Arriving at the area brightly lit in purple, Therion was pleased to find that it was indeed the station serving the Purple Line. The ticket booth, which he did not directly approach, was busy - but it wasn't so crowded that he couldn't see the cost of a pass. Ten pons. He stuck a hand into his bag and felt around the orbs inside where they sat with the other valuable-looking currencies he'd picked up. He currently had five pons. Halfway there, he mused.

Therion glanced back the way he'd come, out over the main atrium and above where most of the pons he'd collected had been. Even now he could spot a couple of them, out of the way and waiting for some acrobat to grab them. He could go get the other half that he needed, it would take some more searching but he could do it.

Or.

He was already here at the station, surrounding by cats, cat-people, and people-people that all had their own passes already. There was nothing stopping him from just grabbing one of those. Stealing was kind of his thing anyway, it wasn't something he was ashamed of or anything. He'd had to do what he did to survive. The only thing shameful in his opinion was getting caught, though he was much too good for that to happen. As if on queue the shackle around his wrist brushed against the hilt of his short sword, reminding the Traveler of it's presence. He frowned. ...again. Too good for it to happen again.

Therion left the station, getting into the line for one of the many restaurant stalls around the area to kill time while he thought. He was a professional, but when push came to shove he wasn't above pick-pocketing. He was good at that too, it was pretty much the first thing any thieving street urchin learned to do. The easiest marks were people in an unfamiliar environment. Because that included Therion himself, it would make it a bit harder to identify someone - especially because it couldn't be someone brand new to the place like he was. It needed to be someone with a pass already, but one they didn't use often. Tourists, newcomers, they all tended to act a certain way. He couldn't imagine it would be much different in this futuristic place than it was back in his world, so he just had to keep his eyes peeled for someone like that, with his goal in their hand. Now that who to target was decided, it was time to move on to when to strike.

He spent the time in the line observing people come and going from the purple station. Eventually he made it to the front of the food stall, and though he hadn't intended to buy anything he ended up ordering something for appearance's sake. A weird food, hand-held packed rice wrapped in some kind of dried leaf. He made his way back to the station proper as he munched on it. He'd decided that the best time would be when a train had just dropped off passengers. Their station passes would be in their hand as they moved, and they would put them away as they walked into the main area. Since they wouldn't be looking for the pass after that, quite the opposite in fact, it would take a bit to notice it was missing.

Right on time, the speaker sounded from inside the station area announcing the arrival of another train. Therion quickened his steps, and as the passengers spilled out from behind the pass-only section and into the atrium, the thief sharpened his eyes.

There, he spotted them. The perfect mark. A short little man wearing a cat costume (Therion was not about to question why, it was just another weird thing in the world), and the most oblivious expression on their face. They were oooing and aaahing as they swiveled their head, taking in the sights of the Metro. Therion would have thought they were completely new, if not for the purple card they held in their hand. Swiftly, Therion moved with the other people heading into the station, and he brushed hard by the toad just as they were moving to put their pass away. It took less than a second.

"Train to catch," he muttered, slipping the pass from the toad's loosened grip and into his shawl. To his amusement the guy actually apologized to him, unaware of what had just happened. "Oof, sorry! Safe travels!" They said, the voice grating but tone genuinely apologetic. The toad went on their way, and Therion did too - hustling right past the ticket booth where he produced the pass from his opposite hand, showing it to the clerk before going in. Once inside he stowed the pass safely away, took a lap around to check it out, then walked right back out. Making a beeline for the kiosk where the Seekers had separated from, he arrived to find he was one of the first to be back. It made sense, stealing some poor sap's pass did end up being way faster than going to get five more pons would have been.

"I got a pass to the Purple Line," he told the group once more of them found their way back. "If we're doing this whole team thing, I could show a couple of you where the ticket booth is."

Turns out, the passes were expensive, but in a way Jesse didn’t quite predict. ‘Pons’ were the local currency in order to buy a train pass. “I was gonna go purple but…guess I gotta find some pons first? As in actually literally just find some? On the ground?” Jesse asked.

Jesse was used to scrounging up money, but she wasn’t used to scrounging for money.

If some random people just left money lying around ontop of bookshelves life would have been a lot easier for everyone back on Earth. What kind of economy is this, anyway? Is this some kind of bizarro world social program? Or-

“Oh, my God, it’s Banjo-Kazooie.” Jesse said, lightly facepalming herself. This really was a world that operated on video game rules. She really wanted to play the video game that was based off of her own life, but also she kinda didn’t. In the meantime, she would play a game where she ran around collecting shiny coins.

“Okay. Sure, I can do that.” With a little added pep-in-her-step Jesse joined the troop of people willing to actually do a little searching. It sounded kind of fun. There was a great amount of verticality to the metro in certain places, with stands and buildings having gaps between them and the ceiling or bridges overhead. But instead of having to search for stairs and ladders, Jesse just pressed off the ground and glided twenty feet in the air, landing on top of a building. Like sports balls lost on top of a middle school, a pon or two was waiting for a new owner to claim them. Chuckling, Jesse pulled the gem into her hand with her Launch ability. This wouldn’t be so hard. She was part way there already.

Jesse began floating and jumping from place to place. When she needed to get particularly high, she would jump to a higher spot somewhere between her and her destination and would go from there to the highest spot, say, a distant bridge or particularly large light fixture. She couldn’t just fly straight up but as long as she had even a small place to launch herself off of she could bounce and glide as high as she needed too. At one point she vanished from view of the ground floor completely. Once she had all of her pons gathered in her jacket, she dropped from the top of the Metro in free fall. About ten feet before impact her free fall transferred into a gentle float. Landing on her shoes, she cockily adjusted her jacket before making her way to where she guessed the Purple Line was. There she met Therion.

“Done already?” She asked Therion. “The team thing works for me. Ticket booth is over there?” She pointed over at it after he showed her the way. Once she was there she went to go buy the ticket. She wasn’t sure if it was an automated system or a teller or what. This was a crowded place but if she ever needed to find something, she could always just float ten feet in the air and get a good look around.

His eyes were naturally drawn to the skate tracks that ran around the place, the bright blue of their wooden boards -which appeared to be their natural color, strangely enough- offering a stark contrast to just about everything else in the place. Nailed and in some cases taped together, and held aloft by some the flimsiest-looking sticks and scaffolds either Tora or Poppi had ever seen, they curved and sloped throughout the town in circuitous, absurd paths up the sides and over the tops of various buildings. It looked incredibly dangerous, but Tora would be lying if he said he didn’t think that riding something along those tracks might be a lot of fun.

“Masterpon,” Poppi murmured, nudging him. “What think?”

Tora tore his eyes away from the vivid, distracting blue of the track to follow his companion’s gaze, at which point he could really start to appreciate just how strange the place they’d come to was. For starters, everything looked grungy. The buildings, the sidewalks, and the streets themselves were all cracked, blotched, and in some cases slimy. Pipes leaked a fluorescent green substance, and tilted trash cans eked out what could only be described as ‘sludge’. Unusual shapes and creatures moved in the shadows of second-story windows and the sewer drains, not necessarily scary, but things that Tora would be no means expect, like a giant floating eyeball and disembodied octopus tentacles. In fact,Tora saw strange creatures no matter where he looked. A bear was nothing too freaky, but sitting calmly in an inner-tube in a puddle on top of a building? What were those gremlins eating the giant display donut above the pastry shop? Did that man, currently serving an animate banana at a food cart with text on its canopy that read ‘EAT TRASH’, have a donut for a head? Tora rubbed his eyes and looked again. Yep, definitely a donut.

“Very…” Tora searched his lexicon for the appropriate word. “...Odd. But sort of cool, meh?”

Vandham shook his head with a shrug. “It’s surreal, ‘s’what it is. Crikey.”

At the very least there were normal people around too, and they didn’t seem to mind all the strange, dreamlike phenomena around them. As the party moved away from the train platform they got their first good look at the nearby shore. Radlandia stood at the mouth of a river that opened into an enormous bay, and way out in the bay stood a much larger city of castle parapets atop white stone seastacks, surrounded by a web of piers and wharves stacked on top of one another. When Poppi zoomed in using her optics she could make out additional details, like the airship dock that sat atop the biggest, highest tower, the mammoth sports arena at the edge of the city, and a gargantuan vessel on the far side that sat beneath an even bigger, rotund whale-like creature that floated above it like a hot-air balloon.

She blinked as the gears in her head turned, and after a moment of wracking her brains, something clicked. “Goldmouth!” she shouted suddenly, her expression one of shock and elation. “M-masterpon! It, it’s its…!”

“It’s what, meh!?” Tora exclaimed over her awestruck stuttering, frightened by his creation’s sudden outburst. He craned his nonexistent neck trying to see just what set Poppi off.

“It Goldmouth!” Poppi reiterated as if that should explain anything. “Masterpon not remember!? Goldmouth name of Titan of Argentum Trade Guild!”

Tora’s eyes widened. “Argentum!? You mean, from Alrest!?”

“Yes, from our home, it right there, just beyond city on water!” Poppi told him excitedly, pointing with a metallic finger.

Vandham squinted, shading his eyes with his hand. “Well, I’ll be!” he laughed. “About time, eh? Not Uraya, but I’ll bloody take it!” He cleared his throat as he crouched down to pat a hand on Poppi’s shoulder and Tora’s head. “Don’t go loony on me just yet though, mates. Before we run off we’ve got a job to do, right? And not just ‘ere either. Gotta call in the Moogles to all three stops.”

“But, but, this special occasion, meh! Surely we can make exception?” He turned to Vandham to see a stern shake of his head, and sighed. Tora knew the old mercenary was right, so much so that he didn’t even attempt to sway him with unflinching eye contact. “Okay, okay, Tora know. Let’s finish it quick!”

Poppi nodded, even more determined than before. “So, we just need get to high point in town.” She looked up at the tallest building, where a couple local kids were taking turns racing down the precipitous beginning of the track on their skateboards. “Hold tight. Poppi be right back!”



One of the last to pick a train line to ride, Big Band ultimately chose to accompany his fellow metal man Raiden on the first leg of his journey, lest the swordsman wind up unaccompanied and, if anything should go wrong, unaccounted for. A sense of gratitude compelled Peacock to tag along, which made a total of three cyborgs standing beside one another in Black Station as the latest subway that a cat dragged in came to a stop.

Though from entirely different eras, Mr. Lightning Bolt and the USG soldiers actually had a lot in common. In terms of human flesh, not even one full person could be made between the three of them; all were more machine than man, and little more than scraps of their original organic bodies remained. They’d been rebuilt in the wake of terrible brutality and custom-engineered to fight for a cause. Raiden and Peacock shared the twisted fate of being child soldiers, but while those days were long behind the former, the latter would seemingly never escape her campaign. Yet here they all stood, despite untold pain and suffering, brokenness and betrayal, and the wars that raged on without end. Band, Raiden, and Peacock shared an unspoken connection, united by the conviction to fight for what they believed in, and the strength to face whatever tomorrow might bring.

One after another the three living weapons boarded the Black Line subway train, bound for parts unknown.

Their trip through the darkness of the tunnel brought them to a train station with an industrial appearance, all concrete and metal, more like a bunker than a public facility. While a couple metro cats and other passengers joined them as they exited the train, the younger crowd identifiable as students and the more well-dressed passengers stayed put to ride on to the next destination. Band scrutinized those who disembarked alongside him, trying to figure out the common denominators among them that might forewarn him about what exactly he and his allies might be stepping into. Some appeared to be very heavily-equipped, as if going to battle, or maybe on a big game hunt, while an augmented gentleman and a gorilla looked more dressed for a safari, and still others sported the coats and research equipment of botanists or zoologists. Together with the name of the place, he began to draw some conclusions.

As the others split up to head to different wings of the building, Band’s attention went to the front entrance thanks to its distinctive style. It featured a vines-and-wood jungle aesthetic and looked like some kind of tourist attraction, complete with brochures and a gift shop. After giving a dubious glance at the racks of stuffed animals for sale, most of which didn’t resemble any kind of normal creature, he approached the highly reinforced main door. A small crowd of other visitors had gathered there, their faces a mixture of eager and nervous, and in front of them stood a strange-looking staff member. Alien in appearance and at least partially machine, which kept up the fun trend Band was noticing, she nevertheless spoke in a perfectly understandable -if slightly electronic- voice. “Alright, hey everyone, excited to get out there?” she asked, leaning casually on her longbow in a very human manner. “Good, good. I’m a forest ranger here, you can call me Ivara. Stick close, listen sharp, and you’ll all make it home in one piece, with some new memories that’ll last you a lifetime. Let’s get to it!”

She punched a terminal, and the giant doors began to open. A surge of warmth, humidity, and natural light hit Band as the gates receded to reveal an enormous and extravagant environment, all lush rainforests and overgrown swamps, all under the expansive protection and climate control of a glass and metal dome big enough to house a city. Beyond, Band could just about see the icy crags and towering glaciers of an arctic skyline, making him wonder just where the hell he’d ended up.

“And there you have it,” Ivara said theatrically, holding her arms wide. “Welcome to the Aviary Biodome!”





When the Purple Line train finally ground to a halt, its doors opened to reveal not a bustling complex of transportation, but a peaceful and quiet hall of carved blue-black stone, moist and cool, sprinkled by patches of thick, budding moss, lit by the pale electric glow of lumaflies in glass lanterns, and the unintelligible sigils carved onto hanging slates. The columns in the walls and the converging arches in the ceiling gave the whole place an air of solemn antiquity. After the new arrivals proceeded past the benches where weary travelers could sit themselves down to rest, they entered a four-story room of wrought-iron fences and leafy creepers, which served as the hub of the Queen’s Station.

A central spiral structure allowed them to ascend, and starting from the second story upward, they could approach the intricate railings between tall, spindly pillars at the station’s back in order to look out at a grand, spacious underground canyon, awash in the gentle, lavender light of countless bubbles. There, among the hanging tendrils and drifts of fog, Uoma and Ooma floated lazily over verdant hills and sizzling lakes of mint-green acid. It was a dreamlike view.

Very few passengers had gotten off the train here, and the station seemed mostly empty overall. Every step taken across its floors echoed over the bloopy, bubbly ambient sound. What few people the new arrivals did find appeared to be bugs, or at the very least bug-related. One such girl could be found having a picnic in a little alcove near the overlook, where she shared a meal with two ladybugs the size of chimpanzees, Leby and Dib. The siblings had recently arrived from the Metro with a number of souvenirs, and after receiving a courteous invitation decided to join the strange but kindly Agitha for lunch before the long trip back to Bugaria Outskirts. A Pinsir had dozed off in one of the corners, scary-looking even as it slept. Other than the noises of someone eating that could be heard down one of the halls, the only other sign of life appeared to be a small gang of Migosp arguing about where to go next in low tones. Therion, Jesse, and Raz had wound up in a strange place indeed.



Through a mixture of luck and coincidence Sectonia and Wonder Red wound up being the odd pair who’d be riding the Mint Line to see where it took them. With most of the other teams of three made up at that point, the Scout ended up joining them, which definitely made their team a contender for the strangest. Then again, they also happened to be the wealthiest; since the Scout had made quick work of pon collection with his trusty grappling hook and a bit of dwarven greed, his stash plus all the pons pulled out of vents and gutters by Sectonia’s antlions meant that they could afford their pases with cash to spare in case they ever came by here again. Together with Red, fresh from his curious encounter with the sack-people, they climbed aboard their train and were promptly whisked away.

In quite the departure from the gaudy liveliness of the Metro, the first stop on the Mint Line turned out to be a derelict station, long since ruined and given over to time, then rebuilt and repurposed as a base of some sort. Though partially flooded and quite overgrown, it nevertheless brought forth a sizable crew of passengers from the subway once it opened its doors, all of them either warrior types or treasure hunters. Some went to relieve the weary guards of their posts, allowing them to board the train and get out of here, while others made for the exits. When the dwarf, superhero, and wasp followed suit, a stunning vista opened up before them.



At a glance it was clear that this place had once been a city of man, a steel-and-concrete jungle of big, blocky office buildings and highrises, but that had been a very, very long time ago, enough time for an apocalypse to have come and gone. In the wake of ruination, nature had reclaimed the city in a big, big way, with mammoth trees growing straight through the sky-scraping husks, and twisting roots that snaked in and out of the terrain like sea serpents. Over time the great cracks in the earth turned into canyons, creating a network of low-lying rivers in the fault lines. Flocks of birds called the place home, as well as many less benign creatures, like Karkinos-spawn, the bomb bugs, the glyphids, and the Root, whether they stalked or flew. The most incredible thing on display, of course, was the cathedral in the canopy. Among the uppermost branches of the area’s tallest, most venerable tree, which now crowned the former cityscape’s loftiest edifice, there stood a safe haven far above the perilous streets. From within streamed a pure, spiritual light, white tinged by blue, that practically radiated goodness far and wide.

The Prisoner watched as the heavily injured group drained his newly reobtained Health Flask of all four charges. Frisk had taken two swigs of the viscous fluid in desperate need of its effects and was soon followed by Albedo who had taken the exact same amount himself. As Albedo returned the dirty, empty flask The Prisoner received it as he stared at the empty contents for a moment before giving the now drained bottle an annoyed glance and returning it to his waist, where his plethora of other tools and weapons lay still. He sighed as he continued his climb up the face of the mountain, making easy work of it has been in similar terrain previous, knowing his teammates were safe did give him some odd ease of mind, however.

Albedo had made mention of his multiple trips to Dragonspire Tower, The Prisoner nodded, able to understand his frustration. "I get it man. If there's anyone who understands being in one place for too long or too many times, it's me. I've been trapped on an island full of death for years with no way out. If it wasn't for my crippling need for social interaction, it might not have been all too bad. Unfortunately, most people either only want things provided to them, or helped me just long enough to wind up dead." He thought about the burly knight lady who wielded a broadsword. That all seemed like a fever dream now.

As they trekked the remainder of the mountain, The Prisoner was lucky to have Frisk shed some light on the situation of the new world they resided in and why everything seemed so stitched together. "That explains why coming across a dead body is so hard... Usually, I have to behead them myself and hop on before it's too late. When I was 'killed' back there-" He said using air quotations. "There was nothing for me to possess, otherwise I would've been completely fine." He'd sort of whip his scarf behind him as if he did a superhero pose. "People have a hard time trying to get rid of me.

It was the next portion of Frisk's explanation that really intrigued The Prisoner. The concept of spirits and souls in this world. "Oh... So, Melony's gone now? Inside of you?" He tried his best to seem genuinely curious while also shedding some empathy in his spooky voice. "That... That explains a bit." He eyed Frisk's new form for a moment as he continued to walk. He scratched his chin, questioning his freedom yet again. As Frisk befriended him with their friend heart, he realized this world had a puppet grasp. "AAAUUUGH, it's that fucking island all over again!" He grumpily kicked a pile of snow as they slowly approached their destination.

