Being a turtle, Jr was delighted to go for a dip in the sea, the perfectly cool but not cold water a refreshing cleanser after the sweaty spot of sports. While most times when taking a swim he'd be splashing around all over, after the exertion of the match he swiftly found himself drifting along on his back, his buoyant shell keeping him aloft while Mimi sat on his chest using the sunbathing turtle as something of a boat upon which she was merrily sailing the waves.

His lazy drifting was interrupted by a nearby gasp of amazement, which was followed by him being bonked in the head by the curve of a fish hook.

”Ow!!” he yelped, before rolling over in the water (forcing Mimi to scramble over him during the movement to avoid getting dunked, though she seemed to find this fun rather than upsetting) to come face to face with the owner of the fish hook.

”Hey! What’s the big idea?” he shouted at a young girl who was sitting on a set of rocky outcropping and presently reeling in the a offending fishing hook back to her rod.

“Oh. Sorry! I thought you were a rare kind of pokemon” she called back apologetically

”Well I’m not. This is a pokemon” he pointed at Mimi, who was now perched atop his dome, the only dryspot presently available, and then to himself ”This is not. Learn the difference!”

“I mean you do kind of do look like…” she started to say, before dropping the thought and asking “so is that Mimikue yours then? Are you a trainer?”

”Yeah! What of it?” Jr replied, still irritated by the entire incident

“Oh, me too… So do you want to battle?” she asked, a sudden turn which took Jr by surprise.

”Huh? First you're apologizing and now you're picking a fight? What’s your deal?”

She cocked her head to one side and then replied “when two trainers make eye contact, then they’ve got to have a pokemon battle. It’s the rules” like it was the most obvious thing in the world, before clarifying to the prince’s still doubting face that “oh and it's not a fight-fight, it's more like a spar kind of deal”

”Ohhhh. I mean that’s kinda weird but sure. If you're up for it Mimi?” he replied/asked, which got an enthusiastic response from his Pokemon. Unlike him she was still brimming with energy from her two meals, and this sounded like fun to her.

“Cool, here, let me help you up” the girl replied, offering him a hand to climb up onto her ocean rock, and as she did so introduced herself “I’m Lana by the way”

”Bowser junior” the prince replied as he got back onto dry land

”That’s a funny name. Ok you wait here and I’ll make some space” she said, before stepping away before he could bite back about her comment about his name. As she stepped away Mimi eagerly hopped down to put herself in front of her trainer.

“Alright then, let’s do this!” she called out once she’d cleared enough space, before shouting “Go Shellder!” as she tossed out her first pokemon, which turned out to be some kind of clam looking thing that had a big floppy tongue which Jr found to be very funny looking.

It wasn't quite so funny when, at the command of its trainer, the clam used a quick open shut of its shell to launch itself at Mimi while forming a spike of ice on the tongue which it used as a flail to strike at her.

She leapt away, being showered by a few shards of ice in the process that were enough to break her disguise, and then nearly got blown off her feet by a follow up “water gun!”

”Quit playing around Mimi! Give the clam an electro ball” Jr commanded, which got a surprised look from Lana right before the ball of electricity slammed into her Shellder, zapping it silly and taking it down with a single strike.

“Huh, I didn't know Mimikyus could learn that move… well, suppose that’s explained by the battery on her back?” she said, while returning her mon to its ball, and then tossing out “Chinchou!”

The blue ball with two big glowing lures of a mon bounced down onto the rock and Jr immediately thought he saw a pattern.

”Another water one? Ha too easy. Hit it with the same Mimi!” he commanded, and hit it she did, only for the Chinchou to take it like a champ, much to both of their surprise.

“Yeah he always gets people who think they got me beat just because they brought an electric type” she replied with a cheeky smile, before shouting “Now Chinchou, repay the favor!” At which point the creature whipped round one of its glowing lures and hurled its own electro ball at Mimi who went tumbling across the rocks in response to the hit.

”That’s not fair!” despite it being quite to the contrary and then ordered ”Uh. hit it with a shadow sneak instead!” which as it turned out was just the switch-up he needed, the ghostly backtastab’s physical damage unintentionally exploiting the Chinchou’s weak defense and taking it down.

“Oh wow, your Mimi’s a real versatile one isn't she” Lana said, not the least bit disheartened by this turn of events, before continuing on “Ok here goes my last shot! Go Araquanid!”

After that Lana only had her trick to dealing with grass types left, a bug water mon, and it stood no chance vs Mimi, which left the little mon feeling very proud when her trainer cheered for her (admittedly rather narrow) victory. She even got some praise from Lara for being a formidable opponent, as well as some applause from a bystander.

Slightly condescending applause actually, coming specifically from a cool looking guy standing on the back of a large walrus like creature floating in the surf nearby.

“Nice fight kid. Up for one more?” the trainer asked

”Yeah, bring it!” the prince replied without a thought before Lana could suggest otherwise

“Oh and that’s your only pokemon” the guy asked, putting some extra condescension on the only part, and then giving a short laugh when the answer was yes.

“Alright then. Let me see. Ghost-fairy type with electric attacks. Tricky. But mainly a physical attacker so we can get away with not dealing with the ghost type I think” the ace murmured to himself while and then smiled, having the perfect answer, grasping one of his six pokeballs, shouting “go, Nidoqueen” and sending out a hulking armored titan of a mon that towered over all three of the the others standing on the little rocky outcrop.

Just as the trainer predicted, his mon was a near perfect counter. Ground type nullified Mimi’s electro ball, her shadow sneak could do nothing to Nidoqueen’s high defense and offensively it only took a single super effective, and gross sludge wave.

That left the trainer sailing away mighty smug about beating up a kids single pokemon while Jr cradled the fainted Mimi and Lana tried her best to comfort him.

“Come on, it's ok. Between you and me, no one likes ace trainers. They are all jerks who only care about being strong anyway” Lana told the prince as they sat together on the outcropping while he cradled the fainted Mimi in his arms

”But I want to be strong! Need to be. There’s a lot of stuff riding on me being strong so I can’t afford not to be” Jr said ”How’d that guy have exactly the right pokemon to beat me? How do I get a strong team like him?”

“Well they capture all sorts of types of pokemon, caring only about competitive optimization. But trust me, it's much easier to stick to a type or two. Mixing and matching them makes them so much harder to care for” she told him the common wisdom that most from her world stuck too, and interjected before he could dismiss it “but you can find a middle ground. Like me! You saw how even though all of mine are water types I still had an answer to electric and grass types that normally beat them right? You can do the same! Catch some fairy or ghost pokemon with other types to round out your team”

Jr still did not look convinced or any less dejected so she decided that she should do something practical about the situation.

“So I don't think there’s any ghost types around here, but I think I do know where we can find a fairy type. Or well, one that’s going to become a fairy type anyway” she said, before standing, taking his hand and tugging for him to follow with her “Come on, I think I saw one nearby”

Following her lead, the jr ended up poking his heads up over a sandbank alongside Lana a few minutes later, and catching sight of her intended target.

“I don’t know if it’s your style but-” she started to say only to be proven wrong when Jr’s eyes lit up and he declared ”It’s…. perfect!” at the sight of a seal pokemon presently juggling one of the poor otter pokemon on its clown nose.

And that's the story of how Jr ended up making a new friend.

And also caught a Popplio round about the same time.

Frisk @Majoras End Albedo @Lugubrious

---

---

"Maybe Frisk isn't erasing the time. They could just be creating a whole new timeline when they go back, leaving the old one behind." Linkle added to Albedo's ruminations on Frisk's ability. "There's a Legend where the Hero did something like that, going forward in time then coming back to stop the Demon King Ganon in the past after he had already done it the future. My teacher used to get in full on shouting matches with the other old timers in the village over what that meant for the future the Hero traveled to." She sheepishly scratched the side of her face. "I could never really wrap my head around it. I don't think something can just all of a sudden not have happened after it's already happened, you know? Because it happened."

After taking a short rest, long enough for Frisk and Papyrus to have a little talk, the three of them set off without the Stalfos. Linkle grabbed her sled and pulled it after Albedo as they trudged through the snow, offering Frisk a ride amid all her loot if they didn't feel like walking. As they traveled without any obvious dangers across the snowfield, Linkle caught their new companion up to speed on their situation.

"Most everybody had red eyes, that's how you can tell they've got Galeem in their heads. They can't see it up there. They can't even think about it, so it's no use trying to tell them something is wrong unless you free them. And if one of it's minions tells them to do something they have to do it." She furrowed her borrow, a grimace worming its way across her face. "Everything is still fuzzy, but I think that's how it was for me. I've only been free for a few days and I think I was part of a posses they assembled and sent after this cute little pink guy named Kirby. When we woke up we found him impaled with a sword."

"Oh, he's okay!" She added quickly. "There was a healer on hand, this Medabot girl named Blazermate. She saved him. If she hadn't been there I don't..."

She trailed off, but she knew exactly what would have happened and she was sure the others would to. She shook her head, moving on to a more pleasant part of the story. "Anyway it was a good thing she did. He was the one that freed us, the whole group at once. Me, Tora, Bowser, Blazermate, Din. There were a lot of us, they must have hated him. I'm not sure how he was free, and he couldn't talk well enough to tell us, but I guess he just avoided it or shook it off himself. There are people that can do that. Albedo got this close to curing himself with alchemy!" She held up a hand, braggadociously holding her fingers just a tiny width apart. "The Master of Masters was another. We met him while wandering down the road we found ourselves on. He's the one who taught us about Spirits, how to make Friend Hearts, and told us we were the one that were destined to save the world. He can see the future with a magic eye he lost somewhere, so he already knows how everything ends."

"We eventually learned there were thirteen of these Guardians that we had to take down. The first one was a big, evil, even bossier version of my friend Bowser. I didn't get to join that fight, though. There's this monster called Master Hand, he's like an actual giant hand that works for Galeem, and he always shows up to mess with us before we confront a Guardian. He summoned a bunch of our groups loved one and told them to kill us if we tried entering Dragon Bowser's lair, so while everyone who got past that was fighting him I was trying to save another friends boyfriend and he wouldn't stop healing himself so couldn't get a heart into him so I missed the whole battle." The frustration of the memory was palpable. "It was a really dirty thing to do to us, so I'll never forgive it."

"But they won without me, and we got a bunch of new friends when the whole castle Dragon Bowser was using for a lair was released when he went down. There's this wave of darkness that shoots out that washes the Galeem out of the heads of anyone around when you beat the Guardian, it's really handy. Then, I guess somebody found a map of the world in the castle that we've been using to travel around looking for more Guardians. We split up to cover more ground, some of us went to this place called the Dead Zone. That'll be important later. The first place my group ended up was this cool place called the Land of Adventure. It's great! There's this town called Lumbridge, full of heroes and quests to do, and apparently the whole land reforms around the town every night so every day is a new adventure. Anyway the most important guy in town, a man called the Guildmaster, sent us to do a bunch of quest before he would tell us where the biggest monster in the land was. We aced those quests! We knocked out every quest the town had to give in a single day."

"I'm still not sure why, but after that the Guildmaster tried to kill us. Or, I guess, just fight us? He was acting really weird. See, when we met him he was dressed in a black coat just like the Master of Masters wore. He didn't know the Master of Masters, though, and when I was out doing something else he opened a portal and dumped a bunch of us into a casino where he was a giant and was making them fight these minions of his. I jumped in, and it turned out he has a dice for a head under his hood! His name was...hard to pronounce, at least the one he used. His real named turned out to be King Dice, I got that form one of his friends afterwards. I was in the middle of a fight when it happened, so I didn't see it, but another person in a black coat came around and took him away in the middle of everything. These Black Coat people are another confusing thing that keeps coming up. I don't know whose side they're actually on."

"Eventually we hooked back up with Dead Zone group and headed out into the wilderness and found the guardian, this ENOURMOUSE dragon on a floating island in a black void. When we beat him the dark wave wiped the void away and showed us a placed called Smash City Alcamoth. It's really beautiful, this whole city floating over a crystal clear ocean. The people running it were friends with some of the people in our group, so we kinda turned it into our main base."

"After that we divided into three teams to tackle three areas. The other team earlier hadn't gotten to the Guardian of the Dead Zone, so I went with with the team that headed back there to finish the job. The Dead Zone is awful, it's full of disease and the undead and some of the most disgusting monsters I've ever seen. There's a big evil tree growing right in the middle of the city. That's where we think the Guardian lives, but before we got to it we ran into this zombie girl named Marie. She was something called The Skullgirl." The high energy with which Linkle had relayed the rest of the story died out as she reached this part. "She fought us, we beat her, and then in her ashes we found this thing called the skull heart. You can make any wish on it, and so long as that wish isn't selfish it'll be granted. So I thought I was being really clever when I wished that I had enough power to beat Galeem and save everybody."

She looked down, placing a hand over her chest. "But I'm not clever enough to see a trap even if everyone is telling me it's there. Nothing would ever be good enough for the Skull Heart, so it dove into my chest. Ate my heart. Brought me back from the dead. Now it lives in there, trying to turn me into Queen of the Stalfos like it was doing to Marie. Then a guy in a black coat showed up, a different one with time stopping powers and a knife. Apparently because he thought I was going to start killing everyone he scooped me up, teleported me to the middle of nowhere, dared me to kill the Guardian of this area by myself, and left me in the snow. I wandered to Snowdin hoping to catch a boat back somewhere I knew, and that's where the wild man found me and punched me through Grillby's." She perked up at this point, looking fondly at the boy in front of her. "But after that I met Albedo, so I guess that day wasn't all bad. And I got that guy back pretty good, I used ice magic to freeze him up inside a ravine. Oh, speaking of..."

The area was actually looking pretty familiar, so Linkle insisted they take a short detour across the snowfield to the ravine both to repair the seal in case it had been damaged and to show off her handiwork. What she found when they arrived, however, put her instantly on edge. The iceberg cap on the ravine had been shattered into pieces, chunks scattered hither, thither, and yon around an ominous hole in the ice. She stepped up, looking down into the darkness. She didn't know why, except maybe in the dumb hope that he was still there sleeping off the exertion before starting a vengeful rampage. At least he hadn't taken this out on Snowdin, though it was unfortunately impossible to tell when he had escaped.

