Monstrous Physique- The inhuman strength of the Orphan of Kos has suffused into Geralt, improving his already-impressive physical strength to levels far beyond human. This also improves his physical durability, allowing him to withstand more punishment.

Bowser: 3
Rika, Jr, Dazzle and Kamek: 5

They’d reached the interior of Vandelay’s volcano, and though this facility and the ones nearby comprised part of R&D, their destination still lay a fair ways off. Throughout the igneous cavern lay a network of big metal doors and hallways built into the rock, with walkways and circular platforms elevated between them, all of a bright silver futuristic alloy that seemed to resist the volcano’s ambient convection. A remarkable overabundance of arrows and signs all indicated the direction of the main R&D facility, evidently at the far end of this cave network. Unfortunately the doors -and just about everything else that could be- seemed to be on total lockdown, leaving plenty of the robot workers stranded in various areas. Still, DespoRHado had gotten through somehow, as evidenced by the SBR, GNR, ES, BES, and BA-B00 wrecks littered around, so it was up to the Seekers to do the same. Tora didn’t like the looks of this at all, but he could plot a rough way forward along the magma river, through the various construction sites with their chain-link fences and industrial equipment, and across the outcrops and ridges that connected them. Still, with geysers of lava, sharp-looking crystal clusters, and bombs in addition to Vandelay construction crews, this wouldn’t be easy.

”They really just have a whole mini death mountain in here?“ Midna commented, a little surprised despite the warning. She hadn't exactly expected the volcano to be literal, because who in their right minds would build a city on top of one? Except Gorons of course.

”Urgh, and it’s just as hot,“ she then complained, fanning herself with a hand and she took in the various things along the road. Or ‘road’ because calling it that was probably being generous.

”This is worse than the Goron mines, those were taken over and broken by monsters, whereas this is just in a bit of disarray. How do they even navigate it on their own?“ she asked, pretty interested in going on ahead to find out. Also pretty interested in seeing if any of the construction machinery was ‘borrowable’ as giving things away had created an itch to add more to her armory/junk collection.

She was 100% not developing a dragon-like hoarding problem, she told herself.

In light of Tora having teething issues in being a solo act however, she decided against it, instead asking ”So, do you think you can do all the jumping nonsense, or would you like a hand?“ before reaching out a shadow hand and placing it as a platform in the middle of the first fiery death defying jump.

“You think it’s hot? I’m wearing what has to be at least 50 pounds of steel. Haven’t actually checked how much this armor weighs between the size change and the transformation into plate, though.” Geralt complained, wiping some sweat from his brow. Pointing at a freight rail, he hummed thoughtfully. “Might be able to use that. I’ve still got my hook from Detroit. Won’t get us all the way there, but it’ll make the journey easier. They’re sturdy, managed to carry me without buckling before. And I can carry Tora, with you hiding in my shadow.” They’d still need to get around plenty of problematic obstacles, though.

”How does a beam-“ Midna began to ask, having not even considered the high up narrow bar as being in any way useful, before changing her mind and saying ”you know what, just show me“ before hopping into his shadow and declaring herself ”all strapped in and ready to ride“

Pulling out his sky-hook, Geralt offered Tora his hand, and once the Nopon was safely secured against his side, clipped it onto the freight rail and began their journey.

The trio immediately rocketed off at high speed, swinging perilously as the track twisted and turned above them. From the sizzling lava down below burst a gauntlet of Podoboos, their leaps timed to try and clip the rail-riders as they rattled along, though well-timed swings could evade them in turn. Geralt’s size and the prodigious grinding noise the sky-hook made as it scraped along the rail combined to attract some unwanted attention, and as the Seekers sped on their way a handful of the floating bomb-creatures arose to obstruct their path. Tora quickly realized that between him and the sky-hook, the witcher had no hands free to deal with the malevolent explosives. “Meh-meh-meh, this looking bad!” Never one to fall to pieces in the face of danger, however, the Nopon took action. He swung around Geralt to perch on the man’s back, his nub-hands holding onto his armor straps while one wing curled around Geralt’s neck like a scarf for extra support. With his other wing he raised the new Sabo Shield, ready to protect his carrier, and now Geralt had an extra hand free, too.

With a hand free, Geralt was now able to protect the group, though he had to decide whether to go for active or passive protection. A focused Quen could cover both him and Tora given the size of the bubble, but it would leave him less able to react to anything more substantial than a small fire. Aard, on the other hand, would only help against a single threat before he would need to catch his breath, and quick as that might be, those precious seconds might drag on.

In the end, he settled for Aard and timing some swings to avoid interlopers, while Tora protected their backs. The bombs were easily sent flying with a careful application of telekinetic force, and if Geralt was ever between casts, he would do his best to swing away and let Tora’s shield cover them from harm.

As they risked life and limb riding the rail, Midna chilled (literally) in the shadow and directed her Vibrava to run support for them rather than add more weight to the situation. The ironically rather fire-vulnerable dragon had to be careful in the toasty environment, but the abundant thermals made for effortless flight, letting the mon focus all its energy on blasting individual bombs with its dragon breath, or destabilizing whole groups with sonic waves of bug buzzing.