The Prisoner took a few moments to lazily brush about the flowers that they had come across, relishing himself in the idea of life replacing what was once rotting and dead in his life. With a guilty conscience of leaving his new team nearly to death earlier, The Prisoner took the liberty to slay many of the new weaker enemies that either flew, charged, or slid aimlessly around. One of the Li'l Brrs that got just a little too close to the Prisoner met the devastating wrath of the hack and slash of The Prisoner's Balanced Blade. With a few chops and cleaves, the icy foe was reduced to a small rock, then melted into ash, revealing a small translucent ball of life. Under normal circumstances, he would have mistaken this for a Dead Cell and collected it without a thought, however in this world, he knew it was a spirit. He gently reached out for a moment, collecting the small orb of life in his hands before allowing it to melt inside of his being, the effects of the once cold foe becoming incredibly present in The Prisoner's body, as he grew icicles on himself in front of his very eyes. "Woah." He exclaimed simply as he examined the subzero growths of cold.

Remembering Frisk's explanation of the world as well, The Prisoner charged directly into one of the Ice Bats with his elbow, freezing it completely and not immediately noticing how he naturally glid on the ground. He was now an unliving corpse with an ice-cold touch. He tried moving, only to slide wildly for a moment, then catching himself. He was slippery too. This seemed to be some of the effects of fusing with the creature's spirit. However...

Before the bat was able to thaw, The Prisoner sliced it into pieces with his sword, ripping its soul from its body as it faded to ash. He gripped the spirit, though this time with a colder demeanor, twisted with the idea of discovery. He held the spirit in his palm as he tightly squished it between his palms, creating a pale baseball bat with a sticker smacked dab on the face of it. "Cool." He said simply as he twisted the new weapon in his hands.



With many of the weaker enemies dealt with and his twisted desires satiated, The Prisoner now assisted Albedo and Frisk with the looming elementals, which he smacked with the bat, using his new gliding moment to create a bit of acceleration in his swing as he whipped one of the monsters in the head with an audible BAM of his new bat, as he overshot and went crashing into the side of a rock. Once the threat had been dealt with, he gave Frisk a thumbs up as he stabilized himself from the new effect of the spirit he had consumed. "New upgrades!" he said simply, trying to be somewhat humorous. There wasn't really a place for him to rest his bat just yet so he opted to simply carry it for the moment.

As they entered the cave, Albedo suggested exploration as camps had become limited. "I second the idea of exploration." The Prisoner said as he raised his hand in agreeance. The looming wolf demons definitely were a cause of concern in their current position. If they got trapped in this cave, cornered by the threat, their hiking trip would be canceled early for the winter. Just then, a stroke of genius hit The Prisoner. On his hip of tools and weapons, a very clearly serrated bear trap rested, locked and compact. He looked back at Albedo and Frisk before whispering quietly. "I have an idea, but you two need to give me a few seconds." He stepped away for a few minutes, making his slippery steps as stable as he possibly could.

With the low visibility provided by the snow, the Prisoner slinked back outside of the cave and back into the snow. Hoping the drifts and flurries of the mountain were enough to provide him cover, he threw out his Wolf Trap, which popped open immediately as it hit the ground, making a silent snap noise. He was positive the wolves had heard it, but was more banking off of the fact the snow made the origin of the sound unidentifiable. He buried it in snow right at the mouth of the cave, creating both a trap and a diversion for the threat. "They're probably smart enough to know I dropped that trap, but with where I placed it, there are little options for them." He pointed to the hidden trap at the mouth of the cave. "I say we fight back and that's our diversion." If he had a mouth, there'd be the widest grin as he twirled his frosty bat in his hands for a moment.

For the most part, Omori remained quiet during the meeting. Most of it was catching everyone up on how other teams were doing, and what had happened elsewhere. But he made sure to listen close, telepathic communication or not. What became of Dead Zone; Even he can imagine what resides there from the name alone, was a bit concerning, but will be worried about later when they have a means of not getting reduced to ash and bone. The young boy shut his eyes for a moment, but he didn't fall asleep. He didn't really answer for suggestions on where to go either.

Dystopiascape did seem interesting though, but it wasn't like he was against going anywhere else. They'd have to wait on Yellow Team first to do anything it seems. ...Hm. So they'll be practice-fighting each other? Omori didn't react much when he and Cerberus weren't a part of the match up, but the offer was still there. He brought a hand up to his chin in thought. Then decided against participating with a shake of his head. "Maybe when I'm stronger. Wouldn't be fair otherwise." He told Mewtwo. But it wouldn't hurt to watch, see how the rest fair in battle.

So he joined those spectating the fight between Susie and Nadia first. It seemed normal enough...wait, never mind, the cat lady's using her own head as a projectile. Admittedly, not something Omori expected. The pink-haired robot was doing well too! Torn tendons and muscles regenerated against bombs and blasters, the bridge got blown up, and somehow Susie's attempt to charge her blaster took too long. He wouldn't admit it outright, but anyone could tell he was getting engrossed in it. Susie slammed Nadia against the remnants of the bridge, but the latter recovered with a cocky grin! Oh crap, that's gotta leave a mark, she had practically obliterated Susie in a game-winning combo! Didn't even stand a chance!

...Maybe he had the right idea in not participating.

Omori could spot the two fighters appearing in the plaza again. The young boy, less hesitant than last time, followed after Nadia.

The feral seemed to be riding high after her win, making her way back from the plaza of arches to Ark Mall with some pep in her step. And why not? Even if her opponent came to the fight a little under-equipped in terms of technology or power, she presented a fresh challenge that Nadia managed to overcome with style. Plus, small-scale, more personal fights like that one were her specialty. After all her struggles against big, powerful monsters lately, and the violent bar brawl back in the thieves' den in Limsa, a sporting duel turned out to be a much-needed breath of fresh air.

Once back on the ground floor of the multi-level complex, she meandered through the open space a little, not quite sure what to do with herself. While Mewtwo requested that all the Seekers engage themselves in some warm-up fights, it did not specify what to do after. A quick look around didn't turn up any of Nadia's comrades, either. She considered heading back to the Garfront Center, but knew how long it might be before Yellow Team's transcontinental train rides would turn up a suitable location to send her off to, and just lazing around that place as she waited sounded pretty boring. Maybe Mewtwo meant for the Seekers to keep cycling through matches until the call to action came? Nadia scratched her neck, thinking. Nah, he'd've definitely said so.

Footsteps behind her made one of her ears twitch, and her head turned to see a young boy following in her footsteps. His familiar apathetic expression and distinctive monochromatic color scheme gave him a gloomy air that she recognized. Twice now she'd spotted him in her vicinity, noticeable but easy to forget, like the passing shadow of a bird in flight. In the Argentum Trade Guild he'd been just one more stranger in a massive and fast-moving crowd, and in the Garfont Center her attention had been elsewhere, but now here he stood out in the open, with some kind of interest in her. Nadia flashed him a friendly smile. If he felt as down as he looked, maybe she could cheer him up! Few things made her happier than bringing a smile to a kid's face, whether that meant playing with them, doing tricks, or giving out the occasional treat. She turned around and crouched down, her tail curled around her feet.

"Hey there li'l buddy!" she greeted him, leaning with her forearms rested on her knees. "My name's Nadia, but everyone calls me Miss Fortune. Purr-leased to meetcha! What's your name?"

Ah, he was slightly hoping to walk up next to her before she noticed him. Probably would be less awkward that way. Thank goodness she didn't bear any ill will, if that smile was something to go by. As Nadia stopped and crouched down to the smaller boy's level, he took note of her scars. Right, her skin seemed to break apart as it stretched out.

"I'm Omori. Nice to meet you, Miss Nadia." Puns aside, he formally introduced himself, deciding to go ahead and break the ice a little. "You both did good out there, I was watching the whole match. How're you able to do that, using your own head and stuff to fight without...you know...?" He asked her, a hint of curiosity weaved into his usual neutral tone.

"Oh, you were?" Nadia sounded a little surprised. She did remember a couple Miis around the archway after her match with Susie concluded, but they didn't say anything to her and she didn't pay them any mind. Even after seeing the people spectate Diddy Kong and R.O.B., she'd totally forgotten such a feature existed whilst absorbed in her own battle. Maybe newbies didn't draw a crowd. If so, that just made Omori's viewership all the more special! "Well thanks! I hope I looked cool out there, heheh." She tilted her head as she considered how to answer his next question. "Well...it's a long and honestly, pretty painful story. Suffice to say, I can't die, so whenever I come apart, every bit o' me's still alive and kickin'." She shrugged as if to say that's life. "If ya think that's weird, I betcha haven't gotten out much! Some of the stuff I've seen on this trip so far makes my whole thing look paws-itively tame."

She held up her hands as double finger guns. "Speakin' of which, I saw ya at the meetin' earlier. were ya thinkin' of comin' along with us?"

The boy nodded. "There are people out there I need to protect." He explained. He then turned his attention to his sole weapon, holding it out in front of him to where the shiny blade acted as a reflection. He couldn't help the sigh that escaped his lips. "But I'm not used to fighting alone. That thing that dragged us here seemed to have weakened me too. I need time to bounce back."

For a moment the sudden appearance of Omori's knife left Nadia in a state of mild concern, but it turned out to be more of an accessory to his contemplation than anything. "Haha, yeah," she told him, totally not nervous at all. "Everything's, y'know, topsy-turvy and all. It can be pretty dangerous out there, so take all the time ya need, 'kay?" She stood up, swishing her fish tail, and put her hands on her hips. "Hey, have ya had breakfast today already? Ya look like ya could use a good pancake, my treat. I was at this place earlier, just loaded 'em up with strawberries, cream, and chocolate. Sound any good?"

Of course, Nadia's reaction to the sudden knife didn't go unnoticed. It was a bit jarring, seeing a kid wielding a knife. "Ah, sorry." Omori apologized, twirling the knife in one hand before pocketing his weapon. "Didn't mean to startle you."

She then, surprisingly, offered to treat him to breakfast. His eyes widened slightly. He was going to answer, when the growl of his own stomach beat him to the punch. "Right, that...does sounds good right now." Omori decided to take her up on the offer with a genuine smile.

The feral's heart soared; she couldn't have kept a straight face even if she wanted to. "Sweet! Walk this way, then."

She set off in a silly walk toward the Ark Mall spiral staircase, from which a number of bridges extended at the different landings to provide easy access to the multi-tiered gallery's floors. Planning to retrace the steps that took her to Pancake Bar that morning, Nadia didn't need to pay too much attention to where she was going, so when she gave up her silly walk to start the climb upstairs she sparked up another conversation.

"So, what's the coolest thing ya seen since ya showed up in the World of Light?" she asked. "For me, it's gotta be the Luma Pools. Way up on the western shore, it's this huge jungle fulla pink grass and leaves, and diamond-blue water so sparklin' and clear you could see right to the bottom! The reef out in the shallows by Limsa were great, but the Pools were the stuff of dreams." She sighed as she recalled the tranquil paradise, so soothing to her soul after the horrors of war. "How 'bout you?"

"Dunno." The monochrome youth shrugged, taking in his surrounding while keeping up with Nadia's pace. "I've just been staying in Limsa for the most part. Although, I did think the trade guild ship was pretty cool. Don't think I traveled through the Luma Pools either, but they do sound neat."

After a moment of thinking, he spoke up again. "Then again, Limsa's not the only town I've visited. Dirtmouth, I think it was called. It's sort of a quiet town, but that's cause the residents take most of their time exploring the depths of the nearby chasm. That's what one of the elders explained to me." He recalled to the feral. "I decided to have a look myself, but didn't risk going too deep in. There's only so much you can do with a knife and your wits. Especially when you're having to fend off bandits." Omori shook his head in disdain.

Nadia nodded as she internalized the new names. "Smart kid. Fights are more dangerous than ever in this world 'cause guys under the influence can't back down from a fight." Omori didn't paint a very vivid picture of his experiences, but she didn't need him to wax poetic to understand that he'd been through some hardship. Hopefully nothing to the degree that she did as a kitten, but who knew. "I sure hope we don't go underground anytime soon. I'm good with green grass and blue skies for a while!"

Once up the stairs, a short trip across the catwalk brought the pair to the third floor. The highest of the lower tiers, it featured some room out in front of the rows of businesses and facilities that made for decent atmosphere. Already the ovens at Monas' Pizza were beginning to heat up in preparation for the lunch rush, which nowadays were busier than ever thanks to the employment of a new and very popular Mona to replace the Mona that went off with the Phantom Thieves. Industrious noise -and sometimes fumes- wafted over from the workshop, the apothecary Sophie's Cauldron, and Prince Fleaswallow the frog's Flea Market. Nadia, however, set her sights on the humble but aromatic Pancake Bar. When she approached, the owner and cook -a jovial man whose toque rested on a fully receded hairline- treated her to a smile. "Well, if it isn't the lovely Ms Fortune! What can I do for you?"

Nadia patted a hand on Omori's shoulder. "Actually, I wanted to get this guy somethin'!" In front of the boy stood a wide array of plastic bins full of topping, almost too many to choose from. "Whatcha think, Omori?"

"I can even cook certain things inside the pancakes," the owner said with a wink as he flipped a pancake, not even bothering to look. "Chocolate chips, for example!"

Woah.

He didn't react much this time, but they could tell there was a glimmer of intrigue in his eye. The youth would have to choose carefully, any combination can be a gamble when it comes to taste and texture. And he could order toppings IN the pancakes?! The possibilities could be endless! After a moment of concidering his options, he decided to go for a drizzle of chocolate syrup, lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar and topped with a mix of fresh berries. He did also concider whipped cream, but he didn't want to go too overboard.

"Yessir!" the owner cheerfully replied. "You're third in line, so I'll have that out for you in a few minutes, soon as I'm caught up."

Nadia paid for the pancakes with a couple of the last few gold coins she had on her, which she didn't seem to think twice about. With the order in progress, the feral then headed over to one of the nearby tables to sit down. "So," she began. "Why not tell me a li'l about yourself, kid? If we know your story, we can help keep an eye out for your friends!"

Omori followed behind, sitting across from her. "Not much to say there. I used to live in Whitespace before all this, but I don't remember much else before that. You don't have to imagine what it looks like, it's mostly a void. When I'm not spending time there, I was with my friends in Headspace, which is basically Whitespace's neighbor. More colorful, full of life." He began to explain. Unfortunately he didn't have his map of Headspace on him. Something crossed his mind, and he pulled out the journal he's been keeping notes on enemies on. At the back page was a drawing of himself, but with a group of more colorful people. "The one in the colorful shirt is Kel, and that's his brother Hero. The girl with the bow's Aubrey, and the older girl's Mari. She's my sister." He pointed out each of them to Nadia, then he pointed to the green haired boy wearing a flower crown. "Basil. Something happened, and he went missing before Galeem reached us. We were busy looking for him." He quietly sighed. "I can't vouch for Mari, but Basil doesn't like to fight. The rest of us can atleast defend ourselves, but..." He trailed off.

There was some things he was leaving out, but he didn't want to drag his new acquaintance into something he'd have to deal with himself. "Other than that, my life was pretty normal, I guess. Think I've been stuck in this place for...two months? Give or take?"

Nadia drummed her fingers on the table as she took in the list of names and their corresponding faces. None of them rung a bell. "Well, don't worry yourself too much. As long as ya keep pushin' forward, you'll run into 'em again at some point. Just a matter of time."

The boy simply nodded in response, opting to look through the list of foe facts he's collected so far while waiting.

And speak of the devil, Nadia's ears pivoted again, this time at the sound of distant shouts. She heard 'hey', 'get back here', and 'stop, thief', all exclamations she'd received a fair few of during her own escapades. These yells seemed to be coming from the a level or two above her, however, and with a brow raised Nadia turned her gaze upward. Right away she spotted a familiar kid sprinting along the railing of Ark Mall's fifth floor, her trusty umbrella in one hand and a brilliantly sparkling time piece in the other. In hot pursuit she spotted a man in a yellow superhero costume, complete with the likeness of a beer glass for a helmet, who was not only running at a furious pace despite his portly build but actually catching up to Hat Kid, much to the young one's terror. It looked like she'd already seen Nadia, because as Wonder-Beer tried to grab her, Hatty dove off the fifth-floor railing and sailed down toward the feral, popping her umbrella to break her fall. "Darn it!" Wonder-Beer hollered before gathering himself, and with a 'hup' he vaulted the railing to plummet down after her. As Hatty ran to hide behind Nadia, the Wonderful One hit the ground with a powerful slam, but seeme to be fine.

Red-faced and wheezing, he extended an accusatory finger at the kid peering out from behind Nadia's legs. "H-hey, what's the big idea? This kid yours?" he asked. "She grabbed that hourglass right outta Dr. Shirogane's lab!"

Nadia held up her hands in a placating manner as her tail curled around Hatty protectively. "Whoa there, hold on a sec, dude! Just hear meowt. I'm just a friend of hers, but I'm pretty sure those thing belong to her?" She looked down at the kid, who nodded, then back to Shirogane. "I wasn't on the team at the time, but apparently the boss of the first area knocked her ship outta the sky and scattered those thingies all around the world. They're what her ship uses insteada gas."

"Huh? Y-you sure?" Wonder-Beer scratched his head. "But wait, that means you're...that means she's...part of the hero team?"

Hatty nodded, looking very smug, and Nadia backed her up with a shrug as if to say that's the facts. "If ya don't believe me, just ask Peach!"

"Ugh, well...you coulda said something at least kid, jeez! I get some people have a no-talking thing, but come on..."

...Well then. Luckily Omori didn't need to intervene, probably would've if the beer headed guy continued to harass the poor kid. She looked like she was around his age, maybe younger. As Nadia defused the situation he gave Hat Kid a polite wave. "Hey," Then Wonder-Beer mentioned a no-talking thing. So she's a quiet type too? "I get it, prefering not to talk too much?" He tilted his head to the side. "Wanna stick with us for a bit?"

As Wonder-Beer headed back to Shirogane's new lab, Nadia uncurled her tail and plopped back down in her chair. "Yeah, you could have some pancakes with us! How about it?"

Hatty's eyes lit up. "Ooh!" After stashing her time piece, she ran over to the Pancake Bar's counter to place her order, which she did by mostly by jumping and pointing to the things she wanted.

Nadia smiled. "Lucky I was around to clear that up, huh? Wasn't that dude's outfit hilarious? Goes to show heroes come in all shapes and sizes, whether you've got a six-pack or a good stout." Not expecting Omori to appreciate them, she giggled at her own puns, glad for the sudden infusion of beer-related humor that the encounter with the Wonderful One provided. "That's Hatty, by the way. At least, that's what I call her, 'cause she's never told us her real name. Despite bein' young, that hat's filled to the brim with courage and determination, and she's a real parkour whiz. Always haber-dashing around." Still grinning michievously, she leaned back in her chair. "Just proves that heroes can be pint-sized too, eh?"

Omori nodded again, shutting his eyes in thought. "Sounds like a strong kid. But yeah, I don't know if I'd be able to pull it off like you did. A sudden fight out here in public would be a terrible idea." He looked back to the feral with a faint grimace.

"There's a world of dif-fur-ence between you and me, kid!" Nadia told him. "Don't go lookin' at me like I'm some kind role model. You don't need to be the best, or even my best. Just your best, right? That's all we can ask of ya. It's up to us adults to do the rest." She remembered the pain she and the whole team felt when poor Hatty got bonked during the Orphan fight. The vengeance that followed was a testament to how jealously protective the team was of their little Hat Kid.

