For a first, their attempt at swaying diplomacy appeared to be going surprisingly smoothly. Where Fox had expected some level of apprehension or resistance to their proposal, they were instead met with a gradually building line-up of eager new recruits, most of which were moved by seamingly little more than the desire and opportunity to make a greater contribution, their motives as of yet unspoken (save for Heavy). Just as a handful of willing crusaders-to-be were stepping forward to answer the call to action, the voice of displeased authority came over the loudspeaker to sour the whole negotiation. Fox’s almost visible satisfaction was quickly replaced with an alert response as his attention shot to the nearest source of the voice barking commands urgently calling for the trio’s termination. He might have guessed that someone was behind the looping turf war between those unwittingly gathered in the conspicuously symmetrical battleground they’d been calling home for an untold time, and silently cursed for being right.

Just like that, hopeful converts backed off against their better interest, motivated backwards by flash-bred skepticism. The Soldier did the honors (unintentionally) bringing to light a programmed facsimile of contrarian rationale; something about a ‘briefcase’ apparently containing sensitive intelligence that the crusader trio obviously knew nothing of, let alone would they care to steal it. Had that been the case, Fox couldn’t imagine why they would need to ‘distract’ or even bother engaging with them at all if they already weren’t paying attention to this thing they suddenly so valued enough to fight over but not enough to keep safely on their person. No, this wasn’t a healthy skepticism at work. This was the talk and action of one reaching for an excuse to repel outside influence in accordance with the brainwashing of their faceless masters; one they knew of, one they had yet to discover.

Yet, in spite of this attempt to engender an irreconcilable divide between all parties present, reasonable doubt and insubordination persisted among a few of the mercenaries. However, all it took was one voice in her favor calling ‘treachery’ to instigate conflict among them. Alas, where her attempts at militant sophistry failed to dissuade her subjects from defecting, she was able to leverage afforded privileges of conditional immortality over them to fan the flames of continued in-fighting, now with a more adversarial touch. The terms were set, the teams assembling, and the countdown initiated.

“Move!” Fox commanded Poppi and the Queen, as in ‘away’ to find the farthest cover they could reach before the countdown was up. It was clear that reason would serve them no further here, so it was time for them to fall back and improvise. Fox rapidly devised a course of action for the three of them and issued their parts in it as soon as they were out of sight. “Sectonia, alert the others, tell Midna we need cover. Get a sandstorm going. Poppi, find that case--OR her--then me,” he ordered, referring to the aforementioned briefcase and the Administrator, which they would likely find in the same place. “Wait for our cover to move,” he further clarified, expecting her to take his meaning through context.

He reasoned internally that Poppi could better move through the battlefield at speed unseen with her comparably lower profile, while Sectonia wouldn’t have to stress the same on a round trip to and from Naboris, and being the more eloquent of the two, she could better relay the call for backup. Furthermore, his sudden interest in the briefcase had more to do with the Administrator herself and her apparent knowledge of Spirits, which by itself made her a considerable enough threat to not want to send Poppi after her alone; just to find her first. Should she happen to return with a case of precious intel however, there was a chance they might actually be able to learn something useful from it.

As for Fox, he decided that the best and only thing they could do now was play their game, but he had no intention of playing it their, or rather her way, or by her rules. He would not honor the conventions of a dishonorable engagement. He preferred this time to disrupt the established order of controlled chaos, and she just gave him the perfect excuse to try. His idea was to start with the one player she couldn’t have managed this without, her compulsory lapdog, the Soldier, and go from there.

Fox and his team were neither RED nor BLU; they were one. Though, for the purpose of the scenario at play, they were still Yellow Team and would remain to be. Though outnumbered on both sides, with no respawns, they were short no advantages of their own with every plan to make use of them. Their hard-earned success here would mark YLW’s first victory in the last battle that would be fought on these grounds. Heeding his own directive to Poppi, he would await the obscuration of the battlefield by Midna through Naboris to mobilize.

Kamek’s aid saved the beleaguered ship girl, his white mage clone restoring her vitality while the red clones and the magikoopa himself bombarded the muscular ship with fire magic till it sunk beneath the waves. In comparison the green one’s fortifying spell was functionally useless as the girl was not struck again, though this was possibly for the best for everyone bu the green one's sense of self worth. While the battle was going on, Kamek’s toadies hovered about, fishing for spirits out of the water and attempting to avoid being eaten by stray shark minions.

”Glad to hear you’re alright miss” Kamek called down ”If it’s weaponry you lack, then might I suggest crushing the spirit of that ship I just killed?” he added, pointing towards where the muscular vessel‘s spirit was drifting down into the water. He was about to explain the ability to crush spirits in more detail when an explosion rocked the back of the Atomos. Jr and Geralt were buffeted by the tail end of the shockwave rolling in the still open back door while those on the back were rocked by the full force of the mortar. Primid’s were scattered and annihilated while the diminutive Mimikyu was sent blasting off through the air with a cry of “Miiiimiiiiiii!”

”Oh blast!” Kamek cried out in alarm, turning his broom and soaring upwards while directing the two red clones to attack the turret pile, aiding the two newly arrived ship-girls in taking it down. The mage meanwhile flew higher and snatched the light and cloud-like Mimikyu out of the air before she could be lost to the wind or sea. The little mon herself seemed unharmed, but her disguise had been busted by the attack. The ragdoll-like outfit was covered in soot and its ‘neck’ was broken which agitated the little creature greatly. It looked around angrily to find the culprit of its besmirched appearance and then, when it found and watched the turret pile get wrecked, became deftly shy and quickly ran to hide inside one of the pockets of Kamek’s robes.

”Oh dear. Don't worry. We can get it fixed up as soon as we get back.” The mage told the mon, whom he saw to be acting a bit like a shy guy who had lost or damaged its mask.

Inside the ship meanwhile Jr sighed in relief as he saw his minion was safe and then yelled down at the floor at Sakura to ”Close the freaking bay doors you’re going to get us all exploded!” as the girl tossed fireballs out of the open bay doors, unaware that she intended to block any bullets coming her way.

After a bit of helpful fireball bombardment from Sakura and the red mages the two ship girls had taken care of the turret pile and then they proceeded to speed over to Ranger(the aircraft carrier girl)’s side to warn her about a ‘water princess’ who had appeared among the enemy ranks and who had prompted a retreat by the ship-girl forces. Jr didn't have to be told to start leaving. All around them, the battle was ending, with the abyssal fleet clearly having won as their remaining forces harried the retreating ship-girls. Those in the airship’s impromptu escort wasn't exempt, as the airship’s hovering position on the outskirts of the battle rapidly became the center as the ship girl's line collapsed.

Kamek was already returning to ship when things went all the way south to Antarctica as what he was guessing was the water princess crashed in and smoked one of the newly arrived ship-girls before taking aim at the other one with a massive tail mounted maw cannon. The bespectacled ship girl in the line of fire seemed to have been utterly stunned by the sudden death of her comrade, forcing Ranger to rush forwards to try and save her. Kamek could see what was going to play out immediately, one ship would trade her life for the other, and there were a lot of calculations that could be made into how he should intervene if at all. Hatakaze was catatonic but still armed, he thought, while Ranger was a sunk cost who was more alert but she'd lost her weapon earlier in the conflict.

In the few moments Kamek had to make the decision of who should live and who should die Ranger covered the distance and shoved her ally aside, only to be herself pushed aside as well by the green clone that had (alongside the white mage) been sticking to her side like glue this whole time. Its limited mind felt a facsimile of joy to have finally been useful before it was promptly annihilated by the princess’s cannon tail shot.

”Distract it!” Kamek shouted, driving a finger towards the water princess, sending the two red clones to attack it while he simultaneously retreated. It was time to go. The red mages brandished a pair of stereotypical magician’s wands, black bars with white tips that Kamek had stolen from Hopus Pocus all the way back in the devil’s casino, and used them to call forth two spinning rings of rabbit skulls around the spot where the princess was hovering above the waves. They rotated around her for a moment before, with another flick of the clone’s wands, they began rapidly closing in on her.

Kamek meanwhile landed atop the scorched deck of the Atomos as it was finishing its turn away from the battle and back towards Limsa. With a snap of his fingers called forth Quiet and The End. ”Keep the tailed one busy”! he commanded while hurrying into the back door of the ship and slamming it shut behind him, leaving the two snipers to glance at one another and then take up point on the back of the ship. Each hooked a leg through the remains of the railing on the deck of the ship to brace against the incoming acceleration before opening fire on the princess, firing their two very different sniper rifles between the Atomos 's twin engine pods.

Below him, three of his toadies had already slipped in through the still open bay doors and headed upstairs carrying the spirits of the turret pile, the imps and a pair of the lowly underlings of the abyssal fleet. Now the final one flew in just as the fate of the ship girls vanished from Sakura's sight, carrying Arashio’s spirit, having snatched it from the winds after she died. It flew right past Sakura just as the bay doors began to close, Jr having found the cockpit’s own controls for them at last, the spirit of the dead ship girl's spirit held in its palms.

”Time to leave, young master!” came a call from above as Kamek slammed the door to the deck shut behind him.

”No kidding? Already on it!” Jr replied, before the ship began to accelerate even before the bay doors were shut, leaving the ship girls to their fate as bait and Sakura with a dilemma of her own.

