Roland wasn't a fan of PSI ops. This wasn't because of competition between them and General Affairs, although there was a rivalry between all the major factions regardless, but more because of how badly they gave him a headache whenever they spoke or used their weird powers. He had enough of that with R corp, but Psi Ops was far more varied and thus, much more of a headache. Although considering they had to fight monsters, while he had to work next to monsters was... well they both had the short end of the stick but that was life.

Blazermate meanwhile was more on board with the whole fighting thing, although she didn't care about the whole lethal vs non lethal debate, she just wanted to get through and see the new spooky area. So when Sandalphon started the fight with her shot to get everyone's attention with Zenkichi and Geralt taking the front line, Blazermate went with the front liners as she normally did, summoning her shield when the bullets started flying. Although considering how fast the soldiers were dispatched, perhaps that was a bit overkill. Well, all but the two that seemed to be an issue for the two guys, inflicting status conditions that seemed to make them meander about.

While Blazermate cured them of their status conditions so they wouldn't be as open to attacks as they were, Susie used her opportunity to come from below and get around to take out the two first class privates by using her transporter to fly under while Blazermate, Zenkichin Goldlewis, and Geralt distracted/dealt with the first 3 privates and the sisters. Dropping down behind the two who were also looking at the fight below, Susie summoned her Business suit and suddenly made herself a much, much bigger target as she swung a giant mech fist at Fujimori Mosley who just barely shielded himself with his barrier from the large mech fist that appeared behind him, with his partner Kenji McLaughlin shooting the newcomer with a reactionary energy blast using his own psi ability, but only hitting the business suit itself, and not the pilot.

Blazermate meanwhile was found to be a genuine problem for the two sisters. While her shield blocked their plasma rifle shots, what made her a real problem was that they found their confusion status didn't linger on the medabot for very long at all, and with her clearing the two guys in front of them and healing them from the animal damage or the status conditions, it didn't take too long for their efforts, alongside a burst heal from Sandalphon, and a bit of crowd control themselves, to wear the two down and knock them out, Blazermate moving to smack the sister causing all the confusion with her shield arm. She didn't know why they were doing non lethal takedowns, but she just shrugged and went with the program.

While the rest of the soldiers were being dealt with, Roland finally made his move to assist Susie who was in a 2v1 fight currently. With her in a mech and the others either indisposed, distracted, or outright knocked out, Roland was clear to make his way to the upper platform and support the pink haired bot by striking Kenji McLaughlin in the back with one of his maces in an attempt to knock him out. This didn't go as well as Roland thought it would, with the man slowly turning around to look at the masked man with a "Did you just do what I think you did?" look on his face, before opening fire. This did free up Susie to focus on pounding the force fields of Kneji with both hands now, eventually wearing him out and causing him to pass out from the stress of shielding so much potential damage.

That just left Roland against someone he would be better suited against, but was still something he wasn't really good against. While he could deflect the pistol shot and even the plasma rifle shots with his bigger weapons, when the psychic blasts came out, that was a much taller order. While not the psionic lightning bolts of R corp, they were dangerous in their own right and Roland found himself struggling fairly hard as he was unable to deflect the psychic blasts, something that his opponent figured out and capitalized on, keeping himself at range and away from the masked man in order to deal with him. This lasted until his partner went down and Susie could handle him herself, and while he could keep Roland at bay, once the mech came from behind, there wasn't much he could do having taken a blow from Roland earlier. With a grab, Susie started to squeeze the guy until he passed out, but this did leave a hand free, a hand that he had his pistol in and he got a couple shots on the pink haired girl before finally passing out from the pain of being squeezed.

Thankfully this worked as a good testing bed for Susie as well, testing and showing her shield did work, even if it wasn't all that durable, it did shield her from the sidearm shots that headed her way. Roland was thankful that he had a partner in this situation, as he knew he wouldn't do too well, but he held out at least and would get healed up by Blazermate at the battle's conclusion. "Thanks. I'm not a fan of these Psi Ops guys, they have so many weird powers you never know what your going to get." Roland said, with Susie saying. "Its just basic power manipulation at the end of the day. We have robots that can do the same things.", not having either the context or worry of Roland as she hadn't been in Midgar all that long.

---

—

When the pilot was revealed to be a bee, Jesse was surprised that the loyalty of the wasps dried up so quickly.

“They just up and fucked off, huh? Off to seek a new wasp overlord? No hard feelings or anything? Damn.” Jesse said. For a moment she had hoped they might turn on the deceiver in their anger.

When the weird bee lady busted through the platform, Jesse felt bad for how little that affected her. It didn’t seem fair that she should gently float downwards from her position well above the floor while a large proportion of her teammates were suddenly in a life or death situation. The Director would have to compensate by making sure she maximized her usefulness, if she could.

“The fuck?” Jesse asked with a little laugh as the bee turned into an airplane.

As it began dropping bombs, however, Jesse let herself fall faster. She landed and pushed off the ground, getting back into the air as the honey plate dissolved beneath her. Sectonia helped her allies find stable ground, and some like Ganondorf took to the air as well using magic. Jesse got to work on stopping those bombs from hurting her allies and blowing up more ground.

She reached out with Launch, snatching the bombs out of midair. Then she flung them into the bomber queen when she saw other bombs getting dropped, trying to take out the bomb and do damage to the queen in a single go. Though she did have to time it so Ganondorf didn’t get caught up in the explosion. “Oop, shit! Watch out! I’m chuckin’ bombs!”

After doing this a few times she ran out of Energy and started using Spin to shoot the bombs out of the air and shred into the Queen’s chassis as well.

“I don’t mean to jinx it, but unless there’s another, smaller bee inside this one, I think we’re going to win!” Jesse called out. “Just stay the course!”

One way or another the collection of Seekers made their way through the hive, in groups or going solo. Once they reunited at the throne room they transitioned straight into a confrontation with the would be queen. Primrose and Therion were focusing on support throughout the battle with the robot wasp, content to let the heavy hitters of their group do their thing while they kept the worst of the swarm at bay or powered up their allies with invigorating dances. Naturally, the fight was not a straight forward one. Pretty much everyone was ready for the nature of the battle to change when the robot broke down and it's head compartment exploded.

Out of the two Travelers, Primrose was the only one on the ground when the bee's scepter struck. She had been between one dance and the next, and when the hexes broke apart she tumbled down. Less than a second later she came to a stop in the air, the sigils of her scarf lighting up and granting her temporary air time.

Therion had a gut feeling for what was about to happen, and so he jumped to avoid the shock wave. As he expected the floor opened up and a pit appeared below them. At least this one was filled with honey, rather than rocks or a bottomless chasm - but the thief still wasn't happy about it. He stood on one of the highest hexes until it would no longer hold him, and then he jumped to another. That princess bankrolling this whole adventure better give me a whole damn chunk of the treasury after this, he thought to himself, gritting his teeth and fighting to calm his heart rate. He was about to jump towards his favorite flying handhold, the ally queen bee in this case, when she summoned an enormous crystal for a more permanent perching place. Therion gratefully took a spot on it, and with some brief hesitation summoned a Shelleton next to him. When he didn't feel any adverse effects, he commanded it to fire. The gundead's eyes blinked red and then its laser shot upward, carving through the air and destroying any bombs it swept past. It focused on reducing Rumor's explosives while they were still in the air, any passes it made over the bee herself were incidental.

With everyone hurling projectiles up at the plane (and in some cases themselves), Primrose didn't think it a good idea to try and float up herself lest she get caught in some friendly fire. Still she got as close as she dared to the usurper queen, since there was no way for her to dance now it was time for her to go on the offensive as well. Her dress billowed around her legs and her hair around her face, in one hand she conjured the moonlight of Luna Λ and in the other the smoldering darkness of Moonlight Waltz. With the ring of Devout Beads slowly moving in a circle at her back, she looked the picture of a vengeful goddess. She let her magic fly, aiming solely at the plane.



Out of the cafeteria's impromptu maze and into another of dark hallways, the group left the specter behind them. Their rush for safety brought them even deeper into the hospital, and they only stopped once they were sure there was nothing else around save for the psychics and Seekers themselves. When Roxas explained how he'd healed Yuito, Pit whispered back a word of praise. "Oooh, smart. Even if its only once, good to know its more than a normal heal. Like a super-mega-heal." He'd definitely have to keep that in mind, along with all the other information about them he'd learned. He was glad to have a quick thinking friend like Roxas around.

