust that fool telling us nobody would play dice,” the princess remarked. Even if the ship couldn't be expected to brave the Bottomless Sea, prospects looked good. Peach didn't want to admit she didn't think of buying an inferior craft and then upgrading it to serve the team's purposes. Darned princess ditziness. The sooner I get more mature and well-traveled spirits in me the better. The fact that she didn't reflexively feel comfortable swearing in her own internal dialogue yet did not escape her.

“Little Hatty went to take a look at the hatchery,” she explained after Kamek mentioned it. She doubted that her team would be better off going with a flying creature. Even with fusion on the table, it would take a lot to get an animal in the shape they needed, unless the hatchery had the Lord of Lightning up there. Geralt would no doubt be back soon, and hopefully whatever info he managed to pick up could serve them on the field trip that would be under way in short order. “Well, let's hurry up pay Mr. Balthier and his partner. We can't afford to miss the chance to collect on this sortie, so the sooner the better.”

She lent her own strength to that of the money-fetchers, and in no time at all the sky pirate found himself burdened with literal wagons of money. “Holy moly! You guys weren't kidding! I guess I should have asked for more,” he joked, nudging Fran. The rabbit-eared warrioress said nothing, her eyes stuck to the gold. “We'll be living large now, that's for sure! Am I ever glad I met you guys. Good luck out there!”

As the heroes left, Fran nudged him back. “Scoundrel. You overvalued that Atomos by a ridiculous degree.”

Balthier laughed her off. “Oh, come on, they had plenty! Besides, with no set value for that coin of theirs, it was gonna be arbitrary anyway!” He watched the last members of Blue Team head off. “Still, those were some interesting folks. Maybe we oughta keep an eye out for 'em once we get some new wings.” He looked over at his companion, who after a moment gave a stiff nod.

Meanwhile, Peach and her crew stood in front of the Atomos. Junior had free reign to climb all over it as he pleased. The princess, meanwhile, clapped a shoulder on Sakura's shoulder. As spirited as the girl seemed, and no doubt was, a hint of insecurity wafted from her that Peach would have liked to see discarded. They faced a daunting mission, to be sure, and maybe Peach ought to be more doubting than she was, but in her mind she held no real qualms about going forward. When the Mario Bros had a job to do, they went for it without hesitation, going and going and going in the right way until it was done. What made her so sure of herself compared to Sakura? Only the road traveled thus far, she realized. “We're already making progress,” she declared, smiling. “It seems like no matter where we go, the path eventually opens up ahead of us. Although I can't say what comes next, I can trust that the way is there for us. Back at the start, when I was the old me, I decided I'd join the heroes on their path, even though I wasn't a fighter or a hero myself. When we got into trouble, they helped me out, and before I even knew it I was standing on my on two feet.”

She looked down at her hand. Where once a dainty white glove covered slender fingers devoid of blemish, she now sported fingerless gloves and calluses. She hadn't made them, but she'd thickened them. She placed the hand on her chest. “Of course, I had this too. This spirit I took. We couldn't have been more different. Most of my competence comes from him, I expect. So that probably shocked me into action. But still. Its okay if we're not flawless.” She watched the others attending to the ship. It wouldn't surprise her one bit if Junior figured out how to pilot it in mere minutes. “As long as we're together, we can be each others' strength. And if the going gets tough, we can change. Become better.” She clapped Sakura again. “So let's do this, huh? If you haven't flown before, this should be interesting.”

From the airship landing the Blue Team members could see a number of figures in the distance, speeding away from the city, leaving white foam in their wake. They could still catch the Sortie. With a short time until departure, Peach considered her options. “Hmm. We probably don't all need to go, since if by some freak accident the ship does go down, we'd all be out with it. We still have lots of gold. Might as well not have it burn a hole in the treasury. We could try to buy Shippy too, give us more options. And Link's still not back either.” She looked around at the assembled members. “Who's staying and going? I think I'd be more inclined to stay, myself.”



