Held gingerly in his pale hands the paper cup of black liquid was warm, steam wafting from the beverage greeting him with the scent of caffeine as he brought the drink to his lips as Benedict inclined in his chair slightly.

Akira Konoe, the attack on DespORHado, the Chimeras and though the Public Security of Midgar generally didn't meddle in Neuron affairs Benedict knew of them off-hand, they were a specialized task force that dealer with the threat of the creatures called Chimeras of which the former Turk knew very little of.

Indeed, as an inspector he solved crimes and found himself buried in paperwork though to say he 'goofed around' with the strange agents that administration employed was a slight exaggeration. At the head of that administration was the man Zenkichi mentioned to the others, a name he was familiar with.

Konoe was after all the one who worked all the official business of General Affairs, a man in Shinra's pocket so to speak as he was one of five in his cabinet. As far as Benedict was concerned little of what the detective said fazed him, names and titles all familiar to the former Turk.

Benedict tapped the wolves head atop his cane, finished his coffee the gray-haired tactician set the empty cup on the table with a light thok he gripped the head of his cane as he stood. He didn't necessarily have the creaky old bones of an elderly man but his service as a soldier had taken its toll on him in his tenure.

"Indeed," Benedict nodded in agreement with Goldlewis's comment, the Seekers would have a busy day ahead of them.

"I believe it would be wise to do as the small yet loud lady said after we attend to reconnaissance and it would behoove us to pool our resources if we intend to have a foothold here in Midgar." it was definitely a strategically sound plan, with that and the idea of having their own place to operate it seemed like the most optimal direction to go, therefore Benedict would accompany both Goldlewis and Midna to Seiran.


It was no wonder why the residents of Seiran had it out for the people up in Suoh, though after spending a day in Detroit this place was better than the slums below.

It was at least pleasant to see the sky albeit gloomy and casting down a shower, the breeze that blew through the boardwalk blew the smells of the nearby market and food stalls. It was by all means quite pleasant, though Benedict knew well enough the city was anything but pleasant the further down one would travel.

Test six was a pretty ordinary speed test, being the starting point for a timed lap around the rooms perimeter. The cadets would need to his checkpoints arranged at positions three, twelve, and nine before stopping at six again. There were a couple of literal hurdles on the way, but nothing serious. It went pretty unremarkably. Peach and Sakura simply ran the whole way, while Raz got to use his Levball.

Everyone skipped past the seven o’ clock spot, it being the scoring zone for test two across the way, and stopped at the eight o’ clock spot. It turned out to be a shooting gallery, the exact sort one might expect to find at a carnival. Moving targets shaped like Others needed to be hit, while cutouts of citizens and Psych-OSF troopers should be allowed to scroll by unscathed. Raz could use his own psi-blasts for this marksmanship trial, but Peach’s weapons were too explosive to avoid losing points on the wrong targets, and Sakura’s fireballs were too slow. Peach ended up using the provided pop-guns, but she did appreciably well.

Sakura was a little frustrated by this test. ”They’re right there. If this was a real fight I could just go over there and be 100% accurate.” She shot another fireball, predicting the path of a target. A civilian intercepted her ball before it could hit the target. ”Stupid grandma! Get outta the way!” She shook her fist. Then she shot a big fireball at a group of Others, the explosion hitting several Others, as well as a cutout of an OSF soldier. Dejected, she resigned herself to taking half-accurate potshots with the popgun.

After that, everyone arrived at test eight, the big one. At the center of an enclosed arena stood a big, mechanical platform. When Crenshaw turned it on, the doors slid open and towering machine made from stacked components rose up. With a loud slam it stopped at five stacks high, and the components began to rotate. “The Omen Modular Exterminator,” Crenshaw announced. “Re-engineered and made a little less deadly for testing purposes. Crammed it full of psych tech so that it uses Visions. Endurance is good, but not getting hit is better. This challenges your reflexes, pattern recognition, dodging speed… just about everything. Once you’re in the ring, you can only get hit five times. Go as long as you can, up to ten minutes.”

The machine featured five firing modes, one per stack. The Pendu Module at the very top would regularly create Pendu Visions that would fly down and home in on their targets at a decent clip, with low turn speed. Next, the Yawn Module would create bubbling circles on the ground every so often, which after a moment would give way to a Yawn Vision bursting up from below to snap its jaws. In the middle, the Pool Module would belch out a total of six tar balls from its sides to arc through the air. Second-lowest was the Perry Module, which would spit out high-pressure water jets at a consistent head height. At the bottom, the Sabbat Module would periodically slam down to release a wave of darkness that could cover the floor for a moment. At the start only one of the five would activate, switching after thirty seconds to another random module. When one minute passed two would turn on, only to flip to another pair thirty seconds later. At two minutes three would come online, and so forth, until at four minutes when all modules were active. If a challenger reached five minutes, a random module would suddenly double its output, and then Omen would repeat the earlier output until all modules were working double-time at the nine minute mark.

Raz worked out the kinks in his joints left over from the other tests. More than halfway through now. Raz usually had the stamina for long marathons but the directed, limit-reaching tests they were doing were wearing him down quicker. Not that he was going to let it stop him..

”Big attack maker sorta thing? I’ve got this, easy!”

Raz hopped into the area, immediately setting up Levitation, both for the speed and to keep him elevated off the floor. And for the first few minutes things went swimmingly. Having one, two, even three modules active at a time was almost a cakewalk for the dextrous psychic, the increase in difficulty still manageable for what was being doled out. He jumped pools of Yawns, skated past swooping Pendus, slipped under the balls of tar, and the waves of darkness weren’t even an issue as he was on his Levball.

At the third minute mark, things started going south. Four modules at once were pushing at Raz’s attention, making him act sloppier. He still hadn’t been hit but the close calls were beginning to pile up. Four minutes in and the hits started. He ducked low to avoid a jet of water blasting ahead of him, inadvertently scrunching his Levball down, which sprung him up afterwards right into a swooping Pendu. It knocked him to the ground just in time for the bottom module to activate, sending a wave of darkness to swipe him across the floor. Two hits at once!

After that Raz’s momentum petered out. He did manage to make it to five minutes, at least, before taking the fifth and final hit. ”Haaah. Are there going to be, like, cookies and orange juice after this? I’m gonna need a rest,” he muttered as he climbed back out.

“You’ll have as long as it takes the other two to finish. As well as their time spent on the next test, if you elect to go last,” Crenshaw told him, nonplussed.

Speaking of, Peach stepped up next. After seeing her teammate go at it she had a better idea of what to expect versus the total lack of knowledge Raz went in with. Through grateful for the knowledge, she did feel a little bad that she essentially used him as a guinea pig to get an advantage. Still, she knew that without a Levball of her own, it might be tough to emulate his feat. There was a lot going on at once, and mindfulness had never been her biggest strength. The princess descended into the arena, and the Omen Modular Exterminator whirred to life once more, ready to put her mettle to the test.

Things started off easy, almost insultingly so. Since the water jets from the Perry Module shot out at head height, simply ducking them was enough, giving Peach thirty seconds to build anticipation for the next escalation. When it turned on the Pool Module wasn’t much more challenging, and she just jogged around the area clockwise to stay ahead of the rotation. Next the Pendu and Yawn Modules came online, assailing her with a manageable sequence of imminent underfoot eruptions and incoming fliers. The crocodile-like Yawns could be avoided with any dodge but a jump, and the Pendus could be sidestepped. Unfortunately, at one point Peach got so focused on the enemies that she dodged into the Omen machine tower itself, and in the ensuing bonk the Yawn emergence she’d been trying to dodge clipped her.

When the third minute began, Peach faced the Sabbat, Perry, and Yawn Modules all at once. In frustratingly quick succession she ducked beneath a water jet only for the Sabbat floor wave to catch her, then jumped another Sabbat wave only to land on top of a Yawn. Three lives down, only two to go. Her heart pounding, Peach pushed herself into overdrive, but the panic that fueled her dodging spree came at a cost. Right after the Omen switched to Sabbat, Pendu, and Pool, she forgot what she was doing when faced with a Pool projectile and blocked it, leaving her with just once chance. “Gah, idiot!” she chided herself, gritting her teeth. Peach leaped a floor wave, airdodged a Pool globule, and ducked beneath a Pendu, but just shy of four minutes fifty seconds of living on a prayer she succumbed to an almost impossible combination that caught her in a corner. “Agh…” she griped as she exited the arena. Doing worse than Raz despite him going in blind was not a good look. Hopefully the average test-taker set the bar pretty low.

”Thanks for testing that out for me, you two.” Sakura said cheekily, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head. ”My turn!”

Sakura breezed through the earlier stages like the others did. Sakura could jump, and she could dive. With her telekinesis she could even redirect herself mid air, far more technically than just doing a spin kick mid air.

When things started to get more intense, Sakura started having more fun. The grunts of her exertion were often accompanied by sharp bursts of excited giggling.

”Wah!” Sakura shouted, leaping over a Yawn. ”I remember you! Not this time!” She said.

Without being able to block or Focus parry, her defensive options were somewhat limited. But she was fast and mobile, with good reactions and situational awareness. But when two started double timing at once, she jumped over a Yawn only to get clipped by a Pendu. When knocked from the air she was quick with a back roll and was right back up on her feet, and she never got tagged twice quickly. After a while though she couldn’t move in the air enough to avoid getting hit while also jumping over the floor obstacles. With the most intel to go off of she ended up doing pretty good. She rolled her neck and rejoined the others. ”That was pretty fun, I bet we could all beat it after a few more tries.” She said optimistically, nudging Peach on the shoulder and patting Raz’s head.

After the exciting challenge provided by the Omen Modular Exterminator, only two trials remained in the Psych-OSF proving grounds. Crenshaw led the three recruits over to test nine next. Much smaller than the last one, it featured a single psi-blast turret and a Vision of a generic OSF trooper. “It’s not just fighters with value,” the grader observed. “So this is the Support Test. The turret will open fire, and it’s your goal to keep the soldier alive as long as possible without physically blocking for him, since anyone can do that.” He looked between the three with a doubtful expression. “Do any of you have support powers…?”

“I do!” Peach replied, perking up a bit. “I can heal people in an area! Although…I kind of need someone else to team jump me into the air for it to work.”

Crenshaw furrowed his brow. “Interesting. Well, we can’t ignore any possible medics, so let’s see it.”

With a teammate’s help, Peach could be sent flying into the air over and over again, and upon landing a splash of healing magic restored the Vision. This went on for a little bit but the turret eventually outpaced her healing. Crenshaw noted the results down, nodding. “That could be useful. I have to ask though, how is that related to Materialization?”

“Uh…” Peach ran a hand through her hair, an embarrassed look on her face. “It actually isn't. It’s just a technique I learned a while back while fighting with the Rabbids.”

“I see…”

After that came the final test. “It’s said that the most important skill for any soldier is the ability to follow orders, so here’s the ultimate test,” Crenshaw said. He introduced them to what looked like a fancy dance pad machine, with four directional buttons on the ground, a screen in front, and a punching bag to either side. “It’s also good for reaction time and attack speed. Just step on the pads and hit the targets you’re supposed to. Simple.” Everyone got a turn on the machine and did pretty well overall, even Peach, who’d played plenty of minigames like this in the past. That said, she wondered if the sort of orders she might be expected to follow on the field would be more complicated than ‘left right left right punch punch punch’.

A few minutes later and the results were in. Crenshaw stood before the three in the center of the room. An array of dark Vision screens with outlines and contents in gold appeared all around them, displaying graphs and readings of their results. “Well, even if you didn’t ace every last test, the numbers don’t lie. You’re all ahead of the curve by a country mile. It can take ordinary civilians years of training to reach these levels, but it looks like you’re all pretty seasoned fighters in your own rights. It’s my official recommendation that Psych-OSF would be glad to have you.”

Peach jumped up and down, pumping her fists. “Yessss!”

”Heh, knew it.” Raz crossed his arms with a smirk. ”I already got in the Psychonauts once, a second time was gonna be a cakewalk.”

Sakura jumped up and down with Peach. ”We did it, we did it!”

Crenshaw held up a finger. “That means we can move straight to the hard part. That last test wasn’t exactly the ‘last’ test. More like the last qualifier. Before you can call yourself a Scarlet Guardian, you have one last test before the final: the SAS Aptitude Test. This aptitude test will determine your platoon assignment. Stand in a line here.” After the three did as instructed, Crenshaw crossed his arms. “The virtual brain-link cable will now be connected. This will hurt much more than anything you did in training. Be strong.”

A claxon sounded out from the room, and a female voice rang out over the intercom. “Systems all green. Beginning SAS cable connection.”

Behind the recruits, red cables suddenly materialized in the air like holograms. Their far ends dissipated into the either, but their fronts raised up like serpents about to lunge. Red ports that resembled gears appeared on the shoulderblades, spine, and head of the recruits. Very quickly they began to glow, first orange and then vivid yellow, before plunging down to violently plug into the ports.

Instantly, an immense pain coursed through the recruits’ minds, worse than a terrible migraine. It felt as if those cables had plugged into their brains themselves, pushing a stream of solid information through its neurons like drain cleaner through a clogged pipe. Peach cried out, thrashing around with both hands clamped against her head. The seconds felt like hours, but after only a mere moment, a bright red crack spread across her face from her eyes, and the pain ceased. With a whimper Peach crumpled to the floor, her breathing heavy. It hurt an awful lot, but it was over, and something felt different. Though the cables disappeared, she still felt connected–her mind more clear than she ever remembered feeling before.

Raz had his shoulders hunched from the pain, not as dramatic as Peach’s had been, but still visibly affected. ”Ahhggh,” he groaned, drilling two fingers each against his temples, where the sharpest stabs of pain had been, maybe due to being a natural psychic. He quirked an eye open - it was all he could do through the pain. ”S-So, that was the, ehhn, the ‘SAS’ thing? What’s it do… exactly?”

Sakura was laying flat on her back, chest heaving. She peeked one eye open. ”I-is it over?” She asked, voice weak. ”Th-that was pretty rough.” With a groan she pushed herself into a sitting position, rubbing her head. Then she sneezed, and rubbed her nose. ”Huh! It’s like I had the flu the whole time and didn’t even know it.” She looked down at her own hand with newfound appreciation and clarity.

Crenshaw nodded in approval at the cadets’ quick recovery. Then he replied. “The Struggle Arms System, in short, is a brain-to-brain connection that allows us to fight side by side, supporting another in a variety of ways. Now that you’re hooked up to the system I, the program allows to you to do a number of things depending on distance and whether or not you’re squadmates. By the way, your ‘squad’ is designated as the three of you right now, but that’ll change when you’re assigned a Platoon.”

He held up his fingers, listing features off one at a time. “First, it lets you send and receive Brain Messages. Makes texting look like writing letters. Brain Messaging works with anyone in the network.”

“Second, it provides a customizable, personal Vision overlay system you can use and share with others. You can pin useful information like your own health, resources, and stamina, make waypoints, mark locations and enemies for your teammates, bring up database information on things you find, leave notes and reminders in 3D space, and so forth. The world is your whiteboard. Just so it doesn’t surprise you, some of this stuff is enabled by default when you enter combat. So don’t freak out when stuff suddenly appears.”

“Third, you can use Brain Talk with your squadmates. Like your own private channel of telepathy. But before you do, I recommend switching on Protect so you don’t end up oversharing your thoughts by accident. Not having it on has led to some embarrassing situations in the past, to put it mildly.” The lack of amusement in Crenshaw’s voice suggested that it was less of a laughing matter than he made it sound like.

“Fourth, you and your teammates can share your primary psionic powers. This is our greatest weapon, but there are limits. When you switch on a squadmate’s power, you’ll get a brief Vision of them -which can also be customized, incidentally- and then the SAS gauge will begin to drain. It takes time to recharge and if it runs out completely there will be a delay before it starts again, so remember to switch them off again before they run out. Some drain over time, during use, or both.”

“Last but not least, support. The closer you are to your squadmates, the better connected you are, and the more you can do to help one another. With bonds high enough, you can call upon Visions of your teammates as Combo or Assault Visions, even if your actual teammate is busy or not close by. Visions might even appear on their own to block attacks for you, sometimes. You’ll also be able to use your friends’ powers more, and power them up. So don’t be lone wolves out there. You’re much stronger together.”

Sakura was shaking, hopping on her heels and wiggling her fist, her excitement and grin growing in equal measure the more and more Crenshaw talked.

Crenshaw crossed his arms. “It’ll take some getting used to. And that brings me to my last point. The Final Exam. It’s time to show what you can do in on a real-world battlefield.” He put his fingers to his temples. “Well, technically not real-world. But now that you’re connected to SAS, you can experience much, much more elaborate Visions. And be warned: the mind makes it very real.”

The female voice on the intercom spoke again. “Sakura Kasugano. Razputin Aquato. Peach Toadstool. Identities confirmed. The Psych-OSF aptitude test will now begin.”

Around the three cadets, the room began to disappear, going black in a somewhat psychedelic ripple. To each of them, the other two vanished as well. Then another ripple passed through the void, creating a new reality around them. This area, suspended in a black abyss, seemed to be a strange gameshow arena with four sections branching off from the main stage, where audience seating surrounded a central plinth. Everything seemed to be interconnected by hazardous obstacles, whether rotating bridges, perilous grind rails, sticky slides, or burners.