When Hanabi let her relief show through, Pit gingerly stepped out of the closet to give the two some space after the Yuito's brush with death. His eyes flitted down the hall in the vague direction he remembered them coming from, and then down at rings of light that circled his arm. The divine weapons he could summon handily dealt with the likes of the Underworld army, so it stood to reason they'd probably work on ghosts from other worlds too. With the Watcher and Anima, he hadn't tried it - just following Luka's lead and prioritizing a swift escape over battle. That strategy had worked out so far, even with some close calls. In the future, he resolved himself to jump in and buy the others time to move while he test out the effectiveness of his arsenal. Especially since this place was more dangerous than Pit had initially assumed. The outside looked spooky, sure, but from what he gathered during Luka's brief rundown there was supposed to be some shady organization doing work here, wasn't there? How could they manage anything with so many monsters around? Maybe there's a secret entrance somewhere... or I guess they might be controlling the monsters somehow?

His attention was drawn in another direction by the soft murmur of distant voices. Behind him the closet door cracked open, letting him know that he wasn't the only one that had heard it. In silent agreement they all moved in the direction it sounded like the voices had come from. When they arrived they found an elevator, with it's lift already going down. They congregated around it. Pit answered Roxas' question almost as soon as it had left the other boy's mouth.

"Definitely," he said. Despite the danger this building held he was still ready and willing to keep going; they had people to help and a friend to rescue. He was sure he wasn't the only one that felt that way either. He glanced first at Roxas and Luka, then Yuito and Hanabi. "This might closer be what we were looking for, right? So we have to check it out! We'll probably be safer all together, but - what happened, Where's Raz?" There was no way that ghost had gotten to him, was there? "...should we look for him first?"

Rubick casted his spells everywhere, more so than he had ever done in the past. A Fade Bolt weakened a swarm of the wasps attacking the others, and some copied Fira spells from Kamek wiped out a few others. Eventually, though, the giant mecha wasp was taken out, and out emerged a... bee? The sight of it perplexed Rubick; weren't the wasps supposed to be bullying the bees? Why was there a bee inside a wasp mech? In his confusion, he stopped casting spells for a moment, which was enough of an opening for him to be directly struck by incoming fire. In response, Rubick held up his Loch Shield in one hand and used Sectonia's Chaos Heart defense ability, warding off the majority of attacks.

Meanwhile, the bee had transformed into a plane and rained down bombs onto everyone. This was becoming a little too hectic of a area for him, and Rubick knew he needed to relocate. Using his Weaver's Warp, he teleported into the air, then used his Telekinesis ability to launch himself further upward. Finally, Rubick summoned a mount using Ganondorf's Phantom Steed ability to provide him a lift. He neared the aerial battle between the two bees, Sectonia and Honeybottoms, and decided to intrude. Launching himself with Telekinesis once more, Rubick laughed in delight as he Weaver's Warped onto Honeybottoms. "Greetings, friends!" Rubick greeted them. "Have a gift from a Grand Magus such as myself!" He then used his Wep Wrap ability on Honeybottoms, hoping the 20% accuracy wouldn't let him down. He knew he only had one shot, so the moment he fired it, he immediately jumped off in an attempt to avoid retaliation. He hoped someone would catch him, but if not, he always had his own abilities.

What fun, it seemed that the feral wasn't the only one to favor a special brand of verbal and even physical pun-ishment. Artorias could only handle so much, what with dealing with his own footing as well as the very real threat of becoming swarmed.

Not even a moment of respite could be spared for the knight to groan, that which quickly became a yelp as the ground beneath his feet gave. "By my blade thy incessant nattering must stop!" the Wolf Knight grumbled, landing on a yellow honeycomb that quickly began to dissolve eliciting another no less annoyed sigh.

Artorias snarled as he was quite irriated by Rumor's antics "Sh-SHUT THY MOUTH!" the frustrated knight roared, aiming a wild swing at the pretender queen as she passed in bomber form as futile as it might have been to. He did however use the opportunity to stay on the move, deftly avoiding the oncoming bombs though only by a hair with his legs slightly encumbered by his greaves.

He began a dance of sorts, swinging wide and moving in a silent rhythm. One, two, three, he swung and dodged to avoid the explosives. He wasn't getting anywhere, this was not a fight he could win if his enemy stayed out of reach. For the time it was a battle of attrition.

Furthermore the knight, though he was an exceptional fighter and skilled swordsman was at a disadvantage with needing to balance his focus between the enemy and the platforms beneath him.

As the others attacked the guardsman, Karin knew it was up to her to finish off the man in charge of protecting this room. The most powerful of them all. Fitting, of course- otherwise it wouldn’t even come close to a challenge. ‘The Closer’.

Karin descended from her spot in the ceiling as the others began their attacks. He struck her as a competent and brave leader when upon hearing the commotion he prepared his sword and went to intervene. Karin dropped from the ceiling.

”Alas,” Karin said, attaching her hook to Charles’ back. He span and severed the line, turning to face her. ”You’re much too busy losing to me to assist your allies. It’s not too late to surrender.” Karin said, hoping he would turn it down.

“Hmph. You’re under arrest.” He obliged her and stepped forward, sword out. Karin swatted the blade aside and returned with a kick, that Charles dodged. Sweeping his blade out to the side, he surged forward and began swinging.

”Hup!” Karin pulled back fast, the blade slicing through the air. Palms out, she ducked and side stepped swing after swing. With a shower of sparks he cleaved through the metal in the wall, bringing his blade around towards Karin’s shoulder. Karin raised her bare arm and met the blade with a clash of blue. Charles raised an eyebrow and Karin smirked. They exchanged strikes before Karin once again was put on the defensive, Charles’s strikes fast and strong.

A private, Kou Kaufman, went to help his leader from behind, preparing to cast some Hallucikinesis to disrupt her ability to fight. It might have worked, but Sandalphon fired a sniper shot from the hidden rafters that forced him back into cover, unaware that such a threat even existed until that very moment.

Karin spend some V-meter, gliding past a strike and elbowing Charles away, giving her a knock down she used to advance. He surprised her with a sudden burst of speed as soon as he got up, slashing her several times. Karin landed with a shout. ”Simple.” She said afterwards. So. Charles offensive. Karin had ways around that. At this point he was starting to figure out her defensive patterns, the slashes coming dangerously close to striking something other than her arm, leg, or air.

Karin predicted his next horizontal swipe and stopped his high tech greatsword dead in its tracks with her palms, trapping it like a vice. With a flick of her wrists the greatsword was nearly knocked out of his hands. She advanced with a series of elbows, hitting him into a wall so hard it dented. He swung again, but she was faster and had momentum palming his ribs and then chin. ”Tenko!” She shouted as he dented the wall again.

Now she forced him to block. Karin baited his sword low with a snappy kick towards his knees, and then elegantly rotated her entire body to bring her foot down on his head. ”Weak!”

Karin reached to snatch Charles’ wrist and then shoulder struck him into the wall. He didn’t seem happy about this. Karin had detected his weakness: Charles was probably used to overwhelming offense with the support of his teammates. Being, well, a Closer. But instead he was facing off against a duelist who had the support of her own teammate. Another semi-aimed sniper shot from the busy Sandalphon kept the unlucky private behind cover.

Karin caught another strike, wincing as the blade scraped against her arm. Charles kneed her in the gut. ”Oof!” As he raised his blade, she fully sent it with an EX ”Ressen Ha!” Her palms became a buzz saw that lifted him into the air and then slammed him back down.

“Gah!”

Karin wasn’t letting him go. After striking him a few more times he got his back away from the wall and swung. She blocked and used her V-Reversal, a normally defensive technique, to shove him away right back into another corner. Charles dashed to the side, but she predicted where he would end up and zipped forward to meet up. ”Yah!” She balanced on one palm and slammed her feet into his ankle. He tripped and fell. As Karin rose he surged up from ground with a stab. Karin stepped into it, moving her head to the side as the blade moved between her head and shoulders. Moving her front hand upward, she parried his wrists up. With a resounding slam, she buried him into the metal wall with her palm. His greatsword clattered to the ground and she kicked it away, victorious.

”An admirable effort. But we caught you unawares, today.” Karin mused. Reaching for his belt, she plucked the keycard they needed and held it between her index and middle finger, smug.

Pvt. Kou Kaufman peeked around the corner, took a breath, and then pointed his rifle out to Karin. He risked getting shot by a sniper to do it, and fortunately Sandalphon was distracted at the time. Karin back dashed to side, turning her attention to the private as plasma fire ripped across the walls. Zipping back and forth, she kept an eye on the barrel of his weapon and moved with impressive speed that made her difficult to hit.