---

Bowser didn’t catch the shadow but his wreck-less dousing of the flame, empowered by Blazermate’s kritz, did let him vaporize hordes of undead, including one of the tougher buggers their foe had just summoned up. Eventually however the eight seconds of super powered striking came to an end as the supercharged medibeam returned to its usual state of healing and storing up power, gradually charging up another tide turning powerup.

In the meantime however, Bowser had swept the area around himself clean of foes and had a straight shot at the diminutive skeleton queen, which he took. He wasn't alone. The team had pushed through the hordes of minions and now looked poised to converge upon the girl from all sides. All she had was her shadow, which was admittedly a piece of work, of that there was no doubt, and whatever she managed to pull up in the moments before she was overwhelmed. Unfortunately, what she had time to summon was an ace in a hole.

The diminutive, casually dressed skeleton was not much to look at and Bowser’s arrogance meant he initially ignored him as he closed in on their main foe. Unfortunately San’s looks were incredibly deceiving, which he apologetically demonstrated when with a flick of his wrist he hauled everyone into the air, in which the king helplessly flailed for a moment of utter confusion, before slamming them back down into the ground.

The king undeniably hit the ground belly first, his shell absorbing most of the impact. Unfortunately for him, all his armor did nothing against what came next. The wave of spectral bones rolled forth from the small skeleton, rising up front the ground and then stabbing back down, the wave driving straight through the king as he was trying to stand. The bone that hit him ignored his armor entirely, piercing through the massive turtle, touching him for longer than it did anyone else who got hit thanks to his size, and wrecking his body to the core.

Only his equally large vitality prevented him from being crippled immediately, but Bowser could feel the damage burning away, rapidly eating away at his life-force. Others were not so lucky. With three of them going down front his first attack alone, this skeleton was no laughing matter.

He retaliated with a trio of fireballs, but Sans casually sauntered around the slow moving shots while keeping an eye out for other threats. Bowser lurched as the burn came to an end, claws hitting the deck and finding purchase on the crystalline platform they were fighting on and then, instead of breathing out, inhaled. A vortex of air swirled in towards the king’s maw as he used his vacuum breath on the small skeleton man.

Sakura swerved around as Junior instructed her to close the bay doors. "Can't you do that from up there!?" She shouted, now beginning to look around for buttons to press. But she realised that Junior was intent on retreating. Those ship girls- she didn't see much, but she could tell they were losing the fight. The enemy fleet, particularly that all white woman, was beginning to destroy them. Sakura had never been in a real, all out battle like this, and she felt fear well up inside her. For a moment she backed up from the cargo bay opening, her hands drawn into her chest.

Kamek rushed in. "I...I guess there's nothing we can do." Sakura said, dejectedly. Her heart was once again heavy with the idea of making sacrifices in the name of the greater good. This encounter might just prove that The Maw was their only way forward. The ship girls would be destroyed. One day these monsters might even reach Limsa town and destroy the whole thing. She felt powerless and bitter. Her fists clenched. Two snipers appeared to cover their retreat.

An orb was brought into the ship. By one Kamek's minions. Sakura snatched the orb up and held it in her glove hands. She didn't know this girl. Didn't know her name. But everything that was left of her in this world was in her hands. Sakura knew how the spirits worked. She had been filled in in Smash City, and in her Galeem influenced travels had picked up knowledge about these objects. Her eyes began to shimmer wet. The image of the ship girl was free of Galeem's influence. She had died because of Galeem. She had friends, out here on this very sea. Sakura had before this moment been scared of the puppets of this world. But they were still willing to fight to protect the things they cared about it. Even if this whole world was all topsy turvy, evil still existed, and evil still needed to be vanquished.

Sakura had never been a hero before, but there was a first time for everything. Princess Peach had told her that things were going to work out. And most importantly, she could never imagine Ryu walking away from a righteous battle that needed fighting. If he was here, he would probably tell her to stay back and go himself.

(But Ryu isn't here. I am. I have a chance to do the right thing. Besides, even if Ryu was here...he would probably look really stupid in a dress with cat ears! HOWEVER, I CAN PROBABLY PULL IT OFF!)

She glanced back at Geralt, Kamek, and Junior, eyes shining. "I'm going down there. I'm gonna help them escape." Sakura said. With that, she pressed the spirit into her chest and became one with the spirit of the fallen sailor.

As she transformed Sakura dove towards the closing cargo bay door. She transitioned into a roll. Finally, she propelled herself up and out. Spreading her limbs out wide she slowed her fall.

"Se~~~no!" She cried out, wind rushing past her ears. As she reached the surface of the water, she pivoted her legs down to catch herself, and hopefully, skid across the ocean's surface like a water strider bug.

There was a loud, tinny voice at Primrose's back, but she didn't even think to turn around once inside the Pyramid. The stone structure provided immediate relief from the harsh sunlight, and Primrose sighed in the shade before moving on. Further in, the pyramid was... quiet. She was deaf to both the sounds outside and deeper inside. It was eerie, and though Primrose was no stranger to dark and dangerous place, she was grateful for the companionship of Midna's wolfos. The dancer scratched behind one of the beast's ears, amused by the rhythmic thumping of it's tail against the stone.

"Hopefully this time I chase someone, it doesn't take as long," Primrose murmured to the wolfos, a joke for herself and herself alone. The spectral animal tilted it's head at her, but Primrose just shook hers in return. "Let's go."

Traversing the pyramid's interior was easy, thanks both to the lent animal large enough to ride and the thieves clearing the way. Primrose didn't spare many looks for the empty rooms, only taking in as much as she'd need to make her way back out again: the route they took, and whatever dangers were leftover. When she came across the glow of spirits, she gently maneuvered the wolfos closer to scoop them up. These ones looked monstrous, but they could still prove useful in some way. Did the thieves think themselves strong enough to go without, or were they in that much of a hurry that they simply ignored the sources of power? I guess I'll find out soon...

The sound of a battle echoed through the stone rooms and alerted Primrose that someone was not far ahead of her, hopefully the someones she'd come after to check on. She'd disembarked from the wolfos at the edge of the sand pit after the struggle to cross, pulling it from the shifting sand. With both of them safely across, they hurried to the next chamber.

"Help him up," Primrose commanded, and the wolfos shot over to where Joker was flung to lend it's back to the young man. The dancer ran on ahead, taking her stance between Joker and the clay creature and summoning a spell to her hand. The creature was huge, with dark, slimy looking legs. The smell of oil told her exactly what those limbs were made of. Across the way Mona was patching up Panther and Skull. To give them time to get recover, she'd keep the monster's focus. To do that... she'd have to trust herself to get out of the way of those things the pot shot out from under it's lid.

Primrose threw open the bottom of her robe, letting her long legs move freely. She took one step closer to the monster, then another, then one back, one to the side - speeding up her footwork and widening her gait until she was leaping, bringing forth the image of an elegant cat mid-pounce. The dark magic still gathered in her hand left a glittering trail as she moved. This was the Panther Dance, and it was for her own benefit. With each touch of her feet on the ground, her speed increased and she placed herself at the monster's side, forming a triangle around it with thieves at each other point.

Then, she let loose. "Moonlight Waltz!" The heavy concentration of magic shot out, striking the pot's body.

Sectonia was glad that a few people listened to her, and Fox managed to convert a few others as well. She wasn't expecting to get every one of them, but they got more than she was expecting. However, when it seemed like they were going to win over these mercs with words alone, one of them, a dopey looking broad shouldered man, spoke up, disbelieving what Sectonia, Fox, and Poppi were selling, causing a bit of a rift in the mercs. His disbelief mentioning something about a 'briefcase' which Sectonia scoffed at. Fox however seemed very interested in this for some reason, and his interest intensified soon after a demanding woman's voice echoed through the field, the "administrator" as she was called, wasn't too happy about Sectonia and friends abducting her minions. However unlike Sectonia, she seemed to have no grace, tact, or any air of royalty to her.

However this administrator did make a couple points clear; 1. Sectonia and her allies were far stronger than the mercs here which the queen figured, and 2. She knew about spirits, powers, and everything of the sorts which surprised Fox and got his interest, and got Sectonia's interest a bit as well. None of the 'red eyed' people seemed to know about spirits much, so why would this woman know? Still, at the mention of taking these mercs as spirits Sectonia interjected. "Please, Allies are far more valuable." Of course, she said this because she didn't like the idea of gaining the power, or the looks, of any of the mercs here. And she did need more minions...

Soon after however, the administrator showed her power, being able to organize people in her domain on teams, mentioning she could 'respawn' them upon death. Sectonia ignored her 'doors' as the bee queen would not be controlled by anyone. And while Fox was developing a plan, explaining it to Sectonia quickly before the different mercs chose a team, Sectonia made a quick mention to the room at large as well. "If none of you take those doors, then what can she even do to you? And if you do take those doors, Well, it will not end well." Still, Fox seemed to be very determined at finding this 'administrator' and while Sectonia wasn't as interested, finding this person could lead to something interesting. Being able to make it so her minions could never die, if used correctly, would do well at taking over this world of light.

Sectonia wasn't too keen on being told what to do by Fox, but his plan had some logic to it. After all, they had gotten the allies they could, and they'd need to fight the ones that didn't accept their offer, who could 'respawn' upon death which could be annoying to escape from. She judged the mercs that had accepted their offer, and said. "I will be back soon. Don't die." The queen said, summoning two of her golden guards to support the mercs who accepted her deal before making her way back to Naboris to inform Midna of the situation below, specifying which mercs to attack and which to protect.



