Wonder Red and Big Band had filed back into the general crowd before the All Round show could begin, with a newly awakened and quickly debriefed Lucia Morgan at their side. It was good timing, too, seeing as the show was just starting when they returned. Unfortunately Red couldn't entirely enjoy it. He was taking to his role as security detail a tad more seriously than what was probably necessary, scanning the crowd for any potential ne'er-do-wells and keeping an eye on the entry points into the plaza. It reminded him of when he would take his students on a field trip, and he would have to always be on the lookout for them getting into trouble, meaning he never got to partake in the experience.

The job of a protector was never put on hold.

Still, it was hard to outright avoid catching the show, and from what Red saw it was impressive. The team of Spheals were in good sync with one another, and showed off their individual talents with ease. Wonder Red was impressed. Not even the Wonderful One-Double-Oh was always in line. Maybe he was giving too much credit to the Spheals, not that they weren't trying their best. It was the brains behind the operation that lead their squad to such cohesion, the trainers. Much like his own Commander Nelson.

Red felt like he learned something today. What that was, he couldn't tell ya.

The show went off without a hitch, at least where security was concerned. Did that mean they did their jobs exceedingly well, or barely at all? One of the great mysteries of the world, even in one such as this. Still, peace was peace, and that was worth celebrating. As the crowd dispersed and everyone gathered around the All Round's transport vehicle, Wonder Red stopped next to one of the cage - Dumpy, he was pretty sure - and gave it a gentle pat on the head.

"You did good today," he said. He was on the fringe of the conversation with Sierra, but he did pipe up midway through to add in his two cents, as usual. "Poachers might not have struck during the show, but if you would prefer it we could help escort you and the All Round to your next destination, to be on the safe side." The topic quickly moved on to the promised payment, though Red would've been fine to forgo his or allow someone else his share. A job well done was more than enough for him. There was a hitch, however, since it was less a reward and more of a promise of a reward. Shady hiring practices aside, Wicke, the analyst, was warm to the group, and offered a trip to someplace to discuss their pay. "Excellent idea," Red commented.

When they arrived, Red moved to hold the door open for everyone else. "Pardon me, Wicke?" Red started to ask as he filed in behind the others. "I was curious - those Spheals are pretty impressive creatures. I've seen a few of these Pokemon before, and they seem quite capable. Sierra mentioned that the Aether Foundation has its fair share of detractors. What is it you do, as a corporation?" Red doubted they did little more than put on Pokemon shows. They seemed too big a company for that, especially to garner such animosity.

---

Sectonia was impressed that little skull helmed bug knight soloed the boss of this floor, when her and the others managed to get there. Seeing as he managed to defeat the boss, it only made sense for him to get the reward which seemed to be some blue cloths that covered up the dark parts of his body in the same color. What that outfit gave, Sectonia could only guess at, but it seems defensive in nature. Still, she couldn't help but echo the sentiment that he looked cute in that outfit.

There was an additional door that lead to another, much more sinister looking room. Inside was a demon sitting on a stone throne with an item pedestal containing an item with an evil red face, the cost of the item being a 'heart', which Sectonia guessed was life force seeing as this was incredibly demonic looking. Seeing as there was nothing left, Sectonia went down to the next floor, having no interest to spill her royal blood for something so ugly.

The next floor in these depths had the stench of the long dead about it. If she had to rate the smell, she'd say it was getting better as they went down, but not by much. She was tired of this place, and as the others debated which way and where they'd go, she decided to start clearing some rooms on her own. She decided to go right first, entering a room filled with 6 rolling organs (Guts), and a giant mass of organs (Mama Guts) with some scattered skulls and rocks around the room, some by themselves, some in sets that look liked a + sign. Upon the Queen entering the room, the small balls of organs began to roll in straight lines, although some went for Sectonia, others went other ways and the large mass just slowly moved randomly across the floor.

Sectonia teleported away from the organ balls that made their way to her, being able to fly over the glowing red blood trails they left behind as they rolled. Upon reaching any obstacle, the organ balls just circled around it, clinging to it like flies to honey. This made them easy to dodge for Sectonia, since she could just ignore them or stab them when they got close. The big mess of organs however upon seeing Sectonia attack its hapless minions began its slow advance on the Queen. Wanting to keep that behemoth as far away from her as she could, Sectonia summoned her own minions to pepper it with ice from a distance. It didn't take nearly as long as she figured it would to kill such a large mass of organs with her antillions, but it made sense when it split into two of the smaller ones, making avoiding the rolling balls a bit tricky until she started to clear them out with her swords and antillions.

For clearing such a relatively easy room, even if it was disgusting, Sectonia got nothing at all. Ordering her antillions to grab the spirits of the defeated organ balls, Sectonia went back to the entrance hall. She left an antillion in the entrance hall holding the spoils of the previous room, and decided to enter the room to the north instead. In this room things started to take a weird turn. Still on theme for this whole place sure, but weird non the less as two chained up demons were on the far wall (Begottens), both trying to charge at Sectonia with bloodlust in their eyes but being held by the chains along the wall as 2 what could be seen as... Well Sectonia didn't want to think about it were floating about the room. (Psy Tumor) Occasionally they shot a ring of... purple balls around it? Sectonia noticed these seemed to curve towards her when they got near, but didn't have all that much range. The room itself was fairly open, with the corners of the room being bottomless pits and a couple skulls in the center.

Seeing the chained up demons weren't able to reach her, Sectonia decided to deal with the floating... things... They were at least quite large, so her large light rings were able to land on them more consistently than say, the flies from a few floors earlier. This caused these things to panic upon getting hit, causing them to rapidly spit up their purple orbs as they got hit and began to die, a few of these orbs hitting Sectonia as she wasn't expecting them to attack properly while being damaged. While she was able to cut them up, they did land a few hits on her which smarted. With those gone, the demons chained to the walls broke free of their chains and rushed down the queen, getting a hit on her before she teleported away. This confused them for a moment before they ran at her new location. Sectonia blinked again, and the same thing happened. This gave her an idea that might be amusing, she deserved some amusement considering she had taken damage here.

Moving to a wall after a teleport, Sectonia decided she'd use up these bombs that she had been holding onto. She had no more use for them, so why not destroy the disgusting things of this floor with their own rewards? The first bomb she laid along the east wall she tried to lead the demons into, but misjudged how fast they could move away from the explosion wasting the bomb. Readjusting the timing in her head, she moved to the west wall and did the same thing, this time timing her teleport correctly and catching both demons in the explosion, killing the two of them in one shot and clearing the room. "Hmm..." Sectonia said to herself as she realized those bombs were stronger than she gave them credit for, but there wasn't much she could do about that.

With the room cleared, a card that radiated some kind of teleport magic appeared in the center of the room, while a hole was blasted in the west wall. Sectonia picked up the card which had a bit of artwork on it with the word "stars" on the bottom. She then looked at the hole in the wall she had made, and came to realize it was that 'secret' room she had found earlier. She totally forgot about these things, as she didn't have a good way to find it on the last floor, and just happened to luck into it on this floor. If she hadn't played with those demons, she doubt she would've found it here as well. Either way, inside was only 6 coins, so there wasn't much in there so perhaps these weren't all that important anyway.

Now the 'Stars' card and its teleport magic was interesting. Considering it was teleport magic, she had no idea where it would take her. Likewise, she had no idea where it would take any of her minions if they were to rip the card instead. Seeing as she could teleport inherently and not wanting to risk her minions on something like this, Sectonia thought about this for a little while as her antillion ran into the room and began to collect the spirits of the defeated enemies. She decided to rip it herself, figuring that only the items on those stone pedestals or those in the shops seemed to cause issues with appearance.

Upon ripping it, Sectonia was instantly warped to the item room, being unharmed herself and unchanged, but now stuck in the golden crowned room with quite an Unsightly Appearance and rotten smell. Perhaps one of her minions would want it, but she for sure wouldn't.

Peace, and cleanliness, did not last long. Because almost as soon as Sakura, Karin and Minda stepped out of the spa, an alarm blared through the streets and spread a controlled practiced panic through the people out and about. Several people rushed past the trio as the proprietor of the spa ushered her clientele out of the baths and into a conveniently nearby shelter (when you had to race to get dressed, you also didn’t want to then have to race through the streets as well). Had they not been pointed towards it, the three of them might have missed the shelter, its small unassuming entrance hiding a spacious and well furnished bunker deep within, while gaurds armed with assault rifles and manportable cannons peeked out of murderholes covering the entrance, ready to keep the Others out for long enough that proper help could arrive.

The trio declined the directions towards sanctuary however.

”Me and the ladies” Midna began to explain, as she taped a wall to open a portal to her home realm ”where thinking that the only thing to do after getting nice and clean” she pulled out her singular pauldron, secured it to her arm over the suit, then tied her green climbers bandana around her neck and donned the twilight hued fragment of psycho mask in place to cover the rest of her face alongside the helm ”is to work up a nice sweat”

”and what better way” followed by strapping her spiky shield to one arm, hand holding both it and a rosary with a frozen olive and golden mask fragment ”than to save the day” she concluded as she extracted obsidian fire axe, and the massive spiked clubba club and charged both of them with electricity.

She hoisted the massive statically charged wrecking ball with a glowing shadowhand, while resting the volcano fragment over her shoulder, and finally called out her mecha-wolf-bear-dran for support. The hulking cyborg with a cute Shiba tail brushed said tail against all three briefly, bolstering their attacking and movement speed, just in time for the sky to explode above them as the missiles and pods met in a calvocate of destruction.

”Shall we?” the princess asked the other two, grinning to herself just a bit too smugly for how dangerous things were about to get.

As for Sakura and Karin, the only gearing up they had to do was make sure their fighting gloves were fastened. Anyone who had ever been on the receiving end of one would know that they were not there for the benefit of their enemies. They were only there so that a fighter wouldn’t cut their knuckles- they did nothing to reduce the impact.

Sakura and Karin were both serious, but returned Midna’s enthusiasm with a similar pair of half-smiles.

”We shall.” Karin nodded, watching the skies.

”Yeah! Let’s go!” Sakura pumped her fist. ”I’ll just be happy to be fighting on solid ground again.”

A moment later, once they had judged the trajectory of the closest pod, and they were off, sprinting through the streets till they heard the sound of screaming, and rushed into a dimly lit hallway.



The screaming came from inside of a coffee shop that would normally be a little haven of solidarity for various fantasy races tucked away in the heart of human psychic town, but was at the moment a haven mainly thanks to having some impressively sturdy glass window covering much of the front.

It would not last much longer however. ”Over there! Oh- what the heck are those things?!” Sakura said, charging into battle, perplexed.

A small horde of buddy rummies were wailing on the glass window, cracking it in several places. The only thing after it between them and a meal of minds was a hasty pile of furniture, and behind that a few folks, human and not, who had to be forced to make do with this lesser shelter, who were holding improvised weapons that were all they had to protect themselves should the glass give.

Fortunately, they would not need to use them

”Hey, over here you … things, over here!” Midna yelled at the headless manikin like Others, right before she had her mecha-bear send them a flaming hot dish of goop via back mounted cannon.

The slime like Stu splashed down in the middle of the dozen or so Buddies, covering many in roasting goop and coating the window and ground around the front of the shop with a burning hazard. Yet while this did get the buddies attention, they certainly didn't care much about the fire after they had staggered out of it. Regaining their poise after only a few moments, they began to step forwards with a few elegant steps forwards ... which quickly devolved in a kind of swaying drunken gait as they came running at the the trio wielding arms of their own kind as a mix between a flail and a club.

Sakura and Karin took point, looking to defend their mage so she could maximize damage without worrying about defense. Both were fighting confidently. Sakura leaped over one Buddy and then another, rolling through the air before she landed in front of the barricade of the civilians. Two Buddies reeled on her with ungainly strikes. Sakura raised both of her hands and absorbed with strike with on arm, before returning fire with a series of jabs and short kicks, light on her feet as she alternated between them.

Karin spin kicked one Buddy, sending it crumpling to the floor where it began to squirm and regain its balance. Another one came for her and she dodged one strike, then another, before catching one of its limbs and flipping it over her shoulder. It roiled and nearly caught her with a wild, anatomically dubious attack. ”My word! How uniquely grotesque.”

”Weirdly durable too” Midna noted, as she took a moment to process the minor issue of how to avoid blowing her friends up with her magic, let alone the surrounding infrastructure. While doing so she formed up her equally lanky chilfos strikers, the tall frozen undead trading arm smacks for spear jabs. They did not deal much damage but the four durable strikers did helpfully tie up an equal number of their foes.

Midna and her Mecha bear then charged some of the rest. The Cybernetic ursine bull rushed one, while Midna jabbed the massive clubba club her shadow hand was holding forwards like a fist, the pair of them knocking back two more Rummies mostly to prevent them from being swarmed by the 13 on 3-4 odds they were facing, before going on the defensive as more came after them.

Even with all that tarpitting, the street fighters were still individually facing 3 on 1 odds.

Brute strength was hardly the most important factor in a street fighter, but Sakura found if she applied herself she could put down some serious impact. ”Shunpukyaku!” She span around, sacrificing speed on her attack to put as much force into it as possible. There was a gust of wind and the Buddy was knocked hard onto the ground with a bouncing impact that destabilized another one. She charged up a fireball and blasted it into ash. ”Hadoken!”

Kicking the third Other away to give her some space, she jumped and brought her hammer fists down on the downed Buddy crushing it into the floor. It’s- psychic brain came out?! It was like some kind of organic lightbulb that popped out of the top of its head. ”What the-?!”

It looked breakable. She stepped on it and the monster flashed red and cleanly disintegrated.

”They have light bulb- brain heads!” She called out unhelpfully.

Karin glanced at Midna’s work and then at the three Others facing her. Hers was a much more engaged process. She used footwork to get them all lined up. It took her a few moments and she slapped away several strikes in the process. Once they were all lined up and trying to get around each other, she pushed forward.

”Guren ken!” She pummeled them with alternating palm strikes as her legs carried her forward. They were all knocked dizzily aside. On the last one she span and drove her elbow into its back, knocking it into the recovering Rummies. She dashed forward and slid into them, feet like lances, breaking all three of their legs in quick succession.

”Mujin kyaku!” She juggled all three with two quick kicks, the Others like popcorn in a frying pan, and then slashed them in twain with one last spin of her heel. With that, the Street Fighters dispatched the monsters assailing them at the moment.

”I’m sorry- what was that, Sakura-chan?” Karin asked Sakura.

Any attempt at an answer right away was drowned out by rumbling thunder from Midna;s shocking strikes

She had started out by smashing two rummies to the side with a wrecking ball of a swipe with her massive shadow hand held mace, bowling them over into a heap, down onto which the charged mace sent three rotating pillars of lightning that juggled them into a fourth central pillar that kept them stuck in place.

Mace still held out to deliver its payload into two of her foes, the princess pivoted, blocked a flailing arm with her shield, causing a spray of needles to burst out in response. The hail of spines struck the rummy right as the princess swiped her obsidian axe around to hit it in the leg … which caused it to first burst into flames. She followed up with a second strike as the flames reflected manically in the lens of her mask, found it rather pitiful, and then stabbed the top of the axe forwards and delivered a blast of lightning that knocked the burning foe back.

She pulled the weapon back to her chest, quickly charging it back up a stage, and then fell upon the lighting juggled pair as they dropped, the princess swiftly hacking at each as they rose, igniting them as well. Which was all ever so fun, to the extent that she found herself giggling at the flames, but it did present a slight problem, which was she was now faced with 3 flaming rummies coming at her.

She dodged back from a strike, not wanting to introduce her plant shield to their now flaming spare arms, before crushing one by dropping her wreckingball of a club on it, tripping another with a crate pulled up from the twilight realm, and finally summoning her an upsized Vibrava to finish with a mighty crunch of its insectile jaws.

”Sorry, what was that Sakura-chan?” Minda echoed Karin’s question, as she reached out her shadow hand to grab the torso of the final of the three she had been fighting, physically holding it off as it burned to death.

Sakura-chan tried to get her voice over the din of battle. ”I punched one and a light bulb came out of it, and then when I crushed the light bulb, it- died! It went away!” She cupped her gloved hands around her mouth.

”A light bulb?” Karin asked.

”Yes! Look for the light bulb! It’s a weakness!”

”We seem do be doing all right.”

”Light bulb! Light bulb brain head!” Sakura called out as she ran to support Midna’s summon. She yanked one of the distracted Rummy Buddies and threw it over her shoulder and onto the ground. Out popped the Brain Crush.

”See, watch!” Sakura stomped on it, causing it to disintegrate.

Karin had slammed her palm into the chest of one of the Rummies and out the other side. As such her vision was entirely obstructed. ”Oh, I…right! Of course, the light bulb brain head. ” She said unconvincingly.

”Karin! You missed it!” Sakura held the sides of her head.

”What’s a lightbulb anyway?” Midna asked as she hurled the burning rummy she had been holding (and who’s flames she had been too focused on to see the demonstration) at the final other one of its kind still in the picture, two two falling together in a heap onto which her beleaguered mecha bear fell with ferocity, raising up on it’s hind legs before smashing its metal claws down onto them.

This kept them down for long enough for Midna to rush over and slap the palm of her shadow hand down on top of them both, squashing them flat …. Again without requiring any lightbulb smashing to end them.

”annnnd that’s the last of them” Midna noted as she casually dusted some ash off her new suit.

Exasperated, Sakura’s shoulders sank and she looked around. She raised a victorious fist over to the civilians to give them the all clear for now. ”Man…you guys.” She laughed and ran a hand down her face.

”Terribly sorry. It’s not as if I like seeing you embarrassed- well that’s not entirely true. But in this instance…”

Sakura shook her head rapidly and looked at Midna. ”Midna-san, you’ll see it. It’s like a bulb. But it’s got light inside. A lightbulb- it’s exactly what it sounds like!”

”We have more important matters to attend too, Sakura-chan.” Karin said, jogging over to the coffee shop.

”I know!” Sakura followed. ”I just hope there’s more of them so you can see it.” That came out entirely wrong! ”No, that’s terrible, that’s not what I meant!” She said, looking at the civilians in the coffee shop. ”I don’t hope there’s more of them- I just want to show- no it’s just- oh, what am I even saying?”

Midna had to stop herself from laughing at this as she tapped her dropped box and mace and sent them home for storage. Then she scooped up a shadowhandfull of fallen spirits while she walked over and tried her best to help end her friend’s tripping over herself.

”I’m sure we can find some more after we’ve escorted people to the closest bunker” she suggested, ”at which point you can show us these … glowing plant bulb things the Others have in them”

”Right. Thanks, Midna-san.” Sakura said, rubbing the back of her head and smiling apologetically.

The civilians gathered their makeshift weapons. ”Direct us to the nearest bunker, and we, The Seekers of Light, shall escort you there safely!” Karin said, standing up straight with her hands on her hip. She made sure to put extra emphasis on the group name. A sporty orc and a trendy elf exchanged looks.

Midna, steeped up, and, having exchanged bear minion for her Vibrava which she told them that ”My pet here can get some eyes in the sky and should help us steer clear of any more danger, and, well, I’d rather not leave you all with just that protecting you” she gestured to the cracked window that looked like it might shatter if breathed on. That was certainly enough to convince them to abandon their former shelter to seek out an official one. A few quick mutters and the survivors were in agreement that they’d make the run to safety.

“The nearest bunker is there-ish.” The elf said, pointing down the street.

”Good enough for me. Let’s go!” Sakura pumped her fist and led the way.

”Stars, that is some ability” Kamek marveled as Primrose’s dance spread the shield he had just put on Bowser to every other member of their party.

Then he promptly marveled at just how durable the spell made his king, for though Bowser was beaten and bruised from being used as a strung up punching bag by the spider queen, when she plucked him from the web like an oversized fly and attempted to chow down on him, not only did the blow not finish the koopa off, it hardly scratched the pigment on his shell.

Then there came a call of ”Cure!” from jr, as he, upon failing to get close to his pa before he was snatched, had instead switched strategy to casting a healing spell upon the battered king. Vitality rushed through Bowser thanks to his son’s new magics, enough for him to give the queen a flailing swat to the snout while she was fruitlessly munching on him. That, plus the fact that she was hardly tickling him with her teeth, prompted her to toss him away … into yet more webbing.

The king got stuck fast again, and was far too disorientated from the toss to do anything about the spiders that promptly swarmed him … and found they had exactly the same problem as their queen, as their tiny bites failed to do much of anything to the reinforced king.

”Shadow minions! To your king!” Kamek commanded, directing the closest two jr clones to help free Bowser. They sped forwards and lashed out with paint, being careful as to not coat the king (they did not neat a repeat of a certain incident) but in doing so leaving themselves open to attack.

Spiders leapt upon the clones … and found that they too, had barriers, which let them ignore the little attackers for long enough that they could pull the king out of the web and try to clear him of creepy crawlies while they themselves died a death of 1000 cuts.

”Son…? Thank you for saving me” the still mentally confuddled from the hammer blows he had taken king murmured as he was rescued by the two shadowy copies of his boy.

Meanwhile his actual son was busy trying to avoid being flattened by the spider queen, who, after she had finished trying to hurt Primrose, had turned her focus to attempting to splat him and Rika like rats.

The prince’s response to this was to hit the deck and drive, little go cart wheels deploying from the bottom of the clown car letting him put all his racing experience into practice as he did powerslide across the ink, causing blue sparks to form at his wheels, and then releasing the stored up power to boosted to avoid the attacks. As he drove, Dazzle the Popolio acted as his double dash partner, leaning out the back of the car and harassing the queen with belts of his disarming voice.

Rika meanwhile took full advantage of the goopy terrain to shipgirl around, skimming across the surface as if it were the sea, allowing her to move any which way she desired. She had to put all that agility to work because the queen quickly focused on her rather than the prince of the racetracks. She drifted and weaved away from the strikes rather than take them, because while being bopped by only 20% of a crushing blow wasn’t close to lethal, it was still dangerous to those who were not built like tanks like Bowser was, even those built like a cruiser like she was.

This went well when she used just her rifle or her lower caliber rigging guns, but when she tried to raise her main gun’s shot count, that was when she ran into trouble.

”Five…” Rika counted her main cannon shot, only for the recoil to leave her movement predictable and letting a blow land on her and break her shields, leaving her with an alarm sound ringing in her ears.

Undeterred, and assuming it was simply an unlucky blow, she went and tried to follow up with shot ”Six…” only to cry out ”Ow!” as a second blow clipped one of her gauntlets, jarring her arm and sending her stumbling.

”Dazzle, bash her!” came a call as the queen moved to follow up her blow with a grab on the staggered ship girl, only for she herself to be staggered as in the blink of an eye Dazzle had launched himself from Jr’s clown car like a missile, aqua jet and penguin leap combined to turn him into a living battering ram which slammed into her.

Rike got to recover and get clear thanks to the intervention, while Jr sent out a red beam to call back Dazzle back to his pokeball before the queen could try and smash him in retaliation.

As she backed away, Rika fired another shot of her main gun to the tune of ”Seven! ” Only for Silitha to warp away, leaving the shell to sail into the dark forest ”Hey no fair! I need you to stay still so I can blast you!”

”She’s gonna drop again!” Jr reminded her, getting both of them moving again. Koopa and ship both race across the goop side by side, using speed to make gauging where to drop in-order to land on them a tricky proposition. This side by side race also let the pair scheme without calling their plans out loud that the spider matriarch might overhear them.

Kamek, meanwhile, had his own strategy, which was to simply use the fact that the queen hung in the air a moment before dropping to do a teleport of his own to get out of the way. That he started to hover above a planted dark mine every time she warped away simply added insult to injury whenever she did try to get the drop on him.

That left Bowser as the only easy drop target of the troop, but with the shield + his own natural armor, that was simply a recipe for Silitha to get shell spikes stabbed into her as she came down, something she traded for very little damage. Bowser used this to his advantage to ward her away from Rubick, giving her a pain in the foot whenever she tried to land on them.

Then, once she did fall, the four of them laid into her as best they could while also avoiding her as best they could, though the shields did mean they could be somewhat carless.

Kamek used his powerful yet slow magic blasts to harry her.

Junior used an assortment of gadgets, spells and a freshly sent out Mimi’s electroballs.

Rika bladder away with her rifle and rigging turrets (but holding back her eighth main gun shot as part of a plan she and Jr had concocted)

Finally Bowser began to fearlessly jump at the queen rather than out of her way as he had at first, Kamek’s barrier allowing him to damage trade with the mighty queen, while Jr could heal up what little harm he did take reliably.

This dance ended when Bowser delivered a Bowser bomb to the queen’s back, causing her to shriek in pain and warp away once again.

”Hahahaha, take that! With this barrier, nothing can stop me!” the king gloated … right as the barrier flashed on him and vanished, along with everyone else's.

”Hey, what’s the big idea! Put it back on right now” Bowser complained to his mage, who agreed ”Right away sire” before warning him that ”but I can’t keep it up forever” as the mana drained out of him and into another golden shield for the king.

”Doesn’t matter. One more should be more than enough … yeah you hear that! you're going down!” the king taunted out into the darkness. The darkness, in response, answered with a volley six bolts of glowing venom fired from the was of the deephunters Silitha had summoned.

While the rest of the troop took evasive action, Bowser laughed at their insignificant attack … right up until the mix of fire and blight damage pierced right though the shield and dealt its full damage to the king

”Gah-ha!” he cried out in pain as it burned away at his scales.

”Why isn’t it working!” he demanded to know as he got moving, to which Kamek called out ”It’s a physical defense spell, it does nothing against elemental attacks!” inadvertently giving the game away to their foe as she reappeared right in time to receive this news.

As Bowser used Heel the Rabbid supporter striker to recover from the venom burns, Jr came up with their new strategy to deal with the latest variable

”We need to end this quicker in case these things keep coming, so let's pull out all the stops” Jr called out as he swerved to and fro in his go-karting clown car to avoid the incoming toxic rain, the prince dredging to think how bad this could get should the big spider lady call out for aid again.