If the battle had gone another way, he would have earned a promotion for this move. He used his illusion psychic power to create a false stream of plasma rounds from the barrel of his gun. Karin jumped over it and he snapped his rifle to her, blasting her out of the air. Karin landed with a grunt, her belly having a few lines of smoke coming off of it from the heat of the plasma rounds. Karin rolled to the side as more bullets struck the floor. She fired out her grappling hook and pulled him in close, throwing off his aim and sending him stumbling towards her. From his hand materialized a grenade that he threw at her feet. A clever ploy, but unless he possessed a grenade that teleported into his palm, she knew it wasn’t real. Karin span and crushed his chest armor with a powerful straight kick. Then she brought her foot down like an axe onto his plasma rifle, rendering it useless. Karin looked around to make sure nobody saw the fact that she got shot, and she dusted the scorch marks off her midriff to remove the evidence.

Both of her foes defeated, Karin held the keycard aloft, victoriously, and moved to rejoin her allies at the entrance to the next room. Not before attaching Charles and Kaufman to their respective places with her grappling hook, locking them in place now that they were too weak to resist.

”Splendid work everyone. When we’re all ready, please, do allow me the honors.” She swiped the keycard and would be more than happy to lead the way deeper into the facility.

With the brief exception of his surprise pocket sand, Barlow had been on the backfoot against Goldlewis from the outset, but as the big man pushed him farther and farther back with his overwhelming offense Barlow just couldn’t find an opening in his overwhelming offense. Finally Goldlewis steered their one-sided skirmish toward its conclusion with a stomp, coming down on the younger soldier’s foot hard enough to knock him off his feet and face-first into the catwalk’s cold metal. On instinct Goldlewis raised his coffin to deliver a crushing Behemoth Typhoon finisher, but with a conscious effort he managed to stop himself. Instead he dealt Barlow a kick to the ribs that sent him tumbling back into the railing with a yelp.

Figuring that’d be it, the veteran turned to make his way toward the budding brawl between Zenkichi, Geralt, and the Marcias sisters. Things had already gotten chaotic, with Miwa slowing her opponents’ roll with Confusion and Natsuko’s Zoolingualism bringing angry animals out of the woodwork to cause havoc. No doubt they’d appreciate the help, especially if the Closer got into the mix. Goldlewis did not expect for his fallen opponent to come back for more. Even while lying prone with a bloody nose, Barlow used his Sunakinesis to reach out with a big hand of sand to grab his opponent’s ankle. “What in the-!?” Despite his low center of gravity, he’d been in such a hurry to back up the others up that he tripped and fell forward. The walkway vibrated beneath his weight.“Gah, darnit!” He landed on his forearm for support, his coffin slamming down next to him, and he quickly pushed off to roll himself over to get a look at what was happening.He’d been wondering how that shrimp managed to snag him with such force, but a psychic sand construct fit the bill. As Goldlewis tried to rise, the hand yanked on him toward a gap in the railing, but the veteran fought back.

“Need assistance?” Sandalphon asked through his glyph.

“I’m handlin’ it!” He banged his fist on the lid of his coffin. “UMA! Thunderbird!” Obligingly the lid slid open and a cosmic hand slid out with a spiked heligrenade in its palm. The Thunderbird’s rotors spun up as the alien tossed it, allowing it to fly toward Barlow. With a frustrated grunt he let go of Goldlewis to defend himself with the hand, but by the time he struck and detonated the grenade, his foe was on his feet. Goldlewis surged through the sand-riddled smoke and knocked him senseless with a swift kick.

Goldlewis huffed, unhappy with his performance. For such a small fry, Barlow had sure managed to eat into the veteran’s time. He turned and thundered down the walkway toward the central area. Her services declined elsewhere, Sandalphon had come to the aid of Zenkichi and Geralt instead, and when she returned to her sniper’s nest Blazermate showed up to help the men finish the fight. The Marcias sisters fought well, but not well enough. Roland and Susie were just now dispatching two of the others, and when Goldlewis turned his attention in the direction of the guard captain, he found that Karin had skipped straight to the end. By isolating the Closer, Karin cut him off and took him down with speed and power that outstripped even his own. After that, she needed only to cut through the noise that the last private threw at her to render the whole guard force neutralized. Goldlewis didn’t even get the chance to help, and he didn’t mind one bit–victory mattered far more than any personal glory. With an approving nod, he clicked his stopwatch. Ruthlessly fast, and clinically precise. Another successful mission.

“Yeah, you all did great!” H echoed Karin’s congratulations. “Didn’t even know what hit ‘em. Let’s keep moving.”

Goldlewis reached the platform where Karin waited at the same time as Sandalphon, who descended from above at a leisurely pace using her giant, elaborate halo like a glider. When Karin offered to do the honors, Goldlewis nodded, waving his hand at the door. “Go right ahead, miss.” With a swipe the mechanical door unlocked and slid open to grant the Seekers access. Happy to bring up the rear, Goldlewis took a final look at the area and the downed soldiers. Despite his antics with his coffin, guns reigned supreme on the battlefield, and he wouldn’t have minded snagging one if only these soldiers’ sidearms weren’t so piddly. Give me a good sawed-off any day, he mused. At least one of the swordsmen could have relieved Charles of his high-tech greatsword.

Movement at the other end of the area caught his eye. From a distance, he caught a glimpse of two unfamiliar figures, a man in a dark suit beneath a vivid indigo coat, and a woman in brown whose left arm glimmered with golden thorns. Both featured long wolf ears and bushy wolf tails. He and Penance made eye contact. We’re being followed? Goldlewis thought, squinting with his brows furrowed. Unluckily for these two, whoever they were, the Seekers had just snagged the last ticket through to Zone 09. Once everyone entered the passage, Goldlewis followed them in, and the door slid shut behind him.



This restricted zone connected to Zone 09 via a covered bridge, and the Seekers wasted no time clattering across it. Luckily there was no security on this side to complicate things, so Sandalphon could afford to scope out her surroundings to her heart’s content. By now, she and the rest were well and truly in Quarantine Valley. Hundreds of feet below lay the ground floor of the sunken district, awash in redshift corruption so thick even she could see the matter-warping distortion. Those streets, lit only by the faint glow of neon lights from above, harbored no signs of life. Only dust and debris. After a few moments she stepped out from the shelter of the bridge and onto the first building, staring at the lost cityscape that languished in the shadows of Midgar. Just about every living thing that could still be called ‘human’ eked out a living on the rooftops of this modern ghost town, in shacks and shanties cobbled together from reclaimed scrap packed tight enough to form crude semblances of community. Exposure to the elements had turned everything down here a dull rust-orange. Nothing looked reliable or new. Yet people lived here nonetheless, and it was the most entrepreneuring among those survivors that the Seekers had come to see.

Maybe half a mile out, across the rooftops linked together by wobbly sheet-metal bridges, stood the largest of the Zone 09 communities, identifiable thanks to its big, well-guarded gate. To get there, the team would need to make their way across this treacherous labyrinth where anything and everything could very well give out beneath them at the drop of a hat. Little outposts lay here and there, some scarcely more than a few dirty plastic chairs arranged around a fuming dumpster or tire fire. One step up were the rooftop shacks, most in isolation but some grouped together with girder structures or lines of laundry between them. Piles of trash bags and mounds of deposited dirt could be found most everywhere, as well as defunct rooftop AC units and antennae stripped of all useful parts. Within the gaps between buildings lay a hidden lower network of fire escapes, ladders, and catwalks even more convoluted than the restricted area, though perhaps able to offer different routes through this mess than the rooftops themselves. Sandalphon could imagine all sorts of secrets lurking just out of sight in a place like this.

One needed to be careful, too, since H quickly identified a few pockets of red matter lingering around the area. Nothing that would cause an uptick in data corruption, but best avoided nonetheless. Wherever the corruption was higher, the odds of finding a Gate were higher, too. It seemed highest somewhat close to the entry bridge, where At least the handful of haggard-looking locals that lingered around didn’t seem liable to give the Seekers trouble. If spoken to, the men and women here -who seemed to be outsiders among outsiders given their distance from the main community here- might very well yield some information about the shanty-town or even the Hermits themselves.

One exile not far from the gate, doubled over and panting, seemed eager to vent about something. “That guy at the gate’s all, Hermits’ orders this, Hermits’ orders that…screw the Hermits, let me in!” He leaned back, filling his lungs with his hand over his heart. “I gotta get back in. If I don’t, my clothes’ll be ruined!” Not far from him, a man loafed around on one of the low-lying rooftops, trying to soak in what little sun filtered down here on a cloudy day like today. Farther away, a woman leaned against one of the buildings near a long drop, watching the newcomers with her arms crossed when they got close.