Bowser and Blazermate's other allies were cutting a swath through these skeletons thanks to her kritz boosting Bowser's fire to the point where it was turning anything Marie threw at them into ash. However, soon Bowser's kritical fire ran out, and Marie, being pushed against a rock and a hard place so to speak, decided now would be the time to pull out her "ace", an unassuming skeleton that Blazermate had seen once before. Her scanners showed that this casually dressed skeleton was incredibly weak, having almost nothing when it came to vitality. However, he had no weak points, and soon she'd see the power this skeleton wielded.

With a glowing eye, Sans casually lifted her, Bowser, and everyone else into the air before slamming them all into the ground, ethereal bones running along the floor and running into each of them. Blazermate, being the smaller and nimbler of the group, got up quickly before she got hit by too many of these bones unlike Bowser and a few of her allies. The damage these bones did though... they didn't do too much, but whatever damage it did hurt her to her medal which felt extremely weird and unpleasant. Her scanners registered that on everyone hit by these bones, their vitality was slowly draining as a residual effect of being damaged by these things.

Thankfully Blazermate could alleviate her allies of this effect with her Revive Protocol. She used this on Bowser first, who had taken the brunt of the bones due to his size, removing the draining effect of San's attack. She then continued on to healing the rest of her allies of their affliction, stopping them from basically disintegrating before her eyes. She then healed herself and those who were injured by the attack, hoping to prepare them for the next wave as Bowser pressed his attack, using some kind of vacuum attack after sans had dodged his fireballs with ease.

”Goddesses! That’s not good” Midna said, suddenly jerking upright from the relaxed pose she’d adopted after Primrose and her steed had headed off to the pyramid, leaving her and Tora to keep watch with the princess relaying what she saw to him as they sat together in the titan’s shadow. As far as Midna was concerned, had been going well over with the scouting team. With her lack of audio it wasn't clear exactly what was going on, but the conversation had looked to be going the yellow team’s way right up until someone fired a warning shot. That, at least, she definitely heard. As, undoubtedly, had Tora.

”No one is dead or hurt, but things have just gotten real dicey” She explained quickly to her ally. At the same time she impulsively reached for the magic that would allow her to re-summon her wolfos, only to stop herself before she could rip it away from the depths of the temple. Ripping the beast out from under Primrose was not a good move even if it would alert her to things going sour up top. The last thing she wanted was to accidentally drop the woman into a spiked pit or the like.

Instead she spurred Vah Naboris to life, the bright glow around its hooves flaring up and the beast taking a half step forwards in anticipation, primed to move in to assist. When Fox scattered the team to cover and Queen Sectonia began to race back towards them, the princess ordered the titan forwards and moved to intercept.

”Queen bee’s coming back and fast. Jumping to meet her, try to keep up!” she told Tora before vanishing from sight, leaving small square particles of darkness behind her, before reappearing in a burst of more particles in the shade of a palm tree beyond the shadow of the Divine Beast. From there she blinked to another shadow, and then another and another till she had moved so far ahead that Sectonia was almost on top of her.

The princess moved out from behind the rock she’d arrived at and into the light, shielding her eye from the harsh desert sun as she summoned her massive magical third arm from the back of her head to wave the queen down and shouting ”Down here! What went wrong!” up to her.

Behind her Vah Naboris had begun to stomp its way around the oasis, giant stone hooves kicking up a cloud of sand as it moved to get into lightning striking range the battlefield.

As it turned out, there were more than just the two strangers who attempted to recruit Heavy and his fellow teammates. Well, recruit was perhaps too direct of a word. Rally, encourage, ask or plead, one of those words Heavy could think of from the top of his head. A fox of all creatures was the next to join before gathered group of mercenaries, all dressed up like a fighter pilot Heavy had seen before, only more…what's the word? Spacey!

A fox…a cosmonaut fox, or from his lack of accent, an astronaut fox. Very peculiar, but after seeing robot lady and queen bee, not big surprise.

Heavy, who at this point had already made his mind up about his new-found quest to rescue Scout, Soldier, Spy and the other members of the real RED from the infamous, evil Light, still paid attention to the little speech Fox gave. The furry astronaut made a fair point in pointing out the prospect of a larger world beyond the steel gates surrounding the Lakeside battlefield, though Heavy at this point leaned over to the Robot Lady known as Poppi and not-so-quietly 'whispering' into her ear. "Ha, I could fight giant camel. Good you came though, Heavy need bullets to shoot BLU instead."

The prospect of possible rewards did not go unnoticed by Heavy, almost childishy rubbing his hands with glee at Fox mentioning a possible deal being worked out. "Aha, good! Very, very good! Heavy has not won reward for many rounds. What is reward? Weapon, jacket or…or Hat? Hat is good!"

What Heavy had not expected for Fox to inform them of, was the apparent presence of kids in the pyramid in need of rescue. Children, in pyramid? Heavy had not been told there would be children here! Sure, Inkling was small and tiny, but she was the exception. "Somebody has sent babies, actual babies here to fight? That is not fair, must be bad for children! Yes, Heavy will join in quest to help…again!"

Heavy looked on with a broad grin as more members of team RED stepped forward to follow in his footsteps. It made him proud of his 'fake' RED teammates, nearly bringing him to tears, but only nearly. Mostly he chuckled manly, in Russian, watching them approach. Their fight over Lakeside was over, and soon they would find greener pastures, or deadlier battlefields…

"What was that? The speaker…The Announcer!" Heavy instantly went into a fighting stance, minigun at the ready and his face turned into an aggressive demeanour, though it did not last. Poppi attempted to calm the situation down, while the Announcer warned both RED and BLU that they were first after their briefcase, and then after themselves. Briefcase? Heavy shook his head, for that was in another map!

"Announcer Lady is fooling us with her bourgiouse toungue! Putting fellow comrade against another! Do you not see, Soldier?" Heavy shouted back at Soldier who called him and the others traitors, feeling a sharp sense of sadness shoot through his chest for the first time in ages. Soldier's words hurt, like stab from Spy. "Soldiers? No, you may be Soldier, but we are not. I am sure not, I am mercenary, but more importantly I am Heavy Weapons Guy, and he fight for friends!"

Heavy spun up his beloved 'Sasha', aiming it up, up and up where the voice of the Announcer was coming from. While Fox began to command the strangers in the background like a true leader - who all astronauts must have been like in Heavy's mind - Heay unleased a brief hail of bullets, striking the speaker from which her voice had eminated from. In a sparkle of electricity, the Announcer's voice warped and died down, much to Heavy's pleasure. "Baha! Heavy does not fear death! Come and get me, you cowards!" Heavy shouted loudly at the now mostly empty battlefield, count ticking down now that there remained only them; Himself, Poppi, Fox, Queen Sectonia, Dwarf, Shield, Blue Poison and Medic.

Things were going from bad to worse in quick succession, though Heavy was not worse for wear. On the contrary, he was eager to get back into another round of fighting, all be it a rather different one than earlier. New comrades from enemy team and new team, fighting against combined team of RED and BLUE…no, the real RED and BLU were not here. He needed to fight to find and save his friends, now that his memories were coming back to him, however few and foggy they were.

Following the orders of Fox, Heavy moved as quick as he could on his stubby little legs into whatever cover he could find. Stretching his neck and double-checking that Sasha was working, Heavy looked at Fox with determination. "It will be honour to fight with Fox and new team. This fight will not be easy, but as far as I am concerned, they are no match for us. Come and get me! Fight us like men, I dare you! You seem to be leader of team, Fox. I can supress the enemy team with Sasha, cover you all."

Geralt kept his seat as Sakura went to the open bay doors, firing blasts of, well, fire, from her hands while shouting some spell name. He wondered for a moment if he might be able to sculpt the flames of Igni in such a manner, but the sheer rapidity with which she was throwing out her spell made Geralt reconsider her potential as a fighter. His words of encouragement were genuine, but they fell somewhat flat when he was shown just how powerful she could be.

Shaking his head, Geralt made the Sign of Quen, hoping to keep himself safe just in case something got through and hit him. With Junior beginning a retreat, his job was done. Now they had a bit more information. They also had a better idea of the scale of the enemy. The Abyssal Fleet didn't rely solely on its numbers, especially seeing what that 'Princess' had been capable of.

"I'm going down there. I'm gonna help them escape."

Geralt's heart dropped, and he struggled with the restraints on his seat, shooting up as the rear doors closed and Sakura was lost to the sea, by her own choice. Spirit or not, she didn't stand a chance against that monster. He stared at the rear bay door, his face set in stone. "Dammit, kid..." Sighing as he turned back to the seats, he shook his head. "What do we got?"

He didn't want to leave her, but there was no way they could rush back in without a plan. "All I have is this thing," Geralt said as he pulled out his plasma pistol. "I'm not even sure how much it has left in it...or how that part really works, but all of my Signs are useless after a few meters, and I don't fancy climbing onto that thing."

