The two cyborgs approached to finish him off.

Yoshitsune looked to the torch just out of his reach. With a swift and fluid movement, he kicked his wheels over his head, using the momentum to get upright again with a bit more distance. Tora and Poppi had shown up, along with some of the others, and the fight wad more fair. It was then he noticed something on his hips. Looking down, he smiled and drew the new swords that had seemingly appeared from nowhere.



He doubted the flaming weapons would do too much damage to the cyborg but was still glad to have something better than the torch to fight with.

Instead of waiting for Daemon to get closer, Yoshitsune rushed at him, aiming one blade for his opponent's head and the other for his shins. There'd be no way to block them both.

Taken by surprise, Daemon could only bring his blade into a poor block by the time Yoshitsune's double strike came down on him. He barely managed to obstruct the fiery sword meant for his cranium, resulting in most of the force still being transmitted through the sword. That plus the blow to his leg forced him away, wheeling backward. With his dander up he threw out a reckless fading slash to try and catch his opponent's follow-up, the multicolored arc of his Graffiti Blade cleaved through empty air.

Yoshitsune took a step forward, feigning the same attack, only to reverse into a spin to come from the other side, adding for Daemon's head and thigh this time.

Although addled enough to for Daemon to fall for the feint and block left, Yoshitsune's maneuver involved a full back-turn spin, which gave his foe enough time to adapt. He ducked backward out of the way of the samurai's double attack, allowing the somewhat reckless attack to overswing, then lunged forward with a rising diagonal slice. His blade's colorful trail turned in a spiral as he then looped his weapon downward into a falling diagonal slice, creating an X of spattered paint. From there Daemon leaped into a brutal somersault slash to divide the X in half, and if Yoshitsune didn't think fast, split him like timber.

With his swords raised in an X, Yoshitsune was easily able to block the attack, though that left him unable to attack with the burning blades. Instead, he kicked Daemon in the chest, following up with a flaming X slash of his own towards his opponent's chest.

When kicked, Daemon allowed himself to be pushed away to minimize the damage and also get out of the reach of an attempted combo. As he fell back he activated Stealth, disappearing from sight once again.

Yoshitsune frowned at the stealth, using the chance to consume a Kurama herb. Here closed his eyes, listening through the sounds of battle for Daemon. He'd have to attack sooner or later.

As the swordsman concentrated, he detected an onrushing object. When he turned to face it, however, he found it to be a brick, taken from one of the nearby warehouse shelves and hurled his way as a makeshift projectile. Daemon himself was nowhere to be seen, but a second later another brick flew at Yoshitsune from another angle.

With the flaming swords, the samurai was easily able to slash the bricks ot of the air. Keeping track of where they were flying from, he tried to see where Daemon was gonna come from next.

Each chunk of stone carried a lot more mass and force than the elegantly slim swords Yoshitsune elected to try and hit them with rather than dodging, and each one 'slashed' dealt a portion of durability damage to the flaming weapons. Nevertheless, his awareness allowed him to spot the three bricks falling toward him from above in quick succession, demanding his attention to avoid his helmet getting caved in.

With a quick jump forward, the bricks were dodged. With a high jump and a few points along the wall as steps, Yoshitsune joined Daemon in the rafters. "Fight honorably with your blade," he said, taking his stance again.

For a moment Yoshitsune faced nothing but silence. It lasted long enough to make him wonder if he hadn't guessed wrong, and that his adversary employed some sort of trick to make it seem as through he'd thrown his projectiles from up high. With all the noise down below he couldn't hear any telltale traces of footsteps. Then out of nowhere a cloud of aerosol paint blossomed in his face, copiously imbrued with soporific chemicals. As Yoshitsune struggled to resist the urge to sleep Daemon brought his leg up and delivered a weighty kick, returning the favor from earlier and then some. "You were annoying," he Daemon told his enemy as he fell from the warehouse's heights. "So long."

Yoshitsune took the kick, letting himself fall in a way where he'd land on his wheels. "Enough of your dirty tricks!" he yelled angrily. "Have some honor when you fight a samurai!" He used another Kurama herb, thinking about how Daemon attacked his with the... Yoshitsune didn't know what it was. Some type of poisonous gas? "Kamui!" he called, activating the first level of the ability.

Daemon's lips curled in anger beneath his mask. He leaped from his vantage point, grabbing hold of a tall shelf's corner strut to slow his fall, and descended toward Yoshitsune with his Graffiti Blade at the ready

Just as Daemon got close enough, Yoshitsune activated the second level of Kamui, showing his perception of time more, giving him a better view of his opponent's openings. He thrust one sword for Daemon's face, using that as a distraction to hold his other sword at the other swordsman's neck.

On the way down Daemon readied himself to deliver a broad slice when Yoshitsune came at him, but he didn't anticipate the perception and precision allotted by Kamui, especially since the samurai didn't call his technique out loud. The tip of one blazing katana stabbed into and managed to get through the gang leader's fearsome mask, piercing and burning his cheek. He roared with pain and his blade flashed from one side to the other, giving him some room to land. Daemon took hold of his weapon with both hands and lunged forward, calling upon Shift, to bring himself close enough for a whirlwind spin attack.

Surprising himself with the damage to Daemon's mask, Yoshitsune was a lot more level-headed than his opponent. As Daemon tried to do three spin attack, Yoshitsune swung his blade for Daemon's forearm, hoping to disarm him.

Perhaps not anticipating the follow-through of the Shift Strike technique, the samurai attempted to counterattack with the spin still in progress. When the blades collided Yoshitsune's got deflected, and there was only so much he could do with his other sword before the Shift Strike scored a good hit across his chest. Daemon came to a stop and hopped back. "Getting cocky? Die already!" He moved forward, ready to deliver the fight's final stroke. As he ran in he scraped the Graffiti Blade across the ground, throwing up a a spray of sparks and paint. Behind the haze he drew his sword into an iaido position, focused his strength, and finally unleashed a speedy draw slash to cut right through the veil and the man behind it. The move left him open, but in his mind Yoshitsune was too wounded to deal with it, making this the killing stroke.

Yoshitsune gasped as he stumbled backwards. "That's a strong attack," he smirked, gripping hits swords tightly. As he made the mist, Yoshitsune saw his plan to cut through him. The gash in his armor wouldn't protect him. He quickly and quietly got low, nearly laying on the ground. After Daemon's slash, Yoshitsune stood with a rising slash for Daemon's torso.

Yoshitsune's blade split Daemon's corded belt and ripped upward through his paint-stained hoodie, only stopping as it struck the underside of the man's mask. His hat flew off as he reeled backward, stunned by the impact. His fist still clenched around the hilt of his weapon, but the samurai had another moment to execute a follow-up attack that would make all the difference.

With all his strength and speed, Yoshitsune pushed Daemon to the wall, one sword against his neck, the other against the wrist he held his graffiti sword with.

Though backed into a corner, Daemon's resolve did not falter. With Galeem's influence in his heart he couldn't surrender, not so long as a drop of fight remained in him. But as Yoshitsune entrapped him, his eyes involuntarily slid to the lightshow spooling up a few meters away. That little girl was awash in magic, a vast destructive power building around her, and Daemon could only watch as a wave of explosions radiated outward from her to fill the warehouse, swallowing everyone in its pyrotechnic fury.

Yoshitsune landed a ways away from where he'd had Daemon pinned to the wall. The other swordsman seemed to have escaped. Standing, though in pain, he made his way towards the others. It didn't take him long to notice healers had come, as well as some police, and most of his friends seemed to be heading towards them. Swords sheathed, he moved to the closest healer who wasn't working on anyone else. "The masked swordsman escaped," he groaned angrily. "I have a feeling we'll see him again."

One by one the Seekers made their way onto the hanging platforms until the Cadet was the only one left, besides those choosing to stay behind. Before making his way up himself the mini hunter went to fetch the other magnet half, where Link caught his attention.

"Yup." He looked at the kite curiously, wondering how exactly it would help. It definitely wouldn't aid in climbing. Behind him, some of the catwalks creaked and the chains holding them aloft broke, nearly dumping the children into the drink. Ah, okay I see how this kite could come in handy. With it, he could take a page out of Link's book and glide. Or so he hoped anyway, the Hylian was scrawnier than him both as a child and an adult.

The Cadet gladly took the item, though he offered one of his own in return. He presented the makeshift shield to Link, the dartboard with the handle he'd attached. The bullseye glared green, red, and black. "It's not the most sturdy, but if anything dangerous shows up maybe it will help."

With that he waved to those staying behind and started towards the catwalks. Passing BB on his way he ruffled the minion's tuft of hair and commanded it to stay put before he crawled up the darts and hopped onto the nearest platform. Each path he could see had gaps, holes, or dangerously rusted looking sections. Ace Cadet sucked in a breath, gripped the kite securely, and ran. His strategy was: don't think too hard about it. He didn't want to get stuck in his thoughts again, end up hesitating and then falling. This time he was last out of the gate intentionally after all. He hopped, sidled, and kite-glided his way over the precarious platforms, and when he got to the end in one piece he jumped rather than take the ladder. Once safely on the other side he glanced back at the Kamek, Frog, and Link, flashing them a thumbs up before he disappeared into the door behind those going on ahead.

A quick glance showed exactly where they should go, but the door to the command room was shut. Ace Cadet trotted over to it, and when it didn't immediately open he placed his hands on the metal. Pushing did nothing, trying to dig his fingers into the middle where the door parted did nothing, and knocking was just as useless as everything else he'd tried. Concluding that there was some kind of trick to opening it he turned back to the others and found them talking to a robot stuck to the ground. Or... not a robot? He listened to Carl talk, then Mirage and Sakura talk about him, but it wasn't really making sense to the red head. Basically, they just needed to help Carl, right? He stepped back to let Sakura offer her friend heart, and when Carl accepted it... nothing happened.

"Well he looks better," the Cadet said, cocking his head to the side in confusion. He considered Nadia's ghost comment. "If he was like a spirit stuck in the robot, maybe he went back to his real body...? He said he was a human, right?" They could speculate all they wanted, but more than likely none of them could actually know what happened. Cadet didn't think it could be that Blazermate was right and the friend heart had the opposite effect it usually did, since it worked on everything so far. Regardless, they had to move on.

"Connect cables? I can do that," he said, taking up the job while some of the others went to the maintenance room. Since this kind of tech was outside of his grasp, the Cadet figured he might as well make himself useful in other ways. Connecting cables was simple enough. I could use a crash course in the weird, advanced technology stuff though, he thought to himself as he worked, I bet it's easier than it looks! Maybe I'll see if anyone at the Alcamoth can teach me -

The door to maintenance slammed shut, drawing the Cadet's attention. He shared a look with Peach, considered trying to find a way in just in case the others were trapped, but soon enough the door opened again - along with the one at the opposite end of the hall to the command center. "Rado-cool, you guys did it!"

The command center's interior was dark, despite the lights overhead. It also smelled wet. The reason became apparent when they moved further in. The Cadet ran over to the fenced area and wrapped his fingers through around the links, peering into the water. It was as dark and still looking at it now as it was when they first entered this area. He turned his gaze to the submarine hanging above the water. That... was a submarine, right? It was spherical, rather than the tube-like shape of the Maw, the submarine Abyssals, or even the rudimentary submarines of his world. Besides the shape, there was also the fact that -

"It's small," the Cadet grumped. Some of them would have to stay behind, maybe even most of them. They'd be splitting the group up more, but at least they wouldn't be too far from each other. Behind the submarine, at the other end of the room, there was a soft light and static noise. It was hard to see through the fence, so he went around the center with the others, finding the strange looking man who babbled, complained, then choked and fell into the water. Again the Cadet peered into the depths, and again it was too difficult to see into the dark.

"You guys think that submarine has any weapons, or anything to defend itself? If that guy is really going to turn into a monster, what would stop him from just breaking the sub, or swallowing it whole? Maybe..." Maybe they'd have to find some way to deal with the guy before they even got the sub into the water, or get some kind of modification for the craft - which the Cadet would gladly leave to their mechanically minded party members. One of said members was already seated in what he'd called a "remote working station. Mirage's eagerness was followed up by Geralt's pessimism.

"It's not gonna kill him!" the Cadet exclaimed. It was just a chair, was it really so suspicious? He supposed it did look a little creepy, but whether it was the dull lightning, the shifting noises of the Maw as it traveled, or the fact things looked oversized due to them being kids, pretty much everything in this place looked creepy. The Cadet watched Mirage hook himself into the chair and added, "...but let us know if you get stuck or it hurts or something, we can pull you out."

The robot reached out for the heart and grabbed it, which activated it, much to Sakura's surprise. "Oh, I-" But, it worked nonetheless. Sakura took a step back and smiled as the robot fixed itself right up. There was a bit of a staticky grunt, but she didn't think much of it.

"Yatta, it worked!" Sakura put her hands up into the air and waved them around. "Mister Carl, I know you're probably pretty confused right now. But basically some giant jerk ball of light kidnapped everybody and..." Sakura trailed off.

"Carl-san?" She waved her hand infront of him. "Are you okay?" She waved her hand infront of his eyes. Her face fell. Nadia knocked on his head, nothing. Nothing at all.

"A...ghost? Wh-what? What happened? I gave him the Friend Heart." Sakura said. She looked between her allies. One by one they offered their brief thoughts and moved on. Finally she focused on Rika, who asked if she was ok. "I gave him the Friend Heart. He should be fine. I don't- I don't know."

"Why would it-? Not?" She looked at her ex-Abyssal friend, eyes wide and watering. "Rika..." She wrapped her arms around her in a hug. "I don't understand. I'm sorry."

Then the little girl detached and dropped into a sitting position, looking at the lifeless, utilitarian robot. "I didn't know! I didn't know what would happen. That's never happened before! Where did he go? Was Mister Carl ever there? I don't get it!" She held the sides of her head and cried.

"No, no it's all that stupid Galeem's fault! That thing did this! It's got everything all- all scrambled up! I didn't know what would happen: I didn't want that to happen!" Sakura exclaimed, smacking her hand against the steel floor. She pushed herself to her feet and wiped her eyes.

"I guess Mister Carl was already in a pretty bad spot...He was stuck. But if he got fixed, he went away? It's so confusing." Sakura wasn't sure what to make of it. She felt guilty, angry, confused. But at the same time she wasn't sure if blaming herself too much would be wise. No one else seemed to be. But they didn't seem to care about the situation at all. That didn't exactly sit right with her, either. Maybe there really was nothing to do but move on?

"I'm gonna get that nasty Galeem." Sakura wiped her eyes again. "Thanks, Rika. Let's...let's go." She was the last person into the next couple of room sby a significant amount, only catching the tail end of the saddest man in the world falling into the water. She also wasn't involved in the conversations about loot and new weapons. She didn't feel like getting any new toys, anyway.

