Once inside Mumbo’s Motors, it took only a few seconds for Tora to find a suitable spare workbench in the corner. He popped open his toolbox and soon found himself humming along with the music as he proceeded to make himself comfortable. A number of tools, half-used duct tape rolls, empty oil cans, spare parts, and trashed components nobody had bothered to throw away littered its surface, but Tora happily swept everything he didn’t want off onto the floor. “Okay, friend Band!” he said, turning to face his friend as he put his wings on his hips in what he believed to be a hero pose. “Ready to get started! Just take it off, put here, and Tora get busy!”

Band blinked a couple times. “Fraid I can’t exactly do that, kid.”

“Meh-meh? Why not?” For a moment Tora looked consternated, but his expression turned to one of unabashed hope as he realized the possibility of increased free time. “Band change mind?”

“Ah, no, no, what I mean is, I can’t ‘take it off’,” Band explained. Two large mechanical arms extended from his trench coat to pull it open, revealing the body beneath. To Tora it looked more or less like a giant, gunmetal-gray can, or maybe a bell, criss-crossed with all sorts of lines and shapes for the detective various ports to open up and deploy his orchestra’s worth of hidden instruments. It measured just a little less than twice as tall as the mechanical legs beneath it, giving Big Band a very hop-heavy physique. “This ain’t a suit of armor. It’s one big, mean, blues-playin’ machine.”

Tora scratched his head. “Oh, sorry. In that case…ah! So Band is piloting machine!” It made perfect sense considering how small the man’s head was in comparison to his body. The Nopon could easily picture his friend’s real body cooped up inside that can somewhere, pulling levers and twisting knobs. “Why friend not say so? In that case, just climb on out and leave rest to Tora!”

Smiling with just a hint of sorrow, the ASG soldier shook his head. “Can’t do that either. Sorry kid, I realize now, I really shoulda come clean earlier ‘bout the….particulars of my situation.” Band plodded over and sat on the workbench, which creaked beneath his weight but somehow held. He ran his hand along its stained, greasy surface, thinking about how long it had been since he laid on a hospital bed and not a table like this, then started unbuttoning his trench as he explained. “Let me put it to ya this way, kid,” he told Tora, unperturbed by the Nopon’s wide-eyed and slightly worried stare. “If I were to step up on a scale, it’d tell me I weighed five thousand pounds. Now, that’s a whole lot -two and a half tons- but most of it is steel, brass, and rubber. If I were to count the parts that’re flesh and bone, though, I’d weigh in at just ninety-five. Not even half your average man.”

Tora’s brows knitted together. “But…how that possible, meh? Even if major skinnypon, that seem like too little…”

“It’s ‘cause there’s barely any o’ the original me left,” Band told him, his face one of distant melancholy. “Without all this metal, I can’t fight, can’t walk, can’t feed myself…can’t even breathe. It ain’t an exaggeration to say that this machine is keepin’ me alive.”

His young friend looked horrified. “No way that true!” he insisted, but a nod of Band’s head confirmed his sincerity. “That horrible! Poor Band. Not having arms, wings, or legs not even sound like life to Tora!”

Band chuckled, a little indignant. “Hey, hey. It ain’t easy, but I don’t need any pity, alright? I get by. Need a little help from time to time, but don’t we all?” He extended a mechanical limb, flexing the brazen fingers. “Besides, don’t think of it like I don’t got arms or legs. These are my arms, and those down there are my legs.” He kicked the stubby prosthetics like a child on a pier. “Remember, I said ‘original me’ before, not ‘real me’. ‘Cause what you’re lookin’ at right now…that’s me. This is all of me.” Band gestured to his body. “So don’t go feelin’ sorry for me. My biography ain’t a sob story, y’hear?”

“Tora not fully understand, but if Band not need sad feelings, Tora not give any,” the engineer promised him. He’d replaced his shocked expression with a sympathetic one. “But…how this happen, meh? Friend Band born like this? Or maybe…” Tora’s eyebrows shot up. “Sacrifice human body for power!?”

“Hell no!” the detective laughed, shaking his head. “I didn’t ask for this. Well…I guess that ain’t exactly true. I agreed to it ‘cause I figured anythin’ was better than the way I was before. Now that…that wasn’t a life. Just existin’ day after day, waitin’ for it to end. All thanks to the folks I trusted most.”

The Nopon gulped. “...Meh, meh. If Band not mind, could tell Tora more?”

Band thought for a moment, then nodded again. “I don’t mind. We old folks gotta pass on our wisdom to the new generations, after all. Make sure they don’t make the same mistakes. Just keep in mind, I’m pretty sure the worlds we’re from are pretty different. I dunno how much we got in common, so I won’t be delvin’ too deep into the details, you dig?” He leaned against the wall behind the table, looking off into the middle distance as though it contained the past for him to see.

“Well, my story begins and ends in New Meridian, the capital of Canopy Kingdom. Guess the first thing you oughta know is that Big Band ain’t my real name. Back then, they called me Ben Birdland. I lived through the Grand War, all the fear and violence, and I wanted to do somethin’ about it. Not, heh, save the world of course, but just make a difference for the better, y’know? So I enlisted as a cop. An officer of the law. To walk the streets of the city, keep an eye out for folks’, just do whatever I could to keep the people safe.”

Tora flapped his wings. “Meh-meh! Band sound like superheropon!”

“Heh.” The detective smiled. “If only. Maybe that’s what I hoped bein’ a cop would be like, but things don’t always turn out the way ya hope.” His expression turned serious. “Even the war wasn’t as bad as what I went through as a beat cop. And things didn’t get much better after I got promoted to detective. The higher up ya get, the better you can see just how bad things are. But it was all worth it, ‘cause I knew deep inside I was doin’ the right thing. Upholdin’ the spirit of the law.”

“Spirit of law?” Tora looked confused.

Band closed his eyes. “Yeah. Laws are meant to protect us, right? To keep people safe, make things fair, pay evil unto evil and good unto good. Ya ain’t got a society without ‘em. And even if people fall short, makin’ all kinds o’ mistakes, the law is a glorious thing. Somethin’ greater than ourselves we can believe in, that we can strive for. To keep us on the straight and narrow, y’know? ‘If the word of law falls, pick it up and hold it higher!’” After the recitation, however, Band sighed, and his head fell. “At least, that’s what I thought. Turns out, the law ain’t always like that to people. ‘Specially not in New Meridian. A badge and a gun give a man power, and any kind o’ power can be dangerous in the wrong hands. My unit…they didn’t care one whit about anyone but their own damn selves. Instead of takin’ criminals down, they cut some deals. Took money to look the other way, and sometimes, even give the bad folks a helpin’ hand. They were crooked. Corrupt. Like a fruit that’s rotten on the inside.”

“Tora appreciate analogy,” his friend remarked quietly.

Band laid himself down on the table. “I didn’t realize just how bad it was until it was too late. I was too good for my own good, and they gave me an early retirement. Left me broken, to live out the rest of my sorry days in a hospital, trapped in a big metal tube I needed to breathe. An iron lung. ASG approached me ‘cause I had nothin’ to lose, and I agreed. Now I carry my iron lung around with me, rebuilt as the one and only, all there is of the most real. Big Band.” When he saw just how sad Tora looked, he grimaced. “Hey, wipe away those damn tears. I wasn’t tellin’ ya all this so you could feel sorry for me. All I’m sayin is…” He closed his eyes. “Just be careful while you’re diggin’ ‘round in there, will ya?”

“T-Tora not cry, meh! Just get dust in eye.” The young engineer shook himself out. “Tora not realize big importance of machine, so will be extra-specially careful. Ben-Ben just wait, Tora soon have everything working like well-oiled machine!”

“Right on.” The detective smiled. “You’re a good kid, Tora. If you can do me one favor, though, call me Band. We can learn from the past, but we can’t cling to it, else we’ll never move forward. Groovy?” The Nopon agreed without a second thought, then took his tools in hand and got to work. Bit by bit he took Band apart, painfully conscious of everything that looked important. He oiled up the joints, ironed out the kinks, tightened the couplings, cleared some blockages, cleaned out sand, and more. As he worked, fixated less on his own curiosity and more on doing a good job, the time just seemed to slip away.

---

Before Tora knew it, an hour had gone by. Even while in the process of making the final adjustments and making sure that everything socketed back into place just right, he remained so engrossed in his work that he didn’t notice Poppi standing beside him until he turned to deposit his tools in his box. “Meh-meh-meh!” he exclaimed, surprised. “Why Poppi scare Tora like that!?”

“Poppi not scare Masterpon,” she reasoned. “Poppi just standing here. All fear occur inside Masterpon mind.”

Tora dabbed at his brow with a rag stained gray-black by machine grease. “W-well, Poppi could have said something at least.”

“If Poppi say something, Masterpon actually startled and potentially damage vital Big Band components,” his companion pointed out.

“That…probably true,” Tora admitted before straightening up. “Wait, no! Tora not technically professional, but Tora never risk hurting friend Band-Band!”

Behind him, the detective sat up slowly. “Well, glad to hear that now, I s’pose.” He stretched to the extent that he could, circulating power, coolant, blood, and pneumatic gasses through his internal systems. “Hrrmm. ‘Tween the music and all those tinkerin’ sounds I guess I dozed off there for a bit, huh. Not feelin’ half bad either. Guess you know your stuff, Tora!”



“Mhm!” Tora replied, looking very proud. “One other thing, though. While making repairs, Tora realize that Band not only have strange black blood, but also seem like run low soon. When look into further with handy analyzer, Tora find out that it mostly oil, which very interesting! Tora mostly mechanical and software engineer, but amateur chemical engineer also, so want try synthesize more fluid using oil in shop, but need blood of correct type, too. What Band-Band blood type?”

The line of inquiry left Band impressed. “Just how much you got rattlin’ around in that head of yours, kid? You some kind o’ crazy super-genius?”

“Of course, meh!”

“Please not encourage Masterpon with excessive praise,” Poppi cautioned him.

“Oh, uh, right.” Band cleared his throat. “Well, that’s awful nice of you, Tora. My blood type is B♭. Experimental oil mixture. If you can really do what you say, I’ll owe you big-time.”

Tora tried not to look too pleased. “Meh-heh-heh. Don’t worry Band-Band, it nothing between friends.”

“I gotta ask though. You started sayin’ my name twice all of a sudden. Any reason in particular?” Band wondered.

His mechanic smiled, his eyes shining. “Doublename just show Tora’s respect! Respect for great detective. Band-Band should be proud!”

“Heh, don’t you worry,” the detective reassured him. “I am.”

Judging by her smile, Poppi was, too. “Seems like Masterpon been busy,” she said. “While you fix up Band in here, others outside learning to drive or messing with custom cars.”

“Meh-meh!” Tora exclaimed, dismayed. “Did Tora miss all fun?”

His companion shrugged. “Poppi not sure. Driving tests and races all take time, and when friends finish lap, they want change up cars again to improve performance.”

“That what Poppi been doing?” Tora asked.

“No, just watching,” she replied. “That fun by self, but also walk around city to see sights. All sorts of interesting places not in Torigoth or Alcamoth. Poppi very much think Tora like Seabreeze Salon. It shop for styling hair!”

Tora scratched his chin. “Well, if Poppi think so, maybe we try later. But right now, Tora want fool around with cars, meh! Already learn to drive in Land of Adventure, so Tora super-speedypon!” At that point, however, his stomach grumbled loudly. He shook himself from head to tail officiously. “...Or maybe Tora want lunch.”

“Let’s round up the others and see how it’s goin’,” Band suggested. “Shouldn’t the folks from the place Vandham mentioned be arrivin’ soon, too? And he said they’re comin’ by boat. Maybe we could find somewhere by the sea.”

“That good plan!” Tora sang, bouncing up and down. “First we gather friends, then time for food!”



Even with all hands scrambling to make repairs, it took more than just a couple frantic minutes to attend to the Raptor’s damage. The pirates clung to the rigging and stacked atop one another as they labored to patch up the massive ruptures left in their balloon by the main gun of Geralt’s Breaching Bastion. A few more shots whizzed nearby, but nothing that required the now-active Trophy System. In front of the downed airship the battle unfolded between the Seekers and the Port o’ Panic forces, including the fights with the Raptor’s elites and Risky’s Marauders on the other side of the scuppered Adrian. Aside from surface activity from Rika, only bubbles and bright lights suggested the presence of the submariners down below, but things seemed just as intense down there. Captain LeFwee alternated between watching events unfold across the ocean, and squawking orders at his crew, never stepping in to lend a wing himself. After another minute or two the repairs were complete, the balloon filled up, and the piratical dirigible lifted off from the water once more.

“We’re back in the air! Yahahahaharr!” LeFwee exulted. He raced to the railing and extended his gunblade toward the Adrian, totally oblivious to the small party currently headed back from Port O’ Panic itself, let alone what transpired there. “Now, it be time to finish these scurvy dogs off! All hands, return fire!”

The gunners obeyed. Scarcely had the Raptor’s dripping keel part ways with the sea then its three guns started up once again. Cannonballs hurled through the sky to pound the Adrian -as well as anyone aboard- once more, and finish what the pirates’ ambush had started. Yet the loss of helium in the balloon meant that the ship flew much lower than before, a tempting target for the Seekers whose own fights had come to an end.

Though the events at the Port-O-Panic left Omori feeling discouraged, he sped back in the direction of the Adrian. However weird it felt; being weighed back by his regrets so suddenly, he’ll have to worry about it later. They weren’t done fighting yet. The aerial ship regaining its momentum was evidence of that. As far as the boy was concerned he could still fight, and with Junior busy tending to Annetta, that left him out of the two to help confront the Raptor. Only problem was that he didn’t have any ideas on how to reach it from below. Unless…

He glanced around to see one of the seekers skating upon the watery battlefield. The boy’s head tilted slightly as he tried to make out who it was. Didn’t take long for him to recognize those cat ears. ”Miss Nadia!” Omori called out to his feline acquaintance, riding up next to her. ”Think you can toss me up there?” He asked, pointing up to the deck of the ship.

The feral turned his way. Thought it had been a bit since she last did this, back when fused with Northampton out of necessity at the Battle of Blackwater Bay, she felt pretty glad that she didn’t seem to be embarrassing herself so far–and doubly glad to see that Omori made it out of that ruthless ambush alright. “Oh hey, kid!” she greeted him with a smile. Now that she faced him, it would be hard for him to ignore the giant new scar straight across her middle. To just about anyone such a grievous injury would be fatal, and despite a full heal from Blazermate it still hurt, but Nadia kept her face upbeat so he wouldn’t worry. “Throw ya? Uhh…” She looked back to gauge the distance. Being off to the side somewhat, the two of them avoided the line of fire between the Raptor and the Adrian, but even if left uncontested Nadia didn’t fancy her chance. “I’m not that strong. But maybe…”

She pulled out one of the hooks from her new rigging, getting a feel for its shape and heft. “I ain’t half bad with a grapplin’ hook!” Her eyes shone with the dangerous light of a wicked new scheme. “C’mere, follow me!”

"Wait for me!"

Omori felt the frame of his rowboat wobble slightly as another person hopped down into it, catching him off guard for a moment. The voice, along with the brief flap of wings to keep said person balanced while standing in the boat, belonged to the angel he'd met earlier in the day. Pit had recovered from his feat and was raring to get into the action for real. The Orbitars still revolved around him in a slow ellipse, and he gazed out over the water toward the Raptor with a determined expression just before his focus shifted to Omori. Perhaps sensing the boy's distressed mood, Pit offered him the same encouraging smile he usually gave to his Centurions back in Skyworld. "Let's go!"

Omori couldn’t help wondering why Pit couldn’t just fly to the Raptor, unaware that the angel was unable to. But then again, how many of them were unable to fly? He decided not to worry about it and nodded to the other boy in response, following Nadia’s lead.

As the Raptor started rising into the air, Geralt frowned. That was certainly quick, he’d expected they’d stay down longer than that. Still, no matter. The Bastion was still active, so it was as simple as aiming the main gun at that balloon and firing again. They weren’t even that high up, so he didn’t have to account for that nearly as much.

However, as the shot from the main gun was about to burst through the balloon again, it detonated in the air, leaving the ship’s flotation system unharmed. Geralt frowned at the sight, wondering if they’d had somebody on board who could intercept the projectiles, but had failed to do so the first time? Unfortunately, given the relatively long time that it took for the Bastion to reload, Geralt took this as a sign that his contributions would be best performed in another manner. Climbing back aboard the Adrian and dismissing the Bastion, he sought out the other Seekers who remained, hoping to get a hand in reaching the enemy’s airship.

Rubick hung back in relative safety as the other Seekers made their way back to the Adrian and went to combat the Raptor. After the fight with Hydroid Rakkam, he was low on energy and would need some time before he could get back up to his spell slinging shenanigans again, and he was not about to get pelted by a cannonball before he was ready. Truly, his lack of regen was a problem, and he needed to rectify this as soon as possible. Still, by this point the Adrian itself had sunk almost to the upper deck, and listed at a troublesome forty-degree angle. As for the Raptor, Geralt had done some damage to it earlier, but it appeared to have recovered. Now the Bastion’s shots were no longer effective, which was a problem. It seemed the Raptor had some extra protection on board, which meant it would have to be taken care of before the Seekers could bring it down. This also made Rubick wonder why it had not been activated in the first place, since it could’ve protected the Raptor from taking damage.

Out on the water, Nadia approached the Raptor alongside the others, skating with refreshing ease over the sea’s wavy surface. The difference really was immense; fighting the shipgirls without this ability meant being either in the water, clinging to someone, or midair one hundred percent of the time. Unfortunately, just being able to approach the Raptor quickly wouldn’t be enough. As the Seekers drew near the crew took notice, and after they raised a general alarm a bevy of flintlocks, muskets, and harpoon guns appeared along the railing. Out of the attackers’ reach and defending from the high ground, LeFwee’s animalistic crew seemingly had every advantage and could enjoy taking their time shooting the heroes full of holes.

The angelic Guardian Orbitars were enough to shield both boys from the opposing crew's gunshots, one Orbitar dedicated to Pit and the other hovering around Omori. The heavier harpoons would need some evasive maneuvers to handle, as even though they wouldn't break the Orbitars they would shove them away where they'd be useless until automatically floating back to their user. At this point, Omori could fearlessly steer their boat away from enemy fire like it was nothing. He was getting the hang of this!

After the very inaccurate but still dangerous barrage began, Nadia sighed. “‘Kay, you guys get ready. I’ve got a li’l pent-up energy in me, so I’ll get us started.” With loads of Dramatic Tension in reserve, the catgirl focused her power. She brought to mind the bar fight from yesterday, when Red Band Rita stabbed her in the back at the end of a furious struggle with the pirate’s cutthroats. Nadia didn’t think of herself as an angry person, or a vicious or vengeful one, but in that moment she’d channeled her raw spite through such an emphatic glare that she’d literally blown her opponent away, annihilating her in a beam of raging water. And what was it she said, in the spur of that wrathful moment…?

“River-carving Rapids!” Nadia yowled, and from her blue eye a fearsome Cataract surged. The beam of pure hydro power crashed into the Raptor’s side, sweeping along the railing in a torrent of water and wooden shrapnel. None of the crew got enough exposure to take serious damage, but they got knocked back, and the Seekers got an excellent chance to make their final approach.

"Whoa! Eye lasers!? That's so cool!" Pit exclaimed. And she'd even given the move a cool name. Pit tempered his fanboying for the moment though, focusing on the task at hand.

"Charge, Omori!" he said, pointing toward the Raptor now that the way was clear.

”On it!” More than willing to take the opening, Omori drove their vessel straight towards the enemy with his machete at the ready. In no time flat he’d gotten close; now the only problem was actually getting up there. Luckily, Susie cruised in with her business suit to lend a hand. She extended her mech’s arms to accept one Seeker after another and hurl them up to land on the deck. Of course, the moment they landed they’d be swarmed by a gang of pirates, some the piscine Gill Grunts, and others the more unique neopets, but all angry and armed to the teeth.

Rubick performed some mental calculations, trying to determine how much energy he still had in his reserves. He already knew, but it was best to double check. There was still enough in his tank for about one or two of his usual spell combo. He could feel it this time; after the battle with Hydroid Rakkam, he had regained full access to his usual list of spells. He made his way to Susie after she tossed Omori to the Raptor, and allowed himself to be similarly hurled. Now on the Raptor’s deck, Rubick looked for the greatest concentration of mobs and lifted a Gill Grunt via Telekinesis. It was slammed down just as quickly, discharging a wave of energy that stunned all enemies who were nearby the unfortunate Gill Grunt. Rubick then followed up with a Fade Bolt, a bolt of green energy that dealt damage as it jumped from enemy to enemy. It also had the added benefit of weakening their attacks for the next several seconds.

Angry and weakened, huh? It’ll be easier for Omori to break through their defense in that case. He was quickly locked in a sword fight against the cutlass wielding Xweetok, while narrowly avoiding getting shot by a Blumaroo’s musket. The boy was gradually gaining momentum against his opponent when one of the bullets managed to hit his side. That was going to leave a mark. Widened eyes turned to face the rat-like creature, while he fired his flintlock at the other Neopet without looking back. Omori swapped out the gun for his knife, and charged at it for a stab. Though, he made sure not to go for an immediately fatal hit this time, instead opting to return the favor by striking it’s shoulder. He yanked his weapon out and shoved the neopet away. How did that friend heart thing work again? Assuming he did enough damage, Omori tapped his chest to form one, and passed it to the two, restoring them back to health. Now with that out of the way, where was the captain?

As he moved away from the edge of the Raptor’s deck, Nadia landed deftly behind him. While she did like her idea of using her new anchors to lift herself up to the enemy vessel, joining the procession of heroes being flung by Susie meant a lot less time and effort on the feral’s part, and she’d been feeling pretty drained already. After her arrival aboard the Raptor, however, she found herself faced with a pack of animals, be they anthropomorphic fish that looked much less horrible than the Murlocs of Carcass isle, or various blue-tinted critters in pirate outfits. The round one with a big captain’s hat and even bigger squirrel tail caught her eye, for no matter how he scowled, he couldn’t look intimidating in the slightest. “Aw, how cute!” she said, unable to suppress a smile until the Meerca pointed a gun at her and embedded a lead ball in her stomach. Her expression turned from joy to profound sadness as she looked down. Between her pain resistance and what she’d just been through, the shot barely registered; it was such a low-caliber bullet that it failed to penetrate her abdominal muscles, and after a moment she ‘spat’ the round out. “I feel so betrayed,” she complained. Nadia then launched her arm at the Meerca, grabbed him by the pelt, and slung him around in an overhead slam directly in front of her. Without further ado she put her water pressure in a jet-propelled kick, and punted her foe off the Raptor into the sea.

Geralt, meanwhile, had hitched a ride with Blazermate, gliding over the ocean to Susie, who catapulted the Witcher upwards into the fray. Geralt didn’t bother drawing either of his swords, instead lashing out with fists, elbows and claws to batter his foes. The Elephante decked in pirate garb and armed with a sword joined a pair of Gill Grunts in attempting to bar his path. Geralt, in a moment of inspiration, used Axii to turn the fight from three against one, to a two-on-two brawl. The Elephante ruthlessly beat on one of its allies, while Geralt put his title of boxing champion to good use, bobbing, weaving and dodging out of the way of harpoon thrusts and swings while absolutely clobbering the Grunt attacking him. After a few solid hits, Geralt took advantage of a lapse in judgment to crash the grunt’s head into the railing of the ship, knocking him unconscious just as the Elephante did the same to its foe.

Turning to his reluctant ally, Geralt nodded and told the Elephante to take a swim, which it did with glee, until it hit the water and realized it had thrown itself overboard when the spell broke, shouting angrily up to the Witcher, who ignored it. Stalking towards the helm of the ship, Geralt bared his teeth. They had to keep this thing from getting back in the air and really rejoining the fight. In his path lurked the Quiggle, Ribbit, with his pike in a defensive position, and as the Witcher momentarily considered his options he also spotted Omori in much the same position, clearly looking for the Raptor’s captain. Unlike Geralt, however, he’d thought too highly of his foes, and now Wiggles the Xweetok approached him from behind with his cutlass extended.

“Behind you, kid! Out of my way,” Geralt called out in warning then demanded, hand forming the sign of Aard, pushing the frog off-balance. As it tried to regain its footing, Geralt grabbed onto its pike, breaking the head off and kicking it off the ship, before shoving the Neopet against the railing of the ship. “You’re done. Join your friend down there or I’ll gut you like a Nilfgaardian and make supper out of you.” Playing up the disturbing visage granted to him by the Orphan’s Spirit, he hoped that disarming and sufficiently demoralizing his foe would qualify for Galeem’s curse. It wasn’t something he’d put much thought into until now, where he got the feeling that carving a bloody trail through the ship wouldn’t go over well. Still, if this failed, he had claws and blades he could use. Yet Ribbit obeyed–or so it seemed. The moment the Quiggle jumped overboard, it used its froglike fingers to cling to the hull of the Raptor, where it began to climb around to come back up and cause problems again.

Geralt’s warning managed to reach Omori’s ears before Wiggles could strike, and soon enough their blades connected once again. Did the fight with Annetta somehow affect his performance here? If he wasn’t supposed to kill them yet freeing them does jack squat to stop them, then what the heck was he supposed to be doing?! Why was he even holding back?! His exasperated expression said enough. Not even paying mind to Droopy, the boy overwhelmed Wiggles with relentless slashes from his blades. Omori fired his flintlock at Droopy before the rodent could reload its weapon.

After bodily kicking Chuck the Meerca into the ocean blue, Nadia found herself under attack by the Kiko, Kickball. Using her ability to float, Kickball came after her with hatchets almost as big as herself, but while they presented a decent threat, their weight caused her to overswing something fierce. Nadia blocked for a moment using her new anchor chains to get a bead on her foe, then pulled off a somersault flip into extended axe kick to bounce the round creature off the deck. Taken by surprise, Kickball found herself on the backfoot as Nadia laid into her with a flurry of claw swipes, so the Kiko blocked like her life depended on it. Annoyed by the neopet’s half-decent defense, Nadia took off her head, rolled it beneath Kickball, and sneezed to launch her head onto her opponent’s back. Once she broke the Kiko’s guard with the cross-up, Nadia finished her with a golf swing that sent Kickball flying into the ships rigging, where her momentum tangled her up in the ropes like a fly in a web.

Taking advantage of Rubrick's stunt, Pit leapt onto the deck with the others and made to fan out and take on the closest enemy he spotted. The Orbitars had faded into light, quickly replaced by the two halves of the Palutena Bow. The swords clashed with the spear gun of a gill grunt, too close to use the weapon for its intended purpose and resorting to jabbing its spiky end at the angel. Clang, clang, clang. The gun being as large as the fish person that wielded it made it an effective shield if nothing else. Pit shifted around the grunt, but finding no immediate openings he opted to try something else instead. He jumped up, kicking both of his legs out at the grunt. It blocked with the spear gun as expected, and the force of the kick sent it hurtling away in the opposite direction. It crashed into another of its own kind who'd been trying to line up a shot during the brief scuffle. That one's spear gun featured hooks on the end of the harpoon, and the collision sent it's shot high and wide where it sailed harmlessly out over the ocean.

Capitalizing while they were down, Pit surged forward and knocked the huge weapon out of the first gill grunt's grasp. It growled angrily and changed tactics and threw a punch, one that was easily caught by the flat of Pit's sword. The grunt gasped and cradled its stunned arm, leaving itself completely open to a spinning roundhouse kick from its angelic opponent that sent it right over the railing and into the drink below.

"Okay, who's next!" Pit boldly announced, only to met with the sound of a gunshot and the hot pain of a ball bearing in his lower back. He let out a yelp that devolved into a pained hiss, whirling around to face his assailant. One of LeFwee's henchman, a seal with a tuft of orange hair on it's head and two flintlocks in each hand, had snuck up and took aim. Currently Nubbin the Tuskainny was doing a miraculous job of reloading the one gun while at the same time leveling the other at Pit.

Pit dodged the next shot now that he actually saw it coming, rolling to the side and popping back up. Behind him the other gill grunt had recovered and was just standing back up when the Tuskaninny's shot ripped right through it, and it dissolved into ashes.

Moving into melee range, Pit expected little opposition given his opponent had two ranged weapons. However Nubbin managed to evade the first slash with a surprisingly dexterous backward slide, and then brought his tail around to slap Pit in the face. Then again, though he managed to recover from his shock quick enough to stop a third strike with his arm bracer.

"Cut it out!" Pit complained, and was met with a retort of "No way, if it works it works!"

Nubbin turned and slammed his tail into Pit's opposite arm where the angel brought it up to block again. At this point he had finished loading both flintlocks again and jumped back to shoot them at near point blank range. Quick and experienced, Pit's swords flashed in his hand and both bullets struck the divine steel. They ricocheted away, and in the next moment Pit dove forward while the Tuskainny was hastily reloading again. He hooked a blade under each of Nubbin's arms and grinned mischievously at him.

"Out you go!" he said, heaving Nubbin up and over the Raptor's side. In a fit of incredible luck, the flying neopet also hit Ribbit as the Quiggle jumped up to keep fighting, sending it hurtling away from the ship to splash down into the water. In a panic Nubbin let go of his guns to try and scrabble at the wood and catch himself, but it was too late - he fell down towards the ocean and a stream of strangely kid-friendly curses followed him.

