The lines of battle had been drawn, and the two lines of opponents faced one another, the air between them fraught with tension. Seekers versus Resistance, nine against nine, although Ciella’s presence added a little extra spice to the mix. If not for the death of Amara and Jinx’s recruitment, Joker mused, his side would be outnumbered. While the rabbit lady issued her ultimatum and received her opposite number’s curt dismissal, Joker turned to address his team as quickly as he could.

“With these powers and numbers, this is going to be wild. We need to try and separate them to prevent total chaos. You know, crossfire, interference, so forth. Since Necro’s not gonna fight and hopefully their boss won’t either, it’ll probably go to four two-on-twos, so find someone you work well with. We should be careful until Mona gets here. ‘Til then, all we have is Necro for healing.” He rounded on the flying saucer. “You told him about the way down after the other Fox called, right? Anyway, we need you to observe and find out what their powers are. Weaknesses to, if you can. Shout ‘em out when targets change. Otherwise, support whoever’s got it roughest. Fox, with me!”

“O-okay!”

“Right.”

Joker whipped around, his coattails flying dramatically. “Okay.” In a flash his knife appeared in one hand, and his new pistol in the other. “Let’s do this!”

The battle began with a furious opening salvo. Ciella unleashed an arrow of water that carved through the air, a flying riptide, Fox unleashed a few rifle rounds, and from the realm of Twilight Midna conjured a handful of potted projectiles to hurl into the Resistance crowd. Already, however, the silhouette of the giant man in armor was moving to intercept. “Hah!” The mighty Reinhardt deployed his energy shield, covering almost half of his team in one move, and though Ciella and Midna’s attacks crashed against it the barrier held firm. Fuse and Mordecai stayed behind his shield to return fire, but Orendi scampered off to the guardian’s left and Shadow floated upward. Before Reinhardt could remind his allies to get behind him, Jesse readied something else to send his way--or more accurately, Nastasia’s. And it was no ordinary projectile.

That wouldn’t do. “Sven!” Reinhardt yelled. “Bounce me!” To his right, the rotund old potion master chuckled as he pulled a flask of blue liquid at his teammate’s feet. Reinhardt jumped, and the moment he landed on the puddle of elastic ooze he soared skyward, high enough to intercept Jesse’s spun spear just in the nick of time. The impact cracked but did not destroy his barrier, and he came down a moment later to protect his team. By that time, however, most of his team had scattered.

Shadow rose into the air above him, dodging bullet after bullet from Jesse. Rather than strike back immediately he manifested a pair of Chaos Spears that he hurled toward the grouped-up Seekers, forcing them to break their ranks. The move meant that both groups had broken formation, and soon chaos would ensue. Shadow smirked, watching the situation unfold from above. Chaos, after all, was just his thing. He waited and watched for an opening to pick off an unlucky target, ready should anyone try to challenge him directly.

If the FBC director meant to try him again, though, he quickly found herself with problems of her own. With a maniacal giggle the impish varimorph Orendi scampered off toward the same side that Jesse took, a crimson magic swirling around all four hands. At her beckoning a circle of low-lying barbs appeared around Jesse’s position, while a tower of three spike-lined rings appeared above her. “Hey, lookupandopenyourmouthsoitbakesyourintestines!” she jittered with glee, and scarcely a moment later a pillar of magenta power burst up from the ground to shoot through the rings. If Jesse evaded, as she was wont to do, Orendi leaped behind cover to avoid retaliatory fire.

Having been momentarily exposed by Reinhardt’s stunt, the sniper, Mordecai, went the same direction. He let loose his Bloodwing companion as he fled, and at blistering speed the avian shot out to seek and gouge the nearest Seeker. He then settled down to provide support from way in the back of the arena, which for the moment meant keeping Jesse’s head down with near-misses from his precision rifle. Once granted an opportunity, Orendi kept up the mayhem by summoning a trio of rings in front of her and firing a magenta beam Jesse’s way. Together the barrage of bullets and magic kept up a deadly and near constant offense; Jesse needed help. “Yikes!” Necronomicon exclaimed, taking notice. “Here! Speed, up!” A green aura surrounded Jesse, boosting both agility and evasion, but a little extra speed wouldn’t be enough against this onslaught. From the shadows, Midna was positioned well to both see the problem and lend a hand.

At the same time, the Dragonborn roared and charged toward Mao, filled with rage by the power of Ara Mitama. Though his grievous wounds had yet to fully heal, his fighting spirit would not die, and as he ran he conjured a spirit bow with which to fire arrows as he moved in. He sent shot after shot, but by the time he reached melee range he’d already swapped to a heavy metal-banded shield of solid wood and a trusty steel longsword. The sight of his stolen axe in the cur’s grip filled him with fury. He swung at Mao, not in blind recklessness, but with countless hours of expertise given strength by rage.

Behind him followed the demonic duo, Shayne and Aurox. Together teenager and terror followed their fearsome ally into the thick of the fighting, but well before they reached the front lines they disappeared. A scant few seconds later the two reappeared in dynamic fashion, leaping down toward Mao from the side as he scrapped with the Dragonborn. “Heads up!” Shayne yelled, her boomerang readied alongside her companion’s claws, but their stealth attack never hit its mark. “What the f-AGH!”

“Stand behind me!” With surprising speed Braum leaped in the way, placing himself between his friend and his foe. He smashed into the headlong duo before they could defend themselves, stunning them momentarily. The manliest of yells resounded across the battlefield as Braum pulled his shield arm back and bodily punched the creature armoring Shayne with its heft. He moved to assist Mao, but Braum’s adversary returned just a moment later with a hurled boomerang, itching to get her hands dirty. The two stood together against tenacious foes.

Even as fighting erupted to his left and right, Reinhardt focused on the task ahead. Fuse, Shadow, and Sven remained near him, while an irritated Nastasia picked herself off the ground where she’d thrown herself in a desperate bid to avoid Jesse’s targeted assault. “Hmph!” she groused. “Yeah, that was a little close. You all know what you need to do. I’m clocking out early. Shadow, take me.”

Ciella gnashed her teeth. “You’re not getting away!” He lifted a hand to her mask, then swept it sideways with a flourish. “Feral Shroud, expand!”

Instantly a barrier of darkness formed around the arena, walling off every escape from the great dome with swirling, nebulous magic. When Shadow grabbed his boss and tried to warp out, he found to his great frustration that he could not. Nastasia’s eyebrow twitched as her minion set her back down behind Reinhardt’s shield, unfazed even as the combined efforts of Ciella, Sectonia, Joker, and Shadow beat against it. “Okay then, new business plan. Get her.”

A moment later Reinhardt’s shield shattered. He swung his hammer to let loose a fire strike that hurtled the heroes’ way, then followed behind it in a rocket-powered charge. Sven ran behind him a lot faster than his little legs and round body would imply, and after splitting up to avoid Reinhardt, Joker and Fox let him go right by. That left the Thieves against just Shadow, Fuse, and Nastasia herself, but as they watched the Hedgehog warped away to appear right behind Ciella and kick her back into the path of Reinhardt’s charge. The old knight pinned and brought her right to the back of the arena where he smashed her against the far pillar, eliciting a shout of pain.

Joker and Fox turned to run back and help, but a spatter of bullets hit the ground at their feet. They whirled around in anger to see Fuse standing alongside his boss, assault rifle at the ready and a grin on his face. “Hey now, don’t count me out. I’ll show you kids a thing or two!”

With a bored expression, Nastasia flipped open a phone. “Hello, hello? I needed you Vandals here yesterday. Hustle already!” Joker’s gun flew into position, and without an ounce of hesitation she fired. His revolver round never hit; instead, it melted against a green barrier around her as the device at her hip flared to life. “Um, yeah. Thought it’d be that easy? Gotta get through the overshield first.” As a quartet of four-armed fighters teleported in around her, she flexed her fingers. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ll just put you under new management. Don’t you move now~” She stepped forward, impervious, and from the minions all around her the hailstorm of projectiles began.



Now that everyone knew what to look for, they searched with purpose. Even the Grimleal lieutenants lent a helping hand as they paced around on the hunt for crystal scarabs. Only Yoshitsune remained idle, too annoyed at the resolution of his last fight and pumped up about the chance of a rematch to do anything but kick rocks. Though he didn’t persist for long in the search, Fox did think to take the moment of relative peace that his team currently enjoyed to establish some communication with the contingent that marauded the Resistance’s main base even now. It took just a couple seconds after his hail before Necronomicon responded.

“Hey there! Well, it’s been pretty exciting over here. The second we stepped we were fighting for our lives. More people with strong weapons and varied powers, but we managed to take a couple down. The rest got away using these magic bones but we’re on our way to finish the job right now. Riding an elevator way underground, although it’s already stopped twice so that some trash mobs can try their luck. Considering how deep we are I’m kinda surprised we got a signal. Good thing comms work ‘cause we expect ‘em to in the Metaverse, huh? Anyway, Mona got warped away but is hurrying back fast as he can, and Laharl was pissed about something or other and stayed up top, so we’re technically down two but nobody’s dead or anything. So I guess we’re pretty good here. How about you guys?”

Not long after the conversation finished, Tora and Poppi returned from their outing down the side tunnel. A little rocket power brought them back over to the main floor, and though they looked a little dustier, neither seemed any worse for wear. “Diddly squat,” he announced, shrugging as best he could without shoulders. “Just rocks, sand, and torches. Maybe tunnel cave in while back or something, meh.”

Poppi took note of the glowing part of the scarab door. “Did Poppi and Masterpon miss anything?”

Once filled in, Tora and Poppi joined the search in dramatic fashion. At her Masterpon’s behest the artificial Blade swapped to her wind core and started launching air-infused missiles around the room. Whenever one struck sand piled up on the ruined structure it got blown away, uncovering anything buried beneath, and after a good salvo most of the stone in the room had been swept clean. Of course, all the sand that got kicked up in the first place wasn’t very pleasant, as Tora quickly realized. “Meh, meh!” he groaned, dusting sand from his hair. “All this sand get stuck in poor Tora’s wet clothes!”

“Tell me about it,” Skull agreed, scratching at the inside of his collar. “Our guys ran all the way to this giant pool. I mean, it was cool and all, but of course we got totally friggin’ soaked when we fought ‘em. How’d you get wet?”

Poppi answered that one as she searched by the edges of the sand pits. “Poppi hose Masterpon off after Poppi use him like bowling ball to smash spiders summoned by half-naked witch lady.”

“F-for real?” Skull muttered, blinking. “Wait, you said she summoned spiders? That’s super messed up! Were they poisonous?”

“Venomous!” Panther corrected for the second time.

Now it was Tora’s turn to scratch his head. “Meh...don’t know. Got bit couple times, but feel okay now.”

As the group’s discussion went on Kan-Ra thought of something. “While we’re all here, why not run through everyone we fought and compare notes? If your opponents escaped as well, we’ll need to fight them again before we leave.”

“Hey, good idea!” Skull called. He paused as Primrose uncovered another scarab with Makami’s help and watched while Panther blasted it with fire. The third symbol on the door lit up, which meant only one remained. “Well, we fought two guys. One was this dwarf dude, like straight out of Lord of the Rings, with a hammer. But he could use freakin’ magic, too! He zapped the water with his hands, and pacified me just by touching me!”

Panther sighed. “He means ‘putrefied’, like turned to stone.” She blinked, eyebrows furrowed. “Wait...was that it?”

“That ain’t right either!”

With a less than confident smile Panther continued. “Uh, heheh, anyway, there was also this dragon dude I saw while he was fighting Yoshitsune. He just used a lot of fire spells. Fireballs, flamethrowing, fire rain, and so on. He also did that meteor right at the start, I think.”

Eager to go next, Tora took the floor. “We fought pretty witch and annoying jerkypon! Witch summon bugs and bats and broggs and explodypons but not really fight on own. But other guy have loads of weapons, meh! Guns, sword, axe, scythe, everything. Not slouch with weapons, either. Also swear whole bunch, so good thing little friend Hattypon not here. Tora think we need teach jerkypon lesson out first!” He curled the end of one wing like a fist and smacked it into the ‘palm’ of the other.

With Primrose already done more than her fair share of sleuthing, Band allowed her to reply for his team while he doubled down on the search. Once she finished Azwel rounded out the overall report with a blasé response. “The girl who opposed me is of no particular note. She possessed some speed and strength, as well as proficiency with the blade, but paled in comparison to my Practical Application of Martial Philosophy and Theory,” he boasted, name-dropping his fighting style.

Just then Band’s magnifying glass picked up an important detail. “Aha!” He stood in front of one of the pillars, eyeing a stone brick nestled in loose mortar. In pristine ruins never marred by the erosion of wind and rain, it stood out thanks to its edges, more worn than they had any right being. With a padded claw the detective slipped the brick out from its hole and revealed the final scarab. He allowed himself a moment to take in a few impressed looks. “What can I say? I got rhythm.” Using his claw he flicked the scarab until it lit up. The sound of sliding stone brought everyone’s eyes to the doorway as it opened wide, granting access to the staircase below.

The team descended one by one. Before long it emptied into a square chamber, dark and severe, with barred doors on either side that to Tora suggested nothing less than a dungeon. Only the left-hand one appeared to be occupied, and within it sat a knight in shining bronze armor. He only lifted his head when he didn’t recognize the makers of the noise that signalled their arrival. “Oh? Maybe I’m in luck. Could you help me? As you can see I am stuck, without recourse.”

Azwel sneered at him while Kan-Ra kept his focus dead ahead. “We’ll deal with you later.”

“Please, I have duties to fulfill, and I will reward you handsomely.” The knight looked at each Seeker as they went past. “Well? I am certain you stand to benefit.”

Tora gave him a pleading look. ‘Ssh! We on mission! Tora sorry you locked up, but like foppypon say, we come back after not in danger!” Even if this wasn’t a trap and this strange knight was an upstanding individual, his team could not afford to be distracted right now. He followed along as everyone proceeded onward.



Up ahead lay a much bigger underground dungeon. Filthy, run-down, poorly lit, and with a pervasive green tinge, it offered little in the way of welcome. In the center of the spacious hall a great column connected floor and ceiling, and the furnace built in blazed with light and warmth. In front of it lay a large rug, and from atop it three sets of eyes stared at the incoming intruders. Sitting in a backward-facing chair on that rug, the grandmaster tactician Robin looked a little different than he did in the photo on Validar’s desk, aside from his grim expression. By him was a weary-eyed blonde woman in an outfit like a dancer’s. She knelt over the unconscious form of Charnok, having managed to stabilize the mortally wounded sorcerer but not restore him much more than that. This must be where the others had all been teleported to, which meant the Resistance’s full strength lurked somewhere nearby. On Robin’s other side stood a strange little fellow with a lantern that dangled from his nose and a book held in his hands. Tora stared at him in particular, the somewhat familiar shape of the stranger’s bringing to mind a mutant Nopon.

“I see you had no trouble reaching our sanctum,” Robin observed, his tone almost lifeless. “You have us backed into a wall, and though we’re not quite spent yet, there need not be further bloodshed. Just please, hear me out.”

Azwel crossed his arms. “The one in charge of this rabble, I presume? Your peons have already attempted to kill us. No doubt they wait in the wings even now. Don’t you think time for diplomacy has passed?”

“I know that there is no convincing the Grimleal. For the sake of their vision, they cannot allow any insurrection to stand. But I am not talking to the Grimleal.” Robin’s eyes drifted over Tora, Poppi, Big Band, Primrose, Fox, Yoshitsune, Skull, and Panther. “I am talking to you. What I have to tell you is absolute proof of foul play on the part of Validar and his underlings. Proof that his regime is built on a lie--that what happened to the queen is no accident, but his own doing.”

