The more Goldlewis saw of Wallace’s boat, the more amazed he became. As a high-up government worker he’d been used to working and meeting important people, whether in elaborate, historic places or huge, fancy venues. Yet he’d never been one to stand on ceremony himself; it just didn’t feel right to live a life of luxury on a salary extracted from the people he endeavored to serve and protect, especially when that money could be invested into their better service and protection. In his heart, he was ever the soldier, never the statesman. Why splurge on the finest French cuisine when a double bacon cheeseburger from Danny Missiles -or hell, Dunny Missiles for that matter- did the job just fine? More than fine in most cases, actually. Still, after a quick wander through the yacht’s incredible interior Goldlewis couldn’t help admit that the high life probably had its charms.

Such an extravagance was just the latest on the long line of brand-new experiences this adventure kept delivering to Tora, but he couldn’t bring himself to be excited. Just as with the breathtaking view of the City of Glass, life’s rich tapestry of beauty and joy lost its savor without someone special to savor it with. Instead of tucking himself in the lounge to enjoy some complimentary snacks and beverages, the Nopon ignored his empty tummy and placed himself on the yacht’s forward railing. All he cared about was reaching Vandelay Campus, where the coalescence of Vandelay’s robots and CyberLife’s androids produced the summit of automaton technology. Tora’s eyes lay on that obscenely massive ‘V’, full of grim resolve. He would use everything he could get his wings on to bring her back.

While Sakura toured the boat with Wallace to fulfill her end of the bargain, taking snapshot after snapshot of the man in an expressionless, neutral pose in front of his various possessions, the other Seekers gradually trickled in. Some of the others spent their brief reprieve on a deeper dive into the ethics of proposed actions in the current context. It seemed to Goldlewis like these heroes wanted to both get the mission done and do the right thing, but in his experience, those two conditions didn’t always mix. There was never a clean, ‘correct’ solution, only trade-offs. Zenkichi probably knew as well as anyone that you could never please everyone, but Goldlewis knew firsthand the kind of crushing weight that accompanied hard decisions when you were accountable to millions. Midna had a very real point: there was no guarantee that Galeem’s defeat would result in universal restoration. And even if there was, relying on that to wash one’s hands of all the consequences of one’s misdeeds. To bear the burden of such consequences, one needed the strongest shoulders imaginable, and the iron will necessary to make those hard decisions. That was where Goldlewis Dickinson came in–to bear that weight, so that nobody else would have to. For now though, the Seekers could avail themselves of the lucky opportunity that Mr. Limestein provided.

Speaking of, the man’s rather stoic photo op was coming to an end. He had his last photo taken in front of a grand piano, and after examining the picture he nodded in approval. “Good...this is a great photo. As a matter of fact, I have done a lot of research on music. I have enjoyed classic songs such as "Still Alive" and "My Heart Feels No Pain" more than twenty times. If my future friend happens to be interested in music, maybe we can book a whole concert hall and listen to an orchestra together. I'll pay for all that, of course.”

When Susie posed him a question, he fixed her with a thoroughly nonplussed expression. “At the moment, my sole occupations are the pursuit of novel entertainment, and my goal of obtaining a true friend.” Utterly nonplussed by the robot’s attempt to be personable, he saw no further need to humor her with a response, but after a moment he scratched his chin. “That said, this does strike me as just the sort of idle conversation I might indulge in with such a friend. Are you perhaps a psychoanalysis android? Alright, I’ll give this a shot. Let’s workshop a back-and-forth exchange once we get underway. After all this time, I am rather numb to the sights around here, after all.”

He then turned his attention to the wisdom Sakura imparted to him. “You are very correct. I could not accept any ‘friend’ attracted solely by my riches or reputation. Friendships of utility are not true friendships. And given my status, it's inappropriate for me to chat with strangers out on the street.” When she mentioned shared interests, he nodded in agreement. “Precisely. These photos will help demonstrate my interests, so that anyone who shares them can instantly recognize what an excellent friend I would make.” She lost him when her train of thought veered back toward fighting, though. “I am no ruffian, miss, and I must insist that you and your friends refrain from any action that might damage my yacht. They do not come cheap, you know.”

Soon everyone was aboard, with Roxas the last one on courtesy of his detour to a sushi bar, and the boat set sail across Regatta Bay. While Wallace claimed to have learned how to control it himself, since he originally figured doing so might make for a fun pastime, he set the yacht to autopilot. Then he met with Susie to begin their conversation session. “Alright, let us simulate a typical conversation. What was it you asked…what do I do? Hm. Well, I have a couple of properties in the Administrative District that require maintenance. I have to pay taxes for them. But I'm far too lazy to rent them out — I mean, time is money! Besides, they're full of priceless relics.”

Goldlewis, watching from the sidelines, raised his eyebrows. “You’re into ancient relics, mister?”

Not exactly,” Wallace admitted. “I just like to own them. For example, a while back Lord Simon told me he obtained a particularly rare gold watch, said to be a relic left behind by Midgar’s previous Administration. How could I miss out on such a rarity! So I offered him three houses for it.” He shrugged, then continued without giving Susie a chance to speak. “I also own an antique car that I’ve kept in pristine condition for years with some help from my twenty-person maintenance team. And a few days ago, I spent a small sum of money — as much as the price of a few antique vases. I requested for someone to fetch a cyberpet from the Sector 04 undercity. Unfortunately...once it was assembled, it was nothing special. As for the people who come from below, all they talk about is policies, money, and business. There is absolutely nothing I can talk to them about. How painfully mundane!” The conversation continued like this for some time, and Susie got very little out of it.

After a good while spent sailing at a leisurely pace across the waters of the Sector 06 plate, the yacht drew close to Vandelay Campus. Its iconic tower had been gargantuan from a distance, but from up close it loomed even larger. Sure, it didn’t exactly compare to the sheer height of Split Mountain, or the vastness of the Sandswept Sky, but this was a man-made edifice. It didn’t just make Tora feel small; it made him feel unimportant. Compared to the rest of the City of Glass, these facilities and factories were both a lot more colorful and rough around the edges, but the public-facing offices and the grand atrium were as spotless and sparkling as could be. Their destination lay between the main building and an exorbitant outdoor concert stage: the illustrious Dendenmille Showcase Theater, with its rich red facade and impressive domes.



The public entrance to the Vandelay Campus took the form of a large area that accommodated all forms of transportation from cars to watercraft to aircraft, known as Circuit Royal. After steering past a number of other boats, Wallace’s craft pulled up at the docks so that the Seekers could disembark. With no intention of attending the debate himself, their pretentious benefactor bid them farewell, then left them in the company of a huge amount of people making their way to the same destination. It wasn’t just residents of the City of Glass; travelers from all eight of Midgar’s plates had come to attend the final debate of the presidential race that would define their city’s future. Blimps, airships, and helicopters seemed to be the exception to the City of Glass rule of ‘no interplate traffic’, and quite the variety could be found around the port. No wonder the Sector 06 Hublink had been so busy, crowded, and well-defended! Security seemed even stronger here, not necessarily any tighter, but a lot more numerous. With this being the birthplace of the Vandelay robots, it made sense that there would be a lot of them here. And somewhere, in all of this hubbub, were the presidential candidates themselves, each with their own hand-picked retinues of capable guards.

Goldlewis took a deep breath. “Well, we’re here. Thanks to these press passes, we’re gonna get front-row seats.” He stroked his whiskers. “Or, six of us will, at least. The rest of y’all need to figure somethin’ out if ya wanna watch first-hand. That said, I’m sure the debate’s gonna be plastered all over every TV in the whole doggone city, so you can put your feet up at a restaurant or somethin’ just as easy.”

“Tora not care about big argument, meh,” Tora piped up. “Want guided tour of robot factory. That something big company do, yes?”

The veteran scrunched his brows together. “I reckon they oughta, but you shouldn’t go off on your own, son…”

Once the team made the final selection and juggled around the press passes, the lucky few could proceed toward Dendemille Showcase Theater to be seated, while the rest needed to look elsewhere. The vast and varied Vandelay Campus was like its own self-contained city, though, so there was plenty to see and do even without entering any restricted zones, and about an hour to do it before the main event.



Peals of uproarious, manic laughter rang out from the tentacled pirate Barbary as her Octobombs detonated one after another, their plumes of billowing flame a bright, harsh light against the gloom of the Home of Tears. Entire swathes of its monstrous citizenry either hurtled into the water, propelled by the explosions’ concussive force, or leaped in on their own to quench the fire when Barbary’s destruction set them ablaze. Sophie’s potions sowed almost as much havoc, their sorcerous splashes instantly afflicting all those unlucky enough to be caught in them with blindness, slowness, poison, and fatigue. Though not as fast off the blocks as the others, Solon managed to outdo them both in terms of pure havoc. As the heroes fled, hounded by gangs of pursuers, his relentless casts of Miasma Δ quickly blanketed the circular plaza with clouds of thick, venomous gas to swallow up any who failed to get clear in time. Once caught in that noxious smog, it would only be a matter of time until even the strongest combatants succumbed, their throats and lungs agonizingly thick with malefic chemicals.

Whether her allies made it out of the mayhem or not, Nadia didn’t dare look behind her just yet. Courtesy of the Koopas’ quick thinking and varied abilities, an avenue of escape had opened up just when it looked like the Seekers were about to be swallowed up by the horde, so right now nobody’s safety concerned her quite as much as her own, and she needed to move.. Thanks to F’s terrifying mind control, the cityfolk were literally seeing red, and the hunt was on. Those that could took to the waterways, the paper boats on their endless journey, or private watercraft. The rest crowded along the water’s edge on both sides, taking potshots from the bridges and islands of the Collection or the southern jetties of the Amusement Park on the right. With a cacophony of vengeful yells, battle cries, incantations, and called-out attacks at her back. She skated across the surface of the city’s southeastern waterway in a zigzag pattern, dodging arrows, spells, hurled objects, and a couple citizens who threw themselves from the railings in hopes of taking the feral with them into the drink. At one point a grenade plopped down into the river behind her and blew up a moment later, sending up a spout of water, but the resulting wave only helped speed Nadia on her way. With most of the enemies focused on the Koopa Troop, she quickly outpaced the swimmers and sailors with Massachusetts’ incredible nautical mobility, putting some distance between herself and the action. Her stores of adrenaline were starting to run dry, though, and realizing she desperately needed a moment, she cruised towards a rock protruding from the water a safe distance from land.

Nadia plopped down on the outcrop, her breath ragged in her throat as she fought to catch her breath in the pouring rain. The fatigue, aches, and stress of a whole day’s near-constant exertion all weighed her down, and her heart pounded in her chest. If not for her nap at Habbo Hotel and that much-needed reprieve at the Terminal cafe, she reasoned that she might’ve been done for. Of course, Nadia knew she wasn’t out of the woods just yet. After rolling over she scanned the waterway in a sitting position, on the lookout for the Koopa Troop and their great white whale, but when she spotted them her heart sank. She’d assumed that with that kind of firepower Bowser’s gang would be able to handle being the center of attention, but it looked like they’d gotten a lot more than they bargained for. The Mermaid Corps had caught up to Rika’s ghastly cetacean and started stabbing, and enemy watercraft closed in on all sides. A magic shield went up around it, and as the paper boats converged the whale submerged, but its future was anything but certain. Unfortunately, before Nadia could see any more the water erupted in front of her.

Her eyes went wide as the purple dinosaur from below lunged towards her like a crocodile, fangs bared and a ferocious axe brandished. There was no time to pressurize her blood for a Fiber Upper. Moving instinctively, the feral rolled backward into a handspring, and as she vaulted onto the water the head of Susie’s axe came down on the stone. Instead of obliterating her target it cracked the rock in half, and as Nadia slid backward across the water’s surface the two locked eyes, lips curled and teeth bared. Without saying a word, both took action. Nadia pressurized her arms, and a pink flame sparked at the end of Susie’s axe. At the same exact time both unleashed their might, the feral with a blood-propelled right-arm rocket punch and the dinosaur with a blazing arrow of Rude-elemental damage. The next second both attacks hurtled past their foes’ faces, coming within centimeters of a critical headshot. Susie, however, snapped her jaws shut on Nadia’s outstretched muscle fiber, eliciting a pained “YOWCH!”

With a grin Susie yanked the limb with her mouth, trying to reel Nadia in like a fish on the line, but the cat burglar detached the cords and cannoned off her other arm. Puzzled as to why the limb suddenly went slack, Susie took her opponent’s palm strike straight to the nose, and as the dinosaur reeled Nadia closed her hand to clamp down on Susie’s snout. “Just call me a pepper…” From there the feral just retracted her arm to zip straight across the water to Susie and start up a combo. “‘Cause I’m jalapeño business!” Her two-hit Flip Flop kick led straight into a One-two Pun-isher and finally a good old-fashioned Limber Up to pop Susie into the air. Then Nadia went low, mustered her strength, poured a whole lot of blood into a copied right arm, and finally launched her fist skyward in a jaw-dropping uppercut. “Honorable…DISCHARGE!” When the punch connected, she blasted it out in a geyser of blood to add even more oomph, and Susie sailed into the air, her eyes and mouth wide open. Nadia’s right arm fell from her jaws and socketed neatly back into place, held up in a fist-pump of victory, and a moment later Susie splashed down into the water a couple dozen feet away.

Nadia chuckled, feeling a little light-headed, and turned her attention back toward the others. The Troop had resurfaced on the other side of the citizens’ flotilla, but the exercise left their whale thoroughly boarded. Guess I’m safe on my own, she thought with a sigh. Our only chance is together. As if on queue, a wicked cry made her ears perk up, and she turned to see Lord Raptor flying at her through the air with Death Hurricane, his limbs whirling like helicopter blades. “Whoa!” She put up her guard to block it, and after landing Raptor immediately threw her; his claws closed around Nadia’s shoulders and he extended his ribs like fangs to pierce her torso again and again before slamming her down. He went in for the meaty and got a Fiber Upper for his troubles–this time Nadia was ready. Before she could capitalize on her reversal, though, she spotted Hsien-ko skywalking in. The Jianshi extended a chain from her sleeve to grapple to a point in space, then swung beneath it, her arm windmilling in a vertical circle with claws outstretched. Nadia made her decision and got the hell out of there, skating away from the rocky outcrop as fast as her sealegs could take her, with the two undead in pursuit.

She reached the entrance to Crumble Cavern just after the Koopa Troop did. Just as with the passages to the Womb and King’s Station, this entrance featured a semicircular stone platform on each side of the cave wall, so she leaped up from the water to race across it. In a blink, she’d exited the deluge of the Home of Tears and entered into the merciful dryness of the cheese-filled megacave. Running behind Rika’s whale, she watched as it used its momentum and slick underside to slide across the stone with everyone atop it, then fly off the opposite side over a yawning abyss. Nadia’s eyes widened, but there was no turning back now, so she buckled down for the final sprint. “This not a gouda ideaaaaaaa!” A terrifying moment later the whale slammed down on the cheesy cliff on the gorge’s far side, sending crumbs spiraling down into the dark, and Nadia touched down beside it. Thanks to her new paws she landed better than ever, but her momentum sent her into a roll and she wound up on her back, which meant an uncomfortable smack against her blade case. “...Gah!” she grunted as she gasped for breath, wanting nothing more than to lay there for another few hours, but the Seekers’ pursuers had other plans. Bowser’s yell got her attention, and after sitting up Nadia saw cityfolk amassing on the stone platform above the waterfall. Bowser was right; there was no time to lose. “Yeah, ricotta get goin’!” With a groan she got to her feet and took off running across the cheesescape. Soon the caves and tunnels echoed with the sounds of a half-dozen battles.

Under better circumstances Nadia would have liked to stop and marvel at this place. The cheese was breathtaking, and not just in a metaphorical sense–the smell was almost overpowering. Beneath her feet, the ground felt spongy and even a little bouncy. Dozens of varieties littered the landscape like different kinds of stone in all sorts of formations, a smorgasbord of colors, textures, and aromas. With bloodthirsty monsters on her heels, though, she’d have to stop and admire the scenery some other time. On the far side of the cavern lay the team’s destination, but getting there -and getting rid of her unwanted company- would be a problem. Between the river and the gorge most of the cityfolk had given up their chase, but that left the Home of Tears’ strongest warriors. A quick look over her shoulder after swatting aside Cheeseslimes confirmed both Hsien-ko and Raptor in pursuit. When she leaped and airdashed over a pit full of cheese wedge spikes, Raptor airdashed after her by whipping his legs around, and Hsien-ko swung over. “Ugh. Curd you two give it a rest?” When she sliced up a Gabaghoul and then slid underneath a low-hanging cheese archway with Cat Slide, the zombie morphed his lower half to perform a bizarre crouch-walk, and the jiangshi simply blinked to the other side. “Oh, brie-lliant.” Even when she approached the cavern wall and sunk in her claws to wall-run a couple hundred feet over a massive ravine, her pursuers kept up, Hsien-ko with another skywalk and Raptor with a freakish teleport that involved summoning some sort of demon to swallow him up and then spit him out from the ground on the other side.

“...Cheese Louise,” the feral laughed breathlessly, frustrated. She just didn’t have the gas to keep this up. After a longing stare at Pizza Tower, her eyes landed on a gigantic swiss cheese wheel just a short ways off, and the gears in her mind began to turn. “Guess we’ll finish this the old-fashioned way.” As the zombies closed in she took off, sprinting into one of the swiss wheel’s holes. She ran and climbed through the twists and turns of its tunnels, and though the undead followed they quickly lost sight of her in the maze. When the two eventually climbed out through a hole in the very top of the wheel, they found Nadia waiting for them in what looked like a giant, circular arena of cheese.

“What took ya so long? Feelin’ bleu?” Nadia grinned at the pair as they approached, Raptor at a saunter and Hsien-ko with slow hops, head lolling creepily. With Pizza Tower in the background and the chase concluded, the showdown was about to begin. Their eyes lingered for a moment on the spare blades haphazardly plunged into the creamy-white surface of the swiss, then the case at Nadia’s feet. “Y’know, I can’t say I’m cheesed to meetcha. This isn’t your fault. But there’s no other way,” the feral told as she stood firm, her boxcutters in hand. “So let’s cut to the chase. Your fon-doom approaches!”

In reply, the zombies charged. Raptor messily morphed his right forearm into a freakish chainsaw, as long as he was tall. The way this guy moved, the way he fought, reminded Nadia of herself, albeit to a much greater extent. There was no way he felt pain, and therein lay her strategy. As he ran in swinging, two Copycats burst up from the holes where they’d been lying in wait. They pounced on him from the sides, grabbed hold, and sank their claws in. Together they made him stumble and fall directly onto one of the extra blades, piercing him through the stomach. Both Hsien-ko and Nadia rushed toward him, but the feral arrived first to drive both her boxcutters into him to hold him in place. Pulling the triggers detached the blades and left Raptor triple-nailed to the cheese, giving Nadia a chance to fight one-on-one.

Grimacing, Hsien-ko swung her sleeve, flinging a handful of basketball-sized spiked metal spheres her Nadia’s way. She blocked them, reabsorbed her Copycats, and ran toward her foe. On the way she passed by and attached two new blades, clicking them into place. She stopped short to avoid a giant claw slash, then leaped for a jump-in only to take a strike from Hsien-ko’s claws, extended diagonally on chains. As she fell her foe hopped forward, and by the time she rose Hsien-ko had leaped into the air to come down on her with Zanpa, her claws spinning beneath her like a grinder. Never one to block, Nadia dashed forward to cross beneath her opponent, then spun around with her Cat Scratch series, made longer and stronger by her boxcutters. “One! Two!” For the final hit she flipped forward to bounce Hsien-ko off the ground with her El Gato axe kick. “Wreck-a your face!”

Nadia used this brief window to create a Copycat, and when Hsien-ko hit the cheese, she sent it low with Cat Slide. The jiangshi blocked low on wakeup, smashed the doppelganger flat with her claws, and when her foe hurled her boxcutter blades, she produced a huge gong to reflect her projectiles right back at her. Taken by surprise, the feral took a slice to the ribs and the bicep. “Agh!” she cried, her severed arm falling to the ground in a spurt of blood. “You munster!” Hsien-ko blinked in to capitalize only to run straight into Nadia’s disjointed knee. “Gotcha!” she cackled, extending her head on a cord of muscle to smash into Hsien-ko’s like a flail. The zombie’s backward stumble came to an end as the reformed Copycat hit her from behind with Shove Off, pushing her back into Nadia, who launched herself sideways with her lower half spinning to unleash a vertical windmill kick. She landed in a split and reattached her arms as her clone made Ear Piercing its last hurrah, allowing her to finish off with a double-bladed Gol-fur Swing.

Just when Nadia managed to send Hsien-ko flying, though, Raptor finally worked his way off his blades. He ran up and jumped in on her with Loudness Screw, twisting his whole bottom half into a bone-tipped coil of flesh. Naturally Nadia challenged him, lashing out with a series of slashes, but she found out she wasn’t the only one with a guard cancel when he beefed out of blockstun with the killer guitar riff Death Phrase, backed by the one-eyed monstrosity she caught a glimpse of before. The soundwave stunned her, and the horror promptly launched Raptor forward for a body-slam that knocked her down. To add insult to injury, he then jumped and danced on her with Skull Javelin, letting out high-pitched laughter as he stomped one foot after the other. Enraged, Nadia let out all her frustration in one big burst. “RAAAAAWWRRR!” When Raptor regained his feet he immediately took one of Nadia’s flung blades to his chest. As an angry Nadia barreled toward him, she unwittingly used Charge, becoming a streaking bolt of electricity that burst through Raptor to reform behind him. As he reeled, she blinked, coming to grips with what happened. “Shock?” The zombie wheeled around with a massive guitar swing, but it passed harmlessly between her as she bifurcated her midsection. Then she struck in turn, this time with Battery. “And awe!” Right after her flourishing blade strikes came a two-burst aftershock. With a groan Raptor lashed out in return, jutting out his own elbow as a bone lance, but Nadia beat it out with Hand in Hand and popped off her own head for a Furnado Drill to seal the deal. “A bit off the top!”

Raptor fell flat on his back and lay there for a moment, but when he finally dragged himself to his feet, Hsien-ko was standing beside him. Though both had taken some decent damage, they stood together for a last ditch effort. Meanwhile, Nadia swayed drunkenly, barely standing. She didn’t fight in a way that conserved energy, and now she’d just about run out. Her blood reserves were too low for any more Copycats, too. I can do this. I can do this! It took a conscious effort to keep smiling as she clicked in a new blade from the ground. “Hey…any chance we could call this a draw? I’m basically dead on my feet…not as much as you two, but still…”

Raptor chuckled and snapped his fingers, a rainbow glow overtaking his body. Teeth erupted from the cheese beneath Nadia, and as she froze in terror thanks to her phobia, the zombie’s monstrous companion arose to chomp her into a ball. It spat her into Raptor’s waiting hands, and after dribbling her twice the monster morphed into a bizarre basketball hoop, allowing Raptor to finish off his incredible Hell Dunk. Though Nadia turned back to normal after that, her troubles were only just beginning; Hsien-ko unleashed Tenrai Ha, raining down spiked balls from the sky on top of her. Though she tried to block while on the ground, in the end she lay there flat-out, on the verge of blacking out. The undead approached and stood over her, ready to finish her off.

“Oww. You got me,” she groaned. “But I got…one last…Idea…”

Her striker manifested over her, dwarfing both zombies in size. As they stood there, shocked, the monstrosity shot out its seven tongues to bind the two and bash their heads together. That left them stunned just long enough for Nadia to get to her knees, dig in her claws, face them with the power building in her left eye. “River-carvin’...” Spending every bar of Tension she had, Nadia blasted the two with a thick beam of pure, unadulterated Hydro. “RAPIDS!” The magical torrent washed both Lord Raptor and Hsien-ko all the way across the swiss cheese arena. They disappeared over the side, and after a moment Nadia slumped down. “Damn I’m good,” she gasped, the instant before she smacked face-first into the swiss.

A few minutes later she stirred, already in better shape thanks to her regeneration, but more tired than she could ever remember being. After getting to her feet she lurched to the edge of the swiss wheel closest to the Pizza Tower, collecting her boxcutters, her blade case, and her loose blades on the way, then slid down the side. Just a little farther to go.



When she finally climbed the last cheese hill and reached the tower’s doors, she found most of the others already there, and the doors wide open. “Oh, hey,” she said dazedly, pausing for a moment to lean against the door on the way in. She looked pretty beat-up. “We made it…thank goodness.” Once everyone staggered inside, they could close and bar the doors behind them.

The bottom floor of the Pizza Tower seemed to be some sort of lobby. There were five adjoining halls labeled ‘Tower Lobby’, ‘Western District’, ‘Vacation Resort’, ‘Slum’, and ‘Staff Only’, each of which promised to connect to five or so specific floors of the tower. For now though, those doors -and the tower itself- seemed to be closed for the night. Sconces on the walls blazed softly, and in one corner a huge pizza oven kept the place dry and very warm. While the sudden intrusion of well-armed outsiders had roused the three attendants from their slumber, but the stump-like Pizza Trolls didn’t seem to care. “W-well, the levels up above are pretty dangerous, but nothing happens down here,” Shyler, the nicest of the three, explained. “When you’re feeling better, you can visit any of the levels, and bring all the toppins you gather back here. Then you can make all the pizzas you want with our oven. Especially if you give us some! Oh, pizza…” Though lost in dreamland for a minute whilst thinking about pizzas, he quickly refocused. “O-oh, and you can stay and rest here in the Hub if you like. I’m sure the boss wouldn’t mind. Nobody messes with the Pizza Tower, after all! Hehe…”

By the time Sectonia (or her ‘minions’) unpacked her new Deluxe Camping Set, with its spacious tents and cozy bedrolls, Nadia was already sound asleep.

The conversation about their ethical and moral strategy going forwards ebbed and flowed like the waters lapping against the ship as they crossed the bay. Then all too soon and well past time the trip came to an end, and it was time to go listen to a debate instead of having one.

Upon getting across the lake and getting ready to look at the debate, the group had to decide who would go where. With only six press passes, it would be useful for those who were interested in the whole political situation to ask some questions that would help them learn more about what was going on and perhaps get someone like Shinra to let loose some information they normally wouldn’t.

Karin took a pass between her index and middle finger and nodded a pre-emptive goodbye at Sakura.

Blazermate wasn’t all that interested in the proceedings herself, deciding to just go with the viewer group. Politics weren’t her thing, she preferred fighting and healing. Or maybe playing some carnival games. Plus, Tora needed a support robot right now so she figured she’d stay near the guy. ”Hey Tora. I’ll be your partner for now. Maybe we can find some fun things to do in the viewer area?” Blazermate said, trying to cheer him up a little.

Judging by the withering look Tora gave her, he completely abhorred her well-meaning suggestion. “Tora not need or want replacement. Only Poppi.”

Susie meanwhile decided to take one of the passes. She had some questions for both of the people running for office, and she knew how to read political and corporate doublespeak, so she figured she’d be a good candidate for that team. Although from what she could tell of the two so far, Armstrong might be the easier of the two to get information from, while Shinra would have the more important information.

Zenkichi took a pass while Geralt practically scoffed and informed the others that the last political action he took was a regicide, and that likely wouldn’t be appreciated here. Zenkichi chuckled at the joke (That was a joke, right? Right???) and let the others know he’d figure something out, and if his bosses saw him in the debate audience, he’d figure something out.

”Keep that in the back pocket for now, especially seeing as the only royal who’s going to be there is me” Midna commented, signaling her intention to go, though as she could just ride along in the shadows there’d be no need for her to take a pass (though she’d take one if there was one spare), before continuing ”because I know at least one king that’ll need offing if Galeem put him on the board.”

”I’ll come too,” Raz piped up. ”All this political intrigue and espionage is just what the Psychonauts are trained for! Plus, they’re politicians: they always lie, so I can be there as a kind’ve lie detector! Read their thoughts on certain topics and whatever.”

”I… guess I’ll go too, if no one else wants to take a pass.” Roxas joined in after a moment of hesitation. He didn’t really understand anything about the election that everyone was talking about, so maybe attending this debate would be a chance to try and learn a bit about it?

The topic of all this political mumbo-jumbo flew right over Partitio's head, though the topic of regicide made the merchant do a double take before shaking his head and chuckling awkwardly "Uh you got yourself an odd sense of humor partner'" Geralt did succeed in drastically changing the topic though thankfully, Benedict saw nary a point to continually pushing the subject he did however made a somewhat amused noise when Raz spoke on topic of politicians lying.

"Politics are a dance of intrigue and deceit, though to read one's thoughts…" it did strike the elderly strategist as an interesting tactic indeed, such an edge would be valuable in such a debate as the one to unfold "What an intriguing idea." There were not any passes left for him at this point, however, so the former Turk need not take the risk of being recognized.

Pit was fine with staying outside of the amphitheater, grouped with the others who would be watching from afar. With all the passes given out to those that were more interested in seeing the proceedings first hand, the angel crossed his arms behind his head and bid those going in a slightly awkward "have fun," with a less awkward smile.

With that ironed out, it was time for the two divisions of the team to proceed to their respective locations and await the start of tonight’s festivities.

Those destined to attend the debate in person allowed themselves to be swept up by the steady stream of people converging on the path to the regal Dendemille Showcase Theater, only taking one slight detour on the way. Position strategically along one of the Vandelay Campus’s most public avenues was a special on-site outlet store for the apparel retailer Crazy Cap, exclusively offering Vandelay-branded clothing. They offered a selection of t-shirts, hoodies, scarves, beanies, baseball caps, shades (including shutter shades), and more. Offered as souvenirs as much as if not more so than functional attire despite the tastelessness of such a practice at a serious political convention, these clothes were about as bland and corporate as one might expect, but they did present one tangential benefit. Goldlewis floated the idea of using them to help mask the identities of those among the Seekers whose faces might be recognizable to just the sort of government higher-ups that might very well be in attendance. Of course, being a retired official rather than a rogue agent, the veteran felt no need to disguise himself. Once everyone had what they needed, he boldly led the team the rest of the way to the debate’s prestigious venue.

Zenkichi, being pulled along by the crowd, spotted the souvenir shop and tapped Goldlewis on the shoulder, gesturing to the store before quickly pushing through the wave of people. He didn’t bother trying to be heard over the crowd, and shouting that you were getting a disguise was generally considered a bad idea. Quickly grabbing himself a beanie and a pair of shades, he paid and got out of there, searching for the former Secretary of Defense’s massive frame in the crowd.

Midna, being a twili turned imp turned chimera who was highly identified by the fact that there was nothing else like her in the city, and also not intending to make a public appearance, skipped this bit of dress up, and instead took it upon herself to make snippy comments about the new look of any who did.

Despite probably not having much to worry about from being noticed, Raz decided to take a pitstop at the merch store too, picking out a hoodie way too big for him (it reached down to his legs and the sleeves went past his arms), popping the hood of it up over his helmet and tugging his goggles over his face. ”How do I look? In-cog-nito?” He wasn’t too sure if he was assumed dead after not showing back up after the Other mission, so it was better safe than sorry. Stifling a chuckle as best he could, Goldlewis gave a nod of approval. As long as the fashion police weren’t around, Raz ought to be in the clear.

Hang on… the Other mission, Psych-OSF… ”Aw shoot, Lili!” Raz blurted out, quickly covering his mouth when attention was drawn their way. Once people stopped being interested in them Raz whispered to the group, ”I totally forgot to check in with Lili! She’s my, uh, my friend, from when we were just Psychonauts. Me and Roxas brought her to her senses and then sortaaaaa abandoned her… crap, she’s gonna kill me after all this.”

”Yeah, maybe you and I should check in on her when we get a chance?” Roxas suggested to the psychic boy.

Susie looked at all the corporate wear, and wasn't really interested in any of it. IT wouldn’t do for the head of a new business in town to hide herself, nor did she have any reason to. So she just waited for everyone else.

Karin carefully picked out her outfit. Despite it being a shop for bland and corporate outfits, Karin emerged looking like a snazzy business woman in a suit and skirt, with sunglasses riding high on her forehead. It wasn’t so much a disguise as it was a chance for her to buy yet another new outfit for herself.

Benedict glanced over a few colorful "t-shirts" and "baseball caps" as they called them, a sport and a mass produced piece of clothing one of which he found fascinating while the other he cared less for.

Slipping on the closest thing to a plain shirt, and with a sour look on his face as he put the hat on "This clothing is appalling to the eye but…Necessary." conceding to the point of the disguise he sighed. Partitio talked up a storm with the person standing behind the souvenir shop’s counter. "Nice little place ya got here partner, name's Partitio and I'm something of a salesman myself. Got a few tradesmen secrets too!" the merchant firmly shook the hapless shopkeeper’s hand who just smiled and nodded, not quite getting what Partitio's deal was. Once Benedict satisfied his paranoia with a disguise, the two men hurried back to the other group that would not be attending the debate.

Meanwhile, the contingent who elected to view the proceedings remotely looked for a place to spend the time. Naturally, most of the Vandelay Campus was off-limits, but the public-facing subsection known as Circuit Royal featured a handful of licensed establishments in the same vein as Crazy Cap, all intended for live-in employees as much as visitors. There were a few restaurants, stores, and entertainment destinations, even an arcade. None of it interested Tora as much as a tour through the less free-roam parts of the Vandelay Campus to get a peek at what made Midgar’s robotics industry leader tick, but even if any such experiences were scheduled this late, tonight’s slate had been wiped clean to make way for the main event: the debate. So with a heavy heart Tora joined the search for somewhere to go. With plenty of Vandelay robots around, Giovanna recommended going as off the beaten path as possible, and before too long the gang found just such a place. Tucked away on the second story above a Burger Town fast food restaurant was a lounge called Penguin Sniper, accessible by an enclosed stairway next door. Inside the team found a bar serving all kinds of beverages alongside pretty run-of-the-mill bar food, darts, billiards, and a couple game cabinets available for play. Everyone could get a quick bite to eat before the time came to settle in and watch the debate on the wide-screen TVs in the corners.

