[center][h3]Development Hell - Vs Monsoon[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Midgar Sector 06, the City of Glass
Geralt’s [@Multi_Media_Man], Tora, Mayer, Sandalphon
[b]Word Count: 5,864 words (+6)[/b] [/center]

When Monsoon hit the ground, Mayer and her bevy of Robotters turned their attention toward him. “Alright, Meeboos! let’s make sure he stays down!” She jogged toward the fallen Wind of Destruction and sicced a Robotter on him, which ran ahead and jumped at him as he tried to rise. Monsoon, however, recovered unexpectedly quickly, and before the Robotter landed on him he cut its jump short with a sai through its chest. Mayer activated the detonation sequence, causing her minion to spark brighter and louder, but Monsoon recognized what was happening fast enough to twist around and hurl it back in Mayer’s direction. Just before it could smack into the Anaty’s pack and cause a devastating chain reaction, a jolt from her Short Circuit disintegrated it, and its disappearance gave Monsoon a good view of the enraged look on Mayer’s face. “Oh, you’ve done it now!”

Geralt charged at the Wind of Destruction through the smoke cloud left by the small explosion, sword sheathed on his back and claws ready to tear through the nihilist. Figuring that it would be best to match his opponent in the number of weapons they brought to bear, he slashed at Monsoon with a quick combo of attacks, caring more at the moment for getting an idea of Monsoon’s fighting style than dealing any real damage.

Though smaller than his assailant, Monsoon was fast, and his sais moved like a natural extension of his body. He sized Geralt up at a glance, recognizing his greater reach and natural strength, but also identifying his shortcomings. If this man wanted to stow his weapons and play around, he would come to regret it. Very much going for damage, Monsoon swerved and struck like a snake, making the most of weapons his foe clearly knew nothing of. He deflected Geralt’s swipes and swats whenever viable but was not afraid to take a few errant scratches if it meant maintaining advantage or landing a hit on his own. Neither his metal body nor chain mail could be effectively cut, but the latter could certainly be pierced once the easy-to-hit Queen shield went down. Pretty quickly Geralt found himself stabbed in a half-dozen places, and though Monsoon hadn’t targeted anything vital yet, his repeated thrusts to Geralt’s forearms and hands made his plan of methodical disarmament clear.

Before too much could happen, though, the Witcher’s allies joined in the mix. Tora barged in from the side with his Sabo Shield extended to try and knock Monsoon over. The Cambodian vaulted over him cleanly, putting a little distance between himself and Geralt so the man couldn’t immediately capitalize, but right on Tora’s heels came another of Mayer’s Robotters. Monsoon whirled around to impale it send the four-legged bomb back to sender just as he did before, but while everything going on made him a little hasty, Mayer had grown wiser. The young woman yanked on her Robotter’s wire mid-pounce, halting its momentum, and as it it the ground her pet detonated in a rippling electric explosion that caught Monsoon halfway through. “Gragh!” He stumbled away from the blast, electrocuted, smoking, and ripe for Geralt to make a real effort.

Having gotten a better idea of Monsoon’s fighting style, Geralt was more ready to take advantage of Tora and Mayer’s intervention. Quen had taken a good few hits before breaking, though the speedy fighter [i]had[/i] managed to break through the magical shield in the end. The giant Witcher charged in, his hand making the Sign of Yrden as he placed an area trap around himself and Monsoon, which slowed the Wind of Destruction down enough for Geralt to savage him with a flurry of claw strikes that came faster than he would have been able to swing his sword. 

His efforts dealt good damage, but the fight was just getting started. "Savor it while you can!" Monsoon spat, dashing away. He reached down to his belt and removed a pair of smoke grenades, which he hurled right at Geralt and Tora. They went off noisily and turned the whole area into a gray haze in a matter of seconds. "I could be anywhere!" He cackled, out of sight and about to spring.

"Group up, quick!" Mayer called, moving with her pack to join the others. Behind her, the silhouette of Monsoon appeared for a split second before he leaped in, his sais extended. On hit or block, he'd jump away into the haze again, then strike from another direction until the smoke diffused away.