“A preposterous accusation!” Azwel blew him off with a sweep of his arm. “And one we won’t hear. This proof you speak of is nothing more than a blatant attempt to sow distrust among our ranks.”

Wearing his ever-present grin, Kan-Ra clasped his hands behind his back. “Come now, lieutenant. Nonsense it may be, but since we represent the city’s law and have nothing to hide, what harm could it be to hear them out? I for one am interested to hear this absolute proof.” He glanced back at the others. “What do you think?”

Band stepped through the group, grumbling. “Mister Magic, you’ve got a whole lotta nerve to try an’ talk your way out after choosin’ violence.” He stared down at Robin with a solemn scowl. “That said...one truth prevails, and I’m here to find it. We beat your crew like drums already, and we can do it again if you pull anythin’. So I’m down to lend an ear.”

Tora, Poppi, Skull, and Panther kept quiet. All typically left decisions like this to their respective team leaders, so they didn’t feel qualified to lend an opinion, but they considered the situation all the same. Azwel crossed his arms impatiently, but something his comrade said clearly made him hesitate. Like the Resistance members present, he awaited a decision.



Despite the heebie-jeebies the abominable sight and sounds of the Proxy filled them with, the kids put their makeshift plan into action. Mirage’s noise-making efforts held the vile thing more or less captive right in front of the Command Center’s pit, while his friends overcame their trembles and nerves to get into position.

First, the formerly submarine-hoisting apparatus descended to where the Proxy lurched, its pneumatic arms extended to offer it an express ticket to the Depths’ lowest floor. Unfortunately, it became clear all too soon that the malformed horror wouldn’t be defeated so easily. The machine ran at just one speed: slow. With its arms turned inward to create a single wall of metal the apparatus bumped into the Proxy’s upper body, but rather than be sent into open space the creature reacted violently to the unexpected touch. Its pendulous mess swayed to the side and whipped back around with far greater strength, like a souped-up speed bag. The Proxy struck the arms strong enough to wrench both sideways, knocking them permanently out of whack.

Even so, the kids were determined to have the last laugh. From her position between the cage entrance and the pilot seat Rika clenched her teeth and leveled her gauntlets at the monstrosity before her. In this form her weapons were little more than pea shooters, but right now they might be enough. As she prepared to fire, a white shape filled her peripheral vision to the right, and when Rika looked she saw none other than Bella standing beside her. Though the tiny Water Princess couldn’t wipe the fear from her heart, her face right now was one of anger. How dare this wretched slime terrorize MY Sakura, it was saying. She looked daggers at the Proxy from a back stance, her miniature leviathan tail primed and ready with its maw agape. Never in their lives as Abyssals had either Bella or Rika known or cared about the other, simply acting their roles as unknown master and unknown minion, but this crisis had brought them together. United at last, the little monsters fired, and the pop of their triple blast filled the Command Center.

Their shells exploded against the Proxy, wobbling it perilously. It fought to steady itself on logs without feet, teetering on the brink. Bella’s eyes went wide as her grimace turned into a snarl. How could this thing not fall? Was it unbeatable? Unsinkable? Given the smallest chance, was it destined to turn the tables and mash her into oblivion just as it did Peach? The sound of jets, however, crushed that chance.

In a blaze of glory Blazermate zoomed in from the direction of the Command Center’s entrance. She went around the cage and came to a stop against the wall above the pilot seat, which she used as a springboard to propel herself toward the Proxy. A moment later her scrap shield slammed into the twisted bulk, and with a final despondent scream the nightmare plunged into the abyss below it. Its howls echoed up from below until they came to an abrupt, sticky end.

A collective sigh of relief filled the Command Center. Peach received some much-needed heeling and the other kids could shake off the terror that gripped their hearts. Peace at last. The bellows of Moreau, however, told them that they weren’t out of the woods just yet.

---

Nadia reached the Depth’s second floor amidst a scene of wanton destruction. Sure, Link got Moreau’s attention easily enough, but unlike earlier where the feral and the monster hunter could enjoy taunting the fish freak from platforms out of his reach, Moreau could easily smash, undermine, and otherwise wreck these walkways. If this kept up for too much longer, there wouldn’t be a second floor, and the Seekers needed it to reach the elevator on the opposite side. Nadia’s skin crawled. If the situation before had been tense, with every moment spent wondering if Moreau’s next jump would take him high enough, this one was pure chaos. A tumult of gnashing teeth, bloodshot eyes, exhaustion, and flying hunks of scrap, all to the hideous cacophony of rended metal and low-pitched wails.

In this fresh hell the last thing Nadia expected was negotiation, but Kamek tried it anyway. He shouted down from a safe vantage point, trying to convince Moreau to reconsider his actions. The young magikoopa clearly sought to reach out to the human element that clearly still existed inside the monster, the part of him that sparked cries of anguish that rendered him pitiable and even pathetic. And to Nadia’s shock, it brooked a response.

After a few of Kamek’s sentences Moreau slowed his roll for a moment. The tooth-lined flaps of his grotesque maw opened, and from within issued a humanoid upper half, with white flesh as cold and clammy as a waterlogged corpse. Nadia spotted the recognizably disfigured face of the stooped invalid that the team found watching ‘television’ in the Command Center as Moreau looked up to the source of the noise. “Muh?” he groaned, listening. “W-what are you...I can, I can win it! I’ll make her proud. A-and then…” He trailed off as Kamek suggested an alternative, but the koopa’s question seemed to push his buttons. “I can’t leave!” he cried. “A-and even if I could...there’s nothing else! Nowhere else for me!” His body receded for a moment as the fish threw up a stream of globular acid, covering part of the floor. Then the upper body re-emerged. “Uugh! It hurts, ohh...every day, torture! She’s the...the only one who ever gave me anything! Everyone else drove me away!” Moreau’s human body clutched his head in his hands. “A safe place to live, drugs for the pain, something she trusts me to do...it’s all I could ever have! So I gotta...even if it hurts, I gotta…!” His fish arms and head smashed into the floor over and over in rage and despair.

While he went on, Ace arrived alongside Nadia to set forth a quick plan of action. The kitten nodded her immediate assent. “Okay, goin’!” As her friend went down to look for the cutters, she made a beeline for the Depth’s north side. If she could rescue Junior while the others kept Moreau busy at the south side, the two of them could get to the exit unimpeded, using mostly intact walkways on the second floor. She just needed to be fast. Problem was, her body wasn’t listening. No matter how much she willed herself onward, her muscles weren’t responding. Halfway through her trip Nadia was flagging, her throat ragged from the breaths tearing through it. “D-damn it,” she gasped, tearing up. She’d gone too hard too soon, telling herself that a scrappy little stray could push through the hardship, but at the end of the day she was a four-year-old child. A pitiful, underfed whelp. She’d been wrong to look back on these formative years and see a hardy survivor, who got through the worst of things by gritting her teeth. This sucked absolutely.

Somehow, though, she made it to the walkway above flow control. In the drab surroundings Junior’s bright yellow, green, and red were easy to spot, and beside him Nadia could see his faithful Mimikyu. Just the ticket. “Junior!” she called down after collapsing onto her stomach above him. “Up here! You still have my fan, right?” She pointed down to a section of floor just beyond the walkway’s edge. “Turn it on and lay it down, like I did in the other area! Use it to bounce up here, then have your pet reach down and grab it!”

She extended a hand off the catwalk out into empty space to encourage Junior to soar up and take it, although she hoped the fan was strong enough he’d just go up and over. If he actually grabbed her she figured the heavier koopa would just pull her down instead. She had neither the staying power nor the stamina to resist.

At that time, Ace got snippy. Using his recovered bolt cutters he clipped a couple flailing tendrils off Moreau’s back. “Ow!” His human face glared upward. “You talk too much,” Moreau growled at Kamek. “I know what you’re up to...just give it UP!” Heedless of the wounded eyes on his back, the monster rolled over so that his arms could reach upward. With just a couple weighty blows he smashed up an entire section of walkway and sent the Cadet flying.

Nadia’s eyes went wide. “Ace!”

“There’s no way out for me,” Moreau declared, resigned to his fate. “I gotta do my job, best I can. Or I’m done.” As his mouth-body receded again, his tone dropped to a rumbling murmur. “And if my best...isn’t good enough...that’s fine. I can still say I tried.” The monster rolled back over and reared back with a bellow. “So...gimme your best shot! Grooooaaaaaagh!”



The race was on. Linkle took off like greased lightning, zooming left toward a springboard that launched her up and onto a nearby house. All this Albedo gleaned from his peripheral vision, and as he had a trail of his own to blaze, he couldn’t afford to track his friend’s progress any further. The Skullgirl’s seemingly boundless energy plus her natural agility made an actual competition look pretty bleak from the start, but Albedo had a few tricks of his own up his sleeve.

He veered toward the right, chain in hand and trusting in the villager’s testimony, toward a flagline leading upward. Though he went out on a limb, his experiment quickly bore fruit, and against the laws of nature he zipped up the line and around the right side of the village. After picking up a few floating pons on the way the line deposited him on a decently large plateau blanketed by dirt and grass, dominated by a central farm plot that a handful of homes surrounded. Goats lent their strength to till and stamp down the soul, while the smaller villagers handled the more delicate matters of planting and harvest. The simple harmony at work was oddly wholesome to witness, but it was for a different reason the sight kindled Albedo’s spirit. Even if he lacked Linkle’s athleticism, he could put his brain to work. There was plenty here that he could use.

Wasting no time, he ran a quick circuit around the farm, picking up pons as he concocted a plan. Like a smith he took the raw material presented to him and hammered it onto a workable form, guaranteed to get the job done. The idea that he might be wasting time while his competition barreled onward affected him not at all; this was how the Knights of Favonius’ Investigation Team Captain got things done. It took him only a few moments to put together a solution, after which he put it into practice.

He made for an unused plow and ran up one of its long handles, each movement deft and precise. The weight at the front kept the wooden device from moving as he reached the extremity and jumped to the roof of a nearby well. Ahead lay an instrument whose purpose he could not quite divine, but being a central pole with four red logs branching from the top in a plus sign, it would serve him well as another stepping stone. A leap from there took him onto the roof of a farmhouse, and though for a second his leafy footing threatened to slide him backwards, his forward momentum won out and brought him to the dwellings’ zenith. The much smaller plateau on the other side that overlooked the plot sported a large wooden signboard of some kind, covered with tacked-on papers. Getting across its narrow top was no mean feat, but Albedo managed, even if the board wobbled beneath the impact of his footfalls. Then he came to one of the village’s odd trees, whose leaves existed exclusively in oval masses at the end of their branches. Just as he figured, the mass held firm, allowing him to climb up. Once on top, the next tier of the village’s peaks lay just a few meters above him.

Albedo summoned a solar isotoma. The flower bloomed from within the bark of the plant beneath him and poked up through the leaves. From there he just needed to step on and be elevated to the next level, and as rose he scoped out the new area. This spot was a lot narrower, home to just a few flowers, a couple horned, donut-shaped monuments, and a large windsock. The villager sitting on a bench looked a little surprised to see him, but let him off with just a wave. It would be a moment before Albedo could call forth another construct, so now seemed like the perfect time to use his other trick. He ran right over to the sheer cliff face ahead of him, laid his bare hands on, and started to climb.

As he rose, scaling the cliff face without equipment or even handholds, Albedo wondered what Linkle might have thought seeing this. Apparently it wasn’t normal for the people of other worlds to do this, even if it happened all the time in Teyvat. As long as someone in his world had the stamina, they could crawl right up any flat surface. He arrived at the next tier a moment later, the level dominated by flagpoles and rain barrels, and above him to the left he could see an enormous, red-clothed horn poking out over the edge. Another solar isotoma lifted him straight to the top.

Once there, he found himself alone. “Linkle?” he asked, looking around, but he didn’t find her laying in wait to surprise him or anything. Had he actually beat her? Albedo jogged over to the other side of the Goat Village’s flattened peak, and he quickly got his answer. Linkle was having the time of her life just flying around the northern side of the village, bouncing and climbing everywhere. In her exhilaration she’d either forgotten about the race or found something more important, and the sight sent a pang of...something coursing through Albedo’s heart. He found the sensation difficult to describe. Melancholy, perhaps? For a few moments he just watched, but since the pair had a job to do, he knew he needed to bring her back down to earth. The Alchemist considered calling out, but got a better idea a second later.

BWUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

As the horn resounded through the Alpine Skyline, the flagpole trees reacted. The blue, green, and multicolor flaglines launched out from their homes as if they were alive and snaked through the sky, joining the yellow and red lines in connecting Goat Village to nearby landmarks. While the blue and green ones led elsewhere in the sky-high region, the multicolored one shot straight down and disappeared into the clouds. Regardless, the way to the old mill was open. Albedo crossed his arms as he waited, although if Linkle looked up at him he planned to wave down.

---

Mirage laughed nervously as the robotic arm did nothing but annoy the Proxy, wishing the thing could put on a little more oomph for such a technological place. Noting it's use however, it wasn't surprising. What was, however, was seeing not only Rika down there with that creature, but Bella too. Unable to do anything directly, he tried to keep the arm as at least a method of impeding the creature's movement as they unleashed an attack on the creature. It wasn't enough, which was deeply concerning as now Mirage was worried for both of the little gals down there. But thankfully, a big can of kickass appeared in the form of Blazermate, excitement momentarily filling the miniature legend with vigor as he watched the Proxy plummet into the depths.

"Oh-HOH, yeah! That's got me ecstat-- Estate? Eccentri-- Really hyped!" He barely managed to stay coherent as he quickly made his way from the controls to rejoin the group, not bothering to go into the cage as he didn't exactly want to see the mess that'd been left behind. Instead, with Moreau still making noise out there, he knew they needed to get moving despite having just dealt with one horror. "Alrighty, we get to that elevator and we're one step closer to getting outta this thing!" Keeping positive, he was still concerned about Junior so he was quick to make his exit of the Command Center-- Or would have been, if he hadn't tripped on the way out and smacked onto the cold floor.

"Gah! No more monsters grabbin' me!" He quipped, startled as he shook his foot and looked back at what caught him. It wasn't a monster, it was just one of those freakin' magnets they found on the last floor. His cheeks went slightly red from embarrassment as he pulled himself up, grabbing it to take with him as you never knew when you needed some loot. Afterwards he was quick to meet up with Geralt, noting he had been playing a bit of a peeking game to see if they'd need more help undoubtedly, what a swell guy. Except he was also a witness to the previous embarrassment with the magnet, so Mirage felt a lack of ability to boast at the moment.

Instead, the task at hand was what mattered. While they were all in one piece, the situation outside was only getting worse if the noise meant anything. They needed to get the hell out of here! But from all the crashing, he had to wonder if their previous path was at all the same. "Alright, gonna go scout the exit out, see what the damage is!" He paused from a moment of pain, not from his pitiful fall, but rather his stomach. He slowed his pace a bit as he made his way back towards the catwalks, noting that if he didn't get something to eat within too long, he might actually consider biting his own damn tongue.

The place they originally came from was, to say the least, a goddamn mess. Nadia and Ace had done a hell of a job tearing the place apart with plenty of assistance from Moreau, too. No wonder he didn't see Moreau down there, the utter carnage made the surface almost unrecognizable, to which a drop of sweat rolled down Mirage's forehead. "Well that's grating," He muttered to himself, noting the dangling platforms and scrap from the Moreau damage. His eyes scanned for the others: View landing down low to see people were already on the move towards their exit. Which was helpful for letting him know exactly where he was aiming for. And where there was a destination to reach, there was, of course...

Darts.