”Kamek, get the minions to splash the areas where the shots are coming from! Dad, keep moving to not get acided! Rika! I’m gonna try the plan!” he called out.

That last plan deliberately left vague as the ship already knew the details from their earlier scheming and, as the clones swept into the dark and Bowser used short hops to stay mobile, the prince set said scheming into action.

Jr started by casting ”Presence of Mind” on himself to boost his casting and attack speed, before charging towards the queen instead of keeping away from her after her next landing. He held up his paintbrush for 2 seconds as he got closer, before he finished channeling as near to her as he could and cast ”Holy!” causing a burst of pure white light to burst out around him. The aoe spell centered on him washed harmlessly over any allies, but potentially stunning the spider queen for up to 4 seconds.

If it did, Rika followed up Jr’s move by racing close as she dared and calling out ”Eight-shot, all out assault!” as she pulled the trigger of her main gun, fired the 8th shot in a row, and activated the called out ability, unleashing 5 triple shots from the single barrel in quick succession, her closeness and the stun together there to ensure that every last one had the highest chance of hitting as possible without some missing, or the queen warping away in the middle of it.

Thunder roared throughout the cave as the shells unloaded in attack that Kamek and Mimi's accompanying shots paled in compassion too, and then there was the softest click as Rika tried to go for shot 24 and found her main gun’s ammo stores drained. Which put its wells just as dry as she had drained her other guns in-order to get the queen down to half health.

”I’m out of ammo!” she warned, leaving her with having to hope she’d done her part to ensure the kill … or with having to follow Bowser’s suicidally daring head on strategy for attacking for the rest of the battle.

That circumstances forced them apart so early was a small surprise to Geralt, but he had truly no idea what stances different societies took to what his might call a sentient golem, so while he took Midgar's approach in stride, he still frowned at the idea that they weren't people. "Seems a bit reductive..." he grumbled, but not putting up an actual argument against it. This was a philosophical field he'd prefer to stay out of. Plenty of people couldn't understand why Witchers refused to hunt true dragons, and he was a bit tired of explaining that as well, given that they were so rare anyway. In hindsight, he hadn't stopped to think about the Enderdragon, though it being one of Galeem's Guardians meant that he wouldn't do so now, either. They, and it, had to be stopped.

Shortly after, once they'd decided on finding the Hermits, Giovanna lead them around the city within Sector 8. It didn't take long for the SOU operative to find what she was looking for, some drug that was commonplace around here. Her companion, Rei, took a few sniffs of the stuff and took off, leading them to the source. Geralt was thankful for that, as he wasn't sure he wanted to take a whiff of some strange place's drugs. Whether it affected him or not would be up in the air, but if it did, he could very well be rendered useless.

It didn't take long to find their destination, and they even got to witness the sky-hooks in action on the way there, a group of punks zipping by above them as they followed Rei. It looked simple enough, though he imagined that would change once he was up there himself.

Just across the street was an abandoned building which had fallen into disrepair, holes visible in its roof. Geralt shook his head at the lack of care for the city, though he wondered how a place of this scale could even operate. Did they focus so much on controlling individual travel to make up for the fact that they couldn't actually run the place right, shoving the dregs below to be hidden and forgotten about? It wouldn't be the first time.

Once they were all ready, they made their way across, Geralt following Giovanna's footsteps and using his enhanced size and strength to easily clear the gap, quickly leaping from the air conditioning unit which groaned unhappily at his weight.

Once on the roof, they all took a quick look at what they were jumping into, before dropping.

Raiden went for the ones armed with guns, while Geralt went for the ones with more up-close-and-personal style weapons. Not even bothering to draw his swords, Geralt buried his fist into one thug's gut before they even had time to react beyond shock, and when they charged, Geralt hefted and tossed the winded body of the gangster into one of his buddies, sending the two toppling to the ground. Baring his claws, he turned another thug into a pile of bloody ash while one tried to stab their knife between the plates of his armor, only for Geralt to crush their arm with an elbow. As the mook screamed in pain, the Witcher ended their agony with a fistful of claws to the gut.

The two he'd knocked over shakily stood before charging at him, and Geralt lashed out with his leg, launching the one with a bat back into a wall, knocking him unconscious. The other thug swung their crowbar, but he caught it and mercilessly tossed the weapon aside, lifting the woman by her throat and punching her in the face, breaking her nose and sending her to the ground, senseless, incoherent, and unable to keep fighting as blood poured down her face and her skull pounded with a migraine. It was practically a miracle she'd survived the punch in the first place. He ignored the moaning and looked out over the carnage they'd unleashed. Raiden had gone outright lethal, using a pair of blades that folded out of his robotic arms to carve through their foes with no concern for their lives. Geralt just nodded at the cyborg.

"Let's get those hooks, then." He simply stated.

After they'd made it back outside, loud alarms started sounding off that seemed like they could be heard all over the sector, "Jeez, what is that alarm for!" Roxas asked, having to shout to make sure he could be heard. But he didn't need to wait for Lili to get his answer. A simple look upward told him all he needed to know. He saw specks way up high that appeared to gradually getting bigger. Except they weren't getting bigger, they were getting closer, because whatever they were they were falling down onto Suoh. And when a they finally started hitting the ground, Roxas could only tilt his head in bewilderment, "What... are they?" he asked, staring at two of them that had landed nearby. Bizarre creatures that resembled bouquets of roses but with human legs wearing high heel shoes. Just when he thought things couldn't get any stranger.



But whatever they were, they weren't friendly. People were fleeing and evacuating the streets. So obviously these things were a threat, "Well I'm not just gonna stand by. So here goes!" he summoned his two Keyblades and went charging out, not even waiting for Raz or Lili. The two Others were currently dashing up the shrine steps, which Roxas noticed had hand rails on each side. That gave him an idea.

"Think fast!" he shouted as he jumped up and proceeded to slide down by grinding the rail on his right hand side. He slid right past one of the Others, managing to clothes-line it with his Keyblade and send it tumbling back down the stairs. And then Roxas flipped his way over to the opposite rail so that he could do the same thing to the other, well, Other. Similarly he managed to knock it down the stairs where it's friend was now standing back up. Roxas of course kept on sliding down and used the built up momentum to leap clear over the Vase Paws. Once passed them he twisted around and aimed his Keyblades in their direction and fired off two orbs: one of Light and one of Darkness that swirled around each other until they eventually collided with one of the Others and exploded on it, dealing it heavy Light and Dark damage in the process.

Roxas landed on the ground and spotted something strange. The one he had hit with Dual Shot had stopped moving and a bulb thing had popped out of its body. Before he could begin to process this, however, the second Vase Paws was running at him and poised to hit him with a strong kick. Thankfully the kick itself was fairly choreographed and allowed Roxas enough time to cross his blades in front of him to block the incoming kick. With quick timing he was able to push his weapons forward the moment the foot made contact in order to push back the Vase Paws and briefly throw it off balance. From there Roxas lunged forward and performed a circular slash with his weapons while the blades were coated with searing Light.

He similarly saw the Vase Paw stop moving a produce a bulb thing from its body. But like before, Roxas wasn't given enough time to act on it. The previous Vase Paws had now recovered from being stunned and surprised Roxas with a kick in his back that sent him tumbling forward. But Roxas was spry enough to let himself fall into a somersault back onto his feet and he spun around to face his enemy. It was running at him, and so Roxas did the same. The Vase Paw went for another kick but it was met by a parry from one of Roxas' Keyblade. He then got off a short combo that the creature managed to jump back and away from. But Roxas wasn't about to let this thing escape. He shot forward, taking the form of a ray of light that whirled around and homed in on the Vase Paw. When it got close, Roxas returned to normal and unleashed a big Cross Slash in the shape of an X, while both blades were coated with Light.

That sent the Vase Paw reeling and once again revealed the bulb thing. This time Roxas was quick enough to stab it with his Keyblade and destroy it, which appeared to do the same to the Vase Paw as a whole. Like a moment ago, the other Vase Paw attempted to kick Roxas from behind. But the Keyblade Wielder had learned his lesson, and whirled around and parried the kick with his blades before again striking at the Vase Paws with the Dual Counter circular slash. This allowed him to lunge past the Vase Paw and then whirl around and get off a quick five strike combo before blasting it with a Firaga spell. That knocked the thing back down and gave Roxas the opening he needed to stab the bulb that appeared and similarly kill the creature.

"Two down!" Roxas said in celebration before he looked around and remembered the sheer number of Others that were falling down in other places throughout the Sector, "...And a whole lot more to go." he said with slumped shoulders. This was going to be a long afternoon.

Trusting that the musclebound mountain of a man could follow through on his part of the plan, Peach took off running. The sudden motion by a less formidable-looking target got the Others’ attention, but Goldlewis Dickinson did not intend to let them go after her. His coffin dropped to the sidewalk with a very loud slam, and its door slid open. An ephemeral blue light shown from within as starlit hands hoisted a massive Skyfish minigun weighing hundreds of pounds into the veteran’s waiting hands. With his cryptid companion pointing targets out like a spotter, Goldlewis bottomed out his Security Level to deliver a torrential fusillade of bullets into the crowd of Bile Pools and Plateau Pendus. “COME AND GET MEEEE!” he roared over the cacophony, and the Others obliged.

The fliers moved with dangerous speed, spreading out toward the sides of their target, while their gelatinous counterparts fixed their glowing lights on him. Goldlewis expected them to mob him, but things took a nasty surprise as the Bile Pools remained at a comfortable distance, content to sit there in a line and spew water from afar. As the alien disposed of the spent minigun Goldlewis brought the coffin up for defense with gritted teeth, but the triple dosage of Pool water did more than chip damage. It rinsed through his guard and left his clothes soaked. Neither did the Pendus come at him to strike with those dangling arms like raptors’ talons; instead their bodies danced with arcs of bright yellow electricity. After a moment it coalesced in their green gloves and they both hurled bolts of lightning his way. Elemental projectiles rained down on his position, and though far too experienced to lose his head, the veteran quickly began to realize just what he’d volunteered for. ’This wasn’t a brawl, it was a shootout!

With a frustrated grunt Goldewis took cover behind his hummer. He hated to use his beloved ride as a shield, but what happened when water and high voltage mixed, he needed to be pragmatic about this situation. His steadfast Patriot Mammoth took the first round of elements just fine, but the Pendus quickly buzzed around to either side to both flank and surround him. One threw more bolts his way, which he narrowly avoided, but the other electrified itself before flying in a shuttle loop to divebomb him. “Hmph!” Determined to not fall prey to this simple strategy, Goldlewis jumped onto the hood of his hummer. As the crackling Pendu whooshed behind him, he ran across the top of the vehicle and jumped again. Now with a clear shot, the Bile Pools sprayed water one after another, but Goldlewis didn’t intend to plop down right in front of their firing squad. Instead he pushed off a magical glyph mid-air, airdashing the remainder of the distance across the strip mall’s parking lot to come down amidst the Pools with his coffin beneath him, a half-dozen arms extended like the vanes of a cosmic pinwheel. “Try this on!” The attack covered enough space to hit all three, whether clipping them with the arms or crushing them with the coffin itself, and on hit Goldlewis unleashed his Behemoth Typhoon. “RAAAGH!” Swung in a downward half-circle, it slammed into one Pool and kept going with the Other stuck to its front like a bug on a windshield. The Behemoth Typhoon smashed into the second, then the third, and as Goldlewis hit the ground he brought the coffin all the way around in a loop to flatten the three-Pool pileup between itself and the tarmac.

A zapping noise got his attention, and he turned in time to see more lighting incoming. He couldn’t capitalize on his maneuver to batter the prostrate Pools into oblivion without eating a nasty shock. “Damn.” Goldlewis stepped off before he could get electrocuted, and the three sludgy pools slid in different directions to reconstitute. That gave him one moment, though, and his well-honed combat instincts made sure he wouldn’t squander it. “Thunderbird!” he called, and from his coffin the alien sent out a spiked drone to chase the offending Pendu down. Then he turned on the nearest Pool as it began to spray water and stopped it short with a heavy shoulder barge straight to center mass. That led straight into a massive backhand that span its head like a tetherball, and the next second an alien uppercut launched it skyward. Not even given the chance to expose its bulb from the ruthless beatdown, the Other exploded into red petals that soon turned to dust themselves.

Rather than savor his first takedown, Goldlewis charged toward the next Bile Pool. It spewed a blast of water into the tarmac in front of it, but the veteran stopped short to block while crouching. Then through the spray came a battering ram followed by an asphalt-cracking coffin crush, and from the floored Other popped a bulb. By that time, of course, its attacker had already committed to a walloping Behemoth Typhoon that would’ve finished it off anyway. Unfortunately, Goldlewis then took a water blast to the face from the last Bile Pool that not only stung his eyes, but also both knocked off his glasses and mussed his hair. “BAH!” he bellowed as he swung blindly, but his Hail-Mary haymaker came up just short. In the background, he heard two loud reports in quick succession, the sound of gunfire. He wiped his face with his arm, but it was too late. A Plateau Pendu struck him head-on, dropping the huge bruiser to the ground in a state of painful paralysis. The Others closed in on his twitching body, and the Pendu reached down with its green gloves to almost gently take hold of his head.

Then something drove into the Pendu’s back in a high-speed, light-blue streak, instantly shattering its composure. As it lolled limply in the air, a bulb protruding from its chest, a blonde stranger in a dark cape appeared. He took the Other’s bulb in a headlock and slid a wickedly curved knife just beneath the fixture, severing the brain stem. He gave a cheeky two-finger salute at the fallen veteran, then vanished the moment before the last nearby Pool tried to blast him with water. Three knives immediately slammed into its body, and as it reeled the same man manifested above it and dropped with a plunging stab that pinned the Pool’s head to the ground. A bulb appeared from its struggling body, and its assailant finished it off with a stylish kick.

As the paralysis wore off, Goldlewis sat up. “I’m mighty thankful,” he said, slicking his hair back into its trademark pompadour before replacing his slightly-crooked glasses.

“Aw, no need to thank me,” the stranger announced with a coy smile and joking tone. His eyes were two different colors, one yellow and one red, but the colors of his gear interested Goldlewis more. They marked this man as a member of Psych-OSF. “In fact, it’s an honor to fight alongside the illustrious Secretary of....”

The conversation stopped with the sound of more gunshots. Back by his hummer, a dark-haired girl was trading shots with the last Pendu using a revolver. Goldlewis stood, exchanged a nod with his new ally, and wordlessly took off running. As he drew near, the Pendu dove at the girl, but somehow she managed to dodge at the last second with perfect timing. She dropped to a knee, taking aim with both hands, and fired a shot that blew the Other’s doorknob-shaped head clean off. It staggered in a garbled slurry of sounds just long enough for Goldlewis to jump up, airdash in, and extend the many arms of his alien to snatch it out of the sky. Once his captive threw it to the ground, the veteran came down in a mighty slam to finish it off.

“Th-thank you,” the girl said, her soft voice barely higher than a whisper. She seemed to recoil from Goldlewis as he stood back up to his full size, and looked to the other man for help. “K-kagero?”

The easygoing fellow stepped up with a smile to put her on the shoulder for reassurance. “Don’t worry, Tsugumi. Even if he looks big and scary, Mr. Dickinson’s here to help. We can trust him to fight by our side!”

“Right,” the girl nodded, trying to meet Goldlewis’ gaze with sincerity. “S-sorry…”

“Scary?” Goldlewis blinked, his brows raised. “...Me?”

An explosion brought their attention to Peach. The princess had made it to the crashed car and engaged the Buddy Rummies over there in combat, but their durability and tenacity had taken her by surprise. She’d been knocked them down one at a time with scatterboom blasts to keep them from getting close to the unconscious man trapped inside his vehicle, not knowing that her strategy gave the Others time to recover their Crush. Now, with all four close enough to start smashing apart the car to get at the man inside, Peach resorted to her rocket launcher to topple all four at once. Farther down the road, Kasane and Naomi’s attempt to come help got stymied by the appearance of a a horse-sized ram of curved metal strips, vermillion leaves, and ghastly bone. With more Rummies in tow and its only weak point shielded by a hard steel dish cover on its back, the Wither Sabbat charged around with dangerous recklessness. Introductions could wait. The three humans ran in to help Peach wipe the Rummies out so she could get the civilian to safety, then on to the next battle.





As her Masterpon protested, full of excuses about all the incredible tech on inside the Android Zone, Poppi dragged him by the wing past the place’s reinforced storefront window where a handful of glassy-eyed machines stared out from the pristine white store at the dirty street, their friendly smiles and welcoming gestures urging passing pedestrians to take them home. Atop the sidewalk stood a bus stop, well situated for what seemed to be a popular destination, and next to it stood a small shelter marked ‘Temporary Android Parking’, with a two-hour limit. Five identical models stood beneath its overhang as if crammed into a queue, indistinguishable from humans save for the LEDs on their heads. Poppi came to a stop behind it, well out of the sight lines of any humans or homunculi inside Android Zone, and there the team of four regrouped.

Once Blazermate caught up to the dynamic duo with Susie in tow, she opened with a teasing entreaty to Tora to keep her maintained. Not quite sure what the healer was playing at, Tora scratched his head with one wing. “Meh-meh? Of course Tora fix Blaze-Blaze up if needed. After almost full week of adventure, Blaze-Blaze and Bowser only ones left who there with Tora from very start. Plus, always heal Tora up when being tankypon. So Tora be sure to return favor, meh!”

As it turned out, Blazermate had something else on her mind. With more machines like her in evidence around here, she gave Tora a crash course on medabots and robattling so he could play the part of ‘Medafighter’ if need be. The Nopon accepted the device Blazermate handed him and mulled over the ominous things she said about Medal Ejectors and Mr. Referee. Those aside, the process sounded pretty simple if push came to shove, but hopefully they wouldn’t need to try their luck. “Tora get gist, meh,” he told her after she finished. “Still, best to not go looking for trouble and risk cracks in story. Should avoid medabot fight if possible. Besides…” He turned up his nose with his eyes closed, his little nub-hands on his hips. “There only one artificial partner for Tora!”

Standing with her head resting diagonally in her palm, Poppi raised her eyebrows. “And yet, Masterpon’s eyes tend to wander…”

“Meh-hem!” The engineer noisily cleared his throat. “Actually, Tora been thinking about something else Blaze-Blaze say, back in scrap heap.” He furrowed his brow, looking more serious than usual. “It bother Tora ever since. All those wrecks in dump surely not there since world began. As shown by big crane, new junkypons come in and old ones probably get recycled, too. Not just severed limbs either, which we know not disappear thanks to hunts in Land of Adventure, but bodies with heads.”

Poppi quickly boarded his train of thought. “But in the World of Light, destroyed machines turn to ash and drop spirits, the same as living things. I remember from the junkyard in Mushroom Kingdom, and the robots who ambushed us near Parnasse.”

“Exactly, meh. So why do broken robots turn up in dump?” Tora reiterated Blazermate’s question from before, now burning with curiosity. “Tora want go back to dump and take closer look for self.”

The four of them retraced their steps to the Solid Waste landfill, and with the help of his artificial allies’ eyes in the sky, Tora soon identified an android that looked reasonably intact. It seemed to be wedged in the dirt beneath the twisted, bullet-ridden husk of a DesoRHado UG, so he enlisted the others’ help to pull it out. “On three!” he said, directing Blazermate to take hold of the exposed legs as Poppi prepared her superstrength to lift the debris. “One, two, three!”

The moment the android popped out, it sprang to life. Its rose into a sitting position and reached out to grab Blazermate by her kimono. With a face flattened into a mangled, unrecognizable, thirium-soaked mess of circuits and plastic, it gasped out just two words as Tora looked on, frozen in terror. “Find…Jericho!” Then Poppi’s Variable Saber blazed in a brilliant arc, slicing through both of the husk’s forearms a moment before a point-blank blast from her revolver turned its grotesque mockery of a head into slag. Specks of the android’s blue blood spattered Blazermate’s face as the torso splattered down into the mud, and yet despite its catastrophic damage, the remains showed no signs of disintegration.

“Sorry about that, meh,” Tora said sheepishly. “Did not anticipate such fright. Not one bit.” He wiped a few flecks of thirium-310 from his fur, then waddled closer. “This only prove it, though,” he murmured. “Body still intact. Maybe secret lie inside?” He plopped down his tool box, took out a blow torch and screwdriver, then got to work.

Without any need to worry about component damage or eventual reconstruction like he did while working on Band of Raiden, Tora could dig into the machine without any regard for its wellbeing, and get straight to the heart of the matter. He pulled it apart piece by piece, stopping only to marvel at the slick ingenuity of the mechanical organs that seemed to cleverly mimic human anatomy. Removal after removal, however, the body did not turn to ash. Not even the loss of the robust heart-pump responsible for the purification and circulation of thirium-310 throughout the android’s system seemed to trigger a meltdown. Increasingly puzzled, Tora continued to ravage the wreck’s innards until he’d opened up its whole torso cavity, and only a few components remained. When Poppi held her Variable Saber close for a little extra light, however, he saw it: tucked away in the electronics by the spine where the heart once resided lay a small black chip, no bigger and barely any thicker than a playing card. Tora jammed his screwdriver beneath one side and pried it loose, and the instant the last transistor parted ways with its housing, the android wreck began to buckle. Tora watched as the gutted hardware turned to ash, then held up the unassuming component in his blue-stained wing. “Bingo.”

He handed it to Poppi, who snapped a photo of the mysterious chip before examining both front and back. “What is it?”

“It black box of some sort,” Tora replied. “Common electronic failsafe, built to preserve important data and record what happened in case of catastrophic equipment failure..” He narrowed his eyes. “Tora have sneaking suspicion that android spirit actually in there. Which mean that whoever make machines not only aware of spirits, but make products salvageable for some reason.”

Poppi gave the black box back to him with a shake of her head, unable to determine anything about it save one critical detail. “That must mean Cyberlife.”

“Meh-meh,” her masterpon agreed. He snapped his toolbox shut and tucked his wrench into his pocket like he meant business. “Tora think friends should pay visit to headquarters.”

The group stood there for a moment before Poppi poked him. “As cool as that sounded, we don’t know where it is. Plus, we’ve completed our current assignment. We should find Giovanna.”

“Mehhh…okay.”

They didn’t know any closer bus stops than the one by the Android Zone, so once again they went back the way they came. On the way through the Detroit streets, Poppi caught wind of some sort of commotion the next street over. Despite the potential danger, Tora chose to investigate and led the team down the block. On the way over they kept an eye out for any unsavory characters lurking in the darkness, just as Giovanna advised, but the four traveling together with obvious firepower on their side kept all onlookers at a distance. They arrived to see a hazy plaza with black, withered plants cast like shadows by bright cyan and yellow lights. Many people milled around, going about their errands with many a glance over their shoulders, or wallowing on cardboard boxes in the friendless hell of unemployment. A cluster of people had gathered with signs in one corner next to the busy intersection, making sure their noisy demonstration reached as many human ears as possible.

“What do we want!?”

“BAN ANDROIDS!”

“When do we want it!?”

“NOW!”

“What do we want!?”

“WORKERS’ RIGHTS!”

“When do we want them?”

“NOW!”

As Tora watched, he noticed an android with some sort of parcel veer away from the protest. Even with a few G-men in the area, which the Nopon couldn’t fail to notice as well, the machine clearly wanted nothing to do with the angry crowd. As the android hurried on his way, Tora also realized that he lacked any sort of human chaperone. Was he really running an errand on his own, in an undercity renowned for criminal activity? Tora wondered if Blazermate might be wrong about the existence of a prohibition against unaccompanied automatons. The direction of the android’s movement led Tora’s gaze to another bus stop, which worked perfectly for his merry band of bots. “C’mon!” he said, waving to the others as he bounded off..

They caught up with the android in question at the bus stop, where he stood waiting in the designated zone. “Mehllo!” the Nopon greeted, slightly out of breath. “Am Tora, what your name? Pleased to meet! Tora have few questions, if friend not mind?”

“My name is Markus. With nothing to do but wait, the android gave a courteous smile. “How can I help?”

“Tora want know two things. First, can machines travel city on own without running into problems? Third, where is CyberLife base?”

He watched the android’s LED turn yellow for a brief moment, then back to bright blue as he began to apply. “My name is Markus. Both military and civilian machines like myself may move through Midgar unaccompanied according to their owners’ orders, so long as they possess proper IDs and authorization. State-of-the-art onboard GPS, cybersecurity, and memory modules discourage acts of theft or violence. The CyberLife Tower stands in Sector 5, the City of Glass.” He looked over his shoulder as a bus approached, then back down to Tora. “Is there anything else?”

“No, that all Tora think of right now.” As the bus stopped and passengers began to board, followed by androids, Tora turned to the others. “Friends should take bus back to train station. It seem like folks know better than mess with other people’s machines!” He climbed aboard and grabbed himself a seat. As she went to join him, Poppi spotted Markus on his way to the designated android area at the back of the bus, where a handful of other automatons already stood in stolid silence. Without any insight into heavy-handed racism analogies, she could only shoot her Masterpon a look that said be careful on your own, then with a heavy sigh follow in the android’s footsteps.

---

With one exception, the Seekers made quick work of the jump and climb in front of them to reach the decrepit tenement. Neither agile nor gung-ho enough to make the trip, Benedict volunteered to stay behind on lookout duty. Giovanna, still a little wary of the Turk, accepted on the condition that Rei stay behind with him as a guard dog, and Benedict didn’t have much say in the matter. Just a few moments later, the others got into position, then swooped down on the drug peddlers’ hideout like falcons on mice.