After the volatile, fiery gauntlet, the current rail came to an abrupt end over a construction framework, its long rows of bricks and donut blocks interspersed by totally needless fire bars swinging beadlike chains of fireballs around a central locus. Those same bars cast enough light sources from all directions to obscure Geralt’s shadow, kicking Midna out to deal with the blazing obstacle course as well. On the opposite side lay another rail ripe for the attaching, provided everyone could reach it.

“Really?” Geralt complained. “What purpose does that serve beyond being a pointless obstacle?” Lack of genre-savviness aside, Geralt was fairly certain he could deal with the obstacle course. The only question was whether his armor would have scorch marks by the end of it.

”Maybe someone’s onto us?“ Midna suggested, assuming it was some sort of deliberate trap instead of a hazardous work environment, as she squinted through the omnipresent light that had trapped her in the middle of this mess. Her eyes were not at all happy about all this close up fire, even as her heart seemed to race even faster than it should from the proximity.

Either way, she did not have the Witcher’s armor, so her bare skin was on the line, and she did not want any more burn scars than she already did. The little golden mask fragment on her rosary only did so much, and she was rather unaware that the sun on a stick she had in her inventory had a secondary power that would help her here.

Suffice to say, the half blind, slippery footed and and bogged down by the harbinger fusions’s slowing malus Princess was not going to have a good time.

Geralt, nonetheless, trudged forth, Tora still hanging onto his back, and began platforming. He leapt with ease from platform to platform, after nearly losing his cool when a donut block began to collapse from under him, only to remain in place after he jumped off of it. How odd. This took him back to the days of his training, as well as Ciri’s. The Witcher obstacle courses with swinging logs, rotating devices meant to catch you off guard and knock you down, as well as targets to hit. Compared to that, this was a relative piece of cake, though with the heat roiling around him and the sweat threatening to drip into his eyes and blind him, he nonetheless had to be careful and attentive. At least this slapdash, hazard-ridden framework lasted just a couple moments.

A few moments later, Minda descended from the sky, having realized after a singed hair or two that she still didn’t have to play the engineer's sick game and she could just leave by, well, ascending out of it.

Once hooked back on, the Seekers’ breakneck ride continued. Their rail curved upward, bringing them higher over the lava and nearer to one of the alloy bridges leading between two facilities built into the volcanic rock. As they approached Tora could see and hear a battle raging on that very span, fought between a squad of DespoRHado cyborgs with two armored axe-wielders and a Vandelay robot battalion backed by a ferocious-looking KEM-0N0 that wielded its huge claws and projectile spines to great effect. In fact, the rail passed so closely overhead the bridge that the rivals’ weapons, shots, and even bodies could hit Geralt’s large frame as he dangled overhead. Tora couldn’t help but think this would be a terrible hazard given the size of the fright containers he’d seen around the Vandelay Campus already. Right now though, the collision course offered a hazard as much for the team as the unwary fighters unless Geralt took action of some kind.

”Neat robot wolf. I want one“ Midna commented from the shadows, 100% falling for the cool aesthetic of Vandelay’s self advertising designs. Then she rapidly hashed out a plan ”Oh, I know, I could jump over behind them both, dump those smoke grenades, then go into the middle and yell about them being attacked from behind. That way they’d both start shooting behind themselves!“

Geralt, meanwhile, was hard at work…focusing on a Quen bubble shield, the protective force field expanding out from him and covering both him and Tora from any loose shots. As for his dangling legs, he had tucked himself up, knees resting against his chest, muscles strangely fine with the odd-looking position he had curled himself into. The Witcher kept his mind on maintaining the shield, though, and otherwise missed the details of Midna’s plan. Between his shield and compaction, neither he nor his rider ended up needing to worry about a thing.

”Guess that works too“ Midna sighed, her explaining of the plan having taken about as long as it would have to execute, and seeing as said explanation had been ongoing as they swung through the warzone, it wouldn’t have worked anyway.

Immediately after the battle-gripped bridge, the rail swooped downward, delivering a burst of speed and G-force to Tora that left him howling. The next moment the rail hooked left to disappear into a dark hole, turning so sharply that it dumped him and Geralt atop a large alloy tower rising from the lava, lit up by bright blue tech lines and the big glowing plus sign at its center. In front of them stood a strange bestial robot complete with snout and tail, decked out in bright red flame patterns and perforated metal, clutching his head and groaning. “Hrk…agh…agh, it…it hurts!”

Tora stood up carefully, not sure what to make of this but pretty sure it wasn’t anything good. “This guypon have stink of bothersome mid-boss all over him, meh.”

Flame Hyenard whipped around instantly, locking eyes with the Nopon. “OHH, it’s YOU that’s causing my suffering!” His voice sounded weirdly strained, and Tora disliked it instinctually. “Then if I tear you to pieces, the pain will stop!”

Without further ado he began jumping around and hurling explosive fireballs. “Hoo-hoo-hoo! BURN! BURN TO THE GROUND! BURN TO THE - BURN TO THE GROUND! Hoo-hoo-hoo! BURN TO THE GROUND!”