Pop, pop, and pop. Mirage was on the move: Figuring navigating ahead was a good strategy. Noting the lack of mobility for some of the people in their party, he attempted to keep things simple, but noted they might need help nonetheless, which he could try to maybe go back and provide. For the moment, however, he simply kept to path making: Once the group could get into one spot, he'd use darts to help the group traverse to the next, with him taking the lead in case it wasn't safe.

Which it clearly wasn't, as Mirage got a clear view of Ace being sent flying by Moreau as they got lower. His eyes shot open wide, unable to do anything for the soaring hunter except stare at the worrisome view as he noted that once they made it to the walkway, they needed to haul ass. He couldn't stall, not with the group that'd be in the Command Center needing to get down. He'd keep navigating downwards through the mangled mess to ensure the others got through, but he'd be damned if he'd leave anyone behind.

It's not gonna kill him! He echoed the same words Cadet had about him stepping into the Pilot Seat earlier, noting that with how these folks talked, they've overcome much worse. This would be one of those times, he was sure of it! And as his navigation down to the lower walkway began to conclude, he fully knew he'd turn back around and make sure it was something the Cadet would get through. By any means he could provide.

---

The Dragonborn's charge was met with Mao's own, deciding to meet the man head-on. His coat flurried along with his thin frame to skim past his arrows, but the man's quick weapon-swapping abilities left Mao momentarily on the defensive as he came down with his blade. Mao's axe shifted from one hand to both; holding it flat with his hand on the grip and palm against the cold material of the blades as he used it to block the strike. His knees bent from the sheer strength of the Dragonborn, burnt over scabs on his wounds cracking from the motion which caused a sound of pain that came out more as a snarl than any sort of cry.

This was especially annoying when Mao realized that he wasn't being fought one-on-one, but rather, some sort of duo was also assaulting him. Not that he wasn't prone to playing unfair, but that didn't mean it wasn't sucky to be on the receiving end. Not wanting to be cleaved by the Dragonborn, he was forced to hold his place with a brace for impact until Braum came along, at the last second just like any Hero that Mao had studied in the past. Typical cliche move, but he could worry about that later. "Ah, I stand side by side at best." He informed Braum, not realizing how corny it really sounded as Mao made a half-hearted attempt to discourage being protected, instead sounding more like he was more than happy to fight alongside Braum. Which he might've been, or not. He'd not disclose that to anyone.

What mattered was since Braum's dynamic entrance was so bombastic, he could take advantage of not having to worry about a side attack for the moment. Deciding to put his recovered ability to use, Mao grinned despite his defensive position in his struggle with the Dragonborn, offering his signature "Mwahahahah!" given as soon after Braum's intervention came into play, his mechanical limbs emerged in a quick fashion, loud and dangerous. Mao carried a similar strategy from before: Take out the arms, and leave him begging for mercy. Mao's buzzsaw spun as it thrusted towards his shield-bearing arm, while his drill revved and went for the opposite shoulder. His four-pronged assault continued with the decision of if he had double the attacks, then why not go for double the limbs? Directed with the other two attacks, Mao's scalpel thrusted forward to dig into one of the Dragonborn's knees, while the surgical scissors opened their large maws to snip at his hand holding his weapon, a disarming tactic or at least one to allow Mao to push out of this block he was stuck in.

Such a sudden and devilish surprise, a flurry of unexpected and dishonorable blows! Oh, yes! Mao could feel that villainous tendency in his veins! Nobody said he had to do this clean, after all! All's fair in war, no matter the objective! And with a life soon to be converted to their side by his hand, it'd be all the easier to get some help in freeing Klee, and hearting Baz.

'Damn it, that's not evil at all!' He mentally complained, noting to be the one to kick Baz's ass later so the heart could go through. That'd help him feel better.

Kamek was, frankly, about as surprised as anyone when his attempt to talk to the big guy (who’s name he still didn't know despite asking) sort of worked out. Kinda. It bought time at the very least for Nadia to scurry around and shout down a suggestion to Jr without giving away where he was. Unfortunately there was only one slight problem with her plan.

Jr, looking up at Natia as she called down, scrunched his lips up and then darted his eyes back towards flow control when Nadia rhetorically asked him if he still had her fan ”Uhhh. Yeah. Sure I just got some stuff to still do down here you know” he replied, words running together as he tried and failed to cover for the fact that the fan was still back in the sub, having been entirely forgotten till Nadia reminded him of it.

”Like find that suit” he suddenly said with a click of his fingers, very happy to have an actual real excuse ”Like idk where he went and we can’t just leave it right? Coz there was like a copy of Mirage in it or something?”

Jr didn't actually know and, up until this very moment, had not cared either about the suit's whole deal or what had happened to it down in the water after it disappeared. Now, however, he’d just talked himself and, probably some of the others, into worrying about Mockingbird’s fate.

”I'll be right back!” he called up, and then scampered back into the wreckage just in time, because Kamek’s distraction tactic stopped working a few moments later, the sick as a parrot fish giving in to fatalism and wrecking a section of platform and sending the Ace flying.

If he landed safely in the unsafe pit then at the very least Jr’s forgetfulness might mean they could both try and get out the same way, but, for now, the boy was scampering through the water back the way he came towards flow control and the fan that would get him out of this mess. And would have gotten him out of it even sooner had he remembered it was there.

Above Kamek hadn't overheard what the pair had said to each other, and had also tried to avoid looking over there in case he gave Jr away again, but that the young prince was moving with purpose was a good sign. He just needed to buy more time, for Junior to do what he was doing, for the others to get down and, depending on how Ace’s flight ended, for the monster hunter too get to safety.

Unfortunately he still only had his words, which their tormentor was likely forcing himself to be deaf too, and his brain, which after a few moments of wracking he called up the only idea he had at the moment.

”Nadia, or someone, there's a... creature up near the entrance, and a tank of black goop that created it. If you can try throwing both it might help?” The eyebally thing had certainly had a certain hypnotic allure, though whether it would be enough to get the guy’s attention was debatable. What he was more confident in being helpful was the goop, which he could not imagine interacting well with flesh while doing its thing.

The only other thing he had that he could do was to try again with their pitiable foe, though the odds here were even less in his favor than they had been before

”Let us pass, help us escape, and we will owe you in a way your current boss doesn't. I guarantee you we have more at our disposal than she does in this rust bucket. An entire city of heroes with wisdom from a hundred worlds and a royal treasury’s worth of money to back us up. We could work to try and cure you, rather than simply stave off the worst of your... illness. From where I’m standing, it doesn't look like her help is doing you much good” It really was appalling, in Kamek’s opinion, both on the basis of simple empathy and as a fellow minion. Something like this would not have gone on under his watch back home, that was for certain.

”In fact, there's a clear conflict of interest going on here. She will never try to resolve your condition, or treat it in a way that impacts your use as a weapon, because if you're better or cured, then you aren't useful to her monsterous ends. We have no such concerns. Help us now and you won't have to be a weapon any more. Here, I can even start our end of this deal right now” Kamek said, before calling out ”Moogle? Are you still around? Can you take some notes about this poor gentleman’s condition for me and take them back with you? Run them by the heroes back at base, see if any of them are familiar?”

”and if there's anything you can tell us about it, that would be most helpful. This is free by the way, I’ll be asking base for their knowledge whether you help right away or not” Kamek finished. It was worth another shot, as long as it was. What else could he really hope to do?

---

When the crane wasn't enough to finish the peg legged monster, the three shots from the two former abyssals soared forth with the power of friendship at their back and sent the proxy wobbling on the precipice, but only that. The joy Rika had felt at being joined in her endeavor by Bella toppled when their effort failed, her mind splitting three ways between running, pushing Bella out of the way of the inevitable retaliation or trying to throw her weak body at it to try and finish the job, paralyzing her while Bella snarled in anger at the wretched stompy thing.

Fortunately, while the two semi mechanical girls were unable to finish off the foe, a savior of iron came to their rescue. Blazermate, damaged thrusters flaring as she launched into the room, kicked off of the wall above the chair Mirage had used and with one final strike shield bashed the teetering thing down into the pit.

Rika found herself holding her breath as it fell, and then, like Mirage, was unable to hold in her jubilation when a thud confirmed it was gone.

“Yessss! Way to go Blazermate!” she cheered loudly, pumping her arms up with exhilaration and relief that she wasn't having to be quiet any more, before turning to the other ship girl telling “and you Bella. Thank you thank you thank you for helping with my stupid idea, I would have been sunk without you for sure” before giving her a quick hug, only to let go just as quickly and looking a little sheepish while moving away to give her former boss her personal space back.

She glanced around to see if everyone else was ok, thinking of thanking Mirage for helping her too, but he was already out the door. Then there was a thud as he fell over something and shouted about a monster, which sent Rika scurrying over only to find he’d tripped over a magnet.

“You scared me-” she began to complain before a loud clattering of metal resounded from out the door where Geralt and Sakura had presumably hauled Peach which gave her another fright before the source of that noise made itself clearly known.

”Peach?! Are you ok?! Hey, Blazermate?! Blazermate where are you, drop whatever pointless thing you're doing, get over here and help peach right now!” Came the yelling of Bowser, who’s stomach full of paper was now companing at him in a way that wasn't really an improvement, just different.

“Hey. She just saved us, don't be mean” Rika said back to him from inside the corridor

”From what?” he demanded

“The thing that hurt Peach. Punched it down into that pit” she explained poking her head out the command center door to speak with him

”Oh. Well. Great job as always then.” Bowser half apologized to robot who had already on the way to help when he started making a racket.

“What have you even been doing while we’ve been getting attacked” a little annoyed that the King was making demands when he hadn't even been here to help in the first place.

”Found another key. Except we need to print this one? Also half a scissor one. And some metal to make stuff.” he explained as he stepped out the way and let Blazermate get to work.

“Oh. Is there a lock we need to undo down there?” Rika asked

”I mean I haven't found one yet” He replied, and when he got a skeptical look he elaborated that ”Where there’s keys, there's gonna be doors that need them. Duh. When we run into one and don't have to come all the way back here for them you’ll thank me.”

“Uh huh”

”Plus someone can use the scissors half as like a knife or something. Or we can print two and get some scissors I don't know,” he said while gathering up his scrap and templates and then commanding Rika to ”Keep Peach safe while I deal with this” before stomping his way into the machine room to try and finagle the machinery in it into doing what he needed done.

Rika shook her head, knowing that now that Blazermate was basically done with fixing her up that Peach was capable of handling herself about as well as she could, went and took a look in the vent the monster had come out of to make sure there weren't any other surprises just waiting to leap out of it at them.



Midna got a very nice overview of the opening moments of the battle as she flickered from shadow to shadow to shadow, keeping herself in ones that wouldn't be eradicated by the flashes of gunfire that opened up from both sides of the battlefield. Not an easy task, but now that she was more familiar with the futuristic (to her) weaponry it was a feasible one.

The first obvious issue was the titan in armor with his massive energy shield which he had used to block her potted rain and basically everything else thrown at it up until a point, keeping his squad safe in a way their own had no such luxury of. Then he charged forwards as the lines broke apart rather than stay back and try to smash into them rather than stay fast and cover his team.

Not that they needed it. Gunners and mages split up to use the pillars of the arena as cover and started hailing anyone they could with fire, while the other brawlers raced forwards, whether they wanted to or not in the sword and shield wielding warriors case (and, again, Midna wanted no part in dealing with him on an instinctual level). They were all perfectly split up and able to be ambushed and picked off by her shadow sneaking strategy. Unfortunately, the one with that namesake basically had the same plan, and he launched his into action first.

After a far more effective opening barrage, shadow also floated up and around to observe, only to blink right past their lines and boot Ciella into the path of Reinhardt’s charge, causing the rocket propelled knight to smash into her, and then smash her into a wall, eliciting a shout of pain.

Thoughts of her own ambush were dropped as Midna reacted, appearing out of the shade of a pillar as Shadow finished his kick, and then ramming a shadow hand towards him in an open palmed smash. As that flew forth she portalled in her size up wolfos and sent it hurtling into Reinhardt’s side in a titanic body-slam aimed at knocking him away from Ciella.

She didn’t really like that she was helping the woman, but the giant thorn in her plan of liberation was still better alive than dead. Or so she hoped. She was stopping the mini mind control from getting away with her area surrounding shroud (how much magic did this woman have?) after all, and Midna suspected that it wouldn't stay up if she went down. So, in-order to stop the cause of this mess from escaping, then the rabbit woman had to live.

As both blows did what they did Midna sprinted forwards towards Ciella, drawing back her shadow hand from where it had been lunged at Shadow, ready to guard her from attack, and in its place hurling a spray of twilight sand up at the speedster. Then she tossed a friend-heart at the the woman (it was worth a shot) and hoped that the massively armored man would be able to tough out at least some of her inevitable retaliation.

If she could she’d try and slide into the woman’s shadow to allow her to teleport away to reposition, and if not then shield, shadow hand and speed would have to see her through whatever retribution her strike had garnered.

Geralt watched with relief and a little pride in his comrades as the Proxy was caught off balance by the former Abyssals' barrage, then slammed into by Blazermate and knocked to its doom below. Letting out a sigh and nodding, he turned to Sakura. "It's done. That thing's dealt with." Turning back, he waved Blazermate over. "Peach could use a hand, if you'd be so kind."

As Mirage came over and then tripped over the magnet that was left behind, Geralt cocked an eyebrow but said nothing. That whole situation was nerve-wracking, he'd let him have some dignity. Frankly, he was just glad they got out of it relatively unscathed. Peach would need a hand, sure, but otherwise they were doing wonderfully.

"Alright, now that that's handled, we have a fish man to deal with." That being said, Geralt went with Mirage to check out how the battle was going on the other side. More prepared for the carnage than Mirage, Geralt nodded. "Ace and Nadia did a helluva job making a racket for that guy. Dropped some on him, too. Managed to get a good shot in with that weird nail, thing, too, but he's a big guy. Seems like it barely put a scratch on him, relatively speaking." He shook his head before shrugging. "We'll just have to see what we can do."

Mirage could do a good amount, it seemed, at least in terms of getting the group where they needed to go. That dart gun was simply too useful.

Following after the Legend, Geralt grunted as he landed on a dart, the hunger slowing him down. "Wait." He called out, shakily forcing himself to stand. "This...damned...hunger. It's getting to me." Taking a moment to breathe, he jumped to the next dart. "We can't take much more of this. Liable to collapse soon." When the pair made it to the next safe spot, Geralt stopped. "The lady we spoke to about this place said the food would be cursed. But cursed is better than dead, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time."

As much as he hated it, he was succumbing to the hunger. If they didn't deal with this place sooner rather than later, they'd be lucky to get out of this. "Let's just get done with this and help the others. We can deal with the whole starvation crap later."

There wasn't much to say once everyone had figured out the panel thing, deciding they could just jump over them which Sectonia found hilarious. It had just crossed her mind that her and Midna could've carried their allies over, but they found their way in time and the girls chat was quite nice so overall it worked well. At one point as they made their way through the facility, Midna found all the items that the resistance had stolen, taking them for herself. None of them looked useful for the Queen, but some of those items might be useful for a few of her minions. Eventually they descended into the earth, finding a strange arena hovering over a large empty pit.

While others had their own reservations about making their way to the arena, Sectonia had no issues and didn't have to take any of those launch pads that looked fairly dangerous. Once inside the arena of choice though, they faced the entire resistance with their 'leader', a blue square looking lady with a strange speech pattern. Still funny enough it wasn't the resistance who attacked first, but Mao and a few other allies. Although the resistance members didn't waste any time dispersing, attacking, and getting cover with their 'leader' having been charged trying to escape using Shadow after he attacked with his energy spears. However their ally in Ciella kept them from teleporting away, the barrier made by her being so strong that even with both Sectonia and Shadow hitting it, it wouldn't budge. This did give Sectonia an idea though.