Sandalphon set her sights on the tallest structure in the area, a derelict rooftop water tower on one of the higher buildings. From there, she could even look down on the shanty-town. “Go ahead and find out what you can from the locals. I suspect gaining entry to their community will be the first step. I’ll provide support from afar, just like before.”

As she went off to climb up there, one vault at a time, Goldlewis wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. Unfamiliar territory or not, it was time to get busy.



Despite Sakura’s good intentions, there was no way that any of the mind-controlled proxies here would listen to reason. Each had their orders: the Psych-OSF soldiers to extinguish the fatal curiosity of the dangerously inquisitive few who’d borne witness to metamorphosis (burying this place along with them if need be) and Painwheel, to kill Dexio before he could bring Brain Drain’s ambitions down on top of him. With lethal intent the two melee fighters rushed together, but while Dexio could avert his collision course with Sakura’s heavy hadoken, Painwheel’s mindless aggression drove her right into it.

“Rragh!” she snarled, rounding on the street fighter in blind rage. The momentary distraction allowed Sina to freeze her lower leg to the ground with an ice shot from her Refrigerant Coil, and her partner wasted no time capitalizing on the crowd control. Dexio decked Painwheel with a bone-cracking right hook from his spiked cestus that smashed the girl out of the ice and onto the floor. He unleashed his Seismokinesis with a stomp that popped his opponent off the ground and into the air. Reaching out, he snatched Painwheel by the ankle and yanked her directly in front of him to drive his other fist straight down. That withering punch not only pounded her against the floor, but shook the whole room for the third time. Dust fell from the ceiling ominously, and plenty of equipment rattled. A couple vials even fell over and smashed on the ground.

That whole exchange took just a couple seconds. Though Midna had used Roadblock to definitively shield herself and Sakura once she arrived, she’d lacked the context -and the means- to protect what looked like enemies from one another while she talked. Now Painwheel lay on the floor, sprawled out and still, at Dexio’s feet. Brain Drain returned the Seekers an angrier and more malevolent glare by far for their interference. ”What do you think you’re doing?” he seethed psychically. ”They’re clearly not under my control. If that man brings this place down, it’s curtains for you, too.” So saying, he fixed his gaze on Painwheel. “Enough slacking. Get UP.”

Purple electricity jolted through the girl’s body, and with a shriek she rose, holding herself up with her arms as her synthetic parasite Gae Bolg went to work. Black blood burst from her legs and feet in the form of spikes and needles in order to pierce Dexio with Warm Spasm. While he reeled from the pain she inverted herself to take out his legs with Malice Clover. Her Buer Drive blades sawed into his calves in sprays of blood, and as he fell Painwheel snatched him with her command grab Buer Reaper to bring him into her grasp and slam her down onto the ground, head-first. Crack.

Before she could act further, a splash of cryokinesis burst against her body, coating her in ice. Sina aimed two more shots to lock Painwheel down and freeze her in place, then formed a long icicle spike to finish the job. It zipped through the air toward the girl’s head, but she managed to maneuver her Buer Drive in between to block and shatter the icicle. Then dozens of spikes burst out from beneath her skin to break the ice, and with a roar Painwheel took off running. She chased Sina down on all fours, and when the soldier created an ice slick with a freezing spray, the young horror leaped into the air and flew the rest of the distance with her Buer Drive blades spinning like helicopter rotors. In no time at all Sina got command grabbed too. After slamming her into a tub Painwheel turned to go finish Dexio.

At about that time, things got even more interesting. Gemma burst through the doors behind Midna and Sakura. There was no sign of the Doctor other than some echoed moaning from down the hall, and some fresh blood on the soldier’s gauntlets. “Came as fast as I could,” he breathed, trying to make sense of the scene unfolding before him. “What’s going on here!?”

On the other side of the room, the elevator doors opened once more. From within spilled a quintet of familiar faces: Yuito, Hanabi, Pit, Roxas, and Luka. They’d unknowingly followed Dexio and Sina down here on the hunt for Peach or maybe Raz (as Hanabi told Pit that Raz disappeared the moment Anima showed up, giving her the slip) but they couldn’t have imagined what they’d find. Right away Luka recognized all his friends and allies present in the room, though none of them concerned him quite so much as his wayward squadmates. “Dexio! Sina!” In a flash he teleported behind Painwheel, and before she could properly react he drove his Weight Hammer into her like a massive baseball bat. The girl howled as she tumbled across the ground toward Midna, Sakura, and Gemma. Trusting them to take care of the aggressor, Luka then teleported back to Sina. “Sina!? Are you okay?”

He put one hand on her shoulder as he rummaged in his pack for a health-restoring Orange Gel, but before he could find it, Sina jerked awake. She grabbed him, picked the very surprised Luka up, and plunged him face-first into the tub Painwheel smacked her against. After pushing her struggling captain under the water, Sina began to freeze it over, trapping Luka beneath the ice. “No witnesses!” she growled.

With Painwheel distracted, Dexio heaved himself upright. His orders were clear. He began to pound the ground, ravaging the unstable medical ward with geokinetic power. The whole room began to shake and crack; any minute now the floor -the only thing separating Beacon’s bottom level from a lethal drop into the toxic Reservoir- would begin to give way.

Everything was going to hell with terrifying speed. ”No!” Brain Drain poured his psychic power into Painwheel. The moment she could act, she would be granted Hatred Install, amplifying her already impressive power and speed. He would not allow all his work to crumble, no matter what.



By now, Nadia’s adventures with the Seekers had taught her to expect the unexpected, but the feral was still in for quite the shock when Rumor Honeybottoms not only brought down the boss arena that she and most of her teammates had been taking for granted, but deposited them on a stack of magical floating hexagons that quickly proved to disappear mere moments after one of them made contact. After almost falling when the very first one vanished out from under her, and barely clambering up using its neighbors before they timed out as well, she began to jog across the layer’s surface. What began as an expansive sheet of interlocking hexes would quickly erode into a handful of disconnected sections beneath the tread of several survivors, separated by strips of nothingness like rivers in a delta, then diminish further into distant archipelagoes and isthmi. Nadia could make it work, but not for long, and just as she began to get a sense for the timing and dared to look up, the bombs started raining down.

“Damn it, this is stupid!” Nadia yowled as she dodged and dived, hopping and airdashing between the remaining hexes as explosions went off around her. The blasts didn’t destroy the platforms, but they could definitely knock her down, whether to a lower layer or into the honey itself. Down below, that golden tide was inexplicably rising in all its ominous opulence, swallowing everything in its way as it steadily climbed. Nadia knew that the rigging drum still attached to her waist just above her tails would let her skate across water, but would it do the same for honey? She didn’t want to find out; that stuff was so sticky and viscous that if she did fall in, she’d be beyond screwed. Those who’d already fallen to a lower layer might be safer from Honeybottoms’ deluge of bombs, but they could still slip through any vanished hexes. Two blasts grazed Nadia in quick succession as she scrambled, almost knocking her down. With so much to worry about, and nowhere near enough time to pressurize for a rocket jump, the feral couldn’t even begin to fight back against this demented miniboss. As cartoonish as this situation seemed, it was no laughing matter. While some Seekers could take to the sky like Ganondorf atop his nightmarish steed, the rest were in some very hot water.

At least, they were until Sectonia came to their rescue. Only a few moments after catastrophe befell the Seekers down below, the team’s resident queen conjured a giant, shimmering pink crystal in the midst of the hexagons, allowing everyone to jump aboard and finally get some solid ground beneath her feet. Nadia jumped at the chance immediately, and after an extra-strength airdash to go the distance she skidded to a stop on the new platform’s glassy surface. She heaved a sigh of relief, half-inclined to fall to her knees and kiss the crystal like an adrift sailor finally coming to shore. “Bee-utiful!” Nadia knew she had work to do, though, and like Bowser she immediately turned her attention skyward. Up above, Ganondorf galloped through the air with swords in hand to both slash and burn Honeybottoms whenever their paths crossed. Sectonia put her air mobility to work pursuing the bomber as closely as possible to electrocute and skewer her with her swords while avoiding her buzzsaws. Unlike Bowser and Junior, though, Nadia couldn’t take suboptimal long-distance potshots from below. Her only ranged weapon, the Bait Launcher, would summon a tiger where the meat landed, not on what it hit. That left Nadia with quite the conundrum, but luckily she wasn’t the only daredevil around.

Her answer about what to do came in the form of Rika. After a save from Kamek, the abyssal joined him on his broom to gain enough altitude to open fire, but when her ammunition dried up she took a more audacious approach. With a little help Rika closed the distance and grappled onto Honeybottoms herself. She hung on as long as she could to lay on some damage before the usurper queen finally shook her off, but even before Rika pulled off her outrageous aerial stunt, Nadia was convinced. “That’s fanTASTIC idea!” she purred with a grin, crouching down to build up blood pressure within her limbs. “Might just have to steal it!”