The three appeared on different sections, and a giant projection of Crenshaw floated behind the stage, read to quietly observe the proceedings. What he planned to watch the Cadets do became clear after only a moment. Others began to manifest across the arena, including Scummy Pools, fire-spitting Kitchen Rummies with bent steel pipes, and rotten-smelling Saws Paws whose blade-tipped legs were actually gloves arms holding knives. These simulated Others started moving the moment they appeared, ready to attack and kill just like the real thing.

“Exterminate all Others,” the voice simply decreed.

Sakura gasped, looking around. ”This is amazing!” She exclaimed. ”Peach-san, Razputin-kun…we can fight without any worries! If this wasn’t a test, I could spend a whole year in this place.” She said. Even as the Others started moving in, she looked at Peach and Raz and squinted.

”Testing, testing, ichi ni san!” She thought real hard at them, trying to get her new telepathy to work.

“I can hear you!” Peach responded in kind after a moment. She’d made sure to look through the virtual settings that Crenshaw mentioned and enable Protect, just to make sure she kept any unnecessary thoughts to herself. It felt weird to hear someone else’s voice in her head, but communication in this manner was as simple and easy as it could be.

”Awesome!” Sakura said in her thoughts back to Peach. It was like she had headphones on the inside of her ears!

”Hey I know this place,” Raz ‘thought’ to the other two, adjusting his goggles onto his face. It came much more naturally to him, for obvious reasons. ”’Ram It Down’, it’s a mental world!” He stopped short of blabbing more details, since that felt a little wrong to be doing. ”I’ll run point for this one. Now it might be a little weird to be having other peoples’ thoughts in your mind, but there’s an easy way to keep focused, and that’s–”

”Let’s go!” Sakura ran forward, looking to get into the action. Wasting no more time she skidded to a sudden stop in front of the nearest Saws Paws. It came at her with its creepy knife arm legs and she back pedaled. ”Ew, ew, ew!” She found her footing and knocked it away with a standing kick.

After wards, she pointed at it, and started spamming a perhaps unhelpful waypoint on it. Ping ping ping ping ping ping.

When the battlefield changed, Peach had readied herself for action. Sudden shifts in her surroundings were nothing new to her thanks to Mario Party and other such kingdom-spanning pastimes, and by now, sudden enemy encounters weren’t either. She took stock of the Kitchen Rummies that staggered stiffly up the orange ramp toward the prep station where she wound up. Remembering how her last confrontation with a whole gang of Rummies went, she brought out her Scatterboom and let loose a fiery blast while her foes were still grouped up. While it staggered them all, it dealt low damage given the distance, and the princess searched for a way to use her environment to her advantage. This prep station featured a giant mechanical pig clad in a white chef’s outfit with a cleaver, but it would be difficult to bait any enemies beneath Pork Chopper’s blade. Instead, she thought of something else. As the Rummies continued to totter up the ramp, she put her own kitchen expertise to good use and used her Materialization to manifest a giant rolling pin. With a grin Peach dropped it on the ramp and watched it roll right over the Rummies, knocking a couple of them off into the abyss.

At that point the princess noticed Sakura’s pings. She must need help! Without pausing to wonder why the better fighter would need her help, Peach moved to assist. “On my way!” she called out, not using Brain Talk. Rather than try to use the rails or navigate the obstacles separating the prep stations, she jumped into the air and floated over the gap. Quickly she realized that her natural float wouldn’t be enough to go the whole way, though. Peach started to finagle her way toward a landing point, but suddenly remembered what Crenshaw said about SAS. “Uhhh,” she muttered, imagining herself reaching out to flip a light switch. “Your power, please!”

A Vision of Sakura suddenly flashed before her eyes, performing a default fist-pump animation. ”Here to help” a slightly distorted version of her voice said, as if spliced together by an artificial intelligence. The ‘light’ switched on, and virtual cables extended from the back of Peach’s head, reaching out through the space to her teammate. Just as Peach’s flight would have been cut short, she held herself up with borrowed Telekinesis, bearing her the rest of the way to land near Sakura.

The princess arrived with a bang, showering the Saws Paws with a scatterboom blast. “We’ll mop ‘em up together!” she smiled.

Sakura grinned. ”Hey, it worked!” She pinged Peach a couple times, and then she pinged the Saws Paws again. She offered a fist for Peach to bump and then got to work.

Figuring it was too dumb to dodge, she charged up a fireball. ”Hadoken!” She unleashed the slow moving projectile it’s way and then followed up behind it. Even if it did move she was fast enough to react. She aimed a powerful swip towards the creepy wrists of the creature to knock it over and maybe even disarm it depending on how strong it was. Disarm? Disleg? Sakura wasn’t sure.

Peach unleashed her projectiles alongside Sakura, materializing an explosive grenaduck to blow apart the pack of bizarre predators apart, opening them up for further punishment from her ally. Once embroiled in close-quarters combat, she unloaded the withering might of her scatterboom at point-blank range to turn one simulated Saws Paws to cinders, then switched over to her parasol. Just like in the endurance test, however, she used not one but two umbrellas in combat, wielding once as a shield and the other as a a beatstick. Their crystalline construction, courtesy of her new power, boosted their durability beyond what they would have been as mere everyday items.

Still, these Others were vicious, putting heavy pressure on her with their ferocious power and agility. In a straight fight their numbers might overwhelm her, but Peach wasn’t about to give them that courtesy when she could fight a lot smarter. Jumping off the platform, she popped open one parasol to float in midair over the training area’s abyss. One Other leaped at her to cut her down, but she thrust her other umbrella forward to jab it right in center mass. After that, just popping her weapon open was enough to bounce it back toward the group. As it staggered to its feet among two other Saws Paws, not sure how it was going to reach her, she took aim with her rocket launcher. “See you on the ‘other’ side!” she quipped, and with a giddy laugh blasted all three monsters off the bridge to their deaths. By that time the sludgy Scummy Pools were getting closer, so Peach floated over to handle the fodder. Hopefully Raz was dealing with the Kitchen Rummies alright.

Peach might not have had much luck in traversing the field on her own, but Raz whizzed around like a mosquito. He skated across the many rails with ease, using the vantage point to pepper the mob of Kitchen Rummies with Psi-Blasts, a series of psychic drivebys that struck a good portion of the Others. Plenty more where they came from, though, and Raz realized that he was doing the thing Crenshaw warned against: going it alone.

He dived off the rails into the audience stands, where a lot of irate Kitchen Rummies had been trying to swipe at him from. ”Here goes!” Before the Rummies could get their vengeance, Raz concentrated hard, and in a tense moment a Vision of Peach popped up beside him. ”Here to help,” it toned, a similar cable reaching out to Raz, like Vision-Sakura had before with the real Princess.

Raz raised his hands, mimicking the gesture Peach did when she used her psychic power, and a large crystalline replica of her Scatterboom appeared in the air. With it, Raz BLAMMED the collected Rummies, tearing through near all of them in a single shot. Though not being used to the force, Raz himself was kicked backwards, nearly falling right into the dark abyss if not for a quick use of Mental Connection to pull himself into a thought bubble.

”Whoa, that thing’s got a real kick,” Raz sent out to Peach. Following the Brain Message to its recipient, Raz saw some of the Scummy Pools moving in to take shots at her. ”Hang on, I’m coming!” Raz leapt from his floating bubble onto another grindrail, taking it straight to those Scummy Pools closest to Peach. ”Hyaaaah!” A small battle cry as he jumped down, battering them with a solid downward slam with a psi-palm, followed by a backflip (for style) and blasting them even harder with a volley of Blasts.

Sakura tossed a Rummy of the edge and laughed as she saw Raz get cooking. ”Awesome, Raz-kun..! Can we really summon Peach-san’s gun?! That’s amazing!” Sakura blocked a few more projectiles and pushed forward toward Raz. Two more Saws Paws interfered but this time Sakura was prepared. She jumped up, kicked one and staggered it, using the momentum to launch herself fists first into the other one, slamming it onto the ground. She grabbed it, rolled backwards, and flipped it over her head, slamming both the Saws Paws into each other.

”Me next!” She said, willing a pulse of psychic Raz energy into her palms.

”Here to help” Creepy AI Raz said with the default animation, immediately repulsing Sakura’s chin into her neck as she cringed. ”Oh, what- anyway- Psychic Hadoken” She yelled, coming up with the attack name as she combined Blast with Hadoken to laws the Saws Paws off the edge.

She dusted off her hands, satisfied, then surveyed the battlefield. Sakura remained grounded, unlike her floatier teammates. ”Can you flyers group up by me or something?” She said. ”If we were playing Tag, maybe I could be the Base? If that makes any sense.”

Raz was already circling around to Sakura’s side, keeping the Others at bay with his continued fire. ”Uhhhh… no, no it doesn’t,” he replied rather bluntly.

”Oh…”
”But sticking together, that I understand!”

By now, there wasn’t a lot of opposition left. Even if Psych-OSF was unfamiliar territory, fighting was old hat for the three cadets, and with a combination of potent powers both new and old they managed to make mincemeat of this training challenge. In a flurry of psychic rays, martial arts, materialized objects, and good old-fashioned bludgeoning the trio finished off the remaining Rummies and Pools. This environment offered a lot ot stuff that could be used to their advantage, probably in order to teach them to use every possible means at their disposal to combat this supernatural threat, and Peach especially did not hesitate. After what felt like mere moments of nonstop action and excitement, the Others stopped coming. Peach stood, breathing heavily as she looked around the strange arena, and after another few seconds the simulation fell away. Everyone stood in the training room once more, in the exact same spots as before.

Had that whole thing been in Peach’s head? But it felt so real! Or maybe she’d just been too distracted with the Others to look more closely. Either way, it felt like it went really well, and Crenshaw certainly looked impressed.

“Very good,” he told them. “I’d say you passed with flying colors. You may now consider yourself official members of Psych-OSF. I hope you’ll forgive the lack of induction ceremony, but there isn’t much time. Get yourselves situated in and well-rested in the dorms tonight, I’m sure you’ll be assigned to the operation tomorrow morning. In the mean time, all the rules and regulations are accessible via Psynet, so take some time to bring yourselves up to speed on the do’s and don’t’s. You’ll get your squad assignment tomorrow morning, most likely. That’s all for now.”

”All right! Yes sir, Crenshaw-san!”

”Thank you, sir!” Raz gave Crenshaw a salute before turning to the others. ”You guys really knocked it out of the park! If I didn’t know any better–” He paused, glanced sideways to Crenshaw, then continued in the trio’s personal Brain Speak. ”If I didn’t know better I’d think you were natural psychics yourselves.”

Peach smiled. “Aw, thanks. But all it really comes down to is fighting as part of a team, and we’ve done plenty of that.”

Sakura stretched, smirking confidently. She replied in Brainspeak. ”Yeah, we’re pretty great.”

(anything else more relevant here idk)

A thought occurred to Sakura and she switched the gears of the conversation. ”Did you guys see that weird little fake version of ourselves that appeared when we used each other’s power? What was that all about? Weird! I wonder if we could get rid of it or…maybe customize it!”

Peach nodded. Since the training was over, and Crenshaw was already going, she began to follow him out at a slow enough pace that the others could follow along easily. “Yeah, I think he said we could. Not that I’ve had much of a chance to try it out yet, but it’s rather incredible all the stuff we can do. Like using those computers we saw in Alcamoth, but anywhere, and without any extra equipment.” Just by holding her hand up and willing it into existence, she could conjure a Vision of a menu where she could access all sorts of information and settings. It was almost intimidating.

”I’ll fiddle around with it later,” Raz said with a shrug. While being lead out he tried to look for Lili, in case she had stuck around anywhere closeby, but it didn’t seem like it. Something came up? Hopefully nothing too serious… ”I don’t know about you guys, but I’m beat.” He stretched hard, trying to work a few knots out of his joints. Been a while since he worked himself that much. ”Shall we go check out those dorms?”

As much as she wanted to put all her fancy new psytech to the test, looking stuff up, editing her interface, customizing her SAS interactions, and generally seeing what it could do, Peach couldn’t stay up all that late. She was bone-tired. Even though nothing of major importance to her campaign had been achieved today, it had been a long day, and the Seekers ended up covering quite a lot of ground. They set out from home base at Alcamoth in the continent's southeastern reaches, boated across river, rapids, and sea, fought tooth and nail with pirates, and survived the mad scramble in Nyakuza Metro all the way up in the Frozen Highlands. After the teams got separated, her arrival in Gutsford led to that absurd truck battle through the scrubland and Kunad Highway. Things scarcely got less crazy after that with the heroes’ arrival in Midgar and subsequent adventures within it, including her first brush with the Others.

Lying in bed in her dorm room, silent except for the breathing and occasional snores of other female OSF personnel, Peach could scarcely believe all that had transpired. It boggled the mind and defied prediction; if nothing else, this world was never boring. Who could have guessed that today she’d officially join the ranks of a foreign city-state’s psionic military? Of course, she couldn’t help but worry about something unexpected just around the next corner taking her by surprise, but there wasn’t much she could do about it other than trust in her teammates, and in herself, too. In Midgar more than ever before, she felt caught up in a current much bigger and stronger than herself. Fighting against it in its entirety might be impossible, but she couldn’t just resign herself to the flow, either. Sooner or later, Princess Peach was going to make a difference around here. Maybe she’d even save the world.

Ultimately, it took only a few moments of reminiscing in bed before Peach fell asleep.

Next morning, she awoke suddenly with her head ringing–literally. One of the programs uploaded to Peach’s mind via her SAS connected -and enabled by default- was a morning wake-up call system, and though neither painfully obnoxious nor clamorous it proved insistent enough to rouse her from bed at the start of the standard Psych-OSF day: six o’clock. Throwing off the covers, she put her feet on the floor and rubbed her face. These people clearly weren’t night owls. After putting herself together, she found two new Brain Messages. One was a general message from command detailing instructions for that morning, which amounted to making all the necessary preparations for starting ‘Operation Scour’ at nine o’clock on the dot. That meant three hours to get herself in working order, fully cleaned, fed, and equipped for her first assignment as a member of OSF. Of course, Peach also knew to keep in mind that she wasn’t just some grunt. She was an infiltrator. She needed to get whatever useful information about OSF, its top brass, its relation to the government, and so forth that she could without blowing her cover. Learning more about the Others, and by extension the Ever Crisis, was even more important. The Seekers who didn’t accompany the three cadets should be informed about the OSF and its movements too, although for now Peach didn’t know how she’d contact the others. It might be too busy this morning to sneak out in person, and she got the impression that whatever she sent through Psynet might not necessarily be secure. Oh well, she thought, heading for the door. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

First stop after leaving the dorms was the outfitter. Rank-and-file troopers might not have a lot of say in what they could wear, but one of the benefits afforded to more powerful Scarlet Guardians -no matter their level of experience- was the freedom to customize their uniforms. Peach managed to assemble an outfit much more to her liking, something between a techwear coat and an elegant dress, complete with a tie. Even if some others might see a ‘battle skirt’ as impractical, she appreciated the chance to express herself. If only she could get it in pink, since the standard Psych-OSF colors seemed to be almost completely red, black, and gray.

She headed out from the outfitter at a brisk place, having somewhere to be. The other Brain Message she got had been from someone familiar; Luka Travers. He invited her, Sakura, and Raz to join him for another meal at the Otherlobe cafeteria, so the princess made her way there quickly. The cafeteria resembled one familiar to Raz, but much larger in scale, and like everywhere else in the Otherlobe this morning it buzzed with activity. There were soldiers everywhere, scurrying around like ants as they made preparations, everyone galvanized into a state of urgency by the imminent operation. Peach found Luka at a table by one of the great glass windows with two strangers beside him.They both wore somewhat similar sleek outfits in typical OSF black and red, both with scarves and matching mask accessories, worn in their hair. The young man, though, sported red eyes with black sclera, decent musculature, angular features, a slight bluish tint to his fair skin, and a thick, x-shaped, metallic mark on his face. Meanwhile, the young woman sported long hair in a purple to yellow gradient, detached sleeves, soft features, a garment even more like a dress than Peach’s, a slight purplish tint to her dark skin, and a full figure.

“Good morning,” Luka greeted Peach. “Peach, this is Dexio and Sina. Dexio and Sina, Peach.”

The princess’s new acquaintance gave a wave and a smile. “Hey there. The pleasure’s all mine. My power's Seismokinesis.”

“Hi. Nice to meetcha,” Sina added. "My power is Cryokinesis."

“Now that you’ve been assigned your platoon, you should get to know your teammates,” Luka explained.

Peach’s brows went up. “Oh! Right, yeah, nice to meet you both. My power's Materialization. Guess we’ll be working together!” She glanced at Luka. “That’s five total, right? Do you know who our platoon leader’s going to be, Luka?”

“Actually, that’d be me,” the young man told her, looking a little embarrassed. “Command’s always been pressuring me to take up leadership, especially since I used to be Septentrion 6th Class, back before our merger with the Psychonauts. Needing more platoons for Scour must’ve been as good an excuse as any, and after I vouched for you three, they must have thought you’d be a good fit on my team.”

Dexio grinned. “Oh, no need to be so bashful, Luka. Everyone knows you’re our ace in the hole. Here’s to Luka Platoon, eh?”

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t call it that. I don’t want anything to be different between me and my peers, if I can help it.” Luka glanced at Peach again. “Oh, please, help yourself to the breakfast buffet. We’re going to need all the energy we can get for today.” The little guy had a heaping plate of high-protein pancakes and eggs to get through anyway, and he wasted no time following his own advice. Dexio and Sina, without anything to eat of their own, stood to accompany Peach to the line for food.

As the talk went on and the caffeine set in Midna started to get increasingly fidgety, tapping fingers, swaying her legs, and eventually randomly popping item’s in and out of the twilight realm as a way to burn off the false energy the drink had flooded her small and un-acclimatized body with.