Opening up her cape wings in dramatic fashion, she gave a cackling laugh. "Well its time I tried my new little toy!" she said, granting herself haste before throwing a void globule at the group of resistance which split into 3 with very different flight patterns before moving to conjure and throw a 'barrage' of 4 large light rings, which split into 3 copies of themselves with more random flight patterns for a total of 12 rings flying around. And much like she showed Midna, her spells did nothing to her allies, passing through them without any issue, but still causing damage to the environment and the resistance as they passed by. A smallish arena with no escape combined with her now chaotic, large and damaging spells added to the chaos of the fight, probably a bit too much chaos, but only for the enemy side.

The Cadet didn't quite take pleasure in hearing the little noises of pain coming from Moreau, but it was good to know that what he was doing was effective in some way. Enough to stall the mutant, at least a little. Between the little red head being a physical nuisance and Kamek a mental one, it was going alright. The Cadet even chanced a look around to see how Link, Nadia, and Junior were faring.

This was a rookie mistake. When he looked back to Moreau the monster was rolling onto his back. The Cadet was surprised, not expecting him to take such a position with all the exposed eyes on the top of his body. The Ace Cadet had been underestimating Moreau the whole time, treating him like a simple monster acting on it's instincts, but the mutant had a human brain in there somewhere - and now though the Cadet scrambled to get out of the way, he was too late when Moreau pushed up with his claws and tore apart the whole platform.

Very suddenly the Cadet was in the air. He'd been too caught off guard to even shout, just flailing his arms and legs silently as he was thrown. There was no slinger to save him or armor to help the impact from the fall. It was a few long, torturous seconds as he flew before he smashed into the group a few dozen feet away, landing amidst all of the scrap metal littering the ground.

It probably worried the others that he didn't immediately climb to his feet. The Cadet laid where he fell just blinking up at what remained of the upper catwalks and the darkness beyond them, trying to catch his breath. His head hurt, his stomach was cramping (though he didn't know if that was the curse or the fall, or both) and he could tell he was cut up from the small sections of hot pain in various areas of his body, but he was alive and otherwise alright. He could still feel his arms and legs, but they were heavy. Fatigue was definitely catching up to him now.

Slowly, gingerly he pushed himself to sit upright. His eyes snapped first to the present threat of Moreau, to make sure he wouldn't need to attempt a quick escape of the mutant decided to come after him. Then, he blinked down at himself. There were holes torn all over his clothes - as expected, landing in a bunch of twisted up metal with sharp edges resulted in a bunch of shallow scrapes, scratches, and cuts on his limbs and head. None life threatening, though most were bleeding lightly. Thank goodness he hadn't been impaled. Deeming himself healthy enough to move, the Cadet attempted getting to his feet. It was slow going, as it felt like there were weights tied around his wrists and ankles. This really, really Giggisux, he thought to himself.

He looked up again for signs of danger, and instead noticed that Mirage and Geralt had made their way into the area and were setting up a way to cross to the exit. It was good to see the former looked alright afterhis stint in that weird chair. So they'd made it! Surely the others that were in the Command Center would be making their way over soon as well. Reinvigorated, the Cadet gripped tight to a larger piece of metal with one hand and forced himself to stand. The other hand he'd noticed was closed around one handle of the clippers still like it had been his lifeline during his fall. His whole hand was white and shaking as he held onto it. Just a little more, they just had to hang in there a little more and then everyone would be out!

---

---

@Yankee

---

Link was as surprised as anyone that the monster actually wanted to talk, and thank goddesses for that because the chase had started a fire in his tiny legs. He collapsed onto his knees on the platform, breath heaving as much air into his lungs as they could while Kamek kept him occupied. He watched the monster extend what he at first though was a tongue, but was shocked upon realizing that it was the full on torso of a man. That was where the voice had come from, this man fused inside the big mulduga fish. No wonder it was intelligent. No wonder it had closed its mouth to ram the stairwell earlier. That man must be the real weak point.

Which meant, he thought grimly, that the monster might not have been as hurt as he'd thought when they dropped the platform on him. He certainly didn't seem slowed down by it. If he'd had a proper weapon he might have been able to get the man while he chatted with Kamek, but it was right there in front of the teeth and as Link watched a stream of sizzling goo was expelled from the fish mouth and slid across the floor. The man wasn't at all effected by it. Going after that part was both the most effective way to fight, and the most dangerous.

Cadet and Ms. Fortune had made it down and split up, the monster seemingly entirely unaware of them for now. They split up, Ace actually going to retrieve something while Ms. Fortune headed off in the direction he had last seen Junior. Link pulled himself up and started moving again, putting some distance between himself and the mulduga man as he went into a full on wailing tantrum. While he repositioned to begin the chase anew Ace had gotten closer and went to work on the monsters tendrils with those trusty snippers of his. The monster flipped over, ending the dialogue by striking the platform with its balled up fins. The minutes felt like an eternity as the Cadet tumbled through the air before crashing into a heap of metal on the ground floor. It was only when he started moving again that Link regained his ability to breath.

Kamek's dedication to diplomacy as distraction was admirable, but Link didn't think the monster was in any state to listen anymore. If that didn't work than the monster would surly go for the Cadet. He crept closer to where the Cadet had fallen, closer to the monster, and kept his voice low so it wouldn't be heard over Kamek's. "Ace?" He called out. "Can you run?" He whipped out the racket. "If he comes after you, I'm gonna drop on him. I think if I do enough damage to the eyes he has left that might stun him, make him spit up that white body. If he does, swing those into his head." He said, pointing at the clippers. "Then run."

Of course, he planned to drop regardless of if this plan worked. The monster would have harder time chasing two kids than one, and he might just distract it long enough for the Cadet to catch his breath.

---

---

---

Linkle was just pulling herself up on another cliff when a sound thundered out over goat village. She looked around. Left was another goat making the rounds, right was a little hay roofed house, but when she looked up she could see Albeto triumphantly blowing the horn.

That was...weirdly far away. Much farther than it had looked from where they had started. She had ended up on a little island jutting up all on its lonesome from the mountain. She put it out of her mind, jumping up and down when she saw Albedo looking her way and waving her arms in the air before pulling them to her mouth and giving a congratulatory whistle. “You must have been flying, I didn't even see you pass me!” She yelled up to him, hands cupped around her mouth. He had probably done something with flowers, or had just figured out a really smart way to go. She walked to the edge of the island and looked down, trying to spot that blue flag the villager hand pointed out to them.

There was a rope connecting this place to another rocky cliff, and Linkle jumped onto it and started to ride it over. Halfway through she let go and let herself fall a short way onto the roof of a nearby house, which she slid down like a slide until her feet were back on the stony ground. Getting back down had to be easier than climbing up, so she found a downward sloping path and started following it back to where she assumed the race had started.

Thanks to her efforts the creature that was terrorizing her kids was, well, not no more, but certainly not a threat now. Bowser, not being a part of the fight but seeing the injured Peach. Well, maybe not 'see' but 'feel' would be a better explanation as he didn't see Blazermate healing her and reviving her to her feet. Mirage and a few of the others were having real issues with their hunger now, and the big fish guy below, showing his grotesque pale body, complaining to Kamek, and spitting the occasional bit of acid wasn't helping things much either. Blazermate wondered if her healing beam could stave off their hunger while it was connected? Thoughts for later, as they all still had to make for the escape.

"Kamek, If that guy becomes our friend, tell him I can heal his pain away." Blazermate said, offering some extra incentive for Kamek to use to bargen with Moreau. Even if it just stayed his hand, it'd help everyone escape and Blazermate could heal him from safety and escape soon after if need be, if her healing beam didn't work.

Despite the Seekers’ collective attempts to keep things under control, the fighting quickly got chaotic all around the suspended gladiatorial arena. This came about in large part thanks to Reinhardt’s heroic charge straight through the center of the grand clash, driving some of his opposition’s heaviest hitters back toward the entrance and separating the rest between the left and right sides.

To the left, the vicious bout between the Dragonborn and Mao took a turn as the latter let loose his array of devious mechanical arms. Even at his best the warrior would have been hard-pressed to deal with against the multi-faceted onslaught, but right now going on the defensive was the farthest thing from his mind. Rather than be put on the backfoot and give Mao either his turn back or the space to work around his shield, he charged recklessly forward. Saw, drill, scissors, and scalpel sliced into both flesh and armor, but they couldn’t deal enough up-front damage to stop him. Try as Mao might to block with his ill-gotten axe, the Dragonborn crashed into him shield-first all the same. Once the pint-sized Overlord got knocked off his feet, a good thrust would be all it took--or so the Dragonborn hoped. Since Sven’s magic medicine hadn’t gotten anywhere near fully healing the near-fatal wounds Jesse dealt him, his ability to man up and take trades had suffered a lot. As the rage pumping through the viking’s veins began to subside, all the damage he’d accumulated was starting to take its toll, slowing down his assault.

In the middle, the Phantom Thieves scrambled to deal with the sudden reinforcements Nastasia called in, as well as the overwhelming firepower they brought with them. Even after Joker fired off a well-placed headshot on one of the four Fallen Vandals as things kicked off, instantly dropping the alien gunner, he scarcely diminished the overwhelming suppressive fire that the rest unleashed the next moment. He and Fox were forced to run for their lives as the Vandals filled the air with gunfire and explosives. For a moment it didn’t look like Fuse was doing anything, but the truth was much worse: right as a Vandal stopping shooting to reload and Joker slid to a stop to take advantage with Arsene, Fuse used the launcher on his back to fire some sort of payload straight up into the air. Joker’s Persona hurled an Eigaon into the grouped enemies. Its painful blast of Curse damage scattered his enemies, but not before Fuse’s Motherlode went off overhead.

The roar and flash of Fuse’s fireburst filled the whole arena, and the next moment a circular wall of flame formed in the colosseum’s center, limiting the space the Phantom Thieves could move in. That suited the Vandals and Fuse just fine, and Nastasia even better. The little lady moved quickly, making a beeline for the nearest thief as her minions covered her. “Stay away, you guys!” Necronomicon warned. “I’m reading super-powerful Psy energy. She might be trying to brainwash you!”

Nastasia’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance. “Uh, yeah? Get with the program, already.”

The Persona paid her no mind as she cast Moral Support, boosting Futaba’s friends with Rakukaja. “Okay Thieves. Defense up!”

As if a starting pistol had been fired, Fox and Joker attacked together. They moved in, shrugging off or blocking the Vandals’ energy bolts. As he ran Joker called forth his new Persona, and Jinx manifested with a cackle. The sight of his former ally turned both ethereal and against him took Fuse momentarily by surprise, and before he could plug the Phantom Thieves with his rifle rounds Jinx whipped out her stungun to zap him with Zionga. Fox rushed into the thick of it as the electrified Legend fell back and caught two Vandals at once with a whirling slash. His prismatic katana danced between them at a dizzying speed, filling the air with slashes. With a flourish he reeled back for a finishing blow. “Goemon…!”

From between the stricken Vandals Nastasia threw herself, hand outstretched toward Fox’s head. But the young man had already cut himself off, never intending to use his Persona in the first place. Instead he entered a counter stance, his sheathed blade behind him, and the second Nastasia made contact there came a single, brief stroke of light. The little lady and her minions remained totally still, frozen in time, as Fox stepped backward he slid his weapon back down into his scabbard. “Foolish.”

A phantom slash erupted across her and her Vandals with enough cutting force to rip through the small-timers and send all three flying backward. As Nastasia skidded to a stop her remaining Vandal and Fuse opened fire with their rifles, and with a scowl she adjusted her glasses. Thanks to her Overshield, she’d taken no damage at all. “Hmph. Struggle all you like. We’re still right on schedule.” With her phone she called up another round of Vandal reinforcements, and the fresh minions rekindled the fight with a needless excess of hurled grenades.

As chaos ensued Necronomicon provided what help she could by firing off a small group heal. “Jeez, they just keep coming! We’ve gotta prioritize the little snob.” She noticed Braum having troubles of his own on the left. Shayne and Aurox’s stealth, armor, and overall versatility left them running circles around him. It seemed like a good chance for a swap. “Braum, any chance we can get you and your shield over here? And someone help miss Jesse, she’s all alone!”

At the same time, things weren’t much better on the other side of the arena. After Midna took off to assist Ciella, Jesse had nobody but herself for company while she weathered the storm that was Orendi. The little gremlin just kept dishing out magic, filling the air with cackles and incomprehensible strings of insults the whole time. Although the spiked rings that appeared before most of her gave away their trajectory, their sheer size left Jesse barely any wiggle room to launch her counterattack. Still, she could have taken a few good shots or hurled chunks of scenery if not for Mordecai’s interference. His bird constantly circled overhead as a painful distraction, swooping down in its attempts to gouge her and split her focus. Whenever she provided even a small opening, the sniper took advantage, shooting from afar. After the first chucked debris he started repositioning himself a little at a time too. Together he and Orendi locked down Jesse on defense, forcing her to wield metal torn from the arena as shields, but even that wasn’t foolproof--one of Orendi’s few spells without spike rings was a magic geyser that could fling foes into the air from below, and she didn’t hesitate to use it to knock Jesse around when the FBC director hunkered down too much.

Midna, meanwhile, had jumped into quite the clobberfest. She arrived to pay Shadow back for smacking Ciella into what amounted to oncoming traffic by giving him a big hand. Rather than try to evade it he answered in kind, gritting his teeth as he punched the incoming palm. He struck with enough force to cancel out the blow and even knock it back, but being magically-infused hair Midna took no damage from it. She was more concerned with Reinhardt, whose hammer was poised to ruin Ciella’s good looks. The princess’s plus-size Wolfos rammed him in the back, hard enough to interrupt him but not nearly enough to knock the titan of a man over. He pivoted around to pound the Wolfos instead. Shadow reappeared for another clash, only barely kept at bay by Midna’s sand long enough for her to throw a Friend Heart at Ciella.

As Shadow confronted Midna with such a blistering flurry of attacks that she couldn’t retreat cleanly, her heart took hold in Ciella, undoing every bit of collective damage dealt to her by the resistance in an instant. It left her momentarily pacified, and in that bleary moment Reinhardt decked her with a full-force hammer swing. The rabbit woman went down like a bag of rocks, and Reinhardt followed up by adding a Firestrike to his upswing that more than doubled the damage as it rolled Ciella limply away. With sluggish muscles she struggled to stand, and as Reinhardt came in for another piece of her and brought up the bow she clutched in a deathgrip in a desperate attempt to defend her vitals. Her longbow withstood one mighty smash, but the second cracked it in half, and the third blew through her best attempt to punch him. Turned sideways by the hammer’s force, Ciella fell to her knees.

All this went down in just a few moments, and after surveying the fight for a few moments, Sectonia decided that she wanted not just a piece of the action, but a piece of everyone’s action. With uproarious laughter the insect queen started pumping out magic, sending dark and light magic wiggling, winding, and warping through the battlefield in every which way. And wherever her spells went, chaos followed. Projectiles flew haphazardly into the left, center, right, and rear fights, and though not all her allies were aware of their immunity, none wasted the unexpected windfall. They sowed discord among the Vandals in the center, gave Braum and Jesse openings to retake control from their oppressors, and one light ring even cut into Reinhardt’s leg as he brought his hammer up to put Ciella down. To prevent it shearing too deeply he jumped to the side, and in her moment of respite Ciella wiped away the fog that clouded her mind.