Sakura's mood as a whole was back to being down in the dumps, her shoulders slumped. The one good thing she thought they could do while in this terrible place backfired.

Nervously she stayed near the back of the group. "That is our submarine? It's teeny! It's a little baby submarine. Aw, man, this sucks." Sakura looked over the side into the water.

"If we lose the submarine, though, we're all d-dead. Just be careful, Mirage." Sakura approached the cjaor, resting a hand on it and looking at the brave engineer. "You've still got your smarts and if you get separated from us, I don't know how we'll get out of here. So, uh, no pressure." She gave him an apprehensive peace sign.

"We just gotta get the submarine..." The brunette trailed off, eyes on the murky water underneath the dangling vehicle, out of reach for now.

Safely out of the museum, Primrose exited the car as soon as possible and breathed out a sigh of relief. She leaned herself against the wall of a nearby building, gently shaking her legs and hoping they stopped feeling like jelly soon. The artists she tucked into her bag she lifted out and placed on the ground, where they lined up to be returned to normal size.

The visit into the museum had turned into quite the adventure. Primrose removed the masque from her face, holding it in front of her to get a good look. She recalled that Panther said the blue and white accessory looked good on her, contrasting with the red and black she wore. The dancer was thinking more about how it felt than how it looked, though. Compared to her first escapade with the Thieves, even though this one was more of a close call towards the end they all felt more like a cohesive unit, even including Jesse and herself. It was nice.

She packed the masque and matching watch away into her bag and straightened up, smoothing her clothes and hair. A habit she wouldn't be breaking anytime soon, making sure her appearance was up to par even when they were just headed to the local hospital.

Once the artists were dropped off, Primrose waited with the others both to cool down and wait for the, hopefully, good news in regards to the weary artists. Rather than doze she busied herself organizing the things they'd ended up with after the museum heist. Besides the spirits, most of it was junk. The spirits themselves Primrose peered into. They were all monstrous, if not all in looks then definitely in personality. The thought of fusing with any of them made her wary, even Yuga despite how his magic power might increase her own. For now, all of the haul was tucked away ready and waiting for whomever wanted to claim it.

Eventually the good news did come. It might take a while, but the artists would recover. Primrose was glad they were able to rescue them all in the end. She glanced at 'Fox.' He seemed like a good kid, and the dancer was especially glad that he was reunited with his friends after seeing how happy the teens were to have found him again.

Outside in the sun again, Primrose was ready to find the other members of the Yellow Team again. Hopefully they'd found a lead of some sort, so they could deal with the mess of Al Mamoon's opposing forces and move on. Although from Necronomicon's report, it sounded like something may have found them instead.

"Can you contact Fox?" She asked, then paused. "The furry Fox. See if he knows what is going on."

She had no qualms about going to the disturbance either way. She had an inkling that the others would be involved one way or another. As they prepared to head out Primrose turned to Jesse. She looked the woman up and down much like she had the first time they met. After a moment she shrugged one shoulder and gave Jesse a small smile. From one battle to the next, what could you do? She also invited her to come along. "We will probably need all the help we can get," she said honestly, "come along with us."

If the director went with them they could all explain as much as possible on the way, if she didn't already know. Jesse mentioned she was some kind of authority figure, but whether she'd been in the city for a while already and was privy to it's going-ons Primrose didn't know.

By the time they made it to the battle it was already over. Strewn about in the parking lot and warehouse were faces both familiar and unfamiliar, clearing recovering from a fight. That Grimleal officer, Kan-Ra, was there as well. From his words, apparently the Grimleal operation was underway. That, and it appeared the Seekers had chosen a side.

"So you made contact," Primrose said, making the new arrivals' presence known. She didn't ask if they were alright, as she could see the state they were in already - and she'd heard Kan-Ra's offer for them to be healed. Instead she looked between Kan-Ra, the Seekers, and the people that must have been part of the Resistance. If the Grimleal were taking them, there was nothing more they could do without making an enemy of both sides. Except perhaps for Midna's suggestion, although Primrose wondered if the Grimleal wouldn't deliver capital punishment regardless.

At Kan-Ra’s command several of his clerics moved forward to begin restoring the Seekers with healing spells. Rather than healing all at once or at a slow but constant rate, their magic undid the wounds they’d gained in chunks, making them well again bit by bit. Tora took only a moment of one’s time thanks to the comparatively few injuries he’d sustained along with his out-of-battle, after which he could consider the situation at large.

As it turned out, his team had come across quite the interesting crew of worthy opponents. Though all of the Resistance members present had been either beaten by their opposite numbers or flattened by Klee’s explosion, they still did pretty well for themselves, maybe the best on average out of everyone Tora and his friends faced so far. Except the bosses, of course. And maybe that nest of snipers back at Spiral Mountain--now that was an ordeal. Still, an interesting if rather motley crew, kind of like the Seekers in a way. In a different story, these people might have formed the odd bunch galavanting across a broken world to defeat Galeem.

Back to the matter at hand though, since it seemed like none of the rebels died, it sounded like the mummified sorcerer planned to take them all into custody. It took a second for Tora to associate the bloodlust Kan-Ra spoke of with the inexplicable tendency of Gleaming folks to fight to the bitter end. Wondering about what would become of them left a sour taste in his mouth. If they couldn’t stop fighting, would they be locked in cells to bang on the walls for the rest of their days? Would they just be executed after being squeezed for information? A dozen scenarios leaped out at him, and none of them pleasant.

Tora looked to Poppi, then his friends for advice, and found them in similar turmoil. Judging by the look on her face Midna didn’t like the implications here either, but unlike him she had a plan in mind, and one she soon put into action. First she demonstrated the use of a Friend Heart on Big Band to bring him back to mint condition. He stood slowly, a little confused, but didn’t waste time thanking Midna for healing him. Then, while he grabbed hold of Mao to keep him from struggling, Midna approached Kan-Ra to say her piece.

The Grimleal’s third captain rubbed his chin, that ghoulish smile of his ever present, and considered the princess’s suggestion. “Fascinating,” he said at length, mulling the new information over. “So, you’re saying that their behavior can be attributed to a false god. Considering some of the intelligence we’ve amassed, this is rather...hmm, plausible.” His glowing white eyes regarded the squirming child in the grasp of his bandages. “These are Al Mamoon’s criminals. Dealing with them is our business, not yours. At least, that’s the sort of stance many would take. But if we can bring them to their senses, why, I see only...benefit. But first, I would like to see a demonstration. Two, in fact, to make sure the results are reproducible.” He lowered Klee to the ground and unwrapped her, leaving behind a single bandage that tied her to the handle of the open garage door above her. “This girl, and…” He glanced at Band and the second captive at hand. “Him, too. Show me this way you have to ‘clear’ their bloodlust.”

"You're turning ME into a guinea pig?!" Mao piped up, though Big Band's grip made him pipe right back down, with a few spiteful attempts at biting being all the white-haired boy could muster.

Poppi stepped forward, putting a hand on Midna’s shoulder. “Poppi and Masterpon can help!” she declared. “We barely even scratched anyway. That way friend Midna not exhaust herself.” Although taken by surprise at being volunteered, Tora didn’t take much prodding to get moving, and the duo approached the captives together. Klee and Mao watched warily, but in their post-exploded states they couldn’t do much to object as Tora and Poppi both manifested a Friend Heart. They popped the little pink motes into their respective targets to work their magic, and in just a moment’s time they were back to their normal selves.

Eyes wide, Klee stared up at Poppi, who crouched down and gave her most encouraging smile. “Hello, little one! You okay?” she asked.

“Um...yes,” the child murmured, still working through the bewilderment that typically accompanied a Hearting. Memories returning and realizations that things weren’t how they should be were a lot for a young mind to come to grips with.

“Does Klee feel like blowing people up with bombs?” Poppi continued, without much in the way of discretion.

Klee looked appalled. “No, no! I would never! My ‘splodies are only for Hilichurls, and...and fish! But, but please don’t tell Jean I said so!”

Relieved that the warehouse wasn’t due for another explosive beating, Poppi smiled. “No problem, Poppi not say thing to Jean. Just be good girl, okay?”

“Okay…?” Klee replied tentatively, still not exactly sure what this was all about but possessed of a sinking feeling that she’d done something very bad. Her eyes landed on Baz. “Oh, no!” she cried. “Is Mr. Baz going to be okay!?” She rushed over to try and shake him awake. In the midst of her worries, however, she became distracted by a sound from above, and Poppi followed her gaze upward. Together they spotted, along with any of the other Seekers who cared to look, a familiar UFO flying above the buildings. It hovered for a moment, then buzzed off.

Meanwhile, Mao awoke from Galeem’s influence surrounded by Tora, Big Band, and Kan-Ra, in whose bandages his wrists were bound for his captors’ safety. The other Seekers, more or less healed by the Grimleal clerics, stood or floated around in front of the warehouse. “Hello, meh!” Tora piped up. “Okay mummypon, he all good now!”

Kan-Ra’s eyes bored into Tora’s soul. “I am not a mummy. I am Babylonian. Long before their time!” When he saw the Nopon’s lack of understanding, however, he didn’t press the matter, but groaned before he turned to Mao. “Hmm. He appears completely unharmed. And he is not attempting to kill us.” He bent down, bringing his ghoulish face within inches of the demon’s. “Yet it is too soon to say if your involvement with the Resistance was coerced or voluntary. So we will have a trial run.” He straightened up, looking between the Seekers. “While it would be ideal to cure each of the captives, we do not have time to waste. My compeers approach the other hideouts even now. Since we are now allies, I will entrust this one to you, so that he might betray and lead you against his former comrades. And of course, given the faith placed in you, it would not behoove you to lose him.” All this he said through that indelible toothy grin. “Meanwhile, my acolytes shall make our new captives comfortable at the temple.” His gaze rested on Mao, then meaningfully on Baz and Klee. All of a sudden the demon was very important to the Seekers, and his cooperation important to everyone.

At that time something in the southern section of the parking lot began to draw attention, first from Kan-Ra’s Grimleal acolytes. The heroes gathered in front of the warehouse watched as a familiar black-haired youth jogged into view with a large-headed cat by his feet, followed by a blonde dude in a tank top, a girl with two pigtails and one snake tail, an alluring dancer, and two strangers they didn’t recognize. One seemed to be about the other teens’ age, in a crisp white shirt that really highlighted his slenderness, and the other was a woman grown with vivid orange hair. Unbeknownst to anyone but Fox, who’d received a call from Necronomicon on the way over, the newcomers had been there long enough to hear from everyone and get a decent grasp of what was going on. Though Kan-Ra’s followers tensed up, ready to face Resistance reinforcements, their leader noticed the lack of alarm common to all of Fox’s group. “Friends of yours?” he hazarded a guess just as Primrose approached, giving a question by way of greeting.

“Yep!” Tora confirmed both happily. He waved to the Phantom Thieves and their pretty accomplices. “Hi hi, meh! Boy do we have story to tell you!”

Joker slowed to a stop, his hands sliding into his pockets. He and his companions looked over those assembled, noting a couple fresh faces. Among the Thieves only Ann had really been in the loop. “Likewise. But it’ll have to wait.”

Clasping his hands behind his back, Kan-Ra agreed. “Indeed. What you see here is the tip of the iceberg, as it were. A fight just concluded that has effectively removed a third of the Resistance from play. But the other portions are soon to follow. Azwel and Ciella are leading assaults on the other bases right now, so if you all wish to minimize bloodshed using this heart power of yours, it seems as though you’ll need to divide and conquer.” Kan-Ra stood at the center of the three groups, and pivoted between all of them as he spoke. “I can accompany one division to steer them in the right direction, while our new friend here can guide the other.” A number of expectant eyes followed his gaze to Mao. “We should set out poste haste, so if any preparations must be made, now is the time.”



Despite the naysayers Mirage proceeded with his investigation, and it quickly bore fruit. Although it lacked a manual, the pilot seat had been designed by an actual engineer for its convenient and intuitive use by customers, and once in the seat he realized by looking upward that the inside of the machine’s headcase featured step-by-step instructions. Flipping a switch on the armrest turned the whole thing on, pressing another button lowered the main apparatus, and by standing Mirage could almost stick his head inside.

Nadia’s eyebrows rose as she saw an opportunity to help--and to get away for a moment. “Oh! Just a second!” she called as she scampered over to where Moreau had been existing prior to the kids’ arrival. After whatever happened to Carl, Sakura had turned utterly despondent, which in turn had sped her on the way to the workshop. She just couldn’t deal with someone that empathetic. What was someone supposed to do? Tell her it would be okay? The idea of a robot that believed it was human made her uncomfortable enough, but an outburst like that really piled it on. At the same time though, Nadia felt bad for distancing herself. Guilty, even. Like Sakura still feeling bad was her fault. Nadia grit her teeth as she sifted through Moreau’s clutter. What can I even do? After another moment of searching she grabbed a shoebox that seemed to contain some stuff belonging to that tumorous wretch. After dumping them out she returned with the box to put on the chair for Mirage to stand on.

With the shoebox’s help he could reach the headcase and let the mechanism settle around his cranium. Though somewhat disconcerting it didn’t extend any needles or anything, but merely surrounded his head with pads. A screen blinked on in front of him, and the program’s bootup sequence initiated. As it got underway it sounded out a few short tones and deposited some text on screen. Haimatsu Pilot Seat SCX-303 Neural Interface online. Remote control uplink engaged. Searching for Universal Helper…searching...searching…

While he experimented with the pilot seat, the koopas focused primarily on the pit in the center of the room that led to the water below. After Moreau’s trip and fall it became clear that the door on the cage’s back side wasn’t securely fastened, and it didn’t take much work to either pull it fully open or lock it in place. There would be no need for Geralt’s scissors (a good thing given their intended use on paper and/or fabric) or copious amounts of fireballs. A closer look at the water revealed nothing more than an ominous murkiness, especially once Blazermate confirmed that their dramatic new acquaintance was just hanging out down there, but at least everyone could access the submarine now.

Before the kids got up to anything else the Cadet brought up a good point. How resilient was this thing, really, when it came to sea monsters? That little girl with eel tentacles could probably smash those windows in, and when Nadia pictured that ultra-gigantic shark chomping it like a malt ball, she shivered. At least the Megalodon couldn’t possibly fit inside this place.

After some pondering Bella offered an idea. “Maybe we need a distraction,” she suggested. “Some kind of bait to draw the monsters off. Loud, or bright and flash, just generally being a spectacle. Then someone else can slip by unseen.”

Peach toyed with her hair anxiously. “That would mean we need a decoy, too. We could...throw in the diving suits? Or maybe climb back up to the catwalks and drop pieces in the water?”