The heroes and their new allies scrambled, wasting no time. Only Poppi could really say she didn't know what to do as she zoomed up into the sky, then onto the central temple's roof. Find the case? She didn't even know where to look! Her optics scanned Lakeside for some sort of administration facility. Given the symmetrical nature of the area, it would be sensible if it existed in the middle like the rec room, but she couldn't assume that. Even if it did, it probably lay right past where all the loyal soldiers were gearing up to fill the 'intruders' and 'traitors' with holes. She crouched and from her position of safety watched Sectonia make a beeline for Vah Naboris, then Fox lead the defectors a safe distance. If these REDs and BLUs truly were blessed with limitless revives, they could potentially hound Yellow Team forever, and Poppi doubted they would actually drop their spirits if killed. This outlined a definitive conclusion: there was no point to fighting here. No doubt there was some trick to it, but sticking around to find out meant a lot of risk and potential loss. The best they could do would be to escape.

Of course, the REDs and BLUs weren't about to let them walk away. A blaring horn across the remaining megaphones signaled the end of the ten seconds, and the Soldier instantly charged from the rec room, with the Inkling speeding on his heels and the Cunning, the Totem, the Raider, and the Vanguard following behind. In just a moment the two frontrunners would be far enough away from the pack that she could drop down from above and assassinate the Soldier without a thought. It'd be a piece of cake with her speed and the Variable Saber, but...Fox did tell her to look elsewhere. Whatever might be in it, the case definitely sounded important. If there was anything valuable here, it would have to be that.

As the Heavy's covering fire broke out below, she stood and leaped from the temple roof. Jetting close to the ground, she moved through the tunnels and hallways of Lakeside quickly, turning away from any noise and commotion she came across. She moved quickly, but without any knowledge of what to look for, she couldn't help but feel useless. Maybe she was going too quickly, even. If Poppi were mean old trouble-starting lady ordering shooty men around, where would Poppi be...? Far removed from the conflict, was her guess. As she zipped around, she began to get an idea. There didn't seem to be much infrastructure here, just fortifications on existing ruins. Unless they contained elaborate puzzles and secret rooms hooked up to electronics, she doubted there would be some secret moderation chamber tucked away somewhere.

She popped up above the ruins again, noticing right away that the divine beast was on the move. It dwarfed Lakeside, and would no doubt cause some real havoc when it started trampling the place. Sectonia was on her way back, and clinging to the displeased insect was a familiar face. “Masterpon!” Tora and Poppi waved to one another, but the clatter of bullets against the artificial blade's body quickly got her moving again. Below, she could see the Spartan aiming at her with a rifle of some kind. She made for Sectonia, shouting as she approached. “We need to get new friends into little titan and leave! Poppi not find briefcase yet, but keep looking.”

Below, the Dwarf had already gotten to the safety of Vah Naboris using a grappling gun. The little device pulled him up like nobody's business, putting Joker's own grapple line to shame. Braum, Blue Poison, Heavy, and Medic were not so lucky, of course, and were trading shots with the much larger crew of mercenaries as they worked their way across the battlefield. A chain link fence stood in their way. Poppi waited just long enough for Tora to leap into her arms before zooming down. The Nopon held out the Variable Saber as the pair rocketed by, and its laser blade sliced clean through, giving the less mobile defectors an exit.

“So, what going on, meh?” Tora yelled above the rushing wind.

“Red and blue teams locked in never-ending series of fights where they never die,” Poppi explained. “We convince some to come with us, but then rude lady voice tell the rest to get us! Fox tell Poppi to find her or briefcase that maybe has important stuff inside!”

“Briefcase?” Tora ruminated on the word, ignoring the flapping of his hairdo. “Meh, meh. Must be in secure place, like command post. From you saying 'rude lady voice' Tora guess she talk by radio or intercom or something. How she know what going on?” Poppi didn't know, and shook her head. “Tora guess she watch with cameras. In that case we looking for safe place away from fighting, which need power and space for machines.” Poppi slowed down and pulled off a slow spin, allowing her masterpon to get a view of the whole of Lakeside. “Hmm...Tora think it probably underground!”

Poppi sighed. “Then little titan smashing up place best option.” At the very least, that seemed inevitable.



Joker was glad to find Primrose's companion much friendlier than it looked, and got back to his feet in no time. The dancer herself moved to surround the Dunestrider, pivoting atop its oily legs to track her as it thrust those jet-black limbs her way. Her fleeting advance ended with a surge of magic, striking the monster's body and rocking it backward. A guttural, unnatural noise echoed through the room, and its lid opened to unleash a salvo of ceramic missiles. While she got the thing's attention, however, the Thieves got the time they needed to recover, just as Primrose intended.

“Sweep the legs!” their leader called.

Skull struck first, summoning forth Captain Kid to charge forward and blow his ship through one of the Dunestrider's limbs. Zorro darted forward next, cutting a gash that a followup jump slash from Mona widened further. Using his own Persona as a springboard, the cat then bounced back the way he came, and with his scimitar sliced clean through. With two legs down the Dunestrier sagged downward, its magic-weakened pot wide open. Submachinegun fire from Panther plugged the ceramic surface with holes, leaking oil, before she commanded Carmen to send a raging fireball its way. The blaze set the tar alight, spattering the chamber with burning oil, but Joker coolly switched Personas and let Leena take aim. “One-shot Kill!” A second later the gunshot burst through one of the monster's blazing eyes, and the beast rumbled in pain.

Its limbs extended, lifting the pot high into the air even as it continued to burn. Tendrils snaked from its open lid, homing in on the party. From the way they twisted and grasped the heroes knew better than to let themselves be grabbed. Rather than guard the Thieves called their Personas to attack the tendrils. “This must be its desperation move!” Mona announced, evading as Zorro pierced the tarry tentacle with his rapier. “But this is nothing for us! Lay on all you've got!” To set the example, he pulled out a slingshot and started unloading.



Prismatic light engulfed Sakura as she plummeted toward the ocean, the fusion taking hold. The bizarre and miraculously painless sensation of momentary atomization and reconstitution flooded through her, as sudden and blistering as a crashing wave, and over before she struck the undulating sea below.



Hatakaze and Ranger could only stare in wonderment, shocked some by the inexplicable sight and far more by their mutual near-death experience. The more experienced Ranger, however, could piece things together more quickly. Not only did one of the flying lizard wizards save her bacon with a well-timed push, but reinforcements arrived from the airship. A stranger had leaped from it, but following a lightshow dazzling enough to give the Water Princess pause, someone who looked an awful lot like Arashio landed. Although she knew nothing of the ephemeral orbs left behind by the dead, the sight of one bestowing the features of a deceased comrade onto someone else made her think of modular machine parts. And that analogy would have to serve, because the newcomer hit the waves and faced the Water Princess without fear.

For a moment the Abyssal looked taken aback, but after a second or two a sort of satisfaction crept over her pallid features. Here, it seemed, was an opponent who wouldn't flee and rely on strength in numbers. She would face the slaughter head-on. The Water Princess extended her finger as she began preparing a shot. Three Abyssals arose beside her to open fire.

Ranger and Hatakaze looked between one another. Whoever she was, this girl wasn't backing down. She had to be insane. The latter shook her head and took off, making for the rendezvous point along with the remaining shipgirls, but Ranger hesitated. Even without a weapon, she owed these people her life. She couldn't just leave them to their fates.

With a deep breath, Ranger took off. She gave the firefight unfolding before her a respectful berth, keeping one eye on the enemies and another on the water. After a moment she spotted a spirit, slowly drifting in the direction of the Bottomless Sea, and scooped it from the water. Inside she saw the image of a twisted Abyssal, forcing her to steel herself. Chi class. Could be worse. But I have to help them. Before she could reconsider, Ranger jammed the spirit into her chest, triggering the fusion instantly. She cried out in alarm as light consumed her, and watched as her left forearm melted into husk of tangled metal, a toothed mouth where her hand ought to be. Below the knees her legs became bulbous steely skates. Her eye blazed with blue-green light as a pure white mask erupted from her face, and her pink hair became streaked with black. Her runway launcher, being part of her essence, re-materialized in black and gray, shaped more like a shield than a ship, and even as she struggled with her composition she took aim and let loose at the Water Princess.

As the planes exploded against her, the Water Princess grimaced, but her aim did not deviate. Just before she fired, however, a dark portal opened up in space before her. A black-coated figure leaped from it sideways, brandishing a pistol. The blast resounded across the water as the bullet struck the Water Princess, staggering her to such an extent that she dropped to her knees on the water. The stranger landed on an Abyssal and plunged a curious blade into its hull that seemed to pacify it. “Stupid girl,” the stranger complained, her familiar voice that of the unknown woman waiting on Inkwell Isle. “You'd rather be blown to dust on the water than follow sound advice?” With a wrench of the bone blade, the abyssal beneath her plowed into its fellows, knocking the whole formation out of whack.



Dante recognized a problem when she saw it. After leaping over Sans' bone wave, Dante moved in. She warped above himwith Trick and came down on his head with Helm Splitter. He slid out of the way effortlessly, one eye dark in a mocking wink, and the devil hunter chuckled. “Swordmaster!” She dashed after him and unleashed the Dance Macabre. In lightning-quick succession she executed a series of sword slashes, canceled into a withering Trillion Stabs, then planted Sparda in the ground and spun around it as an axel. With the momentum of the spin she transitioned into a revolving slice, then a second, and finally a baseball swing hard enough to split the air itself in a wide arc.