"Order up!" the owner of Pancake Bar called, as Hatty ran back over to the table. Nadia jabbed her head in the old guy's direction, gesturing for Omori to go grab his treat while it was hot.

The monochrome youth closed his journal and set it to the side. "Be right back." He said as he got up and walked away to grab his plate of pancakes with both hands, careful not to accidentally spill the delicious-looking breakfast. Almost looked too good to eat.

Almost.

He nodded to the owner in thanks, then walked back to his seat. Soon as he set his plate down he was already in the midst of cutting a slice of the stack out. Once he got down to eating he wouldn't be doing much talking, and Hatty wouldn't be doing much ever, so Nadia figured she might as well give them something to listen to as they ate up. She began to talk about Little Innsmouth, telling all about New Meridian's hard-knock but uniquely flavorful seaside district, of its Dagonian people, and her memories with them. She recounted the sights and smells of its wharves and markets, the lower-level streets that became canals at high tide, visions of coral smokestacks and jellyfish lanterns of colored paper. She spoke of her friends, like Minette the waitress, and Yu-Wan, and all the others. While her reminiscing did its job of filling time, it also served one other purpose. It had been over two months since she last saw her home, most of it spent in ignorance of the world's wrongness, and how long it would be until she could see them again she couldn't say. Telling stories like these, however inexpertly, helped to keep the memories alive. She got into such a groove that she unwittingly continued a few minutes after the kids finished their pancakes, which made for an embarassingly realization afterward.

"Well, hope the food was good at least!" Nadia said sheepishly.

Omori had cleaned himself off with a napkin when he finished his food. He did try his best not to make too much of a mess, but if you looked closely enough you could've see patches of powdered sugar still stuck around his lips. Nonetheless, he listened closely to Nadia's tales. He was used to being an ear for others to chat up and vent too after all. Once she realized she had been rambling for a while, he waved it off with a warm smile. "It was. Thanks for bringing me here, Miss Nadia."

"Mhm!" Hatty echoed, tossing her last strawberry into her mouth.

"You bet!" The feral wore a gentle smile, one that well and truly reached her eyes. "Y'know, we've been here a little bit, I wonder how the mission's going?" She leaned on her elbow to look down over the railing. "Wait, duh, that Mewtwo guy said the other team'd be visitin' a couple train stations, so we probably got plenty-a time." She turned back to the kids. "Anywhere ya wanna go? I'm sure we could find some other fun stuff around this place."

The boy shrugged, ever indifferent, then looked over to Hatty. "You look like you know your way around the place. Got any ideas?" He asked her with a light nudge of his elbow.

"Hmm..." The little girl put a hand to her chin, thinking. Then she snapped her fingers, dabbed her mouth with her napkin, and leaped down from her chair to race down the third floor row toward the stairs. Nadia jumped up, waved at Omori follow them, and took off after Hatty on another new adventure.

Omori pocketed his journal and hurried off after them. He'd probably have to miss some of the other matchups, but he didn't mind in the slightest. Nadia and Hatty seem like cool people, so why not hang out with them for a bit longer?

The closer he got to these… people? The weirder they got. A lot of people in the group weren’t even human, and they certainly weren’t Pokemon. At least none that he’s ever seen… It didn’t matter at the end. He finally found a way out of this desert, and made their way to the train station. Of course it wouldn’t be a simple matter of boarding a train. No, they had to gather things called pons in order to buy a pass. Passes were scattered all over the large train station. It was more than a mere station, it was a small city, filled with cute cats too.

That creature with wings that vaguely reminded Bede of a Vespiquen sent a bumch of creatures, to gather pons for her. Bede scoffed. How lazy could one be? The pons were hidden in far out of reach locations, but she had wings she could very easily fetch them herself. Unlike Bede had to rely on Hatennas psychic abilities to reach them.

Eventually, Bede had accumulated enough Pons to buy a pass. The question was where was he going to go? One of the trains was going to Snowbelle City in Kalos, but he didn’t really feel like trading the heat for the cold… He decided to tag along with Torra and Poppi. They at least seemed friendly and capable.

The group ended up in a strange little town that was all salmon pink, and there were blue skate ramps everywhere you looked. Bede stood around them, not really sure what to do next. He was in an unfamiliar city. “What on Earth is a Moogle?” Bede blurted out. Even though there were plenty of other confusing things to ask about in this situation.

"Everyone, if I can have your attention!" Wonder Red raised an arm, stepping away from the gathered group before everybody split off. "As I'm sure you're aware, Commander Nelson and I are part of a much larger organization; CENTINELS Planetary Secret Service, also known as the Wonderful One-Double-Oh. Even though we've managed to collect a few members after we were taken by Galeem, there are over 90 of us out there, potentially still under its influence. If you see one of our number while on recon, relay the information as soon as you can to either me or the Commander. Do not try to engage them yourselves. They could be very dangerous."

With a parting nod to Commander Nelson, Wonder Red boarded the Mint line train alongside his unusual group. The pairing wasn't as random as it might've seemed, though. Unlike his home on Earth, where civilians were familiar with the workings of the Wonderful 100, this hodgepodge world was full of people he'd never seen before. He didn't feel comfortable in using any innocents for a Unite Morph in a pinch while out in the field. Sectonia, however, could provide invaluable support with her antlions, at least until the team got their numbers up again.

Hoping to be on the same page there, Wonder Red explained all this to her. "...so you see, if we can coordinate between each other, I would be able to assist to my full capacity," he said, finishing off a long-winded speech on how their suits and Unite Morphs functioned. Their train pulled into the station just as Red wrapped up. Did he really talk for the entire ride?! Apparently not out of breath after all that, Red was quick to jump to his feet. "Stay close," Red warned his partners, even though one of them was a giant wasp and he himself was right red, not the easiest people to lose in a crowd.

When the surge of rough-and-tumble folk petered out enough to let them off the platform, Red took in the surroundings, from the derelict, rotted buildings, to the various monsters dotting the landscape. "This place seems dangerous," he noted. "Was it like this before? Or could this have happened because of this World?" Red thought this over as he took a few steps out from the station, onto a root big enough to stand on, putting him higher than the dwarven Scout. Eventually his gaze sat on the big blue tree, emanating a sense of comfort.

"We should call our Moogle someplace safer than down here," Red said, "maybe higher up? If those rooftops are any better. We could look for this area's largest hub, but there's no guarantee that would be a nicer spot for it." He turned to his compatriots. "What are your thoughts?"



When Raz reached the end of the train's rails, he hopped off, landing with a little skid that turned into a half-jog back to where the group was supposed to meetup. "Got mine!" Raz held up his passbook, having managed to find the Purple line's booth along the rails. "Seems like three of us are going Purple," he said, giving his pass a wave to Jesse's and Therion's. It wasn't clear if the decision to break off into groups of three was because of Raz pointing that out, but there wasn't any harm in him thinking so.

Once they boarded their train, Raz was trying to contain his excitement. Sure, the mountain may have bested him in the long run, but this was his real strength: exploring! Being outside of such a large group meant his unique talents would pop out more, too. The actual ride to their destination would probably be the hardest part, since tiny Raz found himself between two tall, keep-to-themselves types. So, naturally, he went to break the ice, with a bit of, "So this place is going to a 'Queen's' station, AND a resort. Seems like a pretty easy mission," and some, "Ya know I've always liked purple. It's like blue... but redder!" When his attempts at small talk hit a wall, Raz too lapsed into an awkward silence. At least, until something came to mind.

"Oh, hey, excuse me?" Raz addressed Jesse, "I saw you flying around and lifting stuff with your mind before. You must be a psychic too. And a pretty advanced one, I can't even levitate like you or Milla can yet." This train of thought sparked another, and he turned his head to Therion. "Oh right, and you... Thermin? Uh, I remember you getting scared back in that mountain cavern, and I just want to assure you that my psychic abilities can't 'run out' or however you said it. They're pretty reliable!"

Whether he managed to spark a conversation or not, the train eventually reached their first stop. Not a lot of the other passengers got ready to leave, so there wasn't much rush to get to the exit. Raz took the time to dig into his pack, pulling out a small notebook and a smaller pencil. He flipped the page over. "Queeeeen's... Staaaationnn." He said as he wrote the spot's name down. "Dark," he continued, "a lot of plant growth, moist conditions, bugs. Many bugs." He scratched his pencil across the notebook three times, underlining the word 'many'. "Eh, actually, 'dark-ish' works better. Plenty of light, just scattered all over. Not quite dim, though. Foggy..."

Raz was lost in his note-taking for a while, nearly tripping over a patch of moss and into a bug-lit lantern that hung low. Eventually, though, he stopped, and took it all in properly. "Huh. This place is funky," he expertly observed. "Do you guys know how this Moogle thing works? It feels too echo-y to just call it, right? Plus I'm pretty sure we're underground... in Psychic Tales 171, Otto Mentalis was stuck in the Cavern of the Demids, and his long range Telepathilizer couldn't--" He stopped himself short, since neither of his teammates seemed interested in Psychic Tales 171. Their loss.

Clearing his throat, Raz spoke again. "Soooo. Would you guys say this place has a more wibbly or a wobbly atmosphere, exactly?" He asked, turning his attention to one of the sigils, trying to replicate it in his notes.

Albedo met Frisk’s decision with an approving nod. “Very well, inside it is.” Accordingly the three moved into the mouth of the cave, with all the urgency and awareness that the situation demanded. They did not plan to make any sort of stand in that tunnel, since its narrow confines limited their ability to maneuver and swing weapons, but the Prisoner did think of something he could so to further discourage the team’s pursuers.

He laid a trap for the demon wolves, so perfect for the situation that it might as well have been tailor-made for the purpose. It was a smart move, the alchemist conceded, but he could not condone the overconfidence that it seemed to impart in his undead ally.

“Our goal is not to exterminate every last creature on the mountain,” he reminded the Prisoner drily, his face partly veiled by the darkness. “Wearing ourselves thin as we fight unnecessary battles will only sabotage the real task at hand. Instead, let us concern ourselves with it no longer.”

As Albedo raised his hand, a bright blue light glowed, taking on the form of a snowflake. With his other hand he beckoned for the Prisoner to come away from the entrance and get behind him, and after he did, the alchemist tossed it forward. It burst like one of the ice grenades that could be found on the diseased island that the Prisoner knew too well, but rather than just freeze enemies in the vicinity, it created a boulder of ice that physically blocked the tunnel. With that entrance sealed, the wind blew no longer, and its whisper in the pines could not be heard.

Yet the three were not engulfed in the darkness, since aside from the light given off by the Prisoner’s head, a soft, cold blue glow shone from deeper within the tunnel. “This is only one entrance,” Albedo reassured the others. “And if we must use this again, I can remove the blockage later on. Let us proceed with as much peace of mind as we can muster…given the circumstances.” So saying, he led the way downward, into the core of Dragonspine Mountain.



Within they discovered a terrific cavern, awash in the luster of the blue flowers that bloomed among the same grasses as up on the surface, from drifts of snow that seemed to exist despite the lack of sky. Not all the flora was familiar, however, such as the greenish growths perched up on the walls. The light reflected off the crystalline surface of huge icicles, rising from the ground in clusters like hurled javelins. Where the rocky walls gave way to crags of ice, the effect was even more pronounced. How high the ceiling went none of the explorers could rightfully say, since the darkness held domain up there, but they could see the rocky natural archways that spanned the open space. Ancient ruins dotted the ledges and walls, illuminated by glowing crystals set inside the eroded structures, while here and there cobbled-together wooden structures like rope bridges could be glimpsed, all patrolled by handfuls of goblins, both short and tall. Albedo even saw the skeleton of some great beast, which sparked an idea. “I’ve never seen the like,” he murmured, squinting at the bones from afar. “Should I get the chance, I’d like to sketch it in my book.”

The more the three looked, the more it became clear of some recent seismic activity. Sections of ground, as well as the frozen lake at very bottom of the cavern, sported both winding fissures and debris fallen from the ceiling. Albedo’s eyes traced a path up the stone bridges. “There should be another exit up there,” he whispered. “Let’s move quietly, and not disturb those automatons.”

If Frisk’s eyes happened to wander on the way over, however, she might notice something the others did not. A faint echo reached up to her from the depths of the cavern, but unlike the other ambient noises of the cave’s monstrous inhabitants, this one inexplicably tugged at her heartstrings. While the others either didn’t notice or didn’t care to pay it any mind, that strange cry drew her to the edge of the precipice to look over. If she stared down at the frozen lake long enough, a flicker of movement would catch her eye. From a previously-unseen hole in the ice, a friend-shaped creature bobbed up, a fish in its mouth. With a great effort it dragged itself out of the hole, revealing a large, untreated cut wound in its side, and in a woeful degree of both misery and pain it forced itself to eat its catch. Swallowed before it could dissolve, the morsel served its purpose, but the Spheal felt no better. It just turned back to stare at its hole, hurting for more food, but afraid that another dive would be its last.

Bones. Again? As Prisoner and Albedo delt with blocking off the cave entrance, Frisk, in dumbfoundment stared down at the arrows she obtained. Sure, they are more practical than the pile of mangled bones that sat in her inventory, but still. Weird concidering who she's friends with. Hopefully Papyrus was doing okay back in Snowdin...

With that being said, the only thing to do now was keep going. And the inside of Dragonspine was much different than the the outside they've been climbing. The woman couldn't help her awe as she glanced around. Frisk knelt down for a moment to get a better look at the blue flowers that decorated the ground, but dared not to pick them. She didn't want to ruin what beauty the cavern held. Sure, there was some robotic guys they'd have to avoid disturbing, but they can atleast avoid those idiots. The hints of seismic activity either meant the Goblins were recent, or the source itself. Either way they'd have to be careful.

As Albedo continued leading the way forward, Frisk idly and quietly looked around some more. She suddenly stopped walking. The reverberation that reached her ears pained her heart, but where was it's source? She made her way over to the edge of their path, and after a moment, saw what it was. A Spheal. An injured Spheal. A quiet gasp escaped Frisk's throat once she saw how wounded it truely was.

"W-Wait!" She whisper-yelled to her teammates. The woman quickly looked around for any means she could reach the poor Pokemon and spotted a slope. She hurried down it, yet carefully approached the Spheal, not wanting to scare it. "It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you..." Frisk gently reassured it as she approached. Once it was in arm's reach, she carefully scooped it up, cradling it in her arms like a mother would their child whilst keeping in mind it's wound. "Oh, you poor thing... The bad machines did this to you, didn't they?" She cooed with a remorseful frown, climbing back up the slope to regroup with the other two. "It'll be alright now. I'll make sure they don't lay a hand on you again."

When Frisk appeared again, the Alchemist and the Prisoner could see her carrying the wounded Pokemon in her arms. Her frown remained. "I-I couldn't leave them alone..." Was all she could say.

---

Karin Kanzuki ‘listened’ to Mewtwo carefully. Sparring matches, hmm? It seemed that in her case they were putting the newcomers together. As far as she could tell both Karin and Rubick were untested in the eyes of the Seekers. Rubick is that…odd ‘wizard’ fellow with a penchant for copying attacks. Immediately, Karin felt confident. Anyone that had to literally steal someone else’s moves couldn’t be that strong. And Karin knew that no one could use Kanzuki-Ryu as efficiently as her. Still, she’d never fought a wizard before, so perhaps there could be some value in this exercise.

Karin approached Rubick and curtseyed. ”Mister Rubick, is it not? I am Karin Kanzuki, Mistress of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu. We shall be working together in this endeavor against Galeem, hmm? This may be a productive exercise.”

This “Mewtwo” fellow was certainly interesting in a multitude of ways. From using telepathy to communicate to the fact that his very existence implied that a “Mew one” existed as well made him such a delightful fellow to be around. At the mention of sparring matches, Rubick tilted his head with a quizzical look. Not at confusion that he’d be battling his teammates, because he had no such thoughts. Instead, he was wondering what skills he would learn from them. It would certainly expand his knowledge on his teammates’ capabilities.

Turning to Karin, Rubick bowed in response and replied, “Indeed, Mistress Kanzuki. I look forward to learning much about you.”

Karin smirked, running a gloved hand through her golden coils of hair. ”You will be knowing more about me as I show the Seekers how a true martial artist moves into battle.” Karin Kanzuki watched where the crowd was going.

”I believe we must travel further into the facility to do battle. I must admit I prefer the method of simply fighting where we happen to meet, but I suppose not everyone can be trusted to be decent in politeness.” She gestured for Rubick to follow her and began heading towards the Ark Mall and to the teleporting archways.

Rubick skipped along as he followed Karin towards the archways, wondering what the battlefield would look like. He hoped it would be fun and colorful, at least. Entering one of the archways, he soon found himself facing many more choices for an arena to do battle in. He browsed through the various portals available, looking for one that looked the most interesting to him. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to go by, with only a vague symbol to determine the type of stage they’d find themselves in. “Hmmmm…. Perhaps… this one!” Rubick said, pointing his staff towards a portal with a peculiar-looking symbol. “This one pleases me.”

”Hmm. Well, I suppose it was only polite, though that symbol wouldn’t have been my first choice.” She said.



Entering the portal, Rubick found himself on a colorful metal platform, with 6 differently-colored orbs, each on their own pedestal. Just above were 3 more smaller platforms floating in the air. Looking over the edge, Rubick noticed that the floor he was standing on was actually floating in the air as well. “Hmm. Curious,” Rubick thought out loud.

Karin peered over the edge. ”Ohoho. I suppose there will be a ring out in this duel.” She smirked, confident in her ability to produce great knockback while keeping her footing steady. ”This may be a learning experience for you. Personally I wouldn’t have chosen you for my opponent, and it would have been more fair, perhaps, if you had a teammate on your side to even the score.” She mused smugly.

Rubick chuckled at Karin’s words as he walked over to another side of the arena, getting ready for combat. Clearly she had never faced a Magus before, which meant it was his duty to put her in her place. “Then by all means,” Rubick said as he twirled his staff in the air for a second before slamming it back onto the ground, making a loud crack noise. Then he pointed it at her before adding, “Face the Magus!” It was then that an announcer began to count down…






Karin sliced her hands through the air as she settled into her stance across the arena, pleased to face a confident opponent. ”Ring out, or knock out. If you are ready, then let us begin!” With that, she dashed forward and to the side and prepared to avoid ranged attacks coming her way.

Rubick faked a yawn before flicking his staff upward, casting his Telekinesis spell. “Up!…” Rubick announced as Karin found herself propelled upward into the air, floating off the ground by some meters. ”Wh-what?!” Then Rubick moved her over to the side of the arena and continued on, “...and down!” as Rubick flicked his staff down, propelling her downward out of bounds. There was an explosion of light where Karin was dropped, and the announcer called the end of the match…



“First blood? Already? I came here to be tested! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,” Rubick said, enjoying his first easy win in a long time. Karin was then brought back to the arena via means unknown to Rubick, her body flashing white for a moment before the effect faded. “Hmmm… such fascinating energies!” Rubick thought out loud as he examined what had just occurred.