For once though, Tora wasn’t hungry. He climbed up into a booth, piled up his computer kit, and got back to work. His wings buzzed with nervous energy and couldn’t remain still, not while Poppi’s fate hung in the balance. It became apparent that he wouldn’t eat of his own volition if left to his own devices.

Blazermate, deciding to be Tora’s support medabot for the time being, hovered around him, saying. ”We’ll find her, don’t worry. You’ve gotta eat though so you can keep up the search at full steam.” And saying that, Blazermate acted like a nurse, helping to feed Tora while he worked, giving him a bit of light healing to help his shaky nerves as the soothing healing washed over him.

Geralt gave the pair an odd look, but if Tora wasn’t going to say anything, he wouldn’t either. He felt it in poor taste, personally, but again, Tora could speak for himself. He focused instead on their surroundings, a small frown on his face as he anticipated the inevitable shitshow that they were about to experience. He couldn’t stand political problems, especially ones that involved this blatantly corrupt city. Still, getting an insight into what was going on (and being close by in the event of an implied attack or other such action) was important for their cause. So here he was.

"That Wallace guy was pretty funny, I hope he ends up being able to find a friend," Pit mused while they waited for the event to start. He'd claimed a barstool and dragged it over to the other Seekers, sitting with his legs pulled up and folded beneath him. There was a bowl of slowly disappearing peanuts in his lap. He felt fidgety with want to go out and do something, but like Goldlewis had mentioned it was probably best not to be separated from the group for now. And, well, he was at least a little bit curious about the debate. It wasn't every day one got to see human politics up close.

Sakura had some gold coins on her still from Limsa that she could use to buy her food. Or rather, one gold coin, and probably a lot of change. Eagerly eating a hamburger, she considered the quarters she had collected and cast a look over at the inviting arcade machines. Then she slapped herself on either side of her head. ”Stay focused…”

As the minutes ticked by, the feeling of anticipation shared among the patrons of Penguin Sniper steadily grew. Normally people would come to a place like this to take a load off, to chat with friends over drinks and play games, but the closer to nine o’ clock it got the more eyes kept wandering back to the TVs. For now, they only delivered the faces and voices of reporters and other media personalities, either extracting or delivering opinions on the state of the candidates’ campaigns, or making predictions about tonight’s debate and how it would affect the last leg of this heated presidential race. Contention, opinion, post-truth tribalism, worry and uncertainty, promises, trust, and representation…it all simmered like a cookpot poised to boil over. Naturally, this heightened atmosphere extended well beyond this lounge; the city of Midgar itself was watching with bated breath. Nowhere was the atmosphere quite as electric, of course, than within Dendemille Showcase Theater itself. The grand auditorium, used as often for Vandelay-sponsored publicity gigs as investor and shareholder conferences, was appropriately awe-inspiring in size, with many descending rows of seats, white marble columns along the sides, and a second level elevated above the ground floor. Ushered toward the designated press rows after the inspection of their passes, Goldlewis and the others quickly took their seats. Upon the stage, in front of two enormous red-and-white banners, stood a pair of wooden podiums facing the audience, but tilted toward one another. For now they stood empty, but not for long. In a matter of minutes, two of the most powerful men in Midgar would be standing here in the flesh. The Seekers had heard about these two long enough; now, they’d see them with their own eyes.

Though it felt like hours, it was a few minutes more before the event began. The lights dimmed, the chatter ceased, and the moderator of the tonight’s debate -a middle-aged man with a thick brown mustache and eyebrows- clasped his hands, stared deep into the camera, and began.

“Good evening from the Dendemille Showcase Theater at the Vandelay Campus in the City of Glass, Midgar Sector 06. I’m H.C. Udo, COG News Hour, and I welcome you to the last of the presidential debates between President Shinra, the Administration incumbent, and Steven Armstrong, Senator of Sector 08. Tonight’s debate, just as with the prior four, is sponsored by the Commission for Presidential Debates. Tonight’s sixty minutes will focus on both domestic and external issues, and will follow a format designed by the Commission. There will be a series of segments with two-minute answers to the posed question, then open discussion for the remainder of each segment. Thousands of people offered suggestions on segment subjects and questions, but I made the final selection, and for the record they were not submitted for approval to the Commission or the candidates. The segments, as I announced beforehand, will have an emphasis throughout on specifics, differences, and choices. Both candidates will also have two-minute closing statements. The audience here is promised to remain silent at all times, so we may all concentrate on what the candidates have to say. However, there will now be one exception, so please join me in welcoming Senator Armstrong and President Shinra.”

Each arrived in the midst of a miniature mob of their own personal security details, independent of the Vandelay SBR units stationed throughout the premises for general security. On one side, cyborgs in expensive suits, their technological augmentations plain to see. Under their protection was a tall, burly man of rare fortitude for a politician, with slicked-back brown hair on the verge of receding, a pronounced forehead above thick-rimmed rectangular glasses, a dimpled chin, and a broad, self-assured smile that exuded natural confidence. Despite his uncommon stature, the leader of his entourage towered above him, drawing hushed whispers and awed gazed. He was a giant among men, ferociously bald, his enormous frame clad in a heavy black trench coat that turned red toward the bottom. After receiving a nod from the man in charge, Sundowner stepped down from the stage to stand on the right side as the rest of the guards seated themselves in the front row to the right side of the moderator’s desk, and Armstrong attended his podium. Not to be outdone, his opponent emerged from the left-hand side of the stage flanked by a handful of Claws, wearing both suits and coats, their faces hidden and their serum-filled injectors glowing softly. Only two of his guards showed their faces: an unremarkable man with a bored look on his face, and the unit captain, a wolf-eared woman with a special variation on the Claws’ armored left arms. Any former Turk would recognize her: Penance, the Auditor known also as the Judge. Once she and the others took their seats on the left side of the front row, President Shinra approached the podium opposite Armstrong. Despite his wrinkles and thinning blonde hair, he had eyes as sharp and ice-blue as an arctic glacier, and his perennial suspicion-filled glare was just as cold. The two approached one another in tacit silence, locked eyes, and shook hands before returning to their podiums.

Susie, seeing the two politicians in the flesh for once, could see why even though Shinra seemed to have that old cougar sort of wit and sharpness behind him, why Armstrong could stand up to him. Armstrong looked like a meathead, and he for sure looked like it. In fact, if she could make him a bodyguard of hers, she would. He looked like he’d be a very strong one. But while she could gleam what Shinra was, she couldn’t really grasp what Armstrong was about besides he was strong. Perhaps Armstrong could be just as manipulative or even more so than Shinra.

Although that being said, Shinra did have better looking security. It was almost like the difference between old and new money, with Shinra being old money and Armstrong being new money. She also noticed that besides one of his guards, Shinra seemed to have superior guards. Perhaps that was because Armstrong was super strong on his own and barely needed security?

Zenkichi sucked in a sharp breath when he saw Penance, hoping against hope that what they’d heard about ‘something’ happening tonight wouldn’t mean any attacks going on. If there was one…well, he hoped they wouldn’t have to fight her. The other guards would be no slouches, but that woman had earned her nickname and her rank fair and square.

He wondered, though, about Armstrong. Shinra was very obviously corrupt to the core, but there was…something…about the contender that he couldn’t place. Something that raised his hackles ever so slightly. Politicians tended to keep themselves in fair enough shape, true, but Armstrong was built like a train and could probably give any Turk one hell of a beatdown. Not only that, but DespoRHado being so gung-ho on backing him, to the point that his security guard consisted solely of cyborgs? He didn’t like it.

Midna didn’t like it either. In her feudal understanding of politics, the two groups showing up to this discussion with large well armed retinues in tow and on prominent display was not a particularly healthy state of affairs. It was a rather blatant show of force on both sides, and she had to wonder if either one would back down should the democratic process, however it worked, not go their way.

While he may not have understood everything, Roxas could recognize a show of force if nothing else. And seeing this one made the Nobody tilt his head, ”This is… supposed to be just a debate, right? Why all the goons and weapons? Are the candidates expecting the other to try to assassinate them or something? I don’t get it.” Unfortunately the idea of appearances and political optics was completely lost on Roxas.

”Oh boy, hope nothing bad starts happening,” Raz said, ”or this place is gonna be lit up.” Wanting to keep track of the peace, and with no better time to start, Raz slipped one of his arms from its too-long sleeve and brought his fingers to his temple under his hood. If anyone asked this was a completely planned bit of deception on Raz’s part, letting him pull off psychic shenanigans - in this case, putting out his mind reader feelers - without being too obvious about it. Not at all something he chanced upon. Again.

”Though it would be both entertaining and enlightening should the politicians come to blows, would it not?” Karin said, clearly amused by the prospect.

Without further ado, Udo posed the first question. “Gentlemen, our first segment is about the Ever Crisis. The Others, the Machines, and Redshift continue to pose a threat to the citizens of Midgar. What are the differences between your plans to gain ground in this protracted conflict? Senator, a coin flip has decided that you’ll go first, you have two minutes.”

Frowning, Armstrong filled his massive lungs with air to reply. “Our citizens have lived in fear of the Ever Crisis for far, far too long. Year after year, the city’s elite sit in their ivory towers behind their walls, happy to send poor young men and women to fight and die on their behalf. Fighting a war of attrition they don’t believe in and can’t win. Why? Because it’s the undercities that suffer most, and that suits the current Administration just fine. As long as they stay in power, and the poor cityfolk die without ever having control of their own destiny, my opponent is happy to let the Ever Crisis come–it’s thanks to this lax attitude that things are as bad as they are! My plan is to take the initiative. To take the fight out of our streets and neighborhoods, and into the Valley of Ruin! To pull the Ever Crisis out by its roots, no matter how deep they go. Only when, and the cage we’ve been hiding in is open, can the people of Midgar be truly free.”

The man had come out swinging, and Shinra looked angrier than ever, but he kept it coldly suppressed as he gave his own answer. “The difference between myself and my opponent is that he has never tasted conflict. He may be in DespoRHado’s pocket, as we all well know, but he knows nothing of the reality of war. So he makes attractive promises, saying ‘we’ll do something at last!’ In truth, his so-called plan will squander all of Midgar’s forces on this wild goose chase, and will result in far more massive casualties than this supposed ‘war of attrition’. And then, the Ever Crisis would go for our throats. But my Administration has not been sitting idle. We have been hard at work to better understand our enemies, and to improve and perfect our countermeasures. Once I am reelected, the coming months will see the scales tip in Midgar’s favor, and the stream of attacks will dwindle to a trickle. Just this morning, in fact, my latest initiative exterminated a horde of Others infesting the subway system outside Sector 05, giving us a crucial strategic foothold. This is just a taste of what’s to come.”

“Your two minutes are up, you may now rebut your opponent,” Udo told them, as if the two men hadn’t practically opened fire already.

Armstrong gladly took the opportunity. “Abandoned old tunnels, a strategic foothold? Don’t make me laugh. It was a cheap publicity stunt, like all your ‘achievements’. You say you’re hard at work, but all the Administration does is subsist until it’s time for some smoke and mirrors to make it look like you’re doing something. Public Security prefers overpolicing and pushing around its own citizens to killing monsters, and while you’re polishing the plates, it’s DespoRHado putting boots on the ground to fight for people down below. I support DespoRHado because they’re the ones making a difference in people’s lives. That’s what matters, Shinra–results!”

“Your populist rabble-rousing is nothing but inflammatory agitation, and it’s dangerous,” Shinra replied. “By inciting uproar among the masses, you seek to use a perfectly functional Administration as a stepping-stone to seize power for yourself, nevermind if the instability leads to disaster in the process. Public Security has been at the forefront of the war on the Others and the Aberrations, while DespoRHado only concerns itself with the Machines. A battle it’s been losing, might I add! Which is why in the coming weeks that the Administration’s defense contract with DespoRHado will be coming to an end–and Vandelay Technologies stepping in to do what your cronies cannot!”

By this point, the whispers and angry murmurs among the audience had swelled, and both candidates’ security details seemed to be one step away from each other’s throats. After a few moments Udo raised his voice, however, calling for calm. “Settle down, settle down!” he told them. “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain civil. This is a presidential debate, not a wrestling ring. That goes for everyone.” He eyed the candidates, who gave him indignant looks in return.

Goldlewis shook his head, his forehead in the palm of his hand. “Goll-ee,” he muttered. This was just the first question.

”Well we already know that some part of the Psych-OSF is turning people into Others, so Mr. Armstrong is kinda right that it’s all a big publicity stunt, isn’t he?” Raz whispered to Goldlewis, who he sat next to because that size difference would be the funniest. The big man gave a stiff nod. Still, Armstrong almost certainly couldn’t have known, so while the Senator had a point Goldlewis didn’t want to fall into the trap of thinking he was in the right just yet. Hopefully things cooled down after this and the team could actually start getting an idea of what the candidates stood for, but the veteran didn’t intend to get his hopes up.

”Maybe he knows because he’s got agents in places people aren’t aware of?” Roxas suggested with a whisper. He recalled in his own world that one of the ways in which Xemnas was able to stay aware of everything going on was because he had people like Xigbar and Saix observing and reporting to him directly. Maybe Armstrong had people like that planted in different sectors and reporting what they see and hear back to him on the sly?

”Given what Raiden said about how DespoRHado worked in his world, they probably have something shady going on under the surface as well… but with a disease that takes over machines running around out there, switching to using Vandelay’s ones might prove disastrous if they don’t have a way to resist that,” Midna (who would not be entirely surprised if DespoRHado would keep that little detail to themselves out of spite) noted from the shadows before coming to a small realization ”But if they are expecting to go up against that, then they’ll be preparing ways to counter it, that adds even more reasons to investigate them for Poppi’s sake.”

Roxas gave a sidelong glance to where Midna was hidden. She was right. And that also meant that Raiden was right all along about DespoRHado, and Roxas decided to say as much, ”It sounds like we should have taken his suggestion to go after them more seriously.”

”Hmm… I can see why Armstrong has the charisma to run against Shinra.” Susie said, scratching her chin.

What a load of crap… Zenkichi thought when Shinra responded to Armstrong's accusations that Midgar was slowly beating back the opponents in the Ever Crisis. Pubsec nearly let an entire undercity get wiped out by Machines to make Armstrong and DesporHado look bad. He didn't buy for a second that Armstrong actually had any way to solve the Ever Crisis, though. Even going out into the Valley of Ruin to attack the Machines was hardly a guarantee of any results given how many bases they had out there. Besides, they had reason to believe DesporHado itself was compromised along with PubSec. Were their two choices in this election really just both rotten to the core? He wasn't sure he wanted to believe it, but he had no reason not to. "I wish we could let people know what's going on without blowing our cover…or looking crazy…" he mumbled.

Though a cacophony of thoughts filled the theater, swirling like a maelstrom on the water, Raz reached out into the storm, sifting through and parsing whatever he could. Upjumped meathead…trying to put us out of business…getting in my way…whatever it takes…shut him up…old hypocrite…just you wait…go ahead and try…Vandelay, replace us?...could break him in two…don’t get cocky... There were a lot of expletives. Almost nobody in the whole place had their mental guard up, except the two candidates. Neither seemed to be as vehement on the inside as they appeared to be on the out. As Raz tried to attune to them, however, he happened to snag a snippet of thought that just about turned him white.

This is already getting good! I won’t have to keep up the act for much longer. I can hardly wait to see what happens when they start to realize...hm? What’s this feeling?

A feeling washed over Raz. A surge of raw panic. Like he’d been covertly watching someone important from afar, only for them to whirl around and stare directly at him. Even though they couldn’t have possibly known.

Well now, that’s even better. I’m gonna have to tune you out though, ‘kay? Gotta wait in line like everyone else. See you real soon…

Then that line of thought disappeared, as suddenly and completely as a fisherman’s hook yanked from the waters.

---

Unlike in the Showcase Theater itself, the people inside Penguin Sniper didn’t need to restrain themselves. Practically everyone with any kind of opinion on Midgar’s political landscape had dropped what they were doing to comment on the proceedings, often repudiating the remarks of one candidate or another and offering insults. And when two people -or groups- happened to have strongly differing views in close proximity, tempers flared. Given that both presidential hopefuls had opened with statements more focused on condemning their opponents than actually shining light on the specifics of their plans, Giovanna couldn’t help but think this made sense. If anything it seemed intentional, this stoking the flames of partisan contention. Armstrong made no bones about it, but even if Shinra was right in condemning it as dangerous, he wasn’t doing much better. A classic case of having your cake and eating it too. These men weren’t trying to have a civil presidential race. She never paid too much attention to stuff like this back in America, but this somehow managed to strike her as even more volatile in comparison. Maybe Midgar’s situation made heated politics like this justified, but Gio didn’t like how the city felt like a tinderbox ready to go up in smoke. Still, one thing was preventing any actual conflict in Penguin Sniper for the moment–the fact that the overwhelming majority around here seemed to be in favor of Shinra. Anyone who thought otherwise probably wouldn’t dare to speak up.

Still, all the hubbub made it really hard for Tora to work. Wanting nothing more than peace and quiet to concentrate on his work, he found himself utterly unable to focus. It wasn’t just the chatter, but the heightened emotion around him that poked and prodded at him like so many mosquitoes. No way he could get anything done in a situation like this. Thus he pushed aside his computer for the time being and stared glumly at the nearest television, nibbling at a small carton of fries; if for no other reason than to get Blazermate off his back. His face was one of abject misery. Every minute that passed him by felt like time in which Poppi was slipping farther away.

”Wow, Armstrong is a meat mountain isn’t he?” Blazermate said, having watched the debate. Sadly there wasn’t much she caught onto from viewing things so far.

"No kidding!"

"Man's large enough to lift a wagon, it looks." Geralt half-seriously commented. Armstrong was not your average noble. He possessed neither the robust gut nor well-manicured frame that the upper class tended to gravitate towards in his experience, instead looking like he could put any witcher to shame in the physicality department. A small part of him wondered if he had any hidden enhancements like the cyborgs he was so close with, but he figured a city as invasive and obsessed with surveilling the every move of the populace as this one would be well aware of that fact and making it obvious. The things the two candidates were saying barely registered with Geralt beyond the fact that Armstrong was blaming Shinra for not making Midgar a city paved with gold and fed with exotic wines and spices, while Shinra warned that Armstrong would burn the city to the ground in his desperate quest for power. He’d much rather be drowning in ale than watching this nonsense, but instead he simply drank water and ate some fatty food to keep himself sated.

Sakura had her cheek resting in her hand. ”They should fight each other.” Sakura said, unknowingly echoing the sentiment of her friend Karin at the event itself.

"That'd be unfair for the old guy," Pit responded, "his opponent's like three times his size!"

He'd been watching the debate with brows furrowed and head tilted, actually trying to retain some of what the candidates were saying... but even though they'd been talking a lot, it didn't seem like either one of them actually answered the question they'd been posed. With no concrete information to grasp onto, it was easy for the angel's brain to slide from the proceedings to Sakura's suggestion.

"But maybe they could pick champions to fight for them. Did you guys see the big bald guy and the lady with the metal-y arm earlier? Tons of kings and gods do that." Of course in his experience, most gods didn't bother with debating anyway, skipping right to the violence. Judging by what was showing on the screen, it looked like that might still be in the cards if tension continued to build.

Fingers chafing within the metal casting of his gauntlets, blistered hands grasped the rocky outcroppings of the pitch black cave pausing to catch his breath peering to the only point of light in the dark, abyss-spanning cavern that yawned infinitely downwards.

Below him the darkness followed, a miasma of the night that took the form of a drifting shadow with faint pinpoints of light for eyes and outstretched tendrils for arms that reached outwards to the one that feared it's touch the most.

It could not, would not touch the one it chased; Walker of the Abyss the darkness called in a soft voice that echoed within the knights mind What causes thou to flee? he wanted to scream, to claw his way out of the darkness he must see the light, the beautiful rays of incandescent light that flitted in from the sky above.

He fought against the darkness to drag his body towards the captivating, almost blinding light. Then laying upon the precipice of a mountain, above the clouds so pearlescent and fluffy in the splendor of the celestial heavens he screamed for the light was not warm and welcoming, the light was no sun that shone incandescently but an almost angelic being. Every atom of his being began to dissolve, screaming as the horrific creature's gaze burned not only his physical being but the very essence of his soul.


Catching his breath, the knight drew a inaudible sigh wiping a bead of sweat with the back of his wrist as he blinked away the wetness around his eyes to clear his vision. Artorias' chest rose and fell with each uneven breath filling his lungs, he stared for hours in silence to the embers of the flame that the others gathered around.

'But then there was Fire and with fire came disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, and of course, light and dark.' the knight spoke in hushed words beneath his breath as he looked into the fire. The words were of course those told of the Age of Fire, one which he saw but never witnessed the end of. He knew nothing of the Darksign, Gwyn's madness or the slow decay of Lordran but he was beginning to question the evil of the Abyss or at least that of this strange worlds Abyss.

For now he could feel it in his dream, mind and body as it tried to beckon him to safety. Yet it was not evil, where the light sought to destroy everything in it's path even him. Artorias sat there in silence staring at the flames dancing, deep in his thoughts.

As fast as the felynes were at their work, they couldn't beat instant teleportation. So it was that the Ace Cadet was the first to arrive back at the Grammeowster's Kitchen. He appeared in the living quarters above the restaurant itself, the homeward bone he'd unwittingly used to get there crumbling to dust in his hand. He had a minor case of vertigo, plus that spine tingling feeling he got when magic was involved, so the hunter let himself lay on the ground for a bit - at least until he realized that he wasn't alone in the room.

He pushed himself to his feat, worse for wear, giving Lucia, Frisk, and Albedo no time to question where he'd come from before he filled them in himself. He paused in his story telling only to take a potion and then dove right back in, telling them all about what the three (and eventually, four) Seekers had seen and done - and the fate they'd succumbed to.

It wasn't much later that the rest of his group showed up at the restaurant's doorstep, unceremoniously dumped by the Felynes that had rescued them. Classic - it meant their charges were alive and well. Once everyone was ushered upstairs and reunited once more, a more in depth explanation was given to those that stayed behind and discussion began.

"It was basically like cheating," the Cadet added when Lucia remarked on the Consul's abilities. He'd already drained his tea and at some point had gone to get another cup plus a tray of food, which sat in front of him on the table.

"I don't know if it was really time control or what, it was like... he flapped his hand, trying to pull the right words from the air. "Blinking, and stopping? Whatever it is, it giggisux."

It was hard to describe, especially because it was hard to even grasp what it was, and what it was doing to them. Albedo pointed out that it had its flaws, it wasn't unbeatable. There couldn't really be a power out there that totally perfect anyway, or so the Cadet believed. He nodded his head, agreeing with Albedo's assessment now that he was looking back on the fight with hindsight. There was another thing too - it all started with that "connection." Maybe if they avoided that, the latency wouldn't effect them in the first place.

When Band mentioned he was already looking for a rematch, the Cadet shot the man a grin. "It'd feel great to clean his clock, that's for sure."

But there were a lot of things to consider, which were brought up the next moment. The matter of L, who might join the battle after having healed herself. The Consul's locations, which most likely would have changed from the Aether Paradise. The "Flame Clock" was something that the Cadet had no idea where to start. It was a clock that didn't tell time, instead if filled up with light and somehow able to heal? Probably some magic thing that he brushed off.

And of course, there was the matter of Linkle.

"That's a great idea!" the Ace Cadet said once Albedo put forth his suggestion. That morning the hunter had come to the conclusion that the Hylian was looking for them too, so it would be best to find her as soon as possible. "With a hero of justice like her back on our side there's no way we'd lose. And we'll be able to help her out with the whole skull-curse she's got going on."

In the hours before night fall he could prepare; concoct, restock, maintain his equipment... Tonight when they went looking for her, he wouldn't fail again.

As the uproar from the candidates’ ferocious opening exchange died down, the moderator shook his head and reached out for a sip from his drink. It was a simple glass, half water and half syrup. Before drinking he made sure to swirl it around a few times, mixing up the bland water and saccharine sludge into something diluted and palatable. Once he refreshed himself, he straightened his rustling papers, and launched into the debate’s second question.

“As we continue to address topics related to the Ever Crisis, please focus on the specifics of your policies. Gentlemen, the common conception is that the Psychonaut Other Suppression Force, known more commonly as Psych-OSF or the Scarlet Guardians, are Midgar’s greatest weapon against the Ever Crisis. How do you plan to leverage and if necessary change this organization moving forward? Mr. President, you first, please.”

A question on the Psych-OSF for the man currently in charge of it? Raz couldn’t miss the opportunity. He focused his psi-energy on Shinra, prepared to read whatever thoughts passed through his mind on the subject.

Shinra straightened up his posture slightly. “Under my administration, Psych-OSF will continue to grow in strength, scope, and range of deployment. While some might deride the organization as a tool of the elite confined to Sector 05, the reality is that Psych-OSF is frequently deployed to other Sectors, and to the undercities as well. The operation I previously mentioned is one such example, and we’re going to ramp up such deployments by establishing bases in as many sectors as possible. This is possible thanks to the OSF’s ongoing recruitment campaign. We’re seeing record numbers across the board, and planning even more expansion down the line, with a special focus on offering opportunities to the disadvantaged. I’m confident that Psych-OSF will be fighting not just against the Others, but on all fronts of the Ever Crisis within my first year of reelection.”

When Raz cast his mind toward Shinra, he was able to lay his psychic touch on the right tracks to feel the rumbles of his train of thought. Working a treat…commendable results…Hojo’s project…all thanks to Zanotto…don’t suspect a thing…soon they’ll be…won’t stand a chance…total control.

Armstrong had been waiting almost eagerly for his turn. “Throwing more people at a problem won’t always get you better results, faster. If my opponent saw a woman who’d give birth in nine months, he’d assign eight more women to have the baby out in one. The higher you build on shaky foundations, the sooner everything comes crashing down. What Psych-OSF needs is reform.” He shook his fist for emphasis. “Right now it's a colossus of different platoons, committees, and divisions, all spiraling out of control in different directions, leaving countless loopholes and blindspots where corruption seeps in. Its Septentrions are celebrities with their own fashion lines and action figures, dedicated more to their public image than solving the Other crisis. It’s not professional, and it’s not right. And who’s in charge of all this power? The same man in charge of General Affairs, Neuron, and Peace Preservation, Akira Konoe. That’s too much power -and responsibility- for any one man, even if he thinks he’s some kind of superhero. Where are the checks and balances? There’s only one entity not eating out of the government’s hand, and my opponent has already stated his intention to replace it with one that is.” He threw up his hands. “Once Psych-OSF is course-corrected by my comprehensive reforms, it can really start helping people, and not just those in Suoh!”

Circling back to a point that Shinra already felt he defended against made the man massage the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Putting aside my opponent’s patently wrong metaphor, tasteless and crude though it is…his argument is merely another attempt to tear the Administration down without offering anything concrete of his own to back it up. Regardless of how the media portrays them, the Septentrions are strong, and fighting each day to ensure the safety of Midgar’s citizens. As for the consolidation of power, is it not more important now than ever to stand united against our common threats? It is rogue elements that operate behind the Administration’s back that offer the greatest threat to internal security, not any imagined phantoms of corruption within Psych-OSF.”

“‘Imagined’?” Armstrong scoffed. “Give me a break. Sure, many of the psionics are fighting the good fight, but how much goes on behind the scenes? The sheer lengths that Grand head Zanotto has gone to cultivate the facade of the heroic Scarlet Guardians is telling. These cheap diversion tactics…the people aren’t fooled, Shinra! When I’m elected, I promise to investigate every inch of the Otherlobe, and bring every last trespass to light. The people deserve to know!”

There was, Midna knew, quite a lot to find. From Other creation capability to the legacy of the Psyfish experiments and dumping. It was also interesting that the president seemed entirely aware of the dissidents, and thus, most likely what they were fighting against. Points in Armstrongs favor certainly, if such things were being tallied, though given he was on the attack, he certainly had an easier time scoring those.

”Uh… is it bad if I’m starting to agree with that Senator?” Roxas asked the other Seekers with a soft whisper. Granted, he was a bit biased on this topic considering the feelings he displayed yesterday in Suoh. But, at least for the time being, Armstrong sounded like the one who was making the most sense. Which was kinda eerie, since moments earlier Roxas himself had been the one to suggest that Armstrong might have had some kind of spy network throughout the sectors. Really, the only good point Shinra seemed to have was that Armstrong didn’t offer any specific suggestions for how he would change things.

”Ah, man.” Roxas rubbed the sides of his head, ”Thinkin’ about this stuff is giving me a headache.”

"...Huh. Yeah, he's…actually one hundred percent right about Konoe. Guy thinks he's the only real hero left, or he did in my world. I don't know if he's the same here." Zenkichi shook his head. It was really easy to get swept up in the rhetoric, especially when you knew the guy had a damn good point. But it was still very much rhetoric. Armstrong talked a big game of change, reform, and rooting out corruption, but between the deep roots of the corruption, his own attachment to DesporHado and brutes like Khamsin, and the general resistance of large organizations to radical changes to their function and structure, Zenkichi wondered how much of this was just the political equivalent of two drunks in a bar saying how they could do a better job than their boss.

”Of course you’re agreeing with him.” Karin said. ”He’s a charismatic speaker. People are unhappy with how things are, so he promises change, with a fiery demeanor.” Karin brushed a coil of golden ringlets behind her ear.

”It’s boring to argue for the status quo. Fortunately, being the incumbent means most people will vote for Shinra on name recognition and stability alone.” Karin said. ”All he has to do is not perform some kind of blunder. Best case scenario, he gets his opponent to flub, to damage his optics and make himself look better.” Karin smiled.

”Politics are politics. I’m just hearing ‘complaint complaint complaint’ from Armstrong with only vague ways of fixing things. He might be a hulky man, and his charisma does carry him, but he's said nothing of substance so far.” Susie said, replying to the others.

"Exactly." Zenkichi followed up, shaking his head. "Armstrong talks a big game, and he might at least have a good eye for people, but that doesn't make him a strategist or a commander that can win a war on three fronts. And if Konoe has as much in his pocket as I think he does, he might just be making himself a target…" There were pretty obvious problems with both candidates that Zenkichi could see, though the average citizen in Midgar had no idea whether either of them were telling the truth or not. Some part of him wondered why Shinra was willing to admit to 'rogue elements' in the ranks, however. That felt like something to keep close to your chest.

”Well, President Shinra is definitely running the Turning People Into Others plot,” Raz said after a while of silence, just trying to process what thoughts he picked up on. ”Something about it being this ‘Hojo’ guy’s project, and…” He hesitated, afraid of what the next part meant. ”And it sounds like… like Grand Head Truman Zanotto is involved too. But he wouldn’t be a part of something like that!”

That earned him a glance from Goldlewis. Had the little psychic really gleaned a direct confirmation from Shinra’s mind? If that plot went all the way to the top, no-one was safe. Just the thought that there might be snipers with metamorphosis cartridges in this very room made the big man shiver.

---

Sakura blinked slowly, watching the TV. Her cheek was pushed up on her palm now, her fingers drumming on the table. This was her toughest challenge yet. Sakura might be nearing her limit. ”Limbs…failing…consciousness…fading…” Sakura said dramatically, thunking her head against the table.

Her theatrics earned her a glance from Giovanna. While the secret agent might be better at hiding it thanks to the demands of her profession, she felt pretty much the same way. Neither of these men represented a bright future for anyone as far as she could tell, much less all of Midgar. That just left two old brutes bantering back and forth in a punchy exchange of barbed words, which didn’t exactly make for enjoyable television. After another moment, Giovanna strode over to the street fighter and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey. Wanna play a game of darts?” She jabbed a thumb at one of the machines along Penguin Sniper’s far wall.

Sakura shot back up to sitting and blushed, feeling immature. But it was clear the offer intrigued her greatly. ”Could we? I mean, can we? I mean, is that allowed?” Sakura asked, already standing. She had tried to stay focused on the debate, on account of all the trouble they went through and its alleged importance. So the guilt of just goofing off after all that had kept her trying to remain focused on politics. But if Giovanna, who seemed like she knew what she was doing, offered her an out…she’d take it!

Giovanna nodded, slightly amused by Sakura’s tentative response. “Yeah, that’s what this place is for. C’mon.”

Sakura clapped and then bowed, before eagerly following Giovanna to play a game.

”Man… This is why I don’t care for politics. I just wanna see them fight each other. That’d be way more entertaining.” Blazermate said, still hovering near Tora to make sure he didn’t do anything silly, but since he ate she was’t hovering over his shoulder anymore.

Pit watched Sakura and Giovanna wander off to play a round before his gaze floated back to one of the large wall-mounted TVs, glancing at Blazermate along the way. "Are debates always like this? Seems like they're just arguing without really saying anything." If he wasn't occupying a stool he would have started slumping in his seat. Instead, he took to swinging his legs.

"Wouldn't know." Geralt replied simply. "Politics isn't exactly a matter of public opinion where I'm from. Even the tribes of Skellige elected their king from among the nobility rather than passing it down by blood, but it was feats of strength and bravery that showed your aptitude, not talking at each other. And no, they didn't fight each other for the crown." Geralt added to keep Blazermate from getting the wrong idea.

Rubick watched as everyone got set up for the night. Or more specifically, watched Sectonia's minions set up tents that were larger on the inside and comfortable-looking bedrolls. Rubick marveled at the features of this camping set, poking his head into each tent. Looking back outside, he noticed that a few others had arrived, presumably after chasing off the rest of their pursuers. One of them, Nadia, was already asleep on the ground. As the others seemed to be minding their own business, Rubick tilted his head quizzically. Was it really that comfortable to sleep on the ground, even if it was made of cheese, as opposed to being inside a tent? He then shrugged and lifted her up with Telekinesis, taking her back into a tent anyway. He set her down gently onto a bedroll before making his way into a different tent, claiming it for himself. He made sure to straighten his robes, then got himself comfortable. He barely had a chance to think about how much more comfortable it was than it looked before falling asleep.