While Omori was crossing blades with Wiggles and shooting at Droopy, Geralt came upon them like a bat out of hell, tackling the kangaroo Neopet into the railing, claws lashing out into its body and elbows thrashing out to keep its arms pinned. “Stay down!” He yelled, digging his claws into the pirate and pushing him closer to falling overboard. “We’re trying to end this without slaughtering you like animals!” He continued, snarling and growing more agitated by the second. “But if you’d like to die here, be my guest!”

Rubick Blinked next to Geralt and Omori and pulled out his Ray Gun, firing off a couple shots at Droopy. The Blumaroo, already pinned by Geralt, recoiled; it would be a simple act now to finish him off or throw him into the ocean. “Say, why are we trying not to kill them?” Rubick asked. “If they’re after our lives, it only makes sense that we go after theirs in return.”

”Like I know what the plan is besides survival at this rate…” Omori huffed out in response. With Wiggles out of the way for good, there wasn’t anything stopping him from finishing off Droopy. As he drew nearer to the pinned Neopet, he waited to see what Geralt wanted to do before acting in accord.

Geralt put a claw up to the pirate’s throat, cat-like eyes narrowed into slits. “Drop your weapon overboard, then go and wait for us to deal with your boss. I’m giving you a chance to live, don’t throw it away.” With his fighting instinct blasted out of him, the very overwhelmed Blumaroo nodded frantically, then slumped down and crawled away, not even looking at his weapon. Geralt grabbed the Blumaroo’s abandoned musket and, giving the weapon a quick glance, held it out for either of his companions to take. “If not, it’s going overboard.”

As enticing as a new weapon may be, there was just one problem. ”Toss it. I don’t have enough limbs for another gun.” Omori shrugged.

“My robes are getting a little full of items too,” Rubick added. Well, that and he didn’t know how to use the firearm. He’d certainly heard of firearms and what the Keen back in his own world could do with them, but he himself had little experience using them and wisely decided that he shouldn’t mess around with it.

With both his allies deciding they couldn’t make room for the musket, Geralt shrugged and carelessly tossed the weapon over the airship’s railing and into the ocean below.

On the subject of plans, Nadia had thought of one. “We should go after their leader!” she shouted over from the ship’s prow, where the act of giving a hapless Gill Grunt a turbo-noogie currently occupied her. “I’ve seen all kinds of animals on here so far, but no sign of that parrot. Y’know, the one that was squawkin’ big earlier?”

“You’re one to talk, you damn cat!” The grunt stomped on her foot and made a break for it, but Nadia extended her reach to snatch him back. “Guh!”

He snapped back toward the feral, who planted him face-first into the deck. “Shut up, fishface!” She stomped on him twice, cracking the wood around him. “You try harpoonin’ me in the head, this is whatcha get! Asshole!” With a final pressurized stomp she accidentally broke through the upper deck, and disappeared into the hold below.

“And there she goes…” Geralt sighed with an eye roll. “She’ll be fine, let’s go deal with the captain.” He suggested, drawing steel for the first time since boarding the ship.

”Think he might be hiding in there like a wuss?” Omori pointed in the direction of the Captain’s Quarters with his machete.

“I don’t see where else he could be,” Rubick responded, shrugging. “Shall we go in, then?”

“We haven’t seen him so far, so I have to assume that’s where he is.” Geralt agreed. “Let’s do it.” Casting Quen to protect himself, he strode up to the captain’s cabin and kicked open the door.

For a very brief moment, he got a look at a small, rectangular green device, planted upright on two pairs of little legs next to the door. Then the claymore exploded, dealing heavy damage not just to Geralt, but the entire front of the captain’s quarters along with it.

“Rahaha! How d’ye like that!” The pirate captain LeFwee crawled out from underneath the table he’d been hiding under to saunter through the smoke and debris. In one hand he held his silver gunblade, a mastercraft weapon that totally clashed with the rest of his aesthetic, and rather than the other hand he sported a three-pronged multihook that incorporated hook, saber, and corkscrew all in one. Thinking that he looked very menacing, the parrot clacked the hook parts together like the tongs of a dad at a barbeque. “I’ll be takin’ me ship back now, lubbers!” Just two enemies, it looked like. Manageable. Especially since he wasn’t really outnumbered. LeFwee pointed the gunblade at the Witcher’s fallen form. “Unless all ye sorry souls walk the plank this instant, that be yer fate!” In his show of bravado he did not notice that his claymore, which could definitely kill the average man, had not quite incapacitated Geralt thanks to his Quen shield.

When his dumbfoundment at Geralt’s unfortunate takedown subsided, Omori turned his ire back toward the perpetrator himself. ”Don’t count on it.” He may have been scratched up at this point, but he wasn’t going down easily. He charged inside, going in for the initial strike. LeFwee pointed his gunblade at Omori and went to fire. Like that would disway him. Omori went evasive, dodging whatever bullets he could as he gradually closed in.

Foot steps from around the nearby signaled another person's approach toward the captain's quarters. Pit slid around the corner, drawn by the noise of the explosion. "There you guys are!"

He saw Rubick first, then Omori rushing into the wrecked room, and finally his eyes found Geralt laying on his back on the wooden floor. His hackles were immediately raised and his covert feathers puffed up dramatically as his eyes widened. "Geralt?!" Surely he wasn't about to watch the man die again?! But, no - on second look his companions didn't appear to be that worried, and the Witcher was alive if dazed.

Rubick had been a little closer to the explosion than he would’ve liked, and was knocked back a few feet by the force. While he was hurt, he was really more indignant that the trap was still triggered despite precautions taken. “No worries, my young feathered friend, the boy and I are fine as well, thank you for asking,” Rubick sarcastically moaned at Pit (to which the angel actually looked embarrassed. "Oh, ehehe..."). He also pointed his staff at LeFwee, casting Telekinesis to lift him up just high enough so that he could no longer touch the ground while also twirling him around to throw off his aim.

The parrot squawked in surprise when the sorcerer’s magic lifted him off his feet. In a rush to pull the trigger, he overcorrected on his spin and shot wide, then swung his weapon’s blade the opposite way to try and ward off Omori before he could get too close. Omori swung his machete back at LeFwee in response, their blades colliding in attempts to avoid getting cut. While he held his stance, the impact just sent LeFwee into an even more chaotic midair spin, leaving him dizzy and wide open.

”Pfft-”

Even Omori couldn’t take him as seriously with him stuck in such a predicament. A humored grin crept onto his face as he tried to stifle a chuckle.

On the ground, Geralt took the chance to get a good glimpse of what was happening, and it seemed now was about the time to get back into it. Holding back a groan as he got to his feet, the Witcher collected his sword and started walking towards the combatants as quietly as his armor would allow.

”Okay, I think you can drop him now!” The monochrome youth called back to Rubick. But not before getting a few strikes in at the vulnerable LeFwee. That should cover his pistol, just in case. Though, some of them didn’t hit, even as he seemed to pick up a bit of speed. Rubick shrugged and released his spell, causing LeFwee to fall.

After getting dumped back down, and hitting the edge of his own table on the way, LeFwee landed in a heap with his already-scruffy feathers in disarray. “Ugggghhh,” he groaned, wincing as he rose partially onto his forearm. “Scurvy…dogs! Plague-ridden bilge rats! Just ye wait, I’ll fix ye good an’ proper.” He raised his voice, but couldn’t quite stamp out the quaver in it. “BOSUN!”

There was no reply. Nothing at all happened. “Bosun!?” LeFwee yelled again. “Damn yer eyes, Rakkam where ye be!?” Clenching his beak, he looked around, anticipating someone’s arrival. He glowered at the Seekers in the meantime. “A-any minute now! When he shows, haharr, ye’ll soon be drownin’ on dry land, mateys!”

As LeFwee dropped to the floor, Geralt continued his approach, slowly lifting his sword and pointing it at the bird. “He won’t be coming. He’s got more important things to deal with now.”

For just a second LeFwee looked aghast, but with a shaky laugh he regained his fierce expression. “So, ye survived me little claymore, eh? Lyin’ through yer teeth, is what ye are.”

Raising his eyebrow, Geralt pulled out the speargun that Rakkam had given him. “Ain’t lying.” Rubick nodded, adding, “He was a fun challenger. I hope he wasn’t all you had, though.”

This time LeFwee’s silence lasted a moment longer, for he recognized that spear. Then, in a deliberate manner, the parrot cleared his throat. “Just…just ye wait,” he repeated. “When he shows…ah!” His gaze locked onto something behind the group of Seekers. “Massachusetts! Where’ve ye been!? Never mind that now, just shoot these lubbers!” He slammed his wing on the deck as if pressing a trigger himself.

“So, her name was Massachusetts,” Nadia mused, sauntering over to join the group, followed by Blazermate. She had her hands in the pockets of her newly-modified jacket, and both her fishtail and giant ponytail swished behind her as she walked. “Guess I’ll pour one out for her later. Lady was downright ruthless, but at least she had guts. Unlike a certain someone~”

LeFwee’s beak hung open. “What!? T-this be an order, ye empty-headed strumpet! Shoot these swabs now!” More than a hint of desperation had infested his voice. “Now, y’hear me!? Blow ‘em away!”

Nadia winced. “Oh man, was she not the brightest? Well, joke’s on you, I’m already a dumbass.” She looked around idly at the other Seekers with one brow raised, not even shifting her hands from her pockets. “As for shootin ‘em…nah, I think I’m good.” She shrugged, and put on a mischievous smile. “I also ain’t Massachusetts, for what it’s worth. Whatcha think a-boat that?”

Though his feathers covered it, the color had been draining from LeFwee’s face. “I-Ingraham!?” he called out hopefully.

Blazermate shook her head enthusiastically.

“Buh…but…what about Rip Tide, then? Surely he ain’t been…”

Narrowing her eyes, Nadia tried to sort through all the unique enemies she’d seen. “The…fish guy? Didn’tcha fry him up, Blaze?”

The medabot shook her head again. “Nope, I passed the fishman off to Peach. He was annoying.” Now Blazermate looked around. “I haven’t seen her since then, though…”

“Aha!” LeFwee cackled, clinging to the sliver of hope. “That wench in pink? She be sittin’ at the bottom of the briny deep by now! Rip Tide be the scourge of the seas! He be able to adapt to and copy any fightin’ style in minutes!”

Geralt let out a laugh at that. “Your fish is fileted if the Princess got her hands on him. She’s almost as scary as my wife.” Regardless of their optimism, Omori still held concern for the princess, and hoped she was alright.

At that moment, there came a splash from down below the ship. A human-sized shape sailed over the edge of the ship and came down on the deck of the Raptor. His shiny royal blue scales and golden armor both glinted in the sunlight as he deftly landed, his enormous jaw opened wide to expose a pearly white leer. Over his shoulder he carried the body of a woman, her armor mangled and scarred, and the suit beneath it torn and bloody. One of her arms was broken, and a massive gash crossed her entire face, including one eye.

The stunned silence came to an end when LeFwee crowed with laughter, his sheer relief giving vent to a shrill victory cry. “Ye fools, ye knaves, ye picaroons!” he squawked. “What did I tell ye? Did I not say that Rip Tide be the undisputed master of combat!?”

As the Seekers watched, the fishman laid his burden down on the deck. Then promptly evaporated like the morning mist.

LeFwee’s beak dropped. “...Rawk!?”

Peach opened her eyes–or eye, to be precise. “I need…healing,” she whispered, and collapsed. Blazermate sped over to oblige.

Omori breathed out a sigh in relief, she’ll be okay. He then turned his attention back to the desperate captain.

Geralt, not one for healing others, decided to prevent LeFwee from getting any bright ideas and stepped forward, kicking his arm from under him. “Before you get clever.” He warned, sword sliding close to the parrot. Rubick walked forward and said to LeFwee, “So. All of your forces are gone, and we outnumber you one to many. If it were me, I’d like those odds. Too bad you’re not me. I am curious though… Why did you attack our ship? What was in it for you?”

Still under Galeem’s influence and brought to the end of his mental rope by the realization of just how bad things were, LeFwee went ballistic. He thrashed his hook hand, both batting Geralt’s sword aside and scratching across the face with its prongs, then brought the multihook back around to try and tear out the Witcher’s throat, but by that time the Seekers were already in motion.

While Pit had hung back and let the others try and instill defeat in LeFwee with just their words, now that the bird had snapped he bolted forward and caught the multihook between his dual blades, the X-shape stopping it right in place. He drew the swords down the hook in an outward slash, separating it, and a few finger-feathers, from its wielder.

“Fuck!” Geralt cursed as his sword was knocked to the side, the parrot pirate surging to his feet and slicing his bladed hook-hand towards the Witcher’s throat. Just my luck, three times in one day. Thankfully, however, a bloody end was avoided when Pit, one of his ‘killers’, jumped to his rescue, even taking a few digits off of LeFwee, who stumbled back. Geralt danced around Pit, gauntleted fist lashing out like a striking snake and smashing the pirate’s beak and knocking him against the wall of the captain’s cabin, the Witcher grabbing him by the throat, his other hand immobilizing the arm with the claw attached. “Now, I have had it with you piece of shit pirates trying to kill me and my friends. For once in your fucking life, listen!” Geralt punctuated this by creating a friend heart and forcing it into LeFwee, only slightly loosening his grip on the captain’s throat. “If you try and kill me again, I will take the rest of that arm. I am not fucking around anymore. Do you understand me?” Confused and, ultimately, cowardly, the parrot nodded his miserable head.

Taking a moment to watch the Captain’s attempted kill and its subsequent backfire, Omori’s grin gradually dropped back to indifference. ”I wouldn’t get my hopes up, freed or not he might be as stubborn as the others were. And honestly, this is getting annoying.” He told the others, crossing his arms in thought. ”If you ask me though, I think they were all manipulated.”

Rubick quickly moved back as LeFwee swung wildly, then sighed. “Perhaps it’s because of that, then?” Rubick said, looking up at the bright orb in the sky. “I’d hate to think this could’ve been me if I was still under its influence.”

Omori shook his head. ”Good guess, but I was referring to someone else.” He explained. Then he glanced back at the parrot. ”Oh yeah, your Consul guy ditched the fight, by the way? Didn’t even do jack besides wax poetic. Well, he did knock the wind out of me before he fled, but other than that?”

“Did I not say that I was just here to observe?”

In the corner of the captain’s chambers, the shadows began to move. An unusually tall figure there, hidden with the help of a huge, fine black cape among LeFwee’s collection of frippery, moved ever so slightly into the cloudy late-morning light, in which the cherry-red armor that adorned his suit shined. He clapped softly as he surveyed the assembled Seekers, who’d tensed up at the reveal of his presence, ready for action. “My, you lot certainly laid waste to the crew. Of course, they were little more than lost pets playing pirate, but I suppose some congratulations are in order, mm?”

S’ voice alone caused Omori to tense up, more so than the rest of his team. He swiftly aimed his flintlock at the Consul, and did his best to remain composed against his trembling hand. Deep breaths.

“Hidden in plain sight,” Rubick mused. “Incredible that none of us saw this coming. Hmm, perhaps this says more about us then it does about him…”

Geralt was trying to decide between keeping LeFwee in place and confronting the newcomer, but ultimately kept his hand around the parrot’s throat. “This changes nothing.” He hissed in warning.

“On the contrary,” the Consul insisted, his dapper tone vaguely derisive. “You may find that things will be rather different, going forward…”

Struggling in vain against Geralt’s grip, LeFwee managed to choke something out. “C-consul. Do…something!”

S rolled his head back and slumped his shoulders, as if looking to the sky for strength. “Now that’d just defeat the purpose. Did it occur to you that death might be a fitting end to your tale? Craven and incapable, a paltry excuse for a villain, scarcely even a bump in the road for our valiant heroes. And certainly possessed of no useful information for them, considering we only just met. Though I daresay your hopes unraveling before your eyes was karmic justice at its finest.” He turned his attention back to the others. “You lot needn’t fear though, not just yet, anyway. I have no intention to fight you. In fact, I have a little parting gift for you. Do take care now.” He dissolved into purple light, and disappeared.

After a moment, a red glare from behind the Seekers cast their shadows against the cabin wall. When they turned, they found a bright red projection being cast from a distant figure standing atop the highest point of Port O’ Panic. In the radiant light, a shape took form, a single symbol writ large upon the gray storm clouds themselves.



Then, not long after, it disappeared, and by that time the stranger had, too.

Nadia pursed her lips, her arms crossed. “That can’t be good. Who the hull was that guy?”

With S taking a second leave, Omori could properly calm down, and pocket his gun. He already had a feeling the symbol left behind could only mean the worst. ”That was who I was referring to. Unfortunately, I have no clue what his name is. But I can tell he shouldn't be underestimated.” He spoke up, picking up the gunblade LeFwee had forgotten and looking it over. Nice weapon. ”I’ll explain what I can later.”

Rubick stared at the symbol that had come and gone. “Well, that was certainly ominous. Our mystery spectator certainly put in quite the effort to remain as dark and cryptic as possible. But if his goal was to dissuade us from this journey, then clearly he doesn’t know me very well. It only makes me more curious about his intentions.” With that, he giggled in anticipation of the future.

Geralt let LeFwee’s throat go, narrowing his eyes at the pirate captain. “Go fetch your crew. Let them know the fight’s done.” When he saw the ominous sign, he frowned. “Ah. I do not like that. Not at all..Moogle!” Geralt called out to Alcamoth’s resident teleporting assistant. “Mark this place down. That little sea town out there. We’re…going to need to bring them up to speed. Including this idiot here.” Geralt gestured to Captain LeFwee. “Not sure who is and isn’t Hearted, though. Which might pose a small problem.”

By that point, the Raptor -without anyone keeping it repaired- had drifted back down to the ocean. It hit the waves with a jarring impact, then came to a rest in the water, the balloon sagging down overhead. Fully healed by Blazermate but still sore, scarred, and tired all over, Peach got to her feet. Around the ship swam a couple Gill Grunts, Kickball, and Nubbin, some of them still willing to fight despite their wounds and exhaustion thanks to Galeem’s influence. The rest had presumably drowned. Across the way, the brutalized Adrian had finally disappeared beneath the surface, though the Tinkerslug had turned up with Karin on board to rescue the Koopa Troop from the water. The battle was over, and it looked like everyone had survived. That was a blessing, Peach knew, but she felt miserable. Due in part to her fight alone against Rip Tide, whose lethal skill left her more gravely wounded than any other foe thus far, and also because of the pit that had formed in her stomach. It told her that things had suddenly gotten a lot more complicated.

While the others were enjoying their time trying to enjoy racing, making cars and mumbos workshop, and whatever they were doing, Sectonia spent her time looking at the places that Roxas had highlighted during his improptu tour of the city at her request. After all, Sectonia had no need (or ability) to drive around in a vehicle, so she figured she'd look at what Roxas recommended to see if they were any good. Although she really only wanted to try out the salon. Even if she was going to remove and replace these plant bits, it was no excuse not to make them at least presentable. And considering her size and the salon's... confusion at her request, it took her about an hour to get all prettied up. Even then, Sectonia still wasn't all that satisfied with the vines...

With that done, Sectonia went to go pick up the others as they would be going out to beat more guardians, get more power, that whole thing. Knowing that most of the group was driving cars or making them, Sectonia went to go grab those people first. And she ran into none other than Tora who had just completed his repairs on Big Band. And the nopon was... looking quite unsightly. He was covered in lots of grease, which made sense considering what he was working on but still, he seemed to not care much at all about that!

"Oh, hello Sectonia!" Tora greeted her, just having departed from Mumbo Motor's alongside Poppi and Big Band. Though all seemed to be in good spirits and the detective in particular looked well-composed, Tora's fur was smudged all over by machine grease, especially his wings. "We just now going to find friends and bring all together for lunch!"

"Looking like that, covered in all that... what I'm going to assume is grease?" Sectonia said, gesturing to all the grease covering Tora, especially on his wings.

The hard-working engineer glanced at his wings as if only just now noticing the state of them. "Meeh...maybe little dirty. But nothing unusual for Tora. If see puddle on way, can wash off easy!"

Sectonia looked at Tora with a peculiar look, a mix of disgust and pity. "Oh your not using road mud and standing, stinky water to clean that off! We're going to get you cleaned up properly." Sectonia said, looking for a spot to grab Tora so she could drag him to the salon she had just came from if he resisted. No way she was going to have him parade around like that!

Once Sectonia's detached, floating hand grabbed him by the overalls, Tora couldn't do much but wriggle in the big monster's grasp. "Meeeeh!" he cried. "Help, Tora being pon-napped! Poppi, save Masterpon from bathtime!"

His companion followed along behind the two with an amused expression. "Poppi could, but this much funnier."

Sectonia, carrying the squirming nopon glanced back at Poppi and Big Band, saying. "You two should get cleaned up as well. I take it I don't need to stop you from taking a bath in goddess-knows-what water?"

"Of course not. Sectonia not be silly," Poppi told her.

Big Band did not humor the bug with a response, although his expression made his thoughts on her question crystal clear.

Sectonia nodded and carried Tora to the salon she had just been at, not wanting to clean the nopon herself. "Now Tora, its time to make you the prettiest nopon you can be... Or close to it. I don't have my handmaidens but these guys should do a decent job." Sectonia said, at least trying to console the lad.

The trip through Twilight Town to the hairdresser's took a good few minutes, and despite his protests he quickly got tired of struggling. Big Band broke off from the others to head for the docks, so only Poppi accompanied her Masterpon and Sectonia to Seabreeze Salon on Market Street. When faced with Tora, however, the owner looked against. "This is a salon, not a bathhouse, or a vet for that matter," she told them. "We don't handle fur here. Just hair. If you want him cleaned up, a groomer might be more suited to the task."

"Hm..." Sectonia said, glaring at the receptionist through the window, the shop being a bit too small for her. She relented though, and after a slight bought of confusion, was redirected to the proper place to clean up Tora. At least he stopped struggling, accepting his fate to become beautiful.

Unfortunately, beauty was not on the menu for Tora at the place he and Sectonia found farther down Market Street, in the slightly less posh part of town near the docks. After peeling off his shirt and overalls Tora joined a stately, copper-colored English Setter and a few adorably energetic mutts in getting soaped up and hosed down in a steel tub. A lot smarter and more cooperative than the average dog, the nopon breezed through the process in just a few minutes. Once rubbed dry by an employee with a towel, which he enjoyed quite a bit, Tora emerged clean as a whistle.

Poppi had mixed feelings about her Masterpon receiving the same treatment as a pet, but if he didn't mind, then neither would she. "Masterpon not put dirty clothes back on," she advised after paying the groomers. "Need get them cleaned, too."

Sectonia was a bit mixed on Tora's treatment as well. She would've much preferred a more elegant method for getting him clean. Perhaps this town would need some remodeling or discipline in the future, if they treated non humanoids like this... But at least now Sectonia herself could do a little bit to make him pretty... starting with needing new cloths. "Agreed Poppi. Although we'll have to see if this place even has cloths of your size. they seem to be... lacking... in some things here. Perhaps the two of us can find an outfit for Tora that looks cute." Sectonia summoned some antillions to at least help the groomers in an attempt to clean off what they could so that Tora didn't have to wander around town naked, although from her recollection, he didn't really care too much about that.

"Tora not need more clothes!" he declared, putting his little nub hands on his waist. "Not wear clothes is normal for nopon, anyway. Just wear to fit in with humans, and help them tell nopon apart."
Poppi nodded. "In that case, Poppi can hold on to clothes for now. We should not take any more time gathering friends. Other team arrive any minute!"

Sectonia relented at that, at least Tora was clean. "Fair enough. Seeing as we are close to the docks, finding the others shouldn't be too bad then." Sectonia was a bit annoyed at not being able to make Tora look better than his usual self, but at least he was back to normal. Perhaps after they met up with the other team she could have more time to work on the nopon. Hm... maybe adding some flowers to his attire would work... Tora, as they went to gather the others, could notice Sectonia eyeing him up and could guess what she was thinking about.

Mumbo leaned forward and eyed the license with scrutiny. After a pause, he jerked back to his upright position, “Okay, look good to Mumbo.” he said with a shrug, “You follow Ellie now. She help Roxas get started.” he added with a handwave.

Roxas smirked and pocketed the card. After that, he turned to Ellie and said, “Lead the way, Ellie. I’m all ears.”

“I’d be right happy to help!” the good-natured woman replied with a smile, beckoning Roxas to follow after her as she waddled around the shop. “Though there ain’t that much to explain, really. Whoever came up with this stuff’s a doggone genius, lemme tell ya what.” She stopped in front of one of the assembly mats. A number of random components seemed to be scattered around, including a half-finished car prototype a previous customer lost interest in halfway through. “Here!”

Ellie took hold of an engine with both hands and lifted the huge thing with next to no effort. “This here’s a prime example, hun. Right now I reckon you’re thinkin’, lordy be, this Ellie lady must be strong as all get out! But here, you try it.” She passed him the engine, which turned out to be no heavier than a cardboard box of junk. “Light as a feather, right? More like a toy than an actual car part. All these li’l doohickies’re like that. They just socket right together, easy as pie.” Ellie stooped to grab one of the discarded wheel mounts and literally stick it on the half-built car. “Most of the time ya don’t need any tools or nothin’, either. Best part is, ya don’t even gotta worry about hookin’ up all the systems; it just works! Plus, everythin’s so light that the trucks and trolleys folks make don’t use much gas, and they don’t crash hard, so they’re pretty safe.” She slapped her hands against her overalls to get the grease off and shrugged. “That’s about all there is to it, hun! Ain’t a pot too crooked that a lid won’t fit. Just tinker away to yer heart’s content.”

“W-whoa!” Roxas was caught off guard when Ellie just tossed a heavy-looking engine toward him. But to his surprise it turned out to be very light. He turned the engine part over in his hands as he listened to her explanation. The way these components could apparently just stick together and work without any wiring, it kinda reminded him of the Gummi Ship. Not that Roxas himself had had any real experience with Gummi Blocks or the like, but he had hitched a ride to Destiny Islands once for a get together with his friends. That was about the extent of Roxas’ experience with this sort of thing.

“So I can just stick these parts together?” he finally replied, “Okay, then. Sounds easy enough. Thanks Ellie!” he told her as she left him to do his thing. After staring at the lone engine he had been given, his gaze shifted over to the half-finished project. If its previous owner had lost interest, then Roxas didn’t see any harm in picking up where they left off and finishing the build. And so he gathered some of the scattered components from around the assembly mat and got to work.

Roxas wasn’t sure what his idea was at first. He would attach parts until they started to resemble something, only for him to break them apart and start over again. He made progress bit by bit. Occasionally he’d start up the car in order to test the stability of the build. He would complete a build after about 15 minutes and then spend about 5 minutes test driving it before deciding to return to the assembly mat and make adjustments. And Roxas repeated this process about 2 or 3 times and before he knew it, nearly an hour had passed.

During all this Roxas would occasionally show the build to Ellie and get some feedback from her. Since he was so inexperienced at this it made sense to get the opinion of someone who’s been doing this for longer. At long last, Roxas stood on the assembly mat, arms crossed with satisfaction as he was looking at what was now a completed vehicle.

Mostly red and silver, it sported a mostly aerodynamic shape. Largely narrow, with a pair of sloped front bumpers that almost looked like snow plows. It also sported a pair of parallel spoilers in the back, giving the vehicle an overall racecar look. Though unlike most racecars, this one wasn’t low to ground, instead being raised a bit which would allow it to go off road to a certain extent if needed. In the rear it sported a pair of small rocket thrusters. When activated they would give the car a brief explosive burst of speed ideal for overtaking the competition on a straightaway.

“Gotta say, it looks right gorgeous, hon.” said Ellie when Roxas showed her the completed build, “I’m glad somebody finally decided to finish that abandoned build. It almost looked downright sad just sitting on the assembly mat collectin’ dust.”

“Guess we’ll see what it can really do when the next race comes up.” said Roxas, using a towel to clean himself of sweat and grease stains.

“Certainly gonna be a good show, I’ll reckon.” she said with an approving nod, “So? What’re y’all gonna name it?”

Roxas blinked, “Name? I… hadn’t actually thought of that.”

“What? Y’all can’t put this much effort into a build and not give it a name, now.” she said before leaving the room with a wave.

“Hmm…” Roxas approached the car and after some thought painted a name on the sides of the car: Twilight Blaze.

With the car officially finished, Roxas hopped in and drove off out of Mumbo’s Shop. Just up ahead he saw someone else who was driving away from Mumbo’s. When Roxas realized she was heading toward the race track he decided to follow after her. He had the car, so he might as well look for a race to compete in.

Roxas had been keeping his distance as they entered the Race Track. But when he saw her drive up to another driver and heard her shout out a race challenge, a smirk appeared on his lips. He punched the thruster button, and suddenly the rocket thrusters on the back of his car roared to life and his blazing red car shot forward instantly. In that burst of speed he passed both the lady drivers up, but made sure to look back at them with a big smirk on his face.

“How about you eat mine!” he shouted back to them. The race was on now!

Raz was quick to put his hands up as a sign of peace. "It's okay! I don't pop into people's brains without asking!" He stashed the portal back into his pack. "So if we ever run into a situation that needs a Psychonaut's touch... well, you know where to find me." Raz flashed a dumb smirk to try and help ease Therion. The idea really seemed to freak him out, and Raz didn't want to leave the air too awkward between them. Well, any more awkward than it already was.