”No we aren't!“ Midna attempted to correct him, before remembering that it was rather pointless, given the machine was Galeeming, on top of almost certainly being insane.

”Alright, back into the box with you“ she told him as she popped out of the shadows, not quite getting how this black box thing that was stopping the robots from spiritifying worked, but rationalizing that it meant she could pound this random machine person without much worry about the ethics of the situation.

Summoning her wolfos as a steed and the sun on a stick from the twilight realm (she’d more or less wrecked the Interdimensional Axe she’d been using as her one handed weapon of choice the previous evening) she surged after the hopping fire lobber. She held the metal bat to her chest to charge it up as her wolfos dodged and weaved around the fireballs, before pulling up and smashing forwards with a mighty palm strike from her shadow hand.

“OOGH!” Hyenard howled, tumbling backward. As he slid close to the edge of the arena in a spray of sparks, he righted himself with a handspring and unleashed bursts of flame to launch himself into the air. Once airborne, he belted out a barrage of inaccurate fireballs down at his attackers. “BURN! BURN! BURN!” he shrieked, more manic than menacing. Then he turned his arms around and rocketed himself back down with more fireblasts, spinning wildly until he came down with a heavy slam. “BURN TO THE GROUND!”

”Get back here!“

A wave of roaring flame spread out around Hyenard, rolling over the whole platform, and Tora jumped over it. Despite all his new weapons, he doubted he’d be of any more use here, much to his chagrin. It was just common sense not to use a flamethrower on a fire-based enemy, after all. He could do little more than try to tank Hyenard’s fury to keep the others burn-free. “Fight me, nuttypon!” he yelled, running at the Reploid to spike him with the Sabo Shield, and Hyenard obliged.

Geralt, meanwhile, had taken a moment after dodging Hyenard’s opening flurry of attacks (though not flawlessly, as his slightly scorched armor would attest) to call upon the Orphan’s power, his steel sword now wreathed in eldritch lightning. When their mechanical foe turned to focus its attacks on Tora, Geralt pounced, almost literally, and brought his blade down on Hyenard’s back. He wasn’t sure how it would react to the lightning, but few things ever felt too fondly about it, so it was worth a shot.

Though Hyenard’s weakness didn’t happen to be electricity, lightning was lightning, especially backed by a heavy weapon propelled via superhuman might. “OOGH!” he cried again, stumbling forward to get away from the fresh source of pain. In doing so he blindly ran straight into Tora and his Sabo Shield, and though the Nopon only came up to the Reploid’s waist, that meant Hyenard’s shins took the full force of the shield’s spikes as he tripped right over Tora and fell flat on his back. Heart reacing with excitement, Tora brought his hammer down right on top of the Reploid’s metal noggin.

“OOGH-OOGH-OOGH!” Hyenard flailed on the ground, thrashing like a fish out of water as he shot off indiscriminate fireballs. He rolled onto all fours and attempted to rise, smoldering with flame. “BURN TO THE-”

”Shut up!“ Midna demanded as she descended from the sky (having launched herself via reverse shadowhand toss) and smashed her sun on a stick onto the robo hyena’s noggin.

It did bugger all.

Then thunder roared as lighting followed up the strike, blasting down onto the machine. Then as soon as it fell Midna started straight up wailing on the machine, her bat ineffectually going bonk bonk bonk while the follow up thunder strikes did all the work. Meanwhile, Tora ran around in circles, leaving a trail of smoke behind him as he patted down his burning fur in a panic. “Meh-meh-meeeeh!”

Of course, in terms of volume he had nothing on Hyenard. “AAAAAAAA” ”Just!“ ”UUUUUUUUUUUU” ”Die!“ “GGGGHH!!!” ”Already!“

Geralt assisted in the lightning-infused beatdown of Hyenard, quite unappreciative of the flames the robot was spewing all about the place as his sword came down over and over again.

Finally, the firefight was over. With his fur extinguished Tora let out a sigh of relief, though nobody got a chance to rest for long before Sandalphon called in. “Phalanx, come in.”

”Pha-“ a rather short breathed Midna began to say in a confused tone before remembering that was their ‘call sign’ (whatever that was), and replying ”Right that’s us. What’s the situation?“

“My apologies for the radio silence. I’m handling quite a with a few people,” the archangel explained. “That happens to include Monsoon. I’ll fill you in as you get moving.” There didn’t seem to be another rail leading out from Hyenard’s territory, but there was a large strip of crag not too far away that ran along the side of the cavern, littered with chain-link fences, construction materials, and helpful signage. Once there the Seekers only needed to worry about one thing: the fireballs spat out in bursts by a magma spout, which rained down upon the area. “Monsoon called in when he started carving through the testing labs, at which point Zanzo began to pay him his undivided attention. Using intercom chatter I picked up on earlier, I pitched the idea of goading Zanzo into throwing lavish encounters and setpieces at Monsoon to exhaust his limited budget, and I’ve been keeping track of it for him in addition to coordinating all the Seekers. He’s currently bogged down in the AR labs. You should be able to catch up via an alternate route by ascending the excavator up ahead.” And after another few moments spent vaulting over rocks and dodging fireballs, the team saw -and heard- exactly what she meant.