Geralt sighed as Monsoon threw the smoke grenades their way, shaking his head as he waited about five seconds before drawing the Sign of Aard and slamming his hand into the ground, hoping to use the blast of force to both knock the grenades away and dissipate what smoke they’d spewed out. Regardless of whether his plan was effective, he drew his steel sword and took a defensive stance, ready to lash out and use the weapon’s superior reach against his admittedly more agile opponent. 

The Witcher’s sudden expulsion of force didn’t work as well as a blast of air would to clear the area, but it at least removed the sources, scattering the smoke-spewing grenades to the corners of the giant room. As the smokescreen began to clear, the trio spotted Monsoon the moment before he hurled something else at them. Two handfuls of energy kunai zipped through the air, buzzing like angry wasps. Tora raised his shield and Mayer’s Robotters joined her mechanical arms to help create a robotic shield for her to hide behind. That left just Geralt, and Monsoon ran straight for him, picking up speed. The Witcher got only a moment to see that his foe’s hands lay not on the sais now in his belt, but the handles of the katanas on his back. Then Monsoon drew them and shot forward through the group in a blur of orange flame and purple lightning. Strangely the Seekers felt nothing–only when he replaced the swords in their scabbards did a delayed double-elemental hit strike them all. That strike both broke Tora’s poise and knocked down Mayer’s Robotters, and when Monsoon whirled around two more handfuls of kunais whizzed toward his foes. 

Geralt was caught off guard by the elemental-dash attack, grunting as the delayed strike landed on him, but when Monsoon hurled another barrage of kunai, he was ready. The Judicator appeared to tank them, reducing the damage to little more than pinpricks to Geralt between the Striker’s bulk and his own tankiness. The team hadn’t taken much damage so far, the last blow notwithstanding, so Geralt directed it to launch its own barrages of energy at Monsoon, in the form of spectral flames as he ran in with his steel to match the nihilistic swordsman’s own, relying on both his enhanced strength and decades of combat experience to overwhelm Monsoon with a flurry of slashes. 

More than happy to step up to the challenge, Monsoon met him in kind. He might not have lived as long as Witcher, but his cybernetic body also outstripped the limits of mortal man. Quickly switching from the flashy elemental extravagance of the katanas Onimaru and Jyuzumaru to his sais, Dystopia, he fought with weapons designed specifically to capture and entrap enemy blades, his two against Geralt’s one. They traded blows in a flurry of sparks and steel, landing as many hits on one another as they deflected. Dystopia danced in Monsoon’s hands as he changed his grip style as necessary, almost as happy to pummel with their blunt ends as impale with their points. Though he managed to snare Geralt’s steel sword multiple times with the prongs, the strength of the Witcher made him difficult to contain, and both added kicks to the mix.

While Geralt kept him busy, Mayer circled around with her Robotters, zapping him with her Short Circuit as she looked for an opening, while Tora kept his shield up, not daring to interfere with the melee. Now that he’d seen those Robotters explode, Geralt knew who could put out the highest burst damage in the group. If he could give her a chance, Mayer would make it count.

As Geralt and Monsoon traded blows, with Geralt taking at least twice as many smaller hits but hitting significantly harder, the Witcher took a kick to the side of the knee that let him fake a stumble, goading Monsoon into an attack that he let through his defenses while his free hand made the Sign of Axii. Even if the magic only stunned him for a few seconds, it would be enough for Mayer to send in the Robotters. “Now, I can take the hit!” Geralt urged, even as he raised his arms in front of him and leapt backwards.

Faced with a perceived opening, Monsoon span Dystopia in his hands and brought both down for plunging stab, aimed for the base of Geralt’s neck inside the collarbone. Before he could sink them too deep, axii took effect, and he locked up the moment the insidious magic touched his mind. Tora, already spurred forward by what looked like a vital wound, heard Geralt’s signal loud and clear, charged in and bashed Monsoon with the Sabo Shield. The Cambodian staggered backward drunkenly, his mind still under assault, and Tora bathed him in a torrent of flame. As his flamethrower blazed, Mayer commanded her Robotters forward, and three of them jumped on Monsoon in quick succession. The second took him to the ground, and as the third joined the dogpile, Mayer hit her switch. They detonated in a blast of flame and lightning that the nearby Seekers could feel in their bones, and the pieces of Monsoon scattered across the ground like the parts of a broken action figure.