As Honeybottoms came around again, Nadia blasted off on a high-pressure torrent of blood. She flew high into the air, leaving Sectonia’s crystal behind, but not high enough. As the cat burglar began to lose momentum, she narrowed her eyes and focused in on the latest batch of dropped bombs. After aiming carefully, she used Charge to dash upward as a bolt of lightning, straight into one of the false queen’s bombs. It blew up, hurting her but more importantly, resetting her air action. Another Charge brought her close enough to launch her arm out and grapple to Honneybottoms by sinking her claws straight into her foe’s undercarriage.

“Ow!” the usurper grunted, but right now she could afford to pay the little sting any more notice. Not with Ganondorf, Jesse, and Sectonia still buzzing around. Even Rubick was in the air, though the odds weren’t on his side for his Web Wrap. But Nadia was far from done. Connected via her hyperextended muscle fibers and flying behind Honeybottoms like a feline flag, the feral pumped out a huge mass of blood that quickly took the form of three Copycats, racing after one another on all fours up the line in toward the bomber’s undercarriage. Upon reaching the top, they grabbed hold of the muscle cord with both hands and began to swing around it in a loop, slashing into Honeybottoms repeatedly with their toeclaws at the top of each one. “Urgh! I cat believe this!” Angered, she dropped another handful of bombs, and as they fell their air resistance slowed them enough that they threatened to hit Nadia on the way down.

“I think ya mean, ‘ya gotta be kitten me’!” Nadia instructed her, a wide smile on her face. Though wackier than ever, this was starting to be a whole lot of fun. She used jets of blood to push herself left and right to dodge the bombs. Unfortunately she was a little low on blood at the moment, and one hit her. It hurt like a bitch, but having stomached worse, Nadia held on. Honeybottoms went into a barrel roll to try and throw her the way she threw Rika, but the feral had seen this coming from the start. Doggedly she held on, slung around in a crazy spiral as the miniboss spun through the air, until at the height of her arc she finally wrenched her hand out. Nadia hurtled upward, dangerously close to the ceiling. It took a couple seconds to snap out of her disoriented dizziness and course-correct, but once she did she snapped her arm back into place, absorbing her Copycats as she did. “Alright, ya big bug. Hate to pun-ish a fellow jokester, but…” Then she jetted downward back toward her enemy with her most death-defying Feral Edge to date, diving toward and sinking Athame right into the top of Honeybottoms’ head. “It’s been KNIFE knowin’ ya!”

The false queen cried out in pain, her wings flapping like a penguin’s flippers. After a moment they morphed into saw-arms to reach over and carve Nadia up, but the feral worked quickly. She grabbed Athame in her mouth as she drew her boxcutter hilts, snapping two fresh blades into place from the case on her back. Then she sunk them into the softened-up exoskeleton and sprinted forward, plowing down the bomber’s back, leaving the saws behind and two deep furrows in her wake. She kept on carving until she reached the living plane’s tailfin, at which point she yanked the boxcutters free. Knowing another barrel roll was imminent, Nadia leaped off into the open air, twisting as she did. When she squeezed the hilts’ triggers, a final parting gift sailed Honeybottoms’ way in the form of the detached blades, and the catgirl began to fall. Carefully she inserted her hilts back into her belt, then boosted herself toward one of the huge room’s walls to bury her claws into the waxy surface and gradually slow her descent. Once she got low enough, she leaped back toward the crystal platform.

By now, Honeybottoms had taken a huge amount of punishment, and at last she could stomach it no longer. “Gyaaaaaaaaagh!” she screamed, morphing back from bomber form to bee form. She fell through the great hollow, only managing to catch herself about a hundred feet above Sectonia’s gemstone island. By now, the honey had risen all the way to the level of the throne room’s entrance, turning what remained of the platform by the arched doorway into a jetty overlooking a lake of honey. Its luminous golden glow plus the bright, almost crystalline glint of the blue wax walls made for quite the spectacular contrast, befitting such a spectacular battle. After slowing her descent, the usurper queen looked haggard, but angry, too. “Enough of this!” she roared, magically summoning her scepter to hand. “GRAVITY!”

Her spell swept over the Seekers, instantly afflicting the Weight status. The fliers dropped from the sky, and those standing on solid ground were floored beneath a crushing force ten times stronger than that of gravity. Nadia groaned in pain, pinned to the ground and unable to do much more than writhe.

“Bahahahaha! That’s right, kneel!” the big bee crowed. “Bow your filthy heads before Her Majesty Rumor Honeybottoms, almighty mistress of magic, queen of all that is golden!”

As she raised her heavy scepter to cast, however, a blurred flash passed before her, and the Hive Knight touched down on the giant crystal. His blade blazed in his hand, its teeth grinding in anticipatory relish. When Honeybottoms began to cast Gravity, Barnabee had recognized the spell in store for the team and warped out of range. “Mine apologies, friends. I failed to warn you. As I’ve failed so many times in the past. But I will not fail now.” He turned his black eyes on the usurper, burning with anger. “Traitor! Betrayer of thy own people! Thou took everything from me! From us! Thou art no queen. Only a pale, pitiful imitator! In the glorious name of Her Majesty the true queen, Vespa, I am here to fulfill my oath!”

“Hah!” Honeybottoms spat, gathering magic around her scepter. “I beat you once, little drone. This time I’ll finish the job!” With a wave of her catalyst, she sent a torrential cascade of pink magic shapes flying toward both the Hive Knight and the Seekers. “BEE-GONE!”

The Hive Knight breathed in deep. Sectontia’s crystal had already taken a beating, and any second now it would shatter, sending the Seekers to certain doom. He needed to be faster than fast, and stronger than strong. His choice had already been made. A prismatic light surrounded his body, and when he opened his eyes, they radiated a brilliant yellow.

“HUZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

From his wide-open mouth poured a flood of hivelings, a tide of brown that slammed into the wall of pink. Immediately the hiveling swarm began to beat Honeybottoms’ sorcery back, sacrificing themselves faster than the false queen could cast. After a moment they blew through her magic and poured over Honeybottoms herself. En masse they gave up their own lives by plunging their stingers into her body, their collective heat so overwhelming that the usurper couldn’t even fight back. Her scepter fell to the crystal’s surface from her nerveless grip. As the hivelings worked, Barnabee bashed the hilt of his blade against the crystal. From the honey lake flew dozens of golden globules, floating up to surround Honeybottoms before growing eight needle-like spikes apiece. By the time his hivelings wiped themselves out, the Hive Knight began to warp-strike between them, both releasing the needles when he reached them and slashing Honeybottoms on the way. He blitzed around her as a fiery blur, dicing her up as over a hundred needles pierced his mortal enemy’s body. Finally, he dashed straight above her, hung for just a moment, and then dropped. His burning blade sang as it carved through the shocked usurper in half vertically, finishing with a tremendous flame wave that sent Honeybottoms hurtling backward over the honey lake.

“IMPOSSIBLE…!” she cried as she flew through the air, desperately trying to hold herself together. “I’M…THE QUEEN! THE QUEEEEEEEEN-!” Her voice cut off as she slammed into the far wall of the hollow, flying apart into halves that soon sunk beneath the lake of ill-gotten gold.

Her Gravity spell ended, freeing the others, and the Hive Knight landed on the crystal. He looked horrible, his body ripped and torn from within by the strength of its own exertion. Prismatic ichor eked from his countless wounds. A sigh of relief escaped him, and he allowed his swordblade to fall to the ground beside Honeybottoms’ scepter. The next second, he warped away.

Nadia stood gingerly, swallowing. That had been one hell of a trump card from Honeybottoms, perfectly tailored to this environment to slaughter anyone she deemed a real threat. But it had nothing on the Hive Knight’s awe-inspiring finisher. He’d dispatched the false queen with style, not to mention hitherto-unseen power, but what had happened to him? By the time the lightshow came to an end, he looked like he stood on death’s door. “What was that?” she breathed, still astonished by the boss battle’s climactic finale. “And…where’d he go?”

With Honeybottoms’ demise, the throne room seemed to respond. Magical hexes appeared just over the honey lake, connecting the entrance to another, previously inaccessible door on the opposite side. These ones didn’t disappear when stepped upon, and Nadia could help but be curious where they led. She jumped from the crystal to the bridge, jogged down its length, and entered the door. On the other side of the passage she found another room, its floor tiled with solid honey like burnished bronze and its ceiling resplendent with hardened honey drips like countless gleaming icicles. Against the back wall, fully visible from the overlook where Nadia stood, rested the long-dead husk of an enormous queen bee, and on the edge of the precipice knelt the Hive Knight. His body slowly dissolving away.