Bowser's question provoked no response from Marie, but her eyes told their own story. Even putting aside her deathly power, she looked weary and miserable, haunted even, as though some trauma robbed her of both inner peace and the ability to sleep and left her hollow. His insistence that the group not kill her, which elicited a dubious look from a few of them, did seem to make her clasp her hands. “It should be obvious, but I am a mere child no longer. Every day my humanity falls further and further into the past, but before it fades completely, I will at least have my revenge...” As the Koopa King rambled she turned and fixed a baleful glare on the darkness behind her. A few hundred feet away stood the base of the Qliphoth root, heavily scared but by no means compromised. More surprising were the ranks and ranks of skeletons surrounding it, attacking its flesh with unrelenting furor. They swung weapons if they wielded them, scratched with fingers and teeth if they did not, and if those broke they bashed their skulls and shoulders until they too shattered to dust. Yet for all their savagery they had a long way to go.

When Bowser winded down, she released a rattling sigh before turning back to confirm his and Blazermate's question about her intentions. “Although this cursed tree has trapped me here for months, I will be free. I will destroy the Medicis, whether it takes me days to get out of here, or weeks...”

Nero's eyebrows went up. A certain matter still sticking to his mind made the prospect of waiting this miniboss out something of an issue. “We don't even have one day, let alone weeks,” he told the group. Realizing not everyone here knew about his surprise encounter, he quickly relayed what he'd learned from the daredevil porter. “There's a man making some sort of delivery. Or maybe he's already done. But it's got a timer, and only hours on it. When time runs out, the entire city's gonna disappear. At least, that's what he told me.”

Nadia, however, was busy hissing urgent at Bowser. “Shut! Shut up about the Skull Heart!”

The new information coming to Marie bade her face harden. “So, I'm on borrowed time? That is troublesome news. As for the Skull Heart, need I remind you, I will not be parting with it. Like it or not, I need its power.” She took a deep, hollow breath. The dead air whistled through her ribs. The ground began to shake. The heroes readied themselves. But not for what happened next.

“And evidently, I'll need yours.”

With a monumental crack the catacombs themselves ripped apart. Rumbling strong enough to throw the average hero to the floor permeated the entire structure as rubble rained down from above and light welled up from below. The floor started to fall away.

“Fall, and accept a peaceful end,” Marie warned them as she floated upward. “Or rise, and meet death face to face. Either way, your hour has come.”

Veins wove through the air in droves, forcing the heroes to either climb upward and brave the deadly deluge or plummet into the unknown below. Nadia wasted no time in beginning the ascent, determined to beat everyone else to the punch and secure what she came for. Her catlike nimbleness and reflexes sped her on her way, gaining distance even on the likes of Nero and Dante. Even as she raced to her goal, however, doubts ate at her. Everything that Marie said -and didn't say- about her situation made wishing on the Skull Heart seem more and more like a bad idea, all of a sudden. It seemed obvious that she'd used it herself to wish for the power to take revenge on people who'd wronged her. While she no doubt gained just that, Nadia couldn't help but wonder—just what did she lose in the bargain?

After narrowly avoiding a falling chunk of rock that must have weighed a couple tons, Nadia spotted the dark sky, and soon reached the 'floor', a near-solid platform of interwoven veins that pulsed with the unnerving power. Around them floated the ruins of the library. She pushed herself through and stood alone before the Skullgirl.



Marie stared down at her from where she floated. “You're a feral from my world. And you know a thing or two about the Skull Heart. Yet still you're here. What could drive you so badly that you'd still seek a wish from it, after seeing what has become of me?”

Snarling, Nadia hoped nobody heard. “My family. We were butchered together, but I live. They were good people, and their deaths unjust. I'm gonna bring them back.”

Marie tilted her head. She watched as other heroes appeared, pushing up through the floor. “Take my place, and I'm certain you'll be able to. But I will spare you such a fate.” Myriad skulls floated around her, and bony vacuum cleaner materialized in her hands. “You all dare challenge me? You'll see how weak you are...” Holding out a hand, her eyes flashed open, flaring crimson. “Go forth!”

Skulls shot through the air, with gnashing teeth and gouging hours, to smash the heroes. A great many undead rose from the floor, mostly skeletons but others as well, some sticking around to fight, some appearing for just a moment to attack. They wielded all sorts of weapons, from cutlasses and pickaxes to tommy guns and assault rifles. The heroes found themselves surrounded by the skeletons of humans, animals, giants, and more. In the middle of it all loomed the Skullgirl, ready and waiting.