About a third of the way through the discussion that had some consequences other than being annoying, and that was when her mind, wandering around her realm, touched upon and pulled out something unexpected: a desiccated skull, one with a mix of canine and human proportions writ larger than both should have.

”what the … oooooh, I forgot about those … I wonder if” she said to herself, before starting a remote rummage around the area, resulting in a crownedhelmet plopping down into her lap as well. With an addition of just a bit of shadowy padding, the skull slipped rather nicely inside of it, a combination that had the princess grinning to herself.

For the rest of the meeting it sat there with the princess channeling energy into it and twiddling around spell matrices and rune craft as she filled up its empty head with a new will. This put a convenient end to her physical fidgeting, and let her, and everyone around her, focus a bit better on what was being said:

In regards to Roxas’ own idea, well, she did not get a lot of the references he was making, but in contrast to the general shooting down of the idea the others had, she did have one thing to add: ”It’s not like we haaaaave to register this group. It's not like being unrecognized by the state has stopped us doing stuff already after all, so we could very well just keep it that way. I mean we wouldn’t be able to go above board the group and advertise it, but we could still get some kind of word of mouth reputation. Plus we might get funds or local contacts out of it? Either way, it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for ways we can help, and spready our name around while we’re at it. More than we already are anyway. We’d just need some kind of under the table way of being contacted by people who need our help”

After that she mostly listened with interest to learn a little bit about the regime’s secret police and secret projects that did not paint it in a good light, and then in disgust to the details about the corruption, interdepartmental conflict and the reckless endangerment those were going to result in.

”Urgh, well that’s another black mark or three against the government of this place. Having some kind of underground independent wing of our dealings in this city is sounding more and more appealing by the moment” she commented. It was a shame the closest thing to the resistance that had helped her and Link out in reclaiming Hyrule seemed to be more concerned with blowing up whatever a Mako Reactor was (she assumed it was something to do with the whole lifeblood of the planet thing that had been mentioned that Avalanche opposed the burning of) than fighting whatever dark nightmares of mind control and who knew what else the government was potentially concocting in its research facilities.

After all that news, some of it very grim, she felt it was good to have Pit’s sunny attitude burst through any clouds of gloom and get them focusing on what they could do right here and now: help out their Psych-OFF infiltrators, help stop the robot attack, and anything else they could do too on top of that to help the people of the city out.

”Yeah, let’s get out there and do what we can. Do some daring heroics, save as many lives as we can, make a name for ourselves and pry open as many cracks as we can to get at the secrets within” she agreed.

After that, they sorted into two groups, with Midna lagging behind just a little to open up a portal inside the S.O.U. Building in-order to start setting up her teleport network around the city. After that she caught up with the others heading back to psychic town, this time going there via train.

On the ride over she kept tinkering with the skull she’d found (which got her some odd looks but nothing more) and remotely got her pets to hunt down and collect the disparate parts she needed in the twilight realm. All that prep meant that when she got to the former clinic Goldlewis
had acquired, she was ready to inaugurate the new hideout by performing her own highly unorthodox medical operation within its walls.

She set up a portal as she had said she would, and then she set to work, opening up a dozen or so temporary portals and dumping massive hunks of armor and old bones outof them and onto surgery tables. Then, with her trusty wolfos assistant (who only needed to be stopped from chewing on said bones twice) she set to work, the princess’s mad science being fueled by the last gasps of her caffeine rush. The dead warrior’s remains were reassembled, and re-encased in the layers of armor it had worn in life only now with shadowy magic, rune craft and random bits of cloth for padding filling in for its missing flesh and muscle.

Turquoise light pulsed through the clinic’s windows as the magic began to come together for the grand finale, and then came to a climax as lighting flared as the princess touched the armor and gave the that which it held a spark of life long since lost.

Undead two ghostly glowing lights awoke in the empty eye sockets of the warrior for the second time in its existence, and it began to rise from the oversized operating table as the princess failed to resist the urge to laugh maniacally and declare her creation to be alive! Alive!



The towering darknut then promptly bashed the crest of its helmet into the, for it, far to low roof of the clinic. The resulting mix of amusement at this silliness and a touch of embarrassment at having damaged their new property broke Midna out of her mania, just in time for her to experience the combination of caffeine crash and growling in her stomach which reminded her that she really had not had a proper breakfast.

”Urrgh, never again” she swore, an oath she would likely not uphold, and then, if anyone was still about, would check ”If you want to join me for taking a look around this bottom half of the city, I’m going to grab an actual breakfast, and then check out the reservoir. Apparently it has some psychic pests in it that could be handy spirit wise. Plus maybe it’ll help out the locals, which can only help us in turn if we’re going to be setting up shop down here”

Susie could only give a laugh to Midna's plan, although due to her cute exterior it was difficult for anyone to discern if she was for the plan, or against it. "If what I've heard about the seekers is true, that will come to pass at some point. Blazermate could only shrug, scratch her head, and kind of agreed with Susie, unaware of what Susie meant. "I mean, shes not wrong. Things tend to end up in huge fights and that isn't going to be any different here..." Susie dismissively rolled her eyes, enjoying the banter just the same. She'd prefer to just infiltrate Shinra and take them out that way, but that plan was already shot down. Well, if she had her way and the Access Ark, she'd just robotize the city and be done with it. No more issues with the Ever Crisis if the full power of Haltmann Works was on display after all.

It was here the two robot girls went onto different groups. Due to feeling the pain of no healing, Goldlewis asked Blazermate to join them, which the medabot had no arguments with. She knew medabots were in the city, and that was her goal, so she only had to inform that grup about medabot things if they were to come up seeing as Tora and Poppi were going with Susie to deal with the robot menace. The pink businesswoman curious to see if these robots were savage tech, or could be put to work at Haltmann Works.

-----------------------------------------

As the groups were on the initial train ride, there were talks about Avalanche, some rebel group trying to take down Shinra. Hearing this and how dismissive Goldlewis was, once they were in Seiran and the group was more isolated Blazermate asked the simple question. "Why would running into them be a bad thing? They seem like they're our allies if they're trying to bring down the big bad. And from the sound of things, they are successful as they haven't been beaten. So they are either really strong, or Shinra is really weak."

Blazermate then looked at Midna fidgeting, which she had been doing all morning. Blazermate could tell she was on caffeine, but considering how badly it was affecting her Blazermate had to ask. "So Midna, are you allergic to caffeine or something? you'd be been super antsy all morning and most people I know who drink coffee don't get nearly as excitable." Blazermate did have to make sure everyone was ready to go and everything before they had to fight... whatever they had to fight. Blazermate only had a few ideas about what little she heard. Then a thought occurred to her.

"I know you guys asked for a healer on this one, but I just have one question that just occurred to me. This is a psychic sorta operation right? Well, I'm a medabot. Is that going to be a problem?"

-----------------------------------------

The ride to Sector 7 wasn't all that eventful with Susie doing business work on her PDA as the others looked about the area until they came to a stop. Giovanna explained the area and where they would possibly have to go, which got Susie to put away her PDA. "Well, lets hope there is something valuable with these robots. I am still in need of a bodyguard." Susie said, giving a very quick glare at Poppi for taking the giant metal monster they had fought yesterday which would've made an excellent one, before clasping her hands together and taking a look at what was a fairly dreary looking area.

"Although from the looks of it, if this is where these robots attack, I wouldn't assume anything they have is going to be worth anything... Otherwise sections like this wouldn't exist." She then scratched her chin thinking for a moment before getting an idea. "But if there are valuable components, we should see if someone is going to 'pick them up'. Jumping them could lead to all sorts of valuable intel and components if what I just thought of is true."

Still, she looked at the rest of the group. She hadn't worked with half of these members before, so she wasn't entirely sure what they could do even if most of them were at the demonstration at Twilight Town. Still, she didn't forget to ask that they pass some of their elemental power over to her if they got into a fight. Thinking about that, she should make a device that stored that energy so she didn't have to ask for it every time.

It was good that Big Band took over for Wonder Red. The disadvantage was starting to catch up quickly, with Red having less and less precise movements, focusing more on defense than offense.

Wonderful One-Double-Oh 101; don't be prideful, you're one of a hundred.

Relinquishing the fight to the better equipped Wonder Red took a second to study his options. Nightingale was armed, threatening to shoot their newest companion, with Frisk and Albedo focused on keeping him from firing. Meanwhile Ace Cadet had been fighting a two-on-one fight with Byte & Barq - holding his own for now, but the odds weren't good for him. Red couldn't support both scuffles, and using a Unite Morph was still to their disadvantage.

So he had to improvise.

In his typical flashy manner Wonder Red sprung into the air, flipping backwards to distance himself from the fighting - and during his arc through the air, pulled out the spirit of Artemis he collected. Spirits and their properties were still a relative unknown to him, but gaining a weapon from one was something he knew. With a solid grip Red crushed the spirit, turning it into physical form...



Wonder Red landed with his new firearm in hand, readying it to fire. He never trained for gunplay, though by the looks of it this thing didn't need much aiming to begin with. Artemis charged, a tense five seconds to do so, Wonder Red watching the various fights from a distance. In the heat of combat those five seconds could mean a lot.

As the gun charged Wonder Red locked targets on two individuals - Nightingale and Byte. Trusting Band to deal with Stryker, those two seemed the most pressing to deal with, even just disrupting them could net his compatriots a critical moment. Red afforded the gun as much time as he was willing to lose, finally releasing the trigger just as five seconds hit. Eight orbs shot into the air around him, glowing bright in the dim ruins, before each orb burst into an arrow of light after their targets. Four to Nightingale, and the other four to Byte. Hopefully it'd be enough to turn the tides.

---

'All these good folk, just trying to make a life...' Partitio's heart weighed heavy on his breast, his thoughts clouded by a smoldering fire in his heart 'Their struggles, their woes, all their ails...' the merchant tilted his head to the side adjusting the brim of his pa's old hat, wiping a tear from his eye "Dang it all." he said under his breath, voice shaking with emotion.

He had set out on a journey to put an end to people's destitution and rid the world of the devil that is poverty, but the world wasn't so simple as he remembered it. It wouldn't stop him none though, he wasn't gonna give up not til he was dead in the dirt, not til he had done what he told his old man and everyone back home. And he'd be damned if he wasn't gonna do something for the folk of Sector 7.

He may have just been a new face in town but the folk his generosity and willingness to roll up his sleeves to help anyone out was rumor abound, they knew the stranger had a desire to do the work they couldn't.

A child ran up to him with a curious look on their face and when the little one spoke up it shook the merchant from his sorrow "Why are ya cryin' mister?" it was a little girl dressed in dirty clothes and equally wild hair, the merchant knelt and rustled her hair with one hand and flipped a silver coin with his thumb in the other hand "Nothin' that I can't fix little lady," and like hell he wouldn't try, he chuckled and smiled brightly to the girl before standing, yes sir he was gonna get some folk together and they were gonna fix things around here.

With his index and pointing finger, the merchant loosed a sharp whistle "Round up a crew, it's high time folk get these streets fixed." his voice rang out between the hovels along the dusty dirt road, stepping up onto a crate in the garbage of the street he had a hand holding his old overcoat over his shoulder.

"Alright, have a good one!"

Ichiban had waved the other two off, not wanting to intrude on their time here any further, especially after kinda sorta being the one to almost get them murdered. That creepy guy in the sewers... Ichiban started down the opposite road, hoping to find some cops to tell them about a murderous guy under the city, the truth of the matter still lost in his Galeem-scrambled brain.

However he paused mid-walk. "Actually, hold up!" Ichiban turned on his heel and rushed back towards the sewer. Therion ducked out fast but he managed to catch up to Omori. "Yo, uh, hahh... sorry, outta breath after all that runnin' around for our lives, hahahh..." Walking alongside the kid Ichiban took a moment to catch his breath. "Look, I don't know this place all that well, but I do know you guys only just got here and probably don't have a place to stay. I'd feel pretty awful if I just left ya to fend for yourself so late. Here, I'll show ya to one of the big hotels around here. Your pals probably found their way there too!"

That justification settled Ichiban did as he promised, leading Omori around the intricate pathways of the city until the Habbo Hotel was in their sights. "I dunno much about this place but I heard good things. Plus it's the biggest one around. At least you know you'll have a room."

Ichiban shuffled around his pant pockets for his money, pulling out a fistful of limp bills as the two entered reception. Already his compensation for retrieving the medicine had dwindled to barely enough. Ichiban grimaced, but all the same passed what little he had left to the front desk. "Here, that should be enough for two rooms for one night, at least. One for Omori here," he gestured to the kid, "and for me. Yeah?"

Everything settled, Ichiban turned to Omori with a thumbs up. "Alright! Lemme know if you need anything else. I don't got much else to do tonight, was probably gonna hit the hay an' all that, but I'm still available to help."


The good part about paying just one night's stay at a hotel?

Free continental breakfast.

When nine o' clock rolled around, the meeting time for the Seekers that he'd been acquainted to yesterday, Ichiban was in the hotel's dining area, taking full advantage of the free food. Not only did he have two tiny plates piled with baked goods and breakfast meats, Ichiban also shoveled a good helping of everything on offer into his pockets. It was probably just coincidence that he was around at the same time this important meeting was to happen, but hey, maybe somebody wanted to say hi?

---

After finding out, thanks to Rika, that the other half of the team were in town, the Troop had immediately trooped on over to the hotel they were directed to by the mermaid guard. A check at the desk confirming that the others were indeed there, they had promptly piled on into a cheap room and slept through the rest of the night.

Despite their thriftiness and resulting cramped row, when the next day dawned and they tried to get breakfast it turned out they were in quite the financial woe, at least when it came to raw cash. What they were flush with was spirits. Lots of spirits. The troop had practically hoarded them the previous day, having everything from giant spiders and mosquitoes to mushroom and centipede people, deadly basilisks and virulent lightseeds. Oh and an oversized turkey too.

Within, surely some riches would be found which could be used or pawned, (along with the assorted minerals and gems that made the whole situation, frankly, a lot less bad than it could have been). As for why they had not used it? Well the troop had been told of a certain accusation by a certain queen that would increase their pay out. One residing at that very same hotel, and who’s arrival the toast munchers were eagerly anticipating.

It would also be nice to hear how the other party was doing of course, but the lack of meat in the royal koopa’s bellies was very much driving their thought process at the moment, a mood which was dragging the other two along for the ride.

It wouldn’t take long for Sectonia to make her way to the breakfast area. While she was one for beauty, she was practiced enough to not take ages to make herself presentable, although the little bit of extra makeup to cover up that small tattoo she had gotten from her excursion in the basement added a little bit more time than was usual. Still, she made her way past the troop to grab a cup of juice before glancing at the large koopa family. ”Oh, your here.” Sectonia said flatly. She wasn’t mad or angry at the troop, just neutral. It was early in the morning after all. ”Where were you all.”. Sectonia finished her first cup of juice, and went for another, this time using her new fire breath to heat the juice a little.

”Huh? Where were we? You were the ones who up and disappeared without a trace” Bowser replied, and though his words could come off as accusatory, his tone made it clear that he was mostly just confused.

”To, ah, clarify, we ran into a spot of trouble with some very large spiders, which took a little while to handle, and then after we turned around and came back we could not find a trace of you. Other than the map making man that is, but after that, nothing” Kamek injected to smooth things over ”So where did you end up going that made your route so hard to follow? I’m quite sure we ended up coming down here by an entirely different way, considering the man we met on the last leg of our journey hadn't seen you pass by”

Sectonia let out a huff as she turned to the koopa family. ”If you're curious, we went to a place called the ‘basement’. A horrid underground dungeon full of bodily horrors, undead, feces, and all sorts of horrid abominations. Which ended with us having to fight some eldritch fetus thing. It was awful.” Sectonia said, almost a bit glad to vent about what had happened yesterday, letting out a sigh that let loose a small puff of fire. ”Spiders are easy to handle compared to that place…” With that being said, Sectonia finished her juice and got a third cup. It was clear that the cups made for the smaller bugs of the hotel weren’t enough for the bee queen. ”I suppose my group did come out of it with a few benefits, but many things there were not for the taking considering how badly it seemed some of them could disfigure you. You’ll see when Nadia comes down.”

”I. Well. There were a lot of them” Bowser tried to respond, but his heart was not in it. Going the long way, it seemed, had definitely been the more preferable way of going about it.

”What’s a fetus” Jr then asked, which could have been a very awkward question, had he not been a reptile. As it was Kamek simply explained that it was ”It’s what a baby is while it is growing in the egg”

”Oh. Ew. Yeah no one eldritch baby is way more than enough. I am glad we missed that” Jr said, referencing the orphan of Koss, ”Worst we had was …. I mean the wall to wall spiders were pretty bad. And then there's a zombie plague down here too apparently which we ran into like one off. Then it was down a massive tree, and then along a beach, and then we met this place’s ex-king and learned some stuff”

”Hm… It sounds like you all had a much easier time of it. A good thing you didn’t surf down a river of blood inside some eldritch stomach… Ask Nadia, Therion, or Omori about the details. I’d sooner forget that place” Sectonia said, the bee queen visibly shivering for a moment. She then channeled her jealousy of how much of an easy time they all had compared to her from the sound of things to recover her own face, as annoying as it was, the fact that the king koopa was being deflated was more enjoyable than she thought. Although she wouldn’t tell that to his face. He was being far more refined than he used to be from her knowledge.