Nadia stood there for a moment in silence, her ears drooping in sorrow. So, Barnabee’s precious queen had been dead all along. It made his quest for vengeance seem a whole lot sadder in retrospect; she thought he intended to return home in glory, a conquering hero, but maybe he’d never planned to live to tell the tale.

Most of the treasures in Queen Vespa’s resting place had been looted by the wasps, but aside from the mask fragment, two still remained. A hexagonal charm that could restore the patient lay on a plinth, and in a pile of ash sat a cloudy, spherical artifact that possessed far greater power–the Orb of Undoing, not claimed because the wasps mistook it for decoration like the charm, but because it would undo any unqualified individual who used it.

Of course, after her moment of silence concluded, Nadia picked it up without doing any critical thinking. Noticing that its insides seemed to move, she held it up to peer within, her eyes narrowed. Then the orb flashed with blinding light, physically knocking the catgirl flat. The arcane power that coursed through her being scoured every upgrade and addition she’d gained since the start of her journey, turning them back into possibilities.



“Oww, what the hell!” When Nadia regained her senses a moment later, she found herself completely restored to her original state, the exact same vanilla Ms. Fortune she’d been when her journey began. White hair, cat tail, crop top, normal feet. Around her sat her various weapons and the spirits of Rhodeia of Loch, Massachusetts, Cat-5, Rapturous Cultist, and Idea. “I’m…back to normal? Well, hah, normal as it gets for me anyhow.” She gave the orb, laying a few feet away from her, a look of mixed awe and horror. “Wait, does that mean I lost all my powers!?” When she tried to summon a Copycat, all she managed to do was splash a little blood on the floor. “Ohhh, jeez. All gone, huh? Nyahaha...” she chuckled nervously. “Well, uh, that’s some paw-erful magic for sure. I’m gonna need all those abilities though. Guess I’ll try and get everythin’ back the way it was?”

She came to one important realization, though: thanks to the Koopa Troop’s Snacktivator, she could be a little more particular about how she fused. With that in mind she began redoing her upgrades, which took both a little time and a lot of brainpower. Nadia found she could be more intentional with her upgrades, though she couldn't finagle everything when it came to the abilities she gained. Unfortunately, while she fused with Rhodeia and Massachusetts wholesale like before, she got the order wrong and ended up with slightly different results. She also accidentally got Cat-5 and Kronya backwards, using the former with the Snaktivator on her tail, and fusing with Kronya normally.



Nadia looked herself over, trying to gauge how she felt after going through the bizarre ordeal of redistributing her abilities. “Uh…I thiiiiink this is how I was before? More or less?” She couldn’t ignore certain differences, like her lack of paws, leather-replete outfit, and novel number of tails. Having white hair again made her happy, even if Massachusetts made it way longer again, but where did that orange come from!? After a moment she shrugged and put her hands on her hips with a wide smile. Sure, she’d have to cut her hair short when she found a mirror, but a ponytail would work until then, and overall she was pretty pleased with her appearance. “Eh, good enough! I sure ain’t fiddlin’ around with that crazy orb again, heehee! Anyone else wanna try your luck?”

She watched as the others looked into it, devilishly curious about what would happen and eager to see from an outside perspective, but Nadia also took a moment to use Sectonia’s Symbol of Avarice on the strikers she didn’t really want. With Cat-5’s electricity expanding her kit even further, she felt compelled to reign her number of options in a little. Just too much to think about. After crushing the first one she pocketed the result, but the second auto-equipped itself the instant she touched it, just like the Night Light she’d forgotten about for over a day. The mutation caused her guts to churn as a second stomach joined the first. “Man,” she winced, holding her belly. “I get all the bad luck.” After that sat back to see what her teammates made of the Orb of Undoing.

After Hanabi filled them in on what she knew of Raz's whereabouts (that being pretty much nothing as he'd literally disappeared. Pit couldn't blame her), the group of five quickly came to a consensus. They'd take the elevator down in pursuit of their missing friends - there really was no other choice to make. With some anticipation they waited for the lift to return after calling it, and then to descend again after they all piled inside.

The angel was his usual fidgety self, tapping a sandal on the steel floor of the elevator. The interior was quiet, at least until the entire building shook. The tremor jostled the lift and its occupants, then it happened a couple more times. Pit blinked, his eyes wide. "What was that?" he asked, like they weren't just about to find out.

Based on the sounds coming from outside the elevator, it was clear something was going on, but they'd hardly expected to find a battle already in progress once the doors opened. And there was Sakura, Midna, and Gemma too! With all of the small scouting teams converging here, they had to be on the right track. Sorting that out could come after dealing with the situation at hand. The very dangerous situation, from the looks of it.

"Luka!" With a beat of his wings Pit burst from the lift towards where the psychic was being drowned. He came in with a flying kick to knock Sina out of the way, and with the Upperdash Arm summoned over his limb he shattered the ice that was holding Luka under - and the entire tub along with it.

Lacking in a lot of information, Pit could only piece things together from what he could see in front of him. Of the three people that had been fighting, two had the same kind of uniforms on as the other Psych-OSF agents, presumably making them Psych-OSF agents as well. Then why did the girl attack Luka? Were they double agents, or maybe mind controlled? Could psychics even be mind controlled? On flip side, the person they were fighting looked to be the unfortunate result of an experiment gone wrong, together with an android with an exposed brain. They looked the part of stereotypical "bad guys," but since they were opposing the renegade Psych-OSF agents... then...???

"Just so I know, which ones are on our side?!" He barely had a grasp on Midgar's geography, and so he was ignorant to the true danger of Dexio bringing the house down. In fact, Midna had suggested doing the very same before they entered. He stood his ground best he could while the building shook, ready to either go on the attack or, possibly, produce a heart of healing - it was the confusion of the situation that gave him pause, putting him into a defensive position instead.

The dramatic finish of the foe who had been crushing them, and then vanishing of her seemingly mortality wounded vanquisher, was slightly distracted from when Dazzle, Jr’s sea lion like Popplio, started glowing in his arms.

This prompted a minor panic from the prince and confusion/concern from the rest of the troop save for Mimi who knew exactly what was going on, even if she herself had never and would never experience it. After a few seconds passed with no one pressing any anything resembling a B button the light burst off of the pokemon, and revealed his new evolved form.

The pokemon promptly informed them of his new form’s name with a cheerful “Brionne!” and then did a celebratory backflip.

”I, huh, ok. I guess helping take down the queen wasp, uh, bee, was all the fighting experience you needed to evolve?” Jr said, just now remembering some more of his education about pokemon from a few days back regarding pokemon evolution, before admitting that ”Feels kinda like cheating seeing as Barnabee did most of the work in the end though” which got a harumph from the pokemon.

In saying that he brought their attention away from that brief distraction, and focused them back on the question of what had happened to their insectile guide. They got their sad answer only a few moments later as they followed a curious Nadia across a freshly formed bridge, into the mostly looted vault, and wherein they found the dead form of Barnabee’s queen, and the dissolving form of her protector.

Jr attempted to cast Benediction upon the bee to heal him, but it was of no use: Barnabee’s life had already ended the moment he unleashed his final smash.

The prince threw up his hands in exasperation at the futility of his act and then, unable to really process the spike of grief he was experiencing, stomped off in a huff. Rika followed him, having much the same issue as her brother in a much quieter fashion, leaving the elder Koopas to join Ms Fortune in her moment of silence.

They all mostly got over the sadness when they realized there was also loot in the room, and when going to take a look at it, got a front row seat to Nadia’s surprise return to her original state.

”Even the strikers? That’s even more powerful than Peach’s extraction” Kamek noted, before pulling out and preemptively offering Nadia the Snacktivator so she could personalize her refusion experience.

It was an interesting (and slightly blinding with all the flashes resulting from each fusion thing to watch, but at the end the troop declined the use of the orb, having already mostly modified themselves to their liking thanks to peach’s power, with only Rika having taken on more fusions since then. What this did remind them of was the fact that they had quite the pile of spirits all stuffed away in bottles, and, as people were going to spend some time tinkering with fusions, or os it seemed, now seemed like as good a time as any to make use of them all before any of them faded away.









The result was a lovely pile of goodies which Kamek proceed to poke through, shooting ice spikes and spawning random coffins first before poking the other items a bit, and then finally requesting Sectonia take a look, both for appraisal, and to see if she (ore anyone else) was interested in anything in the pile.