She cried out as she flexed, releasing a riptide of water that swept Reinhardt off his feet, using his top-heavy body against him. It rippled out across the battlefield, dousing Fuse’s flame and interfering with each fight even more than Sectonia’s magic had. When Ciella rose to her feet and turned, her unmasked face was once of cool anger, and as water swirled into a sphere around her her voice resounded. “Ignorant, pigheaded slaves to hypocrisy. We are wings that unfurl in rejection of the deceit of this world. We are AGITO!”

The maelstrom erupted in a fountain of water, and from the cascade rose a white-feathered harpy with six angelic wings of enchanted water. Ciella opened her eyes and looked out across the battlefield. The beat of her wings sent waves of pressure through the air itself, and her eyes shone like the sunset. “I will plunge you into the depths of despair!”



Expecting a simpler, more concise sitrep, Fox waited idly, patiently for Necronomicon to finish her long-winded summary of events on their end. He had no idea what "the Metaverse" was, had to do with anything, or had any bearing at all on their ability to communicate, and was content all the same to gloss over its mention. He cared more about their well-being, as well as how they "took down" whoever they did, but that half could wait. What he ultimately took away is that they were still alive, well and on-track--going at the same rate, no less.

"Red's down; had to pull back," was all he said to start his more succinct reply. "The rest of us are moving further in. Remember, we're on their turf, so stay sharp," he reminded. "No doubt they'll have more waiting for us." With a second's pause for consideration, he issued one more imperative reminder in closing to "Take back who you can," before ending the call to re-attend matters on his own end.

While everyone broke down their own experiences during the mission thus far upon regrouping, Big Band, having the occupationally keenest eye and sharpest mind for investigation among them, found the last of the three nodes without any difficulty to get them through the door and back on their way. They proceeded deeper down and through an old, dilapidated cell floor, Fox casually marching past the bronze knight with his focus locked forward as if he hadn’t noticed him or his pleas at all, though silently bearing him in mind for later. They were there to help, for sure--more specifically, to set people free, in a sense--but help would have to come first for some. At any rate, it might not make for the last jailbreak they made that day, Fox thought.

At the bottom-most depths of the dungeon (as far as they could tell) awaited their goal, in the flesh. Robin--in some way distinct from his usual self--and his cohorts sat centered within their personal underground sanctum, seemingly alone, but everyone there knew better. As he began making his address to Yellow Team, in particular, Fox stepped forward slowly, pushing his way to the front of the group with a gesture of pause to the others, trading eye contact with his possessed acquaintance and former/to be reclaimed ally to confirm what he already knew--and among other things, what he had suspected. He elected silently to hear him out, for even in a world reshaped and corrupted, Fox trusted that he knew him well enough that he could still find a worthy comrade in him, however ultimately little he may have known him at all.

Yoshitsune glared at the unconscious spellcaster and the one heading him. His anger demanded he decapitate the dragon mage now. His honor held him back. He strode up to the pair, frowning. "When he wakes up, tell him the samurai he ran from wants a rematch." He took in the girl’s appearance but mainly kept his gaze on the one he'd fought. He was listening to everyone else around him as he slowly backed away from the beast man, returning to the group.

For Primrose's part, she was somewhat annoyed that the Resistance was only trying to talk things out now after trying to kill them earlier. It couldn't have even been blamed on the light of Galeem either, as the Resistance had been the ones to ambush the group led by Kan-Ra. Still, any time spent not fighting meant the more she'd be able to recover. The dancer placed her hands on her hips, waiting for Robin to go on. Although she doubted anything he said would change their minds. Whether the Grimleal were as evil as they looked or Robin was about to tell them a lie, eventually the Grimleal and the Resistance would come to blows and the Seekers would be caught in the middle.

Robin glanced down to the diminutive creature at his right and gave a nod, which his acquaintance mirrored with enough enthusiasm to rattle the lantern that dangled from his nose. “Ah, so I’m good to go, then? Tidy! Well first off, ‘owdya do. Name’s Drippy, Lord High, er, Lord of the Fairies. I en’t exactly in with this Resistance lot, seein’ as I never met their boss ‘n such, but it’s a roight important matter I’m here to help ‘em with. But not to worry, I got all the answers!”

As the tactician rose from his chair to stand by the dark healer to his left, Drippy jumped up to the higher ground to better address his guests. He looked out at his audience with a lot more determination than fear, even though Azwel looked mightily impugned upon, and Kan-Ra condescendingly amused. “Well, fer starters, this Validar fellow of youers is a proper bad apple. This whole deal with her Moojesty, the Cowlipha? It en’t some condition what occurs natural-like. She’s been brokenhearted. A piece o’ her heart’s gone missin’, an’ either Validar got summan t’do it or he did it himself, the rotter. Her sense of restraint, most like. Dependin’ on which bit of heart is missin’, all sorts of weird things can happen, see? Without restraint, she can’t control the urge to stuff her right royal face!”

“With the Cowlipha a laughing stock and out of the picture, her trusted vizier could take over,” Robin then supplied. “And bend the city to his will, thrusting the idyllic place of peace into a future it was not in any sense ready for, all under his thumb.”

As his compatriot gave a dismissive noise and sneered, Kan-Ra only smiled. “An intriguing tale, and a magnificent accusation. Yet this all amounts to hearsay. If I recall correctly, my retinue was promised concrete proof.”

Drippy looked indignant. “Wot? This brokenhearted business is from me own world, mun! I’ve seen it all before, I have! I can even tell ya the name of the blighter what’s been spreadin’ war and rrruin ‘cross parallel worlds n’ breakin’ hearts, see? Shadar, the Dark Djinn, his name is!” Crossing his arms, he narrowed his eyes at Azwel and Kan-Ra, attempting to discern recognition from their guarded features.

"...and you are saying that Validar, and this 'Shadar,' are one and the same...?" Primrose mused aloud from her place within the group. She had to admit, Kan-Ra had a point. If everything Drippy said was true, there was nothing that proved Validar had anything to do with it. Unless the little guy was leaving an important chunk of the story out.

The fairy lord gave the matter some thought. “Can’t say for suere there, lass, but it en’t out of the question, not by a long shot. That said, Shadar’s really strong enough that he doesn’t need to rely on long-runnin’ schemes like this.” Drippy looked between the present Seekers, sensing their attention on him. “Anyhow, if you want youer proof, all we need is a wizard ‘oo can use the spell Take Heart. Find summan with plenty o’ restraint to spare ‘n borrow some o’ theirs, cast Give Heart on her Moojesty, and she’ll be right as rain.” He held tight his spellbook, its importance clear from the way he treated it.

"And how do you know that will work the way you expect it to?" Yoshitsune asked quizzically, stepping closer to the being. "These spells you mentioned are unheard of to many of us. Do you know them? Do you know someone who can cast them?"

Drippy’s indignation knew no bounds. “Couerse I flippin’ do, mun! They’re simple, entry-level spells where I’m from. Anyone who can wave a wand can cast ‘em after readin’ this here Wizard’s Companion!” He nodded at the book in his hands, jingling his nose-lantern in the process.

Still unconvinced of how this information implicated the Grimleal, Primrose glanced at those in question. Maybe something in their actions would give away that they'd known about this plot all along, but it was still possible that some malicious opportunist had swooped in and the Grimleal were just dealing with the fallout. On the bright side, if Drippy was right about the Cowlipha's affliction no matter who caused it, then they now knew how to cure it.

“As it happens, that’s what we’re here for,” Fox piped up in response to the diminutive manservant’s qualifying description of a capable, sound-minded spellcaster. Robin fit the bill perfectly, on top of being a precious acquaintance of the Seekers/Smashers anyway. “We need you back, Robin.” Fox addressed him, specifically, in a soft-spokenly serious tone, beseeching in likely futility that he call back his sealed memory and senses to rejoin them in the real fight.

Fox’s choice of words darkened the tactician’s features. “Back? I was never, ever with the Grimleal. I was born for one purpose--to assist my ‘father’ in resurrecting his dark god, the Fell Dragon Grima, which would bring ruin to the world and all his enemies. Validar attempted to control me by force and make me slaughter my own friends. My own daughter.” Though Robin kept his countenance, it was clear nonetheless how much cold rage bubbled below the surface. “So no matter where I find myself, I will oppose Validar with every ounce of my strength.”

“I’m not talking about the Grimleal,” Fox interjected once more, “I’m talking about us.” Were he more himself, that might have made sense to Robin, but thus render moot the need to explain anything at all. While that left only him in the room in the know, out of the only two present who were there the day the world ended, it was clear nonetheless he referred to a third party independent of the two warring factions with a greater goal of their own. “I know you’re not our enemy; that’s just what they want us to be.” Whether ‘they’ referred to the Grimleal or otherwise was their guess.

“I don’t expect you to remember,” he started back up, casually pacing two or three steps further forward, “but there’s a bigger threat to the world than Validar and his cult.” Plain was his speech even in the presence of said ‘cult’. It was time they were all a little more honest with one another. He shot a look back at Band while still speaking to the room, and said, “If you want the truth, go outside and look up. You’ll find your real enemy there. What we’re all doing here; what you’ve been doing the whole time; this is exactly what it wants from us...” Fox casted emphatic glances between the present members of the Grimleal and Resistance as he spoke, “To fight each other instead… until there are too few of us left.”

Though unwilling to give up on what he had come for, a sense of resignation entered his voice as he came to terms with the irrevocable truth of the consignment of the Gleaming to misunderstanding and irreconciliation. “If none of this makes sense to any of you, I don’t blame you.” Fox attempted to empathize, as much or little as that may have meant to any one of them at this point. “But you should all know you have a greater common enemy than each other--one that’s afraid you’ll wise up and unite against it.”

“They should be...”

Robin looked far more annoyed than receptive. Trying to invoke the bigger picture was tantamount to saying that his campaign wasn’t important, and saying that he should join forces with his foe was outrageous. “Whoever you are, you ought to stop trying to distract us. Our enemy is here in the city, sitting on a throne stolen by subterfuge and kept captive by corruption. If this doesn’t concern you, you should keep your nose out of it.”

“That brings me back to the matter at hand,” interjected Kan-Ra, his voice less gleeful than usual. One look at him and Azwel was enough to tell their thoughts on the matter. “We do have some business here, after all. As peacekeepers it is not our place to question the validity of your claims, mister...Drippy, was it? We will gladly extend you protective custody for an escort to the palace, where you may levy your charges formally.”

Like that, Fox was written off as an agenda-driven tagalong apathetic to the local plight by the one he came there and went through so much trouble to help save. Though it couldn’t be farther from the truth, as the liberation of the world at large--and by extension Al-Mamoon--factored into the overall scheme, perhaps Robin was onto something. Never was Fox so single-mindedly fixated on an endgame goal as to neglect the collateral, but if such could be inferred of his character, mistakenly or not, how much better was he really? Was he so different from the Gleaming if seemingly all he could see was the enemy ahead of him; a vendetta against the apparently almighty to be satisfied?

Band wore a scowl as he considered the rapidly developing situation in front of him. There wasn’t an ounce of sense talking turkey to people still under Galeem’s influence, and tensions had continued to simmer while If the allegations of corruption against Validar’s administration -and by extension the Grimleal that served under him- held water, little Drippy wouldn’t be getting any time in court. More likely, he’d vanish off the face of the planet, never to be heard from again. All of a sudden the wounds of the detective’s past ached afresh. He knew what crooked cops looked like, and how they operated. There would be no justice. However Kan-Ra bandied about his words, the Grimleal had already made it clear that they intended to wipe out the Resistance this very day, and in so doing silence any chance of serious opposition for good. The truth that the detective sought would never come to light.

The sorcerer continued just as Band expected, his lipless grin cruelly wide. “That said, on account of the Resistance’s many crimes, up and to including theft, arson, and murder, we will be leaving this temple with all of you, and in whatever state you see fit to put yourselves.”

“So be it.” Robin did not look surprised. If the combat already endured by the temple’s marauders hadn’t doomed negotiation from the start, then the matter of making accusations with members of the offending party present certainly did. He waved Drippy away, and the little fairy took off running for safety. “You must realize that we will not come quietly.”

At that, Azwel smirked. “Alas, we dared not hope that might be the case.” As the Seekers readied themselves for combat he summoned his twin red and blue crystal scimitars to hand, saying, “So, this dingy place is to be the stage of history. Very well. Thus begins the final act…!”

His proclamation was suddenly cut off by a dark shape falling from above. A man in white robes dropped onto Azwel from the darkness and plunged a hidden, wrist-mounted blade into his neck. Simultaneously, Robin produced a fire-red tome, and with a cry of “Arcfire!” created a carpet of raging flames in an arc before his rug. In its glare Band lunged for Azwel’s assailant with Take the A Train, but the assassin leaped nimbly out of the way and threw something down at his feet that hissed and smoldered. From nowhere Tora appeared to save the day, leaping on top of the bomb with his Mech Arms blocking downward. When it detonated a second later he flew skyward for Poppi to catch, but everyone else had bigger problems than how that turned out.

As Azwel sagged to the ground, a hand pressed against his bleeding wound, the cell doors on either side of the dungeon flew open. Dante, Earthquake, and Beast came in from the left side, while Daisy, the Witch Doctor, and Es appeared from the right. As his allies ran to join the fight, Robin called, “Now, Tharja!” and in a spray of concentrated life magic the woman next to him restored Charnok to two-thirds health, ready to fight. She then got to her feet, weary but still capable, to fight at Robin’s side. Band took a deep breath. Things were about to get wild.



Filled with fear and even despair, both for the fate of her friend and her own uselessness, Nadia kept her eyes glued to Cadet’s flailing form as he hurled through the air. It felt like an age, but only about a second later the small hunter crashed down among the debris on the first floor. In her heart of hearts Nadia knew that Ace must be okay. A human could survive this, after all, and he was no ordinary human, even in child form. But as the seconds dragged on and the monster hunter did not rise, she felt a terrible chill inside her. Were she already standing she might have sunk down to the grate of her catwalk, every ounce of fight drained from her, but as it was she could gawk at the spot where Ace lay, unblinking.

Nadia stood upon a precipice; the darkness yawned before her. Only her grip kept her from plunging down into the abyss she’d never rise from. In this nightmare of powerlessness, this hell of darkness and hunger, all the children really had was one another. If Nadia lost the ray of sunlight who’d joked and fought by her side since she’d arrived...she didn’t know if she could hold on. For all his pathetic mewling, Moreau might very well pick them all off, one by one. They would die in the guts of a metal monster deep below the surface of a bottomless sea, never to be found. The idea filled Nadia with dread, but it also spiked her with rage. Screw that, she thought, bitterly. Screw it! That can’t happen. He’s not dead. He can’t be!

And when her eyes refocused and she looked again, he wasn’t. The Ace Cadet stirred from where Moreau tossed him, bruised and bleeding but alive, with no foreign objects embedded in him. Even better, he still held tight his clippers, ready to keep fighting. “He’s okay. He’s okay!”

Pent-up breath surged from Nadia’s lungs. When she squeezed her eyes shut, tears streamed down her face, but the stray kitten inhaled deeply and wiped them away with her arm. She found Junior and Mimi below her once again when she opened her eyes, the fan in hand. Anything else he’d said she hadn’t internalized, so as far as she knew they were good to go. “I’m alright, but we’ve got to move. Get up here!”

She took a quick look around the formerly flooded base. More shouts issued down from Kamek in a bid to keep Moreau occupied, but the monster looked like he’d made his mind to Nadia. The not-so-magic Koopa would find his efforts more rewarded if he started making his own way toward the exit. Link appeared, still alive if not exactly well, to check on Ace and lend him a hand. Nadia would have liked to do so herself, but all things considered Link had a much better position, so she was grateful. From here she could also see teammates from the Command Center way up high, starting to make their way down with some help from a certain someone’s darts. She spotted Mirage, Geralt, Sakura, Bowser, Bella, Blazermate, Peach, and Rika--everyone accounted for. Whatever it was that confronted them up there must have been dealt with. Good news all around!