With Monsoon apparently defeated, Geralt pushed himself to his knees, one hand holding his neck to try and stop some of the blood flow, the other fishing around in his pack and grabbing a potion to try and manage his wound. “Damn…went right for the throat.”

“...A commendable, if futile, effort.” 

Tora’s expression turned to horror as his eyes settled on Monsoon’s severed head, still speaking. “You may take pride in your size and strength, but in the end, you’re just a relic of the long-forgotten past. Slow, old. An ape striking rocks together to make fire. Strong, weak. Everyone dies.” Suddenly, a protrusion extended from his circular visor, the cell in its interior crackling with purple electricity. The same charge began to flow through his pieces, causing them to clatter against the floor as they slid toward him. “Phnom Penh and the Khmer Rouge taught me that. I was raised on the Killing Fields, where the instruments of war genocided a third of Cambodia’s population.” His pieces rose and magnetized together, starting with the quarters of his torso. Then his arms and legs socketed together on the green seams, before the limbs themselves reattached. Only his scabbards continued to float, and as he spoke his katanas drew themselves from their sheaths.

“Writhe all you like. Life has no meaning. It is but a flickering flame.” With a wave of his hand, his magnetic power yanked Mayer’s remaining six Robotters from their wires to fly towards him and float in a ring behind them, struggling as he pulled their limbs off. Clenching her teeth in rage, Mayer detonated them in the hopes of hurting Monsoon, but as the blasts went off and the smoke cleared the Cambodian stood there still, wreathed in purple lightning. He raised Dystopia. “And the rains have come.”

“It is so easy to throw away the value of life, pretend that it means nothing, but all you are is a scared child who never learned to make his own life, find his own meaning.” Geralt spoke, the last drops of a dose of Swallow dripping down his lips. “I may be a relic of the past, but you ought to beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young.” Raising to his full height, Geralt summoned Fizz and Panther as his hand [i]plunged[/i] into his gut, ripping out the Hateful Flesh in a spray of gore and viscera, and he leapt at Monsoon with a roar, slamming the weapon over his head to crush the nihilist while his Strikers shot and charged at Monsoon as well.

When Geralt swung at him, Monsoon did not flinch, his smirk hidden by the visor that now shone with magnetic power. As the giant blade drew near, his body cleanly split apart at the lines on his body in a way that the Witcher might’ve found oddly familiar, were he in his right mind. This separation allowed him to almost effortlessly dodge the attack by letting it harmlessly pass between his pieces. More than ready for Geralt’s arrival, he brought his floating katanas down in a splendid orange-and-purple flare of fire and lightning, then jumped backward to put some distance between himself and his melee attackers. Panther landed a handful of blaster shots, and though Monsoon felt them, he focused more on what came next. He lifted his arms and shot his forearms toward Geralt, his sais’ points outward to create flying blades.

Geralt ignored the flying Sais as they grazed past him, spinning the Orphan’s viscera weapon once in a wide sweep before launching it at Monsoon, running towards him and grabbing a handful of flesh grenades when the weapon returned to him via the umbilical cord-like lead it was on. He threw the grenades as he made the Sign of Quen to protect himself, launching into a frenetic frenzy of blows against the DesporHado lieutenant, planning to either get a good few hits in or at least get a better idea of the new trick this frustrating man had up his sleeves. 

Monsoon leaped over the giant fleshy sickle as it scraped across the floor, magnetically holding himself in the air for a split second to make sure there was no room for error. He landed as Geralt wrenched out some explosive pustules, and when they flew toward him and brought the katanas around to form a protective X, blocking most of their power even if he took a bit of splash damage. The blades then parted, and he stood firm as the Witcher went wild, separating fast enough to avoid every slash and smash, all accentuated by Monsoon’s derisive laughter. After an especially big overswing from Geralt the Cambodian took his chance to launch upward with a backflip kick to the Quen shield. From midair he launched himself down in a dive kick, bouncing off and then magnetically hurling himself back down to divekick a total of three times. On the third kick he broke the shield and hit the ground, followed shortly by the katanas as they dropped down after him with a double overhead chop to almost -but not quite- cover the divekick’s recovery.