On the train ride to the next destination, Raz spent the time filling Jesse in on his whole deal as he did Therion, though with a little less theatrics. He didn't want to hit another passenger with a stray shot. "I should probably tell the people in charge about this," he said after the second explanation of his PsychoPortal. "Not like people know what Psychonauts are capable of in a lot of this world. Might be pretty useful somewhere. Say, who is in charge of our group? Is it that short, fuzzy guy and his robot friend? Or the big trombone man? Maybe even some sort've, anti-Galeem? Counter-Galeem? Galeem adjacent entity?"

Raz really wished they would've had time to stay at the MTT Resort. The underground area it inhabited looked pretty interesting, the area itself held potential mysteries - as Raz himself put it when they arrived, "How come the line is named after the Resort, and not the whole place?" - and he was seriously craving a good soda. Unfortunately, duty called, at the wrong time as it usually does, and the trio were sent back the way they came pretty fast. Raz looked wistfully up at the resort as they left it behind. "Maybe next time," he promised the building.

After a quick stop at the Metro to meet back up with everyone and collect their next line passes ("Man, this place should really invest in some easier-to-navigate architecture.") they were headed right down to Twilight Town. Much like Toro, Raz was surprised to find just how accurate the name was. Traversing a town where the sun was always the perfect level to shine right into your eyes was... annoying.

When the thought of participating in some street races came up, Raz decided to sit out, the excuse being, "the last time I was in charge of our wagon we ended up losing a wheel, one of our horses, and the entire kitchen tent. Better if I'm not within ten feet of an actual racecar. Or, uh, anything like one." Instead, Raz followed up on his earlier thought, and sought out who he figured were the closest to the "higher ups" of the organization.

"Hey, it's Tora, right? And... Poppy? I'm not sure if it'll really be helpful to the group but..." He began, going into a small discussion on the Psychonauts' modus operandi, and that maybe they didn't need to punch all of the problems they ran into all the time because of it. You know, if it helped.

---

”Welcome aboard, Seekers!” Karin called out, hand on her chest and foot on the railing. She cut quite the dramatic figure. Unfortunately, her high energy of victory was not met by anyone else, a fact that somewhat annoyed her. Everyone was moping. ”What is it?”

Risky, bound to the Tinkerslug’s cracked center mast by an excessive amount of rope, gave the newcomers the stinkeye. “Thank goodness. If they all wanted to gloat as badly as you do, I’d probably off myself then and there.”

”Silence.” She shot a look at Risky and began attending to the situation at hand.

Jr’s clowncar limped over to the tinkerslug in response to Karin’s call signaling that they’d taken it over. Then when it landed the battered Troop piled on out, exhausted Kamek immediately finding somewhere to nap, while Bowser and Jr both went running to go find the resident healer with a wounded lady slung over their shoulder.

”Blazermate! Blazermate! Blazermate! Help!” Jr demanded as he hurried over and presented the doctor with the crippled and unconscious form of Annetta the sea fairy and leader of Port O' Panic.

Bowser was hot on his son’s heels, and presented Rika in much the same way, the poor shipgirl having had an even worse time in her 2vs1 than she had in her 1vs1 with the bot in question.

Blazermate came when Jr. called for her, having swooped over to pick up the healer shipgirl’s spirit. It had been awhile since she had found any kind of medic spirit, so she could see what it did. Although if it was only the drones, that may or may not be good depending on how strong they were compared to her medigun.

”Alright, everyone gather round for healing.” Blazermate said as she hovered near Jr. and began healing his request and everyone else. She also summoned the engineer to make a dispenser to heal everyone passively as well, seeing as they finally, finally had some solid surface.

Not long after the designated healer arrived, Peach pulled herself up onto the Tinkerslug’s deck, having scaled the ladder. Though Blazermate’s speedy treatment closed her wounds and fixed her broken arm, her right eye remained closed. While able to accelerate the body’s recovery to phenomenal levels, it seemed that even hyper-advanced medical technology could not restore everything to exactly how it once was, just as the body itself couldn’t regrow a lost limb. And though physically sound, the princess herself appeared to be in a troubled mental state. Since the Tinkerslug, being a living thing beneath the ship built on top of it, lacked any interior decks, Peach staggered over to a sheltered part beneath the shell to curl up in silence.

”Urrgh, my everything,” Rika groaned as she woke up in Bowser’s supportive arms ”What happened?”

”You kind of got exploded. A lot.” Bowser informed her, before quickly adding ”But everyone’s good,” before she could worry about the outcome of the battle, only to glance over at where Peach was curled up and guiltily adding ”Kinda. Well, alive, anyway.”

”Wha-” the ship girl pulled herself to her feet while processing all of this and then arrived at the reaction ”I… lost? Again!” with aghast anger, before letting out a pained sigh and then half collapsing to the flood, where she wrapped her hands around her curled up legs and buried her face in her knees in self pity.

”I’m just dead weight, aren't I?” she mumbled, not taking her defeat well one bit.

”Wow hey, no, it worked out in the end. We beat them up enough that they, uh, well they ran off,” Bowser told her, before sitting down next to her and clapping the ship girl on the shoulder with a big clawed hand. ”I shouldn’t have left you to fight them on your own either, so it's kinda my bad,” he replied, which unfortunately just made the women feel worse.

”It’s okay, Rika-chan.” Sakura said, still soaking wet and bruised all over. ”I got exploded, too.” She sniffed. That was it- she wasn’t exactly the picture of high spirits at the moment, either.

”Yeah, everyone was getting hurt bad, and I’m our only dedicated medic for such a large group. Usually there would be more than 1 healing medabot in a party this size.” Blazermate said, trying to also reassure Rika and the others. The fact Peach was missing an eye that Blazermate couldn’t regrow was a bit concerning. But considering this wasn’t her default medabot medigun, and it did some weird things, could it be possible it could actually regrow parts like that?

”I should be able to handle myself,” she insisted, ”Be unstoppable like everyone else and….”

She stopped her self-deprecation when she saw something strange, namely what Jr was doing with the person he had come running to Blazermate to heal, and so she had to ask ”Wh-why are you tying her up like that?”

”So she can’t attack anyone when she wakes up,” Jr replied, and then pre-empted the obvious question by adding, ”And no, I can’t heart her because I already did that, and she still fought us close to death because sooooomeone went and stabbed someone’s grandpa in the heart.”

It took a few moments for them to parse that, and then all eyes were on Omori, skulking in a far corner.

”Wait, what? Why’d he do that?” a slightly confused Bowser asked

”I dunno, I totally had everything in the bag but nooooo,” Jr replied sardonically ”So now that town over there’s leader,” he gestured to it and then Annetta ”both hate our guts and it's all his fault. Well, him and that weirdo consul guy or whatever. No idea what his deal was, but it seems like he tricked everyone into thinking we were here to kill ‘em or something, and all these idiots fell for it like chumps.”

At that moment Nadia poked her head up at the top of the Tinkerslug’s ladder, having taken to long way around to avoid the front of the living ship; even if the three-eyed leviathan didn’t betray any sign of hostility, just the thought of it eating her freaked her out. Exhausted from her brutal fight with Massachusetts on top of the chaotic river ride, she climbed aboard hoping to take a well-deserved break, only to hear Junior mention people being ‘tricked’ into thinking the Seekers would kill those who stood in their way. Nadia swallowed nervously. After climbing up she put her hands in her pockets and ‘casually’ strolled toward the back of the ship, whistling badly as she went.

”Why’d anyone want to do that?” Rika asked, to which Jr shrugged.

Bowser, meanwhile, had a bit of badguy insight on the ploy: ”Classic bit of villainous trickery, that. Get heroes to fight each other or some random group of chumps that’d have helped them otherwise. I mean it allllways backfires in the end and just makes everyone involved mad at the bad guy, but still, 3rd rate villains try it anyway.”

This got a few impressed looks from the two youngsters, before Rika asked ”So, what happens now then. Everyone gets mad?”

”I know I am,” the miffed prince added.

“”I’m feeling disappointed, myself,” Rubick admitted. “I was hoping we could find a nice shop to peruse and buy some wares from.”

”Now’s the bit where some hero explains the whole deal to the people that attacked them. Which, uh, we’re not gonna be able to do because, you know, bad guys,” Bowser explained before hollering, ”Hey, some hero come and explain to this fairy lady that we’re cool or whatever,” and just kinda handing the whole problem off to someone else.

"I wouldn't mind someone explaining it to me either," the Ace Cadet admitted, rubbing the back of his head. The lighter mood he'd shared with Karin after the successful raid on the Tinkerslug was long gone, as what should have been a celebratory regrouping turned into a more solemn affair. Between the badly wounded (that Blazermate had thankfully worked on), a killing, and the other Seekers saying that all of them, on both sides of the battle, had been manipulated... Well it was a lot of information all at once. "So this wasn't a random pirate attack, someone set us up?"

Karin’s brows furrowed, taking in all of this information. Her fingers came to her temples. ”What an utter disaster.” She managed to reign in her temper, for now. Sakura was quiet, not sure what to say or even what was going on.

Rubick shrugged. Death was an unideal state of being, but it was something that happened to everyone eventually. It certainly happened on a regular basis around him, sometimes even because he was the cause, and he had already gotten used to that fact.

The accused in question had been doing his best to ignore their reactions. No matter how angry or unconcerned, they all would have sounded the same to him. He screwed up. Omori might’ve looked unphased on the outside, but he could still feel himself reeling from everything. …Was this what he was feeling? Fear, and guilt? Technically. But technically not. He wasn’t certain yet. But he was sure about one thing. These guys are going to hate his guts now. Would they even be willing to hear him out?

Welp, he might as well head inside if they’re going to reason with Annetta. The boy didn’t want to jinx that just by being in her line of sight. Omori pushed himself off the ground and stepped away into the captain’s quarters hidden beneath the shell. He had been needing to update his journal anyways.

Wait, Omori killed someone!? That sweet little boy? Nadia’s head span around on a dime as she stopped, even more horrified than she’d been when the fluffy round creature shot her in the solar plexus. She watched him shuffle past her toward the back of the ship. After a moment spent turning the gear in her head, she cleared her throat. “W-well, that just happens in a fight sometimes, right? Self-defense, yeah? When you’re fightin’ for your life, it’s you or them.” Though her words were reasonable, it sounded a little like she was trying to convince herself, as well. “‘Specially with enemies who’ve got that Galeem in ‘em.”

”Only they weren’t enemies, and it wasn’t self-defense.” Karin said sharply. ”They were innocents who were convinced they were defending their town, correct?” Karin said, raising her eyebrows in a vaguely insulting manner.

Nadia smiled, though her eyes held contempt. Despite her numbness and the healing received from Blazermate, her torso still ached from getting torn in half, while this sneering princess didn’t seem to have a scratch on her. Just how much fighting for her life had she done?

While Pit had been absorbing the information flying around and trying to make sense of it, he also felt the need to come to Omori's defense, given the events of earlier that morning. It was unfortunate and downright tragic that the monochrome boy's opponent couldn't randomly come back to life like his had.

"But he didn't know that! Just like they didn't know we weren't the bad guys!" Pit huffed, throwing an arm in a vague gesture to the Port. "You're making it sound like he did it on purpose. They were trying to kill us, if you forgot!"

”Nah, it was totally obvious from where we were standing,” Jr added informatively from where he and the rest of the troop had parked themselves on the sidelines of this whole thing (with Bowser keeping an eye on both Peach and Kamek as they rested). ”What’s his face was right there, egging them on and everything”

"Egging them on to attack you guys, you mean?" Pit asked, crossing his arms.

”The turtle prince said he had it ‘in the bag’. And whatever Omori did, not even freeing Annetta from Galeem’s curse de-escalated the encounter. Unless you are calling him a liar, I fail to see any excuse for lethal force, outside of sheer incompetence.” Karin said.

"He's a kid - a human kid! Humans make mistakes, it's kind of like your thing." At this point Pit was surprised that she couldn't seem to let an accident, however regrettable, go. He was getting defensive, he knew, but somebody had to stick up for Omori. It's true that Pit hadn't been there when the event in question had happened but he wouldn't believe that Omori, or any among them, would maliciously slay someone.

"Maybe now's not the best time to argue about all this," the Cadet cut in. His own thoughts on the matter were scattered. The topic of letting the young ones like Junior and Hat Kid travel with them and be exposed to danger had come up before, and while he could confidently say no one was comfortable with it they generally let it slide. As far as killing another person went - over the course of their campaign over the last several days, they would be hard pressed to name one among them that hadn't killed someone. They were never able to save every person they'd come across. It sucked, but that was the whole reason for their journey in the first place - to set everything back to normal so this kind of thing wouldn't have to happen.

Regardless of how everyone else thought, an argument right here and now seemed pointless. "Once we're back on dry land we can worry about it then, okay? We're still due in Twilight Town, but it looks like we have to finish up here first," he said, nodding towards the 'captives.'

"Hmph..." Pit relented, a frown sealing his mouth closed. Stubbornly he stayed put right where he was, intending to survey the rest of the events on deck.
After getting his point across the Ace Cadet gave the rest of them some space, seeking out the now not-as-familiar form of Ms. Fortune. Besides the changes from her fusion, he'd also noticed the tension she gave off. He intended to get the story from her later, but for now he went to simply stand by her side, brushing their shoulders together as he did.

Susie then spoke up, summarizing the conversation in simple terms. ”So essentially it was a false flag operation, and these ‘people’ fell for it.” Susie said, thinking to herself. ”The question is… who told them this and was so trustworthy they would ignore the fact it could be a lie? I’m unconvinced it could be something as simple as a kid.”

Impatiently, Karin glanced over at Annetta. ”Is she going to wake up soon? I must speak with her.” She said. ”This is a situation that must be dealt with using diplomacy and tact.” After Blazermate refilled Annetta’s health, the nymph had remained where Junior deposited her, evidently still unconscious. The team could wait for her to awaken on her own, or expedite the process.

Karin watched her for a few moments before clicking her tongue. ”For goodness sake. Someone fetch me a bucket of seawater while I make Miss Annetta more comfortable.” She propped Annetta up against the side of the ship so she wasn’t laying on her side. Glancing derisively down at the restraints Junior had applied, she undid them. If she had been so thoroughly defeated by a small turtle child, then there was no way she would pose a threat with nearly all of Blue Team on board. All the ropes would do would be stoking her apparently well founded fears.

Twirling his staff, Rubick proceeded to cast Telekinesis on a bucket and walk it over to the edge of the Tinkerslug. From there, it was a simple matter to dip it underneath the water and bring it back up, now full of seawater. Rubick then guided it over to Karin, placing it in her hands. “There you are Ms. Kanzuki, one bucket of seawater,” Rubick said.

”Ah.” Karin said, nodding politely. ”Thank you, Mister Rubick. The salt should aid in bringing her to consciousness.” She didn’t intend on totally disorienting the woman with a douse of water, but she would increase the volume as needed.

”Miss Annetta, darling, can you hear me?” She asked. Producing a monogrammed handkerchief she dipped it in the water and gently squeezed it above her face to let the water trickle down it.

It took a bit more squeezing, but the cold water did the trick. The nymph’s face scrunched up for a moment before her eyes blinked open, both her vision and her memories a little fuzzy as she slowly surfaced from a place both deep and dark. She focused on Karin first. “W-who…who are you? And…where am I? There was…I was…”

Karin knelt down and put the handkerchief into whatever rich person dimension from whence she had produced it. ”Relax, Miss Annetta. You’re safe now. Before I answer any of your questions I must impress upon you that you and the people of Port O’ Panic are free of any danger from us.” She said gently. “I am Karin Kanzuki, with the Seekers, and you’re onboard the recently commandeered Tinkerslug.”

A look of unease crossed Annetta’s face despite Karin’s urge to relax. Everything was trickling back. “W-wait, what do you mean? We were fighting, and the pirates…they were helping us. Everything was fine, until…” She looked around, noticing the other members of the group. Her gaze quickly roved beyond the confines of the Tinkerslug, which she neither recognized by name nor from its deck. She spotted the Raptor, dead in the water, and Port O’ Panic as well. Not much remained of the sea tower there, and she knew why. Annetta’s eyes suddenly widened.

“We lost, sunshine,” Risky supplied helpfully, a rueful smile on her face. “And these are our captors. Say hello!”

“Risky Boots!?” the nymph gasped, shocked by the sight of Port O’ Panic’s infamous nemesis tied to the mast. That was the nail in the coffin on top of everything she’d already realized, and a panic attack took hold of her. She began to hyperventilate as she tried to back away, only to realize to her further horror that her legs wouldn’t obey her commands. Whimpering, she tried to drag herself away by her hands. “Go away! Please! Leave me alone! Don’t kill meee!”

”Can someone shut that infernal pirate up?” Karin snapped at the people behind her before turning back to diplomatically address the panicking nymph. ”Miss Annetta, as I said, you’re- you’re safe. Miss Annetta please, be reasonable. No one is going to kill you and you’re free to go whenever you’d like, but I’d feel terribly sorry if you hurled yourself off the side of the boat and drowned, so I must ask you to remain calm!” Karin admittedly spoke quickly as she moved to the side of Annetta. She firmly, but not roughly, took her by the shoulder and made her look her in the eye. Without someone to shore up her spirit, the nymph didn’t have a lot of fight in her. Unable to struggle or escape in any meaningful way, she resigned herself to a teary silence.

Karin let out a breath. Sakura had stood up at this point, lingering a short distance behind Karin and tapping her index fingers together. ”Thank you. I’ve been told you’re the leader of the Port O’ Panic, and I am interested in parley. Now, stand up, would you?” The smile faded a bit as she herself rose to her full height. ”Act respectable. I intend to treat you as an equal.”

The whole thing made Nadia uncomfortable. She not only kept her distance but turned and moved away, making no attempt to heed Karin’s request. Of course, averting her gaze only reminded her about Peach, who probably needed attention herself, but the feral wanted to deliver the apology she was workshopping in private.

Blazermate moved next to Nadia, giving her a one armed hug seeing how shy she was being after it was mentioned they had killed people they probably shouldn’t have. Bringing Nadia’s ear to her ‘mouth’ Blazermate said ”Hey… don’t worry too much about it. Medafights are exactly like this, so it was more their fault than yours.” Blazermate Then gave her a thumbs up saying. ”Plus we are the people who have to eventually fix this world, so the occasional part helps out loads. We can’t be making ourselves out of just monster parts, otherwise we might turn into big squid monsters with multiple mouths. I thought Bowser was going along those lines until Kamek got that snackivator…” Blazermate continued, glancing at Bowser. Nadia said nothing; the well-meaning medabot had abandoned Peach to an almost certain death just as she herself had.

It was at this moment that Geralt finally climbed onto the Tinkerslug, a bound and gagged LeFwee on his shoulder. “Bird brain just wouldn’t shut his damned mouth.” He offered as way of explanation, dropping the pirate captain to the deck and sighing. “Alright, what now?”

He returned to the pitiable scene of Annetta attempting to stand as Karin commanded, only to find that she could not do so. “My legs…won’t work,” she whined, but after a moment the nymph used her wings to lift off the ground instead. Her legs dangled limply beneath her. Somehow, she managed to sink to an even greater level of despair when she saw LeFwee tied up too. Certainly she had no love for the egotistical coward, but now she could appreciate just how total these strangers’ victory was. “Both of them…” she quavered. “We really are finished, then. Even with the pirates’ help, I couldn’t save the Port…” Rubick stared at Annetta for a moment, then turned to Karin, then back to Annetta. He could say something about the situation, but why spoil the fun so soon? In the end, he remained silent, save a giggle he could barely stifle.

Karin blinked, briefly casting a look at anyone paying attention to the conversation. ”...Perhaps you were still too delirious to understand me. We are not invaders.” She pinched her index and thumbs together and let the sentence hang, staring emphatically at Annetta. ”We are not going to hurt you.” She said again. ”I don’t appreciate being made to repeat myself. We’re moving on. Ask me, or anyone, any question that you desire.” She said with an upward flourish of her hand.

Still seemingly dubious, Annetta went for the straightest shot she possibly could. “Uh…then, why don’t you let me go, and go away?”

”You’re already let go.” Karin said, gesturing to Annette just floating there. ”And we’re already on our way out. But if you leave now, we’ll be forced to release these two pirate captains into the wild since we cannot take them with us.” She pointed at the two of them with her thumb. ”If that is ideal for you I suppose this conversation is over.”

After some time had passed, Omori finally emerged from the captain’s quarters, looking over his journal. It was a bit difficult, sketching out S’ armor from memory. But hopefully he could figure this guy out in due time. He had to get stronger, he reminded himself. Once the boy overheard Annetta venting her rage towards the two pirates, he looked back up to see that… Well, crap. Maybe he should’ve waited a bit longer to come out.

Glancing over to the captain’s quarters, Rubick noticed that Omori had finally emerged from his hidey hole. Seeing a prime opportunity for social interaction, he blinked next to Omori and placed an arm around the boy. “You’re just in time!” Rubick said happily. Gesturing towards their band of seafaring prisoners and leading him towards them, Rubick continued, “Grab a snack and enjoy the show! We’re just getting to a good part now.” Geralt gave a snort at that. Omori wasn’t as amused.

Indeed, the sudden realization of her position left Annetta speechless, but only for a moment. “W-wait, you’re going to just, let them go, too? They’re…pirates! They rob and hurt innocent people just because they’re stronger!”

LeFwee squawked angrily into his gag, but the nymph just glared at him bitterly. “We had to work ourselves to the bone to keep up with payments, just so you’d fight on our behalf! And even then, you weren’t satisfied!” Annetta’s lip curled at Risky next. “And you! Your constant raiding is the reason we had to hire LeFwee in the first place! Were you even gaining anything!?”

“Eh, that’s fair,” Risky said, shrugging. “At a certain point, it was mostly for fun. And to knock that featherbrain down a peg or two. Still, lucky you had ne’er-do-wells like us, mm? Up north near the salt plains, the pirates kidnap poor, defenseless villagers and sell them into slavery.”

Though surprised for a moment by the pirate’s casual manner, Annetta composed herself. “I don’t really care what you do with them,” she told the Seekers. “All I want is for people to leave the Port alone. We’re not strong, or wealthy, or important. We just want to live. Like a weed. All people need to do is not go out of their way to tear us up.” Still wary, she prepared to leave.

“Ugh,” Risky sighed, rolling her eyes. “This is all the Consul’s fault. If he bothered telling us how strong you people really were, I wouldn’t have bothered. You were supposed to be in rowboats, for goodness’ sake…”

"Well, it's true that we were just passing through when you all ambushed us. We're not gonna do anything to your town," Pit chimed in, his irritation from the argument receding after hearing Annetta out. He glanced then at Risky Boots. "I gotta ask: you've all been enemies all along, and started working together - why? Just 'cause that guy in the red armor told you to?" Like most of them he was curious what kind of sway that man had, but more importantly how he'd known about the Seekers' operation and why he'd tried to stop them.

Raising his other hand, Rubick interjected, “I’m still curious about who this ‘Consul’ is. He seems to be quite the individual to call you evidently fine ladies and gentlemen to action.”

”..Yes, we’re all rather curious. My plan was to give the pirates to you, as your prisoners. Because letting them go is foolish and executing them would be quite barbaric. And in return, you’d tell us all about this nefarious liar. From what I understand, his machinations led to the death of one of your citizens, yes?” Karin said. ”Terribly, terribly sorry to hear of that. We hope to learn more about him so future loss of innocent life could be prevented.”

Annetta waved her hands in protest. “We don’t want them!” Geralt’s eyes narrowed at LeFwee when she said this, hand closing into a fist.

“Look, I’ll tell you everything I know without any blubbering,” Risky quickly offered. “Most of the time we’re on our own, but Consul S helps us out from time to time. He lets us know where to find stuff, gives us jobs to do, and warns us about enemies. He’s not our boss or anything, seeing as I’m the Queen of the Seven Seas and all, but he helps keep us afloat. He doesn’t share a lot of personal details, though. When I asked him why, he just said it’s his job. Some hoity-toity stuff about ‘keeping the flames alight’.”

Annetta blinked a few times, her brows knitted together. “That’s…pretty much the same as us, weirdly. I mean, we had to get LeFwee to fight for us, but we did other jobs for him sometimes. Nothing…sinister, I don’t think. But we’ve been enemies the whole time. Why’d he help us both…?” She scratched her head. “Maybe he wants everyone to succeed?”

_{”Would someone innocent try to skewer someone with a harpoon? Sheesh.”} Omori couldn’t help mumbling, furrowing his brows at Karin’s words. Though soon as Risky started to explain who S was to them, he prioritized taking notes for the moment. When Annetta suggested a reason why the Consul would “help” them both he properly spoke up, albeit rather bluntly. ”Or he just wants us dead?” He raised a brow.

At this the Cadet blinked. "Wouldn't that mean that he's actually, uh - awake? Seems like it's a bit much to assume he was just being controlled by one of those big floating hands."

Susie thought to herself for a moment, before saying. ”I haven’t heard of this man, and from the sound of things none of you have either until now. If that's the case… does he work for someone you do know and wants everyone here dead? Or was this just something he convinced all of you,” Susie said, gesturing to the foes they had just defeated and captured. ”to do in order to get you out of the way for plans of his that you would get in the way of?”

Geralt crossed his arms at the offered explanations. “Sounds to me like he’s working for a Guardian, or even the big guy himself. Keeping the flames alight? That’s damn near religious talk. And they’ve had to have noticed us killing a few of his Guardians already, so they may be desperate to put us down.” Sighing, he shook his head. “And you have no idea what I’m talking about anyway.”

”You mean those powerful Galeem monsters that all have to be destroyed to take out that ball of losing profits.” Susie said, correcting and reassuring Geralt in her own way.

Geralt nodded. “Yes. We’ve taken a few out already. Mecha…Dragon…Bowser? I think. Some version of our big guy. That was before I met the others. The Ender Dragon. The Orphan of Kos. And Yellow Team took out Red Eye. Should be nine left.”

Blazermate didn’t have too much to add to this conversation, instead just checking up on everyone and making sure they were all good. She was a bit surprised the new scar Nadia had gotten didn’t heal up, as her medigun often managed to heal recent scars no issue. Perhaps the feral was making a subconscious effort as part of her sorrow to keep that scar as a reminder or something? Well, that was a bit above her expertise to figure out, so all she could do was make sure everyone was well.

At the moment, Nadia was too busy mulling over the new information to realize that Blazermate was examining her. She moved a little closer in from the sidelines to rejoin the group conversation, sitting on a leftover red barrel as she did. “Whatcha said makes sense,” she told Geralt, drumming her feet against the barrel’s side. “I’m still not totally up-to-date on everythin’, but if we’ve managed to take out a couple Guardians in a couple days, and there’s only thirteen total, someone’s bound to take notice. If that creepy Hand was the only thing that’s actually tryin’ to stop us, that’d be too easy, right? Plus…well, even if that Consul didn’t actually try to fight us, and he thought the parrot deserved to bite the dust, he did look like a bad guy, huh?” She pulled her ponytail over one shoulder and fiddled with it as she thought out loud. “Question is, was he a Guardian? Aren’t they all big monsters just waitin’ around for someone to come fight ‘em?”

”Sounded like a walking cliche too.” Omori glanced over at Nadia. ”I did try to fight him, but he knocked me into his clown car-thing with no effort.” He explained, pointing a thumb at Junior.

”He made me fall asleep at one point too, which coulda been bad, and he was the one doing all those shields on the fairy too. I think?” Jr added, before pondering that ”You know, if he wanted us dead, it’s weird that he didn’t help more, given that when he did act he was pretty dangerous.”

”Wouldn’t surprise me if that was his doing, but I think she was keeping those barriers up. You know, survival instincts.” The boy nodded his head towards Annetta’s direction. ”She’s pretty sturdy.”

”Dunno, she seemed like she was surprised every time they came back up but eh, whatever” the prince shrugged, not to invested in this

”Have you guys noticed each Guardian is like a giant monster or something? Why are they all giant monsters? Couldn’t one be like, just a normal dude?” Blazermate said, thinking about what had been said. She had been one of the very few that had been with the group since the beginning..

”Big monsters are boss monsters, duh,” Bowser pointed out what he thought was obvious. ”Little people are either chumps or heroes, and neither’d make good Guardians.”

Geralt rolled his eyes at Bowser’s surety. “Not taking a jab at you, boss, but I’ve put down plenty of mindless beasts at least your size. Ain’t easy, but a veteran warrior in proper armor is a fight I’d rather avoid compared to a Fiend. A thinking mind can outclass near any size difference.” He was thinking back to his fight with Imlerith in specific, the elf warrior having taken almost as much effort as Eredin himself, and Imlerith fought without magic. “Add potent magic or something else into the mix? No thank you.”

”Right, but, hear me out, another guy in armor ooooooor a dragon? Or that weird whale baby weirdo thing? Or me, but like, more of a jerk. See, why go for a dude in armor who can think and do magic when you can get a big monster in armor that can think and do magic?” Bowser pointed out, and to drive it home said point, pulsed some dark magic in his claw to modify his size up and down. ”Like these Guardians have to be on par with me! So like, someone who’s a challenge to you wouldn’t be up to snuff, they have to be a challenge to a whole pile of heroes, not to mention me!”