Sans evaded them all, and when she finished, pulled a leering beast skull from the ground whose mouth blazed with energy. Dante switched the Royal Guard just in time to parry the first laser as it surged forth, but not the second or third. At that point Sans began to feel Bowser's vacuum effect, and without losing his smile turned around with four Gaster Blasters to laser the Koopa King square in the tentacle-bearded face.

Marie did not smile, but it was hard not to get a sense of satisfaction from her. The heroes clearly had nothing on this skeleton. “Do not relent.”

Sans turned his eye on her, burning with scorn. “kids these days...”

Ignoring him, Marie sent Mr. Bones to harry Banjo and Kazooie as they recovered from a brawl with boneheads. One of the skeletons she'd summoned had yet to do anything but stand around, but she focused on the task at hand—namely, stopping Blazermate healing her downed comrades one by one. The monk, however, was closer, and he was healing Raidou on the ground. Two birds. Marie lifted a hand, and a mob of skeletons rose from beneath Donnie to grab him while others piled on, less attacking and more trapping him beneath their weight. Sans followed up by pulling up his own bones beneath the monk, and in just a couple seconds the killer combination had turned his entire stockpile of HP into Karma. He turned an alarming shade of pink and was allowed to collapse, his reserves ticking away as he lay by the deteriorating corpse of the demon summoner.

A shattering sound heralded the arrival of Nightmare, and V warped onto the demon's shoulder. No matter how many of Sans' bones appeared beneath it, Nightmare shrugged them off. As Marie watched, glyphs appeared in the air before its kneeling body, gathering magical energy. The Skullgirl bombarded the demon with skulls, quickly switching to targeting V alone once she confirmed that Nightmare took no damage of any sort. Though V fenced at them with his cane and Griffon ran interference, too many got through. They hammered him, inflicting bruises and breaking his bones, until the mysterious one coughed up blood. Yet he did not allow Nightmare to stop.

Marie clicked her tongue and started to move. Even if she couldn't fly quickly, it wouldn't be difficult to get out of the firing line. But someone had other plans. Nadia soared up toward her, scythe at the ready, and plunged its blade into her chest. The Skullgirl barely flinched, but before she could counterattack Nadia allowed herself to drop, becoming a weight at the end of the scythe that jerked her downward. When Marie looked down she found a cheeky grin pointed up at her. “Going somewhere?”

“Ngh...!”

Even as blood trickled across his cracked lips, V found his voice. “Face...oblivion!”

Nightmare unleashed Domination, and a thick laser of blinding purple-wreathed white lit up the dark sky. It lasted just a few moments, but as it faded the remaining heroes could see the Skullgirl erupting into explosions, wailing. When they came to an end, all that remained was a loose collection of bones and tatters -including the fragments of Nadia's new scythe- floating around a black heart blazing blue. When it beat, the feminine shadow glimpsed before flickered around it, the dark thing at the figure's heart.

Sans looked up at the thing, a shadow of melancholy flitting about his skull. He then sighed and turned to face the heroes again. Doom Slayer thundered toward him, letting his shotgun do the talking, but both shots missed. The demon slaughterer swung his wrist-blade only to be thrown back by blue force. Two Gaster Blasters appeared right in front of him, only to be summarily punched and shattered. Sans replied by picking the Slayer up and slamming him down straight through the floor of veins. There didn't seem to be many skeletons left, either wiped out by the heroes or Sans' less-than-friendly fire, so not much stood between what remained of Red Team and what remained of Marie other than him.

Skidding across the water with a hiss, Sakura blinked away the dazzling light. Standing up straight she took stock of her new self in a matter of moments. Her glove handed frantically patted various parts of her body, brushing her ears and hair, biceps, thighs, briefly pausing over her chest, she blushed. Sakura lifted up her newly-lengthened sleeves and flexed her muscles.

"Aw, no! My BMI!" She whined in dismay at the sight of her softened arms. She was at least 15% less buff! Her hair was also longer, and she had a couple of bows, one around her waist and one in her hair. Headband and bow. Overall the new outfit was actually pretty cool, even if it was a bit...girly? It still looked like her fuku in a lot of ways, though.

She reached up and patted her cat ears, and then fiddled with her tail. "Oh, man. I'm glad this is temporary. I don't wanna be a cat girl." She bemoaned.

Fortunately, she knew Peach would be able to restore her to her school girl form after this battle. Unfortunately, her minor concerns with her appearance wouldn't keep her distracted for long. She and the evil Water Princess made eye contact. Sakura refocused her energies on the badass aspects of her transformation.

For one- she was WATER WALKING! (AWESOME!) Affixed to her back was a harness of guns! Big ones! Little cannons! She bet those packed a punch. Sakura clenched and unclenched her fist. The operation of the harness became second nature, no doubt the skill of it's previous user. Or rather, in a way, it's current user. The shipgirl would live on in her, for now.

Sakura tightened her lips and stared back at the Water Princess. "I won't be intimidated by you! Leave us alone!" Sakura declared her intentions, voice firm.

One of the ship girls combined with an ugly Abyssal ship and came to help Sakura cover the rest of their retreat. (Now I'm REALLY glad Peach can remove Spirits. I'd hate to look like that forever. But, she doesn't even know that...wow. She's brave!)

Just as Sakura prepared to battle the oncoming formation of ships and their leader, a new challenger entered the battle. Sakura gasped in surprised as she recognized the cloaked woman from Inkwell Isle. Her eyes watered up and she beamed.

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before! We'll both be stupid together- how's that sound?" Sakura shouted. As the cloaked lady attacked the fleet, Sakura narrowed her eyes at the pallid faced woman who took satisfaction in the slaughter of others. It looked like she would have a brief opportunity to have a proper street fight. One on one! While she was a novice at shipgirl-to-shipgirl combat, she had powers the others didn't. Like being able to punch really hard! At 15% less effective, her strength level felt like it did when she was 17. Not bad- she could still beat Zangief.

"Hey, everyone!" Sakura called into her radio. Hopefully she was put through to the entire navy. "Um, run away! I'll cover you!" She said to the other ship girls. Her ideal plan was to get the Water Princess to stop her pursuit. Or at least give her enough of a beating that she would reconsider the fight. Sakura wasn't trying to win, she was trying to bring this fight to a draw so both parties could leave. Their team would come back with new knowledge. And (hopefully) thanks to Sakura's interference, more boat people to be friends with.

With that, she leaned forward, and began to carve through the ocean's surface. The speed was exhilarating. She felt much safer and in control than she did on the Atomos. Sakura was quickly approaching the temporarily downed Water Princess. That pistol shot had given her an opening! Normally, she would only want to participate in a fair fight. But she wasn't some honor bound warrior by any means, so if someone needed a kick in the teeth she would be happy to give it to 'em!

As Sakura sailed forward, she punched out her arms. In a series of accompanying quick jabs, she fired off her new turrets and cannons and at Water Princess. They were loud, and felt powerful. She wasn't used to using weapons other than her fists and feet.

She was using them like fireballs to cover her approach. Even if the Water Princess dodged them, it would give her less time to react to whatever Sakura did when she got close. She wasn't sure how physically powerful WP was, but in her experience if you could shoot big lasers from your hands you were more likely to be a push over when things got up close and personal.

As Sakura got within fifteen feet, she jumped into the air. On the downward arc of her jump she swung her leg outward towards the Water Princess's head. She landed on the ocean dextrously. When that hit she would launch into a series of three quick abdomen punches. The combo culminated in a fourth double-fisted uppercut, her hands interwined together to collide with the Water Princess's jaw with a crack and a spark of Ki.

As for her defence, Sakura took a regular standing stance. She imagined the Water Princess would attack from straight on, or from above. Sakura doubted she would attack her knees, or try to grapple her. So Sakura was prepared for strikes from that big tail of hers, or her hands.

Her main focus wasn't on defense, anyway. She felt like the Water Princess was going to try and use her speed to disengage and fly away and start shooting lasers. Running forward was always easier than running backward. Sakura was just looking for that moment of retreat to leap in and punish the attempt with a series of jabs. Maybe even snag that metallic tail if she made the mistake of turning her back on Sakura too early! She always had to think ahead. If her assumptions were wrong, she would re-evaluate.

Either way, the main attack here was her cannon fire approach, and then jumping kick into punch combo. The Water Princess wasn't just dealing with some anthropomorphised destroyer-class naval vessel! She was messing with a Street Fighter!

Blazermate kept up with her healing and cleansing of Sans's attacks, which looked like they would do some serious damage if she couldn't cleanse the debuff he left behind everytime he attacked. Even his giant laser beams he fired at Bowser and Dante didn't do that much more damage than his bones with Blazermate cleansing the debuff whenever it appeared. Still, with Blazermate being too concerned cleansing Sans's true damage debuff, she wasn't able to heal up others as much as she would normally do. This kept their health from draining from San's attacks and greatly reducing their impact, but she wasn't really able to 'heal' them beyond what health they had, keeping them fairly neutral on the health scale. At least, when they didn't take overwhelming damage like Donnie who she could only keep stable at this point.