”One, two, three-” Bowser muttered drowsily to himself as he counted the number of people in their party once the doors shut, and came to the fortuitous conclusion that ”and yup, that’s everyone”

”Remarkable work on escaping everyone, and it looks like we’re safe, for now, at least” Kamek, who was only barely holding himself up using his broom as a walking stick, offered as praise to the successful city escapers. After seeing him in this condition, Barnabee courteously lent the old reptile a hand. Out of everyone who made it here, the Hive Knight was in the best condition by a long shot, thanks to his abstinence from the fight with Consul P and the warp-dashes that made him a frontrunner in the Seekers’ flight from the Home of Tears. Thus, he happily offered his assistance to anyone who needed it.

”I mean, Purse did say it was dangerous, but maybe that is just the upper floors like those tree stump guys said?” Rika theorized worriedly, as her scout plane swooped around the rafters to check if that was the case. Neither her scouts nor Barnabee could detect anything wrong though, at least not in the tower’s ground floor. Those hallways with their weird portal-doors might be another matter, but neither dared to go through.

”Even if there is nasty stuff hiding out there, I don’t care, I am beat” Jr replied. The prince might have not had to do any running, having rode first his car and then drake back when his machine got totaled by a kick, but he’d been on healer duty since they arrived at the tower, and his body burned with fatigue and mana overuse resulting from having healed each and every single person back up to full hp, just incase they had had to keep fleeing.

However, with the gates barred, and nothing hammering at them, at least audibly, it seemed that they really were in the clear. The moment that became clear the troop all piled over to warm themselves by the roaring fire. Gauntlets and armor were removed, weapons put aside, and guards were finally dropped.

Well, after a few dry bones were deployed to act as guards anyway, you could never be too careful, especially now that they knew that just not ticking off the Gleaming was enough to be safe from their lifelight touched minds.

”So I guess nowhere’s safe now, huh” Jr said, broaching that subject, but from the rest of the Troop he got no answer. Despite the fancy camping equipment available, the other three had more or less conked out moments after sitting by the fire. Kamek sat with his new wizard’s hat tipped over his eyes just a little ways off, while Bowser was hunched over, with Rika lightly hugged to his side, stilling the nightmares she had immediately started having of friends turning to foes.

The prince longed to join them, but the slowly dulling burnt feeling caused by mana overuse that the same spells that had caused it ironically could not cure was keeping him up. So instead he took a look around to see if anyone else was resisting or being denied the call of slumber.

”Huh, you guys came prepared,” Ichiban said to no one in particular as he picked a nice puffy sleeping bag from the piles of supplies. ”Guess it makes sense. You’ve all been doin’ it for a while now, yeah?” Noticing how many of their party were already conked out, Ichiban decided not to keep blabbing and walked to the fire. He laid his bedroll out on the fringes of its warmth and sat down. Out of combat, his outfit had returned to the normal frumpled suit of his. He wasn’t going to sleep just yet though, instead sitting cross legged and staring into the fire, just… hanging out.

”About … 5 days at this point” Jr replied, counting them off on his fingers ”and this stuff is new as well so, ehhh, we aren't that prepared. Just kind of winging it and hoping we find a town by the end of the day. Guess we’re lucky queen bee got this stuff when she did”

While he spoke, the prince pulled over his beat up flying machine from where it had been set down, took a quick look at the internals and started trying to do something about the mess being used as a shield and then being kicked had done to it. After a few moments he ended up giving up however, as it quickly it became clear that not being able to sleep did not mean he had the mental or physical energy to do any engineering

”Not that we’ve not had adventures and stuff before though, though a lot of the times papa’s the bad guy who the hero is trying to stop for those” the kid then went on to say ”It’s kinda fun to be on the other side of things, except for all the stress and death and horror and other not fun stuff”

"Hmph, in other words, you've been getting lucky." Ganondorf commented rather bluntly. He didn't try to be hostile or argumentative, though. He was too tired for that. The Gerudo sat a few meters away from Jr and Ichiban, leaned back against the wall. But he wasn't paying full attention to the conversation. He was examining something that he held in one of his hands. The other Seekers would recognize it as a Spirit. And it wasn't the only one in his possession, as the King of Evil possessed a second one that he held in his other hand that currently rested on the floor.

"What a waste of perfectly good talent." He said in reference to the individuals he had obviously had to kill, "I'd have preferred to add them to my army. They were quite tough." he added with an almost disappointed tone. But he knew he had to do something with these Spirits otherwise they would fade away and be further wasted.

”We did also have a vague map to find those towns, but only those on the surface. And cars for a bit to get around. Everythings got so much tougher since the Consuls showed up and started messing with us” Jr complained, before frowning a little at the spirits. ”Couldn’t you have, you know, just not killed them then?” he asked after a few moments.

”I don’t believe that would have been possible.” Ganondorf answered after a brief pause of thought, ”These two were relentless, they hounded me nonstop while I was retreating through the cavern,” and then as if prove his point he held up his hand that held Riptor’s spirit for the Koopa kid to see, ”This one especially. It doesn’t help that I defeated them once already in the Thorn, so it’s possible they wanted revenge for that defeat in addition to being controlled.”

”So you weren't fast, smart, or strong enough to get away without killing them. Got it” the prince casually sniped, before pointing out that ”if you want them in your army, just make them strikers” before snapping his fingers ”oh, I should do the same with the flukes. The flying ones could be good” before popping open his car’s glove box and rummaging around for the glass bottle he used for spirit storage.

Exhaustion prevented tempers from flaring too high, but to make sure of that Primrose chose this point to let out a sigh and stand up. She had been resting with her legs drawn up and her head laying on her knees, eyes closed but not sleeping. The dancer didn't feel comfortable enough to sleep out in the "open" like this, in the lobby of some strange and apparently dangerous tower. Even surrounded by allies, despite the days of danger she'd shared with them so far. She stretched lightly and then quietly approached those still awake, starting with the King of Evil.

"Take this," she said, handing him a delicate, pinkish red pearl. She brushed her hair back to reveal a similar one fashioned as an earring. "Affix it to your ear. It will make communicating easier."

She moved on to Ichiban then Bowser Jr. (giving the prince extras for his family when they woke up), as well as any others awake. Nearby they could see that Therion, still in his beast form and curled up nearest the fire, had one connected to his cat ear as well. Barnabee accepted a linkpearl without complaint. “Thank you, kind maiden,” he told her. “I regret most keenly mine absence from thy battle against the city’s foul despot. Shouldst thy company fall, after all, the hope of Her Majesty’s ill-fated kingdom would die with thee. Now, the fanged blade of the Hive Knight shall know no further truancy!”

”I mean, you weren't the only one. Plus Rika said you helped out a lot on that dicy raid on the crawlers in the dark, or whatever they were called, e’s base so, eh, don’t worry about it” Jr told the bee man as he found a spot for the spare earbuds, putting down the fluke and fallen adventurer filled jar to do so. Then he took his own, tried to put it in where his ears used to be, found only scales, got confused for a very long tired moment, before going ”ooooh, right” and putting it into one of his cat ears instead.

”So are these, like, tiny phones or something? Oh or like sci-fi communicator things? That’s neat if so” he asked as he tried to get it to work with a ”Testing 1 2 1 2”

"It's some kind of magic," she replied, "just focus on them and you should be able to use it."

She demonstrated what had worked for her so far, holding a hand up to her ear and speaking softly. Her voice filtered through the matching pearls. She glanced at Barnabee, amused at the way he'd put his regret about not fighting with them against the Consul. "Indeed, this should help keep us all together - or keep informed when we split up."

”ahhhh, got it” Jr replied as he heard her voice in his ear, before doing one or two more tests of his own till he could send a response. Once done, he asked ”Where’d you get these anyway?”

"The Mermaid Corps were kind enough to give us a shell that makes them," she said, which might as well have been the truth. She and Therion had been led right into their base of operations, then to the captain's office where the handy magic device was just sitting unsecured. As the thief would put it, they were just asking for it to be taken. Primrose didn't show off the linkshell, just taking a seat after she'd passed out all of the pearls to those awake and lounging on her elbows. "And considering what just happened, it was the least they could do." Mind controlled or not.

”Yeah you don’t say. Can clear their own sewers or whatever, but when it came to hunting us down they were relentless. Their captain especially” Jr agreed, mostly in jest, before picking up the tape they’d recorded, twiddling it between two fingers ”We got a bit more from her as well before we sent her home.”

Jesse took Primrose’s pearl and held it between her fingers. “Thanks, Primrose.” She said. “It matches my hair.” She attached it to her ear. “Well, no, it doesn’t. But still, thanks.”

Ichiban turned his pearl over a few times, trying to see if he could figure out how it worked, which was never going to get very far. As he clipped it to his earlobe he said, ”kinda reminds me of these little ear things back in Ijincho. They worked the same, I think, where you connect ‘em to your phone and can talk and make calls without usin’ your hands. I never had one though.” He looked into the fire again, and sighed. He glanced between the other three, Jr, Ganondorf, and Primrose, before he continued talking, to the group as a whole.

”Before all of this happened-” he waved vaguely in the air, ”-there was a while where I was homeless, livin’ in a camp with other homeless people. This kinda reminds me of it. It was rough, but honestly, I don’t feel sad when I look back on it. I made some real great friends at that camp. They helped me get on my feet, showed me how to survive - heck, one of them even saved me from dyin’.” Noticing he was rambling, Ichiban scratched the back of his neck. ”Ah, hahah, sorry about that. Didn’t mean to make a spiel of it. It was just on my mind is all…”

”It’s fine.” From inside the sleeping bag he grabbed Omori finally spoke up to Ichiban. He sat up quietly, as to not wake Mewo up. Had he been awake the whole time? The boy glanced around at everyone else still up, subtly tensing up when he caught sight of the spirits Ganondorf held. He couldn’t imagine repeating his mistake killing anyone from the Home of Tears willingly, but between Junior and Ganondorf in their brief argument, he had to take the King of Evil’s side on this. It didn’t sound like he had a choice. He offered an apologetic glance at Ganondorf before turning his attention back to the fire. ”It’s good to talk.”

After the Gerudo flared his nostrils at Jr’s insolent remark, whatever he was about to say was cut off by the sudden gift from the dancer. Ganondorf said nothing, but he took the earring regardless. However he didn’t put it on his ear immediately. Instead he just stashed it in the satchel with his potions for the time being. And then he pushed himself to his feet, ”Then by all means, talk to your hearts’ content.” he suddenly said with a snappy tone, ”I’ve had all I can stand for one day.” He began to walk away from the group, albeit slowly due to his exhaustion.

That’s the last time I try to be civil with those idiotic Koopas. If these people want to play hard ball and make snide remarks, then so be it. ‘Friends’ indeed. Tch, what a joke.

…Well then. Omori slightly frowned at Ganondorf leaving. Maybe he should go after him? Barnabee just watched him go, displeased by the man’s tone. Such surliness was more demonstrative than anything; there wasn’t anywhere else in the Hub for Ganondorf to go. Hopefully he didn’t disturb those trying to sleep, any more than the conversationalists were anyway.

Jr meanwhile had almost entirely forgotten that he’d made the remark in the beginning, and instead was replying to Ichiban’s spiel by clarifying that ”We do have a home though. Or like a home base I mean. It’s this city called Alcamoth. Its all domes and glass and it floats and stuff. There’s a load of other non-Galeeming people there and everything”

”People who I guess we should probably update on this stuff at some point. You know about the clocks and Consuls and things”

"Mhm. Hopefully these little pearls will eventually help with keeping in touch with Alcamoth too, but in the meantime we could summon one of those Moogles... in the morning."

Primrose's gaze had trailed after the Gerudo King, only just keeping herself from rolling her eyes. Leave it to grown men to act as children, she thought to herself, having experienced plenty of that in her lifetime. She looked back toward the others when she spoke, fetching another Linkpearl from her bag and passing it over to Omori now that the boy was up and tapping her ear so he knew where to put it. He took a moment to curiously look at the Linkpearl, then connected it to his ear.

"I'd take comfort in the familiar while you can; it's something one can seldom do in this world, I've found," the dancer added, directed at Ichiban.

”Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” Ichiban said to Jr, then to Primrose. ”I meant like, right here ‘n now. Sitting by this fire, in tents. Guess it’s not so poetic since it’s just exactly how I was livin’ then…” He shook his head. ”Well, if it’s no trouble, what’re your guys’ stories? I know a bit about some of ya already,” he continued, gesturing to Bowser and Ganondorf as he left, ”but th’ rest I’m pretty clueless on. Only if y’feel comfortable talkin’ about it.”

Omori shrugged. ”I live in White Space. Me and my friends were searching for my best friend, Basil, before Galeem hit us. He went missing.” He slightly frowned again. [b]”Still is.”

“All my life, prior to my exile, I faithfully served Her Majesty, Queen Vespa, in the Hive,” Barnabee replied simply. There wasn’t much more to it than that.

”Speaking of that, did we get chased in the right or entirely wrong way to get there” Jr interjected to ask.

Barnabee rubbed his fuzzy head, slicking back his feelers in the process, though they bounced right back into their upright position after. “Tis hard to say exactly, young sir. The Hive lies beyond the lower reaches of the bleak Forsaken Lands. On my way hence I ascended to the loftiest heights of said dreary cavern, whereupon I made my way through an expansive crypt and underground wood called Hollow Bough. I can only urge thee to keep thine eyes peeled for any such landmarks as we proceed.”

”Gotcha.”

Primrose listened to all the stories being told, making some mental notes on everyone. Though she still didn't plan on sleeping she'd shifted into a more comfortable position, and the conversation made for a good way to stay awake. When there was a lull she considered talking about herself. As far as she'd always been concerned her past was her business and no one else's, and even her closest friends didn't have the whole story when it came to her. But a few personality edits courtesy of fusion and one world changing event later, she found that she didn't mind the thought of talking about herself quite as much. Though some things she would leave out due to present company. Even if the kids had seen their fair share of horrors in the World of Light, she could spare them a little more.

"My life before was much like this," she began, "traveling the country, helping people. Well, mostly helping ourselves achieve our own goals - anyone else was only by happenstance. There was a group of us. Some of you may have already known that Therion was one of my traveling companions. We're from the same place, Orsterra.

"Before that I was a dancer." Here she would have fluttered her fan for dramatic effect, if she weren't so tired. "I was always on the lookout for a certain group of men. I still am, really."

She stopped there. It was enough to give her allies a little glimpse into her past, but nowhere near the entire picture. She capped off her tale with a warning, her voice turning sharp and dangerous, "They were evil men, each with the mark of a crow. So if you happen to see anyone with a crow-shaped tattoo, stay away - and tell me immediately."

The Hive Knight gave her a sagacious nod. He knew such villains were never to be trifled with, only to be dealt swift and uncompromising justice. “Thou hast my word.”

“You got it.” Jesse said. “Eyes peeled.” Though when she spoke up, she felt like maybe she should talk, too. “Er- I’m basically a government employee who fights monsters and collects doodads.” She said.

“Before that, well-” She waves her hand dismissively. “It’s a whole thing. Mood’s bad enough as it is.” She said good-naturedly, rubbing her shoulder. “But my job is actually pretty cool. Our HQ actually got pulled through, so hopefully we can make our way up there at some point. It’s north of here, as north as it gets in this world, I think. I might have to head back up there early though. Only reason I left was because I was Gleaming and didn’t know the full story.” Jesse scratched her jaw, and finished with a shrug.

”Huh. Guess we’re all kinda lookin’ for something here,” Ichiban noted, ”ya know, outside of the big stuff.” There were plenty more questions he had to ask them, but he didn’t want to keep anyone awake with them. ”I hope my friends are doin’ alright out there at least.”

“Here’s to savin’ the world, then.” Jesse said.

When Therion laid down on the warm stone beside the oven, not even bothering to return to his human form and just curling up as a cat to let his fur dry, he neither intended nor expected to fall asleep. His head was laid across his front paws, and his eyes were closed but his ears were perked up and swiveling subtly towards the Seekers still awake as they talked in hushed tones. Eventually, their voices blended together into a low rumble. When the adrenaline in his system wore off it took all of his energy with it. The few hours he'd napped earlier were not enough to keep his mind awake.

His breathing evened out and he went slowly from dozing to dreaming.


A lot of the time it was easy for Therion to tell that he was in a dream. He didn't often have them in the first place, given his propensity for sleeping in short segments of time. Tonight he found himself walking a well worn path on a bright autumn day, and though he sensed that it wasn't real at first his consciousness gradually gave in to the illusion.

"Mr. Therion!"

He turned to see a woman hurrying up to him. She was dressed in a simple teal kimono and had a gentle, if somewhat nervous smile on her face. Therion himself had a similar outfit on, though it was a faded purple in color, and where the manacle usually hung on his wrist there was a woven bracelet instead. When she was close enough the woman held a small cloth parcel out to him.

"Here. I wanted to give you these. They are— o-oh, you're opening them now?"

Bundled up inside were a few pastries, delightfully golden brown and smelling faintly of apples. They were still slightly warm to the touch. Therion stared at them for what must have been a worryingly long amount of time, because the blonde woman fidgeted and asked, "Do they look alright...? I wasn't sure if they would be to your liking."

"They're fine - I mean, they look good. I'm just... wondering why you're giving them to me."

Because he knew this person, though her name slipped away from his mind. It wasn't something he would have expected her to do. She was a jailer, or a benefactor, or... no, she was a neighbor.

Right, she lived just down the road in the village. His lived experience and his dream bled together, and inside the dream he was none the wiser. Not only was she a neighbor, but she also purchased a lot of apples from him - she was probably his best local customer, as most of the other fruits form his small orchard were packed in barrels and sold to sea-faring merchants.

The woman smiled again. "I just thought you'd like a taste of what your apples are being used for. "

"That so? Then I'll be sure to eat them." He wrapped them back up and gave her a small smile in return, watching her cheeks turn pink. "Thank you."

"You're quite welcome Mr. Therion. Now, I should leave you to it..."

They said their goodbyes and Therion continued his walk. He'd just come from market, his baskets blessedly empty as he crested the hill that led to his home. It was a small house, one that would have been wholly unfamiliar to him in the waking world. Wooden with a sloping hip-and-gable roof, sliding reed doors and tatami mat floors. Behind the house was his pride and joy, the dozen or so apple trees that made up his grove.

He went inside and took to eating the pastries. After a short rest he'd be back to packing baskets to take to market for tomorrow while the ripening season lasted.

His days continued on like that, as they had for the past few years. If the off seasons he spent his time watching the village slowly expand - it was far from the largest town, but being close to the sea it made for an easy spot for travelers to visit, and sometimes to stay. Gradually the town gained other draws too, like the small dojo run by a stern, but kind man with salt and pepper hair. He hadn't been able to keep a grin from his face when Therion cracked a joke about their similar facial scars when they'd first met. A little further past the village into the mountains was even a shrine tended to by a miko and mysterious kagura dancer that saw regular visitors.

Once, when another autumn had come and gone and winter was cooling the area down with the first signs of frost, Therion had even discovered that the house opposite his own which had sat empty for years had finally been purchased. The young man dabbled in medicine of some kind, and they'd met when he was marveling at the trees just across the street.

"Ya gotta let me help with the crop," he'd told Therion with a bright, slightly lopsided smile, a sprig of grass hanging from his mouth. "I won't even ask for nothing, if we're gonna be neighbors its only right to lend a hand. But if ya felt like sharing some fruit, I sure wouldn't say no!"

And he had ended up helping the next harvest, and the ones after that. Market trips were a lot more lively, as the man would chat anyone up, including the woman that Therion would often trade with, fruit for meats, though he'd hardly spoken to her prior. On their way back from port the stately blonde, now their collective neighbor, took to baking extras and gifting it to the two men whenever she got the chance. She was a busy woman herself lately, funding a library in town and working to stock it together with the wise man she'd invited to manage the place.

It felt good to see the town grow. It felt like soon their village might even become a major business hub in the future, and wouldn't that be a sight? Today though had been a long one, and Therion was looking forward to turning in early.

"See you tomorrow," he said, waving a lazy goodbye to the other man.

"Yup, see ya Therion!"

It was a warmer autumn night, sure to make for a warm morning the next day. Therion would sleep well again.

...baked apples had a wonderfully pleasant smell. A rich, fruity, warm scent that invoked a feeling of comfort and familiarity. They were best made in a water bath, cooked long over a low flame so that the fruit's flesh slowly warmed until it was tender and sweet. Cooked too fast and the insides kept firmed, though no less delicious. Cooked too hot and the apples were likely to rupture and make a mess.

One needed to keep a close eye on them, for as with any food they could go from baked to burnt in no time at all. It was this smell that Therion awoke to: acrid and bitter as the watery skins caught fire, thick and choking as tree trunks turned to smoke and charcoal and ashes. He was up in a flash, sprinting from his bed and slamming the sliding door open.

The orchard was in flames. What trees weren't already on fire would be engulfed soon. Overhead dark storm clouds cast random bolts of lightning down onto the area, and judging by the damage to some of the plants they'd definitely been hit. He didn't stop to wonder how the fire had spread so fast from just a lightning strike, rushing from the veranda toward the small shed nearby - then changing direction to run around toward the front of the house. He needed to put the fire out, but there was no way he could do it alone. He had to find help.

A bright flash in the sky signaled another strike of lightning. It crashed into the home next door, followed shortly by a burst of thunder. Wood and stone flew apart where the lightning struck, showering the space between the houses, and Therion, with debris. What the hell is going on?! he thought, panicked and untangling himself from the rubble. He opened his mouth and called out for anyone nearby. He was stuck, his orchard was burning, help, but to his horror the only replies back he could hear echoed his own.

Help me!

I'm hurt!

Gods, why...!

The storm...!

Help me, please, help me!!

Therion was frozen; in fear, in despair, still caught in the debris that had rained down on him. It sounded like the entire town was being razed to the ground. Heat and dust rose up everywhere, lightning rang out above and signaled the crunch of stones falling, or buildings toppling over. The screams of men and women could only be heard in between peals of thunder. While his brain tried to process what was happening the damaged house next door buckled under its own weight and sloped toward him, trapping him completely when it collapsed.

It took a long time for Therion to free himself. He was bleeding, and he might have blacked out once or twice, but he made it - stubbornly pushing the rubble just enough out of the way so that he could move his limbs and wriggle through the slim spaces between wooden beams and roof tiles. He dragged himself from the ruined home, sore and gasping for breath. He forced himself to stand.

Everything around him was in ruins. From where he lived up on the hill he could see down towards the village proper - houses were leveled, business ripped apart, the ships in the small port aflame. His own home was a smoldering shell of its former self, and across the street the friendly medicine man's home wasn't much better. The roof was caved in, as well as the walls, though the framework still stood. At the front door of the veranda there was an oozing pool of blood.

Therion covered his mouth and ran. He didn't know where to go or what to do. The entire town, his friends, his whole life was just— gone. Destroyed. The storm still raged overhead, casting the area in a grizzly light. And in a flash of lightning, he saw her.

She'd blazed a trail of destruction throughout the village. She was dressed in crimson armor, and upon her face was a helmet that evoked a terrible villain from some kabuki play. She was ahead of him on the road, dragging the spearhead of her naginata through a man that'd been pleading for his life. When he was dead she flicked the weapon to rid it of blood before turning her gaze on Therion.

"You..." he breathed out. This person, wreathed in violet lightning, was the calamity that had brought ruin to the town. Why? He didn't ask, instead he turned and ran the other way. She was killing everyone, and she was going to kill him too if he didn't—

He felt the lightning well before he heard the thunder.


The phantom feeling of electrocution and his body on fire lingered after the nightmare ended. Therion woke up with a start, launching himself from his spot on the floor and all his fur standing on end. His claws were extended and his tail was double its size in fright. If he had been in his human form he might have cried out, but as it was he merely stared around the room wide-eyed and slowly coming back to himself.

Though he didn't dream often, when he did dream he sometimes dreamt of himself dying. He'd had a lot of near death experiences already. But that dream was... something else. It was weird. It was uncomfortable. He shifted out of his beast form and felt his chest where the lightning bolt had passed through him, but as expected there was no damage. He was in his usual clothes, and the fool's bangle was still there.

What the fuck was that about...? he questioned. He could feel beads of sweat form even now that he was awake and aware. It must have been close to morning since though most of the Seekers were still asleep there were some that were already awake, like that knight and Primrose. Or perhaps they hadn't slept at all, going by the circles beginning to form under the dancer's eyes. She glanced over at him, a questioning look in her eyes, but he shook his head. He spent the little while before the others rose leaning back against the tower's stone wall and getting his heart rate under control. By the time the entire group was awake he was back to normal, though a nagging, ominous feeling haunted a corner of his mind.

It was a night like any other. Or maybe day, you could never tell down here without a clock on hand. The fashionable antique that had been sitting on the desk wasn’t working anymore, so after what felt like an eternity spent waiting in the cramped darkness, Nadia really couldn’t tell. Of course, that didn’t matter now. It was all over with. No more waiting, no more wanting, no more needing. No more sleepless nights spent longing, and no restless days spent toiling, planning, plotting, months of it, all just for this moment. And now she’d done it at last.

For a good long while, she just stood there in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out across the expanse. Few people could afford a view like this, either in terms of elevation, the amount of reinforced glass, or reconstruction costs. Certainly not her, and now she found that she couldn’t tear her gaze away. It really was an unfathomable miracle, this city in the deep. Schools of fish flocked like birds, congregating at clusters of seaweed that danced slowly in the gentle caresses of the currents. A blue whale, the greatest and most majestic animal in all the oceans, flew serenely past the window. Scarcely more than a parade float in comparison. From the rooftops of towering buildings that might’ve been called ‘skyscrapers’ anywhere else, powerful spotlights cast their brilliant rays up into the stygian depths as if to rail against the crushing blackness of a firmament that would never twinkle with distant starlight. Instead the people here gazed up at the glow of innumerable windows throughout the metropolis, not in wonderment of the unattainable cosmos, but in appreciation of the light and warmth they possessed, and in hopes of the heights they might one day attain.

It was a beautiful view. Everyone down by the seabed dreamed of becoming somebody someday, and gazing out of a window just like this one. Nadia flicked her tail restlessly Of course she’d dreamed those same dreams. Her and her whole family. Though she came from nothing, never knowing or caring for extravagance, and delighted in life’s simple pleasures, she hungered the same as they did. Others had more than enough to go around; the Fishbone Gang just wanted their fair share, and a fair share for the poor folks of Rock Bottom too. But life wasn’t fair. Greed was greed, and for daring to reach so high they’d been brought so, so low.

Nadia looked over her shoulder. Down at what was, by now, just another pile of ash. Now, they were even. Sweet, sweet revenge. And yet, despite years and years of constant practice, she couldn’t find it in herself to smile. She felt neither elation nor relief. That was the worst part. From the beginning she’d known that this wouldn’t fix anything. She never intended to do it for the sake of future victims, after all. But she’d convinced herself that this act would bring her satisfaction. Or maybe closure. Right now though, she only felt empty. Everything she’d cast aside for the sake of this moment, for what became her sole defining purpose…what now?

The door to the lounge slammed open, and she looked up, her expression blank. “She’s here!” A handful of suit-wearing goons spread out from the entrance, the barrels of their tommy guns trained on her. After them barged their ringleader, the teal-haired girl in orange, Cerebella. That hat of hers was already ready to fight. The girl paused for just a moment, stopped in her tracks by the sight of the devastation that had befallen the lounge. All the furniture and decor, from the sofas to the side tables, lay in ribbons and splinters. Ice and fire from Dahlia’s special rounds had wreaked almost as much havoc as Nadia herself, and a half-dozen ash piles remained of the Bunnies who’d tried to come between them. Funny that it’d be Cerebella. Nadia had heard just two things about her, and like all good gossip they were contradictory: that she was a good person, and that she’d do anything for Vitale. Well, she wouldn’t be here if that first one was true.

“...You actually got her,” Cerebella sounded almost impressed. “But I’m afraid this is as far as you go. Hand over the Life Gem, and I’ll get Vitale to let you go.”

Nadia sighed. So it’s like that, huh. She took one last look out the window, at the city and all its radiant lights. So much for being somebody. Then she turned to face the mobsters. By now all her new wounds were at least a little healed, which was good. She was going to need every drop. “Wow, just like that? You’re too kind~” She sharpened her claws. “Like I’d buy that. Let’s get this over with.”

The fight lasted only moments. Nadia didn’t hold back–she fought like a woman possessed, or someone with nothing to lose. The mobsters shot, stabbed, and swung at her, fighting to pry her claws from their throats, and she just kept coming. Slaughter for the slaughterers. Her rampage only came to an end when Cerebella finally managed to snatch her up, clamping her between Vice Vera’s massive palms.

Pushing back against the living weapon’s strength, Nadia laughed grimly. “You’ve got some serious guts, fightin’ me after seeing what I did to Dahlia, her bunnies, all your little friends…or maybe you’re hopin’ they softened me up? Hehe, you wish. I won’t stop until the Medici Mafia is destroyed. Every last one of ya.”

“That’s my family you’re talking about now,” Cerebella growled. “I won’t let you touch Vitale.”

Nadia grinned at her with pearl-white teeth. “Yeah? Try all you like. As long as the Life Gem’s power flows through my veins, no-one can stop me avenging the Fishbone Gang!”

“...Flows through your veins, huh?”

She began to squeeze tighter. Much tighter. Nadia grit her teeth, her eyes wide, as the walls closed in. Her attempts to fight back were in vain. A second later the giant hands slammed together, and when they opened again, almost nothing remained.

---

Nadia jerked awake with a guttural gasp. Her chest heaved as she hyperventilated, her skin slick with sweat, her nervous system in raw shock from the visceral certainty that she had been dying. To her horror she found herself bound, encased in some sort of sack, and in her panic she instinctively fought it tooth and nail, like a prey animal squeezed by a boa constrictor. After a couple furious seconds she fought her way loose, partially shredding it with her claws in the process. Only once she’d escaped confinement did her jolt of primal panic begin to subside. That awful sensation of being wadded up, then crushed to death…just a dream. A terrible, terrible dream, but no more than that. Jeez… As the thumping of her heart slowed, her breathing returned to normal, and she began to search for an answer to a very important question.

Where the hell am I? While she didn’t recognize her surroundings, she could tell that she’d wound up in some sort of tent, military green in color. When she took another look at the cloth thing she’d attacked in her terror, she was embarrassed to realize that she'd been fighting for her life against an ordinary, perfectly harmless bedroll. A bunch of her equipment lay neatly arranged on the other side of the tent, including her blade case, her boxcutter hilts, her new dagger Athame, the Bait launcher, her pouch-laden utility belt, and her jacket. That left just her top and her shorts to sleep in, which was definitely for the best. Everything else seemed to be in order, from ears to tails to toebeans. Hearing noise from outside, she crawled on all fours to the slit at the front of the tent where warm light seeped in, and after poking her head through the tent flaps Nadia got her first good look at her surroundings. Purple brick walls, roaring fireplace (the reason it felt so toasty in here no doubt), a firmly barred door, and more tents.

Ah. Now it was all coming back to her. This was the Pizza Tower’s bottom floor after all, the last thing she remembered before passing out. These tents and bedrolls were new, though. The more Nadia thought about it, the more probably it seemed that someone had been nice enough to scoop her sorry ass off the ground, get all her stuff off her, and put her to bed properly. Honestly, while someone else might see it as an invasion of privacy, that act of kindness struck Nadia as a major relief. Right now she felt sore, stiff, and hopelessly unkempt, with a bad case of bedhead turning her raven-black bob cut into an unruly wad of fluff. I must look like a disaster. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it’d be if left to sleep on solid stone, with all her equipment poking and pulling at her all night! It felt like she’d been tossing and turning, and no wonder, with a dream like that. “Ugh…” Nadia groaned, rubbing her eyes. Though the exact details of her dream were already slipping away, her unease lingered. It felt so real…

After shaking her head she ducked back inside her tent and threw her jacket on. While underground there was no reliable way to tell how much time had passed while the Seekers slept, but her gut instinct, drowsiness, and well-restedness suggested that it was some time in the morning. Seven, maybe? That meant it was a brand new day, guaranteed to be as chock-full of thrills and spills as the last. As much as Nadia hated starting another day of adventure in this state, she had to admit that she’d been pretty darn lucky to have spent the last three nights straight of her globetrotting trip in well-stocked hotels, complete with showers and complimentary breakfast. “Gonna have to get used to roughin’ it,” she told herself as she ran her claws through her hair as a makeshift comb.

Thinking of breakfast, unfortunately, made her realize just how hungry she was. She was starving. Thirsty, too–her tongue felt like sandpaper, and not in the way a cat’s tongue usually did. Nadia treated herself to a luxurious stretch, yawning like a lion, and exited her tent to greet the new day. “Good mornin’! Mornin’! Mornin’ everyone!” She made sure to greet everyone with the same cheerful smile. “Anyone got any water? I’m kinda fursty. Purrched, even.” After a few moments she came face to face with the three Pizza Trolls, who happened to be enjoying their last few leftover slices next to the warmth of the pizza oven. “Hey, guys!” she chirped. “What’s on the menu?”

Arno wasted no time in correcting her misconception. He, Willa, and Shyler didn’t make visitors pizzas; in fact, anyone seeking passage through this area needed to make pizzas for them. “If you want to get through Pizza Tower and reach the Forsaken Lands, you’re gonna have to make all three of us pizzas with only stuff we like!”