"Why can't seals ever keep evil bottled up forever?" She said, looking around the flat white land round her with worried eyes. There was no way to know where he was now. "Okay. If we see him he'll probably want me the most, so you two just leave it to me and keep heading to Edinburgh." She grabbed her sled again and hurried them along back to the path, encouraging Albedo by example to quicken the pace. "You won't have to worry, I'll catch up later. I already beat him once, I'll think of something."

She continued the next leg of their journey tensely silent, scanning the horizon and even the sky for movement of any kind. The silence around them as they entered the forest was welcome and let her relax a little. They weren't out in the open anymore, and though he could be hiding behind any tree she didn't think he was that subtle. She would hear him coming, so she kept all four ears peeled as they walked. All she heard was their own footsteps and the distant cry of birds. Albedo noticed them to, but something about it peaked his interest. She nodded at his request to investigate, following after the boy as he lead them off the path. Anything that caught Albedo's interest would have to be pretty interesting, so she was curious herself about what significance he found in the bird calls.

What they found was strange in how ordinary it was. Linkle grasped how strange it was to find a real corpse in the World of Light, let alone one so expertly butchered. Albedo helpfully laid out the significance of the body to their young companion, before continuing on just as cautiously as Linkle had been.

The source of the body was discovered shortly afterwards, as the sounds of battle filtered through the forest and drew the three of them to a small ridge. Down below a small army of warriors and monks were engaging a massive creature. "Hey, I've seen that thing before. It was wandering around the icefield outside Snowdin." Linkle whipped out both her crossbows, starting forward to join help the warriors down the great beast, but Albedo held up a hand to single her to wait. The three strongest of the group had the fight well in hand, so she held back while he observed. It wasn't long after that the beast we felled by a spectacular display of magic from the fully armored fighter and the group began working on butchering it.

Albedo said that was a mystery solved, but Linkle wasn't sure. Sure, these guys were probably responsible for butchering the animal they had found earlier but how did they manage to keep it together long enough to cut it to piece? Albedo turned to her and Frisk to see what the wanted to do, but to Linkle there was no question. She re-holstered her crossbows and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Heeeeey!" She called down to the group, waving her arms at them. "Hey Frisk, maybe you could ask that guy about his magic?" She said, before raising her voice back up to speak with the squadron. "Nice job! Are you guys from the monastery? We're friends with Father Guerra."

As wonderful as her adventure through the shallows of Heaven’s Edge had been, with all the amazing wildlife that enriched every colorful nook and coral-filled cranny of its incredible natural labyrinth of sand, Nadia knew that it was past time she packed it in. She’d been running on empty for a while now in fact, tempted ever onward by the exciting prospect of what might lay just beyond the next shoal. A four-course feast of volleyball plus what felt like a solid hour of semi-aquatic off-shore exploration was a lot even for someone as athletic as her, and by now she wanted nothing more than to collapse back in her beach chair and doze the day away.

After bidding farewell to Ace for now, Nadia made her way back toward the beach at a leisurely pace, floating along on her back with just the gentlest flicks of her fishtail wherever possible. Despite all the time she’d spent in and under it, the beautifully clear water had yet to lose its charm, its embrace every bit as delightful and reinvigorating as when the feral first jumped in. Its coolness perfectly complemented the warmth of the afternoon sun soaked up by the skin of her arms, legs, and face. Another long, happy sigh welled up within her as she drifted closed to the beach, across a sunken area where the rocky bottom lay hidden beneath a miniature canopy of tentacled anemones with all the colors of the rainbow. All too soon her back came to rest against a slope of sand, and Nadia opened her eyes to find that she’d washed up on terra firma. Leaning back with her arms planted against the ground, she cast one last long, slow look across Heaven’s Edge. This place truly was a paradise–the kind of place that helped remind poor souls that there was more to life than pain and suffering, and what the peace and happiness they fought so bitterly for actually looked like.

A hint of melancholy coursed through Nadia as she picked herself up and trudged across the sand toward her beach chair. If only, she thought, Mirage, Sakura, Brineybeard, and the others were around to enjoy it too. They’d more than earned such a rich reward. She hoped that wherever they might be right now, they too were enjoying their shares of happiness. Would that those who’d paid the ultimate price to safeguard such happiness had lived to see it, too. Frog, Mr. L, Delsin, each and every shipgirl who sunk on Blackwater Bay, and in every naval battle before…Nadia wasn’t about to stop living her life out of guilt or sorrow for the departed, but she didn’t plan to forget them, either. Her heart went out to Mirage in particular. In the brief and, all things considered, pretty traumatic time she’d known him, he’d proved himself a real nice guy. But after everything that happened, she couldn’t blame him if he ended up thinking that he’d jumped on the wrong boat. Would she even see him again? Only time would tell, but Nadia sure hoped so.

Before she knew it, the feral had reached her chair. At some point a beach towel had been thoughtfully laid across its back, so Nadia took it, moved the clothes she’d left behind, and spread it over the chair to lay upon. While her first instinct was to plop down right that instant, she realized that she also felt pretty dehydrated, and so with the last of her stamina she made her way to the bar. As nice as another stiff drink sounded, she felt pretty relaxed already, so a misty glass of ice-cold water suited her far better. Once she got a hold of it Nadia gulped it down so fast that a good amount splashed across her cheeks and her front, but she neither noticed nor cared. In a few seconds the water was all gone. “Ahh!” she gasped with relish. As she set down the cup with a clink and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, she flashed the bartender a smile. “Thanks!”

Feeling mighty fine, Nadia made her way back to her beach chair. On the way she glanced over at the bubble pit again, still curious. Even more people were milling in and around it, grooving to the music. As fun as it looked, she didn’t want any more detours right now. Maybe she could check it out later, preferably with Ace. If she was going to make a fool of herself trying to dance for the first time, might as well make the memory with him. Then again, she didn’t exactly want to monopolize the dude’s time or anything. Well, whatever. Right now she needed to rest; everything else could wait. Nadia parked herself on her chair in the warmth of the sun, her shorts and tank top balled up together to serve as a pillow, and dozed right off.

---

About an hour of tossing, turning, and light snoring later, Nadia awoke with a sudden start and a loud snort. Her jerk upright left her blinking and mildly bewildered as she took in the scenery again. “Nngh…” When she swallowed she discovered that her throat was as dry as a bone. Ahh man, was I sleeping with my mouth open the whole time? In addition to parched and a little embarrassed when she considered how many people must have passed by and seen her just snoozing there, she felt bleary and disheveled, as if she hadn’t rested well. She let out a groan as she plopped back down, her eyes squeezed shut. Without enough alcohol to pollute her ever-replenishing bloodstream to the point where she actually blacked out, her rest had been riddled with bits and pieces of last night’s horrors. Snippets of hideous monstrosities and gruesome vistas hung around her like flies on a corpse. She massaged her eyes with the palms of her hands, dashing the images with blotches of phantasmal color. A good mai tai, she reasoned, would solve both her issues at once.

Once Nadia enjoyed a luxurious catlike stretch, she got to her feet. Her seaside nap had left her skin totally dry and, against all odds, not burnt, so she pulled her clothes on without issue before she made her way to the bar to wait her turn. The sun still shone bright overhead, just not quite as high as she remembered it. It looked like the bubble pit was still around, but both the music and the crowd had subsided, so while a few beachgoers still frequented it Nadia guessed it wouldn’t be around much longer. A section of beach not far from the volleyball courts north of the Kanzuki estate appeared to be littered with colorful scraps of rubber, indicating a large-scale water balloon fight that Nadia had been unlucky enough to miss. “Rats,” she hissed. While not the best judge of time, she figured that it must be around four o’ clock or so. A little too early for round two with Miss Karin’s altogether-too-generous buffett, although the feral didn’t really know if her host planned to cater both meals. Maybe dinner somewhere else in Limsa would be a nice change of pace…the Bismarck, maybe? It could still be under repair from the fight with Cia and her clones, but the view that Nadia happened to catch off the dining area when her head got knocked into someone’s noodle bowl had been pretty awesome, and the noodles weren’t bad at all, either. If not that, then maybe another tavern. Drowning Wench had been pretty good after all. Maybe Missing Member? But with a name like that, who knew what she might be in for. Nadia resolved to do a little city exploring once the sun got a good bit lower. Until then though, this lovely beach had plenty more to offer her.

In short order she got her drink, then leaned on one of the standing tables while she sipped it, her tail casually swishing back and forth. She kept an eye out for any of her friends, interested to see if anyone was up to something interesting.



As Albedo expected, the prospect of butchery wouldn’t leave a battlefield veteran like Linkle feeling squeamish. She didn’t even hesitate to call out and hail the company down below. Now that the furious din of their skirmish had given way to the silence of the snowy woods, the hunters could hear her loud and clear, and turned toward the source to see the girl waving. While Albedo wouldn’t have put it past anyone to be trigger-happy when it came to uninvited guests, especially in such an ominous place where any manner of peril could lurk behind the next copse of trees, the leaders of the clerics neither took up arms nor lost neither composure as they sized up the trio on the tree-lined bluff. No doubt the numbers advantage in their corner gave them confidence, and more than likely they supposed -correctly- that these strangers had borne witness to what they’d just achieved. As anyone could see from the creature’s sheer size and destructive power, felling a Gammoth was no mean feat. Reasonably speaking, one would have to be a fool to challenge this well-armed congregation out of hand, and Linkle certainly wasn’t one.

She greeted them as cordially as the distance between them would allow, making the obvious connection between these wielders of holy magic and the cold monastery she explored that morning. For a moment their leaders glanced between one another. They gave no reply, but the knight gave a brisk wave back, indicating some degree of friendliness, and the priestess waved with both hands and a smile. Once the clerics’ lack of outward hostility seemed clear, Linkle proceeded to drop down from the edge of the cliff. She slid, skidded, and hopped down the incline, breaking into a light jog when the slope evened out. All the while she kept her hands well clear of her weapons, a characteristically pleasant look on her face–a diplomatic choice.. Albedo followed right behind her, grateful for the fact that his weapon dematerialized when not in use. The last thing he wanted or needed right now was to get on the wrong side of a force like this, whether or not the Skullgirl could actually take them on with her newfound power. As he and Linkle drew close the knight and the priestess turned their way, leaving the more taciturn two in reserve.

“Greetings!” the priestess told them. “I never would have expected to see friendly faces all the way out here, especially ones so young! My name is Tatiana, a saint tasked with holy healing.”

“I’m known as D.” As he stood, speaking in a low, steady voice, the knight cradled the head that protruded from his breastplate with his off hand. The other held a beautiful gold-silver greatsword, the broad tip of its inseparable blade still embedded in the ground to convey his lack of hostility. “We are not affiliated with the Monastery, make no mistake. Though we have cause to work with them on occasion, we cannot condone the corruption allowed by their excessive permissiveness.”

The mention of work left Albedo curious. “Are you all game hunters? I would not have expected men and women of the cloth to engage in such activity.”

“It is for precisely that reason that we engage in such activity,” D told him. “Because corpses turn to ash mere moments after death takes hold, meat is scarce, and many want for food. When treated to the Litany of Proper Death, however, death takes its natural course. So it is that we make our coin as we travel the land, in pursuit of Those Who Live in Death.”

Both unfamiliar terms, spoken with weight and import, fascinated the alchemist. It did not escape him that the man called D referred to Those Who Live in Death with venom in his words, suggestive of a profound enmity. Albedo made sure he did not instinctively glance Linkle’s way. “Forgive me, but I have not heard those words before. Could I trouble you for an explanation?”

D sniffed. “The Litany of Proper Death is an incantation, a recitation of faith. It is nothing more, and nothing less, than a re-establishment of proper order over aberration in the world. And none more so than Those Who Live in Death.” Though he kept his tone even, he could not keep the severity out of his voice. “Such creations fall outside the principles of the Golden Order. Their mere existence sullies the guidance of gold. Tainting its truth. And so it is the vermin must be exterminated...down to the very last."

“I see,” Albedo said, nodding. “And are you on the hunt now?”

“Always.” D’s eyes couldn’t be seen inside the darkness of his helmet, but their weight could be felt. “For now however, we are gathering meat. If you wish to purchase some, by all means. Otherwise, you should be on your way. And steer well clear of Those Who Live in Death, unless you too would set this crooked land to rights, and weed from them their Deathroot.”

Tatiana offered the newcomers a warm smile despite the cold, huddled in her sash. “And if you should need healing, I would be happy to oblige you. Be well!”

After some heated volleyball games, much like the rest of her friends, Blazermate went off to do her own thing. Seeing as the others were having fun on the beach doing what they did, Blazermate stuck around for a bit chilling before heading off to take a look at what Limsa itself could offer. It had been non stop fighting with only very small breaks recently, with terrors a plenty. And since it had been so high paced, there really wasn't much time to unwind and review things, especially compared to the last time she had gotten some time to rest and collect herself. Since then, Blazermate had gotten a lot of new parts, which both made her stronger, but also a bit... Well tripping on her new kimono if she wasn't careful was quite annoying. And her shield arm was quite... glitchy at times. So much so she hadn't really used it to hold much of anything since she got it due to how she didn't have good control over its grip.

Blazermate strolled through Limsa, looking at places where non ship girls gathered to see what kind of people even lived here now that she had the time. There were some neat faces, and as Blazermate looked through Limsa, it dawned on her. No one here had a medabot! Nor were there any medabots even moving through the city. Sure, it kind of made sense that with a massive fusion of worlds there wouldn't be too many medabots overall compared to everyone else, but having not met a single other one in a large city like this when almost every person had one from where she was from was still... concerning. Speaking of other robots, they seemed fairly rare outside of that one junkyard thing they had gone through what felt like years now. Thinking to herself, Blazermate came up upon a fancy looking restaurant run by a chef, who seemed to be giving orders to chefs under him to get food out to the clientele in the outside dining area looking upon the vast ocean. Hmm... There were cafe's like that at home, but not to this level of fanciness, even if the fanciness seemed to come more from the food than the location itself. Something she could only look at, but hey, it looked neat!

Blazermate kept touring Limsa, taking in the sights. Farther north from the eatery, Blazermate found a nice place where fighters were sparring and competing with each other for what looked like fun. It wasn't to the death or anything, considering either side could give up at any time, and everyone involved in the brawl got healed up by the nearby healers. That, and while they were shipgirls, they were giving orders to other shipgirls and others that seemed a lot more fresh faced, training them up to protect the city or the surrounding area? One of them a big guy who, while big, seemed extremely clumsy. Seeing a group come off of the sparring ring, Blazermate helped out the other healers with fixing up the fighters, much like she did to other medabots in the aftermath of a robattle. (Assuming she didn't eject their medals themselves.)