With the combined efforts of Ms. Fortune and V, Marie took a huge blow, her body basically shattering at this point and only a shadow of herself and the skull heart remained. Looking at Marie and scanning her, Blazermate saw that she was actually fairly weak and that the soul heart itself was her weak point. She also processed that, no matter what anyone threw at him, Sans just dodged it with ease, even Dante's flashy quick attacks. And of course the combination of Red Team's efforts and Sans attacks not knowing what friendly fire was left Marie with very little in the way of reinforcements. With this information, Blazermate said to everyone on Red team. "Guys, ignore the skeleton in the hoodie. Marie is weak now and almost done! Aim for that glowing skull to finish her!" The medabot then continued to heal and dispel the true damage debuff when she could, her medaforce rising but considering the damage her team did to MArie and her skeletons, she doubted she could get any buff or attack out in time.

”She… She just jumped,” Jr said as they first heard and then saw Sakura’s descent, a ever so briefly dumbfounded by her decision.

”Heroes. They never change” Kamek sighed only for Jr to point out that ”You just do that though like two minutes ago”

”That was our battle to win, this is ours to lose” Kemek insisted. There wasn't time to go over the nuances of his actions, but he would certainly try and impose the wisdom of knowing when to pick your battles to the prince later.

”Yeah, well, we're still turning back” Jr told him. In fact he’d already started turning them back the moment he’d gotten over the surprise of the schoolgirl tossing herself out of the ship and down into the ocean.

As the ship turned in an arch and they had nothing but the sounds of battle to go on to tell how things where going, Geralt asked what they had on them to help him help her. They might all not be the pure hearted heroes that Sakura was, but there was no question among them about simply abandoning her down there now.

What they had was three toadies carrying spirits. There were the three in one spirit of the imps, the remains of the turret pile, and two of the simplistic machines that looked like torpedoes with teeth.

”Well you could absorb those” Kamek suggested, right before Ranger scooted into view of the bridge’s windows, plucked an abyssal spirit from the water and absorbed it, having quickly learned from Sakura’s example. The resulting transformation aptly demonstrated the ugly result that that option had in store.

”Or we could make weapons. I’m sure the one with the pile of cannons would produce something more powerful than that little pea shooter” he suggested instead

”Or if you wanna go bobbing for apples like the cooler looking ship-girl. Just slap this on and go for a swim. Bet with those funky eyes of yours spotted something even better down there” Jr said, holding up the blooper hood for a moment, which allowed the wearer to breath under water, with one hand while still steering them round with the other.

At the end of their turn Jr brought them to a halt again, side on to the battle (forcing them to cram into the very front of the bridge to actually see what was going on) and a further distance away this time. This brought the battle into view just in time for them to see the hooded figure who had advised them against this entire escapade in the first place to launch herself out of a portal to try and stab the princess in the chest with a vaguely familiar looking knife, before kicking her into a trio of abyssal ships the princess had brought in to aid her.

---

“Ah, and finally we come to a stop. Our new reptilian master doesn’t seem to know the first thing about sniping does he?” the old liver-spotted sniper said, releasing his death grip on the ruined railing as the ship slowed and then began to hover in place once again.

“-”

“Still don't want to talk?” the End asked his fellow sniper, before guessing “hmmm, or perhaps you can’t”

Quiet bobbed her head to one side to indicate that he was sort of correct and then lined up her shot. They were running out of time.

“I see,” the End replied, raising his tranquilizer rifle “Well, I’m sure we’ll have more times together in future. I’ll take the one which shares your fashion sense”

Quiet rolled her eyes and silently chose and lined up her own target, barely reacting to the sudden appearance of the member of the 13 and instead taking the chaos she inflicted in the ranks of their enemies as the perfect opportunity to take her shot.

Two triggers were pulled and then the snipers faded away.

---

Two shots sang out as the enemy formation went sprawling, one loud as thunder, the other quiet as the breeze. Quiet’s high caliber shot flew fast and true at one of the princess’s more armored escorts, while the End’s tranquilizer shot danced with the currents of the ocean air, gracefully sailing through the air, aimed at the sprawled form of Heavy Cruiser, aiming to bite into her plethora of exposed flesh and deliver its payload of tranquilizer.

The loud shot snapped Kamek’s attention away from simply watching the spectacle unfold. Sakura was closing in, preparing to go toe to toe with the monster that had so far shown itself to be able to annihilate anything it could hit in a single strike.

”Choose quickly” he told Geralt, stepping back from the console and heading for the back door while Jr gripped the controls tightly, frustrated about not being able to do anything but watch things unfold from a safe-ish distance.

The gaster blaster’s lasers ghosted right through Bowser like the bone waves had, inflicting the same karmatic poison. The resulting pain coursing through his body cut off his vacuum breath before it could upset the tiny skeleton’s untouchability. The king crumpled to the floor, the poison burning at his essence, dark magic boiling off of him as the spell enlarging him to the brunt of the poison, causing him to shrink slightly before Blazermate dashed in and cleared the effect.

”You’re a lifesaver” Bowser said as the pain abruptly came to an end, but the robot girl was already dashing away to cure someone else before he could thank her properly. With their guardian angel on the case with her cure all San’s barrages of attacks had almost been in the red team's favor, the skeleton having decimated the hordes of other undead who lacked their own medic to save them from his indiscriminate blaster and bone fire.

Now however he was pouring wave after wave after wave of fire into a hulking titan summoned by V, the skeleton’s bones and lasers joined by Marie’s skull barrages. Despite this the monster didn’t even flinch under the hail of fire, even Marie switching target’s to the creature's summoner. Nothing could stop it, least of all Bowser who picked himself off the ground just in time to see the colossus unleash a great beam of purple light at Marie. The demonic laser beam was blinding, forcing the king to shield his eyes. When it subsided, all that was left of the cursed girl were her scattered bones and the pulsating dark skullheart holding the ruined remains of her around it. When the dark heart beat, the shadow that had been guarding Marie pulsed into view with the heart at its core, revealing itself to not have been a minion but in fact to be the one pulling the girl’s strings.

”YOU MONSTER! SHE WAS JUST A KID” Bowser roared, jabbing an accusatory finger at the shadowy figure. Where Sans was touched by a brief melancholy, Bowser was filled with rage at what this thing, this woman, had done to a child. She’d poisoned Marie’s soul, warped her body and mind and even now that she had been reduced to tatters and rags was holding her together to continue its destructive ends. Enough was enough. He didn’t need Blazermate’s helpful call to know who to target.

Bowser charged. Bones and beams struck him, but the king shed his dark power, growing smaller and faster. When slammed he landed on all fours and launched himself forward again till he got close, where he launched himself airborne, pulled his extremities into his shell and tried to deliver a shell spinning attack to the skullhearted shadow woman, the King coming in like a whirling fortress of spikes, armor and fatherly fury.

It was probably the Cadet's fourth time trekking through Limsa. Even so, with so many people around there was always something new to see, even going down the same roads. What was strange though was that ever since the whole crew split up, he hadn't seen hide nor hair of Link no matter how many times he went back and forth down this route. Judging from what the princess said earlier, neither had she. If he hadn't returned by now, then maybe he found some kind of super ship and was just trying really hard to convince the owners to sell. What a dedicated guy!

Once they were at the dock and Peach went to talk to Brineybeard, Cadet leaned against the gold laden cart. He scratched behind BB's ears, and the little behemoth's tail thumped against the gold pieces where it laid, still sitting pretty square in the middle of the money pile.

"Y'think the rest of our crew is doin' okay?"

Cadet looked over at Cuphead. He was barely bigger than BB, seated on the wagon's edge and swinging his noodle-like legs. He'd been looking over Briney's ship, but when he turned to the hunter after asking his question, said hunter immediately nodded.

"Sure, of course they're okay," he said, and both boys turned to glance over the open ocean. On this side of Limsa, it was clear and empty. "They're just doing recon, how much trouble could they get into?"

Peach and Brineybeard's voices reached them as the two peered over the deck, the later's eyes nearly leaping from their sockets at the sight of their treasure cart. Unfortunately it seemed like their plan to purchase Shippy was a bust. It was disappointing, but Cadet couldn't blame the captain for not wanting to part with his vessel, since said vessel was actually a living thing. If it wasn't, the hunter would be trying to convince Briney of all the benefits of upgrading your equipment. Although he wasn't going to do that, Cadet still pushed off of the cart and made his way up the gangplank to speak with them.

"Aw man, what about if we ban-borrowed her? Or like a rental?" Cadet suggested, glancing around the deck. "...or we hired you to come with us! One last adventure, right?" He looked over at Peach, looking for her approval. It was her money, after all. Otherwise they'd have to see what Hat Kid and Link found.

---

The creature lurched, and as Primrose expected it let loose those projectiles projectiles from the lid on the top of it's head. With her improved speed, Primrose was able to get out of the way, leaping to the side when the barrage closed in and smashed into the ground where she was once standing. She threw magic at the strider once, twice more. It wasn't doing critical damage to the thing, but so long as her magic was having some effect she was satisfied.

She knew the thieves were up and about as soon as Joker called out his order. Primrose backed away then, letting the teenagers go on the attack. That they synergized with each other was no surprise. The dancer took the situation in, considering her next options, but the thieves worked quickly. The creature was ignited, and as it splashed fire and oil around Primrose deftly danced out of the way. She let out a quick whistle, calling the wolfos back to her side.