Without anything of her own to pitch into the discussion, the feral joined some of the others by the water. While Bowser trundled off to take a more thorough look through Moreau’s meager possessions and Blazermate fretted about getting wet, Nadia turned her bright eyes on the submarine hanging above the pit. Now that she thought about it, why would a vehicle clearly designed with passengers in mind need a fancy techno-chair to control it? She was no gearhead, but that just seemed redundant. The two couldn’t possibly link up. Something occurred to her, it being her simplest and most sane idea today by far. She shimmied up to the chain link fence and put her fingers through to grab hold, then put her feet through holes below. And then started to climb.

With feline grace she worked her way up the fence. Being child-sized had a couple advantages after all, it seemed. Her tail swished back and forth as she made her ascent, pleased to be in her element, although while climbing some of her other feelings intensified. Just ignore the hunger. Just ignore the pain. It’ll be worse later. Gotta get ready for it. It didn’t seem likely that she could get the submarine down, but at least she could get a better look at it. Once at a good height she could jump to grab hold of one of the arms holding the submarine up, then clamber on top of the vehicle itself. Right away she identified a hatch with a twistable seal, and though it took a little wrenching she managed to turn, then pop it open. From there it was just a small drop and she was in. Piece of cake.

She looked around at the interior, mostly clueless. The controls seemed pretty simple, but given the much more mechanically inclined people in the group she didn’t actually want to drive this thing. That begged the internal question of course: what was she doing here, then? Just to do something, I guess, she thought. Not like she was going to be helpful down there. Nadia sighed and shuffled over to one of the big, round windows in the submarine’s side and leaned on it. She spotted her fellow children below and waved. Then there wasn’t anything else in here to do, so she used the rungs in the back to climb on out.

“Looks good to me. Sub-lime, even” she called down to the others. “I’m thinkin’ it could fit four of us in there pretty easy. Not seein’ any way to get it down, though.” She took another look around and noticed a blue-coated wire leading between the visible portions of the submarine-holding arm. “Hm.” Feeling lucky, Nadia followed it up and a short way across the ceiling before it disappeared into the panel. By looking in the direction the cable pointed, however, her gaze passed over the Command Center’s forward window to land on the communication station that sat there. That’s it! On second thought, the cable couldn’t go through the window, but maybe it passed through the nearby wall or something. “Maybe there’s a button down there?” she called down.

Over in Moreau’s nook Bowser’s probing brought to light a couple interesting items, both laying around and from the shoebox Nadia emptied before. His rifling turned up a porcelain doll in a dress, an ancient-looking key with black wings, a couple random jars stopped with corks including one that read ‘alcohol’, and a much bigger jar with something inside he couldn’t identify as anything other than vile. He also found at least two barely-started jigsaw puzzles plus a bunch of pieces, an incomplete deck of playing cards, and a meager-looking fishing rod.

Universal Helper found. Commencing uplink.

Before Mirage’s eyes, the screen inside the pilot seat’s headcase switched to a live feed of a metal hallway, that being the same corridor his team just came through despite its lack of identifying features. From both bottom corners of the screen a clawed robotic arm extended upward, and through experimentation it became apparent that he could give mental commands to whatever machine he seemed to be interfacing with. All the while he controlled his real body as well and could remove himself from the machine, although the screen would flash a warning that doing so would terminate an uplink when the sensor pads shifted too much.

For Nadia, a few tense moments passed by without anything happening in the Command Center. Neither the submarine nor any of the diving suits moved an inch, leading her to wonder what exactly the machine connected to. From up here, though, she could see a small cluster of metal barnacles on top of the headcase, complete with a couple luminescent blue nodes. What a mess. For now she remained on top of the submarine, waiting to see what would happen next.



After some time, Albedo closed the book on the etchings of the triptych, both literally and metaphorically. He rose from his seat and slipped his sketchbook back into his coat, then turned to see Linkle ready to move on. Her manner seemed different somehow, maybe a little reverent, or perhaps just restful. Hopefully the Skullgirl had found some semblance of peace in this place. “Good to go,” he told her. “Our next step is to find someone who might know these runes, and thus, the deities of the world they hail from.” Putting a hand to his chin, he narrowed his eyes. “Thinking logically, this is the best place we know for cultural and religious information. So we’re probably not done with this monastery just yet.”

Bearing that in mind, the second tower offered little else for the pair. Cluttered with icons and objects of power to an intense degree, it served as more of a repository of divine artifacts than an actual temple where people spent their time. Not everything could have its own shrine in the main building, after all. Though Linkle and Albedo could easily head back into the first tower, at least checking out the third tower seemed obvious. The two proceeded carefully through the veritable army of statues around them, seeking to avoid any divine entrapments and sped on their way by the increasing sensation they were being watched. As they retraced their steps past the black clock from earlier, the one ensconced by three one-winged angels of gold, it turned to face them, which made Albedo realize that it must have been floating the whole time. He watched it warily, ready to summon his sword. When the Norn took no other action he hurried on his way.

Unlike the court that preceded the first tower or the walled yard between the first and second, the route to the third tower was a little more precarious. It stood upon a separate mountaintop, a lone sentinel amidst ice and wind and stone, and so necessitated a bridge across the open air. A suspension bridge, no less. The sight of it made Albedo want to die inside at first, but he quickly realized this wasn’t some ramshackle, slap-dash sham destined for disaster. The ropes that round through and around the tightly-packed slats were almost unnecessarily thick, rich yak hair corded together to ensure the safety of monks and visitors alike. It moved only slightly in the wind, and when the alchemist set his foot down he found he could breathe a sigh of relief. For a suspension bridge, this seemed about as sturdy as one could ask for. The handful of monks, priests, nuns, and so forth currently using it certainly didn’t look troubled.

Before crossing, however, he moved to the edge of the balcony-like liminal space between the bridge and the second tower to look out over the view. A grand vista sprawled out before him, no doubt the lowlands whose juxtaposition made the rest of this region the Frozen Highlands. What lay down there he couldn’t make out due to the sea of clouds at rest down there, but from the puffy mists rose more mountains, and not all of them were stark, foreboding monoliths. Instead he saw mountains wreathed and connected by ropes bearing myriad banners and flags, their vivid colors flapping in the wind. There seemed to be an entire network of the giant streamers down there that linked up what appeared to be mountain settlements. He could see grass, trees, bales of hay, quaint little houses with roofs covered by tough little plants. The sight took him a little by surprise; he hadn’t expected to find civilization in such a remote place. But there it was, colorful, cheerful, thriving even. It must be warmed down there, he reflected. Looking farther, he spotted a birdcage, a volcanic mount with molten rock flowing like a lava cake, and an enormous bell. This place, he realized, could make for many a good drawing. “Breathtaking,” he whispered.



As nice as the sight was, the answers the pair sought would not be found in that alpine vista. They proceeded across the bridge to the third tower. Once inside, it quickly became clear that this one served a more humanitarian purpose than those that came before it. Here, it seemed, the denizens of the Cold Monastery fed, slept, and otherwise quartered themselves. They proceeded through the heavy doors into the warm, quite liveable atmosphere within. Right away they could see that this place did not quite embody the same extravagant pluralism as the other towers, with only modest decorations to be seen here, the rest replaced mostly by practical and personal effects. Various people went about their business throughout the place, some in much more casual attire, and one such person seemed to take an interest in the newcomers the moment they arrived.

The man in question was an older gentleman, solidly built, with a gray-tinged mustache and a receding hairline, with strong brows and kindly eyes in between. He sat on a cushioned bench next to a a little table with a lamp, a cup of steaming coffee in one hand and a book in the other. For a moment Albedo’s eyes lingered on the book, binding humble and nondescript, unmarked except for a single black cross on the cover. When he looked up the storied reader met his gaze, and he gave an affable wave inviting Albedo and Linkle closer.

When they walked up he set his items aside and smiled at the pair warmly. “Ah, some new faces! Welcome, welcome. Father Guerra, at your service.” He noticed a look at his coffee cup and gestured toward it. “Ah, care for some coffee? I’d be happy to brew for you. If you're cold, please take a seat by this lamp.” Obligingly he scooted over sideways to make room.

Albedo shook his head, a little surprised by the sudden offer. “Oh...no. No thank you.”

“No problem,” Guerra told him. He crossed his legs and clasped his hands together in his lap. “Well, if there’s anything I might be able to help you with, I’m all ears.”

---

---

Despite the Fat Hamster and Pile of Rags being in his face, Mao had kept quiet. He'd needed a moment to reflect given his newfound clarity, starting with the fact he was nowhere near his own Netherworld. Or power, for that matter. A dimension wasn't a huge deal, he could hop across Netherworlds with no issue usually, but this was different. Whatever this place was, it was repressing him. Though one might be surprised a lack of power wasn't what would stress Mao, rather the idea of the Upperclassmen trying to take over HIS Netherworld. With his absence, he doubted the shift in power would be favorable when he returned. But whatever came up, he'd just bash down. Not that big of a deal.

What was a big deal, was what had happened when he arrived here. It was rough to gain a footing, especially with his more brutish and 'for the strongest' mindset of most demons. It wasn't hard for him to find himself shoveled into the dark corners of Al Mamoon trying to make enough money to get by. That's when the Resistance came into play... The companionship, he couldn't give a crap about. But the power, and security? Now that was worth something. Too bad his usual demonic traits were a tad too strong for his own good, his ideals of overthrowing the leaders to instead lead his own force obviously having failed, considering he ended up as nothing more than a minion himself.

Worse than he thought, too. He'd been sent around, like some mutt being smacked with a newspaper. Being told what to do, the deeds not weighing on his mind, but the fact they were to someone else's benefit? His blood was boiling at that. Bending people's wills was HIS job, he wasn't just some secondary character to be beaten around and recruited! That was Almaz! It was bad enough to be comparable to a human, but then this fight ran through his mind. That detective was a pain, how could a damn human put up such a fight? Most of the combatants were strange looking to say the least, but they put up a hell of a fight and won. He pinned it on the fact his powers were diminished, not their own talents.

Then he looked over the losers of the battle. Cass, Maeve... A couple of pains, to say the least. Nothing worthwhile lost. Koga, eh. He would've forgot about that chump if it wasn't for the fact that Baz was over near him, too. The rest were even less notable. Klee had seemed to obtain the same clarity he did, but Baz wasn't so lucky. The demon scoffed, irritated by Kan-Ra's game. They wouldn't be able to help Baz, at least not right now. He wasn't much of a bargaining chip on Mao's end, but he wasn't a guy that needed to be rotting in a cell. He could be useful, Mao thought. That, and Klee and him were pretty happy together, and if Baz was out and about, Mao himself didn't have to carry these gross concerns he had, passing them to the meathead instead.

Noticing the eyes on him, Mao spoke up in response to Kan-Ra. "Fine! Needed to make a trip for revenge, anyway!" He faced the Seekers, arms crossed as he observed the mixture of faces from behind his glasses. If they were strong enough to take this fight, then perhaps the rest of the Resistance wouldn't be too bad. They had him now, after all. "There's a base hidden in plain sight in the northeast sector of the city. Covered by the guise of a dull business, but that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. I'm not sure who's stationed there, or the big details of the building itself, but whatever the case, that's our destination."

Noting the rather nonlethal approach taken by these individuals, he figured he'd go along with it, aside from his personal vendetta. Number Two was his target, but he wasn't even sure if she was there. For daring to brainwash him though, he'd cut her down. It was simply a treachery that couldn't go unpunished, even if it was Mao trying to overthrow her in the first place. That's just how Demon politics worked.

"Maybe on the way, one of you can answer a few questions for me, too." He added, spreading his arms, gesturing to the surrounding area. "You've got to know more about this world than me, and that 'False God' that cursed me." Cracking knuckles showed that Number Two wasn't the only one on Mao's hitlist: Whoever this God was, Mao wanted to obliterate them as practice. Maybe gain some of his old power back while he's at it.

---

"Oh yeah, positive!" Mirage responded to Jr with optimism, continuing to try and attach the wiring. "Not much else I can try, and if this thing can control some of the machinery around here, we might not even have to go down! Then Blazermate wouldn't even hafta' worry about the water!"

Jr's uncertainty was followed by Geralt's, Mirage starting to get nervous with all this negativity. "You keep being like that and you'll jinx it, Geralt!" He responded to the swordsman's pessimism, wanting to prove him wrong. Which only increased with the positive backing of Cadet, which Mirage grinned at. "If it starts trying to electrocute my brain I'll just, uh, scream. Screaming is the signal for help." A slight uncertainty came over him now, but he shook it off, not wanting to jinx it himself.

Looking up at the headcase yielded positive enough results: This seemed to be common enough tech to have the instructions imprinted on the inside of the gear. Just a flip of a switch, and hear a kid throwing a fit... Throwing a fit? His gaze turned towards Sakura, not exactly sure of what to do for her. She seemed really beat up over Carl, and Mirage wasn't comfortable with it either, but he tried to shoot her a few words. "Hey. It's not your fault Carl did that. Machines bug out, or have errors. Nothing we could've done or caused." That Gleam keeping him oblivious probably did a pretty bad job at making that sound sensitive or caring, but as far as he saw it there wasn't any tomfoolery on their end that'd of harmed him. He chose to get back to work, distracting himself from the unfortunate situation by trying to get into the headcase.

He found himself to be a little short, attempting to hop up like he'd lock in place or something, but no dice. That was when Nadia spoke up, and said she had a solution. Taking a look, he watched her empty a box of some sort and bring it over, causing him to smile. "Thank mew!" He said cheerily, accepting the platform and using it to gain the height he needed to get inside the headcase, which was actually pretty comfortable. It sucked he had to stand up, though. He was already feeling weak and a bit unsteady, but he stayed strong to see what he could yield out of this venture.

An audio notification gave him a positive surprise. "Oh yeah, I'm in!" He cheered, not exactly sure what it meant yet, until the feed came on. It felt like he was looking through his own eyes, yet at the same time, a few shortcomings in the tech made the illusion a little less comfort for his brain. Where are my arms-- Oh! To his surprise two metal arms appeared, with pincer hands. He messed with the system for a few minutes, teaching it to pinch to a rhythm for his amusement, but it wasn't that useful.

"What the heck can this thing do?" He spoke, mostly to himself to verbalize his thoughts. It responded to these thoughts, and he began reading the text on his screen, an amused look on his face. "Universal Helper Three, Designation: BULL. Submersible unit equipped with omni-directional arms with superhuman precision, runs on a vortex motor... Whatever the hell a vortex motor is."