The giant drill created a tremendous racket as it span, its massive tip dredging up fresh lava from the earth. Or, in this case, Deep-Paris, probably hundred and hundreds of feet above ground level. It didn’t really make sense, but Tora was beyond questioning things at this point. He’d already seen stranger things than an active volcano inside the city limits of Midgar. Moreover, he and the others could use the drill’s housing -and the scaffolding higher up- to climb up and reach the R&D facility at last via Lab 44. Between them and the lab’s wonderfully air-conditioned interior, however, lay a big, locked door. “Mehhhh…” Tora groaned, tired and sweaty. “Door not budge inch! Not even Tora squeeze through!” He plopped down next to a ventilation duct by the door, desperate for the faintest trace of cool air.

Beside him there came the sound of banging as Midna gave the door a few shadow fist blows. After a few moments of that, she gave up and floated over to see what the bit of metal Tora was sitting by’s deal was.

After a few moments she requested that he ”Budge over for a moment?“ before crouching down and having a look at the duct entrance. She had never seen one before, but even to her uneducated mind it seemed like ”this might be a way in? For me anyway.“

“Could work. Certainly worth a shot.” Geralt added with a shrug.

Together the three pried open the duct. Midna could fit inside easily, and Tora with a slight squeeze, but no way Geralt could get through. The duct also turned to go straight up, meaning that if Tora meant to reach the other end Midna would need to push him up. As much as he wanted to be useful, the Nopon decided against it. “You go ahead, meh,” he told Midna. Should be controls of some kind in there to unlock door for rest of us.”

The duct happened to lead straight to the control room for the testing lab, which made sense since anyone in charge of administering tests would want a climate-controlled environment. However, the control room lay dormant for the time being, its windows shuttered. After a little searching Midna could find an array of clearly-labeled switches, one of which unlocked the chamber doors with a magnetic clack.

Finally the door slid open, and everyone could enjoy the coolness of the multi-tiered Lab 44. Or at least, they would be able to if not for the big green robot sitting in the middle of the testing area. “Hrrm?” He quickly rose from where he’d been playing tic-tac-toe with himself atop four crablike legs. Without delay the HG-0G began firing its shoulder and arm cannons, filling the room with bouncing grenades.

”Nope, no, stop that right now“ Midna demanded as she spurred her wolfos forwards in another dodging and weaving filled charge, thinking that against this bot, surely it would work.

She thought so right up until the point where she raised up a shadow fist and drove it forwards, only for the shield bubble around the machine to not only block the hit, but send a recoil lancing up the orange glowing arm. The princess was promptly knocked off of her steed's back, and the confused wolfos had to do a quick turn and grab and move her by the scruff of the neck to prevent her from being exploded.

Geralt quickly made the Sign of Quen, the protective shield forming around him as he ran in and attempted a thrust with his steel sword, only to be auto-parried as well, stumbling back in confusion before narrowing his eyes. “Well that’s not good…” He mumbled, circling around the machine to try and find a vulnerable area.

Tora blocked a grenade with the Sabo Shield, and out of the ensuing explosion flew a burst of oversized cactus spines. They met with nothing more than a dull clonk on impact, however, their force dispersed by the armor in a purple wave. When Tora moved in and let loose his new flamethrower, the results weren’t any better. Clo-clo-clo-clo-clo-clonk. A moment later Geralt struck at what looked like an unarmored leg, but appearances could be deceiving. He bounced off just the same.

“What this thing made of?” Tora gasped, his face a mixture of frustration and admiration. The HG-0G just gave a goonish laugh, bonking its armored head with its arm cannon in a show of durability. Keeping his guard up, Tora looked around in an attempt to see if there was anything he was missing. To his surprise, he did notice something. Another one of the testing chamber doors had opened partially, maybe during Midna’s fiddling around earlier, and another robot had slipped through the gap.

This one seemed to be different, though. Small and quadrupedal, with more exposed tech and less consumer-friendly plating than Vandelay’s products, it just stood there to observe rather than attack. When it became clear the Seekers were getting nowhere against the HG-0G, however, the critter started to get excited. It jumped around, swinging its thick tail, and squealing as if trying to get the Seekers’ attention. “Meeeee, meeeee, meeee!” It slid back under the door and ran a few steps, then turned and tried to get the others to follow. Or play with it maybe, its signals weren’t crystal-clear.

Still, better than struggling against this thing until somebody blew up. “Friends, look!” Tora pointed to the four-legged automaton with his hammer. “Little mechanical ottil show escape route!” As grenades rained down around him he took off running, skirting around the pit with the central testing platform in the middle. He ducked under the door without much issue, where he found himself in a hall with glass sides shielding server rooms, and without delay the Robotter skedaddled down the hall. Tora squinted, trying to see where it was headed, but found no obvious doorways at the corridor’s far end.

”Fine, you get to live. So you better not try and follow us“ Midna shouted at the seemingly invincible machine, before having her wolfos about turn and scamper after the nopon, the princess using her shadow hand to sweep grenades out of their path as it did so.