”Huh. Yeah that would be even easier… Wouldn’t you need a whole load of computers for that though?” Jr said in response to Sakura’s story/anecdote/explanation of what credit cards were. The technology levels were rather all over the place back in Jr’s world, so it really wasn't ready for credit cards in general and it certainly wouldn’t work in the likes of the mushroom and koopa kingdoms. Sakura’s muddled comment managed to be entertaining at the very least.

All things considered, Jr had to admit he kind of liked the teen, she’d been fun so far, so he wasn't quite as cantankerous as he could have been when Kamek told her that ”Between myself, my minions and the young master’s clown car I think we’d be able to trundle back to the city or to shore if we survived the crash. It wouldn’t be an easy trip, but we do have an escape route should things go belly up” when she worried about what would happen if their ship went down, and the process offering up Jr’s help in transporting the ground locked humans if they, or more likely he, crashed their new airship.

”We’re not gonna crash anyway, because I’ll be flying this ship and I’m the best! Now let’s quit standing around talking about it and go get this thing. I wanna see it!” he insisted. The team didn’t need much prompting, they didn't have many other options after all, and so they were soon on their way.

With Peach and Kamek’s toadies lending a hand the last leg of their trip went far smoother than the slog it had taken to rejoin the group, and so in short order they’d purchased for their new ship and jr got to give it a complete once over.



”I thought you said it was a van! This is way bigger than a van!” he yelled down as he hovered around the ship, taking it all in.

”Well comparatively it is” Kamek replied, and it was true. The other ships in the yard dwarfed it in size, sleekness, armor and in some cases weaponry. Despite this it was still a decent size, comparable with some of the troops smaller airships. There would be no issue in fitting the squad inside, and indeed they could probably fit a small selection of smaller one person vehicles or mounts inside of the vehicles hold if they could get them if they wanted to make it into a carrier. Or a tone of gold, mercenaries or anything really. The ship might not be fit for challenging the bottomless depths, but it would be a massive boon to the heroes' operations should it survive the ordeals of the ocean, ”It’s weak and unarmed but its fast. And no, the blades on the side do not count as weapons please do no try and ram something with them”

”Boo! You're no fun. But whatever that's fine. We can still strap some weapons to it. Maybe a big cannon in the hold? Cutt of the blades and put robot arms there? Or build turrets on the deck. Shame Blazermate isn’t here that sentry would be super useful right now.” Jr said, buzzing to and fro, drawing up plans in his mind on how to turn the cargo hauler into something more suitable for their purposes.

”I’m not sure we have time to fix it up if we want to catch this sortie? It should be a scouting mission anyway. Observe, maybe get involved if we can safely, but the main point would need to be investigation,” Kamek said, outlining what he thought their goal should be ”I’ll be coming along in case things do go sour and also to take a look at this abyssal feet myself. The rest of you should consider whether you think you’ll be interested in observing or will be useful in a fight going on over the ocean when considering whether you want to come or not. Peach might not be quite as kidnappable as she once was, but I’m sure she’d still appreciate an escort around town.”

”Fine by me, coz I really wanna take this thing out for a spin now! See you inside!” Jr said, before going for the bridge, flying his car up behind the back of the top mounted bridge and entering via a back door. Kamek followed suit, while anyone who’d want to join them would need to go through the large front mounted cargo doors and then use a ladder found inside the spacious hold to climb up into the bridge from below. Inside they’d find jr who, after finding the pilot's seat (a rather ragged swivel chair affair bolted to the floor) too low for his young body had shoved his clown car into it to use as a booster-seat so he could reach the controls and was in the middle of fiddling with them. His minions, Mimi and Tyrant, were having an explore of the interior, the baby behemoth running around sniffing at everything while Mimi roamed around the controls and windowsill of the ship’s windshield, curious eyes taking everything in, inside and out.