Mirage wasn't aware of what room he was in, right away. So he was very optimistic about the machine. "This thing's great! I think I can go underwater with it!" He raised his arms victoriously, but this had the unfortunate effect of also causing the BULL to raise it's arms, a loud thud against one of the walls outside the room startling Mirage. "Jeez, th-that sounded really close! Are we being attacked?!"

a shifted view was enough to see that it was the BULL that damaged the wall. "Ahah, nevermind, that was me." He was embarrassed, but a small laugh he offered quickly stopped as he pieced things together. He scanned the room he was in, recognizing his sling on a nearby lever, and all of his optimism died. "Oh... Oh, man..."

He didn't feel good about this suddenly, but this was possibly their best bet for getting underwater safely. With hesitation in his voice, he decided to try and get it moving. He didn't want to speak to the others and really be clear on the robotic unit he was operating. "... Activating Vortex Motor. Time to see if it can move itself."

Although there was some whirring outside the room, the machine didn't move. Clearly now, Mirage realized it was purely a sea vessel, instead of multi-purpose. Though that raised the question of how, exactly, it could get to the water.

"Alright, well, it can't move. At least out of water." He concluded to the others, scanning for a way to get it sea-bound. After a moment of silence with him scanning, he came to a conclusion after looking about, realizing he was sitting on a conveyor. With the power flowing, that'd possibly serve as a great transport to the water! "I need some help. Any of you wanna go back into the hall and see if you can get the conveyor working? Might help get us closer to the water."

Hopefully, at least.

Cheese Legs was finally returned to his rightful owner, the sight of affection between the beagle and his owner made the demon prince uncomfortable but not sick to his stomach. Laharl felt a little more understanding of the relationship between a pet and master but he didn't get time to think it over as the distant sound of commotion and smoke drifting from the tops of a distant building, but there was something else...


Laharl assumed from the state of Team Yellow that the battle hadn't gone in their favor 'Idiots probably screwed everything up, buncha incomp-' and then Laharl saw him. 'I won't be upstaged by this foureyed freak, even if he is another Overlord.' the young demon pushed a few pedestrians gawking at the destruction the supposed hero's caused, ignoring their protestations Laharl simply flipped them off and went on his way to the spectacled demon.

"Hey foureyes in what kind of Netherworld are you Overlord? The library world?" Laharl couldn't help but laugh at the other demon who looked like a complete dork to him "I am Laharl Kriechevskoy, son of King Kriechevskoy. Who the hell are you?" crossing his arms Laharl asked.

Midna gave the slightest sigh of relief, both because that her idea was being taken onboard on a provisional basis, and that she wasn't going to have to be the one putting it into practice. Her little speech had been about the limit her wounds would allow, and so she gratuitously settled down on the ground and let one of the clerics tend to her while the more intact Tora and Poppie did the example freeing.

As said clerics' worked their magic (Or faith? She wasn't quite sure, but either way they put parts of her back together with pulses of power, which, as with the Medic, was a far better option than risking bleeding out or getting infected by something even if she didn't know how it worked) the pair who’d shared her concerns stepped forwards and got to work freeing the girl and the teen (or at least that's what she guessed his age was?).

The results were dramatic. Far better than she had expected even, considering her encounter with Crow. Yes, the little girl was still concerned about her former boss (which was ok in Midna’s book but maybe not in Kan-Ra’s) but the horror she expressed about using bombs on people showed that Galeem’s twisting went even further than Midna had expected. Maybe these were just good people who had been driven to cruel ends by Galeem’s wretched influence, she thought? Their cause was, when it came down to it, just, but maybe they’d only gone too far with what methods they’d considered reasonable because of the Gleeming?

This line of thought gave her a fundamentally incorrect impression of Mao, who’s practically jumping at the chance to sell out his former comrades she took to be a result of him also being horrified at what he had done, rather than being horrified about having done those things in the name of someone else’s cause.

”Seeing as this was my idea, I’m sticking with you” she told him, adding herself to the team that would be raiding the store he’d talked about. She wondered which one it was. Had they been meters away from a hideout and not even noticed? That was very briefly going to get awkward if it was one where she’d dealt with the owner at all.

Before they headed out however, there was the sudden arrival of Primrose and company (who Midna was happy to see where all in one piece) to briefly deal with. The dancer noted rather bluntly that they’d made contact with the resistance in perhaps the worst way possible. Minda wondered if she was annoyed about not having a say in how this had gone down. Probably yes. She knew she would be, and in fact still was with how things were getting out of hand and having to be reigned in.

”You could say that, yes” Midna replied, rolling her right arm, now wonderfully free of claw gashes thanks to the cleric’s work, before adding ”But we didn’t even get to introduce ourselves before they threw this welcome party for us” jokingly.

Part of that they could at least change now with at least one, former, member of the resistance.

”I’m Midna, good to meet you. Also yeah, I can answer some questions while we get going” She introduced herself to the newly freed bleach haired, grey skinned, hylian-esque person, and then nodded her head towards the exit for him to lead the way. They didn't have a lot of time. One of these resistance members had escaped, and the fights around the other bases were sure to start as soon as the news of the failed ambush got out, if not sooner. When he did she followed him or, more specifically, his shadow, while giving him (and Band, if he went with them) a quick run down of their quest while hitching a ride to the store.

”If you want to see who’s fault this all is, just take a look at the sun,” Minda said, entirely unaware that this was a bad idea for lighters under normal circumstances as it was for her all the time ”and, I’m told, you’ll see the winged being known as Galeem”

”It dismantled all worlds with that light basalt you just remembered, and stitched everything back together in the mess we are now living in, and finally blinded everyone to the fact that that had happened. It also is the reason everyone else has red glowing eyes. Be careful around them. They're mostly themselves, but Galeem’s power means that once a fight starts, they won't stop fighting till they’re dead. Plus I think we’ve just learned that they’ll go to greater and worse lengths to achieve their goal than they would if they were able to remember themselves” They saw plenty of such individuals as they rushed through the city, the eyes of every member of every crowd glowing an unnerving red, the new theorized facet of the influence adding an extra ting of danger two each and every one.

”Long term plan is that we, and a few other groups of other freed people, travel round this round island we’re on to gather spirits and allies in order to gain power, and then use that power defeat the rest of these Guardians that dotted around the land which are shielding Galeem from harm. Then last things last we head to the center to take down that glowing pain in the ass once and for all in order to set the world back to the way it once was” she continued by spelling out their long term goals before moving on to the more immediate goals.

”Short term, if we can free both the resistance and some of the Grimleal we might, might, be able to resolve this civil war without any more death and get a bunch more allies in the process. We can only free people when they’re beat up, you see, and because of that whole, fight till the end thing, we can't just go around picking fights and freeing people without causing ourselves a whole heap of trouble. Don’t exactly want to try and take on a whole town after all. ” this was very much in line with Fox’s thinking, but after that she deviated back to her own

”Also, obviously, people who were evil before will be evil after, so there's always a risk involved with freeing people. If you're in a tough fight, free your opponent and they still want you dead? Well you’ve just freed them and taken off a blinder that might have been holding them back. Think that’ll be an issue with some of the others?” she asked their newest member, in case he had some insight about the general gist of the resistance. She didn't think it would, but best be safe rather than sorry.

---

Like Ms Fortune Rika didn't actually know how to handle Sakrua’s emotional plight, but that didn't stop her from doing what she could, which was hugging her friend back when Sakura gripped her. Doing so was made a bit awkward by her gauntlets, but she did her best to be a comforting presence anyway.

The ship girl didn't really get it. The heart had practically made her into a person, but here it had made the robot not a person? It was confusing and painful and she didn't know how to handle that either, which made her grateful that, while Sakura’s way of dealing with the situation was bizarre, and honestly a little traumatizing in and of itself (Rika was very alarmed when the schoolgirl smacked her head against the metal floor) it also let Rika deal with it by association. It was Galeem’s fault. Simple as.

Thoughts of revenge really were a great way to handle pain, be it hunger or death!

“It’s ok. You helped me too”, she told Sakura when her friend thanked her for being there, as little as she had actually done to help, and then headed into the com’s room with her friend.

After the debacle with the bloated fish guy she went to take a look where he’d gone, once again showing that Jr was overthinking things when she simply pushed open and then stepped through a gate in the fence without a thought in order to look down at where the old guy had gone. According to Blazermate he was apparently still down there, which meant that somehow, against all odds, Bowser had been right.

Picking up on the fact that people were weird out by his prediction, Bowser defended it by saying ”What? It’s the worst thing that could happen, so of course it’s going to happen in this weird nightmare of a place. Have you guys never watched a horror movie?” and planted said prediction firmly in the dumb luck category.

”You never let me watch horror movies… wait they’re like this? Yeesh. They sound really lame then” Jr complained, before quickly getting over his own complaint. Who in their right minds would have anything to do with this stuff for fun, he thought. Either way, they had other things to worry about. Like the wet guy pulling some kind of dry Bowser move on them as soon as they went down there.

Rather than keep staring down into the murky water waiting for that to happen, Bowser wandered off to start rifling through the guy’s stuff. There was a doll (creepy), a key item (which the king held onto) a bunch of toys and games the guy had presumably used when not staring at the tv (based on the abandon nature of the jigsaw the tv was probably his favorite pastime by far), a crummy looking fishing rod and a bunch of jars of stuff. Bowser took a sniff of the labeled one, went ”Blech” when it reminded him of Bracus and promptly left the rest alone.

All except the last jar, which had a very gross looking thing called a “Cadou” in it, which Bowser had the displeasure of having a hungry stomach growl coincide with him looking at it. Which made him feel sick. What kind of monster would… Bowser glanced at the fishing rod, then back to the disgusting thing and had an idea.

He hooked the jar and fishing rod under his arm and rejoined the others, now rather loaded down with stuff.

”Ok, don't look at the thing in the jar, but for distractions, I bet we can use it as a bait on the end of this fishing rod or something” He suggested, responding to an earlier comment by Peach about finding ways to buy the sub gower’s time to sneak down to the water controls.

“I can go down and scoot around and shoot to make some noise? If I stay close to land and Blazermate acts as a spotter she can probably make sure I don't get got by a big fish right?” Rika suggested in line with that idea

”Just as long as your safe kid” Bowser told her, which got him a confident nod in affirmation.

”We’ll have mirage’s sub robot thing too… we could chuck that in to make noise and be a distraction. Or maybe even just have it do the thing?” jr suggested, seeing as he was assuming he’d be the one doing the submarining. Then he had another thought, based on how Mirage was acting while wearing the fortunately not dangerous robot control system and suggested that ”Do you think Carl was just some guy plugged in like Mirage was then? Somewhere else though, and for like, way too long?”

“Hey, yeah. Maybe you just got him to get out of his own chair thing? That would be nice” Rika said to Sakura, accidentally punctuating how much wishful thinking was involved in that with her final comment.

”Maybe. Well. Even if we do just use the robot, we still want to get the sub down as like, more bait. And if we do go, like if we need to do land stuff down there, then I can drive it and I think Mimi can do her shadow thigh through the glass? So we are not 100% defenseless” he said, getting a nod from his pokemon that that would work. Whether it would be enough to hurt anything down there was debatable, but it was a reassurance to not be entirely helpless.

As for getting the sub down, Nadia’s strategy of just climbing up there didn't yield any internal release mechanism, but it did find a wire leading from it down somewhere that might have a release mechanism on the other end.

In response to this info, Rika and Jr both took up their respective strategies for getting in the cage again. The ship girl went looking for a door or hatch or something, while jr followed the wire itself and then tried to claw open the panel it led into to try and follow it. Unfortunately it was way up there in the ceiling.

”Give me a hand getting up, will you?” jr asked generally, but Bowser was more than happy to help, putting down his many gubbins (hammer head, mutant containing jar, fishing rod and key) before joining his son in his mission. First they tried forming a two Koopa stack and, if that didn't get them high enough, the king would casually wander over to unplug the annoying staticy tv so he could move it over to use as a footstool.

---

Mao's eyes fell on the creature he could only identify as some rare-colored imp of sorts, introducing herself as Midna. The wide assortment of demons in the Netherworld made it easy to accept the individuals of different shapes and sizes without a lot of confusion on his end. It was her introduction that also made him realize he hadn't introduced himself even, having gotten used to just being known on sight by his Netherworld residents. Introductions tended to be polite, which went against his norm, so he kept it short. Despite the absurd regard he held himself to, he wasn't in a position to really gloat to these people either. His status from his own world wasn't something that'd matter if any buff guy built with a bunch of saxophones could knock him down. "Name's Mao. It won't take long to get there, so anyone coming along better stay ready." He warned, taking Midna's suggestion to start walking. Better to get this over with, and get some answers at the same time.

At her suggestion, he looked up at the sun, hand attempting to block out some of the bright light. It's huge, Mao thought to himself, noting that this False God, according to Midna's story, was much more powerful than he had first thought. That light she mentioned, it had sparked to mind prior. He didn't have to worry about his Netherworld being taken over, it seemed, as instead it had been destroyed and possibly used to stitch this place together. In a way, it was brilliant. A huge undertaking, splitting so many worlds and combining them into one abomination. Mao found this to be fascinating, wondering if he could manage the same effect with Netherworlds. More land to rule, more power to obtain, after all.

"Despite just going about their lives, they're all influenced by that Galeem guy, huh?" He looked at the red-eyed individuals he walked past, wondering how he could have ever thought this was all normal. With a clear mind, he saw things for how they were, and how dangerous a place this was. This Galeem was truly comparable to an Overlord, ruling over a vast world like this one. Impressive in a way, but to have been mind controlled on TOP of the mind control? Infuriating, but he could handle that in due time.

That left their goals on the table. Defeat Galeem, which Mao could understand and had a personal piece in. And the conflict between the Resistance and the Grim, which... Mao was also personally involved in, for numerous reasons at this point. "I noticed nobody on your side going for kills during the fight, it makes sense now." Gathering as much force as they could... Galeem had to be strong so it was smart. But before that, they'd have to beat the crap out of these 'Guardians' that are blocking the way. Sounded like a road of violence and glory, which was something Mao could get behind. He was always fond of the 'level grind' concept, anyhow.

"I guess that means you removed the influence from us so we'd join this fight too?" It was an obvious question, which Mao didn't really expect an answer for, instead deciding to confirm his stake in this mess. "Not like I have much choice. If my world was obliterated by that light, then I have to fix it to get my peons back!" What was an Overlord without minions? Nothing! One might say he was 'friends' with a few of them, but Mao would just say he needs his fighting force. Being a ruler with nobody to rule wasn't any fun either.

At Midna's posed question about the alignment of those in the Resistance, Mao shrugged his shoulders. "It's a grab bag. Some of them, like Klee, wouldn't hurt a fly without Number Two's brainwashing. Then you have the freaks, like that chick with the robot legs, who's just happy to kill for the sake of it. I'm sure the group we're going after will be mixed between those who're being mislead, and those being manipulated into using their craving for violence against Number Two's enemies." Hand on his sword, Mao personally felt no pain in potentially having to put down a few of the Resistance members, especially the boss herself.