This went fine until her suffering arm, probably the weirdest looking part of her, started to act up again when the clumsy big guy tried to swing with a large mace, tripped, and instead landed on top of the living shield. The shield, getting whacked, decided to scream in the man's face, causing him to be pushed back and causing everyone nearby to cover their ears. Blazermate apologized for her shield arm, saying it just acted up sometimes. Considering its looks, while annoyed, some warriors nodded. Still, considering how finnicky this arm was, she'd need to go see someone about this so she could use this arm better. Sure she had a pocket engineer, but he was more for just fixing her up and maintenance, she'd need to find a non spirit kind of engineer for the more advanced stuff. After all, she did absorb the spirit of one of the abyssal commanders and if her shield caused a lot of issues even if she mostly kept it in control, something like the sun princess might have some other... complications.

After leaving the area with a few confused looks due to what had just happened, Blazermate asked around if anyone here was an engineer, and was eventually lead to the blacksmithing part of Limsa. Although compared to the Medabot Corporation this was more or less a cave where smiths pounded heated rocks into fancy shapes! Considering none of the areas she had been in had anything remotely at the technology level as her home, Blazermate wasn't surprised, but was a bit downtrodden at just how low the average technology level of this galeem land was. First Lumbridge then this... If she hadn't found that engineer so early on who knew his way around machines, she'd be in some serious trouble. Sure Tora knew some engineering stuff, but he was who knows where at this point so Blazermate couldn't find him anytime soon. And considering she was the main healer of the group, it would be prudent to make sure her new parts here didn't have any nasty surprises that might surface.

At first, Blazermate talked with the smiths. Being a robot caught their attention, and as she explained her situation, many, many of the smiths didn't really get it. Sure they were looking at her with wonderment, and some were writing down notes as she pulled off the parts on her healing arm to examine them and maybe get them examined, but it was soon clear no one in this place had any clue about the advanced technology behind how a medabot worked. Some did offer some things based of Aether, or ether, or... Well, Blazermate couldn't really get a good idea of what the smiths were talking about as a small shouting match seemed to form, with the argument of Aether vs Ether. Apparently both weren't the same thing but vastly different types of energy used for smithing or engineering or something? Blazermate did hear Tora talk about this when referring to Poppi, but it was still weird. It was as if they were discussing using the Medaforce or something to craft things? When it was clear she wasn't going to get much in the way of help after the argument between the two forms of magical energy, Blazermate put herself back together and as she was about to leave, one of the apprentices of the smithy suggested a shop down near the plaza that might be able to help the medabot, a shop that seemed to make devices that defied reason. Blazermate figured this was some kind of 'magic' thing she had heard about, but decided to go take a look either way. Maybe she could find some cool parts at least.

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Making her way to the alleyway near the plaza she was told to go to, Blazermate found a shop simply named "Mimic's workshop." This shop didn't look too impressive on the outside, but once inside... "Oh, a new customer? Welcome..." The man said, turning around to meet Blazermate's eyes.

Blazermate found Mimic, a big old man with a big beard. For some reason he gave Blazermate a vibe of being Tora's father, even if the two weren't related at all. Mimic looked at Blazermate with a keen interest, almost like the blacksmiths she had just seen. But looking around the shop, this guy was far more used to advanced technology compared to those people with devices around the shop going from staempunk to industrial to glowing magic tech, and the one that caught Blazermate's eye, an M-model tinpet. Watching the medabot look around his store, Mimic watched with curiosity, waiting patiently for her to introduce herself. After getting her look around, Blazermate said. "Hello, I'm Blazermate. Someone at the smithy said you knew a bit more about technology than they do?"

"Yes I do. There hasn't been a technology yet that I haven't been able to copy. Its why I'm called Mimic you know." the old man said with a chuckle. Blazermate wasn't too happy about hearing that, but Medabots outside of their tinpets were extremely easy to maintain so... maybe it wouldn't be so bad? Considering what he had to show in his store, he at least was smart.

"Hm... Well, I kind of need some of my new parts here looked at. I can fix myself, but I got a feeling these parts might be a bit... buggy. " Blazermate said. While her medic parts and abyssal parts seemed to work just fine, it was obvious to Mimic that the creepy demonic looking shield arm of hers was very twitchy and definitely buggy.

"Well, I haven't really seen one of whatever you are before, but I'm sure with a little intuition I can figure it out!" Mimic said with a gung ho attitude. Blazermate wasn't too... enthusiastic about this but if it was just her parts and nothing with her medal or anything it'd be fine. Probably, maybe.

"Well, I guess lets get started... " Blazermate said. She'd soon cheer up though; while Mimic wasn't a medabots technician, he was much more aware of how her inner workings worked than the smithies. Sure he had to look over some of her parts a bit more, but he could point out the basic components inside them without much issue. And as Blazermate took off each part to be examined, Mimic noticed very quickly that her 'skeleton' was very similar to the one he had on his shelf, although a bit wider in areas and pink instead of blue. Considering Blazermate looked like a girl, he could put two and two together very quickly.

First she wanted him to look at her most used part, her medigun and now massive syringe looking sword hybrid. This was the part that Blazermate wasn't as worried about but it was a good idea to get it looked at. And much like Blazermate figured, Mimic didn't see anything wrong with it. Next was her leg parts, which Mimic gave Blazermate the courtesy to look away as she took those off. Seeing as these were only affected by her kimono bottoms, there wasn't much issues with this either, besides the kimono being a bit of a tripping hazard.

Next was the glitchy part, her shield arm. And yeah, this one had problems. While Blazermate knew that this part was a bit... strange looking, it seemed good enough besides the fact that it'd often react to things that struck it without her input. But this part, out of all of her parts, was something that was especially something Mimic's skills could examine well. After a hard look he came to the conclusion that Blazermate would need something to help her comparability with this part; as he explained to Blazermate that this part had a bit of a corrupting influence, and that any demonic things would hold great sway on the medabot without a proper filter for its corrupting influence.

"Huh... That'd explain a lot." Blazermate said. "I did get that in a place where zombies and other weird things were roaming around. This one could control the zombies so I thought it was a really good thing to help my team out at the time. Less enemies on their side, more allies on our side and all that. And then it turned into a shield and that has been really helpful!" Mimic nodded at this, still concerned for the lady medabot, but she wasn't evil or anything so it seemed like she had some level of control over whatever this arm was. Still, as a courtesy he looked at the tinpet under that arm in particular and found that if she had some kind of filter or something, she could remove the glitchiness of this part in particular and be in full control of it at all times. This wasn't something he could offer right away, but he said he'd keep an eye out for a technology of this kind and asked Blazermate to come back later.

Finally was her head part, which as standard for a medabot, also contained her body and medal. Now she was able to remove the head part itself to have Mimic take a look at, the mechanic finding no problems but noting that due to the extra weight offered by whatever the abyssal sun princess gave Blazermate, she would be a bit slower in flying, something Blazermate had noticed. When it came to her body part though, she tried her best to keep her medal hatch and that whole area hidden. Seeing the medabot actually being sheepish about something, Mimic didn't push the issue having a Niece himself. Blazermate did tell him that she was sure that part wouldn't have any issues, and left it at that. Still Mimic was able to get a glance at all the extra features and downsides the medic spirit had given the medabot, and informed her that much like all the other parts, there wasn't an issue per say, but her plating in her shoulders and back was a bit light.

With her checkup complete, Blazermate thanked Mimic. "So... how much do I owe you then?" with the mechanic saying. "Well, if you could tell me what this thing is, seeing as you have a pink looking version of it under your 'parts' I'll consider that payment enough." Mimic then brought up the male tinpet he had on his wall, flipping it over to reveal the spot that Blazermate had been hiding. With all her parts back on and everything, she was much more willing to at least tell him about that.

"Oh thats the medal slot. Basically the medabot brain, soul, and power source. Without a medal you just have a super durable frame, but nothing else." Blazermate said. Mimic requested that Blazermate maybe draw him a picture, since she was unwilling to show that part and from what she said, justifiably so. Blazermate did so, and Mimic was taken aback by how simple such an important part looked. Talking with this man, Blazermate said. "You know, I have a mechanic friend that looks like a feathery onion. But I didn't need much of a checkup at the time so he hasn't actually taken a close look at me like you have. But the constant fighting probably didn't help matters much either..." Mimic nodded as Blazermate thought that maybe Tora would like to know all this too, in case Blazermate got another 'evil' part or something.

The two chatted a bit seeing as there weren't any other customers coming in at the moment, Mimic asking a few questions about Blazermate herself, having not many opportunities to talk to the technology he was tinkering with, with Blazermate telling him what she knew when ti seemed appropriate. After a bit, she changed the subject. "So I am a support medabot, but these enemies we're fighting are getting stronger and stronger, and that last one we had to fight... It was like fighting a massive team of God Emperors with how hard it hit. And while so far I've been able to keep myself safe, I'm sure at some point things will act like they would in a medafight and start targeting me... So yeah, I'll need to make sure I'm at my best to handle that."

"Any reason you can't use more weapons to defend yourself?" Mimic asked, a prudent question, but Blazermate shook her head. "I can use some basic stuff, but I'm a support medabot, not a shooting or melee medabot, so most weapons or advanced acrobatics aren't really something I can do." He nodded, even if Mimic didn't fully understand what Blazermate meant. "Still... Knowing that these parts are working fine, well, besides this one." she said, raising her suffering arm. "'sigh', Its a load off my mind. Considering these parts didn't come from other medabots."

Time passed by as the two talked, but eventually it had to be brought to an end. With a wave Blazermate said goodbye to the kind bearded fellow and said she'd visit later. Having done her tour around town, Blazermate went back to the beach to meet up with the rest of the group. On her way back, she bumped into Nadia, calling her over and running to her with a waving arm. Stopping in front of the catgirl, Blazermate said, her voice very chipper "How has your downtime been? Mines been great! Can't fight 24/7 you know!"

Midna dropped clear of the giga worm’s gaping wound just in time, because the others were hot on her heels, and with blade and bow and arrow, as nearly everyone took a turn at hacking away at the exposed spine. Near everyone. As the desperate assault went underway against the exposed spine Midna got a niggling feeling there was someone missing, and started to do a quick headcount.

Most were joining in the attack, and they were easy to count but some still had work to do. Jesse and Tora where with the cannon, as was Big Band whom she shouted a ”Thanks for the catch” to, because while she’d been flashily attacking their foe they’d almost lost the last of the ammo she had fetched. Also it turned out one of the types of shot she had brought didn’t even fit, which earned the train’s designer, whoever they were, a swift short barrage of insults from the princess.

Thanks for preventing her mistake from being too costly and the discovery of a bit of incomprehensible engineering out of the way, she resumed her scan and realized who was missing: ”Wait where’s Braum!?” she glanced this way and that, but the bare chested tower of muscle was nowhere to be found.

Scowling, she reached out a shadow hand and summoned her Vibrava atop it, before instructing it ”Big bald guy with the mustache and muscles. Spot him, then bring me to him!” she ordered, before hurling it up into the sky. It soared up high on wind and wing and then vanished into a portal, before appearing right back next to her, having got an excellent view from its sky high vantage point.

It gave her a “Vi” before buzzing and skittering over to one side of the train and looking over the edge just as she had feared it would.

”Oh no, Braum!” she called out in anguish as she scrambled over to the side and was met by an absurd sight.

“Hello there princess!” the ever cheerful man from where he was clinging to the side of the train while standing atop his shield, which was surfing across the sand, called back, before adding “as fun as this is, you wouldn't mind lending me a hand, would you?”

The princess stared for a few heartbeats that she really could not afford to waste and then snapped out of her amazement at this absurdity with an ”Yes! Obviously!, on it!” before finding a railing and gripping it with her flesh arms to avoid her slipping off while the shadow hand reached out and grasped his arm tightly. ”Grab onto my arm with your other and I’ll pull you up”

“Just a second. I don’t want to lose shield” he told her to her utter astonishment

”Are you mad?!” she demanded to know

“Braum prefers brave,” he replied with a laugh, before letting go of the railing as she cried out in alarm. The hand on the arm she was holding clasped her arm in turn in one switch motion, while the other reached down and grasped the leading edge of the sand surfing shield (lifting it a bit so as to not have his fingers sandblasted to the bone) he surged backwards, only to yank to a stop as Minda found herself trailing is full wight to the side to the train.

“Ha ha ha! Now this is exhilarating!” he called out as he tilted his weight to ride a touch away from the train before hitting a small dune and using it as a ramp to launch into the air. He did this just in time for Razputin to stick his finger in it and finally force the monster away, its absence dropping the train back to level and adding an extra yank alongside Midna’s panicked pulling that send Braum crashing down onto the metal deck just a hair's breadth away from the princess, sending the Vibrva who had watched all this skittering away in a panic while the Icebourn laughed merrily.

“That was some ride! Thank you for the help, little princess” he told her, once he was done with his merriment

”Yeah, well, now you owe me a ride back” she retorted, still clinging to the banister like a cat to a tree branch.

“Do not worry, Braum never forgets what is owed” he reassured her before offering her a hand of his own to help her down from the banister, which she accepted with shaky limbs. She got an apologetic look from Braum for that, before he suddenly lightened up and hoisted her up and sat her down on his bare shoulder.

”Hey what the big idea” she demanded to know

“I give you ride” he said, brooking no argument on the matter before adding “Now come, let us go see how the battle fares” and moving to do so

Back up onto the top of the train just in time to find out there was a junction, a discovery that was drowned out a moment or two later by the reemergence of the titan behind them, on the side that Braum had almost fallen off on. Exactly the wrong side, as the big gun was pointing the wrong way entirely. At range once more, it engaged its artillery, letting loose another shoal of flying things while hucking another big spiky ball at them too. This left precious little time to make direction decisions.

”Anywhere there aren't people!” Midna shouted generally in response as to where to go, before making a split second decision and directing Braum to go for the ammo car.

She was fairly sure that a bomb bug getting in there would be bad news.

Braum jogged his way over and then leapt the last distance to land where he could stand with his mighty shield protecting the hole, while Midna peeked over the top of it and held her shadowhand high above them both ready to swat at any bugs or bombs that came close.