With that little nugget of wisdom came a new opportunity, however. “We are rather particular when it comes to toppings,” Willa advised the heroes. “But you’re free to make as many pizzas as you wish in order to find the right one for all of us. And the ingredients to make any pizza you could possibly imagine can be found on our magical tower’s various levels.”

Shyler nodded. “Y-you can even take ‘em with you when you go! In our special pizza boxes, pizzas never go bad or fall apart, and you can fit as many in our red pizza bags as you want!”

“Yeah, knock yourselves out,” Arno added. “They’re all open, just make sure you’re fast. Each level’s got a time limit, and trust me, you don’t wanna be in one when the timer runs out! And don’t go anywhere marked ‘Staff Only’, ‘cause boy you’ll be sorry! Now get movin’, these pizzas aren’t gonna make themselves!”

After that somewhat brusque briefing Nadia circled back around to talk with the others. “You guys catch all that?” she asked them excitedly. “Unlimited pizzas that don’t go bad? This sounds like the purr-fect chance to stock up on food for our journey! We don’t even have to make all the ingredients we get into pizza, we could just keep ‘em, or eat ‘em on the spot!” She looked over her shoulder at the trolls in case they were listening, but they were currently playing rock-paper-scissors for their last pizza slice.

While the feral spoke with the others, Barnabee approached the Pizza Trolls. “I beg your pardon. Last night I distinctly remember thee mentioning a ‘boss’ of some sort. Is he an individual of some repute?”

“Y’mean, is he a big deal? ‘Cause he’s like, the biggest!” Arno cackled. “Trust me, nobody -and I mean nobody!- messes with Pizza Face!”

“And hast thou happened to glimpse a porcelain-white mask fragment in his possession, by any chance?”

The troll looked bemused. “Uhh…maybe? T’be honest, I don’t pay that much attention to anything that isn’t pizza.” He narrowed his eyes at Barnabee. “Wink, wink!”

Barnabee nodded in gratitude, then returned to the others. Nadia joined them again after a few moments as well, having gone back together etch her belt and weaponry. Then she padded over to the Hub’s adjacent halls to get her first good look at the Pizza Tower’s available floors. The first hall featured five introductory levels, though the last one in the row appeared to be completely blocked off.

• John Gutter, a blend between underground jungle and tropical isle, with vegetation tinged as purple as the swampy water and a populace of living stone pillars, and various fruits like pineapple hanging from the trees
• Pizzascape, a medieval-themed castle of red brick, infested by Pepperoni Goblins and patrolled by Cheese Knights. Instead of weapons, its armories and wall-mounted racks contain arrays of peppers, including bell peppers, banana peppers, pepperoncini, and jalapenos
• Ancient Cheese, Pizza Tower’s cheese repository, piled high with all sorts of cheeses harvested and delivered from Crumble Cavern to be carved into building blocks and styled in the fashion of ancient Greek ruins. Home to many cheeseslimes
• Bloodsauce Dungeon, a foreboding and labyrinthine expanse of dark halls and rooms where cauldrons, vials, and even pits of red sauce, marinara, pesto, olive oil, barbeque sauce, alfredo, and buffalo sauce can be found if one can get past the monsters

In the second hall, the Seekers found western-themed levels, although the fifth and final one also seemed inaccessible.

• Oregano Desert, an arid expanse plus herbal oasis where all sorts of herbs grow in bushes, shrubs, and sprigs. Home to Buffalocusts, Egglers, Scorpeppers, and according to legend, the terrifying Mothza Supreme
• Wasteyard, a spooky underground cave full of ghosts, gabaghouls, and the burnt, shambling remains of pizzas that never got a chance at life. Being underground, roots, bulbs, and tumors can be found here in abundance, including garlic, red onions, and green onions
• Fun Farm, a lush Italian farmstead with a bumper crop of tomatoes. All sorts of poultry and beef products can be found here, from shredded chicken and eggs to ground beef and meatballs, if one can get past the giant bipedal poleaxe-wielding cows
• Fast Food Saloon, a western-style town where ranch dressing can be found in abundance, usually packing heat in the form of Ranch Shooters and a handful of banditos. There’s plenty of liquor here too, though

The third hall offered five levels collectively referred to as ‘Vacation Resort’, though two were blocked off.

• Crust Cove, a beautiful sunset seaside where the water is not only full of shrimp and anchovies, but sparkling. Black olive trees grow along its sandy shore as well. The vessel that sails its waters is crewed by green pizza goblins, wielding asparagus spears, broccoli clubs, and all sorts of things too healthy to go on pizza
• Gnome Forest, an enchanted fungal woodland filled to the brim with all kinds of tasty and flavorful mushrooms, with plenty of fungal freaks to match. Beehives can also be found littered around it, though the bees are loathe to give up the honeycombs inside
• Deep-Dish 9, an alien planet inhabited by U.F.Olives and one-eyed pickle creatures, highly protective of their flavorful, briney vegetables

Finally, the last hall also offered just three usable levels.

• The Pig City, a swine-themed urban city center where every shop is a butcher or deli, this is a one-stop shop for all essential pork products, like pepperoni, ham, prosciutto, salami, chorizo, and sausage. Just beware the wrath of the pigmen and piglin residents, only too happy to join together into an angry mob to dispose of any meat-eaters
• Peppibot Factory, a facility where raw materials are refined into a number of ingredients for dessert pizzas, including marshmallows, chocolate sauce, chocolate chips, candy bars, cookie crumbles, pie filling, and more. Owing to the value of these ingredients, the machines that operate this facility are well-armed and highly aggressive
• Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator, a snowy landscape where cheap, low-quality, frozen pizzas are assembled and kept. In terms of effort needed to make a pizza this is as low as it gets, but they’re practically guaranteed to displease, and the snowmen here aren’t exactly welcoming

While she found more closed doors than she expected, as well as a number of ‘help wanted - miniboss’ signs on said doors, Nadia found herself quite spoiled for choice. Each open door offered only a sneak peek at the level’s contents, so what the Seekers would run into once inside was anyone’s guess, but if the Pizza Trolls were right about it being dangerous they’d still need to be careful. Still, with her stomach rumbling and empty the feral was more than prepared to take a risk. There were a bunch of good options, but once she caught the faint smell of seafood drifting from the level marked as ‘Crust Cove’, she realized there wasn’t much choice at all. Trying not to salivate, she grabbed a burlap sack from the nearest pile and waved to her fellow Seekers. “Alright, see you guys back here in a few minutes!” With that she jumped in and was promptly whisked away to Crust Cove, eager to rustle up some seafood. Any other enterprising Seekers would be following suit with their own chosen levels, ready to put an end to the team’s short-lived food shortage.

Once the argument about the candidates’ intentions for Psych-OSF concluded, with Shinra staring silent, venomous daggers at anyone who looked at him askance and Armstrong wearing an infuriatingly self-assured smirk, Udo opened the floor on the debate’s third question.

“Continuing in the same vein, gentlemen. As you well know, the Ever Crisis has wreaked havoc on Midgar since its founding. In addition to widespread destruction, it has claimed countless lives over the years, both those of civilians and of soldiers fighting to keep the people safe. Still, despite a high mortality rate and lower approval ratings than ever, both Psych-OSF and DespoRHado continue to field soldiers in massive numbers. How do you plan to reduce casualties going forward? Mr. President, you’re up first.”

Shinra straightened his tie. “First, allow me to set the record straight on some statistics. While Psych-OSF does have a high turnover rate, it is not due to casualties in the line of duty. As psychics fighting a psychic threat, the Scarlet Guardians often experience heavy mental stress. To this end Suoh offers numerous high-end medical and psychiatric facilities, but Psych-OSF has one other benefit: the option of honorable discharge at any point in one’s career as a soldier. This gives anyone who wishes the option to simply retire from active duty, and many do. Better to live to fight another day. This benefit also continuously attracts new recruits who might otherwise be reluctant to commit. It’s a win-win situation, plain and simple. And as the Psych-OSF grows in number, they also grow in strength. Thanks to the Struggle Arms System, every last individual is a drop in the ocean, and a rising tide raises all ships. Soon the collective psychic power will outmatch the threat of the Others, and not long after, the Machines and Aberrations as well.”

Nothing Shinra said really sparked suspicion from Raz, though he might’ve been a tad too naive in his hope that people would realize Scarlet Guardians going missing and not retiring. Either way, Shinra doing something weird within the organization’s ranks wasn’t news to them. So he decided to level his telepathy at Armstrong for this round of the debate.

Armstrong put his hands on his podium. “Not being affiliated with DespoRHado myself, I cannot claim knowledge of the organization’s inner workings. However, during my time in Sector 08, I have continuously observed DespoRHado reaching out to the poor and disenfranchised, not just of Detroit, but of the whole city. They create jobs, offer purpose, and give people a chance to fight for what they believe in. Not just on the front lines, either, but in logistics, support, and other such vital departments. While this has ensured that the forgotten people of Midgar have somewhere to belong, DespoRHado is also fast approaching the reality of a fully-automated fighting force, with Unmanned Gears and androids on the battlefield to phase out any need to risk human lives. Soon, there will be no casualties in the war against the robots–just machines fighting Machines.”

Need to be ready…won’t be easy…bigger and better…damn Vandelay…muscle in on our turf…mess with the bull…

Udo nodded, a smile on his face as if he appreciated slightly more professional answers. “With your opening statements concluded, you may now rebut your opponent.”

“Gladly.” Shinra turned his icy-cold glare on Armstrong, who gave him an amused look in return. “My opponent has said that DespoRHado gives opportunities to the poor. He makes it sound like charity. The truth is that, desperate for reinforcements, your friends in DespoRHado snap them up. They snatch the homeless from the streets, and entrap the sick, the crippled, and those with nowhere else to turn with the debt of ‘free’ medical treatment and cybernetic augmentation, forcing them to fight and die to repay them, forced to viciously compete against their fellow cyborgs in the hopes of one day seeing their families again. Using debt to turn people into fighting machines, some of them no more than child soldiers…it’s sick, twisted, and barbaric!”

The crowd broke out into a fresh round of whispers and murmurs, stronger than before. Armstrong’s guards seemed uneasy, though Sundowner looked nonplussed. For a moment the Senator stood with his mouth slightly ajar, but then he curled his lip, his brows furrowed dangerously.

“This is an absurd strawman. With enough misrepresentation and reductivism, anything would sound bad. How, might I ask, are you getting such a crystal-clear view of the undercity streets from your ivory tower? Arguing by fallacy isn’t a good look for you, Mr. President!” Armstrong crossed his arms, an ugly smile spreading across his face. “But it doesn’t look half as bad as Project Advent. Spearheaded by your very own Research and Development Division. Surely people have been wondering how Psych-OSF keeps managing to find so many psychics to refill their ranks?” He cast his gaze around the suddenly-hushed room. “Well, I’ll tell you. They don’t find them. They make them. From ordinary citizens who want power, or feel excluded by Psych-OSF’s psionic-only rule, using the illegal art of Spirit Fusion!” He allowed that to sink in a moment before expounding. “First they used the Psifish, but eventually they discarded them into Seiran’s reservoir, dooming the undercity’s lower levels in the process. Why? Because they found something better!” He raised his hands. “That is the secret behind Psych-OSF’s new forces, the P-Types…or should I say ‘Psychic Types’, made from the fusion of human and Pokemon to create the perfect, obedient soldiers!”

In the uproar that followed, Shinra really raised his voice for the first time. “This is a preposterous outrage!” he snapped at Armstrong. “Lies, slander! Where’s your source?”

“My source?” Armstrong snickered. “Well, I didn’t just make it the fuck up. It’s straight from whistleblowers on the inside!"

For almost a minute straight the Dendemille Showcase Theater was in a tumult as the debate administrators and Vandelat security tried to restore order. Both candidates' security guards were on their feet, each daring the other to take action first. Seeing the first bit of ‘action’ of this debate, Roland pulled his hands out of his pockets, revealing his black gloves but made no other moves. Penance, who looked horrified -whether at the current situation, the allegations against Shinra, or both- quickly moved to calm her side down. Almost begrudgingly, Sundowner did the same, urging his cyborgs to give it a rest–all without ever rising from his languid slouch in his own seat. All the while Raz fought to listen in on Armstrong’s mind, and what he managed to pick up on surprised him. White as sheet…probably true…cat’s out of the bag…forced to act…gotta hand it to that blue guy…tipping me off…but how the hell…insider knowledge? After a few tense moments order was restored, and the moderator had some harsh words.

"Gentlemen, this is your last warning," Udo told them sternly. "Tensions are high and everyone's on edge. I don't care what either of you heard; it is unbecoming and irresponsible to fan the flames with such unsubstantiated mudslinging. Stick to the facts, or this debate will come to a premature end."

"... Right, right," Armstrong said. "We'll get into that kind of stuff later."

Shinra huffed, taking a deep breath. "Let's get on with it, then."

Letting out a deep breath, Goldlewis wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Ho-ly smokes. This is a madhouse," he murmured. "It's like satire or somethin'. Can't help but wonder though. If either of 'em were tellin' the truth, things'd be bad enough. Worst case scenario is both." None of his fellow attendees had been part of the original Detroit detachment, so they wouldn't know about DespoRHado. Psych-OSF, though… "I gotta bad Feelin' about this. What Armstrong said about P-types…I was wonderin' why so many soldiers had weird features. It lines up a li'l too well."

”Pokemon?” Roxas asked with a whisper, ”I don’t remember seeing any Pokemon in Suoh, much less any with psychic powers.”

”We know the bit about treating the psi-fish as cattle for slaughter and then dumping them is true, and it looks like we have now the answer as to why. The results of fusions with those are a lot more obvious after all” Taro was certainly a demonstration of that. She also hoped the man was doing alright.

”Wait, goddesses, the capture squad we saw! The one that took away that psychic pokemon…” Midna whispered, mostly to herself, as she realized said pokemon was now almost certainly dead, and becoming even more alarmed as she realized ”-and what about Bede? With them making those illegal, they might have arrested him and taken his away to-” but leaving the worst unsaid

”Didn’t that Raiden fellow tell us about how DespoRHado was a lot shadier than it seemed? Considering they are all Galeemed and Raiden wasn’t. Could that be related? Although with the OSF using fusions… that seemed obvious, but at least we know what they were using now. I didn’t think spirit fusion was this illegal though, if it even put Shinra on the back foot… ” Susie said, processing the information they had all just heard. She wasn't discounting any of this, especially as those in their group who were part of the OSF had seen that procedure firsthand.

”Wait, how do they know about Spirits, anyway?”” Roxas suddenly asked, the question directed toward Goldlewis, ”I didn’t know anything about them until after I was freed from Galeem. I always figured that was just something that’s hidden by his influence. So how do these people know about them if they’re still under that influence?”

Goldlewis could only shrug. In fairness, this boy didn’t seem all that perceptive. “You sure you didn’t just…not notice ‘em? There’s so much supernatural stuff around that li’l vanishin’ lights probably didn’t even register. Gotta know what to look for, son.”

”They know enough about spirits to have banned them. They aren’t invisible, they can be learned about if explained. Either it’s someone distant to us who just happened to be free of Galeem, or more likely, a Consul or something to that effect.” Karin said.

”They must have a presence in this city, somewhere.” Karin mused.

Unfortunately, Goldlewis could neither confirm or deny this. “‘Fraid I never heard of anythin’ called a Consul,” he whispered back. “I know fusion’s illegal, and ownin’ spirits in general too. Do y’all remember what happened while we were fightin’ alongside the OSF, though? After the fightin’, they made sure to collect all the spirits. So the OSF knows enough to use ‘em to power up their troops.” He’d come to the same realization as Midna. That poor stray Pokemon had probably fled from its cruel fate as fusion fodder. But if that was the case, it had to have come from somewhere. His eyebrows suddenly went up. “This fusion’s gotta be happenin’ in Suoh. But the question is, where?”

”I can find and tail one of their capture squads, have them bring me right to whatever compound they use” Midna said, and it was no mere offer.

Karin raised an eyebrow at Goldlewis. ”No one’s told you? The Consuls are, from what I gather, the direct servants of Galeem. They go by single letter names.” She explained.

”I wonder if they have an interest in this election. Or in elections past…hm. Well, I suppose this would be the first one, wouldn’t it.” Karin mused. Goldlewis looked at her as though she were crazy, but said nothing.

Zenkichi frowned and leaned forward in his seat, hands resting in front of his face. What are you doing, Shinra? If DespoRHado is doing all that, it's happening under your watch. It's like you're serving up every ball for Armstrong to knock out of the park… He didn't say anything just yet, though. It was entirely possible that Armstrong was just better at capitalizing on Shinra's mistakes. Armstrong wasn't fooling anybody with that 'I'm not affiliated with DesporHado' line, either. What Goldlewis said about OSF troops taking Spirits didn't strike him as odd, though this new accusation threatened to contextualize that in a more sinister light.

---

In Penguin Sniper, Pit blinked in surprise at all of the accusations the men on TV were spitting at each other - though they came across as facts to him, as he didn't even consider that they might be lying.

"They've been going behind everyone's backs and hurting people this whole time?" He half-whispered, half-yelled. Perhaps that sort of thing was assumed by the more pessimistic types, but it was only now that Pit was starting to really understand why the city was the way that it was. Taking advantage of the poor, the powerless, even kids... it all painted Midgar in an even grimmer light. Was Neuron the same way? And even with methods like this, were any of them even making a dent in the Ever Crisis?

This whole time the former Turk had been listening quietly and watching the debate from the television, when the winged boy spoke up he gave him a sideways glance pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose "Unfortunately that is the way the world works." the old strategist said simply, before returning his attention to the screen.

Giovanna looked over at him from her game of darts, her eyebrow raised. “I mean, society can be pretty messed up sometimes, but I’m pretty sure this is way worse than usual.” She threw her last dart of the set and managed to hit her first bullseye of the game–only for the bounty of points to drop her and Sakura’s score down below zero. Damn. When playing 301, the goal was for the two players to earn enough points to reduce their score to zero exactly, which meant their first game was a loss. She sighed, shrugging. Projectiles just weren’t her strong suit. “Well, if it’s all true, anyway. Kind of weird they’re both suddenly spouting off such serious accusations. If the public had any inkling of that kind of stuff, there’d be riots in the streets.”

Partitio however shared the view of the way things worked as something that needed to change, these damned people in charge were nothing but lowdown scoundrels "People like them ain't know nothing bout' a hard days work or eating crumbs. That really gets my goat." the merchant muttered to himself his knuckles turned white as he balled them up.

Geralt's claws tapped against the wood, a frown on his face. "Did you notice that?" He mumbled. "They really thought they were about to break out into a fight…and if they did…." He left the horrific inevitability of that for the others to figure out.

Even in a state like this, and with people he could scarcely care less about, Tora couldn’t just shake off the idea of wanton bloodshed. “...Tora sure hope not.”

”Its almost like… do they know what they’re under? That happens sometimes, but… yeah its rare..” Blazermate said, thinking considering what everyone else said.

"Doubt it, but if someone who was in the know wanted to cause chaos inside Midgar's borders, civil war would be an awfully convenient way to do it. Especially when every fight ends in a bloodbath." Geralt was perhaps being needlessly conspiratorial here, but he wasn't sure things were adding up.

Ichiban was easy to wake. He didn't sleep in a tent, instead sprawled out on his bedroll at the fire's edge. He was already pretty scruffy-looking when he went to bed, between his cheap dirty suit and wild hair, so he wasn't any more bedraggled as before he conked out. "Guh, huh? Mornin' already..?" He sat up and stretched so slowly you could almost hear his muscles creak. "Had one helluva dream last night. I woke up in some hot and bright place, surrounded by people that I couldn't really understand, and I was totally naked. It felt really... real." It was just a dream, he told himself, but a part of him deep down told him it was something more. Somehow.

He helped to pack up all their camping supplies, folding bedrolls and collapsing tents, so once Nadia got the lowdown from the trolls, they were ready to get moving.. Going back was definitely out of the question, and the only way forward was, apparently, through these pizza lovers. These very picky pizza lovers. "We can keep as much pizza as we can make?" The prospect of near endless 'za was too good to pass up, and made Ichiban's stomach rumble. Since the last stuff he ate was poisoned breakfast pastries and tea, he was going on empty too. "Hell yeah!"

In traditional video game fashion, there were a few steps along the way to complicate things. Ichiban took a moment to count out the number of levels, then how many of them there were. "13, 14... alright, so that's about 15 of us and 14 levels. If we split up we can nab a whole lotta ingredients at once!" Ichiban took a couple burlap sacks for himself and made for the first hallway, stopping between the doors for Ancient Cheese and Bloodsauce Dungeon. Cheese & sauce, two of the most important components of pizza, and ones they would need a ton to work with. "...I'm goin' for cheese," Ichiban decided, "all that sauce is gonna get real heavy and, well, I ain't anything special like the rest of 'em." (+1 Intellect!)

Tucking his bags under his arm, Ichiban stepped a couple feet back and braced himself to run. Knees bent, head forward, he took a deep breath... then broke out into a sprint, letting loose a wild, "Hooouwah!" like some kind of battle cry as he crossed the level's threshold.

It was go time.

---

While some semblance of control had been reestablished within the debate hall, the accusations leveled by both candidates had done irreparable damage to the professionalism and integrity of the debate. Both painted an ugly picture of one another, with animal cruelty, illegal fusion, and the willful sabotage of Seiran on one side, and debt-based forced servitude plus child soldiers on the other, nothing proven, but all plausible enough that anyone looking for a weapon to wield against the other side would happily take hold. Of the two men, however, only one currently harbored the position-mandated responsibility of public welfare, that being Shinra. Despite the strong inherent incumbent bias in his favor, Armstrong was making a strong case for himself purely by going one hundred percent offense, even if his claims couldn’t be substantiated.

With the event already behind schedule thanks to the turmoil, the moderator wasted no time with the next question. “Gentleman, though the Ever Crisis is Midgar’s number-one concern, it is by no means the only threat we face. President Shinra alluded to ‘rogue elements’ earlier, and this next question is about them. What do you plan to do about insurrectionist and terrorist organizations like Avalanche, the Hermits, and Reunion, especially the threat posed by Reunion’s leader, former ARI researcher Jena Anderson? Senator, you’re up first.”

Raz kept his focus on Armstrong for this one; the Seekers’ knowledge of the bit players in the Ever Crisis was lacking, and the Senator seemed to know a lot of sensitive information, whether or not it was true.

“First of all, the Hermits are nothing more than a nuisance,” Armstrong declared. “The idea that they represent the same kind of threat as Reunion is a serious misconception. They are petty thieves and hackers restricted primarily to Quarantine Valley by the forces of DespoRHado operating as peacekeepers within Detroit, since General Affairs and Peace Preservation don’t really bother showing up.” He gave a dismissive shrug, then adopted a stern frown. “Jena Anderson, however, is considered Sector 08’s public enemy number one. She preys upon the sick and resentful, urging them to lash out at ordinary people just trying to live their lives. She’s a dangerous criminal, moving in secret through the city’s underbelly, spreading Redshift in your streets and homes!” He faced the audience. “But when my word is law as President there won’t be anywhere left for her to hide. We’ll expose her lies and give the people she’s deceived the help they need!”

Pain in my ass…no way she’s on her own…who’s working with her…gotta be some link to PubSec…redshift getting worse…Reunion attacks…Quarantine Valley…Hermits stronger than ever…everyone against us…can’t give up now.

Shinra glared at Armstrong as if the Senator had stolen his thunder. “DespoRHado’s clumsy attempts to do the job of Neuron are the exact reason -and the only reason- that Anderson had evaded capture so far. But I digress. Anderson might claim that she seeks to end discrimination against the infected. The fact is that redshift is a cruel and relentless malady, almost impossible to stop let alone cure, and such a nightmarish disease warrants countermeasures of utmost seriousness. Portraying the thankless and self-sacrificing efforts of Peace Preservation as ‘oppression’ is the product of a truly warped mind, if she even believes her own lies. In truth, she is merely using it as an excuse to try and justify her crimes, and her followers in Reunion are just the same. As for Avalanche…” Shinra gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Need I say anything, really?”

Without waiting for the moderator’s go-ahead, Armstrong narrowed his eyes at Shinra. “But Mr. President, didn’t they just blow up one of the city’s precious Mako Reactors just last night? And you’re saying they’re not a threat?”

“The exaggerations of the media should not be relied upon,” Shinra told him evenly. “While they managed to cause a scene, the damage to Mako Reactor 1 is not critical, and repairs are underway. It was ultimately a feeble attempt, befitting Avalanche and their feeble justification for eco-terrorism. They claim that Mako is the lifeblood of the planet, but look around Midgar! The land is full of life, and trees as tall as skyscrapers bloom from Kunad Highway and the Valley of Ruin! If Avalanche doesn’t fall apart under the weight of its own inadequacy, it will be dealt with soon.” He stroked his mustache as he stared at Armstrong. “I’m curious, though. Misrepresenting government programs? Preying upon the weak and downtrodden? Inciting them to violence and crime? Working to destabilize Midgar? Put another way, Anderson’s modus operandi is not so dissimilar from your own, Senator.”

Armstrong’s lip curled. “Midgar needs change, Mr. President. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Anderson doesn’t believe in change, and thanks to her, people everywhere have been suffering, especially the undercities! That sound familiar to anyone?” He gazed over the audience. “But I believe in change, and under my leadership I’ve turned things around for Sector 08. Fighting back against the status quo. Giving people the chance to think and fight for themselves!” He put his fist over his chest. “And that’s what I plan to do for the whole city, whether they’re suffering thanks to Anderson…” He turned his pointed gaze to Shinra. “Or anyone else!”

Stifling a wry laugh, Goldlewis shook his head. “They couldn’t call each other the same as that terrorist lady fast enough,” he murmured to the other Seekers. In a way, it was almost heartening to see that the oldest trick in the book -comparing your political opponent to the biggest universally-condemned villain you could think of- still held true here. He couldn’t help but wonder more about this Jena Anderson, though. That name had been floating around for a while. Shinra painted her as an insurrectionist, while Armstrong posited her as a tyrant. What role did she -and Reunion- really play? The Seekers still knew almost nothing about the Chimeras, Redshift, or the Astral Plane, and if Anderson did, it might be worth finding out. Somehow.

”I get the broad strokes of it, but what exactly is a ‘terrorist’ anyhow?” Midna asked, such a concept having not been invented in her world (yet).

Roxas could really only stand in silence. The talk of groups and terrorists just sort of flew over his head for the most part. The only thing that really stood out to him was the focus they were putting on Jena Anderson, whoever that was. They made it sound like she was singularly responsible for all the Redshift stuff that Neuron had to deal with, but was that really true? Could one single person really be behind all of that? He wanted to ask about that, but another conversation started up before he could.

Goldlewis would’ve tried to bend close to whisper in the imp’s ear if he could tell where she was. “Someone who commits violent crimes to coerce civvies or the government into somethin’ for some sort of’ ideological purpose,” he told her as discreetly as he could.

Midna wasn’t quite sure how said ‘terrorists’ thought that would work, or how it exactly applied to the one group she did know about, who’s attack on the reactor made complete sense to her militarily without any coercion angle, though she kept that to herself rather than make it a whole distracting line of conversation. It was very much a concept outside of her time, though whether she liked it or not, it was one she was likely to get quite familiar with should the path forward involve looking into organizations branded as such.

”Hmm… Well either way they are mentioning quite a few people of interest we should look into ourselves perhaps.” Susie said softly, scratching her chin.

"Oh, definitely." Zenkichi added. "Though I'm with Shinra on this one. PubSec might be under Konoe's thumb, but those cyborgs are hardly decent investigators. I wouldn't doubt that they've pulverized plenty of evidence that could have been used to actually implicate the people they're after. Call me biased all you like, but not everybody in PubSec is rotten."

”True, that one cyborg we’ve met didn’t care about collateral damage. And you have to wonder how much intel those like him have destroyed in their rampages…” Susie said, remembering how they ‘assisted’ DespoRHado at that construction site.

Raz relayed what he was able to pick up from Armstrong to the group - PubSec, redshift, the Hermits strength, Reunion, Quarantine Valley. ”Do we know anything about any of that?” he asked, ”between getting into Psych-OSF and the Other fights earlier I sorta forgot some of our debriefing…”

That was too much ground to cover for now. “We’ll have to sum up later, the next segment’s startin’ any second,” Goldlewis whispered back.

”Could always think about it,” Raz joked.

The veteran was not joking, though. “You stay outta my mind, son. I’ve stared straight into hell, and it ain’t suitable for anyone who’s too young enough to drink.”

With a nod, Raz returned to the debate. ”You got it, sir.”

And just like that, Roxas missed his chance. Hopefully he’d remember to bring up his question later when the chance presented itself.

---

Right, the terrorist groups... but with men like these as leaders, was it really any wonder why people would fight back against the regime? That being said, Pit couldn't agree with their methods. He'd seen the effects of redshift himself first hand last night - why would anyone purposely infect other people with it, let alone innocent people?

For a moment the merchant's fist unclenched, resting his arms on the bar counter. Partitio wondered if the city would be better in the hands of someone like Armstrong, would the people's lives be better? Neither fellers' seemed like good folk, but still to him there was something to the big man's words. Call it being too narrow minded or not seeing the bigger picture, but he liked the sound of change cause it's the same damn thing he'd do. Heck it's exactly how he pulled himself and all the folk back home out of the depths of poverty, the merchant put a hand on his chin and looked to Benedict and nodded to the television "That big feller…He makes a good point, at least about change. Don't care much if it's good or bad..Just needs to happen, for all them fancy words there is a small grain o' truth." the other man took a deep breath, sighing before he replied Admittedly Mr. Yellowil I agree, to that indeed Midgar is in need of change. However that may come… the two nodded in silent agreement, for once their matter of opinions could be set aside and returned to seeing the debate unfold on the strange box people called a television.

"No way, what's the point of changing if it doesn't make things better?" Pit countered, glancing at Benedict and Partitio with his eyebrows knitted together. "That's what they're arguing about, right? Which one of them is better for the city? But they're both bad guys." Though it wasn't like the Seekers could interfere right now anyway, so the citizens could only pick between the familiar and unfamiliar. It was frustrating as an outsider, so it must have been doubly so for the people that lived in Midgar.

"Once we beat the guardian and free the city, it'd be nice to find someone good to take over."

Giovanna smiled, a little bitterly. “Best man for the job got outta the game a while back, if you ask me.” Vernon hadn’t just left because his term had ended, though. Midgar had defeated him, convinced him that it could never be a place he could be proud of. Even then though, he couldn’t have imagined just how bad things could get.

Sakura was grinning, happily counting points for both Giovanna and herself. She asked a random person nearby if they wanted to join but to no avail. “Who?” She found herself asking off-handedly on natural curiosity, though she’d probably regret it if she heard some big long political answer.

The secret agent made an effort keep a hold on her typical bluntness as she replied. “...Vernon.”

“Cool! That’s too bad. ” Sakura threw another dart.

These people, these Seekers saw nothing but black and white; good and evil, neither side mattered. Benedict closed his eyes, and shook his head "You think it's so simple, while I applaud that your view is incredibly naive. Everything isn’t as simple as what you think. What is right for you is not right for someone else." the former Turk spoke in the same tired voice one would hear an adult explaining something to a child, but he lacked the motive to even add an element of condescension to aim at Pit.

"This is the real world, not some fairy tale where the hero's win." it wasn't necessary to say let alone look in the Nopon's direction when Benedict spoke, it was implied or a given "Now come on there partner there’s got to be some good in this world," Partitio sheepishly raised a finger, he didn't see no sense in arguing over this again least of all in a public place still he could get on board with what the angel boy had in mind "Look we can all talk bout' the nitty gritty when it darn well comes to it fighting for change has its merits no matter how it gets done."

”Well, beating the bad guy is fun all in all. And if a new bad guy takes his place, you beat that one, and that one, and that one… Eventually you’ll run out of bad guys. There are so many of them after all.” Blazermate said, totally missing Benedict’s point. ”Either way, what do you guys think about looking into the people they mention? Enemy of my enemy and all that.”

If only things were that easy. “It’s almost impossible to find anyone in this city,” Giovanna told her. “Especially if they don’t want to be found. We still don’t even have a good way to delve into Quarantine Valley. The more I hear, though, the more it seems like we ought to pay it a visit. Right now, it and Suoh interest me the most.”

What Benedict said had rubbed Pit the wrong way, which was clear from the agitated floof of his feathers and the wrinkle of his nose. This world was filled with plenty of heroes from plenty of other worlds where they did win, and the angel was going to make sure that was the case here in Midgar too. After Partitio and Blazermate shifted the topic he shoved the last of the peanuts into his mouth before chiming in again.

"I think we should look for them too! There's gotta be a way, otherwise how do they all meet up with each other?" However the Seekers decided to try, it meant a lot more field trips in the future.

Geralt watched the back and forth about good and evil and reality and ideals, and just sat there. It was a conversation he'd had a thousand times and would likely have a thousand times more, but tonight, he just wanted to see what was going to happen. "Giovanna, how much of what he just said about Anderson is true? We didn't stick around Detroit very long to get an idea of how bad things really are."

Crossing her arms, Giovanna pursed her lips for a moment before answering. “Our intel on her is limited. We know she’s a former head researcher from the Administration’s R&D division. Supposedly went missing…twenty years ago?” She furrowed her brow. “She appears without warning, often in the middle of Gate events, as if she’s instigating them herself. Aberrations and redshift follow in her wake, but they never seem to bother her. Under her leadership, Reunion commits terrorist acts. Everyone in the organization’s redshifting, lots of ‘em barely distinguishable from Aberrations.” So all in all, most of what the candidates said about Anderson was true.

"Fuck." Geralt sighed. That sounded like one hell of a problem to deal with. And the Seekers would likely be the one dealing with it.