"For the sake of recruitment I'll try and leave them in one piece." He wasn't making promises though, as fighting to maim and not kill wasn't usually his M.O... But this conflict was bigger than him. He was reasonable enough to see that. He wouldn't confirm he'd put his own goals aside, but with how their situation aligned after the Friend Heart, he'd have to try and play by their rules a bit. In a world like this, Mao could see the end justifying the means though. If he could gain enough power, Galeem wouldn't be a problem. A transformation into his unrestricted form would be enough to obliterate Galeem, but he was nowhere near that level. But Demons lived a long time. He had plenty of time to train, unless there was a timer he was unaware of. He noted to potentially bombard Midna with more questions later, though for now, something was distracting his senses.

Mao came to a sudden halt, the cause not immediately clear, at least to anyone else. "Wait," He called to Midna, head slowly gazing leftwards as his senses demanded, only to see what could be described as an obnoxious blue-haired snot running their way, barreling through people like he owned the place. Mao wouldn't have cared, but he carried an energy about him: One similar to Mao's own, marking him as not only strong, but also a Demon. And an Overlord, at that.

His words stung Mao's ego, light gleaming over his glasses as he hunched forward somewhat, glaring at the half-naked idiot in front of him. "I'll have you know the only time I step into the library is during torching hours!" He objected, disgusted by the idea of even reading a book! Unless it was something completely unproductive, like a comic book, that is. "You're talking to the previous #1 Honor Student and current Dean of Maritsu Evil Academy! The name 'Mao' is enough to kill a delinquent on the spot when they hear it!" He stated proudly, standing back at his full height and offering his signature Mwahahahah! evil laugh as proof of his devotion to the vile arts.

Looking over Laharl in more detail, he saw the traits of the other Gleaming folk in him, signs Midna pointed out for him prior, thankfully. As much as Mao'd love to hurl insults at him for what he said, he recalled that they didn't want to constantly try and start fights. Which also wasn't something Mao was used to. With the circumstances, he had to try and adjust. Tact wasn't exactly the scientist's strongsuit, however, so he simply verbally barged straight ahead and told Laharl about as direct as he could.

"As much as I'd love to sit around and gloat about my superior Evil Quotient during NPC banter, I've got revenge to take! Official Overlord business." He said in an attempt to disregard and/or discourage Laharl from getting in his way, but unknowing to him, it was probably more of a reason for him to join in on the trouble. Aside from the additional fact that Mao had no idea Laharl was already 'with' the Seekers, and was probably looking to rejoin with his team anyway

Laharl's fists cracked as he clenched his fists so hard they went white 'NPC...' gritting his teeth he started to growl a bit, furrowing his brow and glaring hot daggers at the audacity of Mao's insult 'Official Overlord business...' the boy felt like his blood was boiling, Laharl visibly red-faced with a palpable fury growing.

He took a step towards the other Overlord and poked him in the chest "Listen up you foureyed nobody, call me an 'NPC' again and I'll kill you." even if he was a small fry his eyes spelled bloody murder, yet something seemed to be holding him back.

"If it weren't for these idiots, I'd have killed you by now." he barely looked at the rest of Team Yellow as he sneered at Mao "Believe me I hate working with these rejects as much as you," his tone became less harsh, looking at the other Overlord with an imperceptible nod "Unfortunately it looks like we're going to have to work together." now it was his turn to get the last laugh, to lay his final blow on the bespectacled demon before him and that he would as he added "As equals." the blue haired demon also offered his famous evil Muhahahaha! adding salt to the wound left by his last two words, Laharl crossing his arms had a vile grin on his face while he let the words sink in.

Midna rode in Mao's shadow as they zipped through town, and was pleased that her exposition skills were still up to snuff when all her talk went down smoothly. It was even a little nostalgic, though as she’d find out the overlord was cut from far different stuff than her Link.

”I haven't been able to observe/analyze the difference in depth myself, but they are more or less who they are, and they go about their lives as they would if they were home, though I imagine the cognitive dissonance between where they actually come from and Galeem’s adjustments to make then think this is where they are from has its influences on how they do thing, as well as the whole inability to back down thing.” She added a bit more about the Gleeming, but this was mostly speculation on her part, and then listened with interest about the nature of the Resistance.

They were a mixed bag apparently and apparently this “number two” had brainwashed the good eggs and made them fit in with the bad ones. That was interesting. Maybe it had been a mistake to blame Galeem directly for the resistance’s methods, though, of course, it was because of them that this number two could do this in the first place. Plus, if people couldn't back down, then would it force people who wouldn't kill to do so to end fights? And then warp their understanding of themselves in the process? Make moral people into killers? It was a disturbing thought, and it matched the little girl’s horrified response to being asked if she wanted to blow people up.

While she tried to psychoanalyze the more indirect effects of Galeem’s influence, Mao had easily managed to work out on his own why they had gone nonlethal, but she added a bit more context just because she could.

”We’re not above killing on principle, there's plenty of monsters out there that it’s best to just put down for everyone's safty, but yeah, the resistance is salvageable, so if we can avoid landing any killing blows here, that’d be for the best. If some of them are like you, tough, and able to see the bigger picture, then we want their help. This quest we’re on can always use more heroes after all” That would still leave the issue of the Grimleal. She didn’t really trust that they wouldn't get up to something evil once they were in uncontested control after all, but maybe they could snag some during the fighting and get them to see that same big picture too? She had her doubts, but there was only one way to find out if they could be on-boarded or not. Integrating them could maybe allow them to insert mercenaries from home-base into their ranks to act as moral compasses.

While she was theorizing their rush to the shop paused suddenly, Midna not needing to be told to wait because, as she was in his shadow, the Overlord was doing all the work moving them and, as a result, had complete control over their pace.

”Oh, goddesses” she sighed, rather exasperated, as she saw who it was who had caused them to stop. It was Lahral and, apparently, these two had a connection of some kind, being from the same world and having some power that was distinctive enough that even the Gleeming Laharl could pick up on the connection. What followed was a round of bickering, boasting and chest puffing, the context of which went over Midna’s head. What she did get was that, like Crow, Mao self identified as Evil and, by the fact that they shared a title, the other overlords probably also did? Midna asked herself if that was better or worse than the Grimleal’s lies/lack of self awareness about that fact, but if they were working with the seekers they were working with the seekers. She’d just need to keep a closer eye on them from now on.

”So yeah, as you can see, we do work with Gleeming people other than just Band... probably should do something about seeing as he’s not going away any time soon. Maybe it’ll do something about his rotten attitude” she said just to Moa, before pulling herself out of his shadow and then leaning an elbow on his shoulder while telling Lahral that ”Yeah, you 100% arn’t killing anyone on my watch Lahral. That goes for the people we’re about to fight too. Speaking of which, the hourglass is running low, so let's keep moving” before jerking a thumb back the way they had been heading. ”You two can deal with whatever this ‘Overlord’ business is when lives aren’t on the line”

From what little Tora, Midna, and Kan-Ra had said, it seemed like the Yellow Team had survived an ambush. In that case it was good fortune that no one was killed. While the clerics got to work, Primrose thought about Kan-Ra's suggestion. Splitting up again to join with two raiding parties that were already en route. It made sense, but with their power split what would happen if after the battle, the Grimleal turned on them...? The Seekers were strong, but they would likely be outnumbered. Or was that just paranoia rearing it's head...?

Primrose sighed. This was probably the fastest way to deal with the whole civil war situation, and then they could move on. Take that train and get to Galeem's guardian, defeat it and then return to Al Mamoon to finish up any diplomatic loose ends. Her eyes flickered over to Mao as he introduced himself and begrudgingly accepted to join their group. Somehow, he reminded her of someone else that she couldn't quite place. When he mentioned 'revenge' Primrose suppressed a smirk, but besides that he seemed competent enough. Midna was good at explaining everything about the messed up patchwork world they were in, so she left the princess to it.

As far as preparations went, her own health and magic were restored. The dancer turned her palm up and summoned a small flame in her hand, holding it gently as she studied it. She had complete control with her own spells, and gradually she was getting more comfortable with the pyromancy. She let the fire roll between her fingers for a few moments before snuffing it. Yes, she could definitely feel herself growing familiar with it.

There were also the spirits to consider. Primrose was still apprehensive about fusing with any of them, and being bogged down with a bunch of combat items wasn't her style. The others might have more use for them. She didn't immediately move to take the spirits out of her bag, instead she was distracted by a quarrel not too far off. As soon as Mao had set off, their very own Laharl had showed up. What was with that attitude though? Had he become even more aggressive since entering the city, or was he getting more comfortable and this was closer to his actual personality? Since Primrose still viewed Laharl as a child, she didn't take the insult thrown the team's way seriously at all.

"Laharl, I'm hurt," she teased, bringing her hand up and placing it dramatically over her heart. "Were you not going to get stronger with us?" Despite his rudeness, Primrose was glad Laharl was still in one piece. While Midna put the two Overlords in their place, Primrose went into her bag once more. With another battle coming up quickly she re-donned the royal pocketwatch and made sure it's matching piece was within easy reach. Before presenting the spirits from the museum to the reunited Yellow Team, she hesitated for a moment to consider whether it would be wise to show the process in front of the Grimleal... but if they'd been executing people, surely they must already know about spirits, if not the different ways to utilize them.

"Here," she said, calling the others' attention to her as she showed the spirits they'd ended up with after the heist. She wasn't exactly clear how much their newest members knew already, so she clarified briefly. "You can use these for 'preparations' before we split up again. Items, abilities."

It wasn't even as much as the crash course she'd given Laharl in the sweet Parnasse, but time was of the essence. Once the preparations were over Primrose regarded the two who would lead the groups once more. Mao, the newly freed ex-Resistance member who apparently had an axe to grind and something to prove. Kan-Ra, the Grimleal captain who was for the most part a complete mystery. She thought the group going with Mao might be better off in the sparing and recruiting, because if Kan-Ra stayed to fight with the other captain and decided he'd rather not take the chance then whichever group went with him would have to contend with two captains. It was actually because of this thought process that Primrose was leaning towards going with Kan-Ra, to keep an eye on the rest of her team that went with him as well.

Sectonia took a little bit longer to heal up fully from the clerical healing service than the others did due to her size and overall health compared to the other, scrappier members of the group. Still this gave her a bit of time to observe and think about what was going on around her. Even when not under the effects of Galeem, some of these resistance members were... interesting to say the least. One that seemed to be super innocent, others that didn't. It was surprising at just how galeem both changed, and didn't change people. IN fact, it seemed that this lightball corrupted the more innocent into fighting rather than anything else, which made expanding territory particularly bothersome.

Either way, once she was fully healed up, she made her way to the area that Midna had gone off, hitching a ride in someone's shadow again. She was able to catch up to the small group as they hadn't made it that far. While Sectonia didn't hear the start of their conversation, she did hear Midna talking about Band and how he was still Galeem'd. Sectonia could only reply with. "This one's former allies ruined a prime opportunity to fix that with their bomb." looking at Mao. The kid looked like Joker and the others of their group. And seeing he seemed to look so young compared to herself and Midna, Sectonia wasn't expecting much from him. But a minion was a minion after all.

"And if you ever needed another reason to hate that ball of light, Royalty is forced to do stuff like 'this'." Sectonia said, spitting out the last word and showing how much she disliked being told what to do from others she felt were beneath her. "Making a Queen such as myself, or a princess such as her do bounty work..." Sectonia said, pointing a thumb at Midna as she grumbled, a bit more to herself, but loud enough to be heard. Still, it wasn't all bad. There were magic items here that made them stronger than they ever could be from their own worlds alone, so Sectonia went along with things, even if she disliked it.

After a bit more of talking from the group Primrose brought up that they had a few spirits they could make use of. This reminded Sectonia of an item she had gotten earlier, which she brought out. "If someone is looking to crush those for items, I would recommend you wear this. Its quite ugly and doesn't fit me, but even I have to recognize how potent this helmet is. It will make whatever we get from those spirits 'better'." Sectonia offered whoever wanted to crush these spirits the opportunity to use an item she had gotten in the previous bounty assignment she had been a part of, which would sap their health slowly but make whatever they got from crushing spirits much higher quality.

"Of course whatever we get should be given to who could use them the most afterwords." Sectonia pointed out, making it clear she would dictate where the loot goes if it would go somewhere that didn't make sense or if something could be used by any of her other minions. She eyed Mao more than the others at this point, as he was the newcomer.

As much as he wanted to tell Midna to shove it where the sun doesn't shine, it was hard to stay angry when Laharl heard the smooth-as-silk voice of the woman he both feared and admired at the same time. Primrose had a seductive way about her from the sway of her hips to her honeying words that trapped the poor boy like an insect caught in the jaws of a venus flytrap.

Laharl was still quite miffed at the pixie for using such a tone, she wasn't the boss of him and the other Overlord who thought he was so evil. Unexpectedly he just crossed his arms, pouting as he walked away they could catch a few curses uttered under his breath as Laharl went to see the crimson hooded dancer.

As arrogant and self-centered as Laharl may present himself to be, deep down he craved the acceptance and approval of those he considered his friends most valuable minions. Although she was a bit too curvacious for his liking Primrose was someone he felt he could trust and probably the most tolerable person Laharl knew besides his missing vassal Etna.

He wanted the dancer to praise him for his deeds and tell him he was cool, you know stroke his ego like a good friend minion should. "I am going to get stronger," the shrimp of a demonic prince grumbled still pouting childishly "I just hate being told what to do." Laharl mumbled as he stood beside Primrose.

It seemed that he wasn't the only one who chastened to being told what to do when Queen Sectonia mentioned her own distaste of having to follow the command of others when one was somebody who had once commanded others themself. Yet he wasn't about to say he was sympathetic to her own predicament, he was however in agreement with the new opportunity to become stronger.

---

---

@Yankee@Dark Cloud@DracoLunaris

---

Link graciously took the Cadet's shield, waving to the boy as he started his own crossing. He put his arm through the hand holds and instantly felt far less naked than he had before. It wasn't the real deal, and if he was being completely honest he wasn't keen on how much the front face resembled a target, but he was grateful for it all the same. The kite didn't look like much, after all, but it worked excellently as a glider and he returned the thumbs up the Cadet shot him before the boy disappeared after the others. That just left him, Kamek, Glenn, the pets, and the occasional drip drip of water somewhere off in the distance.

Fortunately the silence was soon broken by Glenn and Kamek, going over the nature of Glenn's curse and probably fixes for it. It might not have been the most opportune time for the conversations, true, but it wasn't like they would be going swimming anytime soon. If they just did nothing all they would have on their mind is how hungry they were.