Of course, her team was still a long way from victory, and Moreau lay squarely in their path. Nadia kept her eyes on him as she got back up, using the catwalk’s railing for support. After destroying Ace’s walkway he’d rolled back onto his belly, that tantalizingly weak-looking body withdrawn back into his mouth. His lack of immediate objective and the way he twisted around in search of a target told her he didn’t know where anyone was at the moment, except maybe Kamek, far beyond his reach. Still, it wouldn’t be long before his stomping around flushed out Link and Ace. And everyone would need to descend to the second floor sooner or later to use the elevator. He needed to be dealt with. Somehow.

Nadia’s focus shifted as she spotted movement in the corner of her eye. She expected to see a kid making a break for the exit, but instead she spotted a different familiar figure. A hulking diving suit, stained with black streaks of structure gel, minus one forearm. The eerie way it shambled, like a zombie from a monster flick, sent a shiver down Nadia’s spine. Worse still, when Moreau wasn’t making noise, she could hear it talking.

"Take care of..." It echoed from memory, during it's slow trudge. It groaned as it tried to understand what it was supposed to take care of. "Elliot, you're not an idiot." It told itself, one hand it had to spare scratching at its suit, which became more aggressive as it grew anxious, seeming to be reliving a memory of sorts. "Don't become a legend without having a bit of Witt." As if holding two sides of a conversation, it's scratching stopped as it replied to it's own words with a small scoff and a simple: "You're right, Ma."

The Mockingbird managed a recollection of what it was trying to care for: Mother. Though, as it felt a moment of pride in it's revelation, it felt a voice ring in it's mind: Small, squeaky, the voice of a little girl. It set the Mockingbird back on track, on the mission at hand. In a drawn out exasperation, it actually remembered what it was intended to care for down here. "Where are you?" It practically growled out the name: "Junior." before finding itself met with no response. Fixated on this goal, it shambled forwards, calling out again in a more desperate manner, not wanting to let the little voice in his mind down. "Junior? Where are you?"

It wasn’t long before the loathsome shambler got Moreau’s attention. With a bellow the mutant hauled himself the Mockingbird’s way, stomping the floundering mutant anglerfish into paste on the way. Given his target’s position, Moreau made his way toward the northeast corner of the bottom floor, close enough to Nadia at the top middle to make her shrink down. The racket he made as he scrambled over the scrap got the Mockingbird’s attention, but though the wretch turned with its hand outstretched as if to grab and choke the life from Moreau, it stood little chance. Without ceremony the mutant reared up, then crushed the Mockingbird beneath his weight. For good measure he then did it again. Nadia shuddered. Even if she had a hard time feeling for a machine simulating a real person, that was not a fate she envied.

What it was, though, was a chance for her to get the hell out of dodge. With Junior and Mimi hopefully by her side, she took advantage of the freak-on-freak carnage to sprint down the walkway away from him as fast as her wearied legs could take her. If luck was on her side, the others would make a move too, or if they’d put together some plan to keep Moreau off their collective backs, they would put their plans in action.



Once Linkle made her way back to the newly-connected blue flagpole by the Badge Seller, she needed to wait just a couple moments before Albedo joined her. Although in the end their activity didn’t end up being much of a race, if his new friend managed to enjoy herself, that was all that really mattered to Albedo. During the descent he did spend a few moments wondering why he felt compelled to try and help Linkle have a good time, but ended up writing it off as something that normal people -and friends in particular- just did for one another. Besides, with that vile Skull Heart both literally and metaphorically eating away at her, she deserved whatever she could get to take her mind off it.

With their pons combined, Linkle and Albedo could make just one purchase from the Badge Seller. It seemed as though it would take a lot more than a few minutes’ platforming to assemble the funds necessary for anything else, but Linkle could still get something she liked. A couple of the badges tickled Albedo’s curiosity, but since nothing fascinated him he left his share of the green gems for Linkle. Instead he busied himself at the flagpole, examining it in an attempt to divine how it worked. With no visible connection to the elements it magic was like nothing he’d ever seen, but at the end of the day it was just a rope with flags, and when Linkle came over he was ready for another chilly, high-speed ride.



The old windmill stood tall and straight on its blue-tinged mountain spire, a monolith of white planks and blue-painted rings. The bright red banners of its blades, being more than half as tall as the mill itself, could be seen from an incredible distance. It made for a splendid sight, wholly without any appearance of neglect, since even though the populace of the Alpine Skyline turned to smaller, more convenient and accessible mills for their grains some time ago, this grand fixture of the region had never stopped turning.

Linkle and Albedo arrived at a slightly lower mountaintop courtesy of the flagline, but since their objective was another line purported to be on the premises rather than the mill itself, that didn’t pose much of a problem. At least, it didn’t until a quick look around confirmed that this alleged line did not terminate on the same plateau. As far as the alchemist could tell, the place looked deserted, so they couldn’t ask around, but searching wasn’t much of a challenge either. After a glance at another nearby peak with an odd house and a cat-shaped rock atop it, he summoned a solar isotoma from the surface of the rocky crag for Linkle to ride up toward the mill. Another brought him up soon after. He treated the risky jump with apathy since, although Linkle hadn’t seen him earlier, clinging to and scaling a sheer cliff posed no challenge for him.

Once on the main plateau he paused for a moment to check out the windmill. Up close it was much, much bigger than it looked from afar. The fence that boxed in the yard around it stood easily twice his height, and if either he or Linkle wanted in they’d need to make use of the nearby hay bales and trees, although the giant entrance to the windmill featured no door to bar them entry there. There seemed to be no need to go in, however, as getting up here confirmed the presence of another flagline leading down into the clouds. It would be smooth sailing from here.

Or so he thought. Somewhat taken by the sights, he didn’t notice a slight disturbance in the air as it grew close to him, or the soft pitter-patter of paws. Suddenly an orange cat burglar appeared just inches away from him and shoved him, stealing his sketchbook in the process. The next second it turned invisible again, its silhouette sprinting into the mill. “Hey!” As Albedo got to his feet, a second cat appeared behind him and jacked his pouch before vanishing as well. A third cat surprised Linkle and nabbed her crossbows before following his brothers toward their hideout. Quick intervention could stop the third and possibly the second cat, but the first made a clean getaway. Albedo looked annoyed. “How unfortunate. That one probably just took something to distract me, but he ended up stealing my most valuable item.” He jogged toward the entrance to the towering structure before him. “It would seem we have more running around to do.” Once Linkle joined him, he proceeded inside, ready to whatever it might take to recover his lost property.

---

Mirage hesitated to continue forward, halted by Geralt's words. A look of concerned crossed his young face as words of hunger and curses came from the Witcher, not liking his line of thinking whatsoever. Mirage couldn't say he didn't have a similar feeling, though. The hunger, mixed with the physical work he had to put out and the fatigue from the pilot seat were piling on thick. Just traversing these catwalks was trouble, he honestly wondered how he wasn't on the ground yet. The only thing he'd luckily avoided was the physical trauma from being struck up to this point, but even that was potentially a problem to arise the closer they got to Moreau.

"I get ya, but..." Mirage, the ever imaginative thinker, decided to present Geralt with a thought that crossed his mind. If he were to make people feel starved and then curse them for eating food, the first curse he thought of was as followed: "What if we eat the food, right? And then the curse makes us permanently feel like we're starving anyways? I've only seen a few curses, and none of them have left those people wanting to live with 'em." He tapped his forehead, applying his little brand of Troll Logic™ to try and convince Geralt to try and stick with him on this. Because if Geralt started eating, Mirage wasn't sure if he could keep himself from eating, either. Though it did linger in his mind that perhaps he was wrong, he was sure there were plenty of curses out there, after all. But he just wasn't confident that the risk was worth it.

Cadet's landing left a lot to be desired: With all the fatigue, he couldn't imagine a fall like that. He fell silent from his attempt at conversing with Geralt as he felt a moment of uncertainty surge through him. But, after a moment, he was thankfully able to put his concerns to rest as Ace somehow pulled himself up. Mirage had to wonder what the hell he was made of, to be durable like that even at their young ages. Regardless, if he was alive, then they needed to get there ASAP. There was no time to lose--

A voice caught Mirage's attention. Looking down at the water below, his eyes shot open at the sight of the Mockingbird, damaged and mumbling to itself. Hearing it speak; The request from Sakura earlier, was painful. He found it more painful when he heard it mumbling something else, however. A conversation that was originally a two-person one, rather than someone talking to themself. While not comfortable with expressing himself in front of this new group, the Diving Suit had no issue expressing it's thoughts about it's mother. His mother. Thoughts that ran through his mind, and a conversation that was the main reason he built up enough courage to actually go through with joining the Apex Games to begin with. He stood still, staring down at the copy of himself in silence, only responding to the movements Moreau made. His hand gripped the railing as he gritted his teeth, witnessing the Mockingbird's last moments of confusion as Moreau put it down for good.

Damn it. Mirage cursed to himself in his mind, shifting his body to jerk himself away from the sight. Despite his attempted cool demeanor to Geralt before, he was shaking a bit now. Eyes narrow with teeth digging into his bottom lip, trying to hold back the emotions caused by this whole situation. He wasn't falling to despair, instead the words from that machine provided him with motivation: Motivation to get the hell out of here, and continue being the Legend he was. The wise guy people looked up to. He had to keep pushing forward.

Sore but not done, Mirage was ready to get out of here. His expression wasn't cold, more so focused: Though not intending to do so his voice was a bit more quiet as he felt a bit different. For once, he was feeling serious. "We've got to get Ace," He commented to Geralt, using what nimbleness he had left to carry himself towards their injured friend. His small feet avoided jagged broken pieces of the catwalk, darts making up for lost space as he made his way to Ace's location for an extraction.

Upon arriving, seeing both him and Link in one piece was a good sign. He'd only arrived to hear Link's plan, which was a concerning one considering the damage Moreau could cause without having direct access to them. Let alone if Link went down there himself. "I really don't like the sound of that." He interrupted as he entered the scene, trying to keep a small smile on his face. "But, we don't got much of another plan, right? I'll make sure you can get back up with these platforms." He gave the Dart Gun a little twirl, truly being thankful for it. He wasn't sure if he'd still be alive if he didn't have it.

"I'll stick with you," He told Ace, figuring the others could get down with relative ease. "Make sure you don't trip over any of this metal mess, huh?" Ace seemed to be standing but Mirage would help him get moving or execute his part of Link's plan if need be. He'd try and help Link get back up anyways, so staying seemed like the right idea for everyone involved. This would hopefully buy enough time for the people back in the Command Center to get out, too. And Mirage still wasn't certain of where Junior was, but knew Nadia had given him that fan she used to escape up to the vent before, so if Moreau was distracted then he'd have no issue getting back up.

As if preparing for action, Mirage used his free hand to pull his goggles down over his eyes. Things were about to get messy again, and just after the creepy water lady and that Proxy, too. Naively he wished the next floor was filled with something like happy puppies or something, to give them a break from all of this crap. Not that he truly believed it'd come true, though.

---

While Mao felt utterly delighted by his assault on the Dragonborn, the warrior was unfortunately not feeling the same way. His mechanical limbs tried to keep the man at bay, but his sheer amount of force sent even a blocking Overlord off his feet. He'd clearly underestimated the strength gained through Ara Mitama's enrage, and using his mechanical limbs he took advantage of the Dragonborn's slowing state to scuttle into a quick recovery: Blades and drill stabbing through the sand, barely being able to stabilize him due to the metallic ground but with loud ear-piercing scratches against the metal Mao regained his footing hastily.

Having taken more torso damage, the Dragonborn wasn't the only one suffering from previous bullet wounds: Jinx's onslaught from before was starting to come back to bite Mao, as he was beginning to find freshly-sealed wounds leaking. It was quite unfortunate that their healer had been stalled by the Homeward Bone, otherwise Mao's condition could have far outmatched the Dragonborn's. What-if's weren't going to save Mao now, however, instead he'd have to grit his teeth and see this through one way or another.

Unfortunately, things were getting really chaotic. A ring of fire, people jutting across the battlefield to collide, magical rings soaring across the battlefield, and Ciella sending a wave of water that caused Mao to turn his head for a moment: Noting the approaching wave and the sound that followed it, it was either hold his ground until it passed, or use it somehow. And the 'pint-sized' Overlord figured the latter was more applicable, with how the Dragonborn was pushing him. Mao responded to the wave by letting the Dragonborn's old axe take flight, throwing it into the air and charging his Star magic in his main hand as he lowered himself into the rushing water. He used his position against the Dragonborn and the wave to employ the water as a speed boost: Mao and meeting his target head-on were a pair as old as time at this point, but with both sides weakening, he had to exchange blows as best he could, given their weakening states.

Due to his low position, his back limb drill and surgical scissors weren't as usable, but he still had his scapel and buzzsaw shooting forward. The buzzsaw would try to aim towards his shield arm while the scapel played more defensively against the warrior's weapon. The shield itself was a bother, and while Mao had tasted the sturdiness of it when it knocked him down, he was willing to challenge it with a magic blast to the Dragonborn's center mass to see if he could give this old man a taste of his own medicine.

While he was sure one of them would run out of gas sooner than later, Mao could only hope it wouldn't be him. With building injuries, though, if he could continue to fight another target after this without healing was questionable at best, and it wasn't even truly on his mind as he focused solely on the target in front of him for the moment. Knowing that if the Dragonborn's Rage was coming to a calm, then if this didn't finish quickly he'd be at a huge disadvantage.

---

---

@Yankee@Potemking

---

To his surprise and relief the monster didn't immediately go after Ace. As a matter of fact, he had lost sight of the boy. Link couldn't help but grin. He supposed the loss of those eyes must have had a bigger effect than he thought. In any case in meant that he wouldn't have to take desperate action just yet.

Soon the monster found a target though, but not one that Link had at all expected. Another creature, something that looked like a man but couldn't be. There weren't any men down in this place, or at least none that weren't residents of the maw. It shambled on, a familiar looking substance leaking from the stump of its severed arm and a familiar voice emanating from its helmet. Mirage? No, that couldn't be. Could it? Had they found more of that goo in the command center? Could consuming it have done that to Mirage? No, Bowser hadn't known about the goo before talking to them. Besides that, the thing didn't seem like it was all there. It movements were strange, and when it raised its voice over the mulduga-mans to call out for Junior of all people the voice was distorted, scratchy. So what was it? What did it want? What on earth was he looking at?

He didn't get the answers to any of those questions. The Mulduga-man made sure of that. Either he didn't know either or the frustration he felt was enough to make his strike against his own allies. He turned and pulled his way to the decrepit thing, raising up and burying it under his mass. Whatever it had been it had at least bought them a little more time.

The real Mirage then made an appearance on the ground floor. Link had been too preoccupied with everything appearing down here that he hadn't noticed Mirage and Geralt's pathfinding expedition. He desperately wanted answers about what he had just witnessed, but that was a topic for another time. The real Mirage immediately expressed his disapproval with the plan, and Link had no choice but to agree with that. "You won't get any argument from me about that." He said. "It's really the only idea I've..."

He trailed off, catching sight of a small glowing moat of light on the ground floor. A spirit. That fish the mulduga-man had crushed on his way to give the other Mirage the same treatment. He looked around, spotting a handful of other shish flopping around in the shallow water. Useless on land. Just like he had been when he'd absorbed the abyssal.