”Wait, 20 years ago? Uuuh…. Is that galeem time or our time?” Blazermate asked, noticing the massive time gap that could have possibly happened. Unfortunately for her, Giovanna didn’t know what she could possibly have meant by that.

“I thought you were there for that. We learned it while we were in Detroit. At least here, people have memories going back about that long in this city. Which…presents a serious problem. We don’t know what that’s going to be like when people have to reconcile that much time being lost or replaced. I only had a few weeks of memory from being in the Land of Adventure, thankfully.” Geralt reminded Blazermate.

Sakura stood up straight. “Uhh, what? Wait, what? Really?” She looked at Geralt. “But that doesn’t make any sense, Mister Geralt. How could-? What, like a big shared dream?”

Geralt just shrugged. “Galeem’s basically a god. It can do whatever it wants with this world. It could have been pulling people from other worlds for decades, or centuries even, building this place up slowly.”

Sakura tried to wrap her head around that. ”I haven’t noticed anyone getting pulled in, have you?” She asked. She hesitated on aiming her next dart.

”Oh, man. That’s really creepy.” Sakura said.

“Unless he dropped them right in front of us, we might never know.” Geralt replied simply. “But that’s all hypothetical. We have no idea how this really all works.”

Something about that didn't seem right to Pit, but he couldn't say for sure. "When it happened, it seemed like it was everything at once..."

”Geralt-san is right. Still…makes this whole place seem faker.” Sakura concluded uneasily.

"We did our best," Wonder Red offered once everyone came to their senses, "and we've learned valuable intel. As far as I'm concerned, we haven't failed yet." Wonder Red had doubts, such as how their encounter may have marked them as a larger threat to the Consuls and could bring harsher retaliation than they've already faced, but he didn't want to dwell on them or put them into the team's heads. "Plus we didn't leave empty handed." He raised a hand to Mewtwo. "We saved those two civilians from Consul L's collection. Albedo," he addressed the geomancer, "you're an alchemist, correct? Do you think you'd be able to bring them out of their frozen state?"

All this time Wonder Red was thinking 'if only'. If only the Virgin Victory was there with them to provide support. If only Professor Shirogane were here to concoct a solution to Consul N's Latency. But... no, it would be selfish of him to wish Commander Nelson and the VV were with them. They were of much more use to Alcamoth, especially after its destruction.

"I've heard some information about Linkle," Red commented on the new goal they had. "Though I wasn't fully debriefed on her situation. If you think she'd be open to talking with us, it's worth a try." He straightened his gauntlets, checking them over for damage, then going over the rest of his suit. The other downside to not having his usual support was the upkeep of the CENTINEL suit. For now it held, but scratches and cuts exposed its pulsing neon circuitry. It was engineered to maintain power in spite of heavy damage, though Red made a mental note to be more cautious in the future.

"We may need an advantage if we have to fight her," Wonder Red noted, "as much as I hope it doesn't come to that. She seems exceptionally powerful."

---

Even if the candidates’ answers to the previous question did little to set the audience’s minds at ease, the show had to continue. The moderator took a sip from his drink, instantly realized he’d forgotten to shake it up again, and sighed before proceeding into the next question. This time he cleared his throat dramatically, the shadow of a curious, almost amused look on his face as he read it aloud.

“Our last question to round out the subject of the Ever Crisis, gentlemen. We’ve covered the OSF, as well as Anderson, Reunion, and redshift. Other and Chimera attacks are sudden, sporadic, and devastating if left unaddressed, but in the eyes of the public, no conflict is more high-profile than the war against the Machines. The people want to know: how do you plan to neutralize the overseers of the Machine Network, the brothers Adam and Eve, who in order to solve the riddle of humanity, have determined that conflict is what it means to be human?”

For once, Armstrong seemed to be at a momentary loss for words. “Ad…Adam and Eve? The hell?”

Shinra seemed to be drawing a similar blank. “Who in the…how do you…?”

Roland hadn’t heard any of these names either, and he was something of an intel gatherer himself. How did this moderator come across that information? Well, considering who he just embarrassed, Roland felt bad for the poor sod, as either himself or a Claw would be sent later to ‘clarify’ the situation.

Realizing this question seemed to be a big one, Raz glanced between the candidates, not too sure who would be best to probe. So he settled his focus on Shinra, hoping his being in power meant he knew more about the situation.

”I’m guessing Giovanna didn’t know about those two either?” Raz asked Goldlewis. ”She would’ve said something about them if she did, right?”

“And even more importantly, how are you going to address the man who made a deal with the Machines, who stalks the Dystopiascape in his clock-faced mobile fortress, soaking up all the life lost in this forever war to one day fuel his grand ambitions?” The moderator shuffled his papers, then offered a questioning gaze to the candidates. “The man known only as Nox?”

What is this nonsense…some kind of trick…if this was real…would have told me by now…someone keeping secrets…and those details from earlier…traitor in our midst…going to have hell to pay…must come of up with something…this angle should work…

After a few tense moments, Shinra cleared his throat. “Once DespoRHado is out of the picture and Psych-OSF, Neuron, and Vandelay Technologies are all able to face the Ever Crisis as a united front, we will be able to push our enemies back from Midgar’s doorstep and take the fight to them in the Valley of Ruin to destroy their leaders wherever they lurk.”

Annoyed at the incumbent’s quick turnaround time, Armstrong followed up quickly. “Being the only ones actually fighting the Machines all this time, DespoRHado Enforcement is the only force with the equipment and combat experience to challenge these Machine ringleaders on their own turf. You all know the saying: cut the head off the snake, and the rest will die. Our grand offensive to achieve this is already in the pipeline; the only thing that could stop DespoRHado bringing the war against the Machines to an end is the interference of the Administration, so desperate for control that they’re willing to prolong this conflict indefinitely just to make sure DespoRHado’s out of business, and the city’s defense is under their thumb.”

Though Armstrong couldn’t resist a jab, the atmosphere in the theater after that last question was one of almost unilateral confusion. Adam, Eve, Nox…none of the citizens had heard those names before, laden with critical importance though they seemed. Not even Goldlewis could claim to know, though he didn’t feel quite as bad thanks to one other realization he glommed onto. “Shinra and Armstrong ain’t heard those names before either,” he breathed, his brows as high as they could get. “Neither of ‘em–they were scramblin’ to say anythin’ at all, and probably just lyin’ through their teeth, to boot. Who are they?” As the candidates engaged in some careful back and forth, each trying to point out that the other didn’t know what he was talking about without revealing that they themselves didn’t in the process, Goldlewis’ eyes drifted to the moderator. “And more importantly…who in the hell asked that question?”

”It’s also weird that the announcer didn’t seem surprised as they were? Did they pre read these and he thought it was a joke? Is he in on whatever this is?” Midna asked, growing rather concerned, before asking what she thought was the most urgent question here, and that was ”and is that the only lizalfos they're throwing in the cucco pen, or is that a signal for something?”

With that thought in mind the princess tried to take a look around the room, away from the stage, to see if she could spot something suspicious, but with all the bright lights and people in the way, not to mention shadow level not being the best viewing angle (she was mainly listening to rather than watching the debate), she didn’t have much luck.

So she tried a different approach

”I’ll be right back”, she announced, before shadow hopping away, seeking out a better, higher, vantage point from which she could better check if anything unusual was going on. Even after tuning out the general hubbub filling the debate hall, however, she couldn’t spot anything amiss. There was nothing unusual whatsoever around the candidates’ podiums or the moderator’s desk, nor were there any signs of outside forces on the prowl.

”And there it is. Although it seems… odd that the moderator would give a question not screened beforehand. Perhaps this means far more than we even realize.” Susie said, thinking. ”Either the moderator was making this up to jab at both the constituents, or there is a third party here pulling all the strings. Perhaps that guardian we’re looking for? And from how everyone is taking it, I assume it's not the former.”

”Not just that question,” Raz added, ”Shinra’s been surprised at pretty much everything so far. Seems whoever was part of his team didn’t tell him what was gonna be asked. He thinks there’s a traitor working for him.”

More names that Roxas didn’t recognize. But unlike the name Jena Anderson, these names seemed to be a surprise for everyone. Well… everyone except for one person: the moderator who asked the question in the first place. Something about that felt off, but Roxas simply couldn’t put his finger on why. At least not until he thought about the question Goldlewis brought up. Roxas recalled someone mentioning that the questions were supposed to be submitted by the audience members, and that memory made him ask himself another question. Why would the whole audience be surprised? Surely at least one person in the audience should be showing no reaction if they were the ones who submitted the question… right?

”Hm… If Shinra thinks there is a traitor among his group and if he is wrong… that could be an ally for us possibly. An interesting development.” Susie said, noting what Raz had just said about reading Shinra’s mind. Especially considering Shinra had been the standing ruler for quite some time, even those working under him would have some juicy info.

”I…have so many questions.” Zenkichi unhelpfully commented, before seeming to settle on one. ”Why would whoever submitted that question tip their hand in such a…public-facing setting, instead of going to someone, anyone, to give them that intel privately? No, that smells like a trap. But for who? DespoRHado? Vandelay?” Or, perhaps most disturbingly, them.

Karin said nothing, though she refocused her attention on the moderator, a look on her face that was equally amused and skeptical. ”Clearly our new friend Mister Udo is not all who he seems, hmm?” She said aloud. ”Or at least, has some interesting connections. Dropping some names merely to make the debaters look silly?” Karin tisked her tongue. ”My, my, things just got much more interesting.”

---

This question seemed to throw everyone for a loop, dispelling a lot of the friction created by the previous one. Machine Network? Adam and Eve? Did they see anything like that while out in the Valley of Ruin? It didn't seem familiar to Pit, but then again they'd only been in the city learning about this stuff for a couple days. The bar's patrons were all confused by the question, just as if not more so than the candidates on the screen. Pit was no exception to the confusion, but when he kept thinking about it he realized there was one part of the question that wasn't totally lost on him.

"Clock...?" he said, tucking a fist under his chin in thought. "I think we might have seen that when we went after Poppi? It was huge and had legs like a spider. All the little bug robots were buzzing around it too."

”That's so weird they didn’t know about those people. I mean neither did we, but we have some place to start looking for Poppi maybe? But I don’t know how this whole politics thing works or anything. They could be like nicknames or something.” Blazermate said, looking at Tora to see what the fluff ball would do, still concerned for him.

This turn of events definitely concerned Tora more than anything else he’d heard so far. It hadn’t originally occurred to him that the Machines might even have some sort of leadership, just the vague and faceless ‘network’ appropriate for the cold, impersonal, faceless evil the robotic hordes represented. With the mention of Adam, Eve, and Nox however, the gears in his mind were turning once more. Back at the crater lake, he’d only cared about Poppi, but the giant walking clock Pit mentioned hadn’t escaped his notice either. The man who made a deal with the Machines…soaking up life. He remembered the sight of that Rust Crew soldier, restrained by the robots and drained of some vital force by those strange, almost clockwork drones. Even the disorganized Machines weren’t just mindless zombies; there was intelligence to their actions, a methodology. And now, he knew, someone pulling the strings. But what did that mean for Poppi…for him? If the Machine Network was administered by, or perhaps personified in, one or two individuals, then could they be forced to set Poppi free? Or destroyed, and their Network along with them? Why grapple uselessly against the virus when he could go straight to the source? As a road opened before him, distant and vague though it was, Tora dared to hope. But no. Even if the team knew where to begin, he’d be relying on the others one hundred percent of the way, and it would get them no closer to their goal. Why would anyone bother sticking a neck out for Tora?

“So we’ve got a target, then. That’s a start.” Geralt’s eyes narrowed as he started thinking like a Witcher, wondering how they would be best served in taking the fight to that walking clock. If there was a large body of water they could bring it to or ambush it at, he could bring out the Bastion and wreak absolute havoc on the Machine, as long as the others kept it from destroying the gun platform. “When we get back, we’ll go over what you all saw when you went after Poppi, and work on a plan. I’ve already got a couple of ideas in mind.”

Tora looked at him gratefully, close to tears.

"Yeah, okay," Pit replied to Geralt. He'd gone over it once already, and now with some hours between them and the loss maybe they could remember some more information. One could almost see the gears turning in his head as he slowly came to the same conclusion as the Witcher and Nopon.

"So if we find the robot leaders we can make them tell us how to cure Poppi's virus! Right, Tora?"

Suddenly, that flicker of hope was glowing brighter. The Nopon nodded his head emphatically. “Right! Baddybots cause problem, so baddybots can fix!”

Sakura did a bad throw, licked her lips, and stood behind Giovanna. “Sounds good to me!” Sakura added her assent.

Mewtwo was the last one to wake up. When he let out a frustrated cry, "Mew! Mew, Mewtwo!" The cry was verbal, that in itself a rarity for him. But it was also a good thing there weren't any other Pokemon present who could hear him. They'd probably be staring at him in horror due to the... colorful language... he'd just used. Then he took two or three deep breaths and was able to regain some of his composure. He also started using Recover at the same time, needing to heal some of the bad injuries he'd been inflicted with by N.

As he was healing he overheard some talking between Red, Cadet, Band, and some others that Mewtwo didn't recognize. It wasn't until he heard mention of the two human children that Mewtwo finally joined the conversation. <The human children are not here. I was not able to bring them with me when we were taken away from Aether Paradise.> The Pokemon gritted his teeth with frustration.

<And on top of everything else, L got away from me!> Yeah he wasn't really taking this particular defeat well. Odd that he could keep his composure in the face of Alcamoth falling, but not quite over this. That Consul, everything she spoke of, stood for. It hit way too close to home for the Legendary Pokemon. He was no stranger to humans treating Pokemon as objects. The very people who created him did so for the sole purpose of creating the world's most powerful Pokemon. And almost certainly it was so they could use Mewtwo as a weapon to bludgeon enemies with. And yet L, she was almost the opposite but also even worse. Wanting to keep those Pokemon and children preserved like that. Unable to move, unable to eat, unable to sleep. She claimed that was allowing them to live forever. But that wasn't living. It honestly sounded like some kind of hell.

<I cannot allow those children and those Pokemon to remain in that state. I will free them, and I will make that wretched woman answer for her crimes.>

Throughout the debate so far, the moderator had mostly skated through the proceedings as a non-entity, a fixture of the building enabling what people actually wanted to see, like a microphone or stage light. Now, however, people were starting to pay attention to him. Beneath his businesslike brown mustache lay a slight smile, almost smug-looking, as he smoothed over his hair. It was time for question number six.

That’s it! Roxas thought. The moderator seemed to be the only person who wasn’t surprised by that last question! But why would that be? Unless…

“Psst, hey Raz?” Roxas whispered to the Psychonaut with a nudge of his elbow, “Could you do me a favor and scan the moderator’s thoughts? Something about him isn’t sitting right with me. Call it a hunch, I guess.”

Following Roxas’s hunch, Raz’s next target for mind-reading wasn’t Armstrong or Shinra, but the moderator, asking questions nobody expected to be asked. When he tried, however, he drew a complete blank. There were no loose ends or stray thoughts to delicately tweeze out between his probing fingers; it was like he hit a solid wall, blocking off all access to the moderator’s thoughts. ”That’s strange,” Raz whispered to his friends, ”I can’t get a read on the moderator. His mind’s… armored like a tank.” He scoffed a little at his borrowed turn of phrase.

“Hmm…” was all Roxas responded with for the time being. He’d hold his full thoughts for the time being.

”You can’t?” Karin asked, remembering Raz being powerful enough to enter and change someone’s mind from within. ”Surely that suggests he’s powerful? Or at least being protected by someone who is?” Karin leaned over to Raz, but had her eyes locked on Armstrong, Shinra, and the moderator.

”It definitely takes some training to protect against a psychic’s telepathy,” Raz answered. ”So either he’s very good at his job, or something fishy is going on.”

”At the very least, he’s no ordinary moderator.” Karin said. ”The two candidates have no such protection, yes? And it’s not as if they don’t know telepaths exist. It’s something about him in particular.”

”I suppose we have a target to interrogate, assuming he isn’t the guardian himself. That would be quite odd though, unless said guardian was bored. Hmm…. Susie muttered, noting what was happening.

“Moving right along then, gentlemen. After the Ever Crisis and the enemies both inside and out putting the city’s safety and jeopardy, another major concern for the people is Midgar’s continued stability. Mr. President, Senator, what is the source…” Udo looked up from his papers to petition the candidates for an answer. “Of Midgar’s power? You first, Shinra.”

The question perturbed the incumbent greatly. “What is this, some manner of quiz show? The answer is patently obvious, who could’ve possibly asked-”

Armstrong shrugged casually, looking out into the distance. “Hey, if you don’t know…”

“Ahem!” Shinra straightened his suit jacket officiously. “For the sake of posterity, I’ll answer it. The source of Midgar’s power is Mako energy, of course. Clean, reliable, affordable Mako energy. The cornerstone -indeed, the very lifeblood- of the Shinra Electric Power Company that serves as this city’s beating heart. Virtually limitless in supply, it -and my company- ensure that Midgar will never go dark. Not in a year, ten years, or a hundred years. Thanks to Mako, Shinra Electric will always light the way to the future.”

His response got a chuckle out of Armstrong. “I feel like I just watched a commercial. You might be technically correct, Mr. President, but being correct doesn’t make you right. The source of Midgar’s power -of its greatness- has never been any kind of fuel. No, this city owes everything to just one, singular miracle: its people. Their courage, their strength, their never-say-die attitude, even in the face of dire circumstances, wanton tyranny, and eternal war. The people are the source of Midgar’s power, and once they’re free of the shackles of corporate elitism, they ‘ll make Midgar great again!”

Roland thought such a question was odd. This moderator was already acting suspicious by trying to humiliate Shinra. Either he had a death wish and was just messing with him, or was possibly some… hostile element. A syndicate perhaps? He’d have to keep an eye on this one for the time being, he seemed more of a threat than Armstrong and his bald entourage.

While initially Goldlewis felt like dismissing this whole segment as a wash thanks to the bizarrely uninformative question and the candidates’ nothing-burger replies, something about it stuck with him. He couldn’t shake the gnawing sensation that there was more to this segment than met the eye. Since he lacked any information that could be used to repudiate either man’s claims, he found himself replaying the moderator’s question in his head. The source…

Suddenly a chill ran down his spine, and the hairs on the back of Goldlewis’ neck rose. The words of the black-coated stranger flooded back to him. “‘Look for the source’,” he murmured. Those exact words, plus the moderator’s strange questions, sent his mind into overdrive. Like everyone else, he assumed that the mysterious stranger meant the source of the Ever Crisis. So far that line of thinking seemed promising, thanks to the various threads that seemed to link elements of the Ever Crisis back to Midgar itself. But what if it had all been a red herring? He remembered the press passes, delivered to the Seekers’ brand-new secret hideout out of nowhere. Someone wanted them here, someone who knew things and possessed the kind of clout few did. And now, both the candidates and the moderator had let slip similarly erudite information, seemingly for nobody’s benefit. Except theirs.

“Somethin’ ain’t right,” he whispered, looking around. That dreadfully familiar sinking feeling had settled over him. Like the boat he’d been sailing on had already been scuppered, and the water was pooling around his feet. Where was Midna–if she’d seen something, he needed to know, and fast.

”You don’t have to tell me, it feels like this is building to something, yet there’s nothing out of sorts going on. Yet.” Midna whispered back, the princess having returned as the question ended due to the pause/hubbub it generated being good cover to relay information. She herself wasn’t feeling much better, though her emotions were more of a straining water tank, its wood buckling and yet the valve that would release the pressure was stuck tight.

As bad a thought as it was, she almost wanted something to happen, in order to release that pressure.

”Threes. Things that come in threes carry weight,” she said, drawing both from rhetoric and religion for that prediction ”so if I was orchestrating this, and had something I wanted to do to make an impact, I’d do it at the end of the the third act”

”You don’t think someone’s waiting for something to happen, do you? Maybe they’re trying to start a riot and are… warning us?” With the moderator’s brain protected from him and the strange thoughts he first picked up - someone who noticed him and talked back - a shiver ran up Raz’s spine. ”Somebody was prepared for us being here. If they just wanted to get info out of Shinra and Armstrong they didn’t need us for it. Why d’ya think they did that?”

“It’s him.” Roxas said suddenly, pointing his finger in the direction of the moderator so the other Seekers would know who he was referring to, “Ever since the last question something about that guy hasn’t sat right with me.” he explained to them, “I wasn’t sure at first until Mr. Dickinson asked who submitted that sixth question. That’s when it dawned on me that he was the only person who wasn’t surprised at all by the question, so I asked Raz to scan his thoughts. And it turns out he’s protected somehow. It has to be him. I just… don’t know how or why.”

”You think so? I mean he could be, but I don’t think he’s looked at us at all since we got here. He is pretty suspicious though.” Raz shuffled around under his oversized hoodie, producing his Psycho Portal for all to see. ”I could get a more direct peek into the moderator’s head,” he offered, ”since this seems pretty important. There’s a few more questions left, right? It shouldn’t take too long. I think.”

Goldlewis glanced at him, his face apprehensive. Even if it wouldn’t take long, there wasn’t much time; the next question was coming any second now. “Don’t do anythin’ that’d put us in jeopardy. ‘Specially yourself,” he cautioned.

”Nobody’s seen me yet, so I’ll keep keeping a lookout” Midna said, and then she was gone right as the next question started to be aired.

Zenkichi’s hands were steeped together, brows furrowed as he tried putting the pieces together. He was a PubSec Investigator, dammit! He could figure this out! The Source. What was the Source? The obvious answer was Galeem- the source of this created world, the source of literally everything going on in it, but what was too obvious. The source of the Ever Crisis was a mystery to everybody in Midgar, and he wasn’t going to try and crack it. Not enough info, not enough time. This wasn’t an unsolvable puzzle, they’d been given a direct line to this place, a firsthand look at everything going on here. Armstrong said the people were the source of Midgar’s power. A populist answer, if correct as the basis of Democracy. Shinra went more literal, with his company- and Mako- being his answer.

But what if the answer was both? The walking fortress that stole the life force of the dead in the war, Mako, the lifeblood of the planet (according to Avalanche, at least). What if the source was life energy? Spirits had to, theoretically, contain a pretty massive amount of energy inside them to be able to be used for Fusion, to fundamentally alter the essence of a living creature. What if Nox, the master of that walking fortress, was taking the energy from Spirits and using it to power whatever it was he was planning? That…could be pretty bad. But before he could say anything, the next question began.

”We had better get ready for what's to come if whatever this is wants us here. This could all be a trap we’ve stumbled into. Although who would even set it? This could be an opportunity, since we were just spinning our wheels here, at the end of the day.” Susie said, with the same mumbling thoughts that the rest could hear, but not those too far from her.

Karin leaned forward in her chair, folding her fingers together underneath her chin, her eyes alight and her smile widening.

---

Geralt sat there, in stunned silence, his head cocked to the side. “Is it just me, or are these questions becoming more asinine? This…doesn’t make sense.” He hummed, thoughts going around his head. “Either whoever picked these questions is having a laugh at everybody’s expense, or there’s more going on here. What’s the source of Midgar’s power? What even is Mako, Giovanna? Does anybody other than Shinra actually know? Or is it some big secret they don’t let anybody in on?” His eyes were narrowed on the moderator, wondering why he was bothering to ask these bizarre questions, and why they were chosen.

“This not normal question, meh?” Tora asked. He really had zero frame of reference when it came to political events like these.

Though she’d only been half-listening to most of the debate, Giovanna couldn’t disguise the fact that its direction was confusing her as well. “Some sort of fuel, I think. Comes from the ground, and they process it or something in their reactors. Powers the whole city. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.” She didn’t feel the need to join the cavalcade of people stating aloud how weird this was. Instead she scrunched her brows together trying to think of why. “No way it’s just some curious -or ignorant- citizen. The moderator would’ve screened it out. Whoever he is, he’s doing this on purpose. If it was making just one of ‘em look bad I’d get it, but both?” She tilted her head. “Does anyone remember what he said his name was, back at the start?”

Sakura just threw another dart, this one closer to center. She was only paying attention to what the people she knew were saying, and was tuning out the debate itself.

“No, I don’t remember. I wasn’t paying it any mind…hmm.” Geralt’s face scrunched up a bit, but he didn’t quite have any idea what was going on. He could tell something was strange, but he was missing a few bits of context to really make any actual guesses as to what. Giovanna pursed her lips. There was a chance that she could call into base and have someone run a search on the moderator’s name if she knew it, but now she’d just have to wait and see for herself.

It seemed that Therion wasn't the only Seeker that had a strange dream last night. The thief considered the implications of that while Primrose passed out linkpearls to those that she hadn't been able to prior: Rubick, Nadia, Sectonia, and after a brief moment of hesitation, Artorias.

The dreams - was it just a coincidence? The group had gone through some pretty horrific shit in the last few days. Therion's own dream hadn't reflected any of that though. In fact, now that he was awake, what he remembered of the dream's setting was totally unfamiliar to him save for a few "characters." As well as one other figure.

That woman in the red armor. Had to be one of those Consuls, he concluded. But he didn't remember seeing one with a mask like that. Were there more Consuls than just P and F down here with them? If so were they screwing with the Seekers via their dreams? Therion's tail began swishing back and forth, moving faster the longer he thought about it. It didn't feel like a normal dream, but it was so vivid and personal feeling that he hesitated to bring it up. Maybe he could just cut out the part where all his friends ended up dead if he talked about it before the details slipped away. ...thinking about it now, Cordelia was there but not Heathcote. No Tressa either... weird.

He tuned back in as Ms. Fortune was questioning the Pizza Trolls. Neither Therion nor Primrose could say that they really knew what a pizza was beyond some kind of food, but magic bags that they could preserve all kinds of food in seemed nice. It was a worthy reason to dive into the unknown perils of the tower, and the Seekers did just that with gusto.

Most of the Seekers anyway. The Orsterrans lingered behind. From what they'd gathered, the way out of the tower was through these trolls - namely through their stomachs. They'd mentioned they were particular about what toppings they liked, but didn't give so much as a hint as to what they were. Plus, if the trolls were blocking the exit somehow, wouldn't it be easier to just... go through them, rather than playing their game of guess the pizza?

"So..." Primrose began, casually looking over at the trio of wooden trolls. "What happens if we don't feed you?"

"Huh? Then... we'll be hungry."

"...I meant, is there no way through this tower otherwise?"

One of the trolls grinned and lifted its head high. "That's right! The only way out is through the boss. But if you give us pizzas we like, we'll show you where he is!"

Therion sighed, cracking his neck as he did some stretching. "If he's the boss, wouldn't he be in the staff area right there?"

He indicated the hall, making all three trolls turn to look at it. They seemed to be thinking something over, since they didn't turn back for several seconds. One of them piped up with, "Uh, w-well it's a good guess but, w-we told you to stay away from there!"

The Travelers shared a look, and a moment later Therion was headed toward the 'Staff Only 'area. The trolls didn't move to stop him, but they did start making a racket with their warnings until Primrose stomped her heel on the ground, shutting them up with the sound of it. When Therion peeked into the corridor, he found it much the same as the others: a hall with some doors that looked like they might lead to 'levels.' He relayed what he saw to Primrose, who then crossed her arms and gave the Pizza Trolls a hard stare.

"Which room is your boss in?" she asked. The stumpy creatures cowered until one finally broke under her gaze.

"D-definitely not the 210 door!"

The dancer nodded, walking away from the small group and bidding Therion to join her. The trolls sighed in relief. It hadn't been hard at all to get the information; they almost pitied the tower attendants.

"Well we can leave any time now. I'll let everyone know."

"Sure." Therion glanced at the other halls just before taking a bag of his own and heading towards the hallways. "We're going to have to wait for everyone else to get back anyway, so I'll grab some food too."

"Fruits and cheeses would be nice for breakfast."

Therion agreed, so he took her suggestion and headed for the very first of the levels provided. The dancer herself stayed behind to rest a little longer, though she did raise a hand to the linkpearl in her ear as her friend disappeared through the entrance to John Gutter.


Meanwhile, Therion wasn't surprised at all to hear the door slam closed behind him once he'd stepped through it. Honestly it would have been more surprising if it hadn't happened. It was here for fruits, and it looks like he'd chosen the right place. He could already see some hanging from trees, and smell the sweetness even over the stale water. Those stump things said to make sure to be fast, right? He recalled. Alright, let's do this.

He didn't have much trouble traversing the level. He darted down slopes and up trees, making use of the tallest plants to get over the short but sheer cliffs. The area's monkeys didn't get in his way, save for the banana peels they tossed into his path. Annoying, but nothing more. Most other creatures he saw were living rocks of some sort, both shy and some not so much. Whenever fruit was in easy reach he stuff it into the sack he was carrying.

When he reached what must have been the end of this room he noticed a much larger statue covered in cracks and plasters. It wasn't aggressive, in fact it didn't seem to care at all that Therion was there. It glanced at him tiredly and merely sighed.

"Get on with it..." The statue said, sounding resigned to its fate, which... what? Therion's confusion must have been easy to pick up, as the Pillar John let out another sigh and said, "If you're new, I'm like the exit timer, I guess. Go on..."

It only took a second for what the stone was saying to click in Therion's head. Right, there was a time limit. So after he activated the timer, he had to escape before the exit closed again, was that it? He hadn't noticed any other doors on his way here, so he assumed the exit was the same one he'd entered from. With that in mind he slung the bag over his back and tied it to his clothes, preparing to take on his Beast Form again.

"If you insist," he told the Pillar John, which only looked at him with disinterested eyes. He shifted, leapt at the pillar man and sprung off in a feline kick that sent the statue to the ground. Therion heard a distinct shifting noise which must have been the timer starting, or the door opening. Either way he sprinted off the way he'd come. The path back seemed to have even more little angry rock people looking for a fight, but in his four legged body Therion could sail right over them. The exercise felt good, but he was more looking forward to eating and moving on.

He passed back through the doorway and into the tower's lobby, sporting a bounty of bananas, sweet peppers, cantaloupes, mangos, and pineapples; plus one strange walking fruit that had tagged along on the way back.

Sectonia, having not slept the previous night thanks to that consul, had her antillions set up camp. Seeing as there were others that were as tired, if not way more tired than her like Nadia, she also told her antillions to get them ready and in bed and protect the camp while they all slept. Entering her tent, it wasn't super opulent like she liked, but she was too tired to really complain all that much about 'roughing' it, and just crashed for the night.

Her dreams weren't as extensive as some of the others, with it being mostly just her looking into that large body mirror she used to lok at herself through back on Floralia, although a bright, bright light started to encompass everything around, reflecting off the mirror and blinding her, with her seeing a white, fluffy figure in the light before she woke up.

Upon waking, Sectonia was rested, but didn't really feel it. Being the beauty queen she was, she took a bit to get herself presentable and ready before leaving her tent. Upon leaving her tent, she saw a disheveled Nadia who looked like she tried to groom herself, although she didn't do a good job. Surprisingly she had managed to wake up before the koopa clan and the 'king of evil', and even with her prep time, she was up and about before then. Perhaps those sounds she heard before she fell into dream land were them arguing. They did seem to have history, and it wasn't all that good, so that could've been it.

After observing, Sectonia wasn't too impressed with the area. Although purple bricks were quite an odd choice, the look of these pizza trolls wasn't much to be desired. What's more, they seemed to block the way until the group found stuff they wanted, and they wouldn't tell Nadia what they wanted. They seemed to live up to their name then, but in an effort to try to deal with the rage of, well, basically the whole group but mostly the royals, they offered a deal almost in spite of their own nature. An infinite storage bag and boxes that preserved things perfectly, specifically pizza, and even suggested the group use these to get all the food they could need to survive out here in the 'wilds'.

"In spite of our rage at such a random, potentially time consuming request, you offer us a method of dealing with a food crisis. I am curious as to why. It seems both requests are paradoxical in nature." Sectonia said, questioning the trolls.

"Para-whatta? Rage?" Arno scratched his head, looking around. "Doesn't seem like anyone's mad to me lady. You come to Pizza Tower, you get pizza. Just gotta work a little for it, that's all." they replied.

Sectonia wasn't stupid, if they refused to answer or just avoided the question like they just did, she knew it was someone above them and this was their way of helping. Well, if they weren't going to be annoying about it. She could always mind control them if they were far too annoying. Although this might take some time, since well... this was an infinite food source and it would take the seekers time to find enough food for the group.

Nadia had accepted their offer without question, and just as she was deciding which of the rooms to go into, Sectonia stopped her for a moment. "Before you go catch your fish, you should at least look proper. You were out of sorts after what happened yesterday after all." Sectonia said, summoning a couple antillions to clean up Nadia's hair and make her look proper before she went into her pizza run. This didn't hold Nadia back for very long, as she was far smaller than Sectonia herself, and soon the feral was off on her own little 'pizza run'.

Speaking of a pizza run, she had to figure out where she would go. The queen’s musings were interrupted by what was now becoming a rather common event: a request for Rika to don the hat of greed so that she could crush some spirits.

Specifically that request came from the girl herself, and her now brother bowser junior, who was unusually on foot rather than riding around in his clown themed flying machine.

”SAYU, that giant mermaid v-tuber, busted it up when she kicked it” the prince explained when asked, before reassuring the queen and princess. Sectonia could only ask ”What is a v-tuber?” but got cut off mid sentence by Jr saying. ”But don’t worry, I got something out of that to make up for it, so I’m not gonna be slowed down one bit”

”You mean the tape right?” Rka asked, before ignoring the preceding whining about spoilers and instead repeating the request ”Could we please borrow your hat again? I have these flukes that we killed because they were stealing food from the city” before broaching a question on morality ”Wait, isn’t that what we’re about to do now? So is that a bad thing or not?”