She then remembered what Jr. had just said ”So what did you learn from the ruler of this realm? Or the ex-ruler.” Sectonia asked, curious. Perhaps their explanation would explain who made that disgusting dungeon.

Unfortunately it did not, but what did do was clue her into a much greater veilness at the heart of the world that Galeem had created. Kamek, naturally, took the lead in this, explaining to the best of his ability how the flame clocks worked. How the people in this world were fueled by the lifelight, the same very thing blinding them to the true nature of that very world, and that the only way to get more was to take it from others. Or, more specifically, from the clocks that could only be filled by the deaths of others.

”It explains where most of everywhere we’ve been has been in a state of conflict of some kind or other” Kamek concluded, ”It’s not just that its set up like that at the start, its that its necessary for a place to even survive”

”That the war my …. My people were dying in was actually keeping them and Limsa Lominscuttle town alive and their clocks fed is, well, ironic. Right? That’s how irony works isn’t it?” Rika commented, before furrowing her eyebrows and then asking ”Wait, so what’s keeping them alive now then?”

”That. I. Oh dear” Kamek replied as the reality of what they had done suddenly dawned on them all.

Sectonia thought to herself after hearing about all of that. ”Well this does tell us one thing. Galeem was able to merge worlds, but is unable to actively control things beyond that. Instead, to keep its ‘perfect world’ in order, it requires a constant culling of its inhabitants. A poor ruler indeed.” Sectonia said, going on a bit about what she figured that all meant. ”A ghoulish situation indeed, but not one we can relent on. Without looking at this ‘clock’ myself, I can’t confirm your suspicions. Perhaps there is something not being told or something not even this ‘ex king’ was aware of.”

Sectonia’s input probably wasn’t what the koopa troop were thinking she would say, and Sectonia waited to see what their reactions would be to these words before continuing. ”There are three things this story doesn’t account for. What happens when an area is freed by the defeat of a guardian? What about areas that allow people to constantly ‘respawn’ as they called it, and finally, how long has Alucanth been up and have they been required to engage in this barbaric behavior? Either way, we can’t lament on the past if we are to push forward and end all of this.” And to ease their worries, she said something else. ”and perhaps later down the line, an alternate method may open up to us to resolve this issue. Can’t run a kingdom built upon the corpses of its own citizens.”

The mood that had been getting more and more dower as she talked suddenly perked right back up when the queen reminded them of what their mission was.

”I … you know what, yeah! If we punch Galeem in its stupid not face none of that matters. Coz when you punch the big eldritch god thing everything goes back to normal!” Jr cheered

”It does?” Rika had to ask if it really worked that way

”Most of the time, yeah” Bowser agreed, having punched a fair few jerks in the face for daring to try and usurp his position as his world’s big bad guy.

”And if it doesn’t, and we are stuck with a mishmash of a world, it would be quite the dominion to rule over, once things were put back into working order.” Sectonia said.

Kamek meanwhile had more of a thing and, thanks to the queen’s insite, came up with something ”Alcamoth! Yes yes the whole place is free, so we can check something. Asgore said we weren't part of that cycle, which means that if there is a clock there, it shouldn't be burning down any more! If we can find it, and confirm that, well, then we might want to rethink how we go about things entirely!” he declared.

”And perhaps that insight will explain how to free entire towns, assuming something with these clocks is keeping them enthralled. Yes.” Sectonia said, musing. She finished her most recent cup of juice as the koopa troop looked much more inspired. And almost as if to change the subject, Sectonia asked. ”So, with that all cleared up, is there any other business that must be attended to?”

”Couldn’t we just do it manually?” Rika started to suggest but, unfortunately, the dragony bit of Bowser’s soul reared its head in response to that question, prompting him to pull out a set of bottles bristling with spirits and set them down on the table while saying ”Yeah. We need to borrow your hat. You talked real big about it giving out good stuff earlier, and I need meat money”

”Also cool stuff!” jr butted in to add, the act of holding off on cracking open the little mystery boxes that where spirits having been quite the act of self control on his part

”Also cool stuff for my boy”

”and maybe I’ll get some ammo? Or ammo money?” Rika added hopefully, already dropping her prior comment in the name of reloading her dakka.

”That too!”
Sectonia laughed, amused. ”Very well. But as I’m sure you are aware, since you aren’t my minions there will be a cost to be incurred.” Sectonia then withdrew the soul of It Lives, having kept it wrapped up as she didn’t want to touch it. ”Remember that thing I told you about? As you can guess, none of my minions want to touch this thing. I am repulsed looking at it as well, but even I won't deny it might have something strong if crushed.” Sectonia then pulled out the Symbol of Avarice, presenting it to the koopa troop. ”The cost incurred by you will be you crush this horrid thing, I get to look over what you gain from what you crush to see if anything interests me, And a percentage of profits.”

It wasn’t a bad deal, all things considered. There were very few things she was interested in as it was, and she doubted that hideous abomination would drop anything anyone would want, but what it gives might sell quite well. She would also warn the troop that if an item spawned atop a stone pillar upon crushing the It Lives spirit to stay far, FAR away from it until she analyzed it, otherwise something absolutely dreadful could happen to them as a backlash to touching said item.

”I think Blazermate got a big bean from one of those in the Maw?” Bowser said in response to the stone pillar thing, before grumbling about her requesting a share of their loot.

”What percentage, exactly?” Kamek asked regarding the tax that was apparently being levied on them, which did not seem very jolly or collaborative to him.

”Not much. We are allies at the end of the day, but I’m not a charity.” Sectonia said flatly. ”And you lot are much more amiable than that Ganondorf…” Sectonia continued, giving the troop a compliment.

”Yeah, we’re way more whatever that is than him for sure!” Bowser declared, while Kamek grumbled a bit about not getting an exact number. He was used to that however, so in the end there was little more complaining as they set to work

Or rather Rika did, because she was the only one the ugly helmet fit properly.

”Ouch! Ow! That stings!” she complained as she learned about the helm’s downside, and resulted in Jr having to go on healer duty again, topping her up whenever the biting got too bad. Sectonia’s healing aura did help reduce the damage Rika took and aided Jr. with his healing.



Looking over all the items, Sectonia was surprised when she saw something so… mundane come from the It Lives spirit. Otherwise there wasn’t much of anything she was interested in. The magical staff might’ve been something, but really there wasn’t much here she was interested in. If only she knew more about the smelter looking item…

”Hm… From what I can tell from these items… I was expecting something more horrific from that spirit. It seems this item confers what item you throw into it to the person itself. And it has no transformative properties? It could be useful?” Sectonia then looked at the other items, having little interest in them but giving her appraisal of each one as she magically saw them.

”It seems many of the items here could be used by those down here. If I remember right, Therion could use those boots for example. Kamek, that staff looks like it could be useful for you. And of course this thermos, who has the courage to see what it does? The other items though, I am unaware of any of us that can use them. Perhaps they will sell well?” Sectonia said, finishing her analysis and taking the helmet from Rika.

Rika was mostly just glad for it to all be over, the ship girl rubbing her now unhelmeted head. After she got a reassuring pat on the shoulder, some praise for her endurance, and a once over to make sure she was well and good she said ”Mmm, might as well find out if the thing your bitty hat is any good I guess” apparently not done with the mornings bout of minor self sacrifice.

Indeed Bowser tried to step in and assure her that ”Hey you don’t need to do that, I can” but the ship girl shook her head and picked up her dated sunglasses from where they were laying next to her spartan helmet.

”Having both of these on has been super uncomfortable. And makes it kinda depressingly dark too. So I wanna check if this works or not” before she touched the floating cauldron. As predicted, no horrific mutations ensued, and instead the item simply stopped floating and bonked down on top of the stone pedestal (which someone was going to have to remove somehow if they wanted it to not go on taking up table space).

With the risky part out of the way, Rika picked up the cauldron and plotted in front of her, before folding in the arms of the sunglasses and popping them into it. Heat flashed as the item ‘melted’ in the smelter, and when Rika peeked a moment later it was gone.

”So… how do you feel?” Kamek asked

”Hmmm. About the same” Rika said, before asking Jr to ”Toss something at me to check”

A spider egg went flying over the table a few moments later, only for it to slow in the air when it got close to the ship girl, like it had got stuck in molasses, giving her plenty of time to snatch it out of the air.

”Yup. Looks like it works” she confirmed as she plopped the egg down.

”While your at it, got any idea what any of these do?” she then asked, pulling out a pair of Mithril Stone Spirits, a Burnt Pan and an Earth Talisman from her pockets (and getting Kamek to enlarge the frying pan for her) ”I mean it’s probably just a normal frying pan but you never know”

Sectonia looked at the items but her expression showed everyone they weren’t all that good. ”just some weird consumables and a weapon that doesn’t look all that interesting. Probably best to sell them.” Sectonia said dismissively at the new items. With the cauldron item having been tested by Rika, Sectonia motioned for her to hand it to the bee queen. ”I will hold onto that.” she said simply. She wasn’t interested in any of the other items so the koopa troop was free to do whatever she wanted with those. She was curious as to what they would sell for.

”Hang on hang on, I wanna try another one” Rika insisted, before plopping the pests talisman into it, only for her to become confused when nothing happened

”Oh wait shoot, did I break it?” she asked nervously, picking out and then popping the talisman back in again a few more times to no avail.

Looking at the item, it seemed to have cooled down after smelting a single item, getting slightly warmer as time went on. ”It needs some time to recharge its magical power. What it’s doing is fairly strong after all.” Sectonia said.

”Oh. Good. Phew” Rika sighed in relief, wiping her brow, before asking ”So can I use it again once it’s, uh, warmed up I guess?”

Sectonia put a hand on her hip, exhaling a bit before saying. ”I suppose. However if I remember right, you were also lacking in food funds?” Sectonia wouldn’t mention her funds were fairly low after yesterday, but from what she knew of this group, funds in general were low. Speaking of, Sectonia got even more juice. One would think she had a sweet tooth.

”Well we were, but now that we have all this, we should be able to make up some funds with some sales” Kamek said, gesturing to the items ”Some kind of herbalist or alchemist for most of these, for example, would solve our problem nicely”

”And some kind of smith for the other stuff, yeah?” Bowser added, referring to the various minerals he had in his pockets ”then finally some kind of general merchant for the gear”

”No no no we should try putting all the things in the pot first” Rika insisted, and then when someone pointed out half of it would not fit she retorted that ”Kamek could just shrink it right?”

”I suppose?”

”Alright, that’s the plan then. Let’s head out, make some cash, and then we can buy a second breakfast!” Bowser declared, before scooping up a share of the things they were going to sell, while Rika darted around grabbing things she wanted to try smelting.

”Would you care to accompany us?” Kamek asked, to which Rika added ”So I can use your thing”

Crushing her juice cup after fishing it and throwing it away, Sectonia looked at Kamek’s politeness, contrasted with Rika’s unabashed bluntness and said nothing for a time before replying.”I suppose I should. Perhaps there might be other trinkets in the shops as well that interest me.” She then looked at Rika, saying. ”Just remember, we do not have a method to separate the magic from whoever smelts an item with this thing, so take into consideration if someone else could use it better than you.”

”Sure sure. But I mean no one was interested in the other stuff right? Except the boots you said Therion might like, and I guess the magic stuff” She said, putting those to one side, along with the magic looking staff and talisman, while taking the spear, the pan, the weird shotgun and the little talisman for herself.

And the bug.

With that the Troop set out, but stopped briefly by the front desk to let people know they were going shopping. In doing so they also received the message Nadia had read earlier.

”Well, that is, perhaps, a little ominous” Kamek noted, before glancing back at the others, and asking ”Thoughts?” of which it turned out the rest of the troop had very few. Sectonia didn’t really have much insight either and only shook her head.

”I suppose we’ll hear them out then. After selling and shopping” Kamek decided for them.

”As long as it isn’t this Counselor P I heard about yesterday. But from what I heard of that one, he puts everyone to shame when it comes to greed and debauchery. And that would lead to many enemies” Sectonia said. But besides that she was eager to go shopping, although her face barely showed it.

As the group of royals and their entourage. (Although it was mostly just Sectonia moving with the Bowser family) a thought occurred to Sectonia. ”So, I remember some of you never doing the things you were doing or looking like that. What did you find along your path in terms of new powers?” While this was a lead into what she gained from her little excursion, it would be best to at least take note of what these people could do. Things changed so rapidly in this world being behind in knowing what people did could be an issue.

”Oh wow, where to even start with all the new awesome stuff we can do?” Bowser asked, a bit rhetorically, only for Kamek to answer him anyway with ”Maybe focus on the biggest changes to our group’s abilities, rather than just our ability to blast stuff better?”

”Huh, and what would that be?” Bowser asked, to which Kamek simply pointed at Rika

”Hi! I’m Rika, and I guess all of me is new? I mean I guess I wasn’t even a person when you all met before? But I’m a boat, and I shoot things with big guns. Or well I did, but I used all my ammo. Now I punch stuff good, and grappling hook stuff, and chainsaw it, and hack it with my hull blades and stuff like that” she explained, shadow boxing a bit as she explained herself.

”Yup, that’s my girl, a real go getter and credit to the team” Bowser praised her, before also pointing out that ”Now my boy meanwhile has picked up a bunch of healing magic and stuff, haven’t you son?”

”Yup. So if you're hurt and stuff I guess I’ll fix you up. Try not to though, its kind a pain” the prince replied ”I can also cure like, curses and put people to sleep and other stuff to, it's a whole big tool kit”
”I meanwhile can give shields that increase physical resistance, shrink things, and create magical mounts” Kamek explained for himself, while Bowser’s own was just ”I can smash, bash and blast even better now” before releasing the looks that simple explanation got him and tried to add ”Oh and I can breath underwater I guess?” to save face

”I suppose you all have been busy.” Sectonia said, really having more of a ‘that's neat’ tone of her voice. ”I meanwhile have only gained some moderate boosts to my antillions and a vague control over fire.” Sectonia said, summoning a single antillion which was much bigger than it was the last time the koopa troop had seen them, followed by making a flower of fire from her flame breath, having practiced doing this a bit beforehand, which gained her an ooo of appreciation from the young ones. There was also the whole ‘she had a smelter’ thing now as well, but that was obvious.

Still, much like she thought, Kamek seemed to have the most useful abilities. Although the royal oaf’s son being a healer was interesting. Considering the lack of healing while going through that dungeon, having that back would be quite nice.

First off they sold the Mycelia, Spider Eyes and blood vials which got sold to an alchemist, and the Staff of Water, Earth Talisman, Scissorman’s Shears and Insect Scythe to a general weapon’s merchant. Then they made the big bucks selling Bowser’s assorted ores, some Mithril Stone Spirit and, most worthwhile of all, a massive chunk of gold ore the queen summoned down from the surface.

They finally stopped by a monstrous pet’s vendor called Beastmaster Raha, who they sold the spider eggs too, and Rika also got some instruction on how to utilize the large attack bug she had acquired. In the end it turned out it would respond to chemical signals, which was weird, and, apparently, light, which Rika interpreted as ”Oh like a target designator laser? Weird but ok”

Their incredibly ad hoc solution to this involved picking up a laser pointer from a stationary shop for pittance, taping it to Rika’s gauntlet, and then having Jr rig up a way for Rika to flick it on and off. After that, it got introduced to its new home, i.e. the now empty hanger on that same gauntlet.

While they were wandering the streets making sales, they made use of the smelter a bit more. Rika melted down the pest talisman, and then got more ambitious and got Kamek’s help to shrink and then melt down the entire pest spear mostly to see if it was possible. Then Bowser gave it a go, doing the same with a frying pan. Out of the curiosity of experimentation, Sectonia wasn’t confrontational about the use of her new little way to empower herself and her minions.

Kamek initially thought this was something of a waste, but after they tried and failed to melt the Scissorman’s Shears, meaning that they must have gained passives from the other melee weapons. Sectonia wasn’t sure exactly what they got either, noticing that what power those weapons had wasn’t all that impressive. Perhaps turning them into money would’ve been better, but they weren’t her items after all. Still, the experimentation was useful.

As for the money, well the troop got a healthy 1285 geo out of their sales, though it was likely less than they could have got, had they actually known the value of half of the items
Sectonia didn’t fare much better at knowing the true value of things, although her tidy sum of 1517 gold was about what she expected. She could probably have pushed for a bit more, but making a scene in front of the koopa troop wouldn’t have done well for her. And now she had access to all her antillions, not just the couple she had been working with.

With all the selling done, all that was left was breakfast. A real, proper breakfast, not some slightly burnt bread like they had had before they set out. Seeing as it was undignified, Sectonia let the koopa troop look for a place to eat. Upon finding a place to eat however, Sectonia finally brought up the matter of ‘payment’ for using her symbol of avarice.

”Now then, about that payment…” Sectonia said, giving a bit of a haughty laugh as she started to count on her fingers. ”I will give you a discount for helping test that new item of mine. Considering all the fees regarding how many items you crushed… the total comes down to…” Sectonia said, enjoying this quite a bit. ”Lets just call it a meal.”

There was a bit of grumbling, and most of it was due to the mass of gold they all knew the queen had just gotten her own hands on, but in the end they relented and Kamek cordially invited her to join them for breakfast in his king’s place.

As for the place that Bowser’s nose had lead them too, it was run by a half sized women called Chef Bridgette who was apparently something called a Harvin, not that any of them knew what that was, nor did they find out much about the species. What they did find out was that she made the best big breakfast anyone could ever ask for.

Plates of bacon, hash browns, beans, pancakes, waffles and anything else you desired could be bought for surprisingly reasonable prices, and though none of it was fancy, it still managed to be a slap up feast where every individual part was cooked with oodles of care, attention, and skill.