The others meanwhile experimented with their new powers.

”So uh, I’ve got plants in me now?” Bowser said as he wriggled the vines that had replaced all the other limbs stashed in his shell about, not really seeing what was new about them yet, and he wouldn’t till he got hurt.

Rika meanwhile had a rather obvious addition, in that she was now literally lighting up the room with her new tail light, which she spent a few moments chasing as she tried to get a look at it, the floating wings around it fluttering and throwing strobing shadows around the room.

Once Kamek got her to stop with some gentle chastising, she proceed to instead blast one of the walls with her new blob firing guns, drawing a smiley face on the wall out of the projectiles, and enjoying how she didn’t need anything but short rests to regenerate her ability to fire them. That would let her stretch her remaining ammo refills a lot further.

Finally Jr initially got annoyed at how cold his new arm was, till he instinctively formed a coating of iron over the top of his arm. That he found cool in the other way, before he had a brief moment of struggle to try and remove it, which he resolved by forming even more metal under the new armor which eventually caused it to burst off. After that he proceeded to tinker around with these metal forming powers, making caltrops, screws, knives, spears, and more, forming a small pile of iron items as a result, some of which Bowser borrowed to experiment with arming his new vine tentacles.

”Well I’m sure this has been very entertaining and informative” Kamek commented, pausing for a moment as he was interrupted by Rika’s new Ichor Queen striker blasting a metal target Jr had made with a lighting bolt before continuing ”But perhaps we should finish divvying up the items, and then work out where to go next?”

”Oh, yeah, hmmm” Bowser hummed in response, before trying to think of a plan

”Maybe we can ask some of the bees? They must know a bit about the stuff around their home, right? Threats and paths and stuff?” Rika suggested, thinking it would be pretty foolish to not know your surroundings.

”Plus I bet they’ll be happy about us freeing them! Maybe they’ll throw us a celebration!” Jr suggested excitedly, to both of which Bowser nodded along, before adding ”Maybe they’ll even make us a cake!” because that was what Mario got for his heroics he was pretty sure.

”That does sound like a plan” Kamek agreed, before asking the rest of the seekers if there were ”any objections or suggestions?”

It seemed this false queen had a trump card all along, a powerful gravity spell that would have brought everyone into the honey pit if it wasn't for a combination of Sectonia's crystal platform, and knight Barnabee sacrificing himself in yet another 'final smash' to end the false queen and save everyone, avenging his queen. A queen that had been long dead everyone found out as they progressed into the throne room proper, Barnabee perishing soon after seeing his queen. A bit of a somber end all things considered.

However inside the chamber behind the throne room, the treasure room, three were a fair amount of very nice goodies. The most potent of which being an orb that, when Nadia touched it, returned her back to normal, with all the stuff she had fused with laid out before her. And with that choice, Nadia could change how she fused with stuff, and all in all, it was a very powerful item. Speaking of spirits, Sectonia grabbed the rumor spirit and alongside the iron queen spirit she was going to put into her wings using the Snackvator, decided to fuse. She wasn't sure exactly how the rumor one would go, just placing it on a part would probably be.... pretty poor. She did take a final smash to remove from the board, so there was that. Although Sectonia hoped she could turn someone else into that plane...



Sectonia found these new spirits... Well, the iron queen one brought back her majesty a bit, the rumor one though... she wasn't a fan of the color scheme it added. It did exemplify her curves a bit more though, so if she could only change the color she wouldn't be so against it. The arms she figured she'd have to just learn to live with. Seems like basically any spirit with limbs was going to give her some, and basically everyone had them. "The wings worked right, but I'm not a fan of this... color scheme. I suppose I'll have to find a way to fix that later." Sectonia said. Also this bee queen had some... horrible starting spells all things considered. It would make Sectonia's projectile spam even more unbearable. The big thing was that this gave her access to more male spirits, with the two female spirits not changing her all that much, but for sure saving her from that... side effect.

Either way, that wasn't the end of everything. Beyond the spirits was all the loot. A ton of it besides the respec orb. Seeing as none of the other magic users could even lift it, Sectonia took the staff that Rumor had been using, noting that it was solid enough to be as powerful as her swords while having no limit on what spell it could cast. She did find out rather quickly however she needed to channel her summoning and rings of light through this staff now, a bit annoying but not all that bad. Her magic from that hatted man she absorbed, the one that controlled space and time, didn't need to be channeled through her staff.

Out of all the other items found or crushed however, Sectonia was only interested in the Unstable Tesla Coil. "That is the only item of the treasure hoard I'm interested in." Sectonia said, letting the others divvy out the gold. She then reminded everyone if they had some kind of passive trinket item, she could make it so they didn't have to carry it on their person, smelting the tesla coil to give herself the electric aura. With this and how poor her accuracy was, she'd need to be in close range more it seemed.



As for the talk of a 'reward' for liberating the bees. "They will also want a new Queen, obviously. We will have to find a candidate." Sectonia said. Not to subtly hinting that while she is a queen, she would rather have a much bigger kingdom than this hole in the ground.

With Sandalphon's healing topping them up and Blazermate coming in to keep them there while also providing support against the sisters, Geralt and Zenkichi managed to make fairly quick work of the Corporals. At the same time, the others were finishing off their own opponents, with Karin dealing with the Closer guarding the door into Zone 9, as well as a tricky Private that had almost managed to get a proper drop on her. The Seekers quickly reconvened on the entrance to their goal, and Zenkichi noticed the weapon that Charles had been wielding was just left there, ripe for the taking, and he nodded before grabbing it. "Sorry, Charlie, but I'm gonna need to take that off your hands."



Closing his eyes and focusing on the sword, Zenkichi smiled as the weapon disappeared, vanishing into the same Cognitive Space that his revolvers and sword were kept. "Don't worry, I'll take good care of it." He reassured Charles half-seriously, before rejoining the others.

The Seekers headed through the door, with Goldlewis closing it behind them and locking their pursuers, about whom the others were blissfully unaware, behind. Walking out into the forbidden Zone 9, though, had Zenkichi covered in goosebumps. "Ah, man, I really don't like it here. Give me the heebie-jeebies." He complained to an eye roll from Geralt. The Witcher didn't have the same background in this city, however. Zone 9 was just not somewhere you went, period. The place was basically radioactive. He looked around the place, a bit more paranoid than might have seemed warranted for the other Seekers, though he imagined Goldlewis, Sandalphon, and H would understand, even if the latter of the three was only present via a drone. Redshift was an existential threat in Midgar, and Zenkichi had a daughter to go back to.

Zenkichi took a more circuitous route to their destination, not quite trusting the sheet-metal bridges to hold everybody but confident that his Cop Look would keep all but the most deluded denizens of this area away. It might do the opposite were he to face with a larger, more organized group, but it would serve for a quick trip around some fire escapes.

Geralt, on the other hand, simply waited for everybody else to cross before doing so himself. If the bridge could hold everybody else, including the massive Goldlewis, it could probably handle him. Thankfully, it did so, even though the groaning of the metal was definitely not comforting. Still, he made it across in one piece, so it was good enough.

As they approached the gate to the community they'd spotted, Geralt took notice of the man rambling to himself about the Hermits, and homed in, approaching and calling out to get his attention. "What's that about the Hermits? They keeping people out? Been looking to talk to somebody, hadn't heard anything about getting shut out."

Redshift was something Blazermate had heard she couldn't cure, and something she'd have to be wary of. Roland knew of this part of the Ever crisis too, but with how shady the city has been with his eyes opened, he wasn't as adverse to this as he would be. He still didn't like how the area looked though, with it being all dilapidated and ruined and everything. "Well, I heard the rumors of this place, but seeing it yourself puts it in a different perspective." Roland said, really not sure if this was the best idea.

"Well, I guess this is the first time I'm seeing this red shift. Best make a unique alert for it, since apparently I can't cleanse it and it going critical is instant death..." Blazermate said, looking at all of her allies and making note of their red shift levels. Although without a 'critical' example, she could only guess at what the values she was scanning meant.

"Finding this 'blue shift' stuff would be useful as well. Considering the... mental state of these people, being exposed for too long sounds horrible." Susie said, not liking the sight of this part of the city at all.

"Well, lets hope your intel was right and they are hiding something here. Walking into a death sentience isn't the greatest thing for one's health." Roland said.

With their aerial ability, Susie and Blazermate stayed just that, in the air, looking for whatever these 'hermits' were. Although they had nothing to go off of. Roland didn't have much either, but he knew the city better than the bot girls, so he at least had an idea of what he was looking for.