Kamek meanwhile had taken a short look around the living quarters found between the bridge proper and the rear entrance, finding it stripped bare of whatever its former owners had kept there baring a rather old looking bed, but promptly sat himself in one of the passenger seats found behind the pilot's chair once he saw jr had gone straight for the controls.

”I suggest you all strap in,” he said to anyone who had joined them as he buckled himself in for the ride ”That goes for you too young master. Also I don’t suppose you’ve found a manual for-” he was saying when jr suddenly announced ”Found it!” before hammering a button on the control surface. The ship roared to life, whatever fantastical sorceries that powered it surging through its pipes and awakening the humble cargo carrier from its slumber.

”Ahahaha, listen to that!” jr cheered as the engines came online behind them, humming a song of primed potential and a yearning for the sea air.

”Now lets see, how does this thing work,” Jr asked himself before he jerked the controls, causing Kamek gripped the armrests of his chair in alarm as the ship lurched up off its ski like landing gears and into the air, before it began to wobble around chaotically above its landing spot for a painfully long series of moments while Jr got a feel for what he was doing. Unlike some, Tyrant and Mimi spent the whole time having a blast, Tyrant running amuck all over the cabin while Mimi was squeaking away happily as she slid back and forth on the dashboard.

”Young master, I’m quite sure there were better ways to learn how to fly” Kamek said, sounding rather queasy, once it was all over.

”Maybe, but none as fun. Now let’s see what this puppy can really do!” Jr said, sliding the controls forwards and pulling out of the airship hangar and hovering around the city with a fair bit more grace than he should have been able to manage after only a couple moments of practice.

”Now lets see, where are those.. Ah ha! There’s the girls” Jr said, after having a quick scan of the horizon to find the fleet of ship-girls heading out to battle the abyssal fleet. With their goal in sight, there was little to do but hit the gas, and when Jr did the Atomos lived up to its sale’s pitch. It was small, unarmored and utterly defenseless, but it had traded all those for speed, and that it most certainly had in bucket-loads. The little carrier raced through the ocean skies after the ship girls while jr cheered ”Look at it go! Hauling all that gold was so worth it!”

The collective efforts of the ground force paid off in short order before more lightning could be called down on them, which Fox was dangerously close to suffering on foot. He was saved having to make a snap decision to aim-dodge the bombardment with a closely timed dash or try to take it with his shield--the latter of which he was almost certain would fail if hazarded--and clearing the Beast’s underside as its mass descended was easy enough with or without Morgana’s help. He would still accept a ride regardless, jumping aboard mid-sprint for the round trip back to Naboris. Boarding the creature was apparently as simple as taking the conveniently placed ramp at its side, whereupon it began rising once more to its feet. It was as if the Beast practically beckoned them aboard.

Within the Beast, a battle waged in the central chamber, with a great warrior woman and her dark, ghastly, phantasmal counterpart gaining the upper hand on those that had entered before. Fox was late to answer her on her call-out thanks to the Thunderblight blitzing its way to the ground floor to meet them all with a rapid assault, and took a hit he wasn’t quite prepared for. To say the least it was astonishing to witness up close the speed at which the phantom covered so much ground to reach them, though they now knew to expect it. After another round or two, Fox noticed that the creature had a tell for when it rushed; it tended to gently sway into its takeoff. Using this new insight, and his own matching movement technique, he evasively led the monstrosity even further away from its ally while he and his own picked it apart. Fox eventually managed to place a solid string of shots directly into its singular eye that, despite their low power, stunned the Thunderblight long enough to bring it down.

From there the Phantom Thieves made good on the opening afforded to them, capitalizing in spectacular fashion as they ripped through the Thunderblight in streaks of sharp shadow hitting it from every angle. Mona, who led the Thieves’ finishing assault, emerged from the battle-haze after dealing the final blow and smugly sending off their foe with a celebratory puff. The spewing dark ichor from the phantom’s mortal wounds dissipated into glittering, ashen dust, followed closely by the creature itself, and with that, the fight was over.