Needles to say, Karin was livid. Never before had she been so cheated, so tricked. ”I DEMAND a rematch!” She shouted through clenched teeth. ”Your magic is only effective against me because of the arbitrary rules of this- this ridiculous fighting arena! Such a magic throw wouldn’t even chip my fingernails in a real street fight!” She sat, trying to maintain her composure through her outrage. ”Even still! I can defeat you with the same rules now that I know your gimmick! Karin Kanzuki needs no handicaps!”

“A rematch? Very well, I accept this challenge,” Rubick answered, returning to his original spot during the beginning of the last match. “Fair warning, however: this next round will end all the same.”

”You would do well not to underestimate me, wizard.” Karin said, her heart ablaze with passion and indignity.

The announcer began to speak again.






Karin dashed forward and immediately zipped upwards onto the floating platform, breaking line of sight with Rubick. Then she dropped into a defensive crouch, waiting to see how the Magus would respond.

Rubick’s eyes followed Karin as she headed up and sighed. This was the problem with having to battle anyone more than once: they learned more of your tricks with every duel. Still, that’s also what made such duels so entertaining. There was no challenge to winning the exact same way every time, after all.

Stepping backwards, Rubick pulled out his Blink Dagger and aimed at the middle platform above the others. In an instant, Rubick appeared to the spot he was aiming at with a poof-ing noise, leaving a cloud of dark blue particles behind which quickly dissipated. As soon as he had done so, he ran over to the other side and pointed his staff at the platform below, hoping to catch Karin with his Telekinesis again and send her plummeting down once more.

Karin scowled. This wizard was full of tricks. Some kind of teleport? He was above her now. She dove over to the side and dug her fingers around the edge of the platform, locking herself in. She felt like she had the strength to combat the wizard’s telekinesis and prevent herself from getting thrown off. And as far as she knew, nobody could do a special move forever. She was pulled up, legs over her head, but she held fast.

Rubick laughed at her attempts to stay grounded. “What is the matter, Karin Kanzuki?” Rubick taunted. “You’re going to have to do more than that to defeat the Grand Magus!” Rubick then began firing small bolts of green energy at Karin, laughing and swinging his staff with every bolt. They dealt little damage, but also had no drain on his reserves. Besides, his goal was to take his time with this duel and see what abilities Karin had to offer, as well as possibly use them for himself.

Karin was upside down, trying to hold onto the platform as several bolts began striking her sides. On the third bolt she grunted from the impact. She began kicking her legs, revealing the black gym tights she wore under her noblewoman’s outfit. Karin began cursing. ”You coward! You scoundrel! How dare you do this to me?! I’ll wear your eyeballs as earrings!” She tried pulling herself down and crawling to the underside of the platform to break line of sight.

As Rubick fired another bolt at Karin, he said, “Come now, did you really expect a duel between a warrior and a Magus to be fair? Truth be told, I’ve dealt with far worse back home during my routine walks!” Rubick was thoroughly enjoying this so far. Seeing Karin try so hard to get back down, though, Rubick decided that perhaps he should oblige this one time. “Now then… mind the drop!” Rubick said as he flipped the direction of his Telekinesis, forcing Karin to plummet towards the floor of the arena. The magic enveloping her would cushion the blow should she land on the ground, making it deal no damage. Still, the shockwave released would have a stunning effect, paralyzing her for about a second or two.

Rubick checked his energy reserves, and quickly calculated that he would have enough in the tank for at best a couple more casts of his Telekinesis, and maybe some seconds of continuous usage if he used his energy efficiently. He reckoned it would have to do, and jumped down onto the ground as well. “This battle has been quite entertaining, but I think it’s time I let you have some fun as well. How about it, Karin Kanzuki?” Rubick said, waving his left hand at Karin as if he was inviting her to attack.

Karin hopped back up onto her feet, fuming. Routine walks! ”If you were on a walk, you’d have no ring outs to hide behind!” She protested. She eyed his staff warily. ”Never go easy on a Kanzuki.” She took a step back and hopped back up onto the platform above her. Dashing across its surface to use it as cover, she dove from it, aiming at the ground in front of Rubick’s feet like a missile.

When Karin leapt up to the platform again, Rubick reached into his robes and grasped his Blink Dagger tightly. If there was anything he learned from his years of dueling experience and assassination attempts, it was that a Magus should never let an opponent get within melee range. But then, Rubick had an idea. He let his artifact go and removed his hand from his robes. This was a chance! Rubick had yet to see any of Karin’s Powers, and he so desperately wanted to see something exciting from her. It could be some fun ability to strike him with or befuddle his senses, anything! So he thought to himself: why not see how this played out? When Karin dove, Rubick launched a couple bolts of green energy from his staff while moving towards the center of the arena. That way, there would be more ground to cover should Karin try to go for a ring out win, and give Rubick more time to analyze her abilities should she choose to display them.

Karin was hit by one of the bolts as she dove, rolling to a step, she stayed crouched, spun, and shot her leg out like a spear as Rubick walked backwards. It connected with his knee and in a blink of an eye she was upon him as if to deliver a devastating strike. Instead she grabbed his arm, the arm he had reached into his cloak, and shook it around violently. ”What was that?! What were you about to do?! I said do not go easy on me! I’ll not be hearing any excuses from you after I destroy you!” Lifting his arm over her head she spun underneath it, causing Rubick to flip upside down and land hard on his back.

Rubick felt his breath painfully forced out of his lungs as he received the harsh blow from Karin. It seemed that Karin, like most fighters he had met, preferred to rely on their own skill and martial arts rather than make use of any Powers. This is why warriors are so troublesome, Rubick thought to himself. Always focusing on their codes of honor and training their bodies rather than toying with the natural laws of the world. Rubick raised his staff once more and began to cast Telekinesis once more. This time the target was himself, however, using it in an attempt to launch himself into the air and escape Karin’s grasp.

”Rest assured-” Karin said, a not undetectable amount of malice in her voice, ”I will not be making that mistake!” As Rubick launched himself up into the air, Karin joined him, hopping a clean ten feet into the air with ease. She checked his ascent with a palm thrust, and then brought her other hand down like an axe, content to chop him right back into the ground.

Rubick held his staff in front of him in an attempt to block the chop. Of course, his staff held, but it did not stop Karin from sending him back down. So that’s how it is, in the end, Rubick thought to himself again. How… disappointing. With more control of himself in midair, Rubick managed to land on his feet, then proceeded to run backward in an attempt to gain distance. At the same time, he pointed his staff at Karin once more, using his last of his energy reserves to cast his Telekinesis on her. Seeing as there was no more entertainment to be found here anyway, he intended to end the duel for good this time.

If there was one advantage Karin had for certain in this match, it was longevity. Rubick and Karin’s energy reserves were inverse- Rubick started fully stocked and spent it as he used his spells. Karin started at baseline and gained more bursts of power as the fight went on. As she landed and prepared for yet another grasp of telekinesis, energy coiled on the inside of her body. ”Ressenha!” She shouted. Flashing with power, she exploded upward like a rocket, pinwheeling at a slight forward angle. Her fist crashed into the platform above her and somewhat alarmingly, punched a hole into it. There she grabbed her hand into the concrete and held on tight. She learned from her second encounter with the telekinesis that he couldn’t do it forever. Eventually he would have to throw her, and then he couldn’t do it again for a short while. She glared at Rubick, her orange eyes wide, her legs curled upward defensively. She didn’t intend to be target practice again.

Rubick sighed. Karin truly was his worst matchup. She was smart, and had plenty more options to choose from compared to him, especially as he didn’t have access to his more offensive arcanery. Rubick released his grip on his staff, letting it fall to the ground with a short clatter. His energy reserves empty, there was little else he could do against a trained martial artist.

For a moment, a malevolent grin flashed across the suspended Kanzuki’s features. A younger Karin would have pounced on the wizard in that moment and relished in striking the final blow. But those times were behind her, now. Mostly. So instead she reigned herself in, the grin cooling into a condescending smile, and settled for a very mocking tone in her voice instead.

”Ohoho! Surrendering, are we?” She called out, still hanging from the floating platform. ”All out of tricks, hmm? Ohohoho!” Laughing loudly, she placed her other free hand palm outward by her mouth, as if she were sharing an embarrassing secret with a nearby invisible person. It wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes, and it was as boisterous as it was regal.

Rubick raised his hands as he shrugged. He wasn’t one to fall for such weak provocations. “Ahh yes, it’s truly a shame,” Rubick replied. “And a shame that you had none of your own. It’s made this whole experience so boring that I couldn’t help but let you win.”

Karin dropped from her perch, brushing some stone powder off her knuckles. ”Let me win, did you? Ohoho. I’m afraid not.” Undaunted, she dismisses the suggestion outright. After all, she said no excuses! ” This could have been a learning experience for you! But your arrogance blinds you to your weaknesses. I learned how to deal with a telekinetic. The only thing you learned is that you should stick to fighting our enemies one on one, on floating platforms! Perhaps we could invite them all back here and hope they show up! Send them an RSVP? Ohoho!” She gloated.

If Rubick had not been wearing a mask, Karin would see the half-annoyed, half-angry smile forming on his face. Magically recalling his staff to his hand, Rubick walked up to Karin and retorted, “Oh yes, mmhm hm ho ha ha ha ha! Perhaps I could give them a taste of the same 5-second defeat you suffered in the first duel. Truly a fine learning experience to be found there!”

Karin’s smile faltered briefly. A confident pout took its place. Closing her eyes, she flicked her golden coils over her shoulder. ”Hmph. Indeed it was. If I were you, Grand Magus, I would quit while I was ahead. Or rather, tied. Because the inevitable result of all your continued blathering is yet another rematch.” She said, setting her hands on her hips.

The two combatants would continue to bicker for some time, eventually quieting down to a harrumph from the both of them as they headed back to the main headquarters. It seemed the dynamic between them sparked a new rivalry, one that would not be extinguished for quite some time.

Seeing as there were two people already with a purple pass including himself, with Jesse that made three. So the trio headed back toward the purple station, Therion taking the lead at first though eventually Raz took over in his excitement to get going. They all boarded, and soon enough the cat-pulled train got going.

Therion was quiet for most of the trip, content to just people watch and ignore whatever comments Raz and Jesse made. However he did pipe up when Raz directly addressed him (by the wrong name). He bristled slightly.

"Therion. That was when I was enchanted, or brain-washed, or whatever that thing does to people," he said, which was the truth. "I wasn't scared," he followed with, which was a lie. Therion crossed his arms and scowled, dropping himself onto one of the open seats on the subway car's benches.

"Can't blame a guy for thinking it was a spell that ran on mana." It was really his only frame of reference for weird stuff like that. In fact he still didn't know what a "psychic" was, just that they were technically different from mages. And, now, that their powers didn't rely on mana - which was good to know for the future.

When they pulled into the station, the place they arrived to was not at all what Therion had expected. When he thought of "Queen's Station" he pictured a magnificent building, with marble pillars and richly colored drapery looked after by more than a few decorated guardsmen. The doors would take them outside to some kind of castle town in a queendom. Instead, they got a dim, overgrown and sort of somber place that seemed like it was almost underground. There was a certain charm to it, as if it may have been the illustrious place Therion pictured years and years ago, but he couldn't be sure. As he, Jesse, and Raz ascended the spiral staircase and they were able to get a glimpse of the few people in the station, a sudden realization came to his mind. When Raz was listed off everything he was seeing he'd even made mention of a lot of bugs. The thief just barely stopped himself from slapping his own forehead.

"Queen as in an insect queen," he said, the tone of his voice very unamused. So the probably really were underground, in some kind of gigantic nest. That was frankly a disgusting thought, but Therion could bear with it thanks to the place looking more like an abandoned man-made structure than a hole in the ground. He left all of the note taking to the others, deciding to start ascending again. He only glanced back when Raz asked about the Moogles before trailing off into what might as well have been gibberish to Therion.

...now that he thought about it though, he had no clue how calling the Moogles actually worked. he'd seen that dark haired kid do it in the desert, and Vandham had given them a very brief rundown of the process, but was it really as simple as he'd made it sound? If Therion called out to one and nothing showed up he was going to feel really dumb. Deciding to ignore Raz's nonsense question, he cleared his throat before speaking.

"Moogle," he said, and after a few seconds one of the creatures popped up in front of them. It glanced around the area, slightly confused at first, but then it brought a little hand up to it's head and tapped it's noggin a few times.

"You must be with the recon team," it reasoned. "Sorry, but could you find a better place to call? We Moogles can hear you just fine, but back at the base they won't be able to pick up our return signal."

It looked overhead at the hanging moss, and out over the canyon where the area above them couldn't be seen given the combination of vegetation and shadows. "Try going up?" it suggested. It stuck around for any questions the crew might have before disappearing, leaving the three to themselves once more.

Jesse squinted, nodding at Raz’s strong opinions about the color purple. “Yeah. Good old purple.” She said, not really sure where to go with that conversation.

Okay. This is awesome. Jesse thought to herself as she stepped off the train. It was some kind of cathedral, but a cathedral that was built by what you’d find under a rock in your backyard. She got the impression that this was a place where one was supposed to be quiet. No parties went down in this place. Rowdy intruders were probably rounded up and eaten by giant spiders.

This place was bioluminescent to high heaven. She peered out into the large canyon, smiling. “Wow. Cool, huh?” She said, looking back at Therion and Raz. The latter of which had something on his mind.

“Actually, I’m a Parautilitarian.” Jesse clarified. “I only bring it up because I imagine there’s some distinction between how our powers actually function. But yeah. Neither of us have, uh, a wizard hat on and we don’t say magic words and use magic staffs. If only, right? Maybe someday.” She joked dryly. She glanced over at Therion. “Mhm. No mana here.” That word was unusual. Wasn’t that from a religion or two on Earth? But yeah, in video games it’s the blue stuff that wizards drink. So it’s how this guy conceptualizes magic. Or maybe it’s vice versa? Weird. Regardless, this Therion guy seemed pretty straight edge, so she wasn’t going to be teasing him about his alleged fright levels.

As they looked the place over, Raz mumbled to himself and his notebook. “Oh, good. Glad someone’s taking notes.” Jesse said.

Raz asked if the whole Moogle business really was that easy. It seemed like he was referencing a comic book or something, which amused Jesse. “Well. Maybe Moogle magic is more reliable than a Telepathilizer. Let’s find out.” Therion tried summoning a Moogle, and yeah, it really was that easy. She watched, impressed, as the Moogle gave them some advice. “Just go up, huh?” She nodded at Raz. “Guess you were half-right. The Moogle can get here, but our objective is somewhere with a little clearer reception.”

After it disappeared, Jesse considered Raz’s question. “Hmm…wibbly.” She answered confidently, as if she took the question very seriously. Then she began to jog further up the spiral staircase, looking to explore more of this fantastical place. And also find a good spot for the Moogles to set up their device for the rest of Team Good Guy.

Like the others, Kamek and Jr squared up for battle. Unlike the others, they had found a way of technically following Mewtwo’s directive while also conserving energy, a goal the under-slept Jr had found it fairly easy to convince the old mage to help him pursue. With that in mind, they had gone not to a smash arena, but a pokemon one, because while the pair took it easy it was the minions who were brawling in their stead.



”Alright that’s enough Mimi, come on back!” The Prince called out from the hovering platform he’d parked his souped up clowncar on, one that floated over the gap to one side of the arena at a distance close enough to yell orders from, but far away enough that there was a low risk of the trainers becoming collateral damage. Then he tossed a pokeball into the arena which bounced once against the ground and then shot a red beam at his rather battered looking Mimikyu, who’d gone through quite her share of shadow clones till she’d been worn down by the fact that unlike the 2 minion Jr, Kamek couldn't actually run out of forces other than through mana drain or exhaustion.

The mage, who had set up a deck chair on her own platform and was only half paying attention as she flicked through her new grimoire, had at least been upfront about this, meaning that Jr’s minions were basically up against an endless survival battle. Not that this stopped Jr from wanting a victory out of this, which is why he called over to his training partner ”Hey, Kamek! I’m gonna use strikers this time to help out, get some combo training in!”

The mage cocked an eyebrow at this, but then shrugged and nodded.

”Cool. Now. Go Dazzle, let’s see what you’ve got!” Jr called out as he pulled his other pokeball from the bandolier on his chest and tossed it out into the fray. The ball bounced once, twice, and then split open, revealing the clown nosed sea lion with black feathered flippers that was Dazzle the Popplio.

The water pokemon shook his head clear of sleep, awkwardly pushed himself upright on the new flippers that he was still getting used to and then had a look at what he was up against.

Turned out to be a shadow clone of Bowser, the dark imitation of the koopa king flickering slightly at the edges due to a crater in its chest left by a departing electroball from Mimi.

”Foe’s weak Dazzle, so let’s finish it off and then get to the proper practice!” Jr commanded the mon, who looked back and nodded at his trainer before squaring up for battle.

”Pacify the flipper creature” Kamek commanded her clone with a lazy wave of a hand, prompting the royal doppelganger to give a roar before charging right across the stage at Dazzle.

”Start off with an Aqua Jet! Get the first strike in!” Jr commanded in response, which got a disagreeing bark from the mon, but he still followed his trainers order regardless, the mon scooting forward awkwardly on his flippers and tail while inflating a water bubble ahead of him.

Then he lunged and from his POV was engulfed in the water of the bubble and rushed along with it towards the incoming dragon turtle, but from everyone else's POV he blinked forwards so fast he was almost invisible, a torrent of water trailing in his wake. Then he slammed into the Bowser clone, turning at the last moment to make it a shoulder charge, and then the water came rushing in as a second punch, pushing the turtle back a bit as Dazzle dropped to the ground.

He looked pretty chuffed with himself as he picked himself up, only for the wet and water blasted Koopa clone to step right back in and give the mon a boot to the chest that sent him sprawling with a “Plio!” of pain. Turned out that Dazzle’s species were not great physical attackers and while Aqua Jet hit fast it didn't hit noticeably hard.

”Shoot. Quick get up before, oh no!” Jr shouted, alarmed, as the Bowser clone followed up its kick with a burst of flame breath. Dazzle squealed in alarm and rolled to the side, the water still clinging to it and his natural resistance leaving him merely steamed rather than cooked. Then, no sooner had he picked himself up that the brute was stomping towards him once more

”Don’t let him push you around, use that penguin leap technique on him!” Jr commanded, the aggressive kid seemingly having not learned his lesson, and it would be Dazzle who’d be paying the price.

The mon reluctantly puffed up another water bubble, but this time tossed himself on top of it with a flick of his tail, bouncing up and then falling down in a parabolic arc, flipper wings flapping to give him more speed as he sailed down, the red marks on his back flaring with power as he descended.

The slow set up and predictable arc had, unfortunately, given the clone time to bring up a guard, and so Popillo’s back smacked down into a raised arm guard rather than anything more vital. At least the clone had not been smart enough to just duck down and take the strike on the spiky shell. Plus, the dire penguin’s technique had also delivered more of an impactful blow thanks to a burst of evil red looking energy that discharged upon impact, the strike causing the clone to stagger back and giving Dazzle a moment to ”Fall back and give him a water gun!”