In that moment of tempting vulnerability, Mayer’s voice rang out from behind Geralt. “Look out!” she cried, a hair too late for her ally to avoid a nasty surprise. Twin lances of agonizing pain coursed through Geralt’s system as Dystopia sank into his back, driven by the detached arms of Monsoon as they floated behind him. He yanked them out, and as they flew back toward him as if tugged on threads of electricity, the Cambodian positioned his katanas to either side before closing them on Geralt like a giant pair of scissors.

Before the blades could meet, Tora got in the way. He ran in and jumped up to intercept both katanas with the sides of his Sabo Shield. Immediately the shield itself counterattacked, returning a portion of the swords’ would-be damage with a shotgun blast of cactus spikes. Almost all of them hit Monsoon, and with a frown he hopped backward. With Geralt injured, he produced two more smoke grenades and pulled their pins, but as they flew through the air Mayer slid to a stop next to the Witcher. Her Short Circuit sparked twice, deleting both grenades in rapid succession. She and Tora stood in front of him to give him a moment to recover, though Monsoon didn’t plan to give them that chance. He sent out his forearms to fight with his sais from a distance, wielding them with maximum lethality and minimum vulnerability. Tora clenched his teeth and blocked like his life depended on it.

“Are you okay?” Mayer ventured to ask. Her mechanical arms seemed to be hard at work, building a new Robotter on the fly.

“I’ll live,” Geralt grunted, calling on the Judicator once more to heal him with its self-flagellation, the damage he’d taken forcing him to reconsider his strategy once more. Monsoon had managed to dodge every blow of his, though ultimately it wasn’t terribly shocking that this was the case. The Orphan’s weapon could have managed this fight without Monsoon’s strange separation powers, which reminded him of Nadia now that he had a moment to think on it, but it was too unwieldy to be viable here. As the monstrous weapon dissipated and Geralt drew his steel sword, the Judicator’s flailing having closed some of the wounds the residual healing from Swallow couldn’t handle, he ran in to engage Monsoon. Hopefully he’d be able to get the maniac off of Tora before the Nopon was overwhelmed.

In fact Tora hadn’t been doing great. After a few frantic seconds of all-out defense against Monsoon’s remotely-controlled arms, the cyborg detached his lower half and sent it running at Tora too, his torso just hanging by itself in the air like the body of a puppet. His kicks targeted the sides of the shield to twist it out of alignment and negate the threat of reciprocal spikes, and after a moment he hooked his heel around the edge on Tora’s non-dominant side and wrenched it, opening his guard wide up. Tora took a side kick to the belly the next moment, but that wasn’t anything he couldn’t take, and he reached for his hammer. The blow turned out to be nothing more than a distraction, however as Monsoon’s weapons went for his unprotected face. As durable as Tora was, could the same be said for the Nopon’s eyes? Geralt’s steel sword swung in at just the right time to prevent Monsoon finding out, knocking Dystopia and the attached hands away with a direct hit. The Cambodian reeled in his detached parts, but rather than snap back together he separated everything and rocketed forward as a corkscrew of whirling blades and metal body parts. Rather than hide behind his shield, the startled Nopon steeled himself and swung his hammer, aiming for Monsoon’s head. He missed and smacked one of the cyborg’s shins instead, and though the strike sent the body part into a spin, it quickly magnetized back with the rest as Monsoon passed the two in a barrage of hits.

Geralt sidestepped the corkscrew of blades and body parts, drawing the Sign of Aard and launching a blast of force at Monsoon’s separated body parts to try and knock the attack out of focus. Even held together by blood, Nadia’s individual parts were much easier to manipulate when separated, so he figured the same principle might hold true here. Regardless of whether it worked out the way he hoped, Geralt went for Monsoon’s head, swinging and stabbing quickly while trying to dance around the disembodied limbs that swung for him.

The blast of force pushed the whole storm of parts away, like a school of fish shying away from a prowling shark. Monsoon’s head went with them, but a moment later the metal twister wound toward Geralt again. Even identifying the head among them was difficult, let alone hitting them, and the storm did not linger. After buffeting Geralt and ending up behind him Monsoon turned and came back for one more pass, then socketed back together a little ways off. He glanced down at the fresh dents and grooves left in his armor with veiled displeasure, then looked back at Geralt. “You really don’t know what you’re dealing with.” When he extended his hand, his magnetic power arced to the Witcher’s steel sword to pry it from his grasp.