Geralt was about to interject when Bowser said that something that challenged him wouldn’t be up to snuff, but paused and nodded when he continued. “Hmm. Fair enough, I suppose. The Guardians have so far all fit that model. Extremely powerful monsters, though where I come from whether a dragon is a monster or not is debatable. And if one guy with a silver sword, Witcher or no, could take down a Guardian, wouldn’t be much of one, no matter the shape or size. Still, there’s nothing saying it has to be a little guy.” Shaking his head, Geralt stopped. “No. No point in speculating while we have no idea what we’ll face next. Suffice to say, this Consul likely wasn’t a Guardian himself, given that we’re still ostensibly in the Ender Dragon’s territory.”

The Cadet weighed both of Geralt and Bowser's points. The thought of an elder dragon with armor and magic made him very uncomfortable, that kind of enemy would probably be almost impossible to deal with, but at the same time he had to agree that a cunning mind made fights a lot more unpredictable. He wanted to jump in on the debate, but it was something that would have to be brought up later - like he'd said to Karin and Pit before, they had other matters at hand.

The angel himself spoke up then anyway. "So we've got a whole other element to deal with now. Who knows how many other people he's convinced that we're going to harm them, or how many other 'Consuls' are out there!"

”Well, as morbid as it might sound to you, if they come at us, that's just more parts for our group.” Blazermate said, being one of the group who had no issue actually felling their opponents for their parts or powers as that was just the medabot way. ”Sure once their numbers thin out we can recruit, but the first few… Free parts!”

“Agreed,” Rubick said, nodding his head. He was a mage who lived off copying others’ abilities, and this seemed like an approach that worked just as well, if not better. He was also no stranger to killing, having done quite a bit of it himself in the past. “We should prioritize our own lives, and if they’re going to try and kill us, we might as well take what we can from them.”

While she took no joy in killing, Nadia found herself nodding along. “We’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do to survive. We can try goin’ about it all heroically whenever possible, but if someone crosses the line…well, them’s the breaks, right? Not everyone has the luxury of bein’ able to do the ‘right thing’ all the time,” she said, putting air quotes where appropriate and making sure to say it in a dopey way. Karin got just a little bit of side-eye as well.

”The ‘right thing’ isn’t a luxury, it’s an obligation!” Karin protested.

The monochrome youth remained quiet despite their reasoning. There were just…worse things to worry about than himself.

“I don’t mean to interrupt all your rationalizations or anything,” Risky interjected. “But if you’re going to do something with us, could you get on with it? These ropes chafe, and I’m starting to lose circulation. I’m practically turning purple!” She laughed, remarkably confident still despite her situation. “Oh, and, uh, for the record. I don’t really have any useful powers or parts, so…cut me some slack, will you?” Her eyes landed on LeFwee. “Bet he does, though. Think about it: how could such a sniveling little chicken get strong folks like Rip Tide and Rakkam to do what he says without mind control or something?” Luckily, LeFwee’s gag rendered his enraged response muffled and unintelligible.

”Well… thats the thing, it's surprising what you can get from even lowly zombies that can’t even talk…” Blazermate started to say, a gleam in her eye.

”Besides the fact that your co-conspirator was a bit too easy to defeat. Doubt he’d be useful to us besides that sword he had on him.” Omori told Risky with a shrug.

Though he'd defended Omori earlier and was happy to do it, Pit didn't necessarily agree with Blazermate's cavalier point of view. His wings drooped and he ignored that conversation, saying to Risky and LeFwee, "No one's going to kill you, you already lost. So just don't try to kill us when we let you go."

He paused. "Whenever that is."

"I guess we should take them with us after all, find some kind of jail to stick them in. Feels weird to just let them loose if they've been terrorizing that town."

Nadia crossed her arms. “I guess that works. They ‘arr’ pirates after all, just like Annetta said.”

“Oh, so we’re not killing them?” Rubick asked, feeling a little disappointed. “Very well, then.”

Geralt had a bit of a frown on his face, but nodded. “I’m not much of one for executions. Up to you what you want to do with them.”

“During a fight is understandable,” came a new voice. The Seekers turned to see Peach headed over from the back of the Tinkerslug’s deck, her tone and pace both measured. “After the fight’s over, though, it’s cruel. Despite what happened here today, we’re not villains. If someone is trying to make it seem like we are, we have to prove them wrong.” She then turned to Port O’ Panic’s leader to offer her something only Karin had so far. “Annetta, we really are sorry. We were all mistaken and misled. When those Abyssal bombers appeared, it was all I needed to know to assume that you all were our enemies. We’ll leave you alone, and without the pirates around, hopefully those weeds of yours will become a flourishing garden. If people from Alcamoth come by again, it will be as friends to try to repay the debt we incurred.”

”....I’m sorry.” Omori spoke up to Annetta after Peach had the ghost of a regretful frown on his face.

A few eyes turned to Jr, but he just shrugged. As far as he was concerned none of this was his problem any more.

Annetta nodded slowly. “I don’t know if I can accept all this. Or if I even have the right to. Reme is dead, after all, and the Port…I’m really not much of a leader. But…it seems like you’re all pretty serious about it being a misunderstanding, and making amends. I hope it’ll be like you say.” With that, the nymph flew off, her flight pattern limp and lopsided from the dead weight she carried along with her.

”You know… If we’re turning them in, we could probably claim some kind of bounty.” Susie said, having tuned out of the conversation a little while ago as she pulled out her PDA to collect and redistribute the money she had been making at the Grand Exchange.

”...Indeed.” Karin said. ”The releasing them thing was just a bluff for information, anyway. Southward, yes?” She strode to the bow of the ship, planting her foot and pointing forward. ”Onward, Triumph! To Twilight Town.” She commanded the Tinkerslug. Their journey was underway once again.

She set her hands on the upperduck and looked solemnly down upon the Seekers. ”Of course it is natural that our enemies may be slain in battle. But today it has been made clear that our true enemy intends to weaponize the innocent against us. We must hold each other accountable and act with wisdom and restraint. Need I remind you that we are not trying to save the world, we are trying to save the people in the world. That is all I have to say on this matter.” She turned and went to attend to the front of the boat.

Primrose explained much to Bede as they leisurely made their way back to the group. The Seekers' campaign against Galeem, it's Guardians, the nature of the world at large... the tell-tale signs of the Gleaming, what spirits were and the uses they had... and of course, about Smash City Alcamoth and the organization themselves. From time to time it was good to go over information like this, to collect her own thoughts and rationalize the current world again. Truth be told she may have abbreviated some things, though not without the promise that once they got back to the Alcamoth there would be a wealth of more information to learn.

Their return had been pleasant, but not boring - through Market Street there was no shortage of shopkeepers and merchants, through whose wares Primrose was happy to browse. She ended up making a purchase, figuring since she was already there she might as well. It was a sturdy cloth that apparently boosted the wearer's defense, the maroon and copper colors matching her aesthetic well.

When they arrived back at the train station where the group had initially split apart, she found that there were no familiar faces waiting for them. Save for one.

Therion was leaning against a lamppost, examining a shard of something in one hand. The other was tucked under his shawl as usual. When he noticed Primrose and Bede approach he tucked that away too and pushed off from his resting spot to meet them halfway.

"Done with the cars?" the dancer asked. Her thief friend nodded once. "More or less."

While Tora tinkered with Band and Jessie, Midna, and that local kid worked on building vehicles and driving them, Therion had taken an approach similar to Poppi's - just observing. It wasn't all he intending on doing, but for a while he stood off to one side, obscured by the shade of the garage's overhang. He'd heard that moose woman deliver some kind of song a few times, giving out licenses to drive. The thought of getting a license for anything himself made Therion scoff, but he paid attention nevertheless. After a while he thought he had the gist of things, from making one of the weird cars to operating them.

He joined in late, steadily working on the most simple build he could think of. It looked more like a mini wagon than anything else, but it had four wheels, a steering mechanism, and it could go. That was all he needed. He brought his cart out to the track, unphased as racers zoomed by. The raceway was wide since it was intended for people to be able to pass each other, so Therion stuck to the outside edge of it. He started the engine and he was off - at a much slower pace than the others.

The first lap was meant to get used to driving. He suppressed a smile once he'd completed it, pleased with himself that he'd gotten the hang of it so quickly. It was way easier than riding a horse.

The second lap he moved even slower, because now he wanted to actually take in the town. It was an almost leisurely drive, disturbed only by a few near collisions when racers sharing the track streaked by him. The route didn't go too far into the city's heart, but he got a good impression of it. He also spotted quite a few interesting things, the kind that instantly drew his eye - chests, sitting in lonely spots of the town just waiting for someone to find them.

That he abandoned the garage and race track after that shouldn't have come as a shock. He'd completed his goal of learning how to passably drive one of those "car" things, so he had no qualms about moving on. He practically made a beeline to where he'd remembered seeing one of the chests, by some bushes to the right of a path near the roadway. It wasn't locked, which was a bit of a disappointment. It's only been a day and I already feel like my skills are rusting, Therion thought as he popped it open, finding only a single health potion inside.

"..." he dropped his head low where he was crouching in front of the chest. Too much to ask for some real valuables, huh? He pocketed the potion, and as he moved to stand he noticed something else hidden in the brush nearby. It was a slim golden shard, faintly glowing in the twilight. He had no hesitation when reaching out to grab it. Guess this wasn't a total waste of time.

He moved on to the other spots he'd taken note of, finding two more identical looking shards and one more treasure chest with some other ore looking thing inside. It was hard to tell how much time had passed when the sky was stuck in perpetual sunset. Satisfied for now, Therion decided he'd better regroup with the others before he missed the whole 'meeting the other half of the team and going back to base' thing.

Which finally brought him back here, awaiting Primrose's return. He eyed the boy with her, noting that he no longer sported the ashen and red eyed look.

"Far as I know, the rest of them are headed to the shore to wait," Therion informed them both.

Primrose nodded. "Thank you for letting us know," she said, and wasn't surprised when she didn't get a response from him. With little else to do they began making their way to the docks together, giving Bede the choice to either tag along or do something else in town. The dock area was expansive, but once they arrived it was hard to miss the silhouette of Big Band and Sectonia. When they got close and met back up with them the Travelers found that Tora, Poppi, and Raz were there as well. In particular Big Band, Sectonia and Tora seemed to be spruced up, so Primrose thought their time in town must have been well spent. Therion did raise an eyebrow at the nude Nopon though.

"While Bede and I were sight-seeing, I spotted some hills that would be nice for a picnic lunch," Primrose said, offering some light conversation. She stood with one hand resting on her hip, overlooking the water with some degree of curiosity. When she initially set out from the Alcamoth she hadn't known any of the Seekers, and over the last few days of getting to know the Yellow Team and those it had picked up, she could only imagine what kind of people they were about to meet. As for Therion who just assumed it would be more clowns for their circus, he only wondered what was taking them so long.

...Hm. So that was how it is. She was one of those "I know better than you" types. Omori couldn't help shaking his head in distain. Maybe he shouldn't tell Karin he figured out how his flintlock worked. At least now they can continue to Twilight Town; dry land, without anything else cropping up. The boy walked back to where he left the gunblade and machete and sat back down. He then pulled out the parakeet bobblehead, and lightly poked it to make it move.

"...Heheh." His lips curled up into a small smile. Yeah. Everything's going to be okay. The sea didn't seem as scary as he thought now.

Despite the pompous way she'd delivered it, Karin's words did resonate with Pit. It was something he and Lady Palutena had argued with Viridi about early on, the people versus the planet. It was a surprisingly effective pep talk for Pit, who took the words to heart and decided to start with saving one specific person.

He left to find the boy in question, and given that the Tinkerslug's deck wasn't very large it wasn't long until he spotted Omori. He sat alone by the short stairwell, but he wasn't about to be that way for long.

"Hey!" the angel greeted, not hesitating to sit cross-legged in front of Omori. It seemed like Omori was trying to cheer himself up, so Pit jumped right in with his opinion. "About what happened... everyone knows it was an accident, they're just being stubborn. I hope you aren't beating yourself up too bad about it."

"Hm? Oh." Omori looked up to see Pit had sat down in front of him. Ah, they thought it was an accident?

....Was it an accident? He didn't know anymore.

His eyes trailed back down to the bobblehead. "I...I wasn't thinking. I only knew you were getting attacked." Omori's gaze went downcast towards the wooden floor. He looked lost. "I just wanted to protect you guys."

Pit nodded, understanding where Omori was coming from. "It happens. Especially up close. Your brain gets so focused on protecting yourself or your family or your friends, and eventually all you know is that you have to win no matter what." He sat back with his palms braced against the deck. "I've seen that a lot of times with humans."

He tapered off, growing unsure if Omori actually was human. He had the same general feel as one, and there was definitely a part of him that was, but there was some otherness about him as well. After a moment he went on, figuring the details didn't matter. "Anyway, we just have to remember, move on, and be better! Okay?"

Omori nodded, looking back to Pit with a neutral expression.

"...He had a family." He spoke up again after a moment. "I'm not even sure why or what they were doing so close to a warzone, but they were right there. Watching. I didn't even realize the gravity of what I did, until I heard that kid's wailing..." Omori confided to the angel. Maybe in some ironic sense of confessing his sins, or just that he felt more comfortable talking to him about it. The boy placed a hand over his heart. "It hurt, more than whatever blood they could shed from me. That turtle looking kid didn't help either. Junior, was it? He seems kinda bratty, but I don't blame him. It just made me think: What if it was my own sister? What if I was the kid in that kind of situation? It...sucks." He slightly frowned.

Pit probably would have giggled at the description of Bowser Jr., if not for the conversation at hand.

"...yeah, it does. It really does," he agreed. Pit had been on both sides of that feeling before, having seen the devastation and misery wrought by his soulless body as well as his own gut wrenching helplessness while seeing his Goddess' many near death experiences. He could vividly imagine the despair he would have felt if any had been permanent. Pit leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees.

"It's alright to feel bad about it. It'd be weird if you didn't. I still feel bad about... um, well, a lot of stuff. And I'm probably like-" He gave Omori a look from head to toe. "-three times your age."

Omori tilted his head at that. Well, it'd make sense if Pit only looked around his age. Maybe a little older. He couldn't help counting the numbers in his head. ...Wow. 36?

"But just remember our mission, and all the people we'll help too. Save the next person. And if you can't, then... well, then rely on the rest of us!" He offered Omori a smile then, hoping to share some of his optimism with the other boy.

And you know what? He did.

A genuine smile crept onto Omori's face in response. "I'll try. If anything, I can just get them weakened enough for someone else to step in like with Annetta." And he hoped it wouldn't be a full repeat. That moonlight still stung. "And uh, sorry for rambling like that. I'm more used to being the one to hear someone else out." He nervously chuckled, no matter how quiet it was.

"Hehehe, don't worry! To be honest I'm usually in your spot, with Lady Palutena hearing me out." That he was able to get through to Omori did more for Pit's confidence than the boy could know. Without the Goddess of Light's reassuring voice in his head, it was a struggle to drum up the courage to do a lot of things, including reach out to others. He had been feeling especially bad since that morning's incident with Geralt. But reaching out successfully now made him really glad, and seeing Omori's smile widened his own.

"You can talk to me anytime you need to!" he said. "I'm sure it's gonna get even tougher from here, so we all have to look out for each other."

"...Yeah. Thanks, Pit."

A few minutes after the living ship got underway, bound due south on its journey to Twilight Town, Nadia Fortune could be found at the very end of its stern. happy to be about as far away as she could get from the gigantic mollusk's snaggle-toothed maw without taking to the ocean waves below, she sat on the railing with her arms propped up to either side of her, staring back at Port O' Panic and the seaside mountains as they gradually receded into the distance. Though the rain had subsided to a drizzle by the time of the pirates' ambush, the sky remained dismally overcast, and it didn't look like things would clear up anytime soon. She took long, slow breaths of the cool, salty sea air, a million miles away from this rueful sea as she sought to clear her head.

Her apology to Peach did not achieve what she hoped. It wasn't that the princess hadn't accepted it--she had, and quickly, too. Too quickly. Almost out of politeness, just as a matter of course, rather than a heartfelt admission that all was well. Such superficial forgiveness did not exonerate Nadia from her feelings of guilt. Could she have taken more time to find better words? Maybe, but she wanted to smooth things over quickly to try and stop any ill will before it could fester, and besides, overthinking things would mean it didn't come from the heart, wouldn't it? In the end, however, nobody felt any better, so Nadia drifted off to think. Physical pain didn't trouble her a whole lot; years of literally pulling herself apart in order to fight, maneuver, and infiltrate left her nerves deadened and resistant to hurt. But the same couldn't be said for everyone. What Peach went through was, from the average person's perspective, horrific and appalling. Of course the blame belonged to that fishman, Rip Ass or whatever his name was, but it was Nadia -and by extension Blazermate- who left Peach alone to go off and do their own thing. Did she really think that Peach would be fine all on her own, or did she just want to go after a spirit that suited her?

Maybe it was both. Or maybe one made her believe the other. Nadia knew that in reality, she hadn't been thinking about anyone but herself, same as ever. Ever since the fateful night that she came to know both pain and loss, leaving her numb and alone. The clever, fun-loving Ms Fortune was a friend to all, but a confidante to none. Did she really have what it takes to be a teammate, or a friend, or a partner? Maybe, maybe not. She was probably just getting worked up over nothing, and uncharacteristically so, at that. Self-pity wasn't a word in the feral's repertoire, and she knew that everyone was just trying their best, in the end. The real question was, did she really care to try? Maybe just being an ally, an acquaintance, and a flirt was enough.

"There you are."

It was a familiar voice, one that the Ace Cadet hoped Nadia would find welcome at the moment. After everything had settled down for the most part and people had split up for the remainder of the trek, the Cadet had looked for her. He managed to miss her on the small deck until now.

He trusted Blazermate to heal everyone up to their top shape, but after seeing the condition that Peach was in, and her seemingly still damaged eye, the Cadet wanted to make sure that Nadia was okay. Things had escalated quickly once the other Seekers boarded the Tinkerslug, so he hadn't been able to get a good look at her before. She was alive, which was the most important thing, but was she alright? That wasn't the only reason he wanted sought her out. Checking in on her health included both the physical and mental. Sure he wasn't the most perceptive guy at times, but the bodily changes due to a spirit fusion were obvious - and the argument surrounding killing their enemies had effected her, that much he could tell. And, maybe, there was yet another reason tucked into the back of his mind. Once it was clear that the other groups of Seekers had a much rougher go of things than he and the street fighters had, he'd been kicking himself for ditching the Adrian. He probably could have been of much more help back there than where he'd ended up. If he was looking for some justification for his decision, well, he probably didn't even know it himself.

But of Ms. Fortune's well-being he was genuinely concerned, so once he'd found her he joined the Feral at the railing, leaning his elbows onto it only about a foot away from where she sat.

"Fin-ally found you," he started with, looking her way. "Are you alright?"

"Hm? Oh!"

At the familiar, most welcome voice, Nadia turned to treat Ace to a friendly smile. She maneuvered around so that her body was facing toward the Tinkerslug's prow rather than the see. "Yeah, I'm just a-boat good. How 'bout you? It's good to see you in one piece! As for me, it looks like I ended up with a two piece." Leaning sideways on the railing with one shoulder up, she posed in a way that showed off the outfit she'd gained from her fusion with Massachusetts. The swimsuit beneath the hoodie and spats her jumpsuit turned into would serve her a lot better than what she had before if she got soaked again, but that wasn't all it was good for. "Whatcha think? 'Knot' too shabby, eh?" With the feral's attitude so lighthearted, it'd be down to Ace's own powers of observation to determine if anything was amiss with the Miss.

At first the Cadet took her at face value. She was a pretty good actor, and he wanted to believe that she was completely okay anyway. Emboldened by her playfulness the Cadet grinned at her, and unabashedly he took in her latest look. He noted all of the changes; the giant ponytail (which funnily enough reminded him of another Nadia he knew), her eyes, the new tattoo-like markings that crossed through the faded swirl patterns, and if he wasn't mistaken a more shapely figure. Overall, pretty sexy.

"Ms. Fortune, you look pawsitively clawdacious," he said warmly.

His eyes roamed from the bikini top, tracing the new geometric lines on her skin down to the scar that ran across her stomach. They lingered on there, and his brows gradually furrowed while his smile dimmed. That hadn't always been there, had it? He thought back to all the times he'd seen her bare abdomen over the last couple of days, which had been plenty of times. He didn't remember there being a scar there, nor did he remember her ever splitting herself up in the midsection.

He reached out and brushed his hand over the new scar, his expression growing more serious.

"What happened?" he asked, looking back up at Nadia's face.

"Aww, you're too kind~" For a few moments Nadia felt very pleased with all the attention, and validated to boot. But like all good things, her moment of admiration in the spotlight came to an end. Ah. Nadia realized she'd kind of walked into that one. Well, no beating around the bush, I guess. With a sigh she stopped posing, and slouched down, a confident grin turned into a thin, resigned smile. "We were up against a couple of super tough customers. One shipgirl in particular. Parrot said her name was Massachusetts, but I swear I heard someone call her Mamie? Either way, she was...one hull of a fighter, puttin' it lightly. When she wasn't poundin' away with her cannons, she was swingin' around her anchors like chain axes."

She pulled out one of the anchors she inherited from the drum on the back of her waist to show Ace. "Bigger than these, though. After fightin' a while, I was gettin' tired, so I tried to...well, 'assassinate' sounds bad, but I can't really think of anythin' else. Just end it fast, I guess. The other shipgirl saved her from death's door, but Blazermate wasted her, I think. All that made Big Mamie got purr-etty damn mad. I'd say she wanted a piece of me, but it looks like she wanted two."

The feral ran her fingers along the giant new scar on her belly. It tickled, but it twinged a little, too. She gave a laugh that was more breath than humor. "Hurt like hell, of course, but I'm fine. Can't die, remember? Goin' to pieces is literally what I do. At this point, I don't feel stuff as bad as anyone else. Blazermate patched me up, so in the end, it's just another scar. Better me than anyone else, right?" Shrugging, Nadia leaned back again.

Technically her logic was sound. An injury like that would be lethal to anyone else. It didn't sit right with him regardless. Throughout her story the Cadet's expression tightened. Imagining her being forcibly torn apart, in contrast to how she usually separated herself, was not a pleasant picture.

"Nadia..."

Ace Cadet ran a hand over his face, buying time for himself as he thought about what he wanted to say. The first words that came to mind almost sounded like an admonishment, which was not what anyone wanted to hear after something like that. An apology seemed wrong too, even though a loud part of his brain was thinking I should have been there. He decided to just go with his gut.

"Still... I mean, you shouldn't have to go through that even if you are kinda immortal. Just 'cause you won't die from it doesn't make it more okay, y'know?"

He wrapped his hands around the ship's railing, clenching and unclenching his fingers as he tried to get his feelings across.

"Earlier, when that argument was going on, you looked upset. Was it about this? 'Cause it really didn't seem like you had a choice."

Nadia half-expected Ace to launch into a lecture about how she should be more careful, but when it came his response was a lot more composed. She appreciated him taking the time to try to look at things from her perspective. Amongst other things, it meant that when he did say something it wasn't something she could refute. "Yeah, I get it," she sighed, her tone making it clear that she wasn't just blowing off his concern. "It's not like I want to or anythin'. Guess I'm just a li'l desensitized."

When the monster hunter continued, Nadia took a moment to think about his question. She couldn't say with absolute certainty what he meant by 'this'. Was he referring to her injury? Or did he mean her decision to take out Massachusetts? Probably the latter, she decided. "That's what I told myself," the feral replied, resting her chin in her palm as she slouched. "That sorta thing's easy to say. Probably 'cause it's true. But is it the whole truth?" Straightening up and leaning back, she turned her gaze to the distance. "When it comes to fightin', I've got a lot goin' for me, but there's one thing missin'. If I don't have a weak point to slice, my damage is purr-etty low. Barely scratched that stinkin' Orphan monster. So when I looked at Massachusetts, I thought...she looks strong. And pretty. And I was tired of fallin' in the water. I figured I'd found the perfect spirit. And sure enough, it fit me to a T." She glanced at Ace. "But it's wrong thinkin' of people that way. Ain't it? I mean, even if we need power to do this, and we don't wanna become freaks, they're still people. Killin' 'em for reasons like that ain't somethin' a hero should do. If I wasn't thinkin' about myself, maybe I coulda found another way."

Nadia sighed again, shrugging. "I'm tellin' ya this 'cause I wanna be honest. And 'cause I don't like keepin' stuff bottled up. But also 'cause it kinda doesn't seem like that big a deal. Like, it's somethin' I'm dumb for even worryin' about. She woulda killed me, after all. We've all been usin' stuff from enemies we took out. It's not like I'm gonna stroll through town like it's a greengrocer, lookin' through the aisles for the best people to eat. I guess...if anythin', what's eatin' me is: should I care more?"

The Cadet stayed quiet while he listened to Ms. Fortune. He could see where she was coming from. It wasn't like they were facing off against objectively, cartoonishly evil people, just people in general. But when those people were always gunning for your life whether they knew it or not, it was hard not to respond in kind - even if potential 'usefulness' wasn't in play. It was a lot to think about, and the kind of thinking that he usually never made time for. Once she was finished, she posed a question that caught the Cadet off guard.

"Hm." He appeared pensive, giving it serious thought. Should she care more? Should he? Should any of the Seekers? All of them? "Damn, that's... a tough question."

He wanted to give her an actual answer though, since she'd been so open with him.

"...honesty for honesty though, I never really thought about it," he said after a while. "Don't like to either. It's a lot easier that way, and since I got de-mindfunked I've been rolling with the assumption that once we save the world everything will just go back to normal. Like, normal-normal. And everyone that died here will just come back like none of it even happened.

"'Cause the whole spirit thing is weird to begin with, almost doesn't seem real, right? That doesn't happen when people usually die." He paused briefly, as if suddenly remembering the nature of the world they were actually in. "Well maybe it does work like that somewhere. In any case..."

The Cadet shifted his posture, taking a breath before turning to fully face Nadia again. "Don't get 'tide' down in what other people think, even me. We're all on a mission to set things right, and we've gotta do what we gotta do. If that means taking someone out before they can take us out, for any reason, then... well, it's just part of that mission."

"Mhm." For a guy that admitted to not doing a whole lot of thinking, Ace offered some pretty good advice. He more or less echoed what Nadia herself thought, and this time she didn't waste any brain juice wondering about whether she thought or heard just what she wanted to. "Golden rule it is, then," she agreed. She put on a smile as she focused on the sea in front of the Tinkerslug, rather than behind it. In the distance a sliver of land could be seen, shrouded in twilight. All this self-reflection was unusual for her, and she'd be happy to put it behind her, consigned like Port O' Panic to drift away into the reaches of her rear-view mirror. One last detail that Ace brought to mind ate at her, though. Something that felt too important to ignore. "Once we save the world..." she echoed, her voice low. "If everythin' goes back, will we even remember what happened here?" Would they all snap back to reality, as if waking up from a dream? Or would they keep in mind everything and everyone they encountered during this time, who they'd never meet again? "Then again, maybe...it'd hurt less if we didn't."

Though he'd been the one to mention it, that too was something the hunter didn't want to think about too hard. In his mind, it was the only way that fixing things made sense; resetting everything back to the way it was before the light invaded. Otherwise how could anyone cope with what had happened?

"I dunno. We'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it, I guess. There's some things I wouldn't mind not remembering," he told her honestly. Learned horrors, both large and small. The kind of danger he would never have been able to even dream up before. Though in between were incredible experiences, and good friends too.

"Then again, there's also people I hope I never forget." He shot her a cheesy smile then, hoping to bring the mood up a least a little. His words were true though. If he were to forget any of his comrades, let alone Nadia herself, it would be way too sad. But none of them would know what would happen once they won until it happened.

Nadia smiled back. "You betcha. Guess we'll just take it one day at a time 'til then."

“Hey, Princess Midna.” She said, pulling up alongside her and matching her pace. Balloons trailed from the top of Jesse’s car. Balloon-Car is born!

“I’d ask why they gave you a license this fast but then I remembered they sanction street racing using scrap vehicles. Kind of answers itself. Must be a tourism thing, huh? You need any pointers? I got a B+ in my driver’s ed class so, I’m pretty much an expert.” She said, raising an eyebrow and glancing at Midna over the top of non-existent sunglasses.

The psycho masked princess (the windshield of her squat technical was the most nonfunctional thing about the fat vehicle that looked like it had been built by someone who normally only made boats) responded by tittering and responding “Well I got a P for perfect” she replied, misinterpreting the P for pass on her test card.

“It’s just like riding a beast, except you have complete control!” she insisted, before swerving uncontrollably to the right, grazing against Jesse’s vehicle just in time for someone in a leather robe that Midna had missed the introduction to go blazing past with a shout of

“How about you eat mine!”

“Ah, drat dang it heck” Midna cursed as she got control of her vehicle, the piratial manikin manned turret on the back spinning wildly as she herself sun the wheel. Then once she had stopped her untended bumper cars moment she asking out loud “eat his what”, not having put two and two together regarding that comment and Jesse’s initial taunt.

Jesse gripped the wheel as her balloon car was briefly sandwiched between two others with seemingly less control than hers. “Dust, Midna.” She said.

“Like the dust getting kicked up from the wheels. For example:” She stepped on the gas, sped up, and overtook Midna, keeping her car in front of her but not speeding away. “Now I’m winning. Behold the power of balloon car. Now keep up, I’m gonna go catch up to that other guy.” She said, accelerating forward around the corner to get to Roxas.

“Hey!” She called out to him. “Is there a finish line in this race, or what?” She asked, assuming he was a local.