Truly, it managed to be one of the greatest breakfasts of all time in Bowser’s book, and certainly the best second breakfast. By the end of it the troop was down a bunch of money, mostly due to the king and queen being able to put quite a lot into their large forms, but the meal was such a bang up job that no one was upset about that afterwards.

Sectonia still had to show dignity as she was not eating in the royal quarter, but watching the koopas having quite the boisterous energy was amusing. Although Bowser and his kin needed to be taught a bit of elegance, or at least as much as he could muster if he was a king. Perhaps she’d have to teach him that later, especially if they were going to be allies. But now they had a place to be. ”Now with that done, we had to meet with the others and see who this IGV person is.” Sectonia said as the group had exited the eatery, making sure to keep them all on task.

”Not got P or F in it, so we should be good, yeah?” Bowser said, which turned out to not be a joke. As it was, now that they were fueled up, chased up, pasives up and Rika had a string operated shotgun kinda awkwardly strapped onto her left gauntlet, they were ready to face the day and whatever mysteries it contained.

Since being in close combat a couple of times now, the Ace Cadet was doing a little better than usual. That was to say he wasn't getting completely pummeled. His sword sheared the edges of Byte's ARMS making short bursts of sparks, the springloaded limbs curving away to prevent being completely cleaved off once the metal policeman quickly realized his opponent had the strength to do just that. So while flashy and fast paced, the battle between Byte and Ace amounted to mostly near misses and light blows traded back and forth. Normally the Cadet would be quite confident in outlasting an opponent in a contest of constitution, but he wasn't sure if the normal concept of 'stamina' applied to the metal man. It also didn't seem like Byte actually felt pain, while even a glancing punch by the robot hurt. He was also staying out of the crush shot's effective range, whether intentionally or not.

It was when Barq recovered and rejoined the fight that the Cadet suddenly found himself in danger of being on the back foot. With both parts of the pair working together, they could pull off short combo moves and increased Byte's mobility whenever he used Barq as a springboard. Not to mention Barq was all too happy to take a hit meant for Byte. Sometimes the Cadet heard shouts and gunfire not far across the market, but whenever his attention slid to try and determine his friends' status that little dog-bot would slip into his blind spot. Barq's punches (it actually opened its mouth to shoot out a boxing glove!) were not as strong as its partners', but they were enough to give Byte an opening. Always an opening, since the Cadet was foregoing any real defense in favor of dodging or countering. It kind of figured that the Cadet went for the long sword for an advantage in range, but his chosen opponent just so happened to prefer the same.

A brief tactical retreat saw the Cadet roll behind a half-collapsed store shelf. He took a deep breath to regroup and considered his strategy. If he could just get one good attack in he could take the officer out, he just needed an opening of his own. It was hard to tell if any of his items would work, but there was no use thinking about it when he could just test it instead. He reached into his pouch and withdrew a palm-sized paintball.

On the other side of the shelving, Byte swapped the Bubb ARM for a second Seekie. With an enemy-seeking missile equipped to each arm, he held them out towards where the Cadet had disappeared.

"No use hiding," the officer stated. "Lock on!" He threw the punches into open air on either side of the Cadet's cover. After but a moment the Seekies shifted course and flew right towards the hunter's position. Not about to stay an easy target, the Cadet vaulted over the top of the shelf and whipped the paintball at Byte. It splattered pink across his eye panel at the same time that the ARMS demolished the shelving in a mini explosion. They loosed electricity as they exploded, zapping the nearby Cadet - he withstood it, in order to get back on the offensive.

"Repair." Byte had begun to spin his head rapidly to clear the obstruction from his visual sensors. While he did, he wasn't punching. Which meant it was time for the Ace Cadet to make his move! The long sword had found its way back into its sheathe while he'd been fetching the paintball from his bag - the drawing attack the Cadet performed now was a wide horizontal swing sure to catch his target even if he happened to move. Unfortunately that also made it all the easier for Barq to speed in and intercept the blade. Barq howled and toppled over once more, earning a frustrated "Aw come on!" from the hunter.

Byte was done with the 'repair' and raising his dukes while the Cadet took up his counter stance. It seemed like it would be back to the give and take until an assist came out of nowhere.

Energy arrows shot towards Byte, slamming into him and staggering him. As a result the cop's focus naturally moved toward the source of the new attack. He thrust his arm in Wonder Red's direction, the masked hero just inside the Seekie's range.

Within the light showing through the holes in the ceiling, the jewel-like luster of the Nightsky Ripper's blade shimmered in motion. A swift and powerful overhead slash came down onto the golden coil of Byte's outstretched arm, cleanly severing it. Unable to complete its flight the Seekie clattered to the ground, discharging its electricity as it did, while the other end of the spring snapped back towards the officer.

"You should have geared up a little more before taking us on," the Cadet said, his stance shifting back to neutral to prepare to attack again. He'd be able to finish things now thanks to Red, then they could go help out the others. "Rust in peace!"

"Error." The remaining ARM shifted into a new type, a wide end cylinder decorated with stars, but by then it was too late. With Barq down for the count and no way to properly defend himself, a cross cut from the Ace Cadet's blade opened up Byte's metal chest chassis. He reversed his grip and brought the sword back down in the opposite direction, slicing through the clockwork mechanisms inside.

After he left the smith's shop, Ganondorf began to wander without much aim. Now he needed lodging, and he didn't exactly know where to start looking. And then he remembered something else that he had nearly forgotten about. He fished for and retrieved the Blastocyst Spirit from his belongings. He'd been holding onto this spirit since just before the battle against It Lives and Ganondorf was certain he didn't much time remaining before it would fade away, "You and your kind gave me no end of headaches in that Basement dungeon. So you'd better be ready to do the same to my enemies in the future." he muttered to the spirit, almost as though he were threatening it.



"Hey!" shouted a strange voice from somewhere behind Ganondorf, "You! Big guy!" whoever this was they were obviously addressing Ganondorf, which made him wonder if he'd done something against this city's law or maybe something else.

He turned around and saw what looked like some kind of blue-scaled fish woman. She had dark red hair tied into a ponytail, wore dark metallic armor, and also appeared to missing her eye. Must have been some kind of warrior or soldier, "Did I do something... wrong?"

"What? Nah, nah, nothing like that." she said, "You're a new face around here, and that cat-lady person asked me tell any new people I see that 'Misfortune awaits them at the Habbo Hotel'. Heh, not sure why anybody'd wanna go where bad lucks waits for 'em, but whatever! Message delivered, so stay outta trouble, or next time you see me I won't be so pleasant." and then she stormed off to look for other newcomers.

"'Misfortune', eh?" Ganondorf muttered to himself. Well, she was obviously talking about Nadia, that much was clear to him. So Nadia had managed to secure lodging for everyone? Well that was at least one thing the Gerudo wouldn't have to worry about then. He continued to wander a bit, but this time he at least had a destination he was looking for. And eventually he did find it and checked himself in. He didn't stay awake much that night, instead electing to get some much needed sleep in an actual bed.



Breakfast that morning looked especially appetizing. Not that the food Toriel cooked was bad or anything, but she did tend to use abnormal ingredients. Usually meat such as bugs and snails, or something similar. This was probably the first "normal" meal Ganondorf had had in a long time. And he enjoyed it. A generous serving of eggs, some breakfast meat on the side, and a dark black drink that someone called 'coffee'. The drink had a bitter flavor, but was surprisingly good.

Also in the area was the man in red suit from yesterday. Shoveling food in his mouth and even pocketing some of it for later. The telltale signs of someone who was poor and not always used to eating well. At least in Ganondorf's experience anyway. But the King of Evil passed no judgment on the man, after all he himself was born into a race of desert bandits so who was he to cast the first stone?

Not long after, Ganondorf could hear the sound of familiar voices rumbling in the lobby. Ah, so the overgrown lizard was still alive after all? Pity. Then again, Bowser was the kind of fool who was too stupid to die so easily. With a shrug, the Gerudo finished off the last bits of his breakfast and made for the lobby. By that point the Koopa Troop was no longer in the hotel, having left with Sectonia - not that Ganondorf himself was actually aware of that.

"Hmph. Time to go see a skeleton about a sword."

About fifteen or twenty minutes, Ganondorf found himself entering the shop of Vamos again. The skeleton looked up from his hammering when he heard his door open, "Ah, there you are. You're weapons are right over there, finished and ready for you as agreed." the skeleton pointed to a nearby rack where both of the Gerudo's weapons were propped up on. Ganondorf couldn't really tell much difference just by looking at them, but he could certainly tell once he picked them up. They felt quite a bit weightier, apparently heavier now due to the infusions. Not too heavy for him, but other people would probably have a very hard time swinging them if they picked them up.



With this business completed, it was time to meet back up with the rest of the Seekers. Ganondorf decided it was best to look for Sectonia or Bowser, since either one of them would stick out the most and be the easiest to spot compared to anyone else.

Hearing the Koopas' perspective on both Consul F and the timeline discrepancy was interesting but ultimately it didn't lead to any answers either, as Teemo pointed out after Asgore's promise. Once the Seekers said their goodbyes to Asgore and left his abode, they quickly found the pipe he'd indicated. During their brief search, Barnabee mused on the old king's circumstances. While some didn't think that Asgore would have resorted to violence, Primrose was of the opposite mind. Even if he had nothing else, Asgore still seemed to have his convictions. As it were, they didn't need to worry about hypotheticals. A quick and slightly unnerving trip through the warp pipe after Barnabee and Rubick dumped Primrose into the Home of Tears, where they would worry about the future.

The dancer pulled all six foot three of herself out of the water and sat on the basin's edge. She was jealous of Rubick's quick thinking to avoid being dunked, but only a little - with the "rain" from the lake above them it would only have been a matter or time before they were soaked either way. At least she didn't have to worry about a wet fur coat like poor Teemo.

Once everyone was together on the other side of the pipe, Rika and Bowser Jr. went ahead to ask about their missing comrades while the rest of the group followed behind. At that point Rubick asked for more information about the Consuls. Though his question was directed at the Koopas, Primrose chimed in with a comment. "There isn't much information to tell as far as I am aware... perhaps if we can catch that Consul here in the city we can do a little interrogation."

Of course, that would have to wait. Rika and Junior returned with a cheeky message left with the city's guard by Ms. Fortune directing those she knew to her hotel. Turning in for the night sounded like a good idea, so to the Habbo Hotel they went. After booking a room to herself and drying off as much as possible, Primrose turned in to bed.


The next morning, after a shower and some breakfast, Primrose was feeling ready for another day. Before heading downstairs, she wanted to do something about the stench of the egg she was carrying. She rummaged through the room's small kitchenette area, finding a jar that would probably hold it. It was clear like glass, not quite flimsy but certainly not as solid as glass either - some other material she wasn't familiar with, but it would do.

I wish I had thought of this last night, she thought with a sigh, sealing the rancid egg into the jar and washing out her emptied bag and the robe she'd wrapped it in. Hopefully the smell wouldn't linger too long. A small conjured flame helped with the drying process.

Along with her things, a couple of spirits Primrose picked up yesterday glowed faintly at her. Unlike the Koopa Troop, who'd she'd witnessed gathering up each and every little spirit they could, she'd only taken the two from the Ancestral Mound. Before wrapping the jar back up in cloth, she took the Bluggsac spirit and crushed it in her hand.


Well it wasn't a second egg. Primrose could take a guess at what the potion was, so she refrained from opening it, just tucking it away with the now-bound jar and the rest of her things. As for the remaining spirit, she considered turning it into a striker. It's defense was very strong, and it would make a good summoned shield in a pinch, but... even if logical, she didn't like the idea of hiding behind someone or something else. Discarding the idea entirely, she decided to crush this spirit as well.


With a new accessory pinned to her skirt and everything else settled, she made her way to the lobby. It was good fortune that they'd found Miss Fortune's message last night, giving the group the peace of mind that their fellow Seekers had indeed made it to the city - now they'd just share information and plan their next course of action. The area was lively with hotel guests, but not many Seekers just yet, save a familiar man in a dark cloak who would have been hard to spot if not for the colorful, still dripping umbrella propped up against his chosen seat.

Therion lounged in a corner of the lobby with both of his feet propped up on a small table in front of him where a couple of apple cores sat. His brow was furrowed, watching a frizzy headed man in a red suit stuff a bunch of food into his clothes, but when Primrose approached him his gaze flickered over to her. The dancer hadn't physically changed while they'd been apart, as as for the thief - he didn't look all that much different himself. The most noticeable thing being a tiny pair of horns on his head. At Primrose's curious look he raised a hand to flick them, showing they were fakes.


Primrose took the seat next to him, crossing one of her long legs over the other. Therion yawned, stretched, and then indicated the penguin clerk at the lobby's front desk whom he'd overheard deliver a message to each Seeker he'd seen come and go already.

"Fortune left a note about meeting here, nine o'clock," he informed Primrose. "Shouldn't be much longer now."

"I see. Seems you've been out and about already?"

"Sold some stuff, made some coin. Was hoping for a break in the rain but it hasn't stopped since we got here."

That would be because of the lake right above the city and the water leaking down through the earth, but Primrose kept that to herself. It would come up anyway once everyone was together.

"Surprised you used your full name."

Primrose glanced at Therion, and he nodded his head towards the clerk again. Ah, right - yesterday when they were reserving rooms, they were asking for the guests' names. She sighed and tipped her head back. "It's fine. It doesn't mean anything here," she said. Here, she wasn't a nobleman's daughter turned vengeful murderer - she was a dancer out to save the world. Her lips quirked up in a small smile and she turned to Therion again. "I'm curious to know what name you put down."

"Don't worry about it," he grumbled, looking away. He wasn't the only traveler in their eight man group back in Orsterra that didn't have a surname, sharing that little fact with H'aanit, and he could probably have gotten away with explaining that to the clerk and checking in anyway. Instead, he'd given the first surname that crossed his mind, which happened to be of the same friend that he'd been thinking about at the sanitarium. He didn't particularly want to be ribbed by Primrose about it, so thankfully she just laughed and dropped the subject.

Moving on, she nodded her head towards the man Therion had been observing earlier stealing food at the breakfast bar. "Not quite on your level, is he?"

Therion scoffed and rolled his eye. "No kidding." Honestly he was surprised to see Ichiban here at all. Was it coincidence, or did Omori tell him about the Seekers after he'd split up from them yesterday? "That guy showed us to a hospital yesterday, dunno what he's doing here now though."

"Another new addition to the—" "No," "—team? We picked up—" "he's not." "— a couple yesterday as well."

Despite the thief's protests, Primrose called over to Ichiban. At that point, the Seekers were filtering back into the lobby to regroup so it wouldn't just be Therion who was familiar to him. When the hour came, the Under team was reassembled with a few new faces. News was reported, stories told, and there was a grand total of three mask fragments between them all with more to go. Primrose told the other half of their group her suggestion about seeking out and dealing with the city's Consul as soon as possible, while Therion vaguely mentioned the great stash of items in the sewer below. Nadia let them all know about the letter left for them overnight. A mysterious meeting request like that could turn out to be useful.

After some conversation, a few key decisions had been made: Akane would stay at the S.O.U Building for now, where it was safe. Risking dealing with the Nyakuza Metro was, at the moment, inadvisable. There was no guarantee that they wouldn't be attacked, and while the young girl was still trying to wrap her head around the changes her life had just underwent, it was best not to take any risks.

Second was that the group would be splitting up again. Geralt opted to join Midna, Blazermate, Goldlewis and the others heading to Seiran, while Zenkichi insisted on going to deal with the Machine incursion, given that it was his failed operation that had potentially spurred their attack. The Witcher felt he'd be better served fighting "actual monsters instead of golems", as well.

---

The trip to Seiran was fairly simple, though Geralt was also forced to stoop low in the train, his massive Spirit-infused frame very clearly not designed for modern amenities. A shame, especially on his old bones, but he kept his mouth shut and merely frowned at the gawkers, giving them plenty of reason to turn their heads. No damn respect. The news about the bombing by Avalanche piqued his interest, and though he didn't ask Goldlewis much, he did reply to Blazermate's question about them being possible allies. "Old saying ain't exactly accurate. If these folk're willing to blow up an important building, safe to say they're not the type concerned about casualties. Might be trying to save the world, but there's no point if you do it by killing everyone in it."

When they finally arrived and made their way to the hideout, Geralt looked around their new place. Midna set about creating a travel portal, which Geralt kept a minimum firm ten feet from at any given time, and summoned a pile of old bones and armor onto a surgical table. Grimacing, Geralt instead looked around to get an idea of what the place was like overall.

---

Zenkichi, meanwhile, joined Giovanna and the others in heading down to the Sector 7 Slums. He always hated coming to this place. It was...so depressing, to have it shoved in his face the brutal reality of Migdar's two-tier system. He never once in his life here thought it was a good idea, but even with Valjean he had no way of taking it down. Hell, even with the Seekers, even if they got rid of Galeem, this place...unless it was rebuilt from the ground up, there was no happy ending here. It was an evil city, run by evil people.

"Condemn the evil, and hunt them down, huh...?" Zenkichi mumbled, loud enough for the others nearby to hear, but not for the random passersby to notice. His memories of Awakening to Valjean were vibrant in his mind, the first words he spoke as a reborn man etched in his heart.