Geralt smirked, letting go of the sword and drew silver, slashing with a grunt. “Two swords for a reason.” He simply stated, knowing that silver wouldn’t be nearly as easy to manipulate as steel would be, and resumed his attack with gusto and fury, Fizz appearing alongside the PT Imp Pack to swarm him with quicker attacks. Even Tora joined in. “Go for the head!” He commanded them all as his silver sword flashed and sliced through the air and, hopefully, flesh.

In reply, Monsoon shot his head backward, followed shortly by the rest of his segments almost like a giant slinky. Now that Geralt had a pretty good idea of what to target, there was no use trying to hide it. He sent out his arms with Dystopia, his lower half, and finally both katanas, whirling them through the air like elemental boomerangs. By doing that he could fight the whole group at once, but doing so clearly taxed him. His detached hands fought Geralt with far less dexterity than before, and though his katanas cleaved into his Strikers, his lower half found less success against Tora this time around. The little guy wasn’t stupid, after all. Rather than hide behind his shield he fought with his hammer, whacking Monsoon’s legs at least once for every kick he took.

Geralt grunted with each hit the Strikers took, but he pressed onward, doing his best to keep his head on a swivel and his sword in the way of each attack coming for him. It was easier now to do so, with Monsoon focusing on so many targets, and Geralt quickly found himself near Monsoon’s head, which tried to retreat once more, only for a quick pirouette and side-step to bring Geralt closer in a quick burst of speed so that his silver blade to cut across Monsoon’s visor. When he struck it, the magnetic node on the front gave out a burst of energy and retracted, disrupting the connection between all of his parts. They fell to the floor, limp as the limbs of a puppet with its strings cut. The witcher looked down at his seemingly-felled opponent and blinked once, before violently stabbing his sword down into Monsoon’s head, not taking victory for granted against such a…biologically unrestrained foe.

The stab sunk partway into the head, but the unfortunate reality that silver was half as tough as steel -especially against a target armored in even tougher metal- meant that the plunge wasn’t game over. Instead the magnetic node reactivated and Monsoon’s parts hurtled from where they’d fallen to reunite along with his head a couple dozen feet away. The Cambodian put a hand to the gash left in his head, the look of utter spite on his face hidden by his mask. “You’ll rot here!” Rising into the air, he unleashed his magnetic power. Spare parts, loose engineering projects, and even sections of the floor began to rise, lifting up and tearing away to slam together into a mass above Monsoon’s head. It span like a giant sawblade, its teeth the edges of the plates ripped from the floor now dotted with holes leading straight to the lava lake below. “...Left Hand Rule” With that, he hurled the immense projectile at Geralt and Tora.

Geralt’s eyes widened as he watched the giant mass of swirling death forming above them, drawing his crossbow and firing wildly at Monsoon with it. His body blurred and separated rapidly with each shot, and after a few, Geralt stowed his crossbow, realizing that it was useless. Finally, Monsoon launched the massive buzzsaw at them, and Geralt quickly cast Quen before running towards their incoming death, trying to slide under the incoming attack.

It was a tight fit. Maybe even the tightest. As the disc of metal debris advanced it struck and destroyed Geralt’s shield, but against all odds, the Witcher himself managed to slide beneath. He passed within just inches of the metal maelstrom, but after another moment he slid out from the other side, untouched by anything larger than loose wads of scrap metal.

Unfortunately, he then slid right off the edge of the floor and out over one of the pits Monsoon’s magnetic destruction opened up. Right away gravity began to take effect, and with Tora and Mayer both in the background thanks to their evasion attempts, he had only a moment to take action before he plummeted away from the grid of support struts and toward the lava below.

“FUCK!” Geralt shouted as he slid over the edge and into an open pit. He acted as soon as he could, hand forming the Sign of Aard, even if it would hurt to do so mere seconds after casting Quen, and his body was launched backwards by the blast of force and into a support beam, which he clung to desperately as he called on Panther to help pull him up. His body ached from overuse of Signs, the impact, and the fight, but he climbed onto the beam with his Striker’s help, looking to see if he could find a way to climb up. “Can’t believe that almost worked…”

As if he’d been waiting for Geralt to say that, Monsoon slammed an alloy floor panel into Panther’s back with spine-cracking force, which the Witcher felt one terrifying instant later. The power of the blow bowled him over the edge, but the price paid for safety was incredible pain. Monsoon landed on the other side of the lava pit as Geralt writhed, both Tora and Mayer -who’d finished her build and run over to assist- powerless to help him. “You can’t fight nature, old-timer. If you can’t adapt…” He raised his hand, gathering more scrap to form another giant mass of metal. “You will die.”