“Think so!” Roxas called back as an answer, “We’ve entered one of the race track circuits so if we just follow it we’ll find it sooner or later!” he decided to match her pace for a moment in order to communicate to her more clearly, “How about… 3 laps?” from what he had seen of the races, three laps was their usual number so it made sense to stick with that standard.

And besides, he wanted to test his car’s ability to run a full length race. Up to now he had just done short test laps around the shop. So a full 3 laps around one of the circuits was the ideal performance test for his Twilight Blaze.

Think so? Jesse thought. Okay, not a local. It almost makes me think its a tourist trap, but, again, it’s free, so…

“All right, you’re on. Balloon car, away!” She said with faux-earnesty. Grabbing her car with Launch, she flung herself into the air. Immediately things went very out of control, but she managed to keep herself literally on track by adjusting herself with a few telekinetic shunts. “Holy shit.” She landed with a crash next to Roxas, barely making any ground on him.

Casting a look over at him, she shrugged, before flooring it. Jesse was a decently experienced driver, but this was by the far the fastest she had ever done it. Only a few trips to go-kart places had given her similar experiences. Still, she did have a driver’s license before coming to the World of Light.

Midna in contrast, did not. Nor had she ever controlled, say, a cart, or chariot. No, all she had to work with was riding experience... Oh and magic to cheat with.

“There’s no way you're leaving me behind that easily!” came a voice from behind the pair, along with the buzzing of wings as Midna used a massive Vibrava clinging to the body of her car as an auxiliary engine for a temporary speed boost that allowed her to catch up with the pair before it had to head on back home through another portal.

“Yes, Midna! Use giant bug powers!” Jesse called out.

As much as Roxas wanted to give himself another rocket boost, even he could tell that would be a bad idea. They were coming up on a series of sharp corners, three in total. If he tried to use his thrusters here he’d just end up ramming a wall or barrier. That simply meant he would have to wait a bit for his next big speed boost and try to get creative in the meantime.

He observed the telekinetic shunting and summoning techniques his two opponents used respectively. Even to someone unfamiliar with the vehicles, it was still pretty obvious they were implementing their own individual abilities into their driving. Well… guess I’d better do the same.

Roxas steered into the oncoming corner and slid his car around it. In this moment he could get a strained view of his rear and took that opportunity. He removed one hand from the steering wheel and summoned Oblivion into it. He aimed the Keyblade back behind him and then chanted, “Blizzaga!” and shot back an icy blast that hit the track behind him. Upon impact it created a big icy puddle that could serve as a slippery hazard for whichever driver was coming in behind him.

As clever as he felt, Roxas had no real time to do much else. The next two corners followed immediately after the first and so he would need his full concentration to get through them without losing control.

“Balloon car!” Jesse said again, like it was a special move, or the name of a spell like Roxas. Having fun with it, she picked the car up with Launch but didn’t toss it, choosing to float over it. It cost her some speed and control but when she landed back on the track she was able to make the two corners.

Jesse ran through a list of options in her head. All of my abilities aren’t very sportsmanlike… She mused. Reaching into her pocket, she produced her Toolgun, still on balloon mode.

“I’m shootin’ at ya.” She called out to Roxas as a heads up, and then leveled the Tool Gun at his back tire. Her first few shots missed, causing balloons to attach to the road, but eventually she started getting a bead on him. His tire began to slow down and float as she attached balloons to his tire.

Behind her there was a crashing sound that sounded like it was the result of Midna crashing as a result of her run in with the ice, but was actually her slamming her shadow hand into the ground to correct her slide. The princess practically lived her every moment in a world of ice thanks to the maglev power stuck in her paldron, so she knew a thing or two about correcting her slides. She was, however, still firmly in last place after that.

Roxas noticed his car slowing a bit as he turned into the third corner. On the bright side the slowdown helped him control the turn safely. But of course it also meant he slowed down and he watched Jesse slip past him into the lead. And if he didn’t do something right now, Midna would also pass him up and leave him in last place.

With a flick of his wrist, Roxas summoned Oblivion once more. But instead of shooting a spell, he instead flung the weapon back behind him in the direction the car was being elevated. The weapon effortlessly flew through the balloons and destroyed them all, allowing the tire to drop back and for Roxas to regain his full speed again.

As for the Keyblade, Midna might be surprised to see it just vanish in a small flash of light mere moments later. It was one of the best advantages of possessing such a weapon. It could be thrown and - no matter where it ended afterwards - it would just vanish and go back to waiting to be summoned again.

After a short straight there was one more corner that led into a long straight away. It also happened to be where the finish line was located. And it would serve as a perfect spot for him to use his rocket thrusters again. All he had to do was make the corner. He could slip back into the lead once he hit the upcoming straightaway. Roxas steered into the inside corner as much as he could get away with, and then hit the thrusters at the earliest moment he was able to. Time to see if he could shoot past Jesse again like he had at the start.

It was a perfect place for Minda to use her Vibrava boost again as well, the thruming of wings joining the fiery blasts of Roxas’ rocket engines.

Jesse would just have to make up for lost time on the curves, since besides flooring it, she hadn’t any way to exponentially increase speed. Still, she put the pedal to the metal. Roxas would overtake her and Midna would once again close the gap. Jesse would try to slow down early and take the turns carefully, hoping being slow and steady would indeed win her the race. Maybe these big boosters would scrape against the wall and slow down enough that Jesse could win it.

He was back in the lead for now but Roxas couldn’t get complicit. After the upcoming turn he’d be coming back onto the 3 sharp corners from before. Based on what happened last time, Roxas slowly realized that his car wasn’t built for reliable cornering. If he wanted to get through without hitting or scraping a barrier he’d have to slow himself down. That of course gave the ladies a chance to catch up and even overtake him if luck was on their side.

But there was nothing for it. Roxas would just have to do his best slides and hope Lady Luck was kind. He steered into the first corner and slid around it successfully. Then did the same for the second corner. But that third corner was practically a sharp u-turn. Twilight Blaze was just too fast to get around without momentarily bumping its passenger side into the track barrier. That of course slowed him down a bit and he watched what looked like Jesse’s car manage to slip into the lead.

Roxas slammed back down on the gas, determined not to let himself fall into last place. After the next turn he once again hit the rocket engines and shot forwards just like the first lap. Perhaps if he repeated this for the third lap he could lock himself in for the win. But only time would tell and a lot could happen during the course of a lap, especially in the more tense final lap when everyone would be more determined than ever to secure their victory.

Midna, the worst driver, made up for her lack of training with inordinate amounts of magical shenanigans. On top of her Vibrava boosts she also started using her shadow hand to either slap herself towards with a rowing motion of right slap left slap right slap, or to take corners harder by grabbing the ground with dragon claws and pulling herself around them. Still, all this, other than getting her the ire of the city’s road maintenance division, was only enough to keep her in the race. If she wanted to win, she had to consider dirtier tricks.

Over the roar of the engines and the rushing wind, no one could hear Jesse beatboxing the soundtrack to the race under her breath. Never before had she been in a street race with two wizards, and most likely she never would again. She enjoyed jockeying for the lead with Roxas, and at the end of the second lap he once again took advantage of the straight away with his rocket boosters after she beat him on the corners. Then she remembered that, like Midna, she wasn’t racing alone. Uncle Sven might be able to help. The track, of course, was a circle, and she’d been around it twice. If she timed a jump just right, she might able to leap over buildings and soar to victory by taking a huge shortcut. It was worth a shot, and she’d rather fail spectacularly than do decently well in a boring way. Jesse Faden didn’t do ‘fear’ anymore! Continuing to race, she bid her time until the right moment as she began to go into the third lap, driving defensively until she found the right spot for her Ooze Balloon Gambit.

“Sven, Elastic Ooze!” She shouted. The mad alchemist appeared, grabbing onto the side of the car.

“Let’s see what happens if-” He cut himself off with a toss of a potion. It shattered and the ooze spread. She hit it with her car and launched herself upward at the same time.

“Woah fuck-” She swore as the air she got was alarming. Well above the neighborhood she cut across houses and streets.

The third and final lap was going normally at first. But Roxas’ jaw nearly dropped when he saw Jesse attempt her crazy jump. Not good! There was no way he could catch up without trying something equally crazy. And as he saw the three sharp corners approaching, an absolutely insane idea formed in his head. He altered his angle of approach that made it look like he was going straight for the barricade instead of the inside corner like one would expect. And then he summoned Oblivion.

“Blizzaga!” He shot the spell straight ahead and watched it glide across the ground until eventually hitting the barricade. When it did, a roughly ramp-shaped structure was almost instantly formed. Then Roxas did the unthinkable and used his rocket boosters just as he hit it. His car went flying forward clear over the first two corners and straight at the inside of the third. But there was more to his plan. He let go of Oblivion in order to grab the wheel and free up his left hand. Afterwards he summoned Oathkeeper - a white Keyblade. He stuck his arm straight out to his left. On the tip of the barricade was a tall street lamp that Roxas managed to hook Oathkeeper onto.

With any other types of vehicles, this plan would never work. But these vehicles were proven to be rather light overall and highly resistant to damage from crashes. That allowed Roxas to use his momentum to circle around and slingshot himself - car and all - around the third and final corner. All that was left was the straightaway. His rockets would get him about half-way to the finish line, but after that? It would all come down to who was luckier.

Minda was still bringing up the rear, and she didn’t do something crazy of her own, she was going to be left out of the final sprint finish. Her solution to this shortcut situation? Leaping out of her veil, grabbing it in an oversized shadow hand, and then hurling the vehicle alone over the same jump, before diving into a shadow, appearing out of another just in time to reach up and catch her vehicle.

“Push car go!” she shouted as she shoved her machine forwards to get up speed again, then using the physics bending nature of her shadowhand to, once it was fully outstretched in the push motion, lift herself up behind her vehicle while still holding the back of the car, swinging her own body around and popping down in the driver's seat of the free rolling machine once more.

“Step on the gas” she echoed her teacher to herself as she did just that and went racing after the two human racers

Jesse’s car had begun floating down, but she realized if she wanted to beat the boosted Roxas she’d have to hit the ground faster. Turning over her shoulder, she produced the Service Weapon- Is this a misuse of my powers? It might be.- switched it to Spin, and shredded all of the balloons keeping the Balloon Car aloft. Now just Car, it dropped onto the track and directly in the way of Roxas’s vehicle. “Ah, fuck.” Jesse said unrepentantly.

“Yes!” Roxas shouted as the finish line got ever closer. He was almost certain he had this, “Wait wait NO-” he cried out in panic when Jesse’s car hit the ground mere meters in front of him. His rockets hadn’t quite stopped firing yet so he wound up slamming into her car full stop. And despite the toughness of these vehicles, the two cars managed to break into large chunks which of course sent both Roxas and Jesse sprawling on the track. Even these cars had their limits, and the crazy stunts they pulled were probably just too much for the machines to handle.

“Ugh…” Roxas groaned, pushing himself to his feet, “...what a mess.” he glanced around at the scattered components. He also wondered if anyone would be upset that they made this mess. But he ignored the components when he spotted Jesse and moved over in her direction, “Hey…” he said, “...you okay? Looks like we overdid it, huh?”

Jesse had landed gently on her feet, a couple of pieces clattering to the ground next to her. The Director was in high spirits. Sure, she had a competitive side, but any disappointment about losing was trounced by how much fun she just had.

Just then there came manic laughter approaching from behind, speed doppler affecting it till it zoomed on by, and Midna crossed the finish line ahead of the two feckless humans. It might be a victory born not from her successes but instead from the failures of others, but it was a victory nonetheless! The princess took a few moments to revel in it, before she performed a 7 point turn and rolled on back to check on the crash victims

“You two alright?”

Jesse rose a hand to greeting to the Princess. “We’re just fine. Hey, that was good racing, Midna. I say you earned that win.”
She turned to Roxas. “That was somethin’ else, huh?” Jesse said, smiling. She looked at the scattered components. “Maybe we overdid it a little. But, I intend to build Balloon Car Mark 2 and succeed where its predecessor failed. I need rocket boosters on all six sides of the car!”

She used Shield to gather all of the loose parts into a wall in front of her and then walked to the sidewalk, where they were all deposited in a pile. Then she approached Roxas and extended out her hand. “I’m Jesse Faden. There’s two types of people in this world: those that slow down at yellow lights, and those that floor it. I’m guessing we’re both the latter?”

“I’m Roxas.” he replied while shaking her hand, “And I’d say you’re probably right. Both the latter.” but he wasn’t about to be a poor sport. He flashed a smile and thumbs up in the direction of the princess, “Looks like you have us beat. Enjoy the win… uh…” he hesitated, realizing he didn’t even name. Then he cast a slightly sad look at the pile of parts.

“Shame about the cars. I thought I’d get to leave Twilight Blaze here intact when I left town, but… I guess not.” he gave a small sigh and then shrugged his shoulders, “It’s not like I could take it with me, too big and bulky. Anyway,” he turned back to face the two ladies, “Great race you two. I had a ton of fun. You both are new around here, right? Pretty sure I saw you coming out of the station with a few others. You wouldn’t happen to be the people Sectonia was waiting for, are you?”

“That’s us. I’m Midna by the way, princess of twilight and best racer in town. Nice to meet you” the imp informed him, offering a hand to shake.

“Pleasure’s all mine, Your Highness.” Roxas replied, knowing from experience how to act around royals.

“If you’re already familiar with Sectonia, then I guess we’ll see you when we meet up again, right? Did she tell you about the Seekers? We’re looking for capable people with their heads on straight.” Jesse said.

“Seekers, huh?” Roxas closed his eyes in thought. Was that their group’s name? Certainly an interesting choice, and definitely one that brought back a memory or two of Roxas’ previous battles, “Yeah she and I spoke a bit about it. The short version is that I have a bone to pick with Organization XIII - those guys you’ve all seen that dress like me. They’re old enemies of mine and so I asked if I could join you guys and check them out for myself.”

Jesse raised her eyebrow, interest piqued. “Oh, yeah?”

Ramlethal was helpful for sure, but I can’t deny I’d like to know more about them. There’s so many unanswered questions about them. Among them; why wasn’t I invited? Maybe this Roxas guy could shed some like on things about that as a bonus.
“Maybe we could share notes once the big meetup goes down.” Jesse said.

“Well, we’re still waiting for them to ship into town. So in the meantime, guess how about we clean up this mess, and maybe I can learn a thing or two about fixing one of these machines afterwards while we wait? If you’ll show me the ropes” Midna suggested/asked. It would, after all, be a touch rude to leave the pair’s junked vehicles on the road

“Sure, sounds good to me.” he thought back to what Ellie had told him, “The parts stick together real easily, and…” he did his best to repeat Ellie’s explanation. He probably didn’t explain quite as well but Midna would still get the basic gist. After some time spent clearing the junked vehicles, they’d eventually be ready to go to the big meetup.

With their hygienic detour concluded, the three Seekers made their way down the sweeping curves of Twilight Town’s Market Street. Too big for the sidewalks, Sectonia followed the other two from the air, like a massive guardian angel. Of course, this pleasant and easygoing road offered very little danger; even the trolley cars that occasionally trundled up and down the brick-lined slope on their designated rails moved so slowly that someone would have to be trying to get run over. The only real problem Tora and Poppi found to contend with was that of distraction. All the little shops and storefronts on this winding route presented a bevy of interesting sights, smells, and sounds that all quietly clamored for their attention. They passed bookstores with shelves upon shelves of thick, colorful volumes. The lush flora and sweet-smelling flowers, abuzz with the gentle drone of big, fat bumblebees, provided a feast for their senses. Worst of all, the tantalizing smells of fresh-baked loaves and tarts drifted from the little bakeries, forcing Tora to resist the temptation to take an early lunch on his own.

When Raz found him on the way to the docks, Tora was grateful for a distraction from the scenery. Of course, he also appreciated the chance to talk to someone of the same approximate height and mental age. “Hello!” the nopon greeted him. They’d been acquaintances ever since the telepath joined the group back in Al Mamoon two days ago, which after the trek up Split Mountain felt like a lifetime, but they had yet to really become friends. Tora couldn’t even remember really interacting with him beyond their training session aboard on the Railway Gun, so now seemed like a good time to get to know one another.

As it happened though, Raz did most of the talking. He explained a bunch about his organization and what they could do, trying to keep his giddy enthusiasm for the Psyconauts in check. Most of it went over Tora’s head, especially the rather unfathomable parts about going inside brains, but Tora tried his best to listen. It wasn’t that long of a journey down the remainder of Market Street to begin with, and by the time Raz finished his treatise the group reached the bottom of the hill, where the sunset city gave way to the eastern perimeter road that ran parallel to the water’s edge. Beyond that lay just a meager hundred feet or so of beach, over which the Twilight Town Pier made its home.



The wharf followed along the city’s entire eastern edge, right next to the straightaway used primarily by the customers of Mumbo’s Motors as they ran their laps around Twilight Town, but directly across from where Market Street emptied out, it extended a good distance out over the water. Though the only portion of the entire pier actually usable as docks, the Pier proper seemed to be employed by the citizens exclusively as some sort of fairground, complete with a small roller coaster and ferris wheel, and not a boat in sight. Tora spotted Band on a bench next to the entrance to the jetty, and after Sectonia flew down to rejoin him, Poppi, and Raz, they used the crosswalk to get to the other side of the street. “Hello Band-Band!” Tora waddled up to the lone detective, an eager smile on his face. “Any sign of friends?”

“Not as of yet,” Band reported. “Might be the buildin’ out on the Pier is blockin’ my view, but I ain’t seen any ships comin’ in.”

Tora looked mildly concerned. “Meh…that mean we early, then? If friends not arrive soon, sun will set!”

“Sun not set here, Masterpon,” Poppi Alpha reminded him, poking him in the forehead with her index finger for emphasis. “Sky always like this here. That why it named ‘Twilight Town’.”

The nopon rubbed his head. “Oh…right. Got so engrossed in tinkering, Tora forget.”

Just moments after that, the Octopath Travelers Primrose and Therion arrived together, with the pokemon trainer Bede right behind the woman who’d freed him from Galeem’s grasp. Tora found himself a little jealous of the pink-clad boy getting to spend time with Primrose, but he did not regret the time he spent forging a stronger bond between himself and Big Band. When Therion gave him a look, Tora mimicked it, and like clockwork the thief buckled beneath the nopon’s indomitable eye contact. Tora smirked smugly as Therion looked away. Without thinking, his gaze naturally landed on Primrose, and he might have remained oblivious for a moment if the dancer did not happen to bring up a subject even nearer and dearer to his heart than cuteness: food.

“Picnic lunch sound like delight!” he announced. “Smells in city make Tora famished, so am looking forward to lunch as much as friends. Oh, uh, Tora mean, almost as much as friends, meh.” He turned his attention seaward, scanning the distant waves for any sign of incoming vessels. “Why not go out on Pier? We see friends much sooner that way!”

“Makes sense to me,” Band replied.

His companion nodded. “Go ahead, Masterpon. Poppi quickly find laundry place and clean clothes so Masterpon presentable for big reunion.”

“Meh-meh? Poppi actually act like maid!? Oh, happy day! Thank you Poppi!”

As Poppi left, more members of Yellow Team arrived, like the Phantom Thieves and the Centennial contingent, and together the gathering group made their way down the boardwalk. They walked by various carnival games, a bunch of hot dog, cotton candy, and roast corn stalls, and beneath brightly-painted roller coaster tracks as carts of fun-loving Twilighters and Poptropicans rattled around them. The flashing lights along the spokes of the ferris wheel dazzled the heroes as it turned lazily around in a slow, endless cycle, but Tora couldn’t succumb to distraction now after coming so far. He and the others reached the extent of the Pier in just a few minutes, which terminated in a spacious square platform partially occupied by an exorbitantly-priced seafood restaurant with plenty of outdoor seating. Once Tora got to the end, one peek at the horizon was all he needed to start bouncing up and down in excitement again. “Look, look!” he sang. “There ship out there! It coming this way!”

Sure enough, a large vessel could be glimpsed a few miles out at sea. Bulky and bulbous in shape, but with the unmistakable silhouetted outline of masts and sails, it grew larger and larger one minute at a time. Poppi arrived with Tora’s clean clothes halfway through the ship’s approach. In just a little while, Blue Team would be here at last.

---

Of course, nobody really expected the fashion in which Blue Team finally arrived. Thanks to sitting unusually high in the water, the Part Omni-Organic, Partially Titanic, Ocean-Optional Tinkerslug towered over the Pier and those who waited atop it, its three enormous eyes staring at them blankly. It was a far cry from the rowboats that Vandham had been expecting, but once Yellow Team -and the local citizenry- realized that the massive mollusk was nothing to fear, there was nothing to get in the way of the Tinkerslug as it sidled up alongside the jetty platform to divulge its cargo.

A wealth of friends both old and new crowded the Tinkerslug’s deck. Whether monster or hunter, wizard or warrior, seraph or secretary, felon or feline, they exchanged waves and shouts with those on the docks, and some didn’t even wait for their ride to come to a complete stop. The two teams, their members numbering a couple dozen strong in total, met on the docks in a scene of utter chaos, with so much hubbub that the Seekers could scarcely hear themselves think, let alone hear one another talk. After a few moments, Peach fired her revolver into the air to cut through the din with a signal for quiet–only to be reminded that the projectiles her gun shot were ghostly spirits that screamed like bats out of hell.

“Whoa, that was way too loud, sorry about that!” she promptly called out, her expression sheepish. “I forgot it did that. Still, it got everyone’s attention, huh?” Peach banished the gun and cleared her throat. “Anyway…ahem! I’m so happy to see you all. Both those we parted ways with back at Alcamoth, and all the new faces.” As she smiled at Yellow Team, however, she couldn’t help but notice a couple faces missing, too. Hopefully that only meant that, like Hat Kid and Banjo-Kazooie, they’d found their own path elsewhere. “I’m sure we’re all really eager to meet one another, and I’m all for it! Even though we might be splitting up again in the near future, we’re still one team, united behind one common goal, and I want us all to remember that. So I was thinking of a way to get everyone on the same wavelength, and this is what I came up with.”



The princess turned and jogged over to one of the picnic tables, which she jumped on top of. She turned around to face the whole group at once. She took a deep breath, both eyes squeezed shut, then opened them. “My name is Peach. I’m the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, and I’ve been acting as a sort of leader for this campaign. A fun fact…” Peach put her hands on her hips. “My passion is sports! Tennis, gold, soccer, cart racing, even olympics. So when it came time to take up the fight, I was actually in pretty good shape.” She smiled. “Alright, who’s next?”

So, she’s the one in charge, Big Band mused, his expression thoughtful. He didn’t remember hearing her name mentioned by the Seekers ever since he joined, but she’d already taken action that befitted a leader. In circumstances like these, against incredible odds with a staggering amount of unknowns in play at all times, he respected anyone with the courage to take responsibility. Even if it might seem a little silly, something like this meet-and-greet was vital for bringing all these different people together. Band certainly didn’t plan to let this movement fizzle out.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he declared, making sure his rich, deep voice was amped up enough for everyone to hear. The big man stomped over to the picnic table as Peach got down, shaking the Pier ever-so-slightly with each step, and took a position in front of it. “The name’s Big Band, and I’m all there is of the most real. Once upon a time I was a detective, but a twist of fortune led to me becomin’ a different kind o’ brass, fightin’ as a member of Lab Eight against the Skullgirl.” Band deployed a whole host of instruments at once. “Sweet jazz an’ moody blues; they’re all I am and what I do. Lookin’ forward to playin’ with y’all.”

Did he say SKULLGIRL? In an instant Nadia was on alert. The usage of that word could mean only one thing: that Big Band here hailed from the same world as her. Ironic that she would finally meet someone who also called New Meridian home, but it would end up being a total stranger. While not bothered in principle, the admission that that this guy used to be a cop instinctively made her wary, and his usage of a phrase that included ‘fortune’ didn’t exactly help. She didn’t know him, after all, but if he knew her, things could get interesting. Still, circumstances brought them together today as allies. Hopefully the two of them would play nice.

Having just heard firsthand exactly what ‘twist of fortune’ led Band to his current condition, Tora couldn’t help but wince a little. The fact that his friend could hide so much personal suffering in such a casual turn of phrase both stood as a testament to Band’s strength of will, and made Tora wonder just how much pain lurked beneath the surface in this group. Hopefully he could become a real friend to all of them, and lift their spirits, even if just a little.

Poppi listened to Band’s introduction with crossed arms. The fact that the metal musician had once been an ordinary man intrigued her. Living things like people and nopons came about through birth and grew as they lived, while artificial beings like herself had been built, but Band had a foot in both camps. She struggled to answer the questions of ‘why’ and ‘how’, figuring that they’d be better left to Tora. Hopefully he wouldn’t develop an interest in recreating the phenomenon himself. Poppi followed along behind as her Masterpon raced over to Band, eager to go next.

“Am Tora!” the nopon announced to everyone. “Inventor, engineer, and defender extraordinaire! Meh, meh. Am creator of artificial blade Poppi, and there not gadget or doodad that Tora cannot fix or make better! Can protect everyone with Drill Shield too, so Tora is super handy to have around. Very much hope that everyone can be Tora’s friend!”

Nadia smiled at him. “Aww, you’re so cute! You’re like a little mechanic!”

“Am actually big for nopon, and am very much mechanic!” Tora informed her. “Thank you, Gormotti friend! Tora think you cute too, meh!”

That took the feral by surprise. “H-huh? It’s kind of weird, hearin’ that from you…”

Now Tora looked confused. “Meh? Weird when Tora say to you, but not when you say to me? Not make sense to Tora.”

Big Band chuckled. By now he knew just how serious Tora was when it came to both engineering and defending, despite his appearance. Though he often managed to lighten the mood with his antics, the kid was a lot more than comic relief. He trusted that everyone would get as attached to the little guy as he had.

“Poppi is Poppi,” his companion began, following in Tora’s footsteps as usual. “Together Masterpon and Poppi work as driver and blade. He wield weapons, Poppi channel ether. He get in trouble, Poppi bail him out.” She giggled. “Also have three forms. This form is pure defense, Quixotic Tutelar is evasive warrior, and Quantum Technochampion is all-out offense. Poppi like instruments, textiles, art, and smelling food!”

Tora just stood there on the bench next to her, looking proud despite the light ribbing. He and Poppi were a unit, after all. Nothing short of the end of the world could keep the two of them apart.

When it sank in that this girl was not only a machine but one invented and made by Tora, Nadia couldn’t help but be impressed. Maybe there was something to all that boasting, after all. Poppi certainly looked formidable in her armor, reinforcing the idea that the dynamic duo would serve as the team’s defense. That was just fine with Nadia; the more others could soak up punishment and occupy enemies’ attention, the better she could get into the mix and do some real damage.

Speaking of, since she’d already drawn some attention to herself, now seemed like a good time to speak up. She ran over and leaped onto the bench with an acrobatic flip. “My name is Ms. Fortune. I guess I’m what you’d call a dashing rogue. My whole gimmick is that I can split myself up into pieces without dyin’, so when it comes to fightin’, I ain’t kitten around! Puns are my thing by the way, so you’d better purr-pare yourselves.” She treated the whole assembly to the old double finger guns.

Big Band’s narrowed gaze lingered on her for an extra moment, and not due to the girl’s allure. Something about her seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Tora had called her Gormotti, whatever that meant, but to Band she seemed like something between a Feral and a Dagonian, judging by those cat ears (and puns) and fish tail. It wasn’t just that though. Something about her silly attitude struck his detective instincts as less than genuine. She seemed like a tricky sort, someone it might pay to keep an eye on. “A purr-leasure to meet you, Ms. Fortune,” he murmured, returning her pun in kind. Once Nadia got down from the bench, he waited to see who would go next.

Seeing how little of what he said stuck with Tora, Raz's explanation of his psychic capabilities trailed off. "Uhh, nevermind. Thanks anyways," he said, awkwardly putting a bit of distance between them as everyone headed towards the docks. In spite of the stumble Raz's hopes were pretty high still. This seemed like a big deal, the entire team meeting up for what seemed like the first time in a while. He hadn't even met the rest yet! Would any of them question his being there, or would they have gotten used to random stragglers joining the cause? Was he hoping for too much that he'd be singled out? Not that he was the only newbie on board or anything.

Not to mention that, once the Seekers' ship neared Twilight Town and tied off at the docks, everyone was a bit more interested in greeting old friends than the short kid they didn't know. Raz didn't mind, though. He was more than content with sticking closer to the outskirts of the group and seeing what other sorts were part of this group. They were all pretty varied individuals, 'strange' as some might say, but Raz wasn't as quick to judge. People just looked how they looked.

More proactive in mingling with the crowd was one Wonder Red, who made a pretty quick beeline to Commander Nelson as soon as he was spotted. "Commander," Red began, "there's been a development I think you should be aware of." Red pulled up his Unite Morph specs... which... they would totally have access to, somewhere, probably. Maybe in the pendant. And pulled up the schematics for one very different Morph.



"I'm not sure what this means exactly, sir. The way this world of Galeem works... could it mean that Wonder Blue is..." He let the sentence go unfinished. "Have any of the other Wonderful Ones gotten this morph?"

Whatever Nelson's thoughts on the matter were, Red didn't want to linger on the possibilities for long, so afterwards he turned his attention to the impromptu meet-and-greet proposed by Peach. And the first one to take up the spotlight following her was Big Band. What impressed Wonder Red the most was how similar a lot of worlds turned out to be. Much like himself and the Wonderful One-Double-Oh, Big Band was an ordinary citizen that chose to take up arms, to protect his world from a dangerous enemy. At least, that's what Red assumed - better to be optimistic about things after all. And being made out of instruments didn't lessen his expectations, too. Red's seen soldiers fight with much stranger techniques before.