It was smart, setting the creature ablaze. The benefits of having a mixed party were many. The monster heaved and took a heavy blow from Joker, rearing up and lashing out. It's tentacles snaked around the chamber with purpose, curling and swiping at anyone within reach. Primrose didn't plan to be in it's range for long if she could help it. Once the wolfos reached her, dodging puddles flame, Primrose swung herself onto it's back. "Let's go," she said, and the mount burst into action, dodging the slick arms of the monsters as it ran wide around it. It was relatively safe to sling her dark magic at the creature from beyond it's reach, but despite her and the thieves' attacks, the ceramic monster refused to go down. Then perhaps it needs a good coaxing...

"Forward," Primrose ordered, and the borrow wolfos barked it's affirmative before it changed course, paws skidding along the floor as it stopped to turn and head toward the massive pot. The thieves were focusing on the tentacles, but the monster still had one eye left - and it seemed to certainly feel it when Joker took out the other one. With the wolfos navigating and avoiding the tendrils, Primrose could give all her attention to aiming the spell gathering in her hand. A few well time attacks from the teenage troupe gave her the opportunity, and the dancer let her magic fly.

"Worth a shot." Geralt nodded, grabbing the Spirits from Kamek's Toadies and throwing the hood from Junior over his shoulder. His fist closed around the Spirits of the Torpedo-looking Abyssals, as well as that of the artillery platform. In his other hand, the three-in-one Spirit of the Imps resided, and Geralt smirked.

"I need your help. My friend is out there, fighting for her life and ours. And I'm not sure I can do a damned thing about it without you. Can't promise it'll always be smooth sailing, but I'll give ya plenty of chances to fight. It's sort of my job." He chuckled a bit. "Won't drive you like a slave, just call on you for a hand here and there." Letting out a soft breath, he nodded. "How about it?"

Oh, he prayed this would work. Not that he expected that to help much.

Though its viscous tendrils wound through the air like life-seeking missiles, the Clay Dunestrider couldn't get a grasp on any of its assailants. They swerved and dodged its grasp while laying on the pain with their firearms and Personas, delivering a heady mixture of kinetic and elemental damage. As her thieving compatriots kept it busy, Primrose zeroed her wolfish mount in on its one remaining weakspot, the eye blazing within its pot-handle. With impressive patience and deliberation she gathered the magic in her fingertips, and when the stars aligned, let fly.

Her spell shattered the ceramic ring around the Dunestrider's eye, causing the brilliant flare within to burst like a bubble of lava. A terrific groan echoed through the pyramid as the monster his the ground, dazed and reeling. As one the Phantom Thieves pulled up around it, guns drawn. Mona lifted his scimitar high, glimmering in the fickle torchlight and burning oil. “It's time for an all-out attack!” He pointed at Primrose. “Let's go!”

The air itself seemed to shatter, filling with energy, as the party leaped upward. If Primrose joined in, she found herself caught up in the wild energy of the onslaught, a flurry of black blurs zooming through a scarlet haze in a riotous display. After a couple seconds the coup de grace came to an end, with an inexplicable spotlight on Primrose herself. The urging voice of Mona reached her. “Strike a pose and say something cool!”

Whether or not she did, the Dunestrider reeled back a moment later, its cracked pot spraying oil, before it faded into a pile of ash and a spirit.

In the aftermath the Phantom Thieves relaxed, brushing off dust and debris, fixing hair, and so forth. “Dude, that was super cool even for us, right?” Skull grinned before looking at Primrose in a new light. “That magic's totally better than Panther's!”

The red-clad girl glared at him. “Hey, come on!” Her annoyed expression melted away when she considered the dancer. “I mean, that was pretty good, but you can't sell Carmen short like that. When it comes to fire, we're nothing to scoff at.”

Mona put his paws on his belt pouches. “Yeah, knucklehead! Lady Ann's a a-plus mage. Having some competition just means she'll shine that much brighter! Isn't that right?” He looked smugly up at Panther.

She poked him in his enormous forehead. “You forgot to use my codename!”

Joker finished his examination of the Dunestrider spirit and came over. “Let's get a move on. Can't be that much farther to the ruler.” As the Thieves set off, he approached Primrose. “Want this? Only fair since you came to help us and all. That said, all of us do need better equipment. Better protectors, guns, weapons, charms. So we can use it if you don't want it.”

The doors on the far side of the chamber lead to a wide hallway floored with stairs, leading upward. It was much, much brighter than in the sepulchral depths of the pyramid, with white light shining down from the ceiling high above, and green codes and symbols shimmering across the walls. The Thieves moved quickly, but it wasn't long until a loud rumbling ahead signaled the arrival of giant boulders that began rolling down the stairs toward them.



Geralt's entreaty to the spirit of the destroyed abyssal did not fall on deaf ears. As if eager for more bloodshed, the Imp Pack resonated with him. A bond grew between them, drawing on the Witcher's own spirit to sustain and give fleeting life to the coagulated data before him.



Fire from afar covered Sakura's approach as she moved in, her radio abuzz with confused chatter. The dazed Water Princess watched her abyssal allies, thrown into disarray by the black-coated marauder, be blown away or sedated by the summoned snipers, then took a sound beating from Sakura's cannon fire. By the time she recovered from the stranger's gunshot, the seaward street fighter was close enough to utilize her original skills. Sakura jumped to deliver a crushing kick, but the abyssal brought her monstrous tail up to block. A loud clang rang out as the girl's metal-soled sneakers struck the black armor, leaving a respectable dent but dealing no real damage.

The Princess swung outward, trying to smack her assailant with her tail's sizable head, but Sakura had already launched into her next moves. Before the abyssal could properly react, the girl struck her torso three times and launched an uppercut into her chin, causing the Water Princess to stumble backward. “Grah!” she snarled, then lunged forward. Her tail shot forward like an alligator ambush at a watering hole, well equipped to snap shut on either side of her shoulders and sink its horribly human teeth into her arms. Once it had purchase, it swung around to fling her across the water.

“Isn't this great,” the abyssal sneered, her voice eerily hollow. “I'll show you why I am called Seaplane Tender. Come at me!”

In the moment of advantage given to her the Water Princess deployed three seaplane bombers. The creepy things flew Sakura's way. Meanwhile, the black-coated stranger had disappeared again, but Ranger was closing in. She launched her own planes, and the little fighter jets with mouths growing off them zipped out to engage the bombers. The Water Princess flung her hand at Ranger, sending a couple torpedoes her way.



The Cadet's suggestion of borrowing Shippy, or ban-borrowing it as it was, gained no traction with the shipmaster. However, Brineybeard paused to consider his next proposal. “One last adventure...?” the old sea dog murmured. Images sprang unbidden to his mind of an awesome pirate captain bellowing with laughter as his craft crashed through swelling waves, visions of loot and plunder, glory and infamy. He tugged at his scratchy whiskers, and cracked a smile. “Aye...methinks that wouldn't be so bad. I been mopin' about safe waters fer far too long on account o' them abyssals.”

Peach nodded as she took a step forward, ready to pursue the angle her monster-hunting comrade discovered. “With us, you don't need to worry. We've fought through two regions' worth of monsters, and ocean or not, this won't be any different.”

She could tell her words were working. Brineybeard cast a glance over the expansive sea, perhaps picturing the destination of a makeshift crew. “If ye be sure we got a fightin' chance, well...welcome aboard! It's high time me an' Shippy sailed some real seas once more!” He extended a hand to shake and seal the deal.

Smiling, Peach accepted his handshake. Cuphead reached in right after, happy to get some shaking action, after which Brineybeard supposed he ought to extend the Cadet the same courtesy. “Good,” the princess said. “In that case, we should get going soon. We've still got some allies in the city we need to round up before we set off.” She glanced at Cuphead. “You're a speedy guy. Think you can find Link?”

The little guy span his head around before clapping a hand against it in a smart salute. “You got it, ma'am!”

“That leaves Hatty,” Peach observed as Cuphead bounded off, leaping over the railing before racing back into the city. “She...went up to see the birds in the hatchery, I think. After that I didn't see her.” She crossed her arms, her dour expression visible to her remaining companion. “I should gave asked the mercenary captain if he had flares or something.”

Brineybeard, without much to contribute to the conversation anymore, had crouched down to scratch behind the ears of one of his sea dogs. For a moment something seemed to occur to him, but he shook his head. Only when Peach rounded on him specifically did he turn his full attention back toward her. “Captain, would you be alright with us modifying the ship? If we give it spirits it could gain new abilities or weapons.”

The salty sailor shrugged. “Shippy already be fairly fightin'-fit, but if ye says ye can make 'er better, there be no reason to refuse.”

The battle was in full swing then, though not in the way Heavy had anticipated today's battles to play out. The teams had changed dramatically, but to Heavy it was all the same story, only with new targets: Shoot to kill! Heavy's massive minigun of ridiculess amounts of firepower spewed bullets in appropriate spreads across the sandy map, the recoil but a light push against his massive frame. Some of the targets he was accustomed to shooting at, others not so much.

Heavy kept up the suppresive fire for his new team mates, slowly backing towards the giant camel robot as some of them made their way on top towards safety. For a RED member such as Scout, it would have been pancakes, while Heavy was in no position to scale such a height. Not that it bothered Heavy in the slighest, for he was far to preoccupied with killing cowards of enemy team. Fast approaching and outnumbering them, but all the better. It only meant more blood to spill!