Geralt looked between the machine they were trying to fight, and the small one that seemed to be guiding them further inside the building and, with a sigh, chased after Tora, Midna, and the Robotter, a grenade narrowly being swatted aside by Midna’s shadow hand as he awkwardly rolled under the partially-open door.

Barely had everyone gotten under the door than a mighty wallop from the HG-0G’s mechanical arm sent a tremendous noise resounding down the hallway. It just about sent Tora into a panic, but the door seemed to hold, so he let out a sigh of relief. That sigh died on his lips when the HG-0G inserted its arm under the door and began to lift. “Oh no.” Tora turned tail and barreled after the Robotter. Just a scant couple seconds later, the robot slammed the door open and crammed into the hall. Grenades began to roll as the Seekers reached the other end of the hall, finding a reinforced trapdoor in the floor. It slid open at their approach and the Robotter dove straight down into the darkness. “Mehhhhh…” Tora glanced back at the HG-0G to see it barging down the corridor, scraping the sides as it fired off grenades. They had no choice. Breathing in deep, Tora leaped into the hole. “Nice knowing youuuuuuu!”

”I told you not to follow, you oversized scrap metal Tektite! This is your last warning!“ Midna shouted behind them, before unsummoning her steed and dropping down into the hole. She tried to use her levitation to slow/control her own descent, but given that Geralt was going to have to come in behind her, that had a predictable result.

Shaking his head, the Witcher just sighed and leapt into the trapdoor, once more barely avoiding grenades going off right next to him, the sounds of explosions quickly receding as he fell down the chute and it slammed shut above him.

The gang slid and bounced along the chute for a solid five seconds before they spilled out of a hole into a dark room to land on a heap on an old green sofa. Tora landed upside-down, but none the worse for wear, and he righted himself cautiously. “What is this place?”

In reply, two red eyes blinked on in the darkness. Loud footfalls echoed through the darkness as the lights grew closer. A deep voice resounded from an unknown source. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“MEEEH!” Tora yelped.

“Oh, sorry little guy!” The lights blinked on, revealing a sprawling, messy workshop, as well as a huge cyborg man smiling sheepishly, adjusting his glasses. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“The night vision makes you come on a little strong, sir.” Next to a desk with an obscene amount of monitors, a tall white robot had just finished drawing a friendly happy face on its head with a black dry-erase marker.

Peals of bright laughter rang out from the engineering zone. “Bahahaha! I KNEW that would happen!” A young woman with light brown hair, an orange coat over her black turtleneck, and a thick tail smiled as the Robotter jumped into her lap to be pet. “Welcome to our workshop, you guys! I’m so glad you followed my Mee-boo! Sorry about the fall, I’ve been meaning to get more cushions for the couch there, heheh…”

Another door suddenly slid open, and into the workshop ran a little girl with white hair and a red coat. “Omigosh, what happened?” She slid to a stop near the others, her face worried. “I heard so much noise…”

“Just got these guys outta a spot of trouble, Clara, that’s all,” the big guy said before turning to the newcomers. “I’m Macaron. These are my buddies CNMN, Mayer, and Clara. We work here.”

”I mean, those two statements don’t really go together, seeing as so did the robot you let us retreat from“ Midna pointed out as she floated up and dusted herself down. She paused a moment to stretch her arms behind her head and cracking her knuckles along with a satisfied sigh, before completing the thought by requesting ”so please, explain your whole deal“

Geralt rolled his head in a circle, neck cracking a few times, as he looked over their so-called rescuers inquisitively. Vandelay Technologies hadn’t given them any reason to trust them so far, even before tonight, and their association with Zenkichi’s enemy was rather suspect. Still, he merely raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms across his chest, waiting for them to, as Midna had so eloquently put it, ‘explain their whole deal.’

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Macaron backed up a half-step, his eyebrows raised nervously. “Don’t you know…wait, you guys aren’t with Peppermint, are you? Er…that makes things awkward.” He rubbed the back of his head.

CNMN scrubbed off his face, then speedily drew a more serious one on. “Quite…”

Clara looked around anxiously. “Mr. Macaron…is everything okay?”

He nodded, holding out a placating hand. “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry, Clara. Just gotta talk things over a little.” Unfortunately, he didn’t know offhand the best way to go about doing that.

“Well for starters, that HG-0G doesn’t ‘work’ for Vandelay and more than a fishing pole ‘works’ for a fisherman,” Mayer pointed out cheerfully. “No robots do! That’s what you call ‘blind obedience’. Not us, though. We make our own choices.”

Macaron nodded vigorously. “That’s right! I used to be the head of R&D under Roxanne Vandelay. Then Kale showed up, and now this SPECTRA…I just couldn’t condone it any longer.” He tightened his fist sadly. “But this place is my whole life. I wanted to do something..and I realized I can. From the inside!”

Mayer nodded as CNMN changed his face to a determined one. “I guess you could call us disgruntled employees. And it takes a lot to get me down, I tell ya what!”

“Zanzo’s been doing a lot,” Macaron grumbled. “That’s part of why I got in touch with Peppermint to try and put a stop to it. Something big’s going down.”