“You’d be surprised what a Witcher can adapt to.” Geralt gritted out through the pain, trying to call the Judicator forth, but too weak to do so. Even still, he put both hands underneath himself and pushed up, trying despite the agony in his back to get to his feet.

A blue flash went off behind the trio. Tora whipped around to find himself dwarfed by a seven-foot [url=https://i.imgur.com/82cmlvV.png]holy woman[/url], clad in spotless white beneath the golden luster of a three-ringed halo. “Do not be afraid,” she proclaimed, her voice calm. It was Sandalphon, the mission’s operator, here in the flesh. In her arms she wielded a strange [url=https://i.imgur.com/YAQnNGb.png]staff[/url], not like a rod but like a rifle, and as its elaborate head spun up she let fly a blazing bolt of energy that struck Monsoon directly in the node on his head. He gasped in pain and stumbled back beneath a painful shower of debris, his magnetic power temporarily nullified. Then Sandalphon turned her gunstaff in her hands, surrounded by electronic blue light, and planted the shaft in the ground. A ripple of divine blessing rolled outward, instantly healing Geralt, Tora, and Mayer for just over half their maximum health and granting a small regen to boot. “Keep him busy long enough for Mayer to get her creation close, and victory will be yours.”

With the arrival of the team’s guardian angel, both Tora’s mind and body felt way better. When she offered a plan, he gave a determined nod. “Roger, meh!”

“Oh. Now that’s better.” Geralt breathed in a sigh of relief, climbing to his feet and drawing Odysseus’s Bow and wreathing it in Eldritch lightning even as more scrap was pulled toward Monsoon. He released a veritable fusillade of arrows, each imbued with lightning energy, and each fourth arrow imbued even further by the magic of the bow. His crossbow hadn’t managed last time, but this just might do it with the added electrical energy. And if it didn’t…he’d have to find a way to survive. 

With no ranged weapons, Tora decided to be brave. He ran along one of the metal support beams over the pit of lava, the path made less perilous by his small stature. He held his shield up as he raced toward Monsoon. Though the assassin and his magnetic module were quickly recovering, Geralt’s voltaic barrage slowed him down long enough for Tora to get too close for comfort. “Gyah! Die already!” He took the fallen katanas in hand and wielded them against the Nopon, but between his spiky shield and natural bulk Tora managed to stay on him, even if Monsoon did maneuver himself to put Tora in Geralt’s line of fire. As Tora desperately bought the team time, Mayer finished her project. A brand-new Robotter was ready to roll, and after clipping one of her patented control wires to it the pair took off, sprinting around the holes in the floor like their lives depended on it.

Geralt watched as Tora ran in, a not insignificant part of him worried for the Nopon’s safety. But still he fired on as quickly as possible, each arrow potentially the one that distracted Monsoon long enough. Once Mayer’s final Robotter was ready and running, though, he changed strategy. Firing one last arrow, he pointed towards Monsoon and called all of his Strikers forth. Judicator roared, firing spectral flames. Panther growled and took shots with his blaster, while the PT Imps and Fizz charged in for a flurry of hit-and-run attacks. He’d had trouble before when overwhelmed by sheer numbers, so now it would hopefully do the trick one last time. 

At that point, Monsoon had just gotten the better of Tora. He circled around with a quick roll faster than the Nopon could turn, then launched him with a double upward slash. Tora’s Sabo Shield fell from his grip, and Monsoon kicked it away before preparing to attack Tora as he fell. Instead the Cambodian took a barrage to the back and whirled around to see a whole crew bearing down on him. He leaped backward with a flip, hurling two handfuls of energy kunai at them, then landed a short way off. “Witless fools,” he snarled. As he crossed his katanas, his magnetic module blazed to life. “I won’t go quietly!”

Tora had landed too, and for a moment his eyes lay on his shield as he contemplated making a run for it. When he saw Monsoon, however, he took hold of his hammer with both hands and joined Geralt’s charge.