”I uh” Jr umm’ed, not really knowing how to address that, before noticing a discrepancy and jumping on that ”hey wait what happened to those adventurer monsters that we found dead on the ground? And I ‘m sure there was more flukes”

”You did make minions out of some of them” the shipgirl pointed out, only for jr to retort that ”No I mean the other ones, dummy”



”From what I can tell, this place generates infinite food. Far different from a place that has limited food being stolen.” Sectonia said, a bit taken aback at these two having a ‘moral’ question after having done all the stuff they have. Still, she was fine with them crushing their loot, with the same stipulations as before.

”Oh. Ok that makes sense yeah” Rika replied to the queen, before thinking a bit, and theorizing ”I think we must have had them for too long and they faded away?” regarding the missing spirits.

”Aw, that is so lame” the prince sulked, mood dampened a little, though there was still treasure to be had.



If you called a pile of worms treasure that is.

”Eww what even the stuff they give is gross” the prince compiled, as Rika stood there nonchalantly holding the wiggling worms in her crushing hand.

Sectonia was as repulsed as the younger of two kids, but her curiosity on scanning their magic found quite a few interesting things coming from these wriggling worms. ”Hm…. With the trinket smelter, I suppose we wouldn’t have to hold onto these ‘worms’. Either way, they seem to have magical attributes of their own when held.” with sectonia explaining what she sees from each worm. Honestly thanks to that trinket smelter, she was interested in a couple of them that would make her projectiles very, very difficult to dodge out of their sheer chaos.

”Huh, they do all that?” Rika, who had little context as to why the worms were repulsive and just sort of found them strange. As such she was still holding them after the explanation, and thus had the opportunity to test the result of holding all of them.

The resulting slow moving, pulsating, oval shaped wildly swaying from side to side shot from her grizco blaster was certainly a sight to behold as it flew through the air for a fair bit longer than normal before detonating off to one side of where the ship girl had been aiming.

”Ok, that is like, super weird. How am I supposed to hit anything like that?” she asked, and she had a point. Only fear of ricochets made her hold off on firing her rifle, but she could only imagine how utterly unhelpful it would be to adjust those ”I mean, how does it help at all?”

Taking the wiggle worm, Sectonia showed Rika how it could be of use to her as she fired off a ring of light, which in addition to the weird attributes her mask gave her, also now wiggled making it much less predictable. Although due to its size, this also made it much, much harder to dodge. At least no one would be hurt by it with her control over friendly fire matters, but it did show how she could use them. ”This one, that one, and that one would make dodging my attacks even harder than they were before. And surprisingly more accurate.” Sectonia said, almost self burning herself as all she had to do was de-equip her mask that tripled her projectile count in order to get her accuracy back.

”Ohhhh, I get it now” Rika ooo’d before asking ”Do you want them then? They seem to work way better for you than for me, seeing as yours are already big and stuff”

”Which leaves us with the really useless slow one” Jr complained, only for Rika to add ”And the fluke one”

”I guess but … oh, maybe if I” the prince mumbled to himself, theorizing to himself about how to use the fluke nest. Then he snapped his fingers, attaching it to his bib, and the raising up his paintbrush and casting ”Stone!” which caused a brick to be ripped from the wall, and then for that brick to immediately explode into a shower of tiny fluklings, which then promptly exploded like goopy firecrackers.

”I. Alright. I guess” Jr said, still not entirely convinced this was good.

”Worse comes to worse, perhaps a magic shop would be interested in such matters the next time we encounter one.” Sectonia said to Jr. to cheer him up a bit.

”Anyway” Rika said, having now handed over the relevant worms and pocketed the cash, ”there was one other thing, and that was that Dad Bowser said we should go with someone else while doing this. You know to be safe. Also so he and Ganandorf can fight or something I think? I dunno” even if she wasn’t blind to the hostility between the two ”So would you like to come with us? Or have us go with you?”

Sectonia looked at the two and thought for a moment. ”I suppose if you are going to where I am, I don’t see why not.” Saying that, Sectonia pointed at Peppibot factory, the two seeing that the queen had quite the sweet tooth if her first instinct was to go to desert land.

”Wait, you want to go there too?” Jr said, surprised, particularly because he was fairly sure that the ‘go with other people’ had also been an attempt to stop the youngsters going for sweets. Well that plan had failed spectacularly, which got a cheer of delight from the pair.

Sectonia wasn’t sure how to reply to that with nothing but a simple. ”Of course, why wouldn’t I?”. She hadn’t been secretive about her sweet tooth, but it still was strange to talk about eating habits.

”I can hardly wait! So let’s go already!” Rika insisted, only for jr to request
”just one sec” as he popped a set of headphones on, slotted a tape into a tape deck. Play was pressed, the tape began to play, and the prince was consumed by static, that flowed and expanded up until it vanished with a little flash of flare and revealed the form of the guard captain Undyne.

”Alright! It worked!” the transformed prince cheered, before summoning and twirling around a pair of spears showally, before dismissing one and planting the butt of the other to the ground. ”Pretty cool right!”

”Yup” Rika agreed, before she made to copy him, summoning her own new polearm and giving it a spin too. They might have engaged in a contest of increasingly elaborate spear tricks, had their stomach not grumbled and reminded them of what they needed to be doing.

Sectonia looked at Jr with a puzzled look on her face. ”This area seemed like it would be quite dangerous, have you managed to get some practice in with that?” Sectonia said. While she was neutral on him, having Bowser’s son die under her watch would lead to quite a fight, and while she found him to be a buffoon, his strength was no joke.

”Other than being a fluke for a bit, nope, none!” Jr replied cheerfully, before clarifying that ”But it's fine, this tape acts like a second health bar, so even if I go down as Undyne, I’ll be just fine. I’ll pop out, fit and healthy and ready for round two, and won’t that be a nasty surprise if something manages it. Not that they’re gonna”

---

The queen hovered in through the gates of her chosen level, flanked on both sides by the pair of spear-wielding warriors, and found herself before the Peppibot factory. Or, more specifically “Joe Peppoibot: Pizza Production” going by the signage emblazoning the brick building sitting inside the room of the tower. A fantastical land of sweets it did not seem to be, and certainly, the tanks of “grade A quality pizza slop” did not seem particularly encouraging either. Yet through a few high windows they could spy patches of color, eye catching deviations in hue that stuck out from the grinding metal machinery that filled most of them.

Above those windows, fumes rose from smoke stacks and then into some kind of ventilation system in the rooms walls, while ahead of them stood a set of wrought iron gates locking off a small courtyard leading up to the factory entrance.

A moment later the inviting and open gateway they had entered through slammed shut with a bang, sealing the trio inside with whatever dangers lurked within.

Like the fedora wearing cigar smoking Weenie, which patrolled past the inside of the gate, gave them a side eye through the iron bars, but did not stop or do anything else but keep walking.

”Well that was weird” Rika commented, before airing the question of ”So. How are we gonna get in?”

”If there isn't a way, we may have to break in. We do have to make an escape route for the ‘escape ‘portion, if those trolls are to be believed.” Sectonia said.

”I mean, we’re gonna have to break in at some point, and having the front gate that’s right in front of the exit unlocked sounds like a good escape route” was jr’s preference, very much intending to just storm the place so he could fully make use of and show off his new power.

”But maybe if we go around there’ll be a back door somewhere? Or even just a window we can jump up to and go in. That way we can bypass their defenses“ Rika suggested. Not that she thought the patroing sausage goons looked all that dangerous, but anything could be behind the big double doors leading inside the factory.

”I suppose, although I still think we’ll have to cause some chaos if this ‘pizza face’ is the threat they make him out to be. And once that starts, it won't end.” Sectonia said, fine with the stealthy approach, but very much aware they would be slinging spells and hitting things once the whole factory was alerted.

”Fiiiiine. I guess it’d be more dramatic to bust out through the front gates anyway” Jr conceded, while Rika glanced from one side to another, and then arbitrarily decided to scout the perimeter in a clockwise direction, her little scout plane buzzing on ahead.

She, through it, quickly found where the wall went tight with the building and, above, saw a window that led into the second floor of the factory.

”That’ll do, I think?” she suggested, before having her plane fly up and take a peek, and finding out that within there were ”Just a whole bunch of old ladies in there, making cookies. Not much of a threat at all I’d think”

There was also, she reported, a simple maintenance door looking, well, door down below said window, though with it being shut she had no idea what was behind it.

”Let's get started then.” Sectonia said, grabbing Jr and Rika to bring them up to the window before entering herself. Starting out she summoned her squads of antillions, telling them to go about and collect/clear the factory but not to hit a ‘pullar’, whatever that was, as she herself readied herself to start throwing her own ‘pizza’ like weapons, Ie her rings of light with even more unpredictability.

In front of her the two youngsters brandished their spears, and pointed them at the rows and rows and rows of grannies, who more or less failed to notice their intrusion. Instead they kept rolling dough, sticking in chocolate chips, cutting out shapes on a series of countertops running the center of the chamber, and then loading them into many many ovens lining the walls of the sweltering room.

”This is a robbery … no it’s a requa-requweh-uh, the thing where royals can take stuff for the war effort. One of those. Now hand over the cookies and nobody .. gets … hurt?” Jr started boldly before trailing off when he realized that Rika might have been a bit light on the details.

”Requisition.” Sectonia said, correcting Jr. At least he was trying to be a royal.

For one the grannies weren't exactly … healthy looking. Their skin was the color of exposed flesh, and wrinkled to an extent that they looked dehydrated and their eyes were glowing red, but not just with the light of galeem. Their movements were also strange. Jerky, twisting, limbs bending in ways limbs should not bend, as if they were not humans, but some other thing wearing human skin

The other thing was an odd clicking sound filling the room, one which drew the trio’s gaze upwards, where they found a giant floating cookie surrounded by 2d white gloved hands that where periodically clicking on it.

The youths looked at it for a few moments, with a mix of hunger and dread they did not understand the source of, only to find, when they looked back down to the grannies, that each and every one was looking at them, having paused mid bake, or roll.

”I thought you said it was just grannies” Jr hissed at his (new) sister, to which the ship girl whispered back ”I mean they are aren't they? Just some kind of monster ones, right?”

”What kind of Sarkic eldritch… cookie… cult is this?” Sectonia said, the ‘cookie’ part of her declaration being something she didn’t understand.

They would have started bickering about that, had the old ladies all cried out, at the same time, with one voice “Naughty children, you can’t have cookies for breakfast!” and then brandished their rolling pins and charged the trio while shrieking at the top of their lungs with ancient voice boxes, older than the stars.

The two kids screamed with them, though they did it while opening fire, Rika with her rigging and double barreled spear butt, while Jr first tried and failed to breath fire, and then jabbed his spear forwards, sending a Torrent of watery mirrors of the weapon shooting up from around his feet. Sectonia did what she did, just throw discs of light at them, the large discs vibrating in the air now thanks to the wiggly worm and covering even more area.

Grannies fell before them, but horrifically, instead of turning to ash, they instead underwent metamorphosis. Some, cut in half by Sectonia’s discuses, had their blood congeal into sacks that buoyed them up into the air, while their fingers became rigged with razor sharp teeth and their skulls burst into pulsating flesh, becoming Floaty Grosses.

Meanwhile the torsos of those same bisected grannies sprouted jaws at their bloody midsections, and then hold themselves up to come charging at the trio, wanting to use their massive new chopmers to take a bite out of their own midsections.

Others fell into a pile of guts, a few of which merged together into a mass of mouth meat with a single eye that could fire pulsating orbs of bioplasma, or sprouted legs and tentacles to become stalking abominations that spat volleys and beams of bile from their several mouths. The half dozen hulking masses dwarfed their unfused sisters, and slowly advanced upon the trio, unleashing their sickening strikes as they closed in.

Finally the ones not cut down kept screaming, their lower jas elongating and muscles strengthening till they became a mass of tendons, fangs and claws called face monsters, able to tough through attacks that the the grannies still holding onto a semblance of humanity could not.

The siblings were forced to move, cutting off their fire as acid and bioplasma hit their position, rika slowing the shots enough to get away unharmed while Jr stumbled with his lanky fish woman proportions, and received an armor scorching hit from one of the mouth meats, which sent him sprawling to the floor.

Rika raced to his side, driving her spear tip into the far to wide maw of a face monster, and then when that didn’t kill it, used a touch of stamina to instantaneously invert her spear, putting both barrels there instead and blowing its head clean off.

There were, unfortunately, far more where it came from.

”Remember, we’re here for the sweets. Not dealing with…. Whatever horrors these things are.” Sectonia said as she raised her pipe of insight shield to have it block a blast of fire that had been shot her way by a granny holding a lighter to her eldritch mouth and spitting her bio plasma through it. Meanwhile a monster Sectonia had turned into chunks coalesced into a Mega Clotty. Seeing that there wasn’t much for them to do in this room, Sectonia turned her focus onto the giant cookie above and the various Wrinklers around it. One ring of light cut through all of them and hit the large cookie itself. The wrinklers exploding into an… obscene amount of cookies. Whatever cookies showered upon the trio or any of Sectonia’s antillions that were alive were ‘collected’ by the group.

The giant cookie however also fractured and exploded when hit in a dramatic dusty explosion. As the cookie dust descended upon everyone on the ground, all the uncollected cookies, grannies, and well, everything popped out of existence with an audible “pop” as a constellation of cookie shaped stars appeared where the cookie once was.

”Destroy the source of their worship, and the worshippers disappear….” Sectonia said, not intending for any of that to happen at all. She just wanted a chunk of the giant cookie to take with them as they escaped. She wasn’t expecting THAT to happen.

”Uh huh, sure” Jr replied, having gotten that kind of excuse from his dad enough times to know it was a lie.

Rika meanwhile went ”Ohhhh. That is so smart!“ genuinely impressed and 100% falling for the ruse. In her defense, she did have other things on her mind, namely leaning her spear up against a wall and then huttying over to steal a cookie from one of the antlions. She took a little chomp out of it, and gave a delighted ”mmmm, so good“ as she chewed and swallowed her taster, before proceeding to chow down on the rest in rapid fashion.

Jr starred at this for a moment, before concluding ”Ok, so, I guess we know the meat granny cookies are safe then” and then going for some himself.

”Oh wow these are good”

Sectonia was a bit apprehensive at eating the cookies when Jr. said they were meat granny cookies, but continued to taste test one as Jr. ignored his own words and commented on their taste. Yes, they were good, and that got Sectonia pontificating a little bit. ”Hm… interesting. So to chase the ultimate cookie flavor, whoever ran this place made a deal with eldritch horrors beyond this realm. Upon whom’s source of power I just destroyed.” Sectonia said. Well, at least they had thousands upon thousands of cookies to collect in their endless pizza bag, so they wouldn’t be running out of cookies anytime soon.

”Do you think they’ll be upset?” Jr asked rhetorically, which Rika responded with ”Probably“ anyway, before suggesting ”so we should get moving before they notice?“

She indicated to an area at the other end of the room that seemed to be an exit. Notably it was not a door, but a conveyor belt, heading through a flap. Whoever had built this room had simply walled the grannies in and left the entire production process to run itself.

---

The two children rolled out along the conveyor belt into a maze, a veritable spaghetti bolognaise of steel, with not a main bus in sight. Instead layers upon layers of machinery stretched from the ground floor up several stories to a vaulted roof.

Up on high was a glass windowed overseer’s office, one which seemed to hold a massive gray pillar of some kind, which overlooked the entire chamber, and from which a person could watch the entire process of pizza production from beginning to end.

From the various sectors of the factory confectionary flowed in at a steady pace, such as the cookies, and then fell into funnels atop machinery, which then dotted pizzas coming in via other conveyor belts, before sending the whole thing off to be either baked and boxed or simply immediately boxed by floating stamp creatures flying with tiny wings on their ‘handles’. Finally, after everything was packed up, they were shipped out to whatever place required the unending amount of pizza being produced.

If they followed that production line back, they could doubtless find the sources of the various sweet treats, coming out of a variety of holes in the chamber’s wall like the one they had just exited. Everything from hard candy to chocolate to marshmallows and even ice cream could be seen flowing into the room, and so if they wanted ingredients all they had to do was take their pick and head for their treat of choice.

Though as it turned out that was easier said than done.

The trio’s own conveyor quickly came to its own terminus, a grinder that turned the cookies into crumble, forcing the kids to hop down onto the conveyor bringing the pizzas themselves. Then they had to start running along it to avoid going into the machine’s base and getting dusted with crumble, fighting against the flow of the machine and trying not to slip on the pizza bases themselves.

The queen certainly had an easier time of it, though with the gordian knot nature of the assembly, she had to contend with the resulting lack of airspace, and the constant risk of getting a wing caught in a gear, oven, crusher or other mechanical hazard. This slowed her down greatly, much to her annoyance. She could at least see the other two were having an issue navigating on their own, and when they needed a bit of a boost, Sectonia could give them some Haste to let them clear the crusher.

”The logistics of this place seem super bad“ Rika commented, her military instincts abhorring the clutter and convoluted supply lines, while Jr replied that ”It does make a pretty good platforming challenge though. Papa’d probably give it an 7 at least''

And that was without enemies. The Bowser score might have reached a 9 when the other part of the automated factory introduced themselves, namely the eponymous [url=eponymous]peppibots[/url]. The facsimiles of a man they had not met yet where not best pleased by the kids clambering around their construction and messing with the merchandise, and they let this be known via battle ax sized [url=i.imgur.com/20u2vyJ.png[pizza cutters[/url] and ranged pizza launchers.

While the wheel based bots could not engage the queen other than by taking potshots, another part of the factory could, namely fridge sized logistic bots. Normally they acted as a bandaid on the factory clutter by ferrying things to and fro inside their cooled interiors, but when an intruder was spotted, they switched to defense mode, rocketing through the sky to try physical ram the intruders with all the force of, well, a rocket propelled fridge.

Sectonia wasn’t having any of that. Summoning her Chaos heart shield, she really didn’t have much choice but to take these fridge rockets head on, with lightning. Lots of lightning thanks to her items, which went haphazardly everywhere. Sure it could be pointed in a direction, but beyond that not even she knew where the bolts would fly. There were a lot of them though, and while she struck down an approaching rocket fridge with her lightning, another collided against her shield, ricocheting off and into one of the wheel based bots below. Her dark lightning also made for an interesting light show, if this factory was a rave spot or something. Still, she had to make quick work of what was attacking her while the massive damage reduction of her chaos shield lasted.

It was a good thing she didn’t cause friendly fire, including the electricity arching through the metal maze. What her skill did not stop was the damage that shocking caused, as machinery overloaded and caught fire, or got straight up demolished.

Not that she was the only one causing carnage. Jr and rika were causing some, as shells and spears that missed the surprisingly speedy bots blasted and splashed stuff to bits, but ironically the bots were worse.

Rika leapt off of a conveyor right before a fridge smashed down into when she had been standing, and shattered the belt in the process, sending it and the machinery and pizzas crashing down to the floor 3 stories below. Then her head snapped to the side, slowing a pizza themed disk that was coming at her just enough for her to combat roll under it, resulting in it whistling overhead and then detonating somewhere behind her, sending candy flying through the air.

Burnt marshmallows and candy corn rained down and bounced off of Jr’s armor, or got stuck in their long flowing red hair, which felt ever so gross to him, but at least it was undyne’s hair and not his getting decorated like a dessert pizza. Then he promptly lost several hairs of said hair to a saw bladed pizza cutter that he just barely avoided, before going ”oof'' as the peppibot turned the failed killing blow into a full body charge, wheel picking up impressive pace as it rammed him towards one of the ovens.

Fish and machine smashed into steel, buckling it and unleashing a gout of flame that washed over both of them, heralding a scream of pain and anger from the prince, one that transitioned seamlessly into a shout of Burning Passion as the flames empowered the prince’s form as much as the harmed it. Healing steam rose off of the cassetbeast, stitching burnt scales and flesh back together as the prince summoned a spear and rammed it through the chest of the machine, before hurling the impaled peppibot off of him and down into the mechanical mess below.

Then he had to leg it as the oven behind him started coming apart at the seams

”Sec, please tell me you can see a way out of this mess!” he shouted up at the shielded queen.

Sectonia couldn’t really see much in this storm of chaos, but did see an opening they hadn’t gone into. ”There is something sweet coming from this outlet, and they are producing a lot of it.” Sectonia said, smelling the sweetness in the air as she pointed to an outlet a little below Jr. and Rika and made her way towards it with the other two following behind wanting to get out of this chaos.

Sectonia had chosen an interesting spot. Inside was chocolate. Fields of chocolate. Everything was made out of some kind of chocolate, with a few chocolate covered items such as strawberries. All of different colors and shapes.There were even some rivers of chocolate that flowed about from a large spring that shot chocolate into the air.

All around they could see various robots mining away at the chocolate, which after having a large piece taken out of it, slowly regenerated. Although chocolate before it was refined was often bitter, so with a cautionary swipe, Sectonia snapped off a piece and tried it.

”Hm, this area is made of premade chocolate that these things seem to be harvesting as if they were rocks. Considering the different colors here, I assume each is a different type of chocolate.” Sectonia said, pointing at the different shades of brown, black, or even occasionally white or red chocolate.

Surprisingly many of the inhabitants of this area paid the trio no mind, at least for now. The Protectrons continued to do their tasks while the Bouncies just ignored the group. Kabus got close, but as the trio moved aside, they found this was just so they could bring the chocolate that was being harvested over to the conveyor belt.

”Well, we’d best start harvesting, before another eldritch cult attacks us again.” Sectonia said, a bit too gleefully, using her swords to shatter and collect chocolate.

”I think she really likes chocolate?” jr whispered to Rika, who replied ”Who wouldn't? This stuff is great“ through a mouthful of it.

The two followed the queen’s lead, doing their own labor instead of stealing the fruits of the workers within, which seemed to prevent any kind of hostility erupting between them. The same could not be said of the peppibots, who would occasionally burst into the scene to interrupt their hard work. In one way this turned out to be a boon, as Rika and Jr teamed up to disarm a pair of them of their pizza cutters, and then turned those same cutters on the chocolate, which worked a lot better than jabbing at it with spears.

With a bit of sweat and effort, they filled up a multitude of boxes with all sorts of chocolate, from dark to white, and from sea salted to pop rock filled. Which presented them with the daunting issue of going back into carnage land again, till Rika had a suggestion: ”How about we just go out the window, circle round, and then go in another one this time?“

”Indeed. It should be much faster. Although we’ve yet to find a way to escape. Either way, I’ll send some antillions out to distract those bots outside before we do some window shopping.” Sectonia said, doing just that as the group found the window nestled in a moon shaped imprint on the wall.

With that done, it wasn’t too difficult for the trio to hop from factory room to factory room, finding all sorts of sweets from fruit flavored gummies, to marshmallows, to various hard candies, some of which were made of honey, ice cream which stayed surprisingly cool inside the pizza boxes that it was put into. Of course not every room was filled with delicious treats. There was a room where they spun liquorice like giant ropes which wasn’t a hit with the queen for one, who declared: ”How is that even supposed to be deemed ‘candy’, it's not even sweet!” to which Jr agreed while Rika thought that ”I dunno it seems kind of neat“. The princess was, however, outnumbered in her vague interest, resulting in them bypassing that room entirely.

Eventually, they’d done a complete loop of the outside of the factory, which left the question of how they actually were going to get out. With nothing else for it, they poked their heads out of a sauce manufactory and back into the main room.

Within, they saw traces of the destruction they had wrought, but only traces, as the Peppibots where wheeling around what was left of the factory and actively building it back up again, laying out conveyors, ovens, and topping appliers in a whole new complex mess. Above all this, was the one place they hadn’t gone yet: a large glass window overlooking the whole room.

With the main area wrecked, there was little preventing the queen from flying up to the top, other than, of course, harassment from the bots. The prince and princess held them at bay, acting as the side mounted miniguns to her transport helicopter impersonation.

Then with a smash of the glass, they broke into the overseer’s office. Inside were plush carpates, a mahogany desk, numerous fake health and safety awards, a few bookshelves of unread books, and the man, the myth, the legend, the namesake of the whole facility: Joe Peppibot.

Because he looked no different from all the others, Rika promptly shot the robot chef in the head, sending circuits spilling across the floor and his entirely standard spirit that was identical to his many worker drones falling to the floor.

Of more interest than the dead factory owner was the massive stone pillar with a face just sort of sitting in a corner of the room, minding his own business.

”There’s gotta be, like, a secret button or something in here to open the front gate” Jr insisted as he made a b-line for the desk, only for the pillar to tiredly inform him that “That’d be me”

”You are? How does that work?”

“Load bearing pillar” he replied, as if that explained everything, and when asked why he was even telling them this he informed them that “Existence is suffering. Also I’m a hive mind so even if you knock off a bunch of me I won’t actually be dead, only suffering less”

”But don’t you want to keep us stuck here?“ Rika asked, still confused as to why he was giving away this information.

“I hate that Pizza face guy. I’d tell you to punch him in the face if you see him, but you don’t want to hang around long enough for him to show up. Trust me” Pillar John concluded, before waiting patiently for them to get it over with.

”Well… I suppose it's about time we got this underway. Get ready to escape you two.” Sectonia said, not too concerned with giving this Pillar John his death wish. It was a good thing Sectonia had a haste ability to help them escape.

The two nodded, and left her to do the honors. When she did, and Piller John fell, Pizza time began.



As soon as it did, alarms started blaring, a number of small wall sections rotated to reveal a 4 minute countdown, and a set of blast doors slammed shut over the shattered window, blocking the way they had entered the room. At the same time, one of the bookshelves slit to the side, caused not by the death, but by a curious Rika having tried to pull the only non dusty one off of the shelf, having been entirely nonplussed by the queen’s execution of the pillar as well.

”Well, I guess that’s our route out of here” Jr said, before running into the secret passageway.

A few seconds later they burst out of another hidden door, and into what turned out to be the onsite power plant for running all of the pizza manufacturing machinery. As with said machinery, the set up was not at all safe, coherent, or efficient. Arcs of lightning lanced from generator to generator, while entire sections of the wall were made up of oversized electrical sockets that shocked anything that came near them.

There where a few hoovering electro bots patrolling the area naturally, and could shoot out close range shots of chain lightning from their plug like hands, but once they were in an open space Pizza Time’s other effect came into play. Portals shaped like Piller John’s face started to open around them, spitting out backup enemies such as additional peppibots, fridges bots and fedora wearing weenies (who proceed to just patrol around rather than attack) to try and slow down their escape.

”They are not going to make this easy… Don’t hold back.” Sectonia said, keeping her use of haste up on the trio so they could blitz through the area as well as they could. Thanks to her pipe of insight, the electricity that hit the trio did a bit of reduced damage, but it was difficult to dodge either way. Add in Sectonia using her own lightning to fry the bots that got in her way, and it was just difficult to even see at times. Plus getting constantly zapped by lightning wasn’t enjoyable at all.

It especially wasn’t enjoyable for Jr, who after getting hit once by electricity, had his water cassette-beast form turn conducive, resulting in every single shot of electricity arcing towards his position. In a room as shock filled as this, the prince was promptly engulfed in a blinding flash with the power of several lighting strikes, giving everyone a brief moment of panic before he emerged unscathed , or rather, his actual base form did, while his casset-beast tape now needed manually respooling if he was to use it again.

”Hey you jerks, I was having fun being that big fish lady!” jr yelled at the electrobot who had zapped him, before leaping at it, and shotgunning it with a blast of flukes caused by a transformed stone cast. The prince hit the ground, twirled his paintbrush and then tossed a pokeball out to summon Mimi atop his shoulder, who started mimicking Sectonia’s chaotic spellcasting to add yet more indiscriminate fire to their stage clearing.

As they crashed through the generator room, it occurred to Sectonia that they… didn’t really know the way out from here. They’d need to rush to beat that clock or at least find a spot they were familiar with so they could reach the exit and escape. At least there were these little stopwatches littering their path forward, which seemed to freeze the time momentarily when collected, giving them a bit of extra time.

After about a minute of racing around they all suddenly burst out into the main floor of the factory, now down at the bottom of it, rather than up on high with all the machinery. Well. all the working machinery. The floor was presently littered with the jagged and often burning reminders of their first pass through the room.

Brush wielding Peppibots paused their work, and went on the attack, while a fresh wave of enemy spawns bolstered their ranks.

Jr flicked his paintbrush to splash a streak of electrical goop over one of the brush wielders, short circuiting the unfortunate cleaner before pointing ”over there, I think I see some kind of lobby? That’s gotta lead to the main gates” while Rika looked over to one side and spied ”There’s a small little door over there! Maybe it goes to that one we saw before we came in“

Making her choice for the trio, Sectonia pointed at the lobby area. Their plan was to demolish the front gate, so that had to be linked there.

”Then let’s go already! Time to bust out in style!” Jr called out, before they got to running all over again, as fast as the prince’s stubby little legs could go. Bots were smashed, ice cream slicks leapt over, hot coals danced through and then they busted through a pair of lobby doors.

A tv screen faced vidbot secretary screamed as they went bursting through the entry lobby, which had of all things a statue of the god atlas with his face replaced with a smiling pizza. At the other end of the hall was the exit to the courtyard they’d seen when they entered, but said exit was in the middle of being welded shut by a pair of peppibots, who spun upon their entrance to try and turn their welding equipment on the trio.

”This one doesn’t have much taste, for being a pizza.” Sectonia jabbed as she fired a ring of light at the bots and front door to cut both to shreds. Of course due to its weird pattern and twin rings, this also busted up some of the ugly pizza faced statues. Unfortunately for the weiner guard they had seen before, he happened to be on the other side of the door when it met its fate, and got cut in half as well.

The way clear, the trio made their escape out into the now unguarded courtyard, and proceeded to do one last bit of vandalism as they totaled the front gate of the factory that stood in front of the now open door that led back to the tower. With time to spare thanks to Sectonia’s haste and the group’s destructive tendencies, they crossed the finish line, at which point a mechanical hand with a glove at the end reached out and gave them a bit of paper with a letter B on it.

”Huh?” jr said, as he took the card, looked at it for a few moments before exclaiming ”What is that our score! It gave us a B rank? A B RANK!?” and then turning right around, absurdly declaring ”Come on, let’s go again! We can do way better than a-” only for the door behind them to reveal the factory had been destroyed, explosions going off and everything.

Seeing Jr. trying to head back in, Sectonia grabbed the young koopa by the scruff of his bandana, saying. ”We have more important things to do.” She didn’t want him going back into something exploding after all.

”Yeaaaah. Ok. Never mind” Jr agreed after taking a look at the mess they’d left, spinning right back around and starting to walk away from it like it wasn’t his problem.

”Awww, now I’ll never know what licorice tastes like!“ Rika complained, as if that was the worst tragedy involved, before going along with him, the trio heading off to go see if they’d actually gotten anything the trolls would like to eat.

As they left the door behind, the timer within continued to tick down till it hit zero. Then a certain face arrived on the stage much too late, took one look at the devastation, and then left entirely nonplussed. A moment after that, the door to the level slammed shut for a moment, and when it opened back up the peppibot factory showed not a hint of the devastation that the trio had wrought, the stage reset and ready for another run.

“And that, ladies and germs, brings us to our final question,” the moderator began. During the course of this event so far, there had been slight, gradual changes in his tone and speech, going from composed and businesslike to more casual and drawn-out, practically a drawl. The uptick in hamminess felt oddly appropriate to the almost pugnacious progression of the candidates’ debate. The moderator’s papers lay on the desk beside him, and he wasn’t looking at them. After swirling and finishing off the last of his drink, he leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed, and continued.

“They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and I don’t know about all of you, but I sure feel like I just watched a knock-down-drag-out fight. A vitriolic war of words. A testament to our candidates’ conviction. President Shinra and Senator Armstrong are truly worlds apart, whether you’re talking perspective or ideologies. Enough to put not just themselves, but all of Midgar’s citizens at each other's throats. But are we really so different? In the end, they’re both vying for the presidency. The highest office in the land. And no matter which side you come from, or what ideals you espouse, the goal of the president is the same. World peace. Even if your world’s just one little city. And even though everyone wants the same thing, we’re stuck fighting each other. Living each day in fear of a stab in the back. So, gentlemen, my question is this.”

The moderator leaned forward onto his desk, his hands clasped. “Let’s say a third party hacked into the control systems for the Pillars for Sector 05 and Sector 08, and planted a very specific logic bomb, set to go off automatically. If left alone for, say, five minutes, they’ll drop the corresponding plates, destroying both sectors in their totality. And let’s say you were each given a very special button–one that can stop the bomb from going off in the other candidate’s sector. If you press it, the logic bomb will instead permanently lock the Pillars, making sure those plates can never be dropped. But if you leave it alone, the other man’s army -and all his most loyal supporters- are up in smoke. And it wouldn’t even be your fault; that third party can take all the blame. Oh…and one more thing.” Smiling, the moderator snapped his fingers.

Multi-layered magic circles blipped into existence on top of the bewildered candidates’ pedestals, each consisting of a heart ringed by crosses, a little bigger than a dinner plate. Magic screens manifested behind both candidates, covering most of the stage. They transmitted images of two massive support structures, one in Seiran, and one in Detroit. “...This isn’t a hypothetical.”

“W-what!?” Shinra stammered. “What is this!?”

Armstrong grinned in amusement, his brow furrowed. “What’re you playing at?”

“World peace,” the moderator announced. “Ready in just five minutes. Press it, or don’t. That’s up to you. I guess what I’m trying to say is…do you believe in world peace?”

As ripples of fear spread throughout the people, both security teams leaped to their feet. Even Sundowner heaved a sigh of relief and stood, towering over everyone around him. “Finally!” As the citizens remained seated, paralyzed with uncertainty and confusion, the guardsmen readied their weapons with Roland donning his distortion mask. Some moved to check one other, but most of them -led by Sundowner and Penance- turned on the moderator. Before they could take action, though, their left eyes began to glow red, and they stopped in their tracks. Suddenly all the soldiers stood still as if confident they had the situation under control, the tentative but tense peace maintained so that the candidates could consider the choice laid out before them.