As the wave of fliers came in, her vibrava skittered over to join them, leaping up with buzzing wings and landing on Braums other shoulder. From there it unleashed a stream of purple dragon fire while to either side of them Minda summoned her four chillfos to chuck their spears and Braum himself sent out a blast of cold to help thin the swarm before it was on top of them.

As for the pod, well, all they could really do was hope it was dealt with by the shooters, and be ready to keep the racks of shells bomb bug free if any got through.

Level: 2
Experience: 11/20
Currently In: Frozen Highlands, Snowy Ruins
Word Count: 604 (+1 Exp)
Albedo @Lugubrious, Linkle @Gentlemanvaultboy

There was still one glaring issue they had to address. Before they continued setting off, Frisk talked with Papyrus for a moment, thinking he should stay in Snowdin and watch over the town for them. As much as they wanted him to join, the whole being forced to fight to the possible death thing worried them. But they promised him that they'd make sure the rest of their friends would be safe. Even his brother. So, waving the sentry goodbye, Frisk hurried back over and took a seat in Linkle's sled when offered.

For the most part, they quietly took in their surroundings. The bustling activity of Snowdin, and the dreadful path towards the Beneviento Estate were traded out for a silence only snowy forests could give. Linkle filled the silence as she caught Frisk up to speed on what's happened so far, and how the world actually worked. The youth listened intently. They grimaced when they were told what happened to Kirby, then breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she said the little guy was healed in time.

Their brows rose when it was mentioned Albedo almost cured himself. There were other means to free people? Guess the Alchemist was just that smart. There was a Master of Masters guy who first taught them how the world worked, and thirteen bad guys they had to fight to reach Galeem. The giant hand sounded annoying too. Dice-headed guildmasters, zombies, and skull hearts, all leading up to Linkle meeting Albedo.

"Atleast you're not alone anymore." Frisk told her with a faint smile. They passed by a ravine, which Linkle went over to check if the guy she fought was still there.

And he wasn't. That's not good.

The skullgirl tried to reassure them and Albedo that the time-freezing guy would only want to fight her, yet Frisk still worried. They couldn't do anything about his freedom at the moment, so they continued on. The sound of crows started to fill the silence after a while, something that caught the Alchemist's attention. They took another detour to find....

Ew.

Frisk's face contorted in disgust. What they found was something that was probably an animal before it's unfortunate harvesting. Apparently it was supposed to turn into ashes upon it's death. Such was another aspect of the world they were in. Albedo decided to shrug it off for now and continue on. Now all of them were on high alert. But the child remained quiet, as to keep an ear out for anything approaching or nearby. The sound of strife for example.

The small party picked up the pace to find a group of hunters; of warriors, mages, and clerics, fighting something that looked like an elephant. Linkle wanted to help, but Albedo didn't want to intervene. Frisk simply watched from their spot on the sled. The killing blow was dealt, and the monster was defeated. Turns out the hunters were the reason for the previous corpse, and were prepped to harvest the contents of this one.

The child decided to wait back on top of the ledge for a moment, and watched the other two make their way down to say hello. Once they knew the hunters wouldn't attack, they followed behind, giving a slight wave to the other team. The knight in gold and silver, D, explained why they hunted game and about "Those that Live in Death". Sounds like zombies.

"Think we'll run into those Life-Death things??" Frisk asked Linkle in a whisper. Oh, they almost forgot. They glanced over to the magic users among the hunters. "Where'd you learn your magic??" They asked.

@Zoey Boey

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The sudden arrival of a trio of ravenous ex-prisoners interrupted the calm around the mostly wound down buffet, much to its few remaining guest’s initial displeasure. That they were cute and genuinely in need of sustenance calmed that disquiet a fair bit eventually, but before Kamek could warm to the trio she first had an unexpected patient to attend too.

At the sound of their rude interruption the Koopa tilted down the three folded sun mirror she had been using to sunbath (in the reptilane sense of the word) and first glared at the trio before, her eyes drifted back to the person who had invited them, and went wide at the sight of the wounds on the hero of the wilds.

She set down her mirror next to a bowl of grapes that sat on a little table beside her, and then pushed herself out of the deck chair she had been lounging in.

”Moons and Stars Link, we are supposed to be having a day off. But noooo, first the young master had to get Mimi hurt and now you are too. Whatever happened?” she asked as she hurried over, hands rumagin around her replacement robnes till she found her wand. She waved it in the air to produce a quartet of doppe gangers and then got to converting them into healers while the hero explained himself.

“There was this glowing dais out in the ocean.” The hero replied, dropping cross-legged on the sandy beach. “So, I went and stood on it. As you do. It took me to a…” He cast his gaze around the beach, trying to find the right way to describe the place. “It was like this beach, but darker. Empty. There was this barrier around the dais I couldn't cross. They,” he pointed to the triplets tearing up the buffet. “Told me it was a jail, a place for ‘losers’. The way you got out was winning a fight with whoever came in. Luckily that was only half true, I think they just wanted to have some fun with me, because after I got destroyed they were good enough to pull me out anyway. I think anyone getting out broke the jail.”

“Here’s the really interesting part.” he continued, leaning in. “They were already free when I met them. No heart needed. Now, what happened to Junior?”

The mage resisted making a comment about and meddling with what they did not understand, and instead set to her healing and alleviating any fears about Jr’s situation before discussing this prison ”Oh don’t you worry. The young master and his pokemon are fine. Apparently people who own them have to spar with each other when they meet and so he got into two of those.”

“Oh, yeah.” Link added, relieved. “There was a pair of kids in the Tournament that did the same thing. It’s like a common courtesy with Pokemon trainers.”

”He won the first and made a friend, and lost the second to some bully who I believe his royal majesty is having a word with at the moment” The mage said, just before a familiar roar rumbled across the beach. ”I believe that would be that talk beginning just now” the mage said with a slightly sinister smile, before directing her white mage clones to start healing Link and focusing their conversation back on his own escapade.

”Now as for this gate, that is quite a strange thing to just have sitting about on a public beach. Are people just being sucked in and out and no one did anything about it?” she asked as Link’s wounds were washed away by her magics.

“I don’t think so. The way they were acting it’s like I was the first guest they had ever entertained.” He replied as the magic closed wounds and scrubbed out scorch marks. “If Galeem put them away, maybe nobody else can see the jail? I tried asking them, but they were more interested in playing with me.”

”How strange. Yet you said you simply stepped on it and it occurred?” The mage dismissed her clones and cupped her beak thoughtfully ”In that case we’d have to assume that those under Galeem’s influence cannot enter? Or cannot be trapped? Perhaps that is what they are, traps? Made to catch anyone who slipped the noose?” she suggested, missing the mark a touch with her theory.

“It’s out of the way for a trap.” Link replied, getting back to his feet and rolling his shoulders to check for any lingering aches. “Unless it’s trying to catch free fish. We could go check it out if you like, maybe you’d recognize something I couldn't. I’m pretty sure it’s off though.”

”And yet you stepped in it anyway” she pointed out teasingly before sighing and saying ”But yes, I suppose I put a magical eye to the situation, see if there is anything lingering to discover” and going to fetch her broom. She picked it up and mounted it, hovering into the air and beginning to move off towards the gate, before adding ”oh and see if you can get anything more out of those girls once they have stated their hunger” as she drifted past Link.

“Yeah, but I would have stepped into it sooner if it were next to the road.” Link replied jokingly as Kamek gathered her broomstick and set off, giving him one last task. Link waved to the magikoopa. “I’ll handle it. They’re my responsibility, after all. Unless Bowser decides to adopt them.” Speaking of that, Link turned and started up the beach toward the buffet and calling out to their hostess. “Sorry Miss Kazuki, they’re with me and they haven't eaten in a while.”

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The grip of Raiden’s hands tightened as the assault against the large creature became fiercer with every second. Holding on to Tharja and Robin with all of his might, his heels began digging into the metal of the train’s deck, making a terrible screeching noise as he grinded against the tipping train. Every passing second, the cyborg felt his grip slipping more and more as everyone continued attacking. Afraid he was about to lose his own grip, he looked backwards over his shoulder to see the counterbalance tipping further and further. Surely the end of their campaign was coming soon. It sure seemed that way at least. “Come on guys!! We got this!!” He shouted with desperation in his voice.

Sectonia didn’t have too many issues when the train tilted back onto the rails with the big creature retreating due to all the damage it took, only needing to fly up a bit to avoid needing to hold on like the others. She did grab the Scout so he didn’t fall over, and soon the train was back on the move, with the creature soon retaliating with another one of those big spike things that caused so much damage before.

Flying forward with the big thud that the train created with its return to the tracks, Raiden safely returned Tharja and Robin to the deck of the train as he recovered from his backwards fall. He’d brush off his chest from the tumble as he stood back onto his two feet, recovering his lost footing. “Is everyone alright? Nasty turn that shit took.” He asked as he scouted the rest of the train. He wasn’t the only one who needed a break. Sure, his body could be as limber as cybernetics could make him, but damn was his age catching up with him.

The Scout, having gotten to his feet, thanked the queen before going off to do his tasks on the train. Seeing the attack being launched, Sectonia pointed up at the attack and said. ”No one will be if that attack hits again. This train can’t take much more of those type of attacks.” Sectonia said.

Raiden heard the queen speak from above, looking upwards he nodded in her direction. “You’re not wrong… if those explosive… things, get on the train again…. Well, we’ll be in some deep shit.” He scratched his metallic chin for a moment, contemplating the best course of action to take. “If I could get up there… Then maybe I would be able to split the pod in half.” The idea was insane, yet with Raiden’s ability to precisely halve anything that came his way… It was worth a shot. There wasn’t much time.

“Miss… Whatever your name is.” He said referring to Sectonia with a glace. “Is there any way you can buy me some time to find a way up?” His voice had managed to hide his panic in the moment. If they didn’t act fast, that thing was sure to strike the train again and leave scattered living bombs all over again.

”Queen Sectonia, ruler of…” Sectonia said to Raiden’s question, beginning her introduction. seeing as they didn’t have much time she stopped herself before she got going. ”... Yes I can. The issue is getting rid of it. ” she said. Still, the object was going to soon be at its arc, so if Sectonia was to intercept it there wasn’t much time. “Leave that to me, all I need is time.” Glancing at the cyborg newcomer who, out of everyone, seemed to be born in combat, who needed maybe a bit of beauty treatment, Sectonia began to fly at the falling object, using the power granted by the Chaos Heart to conjure a very strong rainbow shield around herself as she summoned her swords.

“Didn’t know that was possible… Huh.” Raiden said, shrugging off his confusion about the nature of magic once again. Now that the spiked pod was being dealt with, this gave Raiden time to contemplate how he could get an attack up there. Sure, he could throw his blade like he did against the Hegel… Or he could even attempt to launch himself up there with a running vault… But both plans would more than likely fail with an attempt. If he threw his blade, he could scatter the Bolsepia amongst the ship once more… And if he did perform a stunt to get up there, there’s no possible way he could reach it OR safely return.

He didn’t need luck or a daring stunt… What Raiden needed was a plan. A REAL plan… and soon. Looking over at the crew, he remembered that there was another strong armed man who could get him up there faster than any trick or precise throw. “Keep that thing up there! I’m coming up!” He shouted to Sectonia. There wasn’t much he could do for inspirational words in the heat of battle.

It wasn’t like Sectonia could do much but hold the colossal object back. Holding her swords in a guard, she eventually met the attack head on, her shield holding, however the attack didn’t just stop, it kept pushing her, as if it was homing in on the train. Just stopping it momentarily wouldn’t be enough to have it miss the train. Sectonia wasn’t too surprised at this fact at this point, but it was a slight hope dashed. Still, she wasn’t sure how long she could hold this thing back.

Raiden quickly jogged to the brass man who acknowledged him at the beginning of their insane train ride. He was hoping that he would agree to Raiden’s crazy idea, but anything was worth a shot if it meant saving the crew extra clean up work with the makeshift explosive creatures. “Listen, I got a plan, but it’s gonna take some brawn.” He spoke up to Big Band. “It’s gonna sound crazy, but I need you to throw me at the pod. If I can get close to it, I can split that thing in two.”

To the swordsman’s surprise, Band didn’t seem to give the absurd idea a second thought. “You got it, hot shot.” He deployed a giant mechanical arm, all brass tubes and silver cylinders, with its finger plates spread wide. Inside yawned the launch tube, where anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in his classic Take the A-Train grab could typically look forward to getting pile-drived over and over again. A slight adjustment to the inner workings, however, meant that Raiden could skip straight to the part where he got spat out at superfluous speed. The detective scooped Raiden up and pulled back on the slide. As he prepared for launch, Raiden clenched onto his currently readied weapon, ready to fly for the sky. Finally, with his brass knuckle as wound-up as it would get, Band gave the signal. “Let’s drop the beat!”

He launched Raiden as he punched, and like a rocket the swordsman took off. Once he had blasted, he hurled directly towards the pod at deadly impact speeds. As he clutched his sword close to his chest. As he rocketed ballistically closer and closer to the point of interception, he prepared his blade for attack. “Outta the way!!!” He shouted to Sectonia as he got dangerously close to her.

Sectonia had been maintaining her gird and concentration as Raiden had been making his plans to launch himself up to the incoming missile, and while her shield held for a good while, it was getting close to breaking. It was at this time Sectonia heard Raiden, but seeing as she was too busy keeping this thing from getting past, or through, her, she couldn’t do much but slightly glance at the cyborg.

Being unable to heed his warning, Raiden approached faster than expected. With the queen still in the way, it left very little for him to do. He hated to do this, but he’d have to push off of her for recon. “Sorry in advance!” He shouted as he grabbed onto the lower half of her body, narrowly dodging her stinger as he placed his feet back on to her body and used her as a living trampoline to get in front of her and closer to the orb. As he clenched his fist tighter around his blade, he slung it into an attacking position. Sectonia wasn’t ready to be treated like that so suddenly, which did break her concentration momentarily as she blushed a bit in embarrassment, giving Raiden a glare as he used her abdomen as a makeshift platform to get up into a cutting position, her shield breaking at the same time as he launched off her.

Now with a temporary boost, Raiden came to a sudden realization. There was no way he was coming back from this safely and without enough time to react, there was no way he’d be able to ask Sectonia for an impromptu pick-me-up. Not to mention considering the fact he used her to spring off towards the rocketing pod, she very well could be more than pissed at him. Consequences for quick thinking.