To that end he pulled out his racket and started practicing again as the two of them talked. He stood facing the water, stabbing and slashing and shield bashing in a mock swordplay drill he made up on the spot. The racket made short sharp swhishs as it cut through the air, much to Link's pleasure. He had been stuck with far worse equipment in his life.

As he did he couldn't help but comment of Kamek's proposed cures. "We've got a couple of princesses to work with, if they don't get squeamish." He said, thinking of Peach and other Zelda. Then he grinned as one of his few memories crept into his head. Zelda, kneeling in front of him, shoving a frog into his face. Her eyes sparkled, her excitement at the prospect of some new discovery all but leaking out of her ears as she tried to make him eat the thing. Had he eaten that frog? He didn't remember. Knowing him, probably. "When we find mine, she would do it just to see what would happen. If we don't find that Magus and take him out before then."

It was when Kamek mentioned the Alchamoth Mercenaries that he stopped his drills. With everything that had been going on he had forgotten about them. "I wonder if they can even get in here?" He said, looking around. "Moogle?" He called, just to check if the little guys could even make it inside the Maw.

---

---

---

"Lead the way." Linkle said as she started following Albedo out of the statue filled tower. Despite the constant feeling of being watched inside here as they picked their way past dragons, collections of gods unknown, and coiling depictions of winged snakes that seemed to radiate a heat all their own, Linkle didn't feel at all uncomfortable in this room anymore. So what if gods were watching? Gods were always watching. She was only slightly startled when the giant clock moved to follow them as though it were a giant eye. While Albedo got ready for a fight Linkle just bowered her had in its direction until it lost interest in them. She lingered for a moment, observing the clock. Three golden goddesses, encircling a clock. The only thing they were lacking was that all important symbol. If the triforce had been emblazoned anywhere on the statues surface you could have easily mistaken them as Din, Nayru, and Farore. Maybe it was. The Golden Goddess's had come from somewhere else to make Hyrule after all. There was no pull towards this one, though. If these were the same ones she would have felt it, like with the Hylia statue. Right?

She put a hand on Albeado's shoulder, feeling the tension in his body. "I don't think they mean any harm." She said, turning to follow the boy as he headed for the door. Before leaving she turned and gave one last deep bow to the room before stepping out into the snow.

Once they were outside and the door safely shut behind them she let out a short giggle. "That was awesome. Grandma always said Hylians have these big old ears so we can hear the gods better, but I've never heard anything like that. Once I'm back home I've got to visit the Temple of Time and see if I can pick anything up. Wow!" She was jittery, like a girl that had just gotten off a roller coaster. As such when they came to the rope bridge leading out toward the third tower she shared none or Albedo's brief trepidation. She felt like she could walk on air.

She followed Albedo to stare over the edge, and the sight was no less breathtaking to her. It was astounding that people made their life among those lonely peaks below. How did they get around? Did they have wings, or did they climb on the ropes? Her mood was only slightly dampened when she thought about how Galeem might have sloppily dropped some of those places down on top of those mountains, leaving people trapped and isolated. She didn't worry about it too much, though. After all, at the rate they were going they would have this whole World of Light business finished in the next couple of days. She bet her friends had already taken out three more Champions in the time Linkle had been getting her bearings out here.

Finding the bridge far more stable than the one that led to the witches' face was no surprise, it hardly moved as the two of them passed monks and priests of their way to the third tower. When they got inside she found out why the bridge was so heavily trafficked compared to the other parts of the monetary. The first tower was for praying, the second was for (respectfully) storing, and the third appeared to be for living. She guessed even holy men needed a break every now and then.

One of them, enjoying a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the cloistered life, pinged them immediately as newcomers and was friendly enough to wave them over. Another Father, as it turned out. Linkle wondered if he was a fighting priest too as she took the old timer up on his offer and plopped down next to him and the warm lamp. "It's great to meet you, Father. I'm Linkle, Hero of Hyrule at your service! This is my friend Albedo. We came all the way from Snowden to try and figure something out." She said eagerly. "There's this weird cabinet in the second tower, one that you open up and there's a story about a snake. A lady feeds it, it gets really really big, and then it kills everybody. Albedo, show him, show him."

"There's a guy that tried to kill me, a real maniac. We don't know his name, but he's completely invincible. Albedo took some sketch's of his tattoo's and some of the symbols carved in that cabinet match the ones on his body." Linkle continued, relying on the boy to provide visual aides. "Do you know anybody here that knows anything more about that cabinet? Is there anybody here from the same world it is, or who knows what story it's trying to tell? We think that if we can find out more about this guys world that might tell us how we can defend ourselves next time."

Fox held the now cleansed Sombra suspended on her heels, peering at her sharply while she came to her senses. The spared second of direct eye contact betrayed the expected mix of feelings--namely confusion and frustration in this case. The situation would not allow for a lengthy, in-depth analysis, however, as they were still all in the midst of a heated team battle. Fox was swiftly reminded of that when narrowly ducking a horizontal ring blade slash from behind. He went to the ground with his evasive motion, pulling Sombra to as he deposited her safely to the floor and rolling away to create space between, in case she should resume hostilities, but also to spare her the proximal danger of his ongoing clash with the schizophrenic swordswoman while she regained herself. Sombra shot him one more parting look before disappearing out of sight and away from the conflict once again.

Dangerously short on ways to get past Tira’s wildly swinging ring blade, and with little else in the way of getting around it, Fox quickly found himself backing up until he ran out of ground to give. The flat of her greave to his chest bounced him off the wall and into the swiping blade as it ran quickly across his front on the rebound, opening thread and hide alike. Luckily, the cut was made cleanly by the smooth edge rather than going against the ornate serrations, subtly highlighting her sadistic nature by the underlying cruelty of her method. She followed up on the cornered Fox with an unconventional multi-attack string that involved slipping the ring around her form and travelling it in circles up the length of her torso by gyrating her hips and body; a dedicated technique taking advantage of the weapon’s design.

Fox couldn’t immediately retaliate against the bizarre, pressuring maneuver, as he was more focused on flattening himself against the wall to avoid it as the ring lashed at him, its edge missing his neck and chin by an uncomfortable margin. Thankfully, the reduced range on her attack gave him just enough breathing room to realize the low opening in her guard, parry the ring with an armored boot tip to the blade’s cheek, punctuated by contact sparks and a ringing metallic report, and capitalize with a sweeping kick/tail swipe to the ankle. As she came off her feet she dropped to the floor to spin on her ring like a coin and deliver a double-leg sweep of her own to counter. Fox recovered by catching himself back on balance with a fluid handstand, complimented by a staggering scorpion kick flat toTira’s face upon rising, and followed through into backflip/bicycle kick.

While his signature/finishing move didn’t quite fully connect, it did manage to break her guard momentarily, but she managed to deftly reorient herself to catch Fox’s gun arm with the inner rim of her ring and redirect a point blank blaster shot to graze her cheek. A tandem pirouette resulted from the entwining struggle that followed, bringing them face-to-face in a tight deadlock in the space between Tira’s weapon. It was then that a verbal and visual signal of Klee’s all-out bombardment caught Fox’s attention, whereupon he bounded away from Tira with a tucking drop kick to separate them. However, he was still close enough to the blast to be affected by the concussive force of it, as he was thrown face-first into the wall and momentarily incapacitated by the impact, which was slightly more than he could say for his opponent.

Seconds passed in the silent aftermath, and Fox, bleary-eyed, made it slowly to his feet and tried to regain his bearings. Although worse off, it seemed everyone on both sides had survived, including Tira, with his help putting her out of the way of a direct impact. Moreover, he considered that he and some of the others may have gotten just a little bit lucky with the conclusive case of mass friendly fire saving them, though he would never admit or even acknowledge it.

Putting a hand to his wounded chest and pulling it away as if to draw out a Heart, he stopped for a moment to look upon the bloody print it left on the surface of his palm. Suddenly, he received an incoming call from Necronomicon informing him that the Thieves were inbound for what, to them, was simply the sight of an unknown conflict (though a safe guess on their part likely painted a good enough picture for them).

“Not a moment too soon,” Fox remarked tiredly to himself before responding. “That’s us. We’ll fill you in as soon as you get here.” Through the garage opening he could make out other figures on a slower approach, whom he soon recognized to be among the Grimleal that he had met earlier that day. “You might want to hurry,” he added in closing before taking his first steps forward to convene with his team and theirs, subtly, gingerly dropping a Friend Heart onto the unconscious blade dancer from his blood-covered hand as he passed.

Midna beat him to speaking up in persuasive deterrence of Kan-Ra’s plans to execute the rebels by outright revealing the nature of Hearts and their effects on the Gleaming, demonstrating as much along with Tora and Poppi. This seemed to pique his interest enough to refrain from killing the captives for the time being, even if it sounded like he was looking for a way to talk himself back into it. Where lied the need to “interrogate” them, after all, if they already knew everything they needed to? Unless, of course, they didn’t, and there was somehow still more to this civil war. That would have to wait, for Kan made it clear just how little time they had to make their next move, whatever that may entail. He went as far as to volunteer a conscripted rebel, apparently eager to betray upon waking and learning, to direct them accordingly.

“And what about the other one?” he inquired simply following the divulgence of one location. “Where can we find Robin?” he added more softly to his line of inquiry, narrowing don’t his focus and intent for the mission. Whether they split the group--and thus their collective strength--to go after them in unison for urgency’s sake, or took the chance on tackling them one after the other, they needed to know where both bases were before they set out. With all of their wounds freshly healed and vitality restored (to which Fox made a mental note about the Grimleal’s level of preparedness), they were all but ready to. They just needed a clear direction.

With the arrival of the Phantom Thieves they made ready to move out, but just before the last of them could get going, Fox hung back and halted Kan-Ra, isolating them so he could make his singular, critical address to him. “Just so we’re clear,” he started, before turning to face the sorcerer, making (for him, naturally) sharp eye contact. “We’re doing ALL of them this way--OUR way--no casualties!” Gesturing back to Klee and Baz with his gun arm (which he had still been holding the whole time, ready to draw a bead on any one of them if the occasion arose), he further emphasized his point, without breaking eye contact. “You won’t be doing yourselves any favors by making orphans… Believe me.” On that, Fox spoke from experience. Whether Kan took that much away was incidental. Fox still didn’t trust them, but he didn’t have to for them to know how he felt about their original plan, or to consider the consequences should they unilaterally see it through. “Make sure you and the rest of yours understand that.” With the implicit punctuation to close out his interlude address to the Grimleal lieutenant, he didn’t wait for a response before turning away to head out and catch up with the rest of the group, leaving Kan-Ra with his thoughts for the brief moment he could spare for them.

Fox, being among the more fleet of foot among Yellow Team, had little trouble at all rejoining them on the move. As they made their way, Midna fast tracked their tentative new recruit through on the makeup of the World he had just been woken up in, and their simple plan for dealing with it. With the big picture now in mind, the ex-rebel reconciled an excuse for revenge against his now former boss, assuring them of his intent to cooperate with a non-lethal approach.

“Good, because we’re not interested in your vendetta. Get revenge on your own time,” he told him before belaboring, “If we wanted anyone dead, you wouldn’t be here right now.” It wasn’t long before they came to a sudden stop on account of his personality problems in conflict with that of another--one they had already met, in fact. Apparently familiar with each other by proxy, having originated from the same world/universe, the two couldn’t help themselves engaging in a verbal dick measuring contest of comical, borderline cartoonishly villainous ego stroking, at which Fox sighed before interjecting.

“Are you two finished?” he cut in sternly, perceptibly annoyed by the delaying obtrusion. “We don’t have time for this...” At the same time, however, he noticed that the delay gave the rest of the team a chance to collaborate about the upcoming split, as well as better equip themselves. They were at a crossroads, so to speak, and they would have no better time to decide who would go where. As for how they would go about it when they got there, for one side, the other, or neither, was a matter probably best played by ear. Still, he took the time afforded to him to consider his options; to think ahead for once in his career...

Noticing that nobody had grabbed the nail to use as a weapon, Geralt took that liberty for himself. It could at least come in use like the scissors did earlier.

Sakura's reaction to what happened to 'Carl' was...not unexpected, unfortunately. Geralt was already in the other room, a little late to see part of her breakdown, but he caught the back end, and had to hold back his frown. She was...devastated wouldn't be too off to describe how she seemed right now. He was reminded of Ciri after Vesemir's death. Unfortunately, he didn't exactly have any snowballs to pelt the girl with, and this wasn't the morning after a battle. Perhaps after this whole business with the Maw and this area's Guardian was taken care of, he'd think of something to help her keep her mind on the present and what she still had.

Outwardly, though, he didn't say anything, and only gave her a sympathetic look. This was what he'd meant when he talked to her the night before. Sometimes...despite all the best intentions and the effort you took to make things better, it only got worse. It was always worse the first time. His thoughts drifted back to the first 'monster' he'd slain. Geralt didn't think he'd be telling Sakura that story. It was dark and painful even for Continent folks. Skelligers were a bit more stoic about gruesome things, less prone to despair at the state of things, but even they scowled when they thought of that kind of monster.

Shaking his head to clear those thoughts, Geralt's mind turned back to Mirage and the ominous chair that had not killed him, but in fact gave him control of Carl's body. Corpse? Shell? It...wasn't clear. Morbid as it was, Geralt nodded when he saw the machine moving its arms. "Well, that could help." A pause as he listened to Mirage's update. "It...can't move outside of the water? And what do you mean by conveyer...?" A puzzled look came over his face as he tried to figure out the meaning of the word and its context. "Convey...er...transporter? I don't know if there's anything large enough here to transport that..." It was clear that he wouldn't be much help with that. It was actually beginning to become a big frustrating for Geralt, this constant lack of knowledge of what was going on around him. He wasn't used to feeling ignorant like this.

"Whatever we do, I think it's best I stay behind. I'm not exactly familiar with...any of this. I'm not too proud that I can't admit that." It stung a bit, certainly, but with limited space in that sea vehicle, he wasn't going to reduce the group's effectiveness to try and prove himself useful. This was absolutely not the time for that.

"I'll stay behind and try to find a spot to hide. If that man comes back while you're down, I might be able to sneak up on him. If he's truly working for the captain of this ship, I see no reason not to deal with him." It was blunt, it was dirty, and it might even be unnecessary, but he'd already proven unwilling to allow them passage. If he had the chance, Geralt would remove Moreau as a player on the board.

Mirage was messing around with the device, trying to figure out how to get it working. Kasugano was by his side, just...in case. Something happened. Maybe she could make herself useful somehow. The boy engineer gave her some encouraging words that reflected his somewhat limited perspective.