”Goddesses” Midna cursed, simply lost for words for a moment as she watched this all unfurl from a raised vantage point. Bystander syndrome locked her in place until everyone else went still, and the fact that she could still move while all of the Galeeming could not kick her out of being an observer and into being an active participant, one that started shadow hopping towards the stage as fast as she could.

She wasn’t the only one. Roxas sprang forward and tried pushing his way through the audience. He couldn’t just stand there and let the moderator get away with this! Of course, the crowded audience didn’t exactly make that easy. In fact Roxas honestly couldn’t get anywhere really. The audience was just too packed and too frozen with fear to move.

”Why aren’t they doing anything?” Raz asked, sitting up in his seat. ”Just press the buttons!”

By this point Goldlewis was already on his feet, the same question on his mind. Surely these men weren’t actually considering letting their opponents’ plates drop? Despite what the moderator claimed, the optics on this situation would be horrific. They couldn’t actually be wondering if the sight of their opponent completely crushed would be worth this absurd loss?

Well before Midna reached the stage, however, the candidates made their choice. Armstrong hammered his button first, and after a very poignant second, Shinra did too. The giant cross-eyed happy faces blinking on both Pillars went dark, and their green lights were restored. A moment later, the screens fizzled out.

“Congratulations,” the moderator said, clapping. “You just made your world a safer place.” He fixed his attention on the camera. “And that, everyone, is the end of tonight’s event. I hope you’re all feeling informed and confident for the election next month. For now, from the Vandelay Campus, thank you and good night!”

The audience moved fast, vacating the theater as quickly as they could. Even faster were the security teams, covering their candidates from all sides as they escorted Armstrong and Shinra from the premises in different directions. Roland, being an intel gathering sort at heart, gave a signal to Penance that was what he was going to do, before he got into a hiding position to listen and observe on what was going on here. Thanks to his distortion mask and gloves, his stealth prowess was enhanced as he made no sound as he moved and he was forgotten about almost instantly when not observed.

”Okay that… that felt weird.” Raz hopped up onto his seat, tossing his ‘disguise’ to the floor. ”Like I’m glad nobody exploded and fell, but what was the point of that?” He lifted his goggles enough to peek at the moderator. ”I’m gonna try to follow that guy, see what’s up with him.” The moderator, however, did not go anywhere. Ignoring the security personnel that riddles him with looks that could kill, the man seated himself on top of his desk, casually waiting.

”C’mon!” Roxas exclaimed, ”We can’t just sit here, we’ve gotta do something!” and he tried once again to push his way forward toward the moderator. Maybe with the crowd now actually moving he’d have an easier time reaching his intended target. Raz was right behind him, using his smaller size and acrobatic training to hop over the seats, making a beeline to the moderator, as best he could through the fleeing crowd.

Zenkichi turned to Goldlewis, confusion on his face. He felt so close to figuring something out, but there was a more pressing matter at hand. The veteran just nodded at him, assuming that the detective was asking should we follow them? If it seemed like this Udo was going to play ball, neither man could afford to miss what would happen next. Goldlewis pushed out of his row and headed down toward the front of the theater. When you were as big as he was, people tended to clear the way. Zenkichi followed the human battering ram, silently thankful he didn’t have to try and push past anybody. ”Jeeze, kids, wait up!” He called after the part of the group that had gone ahead.

Karin stood up too, and made sure her shirt was tucked in. ”H.C, Udo, you devil. Who are you, really?” She asked herself. As Raz and Roxas rushed forward, concern flashed across her features.

”Be careful, gentlemen, he isn’t going anywhere.” She said, running and vaulting over the seats to follow after. Susie decided to stay further back for now, keeping an eye on the exits and the flanks, as something didn’t seem right here.

”We can’t be sure of that!” Raz called over his shoulder. The two reach the moderator first, with Raz doing a frontflip over his head, landing on his desk. ”Hey, you!” Raz said with a sharp turn to face Udo. ”What is it you want with us?”

“Milpico.” The moderator was smiling. In his hand he held a glass, and though he’d emptied it during the debate, it seemed to be full again, its top half all crystal-clear water, and its bottom half opaque white. “My favorite,” he elaborated. “But, you see, if you let it sit, the water and syrup separate. Here, see?” Holding it up from the top, he suspended it in front of his face and peered through the water at Raz.

“People are just like Milpico.” He held up his other hand and pointed it at the glass. “The syrup is the all-human desire, and the water is their survival instinct as living beings. Just plain old water would be bland, and syrup on its own would be too thick. But when you mix them together…” Swirling it around, he turned the disparate halves into an evenly distributed blend. Then he drank it all down in one gulp. “Mm-mm. Perfection.”

He tossed the glass up and down in his hand like a ball. “That’s just how people are. As for me, I’m…more than one hundred percent pure undiluted syrup.” Suddenly he hurled the glass upward. At the apex of its arc it exploded like a firework, and glittering dust rained down. When the Seekers looked back at Udo, the same man wasn’t sitting there any longer. He’d been replaced in an instant by someone wholly new. A wiry man with dull blue skin, messy gray hair, and short, impish horns. He wore orange glasses, each lens in the shape of an X, two leather holsters with sleek black guns, and a gray suit overlaid with cherry-red armor from the waist down. The rest hung around his waist, leaving his upper body bare. A row of orange crosses circled around his shoulders, and in the center of his chest lay a black heart, dripping, with golden teeth. A spiked black halo floated behind his head, and as the sparkles descended around him he smiled terribly wide.

“Happy Chaos.”

That was all Roxas needed to see. He summoned both his Keyblades and pointed the tip of Oblivion squarely at the devil person, "Enough mind games! Who are you? Really?" he was no longer in the mood for innuendos and doublespeak. He wanted answers, and no matter what he was going to get them.

“I just told you,” he laughed, unfazed. By this time the others had arrived, spreading out around him to listen. “My name. Happy Chaos! If that’s too much though, you can just call me C. I can be anything you like or nothing at all. But… I do exist.”

---

Though the details escaped him, Pit managed to grasp what the question was asking. He sat there rather perplexed by both some of the terminology and the question itself, since wouldn't the answer be obvious? Surely if someone had the power to save people at the press of a button they would. When the moderator revealed his gambit and showed that the situation wasn't imaginary the angel jumped to his feet in alarm, bar stool clattering to the ground behind him.

"What! The bombs are real?!" The concept of a "logic" bomb was completely unknown to him, and getting to either of the affected sectors in time was probably impossible, but even so he declared, "we have to go stop them!"

Sakura perked up again, staring at Pit and the TV.

Giovanna’s head swam from the revelation. “Five minutes…” she murmured, her voice lost in the fearful hubbub that filled Penguin Sniper. She glanced at the door, her mind racing. She was fast–incredibly fast, if mounted on Rei. If the worst case scenario came through and both candidates decided to let this happen, she might be able to make it in time. But making it wasn’t the main issue. Why weren’t the candidates doing anything about the moderator, now that he’d revealed himself as some sort of terrorist? More to the point, the Seekers had people right there. Giovanna hated inaction as much as anyone, but if anyone could do anything about this, it was the part of the team in attendance. “It’s in their hands,” she said bitterly.

Geralt had stood up, a frown on his face and his clawed hands clenched, but he did nothing. For once, he actually believed two men in power would do the right thing, if only because not doing so would be so painfully idiotic that they’d likely be slaughtered by the group right in front of them. And if they somehow walked away, there would be no coming back from it. No, Geralt knew they’d push those buttons. It just remained to see if they actually did anything.

”I don’t think there is anything we can do but watch. Can any of you teleport there and disarm them before they go off? I don’t think so, right?” Blazermate said, looking a bit annoyed and almost bored with the situation. Mostly because there really wasn’t anything they could do, so they could only see what happened next.

The situation ended up resolving itself quickly, with the candidates hitting their buttons and the moderator declaring peace. Pit still looked like he wanted to head out into the city, his fists clenched and wings spread. "Huh? Wait, so...? Is everything okay after all?"

He had no clue, since the monitor had stopped showing the broadcast; cutting to an outro and whatever scheduled programming was on afterward.

“What was the point of that?” Giovanna asked, her question as rhetorical as it was angry. “Nobody in the world could be put in that position and not press that button. The others wouldn’t have let it happen, and even if nobody in the whole theater lifted a finger, they’d probably end up fighting to push the other man’s button anyway.” She threw up her hands in helpless frustration. “Whoever that mod was, this whole thing was one big set-up. He played us all for fools–the hell does he want?”

Of course, her vehement questions wouldn’t accomplish anything. That task fell to those at the venue, if they managed to find the man of hour and get a hold of him.

”...It-” Sakura began. ”It’s your turn, by the way, Giovanna-san.” As soon as she said it she looked sheepish.

A second or two passed by in almost stunned silence as Giovanna looked back at her darts partner. Then she cracked an incredulous smile. “Hah. I guess it is.” Now that it had transitioned to general media coverage, the TV wouldn’t be giving out any more information. It would be a few more minutes before they needed to head out to meet up with the others, probably. Might as well finish the game.

Geralt just sat back down, a frown on his face. Giovanna was right: what was the point of that? A power play? A test of some sort? They had no idea what was happening in the hall now, and that was frustrating, but they had to trust the others to get answers and get back to them. Part of him wanted to rush over and try and make something happen, but that would probably end very poorly.

”Honestly that looked like some mad jester kinda person just screwing with everyone to me. There was a clown medabot that did that in combat. Didn’t make his acid any less deadly though.” Blazermate said, trying to diffuse the situation. Still, if that was real, that moderator was some huge, huge player in Midgar for sure. If not, then her theory held water.

Within the next few minutes, Giovanna and Sakura finished their last game. Though a little spooked by the bomb scare and what the odd behavior of the debate’s moderator could mean, the two managed to focus in on their darts and sync up. The two might have come from wildly different worlds and backgrounds, but at the end of the day they weren’t so different as quick, offense-oriented, primarily close-range martial artists with just a hint of lightning. By setting one another up they could pass the baton effectively and, with the street fighter’s final shot, get their cumulative score to zero exactly to score a win. They celebrated with a spirited double high five; even Tora found it within himself to offer them some applause. After going out on that high note, they and the other Seekers joined the steady stream of people leaving Penguin Sniper in order to link back up with the rest of the team. Though it was starting to get late, Giovanna moved with pep in her step. Whatever the others had gleaned from their in-person attendance, she did not want to miss.

---

”Your eyes are normal,” Raz noted. He pushed his goggles up, as if showing the similarity. ”And you didn’t answer my question. You did this for, I dunno, for fun? Why rope us into it? How do you know about us?”

“Hehe…yup,” Chaos replied in the brief instant before someone else spoke.

”C.” Karin said, flatly. She moved her hands from her hips into her combat stance. ”Like S. A Consul, then? That would explain his eyes, Raz.” She explained. ”He works for Galeem. How disappointing.”

Roland didn’t understand some of the words being thrown out. Some of them seemed… Hm.. are they dealing with a Distortion here? It made sense then if Roland couldn’t understand some of his words. But still, this was super dangerous, especially if he went under Shinra’s radar.

C leaned back on his desk, the palms of his hands pressed against the wood for support. “Yeah. That’s the idea, at least. Don’t get me wrong, though. I don’t care who wins or loses. I’m just here for the drama.” He shrugged, still completely at ease and seemingly devoid of fighting intent.

“I know just about everything there is to know, but only on a technical level. The choices people make to get what they want, their emotions, responses…that’s what keeps things interesting. And you -the protagonists- are the most interesting of all. This world is in stasis, but thanks to you, we’ve got tasty little plot cooking. So, as your antagonist, I figured I’d…stir things up a little. Spill some beans. Why waste time chasing loose ends when we could get straight to the good stuff?” He chuckled, crossing his arms. “So. I figured, since I asked seven questions, it’s only fair you seven get to ask questions too. Oh, but…” C grinned at Roxas, Raz, and Karin. “You three already asked yours, haven’t you? That just leaves you guys.” He pointed at Zenkichi, Goldlewis, Susie, and despite any attempt to hide in shadow, Midna. “Think carefully, now.”

That certainly stabbed a spike of ice through Midna’s heart, her dark blanket of obscuring safety ripped away by a simple gesture. She had to take a few moments to squash that fear, before rising up out of the shadows, holding an oversized golden spear in her hands. She considered pointing it at the Consul for a moment, before deciding that that could wait and instead ending up putting the butt of her weapon to the ground even as she floated above it.

”If we are going to play this game, let’s be strategic about it, and consider what we really need to know, together” she suggested, tone laced with the restrained anger she felt towards C, anger she’d deliberately fed to thaw her fear frozen heart ”With a balance of what we need to know now, against what would help overall”

”Mine was a rhetorical question…” She complained under her breath, turning to Midna. ”If he really wanted us to skip to the interesting things, he’d tell us who and where this area’s Boss is.”

”Though, several of our allies suffer from terrible ailments. If he knows how to cure them, we could ask that.” Karin said. ”Galeem’s goals and methods are so asinine, well…” She muttered.

”We were also invited here specifically to help with the ever crisis, so even if we did cut through everything else and go straight at the guardian, we’d still have that and a dozen other injustices to contend with here” Midna pointed out, before suggesting that ”something that knowing how to help our friends would also help to address” because it was not as if Peach and Poppi where the only ones afflicted by their respective conditions.

”That’s a good point…” Zenkichi answered, having remained silent once he and Goldlewis caught up to the younger, faster Seekers. ”Lots of questions to ask, only a few will be most efficient. Find the Guardian, help our friends, solve the Ever Crisis. But…many ways to do those things.” Zenkichi was careful not to ask any questions in his brainstorming, just in case. ”We could ask what the Guardian is, where it is, we could ask how to cure Peach and Poppi. We could ask how to hunt the source of the Ever Crisis. I’m not sure.”

”We need to know where Peach was taken,” Raz said, talking right past C. ”If we go poking around Psych-OSF for the rebels we’re bound to raise some alarms. But if this guy can tell us where she went then we’d find her and have a direct line to them, and maybe a way to deal with the Other side of the Ever Crisis!”

”There is also a question that we can ask that, if he is being truthful, would benefit us beyond Midgar as well.” Susie said. ”I will take that one. And seeing as he seems to be a showman, asking mine last might be prudent. Someone should ask about our missing friends though.” Susie had heard of the word or rank of “consul’ before, but she had never met one until now or knew what they could even do. And from the looks of it, they could control the galeem’d. Considering they were called servants of Galeem by her allies, it made some sense they could control them.

Roland, being a bit too far away to hear the whispering among the seekers, could only catch every few words by reading their lips. Even then he never put too much stock in lip reading, especially with how some of them didn’t even have one. What was more concerning about this group was the strange fire haired girl that seemed to rise out of the shadow of one of those group members. He’d need to observe these people either way as they seemed to know who this moderator was, in some way… There wasn’t much choice on his end, he had to get closer to hear everything.

Susie’s claim made Goldlewis frown. He’d been wracking his brain to try and come up with the perfect question, and with so much potentially on the line, someone else being both presumptuous and vague wasn’t contributing much to this team effort. “Well, spit it out then,” he urged her. “This ain’t an opportunity we can take chances on. We gotta deliberate and make the most of it.” Keeping calm, he smoothed back his quiff. “For instance. The Guardian’s location ain’t a bad idea, but what if we asked how to get to it instead? That oughta tell us where it is, too.”

”Oh, potentially.” Karin said. ”Or he’d say something like ‘you walk.’”

”Unless the answer is some actual thing we have to do,” Raz speculated, ”like how we had to ring the bell on top of the mountain to reach that Guardian. Then he might just give us the last step. Man, this is hard.” Raz looked at Happy Chaos again. ”Can someone ask him if he’s going to answer for real or not?”

“You can bet your britches that tricky li’l sumbitch would count that as a real question,” Goldlewis pointed out, almost as exasperated by this chicanery as Raz. “We’ll just have to take everythin’ he says with a grain o’ salt.”

”If you're curious as to what my question would be Goldlewis, it would be something as simple as ”What are the common powers every Consul has.” or “What are your plans?” or even “tell us all the information you have on the organization's thirteen members.” Learning about these people could open many new windows of opportunity we never knew existed. They obviously have some great power, as with just a mere thought they managed to effortlessly control all the guards of Shinra and Armstrong, alongside the two candidates. “ Susie said, not withholding her plans as per Goldlewis’ request.

Having said her piece, Karin folded her arms and chose to keep her eyes on Happy Chaos instead. She imagined he found all this rather amusing.

Goldlewis nodded, appreciating the robot’s candor. “Well, that last one ain’t a question. The other two…not bad, but there’s so much to ask about the Consuls, a question like that might barely scratch the surface.”

“Wow, you guys sure are overthinking things,” C called over, drumming his feet against the sides of his desk. “As much as it tickles me pink, I’m also kinda starting to get bored. You gonna quiz me, or what?”

The veteran gave him an annoyed look, then turned back to his team. “...We gotta ask somethin’, I suppose. In the end it’s your question, Miss Susie.”

At this point Roxas was starting to tap the ground with his foot. He’d kept quiet, not really having anything else he thought was worth adding to the discussion. So instead he kept his focus on Chaos. He glared at the demon person intently. He still held his Keyblades in his hands and was still pointing Oblivion’s tip at the being. Their cryptic nature reminded him a lot of Luxord and Xigbar - both of whom were fond of talking in riddles. Personally Roxas just found that sort of thing frustrating. He’d rather just, as Chaos put it, “skip to the interesting part”.

”I’m going to go with an ever crisis question that helps our friends then, if there aren't any objections” Midna said, glancing around to see if there were any objections. Raz tilted his head to the side at Happy Chaos, a silent ‘go ahead’. He didn’t want to make the guy more bored, ‘cause who knows what he’d do.

”Good” she said when she got only confirmations, silent or otherwise, before turning to demon, pausing to mull over her phrasing, and then stating ”The three parts of the ever crisis, they all have ways to turn victims into new soldiers: Redshifting, that machine virus, the way the regime turns people into others” before asking ”How do we cure those affected, how do we bring them back to normal and out of the crisis’s clutches”

C scratched his neck idly. "I know, you don't need to explain." Shaking his head, he suppressed a chuckle. "Took a while on that one, huh? You might regret asking it though. Redshift can be cured by Blueshift up until the point of aberrating, but after? The data's corrupted. Not even formatting the spirit would work after that."

"The logic virus can't be cured. It burrows in so deep that it becomes you. Other than formatting, your only option is restoring to an uninfected backup. And for Others…well, the best you can do is a very special serum, distilled in the Supernatural Life Research Facility. In the end, you either accept the new normal, or throw 'em out and start again. Or go back in time and stop it from ever happening. Sucks, eh?" C shrugged, his face impassive.

Goldlewis swallowed, uneasy. The Seekers couldn't be sure that the Consul spoke the truth, but his word was all they had to go on. Supernatural Life…Midna and Raz discovered that name just this afternoon, so it really did look like C knew things others didn't, barring the possibility of espionage. Still, he couldn't know for sure. Not until they found out the truth for themselves, and to do that, they needed the next three questions to count.

Karin raised an eyebrow. ”Formatting a spirit?” She looked at the others. ”I’ve never heard of that. Like resetting a computer?”

”That's what I assume. ” Susie said. Thinking about it for a moment, she then said. ”It has to be something with the friend hearts. I remember you all telling me about them. Pinkie always had weird powers.” Susie concluded.

”But we’ve already freed her … unless it's also re-corrupted her or … wait … what exactly else can these things do?” Midna muttered mostly to herself, before trying to make use of the rather dower news she’d received for her question, mulling it all over in her head as the rest of the questions rolled in.

”My question. What are the powers of the Consuls and what can you all do?” Susie said, seeing her turn was up to ask her own question. While not beneficial to the group at the moment, it could be some valuable information.

C cracked a smile. "Now we're talking. This should keep things interesting when you run into the others, huh? Well, for starters, us Consuls can all warp around. Gets us from A to B, but not really usable in a fight. We can drain life, especially from Flame Clocks, and change into our Moebius forms, but not everyone likes it. And last but not least, we can change the perception of those who aren't destoried." He tapped his temple with his index finger. "Not bad, huh? But we also get a unique, 'consummate' ability. One apiece. Those are the real kickers."

So far Roland had heard quite a bit of interesting information so far. Although all the talk about the red shift and ever crisis stuff seemed pretty standard, the way this guy said it reminded him of the blue sicko. At least this guy wore what he was on the outside. Then the question the pink haired robot lady asked got some interesting words out of this guy. A couple more words he couldn't understand, but one thing he said did confirm Roland’s suspicions. This guy was a walking cognitohazard. Roland would have to be extremely careful around him, just so he wouldn’t forget this information. That additional info about time travel meant that… Did he used to work for TimeTreck?

Zenkichi cradled his chin in one hand, thinking hard as his foot tapped against the floor. The Supernatural Life Research Facility was as good a place as any to start investigating to find Peach. As for his question, he frowned and shrugged. Midna was right in that they had a lot to do before going after the Guardian here. And frankly…he needed to know. ”What is Konoe planning? I’m sorry, guys, but…I need to know. And frankly, with how deep his fingers have been in this Administration…I’d be shocked if he didn’t know a lot more than he was letting on.” Part of Zenkichi was a little ashamed that he’d let his personal vendetta get involved in their goals, but he’d made it clear that the man was a threat on his radar when they started working together. Ignoring him when he had this golden opportunity wouldn’t be right.

“Hehehe. You sniffed out just the right person to ask, detective.” C drew his legs up onto the desk, crossing them, and put an elbow on one knee in order to rest his head in the palm of one hand. “Konoe…plans to create a utopia. Without conflict or crime, where evil is paid unto evil, until evil is no more. Of course, this would’ve never happened on its own, not under Shinra, who to Konoe seemed the very embodiment of the status quo, plodding, ineffectual, motivated solely by greed. So a while back, I let slip a dirty little secret. What spirits are, and what they can do. Then Konoe had an idea. A way to achieve his desire, but to do it, he needed two things.” C held up fingers as he explained. “Powerful allies, and absolute power.” Snickering, the Consul leaned back on the desk. “So he made some friends. Kale Vandelay, his fellow multi-billion tech superstar who needed just a little favoritism to kickstart his technological empire, and Yoseph Calvert, commander of Peace Preservation, including Neuron Task Force. Though, you can just call him ‘Y’ for short, hehe…”

“Quickly making himself indispensable to the Administration as head of Public Security, Konoe began to amass power, consolidating everything under not Shinra’s, but his control. All in a bit to make the Administration's leader nothing more than an empty suit. First was Peace Preservation, freeing up Y to focus on Neuron. Then was Psych-OSF, courtesy of a clever little infiltration. With these forces under his control, he began to beef them up. Vandelay’s Project HOLLOW to make more people, and Hojo’s Project ADVENT to make obedient psionic soldiers. General Affairs was a thorn in his side, thanks to one man: its boss, Rufus Shinra, ambitious but seemingly loyal to his father. But Konoe still managed to bloat it up. With the G-men, his loyal little Shadows, infinitely useful and replaceable. So now Rufus barely has a grasp on…well, anyone, eh?” C grinned at Zenkichi. “And now, the only piece on the board is DespoRHado. Its bosses would never play ball, so it’s going the way of the dinosaurs, and who better than Konoe’s old buddy Vandelay to take up the slack?” He held up his hands. “And when Midgar’s in the palm of Konoe’s hand? Personality Rehabilitation, Kale’s Project Armstrong, and Y…hoho, well, let’s just say that Konoe’s plan is nothing less than the eradication of the masses’ free will.” C glanced around, interested to see everyone’s reaction. “How d’you like them apples?”

”Yeah, that tracks.” Zenkichi replied simply. It all lined up with how Konoe worked earlier. If C was to be believed, he was the real brains behind the corruption in Midgar. How accurate that was, given that Konoe was working, albeit unknowingly, for the Demiurge, was slightly up for debate, but he was still a high up enemy to be dealt with. Unfortunately, this time, he didn’t have the same kind of backup in Public Affairs to protect him, especially given that Konoe was his boss. He did, however, have an idea of who might be willing to protect him if he were able to convince them of this: Armstrong. That, however…came with its own set of problems.

”While the details are different, he was the same way last time I dealt with him. He has…some issues, to put it simply. I can explain more later, but Konoe’s psyche basically depends on viewing himself as a righteous hero, otherwise he may very well fall apart.” While psychological manipulation wasn’t beyond him, directly exploiting Konoe’s worst memory…felt a bit low. He’d have to explain to the others what he and the Phantom Thieves saw, and hopefully it would engender some sympathy from them.

"Weeeeell," Raz piped up, a little sheepish, "I might be able to help with that…"

While he might have taken issue with Zenkichi using up an invaluable question to inquire about a personal enemy of his, Goldlewis could scarcely do so now that he’d managed to turn up a treasure trove of information. Though aware of Konoe’s reputation as a clever, ambitious, and wealthy justiciar, he would never have guessed just how deep his involvement went into Midgar’s current state of affairs. C’s exposé also dropped the names of a handful of top players, and while Goldlewis knew a little about Vandelay, it was the other that interested him. “Y…” he murmured. Based on what Karin said earlier as well as precedent, this Y sounded a lot like another Consul. That made at least two present and active in Midgar, and it seemed like C had revealed the true names -or perhaps former names- of both. By now, the veteran’s head was just about spinning from everything he’d learned tonight. But there was still one crucial answer the team needed.

He stopped forward, his wide frame and heavy footfalls drawing C’s gaze. “Evening, Mr. Secretary of Absolute Defense” the Consul greeted casually. “Been a while, eh? Y’know, I’m kind of sad we never met face-to-face when I visited the White House. You’re an interesting man. A walking contradiction.”

Goldlewis crossed his arms, his face humorless. “I should’ve realized earlier. Thinkin’ back on it, the stunt you pulled tonight was just like the one from back then. ‘Cept with less nukes. You’re a mighty capricious feller, Chaos. But I guess we oughta be grateful, considerin’ what you could do. I reckon only helpin’ us ‘cause it’ll make things more fun for you later on.”

“Sooner rather than later, but yeah, basically,” C shrugged, then smiled. “I know you don’t like wasting time, Mr. Secretary. So I figure there’s only one question on your mind. I’ll answer it, too, so go ahead and ask.”

After taking a deep breath, Goldlewis did. “What are the step-by-step directions we oughta follow in order to reach this region’s Guardian?”

“And there we have it. Listen close, ‘cause I don’t like repeating myself.” C rolled off the desk and stood to his feet behind it in dramatic fashion. “First, you reach the Shinra building. Any side will do, but you might get a kick out of the entrance in Suoh. Then, you go down.” He pointed his index finger toward the floor. “Way, way down. To the city computer, Arahabaki, the home of Psynet. Make it through, and descend still further through the Twinning. At the very bottom lies the Cornice, and there you’ll find the being you seek.” C shrugged. “Of course, it won’t be easy. If it can, the Administration will throw everything it has at you the minute you breach the Shinra Building. Plus, the way from Arahabaki is one hundred percent impassable unless you have the right privileges, and only five people do: Shinra, his son, Konoe, Zanotto, and the head of the Time and Space Division–Binah.”

Roxas said nothing, but a tiny smirk appeared on his lips. Impassable? We’ll see about that. Roxas had a certain… trick up his sleeve that he had yet to demonstrate to any of the others. And it sounded like this supposedly impassable path was going to be the perfect chance to show it off.

“So it’s a tough road, but…” C grinned. “Complicated stuff like this has a way of working itself out, right? So really, your first step is juuust…to wait. For tomorrow morning. Midgar’s a pot that’s been simmering for a while, and thanks to tonight, it’s just about to boil over.”

”Well that’s ominous…” Zenkichi muttered. He was just glad that he was right about Konoe, though Shinra and Armstrong gave some pretty hefty ideas regarding his involvement in far too many places. Raz had been quick on the draw, jotting down everything Happy Chaos said about reaching the Guardian in the notebook he always canonically had. ”What are these Consul guys again? I don’t think I was around for that meeting…”

“We’ll talk later,” Goldlewis told him. For now there was an elephant in the room, and his name was Happy Chaos. The veteran narrowed his eyes at C, cognizant of his coffin’s location nearby. With the turn this night had taken, he couldn’t guess what might come next. “That’s all seven questions, partner. What’s next on the docket?”

C gave a theatrical bow. “That’s all I had planned, folks. For now at least. And what an interesting night it turned out to be, hm? A lot of cats out of the bag. I hope you all make good use of them.” He shrugged again, throwing his hands up. “As for me, it’s about time I exit stage right, don’t you think? Lots to do, and so little time.”

”We’re going to tear everything Galeem has built down, C. I’d recommend you sit the rest of this conflict out in the bleachers.” Karin said. How helpful his advice was had yet to be seen, but he was still a Consul. The most he had earned was a warning that she wouldn’t be caught off guard by any attempt of his to ‘make things interesting’ in the other direction.

In reply the Consul just gave a mock salute, then surrounded himself in purple particles in order to disappear. Roxas tried to attack, and almost to his surprise his Keyblades connected in time. C slumped backward like a puppet with his strings cut and fell flat on his back, seemingly dead as a doornail. Then a hand just like his own emerged from under him and rolled him over, revealing a second C that climbed up from the ground beneath the original. As he stood, the first one fizzled away. “Aw, be a good sport, would you? The bad guy always gets away in moments like these. Makes for a more climactic showdown later.” He rolled his eyes, then proceeded to teleport again, much faster this time. Within a matter of seconds, only the Seekers -and a certain enterprising Turk- remained in the debate hall that had minutes ago been a throng of humanity, swirling with barely-suppressed emotion.

”Argh! I hate it when they do that!”

Goldlewis sighed and heaved his coffin over his shoulder. “We got a lot to talk about,” he drawled. “But we’d be better off doin’ it back at base. Let’s find the others and hustle on outta here before anythin’ else happens.”

”Yeah.” Raz tapped the notebook page with his pencil a couple of times. ”Jeez, talking to Lili just got way more awkward.”

Seeing as these people seemed to be the only lead he had to exactly what was going on with this weirdo, Roland tagged behind keeping himself out of sight. These people seemed to be immune to whatever cognitohazard that monster was using, perhaps they had more info on exactly what was going on.

”We have to work for our breakfast? What do you think I am, some kind of, I dunno, a person who does that, I guess?” Bowser asked, his brain floundering even more than usual due to the lack of nutrition. Sleeping had at least rubbed away a lot of the raw fatigue from last night, and unlike some, the Troop had a deep, mostly dreamless sleep.

Rika was the only one who had had any issues, and hers had been entirely natural nightmares about the event that had just occurred, ones that an instinctual unconscious hug from her new dad had soothed away without further incident.

Now they were up, awake, and ready for breakfast, which was something they did not have. Fortunately, the tower hosted a large number of food themed levels from which they could scavenge the necessary ingredients to make a fine feast for both today and several tommorows.

”Mmmm, I’m thinking pork. Dunno why but i’ve had a real craving for it since last night” Bowser said, licking his lips at the thought, before glancing to the side for some validation ”Sound’s good right? Nothing else here beats it!”

”I do not… yes sire” Kamek agreed rather than trying to push the issue of his herbivorous diet, and simply hoped someone else would pick up the slack.

”I mean it does but juuuuuuust pork? On all the pizza? We should get some variety in our diets, right Kamek?” Jr piped up, which got a slightly suspicious ”Yes… I do often have to remind you of that” from the mage in question.

”I wanna try everything, maybe we should split up more and…” Rika began to suggest, before petering out as she and the rest of them were all struck with worry about what might befall the others if they did so. Rather vivid worries, ones that caused them to all collectively agree that going just two ways was plenty.

”Try to stick together troops! We don’t know what’s going to be in there other than, mmmf, oh so much delicious food” the king started to warn the rest of the team before he wound up salivating at the thought of strings of sausages and glazed hams.

"Hahaha!" Laughed Ganondorf as he emerged from the corner of the room he had sequestered himself in last night. He’d overheard a bit of the conversation and found it rather amusing, "What’s wrong, Bowser? Feeling a little short on minions, are we?" But the closer he came to the group the quicker they would all notice that something was… different about him. Most notably it looked like his cape had become split into two down the middle, resulting in it now fluttering in opposite directions behind him. But a closer look would make it apparent that that was far from the only change. Obviously he had fused with one of the Spirits he had brought to the tower with him during the night.



Ganondorf offered a mocking grin, which with his new appearance did actually look fairly spooky, ”I can still summon some of my own servants. Are you… not able to do the same?”

Then king bared his teeth at the king, but before he could give a growling retort Kamek casually stepped forwards and waved his wand, causing a small horde of dry bones to rise from the ground around them as a simple demonstration that some of the king’s forces were still on hand.

The act also gave Bowser the time he needed for his brain to grind out a response to the taunt.

”If you have any minions to speak of, guess you’ve improved a bit since we last worked together. We used my guys, ROB’s bots, and the tattoo guy’s subspace army, while you didn’t contribute a single mook. Which put you on the same level as Wario of all people” Bowser retorted bitingly, before tacking on ”Or, wasn’t this a weird time thing? Where you haven't done that yet? So maybe that means you’ll get worse” with a toothy grin

”Probably drove them all away by being a jerk” Jr chipped in, projecting from one of his own experiences with that added jab, before addressing the source of his new fusion with ”and a weenie who couldn’t escape the city without taking lives, just like F wanted”

Ganondorf’s expression remained unchanged. They’re retorts came across as weak at best. But when the Majikoopa summoned the group of dry bones, he offered them a slow clap. ”Alright, alright, so perhaps I misjudged you.” he said, his tone not sounding entirely genuine. Oh he still had a rebuttal of his own in mind, but decided to let actions speak louder than words.