His blade held vertically, he prepared a charged swing as he took a momentary deep breath. With his blade mode, he was able to swiftly cut clean through the pod before it got too close to the train and caused it to knock off of the rails… God this beast was relentless. Now having executed his attack, Raiden’s blade mode had triggered offline as seemingly time resumed for him in his moment of attack. Releasing the breath he had held in from before the attack, Raiden just as quickly as he chopped through the pod, no began plummeting downwards towards the scorching sands of the desert. There was little time to examine his work on the pod, so he hoped he made enough work out of it to save the crew.

Sectonia, having taken a fair amount of damage, even with her chaos heart shield, from blocking such a large missile for an extended time, saw and felt that Raiden had managed to cut the pod and stop its ability to propel itself and home in on the train by well, chopping it in half. The cyborg couldn’t fly though, but lucky for him Sectonia was below to catch him, desummoning her swords to catch him. However, while he was much smaller than the queen, he was also heavier than her thanks to all his cybernetics. This was something that was made quite apparent as catching him made Sectonia do a bit of an unstable flip before she was able to regain her composure and slowly fly back down to the train, Raiden taking both of her hands to hold. Sectonia, as the pair descended, gave Raiden a glare for what he had done a bit earlier, having fully recomposed herself.

Thanks to the quick rescue from Sectonia, he did not wind up dead on the desert floor. He felt bad having her carry back his steel body, but luckily it wasn’t as heavy as he was back in South America. It was easy to say that cybernetics were not as advanced as they were before 2018. With his newer body he obtained fighting Desperado, Raiden was much lighter and nimble than he was when he fought alongside Snake those many years back, which definitely saved Sectonia at least SOME of the workload of carrying him.

“Thanks for the quick save, Queen Sectonia.” He nodded in genuine appreciation for her efforts, even trying his best to keep formality. While many of the crew had hopefully dealt with the other Akrids the large sand worm had spit out, he returned his attention back to the queen. “Oh, and sorry for using you like that to get to that pod. Only idea I had besides shoving you outta the way like a dick.”

Sectonia appreciated Raiden having the proper amount of formality, and while she did understand the situation had to happen as it did to deal with that attack, she still glared at him, but a lot less harshly than the initial glare. If the cyborg had known Sectonia prior, he’d know this glare was what she gave those she was inspecting more than anything. She then said. ”... Good job cutting that attack in half. You're quite strong and will make an excellent minion.” as she approached the train, a bit tired from having to both block that missile and carry Raiden back down to the ground.

Confused by her general comments after being set down, he looked at the queen with some shock in his expression. “Well, I’ve been a minion before, won’t change anything here I suppose, so long as nothing you're doing breaks my moral code.” He said, playing along with what she had said. The last thing he needed was an enemy, so for now, he’d play along with her belief of him being under her servitude.

Sectonia nodded at the cyborg, drifting down to take a rest from carrying him. ”Good, good. We will need to find you and the others some rewards when this thing is taken care of.” Sectonia said, looking at the others dealing with the Red Eye, the team of her, Raiden, and Big Band having taken care of the large threatening attack. ”Further introductions will need to wait until that thing is dead however. Such an ugly beast…” Sectonia did take a bit of a beating blocking that attack, so she was feeling the damage from this fight even with the slight regeneration her pipe of insight was giving her.

“Probably a good idea. God knows what it’s gonna throw at us next.” He sighed from exhaustion, if the rest of the crew had managed to get their work in while Raiden carved the pod, then hopefully they’d be that much closer to victory. Keeping his blade close, all Raiden could do now was wait. Sectonia kept an eye on her other minions as well. So far this beast was all brawn or minions, but it could have something else waiting for them as it started to fear its own mortality.

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After desperately straining against the press of Red Eye against the gun, the attack team succeeded and drove the beast away. It's sudden withdrawal threw everyone off balance, but it was a lot better than being flung from the train itself. The octopath travelers wasted no time getting back up after they were thrown against their consoles. The rough ride would most likely leave bruises on many of the Seekers, though the turbulence caused them more fatigue and wariness than pain.

The monster retreated again under the sand, giving everyone a moment to breath. Joker returned from the front of the train with news just as Red Eye began to burst out of the ground again.

A junction? Primrose chanced a look ahead of the train, refocusing her attention for a moment, but found that the only thing she could see at the moment was more sand. She could guess the options the rail junction might lead them to... back to the wide open desert headed to Parnasse, or swinging back around toward Al Mamoon? If it were between those two choices, then it was obvious which way they should go.

"The oasis," Primrose said, near breathless as she pulled her eyes back to where red eye resurfaced, launching another assault at them. She recalled Gnorbu mentioning that it was hardly ever visited, and true to his word when they'd pulled into it yesterday there wasn't a soul around other than the Seekers. "The water might slow it down."

She really hoped that would be true. It might have a harder time moving through mud, it might not be able to swim at all if they found a deep enough pool. They could make a last stand there, because the alternative was continuing on over the canyon. She had a vision of the beast destroying the track behind them, sending itself and the train with all of it's harried passengers into the windy depths.

Pushing the image from her mind Primrose stepped forward to prepare and defend the train. If only she could dance for the vehicle itself, make it faster or harder, but alas. She raised her arms into the air, channeling her magic. Now that the teamwork of Big Band, Sectonia and the latest metallic newcomer had taken care of the explosive pod all that remained was the trilid swarm. Her aim was to take out as many as possible in one shot. In one hand, her dark magic swelled. In the other, the flames of pyromancy licked at the air and grew larger. The magics began to swirl together, generating a great black fire orb. Primrose's body began to glow as well, swelling with power enough to boost her spell once, twice, three times. The orbs size was comically large at this point, and as soon as their comrades in the air were safely back on the train she launched it at where the trilid swarm was thickest. The size of the spell had no effect on it's speed, and once it touched a target the orb exploded in a shower of dark flames that burned every trilid they touched. With a large portion of the attackers reduced to ash, the rest could be picked off.

And with a lack of ranged options, Therion had busied himself with the Railway Gun once more by slamming the panel to turn it as fast as he could. He doubted that the device would be damaged by his pace, and even in his agitated state (his thoughts shuffling between why am I even here, I'm going to die, and fuck this thing, I refuse to die) he managed to make sure he wasn't damaging himself either, otherwise he wouldn't have been surprised if his palm came away bloody.

After what seemed like an agonizingly long amount of time, the cannon completed a 180 and finished turning on it's track. With the barrel pointed in the right direction, Therion called up to the woman in the gun's cockpit. "Shoot it!"

He left her with that bit of redundant advice, breaking away from the gun's control panels and hoping down onto the body of the train while the others were dealing with the aerial bombardment. Somebody had to go tell the driver where to take this thing, and with everyone else preoccupied and his own job completed, Therion figured that task now fell to him. He'd heard Midna's very unhelpful vote of anywhere that was uninhabited, and Primrose's mention of an oasis, and as he moved he heard other suggestions hurled around mostly pertaining to a huge pit in the desert - so that's where they'd be going.

Dagger in hand for protection in case any of the akrid swarm tried dive-bombing him or the conductor, Therion raced to the front of the train. He entered the lead car to find their bird-like driver looking anxious, but to be fair there were plenty of reasons to be. "Take this thing in whatever direction there's a big pit," Therion spoke. The words sounded a bit foolish to his ears, but his tone was coarse and commanding as if he actually had a clue of what he was talking about.

Frisk @Majoras End Albedo @Lugubrious

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Those That Live In Death. Frisk didn't seem to understand the implications of the name and Albedo didn't indicate one way or another, but Linkle tensed up in repose to the Skull Heart's prod. She was suddenly very glad that they had left Papyrus behind, but their was a intrusive though weeding into her brain, a red-tinged suggestion such people should be dealt with quickly and decisively. That there was no way they wouldn't notice what she was, that perhaps they already knew like Freya had and were simply waiting for the right moment to discard their mask of civility and reveal their true faces.

That was the Heart, she told herself. The Skull Heart was trying to set her on edge. It would love it if she was forced into conflict with these people. He forced it down, redirecting that nervous energy to other avenues. D's explanation of his power did interest her, and she used it as cover. "I'm Linkle." She introduced herself, giving a short bow to the knight and priestess. "We're traveling from Snowdin up to Dragonspine. We haven't seen any life-deaths coming from that way. We're more concerned with a man that can't die. I don't suppose you've ever tested that Litany on somebody like that?"

Jesse steadied herself, grabbing onto the railing. The giant desert worm pushed against the train, almost causing it to tip. This caused her to catch sight at Braum who was shield surfing by hanging onto the railing. “Um. Hang in there, buddy.” She gave him a hesitant thumbs up, and then held on tighter.

Fortunately the band of characters at the top managed to cause enough pain and damage to get the thing to sink back under the sand and the train was righted. Jesse took a moment to breathe, glancing around at the others. “Honestly.” She said.

As Midna went to fetch Braum, and Prim’s new friend Thereon button smashed away- “Seriously. Who designed this shit?” - Jesse took a few pot shots at the oncoming swarm but mostly focused on clambering into the cockpit.

The massive cannon slowly turned towards the Red-Eye, and Jesse pre-emptively adjusted its aim so it wouldn’t go too low, or too high.

When it was all nice and aligned, and Therion gave the order, Jesse nodded and looked down the scope. “Cover your ears! Three two one go!” She slammed the trigger, firing off another shot towards the center of the creature’s body. Since it was parallel this time, it would dig straight into it. Hopefully it wasn’t another glancing shot.

Though the assembled Seekers bombarded the incoming Bolsepia pod with everything they had, it took a coordinated effort between Sectonia, Big Band, and Raiden to stop the imminent disaster for good. The cyborg swordsman sailed skyward in spectacular fashion, first launched by Band and then springboarded even higher by his insectoid ally, until he reached the pinnacle and unleashed his Blade Mode for the whole desert to see. His blade carved into the giant organic mass fast as lightning, each slice shearing straight through from one side to another, and in a matter of seconds the pod plus all its contents were reduced to ribbons that plummeted to and blew up harmlessly on the desert sand below.

A chorus of assorted hurrahs heralded Raiden’s arrival as Sectonia brought him back down to the train. In one awe-inspiring display he’d gone from dubious stranger to certified hero in their eyes, and Tora most of all. “Meh-meh-meeeeh!” he cheered, spinning with glee as he jumped into the air. “Friend sliceypon save train from bomb bugs!”

“Don’t forget Sectonia!” Poppi chided him as the giant wasp touched down. Despite her best attempts to save face, the effort of keeping up with the train throughout the whole stunt had taken its toll, leaving her tuckered out for the time being.

Tora clapped his wings together as he continued to dance. “Tora not forget! She do good job too, meh-meh!”

“Bravo, you two!” Big Band tipped his hat to the pair, more than impressed by what they’d managed to accomplish.

With the Bolsepia threat cleanly nipped in the bud, only the Trilid remained to challenge the heroes aboard the train. As the swarm approached the gunners and casters opened fire, but the Akrid were every bit as bothersome as before. Midna’s summons speared several with each lance, the Thieves’ turrets blazed with explosive rounds, and Ciella’s arrows tore through swathes of Trilid at a time, but without Sectonia’s wide-range magic to fill in the gaps the swarm was pushing through. Poppi downgraded to QT mode for better defense and missile coverage, while Braum readied his shield to protect the caboose’s volatile contents, but Primrose stepped up to the plate. Even as her hair and flowing garb whipped in the wind, she poured all her concentration into the palms of her hands, bringing forth one wellspring each of pyromancy flame and dark magic. With teeth gritted she pressed them together, melding a raging sphere of fearsome black-white flame. Its intensity grew along with its size, larger and larger, until finally Primrose hurled her pitch-back pyroclasm into the incoming swarm. Its explosion sent a wave of heat across the area, as hot and weighty as the fire itself, which splashed like magma from a volcano to incinerate every Akrid it touched. Only stragglers were left behind, easy pickings and so few in number that the threat was as good as gone.

“Meh-meh-meeeeh!” Tora cheered again as he bounced into action, with Poppi right behind. While Therion mashed his console to turn the cannon around, the Nopon hurried back down below to assess the damage. Thanks to Jesse and Band’s efforts earlier, a fresh Cobalt was already loaded in the main gun, with a second fully powered up in the charger. There was one problem, however: the charging station was now offline, with an empty T-ENG canister popped out from the top. Replace thermal energy canister, the console displayed in big, flashing letters. Poppi skipped off toward the caboose to find one.

In only a couple more seconds, the cannon had turned its gleaming barrel on Red Eye, a chilling ultimatum that the behemoth lacked the capacity to appreciate. Therion barked out the words that everyone wanted to hear, and as Jesse began her countdown everyone clapped their hands over their ears, bracing themselves for the weapon’s cataclysmic report, and it did not let them down. The Dragonfire roared for a third time, evaporating a massive chunk in Red Eye’s left side, right on top of one of the throbbing red weak spots that the Thieves helped soften up with their turrets. Red Eye’s howl shook the earth as it thrashed, driven to even further agony by the immense, grisly wound. Still, an uncharged Cobalt shell was no substitute for an energized Devil’s Roar, and while it was still good progress toward the behemoth’s demise, the damage was a whole lot less than last time. Red Eye fell back, but it did not retreat underground; instead, it veered sideways, positioning itself directly behind the train once more.

The Seekers got back to work straightaway. With only a slight turn needed from Primrose and an energized Cobalt ready to load, it took only a token effort to ready the cannon once more. This time, however, Red Eye seemed to have learned. As it trailed behind the Railway Gun, growing closer and closer, it kept its giant, armored maw clamped shut. No matter how many of the little eyes on its jaws the heroes shot, it refused to budge. As it continued to encroach Jesse held her fire, worried that she’d waste the round on a hard target. The seconds passed like molasses in this standoff of titanic proportions.

Meanwhile, Therion reached the engine with the news. “A pit?” the conductor squawked, looking understandably frazzled by everything that had been going on even before the thief’s sternly-given order struck him. “D’ya mean Hollow Heights, laddie? With such a big train, the whole peckin’ track might come crashin’ down beneath us! Or…beneath it. Say, that just might work! Full speed ahead!”