The suited-up soldier from space, the Spartan, came into view of the Heavy. Spartan was aiming his sci-fi rifle up into the air, at first aiming at nothing in Heavy's mind. Only with the distant sounds of shouting behind him and a quick look over his shoulder, did he realize the target; The Robot Lady - Poppi - and the tiny furball mechanic - Tora! Why was Spartan fighting like Sniper now? This was not how this was meant to be fought! But Spartan was too far away for Heavy to kill him quickly with Sasha, even for how wonderful of a gun she was.

Quick thinking was needed. Or perhaps better yet, a quick flick of the wrist?

Heavy suddenly felt a surge of inspiration flow through his veins. Not cultural or artistic inspiration, no, but murderous inspiration! As if from the distant past of his life, Heavy instantly knew how he could accomplish such a feat; by shooting the Spartan! Brilliant!

So it must have been a dampening sight to see Heavy put down his minigun for a moment, as if he was to surrender to the enemy team. On the contrary. Heavy knuckled his fists, bent down his knees and looked straight ahead at Spartan, blood in his eyes. His fists went down to the sides of his hips, his right hand reaching for something not there. A holster? A gun? But how? There was nothing there…

"POW! Haha! You are dead! Not big surprise."

In an instant, Heavy had pulled up his right hand and pointed it square at the Spartan, firing at him with…his finger? There was no gun in sight, no smoke or sound of a gunshot, only Heavy's imaginery gun pulled on the Spartan. And yet the unthinkable had to be thinkable, for a tremendous force hit the Spartan straight in his chest, knocking him back and onto his side. Had Heavy just killed the Spartan…with his imagination?

Best not to dwell on it too much, not now at least.

Heavy turned his attention back to the fight at hand, watching his allies fight to stem the tide of advancing BLUs and REDs towards them. "Cosmonaut Fox, do you have plan to get us out of here? If not, that okay! Heavy will fight to the end. Heavy is always happy to do some killing."

Sakura "Eep!" 'd in surprise as the tail suddenly wrapped around her. It was...biting her? She hadn't expected that. It was really gross, too, and her cringe was more out of disgust than it was physical pain. Her Ki sparked off her body as the teeth dug into her clothes and skin, protecting her from permanent damage.

She was sent flying by a large throw. "Woah!" She skipped across the water like a stone before managing to stabilize herself. She brushed her new, longer hair out of her face. This was why she always cut it! She would have to put it into a ponytail or something when she had a moment. Sakura sneered at the Seaplane Tender's violent words before putting another hand up to her ear.

"Um, have you guys retreated yet? Like is there like, a base or something we could run too? Just incase I can't chase off this white lady?" She spoke into her radio. "Uh, over." She added.

The situation with the so called Seaplane Tender (Honestly? Doesn't even sound that scary. What's it supposed to mean? English isn't my first language so maybe I'm missing some kind of reference or double meaning. Doesn't tender mean 'nice' and 'careful'? Or tender like tasty chicken? I don't get it.) was developing quickly. One of the shipgirls who was named Ranger decided to stay behind and cover the retreat. Sakura's main goal was to prevent the Water Princess from picking off fleeing soldiers.

Seaplane Tender created some bombers and sent them her way. But fortunately, Ranger intervened with some fighters of her own! Sakura squinted at the incoming torpedoes. "Hadoken!" She called out, firing a heavy, fast, projectile towards the torpedoes. Her Hadoken could actually travel through water. It wasn't put out by water for the same reason it didn't burn people. It was Ki, not actual fire. Her plan was for that projectile to hit the torpedoes and set them off or knock them out of the way before they reached Ranger. That way, they both covered each other!

Sakura then rushed ahead. When she reached the bombers she did a brief spinning kick to knock them out of her way but other than that, left them to be dealt with by Ranger's fighters. Once again she bombarded the Water Princess with a series of cannon shots as she approached. She figured since the Water Princess wanted to toss her away, getting up close was still the best way to deal with her.

"HUP!" Sakura performed the Haru Kaze, a massive leap that was hardly elegant. As she did, she dropped some torpedoes into the water. Her limbs spun through the air. She was predicting the Water Princess would bring up her tail to block another kick. That was what she intended to counter with the Kashinfu, a downward throw attack. The best way to avoid it was to dodge it entirely at the last second. That...or just try to swat her out of the air. Hopefully the Water Princess was still on the backfoot from her cannon fire and wouldn't have a chance to do that.

If Sakura guessed correctly, she would place her hands and feet on the tail. Using it has a platform, she would rocket her body away from the Princess. All the while launching the tail into the Water Princess's own body, using her block against her. That would sent her slamming into the water, where she would be hit by the torpedoes she had dropped at the beginning of her jump. She had no idea how they worked, but she was imagining they would launch her into the air. So when she landed from her backflip, Sakura took a stance."Tengyo!" A Sakura special, she lobbed a blue fireball into the air in hopes to slam into the launched Princess. That would knock her even higher into the air.

After that, it was another Haru Kaze into a Sakura Otoishi, her favorite move. It was the one where she did three double fisted hammer strikes in a row. Each successive strike would bring them higher until the air, until the third one, where they would go slamming back down into the Earth. "Ichi, ni,-san!" She shouted out with each hit. Or rather, the water, in this case.

That's how she imagined it going down in her head, anyway. If the Water Princess avoided her jumping grab she was probably going to look really stupid. Still, looking stupid was the price you paid for being a Street Fighter. Sometimes you get punched in the face and your tongue comes out of your mouth and your little brother freeze frames it, prints it out and mails it you for your birthday. Othertimes, you get to throw a guy twice your size across the ring with a mighty uppercut!

The good news is, with all this fighting, she was feeling her Ki charging up. She would be able to activate V-Trigger and do some EX moves if she wanted too, now. Her blood was pumping! This was the craziest thing she had ever done, and so far, so good! The longer she kept up the fight, the more people could escape. She just hoped her teammates onboard the Atomos didn't get in trouble on her behalf. As long as she kept Water Princess distracted, they could do air support. Then, everyone could get away! Everyone accept the girl who was fighting alongside her now, in Spirit form, of course... Sakura's strength was all the more bolsted by the righteousness of this fight.

Hat Kid’s assessment turned out to be half correct; there were indeed things that could fly (or at least looked like they could) at the top. What she expected to find, however, was more of an airdock akin to the naval yard of the Bulwark Hall rather than a place of business sporting air vehicles of the more… alive variety. Being a storefront instead of a base, presumably accessible by anyone regardless of ability, made her roundabout method to get there moot. Furthermore, she could forget about casing the joint as she had originally intended in accordance with her prior expectations, as the establishment’s owner immediately noticed her upon arrival and welcomed her to browse their selection, which was probably the better alternative to what she had hoped for. Either way, it would ultimately fulfill the same purpose: to get her over the water.

Among the options presented, only half of them looked like they could reasonably support her for any respectable amount of time, and one of which she would rather not bother with at all. While she was partial to birds, despite her mixed history with them (and perhaps because of it), she wasn’t liking the way the crow demon looked, or looked at her, locking a knowing gaze on the child. The crows she dealt with in the past were shady enough on their own, but were otherwise harmless in spite of that. THIS crow was harmful by its downright nightmarish appearance alone. Was it even acceptable to have it on display for the eyes of the general public? Probably, considering children and families weren’t likely in the market for aerial mounts or a living, breathing, actual scarecrow anyway, so there was unlikely to be any business lost there.

The child shrank back nervously from the Crow with a look of equal parts disgust and worry that resettled as she continued looking over the rest of the available stock. Half of them didn’t appear capable of supporting her for any respectable distance or duration, and of the two she was partial to--the giant parrot and the Carbuncle--she wasn’t entirely sure that the latter was actually airworthy. Worse still, would either of them survive, or even manage the trip she had in mind? Perhaps the shop’s curator had something ‘off-shelf’ that would suit her better; something that wasn’t on open display. With that in mind Hat Kid inquired as much in her ‘silent’ explanation, indicating both of her planned headings--Inkwell Isle and the Bottomless Sea--by gesture...

...Then, she remembered she had a balance of exactly zero of any acceptable currency on her person. That was what she got for dealing fairly with career criminals. Her lack of funds was a matter she saw fit to leave out until the matter of compensation came up. At which point, of course, she would have to figure something out, but she wanted to see if Sky had anything worth her while first.

Geralt looked down at his newly-acquired items and assistants. Some kind of weapon not unlike the plasma pistol he was gifted by Tora, what appeared to be ammunition for the aforementioned weapon, and some...other thing. There was some kind of apparatus that appeared to be intended for fitting about the shoulder. "Well, not bad..." He murmured. He'd have to see how the Imps fared in combat, but he was satisfied with how things had come about. Quickly pulling out his bottle of Cat (Grants vision in darkness, as well as immunity to hypnotic effects for roughly an hour), Geralt took a quick swallow of the potion, feeling his eyes dilate and his mind sharpen. Whatever that hooded figure had done, Geralt figured he wouldn't have to worry about if it came down to a fight. Useful potion, Cat was.

Quickly getting his new gear in place, Geralt made his way out of the Atomos, taking a deep breath. Sakura had the Spirit of the ship girl with her when she jumped, and was closer to start off. He had only his body, and a cloak that made breathing underwater trivial. His sight would still be impacted by the water, though he had experience with free swimming and looking around in water.

He dove from the ship roughly horizontally, cutting through the surface of the water like a missile, and quickly settled into a rhythm, keeping a lookout for other Spirits he could grab along the way to Sakura.