Now that was more Dazzle’s species’ style. The mon, having already been doing a set of forwards rolls using the momentum he got bouncing off the koopa to get some space, proceed his tail, bounced on another swiftly inflated water balloon and then did a swit acrobatic turn and used the momentum to tossed another balloon behind him as the ‘bullet’ of his water gun. This sored forth and right into the mouth of the Koopa Clone as it attempted to get off another burst of fire breath, the bubble popping explosively that nearly snapped the clone’s jaw, while also dumping it’s payload of water into its maw, dousing the fire it had been warming up.

”Mmm, that seems more like it, young master. I think Dazzle is best suited to ranged combat than up close brawling” Kamek called out a suggestion

”Hey, don't tell me what to do! Just messing about at range is for cowards!... and old people!” Jr called back irritatedly before adding ”Besides, I’ve got an idea to make those two flubbed attacks waaaaay better!”

That got a squawk of complaint from Dazzle, who did not appreciate the insult or Kamek’s accurate advice being turned down. Still, while Jr might be biased he was not lying about his plan which was ”Combine the penguin leap and the aqua jet to make a uh, ah penguin jet? Aqua… penguin? A Dire Jet!”

Dazzle scrunched his eyes, focusing on getting the plan through his brain for a few moments and then gave it a shot. He popped out a bubble, and then hopped onto one, bouncing off of it and then into the other which was about the time when he actually got it.

The lighting fast tunnel of water flowed up in an arch and then in the blink of an eye came slamming down into the Bowser clone’s unguarded chest, water, Popplio and malignant power all hammering into it in a three strike punch that sent it staggering back, scales cracked and its shadowy body flickering and fuzzing at the edge as it was on the edge of coming apart at the seems.

”One more hit!” Jr commanded, and sure enough, another water-balloon to the face sealed the deal, the clone bursting into a puff of purple smoke.

”Well done you two” Kamek called over (which got both mon and master puffing up their chests pridefully at the praise) before setting her book to the side, picking up her wand and saying ”Now then, shall we continue?” before she conjured up the next opponent for Dazzle to face, a chain that would continue till the mon could battle no longer.

The Popplio gulped, while Jr raised a fist and challenged ”Bring it!”

---

Frozen wind lashed up into the sky, chilling the pair of Kamek clones, the ice clinging to their robes and slowing down their harassing swoops just enough for the mon to nail them with a water balloon each.

---

Dazzle balanced a ball like Bytan on his snout before he flipped over and gave it a hefty smack with his tail, the ball splitting as it flew and shotgunned the Bowser clone with a triple tackle. The turtle staggered, recovered, and then received a hail of Goombas bounced off of water balloons raining down on its noggin as a follow up.

---

A drybone just lay down and gave up the fight as Jr and Dazzle finally found a way around its resurrection ability using the pokemon’s disarming voice.

---

Dazzle clung to a koopa shell as he used his Water Balloons as self made bumpers to ping himself around the arena. It had 0 combat effectiveness but it was evasive as heck.

---

As a grand finale the stage transformed, sporting a towering mountain at its center upon which Dazzle was joined by Mimi, the pair hammering a veritable swarm of clones and dry bones trying to assail their position and unseat the kings of the hill. Waterbaloons slapped down, followed by electroballs that shocked the soaked scoundrels in a deadly one two punch. Frost swept down the cliff sides, slowing their enemy’s advance while Mimi’s shadow struck them from behind. They even had their own little cadre of pint sized jr clowns helping them hold the fort as Mimi mimicked Kamek’s clone creation, the portaled in pint sized powerhouses tackling their larger mirrors and keeping them at bay.

As for the mage, well, Jr pulling out all the stops on his side had got her invested, and so she’d actually put down the book for good and had been focusing on commanding her troops. But there was something lacking, something, or someone, who she’d come to rely on in a short time that was missing from her strategy. It was tricky at first, the mage stringing as she focused on that bond, but once she had it in her mental hand and took a moment to reflect on it, the rest flowed oh so easily.

One more spell and a few moments later, and the top of the mountain exploded as a coastal bombardment’s worth of shells rained down upon it, blasting apart many of the other clones and fainting both pokemon in the blink of an eye.

”Wow! How’d you… oooooooh” Jr realized what had happened peered down and saw a familiar shape standing at the base of the mountain as the dust cleared ”I didn’t know you could make clones of her!”

”Well why shouldn't I? She’s one of us is she not?“ Kamek replied as the shadow clone of Rika marched her way to the top of the hill and claimed the perch as her own. ”Though I may need to get some pointers from her on how to use those guns” the mage admitted, eyeing the indiscriminate devastation the clone of her friend had caused to the rest of Kamek’s little army. That the real thing had had no such issues quite impressed the mage now that she’d had the opportunity to fail right from the get go.

She waved a hand, dispersing the remaining magical constructs and Jr tossed out both pokeballs and returned his minion’s to them. ”You two did good, now we’ll get you all patched up and then we can get a treat as a reward for all our hard work. Right Kamek?” he told them as he lifted off from the platform and hovered over to the mage, who couldn't really say no too that now could she?

---

As it turned out that going to get patched up was an excellent way to meet up again, because it lead the various injured members of the Koopa troop to all wined up in the same spot, namly the local poke/people center that provided your one stop shop for all your healing needs, conveniently situated ever so close to the arenas that where their main source of patients.

There, the wounded people and pokemon got all patched up and then took a recommended short rest on some of the benches in the room, where they proceeded to fill the time with chat. Bowser predictably praised his own performance in the battle (but a little surprising also had a few positive words for Peach as well) and Jr talked up both his mon and his ‘tactical genius’ to which Kamek added some more honest praise for his efforts.

When it came to Rika however, she folded in on herself, shoulders hunched in and gauntlets held over her chest almost defensively before she admitted ”I… I lost. Even with all those upgrades Jr worked on I still lost” sounding ashamed of the fact.

There was a little pause during which she seemed to shrink in even more on herself before Bowser shrugged

”Ahhh tough luck.” he said, and then gave her a reassuring pat on the back while adding ”You win some you lose a bunch, that’s the bad guy’s lot,” which got a bunch of agreeing nods from the rest of the troop.

”The important thing is to learn something from your mistakes, so why don’t you tell us about it, and we’ll see what you can” Kamek said, only for Jr to interject ”Can’t we just watch it back? There were fights on screens before we started right? So they also gotta be recording em!” he insisted, something he turned out to be quite right about as it turned out. That was what found them all sitting about watching a replay of Rika’s match on one of the center's little monitors.

---

”Ha, you’re a girl after my own heart. If you ain't wrecking everything you’re not fighting hard enough!” the koopa king cheered as Rika just went to town on the, well, town, blasting swaths of it to bits in her attempts to shoot down Blazermate

---

”Oh wow, ok that whole overdrive thing I found in your new specs was way better than I thought it would be” Jr commented when that destruction came to a climax in a hail of 15 for 1 shellfire

”You added something and didn’t test it?!” Kamek said, aghast by this lack of safety standards

”Hey, I had a lot to do that night!”

---

”Su uh, yeah, beeping stuff’s dangerous apparently” the shipgirl sheepishly admitted

”Well yeah duh” Jr replied callously only to be told of by Kamek for his rudeness ”Young master! Everyone learns everything they know for the first time at some point, it’s quite rude to lord knowledge over people''

”Yeah but everyone knows that beeping means dangerous and probably explosive” he retorted, only for Rika to ask ”Ok but why though? Wouldn't it be better to have dangerous stuff be sneaky?” to which he had no answer

”I.. Well… Just because it is ok!”

---

”You can fly!?” Jr cried out, amazed by the ship girl’s last second leap over the battlebot’s shield.

”No, jump good! Bowser’s whole water cannon jet-pack thing was pretty inspiring”

”Aw shucks. Just careful not to blow your legs off ok?” Bowser told her

”mmm”

---

Eventually the show came to a close with Blazermate finishing off Rika in a way that was a bit BM all things told, and the ship girl was left waiting for feedback. The chatting over the fight had put the nerves she had from vague memoirs of cruel debriefing in the fleet mostly at ease, but still, having people you care about judging your performance was still a bit scary.

”You know, you kind of had her on the ropes for most of it, just couldn't pin her down for a win. Flighty dodging enemies are the worst, yeah? Bowser suggested ”You really gotta corner em which can be tricky but once you hem em into a corner then all the running around in the world won’t save em from getting stomped!”

”Yeeeeeeeeah in hindsight torpedoes where maybe not the best thing to tinker around around unlocking, buuuuuut you did still make em work which was cool. Plus that invincibility was sooo unfair!” was Jr’s input ”Been there, done that, never fun to deal with a super star’d Mario. Gotta be on your toes and keep away from em while they run down the clock on those”

”I.. Thanks guys” Rika replied, smiling a little more now that they’d kindly excused her loss for her (which might not be the most positive way of dealing with it, but, well, bad guys where perhaps not the best role models she could have) and also given her a bit of advice ”But it still feels bad to have lost, you know”

”Well this was your first time fighting on your own as I understand it? You’ve been with us the rest of the time, so it is not like you have that much practice at battling on your own, if any. Teams can shore up weaknesses or gaps in your thinking so well you don't notice they are there” Kamek pointed out, and then had thought about something that might help cheer her up ”Oh, here, I learned to do something new related to that you might like”

”hmm? Oh, sure?” Rika replied, to which Kamek nodded in reply and opened up a portal, out of which a shadowy Rika clone stepped. It looked around a few times, and then gave the original a gauntlett salute.

”Oh wow” Rika said as she got up from her seat and sized herself up, noting that unlike Bowser, the clone of her had all the fusions popped into her as part of her, which made sense, they were much more a part of her identity than Bowser’s where of him ”So can you do versions of these for everyone now?” she turned back to ask to which the mage shook his head and responded simply ”Still only for those I hold dear”

”Oh neat” Rika said, and then only after a few moments what that meant actually set in, the ship girl fully turning to face her first friend and with a ”Awww. Come here you” scooping her up into a hug while Jr stuck his tongue out in the background and complained about mushy stuff.

”Feeling better now?” Bowser rhetorically asked after the smiling ship girl put down a rather winded Kamek.

”Mmm, I am, thanks” she said, before giving him a little hug too for good measure.

”Then let’s pack up and see if there’s anything else to do around here. I uh, think the nurse is getting mad about us taking up so much of the sitting room anyway” Bowser suggested, which a little bit later found the four of them wandering the halls, only for a Hat kid to go blazing past them followed by Nadia and Omori hot on her heels.

”Huh, what…. Hey wait, where are you lot running off too?!” Bowser yelled after them to no response, only for Jr and Rika to take the only logical option when you saw friends of yours running somewhere, which was to go chasing after them to find out what the fuss was about.

Sectonia lucked out. While the buildings taken over by nature could do with some work, overall she found a nice, beautiful nature area awaiting her at the end of the mint line. It was somewhat funny how out of every trio, Sectonia's group was the richest. That Scout really knew how to grab those pons, almost if the allure of money was too enticing for him to stop gathering them after awhile. Sectonia's excuse was her antillions weren't really given an exact amount to collect. They just kept collecting and collecting wherever they could find them until they were finally taken out by some of the cats. But by then they had collected more than enough. Sectonia wondered if these things could be used elsewhere? But now wasn't the time for that.

Having joined them after doing his own mission, Red suggested that everyone keep a low profile in this place, at least as low as they could. Stealth wasn't really Sectonia's thing, with her saying. "What Queen of beauty would hide her presence? These things don't look too bad." Sectonia said, pointing to a Glyphid Grunt which the Scout seemed to recognize right away and throwing a void globule at it, causing it to dissolve into black goo and leave its spirit behind.

Still, this area was fairly enemy filled, so summoning a moogle here probably wasn't the best idea. "I will fly up to the top of that tree to summon the moogle. I will leave some antillions behind to help you all while I am away." Saying that, Sectonia summoned a bunch of green electric antillions and told them to protect the others while she made her way up to the top of the tree, being the only one with flight and thus the one who could make it there the easiest.

Seeing how massive the tree was, it did take Sectonia a bit of time to get up there, but once she was up there, she could look over the whole area. Much of it was like she saw from the ground, a bunch of trees everywhere having taken over urban ruins. She couldn't see the various creatures below though, being too high up. But this height did give her a good time to summon the Moogle, who appeared in a cloud of smoke when summoned.

"You called me, kupo?" The moogle said, with Sectonia replying by pointing at the area they were in. "We came off of Mint line and appeared here. The plan was to catalog where each line went." She then pointed down to the derelect station they had come from, with the moogle nodding along getting a look over the area.

Meanwhile Sectonia's antillions were doing what they were told, and helped the others on the ground with their lightning bolts whenever appropriate.

"Works for me!" The angel said following Mewtwo's suggestion of one-on-one spars. With some Smash tournaments under his belt, combined with the few rounds of training he'd done while awakened from Galeem’s influence and stationed at the Alcamoth, Pit was feeling pretty confident. Not being familiar with all of the Seekers, he watched them pair off until the process of elimination left him matched up with... a very large, horned, rugged looking man with slit pupils. The man looked human, for the most part anyway, however there was a distinctly non-human feeling that he gave off. He might be psychic, or magic, or both! Plus Pit didn't have his Lady's guidance to rely on. His shoulders drooped slightly.

Snap out of it, Pit! You can do this! Just imagine what Lady Palutena would say. Ahem. Pit, that fighter is Geralt. He's a professional in his field, but don't let his mastery of arms, superhuman abilities, or rugged good looks intimidate you. Inside I'm sure he's just a big softy. Okay, got it, I'm good!

Pit approached his sparring partner, offering the man - and the woman beside him - a friendly smile. "Hi there, I'm Pit! I'm actually a veteran, so I know some great spots to fight."

Geralt considered that sparring amongst their allies was probably a good way to spend the time while they waited to be called upon. At the very least, they had Blazermate and Kamek to heal any injuries that they received, so long as they weren’t fatal. Given the level of expertise among the Seekers, he didn’t expect any of them would accidentally kill their allies. As the pairings were announced, Geralt hummed lightly and looked at his competitor as he approached. He looked young, but appearances could be deceiving, as Geralt well knew.

“Hello, Pit. I’m Geralt. Looking forward to a good fight.” Succinct as far as introductions went, but it worked.

With greetings out of the way, the two could get going. "Let's get this show on the road,", Pit said. "Follow me!"

He led the way out of the command center and cut straight through the main lobby. He waved to a few people they passed, who waved back for the most part, and then the angel took a corner leading to one of Smash City's on-site battle arenas. Then he had another idea, and took another corridor. It ended up taking them to a teleporter, which took them to an adjacent floating island. The area was colorful, like a festival in progress, and featured many archways with symbols above them. They weren't the only people there, as the small island had spectators and fighters aplenty. Pit took them over to the closest one, with the symbol of a dragon's head. Its doorway was obscured by thick fog, and beside it was a currently blank monitor as well as a small panel. Pit hummed and taped at the latter. The screen flickered to life and scrolled through several images too fast for the eye to see, until abruptly stopping on a preview of stone towers and grassy hills with the text "Halidom" displayed across it.

Pit squinted at the image, then stepped aside and presented it to his opponent with an outstretched hand.

"How about this one?"

Geralt looked at the image, and nodded with a hum. “That should work, yes.” He replied simply. Given that the boy had wings, he wondered if the choice was made to give him an advantage, though Geralt didn’t worry much about that. If he could fly with those wings, it wouldn’t matter if there was high ground to maneuver around. Geralt would just have to make do.

"Okay, lemme just…" Pit fiddled again with the panel, and behind the fog a curious noise could be heard. After a moment the noise stopped. Pit looked back at Geralt and grinned before stepping through the fog. Inside was the aforementioned Halidom, in all its work-in-progress glory.


Pit walked around their chosen arena to get a feel for it. This particular stage he hadn't battled on, so it must have been new. He found that the glowing altars, though swirling with their respective elements, served more as decoration than a hazard. He did some stretches, including wing exercises, ran in place for a few seconds, and then finally held a hand out in front of him. Shimmering light gathered in his hand, forming a gold and lapis bow with no string.

He glanced at Geralt. "When we're both ready, there'll be a countdown. Usually we fight until someone gets knocked out of the arena -" At this he pointed to the far areas of the stage, where the ground suddenly gave way to cliffs. "- but there are rules about fighting until someone gives up or can't fight anymore too."

Geralt followed Pit out into the arena, rolling his arms in wide circles as he did so to loosen the joints and stretch his muscles. As the Angelic soldier did his own exercises and warm-ups, so did the Witcher, stretching his legs, his back, and his core even with a few stretches. He listened carefully while Pit explained the usual rules, just to be sure. These kinds of things were typically fairly straightforward in his experience, but it never hurt to be sure.

“Interesting setup this place has. How does all this even work?” He casually asked, nodding to show he understood the rules Pit was describing.

"Um. Magic?"

Geralt let out a short bark of laughter. “Aye, fair enough.” He had a feeling that bow was similar, or else it would be useless without a string. Drawing steel, Geralt nodded. “Ready when you are.”

"Ready!" Pit said in reply, and around the fighters a deep voice over began.

THREE... TWO... ONE...

GO!

Pit opened by extending his free hand toward the bow, confirming Geralt's hypothesis as the two glowing rings around his wrist conjured a bowstring and a glowing blue arrow of light. He drew the ethereal string back and let the arrow fly, and before even confirming if it hit his opponent a second arrow was created and fired.

Geralt, as Pit was creating the bowstring to his weapon, cast the Sign of Quen to protect himself, then advanced with his sword up in a low guard, ready to deflect the arrows Pit sent his way.

Ironically, the relatively slow speed of the projectiles threw Geralt off guard, and his clumsy parry of the first allowed the second to crash into the shield protecting his body, damaging it noticeably but failing to break it. Taking the opportunity for what it was, Geralt then moved to rush his opponent.

A shield charge, huh? Before Pit would meet the Witcher in close combat, he really wanted to crack that magic shield.

"How about this!" He said, jumping backward and using a flap of his wings to put even more distance between the two. Then, he pulled the drawstring taut and aimed straight up into the air. The arrow flew up, and after a second its arc changed drastically into a divebomb headed for the top of Geralt's shield.

Geralt grunted as Pit jumped, using his wings to put further distance between the two while nocking an arrow. Seeing what he was up to, the Witcher ignored the arrow and sprinted towards Pit, his enhanced physiology allowing him to nearly close the distance as the arrow crashed into the Quen shield, breaking it and shattering the magical barrier. “Not good enough!” He yelled, sword coming up in a swing to try and cut at Pit’s wings.

The assault came much faster than Pit had anticipated. Much too quickly to come up with a counter if he wanted his wings to be spared - which he very much did! He yelped, yanking his feathered limbs in close to his body. Tucked against his back they were relatively safe from the Witcher's sword, but it left the rest of him open for follow up.

Geralt gave no mercy to his opponent, perhaps buoyed by the fact that they were surrounded by experienced fighters who did this on a daily basis and assuming that they had methods in place to prevent grievous wounds. Regardless, his sword did not halt or slow, and he drew the blade across Pit’s arm, spinning and lashing out with an elbow to follow up the blow.