Back at the train’s other end, the situation suddenly came to a head. Red Eye dug down and, with a burst of speed burst up from beneath the sand. Jesse opened fire. The shell smashed into the upper section of Red Eye’s gargantuan jaw, blowing through hard shell and bristly teeth, but it wasn’t enough to stop the behemoth’s attack. The tip of its jaw erupted beneath the caboose, hurling the entire train car upward and sideways. It flew from the track in a scene of transfixing horror. The others could only watch as Braum leaped from the top of the doomed armory, using an ability to zoom straight in front of a more securely-positioned ally. Behind him the caboose ripped free from both the coupling and the tracks, tumbling to the left and crashing end over end across the sand until all the ammunition inside went off in one heart-stopping catastrophe. Through the cloud of acrid smoke and plume of sand Red Eye appeared a moment later, wounded but not crippled, and ready to deliver the Railway Gun to a similar fate.

Ciella pursed her lips. “It’s gaining on us. Slowly but surely.” She considered transforming and flying off then and there, but decided to stick it out a little longer, and see if these heroes came up with anything.

It took a few moments for Tora to swallow his sheer terror and find his voice. “N-no real damage to Railway Gun!” he squeaked up from below. “B-but no more armory, either!”

“That means no more shells,” Big Band growled. He watched as Red Eye’s jaws opened wide, and though it had fallen far behind after Jesse’s broadside, Ciella was right about it gaining on them. It was like staring death in the face, painfully slow but terrifyingly unavoidable, and it left the detective paralyzed. Until he remembered the special shell. “Wait, we still got one!” He plucked the Wrath shell from the reserve spot on the cannon loader. “But this one didn’t fit!”

Tora had come up from below, his expression one of dumb dread, but when he saw the shell in band’s hand his eyebrows shot up. “MEH!” he cried. “That Wrath shell! It strongest of lot, but it not go in normal loader! We need use crane loader, and for that, we need cannon straight forward, meh!”

Big Band inhaled sharply. Could they do it? Did they have enough time to spin the cannon all the way forward, load this grace-given round, and then swing it all the way back? “Well, not like we got a choice here.” He grabbed on tight to that ray of hope, and like the word of law, held it higher. “Y’all heard the man! Less ya wanna be worm food, let’s boogie!” he shouted.

One More Hit! (?)

D nodded when Linkle introduced herself, although Tatiana went as far as to give a nice curtsey. “So nice to meet you, miss Linkle!” In doing so she nearly tripped over her own feet, but she managed to steady herself with a helping hand from D on her shoulder as the Skullgirl explained her group’s destination.

“We haven’t had the pleasure,” D replied to her question. “The Litany of Proper Death, by itself, is not an offensive incantation. Its purpose is more as utility, to deal the final blow and usher the departed off in the true and correct manner. If your aim is to slay an invulnerable man, you must first come by a method of harming him–in any meaningful way, that is.”

Frisk’s question seemed to puzzle the hunter of the dead, as far as Albedo could tell. While the man’s expression was inscrutable, his tone of voice gave the strong impression of a raised eyebrow as he replied. “Our power is not magic. Indeed, it is a far cry from the self-important erudition of the scholars, casting away all things sacred in their obsessive glintstone studies.” While his reply couldn’ be called ‘vehement’ when delivered in such a steely and measured tone, it bore a profound personal touch nonetheless, albeit in a different fashion from his denouncement of Those Who Live in Death. Albedo couldn’t help but wonder if D still nursed scars from conflict with the glintstone scholars he alluded to, at some point in the past.

“Our miracles and incantations are the result of faith,” Tatiana explained, her tone a little more gentle and understanding now that she knew Frisk to be a layman. “They are invocations of a higher power, capable of truly incredible things. Heavenly light and lightning, holy healing, cures for maladies and defenses against attacks of all kinds, banishment of evil, all made possible by our wholehearted deference! The only thing it can’t do, it seems, is make me any less clumsy.” She smiled and patted the child’s head. “If you’re interested, I have good news! I’m sure it could all be yours too, so long as you believe.”

At that, D gave a dry chuckle. “Would that it were so easy. Even with the Erdtree right there, its golden glory plain to see for all, men and women of true faith seemed few and far between. And now, in this tractless land, we few must persist with nary a glint of gold.”

“And yet our miracles shine no less brightly.” The reality check did not seem to bother Tatiana. She merely shrugged as she smiled. “Perhaps faith can only truly mean something in absence of definitive proof.”

“Hmph.” D glanced idly over at the Gammoth, which his clergymen were still working tirelessly to carve. “Such musings are none of my business. Only to be a blade against defilement, a hunter of the dead.” His gaze seemed to linger on Linkle for a moment, as if suspecting something, and after waiting a brief moment Albedo cleared his throat.

“It sounds as though you and Sister Rosaria might get along,” the alchemist mentioned. “In Mondstadt, where I’m from, she is a nun in service to the church of Barbatos, the God of Freedom. It is said that Barbatos, seeking not to interfere with the freedom of the people, is the most seldom seen and heard among all the gods, and likewise Rosaria takes a rather hands-off approach. She is more concerned with practical matters, such as the disposal of anything that poses a threat to Mondstadt’s citizens.” He crossed his arms. “There was even a time in which she investigated me, and I was pleased to ultimately prove her suspicions unwarranted.”

D gave a noncommittal grunt, but he did turn his attention elsewhere. Linkle was safe for now.

Despite being pretty thirsty after her long nap, Nadia kept herself under control and sipped her Mai Tai slowly, savoring the sweet and tangy blend of syrup, lime, and Curaçao that overlaid its rum. Her gem-given ability to regenerate made her a lot more resistant to inebriation than the average skinny twenty-year-old, so she wasn't worried about that necessarily, but today's mission was to slow down and relax, after all. She propped herself up with her elbow on the standing table by the bar and watched people come and go, up and down the beach and through the shallows of Heaven's Edge. Even if the Kanzuki Estate was private, the strip of sand between it and the sparkling water was not, so all sorts came and went in a steady trickle between the resorts to the north and Boiling Bay to the south. Though spared a night of gruesome conflict and eldritch horror, the cityfolk of Limsa Lominscuttle Town seemed just as eager to celebrate the end of the Abyssal war as the Seekers. Even a number of shipgirls, mostly unrecognizable as such without their rigging, showed up to enjoy the simple pleasures of the ocean blue. Nadia only realized that fact because she recognized Heinrich from yesterday's naval battle, thanks not just to her distinctive giant braid and their shared appreciation for crop tops, but for the shipgirl's incredible courage and tenacity against overwhelming odds. While they didn't really know one another, their shared struggle and victory made them sisters in arms nonetheless. As Heinrich went by on her way to the bubbling hot springs of Boiling Bay, Nadia gave her a wave, filling it with all her gratitude and respect, and the shipgirl shot her a casual salute with a grin.

It wasn't just locals that happened to pass Nadia's way. In the midst of her people-watching, she heard a familiar light clank-clank-clank, and turned with a smile to see Blazermate approaching. "Heya!" Nadia greeted, waving the Medabot over to her table. "For 'shore'! I've been havin' a whale of a time 'round here. Good food, good games, good vibes! After we got done with volleyball, me and Ace wandered around the shallows a while. It was paw-sitively delightful--more kinds of fish and coral and stuff than I knew even existed! I ran into some otters, and they were so cute! If you can go underwater without, y'know, rustin' or shortin' out or anything, you really 'otter'!"

She giggled at her terrible pun, shifting her weight from one hip to the other. "Anyhow, I'm glad to hear you're havin' a good time. I was kinda worried ya might feel let down, actually, 'cause you can't enjoy restin', sunbathin', or even food and drink. 'Specially 'cause...well, you really, really deserve it! I mean, the whole crew would probably be sleepin' with the fishes withoutcha. So, I guess what I'm tryin' to say is, thank you. Thanks for keepin' us alive, Blaze."

"Good to hear! Yeah, I can walk underwater no problem, but without aqua parts I can't swim or anything, I just sink like a rock." Blazermate said, grabbing a spot at Nadia's table. Nadia then made a few comments about Blazermate not being able to participate in all the organic pleasures Limsa offered, at which Blazermate shrugged. "To be honest, I miss TV and the internet. Thats how medabots usually get their enjoyment without going out and doing stuff. I can dream though, but I also don't need to sleep. Naps can be fun, but until like, today, there hasn't been a chance to have one!" Blazermate said, getting more animated as she continued to speak exemplifying Nadia's point about all the healing she had been doing.

"Thanks though. I appreciate it. I've been on medabot teams where they just ignore the contribution the healer gives the team And those are.... yeah...." With that said, Blazermate went into describing the day she had, having walked around and toured Limsa itself, noting how there was only one shop here that had any experience with her level of technology to do some kind of examination, and how she ran into a big guy with a big beard that could maybe be a relative of Tora, being a big round mechanic. "... And he told me to come back in a little while as he might have some piece to make this shield arm thing less glitchy. He was really worried that it was evil or something." Blazermate concluded.

As the Medabot recounted all the adventures she'd gotten up to, Nadia was happy to just listen and drain her glass bit by bit. Blazermate really gave off the impression of the perky, chatty friend who could go on and on about the little things for hours on end, the sort of steadfast companion who helped keep things real no matter how weird stuff got. It was easy to imagine her as a person, maybe a nurse, with giant pigtails and bright blue eyes, too desensitized by her profession to be innocent and bubbly, but happy to open up and make the most of her days off. That a machine could be one of the most normal and relatable people around really was amazing.

"It does look pretty evil, to be fair," Nadia remarked at the end of her friend's tale. "You got it from the Dead Zone, right? You couldn't pay me to fuse with anything outta that zombie-infested hellhole. I'm just glad you guys came along when ya did, 'cause that was the worst police station I've ever been stuck in, and considerin' how things are in New Meridian that's sayin' something." She sighed, shaking her head, and downed the last of her Mai Tai. "Still, runnin' around with those pro demon hunters for a bit was pretty hiss-terical! Just mowin' through all the creeps without a care in the world. And those fights with that Minos monster and Marie were badass! Even if we did almost get killed. Or worse." The memory of Linkle wishing on the Skull Heart in her place sent a chill down Nadia's spine despite the tropical heat. "I hope that poor girl's okay, wherever she is."

She looked back at Blazermate with a wry smile. "Either way, the Dead Zone's history nyaow, and good goddamn riddance! First that, then the Bottomless Sea...it's really just one nightmare after another, huh? Makes a carefree day like this that much sweeter. Life's a real beach sometimes."

"Ugh, tell me about it. I got this part just to deal with all those zombies! Like... Did you see all the zombies in that place? I figured being able to command them would make things easier. It did.... for awhile til those fungus things came around. " Blazermate said, agreeing with Nadia about the Dead Zone. "At least this thing came with a fairly decent shield and making zombies has been somewhat useful, but yeah." Since Blazermate didn't have to worry too much about being comfortable, unlike Nadia her stance was a bit more rigid with her upper body being the only thing that was really moving while she talked. Blazermate didn't really mind Nadia's puns. Where she came from puns were enjoyed, not hated, by the vast majority of people, so while others might find it annoying, she was completely fine with it. After all, to keep on punning took skill.

"I've got a feeling that the 'almost got killed part' is going to be a constant thing here when we're beating what are essentially things that were assigned by something that was strong enough to destroy worlds. Which really sucks, I miss just having a fun fight with a medafighter from a rival school or something. Then suddenly, BAM, your on this whole 'defend the multiverse' thing." Blazermate said, showing a bit of exasperation. "And yeah, the whole 'spirit' thing.... yeah.... I'm glad that they follow Medabot rules for me. Seems to suck for everyone else though. I mean, have you SEEN bowser? He went from a dapper dragon turtle in a suit to some weird monster thing. Sure he can hide some of it, but still, jeez!" Blazermate said, trying to spin the topic to be a bit more gossipy. "Looks good on you though Nadia. At least so far." Blazermate quickly interjected, almost forgetting Nadia had also absorbed some spirits.

Nadia's eyebrows rose when Blazermate mentioned Bowser. "Yeah, no kidding. I mean, he was mostly fine until he took that one shipgirl. Turned his shell into riggin' and kinda warped his proportions. I mean, I feel bad pointin' it out, but he's like a totally different beast!" Talking about Bowser behind his back kind of rubbed Nadia the way, especially since he'd been nothing but a rock-steady ally and caring Koopa Troop captain since she knew him, but she just couldn't contain herself. At the end of the day, she was by no means too good a person for gossip.

The compliment brought a smile to her face. "Thanks! Almost like it changed my insides more than my outsides, what with the blue blood and all. The only weird thing's this fish tail." Nadia raised her tail and wiggled it around, giving Blazermate a good look at her new fins. "It's thicker and heavier, so its takin' a little gettin' used to, but it sure came in handy when I was swimming. Can't use it like a sword anymore, but when stiffened up it kind of works like an axe." She pantomimed a big swing with her arms, then settled back down against the table. "Other than that, the eye is okay, and these swirls on my skin are better than tattoos. So yeah, lookin' purr-ty good overall, especially with the new clothes. And you're not the only one who thinks so, either. Normally my whole deal throws people off, but Ace said he digs how I look! Guess I'm just one lucky cat." She closed her eyes and leaned on the table, looking incredibly smug, but after a moment the thought of how goofy she must look made her laugh.

"Anyway, I'm down to try some more, but after seein' the Koopas get weird and Link get fishy for a minute, I'm gonna be a bit more choosy. No more monsters for this chica--just good-lookin' gals like yours truly. New powers would be paw-some too, but my head's already spinnin' just from what Rhodeia gave me." Copycats and hydropower were one hell of an addition to her arsenal, and with all the ideas she'd had already, Nadia felt like she could spend hours figuring out how to make the meowst of them. "Thing is, with fusion...I don't really know what Ace likes. If I pick wrong, things could go south fast." She drummed her fingers on her cheek, thinking.

Blazermate didn't feel too bad about talking about Bowser behind his back, after all, she didn't mean anything mean by it, it was just an observation. Still, as Nadia talked Blazermate caught onto something, it sounded like she had a crush on Ace! Blazermate could get it, he was a strong guy, but not Blazermate's type, at least not yet? It was tricky since she had only known the guy for like a day or so and medabots weren't really attracted to physical characteristics. Of course she also relented that at least he wasn't one of those neets that seem to buy female medabots for.... As that thought crossed Blazermate's mind she visibly shuddered before recomposing herself.