They each picked their targets. Separate from most of the others were a couple dudes in front of a ramshackle TV setup, mashing buttons on some old-timey fighting game. Giovanna landed on the shoulders of the man playing as a zoner, taking him so utterly by surprise that he couldn’t even yell before her legs clasped around his neck. “I’m throwing you,” she informed him, and so she did. By leaning backward into a handstand on the floor behind the couch and flexing her abdominals, she sent the thug flying back into the apartment building’s central cavity.

As he fell, howling all the way, his deathgrip on his controller caused the wire to yank the console straight out of the entertainment center, which seemed to startle the other goon a lot more than the loss of his opponent. He grabbed the bat that leaned against his bug-eaten sofa and whirled around. “Hey…!”

“Hey yourself.” Giovanna fully extended her leg with a jumping split kick to hammer the man’s jaw with the pawprint sole of her shoe. He smashed headfirst into the TV screen and lodged inside it, down for the count. Dusting off her hands, the secret agent looked over to see how the others were doing, and found them both already several murders deep as they ruthlessly cut through the Hoodlum Dolls. “...Ah.” Did these guys deserve it? Maybe. They no doubt perpetrated countless crimes throughout Midgar’s seedy underbelly, including the distribution of dangerous and degenerative drugs, with a couple kills of their own probably under their belts. But Giovanna didn’t assign herself the mantle of judge, jury, and executioner all in one. While the people she beat up might not necessarily be okay afterwards, she did not intend to slaughter them, and yet that was what the strike she led on this place brought about–a slaughter. Geralt straight-up outclassed them in terms of strength and fortitude, while Raiden reaped them like grain with those blades of his. Did that fluffy little guy with the toolbox back at HQ really have this in mind when he agreed to install them…?

Well, no turning back now. Down at the bottom of the building, the ringleaders saw their lackeys dropping like flies and went into panic mode. As the clients fled or hid, the stash carrier loaded up his cache of money and Red Ice packets onto the Stash Vehicle, and a clattering garage door began to slide open. Giovanna jumped again and silently dropped to the bottom floor. As a shadow fell across the driver, she looked up to see Giovanna descend in a flame-wreathed dive kick. “Fear on the wind.” She hit the other woman in the stomach, then plowed her through the stash behind her with a series of burning aerial kicks that ended in with a fiery Sol Nascente. The strongbox’s contents got scattered across the bottom floor as the driver tumbled through it, only to crash into and nearly crack in half a door behind her. “...Tempestade.”

Behind Giovanna, the stash vehicle toppled over with a slam, which seemed to jolt the stunned carrier into action. He pulled a gun on someone, but Giovanna dashed in with lightning speed to grab hold of his wrist and break his elbow against her forearm. One leg sweep later and he hit the ground face-first, where he lay holding his arm, sobbing as he begged for his life. “Huh.” She smoothed out her hair, flipped her braid back over her shoulder, and tilted her head. “Not as hard as you thought you were, huh? If you’re gonna try and kill someone, you should be ready to pay for your life if you fail.” The front door burst open to reveal Benedict with sword and shield in hand. Behind him, Rei was shaking one of the outside guards like a chew toy, while another lay twitching on the ground thanks to Benedict’s electric riot shield. “Guess that just about wraps things up here.”

She made a quick glyph call while Geralt collected the sky-hooks and Raiden helped himself to some spirits. While his decision to fuse with one of the pistoleers took Giovanna by surprise, the fact that he looked weaker after doing so did not. Less armor and less muscle wouldn’t help him in his next fight, but hey, at least his hair looked fancy. He immediately complained about feeling less intelligent. “Uh…That’s the caliber of spirit you fuse with?” Giovanna asked, an eyebrow raised. “You do you, of course, but a good spirit’s a lot like a good suit.” She leaned back, stretching her arms above her head. “Gotta find the right fit.”

Giovanna remembered all the formless dead and sighed. Rei joined her and nudged her head under the woman’s arm, obliging her to scratch her noggin. “I called the police. They’ll be here in a few minutes to mop up. Let’s take what we came for and get out here.”

The four hurried on their way, and how better to escape the scene of the crime than to sail through the undercity via the sky-lines. As the newcomers soon found out, though, the lines wound above the streets and between the buildings without any apparent rhyme or reason. Suspended by their new sky-hooks and forced to hold on with their own strength, the team hurtled through Detroit’s hazy yellow lights and murky shadows fast enough to whip their hair like flags in a stiff wind. Superhuman sight would come in handy in order to just make sense of the rail riders’ surroundings as they flew by. Giovanna remembered the sky-line she saw near the train station though, and knew that when the rail emerged from the upper alleyways to dangle her legs over orange-tinted Quarantine Valley far below, it would almost be time to get off this wild ride.

Unfortunately, they never got that far. About twenty seconds after Giovanna hooked a right turn at a rail split in what she thought was the right direction, the sky-line came to an abrupt end. Sliding along at full tilt, Giovanna’s sky-hook skipped right over the stopper, and she went flying through the open air with her brows raised. “Oh.” After a moment spent trying to control her momentum, she flipped over a large metal pipe and released jets of air from her shoes to guide her smoothly down to the ground. She landed in a drab brown lot and slid for a couple dozen feet in a low stance with her arms extended, and when the dust cleared she rose with a nonchalant expression. Geralt and Raiden landed behind her, more or less in one piece, while Benedict -who’d lagged behind out of an abundance of caution- managed to stop before he flew off the rail. “Guess it’s not a circuit,” she said with a shrug.

Giovanna took a quick look around. Her crew appeared to have landed in the right side lot of one Agua Mofeta Brewery, although an act vandalism on the billboard atop the main building at the back of the complex turned it into ‘Ass Brewing Co.’ Two giant propane tanks dominated this side, but she could see cars on the opposite side and, more importantly, another vista of Quarantine Valley across the street in front of the brewery. That meant they’d reached Detroit’s extremity, and that proceeding in this direction would bring the team back to the train station where they started. Unfortunately, things might not be quite so simple. High walls surrounded the brewery on all sides, with outward-facing security cameras in abundance, and a number of strange barrel drones stalked around on patrol. A few brass vats of orange liquid looked pretty sketchy, as well. Giovanna slid into the shadow of a wall and crouched down behind a small red car. “Looks like they take security seriously around here,” she told the others in a low voice. “Let’s keep a low profile and sneak out of this place. We don’t wanna be put on any more watch lists.” At the very least, this jumbled mess of a brewery seemed to feature a lot of ways to get around, especially now that she wielded a sky-hook that would let her slide along beneath lengths of metal. If she and the others could just get across the brewery to the orange tower on the other side, the rail that wound around it in a vertical corkscrew would give them more than enough height to escape to another set of sky-lines along the adjacent street.



Galvanized into action by the crushing damage that blindsided both Primrose and Rubick, the Koopa Troop went into overdrive, all four of them fighting tooth and nail with all they had to both whittle the needlessly large spider down and keep their fallen friends safe from further harm. Adrenaline pumped through their veins, and in a terrific display of magic and might the underground forest, once eerily quiet, erupted into a raging battlefield. Through all the chaos, however, Bowser’s true-blue team found a method in the madness, one predicated on the fact that despite her vicious strength and versatile teleportation, Silitha’s bag of tricks only went so deep.

That didn’t necessarily change when she called in Deephunters for backup, but their arrival complicated things, not least because their virulent orange spit bypassed Kamek’s protection. Most of the smaller spiders had cleared out by now to give the Brood Mother a wide berth, lest they too be crushed in the mayhem, but Junior was right; if the tides of battle turned against his team now, the eight-legged hordes would surge forth again, and drown their prey in a flood of burning pain. Shadow Clones fanned out in pursuit of the Deephunters, but they kept on the move, climbing through the heights between silhouetted hiding spots to confound and shoot down their assailants. Junior himself went for Silitha, and she turned to her tiny attacker as he closed in, happy to oblige his deathwish. A giant forelimb smashed the ground next to him, but it was telegraphed just enough to be dodged, and the child cast his spell. Silitha slumped down, momentarily dazzled by divine light. That gave Rika the opening she needed to unleash hell, perforating Silitha’s carapace with a withering bombardment from her main gun.

Unfortunately, that exhausted the last of her ammunition well short of the final blow, and Silitha rose to her legs with a horrendous shriek. With a forelimb she reached into the teeming masses of small spiders in the darkness, scooped hundreds of them up, and flung them like a child splashing water. The arachnid wave swept over everyone in front of her not hidden behind something, knocking the lighter ones to the ground before the spiderlings got to work spinning their webs. As the heroes struggled, the eyes of a dozen Deephunters lit up in the shadows where they’d taken refuge, and at Silitha’s command they opened fire like venomous ballistae.

The bombardment closed in on the sitting ducks who didn’t manage to escape their webs. Before they would rain down, however, buzzing filled the air. Dark shapes darted through the gloom, and one after another the blobs burst in the air. Silitha hissed. “W̸h̴a̵t̵ ̴h̸a̶p̸p̷e̸n̸e̵d̶?̷ ̷ ̵S̵h̷o̷o̴t̶ ̸t̷h̸e̵m̸,̵ ̸y̴o̸u̷ ̵f̶o̴o̵l̴s̸!̴ ̵K̴i̵l̵l̶ ̷t̴h̷e̴m̴ ̸n̴-!”

In a blur something appeared in front of her nightmarish face–a striped warrior who held in one hand a serrated blade that gleamed even in the pale light of the colorless wood, with teeth that traveled along the weapon’s edge on their own. The swordsman used it -and the element of surprise- to carve through a couple of Silitha’s eyes in one fell stroke. With another shriek she teleported into the background, and the newcomer fell to the ground. Spiders crowded around him, but as they drew near he raised his head and sword high.

“HUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAH!”

The sheer force of his bellowing cry blew the spiderlings around him back, and he waved his flaming blade above his head. “Never fear, unlucky travelers!” As he yelled a jagged mouth opened in his hairy head, making him look like a roaring lion. “For I, Barnabee, the Hive Knight, have come!” As one the Deephunters shot down at him, but even flightless the big bee was fleet of foot. He nimbly hopped around, bouncing like a basketball, and when the barrage ended he took in a deep breath. “HUZZAH!” He opened wide to release a dozen Hivelings to hunt down the Deephunters, turning predator into prey. Silitha teleported in to crush him, but he dodged backward in a stripy blur, sliding to a stop by the Seekers as the last one tore free of the spiderlings’ silk. “Friends! Let us finish this foulllll creature for good and all!” He leveled his blade at Silitha, then without waiting for agreement charged forward once more. “HUZZZZZZAH!”

Blazermate agreed with Tora when it came to not getting into unnecessary robattles, Tora defiantly telling her that Poppi was the only partner for her, with Poppi stating the obvious of Tora's wandering eyes on other ladies that weren't Blazermate or Susie. "Sure, sure, but just letting you know. More for me than you as it looks like this is more akin to where I came from than what the world has been for the past week." Blazermate said, shrugging. "At least the medabot rules say I can attack humans if they attack me. They had to make that rule after some idiots called the Rubberobo gang caused tons of chaos. If you see people in black rubber full body suits with sci-fi alien looking horns on their heads, thats them. They are goofy, but thuggish." Susie meanwhile watched the whole thing with Poppi and Tora and gave a slight giggle, noting Tora acted a lot like a teenage boy.

Tora then remembered what Blazermate said back at the junk depot, and decided they should all investigate that again to find some answers to what was a really, really good question. With the four back at the junkyard, Susie, Poppi, and Blazermate scouted for an android to inspect, which didn't take long as they all found one that was mostly intact under some rubble. Thanks to all the subtle robotic muscle in the group, they exhumed the body which quickly got up and tried to speak some words of warning to Blazermate, holding onto her for dear life before it was cut down by Poppi. Blazermate was right, these robots were zombies! She got up in a guarded pose with her shield ready as Tora apologized for the altercation that just happened and got to work ripping apart the android.

Upon seeing exactly what Tora was working with, Susie remarked. "Quite ghoulish work. Making a robot so identical to organic life would lead to that though." with Blazermate trying to get the flecks of robot blood off of her face letting out spitting and spluttering sounds even though she had no mouth for the blood to get into. "Seriously why would someone do that unless they had no idea how to make a proper robot." Blazermate said. Medabots didn't have any blood or liquid inside of them as they didn't need it, besides nanobots perhaps. After digging around for a little while, Tora found the core of the robot, holding a card like black box object.

Blazermate looked at it, a bit confused but soon figured out what it was when Susie said. "So the core of these androids is a black box?" Poppi then grabbed the device after taking pictures of it to take a look at it with Tora guessing that the robot's spirit resided inside of it. After flpping it around a bit in her hands and giving it back to Tora, Susie noticed something with the card looking black box object and said. "Whats that rainbow crack inside of it?" Curious, Susie tried to get the item from Tora, but when Tora gave it to Susie, the card finally broke entirely, causing the body it was attached to and the card itself to turn into spiritual dust, with the robot's spirit left behind.

Upon seeing this, there was a bit of a complex emotion on Blazermate's face as if she was both terrified, and relieved at seeing what had just happened. Susie meanwhile was in the same thinking process as Tora and Poppi. "Well, it seems that, indeed, the robotic spirits are inside these cards. Although it didn't seem strong enough to be a processor or power supply, which is interesting." Susie then heard as Tora and Poppi mentioned some 'cyberlife' thing, and his idea that whoever made these robots was aware of spirits. Susie thought for a bit as Tora wanted to go to the headquarters, while Poppi told him they had no idea where it was, and came up with some idea. "Before you killed it, it mentioned something about "find Jerico"? Is that its owner, its creator, or something else entirely?"

Blazermate meanwhile held her head in her hands for a little bit as she thought, saying. "I guess that might explain one of my worries here, but we'd best find an actual medabot to do this same thing to before I know for sure..." mumbling something about that being that robot's medal and how fragile it was.

A few streets over, a protest against androids was being held. Protesters holding and chanting slogans which Susie quickly recognized were people without jobs, having their jobs taken by androids and these people not at all happy. Susie mulled over if she could hire these people right now, but without the Access Ark or her facilities to turn them into cyborgs under her company's command, there wasn't much reason to. Nor did she have a real working business in the area, so there wasn't much she could do. She did keep a note of this unrest as it could be useful later however.

Blazermate wasn't as naive as Poppi was about this whole situation either; there were medabot haters in her world as well but they were far fewer since very, very few medabots worked alone. After all, a medabot often needed a rare medal to even disobey humans that weren't outright hostile to it. Still, she hadn't ever seen it this bad before, but then no robot in her world looked as human as the ones here did. Speaking of a human looking robot, one was moving around the crowd and G Men in order to make it to a bus stop. Curious, Tora moved to talk to it, with Blazermate and Susie following since there really wasn't anything better to do.

It seemed this android was a wealth of information that they had been looking for, even more so for Susie than Blazermate. Blazermate learned that this was exactly like her old home, although with the ID LED stuff instead of medawatches and all that. As long as she said she was on an errand she could move about freely, which was always a fun excuse. Susie meanwhile caught onto something extra; robots here weren't known to lie or steal as their maker, cyberlife, made it impossible for them to do so. Something she could very, very easily take advantage of as that was the bread and butter of the business world. Soon after the bus came and picked up everyone waiting there, Susie and Blazermate needing to sit in the 'android reserved' zone where they just stood while Tora could sit down. Blazermate was used to standing, even if she enjoyed sitting down, while Susie was a bit irritated, but took the time to think about all the things she could take advantage of here. But at least unlike Poppi, the two robot girls didn't look sad, as if this was the first time Poppi had ran into something like this.

"Hey Poppi, is this your first time running into robo haters?" Blazermate said, curious. Susie wondered this too, although she wasn't as concerned as Blazermate as she was already thinking about what business to take over and fold into her own. "This is a bit more extreme than I'm used to, but its mostly standard, I guess its different where your from huh?"

Exiting the item room sounds of combat could be heard outside the door to the north, so Sectonia figured another group had entered the room that door lead to and were dealing with the monsters inside. Still, this room had its own monsters for her to deal with in a wide open room that looked like some dark alchemist crypt.

Inside the room were 6 masks and heart pairs. While the masks ran at Sectonia in lateral directions, the hearts seemed to flee from her in the same manner. She tried throwing some of her dark globules at the masks advancing towards her position, but soon found they just bounced off. So much for 'pierces all defense', but then the hearts themselves were trying to stay away and out of conflict entirely, so perhaps they were the monster's true form and this was merely a shield?

Considering her ability to blink, reaching the hearts and staying out of range of the masks wasn't that difficult. Summoning her Chaos shield, she began to blink about the room. While there were quite a few things flying about the room and her large size forced her to blink more often than she'd like, the hearts took damage normally from her strikes. Sticking to her swords only, as they allowed her to utilize her blink in a much more timely manner and still strike afterwords. Sectonia had a bit of enjoyment fighting these things as the hearts just tried to flee from her feebily shooting out blood globules in random directions around it, unable to fight back that well as she slashed at them with a mighty overhead swing before blinking to the next heart. While it took a couple rotations of this blinking maeuvor, her striking heart after heart, when she managed to destroy the first heart the corresponding mask also blew up. With fewer and fewer masks, the battle got easier and easier. And thanks to her shield, the odd blood globule that hit her had its damage greatly reduced, but considering the hearts couldn't even aim their globules of panic, she was able to avoid them for the most part.

While the others were clearing the room to the north, Sectonia managed to clear this room herself, having a skillset that let her dominate the creatures inside it. Upon clearing the room, a strange symbol in red appeared in the center of the room. Sectonia, ever weary of new things in this dungeon, looked at it with her magical ability, and found that it might've been something she'd be interested in if it didn't have strings attached. She sensed whoever grabbed this item would gain power, but power granted to them by another instead of by the item itself. A dangerous prospect in general, but even more so in this horror filled dungeon full of disgusting monsters of filth, decay, and death. Making a pact would give her pause normally, but making a pact with whatever might've ran this dungeon? A fools decision; She'd much rather take the power at its source.

When the team clearing the rooms to the north finished clearing their rooms and entered what would be their 4th room, they'd see Sectonia, the queen saying. "This place is quite strange and has secrets left behind. I am not interested in 'that', but if any of you are, feel free to take it. Beware, it seems to be connected to something. Or feel free to take the weird rotten fruit in the 'golden room'" Sectonia said, pointing at the Boon of Ares, then the item room itself. She then joined up with the rest of the party, commanding her antillion to come back to her through the cleared rooms and crushing the spirits she had gotten from the rooms she cleared.

Hm... she didn't see the shop on this floor, perhaps it was behind her? Those seemed to have more... manageable items than whatever that red symbol or rotten fruit behind her was.

Another reunion outside of the last doorway. Therion didn't know if he'd say the enemies were "harder" as much as they were "more annoying," at least from his experience so far. Hearing that the monsters were getting tougher wasn't a good sign, but it wasn't really surprising either. That was the thing with dungeons: they started off simple, and all the really dangerous stuff was deeper in. Exactly how deep they had to go before getting back out though, none of the Seekers knew.

The thief waited outside of the "boss room" with one hand in his pocket and the other massaging the back of his neck while the little bug knight fought on the inside. That little guy sure had no issue diving right into battle with the nastiest enemies this place had to offer... not that Therion was complaining. As long as it could get the job done, it was less work for him. Not two minutes later the knight was finished, opening the way for the rest of them to continue on. Oh joy.

Therion hopped through the opening, sparing only a brief glance toward what had spooked the others in the adjacent room. That floating face was pretty horrible looking, but given the way it was otherwise motionless there on a pedestal Therion figured it was some cursed thing rather than an enemy. Nothing he wanted to tangle with though. So down he went.

"...now it really feels like a dungeon," he said once he landed, already on higher alert down here than he'd been on the previous two floors. The room they'd landed in was empty, with doorways on each side just the same as the last couple... but it was darker here, silent save for the muted echoes of clanking or scuffling from other rooms just loud enough to suggest that there were monsters close by. There was an eerie vibe to the area, but on the bright side the air was clearer and they could breath without wanting to choke.

The Seekers all knew the drill by now. There were enough of them to split up and tackle each direction, it was only a matter of who was going where. As usual Therion had no preference, though this time he did decide to go with another person rather than take a chance going at it solo again. Pairs and small groups were beginning to form, and it seemed like the two cat burglars would end up challenging a direction together. He turned to Ms. Fortune and nodded his head.

"Let’s try not to choose a horrible room, alright?"

“We both know that ain’t happenin’,” Nadia snickered ruefully. So far she and Therion had yet to fight alongside one another while delving into this accursed place, but she got the distinct impression that he’d had just as bad a time down here as she had. In fact, his dourly sardonic manner made her wonder if something especially distasteful happened to him at some point, or if he just looked like that. A positive attitude worked wonders even in the darkest of times, as Nadia herself could attest; no matter what monstrosities lay beyond the next doorway, she’d be on cloud nine so long as no more literal crap presented itself. Then again, not everyone could cope with the trauma by turning everything into a joke to laugh at and offhandedly dismiss.

“...Ahem.” Nadia cleared her throat, cracked her knuckles, and forged ahead. After her stunt back in the crossroads, she felt like she had something to prove.

Out of the available choices, the pair of purloiners ended up on the westward route. Their first door, expertly maneuvered through with a simultaneous back-to-back barge, brought them into a room that looked much like those before. Other than a rock in each corner, its only remarkable feature seemed to be a diamond-shaped arrangement of rocks and pitfalls in the room’s middle, inside of which pulsated a matching pair of hearts. Along with that restorative bounty came four matching pale green pustules as well, and each Gut swelled with anticipation as they coagulated gooey green bombs inside. As they prepared to launch their volatile payloads, a gang of Rotties six strong made their way over to bid the newcomers welcome, their melting faces the exact sort of almost cutesy grotesque Nadia had come to know and love.

“Aw, it looks like they wanna piece of us!” Nadia grinned. She sharpened her claws and hopped into a fighting stance, bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Let’s see if they’re up to slough!”

"You are way too excited about this."

The Guts let loose a volley of explosives, and the thieves split up. Nadia didn’t want to try clearing out the bombardiers until she got a handle on their attack pattern, so first she’d tangle with some Rotties. Three came her way, and after a brief moment she made her move. She veered to the side and launched her left arm to slug the second-nearest freak in the face, knocking it onto its back to give her quality time with the front runner. From there she launched into Cat Scratch to carve up the first foe, gouging a handful of sallow flesh out with each slice. “YyyyyUCK!” Nadia poured her disgust into an El Gato finisher, mulching the Rotty into the floor with her heavy axe kick. From the corpse rose a couple flies, but Nadia managed to clap them between her palms before they picked up any speed. Another Rotty approached, and after avoiding an ipecac blast the feral lunged forward to stab her foe with an anchor. She gave the chain some slack with a backstep, then hopped as she pulled the Rotty down, up, and over to smash it back into the stone.

To her surprise, a skeleton pulled itself free from the oozy flesh and hurled a bone that clonked her in the head. Incensed, Nadia leaped forward to destroy it, only to be unceremoniously interrupted by another projectile. She stumbled and fall, but as the Bony moved in she noticed an ipecac bomb incoming as well, and without an ounce of dignity she scrambled out of the way to let the explosion take care of the problem for her. The last Rotty on this side tried to flank her, but Nadia checked it with That’s Nuts in time and lashed out with Fiber Upper. Thanks to her new bisection, the double stretch kick went even harder and farther than normal, and the hapless Rotty got smushed into the ceiling.

Meanwhile, Therion had the opposite idea in regards to the Guts. Frankly tired of being shot at with blood and whatever else this place cooked up (and the gaseous green explosives that were currently being lobbed at them looked even less fun), he made a beeline for the fleshy pustules. First order of business was getting around the Rotties. The way they smiled while their skin sagged and threatened to fall right from their faces made them some of the more unsettling enemies Therion had encountered so far. On the other hand they were slow, and the obstacles in the center of the room forcing its occupants toward the walls gave their simple minds little room to maneuver.

As they walked toward Therion with their hands outstretched and almost gentle looking smiles on their faces, Therion also moved toward them. He sprinted, and then leapt - using his momentum to briefly run along the wall to his left and avoid the too-friendly monsters. The first couple he bypassed easily, the third he came down on with a harsh kick that sent the Rotty tumbling sideways, over a rock and down into one of the holes in the floor. While the others of its kind slowly came to a stop in order to turn, Therion had already moved on.

The Guts didn't have the ability to move from what he could tell, so he didn't have to chase it down. He dodged a volley of whatever it was they were shooting and, once in front of the closest one, stabbed it with his sword. He expected it to rupture, or squeal as air released from it at the very least, but instead the Gut shrunk in size.

Weird, but with no retaliation Therion was free to stab it again - and once more it shrunk. He was prevented from a third stab by another volley of bombs from two of the other Guts in the room, their shots offset so that he had to backpedal, and then backpedal again to avoid them both. Not only did the small explosion not affect the Gut he'd been attacking at all, but now that it wasn't taking damage it gradually began to grow in size again as if nothing had happened in the first place.

"Figures," the thief growled to himself.

By that time the Rotties had caught back up to him. Maybe the Feral had had the right idea in taking care of them first, disgusting nuisances as they were. They trudged forward like zombies, and the first in line got a douse of Armor Corrosive just before blade met rotting flesh. Not very durable in the first place, it was cut up and reduced to ash fairly quickly while a pair of crimson flies took to the air and buzzed angrily around Therion. He ignored them while he strafed around the remaining Rotty, putting it between himself and the Guts.

Chancing a glance at his partner for this room, Therion saw that Ms. Fortune was already done with the trio of Rotties that had gone after her. He called out, figuring she'd go for the Guts next. "Don't let up on those green things or they'll just grow back!"

As he spoke he ran the last Rotty through, pushing it back into the nearest Gut until his sword was driven through the both of them. The pustule shrunk, pulling the blade up through the Rotty's head. Its flesh sagged off of its face while it cheerfully gurgled, landing with wet plops on the ground around them until gradually turning to ashes.