"Actually, I've got another idea. Look" He said, pointing to where the fishes spirit floated. "He's already mostly fish anyway. If we can shove a hand full of these fish spirits into him it could make him as helpless as they are on land." That would still require getting close to him, and being sneaky enough to kill a bunch of fish without him catching them, but at the very least it wouldn't require getting in front of his mouth and if they did enough fish at once they might only have to approach him once. "I could still get him to chase me to distract him while you gather them."

He couldn't tell which plan was more dangerous and foolhardy, so he left the decision up to the ones that were already down there with the monster.

---

---

---

Being able to see where she was going without having to take the time to look out did wonders for Linkle's navigational abilities, and when Albedo arrived she greeted him with a high five and an "At least I beat you to the bottom." She was only half joking, she had half expected him to find some other shortcut back down to catch her by surprise at the flagpole.

Nothing the badge seller seemed to really interest him, so he left his collection of the green baubles in Linkle's hands. She pondered over the selection for a while, torn between practicality and something that would make an absolutely stellar present for Bowser. Considering where they were, though, and how they'd probably be able to gather enough Pons for a purchase on the way back up, she decided to splurge on the No-Bonk Badge for now. Between how they would be zipping around on the ropes and her fighting style not being stopped when you dive into something was going to come in very handy.

As she set the badge onto her belt she glanced curiously at the other thing that occupied it. It was kinda badge like, right? Curiously, she unclipped the Spiral Charm from her belt and held it up. "You seem like an expert. I got this off a fish monster, does it do anything or is it just neat looking?"

---

After another ride through the sky the pair landed on a snowy blue plateau holding the biggest windmill Linkle had ever seen. She was actually glad that the connecting line wasn't on this part of the mountain, because that meant they would get a closer look at it. She happily rode the flower up, hoping over without a care to the windmills section of the mountain.

They stopped to admire it for a moment, or at least admire it as well as they could with that fence in the way. "Huh?" Linkle said, examining it. "How are people supposed to get inside?" At first she though maybe the windmill was so big because the goats worked here, but she didn't think they were acrobatic enough to climb over the fence.

They were both so distracted by the windmill that neither saw the bandits until they were having their pockets picked. It took Albedo's shout to draw her attention, and she saw something orange briefly holding Albedo's notebook before it just became a shimmer in the air. She got a better look at what it was when another popped up behind him and swiped his pouch. It was a cat, some kind of little cat in boots and a bandana. Her hands went for her crossbows before she could even consciously think about what she was doing, but found them to be missing. She turned just in time to see another cat disappear with her new crossbows!

There was still a shimmer, though. The cat wasn't gone, just invisible. Reflexively she brought her leg up in a wide kick toward the swimmer before remembering what would happen if she connected. She hesitated, and that moment of hesitation allowed the kitty to duck her kick and sprint off after its partners in crime.

She stomped he foot down. "Argh, stupid world of light! I can't even give bad guys a few kicks without it becoming a real fight. It would be so much easier if they had stabbed me or something." She said as she jogged after Albedo. As it is the cats burglars hadn't actually hurt them, but there was no way she was going to let them get away with stealing her friends book. "I'll run them around!" She jumped up the hay bales after the felines, landing in the yard and walking with Albedo into he mill. "Listen up you cats!" She called to the rafters. "I've beat up bigger sneak-thieves than you before. The last one had a whole army on his side. Give back our stuff if you know what's good for you."

Jr sprinted through the water as quietly as he could, rushing to fetch the fan he had forgotten which would allow his escape. As he rushed Kamek could only grip a railing of his catwalk that hung high above the ones the fish monster could reach, and watch the boy legged it, his second attempt at distracting their foe a failure. Once he was sure that the prince was about to be chased, he darted his eyes over to where Ace’s flight had ended with a crash from which he still had not arisen.

”Come on. Get up” he whispered under his breath, as if he could will the hunter back to his feet.

Others were descending too now, most having passed the koopa right by with their nimble ape/robot legs, and it was to their collective relife when Ace sat himself up after far too long a moment of stillness. One of those people was Blazermate, who suggested to him that she could offer to heal the sick fishy foe as part of a bargain

”I appreciate the offer, but I am afraid the time for talk seems to be over. You’d be better off helping the Cadet, I believe.” Kamek replied (His second attempt to reach their enemy had sadly fallen on deaf ears) and then suggested, pointing over at the hunter, anticipating that he might not be in the best of shape.

After speaking with her, he turned his eyes back to the action and saw two things. First, Jr had reappeared. The prince had spent the breathless moment the others had spent fearing for Ace’s life to sprint back to flow control, rip open the sub, dig around its insides to find the fan (it had become lodged under the chair), and then raced back to Nadia, all of this done in the time it had taken for her to have and recover from a the gripping jaws of despair.

”Made it,” he gasped between labored breaths, the rush through the the still rather deep for a child water having taken more out of him than he had expected and, like the rest, he was well past the point of running on empty by this point. It was well past time he, and they, got out of here. Maybe, just maybe, he hoped, the hunger was only a thing on this particular floor and their leaving would end it just as their arrival seemed to have begun it.

He set up the fan on a patch of junk sticking out of the water and then, with a leap into its currents, launched himself up to Nadia’s side, claws catching the metal and hauling himself up without risking pulling them both down into the watery pit below. Home free, he turned and then used cable he’d retrieved front he junk piles to haul the fan back up to him. He then untied it and handed the fan back to its owner.

He gave a thumbs up to communicate his thanks rather than strain his tired throat any more than necessary. He wanted to get moving, but instead he, Nadia (and Mimi who was as ever riding upon her trainer’s shoulder and who’s current job was carrying the winged key they’d found) where forced to hunker down and hide when Moreau charged towards their corner of the room. The big jerk’s attention has been caught by a shambling form of the diving suit that had accompanied Jr and the MULE into the depths. It had, after becoming separated from them almost immediately, apparently encountered trouble that had cost it an arm and, if it’s zombie-like state was anything to judge by, something more fundamental while wandering the murky depths.

Kamek and Jr were not in on the suit's whole situation, but even they winced as the monster found the machine and proceeded to mash it to splinters. As mockingbird’s short life came to a swift and tragic end, Jr followed Nadia’s lead and raced towards the exit as fast as his tired legs could carry him. Rather than watch the rest of the machine’s brutalizing, Kamek looked up and worried about what was taking Bowser and Rika so long to catch up with them. What, he wondered, was keeping them when many of the others had already made their way down into the depths.

---

The two members of the troop who would have cared about Mockingbird’s fate were, at that time, trying to use their two collective brain-cells worth of mechanical knowledge to operate the metal printer located in the machine room rather than doing anything that could be described as immediately useful towards the goal of escaping. With hunger gnawing at their bones the pair were all too aware of the amount of time they were potentially wasting on this, but Bowser was insistent that this needed done.

“Are you sure this is worth the time?” Rika asked again as she watched the king dump all of the scrap he’d carried up into what they were both assuming was some kind of input port/hatch.

”Where there’s a key. There's a lock. Only an idiot would build a dungeon, and then put a puzzle in it to make a key, and then not put a lock that needs opening in it? That would be so pointless! So it's just obvious that we’re gonna need this key to get out,” Bowser said, pressing a hand down on top of the scrap pile and trying to shove/jam it all, before suddenly pulling his hand back and shaking it ”gah. sharp”

“I mean. Maybe it’s a distraction? Like the lady or Galeem just put this here to make us waste time? Make us put up with this stomach pain for longer,” she suggested almost conversationally while picking up and shoving the scissor cast (they’d decided to use it first as a test in case anything went wrong) into a slot that seemed built to accept them.

”What no! That. No one’s that evil… just let's get this done!” he insisted, pulling a crank and bashing some buttons on the machine until it started making an encouraging amount of noise. As the two backed away, fire roared, gears grinded, metal bubbled and smoke bellowed. Then a piston lowered a lid down onto the cast, held there for a moment, and then with a hiss pulled back to reveal half of a pair of scissors made from refined metal, steam wafting off of it as it cooled.

”Haha!” Bowser cheered, moving to pick it up and then pulling the blade free and giving it a spin round his claw with zero consideration for or pain from the burning temperature of the metal.

“Huh. Well that wasn't too hard” Rika noted, prompting Bowser to nod and agree, ”Yeah! Even an idiot could use this thing!” which was probably for the best all things considered. In short order they’d also printed out the key (also out of refined metal), at which point they found out that they’d somehow used all the scrap to print the two tiny objects, and weren’t going to be able to complete the scissor set as a result. They weren’t too upset about that fact however.

“I guess someone can use it as a knife?” Rika suggested as she tucked both key and scissor into a small pocket on her ripped dress that she’d just assumed it would have, unaware that she was rather lucky that it had any pockets at all.

”Something like that” Bowser said as he collected his hammer head and prepped to go ”What matters is the key”

Rika nodded and moved to follow him, only to pause as her eyes fell on the porcelain doll that had been among Moreau‘s things.

A few moments later the pair started hopping their way down the remaining platforms, moving towards the entrance, Bowser carrying the oversized hammer head under one arm while Rika did the same with the doll.

”There you are. What took you so long?” came a call up from Kamek who, despite having given up on talking to the fish a little while ago, was only a bit of the way further down from their entrance to the room and, as a result, had quite the ways left to go till he reached the elevator.

”Been printing the key. What have you been doing, you’ve barely gotten anywhere!” Bowser shouted back

The once and (hopefully) future sorcerer frowned and then pointed over the sea of platforms hanging over the first floor to where Jr was racing towards the entrance with Nadia, while the human (or at least human ish in some cases) men of the party had grouped up to make plans regarding what they were doing about the fish in the pit.

”Oh. Hey nice one”

”Oh thank you sire” Kamek called back, rather dismissively, before he kept on slowly moving his way towards the exit.

“Is he mad at you?” Rika asked as she and Bowser continued their hopping towards the entrance.

”...Yeah” Bowser admitted.

“Oh. That’s not good.” Rika replied simply before taking another hop towards the entrance.

”No. It's not...” Bowser agreed. He was quiet for a moment and then called back down to Kamek ”Hey. Kamek. I’m. uh. I shouldn’t… you got any smart ideas about how to deal with fish breath down there?”

The koopa had gave a snort of a laugh to himself about Bowser’s solution to his inability to actually apologies in a straightforward way. Indirect praise and fuel for his ego was likely the best he was going to get out of the king, at least in the short term. It would have to do for now. There were more pressing issues to deal with at the moment after all, such as the aforementioned fishy foe.

”As matter of fact I do!” he called back, before pointing back up to the platform the pair were approaching ”There’s a canister filled with black gunk back in the entrance. Get it!”

”Gah, do I have to carry more… I mean. On it!” Bowser grumbled and then called back down. In a few short moments the duo were back at the entrance. As Rika peaked down to make a better plan at how they were going to continue downwards, Bowser poked his head into the room with the boxes and the vent, and was met by two squeals as Tyrant and BB got spooked and broke away from where they’d been sitting and staring at the pulsing thing the black sludge had made. They bolted for the cover of the boxes, only to pause when they realized it was Bowser and then to come trotting over to him.

”Oh. Right. You two ba-” Bowser paused before accidentally calling the pair ‘bacon bits.’ Describing minions as food was a mistake he wanted to make twice, even if they wouldn't understand him, and so he quickly adjusted the word to ”-Boys.”

The king stepped into the room and then commanded the pair to ”Alright, shoo, get out there, ” trying to usher the two of them out to Rika while looking around, cringing when he saw the eyeball thing and then, finally, spotting the tank Kamek had mentioned.

A few moments later the pair of Baby Behemoths darted out of the room, followed a moment later by the saw blade cast, which sailed over the edge and plummeted down into the pit along with horrid eyeball laden passenger, and then finally they were all followed by Bowser who was hauling the hammerhead under one arm and the tank of black goop under the other. If he hadn't already had his hands full he’d have grabbed the blue magnet half which was also in there, but as it was, if it was going to leave the area with them it’d be up to one of the ladies to pick it up.

He gave a heavy sigh and, after a moment of watching Rika try and herd the two piglet sized monsters down the broken stairs after Kamek, moved to the edge and called down to him ”got it! Now what?” only to get a beckoning come here gesture from his royal advisor.

”Right right. Ok let’s get going” He told Rika

“Sure” Rika agreed, before shifting to one side to block a retreating pig and telling it “No no. Down. Go down. Yes I know it's towards the big monster but we’re going round him I promise!”

”Yeah move it piggies!” Bowser commanded with a stomp of his foot. Bowser’s added assertion did the trick, and soon enough the pair were herding the horned swine down towards Kamek and, beyond him, the exit.

The koopa himself was steadily making his way around towards the exit, using a narrow sheet of metal to make small bridges across gaps that the others had simply jumped across. In doing so he neared the gang of children currently dreaming up crazy schemes and, once close enough that he didn't need to shout, offered them this ”I didn’t catch exactly what your plan is, but if you need a distraction, his majesty is currently bringing one in a can. I can't imagine having that black goop molding itself on your body feels very good.”

Geralt watched Mirage's face flick through a number of different emotions before the Legend questioned his logic, coming up with a truly devious curse idea which made Geralt shudder. Maybe he was letting the hunger get to him, trying to reason to eat. He couldn't tell if Mirage was a genius or he was just that addled by the hunger. Shaking his head, Geralt sighed. "Might be right. Actually, now that I think about it, one met a werewolf cursed that everything he ate turned to ash in his mouth. Would not want to end up like that." It seemed miserable for Morkvarg, but the cure was easy to find all things considered. Here, he wouldn't be quite sure where to start unless they really mapped the place out.

With as much as was going on below them, Geralt had to think on what to do. The Mockingbird had bought them some time by distracting Moreau, and that was an entire situation that Geralt still had yet to unpack, but they would likely have to get to the others soon before their fishy friend figured out where they were and decided to try his luck at killing them again. Heading towards them with Mirage, Geralt caught Link's plan, as well as the alternative option of trying to force-feed Moreau Spirits to make him harmless. "It could work, but you'd have to get far too close for comfort to get even one Spirit in the bastard. Getting enough to make him...like them? We'd need to be constantly distracting him. Mind you, that...might not be terribly difficult."

Geralt was trying to weigh the pros and cons of the plan. It was horribly dangerous, given Moreau's size and power. But even one or two Spirits could have a drastic effect on a person's appearance and abilities, as they'd all seen for themselves. "If you were to jump on his back, though, I wouldn't neglect that nail. It should still be in there somewhere, and it's a surprisingly effective weapon. If I'm being honest, though, these plans are all borderline suicidal. We don't have much choice, but..." Geralt paused to think, looking around before noticing Junior pulling his fan up.

Oh. Oh. "So I just had another idea." Turning to Junior and Nadia bodily and pointing at them, Geralt grinned. "We cheat."

Kasugano Sakura breathed a sigh of relief as the proxy was defeated and Peach was restored to good health. "Phew! That was a bit close." She smiled wearily. Standing and brushing her dress off, Sakura felt like they were making progress. Junior had managed to drain the entire place. That meant they could start making their way downwards.

Sakura peaked over the edge, hands on the railing (that was almost head height with her) to see below. Moreau, that poor wretched man desperate for approval, was flopping around quite pathetically.

Ace Cadet got knocked down from above, causing the little girl to gasp. "Watch out!" Unlike some of the others, the thought that Ace was seriously injured didn't cross her mind. She knew he would be fine. Ace was way, way tough. And she knew what laying on the floor with the wind knocked out of you looked like. Sometimes all you could just do was stare up at the sky and re-evaluate your life choices for a few moments. Usually when that happened, Sakura was staring up at the ceiling of the Kanzuki estate after being span around in the air like a pinwheel. Everything worked out, with Link and the others doing their hardest to distract and avoid being smashed by the big fish monster man. Sakura wished she could help, but she was a totally useless kid. Being useless- a liability, even- wasn't something she was used too. Didn't feel great.