He wouldn't let his Persona down. His daughter down. Not again. Never again. "I agree. Best to get out there and take the fight to the Machines. It'll keep the chance of collateral low, and if there is anything useful on the Machines, we can grab it before any of the scavengers have a chance to. And for what it's worth, the real money isn't in the parts, but doin' something with them, and folks down here don't get nearly as much chance to actually learn that. Everybody who gets that chance finds their way up top and nearly all of them stay up there. Comfortable and wealthy." The barely-hidden disdain in Zenkichi's voice was omnidirectional: at the people who abandoned their friends and loved ones for a loftier life, for the system that necessitated such cold behavior for any sort of comfort and safety, and himself for being an enforcer of it.

Well, that went well Roxas thought to himself during the train ride. His idea hadn't exactly gone over well. Maybe he didn't get the idea across clearly? Maybe it was his age? Or maybe this machine attack was simply more urgent. Either way, he wasn't gonna get to do what he wanted, at least not yet. One thing he was insistent on was that he didn't want to go back to Sector 5. He'd rather not have to put up with Psych-OSF today if he could help it. And so he switched teams, as it were, and was now with Giovanna's half of the Seekers. Roxas wasn't the only one. Pit, Blazermate, Benedict, and Geralt had all elected to do the same.

Now that he was thinking about it, Roxas realized he hadn't really gotten a chance to get to know this half of the team that much yet. So maybe this was a good chance to do that, at least in between all the machine fighting they would be doing. And when they eventually arrived in the slums... well it definitely earned its moniker. The was a dump... literally in a lot of places. How anyone could stand to live like this without starting riots was beyond him. Maybe the Shinra was just that powerful? Either way, this place was just plain depressing to look at. At least Suoh had been clean, if a bit rigid in its ways. Here, well garbage and junk littered the ground everywhere you look. Some of that junk had been repurposed into shanty town shacks and whatnot, while the rest of it remained piled up like what one would see in a junkyard.

"...Just when you think this city can't get much more depressing." he muttered aloud. Honestly it was almost impressive how consistently terrible and oppressive Midgar as a whole was proving to be. Would defeating the guardian and freeing everyone from Galeem's influence even clean the city up that much? The more he saw of it, the more Roxas was convinced that this place was dirty and rotten to its core.

The Seekers talked about whether to wait or to seek out the machines. The consensus so far seemed to be to looking for them, "Works for me." he said, casting his vote for the seek-them-out plan. That plan would potentially allow them to wrap things up quicker than if they just waited. And Roxas doubted any of them wanted to spend any more time here than they had to. Just looking at this place made Roxas even more convinced that something had to be done about Shinra if there was ever going to be any real change in this city, though how exactly one could go about that was a mystery to him for now.

Sakura had never slept in a barracks before…she wondered how well she was going to get to know the other women, if at all. After all, she was here on false pretenses. She’d never be one for things like this, group activities weren’t really her thing. Unfortunately, Sakura had been cursed to live in a town with a normal high school, instead of the made-up sounding fighting high school.

When days were lighter and more fun, she would stay up all night training and be tired for school. But those days were gone, and Sakura had to be more disciplined. Besides, she didn’t need any training, the experience she was earning on the field was more than enough.

She woke up the next morning to the sound of the alarm in her head, and she instinctively smacked the source of the noise as she had done to her alarm many times in the past. Though in this case it was her own head. ”Ow…that’s gonna take some getting used too.” She muttered to herself.

If Peach’s outfit could be considered impractical, then Sakura’s definitely could as well. She had selected a simple pair of pants tucked into sneakers. She wore her cropped red top underneath a black thick vest that barely covered it up. This meant the entirety of her arms and even half of her midriff were bare. The white of her headband didn’t quite match the rest of the outfit, but it was close enough that when she insisted it be included, she was given a pass. It was close enough to gray. Still, it was a light, maneuverable outfit and body armor wouldn’t be able to surpass the natural armor that was her body. Of course, she still had her signature fighting gloves on as well. Wouldn’t be a martial artist without ‘em! Their red color matched the rest of the outfit nicely.

At breakfast, Sakura had helped herself to a hefty fighter’s serving of protein and veggies and all the nutrients she would need for the day. A lot of it! Fireballs and strength techniques can only come from a full belly.

They had met with Luka Travers, the boy- the man- from the restaurant the night previous. There they met up with Dexio and Sina. Sakura repeated their names a few times under her breath to make sure she remembered them.

In the food line, at which Sakura was helping herself, she introduced herself to Dexio and Sina. ”I’m Sakura! This is my first mission, but, I have a lot of fighting experience.” She said truthfully. ”I’m mostly a fighter, but I have Levitation which is I guess pretty generally useful. I’m looking forward to picking up some cool new psychic powers!” She said, thinking about the SAS system.

Once she had eaten a bit of breakfast, she stood up and started mentally ticking through the various options she had at her disposal. There! She found it. She was going to customize her introduction. That way nobody would see creepy AI Sakura ever again. Now she just had to think of something cool to do. But not too distracting or in the way.

”Yeah.” She said to herself, pumping her fist. Hmm, no, that wasn’t it. She rose her fist into the air and said ”Power up!” But that wasn’t right.

”Power and skill..!” No, that was too personal. That was her thing. She didn’t want other people saying that.

”Okay, wait, I got it.” She looked at the mental ‘camera’, and performed her animation.

She punched her fists together and smiled big. ”Yeah! Let’s go!” And that was it! Now people would see that animation when they used her power. Short, sweet, pretty cool. Had a little more bite than ‘here to help.’

Happy with that she looked back at the others and grinned. Sitting down, she finished her breakfast, eating quickly and with great efficiency. Soon she was ready to go, equipped in her new uniform and ready to get into the action. She was excited to meet back up with Karin and show off.

—

Karin knew that Sakura would be going to battle the Others. ”I wish you well in dealing with the ‘Machines.’ And the retrobates that intend to use them for political gain.” She said, fully intending on crushing the true enemies eventually.

Thus, she joined the others in Seiran. Riding in the dark tunnel, she tried to glare at gawkers to get them to stop gawking at Geralt, but to little success. He didn’t seem to be that upset though, so she let it be. Instead, she had to stew on the wealth disparity as she glanced down at the distant hovels some people were forced to call home.

Karin, of course, had no idea what it was like to be poor. In fact, she was probably the furthest person on the entire earth from poor. Her life of privilege in the face of such poverty made her uncomfortable. Unfortunately, spending time with people that weren’t her staff had forced her to think about these things instead of just ignoring them.

Though Karin still believed that she had earned her wealth by being exceptional. By the trials she as a Kanzuki was put into. Her life had been beyond privileged, but her ego would never let it be called easy. Not as hard as living below the gutters themselves, but easy? No, it couldn’t have been easy. Karin couldn’t allow herself or anyone to think of it like that. She was not spoiled. She was a Kanzuki. It was different.

Karin was departed from her massive amount of wealth and influence now, though. She had left what comparatively little she had back in Limsa. But if she could tip the scales, she would. Hopefully their quest to defeat Galeem would help the people of the city more. If their quest was completed, and Galeem was killed, the World of Light would probably be disbanded entirely. In which case these people would be shunted back to their own realities none the wiser… the alternative was being stuck in the World of Light forever banished from their homes. It made the idea of systemic change something of a dour one. Perhaps she should just focus on finishing the Seekers’ fight as fast as possible.

As for the talk about avalanche, Karin scoffed. ”The city is at war with itself.” She said. ”Shinra is weak. Weak of spirit and will.” She concluded.

”As for your…robotic nature, no, I do not think it will be a problem. There may be certain facets of the battle you will not be able to engage with, but those parts of the battle may not be able to engage with you, either. I am not psychic, but psychics can certainly target me. Your circuits may be immune, or resistant, perhaps? Unless they are similar enough, in which case, you will be in the same boat as myself and many others in the Seekers.” She said.

”Ideally our psychic companions will be able to cover that field of battle for us while we all focus on the more physical threats.”

Once at the workshop, Karin watched with interest and then growing, amused concern as Midna assembled her creation from spare parts.
”Well…congratulations, I suppose, Midna-san.” She said respectfully, smirking. ”An imposing warrior indeed. I am surprised you didn’t name it.”

As for Karin, she spent the majority of her time training. She attached herself to a wall with her grappling hook and began experimenting with different techniques. If she was going to avoid…

The thought of that fight with the chimera made her angry. Damn it all. Such fights were beyond her skill set. She was a novice. And the worst part was, she had no means of improving. Not until lives were at stake and she had another chance to face down such an opponent. Everything could have ended for her right there had she not been saved.

Karin began training on the wall and jumping from corner to corner, practicing her mobility. That was how she occupied herself until the time to reunite came.

The meeting was concluded, morning agenda decided, and heroes were rolling out. Although Pit was eager to check on the friends they'd left in Seiran and see what Bridges was all about, he ultimately decided to go with the group headed to fend off the machine attack. It sounded like the simplest course of action, and after everything that had happened recently he needed something simple. Hopefully things went well and it improved the team's morale.

Before completely adjourning, there was the ominous red spirit of the Chimera he'd fought together with Goldlewis, Karin, Roxas and Midna - the latter having taken it with her out of the Astral Plane (which apparently was still part of Galeem's world since the Chimera's defeat had resulted in a spirit in the first place). As for what, if anything, to do with it...

"I'll hold onto this," the angel said. No one else seemed to want anything to do with it, so Pit took it upon himself to safeguard it. He hadn't felt anything like what he now knew as "Redshift" when he'd been handling the red Abberation spirits, so it was probably safe! And maybe those Neuron officers could purify it back to normal if it was corrupted or something. "I promise not to turn into an evil mutant."

After that the groups split up again. The compositions this time meant only Roxas remained of the group Pit had been with yesterday, but he was plenty personable enough not to mind a team change up. In fact when Susie mentioned a bodyguard, Pit smiled at her and thumped a fist to his chest. "If you're worried about fighting you can count on me, Susie! I'm captain of Lady Palutena's royal bodyguards so there's no better person for the job, heh!"

The group exited the train and arrived in the slums, to varying reactions. As for Pit, he kept his focus on the mission at hand. They wasted no time in getting a move on to the city's edge while Giovanna laid out her plan.

"Ooh, good idea!" Stretching his legs outside of the city walls sounded pretty good, plus everything Giovanna said made sense. If they wanted to get anything done, taking the fight to the enemy was definitely the best way to go about it. Pit approved. A question did come to his mind though, so he looked between Giovanna and Zenkichi as he asked, "If people can figure out where the machines are outside the city, and know when they'll attack, couldn't they find out where they're coming from too? Why don't they go destroy the base?"

Actually, was that explained during the first SOU meeting? Pit concentrated, trying to recall anything... but he only remembered something about secret factories. "We should try and find one of the labs they're being built in! That way we can stop the raid on the city, then swoop in like bam! Taking out a whole manu-factory should put a dent in their forces, right?"

In his mind it seemed straight forward enough. So first order of business was to find a crew that would take them out into the wilderness beyond Midgar. As they walked, a loud whistle sounded through the air. Its source was a tall man in vest and tie standing on a soapbox. Pit nudged the nearest person to him. "That guy's talking about fixing stuff, maybe he knows a salvage crew?"

Before Omori was able to go looking for any open shops, Ichiban had hurried back over by him. Albeit, still out of breath from their sewer recon. He tilted his head as the man offered to guide him to a hotel he could stay in. On one hand, he really had to clean out his inventory sooner or later, somehow. On the other...yeah, he wasn't that rude to turn down well intentions. The boy stepped aside to let Ichiban lead the way. He'd just have to wait 'till morning.

The two arrived at the Habbo Hotel and approached the front desk. Ichiban fished out enough money for the both of them to stay a night. Omori remained quiet for most of the exchange, shaking his head as his temporary companion offered to help with anything else.

"You've done enough. Thanks."

Ichiban could see the corners of the boy's lips quirk up into a faint smile.

...

..

Omori hadn't intended to arrive to breakfast late. It wasn't that he slept in (though depending on who asked, that might've been reasonable), moreso that something popped up unexpectedly. The same Something that followed him from the front desk to the dining-lobby-thing. It didn't seem hostile, nor did it seem willing to stray from the boy. But it carried an unnerving air with its unblinking eye and dark form. Omori just did his best to ignore the fact that Something found him. If Something was here to annoy him like usual, it just means its not haunting Sunny.

Better him than Sunny, Omori thought to himself. With the Troop, Sectonia, Nadia, and the Knight having gone out, that just left him, Therion, Primrose, Jesse, and...

"Real classy, Mr. Kasuga." Omori quipped, walking up next to Ichiban with an empty plate. He reached over to grab what he can to add to the plate, and a drink to occupy his free hand after.

...The others wouldn't happen to be able to see the one-eyed thing right behind him, would they?

---

Everyday comfort. Broad appeal. Habbo Hotel.

Not exactly Jesse’s idea of fun. But it was what she could afford and being comfortable was good, but not nearly as important as being in the same place as everyone else, which was priority number one at the moment. Still, the sooner they moved on, the better.

“Oh, good.” Jesse said as the other half of their group met them in the lobby. “Primrose, Koopas, Sectonia, you made it here. We’re all together again.” Jesse said, smiling. “That’s a relief. I thought we might have been split up for good with all that crazy shit that went down. Let’s try and keep and touch this time.”

Miss Fortune mentioned the letter she got, and upon learning of its contents Jesse was intrigued. “IGV.” She said. “Great. Well, got nowhere better to be right now and that sounds pretty interesting.”

“Besides. We just got back together. Wouldn’t want this person’s anger about whatever you all ‘treaded upon’ split is up again.” Jesse said.

When Ichiban started stuffing food in his pockets (dusty food?) Omori commented. Jesse glanced over at the boy and saw…

Someone? Some…thing? I don’t recognize it. Is that one of his abilities?

“Hey, Omori.” Jesse said casually. “You, uh…you know this guy?” She indicated at the Something with the cup of orange juice she was holding. Then she took a sip, slowly glancing between Omori and his shadow. As someone who considered herself a professional in measuring bad vibes, this creature was rubbing the Director the wrong way. She was ready to draw, if need be, and it would be all the quicker considering her Service Weapon required no holster.

Unfortunately for Rubick, Kamek didn’t have much of an answer to his question: ”I’m afraid you know just about as much as we do. That one we encountered on our naval voyage was our first encounter with one. They had been quite the non-factor before, and then all of a sudden we encounter 3 in quick succession.”

”Guess it took a while for us to catch those slowpoke’s attention.” Bowser guessed.

”Perhaps.” was all Kamek could offer in response to that. ”So other than having a lot of influence due to being embedded in the world, I really can only speculate. Some other, slower, defense mechanism of Galeem perhase? Its rulers by proxy? Some cabal that got free by some other means and simply took over. Who can say?”

”Well I can say that they are jerks. One where we were doing that boat stuff just stood by and let the people fight despite claiming to be on their side. Or maybe he was making shields and stuff, but I dunno if that was him or not. Either way, big full of himself jerk.”

”Given that F seemed to control time, and had incredibly powerful plant manipulation powers, it is perhaps best that he stood back. It's an odd pattern actually, all three haven’t attacked directly. Two by proxy, and one via dropping us down a pit he must have known we would survive. Including me despite the fact that I took him on directly after he stopped me from catching you all.”

”Buncha amateurs who think they're too good to get their hands dirty, and that they can toy with us instead of finishing the job. I’d say they’ll learn their lesson soon enough, but once I’m done with 'em, they won't be learning anything anymore.” Bowser declared, before clarifying, ”Because they’ll be dead.” very redundantly.

Rubick nodded, deep in thought. All in all, it seemed the Consuls were still quite the enigmas. This F and P were already intimidating enough, and he had no clue what the other members of the alphabet could do. It seems they would have to find information about them the old fashioned way, whether encountering one in the flesh or by other sources like the ex-king Asgore.

---

The next day, Rubick joined the others at breakfast and ordered a few things to eat. It was nice to enjoy the local cuisine, but the gossip around the table was plenty more enjoyable. The two separated groups of the Under, now together again, were sharing their knowledge of the areas they traversed, and Rubick noted Sectonia's descriptions of their experiences. It seemed like they did have a harder time, for which Rubick was saddened he had not been there. It wouldn't have been his first time encountering eldritch horrors; heck, he even remembered fighting such a creature or two back in the War of the Ancients. Their magicks were truly remarkable, and he regretted having not written their spells down.

Eventually, the group split off to perform their much-needed errands, and Rubick was left to explore the city. Unfortunately, he had no Geo to his name and the others were not around to spot him. Instead, he decided to wander and browse. A few knickknacks were around, and the sights were enjoyable, but each quickly lost Rubick's interest as he moved from place to place. The skeleton blacksmith's shop was also such a place, and it was there that he spotted a familiar Gerudo King.

"Ahh, we meet again!" Rubick greeted Ganondorf as he walked over to him, just as the man seemed to have just completed his transaction. "Ganondorf, was it? Quite the adventures this group has gone through, yes? Perhaps a few tales ought to pass the time as we meet back up! Maybe even a magical secret or two if you'd like."

Together the gang of Seekers made their way from clustered midtown toward the junkyard outskirts of the Slums, fast enough to make decent progress but not so speedy as to make a scene. Everyone needed to keep their eyes out for anything that could be of use on their quest to range beyond the city limits, after all. With this undercity decently populated but not jam-packed, its buildings seldom more than a couple stories high, and its dirt roads given over to foot traffic ninety-nine percent of the time, just about everywhere was quite well-lit and wide open. Tora and Poppi ended up feeling less on-edge than in Detroit, and despite her misgivings about the area Susie could breathe easy metaphorically speaking, especially with her eager bodyguard Pit on the case. Still, she ended up suggesting that the team assault whoever might be buying from the salvagers here, which left Poppi confused.