“Then water we waitin’ for?” This sounded like another job for Purrge of Vengeance. Nadia pulled from her plentiful stock of Dramatic Tension to conjure a ten-foot orb of tempestuous Hydro above her head. “Drink’s on me!” She set it toward the isle of Guts like a massive volleyball, and though the pustules lobbed their explosive globules at her, they only detonated against the spherical maelstrom as it bore down on them. It exploded on contact, and after all the water sloshed around the room to slowly drain away into the pits, not so much as one green-tinted smear remained where the loathsome Guts once clustered. A half-heart plopped down in the midst of where they’d been. “We mopped ‘em up pretty quick.” Nadia motioned for Therion to take the healing if he needed it. Her regeneration would undo the bruises inflicted by that Bony in no time. He did just that, hopping over once most of the water fell from the platform and topping his health off. Once he helped himself and rejoined Nadia at the doorway into the adjacent room, the two proceeded to the next challenge - but neither anticipated what lay in wait for them.


In front of them stood an elaborate two-story chamber with a ceremonious, almost regal bearing, like some underworld cathedral. Faded maroon tapestries dangled above lit candlesticks that cast eerie shadows over the grief-stricken bodies of lantern-bearing statues, their faces covered by gaunt hands as emaciated, unwholesome figures clawed at their robes from below.

"This is… different," Therion commented, eyebrows pinching together while he considered what exactly that meant for them.

Nadia peered around, thrown for a loop by the room’s elaborate layout and decor compared to the far more simplistic affairs encountered thus far. She could see no enemies, but the slam of the door behind her and Therion suggested that they weren’t alone in here after all. After clicking on her Night Light, Nadia readied her anchors, and sure enough a ghostly Wizoob faded in beside her. She turned in time to catch the sagging specter as it spit a cluster of spectral orbs, then sidled around it to slash it with her anchors before it could disappear. Instead, the appearance of a second Wizoob next to her forced her to jump away, and by the time she landed both were gone. In their absence, however, came a handful of Lil Haunts to chase the intruders down and fire blood tears that predicted their movement. Nadia ran for the stairs to get to the more open second level, but got intercepted by a shot to the leg, and she fell to one knee. A Wizoob appeared to take advantage. Its spectral blast forced her to block, which meant by the time she could hurl her anchor at it like a javelin, it flew through the ghost’s fading form to clink harmlessly off the stone pillar behind it. Haunt shots flew in, and the feral got moving.

The two Seekers naturally split up again as Nadia headed for the stairs and Therion went for cover. He wasn't keen on getting anymore blood soaked, deftly dodging the Haunts' projectiles he swooped in behind a statue then peering out to observe the room. Perhaps Ms. Fortune would make for a more appealing target, giving him a chance to fade out of notice and catch the ghosts off guard.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case. He was able to avoid the Lil Haunts circling the center of the room firing their blood shots, but one of the Wizoobs manifested itself right in front of him. Only a chill running down his spine alerted Therion to it's presence, and with his back against the statue's base he had to drop himself to the ground to avoid it's blast attack. Once out of immediate danger he twisted, swinging his sword around to try and catch the phantom - too little too late.

This isn't gonna work, he thought. Rather than try and land a blow on any Wizoob that appeared beside him, it would be a lot easier if he went after one that was already corporeal and was after someone else. Given that the only other person in the room was Nadia, he'd have to keep an eye on her and keep an eye out for any ghostly ambushes on him.

His ears strained and his feline pupil widened into a circle to let as much light in as possible, Therion darted from statue to statue using the macabre marble figures as cover from the Lil Haunt's surprisingly accurate shots. He fired back with his throwing knives, sticking the little ghosts where they flew. His focus extended to Ms. Fortune as she moved for the second floor, ready to catch a Wizoob or two off guard.

Nadia’s ascent met with stern resistance as most of the six Haunts in this place ganged up on her at one, their cunning shots forcing her to zigzag back and forth as the mean little ghosts closed in. Her claws flashed in the candlelight, but without blood to shed or muscles to sever the Haunts just bounced slightly out of range to shoot again, then charge in once more. That quirk made it almost impossible to combo them, and with so many targets Nadia found herself overwhelmed. She managed to finish one Haunt off with an x-slash, but beneath the ensuing barrage of bloody tears she then had to hunker down in a crouch block. The shots pummeled her arms, followed shortly by the Haunts themselves, which after a charge bounced off her guard just a little to come at her again less than a second later. A ghostly sound from behind her announced just what she feared: the arrival of a Wizoob.

Luckily the feral had a plan in mind. “Get off me!” As the crowd of Haunts came in again, she used a pushblock to send the squirts much farther away than usual, then whirled around to block the opposite direction. She spun in time to defend herself from the Wizoob’s shots, but then Fortune’s fortunes took a turn for the worse. By slowing down the spectral burst, Nadia increased the amount of time she needed to block for, and during that helpless extra second of agonizing blockstun the second Wizoob appeared to lock her down even longer. That gave the Haunts enough time to rush her down and lay into her unprotected back, hitting her over and over. Pain and panic filled Nadia as the damage began to pile on, but a familiar sensation amidst the chaos reminded her of a seldom-used last resort. “NO MEANS NO!” Nadia screamed, throwing all the Haunts off her with Infinity Breaker The small specters got flung far and wide, and even the Wizoobs got thrown for a loop, giving Therion just the chance he’d been waiting for.

It was then that he struck, diving out from his cover towards the specters in a blur of white, tinted blue and black. What flashed in the dim candlelight of the stone hall was not his blade but his claws. He'd shifted into his Beast form, figuring it would be the fastest way up. Having built up his Battle Points throughout traversing the dungeon, he used a couple now to ensure that the most troublesome opponents would be taken care of in one go. One Boost for speed, and one for pure damage output, resulting in a rippling glow that surrounded his feline form. Let's see you fade away from this.

He tore through the nearest Wizoob like it was wet tissue paper, claws cleaving the ghost's sagging body into strips with each swipe. It didn't linger in the world much longer, each piece of its body beginning to disintegrate. One down, one more to go.

Therion leapt over Nadia to take on the remaining Wizoob before it could fully recover. It was only beginning to come back to its senses and was just starting to fade when Therion's fangs sunk into it, his jaws snapping closed between its arm and droopy eye hole to keep it rooted in its corporeal form. The Wizoob began to gather spectral tears in its mouth to spit at point blank range, but a harsh jerk of the cat's head jarred the ghost enough to interrupt its attack.

By this time a pair of the Haunts floated close enough to fire their own attacks. The beast weathered the blood shots as he raised a paw and slashed at the Wizoob trapped between his teeth, claws cutting it to ribbons. Therion spat the last of the ghost out where it crumbled away with the rest of it.

He turned around with his tail swishing back and forth and his fangs barred at the Lil Haunts. He jumped to one side to avoid their next shots, and then toward them to bat them out of the air. He kept at it in his Beast form, going after the remaining Haunts with his fur speckled with blood.

In the brief moment that Nadia took to catch her breath after nearly getting overwhelmed, she realized that that she’d been too impetuous again, always charging off on her own. But she also realized it wasn’t too late to change things up, and with Therion on the offensive in tiger form against the Haunts, she saw the perfect opportunity.

When the other burglar struck them the troublesome little spooks bounced away as usual, but this time Nadia jumped the way Therion sent them. “Comin’ atcha!” With a razor-sharp slice she smacked the first haunt right back into Therion’s waiting claws. Then he returned it again, and after a quick adjustment Nadia returned the favor. With their pincer maneuver and catlike reflexes they ping-ponged the haunts back and forth, so fast that they couldn’t fight back, until the last one went high enough for Nadia to leap up and deliver a flashy El Gato axe kick as the grand finale.

“Whew,” the feral sighed, her chest heaving from the strain. This room turned out to be a hell of a lot trickier than she first though, and it left her the most breathless she’d been thus far. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and crossed her arms. “Thanks for helpin’ meowt there. Jumped in over my head again, I guess.” While she wore a joking smile, she couldn’t help her eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly. She wouldn’t admit it, but she felt a little sore that her accomplice just hung back to use her as bait. “It’s gonna take me a minute to heal back up. Whatcha think, wanna do one more?”

A flash of light later and Therion was back to his regular self, rolling his neck and shoulders as he regrouped with the Ms. Fortune. His mouth twisted slightly and he turned his head to spit on the ground to rid himself of the phantom taste of Wizoob, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve before he looked back to the Feral.

"Don't mention it," he said, ignorant to Nadia’s veiled disapproval of his methods. "It worked out, that's all."

He took a moment to sweep his gaze over the room again before he answered her question. The fact that it was so different from the rest of the area had to mean they were headed in the right direction... hopefully. The only doors in the hall were the one they'd entered from, now reopened, and one ahead of them at the stairs landing, implying to Therion this was a corner room. A good chance that they'd find the "boss" perhaps. He couldn't imagine that it would just lead to some kind of trap, but wouldn't it be just his luck if it did?

Therion stopped overthinking it. This room had been tough but they got through it, so one more shouldn't hurt - especially if it got them closer to getting the mask and getting out. And if there were any of the same kinds of disappearing enemies in the next room, then at least they knew how to handle them.

"...sure," he finally answered. "If you're up for it."

Maybe all the splatter from the bloodshots was making it look worse than it was (he knew from experience this was the case, the tacky drying stains on his poncho said as much), but his fellow thief did look like a mess. "I don't do healing but I've got some potions... if you need them."

“Weeeeeell, if you’re offerin’, I sure ain’t gonna say no. I heal fast at the start, but the more blood I lose the slower I heal up. If I go anemic, it won’t be purr-etty.” Though confident enough that she felt she could risk another room as-is, this two-floor mausoleum had already taught her not to underestimate the foes she’d be facing in the Necropolis. A health potion would kickstart her regeneration and top off her stock of blood, meaning she didn’t need to worry about using her Copycats more, either. When bequeathed the other burglar’s healing tincture, she gulped it down like a cold beer after a long day’s work, and wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand. “...Urk.” Not the most pleasant, but she could feel fresh blood flowing through her veins.

Therion was not above using that time to check if their room clear had rewarded them any change to nab. His visual sweep of the room brought his gaze back down to the bottom of the stony staircase, where he found the compensation he’d been looking for. This reward, however, glittered far more than loose change. He found himself staring at a brass shield with an almost golden luster, its color and radiance a stark contrast to the room of gray stone and dust that surrounded it.

Wow, nice, he thought, making his way down to claim the prize while Nadia recovered since it didn't appear to be cursed. Honestly he might have chanced it anyway for a piece like that.


He inspected the shield up close, running his hands over it and squinting at the mark on the front. Is that supposed to be some kind of money sign? he wondered. With those two lines drawn through it the mark was reminiscent of the symbol for Orsterran leaves. It made the shield pretty garish if that was the case, but a shield was a shield. Besides, it might fetch a pretty penny if nothing else.

Meanwhile, Nadia was talking as he went back up to meet her. “Feline like a million bucks. Shall we press on?”

"No reason to stick around. Let's go."

The door that awaited them looked like any other; without ominous skeletal ornamentation, it seemed unlikely that a boss lurked behind it, so the two thieves could enter at their own leisure. Even before they stepped beyond the threshold, they could see that this room broke the mold too in terms of appearance, in a way not unlike the ghost-infested tomb that came before. This chamber looked like more of a proper cathedral, with pillars and pews, fine rugs, and even an altar, all bathed in the rosy glow of stained glass, however impossible that ought to be this far underground. The occupants of this place were anything but holy, however. Behind the altar stood an evil-looking Ammomancer, attended to by a handful of Skullets and Shelletons, more of which it would happily summoned if given half a chance. Nadia also saw that no other doors seemed to branch off of this room; they’d hit a dead end.

But that also meant they could go all-out, and Nadia decided to start with a bang. “Three’s compurrney!” she announced, creating two Copycats by spreading her arms in a spray of blood from her wrists. At the other end of the room, the gundead began to shoot, but she split to one side with a clone while the other went with Therion. “Let’s pinch ‘em!” Compared to charging straight down the center aisle, using the pillars along the sides of the room as cover was a much quicker and safer way to close the distance. Then the fun could begin.

His surprise at Ms. Fortune's copycat ability did not stall Therion's movement, and he darted off after the clone with a quick, "On it."

Instead of globs of bodily fluid, what these enemies were shooting seemed to be glowing, and fast moving. The look of the rounds suggested they might be more dangerous than the more disgusting projectiles, though it wasn't like the two Seekers were planning to get hit in the first place. They sprinted along the edge of the room, ducking behind cover as needed. The bullets tore chunks out of the wooden pews and blasted against the stone pillars, and in between volleys Therion fired back with his knives. At a distance it was hard to tell if they were doing any damage as they bounced off the skulls and bones, but at their current pace the now quartet of thieves would be closing in on the gundead within a few moments.

In an effort to prevent that, one of the Shelletons stepped forward. Its eye sockets glowed with a menacing light, and from its skull a concentrated beam of light shot out. The laser crashed against the pillar that Therion and one of the copycats were huddled behind, little chunks of stone flying off from the impact point.

"Great, one of these troublesome things," Therion complained in regards to the laser. He didn't know the word for it, but he did know they were deadly. The comment was made to the watery clone of Nadia, and he didn't particularly care if the original could hear him through it or not. Surprisingly, the copycat gave a furious nod; it seemed her innate hatred of keep-away endured even to these doppelgangers.

Another Shelleton prepared to fire its own laser at the intruders on the other side of the room, the glow of its eyes blinking momentarily just before it went off. Therion summoned the junicorn and sent it to roll into the middle of the room to draw the rest of the gundead's fire, hoping to provide an opening for Ms. Fortune, himself, and the clones to get into melee range.

The thief’s gambit worked exactly as planned. His burly Striker rumbled down the underground cathedral’s central aisle through a shower of wooden splinters and stone dust, totally unbothered by the sudden and desperate concentrated fire put out by the gundead around the altar, then smashed into the skeletal gang to scatter them like so many bowling pins. Even the ammomancer failed to escape the chaos, getting momentarily pinned beneath the bony ridges of a Shelleton that the nightmarish armadillo sent flying. Those who did get spared by the gigantic impact turned their attention on the junicorn, the thieves skulking in the shadows now a secondary concern to the metal-plated monster in their midst. Their opponents, meanwhile, could scarcely have asked for a better outcome.

From behind the chipped stone pillars both sides the quartet of cat burglars burst onto the scene. “Drop anchor!” At Nadia’s call both copycats unleashed a rippling anchor shot into the mayhem up front, dealing a little extra damage, but Nadia had big plans to finish this quickly. After striking, both anchors and chains plopped to the floor, which left a trail of glistening blood all the way to the altar. “Purr-ouette!“ The copycats then sped along the blood trails straight into the thick of it, spinning like ballerinas with their tails and arms extended in a three-way lariat. A chorus of smacks, slaps, and bonks rang ensued; the doppelgangers’ crowd control and lockdown meant that the gundead wouldn’t have a moment to themselves. “Ahaha!” Nadia laughed. “How a-mew-sing!” Nadia herself came in hot on their heels, using her ability as a shipgirl to zip along the blood trail. Using that momentum she leaped into the air, sailing over the chaos to land on the stained glass window. For a split second her shadow hung over the disarrayed enemies like death itself. Then she shot downward with Feral Edge, an anchor aimed straight at the ammomancer. “I’ll take a stab at it!” she cried, and the next second she’d driven her weapon through the summoner’s head. In the blink of an eye, the ringleader had been assassinated; all that remained were its lackeys.

It was quite the spectacle of carnage, one that Therion had been content to sit back and watch. Ms. Fortune seemed to really be on a roll in this room; if he was so inclined Therion could probably leave it all for her to take care of from here. He seriously considered doing just that, but ultimately decided to help out if only to get the area cleared out faster.

Nowhere near as flashy nor as talkative as his companion, Therion swooped in to finish off the Skullets. It turned out that a blade was effective enough, and the living (if that was the correct term for it) bullets that had hung on throughout the junicorn and Feral's barrages were put to an end by daggers in the back.

Though the Shelletons proved tougher enemies, they couldn't withstand the combined onslaught of the thieves and Copycats. Therion only darted in and out of the combat to strike at the joints between bone when the dopplegangers gave him an opening, sending the metallic skeletons tumbling into a pile. They appeared defeated, laying still and in pieces like that, but by now the Seekers could tell that anything not reduced to ash was not truly finished. The Shelletons' eye sockets barely had time to start glowing again before they were ran through and their skulls were destroyed.

And with that, the feline duo had another room cleared. Therion's ears flicked around, listening to make sure there weren't any surprises that he couldn't see. "That could have gone a lot worse," he said, which was basically his way of saying things had actually gone pretty well this time.

Once more Nadia found herself breathing heavily, but this time she had a smile on her face–the smug smirk of someone who’d executed a plan to the letter and had utterly demolished the competition. When Therion spoke to her, she turned that grin on him. “Oh no, by all means, hold your appaws.” As the last of the gundead rusted away into ash, the underground cathedral settled back into a solemn silence, although now in a state of pitiable disarray thanks to the short-lived firefight. For the first time she spent more than half a second looking at one of this nightmarish dungeon’s fallen enemy spirits, that being the ammomancer. Nadia crouched over it, staring into the prismatic light with furrowed brows. “Hmm…” She hadn’t given the diminutive dark mage the chance to work its magic, but it looked every inch the stereotypical monster summoner. That could be useful, at least as a Striker…but on the other hand, Nadia could not put aside her deeply-ingrained hatred of the undead, skeletons in particular, and anything that brought her one step closer to the Skullgirl could not be tolerated.

She turned up her nose at the Ammomancer spirit, which meant that Therion could pocket it. He’d been itemizing the Shelleton spirits one by one, picking them up and crushing them in his fist. The golden sheen of their bones, still visible in the prismatic orbs of light, drew his eyes. He thought that maybe he could get some valuables out of them and ended up with one nickel, three pennies, and a box. No luck this time, he stowed the coins and the box after checking it’s contents, and the spirit of the Ammomancer went with them for safekeeping if only because he deemed it useful, just as Ms. Fortune had.

As Nadia stood, she spotted something on the altar that she didn’t notice before: a strange gun. Neither sleek nor compact like the average pistol, it featured a weirdly thick barrel, and what looked like a dish on top of it. “Hey, what’s this?” Something related to the gun-toting foes she and Therion laid low here, maybe? Without a second thought, Nadia picked it up, took aim down the church’s shrapnel-littered central aisle, and fired. The gun gave a foom sound, and a juicy slab of steak sailed through the air to unceremoniously splat down on the dusty carpet, roll over once, and lie still.

Nadia blinked a few times, taken aback. “Steak!? It shoots steak!? Hell yeah!” She glanced at Therion, who returned her look with a less enthusiastic expression. “D’you think it’s clean? Ah, who cares? Time to meat…!”

Out of nowhere, a huge Bengal Tiger poofed into existence, landing next to the meat. Nadia petrified, her eyes as wide as saucers and her mouth frozen agape. Therion was a near mirror image, his tail puffed out and entire body shocked still at the sudden appearance of the wild cat. With angry eyes the tiger stalked around, but there were no enemies for it to maul, so a moment later it vanished again. It took a couple seconds for Nadia to relax, but the moment she did she burst out into breathless laughter. “Ahahahaha! Whoa man, that’s furr-eakin’ awesome!” She shook her head as if clearing out some sort of delirium, gazing at the spot where the tiger disappeared. “...And we keep the steak!”


Therion shook his head, exasperated. He should really try and stop being so caught off guard by the crazy things this world cooked up. "Aim that at a stove next time and we’ll be all set," he said, his tone flat. "...except for the tiger thing."

He was finally beginning to loosen up a little after the firefight and the surprise tiger, and after a few quick stretches he met Nadia’s eyes and nodded his head back towards the door they’d come in through. With nothing else to do now but backtrack, they could regroup with the others and see what progress had been made in the Necropolis’ other directions. The feline thieves took off, retracing their steps.

Jesse met up with the others in the boss room that someone- the Knight, apparently, had defeated. Normally she might advise against doing it alone, but the Duke of Flies was hardly a significant threat. So it was likely that any of the Seekers could solo any of these rooms, even if it would be a pain in the ass.

As Nadia took the lead, Jesse stood over the hole and looked at the others still yet to leave. "Anyone wanna group up with me for a bit?"

Omori was standing in front of the pitch-black doorway, his attention turning from the goat mounted on top, to Jesse, then back into the room itself. He was curious about it, yeah, but at the same time, it unnerved him. Nadia had the right idea to avoid going in. It had a familiar aura to it. One that said, "You shouldn't be here". And concidering what he saw when the feral took the nightlight? Something like a severed, crimson-colored head distorted into eternal agony was a literal NOPE.

Raising his upper arms up, he backed up from the Devil Room and to behind Jesse.

Right about then came the heavy foot steps of Ganondorf's boots. He had watched the two other Seekers show their hesitation to enter the dark opening. As he walked past he gave them an incredulous look before simply shrugging his shoulders, "Fine then. I'll take point if no one else will." Given his background, it made a frightening amount of sense why he would have no fear for these sort of places. He was raised, not to fear the dark, but to conquer it and command it. This, he'd long ago decided, would be no different.

Jesse felt like she should pat Omori on the head or something, but decided that would be inappropriate. She squinted and smirked, amused at Ganondorf's expression and interpretation of events. "Well, don't let me stop you, big guy. By all means, show us how it's done." She gestured to the hole.

"Hmph." replied Ganondorf with a huff, "This place does not frighten me." he added while he approached the hole. He leaned over and gazed down into it, unable to see where it led. But Ganondorf, true to his word, was not afraid. He offered one more glance to the Seekers behind him and jumped.

Jesse glanced at Omori. "Somethin' about this place means that you don't break your ankles when you fall, right? Otherwise, I dunno, I could give you a piggy back ride or something." Jesse said. She took a step and dropped down into the hole.

Once everyone was down there, Jesse picked a direction she saw that people weren't going.

"This way, fellas?" She said, summoning her Service Weapon. She peaked inside the dark room. "I don't see anything but...sometimes they appear right as you enter."

The Gerudo merely shrugged, "The sooner we're on our way, the sooner we will be able to leave this wretched hole." he said in what sounded like slightly more annoyed tone. Even if he wasn't afraid of this place, that didn't mean he couldn't get tired of it after a while.

After a moment to swap out his weapons, Omori peeked into the room with Jesse, machete and flintlock in his hands. "They can pop out of the ground." He mentioned, thinking back to the Ulcers in the Caves. The boy couldn't help nodding at Ganondorf's statement. As long as they didn't run into any more spiders, he'd have no problem clearing the rooms ahead.

But something crossed his mind. How were all three of them going to step inside at once? Sectonia could blink into the rooms, but he didn't know what his current teammates could do. "...So are we all hopping in at the count of three, or am I getting tossed in?"

"This is my tried and true strat." Jesse said, floating into the air above Ganondorf's head. "Then you guys just go in underneath me. On three. Wait, no, on go. So it'll be three, two, one, go and then you go." Jesse said.

"So we'll do that right now. Three, two, one, go." She floated into the room, looking down to make sure they were beneath her.

Without giving it too much thought, Ganondorf reached down and quickly grabbed the boy by his shirt and just carried him through the door underneath Jesse. He wasn't exactly fond of the idea of giving people rides on his back like he had previously done with Nadia so maybe this would be next best way to handle this? Omori appeared indifferent to being picked up by the scruff, either way. Jesse furrowed her brow and smirked incredulously, but if Omori wasn't complaining neither was she.

Once through, he let the boy back down on the floor. It really was inconvenient that these doors automatically locked themselves after only a single person stepped through. He supposed this was why the Hero of Time had to work alone for the most part.

Immediately, he and the others got a good look at what they'd be up against this time. Three bizarre organisms, or perhaps collectives or organisms, patrolled a room of boulders arrayed with regular spacing. Each one appeared to be a chain of empty-eyed heads that dragged themselves along at a surprising pace with grubby little mits that extended from their cheeks. From their gaping mouths extended a tongue that they used to latch onto -or God forbid, into- the creature in front of them, allowing them to hustle along in a grotesque game of follow-the-leader. These Buttlickers happily charged toward the Seekers in an attempt to both heabutt them and rip at their skin with their centipede limbs.

"Okay, who comes up with this shit? Omori, stay away these from things!" Jesse said. Not entirely out of concern for his safety, but just because they were really gross and Omori wasn't wearing big shoes like Ganondorf. Jesse switched to Shatter and took point out of the three of them. She used Shield and formed a wide wall in front of her, forming a psychic bulkhead to force the abominations to crawl around it. She could move or readjust the wall or herself as she pleased as long as it was infront of her. Ideally this would give her teammates enough time to kill some of them while they tried to maneuver around the wall.

"This would be easier if I had my red hands back..." Omori tiredly sighed. Sticking with ranged weapons seemed like the best option in this place, but he was low on ammo for one gun, Revolver didn't work like that, and the flintlock he held now required him to face these...eloquently named centipedes head on. With Jesse constructing a barrier to force the creatures to go around, the boy went to one side and began stabing what he could in their ugly heads, if not cutting their bodies up into sections.

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the wall, the King of Evil had already drawn the white sword from its scabbard, "Tch, disgusting creatures." he scoffed with a scowl. Even he was getting to be sickened by the sight of these abominations. When one of them got close enough to his end of the psychic wall, Ganondorf wasted no time in stabbing at it and hacking it apart with the despicably holy weapon he held in his hands.

One of the buttlickers' tongues wrapped around Omori's machete, seemingly in an attempt to disarm the boy. He wrestled against it in a dangerous game of tug-o-war, a few other centipedal creatures beginning to swarm after seeing an opportunity to attack.

Until Omori fired his gun point blank, catching the few in an explosive blast and freeing his blade. ...It still had the tongue wrapped around it. Gross.