"So... you like Ace huh? I don't know much about him myself, he isn't from my world so I can't help ya there, but I can help you by being your wingbot? Just if I get a crush on someone you gotta do the same for me alright?" Blazermate said, her face getting close to Nadias as she spoke in a bit of a lower tone so people couldn't hear that part of the conversation. With that said she went back to her spot across the table then began to think as well. "But yeah.... not sure what hes into. didn't he say he fought monsters' at one point though? So at least we both know monster spirits are out of the picture. I think he likes cats though, with those things that show up when they get knocked out in his presence and all. So maybe your like, halfway there already?" Blazermate thought, idly.

As it turned out, even if Nadia didn't exactly mean to spill the beans, Blazermate caught on quick. There really wasn't much use in hiding her affection for Ace; with how bumbling she could be it must be pretty obvious, in retrospect. Rather than tease her about it, however, the Medabot immediately offered her support, which took Nadia by surprise but left her excited by the thought of conspiracy. That wasn't all that Blazermate suggested, though, because after she volunteered to lend a hand she asked if the feral might do the same in return someday. The notion of robots falling in love and going on dates amused Nadia greatly. After all, why not? It sounded cute. She was super down to help Blazermate find love if the opportunity came up, and if it meant getting a little help in return, all the better. "Sounds like a plan to me!" she agreed without a second thought. "When it comes time I'll be sure to pay you back for helpin' meowt! Just remember, I'm super new at this, so don't get settin' your expectations too high!"

Nadia's new wingbot put forward something that she hadn't considered be-fur. After thinking about it for a moment though, including her commentary on that very same topic during her earlier chat with Ace, she ended up shaking her head. "Nahhh, I dunno. Seems unrelated to me. If I had to guess..." She wracked her brain for a few seconds in an attempt to make connections. "Well, he's super buff, right? I mean, I dunno if you noticed during the games, but wow. Athletic too. I basically had to goad him into showin' it off, though. Either he's just a super humble dude, or that sort of things just normal where he's from. I'm in pretty good shape myself, not to brag or anything, but I'm more, uh..." As her gears turned, Nadia lifted up her own arm and flexed, but basically nothing happened. "...Lithe, I guess. Maybe if I..."

A flash of self-awareness struck her, prompting a sudden cough before she straightened up. "Agh, what am I sayin'." She clapped a hand to her face and massaged her eyes. "This whole spirits thing is weird enough without me tryin' to game the system. All these new feelin's got me actin' like a fool. Just forget I said anything, will ya?" Nadia cleared her throat and led the way back to the bar, where she requested a refill on her Mai Tai. "It's still hard to wrap my head around the whole infinite worlds thing. I mean, yours must be super crazy compared to mine, right?" She glanced at Blazermate as she waited. "Why doncha tell me about the place you come from?"

Blazermate giggled. "Don't worry, I deal with students quite often so I'm used to all this. I am a schoolgirl medabot after all!" Blazermate said, giving a flex. "And if all else fails, good food will do the trick." With that, Nadia was a bit done talking about the subject, much like a schoolgirl who was caught out unawares. Ah.... it was just like home, even if Nadia was some kind of aqua cat girl thing. If Blazermate didn't know better, she would figure that Nadia was some kind of Nyan or Nekko type medabot!

Speaking of home, Nadia, after snapping back to her sense, was curious as to Blazermate's world. Considering Blazermate hadn't actually talked about this before, as the situation never came up before, she was pretty willing to talk all about it. "Well.... I don't know about your world, but my world is a lot more technologically advanced than Limsa here." Blazermate started, pumping her chest out.

"Its a world where... well, how do I put this...." Blazermate started, thinking about how best to say this. Even though she knew it was a fact, she didn't like the idea of medabots being 'bought', even if other medabots didn't care at all about it. "So medabots usually have human partners with them if they aren't independent like I am. These partners can be anyone really from school kids to any kind of adult. Most medabots are used for robattling, which is where two medabots fight until one can't fight anymore and the loser also loses one of their parts. Thankfully for those losers, parts aren't that expensive unless they're aero parts like mine." Blazermate said, starting to hover to show what she was talking about. "After all, can't have kids flying around on a medabot when its super dangerous."

Tapping her chin a bit, Blazermate sighed and relented as she couldn't really think of any better way to say this. "As for Medabots ourselves, well... I did mention everyone, including kids, have one pretty much right? Yeah.... We're not that expensive at the store... And I'm a BLZ-mate model, so as you can guess, I'm not the only one of me running around, at least part wise." with that bit of sourness done, Blazermate shaking her head, she continued. "I'm pretty unique though, I've got a rare medal and everything. And by rare, I mean rare. There are like.... I don't know, maybe a thousand rare medals in total? or less? I don't know, but they are so rare people want to use them to conquer the world." Blazermate said. Nadia would then notice a very weird look on Blazermate's face, as if she couldn't decide to be serious or not with what she'd say next.

"This group I know of are called the Roborobo gang. Basically adults in rubber gimp suits with antenea on their heads that make them look like aliens. They are either so childishly cartoony evil that you can't even take them seriously, or are so underhanded and sneaky they got one up on the Medabot Professor. You can never tell with them and that is what makes them weird to talk about." Blazermate said, deciding to go with a shrug. "Thankfully that unique brand of incompetency means they fail when they try to take a rare medal to take over the world. How a rare medal lets them do that I have no clue, they just seem to drive non rare medal medabots berserk when they tried which is really counterintuitive but they are kinda counterintuitive themselves so.... yeah." Blazermate, deciding to fly a bit more so she could lounge instead of stand, continued.

"And then there is this guy running around where I'm from called Phantom Thief Retort, he kinda looks like a gentleman thief guy, tophat and all, with a mask on. He tries to steal rare medals and unlike the roborobos, he is actually good at it. But at the same time, he's also a bit clumsy. He can beat most medabots in a straight up fight as a human though, so that's pretty.... neat? scary? Besides them and the aliens though; Yeah, there was an alien invasion at one point with medabots from space, things are pretty peaceful. There is this thing called the medabot federation which runs all the tournaments and stuff. And uh.... Mr. Uruchi scares me. Like, he scares a lot of people." Blazermate then leaned in a bit for a moment, as if this was some kind of wrong opinion. "I don't think he's human, or medabot personally. He shows up when a robattle is going to happen like 95% of the time and the ways he shows up are... bizarre. If we ever meet him, you'll know what I mean. Straight out of a horror novel sometimes!" With Blazermate done explaining her world, she then asked Nadia, laying in the air with her hands on her chin as if she was lying on a bed belly down. "So what about yours? You said it wasn't that good?"

The deluge of information, not all of it contextualized or coherently structured, left Nadia somehow feeling like she knew less than when Blazermate first began to explain. So there were medabots, machines so mass-produced and commercially available that basically everyone had them, but they also had personalities and wills of their own? But they were also mostly used for fighting? That seemed like a recipe for disaster in and of itself, but apparently the only criminal organization worth mentioning also happened to be grossly incompetent. But there were also people stronger than medabots like this Phantom Thief guy, who evidently wasn't related at all to Joker or any of the other Phantom Thieves found in the Dead Zone, and a monster called Uruchi that crashed medabot battles. And aliens, which wasn't exactly treated with the gravitas that Nadia might expect, but maybe they just weren't that big a deal in her world?

In the midst of trying to process the information, Nadia got asked about her own world. She took a long sip of her drink as she thought about what to say, then cleared her throat. "Well, it's flawed I guess, but isn't that just the way things are? The country I live in is called the Canopy Kingdom, and I'm in the capital, New Meridian. Mostly Little Innsmouth, which is the port district, but I go all over the city for...errands. Ya know, pickin' up stuff. Anyway, after a big war with its neighbors, the whole country went through a big economic boom, a so-called golden age, though some folks call it 'gilded' instead, 'cause under all the showbiz and shine there's a whole lotta rot. Crime, corruption, you name it. Unlike where you're from, the bad guys are real good at what they do, and there's tons of 'em. And the cops who're meant to be keepin' people safe? Just as dirty as the scum they're supposed to be after. For most folks it's just hard scrapin' by." It felt weird giving a run-down on her world for the second time that afternoon. Nadia was trying not to just repeat what she said before. "The biggest problem is the Skullgirls. They're crazy strong freaks of nature who control the dead, usin' em to kill people and make more dead. Just think of 'em as one-woman zombie apocalypses. The last one was so bad it took all three kingdoms workin' together to put her down, singlehandedly endin' the war. It..." she windmilled her hands, searching for an appropriate term. "...Sucks. And after what happened with Linkle, it ain't hard to guess why new ones keep comin'. No wish is pure enough for that damn thing."

Nadia sighed again and wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. "All things considered though, when there's no Skullgirl around, I guess it ain't thaaat bad. Just gotta keep your head down, an eye out, and work hard to earn your livin'." Her voice went low as she gazed off into the horizon. "And hope nobody comes along to take it all away..."

Blazermate took in the information Nadia told her. So she was basically from a city that was corrupt. That felt... normal in a way? But then she descried things on how it went way deeper than what the roborobs did. And then the zombies... "Huh... seems like its a lot more...... grimy compared to mine. Besides roborobos and the occasional evil guys, we don't have to worry about that stuff. Zombie apocalypse? yeesh. That would be really bad where I'm from if they were stronger than most medabots... And our cops are kinda incompetent too. After all, they lose to the roborobs, so... yeah. Not corrupt though, at least I don't think so?" Blazermate, landed and started to think, tilting her head as she did so. "Do yo think all worlds have stuff like that? I mean, stuff that tries to destroy or take over the world?"

"Uhhhh..." Nadia hadn't expecting such an existential question, especially over a topic that she was so poorly-equipped to handle. Still, after a couple moments, she managed to drum up the best answer she could. "Ya know, probably not. I'm sure there's a bunch of nice, peaceful worlds out there. Just green hills, white picket fences, blue skies, and sunny days as far as the eye can see." Such idyllic countrysides were a tough image to picture outside of very optimistic advertisements and children's cartoons, palatable to only the young and desperate for their idyllic naivety. Was such a place, cloying saccharine and conflict-free, something that Nadia Fortune wanted? The cat burglar shrugged. "Then again, a world like that...it'd be pretty boring, right?"

Blazermate agreed with Nadia. "Yeah... no conflict means things would get boring fast. Its like you need a balance otherwise bad things happen one way or the other. " Still though, she was just making an idle question, and Nadia had to make her think as well! guess thats what happens when you just ask rhetorical questions....

"Hey, I just thought of something!" the feral exclaimed suddenly, her ears going rigid with excitement. "I've never actually flown before. Do you think you could carry me up into the sky and gimme a bird's-eye view of the coast? That'd be so cool! I'm only like, one thirty. Maybe a little more with the new tail. Whaddya think?"
Blazermate thought for a moment before getting into her flying stance. "Yeah sure, do you want to ride on my back or have me carry you?"
Nadia was by her side in a second, visibly giddy. "If I go on your back I can't see past your head things, dummy!" she teased before turning to present the medabot her back "Here, just grab me around the middle."

Blazermate shrugged, and grabbed Nadia by her waist. "Alrighty, so, don't try to shove your hands into my hair and all things will be fine. I know they look like they're good to grab, but I assure you they're not!" And with that little joke she took off, lifting off gently before she started to fly up. Thanks to her increased strength gained by the spirits she had absorbed Nadia wasn't that bad to carry, and while she was a bit slower than she normally would be, she was up in the sky, soon flying over Limsa and following Nadia's direction on where she wanted to go.

Or at least, she would be, if Nadia wasn't mostly preoccupied with losing her mind. "Wooooooooooo!" she yowled, holding up her arms like she was riding a roller coaster. "I'm on top of the wooooooooooooorld!" Seeing as Blazermate had no direction, she just zoomed over whatever caught her fancy.

”Dazzle, use Icy wind!” Jr commanded his new mon in practice bout vs Lana. The circus seal looking creature, glanced over its shoulder as if to question the validity of this tactic, and then did it anyway, rapidly inflating a bubble of air from its nose, and then once it formed it bouncing it once on its nose and finally rolling over to give it a tail slap to the back, bursting it and sending the icy air inside rushing at the opposing shellder.

It didn’t do too much when it hit.

”Wow. That was kinda weak after that cool set up huh” was Jr’s response to his mon’s move.

“He certainly has a bit of showmanship in him doesn’t he? But yeah, ice don’t do much to water” Lana told him “same as how water is bad against itself” she explained, something Jr had been reminded of a few moments ago, before adding“but if he’s quick enough it’ll give you something to threaten grass types with”

”How about that, do you think you’re quick enough for that Dazzle? Wanna prove it?” jr asked with a grin before commanding ”Then dodge the next shot and then use Disarming Voice”

The mon, who’d been looking a touch judgingly at Mimi (once again sat on Jr’s shoulder) while their trainer got reminded of some of the basics he hadn't had to use till now, suddenly perked up at the opportunity to show off, flipping his gaze round to the shellder. When the next attack came he used his tail to toss himself to the side, doing an overhead tumble of a dodge roll before launching himself into the air with a flick of his tailfin, before puffing up a water bubble from his nose while airborne, which he then landed on.

It acted a bit like a trampoline before bursting, tossing him even higher into the air and at an unpredictable angle, letting him dodge a follow up attack. While he soared, he took a singer’s pose, placing one flipper to his chest while the other was outstretched to his side, and belted out a beam of heart shaped sound waves which hammered into the shellder, making it teary eyed before it swooned from the emotional damage.

He did so while upside down, before inflating another water bubble and using it to cushion his landing, bouncing one more time off of it and the plopping down on the sand, at which point Lana and Mimi gave him a little round of applause while Jr didn't know whether to be amazed at the feat of acrobatics or appalled that his mon had such a cutsie attack.

Rather than being able to make up his mind he was interrupted by unwanted attention.

“Well hey, looks like you caught yourself one more pokemon for your team” came the taunting words of the same ace trainer who’d wiped the floor with Mimi only half an hour ago, who sauntered over and asked “Fancy a rematch?”

”Sure thing” Jr replied with an overconfident grin, which got Dazzle looking slightly nervous, and even more so when the ace sent out a hulking yettie with a “go, abomasnow!”

“So, which one of yours is going first?” the ace asked cockily, to which Jr smirked and then cupped his hands around his mouth and called out ”Daaaaaad!”

A little way away the king was awoken from his food coma daydreaming about peach’s cake by the call. He shook his head and then arose inorder to stomp over in a hurry, getting a quick lay of the situation as he arrived.