Fox realized late that the amazon-esque woman had fallen as well, learning as much upon noticing her Spirit floating next to that of her previous killer turned comrade. Accompanied with statements of the obvious, he began having thoughts about their overall situation, and with it, he had a hard time feeling satisfied enough with their victory to call it one. The more evident half of his thoughts were echoed aloud with the question of their ability to commandeer the Divine Beast. Only then did it seem to occur to them that perhaps this was a loss they couldn’t necessarily afford, until Primrose stepped in to remind them otherwise. She was the first to suggest one of them taking in Urbosa’s Spirit, taking the two in hand and presenting them to whoever found themselves willing. Rather than entertain the suggestion, more feeling than thinking himself an ill-suited candidate for it, he started quietly taking his first steps away from the scene to further ruminate on the subject.

Sure, maybe they could just annex the necessary knowledge and/or abilities of whoever by way of Spirit absorption as needed, but even if such a loss could be considered affordable, was it really necessary? Being a soldier of fortune (admittedly a thin, supplementary cover for good causes in his case), who had struck down entire armies and even a whole species in the past with not an iota of guilt, hesitation or regret, it was conventionally unbecoming of him to suddenly dwell on the value of individual life. After being ‘awake’ in this new world for less than a day and receiving a crash course on its rules as those before understood them, he was already seeing a problem with how it worked. In a world where everyone--even old friends--could be considered an enemy, and every enemy--even mortal--a potential ally, it seemed a mistake not to more carefully consider that in future engagements as far as who to slay and who to spare. Fox personally understood, if nothing else, the strength of unique individuals as part of a unit over that of one alone, and so silently pledged to act accordingly by setting the example when the next opportunity presented itself. If he could help it, they’d not lose anyone else that they didn’t have to.

As per the proposed method, Midna didn’t hesitate to take in the Spirit of her fallen foe, casually alluding to some intuited connection to Ganondorf to rationalize her (second) death. Fox paused in his steps at the mention of the name, one that had become loosely familiar to him in years past, and not in the best of ways. Of those present, that made him and her the only two present who knew of him at all. He was suddenly curious as to her relationship to him, guessing that they hailed from the same world, yet somehow, based on her cautiously optimistic conjecture about his ‘awakening’, he knew almost better than her that they were all but certain to run into him, reminding him once more of who and what was inevitably in store for them. If there was ever any one enemy (from another world) he had ever encountered that made him think and act more carefully in dealing with…

Fox made his way over to the Beast’s core near where Midna resided, listening to the brief she gave of her newfound bond with and seamless command of it. Observing the terminal itself, it was evident that this was a relatively primitive, but no less sophisticated technology at work, one which he couldn’t begin to comprehend. If it hailed from Hyrule, given what little he understood about anything from there, it was the likely product of primordial techno-magicka, not that he could conclude that on his own. More interesting to him was the revelation that it was intended as a weaponized deterrent against Ganon, which prompted him to take the impish princess up on her offer to “chat.”

“So what else do you know now?” Fox opened with the vague line of inquiry, expecting her to take his meaning.

Midna looked over at him from where she lay, the tearful overlaid eye of the sheikah staying in place as her own found him for a moment, before it turned back to the ceiling ”I’ve been trying to figure that out,” she admitted after a moment. The princess let silence hang for a moment after, likely mulling over what to say before trying her best to explain.

”I don't exactly know things she knew. I don't have memories of being her, or at least I can’t find any. So I didn’t remember how to control Vah Naboris, I just looked at it and suddenly it just made sense, almost instinctively,” she pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows in thought for a moment before she added ”Which is maybe more concerning than if I had memories that I knew weren't my own.”

Fox nodded softly at the latter end of her statement, bearing a thoughtful look about him. While contemplating the potential consequences of thoughtlessly taking someone out for their Spirit that he skipped over the possible side effects Spirit absorption on those who undergo it. Still, in consideration of the former, he couldn’t fault her for killing Urbosa, for she had what she believed to be good reason to.

“Not to alarm you,” he began, focusing away from the terminal to face her more directly, “but if you know what to call it--and what it’s for--you may be getting some feedback,” he theorized. Turning his back to the core to prop himself against it, he looked off once more into the mostly vacant space of Naboris’ central chamber and continued. “But I’m sure you knew some of it already. To me... it doesn’t make much sense.” He paused for a second for her attention before asking, at the risk of punching a hole in her previous assumption about the Gerudo Champion, “What would a servant of Ganon be doing with a weapon made to kill him?”