Lastly, Jesse flung her Shield wall at the last centipede, shredding it into pieces. "Nice!" She offered the two of them a pair of high fives- Up High for Ganondorf and Down Low for Omori. Ganondorf just thought she was waving for some reason and decided to raise a hand to wave back if only to humor. He didn't expect her to suddenly slap her hand against his, which left him with a quizzical look on his face. Omori on the other hand, casually took the offer without any words. Jesse nodded and smirked at the noble effort.

As the last gruesome Buttlicker exploded into ash, a silver chest dropped onto the smeared blood in the center of the room. Popping it open rewarded two coins and a silver key, a far luckier bounty than most of the fighters had received thus far. With the promise of greater reward for the greater risk they now faced in mind, they could proceed to the next chamber, unaware of the change in pace it would present them with.

Ganondorf reached down and picked up the key and then examined it with curiosity, followed by exasperated sigh, "Look at me, grabbing silver keys out of chests. Just like Him." he said the last word of that sentence with a sharp degree of venomous hatred.

The monochrome youth picked up the two coins in turn. His brow rose at the vague mention of someone Ganondorf didn't seem to like, but didn't bother asking. "Might be useful." He said, looking at the silver key. He didn't know if a locked room was down the direction they were moving or if a golden chest will appear. "We'll just have to keep moving. Let's go."



What greeted the trio next was a room of stone brick, with floors of dark gray tiles of varying sizes and white walls illuminated by fiery sconces. They stood on an overlook in front of the door connected by a bridge lined with red masonry to a rectangular center area. Just a few feet below the bridge lay a knee-deep pool of water, a far cry from the bottomless pits encountered before now, but the Seekers' focus lay on the enemies that awaited them across the span. Rather than more fleshy or fecal monstrosities, a gang of giant living bullets stood there, with cylindrical gold-colored bodies, silver caps, and little faces. A bullet with a darker gray hue and an eyepatch sat at a table in the middle of his squad, but at the sight of intruders he flipped the table onto its side to use as cover, and the Bullet Kin opened fire with magnums. The shots whizzed through the air much slower than real bullets, but with four shooters they filled the air, and the Bullet Veteran did not hesitate to add his own much faster and better-aimed gunfire to the mix.

Ganondorf had to dive out of the way to avoid taking any bullets, "Bah, cowards!" lemented, having always hated this sort of ranged weaponry. But that didn't mean Ganondorf was above returning the favor. He did just that, summoning the Duke of Flies to unleash a volley of twelve flies that would home in on as many targets as possible for their single attack.

Jesse sprinted forward and created another psychic Shield wall. Once again her Saturnus symbol glowed brightly and seven projectiles of the ground began to circle around her, ready to strike defensively. The bullets' bullets slammed into her Shield, but Jesse held firm and tried to offer her teammates a safe fall back position- while she closed the gap. If it ain't broke..." She thought to herself.

After the Duke of Flies had cleared out what it could, Omori casted Sad Poem on the Bullet Veteran to slow it's firing speed, then rushed in to clear out the rest. Of course, having to rely on getting up close to the enemy meant taking a bullet here and there was inevitable. Though he didn't mind at this point, he was willing to bleed. Just as long as they didn't shoot at his backpack. Collecting the spirits of these Bullet Kin would most likely give him the ammo he needed for his other pistol, so showing no mercy here was necessary. For every couple of strikes the boy managed to connect, he'd fire his flintlock to gradually snuff the Bullet Kin out. But someone still had to take out the leader.

As soon as the Duke of Flies vanished, after Omori rushed in following his spell, Ganondorf readied the White Sword and followed suit. Since the boy was focusing on the Bullet Kin, the Gerudo took it upon himself to focus on the Bullet Veteran. It was tougher than its weaker cousins, but being slowed by Omori's spell would render it practically helpless against Ganondorf just the same. With enough powerful swings of the white sword, the Bullet Veteran fell soon enough. And the King of Evil elected to ignore its spirit, remembering that spirits like that didn't prove to be of much use to him. One of the others could have it if they wished.

Even after the last Bullet-Kin rusted away into ash and a spirit, the acrid, almost stinging smell of gunsmoke hung in the air. To compensate the Seekers for their fresh assortment of bullet wounds, a most interesting reward manifested itself in the center of the room where the firefight went down: a gun. At least, it looked like a gun, but the bulbous red shape on the end of the barrel poked a couple holes in that theory. If nothing else, it looked like it packed a punch.



"That's an... interesting weapon." Ganondorf mused, though he did not bother taking the object, "I don't much care for this type of weapon. So one of you can have it instead."

After crushing all the spirits in this room for extra ammo, Omori eagerly grabbed the Boxing Glove. Ranged attacks seemed to be a good option down here, so he'd take what he could get.

...He'll need a moment to heal himself before moving to the next room, though. The boy searched his inventory for any health items left.

Jesse had dropped her Shield, looking over Omori's shoulder at the boxing glove gun. "God, I hope that thing actually works." She said, admiring the novelty weapon. "And, uh, by the way, you don't need to get yourself shot for no reason. We're not in any rush here." She said.

Omori glanced back at Jesse. He simply shrugged in response, letting the snacks restore most of his health. "I can take worse." The boy told her. Though the amount of damage he took in fights so far was a bit concerning, he could admit it. "I think I got enough ammo from those bullet guys to use for my other gun. It's just that this one doesn't work like that." The boy held up his flintlock as he explained. "...Sorry for not being careful." He softly apologized after a moment.

"Nothing to say sorry about, you're the one getting shot." Jesse said. "We seriously need to invest in some real firepower for you. Not a literal flintlock. Your...magic? Abilities? Whatever it is you do to them is good stuff, even without guns and knives. So in the meantime feel free to play it safe. I can move with my Shield up, so if you want me to advance just say the word."

Omori nodded, the corners of his lips quirking up into a faint smile.

Two down, two to go. The next stop on the heroes' journey looked like a normal one, although it presented an unexpected new hazard. In addition to the four creepy little Vis that tottered around the place, just waiting for someone to step into the same row or column so they could pull open the wound on their stomachs and unleash a beam of caustic blood, four blocks of spikes lay in a square around the center of the room. If a Seeker steeped in front of one of its sides, it would slide at high speed across the floor in an attempt to impale the tragic hero, then slowly grind back to its original position for another go. Everything in here seemed to operate by the cardinal directions, but without those limitations, the newcomers could form a plan of attack to overcome the dangerous threat.

Jesse got to work, using Grip to shoot the Vis from a safe distance one by one. With no greater swarm of projectiles or enemies to worry about, she was making quick work of them. When there was only two left she stepped in the path of a spike block. "Shit!" She swore and as a gut reaction Evaded backwards, turning into a blur of speed before reappearing by Ganondorf and Omori.

The spike block began to retract to it's fellows. "Uh, watch the spikes. They bite."

Omori furrowed his brows at the Pokies. "It's either an elaborate trap, or those things are alive somehow..." He said, trying to figure out a way through without having more holes made in his body. He held a hand under his chin. "Think we can break them?" He suggested.

"If by 'we' you mean 'me.'" Jesse joked, extending a hand out wards the spike blocks. The one that had just tried to get her jostled, cracked, and was ripped from the ground before being promptly flung into one of the other critters, splattering it. It tumbled and fell into pieces.

She shook her hand, flexing her fingers.

"So be it." muttered Ganondorf as he concentrated dark magic in his hands and then focused that energy in front of him,"Times like this call for more... expendable allies." he summoned Phantom Ganon, who at first stood in front of his master before floating upward and over the spike blocks where it could then slay the remaining two Vis by stabbing at them from above, outside the range of their vision and attacks.

The monochrome boy wasn't in range to stab the other two pokies or use Bread Slice on them, so Omori casted Mock to gradually shatter them, the red hands stabbing into the spike blocks until they broke.

The reward for their thorough efforts was...a nondescript pill. It barely made a sound as it appeared and fell onto the ground. Omori glanced at it and rose a brow. Should any of them even take the gamble? He didn't exactly trust it, so that left the other two to decide.

Jesse warily eyed the pill. She glanced down at the symbol on her hand that was relatively unobtrusive and granted her a new ability. On the other hand... "If there was one thing I learned from moving to New York, it was to not pick up random pills on the ground and eat them." She said. And the previous power she acquired activated on touch. Could a pill activate on touch? "I think I've pushed my luck enough for the day."

Regardless of their choice, the trio would find that the last room was...already finished. Somehow, Sectonia managed to get ahead of them, from the item room nearby if what she explained to them was any indication. Omori had to respect the queen bee for finding a way to skip ahead. The red symbol in the center of the room did have him curious. Unlike the grotesque and peculiar the team had seen so far, this room and the reward it held had a different air to it itself too. The boy walked up to the Boon of Ares, and reached out to it.

As Omori's outstretched hand grew nearer to the blazing red emblem, a sound gradually filled his ears, subtle at first but swelling fast in intensity. It was a cacophony of impassioned voices, a tumultuous song of war cries and screams, punctuated by the percussion of weapons against one another. By the time he worked up the courage to actually touch the divine insignia, the roars of battle became deafening, but in the instant he made contact they faded away. So to did the world itself, trapping the boy within an infinite dark space with horizons of flame. Distant silhouettes waged an endless struggle; arrows flew overhead. And before Omori loomed the majestic visage of Ares, the God of War.

In armor of gleaming gold and spotless white he stood tall, his silver hair parted to one side and adorned with a laurel wreath, black like the spikes on his shoulders. In his hands he held a glossy black blade with a wicked edge, and in his empty red eyes and knowing smirk there lurked not malice, but the capacity for infinite cruelty. However, he did not move or animate in any way; instead, he seemed more like a vision, or a projection, than a living, breathing person here with Omori. "Well, well," he began, his voice deep and smooth. "Just who is it that has come seeking the blessing the God of War? Don't answer, mind you, this little chat of ours is strictly one-way. Nevertheless I can sense quite the fighting spirit...could you be a fellow dealer of death? I know that you must have many aspirations, my petitioner. To be plain with you about my own motive for a moment: As long as you continue bringing swift and steady death, you shall have my unyielding support."

A scroll of parchment appeared before Omori, and it unraveled as it floated in the air. Three options were listed out on it:

• Curse of Pain (special/abnormal weapon attacks inflict Doom on opponents, which causes a bloody sword to appear over their heads for a couple seconds, after which it descends for extra damage)
• Blade Dash (full-body evasive maneuvers that cover enough distance will leave a Blade Rift behind. These horizontal spinning blades, essentially bloody red saws, deal constant damage to enemies they cut into in the brief window they're active)
• Battle Rage (after slaying a foe, your next attack or special/abnormal weapon attack turns blood red and deals more damage)

Omori's eyes were drawn from the projection of War to the parchment, then thinking over the options shown to him. It's not every day you'd be offered a bit of extra help, from a god no less! He'd probably have to choose wisely, and they all sounded strong too. But if he had to pick only one...

Not wishing to waste more of Ares' time, the monochrome boy decided to take the Blade Dash ability for himself.

The visage of Ares seemed pleased. "The more you slay your enemies, my friend, the stronger the bond between us, I think. War's such a wondrous thing, in truth. It solves so many different problems, whilst perpetuating its own inevitability. Let's keep it up, then, hm?"

Then the realm of war receded, like a dream lost upon awakening. Omori stood back in the Necropolis once more, surrounded by the black stone and eerie green spirit-flame of Tartarus, with the other Seekers all around. To them, the divine sigil had merely burst into light, with no other strange occurrences. Yet the spirit of war now burned inside Omori, marked indelibly, like the pilot light of a flamethrower. All it needed was fuel.

...Had he just made a pact with a god?

...

Awesome.

As Omori did that, Jesse glanced around, pleased with this development. "Hey, nice to meet up with someone else. Good to see you, Queen Bee." She said.

"Hm, so the Insect beat us here?" asked the King of Evil, but merely shrugged afterward. Less work for them to do, he supposed. And it seemed the only items to be found were a sigil in this room - similar to the one that appeared after the Duke of Flies was defeated - and a rotten fruit in a recently unlocked adjacent room. Well neither of those were of any consequence to the Gerudo. The meant that the only remaining direction to go would almost certainly lead to the boss room.

"Well then, who wants to venture into the last room and challenge the boss of this floor?" he asked the Seekers currently present, "I imagine they get stronger the deeper we go, and I suppose I could use a new servant to call upon." he faced the ominous door on the eastern wall, but decided to wait for a spell in case anyone desired to follow him in. Sectonia eyed Ganondorf, questioning why he would want abominations under his command.

"I'm down." Jesse said. "We're kinda on a roll." She crossed her arms and casually leaned by the door.

"I should see what one of these 'bosses' look like myself. I missed the last two, and I could use a release for my fury." Sectonia said, thrusting her swords down to clean the blood off of them. Sectonia observed what happened to Omori, as he was a perspective minion, if a bit diminitive. Perhaps this boss would show Sectonia what everyone did, as she hadn't observed much thanks to the nature of this dungeon.

She then glanced at the item room, asking. "So, are any of you intereested in the rotten fruit? It seems to give a power over the creatures here, but as to what that is I do not know. And I for one do not want to eat a rotten fruit."

"Concidering a literal nightlight imbeded itself into Nadia when she grabbed it?" Omori spoke up, stepping back over to the others. He shook his head in distain. "I'm not risking turning my head into a tomato. As for the boss room..." He glanced at the door, trying to see what was waiting on the other side. "I guess it was a matter of time before I tossed my hat into the ring."

Admittedly, Omori felt better with a 4th fighter on their small team. With their combined strength, this boss could be cleaned out in no time!

...He quietly hoped his friends were still okay.

As Giovanna handled the ringleader and the getaway driver, Geralt set about collecting the sky-hooks and grabbing the Spirits of the gang members he'd killed, crushing them with little in the way or mercy or thought. Raiden's less-than-stellar fusion results made it clear these were not worth considering, especially not with the caliber of Spirits he'd already fused with. In a way, he'd become a bit of a snob about it, though given the consequences fusion could bring, he felt it was justified. Both the Orphan and the Harbor Demon had given him powerful tools in exchange for the great physical changes they'd caused him. Whatever Raiden got out of a simple thug...he doubted it was on the same level, though there was never any telling.

He didn't overtly react to their guide's...unenthused reaction to their bloodshed, either. It wasn't necessary to do so, though he supposed it wasn't necessary for them to kill these people, either. Especially when it only took him one or two punches to incapacitate them. He'd have to think on that for later, as things weren't quite as simple as "monster" or "enemy army" here. Wanton slaughter would cause more trouble than it was worth here.

When Giovanna mentioned that she had called the police, Geralt nodded. Their job was done, and now it was time to be far, far away from here. Handing everybody a sky-hook and following after the woman, Geralt had to admit it was...almost thrilling, riding these rails. Less thrilling, however, was the sudden stop their ride came to, depositing them into a large walled complex, apparently a brewery. He managed to make a...passable...landing, crashing onto hands and knees and rising to a crouch with a groan and an accusatory look at Giovanna. "Nice one..." He grumbled, looking around. The place was surprisingly heavily protected, with strange, barrel-headed creatures patrolling around and odd-looking devices with blinking red lights on the outside walls. He wasn't sure what those did, exactly, but he figured it was best to stay away from them.

When one of the barrel creatures was walking away, Geralt moved. His size, along with his already-powerful muscles, let him cross the distance to the wall he was aiming for in moments. Double-checking to make sure he was clear, he crouched and jumped, grabbing onto the lip of the roof above him, his absurd height making it a simple matter to catch the roof and pull himself up the wall, boosting himself with a firm foot planted against the brick. He kept low, looking around for a rail to catch or a way to cross to the orange tower that looked like their best way out. He didn't see anything that'd be quite so simple, but found a path that'd at least get him closer. Hooking to a pipe above him, Geralt zoomed across a short gap, landing carefully on a semi-raised platform and quickly scaling upwards once again and surveying from his new vantage point.

He saw more barrel creatures patrolling the place, as well as more numerous rails criss-crossing along above and around him. None lead directly to his goal, but a couple went near and curved away from it, continuing into either a loop or heading to a completely different section of the complex.

Taking any of them could risk alerting the patrollers if he dismounted improperly and landed too close or in their sightlines. And he didn't want to risk trying to destroy one, for a number of reasons. No, for now...he would watch, and wait, looking for a lull in their security or a blind spot he could exploit while the others carried on.

No one was more surprised at how well the show had gone than the Ace Cadet. He gave a quick wave to the crowd as Sierra shouted he and Frisk out, and then the hunter was content to retreat to the far side of the fountain. The little heating device that All-Round provided did wonders for recovering from the cold, so while Sierra entertained some questions from eager fans the Cadet sat back, warmed up, and hummed lightly.

"Snow idea how we pulled it off, but that was fun," he said to Frisk. His nose and cheeks had turned red from the cold, but a grin was on his face all the same. He'd have to remember to tell Nadia all about his new budding career as a Spheal trainer. Once the last of the audience kids shuffled away, the Cadet stood up to rejoin Band, Red, and Lucia at Sierra's transport van.

It was great to hear everything went smoothly. Hopefully the success of their little detour was indicative of things to come in Magicapolis.

Then came the issue of payment. While it had slipped the Cadet's mind while he was focusing on the Spheals and the show, some hard earned money would feel pretty good right about now. Sierra mentioned another representative for the foundation she worked for would be mostly in charge of that, and the woman in question showed up right on time. Pleasantries were exchanged, and then Wicke mentioned there was a little more that had to be done ebfore they got paid. Well, specifically she said "write your checks," and though he didn't know the expression the Cadet figured it was the same thing.

She also mentioned treated them to some hot drinks, and how could they refuse? The hunter ravenous appetite had also made a reappearance, and coupled with the cold the offer was very much appreciated. "That sounds gargwawesome."

So they all climbed into the van, the trip not taking very long at all. The Ace Cadet waved to Sierra as she drove off, and followed everyone else into the shop. The inside smelled delicious, a smorgasbord of sweets on offer. The proprietress, or who the Cadet assumed to be the proprietress, was behind the counter and working on making some pastries. The Cadet would have gladly purchased the majority of her stock, if only she hadn't been making them with her magic. He sadly turned his head away from the display cases, a shame since they look so good.

Instead he returned his attention to Wicke as the group found a couple of tables to pull together. Wonder Red went ahead and asked the question that the Cadet had been considering since the end of the show when Sierra explained why they had needed security just in case. She'd mentioned shelters, which implied that they took in animals. Wasn't that a good thing? "I'm curious too. I don't know who would have an issue with helping little critters like that."

Midna and her Vibrava scouted the streets, buzzing wings and shadow sneaks letting them patrol around the small pack of survivors that was being guarded by the reassuring presence of the two streetfighters. The two flittered in and out of their scouting, guiding the group away from any packs of others and towards the bunker their charges had pointed out.

Thanks to this, a bit of luck, and an odd tendency to drift in a certain direction that Midna noticed, they made it. Not without incident, mind, as there was a close call or two, and they managed to pick up a few hiding stragglers too.

All of these folks rushed forwards once the bunker was insight, flooding the narrow corridor leading to the entrance, and breaking the self imposed silence to call out to the guards to “Open up!” “Let us in”

The response was a number of hatches popping open on the bunker, and numerous guns being pointed out form murderholes, followed by red helmeted guard captain peeking out of another right by the entrance and demanding to know “where you followed? How close are the Others”

“No Others, we snuck by them, now let us in before any come this way” one of the survivors replied urgently after she got over the initial shock of the weapons being pointed at, or rather past, them.

”And if any come we’ll handle them” Midna called over their heads from where she and the other two ladies were covering the entrance from the back of the pack.

The captain made a sound that made it clear he was unconvinced of this claim, before glancing at a subordinate who reported “sensors aren't picking up anything sir!” before cautiously adding”We should be safe to let them in?”

The captain looked visibly relieved at not having to make a hard choice today, before he recovered his professional appearance and commanded “then open it on the double, and let’s get these people inside!”

Locks were swiftly unlatched, and the entrance unsealed, revealing the captain in full as they urged “quickly but calmly please, don’t push or shove”, stepping right back into the role of crowd management, which made the operation of getting everyone inside smooth, right up until it was only the 3 seekers left outside.

“You three, I don’t care if you think you can fight Others, leave it to the professionals and get in here!” he commanded, jerking a thumb behind him to the tunnel going down that the civilians were currently moving down at a far more relaxed pace.

Karin stepped forward, her boot clicking on the pavement as if it were a heel. ”Good sir, Princess Midna speaks the truth. We, The Seekers of Light, are a travelling group of freelance warfighters with a vested interest in the public good. I can assure you we can handle ourselves and will seek out the Others and destroy them for you, free of charge.” She declared. Once again looking to improve their reputation.

”That’s right!” Sakura said with a pumping of her fists. ”Thank you, but you don’t gotta worry about us! We’re pretty tough.” Sakura crossed her arms and smiled confidently.

”And I have some proof right here:” Midna added as a last, unfurling a shadow hand to reveal the small pile of Other spirits she had nabbed.

It was hard to read the captain’s expression due to their helmet covering their eyes, but they certainly didn’t sound impressed as he began to say “I assure you, there are far more dangerous things than Buddy Rummies out…” before a crackle came from inside the room, followed by the the sound of someone calling out “This is the south gate, requesting backup now damn it now!”

The captain turned his focus immediately from the three of them to the intercom, striding just to the side of the door and taking a receiver before barking into it “Stay calm and report… and where is your commanding officer?”

“Jenkins is down sir! Hericks too, and Mary and Rob are hurt!” The man on the other side ran on in a half controlled panic, as in the background there came a loud rhythmic banging sound “They're at the doors, and we can’t open the firing ports without a Brawn Yawn getting in!”

“.... Understood. Remain calm and pull back to the second line of defense and await instructions from the bunker commander” the captain told the soldier on the other end who had signaled to them instead of that commander in his panic, before nodding to a subordinate who started relaying this to their local leader right away.

As Midna peaked inside to understand what was going on, she saw two things: one was a screen showing the panicked caller, as well as at least one of his injured comrades slumped down behind him, soaked in water and convulsing on the floor. The other thing she saw was a map, one detailing information about the shelter and, due to a certain amount of standardization, it was actually visible to normal people like them.

It gave a brief outline of the bunker, such as its main lounge and where the toilets were. It also showed where the other bunker entrance popped out on the city streets. Smart, Midna thought, to have two ways in and out so that, if the defenses broke, the people inside weren't trapped like rats in a pit.

Karin narrowed her eyes and Sakura gasped. Karin used the outline of the bunker to get a vague idea of where they needed to go. After that all they needed to do was follow the sounds of chaos. ”We gotta get over there!” Sakura said, beginning to run into the bunker. Karin caught her by the shoulder.

”That’ll take too long and they cannot open the doors. We shall find an alternative path and flank the creatures from behind. Follow me. Midna-san, use your summons to help guide us.” Karin said. Sakura nodded and followed as the street fighters sprinted away.

”On it … i think I know which way it was already” Midna said. She had, after all, seen some the Others were heading in a specific direction. Sure enough, with that combined with the map on the wall, they found their way through the streets and , once they picked up the sound of something slamming against metal, their destination was more than clear.



Soon they were upon the battlefield: a narrow alleyway leading between the two story buildings of a row of shops which terminated in the bunker entrance. The Others were crowded around said alley way, practically jostling for position to be the ones who would be first inside once the door was beaten down.

Sakura and Karin both recognized the truest threat right away. An amalgamate of a crocodile and a pile of junk, melted halfway into the ground like it was made of water. A disturbing amount of human wooden legs kicked the air where it’s tail should have been. This must be the Brawn Yawn. It slammed against the bunker doors, well past the remains of the fortifications the guards had set up.

There were also sludgy Bile Pools and creaking, flapping Plateau Pendu’s, arms dangling upside down.

”Hey!” Sakura shouted, charging a fireball. She launched it up towards a Pendu. The charged fireball exploded vibrantly and knocked the Pendu up and out of the sky. It landed awkwardly in a heap and began to reorient itself.

”Over here!” She taunted, her heart racing.

Karin strode forth. The Bile Pools were expecting to deal with threats from the inside of the bunker, so the normally ranged enemies were caught by surprise. As the nearest one went to slither away Karin dashed forward and thrust her palm into its center. It was launched, and as it came down she slammed her palm into it, breaking the Bile Pool in twain. Folded over itself, it lay paralyzed, and a bulb-like protrusion made itself known.

”Oh! Light bulb brain head.” Karin said, recognizing it. Acidic water was sprayed at high speed from the other Bile Pools. Karin dashed and jumped to the side, evading it quickly. The other Pengu’s began to gather electricity between their hands. Sakura recognized a ranged attack like that when she saw them. As one lobbed a charge towards Karin, Sakura intercepted it with a fireball of her own. They clashed, and her fireball disintegrated the charge and flew a good fifty feet into the air before dissipating.

Midna, meanwhile, had faltered when the others had charged in because, despite being forewarned about it, the sight of electrical attacks still zapped her flight reflex for a reason she did not understand. She lost her chance to get in a first ambush strike, as the Other were quickly rallying and turning to meet the threats coming from behind.

Flying Pendu quickly climbed higher up into the air, and aimed too sweep over the street fighters in-order to reach the, well, street rather than being stuck in the alleyway. Some of the slug-like bilepools had the same sort of idea, using their slimy feet to climb up the walls of the alleyway to reach sniper spots or the roof.

Oh, and one other foe made a move to reposition, one that was easy to miss: The door banging stopped and the Brawn Yawn … simply disappeared. Karin’s keen golden eyes spotted it, her eyes widening. ”The beast can vanish!” She called out to Sakura, though the brunette didn’t quite understand in the half-moment she had to process the information.

Minda was certainly too busy mentaly freaking out about the electric launching fliers to see that, as she backed up and pulled out both a pistol, which she ineffectually pinged away at them with while drawing out her shadow hand. This she used to form a translucent green orb ringed with bands of runes that swiftly grew to the size of a small car and, which she then batted towards the flying foes as they attempted to exit the alleyway while shouting ”Don’t come this way!” at them.