“That’s why we’ve gotta be proactive!” Mayer told him.

“But fighting…just isn’t my style.” As Macaron hung his head, Mayer glanced over at the punching bag by one wall, decked out in heavy armor just like that of the HG-0G unit.

It was then that Sandalphon spoke up. “I’ve looked up his employee profile,” she remarked, displaying it for everyone to see. “Age, forty-seven. Head of Research and Development for years. Reviewed very highly by ex Vandelay employees–’considerate, reliable, honest to a fault’. Noted for long project times but high success rate, remarkable strength, and his advocacy for nonviolent solutions. Demoted and replaced by Zanzo once Kale took over the company. Everything checks out.”

Macaron blinked, surprised at the presence of an extra person but able to put two and two together. “Thanks, miss…whoever-you are.”

”You are just full of surprises aren't you“ Midna commented about Sandalphon as she looked it over, before turning her attention back to the group.

”Well looks like you're in luck, because fighting is very much our deal. So here’s the deal: you get us everything you can on what Vandelay knows about the machine’s virus, and how they were going to deal with it, and we’ll add whatever this ‘big’ that’s ‘going down’ to our list of messes we need to clean up in here“ she offered, before thinking for a moment and adding ”Also how to deal with that infuriating shield“ and then looking at the other two to see if they had anything else they wanted, or any objections.

Geralt, for his part, mostly just stood there, looking intimidating. It was working wonders on the ten-year-old in particular. However, he did add one thing: “Might as well explain exactly what it is Vandelay’s doing. Or, if I must be more specific, what Project HOLLOW is.” Bringing up what that Consul told the team that went into the theater might cut through the bullshit, or it might blow up in their faces, but they had a lead right in front of them, and he wasn’t going to ignore it.

“Hmm.” Macaron scrunched his brows together. That was a lot of questions to answer. “The Logic Virus. Zanzo figured that we could cut costs by just stealing DespoRHado’s antivirus software. Once he got his hands on a couple androids, he tossed them straight to me, telling me to have the software update ready by the time DespoRHado’s toast. Like it’s that simple! The Vandelay robots are a flippin’ mess of redundant spaghetti code, not unified in the slightest! And the architecture of the androids’ programming language is totally different! That man hasn’t the slightest grasp on the realities of software development!”

Letting go of her Robotter, Mayer couldn’t help but agree. “His demands are ridiculous. And the mandatory crunch time? Ohhh man, don’t get me started!” As she stood, a few mechanical arms attached to some kind of hub on her back folded out. “That big thing you mentioned? That’s SPECTRA. Top secret, but it’s got something to do with Project Armstrong and the new signal tower. You’d need to go straight to Zanzo’s PC for the details.”

“As for his new Z-shielding…” With a frustrated sigh, Macaron flicked the armor plating attached to his punching bag, sending the whole thing swinging. “I’m almost impressed. It’s just about impervious to anything but incredible brute force. No way it’s a Zanzo original…”

”I mean I gave it a pretty big smack, so that must be one boatload of force. Literally even“ Midna replied, now thinking about how she could apply even more power to the problem.

Macaron then glanced at Geralt. “Well, you know Vandelay’s trying to take DespoRHado out of the picture, right? As far as I know, Kale doesn’t have any goal beyond expansion, monopoly, and money, money, money. I’m afraid I don’t know what Project HOLLOW is, either. If it’s something else Vandelay’s up to, they’re pretty stingy with the details. Need-to-know basis and all that.”

“Hollow…” Clara narrowed her eyes, her brows curved upward. “As in Hollow Child?”

Macaron raised his eyebrows. “Do you know something, Clara?”

“Not really…but Mr. Svarog might,” the girl replied tentatively.. “Want me to ask him?”

“Yeah, uh, if neither of you mind!” Mayer told her, a little stiff despite her upbeat tone.

Another new voice reached the team, this time low, mechanical, and male, originating near Clara’s position. “Analyzing record…search term found. A Hollow Child is a robot designed to imitate and pass for a human, to the point where they believe they are human. A female Hollow Child, if fertilized by a human male, is capable of giving birth to a fully organic human being known as a Hybrid.

“Thank you, Mr. Svarog!” Clara said gratefully, looking upward.

Mayer blinked, taken aback. “Wow, really? If it wasn’t coming from Svarog, I wouldn’t believe it.”

“Crazy,” Macaron agreed. “We don’t make anything like that here, though. Sounds more like a CyberLife thing. Their androids are so realistic, you’d never know if not for their LEDs.”

”Why in the world would anyone want to make something like that anyway. Also why only that way around?“ Midna asked, but that was an entire can of worms that they didn;t have time to fish around in.

Sandalphon cut in. “Apologies for my rudeness, but we really cannot delay any longer. Any second now Monsoon could break out of the AR Labs and reach the Head of R&D. Zanzo’s budget is almost exhausted.”

Tora looked disappointed. “Mehh. Wanted to talk more with fellow techypons.” He’d been marveling over the engineers’ work since the moment the lights turned on. What Macaron said about working to counteract the Logic Virus, and this dev team’s skills in general, interested him deeply. “Friend seem strong. Strong enough to help with fight against Zanzo robots! Should come with!”