After Big Band was Tora, quickly followed by Poppi. The two had been working pretty closely, Red noted earlier, but to think that one created the other? That was some impressive technical prowess. Red made a mental note to bring this up for discussion with the Commander at a later time. Maybe Tora and Professor Shirogane could trade research notes and provide some much needed support to the Wonderful Ones while they were here.

When it was Nadia's turn, she'd find herself bombarded by questions from Raz, gloved hand raised high as he bounced up and down for attention. "Excuse me, excuse me, Ms. Fortune? When you say you can 'split apart' does that mean literally, or that you can separate into individual, smaller versions of yourself? Is it only specific sections of your body or can it be anything, like, can you split your body in half length-wise, front and back? What happens to all the blood? Can you control your parts once they're split up? Is it a mental practice? If it is a mental practice, could you teach me sometime?"

Realizing that his verbal barrage had taken up more time than Nadia's whole introduction, Raz decided he might as well be the next one up since most everyone's eyes were on him anyway. He gave a meek wave as he approached the picnic bench, climbing up onto its seat in front of everyone.

"Hi there, everybody! My name's Razputin Aquato, but you can all call me Raz. I'm what's known as a Psychonaut - agent number 371, parentheses, Junior Division - trained in the arts of psychic combat, protection, and extrasensory manipulation, all in service of exploring the mental realm." He took a stance, knees bent and fingers to his temples, in an effort to look really cool. "...I guess to, uh, put it in simpler terms, I'm a psychic government agent who stops equally psychic crimes. Psychonauts like myself use this little device, the PsychoPortal," he continued, pulling out the device to show, "to project into people's minds, to help them handle whatever issues they face right at their source. So if anyone feels like they could use a mental check-up, don't be afraid to come to me!" He straightened up and gave a long smile, moving to leave the bench, only to stop short. "Oh, and if it ever comes up I'm also really good at climbing, jumping, tumbling, twirling, swinging, balancing, juggling, rolling, shimmying, leaping, diving, and other such acrobatic feats. I work in my family's circus."

With a nod Raz raised a foot over the edge of the picnic bench... then stopped yet again, and hooked his thumbs behind him towards the ocean. "And also if I ever go into water I'll die." He paused, thinking on if there were any other pressing tidbits he could give, before turning his thumbs into two thumbs-ups. "That's everything!"

Now, finally done with his spiel, Raz hurried off the bench and back into the folds of the crowd. When he returned to his old spot, a hand came down to pat him on his shoulder - Wonder Red, only barely taller than him. "That's an impressive set of capabilities Razputin Aquato, Psychonauts Agent 371, Junior Division, heir to the Aquato family circus."

"Thanks!" Raz said. Then, after a second to think, "wait did you say 'heir'?"

Wonder Red, however, had moved past Raz, taking his turn at the bench. "Hello, fellow Seekers! Pleased to make your acquaintance! I am known as Wonder Red, a member of the CENTINELS Planetary Defense Force, an international team of 100 strong that protects our world from intergalactic threat. Despite our current displacement, rest assured that we of the Wonderful One-Double-Oh will fight just as strong for this world and everyone in it as if it were our own! Any further questions can be brought to my superior, Commander Nelson. And I hope you all forgive our continued discretion in regards to our identities. Even though this isn't the world we come from, we still have to maintain a level of secrecy in case word managed to spread elsewhere." With a quick bow as curt and to-the-point as his introduction, Red stepped down, taking his place beside Nelson.

---

With the race and building lessons out of the way, Roxas eventually found himself at the docks. There he saw all the new acquaintances he had met and even some he hadn't introduced himself to. According to Jesse and Midna this was where the rest of their big team would arrive and it was just a matter of waiting for them. Soon enough Roxas spotted what had to be them in the distance. A large vessel, a ship of some kind that Roxas never seen before. Did... did it have eyes? If those weren't eyes then they sure as heck looked like eyes. Was this ship a creature? Or did someone just have a weird since of creativity when they built it? And then its passengers started exiting it. They were wide assortment of characters, seemingly coming in all shapes in sizes. Between the dragon-like turtles to the fully robotic people, suddenly Sectonia didn't seem so strange as when they first met.

Roxas kept his mouth shut for the time being. He sort of hung around nearby the people he had already met such as Sectonia and Jesse. He'd have plenty of chances to officially meet everyone. For now it looked like there were some reunions going on and he didn't want to be rude and interrupt. Eventually though he heard a gunshot that got everyone's attention. The shooter was a nice-looking blonde lady of seemingly mixed ethnicity in an armored pink suit who then introduced herself as Princess Peach. Well, blonde was not quite accurate, because her hair was three different colors: red, blonde and white going from left to right. Another Princess? Roxas thought to himself. So that made two members of royalty on this team that he knew of. And the wildest part was that they weren't even the first royals he'd ever met in his lifetime. Still, Peach seemed a far cry from the mischievous Midna. To imagine the two standing next to each other was like looking at night and day. Peach also said that she was leader of this operation, for the most part. That would explain why she acted so much more mild-mannered and polite than Midna. Her suggestion of picnic lunch made this all sound like some kind of bizarre birthday party or family reunion. And her suggestion that they all introduce themselves to the crowd made sense, but made Roxas feel like he was sitting in on some kind of Anonymous Meeting.

The Princess herself was the first to go. As she had been this entire time she retained her politeness and seemed to be wearing the same cheerful smile the entire time. She mentioned being passionate about sports which did not surprise Roxas that much. Her sporty-looking suit and strong athletic build certainly suggested as much. But apart from this, Roxas wasn't really able to gleam much more about her. Like what kind of leader she was, or what other kind of skills she brought to the table. Roxas would just have to try and get to know her better over time.

The second to go was an armored individual who introduced himself as Big Band. He mentioned being a detective at one time, and Roxas found that rather interesting. Sounded like the kind of guy who would be great at leading investigations. But he also followed that up by saying he suffered a "twist of fortune" that forced him to walk a different path. Roxas now wondered if that armored suit of his was more than just a fashion statement. And then suddenly the man conjured up a whole band's worth of instruments and began playing a jazzy tune. Well it was no wonder why he was called Big Band, the name was apparently quite literal. He had also mentioned something called Lab Eight and Skullgirl, but Roxas unfortunately had never heard of those things before.

The next to go was the robot girl from earlier and a furry little guy Roxas recalled seeing at Mumbo's Motors. They introduced themselves as Poppi and Tora, and explained that Poppi was a machine capable of taking three different forms in order to switch up her combat specialties. And from the sounds of it, Tora was the mechanic who built and repaired her. So it was pretty clear that these two were a team, what one would call a package deal. They spoke kind of strangely, but Roxas understood what they were saying just the same. They had some words with lady with cat ears, and then that lady took her turn introducing herself.

Her name was Ms. Fortune. She called herself a dashing rogue, though whether was actually true remained to be seen. The strange part was that she could apparently split herself into pieces without dying. Roxas couldn't even fathom how that was possible. Was she another robot like Poppi? She didn't look or act mechanical, so maybe not. Or maybe she was something akin to a Replica? No, surely not, Replicas were supposed to be as human as possible so something like that would defeat that purpose. He couldn't help but notice Big Band giving her a strange look. Was there some kind of history that no one was aware of?

Roxas' thoughts were interrupted when the incredibly enthusiastic psychic kid spoke up. At first he shot a bunch of curious questions at Ms. Fortune but then went on to introduce himself as Razputin Aquato, Raz for short. He called himself a Psychonaut, and further explained that this was a title given to a special kind of soldier able to combat enemies using mental psychic powers. And apparently he could even jump into people's minds and explore their thoughts and feelings. Wait does that mean he can read minds? He's not reading my mind right now, is he? But he listened further as Raz explained that he was also a capable athlete good at climbing and jumping and other such feats. And apparently he would die if he ever went into water. That's not exactly something I would just share with a bunch of people I met for the first time. But the more Roxas thought about how forthright Raz was, the more he started reminding Roxas of Sora in some ways. Yeah Raz and Sora would definitely get along well, Roxas figured.

Next up was a masked man dressed in red. He didn't give his name, instead using the codename Wonder Red. He said he was with an intergalactic defense force known as the CENTINELS which he said numbered 100. He didn't divulge any information about his abilities, and also explained that he wished for he and his team to maintain a level of secrecy regarding their true identities. It sounded like this was for security reasons, and being a new guy, Roxas wasn't about argue with him. He mentioned someone named Commander Nelson, and that was where he ended his introduction. He was very different from others, very professional and by-the-book. Honestly a far cry from a lot of the other very informal introductions that had been made.

Well... guess I've waited around long enough. Roxas silently walked up to the table and hopped up on top of it. At this point he now found himself right next to Princess Peach, and he knew his black coat would be drawing stares from the Seekers, "It's nice to meet you, Your Highness." Roxas said with a quick bow and then turned and faced the crowd, "And it's nice to meet you all, too. I'm Roxas... and I used to be in Organization XIII." he paused in order to give everyone a chance to take that in and to gauge their responses before continuing, "But that was a long time ago, and they're my enemy now. Sectonia told me you've had some encounters with people claiming to be Organization XIII. If that's true, then I need to find out what they're planning and stop them if I have to."

He was beginning to realize that his introduction was a bit to down-to-business but he continued, "I promise I'll tell you all I can about them, but I can already tell my information might be a bit outdated. I asked to join you because some of my closest friends are missing and I'm worried that Organization XIII might be involved. I also promise I'll help you with the mission you're on. All I ask is for some help finding my friends, and maybe some backup if it comes down to a fight between me and the Organization." at this point he let himself lean forward for a bow. And then he straightened up and held out his hand, summoning Oblivion for them all to see, "I also happen to be a Keyblade Wielder like the Master of Masters. But," he then summoned Oathkeeper, "I can use two. I've got some magic I can fall back on in addition to a few other tricks I won't go into detail about here. If you'll have me as a Seeker that is." feeling that was about all he could say for now, he stepped down from the table and bowed one last time to Peach, "Thanks for giving me a chance to speak."

The rendezvous with the other Seekers was chaotic from the get-go, as the 'Blue Team' sailed in on a giant slug-like creature with a ship affixed to it's shell. It was a fitting arrival for such a motley crew. The Octopath Travelers stood off to one side, letting comrades that hadn't seen each other in days reunite and catch up. Only once the leader, another princess, called for order and a meet-and-greet did they focus their attention.

Primrose couldn't recall if she'd seen some of the those other Seekers at the Alcamoth or not before she'd decided to join up with the contingent taking on the Sandswept Sky. But whether allies she was meeting for the first time or those that she'd been getting know over the last few days, she listened attentively.

Besides the princess herself, the first to go up was Big Band. Primrose hadn't known him for very long, but she could tell he had a good heart somewhere in that metal body of his. She'd seen his battle prowess first hand, and knew he would make as formidable a foe as he made a reliable friend. Or at least, that was her impression.

The dynamic duo of Tora and Poppi she had set out with from Smash City. Of everyone that had introduced themselves so far, she'd known them the longest - although it still had only been a few days. Primrose found herself fond of their antics, and knew them to be versatile and straight forward. Their silliness did not overshadow their serious commitment to the Seekers or each other.

She was not as 'purr-pared' for Ms. Fortune, but if she could handle Alfyn and Tressa's corny jokes then she was sure she could handle a few puns. Primrose wasn't sure what she'd meant by splitting herself up until Raz spoke up with all of his questions, and then the thought that Ms. Fortune literally split her body into pieces came to mind. If that was true, were those white marks on her body scars from splitting apart? If so that was a truly gruesome power, but one that Primrose was interested in. Before she got too deep into imagining herself with the same ability, rising like a phantom in the dark hall of a once-familiar manse, Raz started his in-depth introduction. He was very enthusiastic. If she was being honest, Primrose would say that most of the people gathered here needed some kind of mental check-up, herself included. However, she was not about to volunteer for it.

Roxas' introduction was interesting, as even though he did not speak much about himself he brought up some surprising connections. Organization XIII... Primrose didn't know much about them, only what Tora and Poppi had mentioned before, and that one of their members had tried assisting the Seekers during their trek to hunt down the Guardian of the desert region. So this boy used to be part of it? And he knows the Master of Masters? But he's still... Primrose took in the muted colors and red eyes that Roxas had, the sign of those still Gleaming. Then... was he from the same world as that organization? She would hear more from him, and perhaps see if he was also acquainted with that boy Sora they'd found in Al Mamoon, but it could wait.

As for Wonder Red, he seemed like the type that followed every rule down to the letter. No-nonsense types like that weren't necessarily something that Primrose disliked, but she had only met the man yesterday so time would tell if that was actually the case or not. His speech style was loud and stilted, and much of what he said seemed specific to his own world, but at the very least Primrose understood his want for secrecy. She had yet to reveal her identity has an Azelhart not just because the name would mean nothing to her compatriots from other worlds, but because if word did somehow spread to the wrong ears then it would tip off the people she was after. She was part of the campaign to defeat Galeem, yes, but if she had an opportunity to kill any of the Obsidians here in the World of Light, especially if it gave her the chance to kill them a second time, she would gladly do so.

Since she was thinking about herself now anyway, Primrose decided she wanted to be next. It was now her turn to take the metaphorical stage.

The introductions were fun, and weird, and she decided to make a little spectacle out of hers. As one of the tallest women in the group she sashayed toward the unofficial "introduction area," swinging her hips and letting her large blonde-brown ponytail bounce as she walked. Primrose had gone through a lot of changes recently, but for many Seekers it was their first time seeing her. Her skin was pale, and she sported a bodacious body that lent itself well to athletics, including her trade of dancing. Her midriff was fully exposed and her legs were only covered in deep red fish nets, showing off a toned muscles in both places. She was dressed in black, white, brown and flowing maroon - as well as gold and silver jewelry, and on the crown of her head a pair of deep black feathers accented her look. She was a head turner, that was for sure. Once she was in front of everyone she did a quick turn that flowed into a few flashy dance steps.

"I suppose it's my turn now," she purred. The beauty mark by her mouth drew attention to her audacious smile. "My name is Primrose. Before all of this, I plied my trade as a dancer."

A paper fan appeared in her hand, and she waved it playfully a few times. In lieu of any 'fun facts' she stuck to the basics, what she had to offer the group. In other words, her skill set.

"Magic is my specialty, and with the divine grace of Sealticge I can spread the effects of such magic, or another's. My dances are particularly invigorating..." She let the sentence linger, winking at no one in particular.

Though she enjoyed the limelight and had grow more talkative over the last couple of days, she did not want to go on for any longer than she really needed to and decided to wrap it up then.

"...but I do know my way around a dagger." When she finished her introduction on those words, it was with a smile far sharper than any blade. A dark expression crossed her features for only a moment, suggesting some deeper meaning to what she said, but the dancer was finished talking. She curtsied to signal she was done, and made room for the next participant.

For Therion, the look he'd caught on Primrose's face reminded him that she had a bloody motive to her journey, though it was one that none of his fellow Travelers knew all the details of. He met her eyes in a silent show of support, but regretted it immediately when she all but pulled him up to take her spot in front of the crowd of heroes. For those that hadn't met Therion, he was shorter than his dancer friend by a few inches, with tan skin and a mop of white hair that covered the left side of his face, all covered by large and well worn purple scarf and poncho. He stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then brought a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat.

"Therion's my name," he said. He almost wanted to leave it at that and move on, but he reminded himself that he did actually want to help free the world, and playing (mostly) nice was part of the deal.

"I'm..." he went to continue, but suddenly found himself unsure of what to even say. He had no real hobbies outside of perfecting his craft, but just saying 'hi, I steal shit' seemed a bit weird. He was saved by Primrose not a moment too soon.

"Our not-so-dashing rogue," Primrose supplied, a small teasing smile on her face as she glanced at Ms. Fortune.

"And Primrose forgot to mention that she was a comedian," Therion said, rolling his eyes at her comment. Still, the interruption helped him recover. He put on hand on his hip under his poncho, the manacle locked around his wrist clanking, while the other gestured lightly as he spoke. "Anyway. If you got a door that needs opening, lock that needs picking, or treasure that needs swiping, I'm your guy. Just... don't get in my way and I won't get in yours."

There, that was good enough. He slunk away back into the thick of the crowd. While the next person went up to introduce themselves, Therion thought on the others that had already gone. The Princess had caught his attention just by virtue of the word "princess," but she certainly didn't look the part and so he only continued paying attention to her because she was the de facto leader of the group he now found himself in. Big Band he was already acquainted with, and the detective (which he hadn't known was the man's profession until now) had been the one to snap the thief out of his brain washing. For that Therion was grateful, buuuut Band hadn't need to clock him that hard.

Tora and Poppi were odds ones, and he wasn't sure exactly what to think of them yet. Poppi had shown to be capable, and Tora was friendly, but strange, and young - maybe? It was hard to tell since he was a different species. Although they functioned as a pair, if forced to pick between the two Therion thought that Poppi would be the more tolerable of the two.

And then there was Raz, the kid who tried way too hard. He was endearing in an annoying sort of way. Therion imagined that being around was Raz was probably what having a younger brother was like, though he couldn't be sure - the thief was an only child, and had never known many kids around his age during childhood. Since Raz had revealed he had the ability to read people's thoughts that morning, Therion had pretty much closed himself off from the boy... but he didn't dislike him. Someone should probably teach the kid to swim. Besides that, Raz's curiosity was useful too.

Which brought him to Ms. Fortune, the 'other rogue.' With her flashy looks, giant ponytail and long fish tail, Therion had a hard time believing that she was the stealthy sort. Plus good at fighting and immortal? That was too much. Maybe she was more of an assassin type, though her personality didn't seem to match that hypothesis the scars on her body said otherwise. She was another strange one.

The other two, "Wonder Red" and Roxas, he had no thoughts on besides not knowing what the fuck they were talking about. That was one of the problems with throwing a bunch of people from multiple worlds together he supposed, they have stuff going on that sounds like complete gibberish to someone else. Honestly he didn't really care to learn either, unless it was something important that pertained to him. In the end it probably wouldn't matter anyway.

...come to think of it, this might take a while, he thought. Therion sighed and slouched slightly, tucking his hands into his pockets as he prepared for a circle of people speaking. If he tuned a lot of the fluff out and only focused on the interesting stuff then, well, none would be the wiser.

"Hey, long time no Ceadeus!" The Ace Cadet said to the members of the Yellow Team he had already gotten to know before they all split up, flashing them a wide smile. He was getting caught up in the chaotic greetings, eager to swap stories on how the battle across the desert had gone, but he reigned in it enough to listen to everyone's introductions.

Mechanical people were far from the weirdest thing the Cadet had seen so far in the World of Light. In fact, he thought it was pretty cool in general. This included Poppi of course, but it was especially so for Big Band, who deployed a bunch of different musical instruments all at once. It was like he was fused with a hunting horn or something, which by the way would definitely be one of the Cadet's top picks if he had to fuse with a weapon. Band seemed like a cool guy. When he made mention of the 'Skullgirl' though, the Cadet was reminded of that conversation at the inn in Limsa. Bowser and Nadia had explained what went on in the Dead Zone, including what ultimately ended up happening to Linkle. That dinner seemed so long ago now, but it tickled his memory enough. A glance over at Nadia confirmed that he was remembering it right, since it seemed like she was familiar with what he was talking about.

The hunter didn't spend much more time thinking about it, figuring that Nadia or one of the people that had actually been in the Dead Zone at that time would be better equipped at asking information from the guy. Besides, there were a lot more people to meet. Tora and Poppi went next, and it was nice to see the energetic pair again. They seemed just the same as he'd last saw them, which was a good thing. After that was Ms. Fortune herself, whom needed no introduction.

Wonder Red he had kind of-sort of heard of while back at the Alcamoth, along with the commander he mentioned and the group he was part of. The Cadet had wondered what was up with the mask, if it was just for aesthetic or what, but apparently it actually was for hiding his identity. That was kind of silly, given the circumstances. Wouldn't that hurt their chances of finding the 'displaced' members of their organization? The Cadet scratched his head, confused at the logic there.

Speaking of 'Organization,' Roxas mentioned one numbered thirteen that he'd been a part of. His black cloak certainly looked familiar, and by his own words he had been a member of that group that the Seekers constantly ran into. The one that they couldn't tell was friend or foe. From the fraud dice-headed guildmaster, to the suspicious woman who'd convinced them to try their luck on the Maw... ugh. Still, putting aside any feelings about the mysterious Organization, Roxas said he was joining up with the Seekers. Whatever his reasons were, the Cadet would take him at face value and welcome him to the group.

The next introduction was a complete change of pace. This stranger was a sultry woman who'd introduced herself as Primrose - and the brown hair swept into bangs in front of her pretty pale face, feather sticking out from her headpiece, and combined with the beauty mark by her lips reminded him so fiercely of a certain guildmarm that he'd been enamored with that it felt like someone had just punched him in the chest. He coughed into his hand, tried to play it off subtle and cool but didn't quite succeed. As if sensing the reaction, the dancer's eyes flicked over to him and she raised a brow in triumph. Not fair, the Cadet thought. He composed himself quickly after the initial surprise, and listened to the intro after the woman's. Not all that interesting, and between the two 'rogues' in the party he knew which one he preferred.

And with that the floor was open for whoever wanted to go next. Don't mind if I do, the Cadet thought, striding up to take the spot in front of the table.

"Okay, so! Hello everybody. I'm the Ace Cadet, and I am a professional monster hunter."

He certainly looked the part too. He wore a full suit of sleek plate armor, with sections where rough green scales were overlaid. At his waist a red skirt lined the faulds of his armor, and at that level from his back two metallic rigging extensions with mini guns and a sharpened red blade were worn. On one arm an unusually shaped firing mechanism was attached, and on his back was an angular backpack and a matched sword and shield with wicked looking spines on both. Under the armor, a white dress shirt poked out complete with tie, and above that a cheery face with messy red hair, save for the tuft of gold at the front.

"I won't bring up a bunch of specifics but basically I was... am? I am part-knight, part-explorer, part-weapons master, all badass." The Cadet grinned as he continued, amused at his own playfulness. "I'm pretty strong, tough, got good aim, usually carry a bunch of useful stuff with me. I guess you could say I'm an all-rounder type, but I specialize in hunting wyverns and other monsters like that. The bigger the better.

"Oh, but no magic here. I'm uh, pretty bad with magic actually. Like in general," he said, his tone growing just a bit sheepish. Might as well get it out there, it was important for teammates to know each others weaknesses. Maybe even more important than knowing their strengths. Plus if that junior psychic Raz could divulge something like that, then he could do it too. That kid was pretty cool, a government agent at his age, plus the ability to go into someone's mind? That was super weird, but also super neat. Oh, wait, he was supposed to be introducing himself.

"What else... well, I'm happy to get to know everyone. The kind of stuff you learn from people from other universes is Kut-kurazy. And if anyone's Quru-ous about me, just ask and I'll answer!"

That was pretty much it, right? Nothing else came to mind. The hunter made to vacate the spot for someone else, when a last minute thought crossed his mind and he turned on his heel to walk right back in front of the group.

"One more thing! Like I said I'm the Ace Cadet, it's kinda my title but everyone usually just calls me 'Ace', which works for me. So, feel free to call me that!"

Now that was everything. For now anyway, he wasn't about to explain the naming conventions of his home and how the people there put much greater stock in one's occupation than their family name. The Cadet signed off with a quick touch of his fingers to his temple in salute and made space. Man, this was a great idea. It was fun to talk about himself and see everyone else show off a little. After his own introduction there was a bit of hesitancy where no one immediately jumped in, so the Cadet spoke up one last time.

"So who wants to go next?"

After waving goodbye to Cortez and ignoring any cursing of their names he did despite their generous gift of a broken airship, the troop promptly piled into a corner of the tinker slug and collectively took a nap. Blazermate’s healing beam might be miraculous, but just as it couldn't solve extreme damage (incidentally Jr slept a touch worse than normal, his underdeveloped consciousness weakly kicking him for Annetta’s fate) it also didn’t resolve fatigue.

As a result when they awoke they were already in twilight town. After a bit of confusion about how long they had slept due to the permanently amber sky, the troop piled out onto the docks and added themselves to the disorganized mess of people there, trading a wave or two with the few people they knew from the other party who had been with them before they split apart, an event that felt like it had happened years ago.

Most of them however, were complete strangers. No other denizens of the mushroom kingdom or world’s they’d crossed over with could be found save except for:

”Hey, didn’t I throw you two off a stage a bunch of times last time there was a smash tournament on?” came a voice from down below Bowser’s level of sight, and when he did look down he found an imp of a woman looking up at him and his son thoughtfully.

Midna had gone through quite a lot of changes. Physically, she was a bit taller and more muscular, had a human shade of sun kissed skin where it wasn’t the shade of night, had gained an orange flygon tail, lost a finger on each hand and now wore her hair in a set of twintails. Garb wise, her fused shadow helmet was gilded, and she had actual clothes on, namely an orange and red waist wrap over her lower half, an orange jacket with a big collar flanked by two blue shoulder pauldrons and finally a pair of green slippers and striped kneesocks.

It was certainly a look, and it took the pair of royals quite a while to place her. Or rather, to be more exact, Minda had to pull out a shadow hand and ask ”Remember this?” at which point both intoned ”ohhhhh” together

”Yeah I remember now. Big hand, grabbing people and tossing em about” Bowser said as he walked through the memory, to which the princess replied ”I mean there’s more to me than that but sure, yeah, that was me yes”

”It wasn’t a buncha times, it was a few” Jr then wheeled back to her initial statement to correct it, which got a snort of a laugh from Minda, followed by her snidely commenting ”Yeah, sure, just a few”

Before the prince could start arguing with the princess however, there came an explosive wailing sound as Peach shot off her gun into the air to get people’s attention, which certainly worked. Bowser, who had been on the firing end of that thing and knew it hurt quite a bit, had to stop himself from instinctively trying to dodge out the way, which would not have gone well in the crowd that was for sure.

As for why she’d felt the need to spook everyone with her spook gun, well, apparently it was organized introductions time.

The princess herself naturally went first. The troop of course already knew all about her, so it was only an introduction for Minda who gleaned just a little bit of kindredness from the whole ‘taking up the fight thing’ as she hadn’t exactly been a fighter when she’d first been banished from her kingdom.

”So she’s the boss huh?” was what she actually commented however, because her inner analysis was just a bit too personal to share with strangers

”No, I am!” Bowser retorted, being roused from an admiring stupor by this insinuation. The princess gave him and his crew a look, and saw no decent from his sub group except for a wiggling hand from the robed turtle woman with the broom which signaled merely ‘kind of’ which she took and ran with.

”If you’re in charge why aren't you the one organizing this whole meet and greet then?” she needled him, to which the king retorted ”Uh, well, because she’s… she’s the one who does the people stuff. Yeah. and I do the bossing!” in a floundering fashion, and when Midna retorted that ”Sounds more like she’s the brains and your just the brawn to me” he swiftly pointed out that ”Oh hey look the next person’s gonna talk”

Midna rolled her eyes at that, but she shut up so that Band could play his piece without disruption. Well, mostly without it. Marie Korbel (the former skullgirl and now Bowser’s striker) inviting herself out for a moment to give the big guy a wave at the mention of her probably caused a little bit of disruption, as did Bowser saying that ”Yeah, uh, we might wanna talk about that later”.

Once he was done with the bit of backstory he showed off his musical ensemble, to which Rika commented ”Wow, that’s a lot of guns”

”Ah, no Rika, those are instruments” Kamek tried to correct her, but she didn’t quite get it right away ”Instruments of war?”

”I mean with how he uses them, they might as well be. Man hits like a runaway cart” Midna joked, though she found it a bit odd that this ‘Rika’ didn’t know what musical instruments were.

Next up was Tora and Poppie, and well, they all knew the cheery robotic warrior and her lovable fuzzball of a creator quite well after all. Well except Rika, who wondered if Tora’d be able to tune up her gear even more, still dwelling on her twin defeats but having enough distance from them that she was on the hunt for ways to not repeat those failures rather than being deliberated by them.

After that was the pun slinging Missfortune who had Minda groaning with her jokes. Still, she did have to ask the question that was on a lot of lips, which was: ”What did she mean about splitting apart”

”She can shoot off her limbs and stuff with blood. And even if she goes splat she can get put back together. It is super gross, and super cool. Gross-cool. Grool? Coss? ” Jr informed her, and then went through a couple more combos of the words till Razputin stepped up on stage, though not before bombarding Nadia with a longer form of Midna’s question.

The kid himself turned out to be a brain fixer upper, which was not what anyone in the troop had expected.

”Urgh, no thanks. I’ve had more than enough people knocking around my think pan” Bowser loudly turned down the offer, then felt a bit bad about it and added ”But, uh, thanks for the offer?”

Jr had no such (spirit acquired) empathy and so his thoughts on the matter where ”Doesn't sound like he’s very useful huh”

”Hey. Not true” Midna snapped at him, before defending one boy from the other ”he’s a tough kid. Came all the way up this goddesses awful mountain with us, and then fought this giant worm boss with us too. So trust me, he can handle himself just fine”

”Eh, whatever you say. Can’t be worse than Omori” Jr replied, getting an odd look from the princess that he ignored in favor of pointing a finger at Wonder Red as he took the stage and saying loudly ”Wait is that an actual for real superhero?!” which it turned out that yes, yes he basically was, complete with a mask hiding his sacred identity and everything, which Jr thought was ”So cool”

None of the others had any idea about what either Jr or Red were on about.