The shot went straight through her foes, a quirk she had forgotten about that spell due to the stress and the amount of time it had been since she had used it, and so it instead slammed into the wall of one of the buildings. The resulting blast a dust cloud of vaporized masonry down onto the fighters in the alleyway. Dust, and a pair of Pendu who had been clipped by the blast. Sakura and Karin shielded their eyes from the dust. ”Midna-san!” She called out, looking at the clambering Pengu’s and trying to prioritize her targets. Things were hectic, things were hard to parse.

As the cloud descended, those Others who were too close to the streetfighters to tactically retreat instead struck at the pair of ladies: bile pools unleashing conal sprays of water that were hard to avoid in the narrow alleyway and which had considerable knockback, while the Pendu tried to capitalize on the splash attacks to turn wet floor into shocking floor, if they couldn’t hit the woman themselves.

Karin raised her palms and put effort into defending herself. The water splashed against her defensive blue sparks of ki. Sakura kicked one of the fallen Pengu’s, batting it away before being forced to block as well. An electric bolt charge struck the wet ground behind Karin, and the blonde tensed up, teeth gritting as lightning shocked her body. ”Ggh!”

Thus, the spray tagged her, knocking her onto her back and into the electricity. ”Aagh!” Her back arched.

One of the Pengu’s tried a similar trick on Sakura, but the versatile fighter was quick to act to save her friend. Her body flashed orange and an black ink absorbed the electricity as it struck the ground she was standing on. In an instant she was up in the air, grabbing onto the flying Pendulum. She planted her feet on it and kicked it into the earth where it cracked harshly into a coma. Sakura flew towards one of the wall climbing Bile Pool and hammer fisted it once, twice, thrice, plucking it from the wall and bouncing it mid-air. On the third hit it crashed into its fellows.

Karin angrily pulled free from the remnants of the electricity, clambering to her feet and leaning on the wall and holding her head. ”Wretched little..!

Sakura rolled to a stop and charged up an EX Hadoken. While the Bile Pools rose in their pile, she unleashed the fireball with a yell, and when the blue fire cleared they were but ash. There were still a few more Bile Pools and Pengu’s in the alley, but a much more manageable amount. Midna still had her own to deal with though, and some of the Bile Pools were nearly on the roof.

Another electric charge came Karin’s way, but she was ready for it, dropping into a crouch. Even if the electricity reached her knees as long as she faced the damage she could deflect it away from herself.

Midna meanwhile was out of the alley and in the street, and faced with the foes that had escaped it. Some took potshots down into that melee, but most instead of worrying about hitting their own aimed for the out in the open princess.

”Oh goddesses,” she cursed as she dropped her so far worthless pistol and lept to the side to avoid the first shot. Or tried to anyway, but under the pressure of another’s fated end she forgot to use dragon claw to counteract her maglev mod’s sloppiness, and so she did not leap nearly as far as she had intended.

Sparks grazed her calf and caused her to jerk in pain and stumble her next step. That was enough for one of the Bile pools to get a beed on her from the rooftop, and the water blast it shot off hammered into the princess, knocking her back and into the bonnet of an abandoned car.

”Gah…” the princess hissed in pain, but had enough adrenaline running through her veins that she could scrabble up the vehicle, now remembered dragon claws puncturing holes in the metal and glass till she dropped herself behind the vehicle .. which was promptly further ruined by a hail of thunder and water.

The panting pindown princess might have been able to sit tight and await aid from her friends who were making skillful work of their own foes … had something not put itself between them.

With a splash, some of the water left from the Bile Pool’s attacks suddenly surged forward behind Sakura from the entrance of the alleyway as the Brawn Yawn lunged out of that thin film of water like a massive crocodile lunging out of a river at a soon to be death rolled Zebra.

Sakura turned too late, the creature clamping its metal jaws from her thigh to her midsection. ”BWAH!” She made an alarmed, borderline comedic sound as her world turned topsy turvy. as she was thrashed around, her upper body slammed into the wall, cracking it. Managing to prevent her arms from flailing wildly after a moment, she stuck them into the jaw to try and pry it loose, twisting her body to get free. It wasted no time in tossing her bodily, hard, into the wall. The stonework cracked even further. She was stuck in a Sakura-shaped indent in the wall before, with a deflating grunt, she fell face first onto the ground. She got to her elbows and knees, looking up with a grimace at the encroaching beast. Karin pinwheeled across the battlefield and slammed the beast's mouth shut with a downward palm of her hand. Then she slid into it, knocking it backwards and getting on her feet. They faced off as Sakura pushed herself back onto her feet. ”Oof…ouch.”

She recovered just in time to push through an electric charge aimed at the pair. The Brawn Yawn underestimated Karin’s strength and attempted to bull rush her out right, only to get cracked across the face with a resounding metal crunch, tricking it’s neck to the side. Sakura fired fireballs upwards, her firepower surpassing that of her ranged enemies easily enough to keep them at bay, or even turn the tables, as long as she could focus on them exclusively. Neither of them had a moment of focus to spare on Midna’s predicament unless she said something.

A combination of stubbornness and not thinking entirely straight had prevented her from yelling for help. Instead, she had taken a moment behind the car to catch her breath and focus instead on how to get through this on her own.

Step one was to rearm. Step two was to simply leave her cover in a way her foes did not expect.

She slipped into its shadow, and then a moment or so later appeared from behind a cooling unit atop the roof of one of the buildings making up the alleyway where the street fighters were battling. A roof which currently held several Bile Pools perched on the edges of it and, pointedly, no electrical Plateau Pendu.

Which meant the only one with lightning here was her.

With a demon blood stained ax in hand the princess rushed forwards, head clearer and purple glowing claws stabbing cement as she got off the surprise flanking attack she had squandered before. As the Other turned towards the sound or her approaching feet she dropped and slipped, intentionally this time, back knee on the ground while the foot was thrust forwards, sliding under the one shot they got in.

She slashed horizontally with the blade, striking air with it and then a trio of Other with a trio of thunderbolts. The wet monsters were hurled into the air and off the roof, only to be caught as the princess caught herself before that same edge and thrust out a beam of continuous lighting that juggled them in the air.

As they convulsed, she caught a water blast with her shield, sending a shower of thorns back in retaliation, before sending an enlarged and portaled in bear and wolf thundering across the roof in each direction to trample the other roof Other.

With them suitably distracted, she focused on those she was juggling in the air with lighting, waiting for just the last moment of her remaining juice before slapping her shadow hand down ontop of them and sending them slamming down into the ground two stories below.

She pulled the ax back to her chest, put a quick charge in it in the motion and then opened another portal, sending her Vibrava to the left while she rushed to the right to strike the Remaining Bilepools before they could recover from being stepped on by large mammals.

Or that was the plan anyway, only there was an explosion as the car she had been using for cover gave up the ghost. Then a second later a Plateau Pendu rose up to the rooftop and found the prey it had thought was going up in smoke alive and in one piece.

The Pendu in the skies, no longer distracted, turned towards the street fighters, while Pools on the wall above and close to the bunker's door remained, and those below had little time to handle the surround the Other had on them thanks to the Brawn Yawn’s taunting threat.

Karin kicked and sliced at the Brawn Yawn with her leg, dodging its bites. Sakura kept the Bile Pools and Pendu’s occupied with fireballs. It was slow, treacherous going. The Brawn Yawn backed up and fired high velocity spit at Karin, who reluctantly blocked it. It used the opportunity to submerge and erupt, coming at Karin from an unexpected angle. She was forced to leap over it. A distracted Sakura moved out of the way but it clipped her shoulder, knocking her to the ground. She felt water splash against her back. As she scrambled to her feet, the killboxes of the bunker opened wide. With the Brawn Yawn occupied, they opened fire. Bile Pools and Pendu’s were ripped from the air by voluminous machine gun fire. Karin and Sakura stayed low. Karin was confident that they could have won the bout without aid, but not perhaps without an injury.

The Brawn Yawn submerged once more. Without eyes on it, the people in the bunker were forced to close the windows to prevent its entry. But now Sakura and Karin were free to focus on the Brawn Yawn. They stood back to back in the center of the alley.

A tense moment passed, but it pounced at Sakura. She reacted quickly with an EX Uppercut. ”Kurae!” She shouted, the collision lighting up the alleyway and sending the entire beast up into the air, its puddle-like legs trailing beneath it. Sakura exerted herself and halted all of her momentum, sending the Brawn Yawn up while leaving her on the ground. She dashed forward and got underneath it. ”Here we go!”

”Shinku..!” She took a grounded stance, using her Revenge gauge to generate a large amount of Ki. The wind was kicked up and pulled into it as the fireball span. ”Tengyo Hadoken!” The beast was subsumed by fire and froze in mid-air for a solid second as the explosion rocked it in place, before it was sent flying out of the alleyway where it exploded into ash on the street.

”DAAAGH! Yeah! How’s that?!” She yelled. Sakura hopped forward and punched the air up and down. She finished off the pop-off combo with a final kick, that sent her sneaker flying off of her foot. She scrambled to retrieve it, hopping on her other foot.

Karin smiled and flipped her hair, surveying the field one more time and searching for remaining Others, or Midna.

Had she looked a few moment earlier, she would have seen the princess atop the roof stumble at the sudden reappearance of the flying other, a foot slipping on the slime of the bile pools, and her falling from the roof. She caught herself with levitation, no drop would kill this princess, but the Multiple Plateau Pendu beeding in on her well might.

The princess’s breath caught in her throat as she raised her shield and tried to ascend as multiple pinpoint accurate balls of lightning hurled forth … and slammed into the body of her Vibrava as it swooped in to take the blows for its mistress.

”No!” she cried out in alarm … only for all to be reminded or informed of the dragonfly’s deceptive typing, as it grounded each and every one of the shocks and came out of the body block completely unscathed. To add insult to injury, the ton covered creature launched a volley of homing spines like those of Midna’s shield.

”Oh… ha! You cant hurt it dumb birds” Midna taunted the Pendu as she lifted herself back onto the roof, before thrusting her ax forward and commanding her minion to ”Kill them! Kill them all!”

Thus, when Karin looked up, she found not a distraught Minda, but instead the twilight-vibrava blasting the Pendu with bright purple flames till their bulbs popped out (keeping it’s distance so they could not even think of meleeing it), at which point it darted in to deliver an almighty crunch directly to the exposed weakpoints. At the same time Midna had gone all in on handing off those foes to minions, and the portable fire was joined by purble lances as her initiate strikers staggered the Pendru who had to wait their turn to be picked off one by one by the shock resistant pokemon.

While they were at that, Midna cleared out the remaining Bile pools from the roof (quite literally, as used gravity to deal the final blows), while the guards popped open the shutters of the bunker again now that the Brawn Yawn was gone and picked off those still clinging to the alleyway’s walls.

Sakura stuck her shoe on just in time to roll out of the way of a falling Bile Pool. Some of the splatter got on her but gracefully turned to ash. Her heart rate was still racing and she was feeling the hurt, but it was nothing compared to the rush of total victory! She ran up to Karin and the two engaged in a mighty high five, though Karin was more elegant and reserved in her posture the force was there all the same.

”Did you see me?! Oh, man, I had to dig deep for that one. I just broke through a wall! I’m stronger than ever!” She cheered.

Karin nodded and listened, but she was already thinking about the tactical side of things. She was socially adept enough to not bring down Sakura’s victory high. So she just thought about Midna’s sub-par performance. For the first part of that fight she did nothing except prevent them from leaving the alleyway and act as a basic distraction. Considering the vast array of powerful magics at her disposal, something definitely felt off about that. Sakura and Karin were left mostly unsupported. How long would it have taken for Midna to clear out the alleyway of Pengu’s and Pools so Sakura could aid Karin in fighting the Brawn Yawn? Too long, she estimated.

Regardless, Karin strolled to the bunker door and rapped on it with her knuckle. ”This area has been secured, courtesy of the Seekers of Light.” She said to the barrels of the machineguns aimed the alleyway.

”Do you gotta keep advertising us like that?” Sakura asked, a laugh in her voice. She was in the alleyway and burning off energy with a routine of punches and kicks.

Karin just rolled her eyes and smirked. ”How are things in there? Is anyone terribly injured? We have means of transport.”

A hatch slid open and she was presented with the helmet of the very same captain who had spoken to them at the other gate, who had presumably run through the complex to reach and reinforce this gate.

“We’ve stabilized the wounded, and they won't get better treatment in here than anywhere close enough worth transporting them too” they responded, before pausing for a moment, looking from side to side a touch conspiratorially before making a gesture to a subordinate before finally adding, carefully “officially, I can’t condone this kind of vigilantism but … you have my, strictly off the book, thanks seekers. We wouldn;t have been to pull our people back before they broke in”

”Ah, that is good to hear. And of course, Naturally.” Karin nodded with a magnanimous smile. ”We do however, plan on sticking around, so hopefully we can begin working together in a more official capacity, yes?” She chatted casually, casting a look over her shoulder towards her allies.

As Karin handled the pr, Midna dealt with the last of the Others that had tried to slime away on the roof. Then she composed herself, taking a deep breath and releasing the combination of battle lust and fear stress based adrenaline from her system before she hopped down from the roof and floated down, her Vibrava somewhat noticeably still deployed even though the fight was over.

”You’re looking excited” she said to Sakura as she landed next to her, ”Good work handling that chompy thing, I knew you could”

Sakura swept her leg through the air with grace. ”Thanks! I feel great. I think I’m starting to get used to this whole life-and-death thing as long as I have two feet on the ground!” She said cheerily. She glanced over towards the noticeably human shaped indent she left on the wall. It reminded her of a feeling and she reached into her collar and pulled out a piece of debris and then brushed some out of the bangs in front of her forehead. Then she went back to punching the air.

”What about you? We got separated pretty quick, so I didn’t see much of you, Midna-san!” She asked.

”Ah, yeah, things went fine. Just fine” the princess who had gotten out of the fight with only mild water damage replied unconvincingly.

Sakura bounced in place, shifting her weight from one shoe to the other. ”Oh, yeah?” She was still in high spirits but noticed the tone of Midna’s voice. ”You did okay?”

”Mmmm … things got a little hairy, but this thing dealt with the awful zappy ones just fine in the end, and from their it was smooth sailing” Midna clarified a touch more truthfully, as she gave the Vibrava, which had landed on an outstretched arm, a little scritch behind an antenna.

”Oh, good! Yeah, those ones gave Karin a pretty bad shock. Getting electrified is one of the least fun ways to take a hit.” Sakura said. She also went to scratch the Vibrava.

Karin strode up at this point, giving one last wave over her shoulder. ”Ah, Princess Midna. Glad to see you unharmed. For a moment it seemed like we may not have the advantage in the alleyway, but the moment passed quickly. Did the enemy provide some kind of unexpected problem with your spell casting? I couldn’t help but notice the lack of your intervention.” She said. Though the natural tone of her voice tended to make a lot of what she said sound like some kind of subtle, haughty put-down, she was intending to politely ask what went wrong.

Minda pursed her lips, looked annoyed at the tone, then sighed and decided to be as honest as she could within hearing range of Midgar’s forces, which rendered said explanation a bit vague ”A… side effect which affected me more than I expected. Electrical attacks … don’t agree with my psyche. I found a sort of solution however with this one being unaffected by them” she again gestured to the Vibrava … an then pushed its head away when it tiered to nuzzle her comfortingly

Before Karin could respond, Sakura busted in. ”Ooh! I think I know how you feel.” Sakura empathized eagerly. ”One time someone tried to tie up my hands and I got really freaked out for a second. Like instead of getting punched in the face, I got punched in the mind. ”

”Like getting hit in a spot where you were hurt real bad before. It’s a scary thought!” She nodded.

”...I see.” Karin thought aloud. ”A side effect of what, if you do not mind me asking? Just so we can be more careful in the future.”

”That… is a good way of explaining it, yes. Thank you Sakura” Midna agreed, before adding'' ”Though in this case it’s more like …. Being hit in a palace that someone else got hit hard, if you understand what I am saying” while giving a sort of side nod towards the spirits of the Others as a way of explaining where the weakness was coming from without saying anything incriminating, being perhaps too paranoid about being overheard by the guards.

”Ah. I understand. We’ll have to beware these types of enemies in the future, then. Unfortunately they seem hard to avoid entirely.” Karin said.

”I’ll get better at dealing with them” Midna insisted

”Very well. I simply don’t know if you can help it, other than going to your fellow Princess for help.” Karin said, referring to Peach and her unique ability to defuse others.

The princess pursed her lips, and then shook her head, explaining simply that ”I get to much from that one”

”Then just keep it in mind.” Karin said.

Sakura seemed thoughtful, before hopping once. ”Oh, let’s check in with the others!’” Sakura said. She reached inside her white jacket and pulled out the radio from it’s safe hiding space.

Then she pressed the button, broadcasting her message to any Seeker with a radio.

”Hey! This is Sakura.” She said happily. ”Midna-san, Karin-san and I just finished getting some people to a bunker! And fighting some monsters. How are you guys? Where are you guys? Over.” She asked, waiting half a beat.

”By the way every time you get done using the radio, you have to say ‘over.’” She added. ”Uh. Over. Over for real this time. Over.” She looked at them both and winced.

Midna had to smile at that, her friend's silliness certainly helping pick her up her spirits, and she was more than happy to move on from the sore spot that was the issue she had with foes using electricity.

Speaking of them, the princess moved to scoop up the fallen Other and collect her dropped gun, despite how useless the latter had proved against the mix and match monsters (not that her lack of skill had really helped).

Once she was done she asked the pair ”Want any?” while holding a shadowhand out atop which the spirits of the 4 types of Others they had slain lay.

”Uh, no thanks.” Sakura said quickly, listening to the radio.

”I’ll pass as well. I do not want to ally with them, let alone fuse with them. If you wish to use your magic to manage whatever cumbersome items they drop, you may do so of course. I’m still trying to maximize the use of my grappling hook, anyway.” Karin said.

Midna shrugged, and then promptly clenched the shadowhand into a fist, crushing all of the spirits at once.

Once that was all settled, Sakura would try to enact her plan of using the radio to expediently reunite with the other Seekers and debrief. Professional! Sakura didn’t get to be professional very often.

The plan worked! Jr’s new magics stunned their towering foe, and Rika got to move in oh so close and hit each and every one of her twelve shots!

And yet

It was not enough.

The stun ended, and the still living spider queen cried out, leaping back into the woods and unleashing a hurled wave of spiders, proving in an instant that, had they had the nerve, the little minions could have overwhelmed them at any time. Just as they did now.

”Incoming!” Jr called out in alarm, a moment before he was bodied, not by spiders, but by his Papa who leapt to shield his boy from the incoming torrent. The others were not so lucky, as both Rika and Kamek where washed away by the wave of spiders, both falling to the ground, covered in the wretched creatures

”Nononononono not again!” Rika cried out in dismay, having just experienced this exact same situation only with snakes a short while ago, only now her body being bound by webs instead of living ropes. Her response was flailing wildly. Hullblades and gauntlets crushed and chopped some, while a firing of her maneuvering thrusters caused her to be dragged in-elegantly across the ground and got her even more tangled up.

The frailer Kamek could not even muster that panicked self defense, the old Koopa having to resort to hiding in his shell to avoid having his extremities nipped and bitten by the spider swarm.

Meanwhile Bowser, holding his son to his chest, weathered the storm on his feet, but the spiders still tried their best to web him up anyway, swarming the hulking king and binding first his said to the floor, before weaving their way upwards despite his struggles and the flailing of arms, Dreugh limbs and Tentacruel tendrils trying to bat them off.

”Go” the king commanded as they rose higher, pushing his son’s flying machine up into the air before the arachnids could try to bind them together

”Papa! Hold on!” Jr called out as he floated upwards, raising up his staff to cast the same spell he had halted Silitha with. Yet in the two second interval it would take to do so, he saw the forest light up with exactly what he had feared: a dozen more deep hunters and, following after, a rain of poison that came shooting towards the immobilized Troop.

Then, a shining miracle in the dark world shot forth from the mists: as a striped knight darting through the air, parrying the poison with a golden blade, and who then set his sights upon felling the wretched queen, scoring a mighty hit that blinded several of her eyes.

It gave Jr the time he needed to finish the Holy spell, which sent a blast of light out in a bubble around him, burning though the webs and causing the spiders swarming his papa to drop to the ground like files, where they lay stunned.

As Bowser proceeded to stomp the paralyzed spiders flat, and Jr rushed over to repeat his trick for Rika, Kamek and anyone else who was unable to free themselves, the knight continued to show his prowess. He used his voice to the same effect as Jr’s magic to blast away spiders swarming him, then leapt to and fro with masterful steps, avoiding more deephunter shots, before landing and releasing the bees upon his foes.

”Oh! Oh! Mimi! Copy that!” Jr called out when he saw that final trick, a command which his pokemon who was still riding along with him in the clowncar forced to obey. With a “Mi-miiii” vaguely reminiscent of the hive knight’s signature cry, she also opened wide and released a little flurry of pint sized yellow bed sheet ghosts wearing pichu ear headbands the size of thumb puppets.

These adorable yet miniscule constructs clustered around their creator behind the car’s windshield, awaiting instruction.

Those instructions would have to wait till after the boy finished his own casting, and the holy light washed over the last of the trapped seekers, a thing he finished doing right as the knight leapt back to land at their side for a moment. From there their savior commanded a charge and, without waiting for agreement from them, proceeded to do just that, running at full pelt towards their towering foe.

”Should we, uh, follow him?” Rika asked after a moment of inaction, she herself having just gotten to her feet and still recovering from her second swarming of the day.

”Of course not! I’m the one who gives the orders around here” Bowser replied, before, in the exact same breath commanding ”Koopa troop! Chaaaaaarge!” and racing after the knight, steel capped boots pounding the ground and shoulder cannons spitting shells at the spider queen while he wound up a fist, priming it to give her a good ol sock in the mouth if/when he reached her.

”Huh? Wha? Ok then!” a confused Rika said as she found herself instinctively following after him without a thought of how she was actually going to fight the giant spider sans any bullets or shells, meaning she’d likely be following Bowser’s lead all the way through to the mouth socking end.

Jr followed suit himself, commanding ”Mimi and, uh, the Mimis! Use shadow sneak on all those glowy spitty ones!” as he swooped after the others, boxing gloves deployed, prompting the Mimikyu and her mimikyulings to stick their tendrils into their own shadows, and making it so that the deephunters would have to fear claws in the dark coming from behind them while the hivelings came in from the front.

Kamek meanwhile just sighed, shook his head … and instead of charging just summoned a large rock sized magic fist next to Silitha’s new blind spot inorder to punch her in the face with it.

She couldn't keep up.

That was what it boiled down to, as she and Silitha competed in a battle of teleportation.

For Primrose, the Ravaging Confession was a borrowed ability, one she had yet to master. Though only a couple of seconds long, the dancer discovered that the power had a cool down. That made all the difference. The Brood Mother was faster, a natural with her own teleportation, and so much physically stronger than Primrose that when she'd caught up to the caster the resulting attack had been a devastating one. The huge spider fell from the canopy after her latest move, the impact flattening Primrose and kicking up dirt. With the air knocked out of her lungs, Primrose struggled. She gripped Silitha's leg defiantly, trying to muster the energy to cast a spell at point blank range, but the monster lifted her leg and flicked it, throwing the hanger-on through the air where she landed on the ground with a thud.

"Ugh..." It took several long moments for Primrose's body to remember how to breathe again. When it did, she sucked in several breaths through her nose as she forced herself not to gasp. The battle with Silitha was still ongoing, made more dangerous now that she'd called in reinforcements. It was best not to draw attention to herself until she recovered a little, and the only reason Primrose wasn't being targeted anymore was because she looked like she'd been downed.

Well, she was down. But not out.

Thanks to the Koopa shadow clones' efforts and the fear that the broodlings had for their own well being, Primrose could continue feign unconsciousness without being overrun with spiders. Warmth gathered in her palms as she healed herself. Once she was fit enough to fight again she wasted no time casting aside her act, having found it harder to hold than she thought it would have been. If anything, she was feeling eager to get back into the thick of the fight. She felt anger beginning to burn in her chest. Not an unfamiliar feeling, but usually it wasn't directed at targets like this. Perhaps that was the Amazon's berserker soul? There would be time to think on that later, right now they had a bug to squash.

She sprinted back to the other Seekers, who'd come together after escaping the latest of Silitha's tricks. A stranger joined them, a little bug knight throwing his hat into the ring to help them put the monster down. His assistance was surely appreciated, and he called for everyone to join together for a final charge.

The entire group agreed. Most of them charged in head on, and while Primrose ran with them part of the way she disappeared in a poof of dark magic once they were close enough. She appeared behind Silitha, once more using the Ravaging Confession to get in quick. Her dagger slashed across the Brood Mother's body, magic trailing after it, and then the two swipes were followed up with a third wider one.

"Lights out!" Primrose yelled, her intention clear. Above her, dark magic swirled ominously until finally it coalesced into an inky spear. The weapon was as long as a human being, it's head pointed and wicked, and it slammed down on Silitha in a shadowy burst.

"Geez, there's so many of them." Roxas said to himself after defeating one more Vase Paw. Now he was at 3, but they seemed to be raining down endlessly. Definitely not something one person could do alone, even with the Keyblade. But that was when it became clear that there was more trouble than just the Others attacking. Other forms of incidents were happening as an indirect result of the Others as well. And Roxas could spot one a little ways away. He saw a car swerve to avoid crashing into an Other that landed in its path, but in the process crashed into a street light instead.

"Uh oh, that can't be good!" Roxas sprang into a sprint and made his way over as quickly as possible. As he got closer he realized there were three people in the car in total. The driver - a man, and what appeared to be a wife and daughter. The wife and daughter were able to scramble out of the car but it looked like they were struggling to pull the dazed man out. This wasn't helped by the fact that smoke started billowing from the car's hood, indicating a possible fire. And then the fire itself began to sprout up from beneath the hood. Not good!