Crack. The elbow struck Pit in the face, sending him wheeling backward. One hand, attached to the injured arm, clutched at his aching nose, the other still had a firm grip on his bow. Okaaay, this guy means business, Pit thought. He didn't begrudge Geralt for his ferocity, in contrast it was good to see just how strong the Seekers were. And how weak he was at present, given there were so many of his powers and abilities he still didn't have access to. He'd just have to take this fight more seriously if he wanted to win. The angel braced himself, shifting into a ready stance to tackle whatever his opponent would throw at him next.

As Pit reeled backwards, Geralt entered a ready stance of his own, cautiously approaching the angel, but not attacking quite yet. “Gotta have more for me than that,” He taunted, “or we can’t really call it a spar.” He was, quite clearly, giving Pit a moment to re-evaluate how he wanted to handle this fight. This wasn’t a battle to the death, after all, he could afford to be a sportsman.

"Ehehe..." Geralt wasn't wrong, a new strategy was definitely in order. As the two combatants stared each other down, Pit decided he'd try going toe to toe with the man in melee. He smiled, wide and toothy, and brought both of his hands together on the grip of his bow, holding it horizontally. One was an overhand grip, the other underhand.

"Alright, then try this on for size!" He leapt forward, and though at first it may have seemed like the angel was going for a shove with the bow, the weapon split apart into two curved short swords. Pit lashed out with both at once, a pincer move to catch opponents in their blind spots.

Geralt’s eyes widened in surprise as Pit’s bow split into two swords, and he backpedaled hard, swinging his sword at one blade while using his gauntleted arm to try and deflect the other from his vital areas while he tried to make room. The dual swords were rebuffed, but only for the moment.

His opponent gave chase, swinging again with the sword that he'd deflected with his gauntlet. The weapon slashed at the man's chest, then in one smooth movement Pit brought it's hilt together

with it's partner, and he spun around to give the complete weapon more momentum as he swung it at Geralt's mid-section. Back together, the bladed bow had a longer reach that would make up for the distance the Witcher was trying to put between them.

The blade struck chain, sliding off Geralt’s armor but still leaving a sting. “Better!” He called, bringing his sword up to deflect another strike, pirouetting to the side and lashing out with a vertical cut while making the Sign of Igni, sending a burst of fire Pit’s way. “But a Witcher is more than a sword!”

After seeing that spectral shield the man had opened with, Pit expected he had some other kinds of magic up his sleeve. He caught Geralt's strike with his bow, the steel sliding off of the curved edge. He jumped at the first sign of danger, literally - using his wings to propel himself into the air and away from the flames, he spread his feathers wide to let the hot air further lift him and keep him suspended for a moment.

"That's a neat trick!" He said, just before closing his wings and aiming a flying kick at Geralt's head.

Geralt hummed in approval at Pit’s quick dodge, keeping a close eye on the angelic soldier. As he closed his wings and moved to divekick the Witcher, Geralt watched his movements carefully, dodging to the side while throwing a quick, discouraging slash at Pit to force him back. He had an idea now, but he wasn’t sure exactly how it would work.

Pit hopped away from the spacing strike, and once again the two fighters were squaring off and observing each other. With only the most glancing blows dealt to Geralt so far, Pit was eager to jump back in and prove his mettle. He bounced in place, the bow once again split into two blades, and when it didn't seem that the Witcher was making a move he dove back into melee range. He made a series of slashes one after another with increasing speed, a veritable assault leaving little quarter that tested the man's defenses.

Geralt found himself pleased as Pit took the fight seriously, taking a moment to observe before rushing back in with a blistering pace. It took quite a bit of concentration to manage, but with both hands controlling his blade, he managed to deflect Pit’s flurry of blows, typically managing to do so with only the tiniest of moments to spare. That wasn’t to say that a few didn’t sneak in and mar the leather and dull the chain of his armor, though, and it was while one such attack was sliding against his gambeson that Geralt charged Pit, steel blade flashing in a diagonal cut aimed from hip to shoulder, ignoring the bruises that would form shortly and be healed by nightfall.

With one sword mid-swing already, Pit attempted to block the strike with the other. Even with the angelic strength he had packaged into his small frame, he couldn't beat Geralt's pressing power. He only just managed to avoid another injury by deflecting the blade's path to the side as a side-effect from failing to stop it completely. With his form and flow broken, and his opponent's sword poised for a follow up, Pit dropped low and kicked his leg out in a sweep.

Geralt managed to avoid the sweep kick by backpedaling once more, sweeping his sword up in a guarded stance as he nodded appraisingly at Pit. Not bad, not bad at all. Their little fight had actually been quite fun so far, though he was starting to get the impression that as long as he could avoid the worst of Pit’s blades with his armor, it would hardly be fair. Well, that was the point of armor, after all.

With the two apart, Geralt was better able to focus on the thrumming sensation within his chest, something that had been growing as they fought. It felt not unlike the Breaching Bastion did, something within himself that he simply knew he could do, but did not quite understand as of yet. So, he did the thing he felt was right; He answered the call.

For a moment, the little changes to his body seemed to show themselves more prominently. It wasn’t that they became more exaggerated, it was as though Pit’s attention could not pull away from them. Even under his armor, Geralt’s frame was a little too wiry for the power he could put out. His smile a little too wide, almost predatory. His eyes feline slits.

And the next moment, it was all washed away by the blood-curdling wail that emanated from his maw, for no other word could describe the disgusting, unhinged face that seemed to project itself from Geralt’s own skull. A feeling of dread built among the two fighters as a bolt of lightning crashed upon the ground near Pit, and a wave of electricity burst out of Geralt’s body, traveling laterally upon the ground. So that’s what it was… Geralt mused, taking advantage of the situation as another lightning bolt landing seconds later, heralding another wave of electricity from Geralt.

That is not a normal spell! Pit shrieked internally. That blood curdling scream was right out of a horror game, and combined with the bolt of lightning and crack of thunder that followed it's arc, it startled Pit enough that the wave of electricity running along the ground didn't even register. It zapped him, sending a shock throughout his body as soon as he touched it.

"Wh-a-a-a-a-a-!"

It was painful, but not so debilitating that the second bolt cracking nearby couldn't (literally) shock him back to his senses. Pit leapt up and over the second ground wave, and with a few erratic flaps of his wings he hit the ledge of one of the stone towers nearby. He was singed and still a little electrified, if the visible static and puffs of smoke coming off of him were anything to go by. He scrambled up over the ledge and, after catching his breath, he jumped up and pointed a finger at Geralt.

"What was that! You were giving off some serious Underworld energy just now! Aren't you supposed to be a good guy?!"

Geralt just let out a dark chuckle. “Oh, did I forget to tell you?” He let the pause linger in the air for a moment. “I’m a mutant who kills monsters for coin.” At that, he quickly sheathed his sword upon his back and replaced it in his hands with the shiny new magical bow he’d purchased from the Argentum Trade Guild, rapidly nocking an arrow and sending it Pit’s way. “Remember the Guardians Mewtwo showed us? The Orphan of Kos? Yeah. Who do you think took its Spirit?” As he spoke, yet another bolt of lightning crashed, and another wave of electricity flowed out from him along the ground.

Geralt's explanations informed a lot about him, some Pit had already speculated. That he was some kind of mercenary like his ally Magnus was kind of a given, but his absorption of that monstrosity was a surprise. Pit actually winced when he revealed that, though the expression quickly changed to one of concentration when he had to dodge an arrow.

Swords, fire, lightning, and arrows now too? So unfair! Pit thought. If only he had his full arsenal, then it would really be a match. Actually now that he thought about it, there was at least one thing that had returned to him, wasn't there? One that was well suited to the situation at hand.

"You should probably get that checked out!" Pit yelled, though it was more of a taunt than serious advice. Although after this he should probably, actually, suggest that Geralt see a shaman or exorcist or something and make sure nothing nefarious was going on inside him. He side-stepped the lightning, and to get clear of the shockwave that followed he hopped onto the tower’s raised ledge. With bright eyes he anticipated the next thing Geralt would send his way.

“What do you think I’m doing right now?” Geralt taunted back, drawing yet another arrow and launching it Pit’s way. “Figured better now than in the middle of a fight to the death!”

Okay, fair point.

This time when Geralt loosed an arrow at Pit, the angel faced it head on. He shot his arm forward, and the bow he held disappeared in a puff of golden particles. In front of him a blue tinged energy shield with two little disembodied wings on either side of it formed, fast enough to intercept the projectile. "Defend!"

The arrow struck the shield, but rather than bounce off it was reflected - returning directly to sender faster than it had been fired.

Geralt’s eyes widened by the shield and he leapt to the side, abandoning all notions of proper footwork in favor of not getting hit by a magically accelerated arrow. Even if it didn’t pierce his armor, that looked like it would hurt and quite a bit.

Still, his bow was gone for a moment. Geralt returned his own projectile weapon to his back, charging up the ramp at him and drawing his own sword, while creating the Sign of Aard in his free hand, launching an invisible burst of telekinetic force Pit’s way.

When the energy shield faded, it was replaced by two smaller red shields that floated around Pit. He planned to re-summon the Palutena Bow and leap back into direct combat with a high-ground advantage, but the movement of Geralt's hand made him hesitate. It was how the man had cast most of the other spells, so the shields remained - but they couldn't block what he couldn't see. The burst of power sent Pit flying as Geralt made up ground, right off tower. He hastily righted himself midair and flapped his way back to the stone top, his wings working overtime since he truly fly. When he landed he tucked the feathered limbs close to his back, and though tiring from the battle on top of the wing exercise, he met Geralt's eyes with a defiant stare.

"I'm not finished yet!" Pit declared. The orbitars shimmered and fired bolts of energy at the Witcher, whirling around the angel in a loose ellipse.

Geralt tried to dodge the bolts of energy, but one slammed directly into his chest, causing him to have to shift his balance so the sudden impulse didn’t knock him over. It hadn’t been quite that strong, but it was unexpected enough that he couldn’t just ignore it. Bringing his sword up, he stepped in with a thrust as he spoke. “Good, still got plenty of life in me!”

An orbitar swooped in to parry the sword, the weapons clashing and veering off course. The second orbitar flew forward and clonked against Geralt's armor. As they were primarily defensive the attack was practically harmless, but attention grabbing nonetheless. With Geralt so close, and Pit not the boxing type, he instead took the chance to bridge the distance between them. He rushed forward and grabbed a hold of his opponent's gambeson with both hands. With surprising strength Pit twisted around raising one leg as he spun and then stomping down, using the momentum to haul Geralt up, overhead, and then bodily slammed him down onto the stone with a battle cry.

Geralt found the Orbitar crashing against him a bit surprising, but not nearly as surprising as Pit physically grabbing him, all seven feet of Witcher and armor, and manhandling such that he was able to pull the Witcher over his body and slam him into the ground. As the breath left his body, instinct took over as Geralt’s legs lashed out to trip Pit, while he scrambled with his hands to push himself to his knees.

The angel was only able to avoid being knocked over by backing away, the tip of Geralt's boot just catching his padded shin guard. He ended up giving Geralt some breathing room, but he didn't intend to leave the quickly shrinking opening he'd created alone for long. Once more Pit held out his hand, and the Palutena Bow formed as the Guardian Orbitars faded away. He spun it in his hand before catching it in a two-handed grip and swinging the blade at his opponent.

Geralt came up on all fours as Pit began forming the bow in his hand, and when his head raised to see him pulling back his arms, he pushed with all his might and clumsily launched himself at Pit’s hips, hoping to knock him off balance and tackle him to the ground. From there, he could punch, he could try and draw his dagger and force a submission, he had options but first he had to make sure that damn bow didn’t take his face.

His strategy worked out, as Pit clearly hadn't expected such a move. It was completely unrefined and a hail mary, but it worked. Pit went down with a yelp, his attack sailing over Geralt's head. He landed on his back kicking, but it would take more than that to dislodge the Witcher. Pit separated the two halves of the bow, preparing to fend the man off.

Geralt performed no fancy move, no clever trick once he was on top of Pit. He simply punched the soldier in the face once, then twice, giving enough pause to make sure he wasn’t seriously injuring him before cocking back to punch again and again. He’d found that it was a remarkably effective strategy, blunt force trauma to the head.

It was a pretty effective pin all things considered. Somewhere in the back of Pit's mind he was thankful he had such a thick skull, or so he'd been told. Dazed, the angel did the only thing that came to mind to break free - he flipped the two swords into a reverse grip in each hand and then drove them into the body above him, one in the crook between Geralt's shoulder and neck and the other into his side.

Pit drove his blades into Geralt, the one going for his side crashing into armor and sliding along it safely. The blade aimed at his neck, however, managed to slip up and over his armor, and Geralt felt a strange and unexpected warmth on his neck and chest a moment later- and a coldness in his chest. A familiar feeling, actually, though the warmth was different from last time.

Oh. He was hurt. Badly. Geralt felt one hand come up to his neck while the other groped around, trying to steady him as he slid to the side and off of Pit’s body. He pressed his hand against the wound, trying to keep his blood inside him, but he felt his eyes getting heavy and he slumped off of Pit as they closed.

The angel laid still for a few moments, taking a few deep breaths. Then he shook his head to clear it and sat up, wondering why Geralt was still lying there. He'd expected a follow up attack by now, but the man was still. That tackle was a little much, but surely he wouldn't feign being really hurt just to get the jump on him, right?

Pit crawled closer to check, and then noted the blood beginning to pool around Geralt's body. His seemingly lifeless body. The shock hit Pit all at once, nearly paralyzing him. What?! Is he... did I...?!

Leaving the two halves of the bow behind Pit scrambled forward, gripping the man's shoulders tight. Being an angel, he could usually tell if someone was dead or alive, given he could sense their soul in their body. Right now he couldn't, which freaked him out even more.

"H-hey, that's not supposed to happen!" he said, shaking Geralt in a vain effort to rouse him. The thought that he might have actually killed a human made the boy feel sick. "Oh no, no no, Lady Palutena…"

Geralt dully felt Pit grab onto his shoulders through the blackness. Something…was happening. He could tell that much. He heard Pit’s voice grow clearer, and after a moment, his eyes opened and he took a deep breath, hands coming up to his face and feeling it. One slipped down to where the wound had been, and came up with dried flecks of blood on it. The wound had completely healed.

"Huh?! Y-you're alright, ri-?!"

Shoving Pit off him with a punch to the face, Geralt rolled to the side and pushed himself to his feet. “I…should be dead. I felt it. I felt myself bleeding to death.” Examining the blood on his fingers, he frowned. “And then I felt…an energy? It was like the feeling of drinking Swallow, only a hundred times stronger.” Rubbing his fingers together to flake off more of the blood, he looked back to Pit.

“I have no idea how that happened.”

Pit was sat on the stone, numbly holding his cheek where Geralt had decked him. He was so completely relieved that he almost looked melted, with his free arm and wings drooped low to the ground.

"No you are not supposed to be dead, 'cause that isn't..!" he sighed, trailing off. It was true that in Smash Bros. tourneys even those fighting with swords, arrows, guns, grenades, bombs, etc. there were certain protections in place. Technically, Smash City Alcamoth was not the same place. An oversight on his part, probably.

"Well I don't have the power to bring people back to life, so it must have been from you." He hesitated before speaking again, ducking his head in shame. "And, um. S-sorry."

Geralt took a few more deep breaths, wondering what Pit was about to say before cutting himself off. While it was true this was just a spar, not being careful in spars had gotten people killed before. He wouldn’t have been the first.

Still, he was here, alive, when he shouldn’t have been. “I wonder if it has to do with the Spirits I’ve absorbed. I’ve had close calls before, but that was different.” He looked truly devastated. He’d definitely seen what happened to him. “Ah.” He realized after a moment that he’d punched Pit in his panicked state. “Sorry about your face. Again.” He added the last word after realizing he’d punched him quite a few times before their spar ended. “Might have gone overboard with the punching.”

Pit shook his head again. As far as he was concerned, there was no need for an apology from the man, even if his face would look swollen until they found a healer. Things had gotten pretty intense toward the end. Still understandably rattled, Pit stood up carefully. He brought his wings up and draped them over his shoulders not unlike a comforting cape.

"Well whatever it was, I'm really glad you're okay," he said earnestly.

Geralt nodded at Pit’s admission. “Well, that was one hell of a spar. Not something I’ll forget for quite a while, I’ll say.” That was quite the understatement, all things considered. He had no desire to repeat the experience or keep fighting. “How should we call it?”

At first Pit was confused by the question. They should call it done and over with. The match started off fine but ended in near-disaster, so maybe they could call it that - a disaster. Then he realized what Geralt actually meant, and was so flabbergasted by it that he said off-handedly, "Isn't that obvious?" Then when he heard his own voice both of his hands flew up to cover his mouth.

“I feel it’s rather poor manners to stab your sparring partner in the throat, but fair enough, you did technically win it.” Geralt conceded with a nod. “Bowser probably would have laughed it off, so we’ll put it down to my unfortunate nature as a human, mutant or no.” He gave a shrug and gestured back to where they’d come from. “Let’s head back. I’ll have to give this armor a good scrub down.”

"Aagh, wait wait!" Pit flapped after him as they started back for the exit. The bow disappeared in a quick flash of gold behind them, spotless despite what had happened. The angel nearly had to jog to keep up with Geralt's longer stride, though it looked more like he was hopping up and down next to him. Pit's hands were moving animatedly as he rambled, "I'm really really sorry! I didn't even know that could happen! Usually when we fight on stamina mode and someone hits zero they just kinda go poof in a ball of light and then they're fine and - and I guess this kind of situation would disqualify someone, right? And we didn’t hear the announcer say “game” and - "

It went on for a little longer, nervous babbling mixed with apologies. Geralt just barked out a laugh and shook his head. “Relax. I’m alright. Not quite sure how, and it’s going to be a right pain to get the blood out, but I’m alright. Not even the first time I’ve gotten my throat cut, though I managed to walk out of that one without it miraculously healing on me. Damn near killed me that time, too.” Geralt just kept going, paying no attention to Pit’s excited mannerisms. He was already somewhat used to this sort of thing with Sakura.

“How about this? We don’t tell my wife what happened, and it’s all forgiven. Know you didn’t mean it. Like I said, probably went overboard with the hits to the head. Can make even the wisest man act a fool, if only for a moment.” Geralt’s face betrayed that he wasn’t entirely over what had happened, but there wasn’t enough tension to indicate that he was truly mad about it, either. He’d need a night to rest on it, think about how that had happened, but it would be alright.

That moment where Pit was over him, though. He’d nearly lost it. If his first instinct hadn’t been to get away… he didn’t want to think of what might have happened.

At the mention of a wife Pit froze with wide eyes, and then actually did do a few leaps to catch up again. That lady was his wife?! Every time he saw her around the Alcamoth from now on he was sure he'd feel a pang of guilt, but they were terms he could accept. "Alright, I won't say a word," he said, drawing a hand across his mouth to imply he was zipping it closed. Then, with determination he said, "And I'll - make it up to you somehow so you really can forgive me."

Rolling his eyes, Geralt just gave a short chuckle. “Sure, if you say so.”