“I’m not sure how nefarious any hypothetical buyers would be,” she reasoned. “There could be any number of mundane reasons for wanting machine parts. Stripping out precious metals from semiconductors, melting down metal plating for construction material, or recycling circuitry for use in everyday electronics, just to name a few. If wars with the Machines are as commonplace as they seem, the salvage from battles against them are probably a major source of pre-processed resources for the city.” She tilted her head, thinking. “If we think of this place as one massive ecosystem, the people in the Slums are probably the decomposers, like earthworms and termites. A humble but vital part of the environment. And the results of their hard work simply goes on to feed the plants.” She smiled, pleased with her analogy. “Industrial plants, in this case.”

Zenkichi and Pit were both on board with the general plan of hunting down the Machines before they could encroach on the undercities, but the latter wondered why people wouldn’t just take care of things if they could figure out where the mechanical menace might originate from. “People here probably lack means to fight robopons,” Tora ventured a guess. “Maybe it even too much for DespoRHado to mount all-out assault, meh.”

“That’s my guess,” Giovanna chimed in. “The Machines are a relentless enemy, and they operate with brutal efficiency. Their factories are probably deathtraps, defended by devious anti-human traps and the deadliest units in their entire arsenal. Just fumigating their facilities with toxic gas would be enough to make an invasion nigh-impossible.” She shrugged. “Maybe they’d have enough raw manpower if Psych-OSF joined in, but as-is an assault on the source of the Machine threat is probably just a bad value proposition. Too much risk. So it’s a war of attrition until they finally build up enough firepower, trying to stockpile faster than the Machines can wear them down.”

At about that time, the group neared a sturdy-looking merchant with a nice hat, standing on a soapbox to make sure his voice was heard. He’d already attracted some attention from the locals, and both Tora and Poppi gave him a listen as they passed by. It sounded like he wanted to get some people together to try and improve the living conditions around here. The Slums weren’t exactly a trash heap -poor as they might be, nobody wanted to live in squalor- but things could definitely be a lot better. Still, it seemed like a monumental task, and despite his good intentions this strident fellow was just one man.

Pit took an interest in him, and mentioned that he might be able to help them in some way. Giovanna, however, couldn’t be sure. “Salvagers aren’t exactly service workers. Their business is breaking things down, not building them up.” She raised an eyebrow in Partitio’s direction. “This guy’s more concerned with urban planners, civil engineers, and tradesmen. He might be able to get some work done by recruiting random civilians, but he’d need to pay them better than whatever their current work does.” The secret agent sighed lightly. “Money’s what gets things done. That’s true whether you’re up on a plate, or down here in their shadows.”

Still, it was worth a shot. Tora waddled up to the small crowd around Partitio, waving his wings. “Hello!” he called, trying to think of a way to explain his situation without causing widespread panic by mentioning a possible Machine invasion. “Tora and friends trying to help people down here too, meh. Found way to keep them safe out in valley ruins, in fact. It very dangerous, so we wonder if you know way to cover ground fast outside city?” Unfortunately, Partitio happened to be new in Sector 07 himself, and even less in the know than the Seekers. Still, Tora might have managed to pique the merchant’s interest.

The heroes kept moving. They checked in at whatever public buildings they could for any rough and tough, rugged-looking salvage crews. Tora led the way, more animated and gung-ho than usual. He couldn’t deny that the mention of ‘salvage’ ignited a faint hope in his heart; there was someone who specialized in such a trade that he really, really wanted to see. After some asking around in public places like Whirling-In-Rags, he and Poppi learned of the existence of a depot connected to Scrap Boulevard, through which its vehicles reached the outside world, as well as a little history about the industry. Apparently the salvage crews used to operate as small, tight-knit, independent units, but that led to competition as well as vulnerability to Machine attacks. More recently though, they’d been united into the Sector 07 Salvage Corps under the direction of an engineer named Isaac Clark, who was skilled and dependable despite suffering from acute PTSD from previous experiences. With high-power tools to defend themselves, the salvagers could afford to be a little more daring in their operations, driving out into dangerous areas to secure the best loot. They reported the pertinent information to Giovanna, and soon the team was on their way.

They headed for Scrap Boulevard, stopping only to gawk at a big, fluffy creature as it flew majestically overhead, perhaps keeping watch over the people of the slums. A couple minutes away from their destination, with the orange paint and flood lights of the Salvage Depot in sight, the team passed by a two-story stone apartment complex called Stargazer Heights. Out front stood a trio that Tora recognized: Marshall, Big Bo, and Cain, the Rust Crew they ran into yesterday afternoon while exploring Detroit. “Oh!” Poppi exclaimed upon noticing them. “We saw those men yesterday. They said they were looking for a special kind of Machine called a Hollow Child, who was attempting to escape with some sensitive data.” She glanced at Zenkichi. “That sounds like the target you were after. Right, Masterpon?”

Tora didn’t answer for a moment. He’d been momentarily distracted by the sight of a gorgeous black-haired woman heading out from Stargazer Heights with a moody-looking blonde mercenary. The young lady was saying something about the Neighborhood Watch and the Beginner’s Hall, and the two went in the direction of a crude building also near the entrance to Scrap Boulevard. Only when Poppi nudged him did he stir. “Mehmeh? What is it? Tora lost in thought…uh, sightseeing.”

“Ugggh.” Poppi turned her attention back to Zenkichi. “Anyway, we could speak with them. Obviously they didn’t catch the Hollow Child either, but maybe they know something, or could still help us.”

Giovanna nodded. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll go ahead to the Salvage Depot to see if we can arrange something. If we’re lucky they’ll be looking for extra help today. Might even be able to score a truck.” Team members could join her, stay to investigate the Rust Crew, or pursue other leads as they prepared to leave Midgar behind.



Midna wasn’t the only one who busied herself in the new hideout well before the Bridges personnel were set to arrive. Once the Twilight Princess set up the portal, Goldlewis bravely volunteered to help test it, and after calling Jessica back at base via phone glyph to confirm that a random piece of junk sent through appeared on the other side, he returned to headquarters to have a quick word with Vernon. When he returned, Goldlewis brought with him some supplies, including a box of rolled-up trash bags. After that, he began the daunting task of cleaning up this place. Whether decorated veteran or secretary of defense, nobody was above tidying up. While Midna practiced necromancy on one of the operating tables, which did not bear thorough examination, Goldlewis steadfastly picked up around and swept up the new hideout. He disposed of everything left behind or otherwise dumped here since its abandonment, amassing a pile of white trash bags by the door. Then, with paper towels, cleaning spray, wet wipes, and a whole lot of elbow grease, he worked to make the place not just clean, but liveable.

Dust, cobwebs, stains, smears, and more fell before him like wheat to the scythe. Goldlewis made quick and efficient work of this task, a well-practiced routine honed during a lifetime of living alone as a rather fastidious and particular fellow. He ran into only one setback upon the completion of Midna’s unholy project, when her newly-revived creation left a hole in the ceiling that showered down powdery slivers on its armor. Considering that the roof in here was high enough for a man of his stature to stand comfortably, Goldlewis was impressed, although that wasn’t going to stop him pounding this failed experiment into scrap metal with his nearby coffin. Luckily for her, Midna hurried to convince him that it was an accident and that she had the dark knight totally under her control and that he wouldn’t be engaging in any more destruction. Goldlewis shot her a dubious look, as the dark arts distinctly struck him as something to avoid dabbling in just in general, but he left the juggernaut uncrumpled. Midna made plans to leave soon after, and Goldlewis helped shoo her out the door and on her way. For better or worse, he did seem to be a control freak about his space.

Not long after, the team from Bridges came knocking at the hideout door. Wearing light, loose-fitting gray protective suits and balaclavas, the builders came equipped with satchels, backpacks, and plenty of tools. Their foreman also wore an odd metal necklace, with several shiny rectangular segments. “Howdy,” he said, reaching out his hand. “Die-Hardman said y’all might need a hand gettin’ situated. We’re here to help.”

Goldlewis clasped the foreman’s hand warmly, linked via instantaneous kinship to his fellow southerner. “We’re much obliged to ya. I’d be happy to give y’all a hand while you’re here, too.”

First order of business was to get a Chiral Network node installed, which Goldlewis decided to have installed in the more techy, blue-lit part of the hideout. Once erected and attached to the building’s power grid, which took remarkable little time, the node terminal was connected to the network via the foreman’s necklace, which he referred to as a Q-pid. The physics equations engraved on its tags as it floated above the device contained all of the necessary security and operations protocols to integrate the terminal, and when it finished scanning the node came to life, displaying a holographic screen. “All hooked up!” the foreman declared, patting his palms. “Right, what else ya want? Now that we’re connected and able to transfer buildin’ materials, we can rustle up just about anythin’ ya might need. Beds, for one. I figure y’ain’t sleepin’ on them operatin’ tables.”

“No way.” Goldlewis balked at the suggestion, imagining what Midna might do if she began to see everyone as test subjects. He quickly tried to take stock of everyone who’d need a place to sleep here, and where to put them. “Hmm. Well, I reckon your standard military cots would be fine,” he said, too busy wondering who needed sleep and who -like Blazermate- did not consider that people like Karin might want something nicer. Though he did wonder if she might like better training equipment than the empty spot she was currently using. Obviously it would be nicer to have the beds in the more natural yellow-lit side of the hideout, and there were two former supply rooms he’d cleaned out that might fit the bill. “Let’s do eight of ‘em, extra large. Four in each room, here…and here. I assume you can stack ‘em like bunk beds?” They could, so Goldlewis gave a nod of approval. His nose wrinkled slightly, though, and the lingering smells in the supply rooms. “Could use some air freshener. Fans too. And this main area oughta be the kitchen, so let’s get a table and some chairs made up. And then…”

With Goldlewis at the helm, the renovation team got busy. Any other Seekers who remained in the hideout could help direct their efforts too, however, to outfit their new residence as they liked.

---

Few dedicated methods of reaching the reservoir from Seiran existed. People did not want, and indeed had no reason, to go down, and they didn’t want anything that might be down there to get up. For those with enough commitment, however, there were still plenty of ways to make that undesirable journey. Descenders could climb down the girders and cross-beams of tall support structures, slowly make their way through skyscraper interiors in search of stairs, or maybe get lucky enough to find a private winch-lift they could acquire the use of. In reality, most would end up braving a gauntlet of bridges, platforms, and ladders extending from or stuck to the exteriors of the buildings, many of shoddy workmanship and dubious stability. No doubt it would be much harder going back up. And after all that effort, what would an intrepid explorer find? A feculent, polluted lake of stagnation and decay.



The water, if it could be called that, was primarily brown in color and nearly opaque. Nobody could see more than a foot or two into it even where there weren’t giant red and green algal blooms blanketing the reservoir’s surface, and those thick mats of toxic cyanobacterial scum looked solid enough to walk on. Even more plentiful was the trash. Large garbage patches could be found all over the reservoir, not just clustered around the rocky ‘shores’ around the bases of the skyscrapers, but free-floating in massive streaks of rubbish. People couldn’t be stopped when it came to throwing their trash away even in the best of times, and the idea that polluting the reservoir would help speed up the extinction of psifish probably didn’t help. No doubt plenty of sewage and industrial waste made its way here, too.

Still, there were living things here, sick and sorry as they might be. Midgar was home to plenty of people who lived in poverty; the existence of an entire undercity referred to as the Slums was proof enough. The same could not be said of this place. There was no community here, nor were there people to form one, only degenerate creatures supplemented with the odd castaway. Ghoulish wretches and feral troglodytes roamed the unwholesome islands and prowled the lumber walkways that floated on tires and other refuse, happy to attack any potential meals on sight. Sometimes the furtive movement of freakish crustaceans could be spotted, stealthily preying on the unwary. Giant parasites clung to the walls and outcroppings out of the crawlers’ reach. There was a shoggoth just sitting out there in the open, looking wistful in an eldritch sort of way.

Most interesting were the strange, luminescent, vaguely aquatic creatures that Midna realized must be the psi-fish. They floated on or just above the reservoir’s surface, pulsing with blue or pink light. Some looked like jellyfish or perhaps paper lanterns, flickering like will-o-wisps, and some looked more like ghosts that drifted around in small packs. A couple seemed more purposeful, as if on the hunt, but all of them moved and shone in a lugubrious, sickly manner. Long ago theirs might have been a captivatingly beautiful but deadly display, but today all over the reservoir they blinked weakly, a faltering and pitiful parade.

Aside from that, there just wasn’t much here. Just garbage, piscine horrors, and whatever foul things might flourish in such an environment as this. Midna might have a hard time even finding anyone to talk to. Her best chances lay in the few hovels and shelters sequestered in spots that the more bestial creatures here would have a hard time reaching. It wasn’t just monsters down here, she knew, so those must be the ‘homes’ of lepers and lunatics cast down to die in this blighted nightmare where none of them might rise to trouble the ordinary world again.



With her visit to Seam’s ‘seap’ concluded, Nadia returned to Habbo Hotel, and when she arrived she was happy to see the downstairs lobby teeming with friends both new and old. Sure enough, the contingent that she and the others managed to leave behind in the Ruins had forged their own path to the City of Tears, and no doubt they found their way here specifically thanks to the hint Nadia left with Undyne and the mermaid guard. From the looks of it she’d arrived mere moments after the Koopa Troop and Sectonia returned from an outing of their own, so the feral joined them in the lobby.

“Mornin’!” she greeted them, her sunny disposition all the brighter juxtaposed to the underground city’s perennial rainfall. No matter how many hells Nadia got dragged through, one could always count on her to have a smile on her face. “Nice of ya to join us! I was hopin’ my little hint would help ya find us if you were in the area.” She spread her hands out and looked from side to side around the hotel’s bottom floor, giving the Troop a good look at her fancy orange bathrobe. “Isn’t this cool? I’ve never seen such a ‘lodge’ hotel in my life. It’s inn-sane! And I managed to get a big room all to myself on the top floor. Pretty ‘suite’, right? Makes me feel like some kinda purr-incess!” The royals found themselves subjected to a brutal barrage of hotel-related puns. Of course, compared to actual premium hotels Habbo seemed more focused on quantity than quality, but Nadia didn’t know any better.

After saying hi to the Koopa Troop and Sectonia she kept moving, making sure to check in on everyone. Rubick she didn’t know too well, but she could tell that his outfit changed somewhat. “Ooh, what a menacing look. A mage-er improvement!” she grinned at him. While it seemed like the Adventurer didn’t make it here, Bowser’s bunch did pick up a new member, and Nadia loved him the moment she laid eyes on him. “Holy frijoles, you’re the cutest little guy I’ve ever seen!” the feral cooed, crouching down to pet Teemo on the head. “Welcome to the party. I hope you’re ready ‘fur’ an adventure!” She also patted the Knight on top of its helmet, and though its milk-white facade betrayed no emotion, it followed her around afterward. Next she stopped by the Octopath Travelers, who’d been catching up together. She only wrinkled her sensitive nose as the faint traces of the Rancid Egg a little. “Hiya! Lookin’ good, Primrose! And Therion…” Nadia squinted, her brows furrowed together in confusion. “Were you always this pequeño…? I mean, it’s cool. I’d never dare to think ‘little’ of you!” Giggling, she hurried on her way.

While looking around for her next pun victim, Nadia spotted something weird. It floated near Omori like a balloon or a kite, but it looked way spookier than any toy. Something about it left the feral’s mouth dry, and she couldn’t help but swallow nervously. Leaving Omori to his own devices, she greeted Jesse next, out of puns for the time being. “...Good morning!”

Ganondorf showed up a moment later, and with a new haircut, so Nadia gave him a wave. “I like your ‘cut, G!” But she ended up heading over to Ichiban like Primrose did before. “Oh hey, it’s you!” she said to him, grinning. “Thanks again for last night. Really, uh, saved our bacon.” As an expert when it came to lining her own pockets, she hadn’t failed to notice the man saving bacon in a more literal sense. She didn’t judge him for it of course, since she’d done the same on many occasions, but it sort of took her by surprise. Wouldn’t the lint-seasoned sludge he extracted later be too gross for the tastes of a man in a suit? She dropped her voice a couple notches as she leaned on the table next to him. “...From one opportunist to another, y’might be better off with those li’l plastic vats fulla yogurt. Better than pocket eggs, take it from me!”

Once everyone got settled, the general conversation turned toward a singular topic: what to do today. In general the Seekers’ current goal was to obtain enough mask fragments to recreate the three whole masks that would unseal the Black Egg, and they’d already managed to gather an impressive third of the total amount, but the discoveries made by both teams about the Home of Tears precipitated another important matter: the involvement of the Consuls. The report from the team that came via Ash Lake about the Flame Clocks, and by extension the very nature of the World of Light, left Nadia agape. “Well…” she murmured as she tried to take the revelation in. “That explains a lot.” So this ‘lifelight’ made people all over the world dependent not just on the Clocks, but on continuous combat, and those who didn’t fight for it probably relied on others to sustain them. That sort of explained why gleaming people fought so relentlessly when aggravated, but in the end the news just left Nadia with more questions that couldn’t be answered.