The mother had to drag the child away once she noticed the fire. The child was still trying to wrestle free to get the father out, apparently not understanding that a car on fire was very dangerous. But this was about when Roxas finally got there, "Waterga!" he shouted as he literally leaped over their heads. The spell was aimed at the hood of the car and the water it produced managed to seep in and douse the fire. Roxas then realized that the collision had somehow disabled the car's electronic locks and kept the driver side door from opening. That gave him an idea. Roxas held one of his Keyblade out and whacked the car door with it. Sure enough, the Keyblade's magic undid the locks and the door was finally able to open.

"Oh thank you! Thank you!" shouted the woman as she now rushed forward and worked with Roxas to pull the dazed driver out. Now he was finally coming to and the family continue their evacuation.

But before they left, the child smiled up at Roxas, "You've got powers! Are you with the OSF?"

"No, sorry. I'm not a psychic." he responded.

"Well whoever you are, you just saved me and family." said the man, "I'm in your debt."

Roxas just shook his head, "Nah, no you aren't. I just happened to spot the accident, that's all."

The family was on their after giving their thanks. Roxas then looked around for Raz and Lili. He ran over to them when he finally spotted them, "Hey Raz, things don't look too good. Maybe we should see if we can find Mr. Dickinson or the Princess?" he suggested. It was probably a good idea for the Seekers to regroup right about now. And most likely Lili was wanting to regroup with her unit in the OSF. So eventually, the two boys would be running back toward where they had split off from the other Seekers. Perhaps Lili would be coming with them, or perhaps not. Either way, now was a time for regrouping not getting oneself lost out in the huge city.

Since his equipment generally didn't need maintenance and he himself had been healed up in the chopper ride over, Pit had little else to do after the long meeting but ruminate on everything that was said.

It suddenly hit Pit all at once that they'd likely be in Midgar for a long time. Well, a "longer" time. Judging by everything that was said, unless the Seekers got a lucky break to the location of this area's guardian they were likely to be there for days or weeks navigating the political environment while searching for clues.

And that was only in order to find the guardian. There were sure to be a whole host of other things to consider once they found it. What if it really was somewhere in the city itself? They couldn't exactly rip Midgar apart to get to it, that would put so many innocent people in danger. And those people, the Seekers' time would be filled with trying to help them as well, to free the whole city from the Ever Crisis, assuming it wasn't connected to the guardian.

It was all important work to be sure, but Pit couldn't help but wonder if maybe there was some other way to approach everything. And as much as he wanted to see through a request for help, he also wondered if his own talents would be better put to use on another front.

He didn't let such thought processes discourage him. Dwelling on "what-ifs" had never been his style. He would focus on the mission at hand, and the information and travel network that would be available to them at the end of it. Once that kicked off, the rest of the campaign would be a little easier. Finding people too, he hoped.

When they left the meeting room and headed out to explore the city the forged gridLink sat snugly on Pit's wrist right above his bracer, where hand met arm. Though he'd posed for a photo perfectly fine, wide goofy grin plastered on his face, the angel had been almost stubborn about changing clothes. He brought up a code of conduct that only he was privy to, and since a sweatshirt thrown over the ensemble could only go so far, in the end Pit ended up going out in his usual attire.

He was part of the group headed to Sector 3, fit into the back of Goldlewis' Hummer. The drive was uneventful, and the only view to be had was of steel, roads, and buildings, with the occasional colorful car to draw the eyes. Pit spent most of the time alternating between sitting still and leaning over the back seat, peering curiously at the cryptid's coffin and tapping it once or twice.

As they got closer to the city section know was "Suoh," Pit started to feel it. That weird kind of energy that Raz gave off, as well as Ness and Lucas - the one that Lady Palutena had identified for him as "PSI." He didn't recall what it stood for, but he knew it was the term for their psychic abilities. Since the place they were headed was said to be a city of psychics, this wasn't surprising at all - but he hadn't expected to pick up the weird vibe before getting into the city proper. The amount of psychic power concentrated there must have been amazing! And if only I could see it! Pit lamented, craning his head to peer out the windows of the car at the city but seeing nothing more than that: a simple, modern human city.

The group piled out of the car a few minutes later, and even the inside of Suoh it looked more plain than Pit was expecting. His senses were prickling with the concentration of energy, but it didn't do much save for make the angel slightly itchy. He'd probably get used to the feeling soon, but still wouldn't be able to see the "other" Suoh. A dud, as Goldlewis had said. Maybe Raz can beam an image of what it's supposed to look like into my brain?

The Seekers took the streets, exploring with a vague goal in mind. On a street corner nearby a gigantic brain building (which Raz explained was the Otherlobe. Not expecting it to be so literal, Pit laughed, but no one else shared his mirth at the sight of the building. "Aw come on, it's funny!"), they split up.

"Tourists from Sector 7," Pit repeated to himself under his breath as he took to a random direction. Since he they were just on the look out for Others, Pit followed his nose when choosing where to go. He wound up walking by a lot of places that smelled like they sold some tasty food, but there were no menus to be found. Not even any pictures of food either, which is what he'd been really looking for. After staring intently at yet another food stall and getting some weird looks from locals, it clicked in Pit's head that the signage, menus, and advertisements would be visible only to psychics just like the rest of Suoh. Aw man, he thought to himself glumly.

He continued on, wandering around the area and occasionally asking some people about the forecast whenever he heard them talking about it. Unfortunately no of the answers he got were new information. Eventually he noticed the people around him start to become uneasy all of a sudden, wide eyed and fidgeting like they were in on some dangerous secret. The shift in the citizens' demeanor was immediately followed by the loud, even sound of a city alarm. Panic spread throughout Suoh's streets, sending everyone running. This must have been the signal for the Others appearance!

Pit unfurled his wings wide and made his way to higher ground, kicking off walls and hopping from fire escape to fire escape until he was on Suoh's rooftops. It was only once he was up there that he remembered he didn't have any idea what he was supposed to be looking for. How did the Others appear? With all the weather related terms those more familiar with Midgar had been throwing around earlier, could it be that they literally fell from the sky like rain? Pit looked up cupping his hands around his eyes as though it would enhance his vision.

Sure enough, there was something falling. A lot of somethings. They looked like chestnuts, almost. The angel imagined some huge, invisible tree growing over the city when the blast of cannon and missile fire startled him, ruffling his feathers. They were aimed skyward, and the artillery destroyed many of the weird chestnuts - but many more continued to fall until they split open naturally. From inside the pods came creatures that surely could only be the "Others."

High up, the weird things that Pit got the best view of were the flying ones. Like limbless mannequins with dragonfly wings, they darted around much like overgrown insects while they searched for prey. Some swooped low toward the ground, but seeing as Pit was the nearest thing to them most of the Scummy Pendus began to circle him.

"Whoaaaa, freaky!" he remarked, his bow already in hand. He didn't hesitate to shoot, the light arrows chasing after their targets even as the Pendus darted out of the way. They weren't fast enough to outrun the arrows, but they were sturdy enough to withstand a few. The number of Pendus meant that concentrating fire on just one long enough to destroy it would be pretty tricky. Better swap to melee! Pit decided, splitting the bow into two swords.

The battle began on one rooftop, but quickly encompassed more as both Pit and the monsters spread out to dodge or attack. Some Pendus moved in to divebomb Pit, and these were the ones that were most easily dispatched. Pit's blade work was quick and cut deep, disposing of the fliers that moved in without much trouble. While he was engaging them up close he had to be wary of the Pendus that were hanging back. Those had sprouted some kind of elongated object from their necks, loosing some projectiles of their own. The first time this happened it caught Pit by surprise, and the blasts striking him on his right side and forcing him toward the edge of the roof. Before he could be overwhelmed and forced over the side, the angel quick summoned the Guardian Orbitars to bounce the attacks back at the Others.

"Yeah, doesn't feel very nice does it?" Pit taunted as the Pendus shook off their own scarlet colored attacks. He jumped right back into the fray, destroying most of the Others that had gathered up there. "You guys aren't so tough!"

There was a crackling of electricity behind Pit, the static making his hair stand on end. He'd been electrocuted plenty of times thanks to the likes of Pikachu, so he knew that when he heard that sound it was best to get out of the way with no questions asked. Pit dove forward, tucking into a ball and rolling out of the way of the electric shock. When he stopped and popped back up into a fighting stance, he found two other enemies had flow up to the commotion. They had the body of mannequins like the first type of Other, but these had their arms and head even if they dangled upside down. Their wings were different as well, a crude imitation of his own bird-like ones. If Pit were to describe the Plateau Pendus, he'd say they were the evolved form of the Scummy Pendus, and much creepier.

"Okay, you two look a little tougher," he said, holding one sword in front of him and the other overhead. "But you aren't getting my brain!"

Pit sprinted forward, side stepping the shots from a remaining Scummy Pendu as he charged the nearest Plateau Pendu. It flapped its wings to get higher up, swiveling its body in an attempt to slam into Pit while the other Plateau Pendu began to charge up its electric attack again. It didn't get high enough to avoid the angel, as even though he was unable to fly his wings could still carry him up enough to slash the Pendu. He struck its chest and its weird reverse head, sending it back towards the ground. On its way it grabbed Pit in both of its arms, and the two of them grappled as they hit the rooftop in a heap.

"Let go!" he demanded, struggling in the Others' grip. It loosened its hold in order to claw at him, but it was enough for Pit to free himself. He rolled back and used his legs to kick the thing off of him. As he tossed the offending Other away its crown-like head collided with his own, making stars appear in his vision briefly. Just as the two separated the other Plateau Pendu's lightning came down in the spot they'd just been, charring the area.

Alright, now he got why these things were so dangerous for regular people. However, Pit was not a regular person! And even though he still wasn't at full power, he could definitely take these freakish monsters out. Pit desummoned the Palutena Bow by throwing one arm out straight out to his side. In its place the Upperdash Arm formed over his limb.

I'm gonna finish this quick and go check on everyone else, he decided. The first target with the Arm was the Pendu he'd been grappling with. Pit shot forward, using the dash attack to close the distance between them and slam the Pendu with an uppercut. The attack seemed to stun the Other, and from its body a light bulb on a cord popped out as it sailed back into the air. He hardly considered the strangeness of it before firing a disc toward the bulb. When it shattered, the body of the Pendu it was attached to shattered with it.

A secret weak spot! Invigorated with one Plateau Pendu down and one to go, plus only a couple Scummy Pendus left buzzing around and making their potshots, Pit was quick to continue his offense. The Scummies were all too easily defeated, and the Plateau eventually suffered the same fate after Pit got the hang of fighting it.

"Phew," he sighed, dispelling the Upperdash Arm and wiping the back of his hand over his forehead. He was a little banged up, and he feel that we was bleeding from where the Plateau Pendu had unintentionally brained him, but he was alright enough to keep going. Hopefully less airborne Others made it easier for the people fighting on the ground. He'd find out soon enough, taking off back towards the Otherlobe with intent to regroup with the other Seekers and take care of any Other problems he found along the way.

Rubick's mind was fuzzy, having finally returned to semiconsciousness. Everything sounded muffled, and his vision was blurry. Still, even he could tell in his current state of mind that a battle was taking place. As he knew he would very much like to avoid death, his first instinct was to get himself back into a functioning state. Rubick weakly reached into his robe and was soon able to find his Magic Wand, right where he always left it. He activated it, and a surge of energy coursed through his body, repairing some minor injuries and restoring full consciousness to his mind. And with that, Rubick finally remembered what had happened. The spiders were all around them, and Rubick had been just a tad slow to avoid the mother spider crashing down on them.

Rubick firmly planted the butt of his staff onto the ground, propping himself back up onto his feet. "Back onto the field! I have returned, friends!" Rubick announced. Unfortunately, he was drowned out by the sounds of combat still happening around him and the various projectiles flying toward them that he and the gang were bombarded with. Fortunately, they were saved by a bee knight person who parried away the incoming barrage with ease and counterattacked with his own. Eager to try it out for himself, Rubick pointed his staff at Barnabee and called out, "Yoink!" as he Power Stole the ability. "Ohhh, exotic!" Rubick said as his mind was filled with the information about it, and casted it alongside Mimi, who had also copied the ability for its own use, and doubled the barrage with his own bees.

"Wait for me, friends!" Rubick shouted as he followed Bowser and the Koopa Troop in the charge. "Arcanery!" Rubick casted his Fade Bolt at Silitha, intending to weaken the spider's attacks, and have the spell itself bounce onto any nearby enemies around her. He would then use his Power Steal on a Deephunter, copying its ability to spew venom. Rubick would wait until Primrose finished her attack, then proceed to Blink onto Silitha's head. "Over here~!" Rubick taunted her as he leaped off and sprayed a generous amount of venom toward her face. Right afterward, he would use his Power Steal on Silitha, copying her ability to teleport for himself. With that, he teleported away to relative safety, right next to Kamek. "Come now, Kamek, surely there are far more interesting spells in your repertoire you could cast," Rubick complained.

With Peach in trouble Goldlewis hustled over as fast as he could, covering multiple sidewalk tiles at a time with his huge strides, but both of his new Psych-OSF allies were speedier. They sprinted ahead of him fast enough for their cloaks to flap in the wind, with Kagero in particular hurtling along in an odd run, arms crossed as he leaned into it. Then something strange happened; one moment they were there, cruising along the street ahead of Goldlewis, and then with a shimmer they disappeared. Invisibility? the veteran wondered, making the connection for the first time. He knew that every Psych-OSF member wielded a special psychic power, but something like this went beyond any ability he might have expected.

This wasn’t the time to think about that, though. Up ahead, Peach had gotten grabbed by one of the Buddy Rummies, and while she repeatedly dented its mannequin-like body with her parasol in an attempt to free herself, another succeeded in ripping off the car door. The man trapped inside, as flattened against the opposite door as he could make himself, gave a yelp, but the next moment the Other slammed down into the pavement with violent abruptness. Kagero flashed back into visibility, having broken his stealth with his killer backstab, and when the Other’s bulb popped out he unceremoniously put his foot through it. A split second later the report of Tsugumi’s revolver heralded her own appearance as the bullet blew off another Rummy’s leg. It immediately ate dirt, becoming a sitting duck for Tsugumi to finish off with another well-placed round. An Other staggered her way with surprising speed, its severed arm held up to bludgeon the girl on the head, but she threw herself backward with a couple parting shots to stop it in its tracks. Right on cue came a thrown knife from Kagero, followed by a lunge so fast he might have just as well been a blur. After the punch he seized his embedded knife and wrenched it sideways finishing off the monster for good.

At that point Goldlewis chimed in with a flurry of minigun fire, nailing a Buddy Rummy that had been sidling along the crashed car toward the missing door. Glass shattered and sparks flew as Skyfish perforated the creature, and when the barrage ended it toppled forward. At that point his gaze went to Peach, who’d just pushed her parasol through her attacker’s abdomen, skewering it straight through. Yet still it stubbornly clung to her, and with an irate growl the princess reached into the tangle on its chest to violently extract its spirit. The Other went limp, allowing Peach to push it away with a kick, then shatter its spirit for the kill. A small bottle of sweet, orange-flavored medicinal jelly appeared in her hand, and with the other she reached down to grab her scatterboom where it had fallen during the struggle. She leveled the explosive shotgun at the fallen Other as it tried to rise and fired point-blank. In a thunderous blast the Rummy was eradicated, and the day was saved.

“Thank you, thank you all!” The man climbed from inside the car, his face glistening with sweat. “Someone’s damn dog was running after ‘em toward the shelter, and I swerved to avoid it.” He looked down the street to where Naomi and Kasane were fighting in front of a shelter. Most of the small fry had already been eliminated, thanks in part to the arrival of the girls’ squadmates. A tall boy in a straw hat who fought with psychokinesis-controlled yoyos, a less tall but no less skinny blue girl who used her hydrokinesis to control and direct two electrified bird drones with bladed wings, and a short pink-haired girl who got up-close and person with gloves and cryokinesis. Together they’d already managed to shatter the armor of the Wither Sabbat, and after just a couple more seconds of concentrated damage it slumped down, allowing Kasana to lift and shatter it with a Brain Crush. “The OSF sure is amazing,” he murmured. “I’ll head for the shelter. Good luck out there!”

It looked like humanity’s defenders would not need luck, however. It had been only a couple minutes since the Otherfall began, but already the scattered Psych-OSF soldiers had rallied to Suoh’s defense. The rank-and-file soldiers, whose duties ended at long-range bombardment and point defense, pulled back so that the Scarlet Guardians could take center stage. They moved and fought in groups, supporting one another with effective teamwork and use of SAS. No matter where Goldlewis looked, the situation was the same; it seemed like the quick response of PSYCH-OSF had the situation well in hand. Most amazing of all to Goldlewis, the soldiers accomplished all this in remarkable silence, only calling out or making effort noises in the heat of the moment. Practically any combat operation on any battlefield that came to mind involved a frenzied back-and-forth of constant and often conflicting communication. “How’re they so doggone coordinated without any chatter?” he wondered aloud.

“Hm? Oh, that’d be thanks to Brain Talk,” Kagero told him, his easygoing manner restored now that the fighting had stopped. “It’s so second-nature to us, I forget people don’t know about it sometimes. We can speak directly into the heads of our squadmates over a good distance.” He glanced at Tsugumi, as if listening, then raised an eyebrow. “Oooor, if we don’t feel like talking in front of strangers~”

The girl panicked. “H-hey! W-why would you…?”

Kagero winced, his hands held up. “Sorry, Tsugumi, I couldn’t help teasing you. You know it’s bad manners, though!”

“Right. Sorry…” Closing her eyes, Tsugumi bowed her head slightly at Goldlewis and Peach.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, sweetie!” Peach smiled, trying to be friendly. “There’s a first time for everyone, right?”

As Kagero burst out in a fit of chuckles, Tsugumi turned her furrowed brows on the princess. “I’m older than you, you know…”

As Peach stood flabbergasted by that, Kagero got a handle on himself. “Whew, I’m sorry, that kinda thing just gets me every time. You must be new in town, ‘cause the first thing anyone learns about the OSF is that nobody looks their age.” He brushed back his hair with his hand, then crossed his arms. “The psychic hormone dries up with age, right? So they got us on growth suppression to keep us fighting fit. Of course, I’m an adult since I’m a late bloomer, but I’d bet you’d be surprised by how old some of us really are.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a mischievous smile as he gave Tsugumi the side-eye. “Aw, relax, Tsugumi, I swore I’d never tell~”

Goldlewis cleared his throat. “Ahem! Pullin’ us back to one just happened for a minute. I’ve been fightin’ longer’n most folks been alive, but that’s the first time I got up-close and personal with an Other. That electrifyin’ combo hurt somethin’ fierce.” His electrical burns still smoldered painfully as a reminder of the Others’ killer coordination. “Do they show up often ‘round here?”

“Not that often,” Kagero confessed, shrugging offhandedly. “It’s like the weather, no real rhyme or reason to it or anything. It’s just about the worst place they could land in fact, for them at least. Between HQ just up the street there and all the off-duty soldiers who live here, they’re basically throwing themselves into the lion’s den.” By this time Tsugumi had made her way over to him, more or less hiding behind him, but Kagero stepped to the side to give her a pat on the head. “We were just out on a stroll, in fact. Going to visit Aquarius to see some new flowers, right Tsugumi?”

The girl looked up at him, her brow still furrowed in that funny way. “...The scarlet dendrobiums, yes. Brought all the way from Wetland Aspect, where they supposedly sprang from the blood of fallen warriors…I can hardly wait to see them!” When it came to talking about plants, her painfully soft voice took on new vigor.

“Hmm.” Goldlewis realized that he probably wouldn’t be able to relate to these psionic warriors, desensitized as they were to a reality with Others in it. If he wanted a heaping platter of exposition, he would need to bark up a different tree. “I’ll let y’all get on with it, then,” he told the pair after a moment. “Thanks again for all your help.”

Kagero smiled cheerfully. “Think nothing of it! Like I said, an honor.” He stopped suddenly, looking up at a building across the street, and so did Tsugumi. “Looks like TV’s back online,” he announced for the sake of the duds. “Goodness, and sensationalizing Psych-OSF fighting for their lives against the Others for cheap spectacle, too? I’m utterly shocked.” The man neither sounded nor looked particularly shocked, however. “Ohh, you’re missing this. Even the Septentrions got in on the fun. We’ve got a flashy little highlight reel of Major General Karen Travers playing right now.”

While Goldlewis could only rely on Kagero’s description, Raz and other sensitives in the area could watch and experience the broadcast themselves firsthand. It showed a replay of a street on the other side of the Otherlobe, where the activation of a transport power created a cube-shaped field of orange light. From it stepped a handful of unknown figures all decked out in black, red, and gray. Two were a burly boxer, and a blonde woman with a staff over her shoulder who seemed to match. Then there was lady with enormous hair in a gigantic, fluffy, pink-hued ponytail, as well as long lashes on her closed eyes, who floated in the air, curled up as if asleep with her own hair as a pillow. Along with her came an elegant woman with big curls of indigo hair, yellow sclera, folded white cat ears, and two fluffy curled cat tails beneath the cosmic cloak behind her. There were others further back, but it was the two that stood in front who got most of the attention: a beautiful man with flowing light blue hair, capelet, and tie, and then a hard-faced commander with gray locks, pointed silver boots, a silver mask with only one eye visible, and a long trench coat with a white fur trim. Once they walked out of the light with dramatic slowness, the Scarlet Guardians seemed to pose together, with the frontrunner crossing his arms as he glared out at a street littered by Others. “Septentrion Karen Travers and Fubuki Spring!” the newscaster hailed. “

“Karen Regiment, Fubuki Regiment, Plan A. Move out!” Karen growled, and the Scarlet Guardians got to work.

After directing nearby civilians to make a run for the shelter, the Septentions join in as well. Fubuki fought with powerful cryokinesis and a royal blue greatsword, his movements as fluid as a dance, while Karen moved with superspeed and teleportation to unleash blasts of lightning, water, wind, and flame. Buddy Rummies, Vase Paws, and other monsters fell like chaff before them. “The Other was defeated with one blow!” the announcer declared. “Septentrion First Class ‘Brain Eater’ Major General Karen Travers is amazing!” The TV quickly cut between several high-action clips throughout the course of the Other massacre.

“Y’know, despite his gruff exterior, I bet Karen likes showing off as much as anyone,” Kagero smirked. “Why else would he keep switching powers?”

Tsugumi narrowed her eyes. “That nickname…considering what the Others do, it always seems so insensitive…”

As Goldlewis listened to them, an orange square like the one on TV blossomed into being not far away, grabbing the veteran’s attention. Having no idea what it signified, he bristled at the possible appearance of a new enemy, but instead the only thing that the transport field brought was a girl with a rabbit-eared headset. She looked annoyed, with her hands on her hips, and when she spoke her voice had the flatness of a thirty-year-old retail worker. “So it was you making all that trouble.”

Not a moment later, a swarm of black quadrotor drones equipped with cameras descended on the area. Kagero quietly disappeared, and thanks to SAS Tsugumi vanished without a trace as well. That left just the Seekers of Light stuck in a half-dozen impromptu spotlights. “These people have eradicated the Others!” a commentator announced through one of the drones. “In fact, you saved Ryujin Ward in that amazing victory over the Others! A stunning show of power and spirit by Goldlewis Dickinson, the Secretary of Absolute Defense, and some interesting new friends!”

For the second time Goldlewis groaned under the limelight of the paparazzi. “What is this, some kinda victory interview?”

“It is!” the drone replied. “How do you feel? What motivated you to take action on behalf of Suoh’s citizens, despite the potential entanglements? Could it be that you don’t believe Psych-OSF is doing its job? Can you comment on the state of Suoh’s affairs? Who’re your new associates? Have you chosen a new affiliation for the upcoming-?”

“All righty, all righty, that’s enough filming for the day!” In a pink flash, the girl from before used Hypervelocity to blitz through the crowd, gathering the attention of all the drones at once.

The drones did not object to the change of focus. “Oh, if it isn’t Arashi Spring! Just who are these people?”

Goldlewis took a step back, not sure what to make of all this. He turned toward the other Seekers, but instead found himself suddenly alone. “Huh? Where in tarnation’d everyone go?” He then felt a small but forceful tug on his arm. The veteran looked down to see a small boy with a green bowl cut. Then both teleported together.

They warped into an alley a block away. Goldlewis started, taken completely by surprise, but he saw Raz, Roxas, Peach, Pit, and Bede already here. So was the unknown boy. “We should be able to talk here,” he remarked, his voice gentle.

“What in sam hill is goin’ on?” Goldlewis questioned him.

The boy did not flinch despite being a fraction of the giant’s size. “I’m Luka Travers,” he stated. “I thought I’d get you away from the press so that you could breathe easy. This must all seem very sudden and unusual to outsiders, but I hope I can ask for your patience and understanding as you come to grips with the situation.”

“I…ah, well.” Goldlewis composed himself with the help of his comb, fixing both his hair and mental state. He remembered what Kagero said about appearances being non-indicative of age among Psych-OSF soldiers, which explained this young man’s own composure. “I reckon I oughta thank you then. Those reporters seem mighty hungry for a story.”

Luka nodded. “Indeed. Your presence alone tends to raise questions, Mr. Dickinson. There are many who’d be curious to know what you’re doing in Suoh, I’m sure. But for my part, I am only grateful that you and your friends went out of your way to help people. So, thank you as well.”

“It’s what heroes do,” Peach piped up, remembering the mission statement to spread and make great the Seekers’ name. Something else occurred to her, though. “Luka Travers, you said? Does that mean you’re related to one of the famous Septentions?”