Sakura looked at Mirage, giving him a not very encouraging thumbs up. "Oh, yeah, no, I get it. Don't worry about me. I'm focused. Just like you guys. We gotta get movin', so..." She said. "Nothin' to be done, now." It would be pretty hard to believe that after such an outburst, Sakura had gotten over what happened with Mister Carl so quickly. Because, of course, she hadn't. It was an easy deception to see through. But she was making the choice to bury it, bury it deep down; Going back, perhaps, on her advice she had given the others earlier on Shipyy. After the battle.

Maybe because it was one thing to witness someone die in a big battle- another entirely to be responsible for it. As much as she wanted to blame it all on Galeem, to focus the bad feelings inside her on the bad thing, she just couldn't get there. She offered him the Heart. Carl took it. Carl's gone. Just some random guy, and she got him killed. And Sakura was not a vengeful person. But maybe if she pretended she was, she could make it through this without being a burden.

Nadia began to climb up to get a better look at the submarine. "Careful." She called out after her friend flatly.

At that point Mirage made some kind of breakthrough in discovering what this device was for. It seemed like some kind of remote controller. Like a VR headset or something, if this was a sci-fi movie or a gimmicky arcade. There was a loud bang from the room they had just been in. "Let me check it out." She hopped down and made her way back in, peaking into the room.

The robot that had been Mister Carl was...moving? Mirage wanted to get the conveyor belt working. Sakura's eyes went wide, her brows furrowing for a moment as she considered everything. What this all meant. "It's a conveyor belt, Mister Geralt." She explained.

The brunette scratched her head. "Ooh. I get it." She said, nodding slowly. As she walked she made her way over to a railing. "Right. So it might be a good thing I did what I did after all. That way we can remote control Carl's corpse and use him as a scout or even bait for a sea monster waiting below. Perfect! All's well that ends well." And then she leaned over and retched into the water below. Not a lot came out.




Jesse Faden ended up following the Phantom Thieves to their next destination. She still had questions. The Director needed answers about the Resonance.

(What is the metaverse? What exactly is going on? Where am I? Or rather, where is Al Mamoon?) Jesse thought to Polaris. The guardian angel could offer no response, only a shimmering sign around the group's head. The Phantom Thieves and Primrose. Both Polaris and Jesse's intution told them that these people would lead them to answers. There was a joke Jesse wasn't in on. Joker mentioned earlier the only way Jesse could escape it was by her getting beaten up?

(Wouldn't be the first time I've but my body on the line for science.) She thought. (Hmm. That's a good one. I should say that out loud at some point.)

Jesse looked at Primrose, who made her offer. "Yeah, I'm sticking around." She replied simply. Wasn't much else to say. Then the dancer gave her something of a low-down on the situation in Al Mamoon.

"I had heard a little about it, but I wasn't really paying it too much mind. I figured it wasn't my place. So far the only power struggle I've ever interfered with was the one where I violently took control over the entire place." She admitted casually. "So, y'know. I'll leave that kind of thing to other people."

Once they were in the hospital, they had to wait a bit. The teens elected to nap, but Jesse rarely slept at night, let alone in the middle of the day. It probably wasn't good for her, but...she didn't feel tired often. Hmm. Once the nurse came out, Jesse nodded appreciatively at the Phantom Thieves' little hero shtick.

"Cute," she said to Joker, once they were out of earshot of the nurse.

The living space ship, Necronomicon, returned. The Director rolled her shoulder as she listened. Grimleal versus the Resistance.

(Ugh. Politics.) If she was going to be doing anything good, she'd rather it be something cut and dry. Like going back in that Museum and blasting that painting guy to pieces and then selling him at exorbitantly marked up prices.

Fortunately it seemed things were a lot simpler. They arrived at the aftermath of a battle. Jesse could tell that one half of the engagement were like Primrose and the Thieves: something about them was different. The Director saw a demonstration, some kind of pink heart getting pulled out. Hadn't she seen something earlier with the artist, at the museum? There was mention of a curse of a false god. Sounded like a Resonance?

Jesse slapped Primrose's shoulder with the back of her hand. "There. That. What was that?" She pointed at Mao and Klee. "That was something. Those people had the stuffing kicked out of them and now they're all better. Just like Yusuke. And they get something, too. Shit. I'm so close." Jesse shook her head. Primrose had to play damage control with some weird angry kid with a name that sounded like a cat throwing up a furball. Laharl? Him and some other scrappy little guy named Mao. Jesse would keep her comments to herself, however. It was a little embarassing to admit this to herself but now at least one of them new the truth of their situation. Galeem? Did that have something to do with it?

This whole bunch the Thieves had come across was...eclectic. Jesse took them all in a few moments at a time. From the Bablyonian leader of the Grimleal to the hulking mechanical one-man band, to the floating elf looking thing to the...well, she would be here all day. She'd just have to get properly introduced to everyone over time. There was a grumpy Fox man that seemed to be in charge. He was easily annoyed by the two 'evil' kids little maniacal laughter. Personally, Jesse found it all quite endearing.

"Name's Jesse Faden, by the way." Jesse tossed out a casual introduction. She could always re-introduce herself later. "I have a gun and I can throw big rocks. Where do you want me?" After a moment of deliberation she felt she would stick with Joker, if nothing but familiarity's sake. Normally she didn't like being this relatively helpless, but until she figured out what was going on she just had to keep on chugging. It seemed like the plan was to go and squash this 'Resistance.' From what she gathered it was less of a Resistance and more of a cult of people affected both by Resonance and mind control.

"So. No killing? I'll stick to the Tool Gun, then." She patted her jacket where she kept her Tool Gun holstered. "Immobilization only."

So, without even a few minutes for everyone to compose themselves, they would be sent once more into the breach. Band gave a sigh that entered his mouthpiece and came out as a deflated-sounding musical note. Though in fact fully restored by the Friend Heart given to him, he would have liked at least a little time to settle down and fortify himself before more fighting. But people were already in motion, which meant he needed to kick it into gear, too. “No rest for the wicked, huh?”

Sand swirled beneath Kan-Ra, lifting him a few inches into the air. “Off already, hm?” His unblinking gaze fixed on Fox. “Robin is where I’m headed--a certain unsavory nook in the residential district. I’ll look forward to our cooperation, hm?” With that, he glided out, none too fast.

As the others took off Tora and Poppi lingered by Band for a moment, the Nopon’s protests going unheard by the frontrunners. “Wait! Just because Tora self-heal doesn’t mean Tora get stamina back!”

Band looked down at him and extended a giant hand, big enough to grab Tora and hold him like a basketball. “If you’re runnin’ on fumes, I can give ya a lift.”

Although he looked tempted, Tora ended up shaking his head. “No thanks. Tora not want be carried!” Band showed his respect for the decision with a nod, and the trio set off after the main group. Although the question of how the two teams would be divided lay on everyone’s minds, they jogged in silence for now so that the Twilight Princess could bring everyone up to speed on the state of things. The exposition Midna delivered to the newly-freed fighters, Band included, was a lot to take in on short notice. Suddenly there was a much bigger picture in play, and though the detective would need to confront it in due time, the game plan remained the same for now.

Together the Seekers, the Phantom Thieves, and Kan-Ra’s Grimleal made for quite the attention-grabbing procession, not to mention the space they took up, and as the convoy passed the entrance to the Bazaar the frontrunners came to a stop. Too short to see anything, Tora could only slow down in wonderment as he, Poppi, and Band made for what looked like an impromptu foot traffic jam As they got closer it wasn’t long before they realized, however, that the sudden stop was the result of a single obstruction. Worse still, it was one most people present could recognize and groan internally at: that precocious demon child, Laharl. Even worse, he had some sort of beef with Mao of all people, and the ensuing exchange did a lot to make both of them look like bad guys.

While the two came to terms the others slunk into the shade offered by the colorful awnings of the nearby buildings. Tora glanced back down the street to see Kan-Ra pulling up ahead of his acolytes, gliding on a wave of sand. His unblinking eyes went between the scene ahead of them and the rest of the stopped fighters. “My, aren’t we carefree,” he grinned. “You must be strong indeed if you truly plan to forge ahead without a strategy or preparation.”

Joker crossed his arms. “Now’s as good a time as any,” he declared, suggesting that the team make use of the delay. After Primrose somehow pacified Laharl a little, she offered the loot from the Museum of Vanity, and once she’d finished complaining Sectonia produced a ghastly-looking headpiece that she said could help with its itemization. Everything about it screamed ‘dangerous’, but Joker stared at the Symbol of Avarice with resolution in his eyes. “I’ll try it. Panther, would you mind…?”

The girl was already nodding, her pigtails bouncing as she did. With her friends around her changing wouldn’t make enough of a spectacle to attract unwanted attention, so in a flare of blue flame she donned her iconic mask and catsuit once again. “Ready to heal you if anything goes wrong.”

“You’re the best. Thank you. As for the spirit...” He looked over those offered by Primrose. “Jesse, you deserve the spoils from the eldritch monster. And the fate of Yuga should be yours to decide, Fox.” From the remaining six he ended up claiming the remains of a Nyabon. “I’ll try this spirit, if you don’t mind. Here goes.” Gingerly the young man took hold of the chest. He noted its big, floppy tongue, then put it on. He stood there, head covered by the ridiculous thing, for all of a second before its effect took hold. “Ow. Ow, ow.” Without further ado he crushed the Nyabon spirit, which shattered into fragments of light that quickly coalesced into a demonic pistol. The moment he felt its weight in his hand Joker pulled off the Symbol of Avarice.

Panther hovered over him, figuratively speaking. “Are you okay? What happened? Do you need healing?”

“I’m alright,” Joker reported. “It didn’t actually hurt that badly, but it kept hurting, and getting worse. Like grabbing a hot skillet on the stove.” He looked down at his new weapon, intrigued. “This looks pretty good.”

Band examined the unusual firearm with a seasoned eye. “That’s one mean-lookin’ hand cannon,” he said. “Careful where you point it, ‘less you like the idea of blowin’ someone back to stardust.”

The Phantom Thief Fox stepped up next. “Though he deserves it not, I will see if I can make anything beautiful from what that reprobate left behind. Like this?” He grasped Yuga’s spirit tentatively, then slipped on the chest hat and squeezed the mote until it broke. From its shards manifested a sheer black blade with edges that shone with all the colors of a painter’s palette. Once relieved of his headwear Fox stared at the weapon with reverence. “Magnificent…! Though I will not forgive him, I will relish this chance to better vanquish evil.”

Not counting the Shambler put aside for Jesse, that left five demon spirits, and though they didn’t relish the chest’s painful curse Mona, Panther, and Skull all expected a chance of their own. In particular Mona dreaded a sensation that reminded him of his head getting enlarged earlier, but nevertheless the greedy cat braved the Symbol of Avarice to turn a Dead Fish spirit into a Swordfish Rapier. With no need for her healing, Panther returned to her civilian outfit before converting an Inugami spirit into a sleek black-and-white SMG. Finally, Skull pulled a fearsome kanabo from an oni spirit. His eyes practically bugged out when he got his hands on it. “Holy crap, this thing kicks ass!” He looked over everyone’s treasures. “Wow, we all got stuff that works for us. That freaky-ass hat’s the real deal.” Only two spirits remained with which to utilize it.

Although the spirit-breaking left a number of his new allies better-armed, Kan-Ra did not look fully satisfied. “That is all good, but we have yet to decide who’s going where.” He tented his fingers, examining the gathered fighters. “If our new friend is leading the way to the office hideout, with Midna and the rascal alongside, my colleagues and I will assist Azwel with the other one. But since only I will enter to reinforce him, we could use some extra strength.” He looked at Joker, but the teenager looked to Fox, giving him the first pick.

“I’ll go with him. Joker and his team can take the other side, and split the rest of us evenly both ways. Where everyone goes is up to them, but keep your strengths in mind,” he reminded them, regarding their potential team composition. All he knew for sure was that the Thieves would stick together regardless, and that he had to separate from them to keep a line of communication.

Joker chimed in after him. “Actually, it might be a good idea if the Thieves split, three and three. We usually work in teams of four max, after all. And both sides need healing.” His companions saw the wisdom in such a move. “One bruiser, one mage, and one all-rounder for each time. I’ll go with Mao, alongside Skull and Panther. Fox, Mona, and Necro, can you go with...uh, the other Fox?”

“Aw, I wanted to go with Lady Panther!” the cat complained.

Yusuke, meanwhile, looked pensive. “Two Foxes, is it? A stroke of misfortune. Loath as I am to assume a different moniker, perhaps we should take a page out of Oracle’s book and call me Inari for the rest of this operation?”

“Uh...” Fox paused for a moment trying to process an appropriate affirmation before awkwardly, indifferently settling on “Sure.” with a head shake and a shrug.

Joker’s expression made it look like that left a bad taste in his mouth. “Hm. Let’s just switch everyone, then. Phantom Thief Fox and Mona with me, Skull and Panther with...Kan-Ra.”

Jumping up and down, Mona exclaimed, “That still doesn’t solve my issue!”

Joker pretended he didn’t hear him. “As for the rest, hmm. Sectonia with me would make one flier each. Then Band with Kan-Ra would make one heavyweight each.”

The detective glanced at the mummified sorcerer. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. “Works for me.”

That left Tora, Poppi, Jesse, Red, Yoshitsune, and Primrose. Since the hamster and the android effectively counted as one, that made an odd number, and these three didn’t have much in common. If only…

“What’s this?!” A big voice brought everyone’s attention to the entrance of the Bazaar, through which a familiarly huge man with a familiarly amazing mustache was headed their way. Braum treated everyone to a smile. “Hello again, my friends! I just finished carrying crates around. If not for blazing hot desert, I would not have even worked up sweat!”

Joker clapped his hands together. “Perfect timing, sir! If Tora and Poppi go with me and you with Kan-Ra, both teams will have a defender. Then Primrose and Yoshitsune with Kan-Ra, then Red and Jesse with me, I suppose.” His gaze swept across those present. “Is that alright with everyone?”

Looking excited, Tora jumped up and down. “Okay. Sound good to Tora, meh!”

Fox chimed in to suggest a simple edit. “Swap shields with us,” he suggested. “Give us Tora and Poppi, and you can take Braum and keep Necro with you. That way we’ll still have a flier, and we need an ear on your side in case anything happens.” Moreover, if it meant Fox’s team ended up with a marginally favorable number, given they would have two Grimleal officers on their end instead of one, their odds may work out better should they decide to turn on them.

“That means an uneven distribution of Thieves, but...” The young man pointed out. “We probably can make it work. You okay with it, Skull, Panther?”

It looked like Skull was. “Aw, yeah! Some quality alone time~!”

“You wish!” Panther scoffed, though she didn’t look that scornful.

Joker nodded. “Good. And by the way…” He narrowed his eyes at Laharl and Jesse. “If there’s a good chance to free anyone who needs it, take it. All set, guys?”

Fox replied with a nod, then told them, “Good luck, and stay sharp!” With their teams (and loadouts) decided, Fox gave the official word to break for their respective destinations. “Let’s go!”