But Sakura blinked in surprise when she noticed Duerage walking around by himself. Somehow, he must have gotten separated from the others. Heart rate increasing, Sakura's eyes widened as Moreau locked onto Duerage. Duerage must have been hurt, or something. It's like he wasn't even there.

Then he got crushed to death. It happened so fast. A cold sweat flashed down Sakura's face and she backed away from the railing. Her eyes snapped over to Mirage, who almost must have seen it happen. Her hands were shaking again. Her heart was sinking, she felt like she wanted to throw up again. Nothing came out as she retched quietly, covering her mouth. The pain in her stomach weakened her jellied knees and she fell down. There weren't any more tears to shed. All out. Was it just dehydration at this point? When was the last time she drank fresh water? The campfire, probably. Sitting around that fire with fresh fruit and a cast of colorful characters from other worlds...it almost seemed like a lifetime ago. Before they entered this terrible place.

Duerage. Poor Duerage. Mister Geralt was right. He could have been happy. Not anymore. Snuffed out. All he wanted to do was help. He was Mirage. It just felt so surreal. It wasn't so much the grief of losing someone, as much as it was the new life being cut so tragically short. Duerage was full of so much potential and now, it was all over.

Mirage, Geralt and the others had already descended below. Dart jumping, or something. Bowser and Rika followed after. People were going on the floor to fight Moreau and target his weaknesses. Sakura had a pounding headache and her joints were sore. Like she had fallen down a flight of stairs and then starved for two weeks.

Things were moving fast, and she didn't want to get left behind. She couldn't be overwhelmed by the loss. By the guilt...already she was thinking that she should have stopped Duerage from ever leaving. His charismatic confidence had duped Sakura into forgetting the dangers of this place. Sakura glanced around to make sure no one was being left behind in the Command Center. It was then she noticed the Blue Magnet half. Shrugging somewhat apathetically, she scooped it up. Might come in handy. Holding it in one hand over her shoulder, she did her best not to drop it. Then she followed Rika and Bowser down to the others as they descended to the floor of the Depths via some hopping platforming. Sakura almost slipped a couple of times, but she didn't make a big fuss out of it.

She caught some traces of what Rika and Bowser and Kamek were talking about, too. Something about that machine they were working on.

Once she was within range, Sakura tried to work through her headache to consider what was going on. "Cheat, Mister Geralt..? Cheat how?" She held the side of her head. She really wasn't in the mood for that style of planning. If he was hoping someone would come to the same realisation he was coming too and narrate parts of plan back to him, well. Sakura wouldn't be providing that.

"Maybe we should just feed Moreau some of that goo Mister King Bowser found...can't imagine it's edible." She mumbled. She watched Nadia and Junior run, eyeing them with concern.

Blazermate didn't need much prompting from the others once Ace got into her sensor range, not looking good for wear. Thankfully the baddies thought he was also down for the count when he collapsed under the rubble he pulled himself out of, being distracted by Mirage's mirage... Oh now his name made sense! Either way, Blazermate, being told off by Kamek saying her offer wouldn't do much, moved over to Ace and scooped him up in her arms, having her healing beam on him until he was good enough to start jumping around. "OK so, while the fish guy is distracted, we should jump around him and meet everyone on the elevator." Blazermate said, offering to use her jets as a jump booster for Ace so the two of them could get to the elevator and out of this area.

After all, she wasn't really into having a tussle with this large depressed fish guy. He did manage to crush Duage, who was a walking metal suit in one blow. But others seemed to be into that idea so all Blazermate could do was sigh and heal who needed it. Although, she was the strongest person there physically potentially, and Moreau did look like he was quite fragile...

The sound of his name drew the Cadet's attention to Link, who'd made his way over to him and was speaking quietly, telling the Cadet of his plan. It was a bold one. Dangerous to be sure, but their whole situation was dangerous regardless. He asked if the Cadet could run, and the mini monster hunter took a steadying breath and offered Link a weak grin.

"Yeah," he lied. He would force his limbs to move with sheer willpower if it came down to it.

Moreau's stomping and labored breath got the boy's attention, and for a moment the Cadet thought he'd have to move a lot sooner than expected. Surprisingly though, the mutant's path took him away from them. He was on course to intercept that living diving the suit, the false-Mirage - or whatever had gone on there. His short existence came to an end with a few belly flops from the monstrous Moreau. About that time, the rest of their crew made their way out of the command center, and three of them made a beeline to where he and Link were. They all seemed shaken up, with good reason, and immediately they all launched in to quick, urgent discussion about what they should be doing.

Ace Cadet was initially glad for all the back up that appeared, the more they talked about 'suicidal' plans for escaping as Geralt put it, the more the Cadet was reminded of a certain time in the Everwood, years ago now. Of being desperate to escape that strange, dark monster with the Ace Lancer, and the Caravan's Hunter stalling for time. He winced when drawing the parallels between the two situations. If he hadn't been acting like a Jhen Moron then maybe both could have been prevented. Ever the optimistic though, the Cadet pushed the thought that they all had survived the Everwood back then, and so it stood to reason if the two situations were so similar then they would survive her and now in the belly of the Maw, too.

The Cadet stood up fully, letting go of his metal support and wobbling for a moment. He didn't fall over, so that was a huge win as far as he was concerned. There had been a lot of plans being thrown around, the most recent of which was Geralt's proposal of "cheating." The Cadet followed the other boy's gesture to find he was pointing at where Nadia, Mimi and Junior were scampering toward the exit.

"...the fan?" he guessed. That might work but it would still require putting one or more of them in harm's way for a distraction. Or maybe not, as Kamek offered another option from above. When the Cadet looked up he could see that many of the others were already en route to the elevator. The boys (and Sakura) really needed to get a move on too. The Cadet took a step, and when he still didn't fall over he took another more confident one.

"Let's get going," he said, "make a run for it now while he's distracted, then we can pick one of these Kut-kurazy plans on the move. We just gotta get out of his reach until everyone's out."

He looked at Mirage, who'd offered to stick close to the Cadet. "It's okay. You're gonna have to be in a good enough spot to help people with that weird little bowgun anyway, right? I can make it," he promised. As comforting as having Mirage help him out would be, the Cadet would much rather have him helping the others. Maybe the Cadet was a little embarrassed about having to be escorted due to his own mistake too, but the only evidence of that was the mild tint of red on his face. That could have been from anything though.

At that point, Blazermate came swooping in and scooped the little hunter up - and then the embarrassment on his face was a lot more apparent. He wasn't going to complain though, since she was healing his wounds. Soon enough all the cuts and scraps closed up, the little smudges of blood left behind the only evidence they were there at all.

"Okay now I can definitely make it," he said once Blazermate set him down. "Thanks. Now let's go quick before that Kecha-wacko comes back over! If he catches up to us then..." he glanced between everyone gathered, "...we'll just go with Link's first plan, just bash him good with whatever we got!"

The old reliable strategy: just wing it and use whatever they had on hand. The Cadet ushered the others to get moving, and didn't wait around to start climbing himself either. With luck they could get to the elevator before Moreau could get to them.

---

Mirage followed Link's gesture, gazing at the spirit down at the ground floor. Unfortunately looking down there had the side-effect of Mirage being reminded Moreau was crushing his Mockingbird copy to death in a rampage, and making him note just how easily he could probably crush an annoying assortment of kids trying to shove magical glowing orbs into his body. With the condition of their team, he wasn't sure how they could manage it. But rather than express that first, he had to admit that the words were eye-opening. Spirits had that kind of power? He hadn't thought of applying them in such a manner, but figured that one Abyssal did change him quite a lot. Imagine what more would've done, right? "You can weaponize spirits like that? Huh."

Offer a momentary shake of his head, he had to disagree again, not that he wanted to disregard Link's ideas in a mean way. He'd been friendly and helpful before, and Mirage simply didn't want the group being thrown into a large amount of danger. "Well, we'd hafta run around and clock all those fish first, right? That blob crushing us aside, I don't think we're in good condition for that, especially Cadet here." He winced as he looked down at Moreau. Link hadn't met Duerage, and wouldn't understand it that way, really. But the suit was still a good example. "That diving suit down there was pretty torn apart, too. Before me and Geralt came down, we just got done dealing with this rotting flesh thing... It was like, seven feet tall. And it took damn near all of us to trick it into falling after we drained the water. If there's more things like that down there, we could end up in a lot of trouble. Just one scuff from that thing was enough to bang up Peach pretty bad."

Realizing he was only giving bad news, he blinked behind his goggles. "Oh, uh-- But Blazermate's up there, doing her healing thing. Peach is okay!" He assured, deciding to rest his case for the moment as Geralt and Kamek offered what they could to the situation. He pondered what Geralt meant by cheating, but was more interested in whatever distraction Bowser had coming: That's a king, for ya! Showing up when needed and saving the day, right?

As Sakura showed up, Mirage blinked at the sight of the other magnet half. "Oh, nice! You found the other half!" He exclaimed, trying to look at a momentary positive. She voiced her confusion in regards to Geralt's plan, and Mirage kinda felt the same way. He looked between them for a moment, before eyeing Cadet as he spoke. "R-Right, Nadia's Fan." He responded to Cadet's assumption, totally figuring that was what Geralt had been speaking about. He offered a nod, trying to hide his confusion and sound as in-the-know as Cadet's guess did. "Kinda noisy, and Junior and Nadia are already on the way towards the exit. So we're probably better just darting after them." Ahah, darting. Because running and climbing, with the dart gun. He smiled at his own claimed genius for a moment with satisfaction, before getting distracted by Cadet trying to move.

"Careful," He responded to the action worriedly, but paused as he was spoken to. Concern crossed his face, but it wasn't like Ace was wrong: Their climb would be easier if he was planting darts rather than helping him, but... He was a hurt little guy! Mirage wasn't going to disrespect his wishes, however, figuring it would work out in one way or another with the group gathered. He offered a small nod, attempting to be confident on the matter.

That was when Blazermate swooped in on the scene, and healed little Cadet back up to decent health. Ah, right. She was healing Peach... Of course she could heal Cadet, too. Mirage felt like a dunce for a moment, but being panicked did that to a guy. A sigh of relief escaped him with Cadet healed, which meant escape was going to be a little easier. "Right! If worse comes to worse... I'll fight 'em best I can." He replied to Cadet's more energetic response, figuring if things went real south they at least had a (terrifying) backup strategy for Moreau. But for now? Booking it sounded great.

Pops from the dart gun were audible as Mirage turned, joining Cadet's journey upwards. "These things are sturdy, maybe trust them a bit more than the metal." Mirage commented to Geralt and Sakura behind him, aiming to try and provide easier pathing for the others, given he knew Geralt was in bad shape already. Mirage wasn't doing too great himself: Stomach sore and only quiet due to the noise coming from Moreau. They were reaching a point he felt legitimately empty inside, and his dry lips were starting to stick together. He attempted to fend it off with a swipe from his tongue, but that was a very limited and temporary solution.

"A distraction sounds great," Mirage spoke up to Kamek, figuring with the plan in motion if they just bought a little time, they'd be out of here. Glancing upwards, a hint of concern crossed his face as he thought about those still in the Command Center: He remembered Bella in particular having a few issues back in the last area with movement and platforming, and wondered if she'd be able to get out okay here. Those concerns could rest until he made it to solid ground though, as if she needed an assist he wouldn't be able to provide it until he got up anyways.

While Joker's plan was nice, Jesse had the feeling this was going to be total chaos. That's how it was in her experience, anyway. Once super natural powers got involved, and people entered a big fighting room, shit goes wild fast. Improvisation was the only plan available. Especially since this team she was working with seemed to have little experience as a cohesive unit, and no obvious leadership hierarchy.

(Just try not to die.)

The big guy with the hammer activated his shield. Reinhardt, huh? This meant he deflected her spear attack. However, she did manage to make the smug leader hit the deck, which was nice. Energy shield probably couldn't be No-Collided, which is something Jesse learned back at the Museum.

What really sucked as that Shadow was very slippery. Not only did he dodge every single one of Jesse's bullets, he also executed his magical abilities while under fire. Considering that her throwing objects was only going to be slower than bullets, Shadow was probably unbeatable to her. He's too fast. Unless, she could try hitting him with the Tool Gun. No travel time on the little blue beams, as far as she could tell. If he managed to enlarge his already oversized head, he'd probably die of an aneurysm or something.

Jesse wouldn't get time to contemplate these ideas. While the rest of the team had scattered, Jesse had definitely been one of the ones to scatter the most. And she had drawn quite the bit of attention to herself. She had a lot of attention on herself.

First up on the agenda was this weird imp lady, Orendi. Jesse squinted at her taunt, and looked around at the circle of death that had formed around her. Not ideal. Sprinting out of the way, she ran for another pillar. She almost peaked, when a sniper bullet slammed into the pillar. Several. Mordecai was shooting at her. Blinking, she scooted away from that angle. The Orendi lady also fired a giant laser in her direction, which caught Jesse's arm. Her Health ability protected her, but Jesse screwed up her mouth into a frown and grunted. Now, what? She hated being stuck like this.

At that moment Futaba Sakura gave her some kind of speed bonus. "Thanks." Jesse felt more confident being able to move around without getting hit.

The fight had developed while she was busy trying not to get blown to pieces. Ciella managed to trap Shadow and Nastasia from escaping, which was good. She was their main target. Both the Resistance and the Seekers were evenly matched. A prolonged battle would be a deathmatch. However, Nastasia was the weak point of the Resistance. If they could kill her, that might make things a lot easier.

Jesse had to focus entirely on keeping herself alive. The Director was a very hard target to hit, especially with Futaba's magical help. But there was too much pressure on her to actually fight back. Sprinting, ducking, and evading, glancing shots harmlessly gliding off the invisible force that protected her, Jesse was on the back foot. She put objects between herself and her enemies but they kept forcing her to move. Be they solid pieces of cover, or floating objects. This was a bootleg version of one of her more advanced telekinetic abilities that had been stripped from her by Galeem. If this kept up...

If this kept up, Jesse felt like she would win against the sniper and the imp. Mordecai had to reload at some point, and that witch surely had to pause to regain her magic. However it might be too late. There was more to this battle than just this 1 vs 2.5.

(I hate that bird.)

Woes no more! Sectonia went crazy, shooting magic at every foe. This gave Jesse the moment to advance. Tired of missing, she switched to Shatter, the powerful shotgun variant of her Service Weapon. The barrel widened, the blocks forming, shifting, trembling into shape. Firing off a blast at Mordecai's annoying bird, she sprinted forward. Orendi's magic was slow to start up, which Jesse felt like she could take advantage of.

To ward off any incoming sniper shots, she tore another spear out of the ground and flung it's pointed tip towards Mordecai at high speed. This attack was no joke, but she really just wanted him out of her hair. Her true target was Orendi. Sprinting forward, hand shotgun pointed at the ground, Jesse locked onto Orendi. No where to hide. Cover would do her no good if Jesse was right on her ass.

Her goal was to circle around a pillar and get right up in Orendi's face. She even ripped a concrete chunk out a pillar and flung it where she thought Orendi was going to do, just to make it so she would have to dodge backwards into Jesse to get away from it.

If successful in closing the gap, Jesse would open the imp up with a flash of white, kinetic force. That should send her reeling. Glaring down the hovering iron sights of her Shatter gun she lined up a point blank shot and pulled the trigger. Psychic pellets would tear and pass through flesh, the combined force enough to knock someone back, or down. Failing that, they'd be shattered to pieces instead.

Unlike her target, Jesse wasn't much of a talker in combat.