The moment that Hatty veered toward the Ark Mall’s central spiral staircase, Nadia began to get the impression that this trip would be a highly vertical one. Without breaking stride the kid zoomed up the stairs as fast as her stubby little legs would take her, so both Nadia and Omori followed suit. While she could go a lot faster in theory, the feral didn’t want to leave her new acquaintance in the dusk, so she made sure to glance over her shoulder every so often to make sure that Omori was keeping up. With Hatty in the lead, the trio breezed past the fourth, fifth, six, seventh, eighth, and finally ninth floor landings, at which point they really had no choice but to head across the bridge to the Mall’s topmost publicly accessible floor.

From up here, a peep over the railing offered a glimpse of a dizzying nine-story drop all the way down to the bottom floor, as well as an overhead view of Ark Mall itself, with its neatly tiered construction and futuristic finery. Furthermore, this lofty vantage point overlooked the dividing wall that ran across the grand atrium’s center, which allowed a keen-eyed observer to see the grass, sidewalks, and trees of the vast indoor park on the other side between its pillars. In short, this spot revealed the whole of Alcamoth’s biggest indoor space, in all its glory.

Nadia counted herself lucky that her tour of Limsa Lominscuttle Town’s highs and lows, both with and without Blazermate, had desensitized her somewhat to heights. Back in New Meridian she’d seen the glinting, glass-sided skyscrapers of the towering inner city each and every day, but only very seldomly did she ever get the chance to scale one, even for business. Still, it boggled her mind that all this wasn’t only contained inside a single, gargantuan superstructure, but also not even close to the highest point inside it. For the first time Nadia turned her gaze farther upward still, to where the domed ceiling converged in the center of the dividing wall, which separated the roof of glass from the roof of metal. There, a circle of beams extended downward to the parapet, connected by horizontal support rings. Although she couldn’t claim to have spent much time here, she’d certainly allowed her eyes to wander while enjoying breakfast earlier, and she’d never imagined that something might be up there.

Spellbound for a few moments by the incredible architecture of this mystical place, Nadia stirred from her reverie when a small hand tugged at her own. She glanced down to see Hatty, pointing down the curved walkway to the right. The feral followed her little friend’s gesture to see that this path actually wound around the entire perimeter of the Ark Mall’s ninth floor and connected to the dividing wall on both sides. “Oh, ya wanna go over there?” she realized. When Hatty nodded, Nadia broke into a smile. “Sweet! Race ya there?”

The suggestion seemed to take the young one by surprise. A smug grin spread across her face. “Hmph!” she snorted in derision, as if to say the very idea! The treatment of the possibility of her winning a race as preposterous just made Nadia want to show the kid a thing or two all the more, however. That said, there was a certain someone she didn’t want to leave in her dust.

Nadia knelt down and extended a hand to Omori. “Here, hop on my back!” she told him, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll give ya a ride over! I’m purr-etty strong too, so don’t worry about fallin’ off or anythin’, as long as ya don’t pull my ears!”

Once everyone was ready, the cat burglar got into a track-starter stance, ready to rumble. After another nod from her opponent, she counted down. “Three. Two. One. Go!”

She launched forward, sprinting on all fours. It was a long way to go at full tilt, especially with a passenger, but with Nadia’s oodles of stamina she felt pretty confident about going all-out the whole time. Unfortunately for her, barely a second passed before Hatty zipped by her, riding a banana-yellow scooter. “Aw, come on!” Nadia laughed. Hatty just looked over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out with a wink, then cruised on ahead. With her defeat a foregone conclusion, the feral decided to relax a little so she wouldn’t wear herself out, and stood back up to jog along the walkway with Omori still on her shoulders.

After a few minutes Nadia came to a stop at the center of the parapet, breathing heavily. There she discovered a outdoor cafe sort of thing, the sort one might expect to find in a museum, with tables and chairs amidst potted plants in a rough ring around the central shaft. Having arrived well ahead of her supposed competition, Hatty had made herself comfortable at one of the tables, sipping on a juice box from one of the little stands scattered around. Nadia rolled her eyes and gave the kid a golf clap, after which she hopped down and scampered over to join the others. The cafe struck Nadia as a rather funny thing to have in such an extraordinary place. The parapet of the dividing wall measured about fifty feet across, although it bulged substantially in the middle here. On one side visitors could look down at both the atrium’s sprawling park and the promontory above it, about halfway up. On the other lay the totally artificial Ark Mall, although Nadia now viewed it at the complete opposite angle she did earlier. After Omori got off, she could crane her neck upward to look up the central shaft, which went so ridiculously high that she couldn’t even see the top.

Nadia, Hatty, and Omori approached the shaft. At its bottom, a very interesting platform rested upon the parapet. It seemed to be mostly glass panes connected by a supported web of metal spokes and concentric circles, but at the end of those spokes were larger hubs, and from each hub extended a large, mechanical limb. Taken together, the whole thing looked like a weird, giant spider, and while that plus how incredibly alien it was to Nadia made her a little uneasy, she couldn’t help but be curious. Gingerly at first, she stepped onto the platform, the glass cool to the touch against her bare feet. Now more than ever, this Smash City felt like something beyond her comprehension, the hallowed halls of some ancient civilization

The sudden introduction of a nearby voice might have made her jump if not for her feline hearing–and for its telltale familiarity. “Heading to ze top?”

Nadia turned to see a welcome sight: the pale, pretty face of Bella, curtained by the ringlets she’d gained from her fusion with Chicago during their voyage through the Bottomless Sea, which now poked out beneath her cute, tooth-patterned beanie. “Bella!” she exclaimed. “I was wonderin’ where ya’d gone! I was fixin’ to worry a-boat ya!”

“Ohoho, I am sorry to ‘ave worried you, mon amie,” the Seaplane Tender giggled before sobering up. “Just needed some peace and quiet, is all.”

The feral offered a sympathetic nod, speakin as she watched Hatty jump up into Bella’s lap to give her a hug. “For sure, yeah, don’t blame ya one bit. We all went through hell back there, but you got a raw deal even compared to most, what with the whole Abyssal thing and all. So take as much time as ya need, Bell!”

Bella squeezed Hatty against her chest, and a gentle moment passed in silence. Then the kid sat down on her lap, and with a hand on Hatty’s shoulder Bella looked back at the others. “I am grateful for your well-wishes, Miss Fortune. In truth, I am getting along well enough.” She looked out over the parapet, taking in the sights. “I figured zat, even zough I do not wish to fight anymore, I could be of use as an explorer. You know, make ze unknowns, known? And maybe see all ze things I missed waging my life of war. So I decided to get a head start and explore zis city. Isn’t it incredible?”

“Oh yeah, it’s crazy,” Nadia agreed. “Speakin’ of, you asked if we were goin’ up a minute ago. Don’t suppose ya know how this weird thing works?”

“Mhm!” Bella nodded. “I made sure to ask when I came up here earlier! It is a lift that goes all the way to ze very top of ze structure. Just press ze up button on that console over zere, and ze arms on ze sides will go to work, carrying you up to ze very clouds!”

Nadia blinked. “...Wow. And they just let anyone use it?”

“I believe so. There’s nothing up there other than ze view, as far as I know, so nobody really uses it. Alzough, I hear zat sometimes it turns itself on, but when it comes back down zere’s nobody aboard.”

“That’s su-purr cool!” Nadia grinned. She turned to Omori and Hatty. “We’ve gotta try this thing, right?” Then back to Bella. “Ya wanna come?”

The invitation seemed to take the Abyssal by surprise. “Oh! If you don’t mind, zen…certainly, I would love to! Zat is, if you three are finished looking around ‘ere.” She also turned her gaze to the kids, to make sure it was okay.



So far, Tora’s newest friend-to-be had maintained a taciturn silence, both during the trip over to Radlandia and during the team’s examination of the strange little town so far. While the Nopon wanted to get to know Bede better, especially if he planned to join the group for the foreseeable future, the boy’s somewhat chilly disposition made him hard to approach. He seemed like he wanted to be left alone more than anything, and since by now Tora knew that being overly outgoing would not win him points with everyone he ran across, he ended up focusing on Poppi, Vandham, and his new surroundings instead.

Still, Bede could only remain stoic up to a point, and after a few moments all the bizarre things he’d seen and heard pushed him over the edge. His sudden question took Tora by surprise and left him scrambling for an answer, especially since the rotund inventor didn’t really know what Moogles were himself. “Meeeh…” he muttered, trying to buy time. “They uh, well, small, and…they fly, and…”

“Think of them like fairies, the sort ya might hear about in myths an’ such,” Vandham supplied, having seated himself on a nearby bench. Having overseen the implementation of the Moogle-based communication system, he came much better-equipped to satisfy Bede’s curiosity than Tora. “They’re fuzzy li’l critters, with white fur and teeny bat wings, who live peacefully away from ‘umans in forests and the like. They’re also magic, and can poof around wherever they wanna go. Right now, for lack of anythin’ better, we use ‘em for communicatin’ across long distances. Back in their worlds, they ‘ad a sort o’ system called the Mognet they used for deliverin’ mail all over, which is what gave us the idea.” He smiled as he crossed his arms. “They're kindly folk, so if ya see any, make sure you’re nice to ‘em, mate. Soon as we come by a supply of Kupo Nuts, we can start to thank ‘em proper.”

At that point he looked up at the tallest building to check on Poppi. She’d flown up and landed without issue, her appearance apparently nothing out of the ordinary to the local kids, and proceeded to call in a Moogle as planned. The big guy pointed up at the two. “See, there’s one now. Cute li’l bugger, eh?”

As Vandham and Bede spoke together, Tora had gotten steadily more bored, and started to wander away from the train platform. No matter which way he turned, a little scrutiny turned up something weird to keep him engaged. For almost a full minute he entertained himself by dancing around in front of a sewer drain with eyeballs in it, watching them turn to follow his erratic movements. In a nearby public restroom he found a hand protruding from a toilet, whose owner begged for paper, which Tora sadly lacked and could not offer. When the curious Nopon opened another stall he got screamed at by a hidden ghoul crouching on the seat, prompting him to run screaming from the bathroom himself. He came to a stop in front of a small farmer’s market whose stalls also served as supports for the skate tracks that ran above it, where he quickly became enthralled by such unusual fruits and vegetables as cube-shaped strawberries and swirly tubers. The vendors, who appeared to be from the nearby countryside, almost all had fascinating pet slimes with them too, which Tora couldn’t resist petting. Before the Nopon knew it, he’d wandered far from the train platform and gotten hopelessly lost in the quaint little town.

It wasn’t too long before Poppi returned to Vandham and Bede, her Moogle contact hovering right behind her. “Mission accomplished!” the artificial blade told them proudly. “Headquarters now know exactly where we are!”

“That’s right, kupo!” the Moogle told them. “This area is the Deep Blue Seaside, and it’s actually very close to Limsa Lominscuttle Town, out there!” She pointed her little arm toward the big city out on the water. “I hear that the other team had a lovely holiday over there yesterday, kupo!”

Poppi’s brow furrowed. “Unfortunately, we very far from Alcamoth. Opposite side of continent, in fact, so we need keep going.” She looked around the train platform, scanning for Tora, only to turn up nothing. “...Where Masterpon?”

“You mean Tora?” Vandham searched as well, and when he didn’t find Tora, stood up to his impressive full height for a better look, but still found no sign. “Huh, I swear ‘e was ‘ere a second ago…”

Poppi sighed, shaking her head. “Masterpon must have wandered off thanks to goldfish-size attention span. Poppi better go look.” She shot Bede an apologetic glance. “Poppi not suppose Bede help search for him?”



Upon his group’s arrival, it didn’t take Raz long to intuit one very important detail concerning his surroundings, derived from the walls and ceilings of stone beneath the beds of budding moss and vermillion clovers: that the subway he, Jesse, and Therion had taken left them somewhere underground. While the implications of that discovery might be lost on the thief as he summoned a Moogle, Jesse and Raz could probably guess at the results that the white-furred creature soon provided: when Mission Control sent out its signal to ping the little device that the Moogle carried, it never received anything in return. Evidently the team had no reception in the Queen’s Station, and probably wouldn’t as long as they remained underground.

With that in mind, the messenger’s recommendation sounded like a good plan, but one easier said than done. While no maps could be found on the premises of the Queen’s Station, a quick look around did turn up a crossroads sign, albeit one with only three pointers. It featured the same strange, white script that adorned the hanging plaques throughout the station, and though it seemed totally foreign at first glance, but with a little focus it seemed strangely legible, as if the readers were able to understand what it meant. One direction indicated the aptly-named Fog Canyon, which rolled onward and upward beyond the station’s balcony, another suggested a realm called the Fungal Wastes down a tunnel to the right of the balcony, and the last pointed toward the Salt Pits on the left.

Fog Canyon appeared to be a highly vertical cavern. While its bottom level resembled a rolling countryside of verdant hills and acid pools, great columns of overgrown rock rose from those mounds, and the higher up one went the more the open space closed in, quickly becoming more narrow shafts that led upward in different directions. Stone bridges carpeted in greenery and curtained by loads of dangling vines underneath both branched between the pillars and criss-crossed the shafts, providing plenty of spots to jump and climb, but no actual paths could be seen. It was anyone’s guess which way might really lead to the surface, if any truly did. The carved totems and posts seemed to rise from the foliage around the canyon without rhyme or reason, and throughout the whole place the lazy jellyfish floated among the bubbles.

Conversely, the caverns that lay at the other end of the right-side tunnel were a completely different story. True to their name, the Fungal Wastes were wide-open and rather barren caves, brownish-yellow in appearance, where almost every surface seemed to be covered in different kinds of mushrooms. Very few traces of the actual walls, floor, or even ceiling could be seen. Some sections seemed to be higher than others, giving rough routes up or down throughout the environment, which bouncy purple mushrooms might aid. The light given off by the multitudes of bright yellow spores floating in the air allowed any visitors to see quite a ways, which meant they could also make out the Wastes’ denizens. Floating spore sacks and sentient shrooms could be found alongside carnivorous toadstools, the occasional bulky behemoth, and plodding fungal powerhouses with their young. Unlike the crisp, cool Fog Canyon, which felt like a misty spring day, the air in here seemed to be warm, humid, and itchy.

Meanwhile, the left-side tunnel opened up to smaller, branching caves of angular red rock dusted in a coating of natural rock salt. The Salt Pits lacked the biodiversity of the other two regions, but made up for it in interesting rock formations, like fields of tiny, pointy crystals. Plentiful evidence of past mining ventures could be found here, where some scaled workers and single-minded bugs still labored to extract salts and other ores from the rock.

In short, a long journey awaited the trio no matter which way they decided to go, and none provided any indication where -or how far away- the surface might be.



As the train’s passengers dispersed throughout the encampment that partially surrounded the derelict station, the Scout kept an eye out, his expression furtive and distrusting. It wasn’t just the capable sorts around him seemed to be on edge, their weapons and munitions close at hand despite the bravado with which some of them talked and joked, or that the medical tent seemed to be very busy, or that the sniper standing guard atop that old water tower seemed to be very heavily armed. It was because this place had lots of big trees, and wherever you could find lots of big trees awash in the mystique of fantasy and nature, an unlucky dwarf could expect to find them.

Elves.

The trio’s resident superhero got up on a large root to scope out the surrounding area, taking note of its peril. Though the Spirit Tree loomed over all like a silent and watchful guardian, maintaining balance between the area’s elements, malfeasance persevered in its realm. Red asked the others thoughts, to which the Scout replied with a grumpy harrumph. “Let’s get this over with,” he told the others. “This place’s liable to be crawlin’ with bloody leaf lovers, and if I never see another prissy long-ears again, it’ll be too soon!”

Sectonia apparently agreed, and her plan to personally fly up to a suitable height to call in the Moogle sounded fine. The Scout didn’t object to her leaving him and Red alone, either. There were some bugs around, including a goddamn glyphid or two, but above ground those bugs posed even less of a threat than usual. Other fighters around the encampment treated them with a similarly casual attitude, not evening bothering to waste any ammunition on the glyphids that wandered toward the staging ground for the most part. Still, Sectonia saw fit to leave her allies with some reinforcements, which naturally took the form…of more bugs. The Scout rolled his eyes. “Reckon we’ll be sittin’ pretty for a minute then,” he muttered, plopping down on an overturned bucket to wait.

Up above, the insect queen summoned her Moogle as planned. The little guy waited a few moments, then gave a nod. “Okay, that should be long enough! I’ll be back in just a moment to tell you where you are, kupo!” He then vanished in a poof of smoke.

True to his word, the Moogle appeared another thirty seconds or so later. “Hello again, kupo! It looks like we’re in luck! According to the map, this spot is along the southern edge of the Land of Adventure, which means it’s decently close to base! But the boss wants you to try the other spots on this train line just in case there’s one that’s even closer, kupo. Good luck!”

While this was happening, however, a stroke of profound bad luck struck the group. Red and the Scout were just waiting patiently down below, idly watching a squad of kitted-out fighters head out through the main gate, when suddenly a hideous screech arose from the overgrown street beyond. A Howler popped up from behind cover, screaming with its gnarled maw, and at its signal a platoon of Shrikes popped up from behind roots and long-dead cars. Braying like elk, the Root monsters unleashed a torrent of crimson bolts at the outgoing squad. Taken by surprise, they scrambled to find cover for their gunners to return fire and their warriors to close the distance, a couple of them falling in the process. The Howler’s head suddenly exploded courtesy of the sniper on the water tower, who yelled, “We’re under attack!”

A mage ran over to ring the alarm bell in the center of the camp while everyone else jumped into action. One lady knight ran straight for the crossfire, putting up a shield for a straggler to hide behind. “Behind me! I’ll get you healed up!”

“No, behind me!” the group’s main tank, a big man with an equally big shield, yelled as he ran in from the armory. “It’s up to me to keep everyone safe!”

“Form a defensive line!” a suit-wearing jackal commanded. Sander then glared up at the sniper. “How did they surprise us!?”

The huntress threw her hands up. “They must’ve used the trenches–agh!”

A Shaman triggered an explosion of root rot at her position, throwing the sniper from the water tower. At the same time, one of the encampment’s side walls burst apart, and a Hulk pushed through, a hefty bruiser of knotted wood reinforced with bolted-on metal. A Lawbringer knight, clad head to toe in steel armor and wielding a weighty halberd, charged the brute and landed a handful of hacks and stabs, only to mis-aim a block and get chopped almost to the spine by the Hulk’s fearsome cleaver. “Do not engage it in melee combat!” Sander ordered the militia. “And we need a medic over here!”

The Scout was already on his feet. “On your feet red, we’re in for it now!” He hurled an Inhibitor-Field Generator at the Hulk to bog it down, then opened fire with his assault rifle both at the behemoth and the handful of shotgun-wielding Rippers that came in behind it. "Gotta hold out 'til that overgrown Mactera's back, then we can make a break for it!" Sectonia’s electric antlions joined in, and the fight was on.

Though Band couldn’t deny that the idea of a safari through a dense, exotic ecosystem housed in the frozen arctic intrigued him, his team wasn’t here to sightsee or picnic. As the the technorganic tour guide Ivara led the group of visitors away, the detective scanned his surroundings, doing his best to ignore the various botanical wonders endemic to the man-made rainforest and instead find a suitable spot to do his job. “This buildin’ oughta be high enough,” he told the others before zeroing in on Peacock. “...Any chance you pop up there to call in one o’ those Moogle things?” The little cyborg shrugged, which prompted a sigh from Band. “C’mon, give my ol’ bones a break!”