All of a sudden the Gerudo inhaled sharply and without warning let out a gout of purple flames from his mouth. The flames covered a modest distance, enough for him to envelop the dry bones by sweeping his breath attack from left to right. As he recalled those creatures were quite brittle and easily shattered. The breath attack would do little to the Koopas, especially Bowser. But at the very least the King of Evil demonstrated that he could wipe out the dry bones in a single fell swoop.

”Now allow me to show you what real footsoldiers look like.” Ganondorf said with his grin turning into a more intimidating grimace. With a snap of his fingers, he summoned his Moblin Attack Squad who appeared behind in puffs of red and black smoke. They stepped forward and thrust their spears forward as if in a military phalanx. Unlike the dry bones, the moblins were just short of being human-sized. Which meant they were bigger, and a bit heartier as well. What they lacked in intellect, they up for in numbers and obedience.

The troop had backed up while giving shouts that were along the gist of “what’s the big idea!” when the flame burst happened, and though they were fine, the dry bones had been reduced to piles of bones. Piles of bones that then proceed to get back up, bits and pieces floating up and reassembling themselves to the tune of a xylophone, as that was very much what dry bones do.

Of course, when squaring up against the spear armed moblins, they were still sorely lacking in height, being about half that of a regular human, and in reach due to having no weapons but beak and claw.

There were, however, dozens of them staring down the moblins with their yellow glowing eyes.

”Let’s put that to the test, shall we?” Kamek inquired, before pointing a finger forward and sending the undead horde marching forwards towards the moblins.

”Gladly.” retorted the King of Evil, gesturing for his own soldiers to advance.

The two sides advanced towards each other, but the moblins were first to stop, raising their spears and jabbing forwards at the shorter dry bones. The actual points of their spears did very little, but most managed to physically poke a skull off of one of their foes, decapitating them in one or two blows.

Yet there were still more coming, and the dead kept on rising back up, so while the moblins did not come to any harm, they did have to start backing up and up towards their king, scoring dozens of ‘kills’ each but making no actual progress. Rather than be pressed up against their leader, they broke ranks and began skirmishing instead, resulting in the 5 running around the lobby being chased by individual packs of dry bones.

The whole thing was, it had to be said, very inconclusive, though that did not stop the koopas from egging their bony minions on and groaning whenever a seemingly cornered moblin snuck away at the last moment.

After about a minute of this, Rika worked up the social energy to cough and say ”So uh, this is fun and all, but maybe we could leave the war games till after food? Please?”

”Fine.” Ganondorf replied, not bothering to argue back. He was, after all, just as hungry as everyone else. And so with another snap of his fingers the Moblin Spearmen vanished in a puff of shadowy smoke.

”Ah, yes, good point young mistress” Kamek agreed, while Bowser grunted with accent

”Oh, right, yeah, so we were gonna go do a different one so, uh, we’ll see you” Jr said as he started to step away, giving Rika’s sleeve a tug to get her to come along.

”Yeah we were gonna do-” Rika began to say, only to be very unsubtly sh-sh-shhhh’ed by jr which left Kamek for one very suspicious.

”Yes, for the variety. That said, I do think it would be best if you teamed up with another person for this one, just to keep you, and them, safe” Kamek suggested, partially out of actual concern, partially to try and guide them away from poor dietary choices.

”But-” Jr started to retort, only to sigh and accent when his papa agreed that would be a good idea.

An, a little disheartened, Jr and a clueless as to what that was all about till her new brother filled her in on it Rika were soon off, leaving the kings and the mage alone together.

”Well, don’t you have somewhere to be? We’ve got pork to get” Bowser grunted at the Gerudo after a few moments.

”I’m going in there to get pork, myself.” Ganondorf grunted back and then added, ”Feel free to follow me if that’s what you want.” And then the Gerudo strode off towards the door.

”Wah, hey, gah! Fine! You better not slow us down!” Bowser retorted, poorly, before stomping after him with Kamek in tow.

---

The gateway to pig city lay open before them, revealing a city street that had perhaps seen better days. Two to five story apartment buildings lined the streets, all of them looking rather run down with decaying brickwork marred with talentless graffiti, sporting the odd boarded up window and doors locked tight against intruders.

The street was hardly better pockmarked with potholes, faded (and often incoherent) road markings, and dotted with the odd burnt out car or truck, making it rather inconceivable that it was actually capable of being used.

The only things in any good repair were a few glass fronted stores, sporting within them the advertised pork products stored in thankfully hygienic conditions.

Beyond, there seemed to be other streets, other buildings, as far as the eye could see, giving the impression of a far larger city surrounding them. Impression being the key word, as closer inspection revealed the further away of these to be either wooden cutouts or painted onto the wall of the large room they were actually in.

”Wow, this dump has seen better days” Bowser said, as he stepped inside, before commenting ”but hey, impressive they fit an entire city in here” entirely fooled by the facade.

”Hmph, this room is supposed to produce food? Ridiculous.” commented Ganondorf with an incredulous tone.

Once they were all inside, a door suddenly slammed shut behind them, and when inspected or challenged, revealed no discernible manner to open it. They didn’t have much time to look into it, however, as almost as soon as the back door slammed shut, the doors to the buildings slammed open, and the residents of the not-city, blocky porcine creatures namedpiglin, came to introduce themselves.

Given the gold baseball bats, kitchen knives, frying pans, sledge hammers, chains and other improvised weapons in their hands they were not here to give a polite greeting. Instead the mobs began forming into an actual mob arrayed against the invading villains.

”Wow, hey, we’re just here to do some shopping, so if you’d just move out the way no one needs to get squashed” Bowser tried to calm the situation down for a moment, only for the response to be a feral chorus of squeals and oinks of mindless aggression.

”I’m pretty sure we’re looking at the source of the pork for this tower.” Ganondorf said grimly. Certainly a gruesome way to keep a stockpile of pork, but, seeing as how there were no other pigs in sight…

The sound picked up as the mob congealed into a formidable mass, one that at some unknown signal suddenly surged forwards, the mob revealing themselves to be less of a mass of angry individuals and far more of a horde with zero self preservation instincts.

”Alright have it your way! Bring it swine!”

Ganondorf just shook his head, still appearing incredulous to the idea of this silly tower. But nevertheless he drew both of his swords from their respective scabbards, ”Then so be it.”



Before anything else Ganondorf decided to kick things off with another Violet Flare. As he had done in the previous room, Ganondorf let loose a purple-colored fire breath attack. The flames spewed forth and certainly damaged a few of the piglins in the horde. But it was still a horde, and quite a sizable one at that. So the fire breath alone wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things. So after that the Gerudo brandished his swords and got to hacking and slashing away at the piglins as they approached. Each swing of his blades caused them to become coated in dark magic that appeared to slowly increase the more Ganondorf attacked, ”Well don’t just stand there you big lizards, start pulling your weight!” he shouted to the nearby Koopa Troop.

”Don’t give me orders! Also I’ll pull twice as much weight as you, just you watch!” Bowser shouted back, before unleashing his own flame breath, orange flames washing though the piggy horde scorching and igniting those caught in its path. Then he stomped forwards, driving a fist into the snout of a pig-faced foe to establish dominance, and then slashing mecha mit claws through the guts of two more before he really laid into the rest of them.

Together both flame waves made bacon of the front runners, but there were plenty more where they came from. Plus, though they were in a dead end of a street, there was still plenty of space for flanking, with piglins running along the sidewalk and then rushing inwards to the center of the road where the kings were making their stand.

And it was just the kings making a stand, because Kamek was already airborne and getting a bird’s eye view of the mob mob as it naturally flowed through the street to wash against the pair of hard headed rocks below. Yet he also saw that the horde had a limit, one he estimated was based on which houses could and could not have heard the door slamming shut.

”There’s a limit to these sire, so keep fighting and we’ll get a respite!” he called out, before swooping over the feral hogs and dropping dark mines within their midst, blowing handfuls of them skywards in shadowy explosions with each spellcast.

”Time to unleash some reinforcements.” declared the Gerudo, briefly stopping his attacks. In a swift motion he thrust the blade of one of his swords into the floor and then summoned his moblin squad with a snap of his fingers. Five moblin archers emerged from the puff of smoke. Armed with bows, they loosed volleys of fire arrows into the oncoming horde. Ganondorf then picked his sword back up and returned to the fray.

”Keep your distance!” he ordered his archers, ”If the horde advances, then fall back. Don’t advance unless we start pushing them back!” It was an interestingly cautious tactic to go with. Not something most people would expect from the King of Evil. But Ganondorf had had his share of experience in commanding armies. He’d previously led a successful campaign against the Kingdom of Hyrule, after all.

As he continued to cut a swathe into the horde, the building dark energy around his blades continued to grow. With each swing that dark power grew, further increasing the power of the weapons. It was like watching a melon-sized snowball roll down a hill until it gradually grew into the size of a mighty boulder. And then, when it seemed like his dark power couldn’t grow any more, Ganondorf decided it was time to unleash it. With his great strength he slammed both swords into the ground. Then he raised his fist above his head, and even began to slowly levitate upwards. He charged red and black magical energy in his hand while purple rings of ancient Hylian runes circled on the ground below him. ”DIE!” roared the Gerudo with a mighty shout. The King of Evil came crashing back down onto the circle of runes, slamming the energy in his hand into it and unleashed an omnidirectional wave of explosive dark energy around him and blasting all the piglins with a 15-20 meter radius with an inferno of darkness.

And just like that, the dark power that had been building up in his weapons was gone. Ganondorf pulled them up out of the ground and continued his previous hacking and slashing. All the while the swords appeared to begin building energy within them all over again.

There wasn’t much left to hack, the hyrule warrior having decimated the vast majority of the mob that was still to come at them using his explosive attack.. After that, the remaining piglins ahead fell rather easily to his hacking and slashing.

That still left the flanking ones, and while Bowser kept the ones on the left side of the street occupied, the ones on the right pushed back the moblins who quickly found they had no where to go, as the way back was barred by the closed door to the stage, and the other two directions occupied by the two indiscriminately swinging kings.

Before they got overrun however, familiar bones rose up out of the ground between them and the piglins, as Kamek summoned a horde of dry bones to shore up their flanks. As with the time they had fought the spear wielding moblins, the undead did not achieve much on their own damage wise, but they act like a tarpit for the piglins who got bogged down trying to beat down the perpetually regenerating nuisances.

As the pigs squealed and hacked at the dead, the moblins opened fire, launching arrow after arrow over the shorter dry bones, the combo of minions rather effectively cutting down the foes in a way neither could have achieved on their own.

Soon after, the opening brawl came to an end, the last of the street’s piglins falling to the ground and crumpling to ash, leaving a plethora of spirits behind in their wake.

”I’ll gather those up for later, I don’t expect much of use will come of it, but perhaps we will be showered with gold for our efforts” Kamek said, as he directed some toadies to start scooping up the spirits for him ”Though given the shear number we’ll be acquiring, we may need to acquire some kind of … shopping trolly? Or something of the sort. I do not believe they will be compatible with the pizza boxes”

”You’ll figure something out” Bowser replied, in a strange combination of reassurance and order, before giving an impressed whistle at the tole that had been wrought, not by Ganondorf, but by the minion team up, telling them ”Nice job mooks”

Ganondorf gave a wave of his sword and commanded the Moblins to go ahead and assist with the spirit gathering. After returning the weapons to the scabbards he glanced in Bowser’s direction, ”So what now? I don’t see a scrap of food anywhere.” He said, taking a moment to crack his neck a bit. This had better not turn out to be a waste of time, or he was not going to be happy at all. Not that he was ever all that happy to start with, but still.

”What, you've never seen a deli before?” he asked as he directed a finger a fair ways up the street towards a glass windowed store. What was inside was unclear from a distance, but the eclectic nature of the koopa’s world meant he could both live in a castle and know what a deli looked like.

”Well then they’d better use the same currency that the City of Tears did.” Ganondorf grunted, ”Because I’m not leaving here until I get what I came for.” the King of Evil added, ominously.

”You’ve got that right at least, so let’s go check it out” he declared, as he started to stomp up the road, which proved to be a basic gauntlet of jumping over cars, navigating around thrash, avoiding falling down manholes, and the odd place where the road had been swallowed up by a sinkhole. The odd pack of pilglins tried to take them on while they did this but these smaller groups were of little concern.

Kamek hovered above the mini platform challenge, while Bowser took to criticizing it as he waltzed on through, it being ”Nothing compared to some of the stuff I’ve come up with”

And then there was Ganondorf, who largely just walked through the challenge. Literally. He just sidestepped the manholes and sinkholes. And any car that was in his way, the Gerudo would use his massive strength to literally shove them aside and out of his path. ”You call this a challenge? Where are the locked and barred doors? The block and switch puzzles? Or any puzzles for that matter?”

Once they finally arrived, the store did indeed prove to be as well kept as it had from a distance, with its windows filled with rows and rows of sausages. Just regular sausages oddly enough, no ham, bacon or pepperoni though there was still a nice selection of everything from burtwasts to hotdogs.

”Oddly specialized, but I suppose we’ll take it?” Kamek asked, glancing at his king for confirmation and finding the turtle visibly drooling at the sight.

”I’ll take that as a yes then” Kamek sighed, before going and trying the door, only for it to rattle a few times as he did. Confused, he hovered up to human head height to look inside to see if something was jamming it, only to instead see a little closed sign sitting in the window of said door. Below that there was also a list of opening times which did not include early mornings.

”I do believe it is shut until mid morning” he calmly informed the pair of royals, which caused Bowser to throw his arms up in frustration at the news.

”Oh, don’t throw a tantrum.” sniped Ganondorf, ”As if a simple locked door is going to keep ME out.” he grabbed the handle of the door and yanked it with some extra strength. Assuming there weren’t any enchantments or the like he could rip the door right off its hinges with minimal effort.

He did indeed, the door falling ever so easily to his might, opening the way to the sausage fest within.

It also set off the intruder alarm.

”Tsk tsk, now look what you’ve done. Now they’ll think we’re here to steal from them” Kamek chided the king of evil over the ringing bell, before floating into the building and giving a brief inspection.

”Would you have preferred we wait around for it to open?” Ganondorf offered as a retort. Sure, maybe Kamek had that kind of patience, but Bowser? Not likely.

”It looks clear” he informed them before adding ”and also a fair bit bigger on the inside too”

Indeed, while the front of the store made it out to be simply a little deli, the actual inside of it turned out to be more of a sausage warehouse, the back wall of it simply missing and instead leading to a filled up with 20 long rows of a dozen or so shelving units each worth of pig meat.

”You know, I don’t think this is a store at all? I’m not sure if it's a clever or utterly foolish disguise however” the mage noted as he waved his wand, and sent forth some minions to collect armfuls of pork to stuff into pizza boxes, which were themselves then slotted into the bag of infinite pizza holding.

Bowser meanwhile stomped on in and immediately started helping himself to the display pieces, pausing only to announce ”Mmmf, this is good stuff”.

Ganondorf wasn’t quite that reckless. After walking in he inspected the meat. Making sure none of it was spoiled or rotten. He had no desire to eat a breakfast that would just make him sick.

Sadly, the break in breakfast was interrupted when the alarm, naturally, attacked another horde. Fortunately, the front of the fake store made for an excellent chokepoint to funnel said mob through, which allowed the royals to effortlessly take care of business with alternating flame breath attacks.

”Ha, is that all you’ve got!” Bowser taunted, and in doing so tempting fate.

”Hmph, pathetic! Ganonorf concurred.

Unheard over the tail end slaughter at the front there came a few quiet whistlings and thunks, followed by a much more audible cry of ”Ah! My arm!” from Kamek.

Bowser immediately turned and rushed into the back, meeting the retreating mage, who had an arrow sticking out of his limb, half way.

”Above sire!” He warned, prompting the king to look up, and see the source of his avisor’s pain. Standing upon several metal catwalks overlooking the warehouse were more piglins, who had slipped in via the windows lighting it, having presumably climbed up various fire escapes. These weren't the same as the mob outside however. Instead the half a dozen foes wore golden armor, and were armed with wooden crossbows with which they had picked off Kamek’s sausage transporting minions, and then nearly skewered the mage himself.

Thinking quickly, Ganondorf snapped his fingers and re-summoned the Moblin Archers. He ordered to open fire on the piglin marksman perched above. But another sound got his attention before he could do anything else.

They weren't alone either. A roller shutter at the back of the warehouse had rolled open, and though it stepped six bigger, meaner, tougher and battle ax armed piglin piglin brutes. In their midst was also a larger boar, who was smoking a cigar, had several butcher’s knives hanging from his belt, and was armed with a flamethrower.

Uncle butters, who had come to respond to the alarm at his ‘store’ jabbed a finger forwards and squealed a command to attack, sending the goons of the organized swine syndicate who ran this down charging forwards or snap firing crossbow bolts at the royal intruders, while he himself stomped forwards, ready to roast some fresh meat to replace that which Bowser had noshed on.

Ganondorf dived to the side to avoid being shot by crossbow bolts. He quickly drew the white sword from its scabbard, while his other hand went for his newly acquired Ikana Shield. The Gerudo had surmised that a more defensive fighting style was called for against foes firing projectiles at him. And he wasn’t wrong either, the shield made it easier to block and deflect incoming crossbow bolts while the Gerudo himself charged forward to meet the incoming piglin brutes head on.

For Ganondorf his tactic was all about giving and taking. He’d keep his shield up long enough for it to block some incoming attacks, and then the King of Evil would quickly retaliate with a wide-reaching spin attack of his own. He wasn’t too fond of overly defensive fighting styles like this, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to utilize it when necessary.

The brutes meanwhile were all attack attack attack, berzerkers to the last. The lack of immediate tactics and the shelving units let the king’s tactic work perfectly for a few moments, the first brute hammering on the shield till it got winded, and then got a sword to the gut.

Unfortunately, the sheer number of opponents meant that flanking inevitably happened, with two brutes charging down the row of shelves on either side of the king before coming smashing straight through them. Splinters and sausages went flying as they shattered the shelves with singular ax blows, before proceeding to lunge through the wreckage they’d created right as a third brute came charging in from the front.

Ganondorf almost rolled his eyes. Such a simplistic and rudimentary tactic these brutes were going for. But he knew exactly how to defend against it. All it required was for him to mimic one of the favored techniques of his most hated enemy. The Gerudo held his sword out and spun his body around in order to attack with a circular spin slash that kept the charging brutes from crashing into him. Then he jumped backwards. Two of the brutes had charged from the sides, the third from the front. So that left the rear as the only remaining place Ganondorf could fall back to.

Ganondorf then snapped his fingers to summon one of his Strikers. The gelatinous embryo Blastocyst appeared directly in front of him and immediately jumped straight up. Then the three charging piglin brutes crashed into Ganondorf’s shield, after which he used his monstrous strength to knock them all back a few feet just in time for the Striker Spirit to come crashing down on top of them. It also consequently released its acidic bloody tear projectiles in all four cardinal and ordinal directions, just in case any of the brutes managed to dodge out of the way. After that the spirit vanished.

Meanwhile the crossbow bolt wielding ones tried to use their elevated positions around the room to try and shoot him from multiple angles which would have been quite nasty had they not started taking fire of their own.

”If you're going to be cowards fighting from up there, then I’m gonna come get you instead!” Bowser roared as he leapt up onto a shelving unit, cracking it under his weight before he leapt the rest of the way up to the catwalks. These two, ground under his feet, but it was the ones on the opposite side that the king started his assault by blasting with an indiscriminate broadside of cannonfire that were the first to fall, taking a few of the snipers with it.

The rest either turned their fire on the koopa king, which the scaly brute either toughed out or blocked with his dinky energy shield, while those up close drew golden swords to meet him in melee. The first one getting kinetic strike module punched clear out of the building was a pretty good indicator of how that would go.

”Ha! At least make it a challenge for me!” Ganondorf gloated, so far finding no real challenge in any of these foes.

Just as Gandorf finished dealing with the trio, the last two came at him, only for one to be engulfed in flame as it got caught in uncle butters’s opening attack, the blaze of his flamethrower igniting shelving as well as he tried to roast the king of evil’s bacon.

With a smirk, Ganondorf put up his shield in order to block the incoming flames. When that attack finally subsided he hurled the shield like a frisbee at the last remaining brute. The shield’s sharp square corner lodged into the piglin brute’s head and took him out on the spot. Of course, that left the Gerudo without a shield. When uncle butters tried firing more flames at him, the King of Evil responded by spewing out his Violet Flare, breathing his purple flames to clash with the flames of uncle butters’s flamethrower weapon. This created a brief cloud of smoke obscuring vision in the area.

Perfect, Ganondorf thought. He snapped his fingers and summoned his newest Striker:



The cyborg velociraptor, Riptor, appeared and sprinted through the cover of smoke. She ran at uncle butters with a Shoulder Charge, blowing into the coughing hog and, though the burly boar was not struck down, he did lose grip on his weapon. It was all the opening Ganondorf needed to come charging through the smoke as well and impale the hog on his white sword.

The blade went clean through his chest, out the other end … and right through the gas tank at his back as well. Gas hissed as the dying hog weakly tried to beat his killer with his bare hands while his life blood drained into his own guts. Despite being rammed, impaled, and now dying, the hog had never let go of his cigar, and instead sucked deep on it, flaring the lit end before the king’s eye.

A perfect match for the leaking gas.

Ganondorf wasn’t about to let this swine take him with him. He tightened his grip on the white sword’s hilt and spun around. In this motion he was able to fling the body of uncle butters from his blade. The burly boar still exploded, but at least it was far enough away to only temporarily knock Ganondorf off his feet rather than engulf him in flames.

Up above Bowser finished off beating the snot out of the last armored piglin, before he glanced down and noticed where all the smoke was coming from and cried out ”Gah the sausages they’re burning!” as he saw the flaming mess that was the warehouse floor.

”Ganondorf what have you done!” he furiously shouted at the other king, falsely accusing him of the mess that uncle butters had left his own establishment in.

”I’m winning this battle you pigheaded turtle!” Ganondorf furiously shouted back as he grabbed Uncle Butters’s spirit, ”THEY set this fire, not me!”

”It’s not just this bit that is on fire!” Kamek warned as he and a white mage clone he had used to heal himself floated into the back, only for the mage to cry out in alarm and dodge to the side as a molotov cocktail came flying through the air and nailed the doppelganger.

The piglin mob had apparently upped their game.

”May I suggest we head out the way those other pigs came in?” he suggested with forced casualness as his copy burned to death, and then drifted up to do just that, leaving behind a blazing storefront. The mage exited via a window, followed shortly by Bowser who’s steel capped boots slammed down onto the concrete of some back alleyway.

Ganondorf leapt through the window, but not before he ran by and snatched up his Ikana Shield from the head of the piglin brute he’d thrown it at earlier.

”We still got some right? Tell me we didn’t just lose all the sausages to the fire” Bowser asked his advisor once they regrouped a little ways away from the burning building, voice full of concern .

”Yes sire” the mage confirmed, before sniping ”Also I am fine, thank you for asking”

”Yeah, obviously. I knew you could handle yourself” the king replied with out of left field praise that left Kamek blinking in surprise.

”Ah yes. Well. Shall we try and find a way out now?”

”Are you kidding? There’s got to be like, a bunch more of these stores we gotta hit!” Bowser declared, which got a groan from the mage,

”To what end? demanded the King of Evil, ”They all have the same pork, don’t they?”

”He does have a point” Kamek found himself agreeing despite himself, resulting in the koopa king giving them a gobsmacked ”Whaaaat?” before he went off that ”But we don’t even have pepperoni!” which had, for some reason, not been in with the rest of the sausages, possibly due to it needing spices ”Or bacon, or ham, or salami!” again, apparently more specialized than the regular sausage storage would hold.

”are you really telling me there’s no difference between those? You must be crazy. The trolls will for sure know, they have got to have taste he demanded to know, before he suddenly grinned and taunted the other king with ”or are you at your limit and want to tap out huh?” in what he thought was a very clever ruse.

”Ugh, fine. If it’ll shut you up, let’s go to another store then.” Ganondorf responded with a facepalm and roll of his eyes. Honestly Bowser could be such a child.

The koopa did not exactly do anything to dissuade that notion with his fistpump and ”yes!” of victory, then he pointed in a random direction and commanded them all to move ”Onwards!”

After that, and with a fair bit of air based scouting from Kamek to reduce the random wanderings, the trio became a 3 person crime spree on the city, hitting store after store without to much issue, having learned how to deal with the assorted piglin types and their flamethrower totting uncles. After a while, even Bowser found the motivation of new types of pork to cease being enough of a motivation to keep it up, and they started to look for a way to unlock the front door.

The obvious option was the only other nice building in town, which rather than being just a clean shop, was made of shining marble, complea with red tiled domes and a whole courtyard of tropical plants out front. The governor's palace certainly did stick out like a sore thumb, and had some tight security to boot, but it was nothing that they hadn’t seen before. Golden guards fell before them, the front gates were breached, and they entered the front door with only a few scratches to show for the defender’s efforts.

The insides were full of decorations depicting some pizza faced guy, a real monument of ego, but otherwise turned up little of note till they entered a random back room and found it contained a sentient pillar.

“Hey. Here to kill this part of me I take it?” it asked them with very little concern one way or the other on the matter.

”Well aren’t you a pleasant ray of sunshine.” Ganondorf scoffed, ”All we want is to unlock the exit.” he added with a shrug. He had no clue if killing the pillar was required or not. But if they could unlock the exit without wasting time with another battle, then all the better. ”I don’t suppose we can do that without killing you, can we?”

“Fraid not. If it makes you feel any better, pizza face’s made me into a horrible hive mind so it doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other” the pillar, who could not be bothered introducing himself as Pillar John, explained apathetically “I mean pizza face will be mad but that’s your problem, not mine”

Ganondorf gave an exasperated sigh. Terrific. Even when he did try to spare someone, it turned out to be impossible. Of course. Approached the pillar while shaking his head and… struck it with a Warlock Punch.

Despite his impressive size, the strike caused the pillar to fly through the air and smash through a window before vanishing from sight. Any question as to if that had done it or not was put to rest when the clocks in the palace, and there had been a lot of them, all done up to look like pizza face’s face, all rung once, and then had their dials spin around rapidly till they all showed four minutes to midnight.

Then they started counting down.



”I do believe-” Kamek began to say, only to be drowned out by the sound of police sirens rapidly closing in on their location. After a few wasted seconds he corrected himself and said ”I do believe that is our cue to get out of here”

”Good effort, that guy was just weird” Bowser told Ganondorf with a pat on the shoulder, before he turned and started to stomp back towards the exit, stopping only to punch one of the clocks in the face.

Ganondorf followed suit, turning and beginning to sprint back in the same direction the koopas were going. That exit had better have been unlocked. Otherwise he had no idea how else they were gonna get back to the lobby.

As it turned out, it was pigs. Pigs that were also pigs.

The wailing sirens had all congealed outside of the palace, and the flashing blue and red lights of the vehicles producing it reflected off of its pure white walls. Trying to drown out said sirens was a mass of muscle in an ill fitting police uniform squealing into a megaphone from behind a row of cop cars. Whether the pig of the LARD was demanding they came out with their hands up in pig, or was just going through the motions was unclear, but given that the reaction to anyone sticking their head out to take a look was for the rest of the pigs to try and fill them full of (thankfully slow moving) pellets from their double barreled shotguns it was clear that there would be no arrests today, if there ever where.

”This place has cops? But we already robbed a whole load of small shops, where were they when that happened?” Bowser shouted over the top of all the noise the pigs blocking them into the palace were making, while time on the clocks all around them tick, tick, ticked away.

As it turned out he got his answer when a set of portals shaped like John’s face opened inside the building, and deposited a pair of pigs on either side of them.

”Bah! We don’t have time for this! Forget the pigs, just go for the exit!” Ganondorf barked before he took off in another run. The somewhat slow projectiles weren’t too hard to avoid. And even if they couldn’t be, Ganondorf kept the Ikana Shield out so he could use it to block any shots he was too slow to dodge. True to his suggestion, Ganondorf simply tried ignoring the pigs. If they stuck around to fight them all they’d likely run out of time.

Ganondorf instead focused on retreating and getting to that exit. He did at one point summon Phantom Ganon and had him ride straight into the pursuing pigs to serve as a temporary distraction for them so he could try to put some distance between them and the Seekers.

He had to physically punch his way through one of the walls surrounding the palace while the pigs were distracted by his phantom to do so, but that was no issue. What was was when he knocked said wall down it revealed that the piglin and boar’s liberal use of flaming weapons in their rundown tightly packed city had had a few adverse effects.

Namely the entire place was now on fire.

”Well, that’s bad” Bowser unnecessarily commented when Kamek and him caught up, the pair having fallen a touch behind due having to take down the two portaled in pigs who would otherwise have been right on their tails.

”We’ll just have to deal with it” Kamek replied, and then the three of them went racing out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Despite the city currently burning down around them, the LARD still endeavor to hunt the fugitives, heavy 4x4 police cars doing their level best to navigate the terrible twisting roads, while above a few helicopters buzzed around above, shining searchlights down on them as they ran for it. Worse, the portals kept opening, depositing fresh pigs, piglin and boars in his way as the clocks in every single home he was in ticked down, many stubbornly continuing to do so despite being engulfed in the inferno.

While Ganondorf wasn’t keen on wasting his time fighting all the pigs, that didn’t mean he was completely unwilling to fight. Once they were running through the street, the Gerudo switched to wielding both his swords so he could efficiently cut his way past any pigs that appeared in his path. This would also allow the swords to gradually charge up their Dark Meter in case Ganondorf needed to use the explosion attack again during the pursuit.

”This… is getting… IRRITATING!” he shouted with frustration when he had to take down yet another pig that appeared in his way, ”I don’t know what the hell pizza is, but it damn well better worth all this trouble we’re going through!” After that he paused and summoned the five moblins. As he had done with Phantom Ganon earlier, they could go back and engage the pigs to serve as a distraction.

”Wait, you don’t?” Bowser gasped, pausing in the middle of ripping the door of one of the pursuing police cars that had tried to ram him off the road to declare ”Just you wait, it’s going to change your whole world!”

”I don’t know about that. We’re running out of time!” Kamek commented as he blasted another pig before he could take a shot at them, the mage very much slowing his pace to keep pace with the two mighty glacier’s own.

”Well we’re running as fast as we can! What else are we supposed to do!?” the king asked as he pulled the car’s driver out of the vehicle and punched his face into pulp.

”Note to self: Get a horse!” Ganondorf muttered to himself as he had to pause and use his strength to flip an entire car out of their path and over to the side. If he had a good warhorse he could gallop out of here in less than half the time. Something he’d have to keep in mind for the future.

He saw a trio of piglins portal in in front of them. Ganondorf rolled his eyes and charged forward, managing to slice them all aside with a single sweeping circular clash of his swords. The darkness in the blades continued to grow, but not quite enough for him to make the most use of it against the pigs. That would take a bit longer still.

”Wait wait wait, I’ve got it!” Kamek said, overhearing Ganondorf’s muttering, the comment having clicked a piece of a puzzle that made the full solution obvious ”Why get a horse when we can get a car!”

”Ok, sure, but where are we supposed to do that?” Bowser demanded to know, before following his advisor’s pointing finger to the vehicle he had just deprived of its driver ”Ohhhhhhh”

The mage swooped into the backseat, and then chanted a few bars, causing the already oversized vehicle to scale up even more, becoming suitably Bowser sized, and hogging most of the road in the process.

”Gahahahaha, now this is more like it! Running is for chumps anyway” the king declared as he honked the horn a few times and then demanded that Ganondorf ”get in, we’re blowing this joint!”

”Huh…” he said in a perplexed tone. He didn’t complain though, he just jumped up into the vehicle, ”Color me surprised, Bowser, turns out you’re good for something after all.” the Gerudo complimented in the most backhanded way imaginable. He turned himself around and decided to use his Violet Flare as a ranged attack to try and fend off pursuers. It sort of worked, but it was here that Ganondorf discovered the inconvenient nature of his purple flames. They damaged enemies, but they didn’t set any objects or terrain on fire. Oh well, it was better than just sitting there and doing nothing.

He got to have a bit of fun when the odd daring pig patrol car got close to try and board their monster of a machine, or something was portaled ontop of it, but for the most part the passengers main concern was surviving Bowser’s aggressive driving across the not at all smooth roadway. That said, be it potholes, pigs or other cars, all fell beneath the souped up police car, and the trio covered about twice the distance they had on foot in almost half the time, turning what had looked to be a doomed race to the finish line into a certain thing.

”and that” Bowser declared as he pumped the brakes and parked them in front of the exit with 30 seconds to spare ”is how you do it the smart way!” seemingly claiming credit for the whole thing before he instead told Kamek ”good thinking”

”Thank you sire” the mage nodded as he floated out of the car, which rapidly shrunk down after he stopped channeling the enlargement spell.

”Hmph, yes, great, now let’s leave this stupid pig city already.” Ganondorf added with a bit of impatience.

Not wanting to tempt fate, the trio wasted no time in stepping through the exit door, and got handed an A for their efforts, having absolutely demolished the town’s population where the other royal team had bypassed a lot of the obstacles in their path (and jr had got hit a lot).

”Hey nice. Can't do any better than that right?” Bowser incorrectly declared, unaware of S and P ranks.

”As long as we got the food, I don’t really care how we were graded for it.” Ganondorf said with a shrug, ”But did you really expect anything less of the two of us?”

That earned him a laugh and a friendly slap on the back from Bowser ”You got that right. Those pigs are never going to forget the day we came to town!”

”We came, we saw, we conquered.”

Bowser’s second statement was rendered rather incorrect as the stage reset behind them. But that didn’t matter, what did was that they had a whole load of ham and a new dish to introduce Ganondorf to.

Hopefully one that some of the others had decided to get the essentials of cheese and sauce for, Kamek thought, as it turned out they only had pork, fruit, and sweets at the moment.