---

Looking up at the building, with all those stark glass windows, it was hard to imagine it as anything but a run-of-the-mill office building where old people without adventure or ambition filed taxes or tallied censuses or something. But then again, where better to put a secret than somewhere so normal nobody would give it a second thought, let alone a glance? Of course, none of this really mattered when the front doors lay in shambles, blasted open by a single piercing blow dead center. An inexplicably vast amount of water soaked the entrance area, while a cohort of Grimleal acolytes formed a perimeter around the building, keeping both a watch of the building and civilians away. There could be no doubt that Mao led the team to the right place. With Necronomicon among their number thanks to Jesse’s Tool Gun’s shrinking powers, the ten hurried inside.

They entered the building’s ground floor office sprawl to find a shootout in progress. Closest to the door stood a very tall rabbit lady with a longbow even bigger than she was., using a column as cover. Thanks to her position she spotted the newcomers immediately, and shared with Midna and Sectonia mutual recognition. The rest must be allies of theirs, since the Grimleal outside let them through without a scuffle. “Get down!” she yelled.

The next second a fusillade of bullets rained down on the entrance, forcing everyone to run for cover in a mad dash for safety. Gunfire struck anyone too slow off the mark, but that didn’t include the Phantom Thieves, who became dark blurs as they vanished into hiding. On the other side of the room stood a mustached gunman with a Flatline assault rifle, a minigun-toting lunatic, and a tough-looking brawler with a carbine. The man wiped his forehead with a robotic arm. “Aw hell, it’s a full-blown invasion! Time to roll out the welcome wagon!”

Next to him the minigunner cackled. “You nuts? We’ve got this! We’ll just rip ‘em up too!”

“There’s too many,” the third observed. “We should bring the fight to the basement!” At that moment Ciella ducked out from cover and took aim. Water magic built in her bow as she pulled taut the string, and when she released it five huge bolts of water rocketed forth in a spread pattern. They tore across the office space, flinging furniture and documents around in watery pandemonium. When they hit the walls they ricocheted, but the shooters took evasive maneuvers. “We’re on the back foot now.” Amara growled. She spotted Braum advancing in front of Ciella, his shield impervious to gunfire. “They’re gonna rush us.”

“Psh. I’ll handle this.” A lone hedgehog strolled out from behind cover, grenade launcher in hand. Without any hesitation he opened fire, laying waste to the floor space. The explosions confounded Braum and blew him back. When Shadow’s weapon ran dry, he clicked his tongue. “Hey, old-timer. Do your damn job!”

A warrior ran by him, inhaling deeply. There was a split second, like the calm before the storm. Then he yelled. “Fus...ro dah!” An enormous shockwave rolled across the ground along with his voice, throwing up a tsunami of furniture.

As desks and chairs rained down around him Mona clutched his head in his hands. “This is insanity!” he yowled. “We can’t even dash between cover if they’re hurling our cover around!”

Joker nodded as he watched a filing cabinet smash against Braum’s shield. “We can’t make progress in a mess like this. We have to split them up.”

With a sniff Ciella exited her cover. Bullets struck her but she barely seemed to react. “I’ll grant you this opportunity. Bring them despair!” She charged, carried forth by a tide of water, and like a wave against the shore soaked up everything that came her way before crashing into the gunners’ fortress. Then she welled her power up around her and unleashed an omnidirectional wave, scattering her foes.

The Phantom Thieves surged forth from hiding, Joker in the lead. “Now! Pick your fights and take them out, two on one!”



After sitting down to rest on top of the hanging submarine, Nadia watched the others doing their best from her vantage point. The Koopa Troop plus Rika took her advice and started to trace the wire bundle that fed into the ceiling arm. Being more technically minded than his father or the Abyssal, Junior managed to track down a likely candidate in the form of the communications station up by the Command Center’s overlook window. It featured a bevy of switches and controls, and once the little guy climbed up into the slightly damp swivel chair in front of it, he could take a good look.

Judging by the sliminess of the terminal Moreau had gotten his hands on it a few times, but it wasn’t so crusted that he couldn’t claw some off and make out the controls’ labels in the poor light. Most of them related to radio operation, but there seemed to be one that could lower the bay’s safety cage. In the bottom right Junior found two levers and a release. One lever bore a label that read Submersible Arms and the other Arm Track. Both offered enough resistance to demand the strength of two hands, but moving the latter slid the arms’ mounting from over the floor to over the water, and when Junior pulled down the former the arms lowered the submarine as well. Nadia grabbed hold and hung on tight as the near-spherical vehicle descended toward the water, her ears flattened to try and muffle out the loud, hydraulic whine of the machine arms. It took only a few noisy moments for the arms to reach their full length and dip the underside of the submarine in the water. A couple feet of clearance extended to either side except for the one with the cage door, where the promontory provided easy access to the vehicle’s back.

Nadia clapped her hands. “Nice going, that wasn’t so bad! Now we just have to...actually go down there. Heh.” Though she tried to hide her fear of going underwater, the droop of her ears said enough. She shivered as she peered into the water. “It’s pretty dark down there. Won’t we need Blazermate to scan for the...uh, whatever we’re looking for? This thing might have lights, but that’ll make it a sitting duck for any monsters down there.”

Glancing between Blazermate and Nadia, Bella looked concerned. “Well...unfortunately, there’s a good chance any creature would be able to detect it even in the dark. Unless they’re less developed than the average fish, they can probably both hear and feel things moving through the water.”

“Gahhhhahaha...” Nadia groaned, giving a wry laugh. “Guess we’ll need to give the monsters something else to pay attention to.”

At about that time, Mirage’s efforts with the pilot seat were bearing fruit. In a twist of fate his new toy ended up connecting to the vacant shell of the universal helper BULL unit that now lay in the hallway. He could move its arms and crane its head around, but that seemed to be all--unless the others could use the conveyor belt the machine lay on to bring it to the water. Although Geralt wanted to help, he didn’t know the first thing about what Mirage meant by conveyor. Sakura filled him in on the second part, but from up above Nadia filled in some extra details. “No worries! I don’t know half of these gizmos, and I don’t even have an excuse. But a conveyor belt’s like a movin’ carpet, pretty much. And it just carries whatever’s on it whatever way it’s movin’. Doesn’t get much belter than that!” She grimaced. “Yikes, that was crap. This place must be gettin’ to me.”

But it was getting to someone else a lot worse. Nadia’s eyes rested uneasily on Sakura as the other girl headed toward the pit, passing Peach on the way as she went to activate the conveyor. Sakura was muttering to herself about the situation. For a moment it seemed like she was looking on the bright side, but something was weird. Her manner and her words were discordant. The feral didn’t get much time to think about it before Sakura promptly threw up.

Quickly Nadia looked away, but her skin wouldn’t stop crawling. An uncomfortable tension filled the Command Center’s atmosphere, silent as the grave except for the patter of Peach’s feet as she headed back down the hall toward the terminal. Nobody wanted to deal with what happened, Nadia least of all. But something in her roiled. She couldn’t quite describe what or why, but it angered her. Most fundamentally she didn’t want to see Sakura upset--loveable, innocent Sakura, whose double dose of naivety and compassion was now making her suffer. It isn’t right, she thought. But things weren’t going to get any better. No doubt the road ahead would have even worse choices and consequences. Could Sakura walk down that path, like this? No. Nadia could imagine the poor girl collapsing and never getting up, the weight of one robot heavier on her heart than the fate of the whole world. And even if she did, the defeat in her soul might spell the difference between life and death the next time a monster reached out to grab her. If the world wasn’t going to change, Sakura would have to.

Nadia jumped down from the submarine, her bare feet smacking against the concrete. She scampered over to where Sakura knelt and grabbed her shoulder. “Hey!” she said with force, her anger unmasked. She shook the girl roughly. “Get a hold of yourself! Don’t you realize what you’re doing?”

Spinning Sakura around, the feral looked her in the face. “You’re giving them the win! This is exactly what they’re trying to do!” She craned her neck around to look at the others for support. “They trapped us in this place, full of awful crap. Its one big, nightmare funhouse, and we’re along for the ride! Everything in this place is designed to take our power away, to make us hungry and miserable, and to scare the bejeezus out of us.” Her expression softened as she squeezed Sakura’s shoulder. “I know it feels awful. I don’t blame ya. Butcha know why it feels awful? ‘Cause it’s made to! You’re the nicest out of all of us, so they’re goin’ after you.” She stepped away, pointing a finger right at her friend’s heart, then crossed her arms. “They think you’re the weakest link ‘cause you’re nice. You really gonna let them do ya like that? Give yourself up on a platter? A nice, tasty Kasugano Snack-ura? Come on! I thought you were tough!” Nadia instantly realized she’d probably gone too far by insulting the girl. But surely Sakura wasn’t going to just fizzle out and give up? That wasn’t the read Nadia got at all. The Street Fighter just needed a jump start to realize -or at least, to think- that she was being played. Then she could rise up against the evil that sought to oppress her, her fighting spirit renewed.

....Right?

At about that time Peach got the conveyor running. The device’s rollers ran its belt slowly but steadily, bearing the BULL unit toward the Command Center. Mirage remained wired in, but there wasn’t a lot for him to do but wait and worry about what was going on with the others. Rather, distracted by Sakura and the hubbub surrounding her, he didn’t notice a slight but growing combined sensation of headache and nausea. As eletromagnetism built within the pilot seat’s headcase, however, the discomfort worsened, until it finally spiked and disappeared. The surge’s abrupt departure left the poor boy disoriented and reeling but otherwise okay, rather like he’d suddenly recovered from a heavy migraine. If he examined the machine it would betray no abnormality, but the bizarre and unpleasant side effect would no doubt warrant some reconsideration on Mirage’s part.

While he dealt with that, something else was afoot. With a click the clamps holding one of the diving suits in place released themselves, causing the suit to flop over backwards and fall to the floor, startling Bella. It hit the ground hard enough to suggest some real weight inside the suit, although Bella couldn’t imagine what that might be. To her horror, the suit started to move on its own. She scooted backward with a muted cry as one arm slid across the ground towards the helmet, reached up, and rubbed the side of it like how someone might massage their temple. “Oogh…” came a strangely electronic yet familiar voice from inside. “That wasn’t fun…”

---

For a moment only silence greeted Link’s inquiry, which could only be understandable. After all, how could the cute, fuzzy, fairly-like Moogles of Alcamoth possibly appear in an accursed hellhole like this, who knows how far beneath the stormy waters of a monster-infested sea?

One did anyway.

With a magical poof a portly Moogle manifested in front of Link, apparently mid-way through taking care of a hard-to-reach itch with the aid of a backscratcher. “Whoa, ‘ey, what in the, ahum, ugh!” the creature exclaimed in surprise. His voice was weirdly deep and gargly for a Moogle, the sort one would expect out of some sweat-stained, pizza-eating, beer-guzzling middle-aged Manhattan apartment dweller, and not at all a mystical koala pixie. He waved with the backscratcher, trying to appear cheerful. “I mean, heyas! Moogle messenger, at your service, and, uh...wait a sec, who the heck are yous guys?” His gaze shifted rapidly between Kamek, Link, and Glen in utter confusion. “When did we link up with a buncha tots? But...whoa!” Flapping around in a circle, he took in the sights of the Depths. “What the heck’s this place?! This ain’t no daycare!”



As Linkle bombarded him with questions and details, Father Guerra held up his hands in surrender. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, little miss! Back up just a moment. Someone tried killing you?” He looked at Albedo for confirmation, but the Alchemist was in the process of showing sketches from his book and didn’t think to do anything but nod. “Invincible, you say…” He considered the casual manner in which the pair seemed to be treating the subject matter, as well as the young lady’s crossbows and the ominous feeling that clung to her. It took him only a moment to understand, and when Guerra looked back at Linkle he saw her in a new light.

“Pardon me, you’re clearly not ordinary people. Come with me.” He closed his book and set it aside, then stood and began to walk, leading his guests to a more private area by a window. When they sat again a slight change had affected his demeanor, some sort of tightening around the eyes maybe. The kindness did not leave them, but they held steel, too. This was a Father who could get down to business--a man who offered a sandwich to the hungry and a lead pipe to the evil. “I may be an old man, but I’d like to think I can help people like you. People who want to make the world a better place.” After accepting the sketchbook from Albedo he looked at the drawing while continuing to speak. “Everyone knows the Stranger. A force of nature. He came here once, searching for someone, but he did not find them. We are lucky he seems to avoid this place, for his capricious nature brings ruin wherever he goes. If you’re interested in him, well...” Guerra’s voice held nothing but seriousness. “You’ve found the right man. I’m not one to stand by while tyrants put people’s lives in jeopardy. So I’ll help however I can.”

With a shake of his head he passed back the book, his face apologetic. “Unfortunately, I do not recognize these symbols. If only you could do an internet search, huh?”

“A what?” Albedo raised an eyebrow. “What is an internet?”

“Ah, excuse me,” Guerra waved a hand. His guests’ clothing and weaponry should have given away their technology leve. “Something where I come from. It’s a system spread all over the world. As long as someone has a machine called a computer and a connection to the internet, anyone can access all the knowledge of mankind. Isn’t that incredible?” he laughed. “Not very good at it myself. In fact, the kids can barely put down their phones long enough to listen to my damn sermons…”

As he trailed off Albedo put a hand to his chin. “So all we need is a ‘computer’ and a ‘connection’, right?”

Guerra blinked. “Er. Yes, but I couldn’t tell you where to find one. Or if this place even has an internet. You may be better off asking around.” He put his hands on his knees. “If you do, you might have better luck asking an idol than a priest.”

Once again Albedo reacted with confusion, narrowing his eyes. “Do you mean in the second tower? We tried a few of the statues, but they were not exactly forthcoming.”

“Oh no.” Guerra shook his head. “I suppose I should use the colloquial term. Not idol as in statue. Idol as in...well...this place is frequented by a few pagan gods.” He looked between his guests. “Surprised? It’s a funny thing, actually. You might think they’re the stars of the show, but in reality, those ‘gods’ are treated more like bums. They have some power, yes, but they are not invincible, nor unknowable. They have needs, and desires, and flaws, just like humans. And like humans, they are deserving of our compassion, but not our worship.” He shrugged. “That is why I hesitate to call them gods, when there is only one almighty God, far greater than any human could ever imagine. But you’re not here for a sermon, eh?” Guerra smiled, relaxing into his chair. “If you want to talk to one, there are a few you may be able to find. Pele is amicable, and earns her keep stoking fires in the kitchens and forges. Mercury sometimes delivers objects or lost souls to our door. And then there’s Skadi, who lives in the basement of this very tower. She is not well, but she’s there.” Having said his piece, Guerra waited on a decision.