Midna paused, raised a finger and looked up and to the right as she was dug through her own memories before saying ”No... No, she called it that when she showed up. Before you came.That’s where I know it from,” not sounding like she was entirely confident with what she was saying.

She shuffled a little on her spot, clearly uncomfortable, before taking a breath and becoming calm again, regaining her relaxed position and smiling at him ”I appreciate the concern foxy, but I've got this under control.”

”As for why she was with it, presumably for the same reason the dark machine specter was. To stop people using it. Zant, a treacherous usurper who served Gannon, did the same with the twilight mirror to stop me from using it to return home and reclaim my throne. He couldn’t destroy it completely, the fake king that he was, so he broke it into 4 pieces. Then he hid 3 of them from me and created monsters to guard them,” Midna said, casual confidence fully returned. ”Didn’t work of course. Your’s truly found them all, used them to get home and then killed that treacherous little bokoblin. With a little help from my Link.”

Midna’s logic checked out, with an anecdote to corroborate it. She would sooner know than him in any case. “Maybe you’re right,” he stolidly, halfheartedly concurred with her theory about Urbosa safeguarding the Beast against any who would use it, “and I’m sure you can handle… this,” he added, gesturing generally to Naboris. “I’m not worried about that,” he calmly, but earnestly reassured as he paced over to the edge of the platform near where Midna lay. "There is something bothering me about all this though," he admitted while seating himself at the ledge, leaning on palm and raised knee, leaving a comfortable gap between them. “Besides what we know of, I’m not sure I can tell who our real enemies are.”

”Good, because I can” Midna agreed with him before rolling to the side to look at him when he sat next to her, elbow leaning on her wolfos and fist holding up her cheek as she continued to speak, her one exposed eye roaming over him as if she where only now taking the time to properly examine him. The motion put her a touch closer to him, but the gap reminded the comfortable distance between meer associates nonetheless.

”I suppose i’ve gotten lucky in a way with this being familiar-ish stuff so far,” she waved a hand around the beast before continuing ”also having done this before in a way, though that was time rather than reality getting all mashed up and twisted,”

”With so much unfamiliar stuff in this world, it’s probably best to assume hostility from anyone and everyone till proven otherwise. Red eyes or clear,” Midna said after a few moments of contemplation on his question, ”I’m not saying we cant learn to trust people, just that you shouldn’t risk exposing your throat to the unknown”

“No...” he concurred, “because that would mean trusting everything, and I would rather be prepared for it.” This came as a tacit admission to just how little he knew about what to expect in spite of his previous experiences, with an allusion to his main point tacked onto it. He let a brief second of silence hang as he adjusted himself, leaning slightly forward, still bearing visible pensivity. “This isn’t a first for me either.”

Minda raised an eyebrow and leaned in a little closer, clearly all ears on the subject ”It’s not?”

“Making allies out of people I barely knew, or just met, with only a greater common enemy to trust them by, and a god at the end of all of them who just wanted the world for himself...” Fox started listing the general facts of a particular episode in his life years prior that might strike Midna as parallel or familiar to their current overarching predicament. “Truth is I’ve been here before, and I’m not the only one. There are some of us now who still remember it. I remember us almost losing.” Fox’s tone shifted subtly while he stoically recounted the pivotal moments of the Subspace Incident.

“It wasn’t enough to have the best of us altogether. We pulled through because all of us came together. We won… with the help of our friends, and our enemies,” which, between him and Wolf, actually made for a second time for him. He turned his head slightly more toward Midna as he made to further illustrate his point. “If you can believe it, even Ganondorf was with us in the end,” and the beginning the time after that, at the cliffside, when they did lose, but he neglected to mention that much.

”He was what!” Minda balked at the possibility, flinching backwards, causing her wolfos cushion to stir and growl at Fox. The implicit threat from her mount seemed to draw Midna out of the rage and shock she was feeling. ”No. Down.” she ordered the beast, pressing its head back down to the ground.