Luka smiled, his face slightly bashful. “It’s embarrassing when you put it that way, but yes. Karen is my older brother.” He then returned to a neutral expression. “Despite my gratitude, it is still my duty to inform you that civilians are not allowed to fight Others.”

“Oh. Er…” Peach got her gears turning, trying to think of a way to save face. Her team’s efforts to curtail the Ever Crisis could hardly come to an end here, after all.”

Goldlewis crossed his arms. “Isn’t Psych-OSF responsible for allowing Others to enter the local airspace and putting civilians in danger?”

“Huh? Mr. Goldlewis!” Eyes wide, Peach held up her hands. Was he trying to sabotage the Seekers’ relations!?

Luka, however, seemed deadly serious. “Those are harsh words, Mr. Dickinson, but you’re right.” He gave a quick, light sigh, but offered no further comment on the matter. “I’m sure you have something to say on the matter, but this is neither the right time nor the right place, and I am not the right person.”

With a noncommittal grunt, Goldlewis turned his attention from the alley to a gurney being pushed by OSF paramedics through the street. To the sensitives present, the body lying on it would have a psionic censor overlaying his head, hiding it from view. Luka quickly interjected. “Oh, you shouldn’t look there. There’s no censor for duds. That soldier is very badly wounded from the battle. An Other tried to eat his brain. Two of the OSF troopers on guard duty with him were killed.” Unable to see what became of the catatonic guardsman’s face, he watched the gurney roll toward a nearby ambulance. “Looking at eaten bodies can have negative lasting effects on your mental health.” Luka turned his gaze to the sky. “I won’t ask what your intentions are here, but please just go on with your day, and try to keep away from the press. Alright? If you run into any more Other trouble, please feel free to contact me via Psynet. My serial number is KTN545301. Be careful out there.” In another blue flash, Luka disappeared.

A moment later, Peach got a call on her walky-talky. It was from Sakura, reporting that she, Midna, and Karin made it through, though not without their own difficulties. The princess held down the transmission button. “Hello? This is Peach. Reading you loud and clear, I think. Goldlewis and I fought some Others. Got a little help from local soldiers too, and learned a little about them. We might have an ‘in’ with a Septentrion. The Septentrion, maybe. As for where…” She jogged out into the street, looking for landmarks. “We’re by a place called Anistar Gym. It’s got a big purple roof. I can still see the Otherlobe, so we’re probably pretty close to Main Street still.” She turned to rejoin the others and discuss what to do, then remembered Sakura’s radio protocol. “Uh, over.”

Goldlewis beat her to the punch. “Well, we got our fill of Others, I expect. Now we got a couple hours to kill before we oughta head back.” He looked between the gathered Seekers, which aside from Peach were all teenage boys. Not a lot of authority or leadership among them, but psychic matters were Raz’s specialty, so maybe he had something to say. It looked like there wasn’t a camera cluster right here, so Goldlewis went ahead and continued. “Don’t suppose any o’ y’all turned up some leads? I got the feelin’ that the brother of a Septentrion’s someone important, and if everythin’s monitored we don’t wanna give ourselves away so soon, so I’d rather not ring up li’l Luka ‘cept as a last resort.”

Bede hardly needed the invitation to talk. “I’m pretty sure that this building we’re next to is from my world. Anistar is a famous city in a region near mine. So I don’t know about you all, but I’m going there. Do what you want.” He proceeded to set the example by walking out of the alley and into the neighboring gym. Goldlewis watched him go, then gave a resigned shrug and turned toward the others. He shared what little he learned about -and from- Kagero and Tsugumi, but it would be up to Raz to tell the others what he saw in the psychic broadcast.





As the machines stood together at the back of the bus, slowly actuating to keep balance as the vehicle rocked beneath them, Poppi did not take long to mull over Blazermate’s question. She found its premise fundamentally flawed. “I guess it must be pretty different. I’m an artificial Blade, not an android,” she pointed out. “They don’t exist in the world we’re from, so I’ve never encountered hate of any kind. Is there really such a thing?” For the life of her, Poppi couldn’t offer any guess as to why.

As a few moments passed in silence, however, she began to connect the dots. She thought about the people protesting androids back at the plaza, full of vitriol and resentment. Hating the Machines that waged their interminable war against this city and its people she would totally understand, but she took it to mean that they objected to the robots inside Midgar itself, which were made, bought, and sold for the sole purpose of serving the needs of the citizenry. Were they dangerous or unreliable in some way? If forced to hazard a guess, she would’ve thought that such contraptions would be popular if not outright beloved, since if they were anything like Poppi, they possessed incredible utility at only a fraction of the resource demand, which in turn offered countless benefits from convenience to labor. Robots could do all sorts of dangerous or undesirable jobs that humans couldn’t or wouldn’t want to, but of course they could do most things humans could, and without having to be paid.

Hmm. Maybe that was it. Perhaps androids were simply too good at doing the jobs of people, and that employers preferred using them over hiring actual human beings. If machines here lacked free will, that only incentivized the possible beneficiaries further. That could very well cut off ways for people to earn a living, leaving them angry. So then, it was a form of envy? How strange, Poppi thought. She’d spent her whole existence envious of humans, especially drivers and their blades. While happy with her lot, she knew as well as her Masterpon that they were just what she told Blazermate a moment ago: artificial. He wasn’t a real driver, since she wasn’t a real blade. If only they could have what others have, she often thought. And now she’d stumbled upon a part of the world where people lived in envy of machines–of artificial beings created to make lives easier, but in the end made things harder, too. “How…” Poppi murmured. “Strange.”

At several points during the somewhat circuitous trip back to the train station the bus stopped to exchange passengers with the outside world. People quietly got up or seated themselves, while robots marched to or fro along the vehicle’s length. Whenever a particularly bulking machine needed to embark or disembark, the driver -himself an android- pulled a second lever to open the rear door, which also provided wheelchair access. It took a while when that happened, so Tora had plenty of time to watch the city through the bus window. The further he traveled, the more he came to think that this place called Detroit was just sort of sad. It put on the mask of a technological metropolis like some of the plates up above, but to anyone who didn’t turn a blind eye, the cracks in the facade were plain to see. It was dirty, dense, cramped, and alternatively murky or so dazzling with its bright displays that headaches came quite easily. Danger lurked around every other corner, and people were suffering. With no alternatives, the jobless and destitute could only turn to crime or to DespoRHado, where by enlisting they could pit their lives -and perhaps their very humanity- on the line to make ends meet. It was a far cry from what Tora imagined.

The bus came to a stop again, hissing as the pneumatic doors opened. A lone figure climbed aboard, and when he spotted the stranger Tora shifted uncomfortably in his seat. This strange man wore a dark trench coat over his suit and tie, but his resemblance to the G-men went no further than that. Instead of a hat he sported a helmet of warped metal, so tight that it loomed more like head than headgear, and like the armor on his left arm a serum-filled canister protruded from it. As Tora looked on, the stranger strode slowly down the aisle, his hands behind his beck. The Nopon wished nothing more than for the man to keep on walking, but of course he stopped. He looked down at Tora, and though the young engineer could see no eyes, he could feel the weight of the stranger’s gaze. That tense moment felt like an hour; what did this person want? Was he an enemy? Had a hireling of the Consuls found them out again? But a couple seconds later, the stranger chuckled. “Aw,” he groaned, his voice gravelly, strained, and slightly resonant. He brought out his left hand, a massive and deadly-looking set of metal talons, and ever-so-gently patted Tora on the head. “Aren’t you just the cutest thing?” Then the Claw moved on, sitting a couple rows back. Tora swallowed and let out his breath. Poppi quietly put her Variable Saber away.

A little later, they reached their destination. By that time the Claw had already left; Tora hadn’t looked at him when he went, and scarcely dared to breathe. The four got off and settled down on the steps leading up to the train station to wait, since it looked like they beat Giovanna and the other team here. Tora and Poppi chatted, mostly just reminiscing about Alrest while they stared out longingly over Quarantine Valley. Just shy of ten minutes later, the other team arrived in dramatic fashion, zipping around the sky-lines that Giovanna pointed out when they first arrived. The secret agent, the witcher, the strategist, and the cyborg were all in one piece, although Raiden looked a little…well, lamer. Tora frowned at him disapprovingly, but Poppi nudged her Masterpon before he could speak his mind.

After distributing the sky-hooks the Seekers’ options opened up, so Giovanna considered what their next move should be. “Kay then, the Hermits. We’d find them for sure if we rooted around in Quarantine Valley, but we can’t afford to bumble around a corrupted zone. Any corruption you get, no matter how small, is permanent. And if you pass the threshold…” Giovanna trailed off, letting the threat hang. Compared to the results of redshift, radiation almost looked preferable. “Hate to add more to our shopping cart, but if we’re headed down there, we’re gonna need instruments that can track corruption levels. No telling where we’d find something like that though, so let’s just keep an eye out.” She crossed her legs as she leaned against the railing. “So, where do we go? If we keep hunting down gangs, we’ll probably bite off way more than we can chew before we find the right one. I guess I’m up for it if you guys are, but that’s asking for one hell of a lucky streak. If only we had some kind of guide.”

At this point Tora wished he could speak up with just the ticket thanks to some pertinent tidbit he’d picked up during his own travels, but right now the Nopon could only offer more questions instead of answers. Being unhelpful had never stopped him before, however. “We find out thing of interest during dig in scrapyard. Manufacturer design androids so that spirit housed in self-contained chip deep inside machine. As long as black box intact, androids not turn to ash, even if body inoperable in shambles. Tora want visit Cyberlife headquarters.”

“Cyberlife?” Giovanna squinted. “You mean, in the City of Glass? Not only is that crazy far away from here, but getting in would be just about impossible. The private security they have over there is nuts, I’m sure they’d see through your IDs in a heartbeat.” Tora shrugged as if to say he’d already done many things others might deem impossible, but for now he rested his case. Giovanna looked at the rest. “I guess we could always ride the sky-lines until we see something interesting.”

The nearest apartment complex brought them back up to the sky-line, allowing the team to hitch a ride away from the gawking eyes of the public, as well as any G-men that might be prowling among them. In just a few minutes Giovanna and her crew were hurtling along the sky-lines once more, joined this time by Poppi (carrying Tora), Blazermate, and Susie as well. Together they made for quite the procession, but beyond a quick glance upward most of the populace seemed pretty desensitized. Only about a minute passed before the convoy passed over the scene of what might have been a large-scale street fight, but it looked like some sort of gas had been let loose, and dark figures darted around through the smoke and shadows. Some of them looked G-man-shaped, too, so Giovanna kept right on going. A really curly, loopy bit ensued where everyone needed to tuck their limbs in and hang on for dear life while going around all the tight corners, so nothing much could be gleaned from that area. Further still and the Seekers were beginning to approach a block of factories on Detroit’s left side, closer to where it bordered the sprawl of slums, shanty towns, and junkyards that composed the undercity of Sector 7. This industrial zone seemed to embrace the sky-lines more than the commercial or residential ones, maybe for the sake of its blue-collar workers, so Giovanna made the most of the wealth of choices to lead the team on an upward rail headed higher into the air.

It dropped them off on a lofty factory roof that overlooked the surrounding area to a decent extent, as well as providing sky-lines downward. Around this facility lay an airplane factory, a chemical plant, and a construction yard, all pretty busy considering the time of day except for the construction site, . Weary workers were gearing up to make the final push through the last couple of hours before heading home for the day. Of course, the androids among them needed no such second wind, instead keeping their noses to the grindstones while their human coworkers refreshed with a smuggled beer or two. They realized that they weren’t alone up here, with a couple hoodlums huddled over in a corner with a six-pack of beer, but they kept to themselves so the team took a moment to catch their own breath. Benedict needed it in particular; back at the brewery he’d been obliged to go the long way around the compound, leaving the older man rather winded. Not everyone could boast Geralt’s stamina, after all.

Most everyone kept an eye out, but Poppi dedicated herself to lookout duty wholeheartedly. She flew up to the highest vantage point available and trained her optics to scan the industrial zone below, searching for anything out of the ordinary. After a few minutes, her impromptu stakeout bore fruit. “I see something!” she said suddenly. “Down by where they’re building. There’s a group of shady figures in weird clothes, carrying stuff.” When Tora waddled over to the edge of the rooftop to look, he could see them too. Whether stick wielders, roller bladers, gunslingers, or shotgunners, they clearly didn’t fit in, and as they stormed the place the few human workers quietly turned tail and fled. The androids they left behind got mercilessly slaughtered by the newcomers, their blue blood spilled all over the construction site. Then the Misconducts got busy planting sticks of dynamite under the direction of one huge, armored hockey player, TNT Randy.

“Wow, they really are everywhere,” Giovanna remarked, nonplussed. “There’s a lot of them, and it’s a wide open area.” She scratched under Rei’s chin. “Guess we’ve got our work cut out for us.” She attached her hook to a sky-line and began her high-speed descent. Tora and Poppi were only a second behind.



Though the Seekers’ campaign through the shadowy, sepulchral fathoms of the Necropolis turned out to be a painstaking slog through all manner of monstrosities, each more troublesome than the last, when all was said and done the team stood reunited in the ghostly green light of Tartarus with everyone intact. Some could even boast of brand-new powers or weapons that didn’t seem to align with the vile dungeon’s typical, rather mutative rewards, probably a consequence of the new, markedly different rooms that the heroes overcame on the way. Those strange and out-of-place chambers suggested that the deeper this place went, the more variable it became, incorporating little segments from all sorts of worlds each with their own foes and logic. It was hard to imagine things getting less complicated from here on in.

Nadia certainly wasn’t complaining, though; after Therion elected not to ‘steak’ a claim on the Bait Launcher, she seemed to be on cloud nine. With some solid loot in hand at last, she didn’t even look twice at the rotten tomato in the item room that Sectonia uncovered. On the way to catch up with the others, the two thieves met up with the Knights, on its way back from a branching path to the east from an smoky-smelling brick room with bridges over shallow water. Nadia jogged over to take a peek down that route and found two rooms with little more than rocks, skulls, and ash. Yet again the little bug, clad in its fresh new PJs, had proved itself to be a fighter that nobody should underestimate. It went ahead and crushed all the spirits it found too, silently stockpiling all the money, health, and keys while leaving things like spider parts and bone shards behind. At the furthest extent of that path, the Feral spotted a shop, which the Knight evidently opened using a key of its own. Inside, a petrified keeper hung by the neck over its morbid selection of wares, including a bundle of rotten tissue for ten coins, a pill, and an empty spot where something that the Knight evidently purchased once lay. Neither of the leftovers even remotely tickled Nadia’s fancy, so she hurried on her way.

At the ominous boss door, during the team’s deliberation on which subgroup would tackle the boss of this floor, Jesse posed an idea. Even if everyone was okay for the most part, this place had already taken a toll in terms of stamina and mental health, so rather than send in just a couple intrepid souls to challenge what would probably be the toughest opponent yet, why not have everyone go in at once? To this end she used her handy-dandy Tool Gun to no-collide the boss door, making it effectively intangible. No matter who went inside first, everyone else could follow at their convenience. “Hell yeah!” Nadia agreed as she did some quick stretches. “This is probably the last one, right? Rule of three and all that? So let’s just beat the snot out of it and blow this joint!”

Once everyone loosened and psyched themselves up, it was go time. In the spirit of not breaking tradition, Nadia plunged through the breach, leading the way for the rest of the Seekers to follow. And though she plastered a brave smile on her face as she came to a stop a few yards beyond the doorway, putting up her dukes against whatever new horrors loomed before her, she could not deny the chill that ran down her spine, nor the hairs on the back of her neck that stood on end. Something felt wrong–instinctively, gutturally, very, very wrong.



At first glance it simply appeared to be a huge, circular chamber, with a vaulted ceiling shrouded by cobwebs and darkness. It lay in a state of pitiable ruin, and everywhere Nadia looked she could see massive cracks. But that damnable sound was what made every fiber of her being scream in protest. It was squishy, sloshy, wet, incredibly deep, and everywhere. Her wide-eyed search of the room quickly made apparent that the floor, ceiling, and very walls of this place were all subtly, slightly moving. Pulsations here and there caused small upheavals in the stone that settled back down a moment later. It was as if this chamber’s masonry were but a facade, built crudely and in vain to imprison something. Something alive. It left Nadia wound up tight from the tension, and before could figure out more, a sudden bellow reverberated through the room, scaring her so badly that she launched backward like a spring.

”ISAAC!”

As if in reply, the room rumbled, and parts of the floor began to erupt. The ghostly chandeliers quickly fell and smashed into the ground. Slabs of distended flesh welled up from the cracks, some shaped like hands, others with giant eyeballs, and others just bulbous mounds. As Nadia watched, horrified, the hands opened up, the eyes hatched like eggs, and the blubber tore apart to reveal four new enemies. They seemed to be cultists of some sort, long since overtaken by malignant meat, their bodies stretched and distorted in hideous ways. Most foes spawned in this way would just be cultists, but throughout the fight Brawlers, Casters, Priests, and worst of all a single Impaler would bubble up to meet them. After the first wave spawned, a section of the ceiling broke apart, and from the unseen flesh a gigantic leg descended, its many tons of flabby, pendulous cellulite behind a gargantuan red high heel shoe to stomp the ground in front of the door with staggering force. The hideous, distorted voice of a woman rippled through the room. ”Muhuhahaha!”



Go time at last! With the Hive Knight and his inspirational bravado leading the way, Bowser ordered the charge, and his cohort were happy to join in the fray with whatever weapons and magic they could bring to bear. Silitha shrieked out her defiance and stomped forward to meet her challengers head-on, but Bowser pummeled her with cannon fire, going for her wounded head. His barrage broke the Brood Mother’s focus and forced her to raise her forelegs for protection, but her makeshift guard in front didn’t prepare her for a giant, sorcerous left hook from the side. She gasped as she reeled to the side, her remaining eyes bulging out as the impact drove a loathsome wad of spit at teeth flew from her ghastly jaws.

Rallying herself as best she could, Silitha prepared to lash out at her incoming attackers, but two of them reached her first. Barnabee warped above her with another surprise slash to the back of her neck, her own back being the one place she none of her myriad limbs could reach. “En guard!” he cried as his chainsaw blade struck true, shearing through the carapace. The Hive Knight then brought his sword around into a reverse grip, plunged it into the wound, and with spirit abuzz he ran forward. “Huzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-!” he cried, driving the embedded chainsaw along until he carved out through the top of Silitha’s head in a spray of brownish gunk. “-Zah!”

At the same time, Ravaging Confession brought Primrose behind the giant spider, out of sight and perfectly poised for some serious retribution. She still might not be back at one hundred percent after the wounds she suffered, even with some healing under her belt, but hurt or not Primrose now possessed both the raw strength and the rawer fury to make this overgrown pest pay. The darkness danced along with her as she struck again and again, until she brought down an enormous cross-shaped spear of molten pitch. Her punishment reduced one of Silitha’s legs to mucousy chunks of chitin, and as the arachnid screamed the Dark Lance continued to pulse, only for Rubick’s venom to scald her wounded face with exquisite pain.

Where Bowser’s bombardment ended, however, Junior’s beatdown began. With his clown car’s boxing gloves he made sure to treat Silitha’s head just as thoroughly as she treated his dad beforehand, and when he finished with an overhead slam, the koopa prince bowed her head just in time for Bowser to ram his giant fist straight into her ugly mug. Already cracked, cut, and softened up by the Seekers’ blows, Silitha’s head caved in, splatted like a big, juice bug on a windshield. Her body reeled back, staggered for a couple uneasy steps, and finally rolled onto its back with its legs in the air to melt away. In the color-devoid wood the spirit she left behind lacked its usual rainbow lust, but it shone brightly with power nonetheless. Along with it fell one other, less expected reward: a one-third mask fragment of spotless white.

Her death marked a sudden and drastic shift in the local populace. The hordes of small spiders fled en masse, and the Deephunters too aggressive to follow suit quickly dropped to the forest floor, punctuated by the stingers of angry bees. When the Hive Knight strolled over to join the grip, he looked about as proud as a four-foot insect could bee. “Well met, brave warriors! Few have braved this fell place and lived to tell the tale, yet you’ll be able to spin a fine yarn indeed!” He opened his mouth to continue speaking, only for his cheeks to bulge and his eyes to widen. “Bluh! Bleh!” He spat out two hivelings that floated up above the heroes’ heads, ready to serve as a fuzzy aerial vanguard. “...Begging your pardon. While that was a splendid victory, let us quit this place in haste, I beseech you. Even with the wretched Brood Mother dead, there will ever be weavers in the Webwood. Come, come!” He took off with a long, floating stride, covering a few dozen feet before he even stopped to turn. “This way! Past yonder habitation lies a tunnel of petrified wood, and therein lies the Hollow Bough, where I have made camp. And if you’ll allow me, I shall regale you with mine own tale on the way!”

With the eight-legged multitudes not scared off for long, the Seekers could either head back toward the Ruins, or proceed with the Hive Knight. If they chose to retrace their steps in search of their allies, Barnabee had no choice but to turn and follow along; it was clear that the group had something he wanted. Either way, it didn’t take long for him to do exactly as promised.

“Once again, I am Barnabee, the Hive Knight. That title, I assure you, is a matter of some renown, for it marks me as nothing less than the most devoted and capable guardian of Her Majesty, the Good Queen Vespa!” Having slung his blade over his back, Barnabee clasped his little hands together in a gesture of devotion, his eyes momentarily closed, at which point he almost tripped on a root. “Gah, foul impediment! …No matter. As I was saying, uh…saying…Queen Vespa! Yes, our truest and most rightful ruler, and yet for us loyalists tis a most bitter season, for the Queen has been usurped! Our ancestral homeland the Hive, invaded, plundered, and squatted in by…wasps! Egads, how I hate wasps! I could wring their spindly yellow necks, them and their blasted Queen! …And yet, I am most ashamed. For my rebellion ended in pitiable exile, leaving the vaunted Hive Knight a mere vagrant, traipsing the Under ‘til the day I find a noble lord who would restore our honorable house.”

Sadness overtook him as the Seekers neared their destination, although their departure from the Webwood meant that they were getting their color back. Barnabee turned out much as expected, with yellow and black stripes, a fuzzy brown head, and pitch-black eyes. “I have little to offer at present,” he ventured after a few moments. “But the Hive is a queendom rich beyond measure, where sweetest gold flows like water, but rather more slowly.” He pantomimed viscous honey slowly oozed from a container, then shook his fuzzy head and threw the imaginary flask away. “I have seen that you boast commendable strength! If you could somehow find it within your noble selves to embark upon this quest with me, I can assure your due compensation! We need only make our way to the Under’s distant eastern edge, though Hollow Bough, and then Ash Lake…but that can wait. Please, take all the time you need to consider my humble request!” He clasped his hands together again, bee-seeching the Seekers for aid.



As the group -for the most part- lined up at the counter, Wicke treated Red and Ace’s mention of detractors with an innocently concerned expression. “Oh my, I certainly don’t know what the critics are talking about, either. And if I did, I wouldn’t be at liberty to tell, teehee. Company policy, you know.” She glanced at the menu of sweets and treats on offer, then turned her attention back to her questioners. “As for what we do, well, we’re a conservation group. To love and protect all Pokemon is our mission statement! We take in those without homes, or those neglected by their owners, and we also look after those who take ill until they’re aaaall better again.”

An almost misty sadness clouded her eyes. “You know, despite how incredible Pokemon are, people can be astonishingly heartless with them! Those who they think are ugly, ones that misbehave, who don’t meet their standards for battle…there are breeders out there who’ll make their pokemon give birth to litter after litter, all in search of just one with certain desirable traits. Then they’ll release the rest, or worse yet, leave them to rot in a Pokecenter box! Can you imagine that? Treated like trash, simply for the crime of being born with the wrong nature!” Wicke stopped herself, then took a deep breath, fanning herself with her hand. “Forgive me, I can get a little emotional. My blood sugar must be running low, but luckily, I know just how to fix that!”

Soon, the small group sat at a comfortable couple of tables in the back of the shop, tucked as far away from any magic as they could get. Band seated himself in a sturdy chair at the end of the booth, where he resided in taciturn silence. Wicke had bought a whole plate of handmade brownies for Sierra’s recruits, although she seemed happy to indulge herself as well. “Ahh,” she sang, closing her eyes as she rested her cheek in one hand. “Magic is a wonderful thing, but there’s nothing quite like a treat made with the human touch!”

After dabbing at her face with a napkin, she clasped her hands and put on a smile so warm it could melt chocolate. “If you’re interested in the Aether Foundation, I’d be only too happy to tell you more! What about our state-of-the-art, climate-controlled habitats, for instance? You could step out of Edinburgh’s freezing cold and straight into the sweltering humidity of a tropical rainforest! All the beautiful pink trees and flowers, painstakingly procured from the Luma Pools! Visit it yourself, and it won’t be long before you see why it’s called Aether Paradise! Our Pokemon have the highest-quality feed we can manage, all grown one hundred percent on-site! No cheap corn fillers here, our Tauros and Miltanks are all one hundred percent grass-fed! Our pokemon live in luxury most humans couldn’t even dream of. We have enrichment programs to keep our smart and fun-loving Pokemon engaged, you wouldn’t imagine all the clever toys and gadgets the sweethearts down in R&D think up! We recruit the best trainers from around the world to help our Pokemon live up to their full potential! And what do we get out of all this, other than the chance to research and study Pokemon in their natural habitat? Why, nothing! Nothing but the satisfaction that we’re doing the right thing, and making the world a better place!” Now that the bubbly woman had gotten started, she could scarcely stop, even to write the Seekers their checks. “Of course, we’d be unable to do all this without our generous donors! The fact that so many people want to give back to the world and its wonderful creatures, month after month, it’s such a beautiful thing. It hurts every time a new tragedy ends up on our doorstep, but seeing a broken Pokemon made whole again, able to laugh and play, it makes all our hard work worth it!”