“What bones?” Peacock questioned while squinting at him, as if trying to answer her own question visually. “And when am I gonna get a break, huh? It’s been days of walk-walk-walk, talk-talk-talk, climb a mountain, beat up some schnooks, yada yada yada.” She gestured with her hands to accentuate each point, then brushed one arm across as if sweeping everything off an imaginary table. “When’s the cartoons, for cryin’ out loud?”

Band shook his head in resignation. “See, what’d I tell ya about too much TV? Now ya can’t live without it!”

“Hey, I need my fix, doc!” she replied, sticking out her tongue. “Otherwise I’m liable to get bored, and you know what happens theeeeen~”

“Ugh, forget it,” Band grumbled. He looked over at Raiden. “Just keep her out of trouble while I’m gone. Won’t be a minute.”

After a quick reconfiguration the detected blasted off, boosting up to the roof of the base to land on the reinforced metal roof. From the outside, the place almost looked like a citadel, and Band couldn’t help but wonder why. Did the people running these tours anticipate some sort of major threat? Needled by the thought, he got a good look at his surroundings. Nothing but forest, swampland, and craggy outcrops in all directions as far as he could see, and though a sizable portion of the flora and fauna seemed rather alien, no perils jumped out at him. Band made one last pass, breathing in sharply through his nose, then gave a long exhale through his mouth. The coast was clear. “Kay then, uh. Moogle?”

A puff of smoke promptly went off in front of him, like a particularly violent cough after a long drag on a cigar, and from the haze the koala-like creature fluttered. “Hi there, kupo!” he said. “Mission control’s pinging us right now, so just hold tight a minute!”

“Ping-ing?” Band repeated, unfamiliar with the word. “I figure it ain’t important or anythin’, but that word doesn’t ring a bell.”

The Moogle scratched his head. “Oh, well…I’m not one hundred percent sure how it works myself, kupo. They said it’s some kind of big wave that comes out from Alcamoth and hits us. Or maybe it comes out of this thing they gave me, and goes back, kupo?”

“Sound a little like radio, I guess,” Band replied. He could feel a bead of sweat forming on his forehead thanks to the ambient humidity, and deployed a couple mechanical arms to doff his hat and wipe his brow.

The Moogle did not seem to be following. “...Radio?” A moment later he got a beep from his little device. “Okay, it’s done. I’ll be right back.” The next second the creature had disappeared.

Band didn’t move, but continued to wait, fanning himself with his hat. That is, until a terrifyingly sudden and ear-ringingly loud alarm went off without warning, only a few feet away from him. The man’s panicked yell got drowned out, and with the source of the clamor so close, he had no choice but to leap back down to the earth, his eyes as wide as saucers.

Peacock hurried on over and slid to a stop, an appropriately confused and alarmed look on her face. “Whaddya do now, pops?”

“Nothin’ I did,” he barked back at her.

The question on everyone’s mind received an answer as the base’s front door slid open in a rush, and from inside barreled a camoflauge-patterned SUV with the well-armed squad from earlier in the back, and as the red-haired driver floored the gas pedal the vehicle’s engine roared to life. “...Already stage two, don’t know how it evaded our sensors so long,” she was yelling at the others.

“Which means by the time we find it, it’ll be stage three for sure!” the gruff-looking trapper with mutton chops spat. “You softies’re finally gonna see what a real hunt looks like.”

Band frowned as the squad passed by, watching it speed away across the dirt and grass until the Moogle appeared beside him again. “Hello again, kupo! Um, unfortunately, there’s a slight problem. Mission control couldn’t get a lock on this place, might be something to do with the dome, kupo. If you can get out, it’ll work, though. Probably…kupo.”

Peacock blinked twice, then looked up. “You means we gots ta get all the ways up there?”

“Or just out the sides, wherever they are.” A quick search for any sort of signage that might indicate where such exits might be turned up nothing, not at all to Band’s surprise. “Could ask the nice folks ‘round here, but I’m guessin’ they have more pressin’ matters right now.”

As if on cue, the doors slid open again, and a second emergency response vehicle rolled out. This one sported only two passengers though, with Sir Hammerlock behind the wheel and Beckett in the passenger’s seat. When they spotted Band, Raiden, and Peacock, the Warthog slowed down. “Hey, are you three fighting the monster? Need a ride?”

“Oh!” Peacock realized, tugging on the hem of Band’s trench coat. “We could go with them! All we gotta do is mulch some monster, and we’ll get all the help we need! It’s poifect!”

While Band’s first instinct was to flat-out deny the idea, he caught himself just before he could shoot Peacock down. “...Y’know, that ain’t half bad. We can give it a shot, and beat it if things get too bad. After all, no way it’s worse than what we faced yesterday. C’mon, then.” With Beckett and Hammerlock beckoning hurriedly, Band stomped over to the Warthog and climbed on the back. While it sank a little, it held beneath his weight, and in short order the new team was on its way through the Biodome, most of its members totally ignorant to what lay ahead–or even on the way.



Albedo paused as a hushed cry issued from behind him, and looked back down the snow-coated bridge he’d begun to climb to see Frisk half-running, half-sliding down a slope going the opposite way. Looking puzzled and annoyed, he retraced his steps, then followed in Frisk’s at a cautious pace to see what exactly she was getting into. The alchemist stood at the top of the slope with his arms crossed and watched as the woman zeroed in a wild animal that lay at the side of a mostly-frozen pool down on the bottom level of the cavern.

Her sudden approach pleased the Spheal itself even less, and as she grew closer it gave off a cry somewhere between a whine and a growl, warning her to keep her distance. After a moment, though, her sympathetic murmurs and nonthreatening body language seemed to get her intentions across, and the Pokemon didn’t struggle when she lifted it up in her arms and embraced it lovingly. While normally the creature would have been snug and warm beneath layers of insulating fur and blubber, even after a dip in such frigid waters as these, this Spheal felt cold thanks to the injury that acted as a vector for the cold to seep in. Said wound was quite the laceration, which didn’t quite fit with the perpetrators that Frisk blamed for it, given that the enemies within this cavern seemed to use a mixture of projectile weapons and drills. Though it must have hurt, the Spheal snuggled close to Frisk’s body, craving security as much as it did her warmth.

Without her hands to steady her during the climb back up the snowy, uneven slope, plus her rather heavy new burden, Frisk took some time to reunite with Albedo. No particular empathy stirred within his eyes when he saw the beast, although he did feel somewhat impressed that Frisk managed to detect the Pokemon from all the way up here and recognize its need for help. Some insight borne by the memories and expertise of Melony, maybe? She approached, offering a sort of apology, and though Albedo didn’t mind the delay, what came next did concern him. The moment Frisk carried the Spheal close to him, the little creature’s eyes went wide, and it began to thrash around as much as a limbless living orb possibly could, crying as it did. Growing nearer to the alchemist made its struggle all the more intense, threatening to reopen its wound.

Albedo backed off, his expression murky. “How bizarre,” he said flatly. “I’ve never seen this animal before, yet it appears to be highly distressed by my presence.” He thought for a moment, then stepped back. “Here, you go on ahead, while I follow at a distance. It wouldn’t do to raise such a fuss that the monsters are alerted to our presence.”

With that plan in mind, the quartet made their way upward across the natural stone bridges through Starglow Cavern. By the time they crossed the third, they’d ascended a couple stories in terms of vertical distance, and they stopped at an open area that branched in several directions. One doubled back, one led straight toward some goblin-infested ruins, and another rounded a huge formation of ice into unknown territory, but the one that caught Albedo’s attention was a high-up stretch only accessible via a drop from a side-path that led above it, which harbored an outcove partially obscured by fallen rock and ice. Going over there took some more time, but it turned out to be well worth the team’s while. Through the opening one could see the remains of a campsite among the fallen rubble, and though it might have once sat at the mouth of a cave itself, that other entrance seemed to have collapsed entirely. After a little inspection, however, it would turn out that the contents of the abandoned campsite itself appeared to be rather recent. Eager seekers could turn up some wood, some cloth, torches, a compass, a bowl, even flint and steel. Most telling of all, when the team’s forerunners discovered a well-worn pouch among the items, it held inside of it a handful of scribbled notes, crumpled but largely unharmed.

The snowstorm from the summit came too quickly. I barely had enough time to duck into this cave. I lost half my supplies in the chaos, too...I don't know why, either, but the rocks above the cave collapsed suddenly, sealing the entrance with the falling gravel. This is very bad...But... I believe that there's another way out for me. The other end of this cave is a cliff, yes, but there's nothing below but thick snow. If I try climbing a certain distance down and then jumping the rest of the way...My supplies won't last more than a few more days. I have to act soon...I promised Joel that I'd take him to see the snow. I won't break that promise. Oh, yes. If anyone sees these notes, please put some food into that feeding bowl for those foxes. They kept me company the entire time I was trapped in here. If I get the chance, I'd love to bring Joel back here to see them…

Despite not having been a part of Nadia and Hat kid’s race, or even really knowing that was what they were doing, the moment the pair happenstantially blasted past the troop the prince headed and heeded the siren song of speed. The hovering clown car hit the deck as its kart wheels deployed, and he was off, the electric motor whirring as he sped after the pair.

Or, well, mainly after the hat kid really, the pair of kids engaging in a very disruptive kart race through the mall, sending people scrambling to the side to dodge out of the way of the racers.

He wasn't the only one to just start moving without question, and Rika found herself chasing after them more out of the instinct that if you saw allies running either to or from somewhere then you should join up with their advance/retreat if you wanted to be useful/live. Then once her conscious mind had caught up with her instincts she just found herself enjoying the exhilaration and exertion, finding it good to stretch her body after it had been healed up.

The ship girl was the slowest of the lot seeing as it was a land race, but Nadia slowing down and giving up after a bit let her catch up with her and her cargo.

”Hi there!” said the girl, her tone as cheerful and sunny as her sundress, as she joined them in walking after the two speeding kids. She exchanged a few words with the catgirl before leaning back a bit so she could introduce herself to Omori ”Oh you’re Kamek’s new friend right? Or something? Either way I’m Rika, it’s nice to meet you!”

After a bit of walking they caught up with the two racers and their victory juice boxes at the base of the central elevator that had turned out to be the finishing line. Said elevator turned out to be a rather weird affair truth be told, but rather than be freaked out like Nadia Jr just took it as someone's overly thematic lift ripped from who know where and plonked into the heart of the city by Galeem (he also thought whoever made it might have been trying a bit to hard too fit to whatever robot spider theme they had) while Rika lacked in so much context that for all she knew this was entirely normal.

Her simple yet appreciative comment of ”Neat!” made the ship girl’s state of mind on the whole affair perfectly clear.

On the other hand when it came to the familiar presence, she found herself a bit embarrassed truth be told, especially by Nadia’s comments of concern that made her realize she herself hadn’t really thought about where Bella had been since they got back, let alone New Southern. Now that she was, she hoped that the nihilistic princess had found at least some small comfort away from the dreadful island she had been freed from Galeem’s influence upon.

”Oh, uh, hi Bella. How’ve you been?” she asked, awkwardly raising a gauntleted arm and waving one of her wrist strapped hands as a greeting.

Turned out she’d been taking it easy and giving herself space to process things, and was now looking into maybe becoming an explorer, which if she did, then Jr had some good news on that front: ”Buncha people are riding trains all around the world right now, so if you want places to explore there's about to be a whole lot more of em than the pile we’ve got already” he informed her as they mused about heading up the elevator.

”Ooo it moves on its own? Spooky. Yeah let’s check it out” was Jr’s opinion on it once Bella filled them in on what she knew.

Unlike the prince, who was mainly interested because it sounded haunted, the actual view at the top seemed nice to Rika, who could relate to Bella’s desire to see new things a great deal. Alcamoth was, she just then realized, extremely contextless to her. A place she had teleported to and from but really had no understanding of where it was in relation to anything else.

It was one of the many many gaps in her knowledge she decided she wanted to clear up, and so she nodded in agreement to this plan.

---

When the kids ran off after the other kids, they had left their elders in the dust at the top of the mall.

”Should we, ah, go after them?” Kamek asked, glancing from her king to the rapidly retreating rapscallions’ rears.

”Eh they’ll be fine. Got each other and Nadia, how much trouble can they get into?” Bowser asked over the sound of someone shrieking as a result of almost being run over by a careening clown kart.

”Thank badness. Honestly I have never seen the appeal of that whole kart racing malarkey. Puzzles and board/minigames, now that is where it is” Kamek asserted, stepping off the broom she was halfway through mounting and setting the top down to the ground to use as a walking stick once more.

”Eh don’t knock it till you try it, and your always welcome to come give it a go you know” the king offered, something the mage waved off with a ”Ack, no, I’m much too old for that sort of thing” to which the king just shrugged in reply.

”Suit yourself”

A few moments of silence hung in the air as they watched the youths race on before Bowser stretched and said ”Dunno about you, but that fighting worked up an appetite! Wanna hit up a food stall or something?”

”Sure. Why not”

That was how Bowser wound up getting a seafood snack from a completely unflappable shrimp lady who was quick to insist that her suppliers ‘aqua farms’ where oh so much better than “that trash from the sea” despite her stall being half in ruin due to an unfortunate run in with a certain recklessly driving prince.

Kamek meanwhile just bit into an apple she had acquired and wondered if the woman had even noticed the incident or if she just rolled with the punches that well as Bowser came over. He had a takeaway box full of shrimp held in one hand from which he skewered a little morsel with a claw of the other and popped it in his mouth before chewing thoughtful and finally swallowing.

”So, how is it” Kamek asked, curious about the validity of the woman’s claims.

”Decent but it tastes a bit, uh, ” he snapped his fingers a few times before Kamek suggested ”artificial?”

”Yeah that’s it” he agreed, before the two lapsed into another silence filled only with the crunching sounds of crustacean and apple being munched down.

”So. What next?” Kamek asked after a bit

”I dunno… Wanna see if anyone we know is about?” Bowser suggested and, once he got a ”Sure why not” they set off to do just that.

While Scout might have seen fit to take the opportunity to rest, Wonder Red certainly didn't! He stayed standing on top of his root, keeping watch of the surroundings for any ill intent. Growing complacent wasn't the best course of action, especially in a location that seemed this hostile.

And good thing too! While Sectonia was gone, all hell broke loose; armed combatants popped up from cover, almost blending in with the nature-infested environment, and began attacking the encampment. With barely a moment's pause Wonder Red leapt from his small perch, soaring through the air towards the main brunt of the ambush. A flying, bright-red person was an easy target to aim at, but the CENITNEL suit was designed to handle small munitions with ease. Wonder Red's reflexes also made sure that any shot near enough to his exposed head was reflected away off the bracer of his Vulcan Knuckles.

He landed with a skid, kicking up some dirt as he fell in line beside the two shielded tanks, just in time for things to go from bad to worse. Out of the chaos came a real gnarled enemy, one that blew the sniper from the water tower. Regardless of her capabilities, Wonder Red did a fancy cartwheeling flip to her position in order to catch her, then leapt back behind one of the shields to safety.

"Everyone!" Wonder Red shouted to those around him, "head back for the camp's center. My compatriots and I will fend this attack off!" With that he jumped right up once more, over their cover, heading straight for the imposing Hulk. In the next blink of the eye, Wonder Red would finally show what he could bring to the table.


In an instant - faster than most anyone could see it - a gigantic hand formed over Wonder Red's fist. Nearly twice his size, Wonder Red maneuvered it with ease... right into the Hulk in front of him. With a spin in midair he slammed his Unite Morph into the beast, backhanded with a close fist, sending the thing careening back through the hole it made, through the line of shotgunners behind it, and embedding right into a concrete pillar on the other side.

When Wonder Red touched down again he pulled his Morph in front of him, shielding himself and those behind him from further gunfire, which plinked off the construct. Looking at it closer, one could see the green antlions Sectonia summoned within the translucent red, each one in its own piece that all seemed to lock into place like a jigsaw puzzle.

Over his shoulder, Red shouted to Scout, "No! We can't leave these people to deal with this on their own! We have a duty to protect the inhabitants of this world. They already have casualties!"

---

Raz nodded once, writing down the word 'wibbly' in his notes, before the group forged ahead. "Alright, up! Up is easy, you just find the stairs. Or, you know, an array of perfectly spaced platforms that you can jump across. Always works for me!"

Of course the one set of stairs to be found only led slightly further up than they were, nowhere closer to the surface at all. The road eventually ended at a crossroads, and while examining their options Raz suddenly spoke up. "Hey, I think I can read this stuff now!" He pointed up at the sign. "Guess writing everything down really does make a difference. Alright, let's see... Looks like that way is a Fog Canyon? And this path goes to..." He soon died down, once he realized it wasn't just him who could read the sign. "Well, okay, where should we go?"

He glanced down each way forward, making a mental note of the apparent difficulty, before giving his two cents. "Does any of these places particularly scream 'goes to the surface' to you two? We could also, maybe, go further in?" Raz gestured around them. "If this is a bug kingdom kind of place, then maybe they have a way to send signals out closer to civilization, and we're at some bug version of the outskirts? Just spitballing, here."

It took the Moogle some time to figure out exactly where they were, time that Sectonia really didn't have anything to do but wait for the creature to get its information gathered. After a bit, the Moogle came back and gave Sectonia a new plan. "I do question using these trains as a 'portal nexus'. Collecting the currency needed to buy a pass for everyone might become cumbersome." Sectonia said as the Moogle informed her that they were close, but that she should check out the other stations.

During this time, the creatures on the forest floor began to attack those in one of the towers. Seeing that their allies were udner attack, the Antillions did what they were ordered, shooting lightning orbs at the incoming attackers or hitting them with their clubs if they got close. Of course antillions weren't the tankiest of things, so there was only so much they could do as they helped the others fight. Midway through the fight though, Sectonia joined, Red deciding to attack one of the bigger targets in the fight.

Now, Sectonia could tell there was something a bit different about her when she got to this area, and the time she had gotten to hereslf to think about it while she waited for the moogle had her sort of figure out what was going on. As Sectonia hovered above the battle, mostly unnoticed by those on the ground, she decided to try to use this new power of hers. Charging up the power for a fairly decent amount of time, at least for something in combat, Sectonia looked at the largest group of enemies that were swarming her allies and unleashed the spell in a wide area.

Instantly everyone that was looking at the area that Sectonia had 'detonated' could see space and reality shatter as if it was glass. While her allies were unaffected by the damage, they too were still subject to the visual distortions that occurred. At first, things were just a black and purple swirling void that had shattered through reality. There was a clear definition where this ability had hit, with the edges looking like fractured glass. Those inside the swirling cloud could see nothing but darkness. A few moments later though, the cloud cleared, but what was left of the area was a white void lacking of shading, with vague outlines showing where objects were. Enemies that had survived and Sectonia's allies looked normal though.

This area would eventually return to normal, but those that took damage from this were either disintegrated or heavily damaged. Thanks to her control of magic, she could at least make it so her allies weren't damaged. This also gave her allies some breathing room and signified her return in quite a flamboyant fashion. "Everyone, apparently the plan is to map out every stop, so back on the train we go, apparently." Sectonia said.