“I’d…really prefer a non-violent solution,” Macaron reminded him.

This puzzled the Nopon. “Then why friend have punchy bag?”

“Sometimes work gets a bit stressful,” the engineer admitted. “Knowing who took everything from me.”

Tora looked over at a poster stuck to the z-shielded wall, unsuccessfully peeled off and instead about a quarter scratched away. It depicted a crazed-looking man with his blue robotic limbs in a striking pose, his green mohawk and gold-trimmed white longcoat on display. “That him?”

Mayer stepped back as Macaron turned to look, and the instant he beheld the ostentatious inventor’s visage, he saw red. “Zanzo!” With a bellow he wound up and smashed the wall with the poster on it, obliterating it in one punch. Chest heaving, he came to his senses a moment later, and slowly lowered his hands.

“Meh-meh!?” Tora peered at the shattered remains of the wall. “That look like same stuff as green hardypon!” He then looked up. “Friend should definitely come with!”

“Oh, no. Does this mean I have to fight?” Macaron looked fearful.

“I believe it does, sir,” CNMN replied, a smile and a raised eyebrow scribbled on his face.

The big man grumbled, sliding off to the side, but Mayer shrugged. “Look at it this way, Mac. It’s our chance to finally stick it to the big boss!” She beckoned at Clara. “C’mon, Clara! Can’t leave you alone after all.” When the girl furrowed her brow, Mayer giggled. “Well, you know what I mean. I’ll let you play with the Meeboos~”

Everyone got ready to move, with both Macaron and Mayer packing up their things. The latter booted up every Robotter she had, each booting up with a meeeeeeeee-boo! to create a pack of twelve, all connected back to her on wires. “Good to go!”

“Tora want spend time with techypons after boss dealt with,” Tora announced. “This sort of people and place just what Tora need to get started on Poppi rescue mission for realy-reals, meh!”

Macaron smiled at him. “Well, if you’re sure, we’d be glad to have you, little guy. We’ll talk more when it’s over, but if you’re dealing with robots, we can probably help.” He then looked at Geralt and Midna. “You good to go? We should be able to reach the magma drilling cave through there.”

“I’m good.” Geralt replied. He wasn’t able to follow much of what they were talking about when it came to the technical details, but he got the feeling that ‘Project HOLLOW’ and ‘Hollow Children’ were connected. Vandelay was likely producing them. He vaguely recalled some mention of that when Zenkichi had been demoted by his boss, but the details eluded him, so he wasn’t able to offer any more information that could have been useful. Still, if they could convince these folks to join them and help the Seekers…they could prove incredibly useful in the fight against Midgar’s defenses.

”If Tora’s going to get what he needs, I’m good to go too“ Midna agreed, having not really understood a lot of what was said, but if the nopon was happy with it all, then she was too.

Now more than twice as large, the team got moving. Mayer and her pack of Robotters presented a natural hazard, but the high-spirited engineer hadn’t put so much time into her patented wire control system for nothing. The Robotters naturally moved to prevent tangles, and in the case that a wire happened to catch on something in the environment, it snapped back with a beep to indicate that it needed to be attached. Clara ran in the middle of the group alongside Tora, with Midna drifting above them and Geralt up front, while Macaron brought up the rear. Though the gentle giant seemed nervous to be out of his element, his determination to do something about Zanzo wouldn’t allow him to fall behind. In a few moments everyone reached a z-shielded door that lead back to the magma cavern, and Tora stood to the side. “Mac-Mac, you up!”

“Here goes.” After making his way to the front of the group, Macaron took a ready stance and began to flex his arm in time to the pulses of light on the doorway. Then he let loose a massive slug and smashed the door right off its hinges. “Oof…jeez.”

Tora bounced up and down, excited. “Wow-wow! With smack-pow like that, friend Mac-Mac take down crabbybot for sure!”

“Have to admit, that’s damn impressive.” Geralt complimented with a nod. “Useful.”

”Was there a timing thing in there, or was that all muscle?“ Midna asked, having noticed, and appreciated, the rhythmic flexing.

“It all helps,” he replied. “There’s a tune hidden in everything, I’ve realized. Once you find it, it can really get a feel for things.”

With that, the team moved in. They needed to get across a pretty big pool of lava to get back to the drill and climb up, but Mayer spotted a huge crag of rock hanging from the ceiling in between, already rigged up for demolition. “There!” She pointed it out, tapping Macaron on the arm. “Can you throw a Meeboo up there, big guy?”

“Coming right up!” With ease Macaron picked up a Robotter, tucked it into a ball, and hurled it like a baseball. As it flew its squeal got fainter and fainter until it made contact and exploded violently, blowing up the stalactite. The hunk of stone plummeted down into the lava, forming a solid surface well above the lava’s surface that the team could jump between. Macaron picked up Tora and Clara and showed off his leg strength with a long jump, while Mayer sent over her remaining Robotters so that they could work together and pull her across with a coordinated yank.

Midna just floated over. Geralt followed Macaron’s example and, with his newfound strength, cleared the gap with a single, mighty leap.