The princess sat up from resting against the beast, her hands gripping the side of the stone platform they were sitting on as she asked ”Who could have possibly thought that working with him was a good idea? How did it not end in disaster?”

While he did watch it more attentively, Fox had no strong reaction to Midna’s lupine mount baring its fangs at him, not even so much as hovering a hand over his sidearm. In a manner of speaking, he was rather used to it by now. “I don’t know,” Fox admitted, lightly shaking his head in response. He thought back on his encounters with Bowser at the time, personally knowing him to have been responsible for it in part. “Maybe it just didn’t work out for them, and they realized they had no options left,” he guessed. Such tended to be the case for the Koopa King, having many times before sided with his nemesis upon failure, and even now sided with them in their campaign.

”I don’t like it, not one bit” Midna asserted before sighing and looking up at the ceiling ”but I take it if you don’t know much then you didn’t get close,” she glanced over at him and added ”So I think you’re safe. I’m not going to be open to working with him if that somehow ends up being a thing. But I’ll keep what you said in mind overall” before going quiet and implicitly letting him continue talking about subspace

“The last time this happened, none of us knew what we were really up against, who was behind it all, or what was at stake. We didn’t have the luxury of understanding our enemy,” a fact that remained largely unchanged, all things considered, “but at least then the burden fell on able bodies. Only those of us who could deal with it had to. Now…” he sat up into a kneel, looking down over the ledge and into the distance none of their travel companions in particular, “it’s everyone’s problem; everyone’s involved, whether they can afford to be or not.”

”These kinds of threats are always everyone’s problem, most of the time your average person won’t or can't step up to face it. That said, I don’t think we're at the point where we need to force farmers into illfiting armor to face world ending horrors at spearpoint just yet. If Galeem starts feilding armies we might need to worry about burdening the common folk, but for now the burdens are still on well worn shoulders. Anyone else can go stay in Alcamoth” She replied. She’d let go of the parapet by the time she finished speaking, but she hadn’t gone back to lounging.

”Also, how do we know that won’t happen again,” she then asked, ”Do we know for sure this is the whole picture? That Galeem’s everything we have to worry about, or is it’s light blinding us to another master behind the monster?”

Fox hung his head in thought at the question, not having speculated that far ahead. “I guess we’ll find out,” he said, blinking softly as he stood back up. “Until then, we could do worse than to improve our odds, by shortening theirs. Give them less to use against us,” he suggested, appealing to her sense of pragmatism. He began tracing the edge with his steps, then pacing around behind Midna as he continued to speak. “Not everyone in this world is even aware that anything’s wrong. I didn’t remember myself until this morning.” A more somber expression creeped onto him with his own reminder of his time under Galeem’s influence. “I could have ended up just like her,” referring not so subtly to Urbosa, “Any one of us could have.”

He stopped at the ledge leading up to one of the ramps, looking around at each of his teammates scattered throughout Naboris’ interior. “I don’t expect to save everyone, or to conscript them all if we do,” he clarified, not wanting to be misunderstood, knowing better than to be able to. Casualties of war and all. “Anyone who can and wants to help us will. That’ll be their choice to make, but I think anyone we can spare it for should have the chance to decide that for themselves,” He glanced back over to Midna. “The same one we have.”

”There’s risk involved there,” Midna countered, drifting up off the platform so she could face him as he walked behind her ”She attacked us first, first with lightning and then with sword. She was with Gannon’s servant. She would have kept fighting after she was freed,” Midna insisted ”There are people and things that cannot be reasoned with and if we try it just gives them an opening. If we don’t know they are going to be friendly or neutral when freed, then trying it anyway is a bet with lives on the line.”

She floated upwards keeping herself at eye level with him as he walked. Her arms folded and for the first time that they had been speaking she was maintaining eye contact as she spoke. ”Sure. We can try and free those we can, but if it’s a gamble on whether they’ll help or not, and the thing we are betting is the lives of those we know are in this fight? Then that’s not a bet I’d want to take. It’s a real heroic thing, what you want to do. But I hope you keep the risks in mind before you put other’s lives on the table.”