Now the next guy, well, he also said a lot of confusing things but among his introduction there was one point of interest, the Organization XIII

”Has, has no one told him that those hooded fellows are helping us?” Kamek asked quietly

”Oh. Uh. I guess not? Wait so that lady from the desert is part of a whole group of people helping us out?” Minda said, just now realizing that she maybe should have been more inquisitive about the mysterious and somewhat helpful stranger.

”Urgh,’helping’? One picked a fight, another kidnapped Linkle, and the third pointed us to the Maw of all places” Bowser said, all four of the Troop members shuddering at the memory of the place.

After that it was the two rogues, Primrose and Theon. The dancers' dance had no effect on the Koopas, being either too old, too young, or too singularly infatuated with Peach to be swayed by any kind of feminine charms, so it was all down to Rika to feel kinda funny and for Midna to simply admire it's form. The princess also unexpectedly learned something from her short introduction, which was about the magic spreading skill she had.

”Wait, she can do that? That never came up… goddesses, that plus dragon dance would be so strong” she thought, while Kamek had a similar thought about her size increases, if those could synergies that was. Magic could be a fickle thing indeed, so they’d only know if they got a chance to try.

As for Theon, well, a thief was a thief even if you wrapped a ribbon around it and Kamek got everyone to check their pockets just in case anything had gone missing, which fortunately for Theon it had not.

Finally Ace stepped up to the plate and talked some big game, and he certainly had the physics to back it up in Midna’s opinion. The other interesting thing, other than his odd pronunciations at some parts, was something Minda felt she should ask about: ”Bad with magic? How’s he mean?” she asked, correctly singling out Kamek as the one who might know based on her looks

”Let us just say that he did not, ah, appreciate my using helpful magics on him. Very, ah, hmmm, skittish about it due to some personal experiences I think” the mage replied, not going into more detail on her assumption that the Maw was to blame ”Just avoid using any on him and you’ll be fine”

”Huh. Noted,” she replied, not that it would be much of an issue for her unless she needed to warp him around.

At any rate, it was at this point Midna decided she’d had enough waiting around, and so when asked who was next she called out ”Me, I’ll go!” and then took to the skies, floating over the heads of the crowd and then staying airborne above the introductory spot so people outside the front row could actually see her

”I am Midna, princess of the twilight realm. No relation to this twilight town by the way,” much to her twin relief/disappointment ”but if you ever come across a mirror of twilight, or my home itself, please, let me know. It would be nice to know that my people were alright” she requested before adding ”But also you should probably avoid going there, unless you want to turn into a beast. My home’s atmosphere is not friendly to light worlders” as something of an afterthought

”Now as for what I can do, well, I can store stuff in a pocket realm, so if you need anything big hauled around I can do that” she said, while pulling out the sun on a stick out of it and briefly charging it a bit of electrical power ”and otherwise? Well, I can do all of this!”

The princess thrust the sun of a stick up at a 45 degree angle to shoot lighting into the sky, while her other hand raised and sent singing black sand blasting in the opposite direction. Behind her two colossal wolves appeared from portals and howled, while the toothily grinning princess raised her shadow hand high, making a peace sign tipped by glowing purple claws while her vibrava also appeared, which few loops around the glowing orange lib rapidly and then once at the top shot a blast of dragon fire into the sky.

Then it was over in a flash, beasts and weapons returned to her realm and the light show was over.

”So, if you need something utterly destroyed, I’m your princess. I’ve crushed my usurper and his false god, and even saved time itself, so trust me, you’ll be in good hands if you happen to be working with me. Or, hand,” the hypocritical princess joked alongside a last showing of her shadow hand before concluding ”and that’s a short run down of me. I know my show wasn’t as lovely as Prim’s but I hope it still left an impression” she shrugged while grinning a tad cheekily and then moved on.

”now then… how about one of you lot come up next?” she pointed at the troop with whom she had been on and off talking before she had presented herself.

While the majority of the troop where varying levels of impressed by the princess’ ‘show’: Kamek by the level of magic on display, the two youngsters just by the flashiness of the whole affair. Bowser was having none of that however, commenting ”Bah, too many special effects, not enough style. Let me show you how it's done!”

With that he grabbed the other three, and leapt up and over the crowd, forcing Midna to hasten her return to it before she got squashed by Bowser’s heavy landing.

”Alright listen up,” the king declared after setting his people down on their feet ”I am the baron of brilliance, the tyrant of terribleness, the lord of loudness: Bowser, the Koopa king! Leader of the Koopa troop. We’ve conquered time, we’ve conquered galaxies and I’ve been through this whole world colliding and collapsing thing like, at least twice already, and I’ve also stomped my way through a whole host of one shot chump villains who can't even step to the OG big bad boss. So what you're looking at here is experience, ya see, and that is why you should all listen to me and do as I say” the king declared, posing and flexing while he hyped himself up, before moving on to introducing his crew.

”This here is my darling boy Bowser Junior, and despite his age, he can already go toe to toe with the baddest of the bad and goodest of the good” the king picked up his clown car riding son and balanced his vehicle on a flexed bicep. The boy was, interestingly enough, one of the few people who had zero spirit modifications, despite also being one of the longest term members at this point. Not out of a lack of trying, his piloting based fighting style just benefited more from equipment than powers.

”Oh, uh, hey! Yeah I’m Bowser Junior. Or you can just call me Jr, most people do its simpler” the boy introduced himself, beginning a trend of the rest of not nearly living up to Bowser’s scenery chewing levels of self introduction.

”I’m also a mechanic like Tora: I built this thing, uh, mostly by myself. Upgraded it a ton too” jr smacked the side of his clown car before adding ”I’m also tough. And smart. And I… like video games?” floundering for a bit and then recovering and explaining ”oh and I can paint these magic portals that you can use to go to places I’ve been. Gonna make one back to the base so if you need stuff from there, we can go get it, plus it means we don’t have to go through all that water to get to and from there and these trains”

Finally, he did some sub introductions of his own by popping two pokeballs of a bandoleer crossing his chest and tossing them up to summon his two pokemon ”and these are Mimi and Dazzle, say hi” he told em, which got a ‘kyu kyu’ from the metal jawed Mimikyu and a ‘Pop pop’ from his penguin hybrid Popplio as they both gave the crowd a wave while balancing on either side of Jr’s clown car.

Bowser then took back over to point out Kamek ”Next up we got Kamek, my royal advisor, who’s old. And wise. And really magical”

”Did you have to start with ‘old’ sire?” the mage complained. In contrast to Jr, she’d gone through the most changes, first of which was that, well, she was a she now. She’d taken to it as smoothly as Dante had, which showed just how far the complete lack of dysphoria the fusion system caused could go.

As did the fact that she was mostly fine with the results of fusing with two humanoids, and one fish thing, which had left her as a short lizard girl with green amphibian flesh, white hair, cat ears and a tail that was across between a cat’s and a fish’s. This meant that she had quite the busy and eclectic appearance, but the mage felt that being younger as a result of this more than made up for any questionable fashion sense.

”Well anyway, yes hello, I am Kamek. I have an assortment of supportive magics at my disposal, from healing to empowering, and quite a host of magical minions too. I also consider myself quite knowledgeable, related to which, you,” she pointed her broom handle at Roxas ”and I should have a discussion about this Organization XIII so I can corroborate what the Master of Master told me about them and what we’ve experienced regarding their questionable assistance so far”

”Now then, what else? Well if we are doing interests as well I quite like puzzles and minigames, they used to call me the Game Master back in the day you know, as well as a good book from time to time, and a bit of tidying up too… hmm” she said, before trailing off while palming her chin and then snapping her fingers

”Ah, I almost forgot” she said, before pulling an odd device out of her pocket and showing it off ”This is the Snaktivator. It is a device that lets you localize the changes a fusion makes to specific body parts. His majesty is a good example of this” she gestured to the king, or more specifically, his back ”as you can see, all of Lord Bowser’s transformations have been, mostly, restricted to his shell, leaving the rest of his body more or less as it was. Combined this with Peach’s ability to remove spirits, and we’ll be able to give anyone who wants one a makeover before we spit up again”

”You done?” Bowser asked after that, to which the mage replied ”Ah, sorry sire, was I boring you?”

”Eh” he shrugged in response to the boring part, before explaining ”More that you were holding up the introduction of our news member: Rika, the one woman cannon barrage!” with the energy of an announcer chewing on the microphone.

”Hi, that’s me. Um, I’ve only been a person for about… three days? So I don't have any interesting back story or anything. I mean I was part of the abyssal fleet before Kamek freed me from Galeem and the fleet itself at the same time, and since then I’ve just kinda been learning the ropes. Seeing new things. Meeting new people. It’s been a bit scary at times, but also fun other times” Rika said about herself ”and so I’m looking forwards to getting to know more new people, and see more new things, oh and eat more new food too. Definitely looking forwards to this picnic thing”

”Oh and fighting wise, I’ve got these two big guns” she raised her gauntlets, ”and some smaller ones down there, and some choppy hull blades” she vaguely gestured down to those as well ”so I guess the thing about being a cannon barrage is right, especially after I warm up a bit and engage in in an all out assault, then the shells really get flying. Oh, but, don’t worry. I’ve never hit anyone friendly, not even once.”

”I’ve also got torpedoes and stuff, but I’m kinda running low on those… hey, Blazermate, could you have that hardhat guy build a dispenser at some point? I need to restock on, well, everything” she called over to the bot, before finishing up ”and so yeah, um, nice to meet you all!”

”and that’s a wrap. Koopa troop, let’s roll out and make way for whoever's next” the king commanded once Rika had said her part, and with that, the king stomped back into the crowd, followed by his loyal friends and/or family.

Midna didn’t really know what to think about that if she was being fair. Bowser’s well, everything, had been a bit much, and he sure had an ego, but how he acted as a hype man for his crew was actually kinda endearing in a corny way. His kid was kinda cute, and that teleportation paint sounded useful, ment she didn’t have to worry so much about setting up her own network.

Rika being only 3 days old, in a way, certainly explained a lot about the little she had observed about the girl, and it also had all sorts of interesting implications. The friend hearts could, it seemed, do more than just bring people to their senses and could, in some capacity, also grant people senses they hadn’t had in the first place.

Kamek was somewhat interesting. Healing was certainly something they had lacked that could have been useful in the desert, and overall she seemed like a decent woman and, maybe, the only sane head in the self-titled Troop. What really interested her however was that Snaktivator.

”Hey, nice intro” she said, brushing past Bowser in-order to talk to his advisor, the princess pulling out the fiery Harbinger Spirit of the twilight realm and holding it up while asking ”Do you think i could use that fusion controlling device with this? Guy was, let’s say, pretty unstable, so I was hoping maybe by keeping the changes away from my head I could avoid any mental impacts?”

”Ah, well, I can't quite guarantee that there won't be... Consequences,” she said ominously, before lightening up ”but, it could be worth a shot. Where are you thinking?”

”Oh. Hmm. Well he was really tough so maybe just the chest to protect all the organs? And the arms. For strength?”

”Skipping leg day huh?” Bowser joked

”Legs too would be too much, I think”

”Suit yourself” the king replied with a shrug

”Well then, let's see about this shall we. If you're ready?” Kamek prompted, not wanting to be at this for so long that they interrupted the next introduction ”Incidentally, you might, ironically, want to absorb it into your head, as that seems to give more passive enhancements rather than abilities, so if you want just toughness, that might be the way to go. We can always have peach remove it if it doesn’t work out”

”Sounds good, and yeah, now that you mentioned it, I think I've found the same. Alright let’s try it!” Midna said, before foreheading the spirit, and then Kamek got to work restricting its area of effect to just her torso and arms.

The teams finally rejoining and spending some time to socialize was long time coming. Blazermate saw some new faces that were picked up on Yellow Team, but she had seen most of the team as well. Susie was the newcomer, and for the most part waited politely for her turn to talk so she could gauge the personality of the others. That just left Sectonia, who had no issue speaking up after Cadet introduced himself. Upon meeting Peach, Sectonia made sure to recycle the plant monster spirit she had absorbed into a striker, as it wasn't doing much for her beauty, and overall it was a downgrade even in the power department it seemed like.

Speaking of Peach, when she was done with that request she gathered everyone together to try to get everyone to introduce themselves, seeing as everyone here was all of the strikers. Susie hadn't seen anyone on the other team before, although the large bee lady looked.. familiar. And sounded almost like her! That was a bit jarring, but nothing she couldn't handle. First was Band, followed by Tora and Poppi. only Susie didn't know these guys, although Blazermate didn't know much about band as well. Susie found it almost cute that Tora built poppi, considering his stature compared to hers. Blazermate meanwhile did notice that what Band had been saying didn't make Nadia react well, and a few of the things he said matched up to things she had said. It was a clear case of them being from the same world as the skullgirl was mentioned, something Blazermate remembered Bowser had turned into a striker as is his need to be a father to wayward children. That was going to be one spicy conversation Blazermate didn't want to miss.

Next was Raz and Red, people on Sectonia's team. Blazermate found it weird that Raz, if he touched water, died. That feels made up, like wouldn't he just die in the rain? Could he never bathe? That last bit really bugged Susie, but she had an idea she could always robotize the boy, that should fix his water weakness. Psionics were something both robot ladies didn't know too much about, although Susie knew way more about it than Blazermate. The other guy sounded like some kind of super sentai or something. Susie knew how to dealt with those types if it came to it. Blazermate knew more about them if anime was to be believed, but she wasn't much one to care for their shenanigans. They were too showy and not as hunky. Still she wondered if he had some kind of fancy gun or something. "Sorry Raz, I don't think you can fix robot brains. Appreciate the idea though." Blazermate said, being nice to Raz and his offer. While Sectonia knew the boy could do this, it was still a bit unnerving.

Roxas's introduction was new to Blazermate and Susie, but only Blazermate really understood what he was talking about. "Huh... I guess it makes sense that they came from a world somewhere. Although since you look like a pretty anime boy, I doubt the people I saw were from your world." Blazermate had seated herself close to Roxas, as she liked pretty boys like him. They reminded her of home in a way. "And uh, you don't need to be so formal, Loosen up a little... I mean I don't think your like that silver haired anime boy that ran off right?" Blazermate continued, looking over at Roxas like she had a bit of a crush on him, although due to her face, that was hard to tell.

Primrose and Ace were people everyone had met, so there wasn't much for anyone to think of them. Although Blazermate did have to get him hooked up with Nadia, so there was that. Something the other two girls weren't aware of. It was nice to get a clarification on what they all did though, since Blazermate and Sectonia could only guess.

The koops troop went next, but they really didn't put on much of a show. they mostly bragged about what they could do or how strong they were, with only Kamek having anything that really interested Sectonia since they last met. Sectonia was a bit interested in Bowser's mention of having gone through this a few times before. Either he was lying, or he was smarter than he let on. She doubted the latter though, so only time would tell. Rika was the last one of the group and Sectonia could see that she wasn't the smartest in the drawer, much like Bowser, but in her case it could be excused.

When it was Sectonia's turn she didn't disappoint. "As those who have journeyed with me know, I am Queen Sectonia, ruler of Floralia." Sectonia started, having only her natural presence being shown, but when she reached the next part of her speech, she fully opened up her wings to make herself look bigger and get even more attention, if that was possible. "I am a powerful sorcerer and spellsword and now thanks to journeying in this hodgepodge of a world, now command space and time alongside my magnificent beauty!" Having said that line, she then went back to a more rested pose. "Those who serve me as my minions are justly rewarded. What Queen would be without her subjects?"

That last line might've actually caught even those who have traveled with her a bit off guard, as it had been one of the nicer things she had said, although since it was more of a subtle thing, it was very much possible not many would see it like that. She then demonstrated her powerful magic, requesting someone to join her in the demonstration. Seeing as Blazermate needed to also show what she did, she figured it should be ok? She knew Sectonia's magic didn't seem to hurt the other seekers when she used it. Blazermate herself would need to build up her medaforce to show what she could do anyway, so she figured she could go while Sectonia did.

Sectonia demonstrated by first showing her mastery over Time. To do so she requested Blazermate just fly around. Blazermate did this, but also used the opportunity to overheal people to get medaforce, Sectonia and Bowser being wonderful wells of medaforce due to their significant constitutions. Sectonia demonstrated that she could both speed up and slow down the flow of time for either individuals, or in an area, with Blazermate going both faster and slower when she did so. Sectonia then conjured a glowing dark rainbow shield around Blazermate, telling all who were watching. "From the powers of this 'Chaos Heart', a powerful shield that makes whoever is shielded highly resistant to all damage."

With her buff abilities shown, Sectonia requested Blazermate sit back down, with Blazermate flying on top of and resting on Bowser's shell as she healed him to generate paltry amounts of medaforce. Sectonia then said to look at the sky as she summoned a giant crystal, then finishing up with a grand finale of shattering the space and the crystal; a fair bit above the picnic table. A sound akin to shattering glass, although more ethereal, could be heard far and wide when she did this, causing the detonated area to shatter like said glass and become a white void that slowly regained color as the world repaired itself.

"And being a proper Queen, I can control who is affected by all of my spells. Even the destruction of space won't hurt my minions." Funny enough, Sectonia didn't show she could summon her antillions, her rings of light, lightning, nor her swordplay, although she figured she had shown her destructive power fairly well and it was always best to not show one's entire hand.

Considering both Peach and Bowser and mentioned they were the leaders, Sectonia threw her crown into that ring as well. "A Queen lets others do things for her. Her royalty is here for all to see and is without question." Although it was annoying there were so many royals in this group truth be told. Each one did have a different rank of royalty, so there was at least no contention there, but it was still quite annoying having to 'share' the limelight with a turtle and an admittedly useful punk princess. Sectonia also did somewhat regret having turned that plant thing into a striker now, as knowing this 'snackivator' thing could be extremely useful. Sectonia would have to keep in close contact with Kamek seeing what this thing did, as it drastically increased Sectonia's abilitiy to take in other spirits. A bit of petals to replace the yellow trim on her lower half would look lovely, but that opportunity had passed and that fire vulnerability was far too severe for such paltry power in return as it was.

Blazermate had been spending her time building up Medaforce, as her powers were both supportive and harmless in nature. Flying to hover above everyone, getting off of Bowser's shell, Blazermate said "Hiya everyone, I'm Blazermate and I'm your main healer. Make sure things don't get to me. I can defend myself ok, but I'm made more for healing than punching or shooting things. Of course those that I was healing could probably feel that healing energy that made you better than you were, for a short time anyway." She then pointed at Roxas, the anime boy who was her current anime boy crush, and said. "It takes me a bit, but if I heal enough, I can do this." and with her healing beam on Roxas, turned the boy a metallic blue as he became invincible for a good 12 seconds, Blazermate also having the same sheen. "IE turn you invincible. Its really useful. I can also instead turn that invincibility into extra damage. Damage that I've had Bowser here use and oh man, that skullgirl didn't know what hit her when that critical fireball came barreling towards her!"

Blazermate then explained a few of her other support abilities, IE the ability to heal most status effects, her engineer buddy who could make fun buildings which she summoned at Rika's request, making a dispenser for everyone. She showed her new drones that deployed whenever she started to fly, marking weakpoints on enemies, and her projectile shield that she said "Does some insane damage if an enemy decides to try to push through it. I managed to kill an enemy medic using this and they couldn't outpace the damage even with all their healing on them!" The last thing she mentioned was her ability to turn things into zombies and command them, but she gave that as little fanfare as possible since that was more offensive and less supportive. Out of everyone who had demonstrated stuff, she seemed to have a slew of abilities. When asked, she said. "Well, I was one of the first seekers, so..."

Seeing those around her, Susie felt a little inadequat in the lack of things she could do in comparison, but it would be tough to match such varied skills. Still, one common thing was shown with everyone. Bar Blazermate, no one here was even remotely used to technology or science. Most seemed to use raw strength or magic to accomplish everything. Getting up from her seat Susie introduced herself. "I am Susie Haltmann, CEO of Haltmann Works Company. A company that specializes in robotics, technology, science, harvesting planetary resources, robiticizing, and making wishes come true." She then moved to an open area to pull out a remote and summon her Business suit, the drill shaped mech being a first for many to see. "This is my business suit. A powerful mech suit that lets me tangle with the biggest of threats. Susie then hopped out of her business suit which disappeared in a small burst of light. "Although I'd prefer it if one of you could handle those for me.~" Susie said, finishing off with a cutsy tone and winking at Bowser.

Susie then went over a lot of business jargon that went over most of the seeker's heads. What they could all gather though was she was good with money, so money wouldn't be as big of an issue as it had been. Sure Peach had been funding some of the seekers, but others had to get by with almost no money or mercenary work. This was quite gladdening for Sectonia to hear, as she was growing a bit tired of having to be a mercenary queen.

Karin arrived dramatically in port, boldly convincing everyone of the Tinkerslug’s harmlessness, and the friendliness of the Seekers. After settling where the Tinkerslug would be kept in the meantime, the two Street Fighters reunited in the docks. Sakura’s spirits had, naturally, rebounded somewhat since nearly being killed by Risky and that whole business on the ship. At the very least she was able to move past all of it to focus on the event at hand.

”This is pretty exciting…I met up with the Seekers right before we picked our first missions. I really feel like I’m one of them, now! Not like before. The team is assembling once again!” Sakura said, clenching her fists and shaking them up and down, a skip in her step.

”I see. I assume you and I will be going on the same mission, then?” Karin asked.

”Yeah, duh! I went through all that work trying to get you back to normal. I’m not gonna give you up after just one battle.”

”...We must have that rematch.” Karin muttered under her breath. She glanced around at all the colorful characters being gathered. ”Is this everyone?” Karin asked, she prepared to clap her hands together to signify everyone should be quiet.

Peach fired off her gun, though, and began talking in a very leaderly way. Karin transitioned into wrapping a blonde ringlet around her finger. ”I’ll go after this one.” She said, pointing to Big Band as he spoke.

”Eh? So soon? No way.” Sakura said. She found herself hesitant to step up onto the little picnic table.

Karin glanced at Sakura but refocused on Big Band. He was big, and he had a band. A one man show, as it were. He seemed like a strong force to be reckoned with. A literal tank. Personality wise, he was on the level, with a distinct noir charm about him.

”Sugoi..!” Sakura said, trying to make a game of his heavy footfalls, trying to maintain her balance on her tippy toes while he walked. Sakura clapped after he finished his speech, but stopped after nobody else did.

Sakura agreed- Tora was cute. She’d seen the two of them briefly before Blue and Yellow teams were created. Nevertheless, if he invented a robot like Poppi all on his own, he was super smart.

When Poppi came up after him, Karin couldn’t help but be grated by the way they spoke. ‘Poppi is Poppi’? What kind of inane sentence is that? Must they constantly speak in the third person? Let alone this ‘meh, meh,’ business.

”Hey, they say their own names all the time. Kinda like you, Karin!” Sakura noted, cheerfully nudging Karin’s shoulder.

”I do not! Not as much as that. Only so my enemies know who they’re dealing with.” Karin said defensively. It was like Sakura could read her thoughts, and it was extremely annoying.

Next up was Miss Fortune, or Nadia, who Sakura liked a lot. She clapped this time even if nobody else did. Karin watched coolly, not sure what to make of Nadia’s moral fiber from the short time they had known each other. And the puns were not nearly as endearing as she thought they were. Or, apparently they were, which didn’t bode well for the intelligence of the rest of the Seekers.

As Raz went on stage, Sakura’s jaw dropped. The kid’s list of abilities were as fantastical as they were outlandish. ”You can enter people’s minds?!” Sakura said. ”That’s so awesome!”

Karin thought that if nothing else, Raz was earnest. Extreme enthusiasm had long stopped getting on her nerves. For goodness sake, her best friend had somehow ended up being Sakura Kasugano, the most sickeningly sweet person on the planet.

When Red stepped up on stage, Sakura grinned excitedly. ”He’s a real life American comic book hero!” She said. ”With a secret identity and everything.”

”I suppose it isn’t an unreasonable precaution. Still, I can’t imagine a scenario in this world where knowing one’s true name would give them away. Especially as a Seeker, a group who essentially declared war on god. We’ve hardly been subtle thus far.” Karin said.

”Ah, bah humboog.” Sakura dismissed Karin’s reasoning with a wave of her hand.

”...humbug.” Karin corrected after a second of attempted restraint.

”Shh, this guy looks important. He looks like those mystery dudes.” Sakura said, patting the air in front of Karin’s mouth and staring intently at Roxas. Her hunch was right- this guy was involved. Infact, he used to be a member. Karin had only heard what Sakura had told her, so this was an interesting development.

”Welcome!” She called out to Roxas as he stepped off stage. He was still all Galeem’d up, which meant he was in need of a friendly beating later on. If he was ever going to find his friends, he’d need the truth of the world revealed ASAP.

Next up was Primrose, who stole the show. ”Wow, dance fighting!” Sakura said, cupping the sides of her face. ”I wonder if she could teach me any of her moves?”

”...I’m not really sure her moves would be your style, Sakura-chan.” Karin said.

Next up was Therion who seemed…pretty straight forward! His speech was precisely the reason Sakura wasn’t exactly eager to get on top of the picnic table herself. Karin was waiting for Sakura to say it was their turn, but at some point they would go up. Normally, Karin would just go up by herself, but she imagined that for the time being the two Street Fighter girls came as a package, as it were.

Sakura clapped as Ace went up, and clapped as he got done. He really was super cool. His weapons were the size of small cars, and he fought giant monsters for a living. And his name was ‘Ace Cadet’. Might as well be ‘Captain Coolguy.’ Or ‘Badass Youngman.’ Plus, he saved her life, so that gives him extra points if somebody out there was keeping score. Karin also liked Ace Cadet, having fought alongside him briefly. Overall he seemed like a brave, on the level type of fellow who could be relied upon in battle. And, he knew his own weaknesses, which was important, and a humble thing to announce in front of everyone.

Midna, the Twilight Princess (Sakura’s facial expressions went on a journey in the sentence where Midna said that part and dismissed the connection immediately) was up next. And she was, yes, a powerful sorceress who had been on many adventures. Her magic show earned vigorous applause from Sakura and polite applause from Karin. ”Man…I wish I could shoot lightning and wolves.” Sakura said wistfully, which earned a withering look from Karin.

”What, fire not good enough for you?” Karin said. So many projectiles had been slung Karin’s way in her life she was loath to imagine the possibility of more. Especially from her rival.

Next up was the koopa troop, who Sakura had become quite accustomed to. Mister King Bowser, Kamek, Junior, and Rika were staples of Blue Team.

Karin was hardly impressed by Bowser’s boasting. To be perfectly honest, he seemed to be the least competent out of all three of them. Excluding Rika, through no fault of her own. He was a big brute who fancied himself a tyrant and was too blind to see how little everyone took him and his little supervillain act seriously. Who wanted to be evil? It was a shockingly immature mindset.

Sakura was still rooting for Rika, and was happy to see her blending in so seamlessly with the eccentric koopa troop. It made her miss Bella, though, though she was glad that Abyssal had chosen a happy retirement

Next up was Sectonia, who’s presence made Sakura’s chin recede into her neck as she leaned away from the Insect Queen.

”There’s two of them.” Karin said, pinching her nose. Bowser and Sectonia. The King and Queen of villainy. ”I can only imagine they’ll pick different missions to maintain their separate delusions. If not then we’ll be in for quite the show.”

”She’s kinda scary.”

Next up was Blazermate, the friendly healing, slightly creepy robot. She was undoubtedly useful in combat, though personality wise Sakura had no idea what to make of her. She figured she had to be a good guy if she was with the Seekers, but she’d barely conversed with the robot and found her zombifying and cavalier nature somewhat off-putting.

Susie came next, and Sakura tried not to squee. ”Ah…kawaii!” She said under her breath. ”A business bot!”

”She’s a girl CEO! Like you, Karin!”

”Quite.” Karin said. ”It’s…not exactly the same thing, but yes, she is.” How many oafish, complacent old men had she crushed in her time…a number not worth remembering.

---

There was a brief pause after Susie’s turn. ”All right, enough. Sakura, I’m going. And then you’re going after me.” Karin said. Sakura was flustered.

”W-wait, can’t I go first so I don’t have to follow you up?” Sakura pleaded, but Karin just ‘Oh ho ho’d’ and flipped up onto the picnic table.

A gust of wind seemed to pick up her golden ringlets as she set a hand on her chest. ”Seekers! Before you stands Karin Kanzuki. I am a grand master of the martial art my family invented and passed down for centuries, known as Kanzuki-ryu Kakutojutsu.”

”I have managed a global business conglomerate since I was fifteen years old. And since I was a child I have overseen the training and deployment of the Kanzuki Family Ninja Army. Though, as any great leader, I lead from the front and by example. I have dedicated the better part of my life to the perfection of my body, my mind, and my skill. My fists and feet are my weapons, and they are deadly ones at that. My qualifications and accolades are too many to be named here in this brief introduction. I hope you shall all prove yourselves worthy of fighting at my side.” She swished her hair back and forth.

”Our task is a great and noble one, dedicated to freedom. In trouncing Galeem and his forces we will prove the strength of the mortal spirit supersedes time, space, and the barrier between worlds.” She clenched her fist in the air and grinned righteously.

