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[img]https://i.postimg.cc/Zn05qZPF/Jiggy-Final.png[/img]

[color=fed428]Level:[/color] 6 (8 -> 20 -> 22/60)
[color=fed428]Location:[/color] Dead Zone - Hell-bent City -> Library - Crypt
[color=fed428]Word Count:[/color] 1027 (+2 EXP)

[color=fed428]Power:[/color] Split-up
[color=59e6ff]Blue Eggs:[/color] 39 -> 30/100
[color=e01410]Red Feathers:[/color] 44 -> 40 - > 36/50
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After successfully making an otherwise troublesome advance through the library, thanks in large part to those sporting incendiary means, Red Team and company proceeded downward into and through the underground to arrive at the crypt hidden beneath it. The way was lit with veins of glowing necrotic energy intermingling with underworldly overgrowth from the Qliphoth, the traces leading them to the source where they found a thousandfold of the same... right where they needed to be. Before them, at the center of this lower sanctum, stretch the third and final root, and between them and it, the ‘Skullgirl’.

The revenant maid, as if waiting for them, greeted them coldly in her opening address. Banjo and Kazooie could see Nadia’s hesitation, and putting together that this was somehow related to her business with the ‘Skull Heart’, they kept to themselves long enough to allow her a moment to tend to it herself. After a second of silence, its bearer confirmed as much aloud with a direct, perhaps rhetorical inquiry. As convenient as it was to have both of their objectives one place, everyone could sense already that it wouldn’t be that easy, or simple. To begin, Bowser’s atypically desperate plea for an alternative fell on deaf ears as Marie made clear her refusal to part with the Skull Heart, wishing to see her vengeful ambition through to the last days of her undeath.

[color=0aaaff]“You know… we kinda just… [i]walked in[/i] here. Maybe you could just leave out the way we came in?”[/color] Banjo awkwardly suggested at the girl’s mention of being “trapped” there by the root, pointing back with a thumb over his shoulder. He might have known better than to expect that simply having a door left open would be enough. No doubt there was something more to it than that, but the good news was that they had in common that goal of destroying the Qliphoth root. [color=0aaaff]“We’re actually here to get rid of that thing too,”[/color] he clarified, pointing to the very root the Skullgirl’s reanimated soldiers were going to work on, [color=0aaaff]“so we could probably help with that if you’d like.”[/color]

Had she been willing to accept either of Banjo’s suggestions, it would take her no time at all, and everyone might have come away with what they wanted (except Nadia, maybe). The bad news was that which Nero had to share: that they were on a deadline. He gave his shortest version of the story that amounted to, of all things, a delivery boy personally carrying an IWMD to the region’s center, and that they had less than a day left to complete their mission before the Dead Zone was obliterated.

[color=f60000]“And you just… [i]let him[/i] take it?”[/color] Kazooie interjected with a subdued tone of irritation (possibly in unintended sync with Daxter). [color=f60000]“I’m guessing he also somehow beat us there while we weren’t looking?”[/color] she added, assuming the porter in question shared their intended destination, questioning how he could make it there so soon in light of the trouble they’d gone through thus far to accomplish the same, and resisting the urge to say [color=f60000]“off-screen”[/color] instead.

This obviously only served to complicate matters further, as it prompted the Skullgirl to act more dramatically to the revelation. Suddenly believing her own power to be inadequate, she decided to invoke the law of the new world by challenging the party for their own, broadcasting her new intent to take it from them and amass it within herself. Thus, any hope there was of a peaceful resolution was irrevocably lost.

The earth began to rumble and rupture underfoot and all around them, threatening to crush or claim any who failed to escape it. The duo swiftly made sure that wouldn’t include them as Kazooie brought them skyward with an assisting jump from Banjo, burning as many feathers as it took to reach the next closest tier of solid ground (or whatever passed for it). [color=f60000]“All this, but she can’t cut through a bloody stump?”[/color] Kazooie remarked, regarding the root (and meaning ‘bloody’ in both senses), as they carefully made their ascent through the catacombs coming down around them. After they touched down onto the high-risen battleground, and following one more round of preceding banter between Nadia and Marie, the battle proper was underway.

[color=f60000]“Are we still leaving this one for her?”[/color] Kazooie asked Banjo, unsure at this point which convention or courtesy they were honoring in the first place (that of fighting games or respect for personal affairs), but knowing it now involved all of them regardless.

[color=0aaaff]“Looks like we’ll have to,”[/color] he replied upon seeing the myriad skeletal horde emerge at the command of their revenant master.

[color=f60000]“Let’s make it a fair fight then.”[/color] To that, Banjo answered with a crack of his neck and a concurring nod, pounding knuckle to palm in a show of eager enthusiasm. It wasn’t so much that he was excited about it (as he typically wasn’t) so much that he was ready to do what he had to, scant as their options were now. Plus, they were due to be officially recognized fighters themselves now (which made for the exception), so it was best that he learned to make the most of it.

The duo Trotted Bowser’s shell and lept overhead, with Banjo entering a spin, slinging his backpack by the straps while Kazooie spun her wings rapidly. At the height of his momentous buildup, and nearing the end of his fall, he slung Kazooie free to circle them like a top, wing cutting down any of the smaller skeletons she caught up in her attack. Then Banjo, with his pack now empty, landed atop a stalhorse, bodying its rider off in doing so, and pulled the sack down over its head, holding onto the straps to use as reigns as it entered a panicked frenzy. He attempted to run it forward and through the mass of undead before them while Kazooie continued concurrently sawing away others in serpentine. As her momentum died down, Banjo dismounted the horse to let it continue bowling over the lesser skeletons as he made to catch his partner, regrouping for the next round.