Fox slowed his pace to a halt before speaking up. “They already are,” he started, pausing for emphasis. “Ours; theirs; everyone’s lives are already at stake. Like it or not, every decision we make from here on out is a bet made on someone’s life,” he explained calmly.

With a soft sigh, he continued, “I’m not asking you to act against your better judgement; to do anything you can’t or otherwise wouldn’t do. Really, I’m not asking you to do anything at all.” In his open left palm, Fox gently manifested a fuschia heart-shape aglow with healing warmth to float idly in presentation. “I can do it. I’ll make the first bet,” he assured, “and if I’m wrong, you can let me pay for it later.” With that, he closed his grip softly around the Friend Heart to dismiss and continued walking past the Twi-imp at a leisurely pace as he continued to speak.

“You don’t have to trust everyone you meet. I won’t even ask you to trust me. I’m sure you have your reasons.” He briefly halted in his steps to further clarify, “I just need you to understand mine, so that you won’t try to stop me.”

He stopped once more on his way as a singular forethought creeped back into his head to remind him why he started this conversation in the first place. “At some point, sooner or later, you’re bound to find people you know in this world. Some you can’t do without,” he glanced back over his shoulder at Midna, “and others, like Ganon.” He brought this matter back up for the moment as a means of meeting the princess halfway as well as letting his own point set in.

“Do you think this ‘weapon’ will be enough by then?” He asked earnestly regarding Naboris’ function, looking to Midna as the resident expert on the matter of Ganon as a whole. “Could you do it alone, or will you need all you can get?” Fox returned his attention forward as he let the questions linger. “When the time comes, I’ll trust you to know,” he stated in closing before continuing on his way.

“This thing will help, that I’m sure, but enough? No. If he’s here, we’ll need every advantage we can get,” Midna said to him as he left, before returning back to the spot she’d been sitting in, never managing to get quite as comfortable as she had been before they spoke.

---

Eventually, Midna called everyone to attention in announcement of their arrival as Naboris took its encroaching steps toward the oasis, as she could see first-hand through Naboris’ eyes. Fox joined the assembly on the right-most deck to observe the scene from afar, unable to match Poppi’s magnification, but discerning enough to loosely confirm her findings. The Phantom Thieves opted to disembark near the pyramid to tend to their appointed business there, while the rest moved closer to the temple grounds themselves across the lake from it. The conflict at ground level ceased shortly after they made their first stop, giving them time to deliberate on their next course of action before the second round, starting with deciding on their advance party and a suitable drop-off point.

“Wherever we set down, I don’t think it’ll matter how close we are. No doubt anyone looking has seen us already,” he reasoned, as there was no subtlety to be had when it came to walking an ancient towering war machine into one’s territory. “If we can get in on the ground though, we might still have the chance to surprise them while they fight each other.” Fox’s use of plural pronouns suggested he, respectfully, wasn’t all in on Tora’s plan to minimize the amount of manpower going in by sending Poppi alone.

“I’m going with you,” he insisted. “The rest of you be ready to get in behind us and back us up if we need it. Engage only if and when necessary,” he advised, keeping in mind the hyper-aggressive response of those still under the ‘Light’. “Try to keep casualties and collateral to a minimum where you can. Where you can’t,” he drew out his blaster to check the action on it, ‘chambering’ it before reholstering, “do what you have to.”

He singled out their Divine pilot to lay down one additional set of instructions. “Midna,” he called on with a look in her direction, “we’ll need you to hang back to keep us covered from here. You’re our contingency. If things get bad enough for us down there, bring the storm. Crash in if you have to. Give them something bigger to fight.” He awaited only confirmation from Midna before setting out for the battlefield with Poppi.

“Let’s go,” he said to the artificial Blade, already quickening his steps for the balustrade to leap from it and begin his descent. Whether she decided to catch and carry him in then fan out from there was up to her. He would fare well enough on his own with a well-timed Jet thrust otherwise. Once he broke the boundary and made entry, he would do his best to keep his profile down while co-opting reconnaissance with Poppi, ducking immediately between narrow areas of cover and putting his back to a shadowed wall where he could get a decent visual of the battlefield while remaining hidden. All the while, he kept a ready hand near both of his weapons, ready to draw either of them on a moment’s notice.