”Now I should like to introduce you to my dear friend and rival, Sakura Kasugano.” She applauded and hopped off her podium picnic table.

Sheepishly, Sakura climbed on top of it and looked at all of them. Wow, they were all looking at her. It was her six year spelling bee all over again. She was eager and reticent in equal parts, causing her to fidget for a few moments.

”Pleased to meet you.” Sakura said, moving her hands to her sides and bowing.

”L-like my friend said, my name is Sakura. This is my first time saving the world, and um…I know two languages and ate 40 pounds of hot dogs in a contest once!” She said, nodding. Bowing again, she prepared to step off the picnic table, only stopped by Karin frantically and angrily gesturing from the sidelines.

”O-oh! Right. I’m good at fighting. Punching and kicking and all that stuff!” She did a little hop and punched her fists together. ”You guys are great. We can totally win.” She smiled. ”Okay, that’s me in a nutshell, I’m getting down now, buh-bye.” She quickly descended from the table and hurried to Karin’s side.

There, she flattened her skirt with her palms and exhaled, glancing around. ”How’d I do?”

”You are… Karin began harshly, but her expression softened. ”...an idiot.” She finished. Maybe she didn’t soften that much. As the next person went up, Karin failed to not stew in her thoughts.

”You could have at least mentioned you were a prodigy. If nothing else it would make me look better, being your rival and all.”

”...wanna fight about it?” Sakura asked, grinning.

”I would love too.” Karin said. ”Later. And I’m going to get you out of that school uniform so people start taking you seriously, for goodness sake.”

With their pieces said, the Seekers set out, leaving behind the denizens of Port O' Panic as they made their way to Twilight Town about the Tinkerslug. He wondered what his friends would say if they saw him now, risking his life to spare others, advocating for nonviolent solutions. He imagined Djikstra would laugh and ask where the hell his nonviolent solution was when he put him to the blade, but Geralt would ask the same in return.

Still, they'd gotten out of that without slaughtering the people to the last, which...was a victory of sorts. The others seemed rather upset with the boy, Omori, but Geralt caught sight of Pit talking with him, and figured if they really needed to talk, it could be later. Part of him wondered how he felt himself, if that was the first life he'd taken. Pity it was somebody so seemingly well-liked. If the Spirits they had (which Geralt set about crushing the leftovers of when nobody claimed them) were anything to go by, they'd done plenty of killing today. Nadia and Peach had killed their own quarries as well. Was Junior right and Omori had killed when it wasn't strictly necessary? Had the boy overestimated his own ability to end the fight? The Witcher didn't, and likely would never, know. But he didn't care either. He wouldn't ostracize the boy for what happened, and when he passed him and Pit, talking, he gave them both a nod.

Soon enough, they arrived, and the Seekers piled out to greet their allies. It had been a while since they'd seen their allies, it felt. Especially for Blue Team, or at least those members who had endured the suffering of the Maw. They'd even lost some of those they set out with. Glenn, the Frog Prince, taken by the demonic denizens of the Maw. Mirage, who was still likely in Limsa. Though, he hadn't sought them out either. Perhaps he was content to keep things this way after seeing what their quest would be putting them up against. It was likely for the best. At least Link was merely staying behind for now. When they finally found Linkle, he didn't know how he could have broken that to her if he was really gone.

They didn't get long to talk among themselves, though, as Peach had a better idea: forcing them to take a moment to introduce themselves, one by one. Which, given the size of their group and the new faces (or the changed faces) he saw, was fair enough. He wondered how many would recognize him, or simply assume who he was based on his hair color and the fact that he still had his two swords. The Spirits he'd taken in had changed his appearance noticeably, after all.

First up was, of course, the Princess herself. He cocked an eyebrow when she mentioned her favorite sports, though he wondered how exactly 'gold' was a sport. Unless that was a joke. Royals...ugh.

After her came a large fellow who called himself Big Band. It sounded almost like a title, though he specifically called it his name. A lawman like the Houndmaster, forced from his duty and by circumstance and now fighting against the Skullgirl. He'd have to ask what he knew, given that they were trying to save Linkle from that very curse. And then he displayed exactly why he was called what he was, by causing a band's worth of instruments appear from his body and play. Huh. That...was very strange.

Tora and Poppi came after, each introducing themselves in their own way that felt nostalgically familiar to the old Witcher. Tora's constant excitement for the world, and his penchant for attractive women (which Geralt could hardly begrudge the little golem), and Poppi's serious demeanor. It was refreshing to see the two. He'd have to apologize to Tora for losing that weapon he made for him. It really did quite a good job for the time he had it.

Nadia followed, introducing herself to the others in her painfully punny way. Geralt rolled his eyes at the linguistic onslaught, but that was just who she was. Ace would have his hands full with her, that was for sure.

They were followed by two folks that Geralt didn't recognize: The first a kid who claimed himself to be a psychic warrior. It definitely seemed like a different sort than the telepathy he was used to from Yen, though, given that he required a physical device to use his powers. He wondered how useful that was in an actual fight, though he didn't say it. At least the kid supposedly had extensive training in acrobatics to keep himself safe.

The next was a brightly costumed man who named himself part of a world's defense force, though if they really were only one hundred in number, Geralt wasn't sure how they could handle an entire world. Presumably some sort of advanced technology or magic. Portals. Has to be portals, Geralt incorrectly assumed, his disdain for the magic coloring his thoughts. The man came off as perhaps overly earnest but dedicated.

Then came the ex-member of Organization XIII. Geralt felt his hands ball into fists, his claws digging lightly into his gauntlets, at the mention of those black-robed interlopers. From the dice-headed whoreson who'd tried to kill them to the fool who bid them enter the Maw, Geralt had a bone to pick with those folks. Kamek could claim they were trying to help all she liked, but Geralt wasn't sure he believed they didn't have their own shady goals. They'd likely have to be dealt with at some point. The boy himself, though, seemed a capable combatant. He knew looks weren't all that mattered, but he was curious as to how some of the others he'd seen so far would fare in a fight. With two magical 'blades' and actual magic, though, Roxas seemed like he'd fit right in.

Following him up was a dancer Geralt would admit to admiring perhaps a few moments longer than he should have (but never to Yen). Her outfit left some to the imagination, but much less than many others, and Geralt wondered if the agility offered by such light clothing was even remotely worth it. Unlikely, but it made for a pleasant sight. She stated that she would be able to enhance the magic of others, and invigorate them with her dancing, which Geralt assumed was merely an innuendo for a genuine magical talent. However, it was her final statement that caught Geralt's attention the most: the dark expression that crossed her face told Geralt of something deeper. What it was he had no idea, but few learned how to wield a dagger for fun.

Her companion who followed after her, however, was very succinct with his introduction. He was a thief of some talent, and able to get them where they shouldn't be without causing a disturbance like knocking a door open with Aard would. That could be useful, for sure.

Ace followed in their footsteps, his own monster puns earning a small sigh from the Witcher. He took it back, those two linguistic terrorists were perfect for each other.

He was followed by a floating creature, the nature of which gave Geralt pause. She was likely fused with Spirits, given the disparate nature of her attire, he body structure, and her magic, but what came from where he had no way of telling. She seemed almost vaguely familiar, but was likely a face he saw once at Alcamoth and never again at most. She introduced herself as the princess of Twilight, and Geralt sighed at yet another self-proclaimed royal being member of the Seekers, but based on the power she displayed, she was either telling the truth and had quite the bloodline, or she was a trickster trying to take a position of power. Either way, he saw no reason to challenge her or make an enemy. She at least wasn't as arrogant as Bowser.

Speaking of the big guy, he grabbed his little Troop and leaped to where they'd been introducing themselves, but not after critiquing Midna's style and saying he could do better. More bombastic, for sure. But better? Eh, Geralt wasn't sure he'd go that far. Vague claims with little to show he could back that up. Junior at least showed off his flying vehicle, indicating his engineering talent, as well as his Pokemon, who were decently powerful in their own right. Kamek, as always, was the most grounded of the three, dutifully listing her abilities and what she contributed to the Seekers. Rika closed the group's introduction, showing off her Shipgirl guns and explaining her more unique circumstances. Decent enough, all things considered.

Then came the robots. And the giant...bee...thing? He had no idea how to describe Sectonia, yet another royal. He rolled his eyes when she said she had command over time and space, though he watched with dread growing in his stomach as she displayed at least some level of control over those very things with magic. It at the very least seemed limited enough that she was less a master of time and space and more a talented sorceress who could manipulate the flow of time in an area, though what she did to the air above them...Geralt couldn't quite understand. But he knew it would be unpleasant to experience. Hmm. That...was disturbing.

Blazermate came next, and she demonstrated the invulnerability-granting energy that she collected from healing others with that weird weapon she had, among her other abilities including the zombie-creating. Though, he imagined others were as disturbed by that was he was. He'd mostly gotten used to it, but when he stopped to think about it...he tried not to think for very long.

Susie then introduced herself as the...owner...?...of a company that produced robotics and other advanced technology, none of which Geralt understood beyond something about harvesting. At least she had that giant suit to fight in. As much as money would benefit the Seekers, it wouldn't help them if she got killed because she couldn't defend herself.

Karin and Sakura followed after the cutesy robot, the former haughtily listing achievements as though this were some sort of interview for an apprenticeship, and the latter bumbling through an awkward introduction in her endearing and socially inept way.

When Sakura finished and the two Street Fighters cleared the table, Geralt raised his arm and quickly strode to the fore, his enhanced height making him readily apparent for all as he stepped onto the makeshift stage. He was different from how he looked when the teams went their separate ways. He was just over seven and a half feet tall now, his hair roughly unchanged in style but shaggier overall. Most noticeable, though, was the black conical horn protruding from his forehead. He seemed more gaunt than he had been, as though he spent a long period of time without food and hadn't been able to eat much since. His armor had transformed as well, now a suit of black plate instead of the leather-and-chain it had been earlier. His gambeson was longer, protruding further down, and was now colored in red and white striped. Finally, his arms were a bit longer, almost unnaturally so, and his nails had been replaced by claws which extended past and out his gauntlets, which had transformed to accommodate the natural weapons. All in all, he looked much more like the monsters he hunted than he had previously, even with his catlike eyes and scarred visage.

“I am Geralt of Rivia. Just call me Geralt, though. I am a Witcher, a monster hunter like Ace, though we hail from different worlds. I lack the raw physicality of hunters like him, but I make up for it with a near-century of experience. As for my…unpleasant appearance, that’s the work of some Spirits I absorbed, including that of one of Galeem’s Guardians, the Orphan of Kos. I am an expert tracker, I have knowledge of how to fight and slay a wide variety of beasts and monsters, though unfortunately I haven’t always been able to make use of that knowledge in this strange new world we’re in. I can also utilize a number of simple magical spells known as Signs.” Saying this, Geralt made the Sign of Igni with his hand outstretched and aimed upwards, a blast of fire exploding from the magical sigil.

“I’m a master in combat with swords, crossbows, and bows, though I can wield near about any weapon of war, given that it’s made for people who aren’t superhuman warriors like Ace,” he joked. “What you might find most interesting and strategically important, however, is this.” Geralt stepped down from the table, walked to the edge of the pier, and summoned the Breaching Bastion practically next to him. “The Breaching Bastion. A massive, waterbound cannon platform. With it, I can rival small armies, so long as we are adequately protected from vanguard units. It doesn’t repair itself, either, which means that I have to be very careful about where and when I use it.” Dismissing the Bastion, Geralt nodded. “If you’ve ever met Yennefer of Vengerburg in Alcamoth, she is my wife, hard as it may be to believe. That’s about it.”

Finished, Geralt made his way back into the crowd for the next person to speak.

When the crowd of people quieted down and the introductions began, Pit paid very close attention to each and every one. In the past, he would rely on the Goddess he served to give him information about the foes he faced, or the allies he fought with. She held vast knowledge not only their own universe, but those beyond. She even mentioned once she had access to an "arch-villain database," so her information was not limited to high profile heroes. Now though, he was flying solo. Well not exactly flying, but the point stands! So in lieu of Palutena's guidance, he concentrated on what the Seekers chose to say about themselves. This way while they were in the field, he could better fight alongside them.

One of the first to speak was 'Big Band,' an total stranger and definitely a heavyweight. The man just exuded cool - after all there was almost no way to make a cyborg detective sound lame. He didn't go into the 'twist of fortune,' but Pit hoped it was something awesome and not, well, awful. He also hoped that the two of them would get along, even if Pit wasn't yet mature enough to develop a taste for free-form jazz.

Following him was a duo, and something about them struck Pit as familiar. His brows scrunched together in thought as Tora went on, and then the light-bulb went off over his head. Oh, he's like Shulk's friend! Uh, what was his name again? Ricky? Something like that! Pit was patting himself on the back that he managed to recall another Nopon, and because of that he already felt closer to Tora. Plus, his skills as an inventor were amazing if he was able to build a robot as advanced as Poppi. Speaking of which, Poppi said something that caught Pit's ear in a big way.

"You can transform?" the angel asked with sparkles in his eyes. He couldn't wait to see what her other modes looked like. He pictured her offensive mode as some kind of robo-ninja with blade extensions all over, and her evasive mode with wheels and jet thrusters. "That's so cool!"

Next up was Ms. Fortune, who he'd met earlier that morning at Smash City Alcamoth. He knew that her claims about splitting up and staying alive were nothing but truthful. He also saw her shoot a laser from her eye, so she was also on his "cool list" (which to be fair was not a great achievement, since most people Pit had met were on it). She also made plain her love of puns. "...Oh! I get it now. 'Peach-Pit.'" He said, seemingly out of the blue. That was a terrible joke! The angel grinned all the same though, as it was something he could picture Lady Palutena saying during one of her pieces of advice.

The next to go was a boy named Raz, who followed up his multitude of questions with a ton of information about himself and his organization. All of which Pit boiled down to one thing: he was psychic. Pit crossed his arms and nodded as if he perfectly understood everything Raz was saying. Psychics were strong, he knew from experience. Plus the way they floated around and used their PK moves made them hard to catch, which seemed to apply to Raz as well. The Psycho-Portal was new though. "I always wondered what it looked like inside my own head!"

Pit was not as starstruck as Junior when it came time for Wonder Red to introduce himself, but only because he has technically already met the hero before. It had been when the Virgin Victory first made contact. The meeting following their return to Alcamoth wasn't the most pleasant, but it didn't put any damper on Pit's feelings on the man. He was a bonafide superhero with a whole super team, so he was pretty cool in Pit's book. It was pretty amazing that their group had both robots and superheroes.

Something about the next to go up seemed familiar to Pit as well, as it had with Tora earlier. It wasn't just that Roxas shared his spiky blonde hair and dark outfit with another Smasher, there was something else he couldn't put his finger on. Maybe he'd been on the list of invitees for the latest tournament before Galeem ruined everything? Or maybe he just had one of those faces? Well whatever! he thought, dismissing the feeling, Looks like he's got his own reasons to join. Maybe once he gets de-Galeemified I can ask if he ever got one of those invitation letters.

Primrose's charm had not real effect on the angel, besides that his face turned slightly red at the display. She seems like one of those... uh, what are they called... femme fatals? Basically, a seductress. Without some serious magic Pit was confident nothing like that would work on him, but Primrose was an ally anyway. She claimed to be a mage, but she looked physically strong too. In contrast the man that went after her (who wasn't much taller than Pit himself) did not look too strong nor magically inclined. Instead, he was a rogue archetype. It was hard to tell if they were a duo or not, but with their skill sets they probably worked well together either way.

Moving on, the next was the Ace Cadet. It was a pretty neat title, but didn't it actually mean he was kind of low on the totem pole? Being a 'Cadet' and all. Pit grinned to himself and puffed up his chest proudly, since he technically outranked such a strong looking guy.

It took a little while into Midna's introduction for Pit to recognize her. She'd definitely been to a few tourneys, participating as an assist fighter. She looked pretty different now, the result of a lot of spirit fusions no doubt. It seemed like she had a bunch of abilities to show off besides that big hand she always flung people with. Once she was finished, Pit gave her a little wave of acknowledgement.

Following her up was the Koopa Troop, whom along with Princess Peach the angel knew well. Ever since that battle against the Subspace Army and Tabuu, he'd been fighting against and alongside them since. He recalled a time that he'd been pretty nervous around Bowser before he realized the king was more kind-hearted then he let on. And more goofy too. The members of the mushroom kingdom denizens he knew the least about were Kamek and... Rika? For one, Pit had thought Kamek was male. Maybe she originally was? For second, Rika didn't fit the troop's aesthetic at all. He had met her earlier too, and was surprised to know she was part of the Troop. She went on to mention she had been part of the Abyssal fleet, which made sense. Seeing former enemies freed and fighting together with them was really encouraging.

Sectonia, one of the weirder looking people among the group, made a lot of claims and showed off a lot of abilities. She was big, alien, and on top of being strong - Space AND time? Isn't that pretty over powered?! - she had the attitude of one of those kinds of royals. More like a Dedede than a Daisy, then. The implication she made that she considered the other Seekers as her minions went right over Pit's head, and since he didn't see any of her 'minions' around he thought she might be as full of hot air as Dedede was too.

After her were more robots, this one much more robotic looking than the others. Plus a healer to boot! He wondered if Blazermate and Poppi could combine, given they were both completely artificial. Or if Blazermate could transform into a new mode like her. The medabot mentioned that (pretty gross) shield, so this heavily armored version could be her defense mode!

In comparison, the next robot girl looked more on the girl-side, like an in-between of Blazermate and Poppi but missing a lot of limbs. She was cute, in a doll sort of way. Once she starting going on about business Pit was beginning to get lost, not able to follow her words, but when she summoned her mech suit his eyes sparkled once again with interest. A tailor-made mech that she could just summon whenever she wanted? That was awesome.

Next was Karin, and despite the disagreement back on the Tinkerslug Pit could tell that she was a good person. Somewhere deeeeeep down under her haughty words and self-importance. She was the type that Pit tended to bicker with, so he could only hope that she wouldn't hold it against him in the long run, as he wouldn't be holding it against her. As long as they were on the same side, he'd consider her an ally if not a friend. There was one thing, though.

"Did she say ninja army?" The statement was made so casually that Pit almost didn't catch it. Having a whole army of ninjas would not only be super helpful, but also super awesome.

Her friend Sakura did not boast the number of accomplishments that Karin did, but what she did mention was, honestly, impressive. Pit couldn't even read, so knowing two languages was cool. Plus forty pounds of hotdogs? That beat his own record of most hotdogs eaten in one sitting. Sakura had clapped for a few other people, and so Pit returned the favor and gave her a round of applause. She seemed nervous, so hopefully it helped.

And after that...

"..."

Geralt was a way better person than he seemed to think he was. It was still crazy that the man didn't seem to hold a grudge against Pit, true to his word. Pit still felt bad about what had happened between them, but if Geralt was putting it in the past then so would he. Remember and be better, Pit had told Omori. He took his own words to heart. The angel hoped that if they worked together more, he would not feel as awkward around the Witcher, even if it took a while for it to happen.

Once Geralt was finished there was another short lull before anyone else went up. Should I go next? Pit thought to himself. For some reason it felt weird to do it right after Geralt, but... well, it didn't have to be weird if he didn't make it weird. So without further ado, Pit decided that he would be next up to the plate.

Eagerly he hopped up onto the table before the crowd. He took a very deep calming breath to get out of the mindspace he'd put himself into. It took a second, but then he fixed a sunny smile onto his face and stood with his feet planted apart both of his fists resting on his hips and his wings spread out wide. He made himself look as tall as he could, which wasn't much considering that he appeared to be a fresh faced boy of about thirteen years of age. He sported a white tunic, leather leg and arm guards, and a golden laurel crown that sat on his fluffy brown hair. He was the very picture of a classical angel. His looks did not do his experience as a soldier justice, though Pit was happy to remind people of this.

"My turn! My name is Pit! I'm a proud servant of the Goddess of Light, Lady Palutena. I'm also the captain of her royal guard, and as you can see I'm an angel too!" For emphasis on that last bit, he flapped his wings dramatically.

"I've been around the block a few times too, definitely saved the world more than once. Well my world anyway, and helped save some others kinda. Worlds... plural?" He didn't think much about how the three realms in his universe were all called "-world." Regardless, he continued. "I've got lots of fighting experience, including with a bunch of different weapons, but I'm best at long range. My light arrows can pull off stuff like this!"

Pit didn't plan on doing any fancy display, but something came to mind that might be fun and informative. He summoned the Palutena Bow into his hand to show off the sleek gold and blue weapon, as he did the halos of light appeared around his wrist. He pulled back on some invisible, ethereal bowstring and shot the light arrow into the air where it proceeded to zig-zag and do a loop-the-loop before vanishing.

He wasn't about to show off his entire arsenal, especially since he didn't have access to much of it still. That would have to be good enough. There was something else that he left out of his introduction, a weakness that he hoped wouldn't come up too much during the course of the Seekers' adventure: his flightlessness. It wasn't that he was ashamed of it, because he definitely wasn't, but... it just was something personal that didn't need to be brought up! Besides, plenty of his fellow Smashers already knew. Maybe. He did have Lady Palutena's help during the early tournaments. Once they found her in this world too, then she could lend them all her power - including the Power of Flight, so it didn't matter if he couldn't fly right now anyway. Or so he told himself.

Satisfied, Pit turned his smile back on the group of Seekers. He dispelled the bow and pumped one fist into the air as he finished off his introduction. "Everyone I've already met, and everyone I'm meeting for the first time... it's good to be fighting with you! Galeem might have got the best of us the first time around, but we're gonna kick it's butt this time!"

For the rest of the trip to Twilight town, Omori spent most of it getting to know Pit better. The angel had filled him in on what he missed while he stepped away. What Junior apparently said he did earn a risen brow from the black and white youth, and he went on to clear up the misunderstandings; Essentially giving his testimony about what happened. As much as he didn't want to bear any ill will towards the young prince, it was starting to look like he was desperate to absolve himself of all the blame. Omori would have to confront him about that later.

He noticed Geralt passing by, and once he gave the two a nod, the boy nodded back in response as if he understood the intent.

Soon enough, they finally made it to dry land. Once the Tinkerslug pulled up enough to port, Omori gathered his things and climbed off...rather quickly. Sure, he wasn't anxious about being at sea as he initially was, but he was still afraid of drowning. He was lucky the others didn't make him walk the plank into a watery grave or something. The boy didn't know anyone from the other team, and unfortunately didn't see any familiar faces either, so he stuck by (or rather behind) Pit for the most part.

Omori visibly flinched as the screams of the damned signaled for everyone to turn their attention towards Peach. The princess apologized, then soon proposed a way for everyone to introduce themselves.

...Oh great. He'll have to figure out a way to say hello in more than two words. Maybe he'll wait till most of the rest went.

Of course, their leader went first. The mention of a Mushroom Kingdom had Omori curious. What kind of subject did she have? Were they like, giant mushrooms with legs? Or were they more human looking like her? Maybe something inbetween? Did they have mushroom pets? A mushroom cat would be cute. And she was into sports too! Mari used to play softball, maybe he could introduce her to Peach when they find and free her?

Big Band took his turn after her, a detective turned fighter against something called the Skullgirl. His demeanor and choice of music gave Omori "Noir Detective" vibes. He guessed that the instruments deployed acted as his weapons. Nothing out of the ordinary in his eyes.

Then there was...hey, this guy looked like those merchants from the Trade Guild. Except, a mechanic, and not a merchant. And he built the girl, Poppi, who introduced herself after? Omori was already impressed! Maybe he could learn a thing or too from Tora.

He had already met Nadia long before his team left Alcamoth, so the boy wasn't as phased by her flashy entry. Or her puns.

Then there was another kid who spoke up with a barrage of questions. At least he wasn't the only one who was curious about Ms.Fortunes abilities, but not that much. When Raz realized he drew everyone's attention to him, the psychic decided to introduce himself next. A government agent, acrobat, and for some reason water is deadly to him. Omori tilted his head. Maybe he just couldn't swim? He understood where Raz was coming from either way, water can be dangerous. The monochrome boy overheard Junior's comment, and idly shook his head. He knew better than to underestimate someone that can take a peak into his brain.

...For some reason, he didn't feel too comfortable with that idea-

Aaand of course Junior made another jab at him. As much as Omori would glance away out of shame, at this rate he was getting sick of that puntable-looking brat. The others knew he made a mistake! HE knew he made a mistake! Must he keep being so persistent in making him out to be some...thing?!

...You know what? No. He wasn't going to take this any longer.

"At least I didn't keep trying to make a girl's ears bleed with my pet circus seal and crack her spine. If you seriously have some problem with me, whine about it later." The boy deadpanned back out of spite. If Junior wanted to argue with him so badly, then by all means, he'll be ready this time! For now, they had to get through this long-winded meet and greet before souring the mood again. The royal pain-in-the-butt seemed to agree, with how quickly he changed the subject back on the next person to speak. Wuss.

Red was a tried and true superhero, part of a large team that defended their home from space-bad guys. He even apologized for keeping his identity a secret to them. Omori shrugged in response. They all had their secrets.

He only hoped Sunny would stay alive long enough for Omori and him to reunite. He didn't quite understand their situation yet. But if he really was feeling what his original self was, then that was a good sign, all things considered. The boy would have to worry about how the others will react and all when the time comes.

Then there was Roxas. Who was a former member of some organization apparently everyone else had run into before. Omori didn't, so the only response the other boy got was a confused head tilt. Roxas continued on to explain that Organization XIII was his enemy now, and that he needed to figure out their intentions and possibly stop them.

He was...looking for his friends too. Omori's blank expression softened a little. Hopefully he could be there, stronger even, to help him fight the Organization, if it came down to that.

Another duo took their turn. A dancer who could wield a dagger, and a thief. Their introductions were short, sweet, and to the point.

Ace Cadet was a monster hunter with an aversion to magic. That made Omori wonder, could his skills be considered some form of magic? Something like Sad Poem, sure, but he saw himself as more of a melee fighter than a mage.

Another princess spoke up after Ace, Midna. Omori silently noted a "Mirror of twilight" and the Twilight Realm itself as stuff to look out for. As long as no one made physical contact with either, they should be fine, right? She made a little show out of her powers, then called the Koopa Troop up to talk next.

Ah, more royalty. At least Bowser seemed cool in comparison to his kid, and even took pride in being a classic bad guy. Junior was basically in the same boat as Tora, except he built his clown car instead of an AI. And apparently, he could make portals. Omori could help sighing in relief when the prince said he was going to make one back to Alcamoth. He did NOT want to go back near the water a second time. Pets aside, he already met Kamek first, the magic specialist of the group. The device she showed off, plus the mention of Peach being able to undo spirit fusion was definitely something to keep in mind. And lastly, Rika, the walking blitzkrieg.

After them was...Oh. More royalty. A queen bee in the most literal sense. Sectonia, Bowser, Midna, and Peach. All different shades of what a ruler should be. They should form a club. Sectonia herself seemed to be the most...authentic? Of them, for the lack of a better term?

Then there was their main healer, Blazermate, and another, more business-oriented robot. With a drill. Most of Susie's business jargon went over Omori's head, but he did get the gist of it. Well...he thought he did.

Then Miss High-and-Mighty stepped up to boast and act like she was leader. Closest thing to royalty he guessed. Personally, Omori preferred Peach, but he wasn't stupid enough to snark at someone who could break his bones.

Maybe when he gets strong enough, he could take Karin on in a 1v1 fight. Maybe not martial arts like she may have hoped, but...hm... Guess he could approach Sakura about it later, with her being Karin's rival. Atleast she seemed more humbler than the blonde.

And Geralt? He was pretty cool too.

There was a ghost of a smile when Pit stepped up after Geralt. The goddess he mentioned, Palutena, Omori would have to keep an eye out for her too, for the angel's sake. He'd probably get along with Kel and Hero the most with that infectious optimism. But it felt better to have a new friend here as well.

He finally spoke up again soon as it was his turn to introduce himself. The black and white, pajama-clad boy quietly set his stuff aside and climb up onto the bench. He looked around Pit's age. "My name is Omori. Admittedly, I'm not as strong or...spectacular as everyone else here. I've only been with my team for a short amount of time, and already some of them are probably considering kicking me out. Long story." He dryly chuckled, crossing his arms. "I'm just someone trying to find his friends too, and his sister. One of them already went missing some point before all of us got separated. It's hard to explain what I can do, but I'll try my best. Back where I'm from, emotions play a key role in how we fight."

Omori pulled out his journal and flipped to a page where he had sketched out a chart, one of the things he worked on while everyone talked with Annetta. It took him a bit to recreate the one Hero gave him, but he made it work. He held it up for everyone to see.



"As you can see here. Happiness, sadness, and anger all have their own strengths and weaknesses, so you gotta keep in mind which ones to best utilize against what. And to not let said emotions get to your head too much. Price of power and all, speaking from experience." He explained. "You can also take advantage your enemy's emotions with the right attacks. Though, I'm not sure how much of Headspace made it into this place for that to work right. Might just be exclusive to me now." Omori shrugged, pocketing his book for now. "I'm also experienced with melee weapons, specifically smaller blades like knives, if you couldn't tell by my...growing collection, over here..." The black and white boy's eyes trailed over to his other weapons, then snapped back to the others.

"I know I don't look like much, but I can assure you. I don't go down easily. Not without a fight." For a moment, it looked like the corner of Omori's mouth quirked up. "I also like grape soda."

And with that, he sat back down.