”This the jerk that was bothering you earlier” he asked, and got him a nod from his son. Then he turned back to look at the ace trainer, ”All right, you wanna fight my kid's monsters?” a wicked thought grin on his lips as he curled a claw and dark power surged into him, enlarging the beach fun sized Bowser into the hulking King of fatherly vengeance ”THEN BRING IT!”

“What?” the ace stunned replied, right before Bowser socked his equally bewildered abomasnow in the face.

---

One sweep that resulted in a pile of fainted hulking mon and a thoroughly humiliated ace trainer later, Bowser strolled away from his victory while dusting off his hands, the two kids ht on his heels.

”Way to go dad. You showed him good” jr cheered on his dad while an relieved and impressed Dazzle shimmied after him through the sand.

“That was amazing! How’d you get so good at fighting” Lana had to ask.

”All natural talent kid” Bowser insisted cockily, before adding ”But that’s enough fighting for me for one day. This is supposed to be a vacation after all. That goes for you two too”

”Awwww. But I need to practice if I’m gonna get as strong as you tho dad!” Jr griped

”and I’m proud of your efforts, but you can pace yourself yeah?” Bowser replied, giving the boy’s hair a ruffle as they walked, and then before the boy got a bit dejected suggested ”Hey so I saw something that you might think is a way down the beach, how about we check it out?”

A little bit of cajoling later and the king was proven right as the kids waded into the foam dance party along with their pokemon where energetic music played and collectively danced their tushies and tails off. If Dazzle had been a touch dubious about his new trainer before, then not having to fight the ace plus this bubbly fun definitely warmed him to the notion more than any pokeball could, the Popplio frolicking through the bubbles, adding his own to the mix and laying down some sweet moves while he was at, and generally having a riot of a time.

As for Bowser, he joined in for one specific jam but for the most part he hung back and just kept an eye on the pair. He really was all out of fighting today, and with any luck this bit of fun would wear his kid out enough that he’d not have to worry about him getting into any more trouble.

”come on … come on” Midna prayed as the bomb drew closer and closer, weathering fire as it came, only to cheer loudly when Raiden, aided by Queen Sectonia’s magics, leapt up and sliced the thing into a dozen pieces like a ninja going to town on an over ripe durian.

She was joined in her cheering by her current ride: Braum, who loudly called out “Ha ha! Well done my friend! That was quite some swordplay!” to the cyborg before raising his shield and blocking one of the few fliers that had survived Primrose’s fire burst. The kite-like trilobite and the shield master bounced back from each other from the impact, but before the monster could take back to the skies Midna splatted a shadow-hand down on top of it.

”Got you, you pest!” Midna taunted the thing’s broken form, before curling up a shadow-finger and flicking it off of the train and down into the desert, where it tumbled once, twice, and then burst into ash on the third rough landing.

Then the cannon went off and deafened them both. It of course did worse to Red eye, tearing off a massive chunk of its body with a single strike. It screamed in pain. Probably. Midna’s ears were still ringing even as it shifted round to get behind them again, wisely presenting its armored front rather than its heavily wounded sides to them. It also kept its damn mouth shut when the inevitable hail of fire roared down on its front from the train’s plethora of smaller guns.

Worse than this stubbornness to not expose a convenient weak spot to them was that it was getting closer. Fast.

Braum and Midna had two very different reactions to this. The princess moved to slip off the big man’s shoulder and head down to get some shells before it was too late, only to be grabbed under the arm by Braum who made the very correct call that there was no time for that. He ran along the top the wagon and then leapt into the air just as the titanic worm burst forwards and rammed the armory car. Held backwards under Braum’s non-sheild arm, Midna could only watch in horror as the entirety of their spare ammo disconnected from the train and tumbled backwards into the titan, detonating in a furious explosion.

”Goddesses damn it!” she swore as Braum used his ability to zip to an ally's side to bring them to the, relative, safety of the cannon car ”If only I’d gone down there faster we wouldn't… gaaah!” she wordlessly cursed herself.

The northern warrior set down the seething princess and told her “Ah well. What is done is done. Better to be alive to fight another day than be blown to bits, yes?" along with a reassuring clap on the back.

The princess sighed exasperatedly, nodded, and then added ”Well, guess you don’t owe me a ride anymore at least. Thanks for the rescue,” a touch begrudgingly due to her wounded pride.

“Ahhh, think nothing of it my little royal friend” he reassured her, as they both more or less got out of the way of the people who knew how the cannon worked.

Instead they moved to the back of the train where Braum pelted red eye with frost blasts while Midna cannibalized one of the railings to create crude metal spears which she charged with lightning and then hurled at the beast in a frankly futile attempt to slow it down.

At least they might get an eye or two in the process.

This was all going rather well. She enjoyed watching the Seekers come and go and talk and banter amongst themselves. And what a colorful crew they were. It seemed like they were soldiers all. Or children. Or child-like. Which was somewhat concerning but she had learned not to underestimate children. After all, her rival was an annoying brat herself. (Only eight months younger but still.)

But the father son dragon turtle duo was of particular note. She watched them bond in the distant waters. Playing with a pet. Challenging some random guy’s pet to a fight like it was nothing, just being very protective in general. The kid, Junior, wanted to be better at fighting, and the father, Bowser, said he was proud of his progress.

Karin stood in her usual powerful yet feminine pose, but as she pondered the leaving father son duo she seemed to be in something of a day dream. She blinked, shaking her head free of these thoughts. It didn’t matter. Envy was a bad look on people, which was just fine, because Karin wasn’t envious. Why would she be? Because she’d never had an authority figure offer her an ounce of affirmation? Why would that matter? She had an entire army of staff that constantly acknowledged her greatness every moment of every day. And Ishikazi-san was all the guidance she had needed as a child. If anything, he was better than a regular father, because he had to do what Karin said or she could have had him fired! So who’s laughing now. Karin was. That’s who. ”Hah!” Karin barked out a laugh, to no one in particular. Besides, it was merely a matter of time until the Junior overcame his father in strength and destroyed him, usurping his kingdom and throne. That was how it had to be and that was how it always went. So the whole matter was moot.

Link disrupted her reverie, and Karin waved at him. ”Oho, it’s no matter, no matter at all.” She smiled. ”Feast and be merry! You’ve all earned it.”

That was the third time she had said something like that. It struck her that she hadn’t really been doing much socializing. Normally, she did it through fighting. It was how she had met all of her friends and allies. But manners dictated it was rude to challenge weary warriors to a battle. So. Karin had ended up just kind of standing about while everyone else chatted. Not that Karin was some kind of anti-social weirdo who could only make friends with punching! If that were the case surely all of her non-street fighting friends would have been pummeled to dust by now. It was just- something felt a bit off. Karin couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Were the Seekers reluctant to speak with her? Was she radiating some kind of intimidating aura? Or perhaps they were too tight knit and were reluctant to get too close to an outsider?

Karin once again was shaken from her reverie as the necromancer robot one, Blazermate, picked up Nadia and began flying her about. Yes! That was what she needed. Some bonding. Something fun, but relaxing, or exciting! She should have participated in that volley ball game but- well it wouldn’t be fair to destroy her guests.

“I shall go about creating a sand castle myself!” She announced. She glanced around the the guest remaining at her beach. “Who wishes to join me and socialize?” With a snap of her fingers an immaculate set of sand manipulating tools was at her disposal. “I am delightful company.” Karin declared.

She made her way down to the shore and began constructing one herself and- quickly a very impressive and detailed form began to take shape. Not so much of a sand castle as it was a sand cathedral.

Sectonia took her time to rest, the rest of her minions congratulating her and Raiden for stopping that large attack. And since its attack was deflected, her minions managed to take another shot at it with the train cannon. Much like she thought though, as the creature got closer and closer to death, it started to get smarter and faster. Instead of having its weak point just showing for everyone to pound at, it kept its teeth closed deflecting all the smaller arms fire. And its newfound speed allowed it to take the rear car of the train off, the ammo car exploding when it tumbled into the creature.

"Hmph. This thing can take quite the beating it appears." Sectonia said, catching her wind as a few of the others started to panic now that they lost their main source of ammo that let them deal with this thing. However thanks to Big Band having stored some special shell, Tora was quite excited saying that the shell he had was the strongest one they had, needing a special way of loading into the gun before it could be fired. Although according to all of her minions, it would take a long time to get it loaded and get the gun ready to fire. Hearing this, Midna did what she could do to slow down the creature to give them all more time. Sectonia however, had another idea.

Summoning one of her staffs, she asked Tora, who seemed to be the one most familiar with the gun, what parts if enchanted would make it go faster, and with his input, Sectonia casted her haste spell on said components. Hopefully this would get that shell loaded in faster, especially as it seemed the group was headed for that giant pit. Sectonia wasn't sure this would work, considering this creature came from a giant pit itself, but it was a bit too late to change course now.

As the other Seekers napped, frolicked, fought, and explored, Geralt found himself half-relaxing, half pondering the most daunting task ahead of himself: Finding Ciri. Again. Damn girl couldn't keep herself still, and knowing her, she'd be off fighting just as hard, if not even harder, than he'd been, unable to ignore a cry for help. It was a skill Geralt had forced himself to learn over the years, when answering the call would either be more dangerous than beneficial, or he was on business too urgent to interrupt. Whether others agreed with his definition of the latter wasn't his concern or his problem.

The smart thing to do would be to draft up posters, and hand them out to the guard and leadership of every settlement he came across, directing them to steer Ciri to Alcamoth when she was found so that he or Yennefer could find her. When they returned to Alcamoth, he'd have to speak with Peach and the others about it. The logistics of that endeavor would be better suited for the burgeoning army that was Smash City. Geralt wasn't dumb enough to pretend that only warriors and soldiers mattered for an army. The Moogles, their runners, Isabelle and their hospitality staff, Vandham and his people, their logistical and strategic staff, were all absolutely vital to making sure the Seekers' goals were met. If he could get them all helping, finding Ciri and getting her pointed in the right direction could take only days instead of weeks or months, even in this new insane world they were shoved into.

He'd do that tonight. He'd been stressed enough that he wanted to actually enjoy this day off, not spend it worrying. Ciri was worth worrying about, of course, but a few hours' delay in starting the official large-scale search shouldn't have too major an impact on their ability to locate her safely. She was tough. She'd be fine. She survived as long as she had already avoiding the Wild Hunt, and now they weren't even a threat.

So it was time to enjoy the beach. Standing up, Geralt stretched his back with a satisfying pop, then looked to Yen. "I'm going to take a walk. As nice as it is to lounge for a bit, I need to get moving."

Yennefer replied with a nod and a dismissing wave, eyes still closed as she basked in the warmth provided by the sands below her and the shade from the umbrella over her seat.

As he walked down the beach, he didn't pay Blazermate and Nadia's conversation much mind, but noted that the two seemed to be having more than just a casual chat. He got a glimpse of Bowser and Junior fighting some guy with those strange, obedient monsters that Junior palled around with. It seemed more like a spar, albeit a completely one-sided beatdown of a spar, given their attitudes, so he didn't pay it much mind.

He wandered the beach for a short while before circling back as Karin announced that she'd be creating a "sand castle", whatever that meant, and inviting people to socialize with her.

Wow, that was...kind of sad. Who actually said it like that? Even the high society types that Yen spent much of her time around would at least pretty it up with some flowery language about getting to understand one another.

"Hello." Geralt plainly greeted as he approached. "I have no idea what a sand castle is." He added, almost as an afterthought, inviting her to explain just exactly what it was she was doing.

Raz hadn't thought far enough ahead in this plan to figure a way off (out?) of the monster. Really his thought process hitched around the point where he got covered in blood. When Red Eye succumbed to the spinal assault and flung itself away, Raz was more or less expecting to eat sand. It wouldn't be that bad, really - he'd get some bruises, a bit of a burn, and itchy pants for a while, but he'd been through worse falls. Sure, he'd be stuck in the middle of a desert at that point... ok maybe it was that bad.

Luckily his teammates picked up his slack, swooping to catch him midfall. Raz stumbled for a second once he was put down, shot out a quick and mumbly "Thanks," then proceeded to hurl right over the railing. "Uhhhgh. This stuff reeks," he said, trying and failing to wipe some gunk off his jacket. That was going to need a real deep clean. And his goggles too, he couldn't even see out of them!

The fight against the Triliad restarted in full force, erupting into even more chaos across the gun's platform. Raz pitched in with some psi-blasts of his own, but between the nausea and the hecticness his aim was even more off than usual. A decision was (mostly) made on the direction to lead the Red Eye, and Raz decided to follow behind Therion as he went to inform the conductor. A second opinion was always helpful, right? And he didn't want the guy to be running into any baddies on his own.

Arriving at the head of the train with a lot less fuss than he thought, Raz took the small window of relative peace to catch himself, leaning against the control room's wall, leaving a slight him-shaped smudge of monster blood in the process. "Beneath it?" Raz pointed towards the back of the train. "You want to have that thing crash on top of the train... on purpose?"

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Hearing the waves of the crew cheer for Raiden gave him the motivation he needed to press forward with the attack. The only issue was that there was very little for Raiden to do, except for maybe attempt to help the gunners and other members of the crew deal with the Akrid that was now chasing them from the tail of the train. He had no idea where they were heading, though he was happy at least the conductor and other members were going to be familiar with the upcoming scenery. He never really ventured out of Tostarena Town and didn't know what to expect. Introductions were desperately in order after this whole ordeal was dealt with.

After seeing some of the other gunners attempted to blind the large monster as they loaded a final round, Raiden remembered something. He had a wide variety of flashbangs on his person. He waved off those cheering politely. "We can celebrate later, for now let's just get this fucker 6 feet below!" He told the makeshift crew as he fled to the back of the train, unclipping two flashbangs from his waist that he hurled directly at the eyes of the Red Eye chasing the train. There's no way it could do too much, but if it distracts it for a few seconds, that was more time for the crew to gather their bearings and load the shell.

Equipping his final two flashbang grenades, he performed the same maneuver as he lobbed the explosives through the air. After they landed, he quickly headed back to the main body of the ship. Once he arrived he heard a noise which resembled a codec call from one of the Maverick systems. Examining his closed advisor, he noticed a blaring notification:

Pain Inhibitors can now be disabled manually.

With this he sighed. "Well, things are about to get interesting." His eyes shimmered red as he prepared for the next wave of fighting.

"Time for Jack, to let 'er rip!!!"