The assassin launched forward headfirst, piece by piece, and reformed to engage the mob in combat. His blades clashed against Tora, Fizz, and the imps, fighting all of them at once. He landed slash after elemental slash, a flurry of fire and lightning. First Fizz fell, then the imps, but as he raised his blades to cut Tora down a familiar shape sprang up behind him. He turned just in time to stare Mayer’s last Robotter in the face before it exploded. “No!” Monsoon snarled, his magnetism disabled as his body burst apart into pieces. 

His head flew into the air, and when Mayer aimed a [url=https://i.imgur.com/hCif4LQ.png]little pointer at it[/url], the rivet gun on her top-right mechanical arm targeted it. “Comin’ atcha, Big G!” Expertly aimed by subsequent shots, the head bounced once, twice, then flew toward the Witcher, flipping end over end.

Geralt, having grown tired of the nonsense that the Cambodian ninja had been forcing them to deal with, in pain from the hits he and his Strikers had taken, grabbed the head out of the air. “You were tougher than I gave you credit for.” Geralt admitted, before drawing his hunting knife and stabbing the blade through the cracked visor and into Monsoon’s skull. 

There was a brief discharge of sparks as the man died instantly. After another moment, the pieces of his body began to disintegrate. He left behind the katanas Onimaru and Jyuzumaru, the sais called Dystopia, and two spirits, both his own and that of the ninja Zero. And one more thing.

A disembodied groan, distorted by radio static, flared up over the sounds of Midna and her team fighting on the other side of the room. [i]”Kill…or be killed…”[/i]

Tora, who’d been just about to sag to the floor in relief, jumped up in sudden panic. “Meh-meh, a ghost!?”

[i]”This…changes nothing. The traces…I will…return. The cycle…sure as the sun…will rise…the slaughter…will continue.”[/i]

[i]”The rain falls…the wind blows…the strong…prey, upon the weak…all…is as it should…be-ee-e-e…”[/i]

Then the voice fell silent.

Geralt set about collecting the Spirits and weapons of the fallen warrior, looking over to Tora. “Any of this you think you can use? I’m used to carrying a few weapons with me, but there’s not much point in me keeping all of these. Probably hang on to the Spirits, though. Make them Strikers, I think, unless you had an idea for ‘em.” Whether he was perturbed by the staticky voice that had appeared after Monsoon’s death, he didn’t show it. 

Tora’s face, meanwhile, showed just how much it perturbed him. It took a moment for Geralt’s question to register with him, and his worried look remained as he tried to distract himself with the spoils. Monsoon’s various blades all looked difficult to use and not at all a good fit for Tora’s fighting style. Not that he’d been fighting any more. “Friend Geralt should keep. Though after strange voice, thought of that man as Striker give Tora heebie-jeebies, meh.” He looked over to see that the other fight had already concluded, with Midna, Clara, and Macaron the victors. Then he glanced at Mayer. “Is Research and Development done for?”

“No way!” Mayer told him, smiling. “With Zanzo out of the way, we’ll be in better shape than ever. I wasn’t around when Macaron headed up R&D, but after working with him for a while I’m excited to see him in charge. Someone with a heart–not to mention some serious skills! I bet things’ll be pretty busy.” She crossed her arms. “If you’ve got a knack for tech, you’re welcome to join us. Fire-forged friends, as they say.”

Tora nodded. With the excitement of battle died down, thoughts of Poppi flooded his mind. “Tora would like that.” He gave Geralt an apologetic look. “Thanks for putting up with. Tell others Tora said ‘meh’, okay?”

Geralt frowned, not the contemplative frown Tora had seen him wear a hundred times before, but a more…real…frown. But after a moment it passed, and Geralt’s face was neutral once more. “Understood. Good luck, Tora. We’ll miss you.” He said simply, gathering the blades and heading over to Midna. “I think we’ve done what we came here to do.” Looking at the maimed Zanzo, Geralt hummed contemplatively. “I’d say I’m not sure which one got the worse fate, but given that most of him seemed to be metal anyway…well, he’s somebody else’s problem now.” After a moment’s pause, he gestured towards Tora. “Tora has chosen to stay here. I think it’s his best shot at fixing Poppi.”