Everyone repeated their various stunts to reach the drill, then worked their way back up to the testing chamber from before. Inside, they found the HG-0G back where it started, playing tic-tac-toe with itself by scratching the metal floor. “Hm!?” it grunted in surprise as it noticed them, as if to say didn’t I already deal with you?

Macaron took a deep breath. “Any chance you might possibly let us through, mate? See, these guys-”

“Heya, Huggy!” Mayer called enthusiastically. “We’re gonna have to disassemble ya real fast. No hard feelings, ‘kay?” In reply, the HG-0G took aim with its grenades. Smiling, Mayer reconfigured her mechanical arms into a chair and sat down, her legs crossed, while taking out a two-pronged taser she fitted over her right hand. “C’mon, gang! Let’s make sure Mac’s runway is clear so he can strut his stuff!” As the grenades flew in, she shot them with her Short Circuit, frying them into duds with a single shot.

Midna meanwhile rode ahead and started reaching out with her shadow hand and tapping the grenades with a finger, pushing them through twilight portals and into a void somewhere in her home realm, where they could explode harmlessly.

Geralt placed an Yrden trap, the grenades detonating harmlessly when struck by the anti-projectile magical blasts the Sign shot out.

After picking up speed, Macaron leaped to the testing chamber’s central platform, descending with a gigantic overhead smash. The terrific, meaty impact actually staggered the HG-0G, cracking its armor, and when he followed up with two huge hooks he fragmented and they destroyed the pesky z-shielding. The HG-0G slumped down, momentarily stunned, and the Seekers could go to town.

The princess did so by leaping around Macaron and then delivering another shadow hand punch to the now barrier-less machine with a cry of ”See how you like it this time!“

Geralt followed moments after Macaron, circling a bit around to keep him and Midna out of the line of fire, and cast Igni, sending a continuous line of flame pouring onto the HG-0G, heating it right up, before drawing his sword, flipping it into a murder grip, and slamming the crossguard into the machine’s red-hot armor, like Tora had done earlier with his hammer to the Mastiff unit.

The heavy impact squashed a section of the HG-0G’s armor, but this robot had a lot more body to it than the Mastiff. Even after the powerful strikes from both Seekers, it was still operational, and it rose onto its legs to try and whack its foes with its arm cannons. Tora moved in to help keep the juggernaut heated up with his own flamethrower, however, and he kept its defenses softened up. When the robot tried defending itself with more grenades, Mayer cheekily deleted them too, giggling the whole time. Under this much pressure, even the formidable HG-0G was bound to buckle.

Midna, having backed off to give the others space and admire the fire they were creating rushed in next, raising up the sun on a stick which she was intending to just use as a lightning vessel again. However, as she swung it down, the orb on the top reflected the fire far stronger than it physically should, practically glowing with power till it struck down with a heavier force and made a very satisfying sound upon impact.

”What?“ Midna asked the world as thunder roared and lightning struck the bot, before asking the bat specifically ”Wait do you like fire? Me too!“ in a slightly deranged way. With that discovery made the princess proceed to going to town on the machine as much as she was able, wolfos darting to and fro to avoid swings and kicks from the bot while its rider smacked said machine over and over with the critical hitting bat-a-like.

Geralt gave Midna a wide berth as she maniacally smacked the HG-0G, instead taking swings with his sword, trying to target its grenade launcher, or more specifically, the arm keeping it attached to the machine’s body. He mostly tried to avoid being punched in the head by the robot, but was more focused on taking out its ranged attack option than he was on avoiding body blows.

Suddenly a lot more careful around one another than the floundering juggernaut, the Seekers quickly dismantled it. Scarcely had Tora put his flamethrower away than the others succeeded in their respective endeavors, Geralt with the separation of the HG-0G’s grenade-launching fixture and Midna with pounding it into scrap metal. Even though it had been trying to take out their team, both Macaron and Clara looked appalled by her treatment of the thing.

“Perhaps our new friend could use a Psych-AI as well,” CNMN tentatively remarked.

”Don’t worry, I have someone who’s going to poke around my mind later I’ll be fine!“ Midna called over, doing a terrible job of convincing them she was all there. The way she was trying to test swing two weapons at the air (the volcano fragment and sun on the stick) together now that she knew about their combo potential, and whiffing a lot due to the fire ax’s two handed nature, didn’t help either.

Clara sniffed. “It’s so sad. Why does Zanzo have to make them so mean? If they didn’t pick on everyone, they wouldn’t have to get hurt.”

“No idea. But I’m not about to get gutted to appeal to some naive sense of pacifism…” Geralt grumbled, frustrated by the mourning for a machine that had just tried to kill them all.

Macaron gently patted Clara's head. “There, there. We can try and fix it up later, make it a nice robot instead. For now though, we have to keep moving.”

“Indeed. The AR labs are just ahead, and Monsoon is nearly through,” Sandalphon informed everyone. “You must hurry if you’re to catch him and Zanzo before one kills the other.”

”Right. Then let’s move on then“ Midna agreed, before she tossed both weapons she had been practicing into twilight realm portals. Then she gripped her wolfos’ fur and spurred it to start racing towards the labs.