Regardless, everyone more or less came to the same conclusion, if they hadn’t already from Rush Hour in the Nyakuza Metro and the disastrous elevator ride down into the Chasm: the Consuls needed to go. It seemed like a foregone conclusion that one of not both of the Consuls who seemed to preside over the Under would show up to cause more problems later, and one apparently lived in the Home of Tears anyway, so the sooner he was dealt with, the better. “So, Consul P. He lives in Gallo Tower up in the Royal Quarter, that giant buildin’ with the clock. Oh, that reminds me!” She pulled the letter she’d gotten from Berg from her pouch and laid it down on a coffee table. “I guess when you guys got in last night, someone in Gallo Tower spotted ya. But he let ya go without sayin’ anythin’. Cornifer and Asgore made P-brain sound like a real dick. If the people here ain’t fond of him, maybe this IGV guy’s an insider who wants to overthrow ‘em.”

A handful of other Seekers agreed that it was worth checking out, at least. From the letter it sounded like the Soul Sanctum would be dangerous, so sending a small team to pay it a visit might be a good idea, but any others had a lead they could pursue them, as well. That piscine guard captain came to mind, for instance; in a city ostensibly run by an evil overlord, she seemed rather good-natured and good-intentioned for an authority figure. Nadia invited Ichiban along, mentioning that her team’s adventures were a good way to make money. No matter where they went, though, the heroes needed to get a move on. Time wasn’t on their side.

---

Each of the city’s four districts had its own distinct style, and among them -barring the wacky whimsy of the Amusement Park- the Collection struck Nadia as the most interesting. Rather than a roughly fan-shaped stretch of solid ground it took the form of numerous disjointed islands, broken up by disorganized canals and connected by bridges. More giant paper boats like the one that brought Nadia’s crew in from the Womb last night meandered through the Collection in a constant, self-propelled circuit, providing a predictable and consistent way to get around. On closer inspection, the islands and buildings themselves were made of books, with trees of paper and pencil-shaped streetlights. Even stranger were the giant, ephemeral letters that floated in the air overhead like an odd, literary smog, with all sorts of words constantly forming and unforming. As Nadia watched, three letters floated above her head to form the word ‘cat’, which she dispersed with a wave of her hands.

However, despite its bookish appearance, the Collection harbored a dedicated mercantile focus, with countless waterfront markets and stores situated against a backdrop of industrial facilities, like a cannery, a printer, a refinery, a foundry, and other factories. Scattered throughout were a number of the Home of Tears’ iconic towers, tall, black, and cylindrical with shell-shaped blue glass windows. Only one of those towers’ windows gave off a ghostly white glow, and Nadia headed there. When she arrived, she found the Soul Sanctum seemingly abandoned, its only entrance cordoned off, but the bulwark built over its front entrance lay unbarred and ajar. Within, the whispery darkness seemed to beckon. “Guess IGV already went inside,” she muttered, assuming that it would take more than some random miscreant to unseal this ill-omened doorway. As a precaution Nadia pulled one of her new grips from her belt, then inserted it into the casing to attach a blade. Giant box cutter in hand, she stepped toward the door. “I’ll take point again, and make sure anythin’ waitin’ to ambush us gets the ‘point’ too, so…don’t mind if I do.”



Nadia was the first to set foot within the eerie place, disturbing the silence with the creak of the door. She found herself inside a grim facility, somewhere between a grand library, complete with columns, and a hospital, but rather than dusty volumes its shelves were packed with samples, tablets, tinctures, and instruments, laden with indecipherable text inscribed on paper and stone. Much of it was discarded, piled high with frustrated impunity. Dubious stains and maddened scrawls covered walls and furniture alike beneath frayed, hanging curtains, all bathed in the soft glow of white lumafly lamps, and shrouded in drifting motes of dust. Plenty of empty chairs, and a few still occupied with the empty husks of former scholars, could be found, but Nadia’s keen eyes spotted no enemies. The echoes in this place never seemed to fade away completely; instead a slight noise remained, like distant whispers, and the feral swore she could hear the faint music of an organ a long way off. She inhaled deeply and moved in, on the hunt for stairs. Their contact awaited at the very top of this place, and according to his letter, there would be ‘wretched things’ on the way.

After reaching the third floor, the Seekers found them. As they moved through what looked more and more like a creepy research laboratory, the whispers had grown almost imperceptibly louder, and with them came a sort of scratching. Moving silently, Nadia tried to pinpoint the source, but it seemed to be coming from the walls. Finally, as the team approached the stairs, something came. Some things. Shapeless, wriggling, they oozed from the faucets and bubbled up from the drains. Others squeezed out of vents and cupboards, floating through the air like balloons. All made a beeline for the nearest Seekers, gasping and hungry for them. For their souls.

“Yeesh.” Nadia cleaved through a hovering Folly with her box cutter and popped it like a bubble, then clawed away at sluggish Mistake and watched it ooze into the floor. In just a few moments, a couple more rose to take their place. It wouldn’t do the Seekers any good to linger here, so they kept climbing, fending off the bodiless, soul-starved apparitions as they went. The higher they climbed, however, the more they found. Soon, they stumbled upon the Soul Sanctum’s former patients, pale gangly creatures in hospital gowns, their heads bound in swollen, bulbous bags and their bodies in restraining belts and straps, some to the extent that they could only locomote by wriggling along the ground like horrific inchworms. “You’ve gotta be kitten me.” Nadia quickly found that these were much more violent -and strong- than the Mistakes and Follies that preceded them. Some assaulted her with metal IV stands, and a few sprouted tentacles from their sacks to grasp and pierce. Their brutish attacks forced her to take them much more seriously, and after taking a few heavy blows she resorted to overwhelming them with pressure and comboing them to death whenever she could get one alone, and running when she could not.

At one point, having fled from a pair of patients, she rounded a corner at the top of a flight of stairs and found herself faced by a fearsome monstrosity of white fur on ten pawed legs, its face an empty hole dripping tar-like fluid. Her hair rose and her tail went rigid at the sight of the amalagamate horror blocking the way, just one of many that could be encountered from here on out, and with a fang-toothed grin Nadia white-knuckle gripped both box cutters. “Down, boy,” she snarked. “I like dogs, but if you’re gonna bark up the wrong tree, I’ll teach ya to play dead.”

Endogeny just tilted its head, its orifice watching her intently. It smelled like a bunch of dogs. Freaky and dangerous as it looked, the abomination’s body language displayed no overt hostility as far as Nadia could see. “Hmm.” She relaxed her sword arm a little to see if it would provoke a reaction, and noted how the monster’s gaze followed her weapon. “Huh. Ya want this? …Fetch?” Unbelievable as that sounded, the amalgamate convulsed excitedly at the word. Am I really gonna do this? Nadia could hear the cries of the patients in the distance, growing closer. She lifted her box cutter to hurl down a dead-end corridor. Here goes nothing.



In the heat of the moment, Frisk chose to act at a dangerous time. Albedo’s frantic efforts to stop Nightingale discharging his firearms had already resulted in spilled blood, and the former child wasn’t going to let her friend lose any more, no matter the cost. As Nightingale went for his handgun, keen to finish off what he started lest the alchemist’s Cinnabar Spindle spell his own end, Frisk seized his shotgun and took aim. Experience and training meant little in a situation like this; the business end of that barrel was a deadly guarantee the moment she leveled it at him. She had him dead to rights, and though he’d managed to lay hands on his pistol, he knew he’d already lost. He loosened his grip on it as he went to hold up his hands. “Wait-!”

Frisk didn’t wait. She’d grabbed the shotgun with only one course of action in mind, her decision made in an instant and without hesitation, irrespective of the consequences. The shotgun’s blast resounded through the derelict supermarket once more, close enough to Albedo and especially Frisk to be deafening, and it kicked like a mule. In fact, it was the strength of the weapon’s recoil that made a crucial difference. It flew from Frisk’s inexpert grasp, deviated just enough that the shot wasn’t fatal. Still, it might have been better if it were. Nightingale hit the ground with a howl of pain, an awful wound punched into the flesh and bone of his left side. Writhing in agony and with a face contorted by pain, he kept up a hideous uproar as he tried in vain to staunch the bleeding. He wasn’t dead, but he was dying, and it would be neither a quick nor merciful end.

A moment later, Red’s new gun unleashed its luminous pink rays, but before the four meant for Nightingale could strike him the yellow flashes of a dancing blade intercepted them.

Breathing heavily, Albedo relaxed his sword arm, then limped over. He reached out his sword’s point and slid the handgun across the floor away from Nightingale, then approached the man himself. His features, cool and impassive despite the injury he’d endured from that shotgun as well, betrayed none of his intentions, but any onlooker could guess well enough. Or maybe not. After stopping at Nightingale’s side, Albedo dismissed his sword, and tapped his chest to produce a friend heart in the manner Linkle taught him. He dropped it on the dying man and took away his pain, restoring him to his original state in an instant. Glistening with sweat and wide-eyed from shock, the former FBI agent stared up at Albedo in bewilderment, the question of why he would not just spare him but heal him written clearly on his face.

“Please don’t come after us again,” Albedo told him evenly. “I’d rather not hurt people.”

Nightingale glanced at his guns where they fell, but only for a brief moment. His face betrayed a mixture of gratitude and shame as he gingerly stood to his feet, then turned and clumsily ran, stumbling out of the shattered storefront and off into Edinburgh’s streets in search of a bar. Whoever these people were, theirs were not the faces that tormented him in his nightmares. He remembered now that there were far greater and more terrifying things out there, and compared to them the orders of Chief Irons mattered as much as dust in the wind.

Rather than watch Nightingale go, Albedo glanced at Frisk, his expression cloudy. Though glad that she interfered to protect him, he couldn’t say he liked her willingness to take a life when the threat might have been enough. With the others’ fights still in progress he couldn’t spend a lot of time on this, but he managed to say one thing as he took his sword in hand again before turning his attention elsewhere. “Common though they may be, I find that human lives are more valuable than either gold or silver, and all the more pitifully wasted.”

Meanwhile, the fight between Big Band and Stryker had taken to the street outside. Super-Sonic Jazz ended with a backflip spin as the giant french horn stowed away, launching the cruel cop high into the air. Rather than try and follow up, though, Band elected to stack the odds even further. He deployed his bagpipes and played a quick tune in the moment afforded to him, just enough to activate Bagpipe Blues. Stryker regained his feet, still able and happy to fight. He was red with anger from the wounds inflicted on his pride, especially thanks to what looked like a taunt, and he moved in with his baton at the ready to tear Big Band a new one. He rained down a brutal series of combination blows with punches, kicks, and strikes from his weapons, mixing up low and high attacks to catch Band off guard. The pressure was on, and Stryker managed to land a few hits, but his opponent toughed it out while biding his time.

Then he struck back, using the armor from Bagpipe Blues to shrug off an overhead baton slam from Stryker and wallop him with a massive Air Mail Special, leading right into combo. He jumped up after the launched policeman and struck with Bass Blast sound jets from the keys on his side, then a dropkick that bounced Stryker off the wall on the far side of the street. He landed on his back but bounced to his feet again in a burst of sound in time to catch Stryker low with his Glissando double trombone thrust. The next moment the cop found himself caught in the pincer of Band’s giant tambourine, jingled violently back and forth as the detective extended the beat. Suspended by Band’s Sound Stun, Stryker couldn’t escape as his foe jumped up to deliver an airborne Jelly Roll tambourine spin, and the good times kept on rolling from there. Band brought his enemy up, down, and up again in an instrumental assault of clarinet thrusts, trombone blows, and even the ring-a-ling of a musical triangle.

At one point Stryker thought the combo came to an end, only to immediately fall prey to a devious reset, and the train got rolling once again. The one-sided beatdown finally came to an end when Band deployed a ring of drum rockets around him, mechanical arms tipped with mallets extended to lay down the law. “Tympany…Drive!” He hammered both Stryker and the drums, which released blasts of sound downward with every beat to propel both officers higher and higher into the air. Just when Stryker seemed about to slip free, Band finished his performance by snapping shut the halves of a giant brass bell on his foe directly beneath him. “Consider yourself tolled!” With that, he smashed down two enormous ringers hard enough to crack the bell. People for miles could hear the clamor of his Death Toll, but nobody quite so acutely as Stryker.

After the two fell to earth, the cop somehow managed to get up again, but he clearly wasn’t all there. He teetered back and forth woozily, barely able to stand. While Band knew he could do just about anything he might want at this point, he settled for a singular honk from a tiny horn in Stryker’s face, and the man dropped like a sack of flour, unconscious. “Huh.” The detective shook his head, almost disappointed with how easy that turned out to be. “Squeezed ‘em like a tuba toothpaste. Guess we were just playin’ different games.” With the face-off concluded, he regrouped with Albedo, Red, Ace, Frisk, and Lucia, who’d been hiding with Sienna in the back both to hide the fact that she’d defected from the police force and as a last line of defense. Ace had disposed of the robots, and there was no sign of Nightingale. “Let’s get movin’ before reinforcements show up,” Band told the team. “Chances are they know where we are.”

Albedo nodded, taking point along with Lucia. Using his alchemy and some medicinal plants kept in his Inventory, he’d managed to treat his leg well enough to move. “The hideout isn’t too far.”

---

From the word ‘hideout’ Band half-expected some dark, secluded hole in the wall so mean and small that nobody in their right mind would look there, but that turned out not to be the case. In fact, Albedo and Frisk had managed to procure rather pleasant accommodations since arriving in Edinburgh. Overlooking one of the frigid city’s many canals stood a restaurant called Grammeowster’s Kitchen, where a kindly old cat and her cohort of friendly felynes worked to supply her customers with warm food, a cozy atmosphere, and all the comforts of home. It was neither the biggest or busiest hole in the wall, but both its owner and her home-cooking were beloved fixtures of the local community that stood the test of time. In exchange for a little help from Albedo and Frisk during the evenings, as well as the handy bonus of ingredients synthesized via alchemy, Grammeowster allowed the two to stay in her own abode on the second (and third) floors. Left empty except for her ever since her own children went off to start their own families long ago, it had been an empty nest that Grammeowster seemed happy to have occupied once more, and she didn’t mind her guests bringing friends, either. Everyone could pile inside as sirens blared in the distance, head through the restaurant, and climb up to the spacious room to rest.

“Oof.” After laying Sienna down on the bed, Band let out a deep breath as he seated himself by the fireplace, not trusting the carpentry of what were practically antique couches and stools to hold his weight. What an afternoon it had been. With the sole exception of the All Round Spheal Show, it had been nothing but trouble the minute he, Red, and Ace set foot here. Running afoul of the EMPD’s deplorable head honcho had been bad enough to begin with, and despite the clear victory over Irons’ pursuit squad back at the supermarket, Band knew that his troubles with Edinburgh’s finest were far from over. Then there had been the whole matter with that six-winged demon in the Noumenon library, which literally happened out of the blue. Their only possible answers about that lay with Sienna, but she had yet to awaken. It would be a little bit longer before they came to light, and a lot longer before his conclusions about the Skullgirl did. Rather than state outright his intentions to kill the girl that had been Albedo and Frisk’s friend, Band figured he’d let them see for themselves come nightfall. Before anything else regarding the Consuls, he needed to find this Linkle and put her down. The Skullgirl was a walking calamity, her very existence a countdown to the end of the world, and come what may Band couldn’t allow her to go free.

Until then, at least, he and the others could try to relax. It was about five o’clock, with a couple hours until dark, during which time they shouldn’t go out in public again. Tantalizing smells already wafted up from Grammeowster’s Kitchen downstairs, her mouth-watering roasts and stews drawing customers from far and wide. She and her felyne helpers would probably need a hand down there, but given his sheer size alone Band wasn’t suited to such work. He waited until Sienna finally stirred, trying not to loom over for her as she blinked awake, holding her head.

“Easy, now,” he told her, his voice soft. “We’re in a safe place. You okay?”

Sienna scooted backward, propping herself up against the pillows and backboard. “I…I think so.”

“Good.” Band hesitated for a moment. “I don’t mean to grill you right off the bat, but…we pulled you outta some demon-lookin’ thing that attacked us in the library. Nearly wiped us out before Ace turned the tables. Don’t suppose you could tell us what happened? Anythin’ you remember?”

The girl narrowed her eyes, her brows scrunched together. “I…well, I’m not sure exactly what happened. I was driving along with the Spheals, heading back to base. I think I glanced back to make sure everyone was okay, and when I looked at the road again, there was a man standing right in front of me. I hit the breaks, of course, and managed to stop before hitting him. Nearly gave me a heart attack.” She took a deep breath, running her hand through her hair. “I’d never seen him before in person, but I realized who it was ‘cause of his armor. It was Consul N. I was confused, of course. When he came around I rolled down the window, apologizing like crazy for almost hitting him. He didn’t seem mad, but…he was acting kind of funny. He started asking me about you guys, and where you were.”

Her face took on an apologetic look. “Um…I’m sorry, but you’re supposed to do what a Consul says, so I told him what I heard from you guys about going to the library. I asked him what he wanted with you, but he didn’t really answer. Just started muttering to himself. Then all of a sudden he asks for my help, and, y’know, I said ‘sure’. He goes ‘I always wanted to try this’ and reached in and grabbed me! He pulled me right out the window, slammed me against the car, and…I-I’m not sure what he did, but it hurt really bad, and…I blacked out.” She seemed scared and angry at the same time. “W-what the hell was all that?”

Band shook his head. “Sorry, I got no idea. Some kind o’ magic, or mad science, or somethin’. This guy musta been tryin’ to use you to get at us.” He sighed, hanging his head. “I’m awful sorry you got caught up in all this. It’s not your fault. These Consuls are real scumbags, and now it sounds like we’re dealin’ with two of ‘em.” At least it didn’t seem like N cared enough to be any more thorough with his little gambit. But if he could and would do something like that to an innocent person, things in Edinburgh were only going to get even more complicated from here on out.