In the midst of their predicament, the Hive Knight came to their rescue. Flattened against Sectonia's summoned crystal as they were, it was a bit awkward to watch the events unfold. Even so, the bright glow emanating from Barnabee and the golden light in his eyes told those who'd experienced this power before all they needed to know about what was going to happen. Therion's eyes were wide and Primrose bit her lip as they watched the knight's final act.

When it was over and the usurper was defeated, it was Primrose who would answer Nadia's question whether it had been rhetorical or not. The dancer stood and dusted herself off, following the Feral into the throne room where they saw Barnabee pass in front of his beloved queen.

"A Final Smash," Primrose said, glancing at Ms. Fortune. "It's exactly as it sounds. In the desert, we knew someone that... used it. They'd explained it to me as an all out attack that could even warp reality... but the price of such power was- well, as you can see."

She watched the last of the particles of what had once been Barnabee dissolve, and just like with Robin there was no spirit left behind. On the train to Tostarena, she hadn't been able to picture a scenario in which she would use that power herself. Now that she knew that Barnabee's quest had not exactly been for liberation, but vengeance, she could see herself taking a page from his book. She understood him, his actions. If she had only that option left to her, to trade her life to wipe out the Obsidians that murdered her father for good, she might just do so.

That said, before waking up in this world she'd taken out two of the three of them so she felt pretty good about her chances. The mourning over Barnabee was brief, and as the majority of the Seekers piled into the room Primrose took a step back to let them sort out their items and spirits after putting the newest mask fragment with the others. The most interesting was watching Ms. Fortune put herself back together, and not in the usual way.

The orb. It had knocked Nadia off of her feet and all of the spirits she'd absorbed came filtering out of her. It was surprising to say the least, and it was of particular interest to Therion as there was an aspect of himself now that he wouldn't mind being rid of. Once she was done putting herself back together (differently) and asked if anyone else wanted to give it a try, the other thief held a hand out so that she could slap the orb into his waiting palm. "I will."

Like Nadia, Therion didn't spend long in his original form. After the initial disorientation of the fusions and striker spirits flowing out of him, there was another moment of confusion as he adjusted to his human senses again. That's... a weird feeling. He'd barely had the new ears and tail for a couple days, and he'd already grown so used to them. Of course, it felt natural without them too. He shook his head, dismissing it all as just one of the odd things about the world and spirits at large. Then he gathered them up again, keeping one to the side. Starting with the Junicorn, he rebound it as a striker once more. That thing had some utility, and it had served him well so far. The Metro Cat fusion came next, as small and weak as it was he felt it helped more than it hurt. The spirit of Ranulf followed, pressed back into his chest. When he fused with that, he felt something slightly different... but it was probably fine.


Given that he'd only fused with two spirits, his appearance hardly changed from what it had been a few minutes ago. It wasn't exactly the same; he wasn't quite as short, though he was still smaller than his natural five foot five. His head was also normally proportioned again, thankfully. His skin lost the paleness but kept the healthier light tan tone, while his hair (and ears and tail) retained the fade from white to blue to black. His single visible eye was orange with slitted pupils just as it had been, but the damaged one just barely covered by his hair had turned green again. Underneath the dark cloak he'd taken to wearing, his outfit was still the mismatch of purple, ochre, brown, orange, and dark green.

The only spirit that remained was that of the Ammomancer. Being able to summon the Shelletons was neat, and it had worked out a few times so far, but something about that power led his mind to become scrambled. If he was afraid of that happening again, then he would use the power far less going forward - and if that was the case there was no point in keeping it. Ultimately, being rid of something dangerous like that was a good thing. He crushed the spirit in his hand, curious what kind of item it would produce.

By this time, the Koopa Troop was crushing their own horde of spirits and sorting through the loot that appeared, and trying out some changes of their own. They let the other Seekers have at the pile of items, so with a word of gratitude from both Primrose and Therion the Travelers picked their prizes. For the latter, the Double Knight Glyph. It kind of just made sense. He did eye a few other things, including the Hive Knight's former weapon, but ultimately had no desire to carry around something he wasn't sure he could use effectively. The Yato looked like a longer sword than he was used to wielding. If course, if it went unclaimed he'd take it anyway. There was no reason to leave something valuable behind.

Primrose had gravitated to the Ice Lance. She picked it up and gently ran her fingers over the shaft. It felt cool under her touch. It was the same type of weapon and element that one of the spirits she'd fused with used - perhaps that's why she felt drawn to it? Contrary to her friend she was more open to experimenting, and so she claimed the weapon for herself while leaving the similar javelin to another should they want it. The dancer had chosen not to make use of the orb, keeping everything she'd become as is. She was powerful and, frankly, she looked damn good. Despite being three parts spellcaster, she still had two physical fighters melded into her soul. She could try out another weapon besides her beloved dagger.

Soon the regrouping was completed and it was time to start thinking about moving on. They still have more places to go, mask fragments to find, and enemies to defeat before they were finished in The Under.

Rika made a good suggestion on that front. Kamek asked if there were any objections to it, at which Primrose shook her head. Getting information from locals was a good idea. That, or they could always just follow a random direction shown on their magic map - a thought that Therion seemed to share as he spoke it aloud.

"Check if anything's shown up on that map. Shouldn't be too hard to double back if we missed a path." He then glanced at Sectonia when she mentioned finding a ruler for this place, puzzled. "Surprised you don't want to add it to your kingdom, or whatever."

”Midna-san!” Sakura called out in relief when her ally arrived. ”N-no, I don’t know! They’re my squadmates!” She explained. Unfortunately, there was no way Sakura could keep the two parties from fighting with words. A lot happened in a very short amount of time while Sakura tried to get in while also avoiding getting hit.

”Friend Hearts- of course!” Sakura gave Midna a nod, and then punched her fists together. She would beat the tar out of her teammates without hesitation if it meant saving their lives or minds.

Brain Drain was complaining, and Sakura didn’t understand why. ”Dexio is powerful, but I don’t think he can so easily bring down an entire building.” Sakura said.

As she looked down to make sure she was avoiding shockwaves however, she saw through the grate that that wasn’t what Brain Drain was worried about. ”Wh-what the?! You built your lab over a death pit?! That was stupid!” Sakura shouted, eyes wide.

”Those two!” Sakura pointed at Dexio and Sina to answer Pit’s question as Painwheel was sent flying. Sakura found herself feeling quite bad for Painwheel, but she had no idea what her situation was or how to fix it, and at the moment, she had more pressing concerns.

Obviously Painwheel and Sakura had the same goal- stop Dexio from bringing the entire place down. The problem was that Painwheel looked like she was going to rip Dexio’s arms off to do it. Hopefully Gemma or Midna or someone could slow Painwheel down and give Sakura chance to try it herself.

Sakura ran forward, timing a long step with every slam of Dexio’s fist so she wouldn’t get destabilized before she got there. Her plan was to knock him to the ground first, at least, to hopefully prevent him getting enough force to slam his fists. When he rose his hands up again, Sakura jumped forward and kicked both feet out, the force of the kicks propelling her even faster into him to knock him away and disrupt his next strike.

Considering he was willing to kill himself, she knew talking was pointless. Drawing her lips tight, a bead of nervous sweat trickled down the side of her face as she pushed forward and began to jab and kick at Dexio. If she could counter any of his strikes she would confirm into a ”Shouoken!” That would send him flying backwards towards the door Sakura came in from- the other room hopefully not suspended over any death pits.

Though if she did connect with an uppercut, she would have a last second though and reach out with her Telekinesis to disrupt Dexio’s momentum and prevent him from hitting the ground too hard lest he use her own launching attack against her to do even more damage to the floor.

”Hey I asked you a-” Minda began to shout at Brain Drain, before recognizing that now was not the time and cutting herself off with a ”-tch”

They needed to pin down the psychics and free them before they sent everyone falling down the same long long drop she had, and she was pretty sure she was the only one who’d get out of that mess in one piece. Even worse, all the while they were going to have to make sure that the beast of a woman Brain Drain had sicked on sakura’s mind controlled teammates didn’t get a chance to tear them to shreds. There was a plus that plenty of friends had arrived as well, but they were struck by confusion, trying to work out what was going on, just as she had when she had arrived.

There wasn’t time to hesitate however, and so when Sakura moved, Midna moved with her. Unfortunately the streetfighter picked to go for the earth shaker, which left the princess to handle the one throwing ice around (not to mention miss spinning blades on the back). Given that yelling ‘I am weak to ice’ to try and initiate a trading of foes would probably just make the situation worse however, she held the course.

Particularly because, well, the cryomancer was in the midst of freezing Luka to death in a bathtub.

”Go! Get her off him, but don’t kill her! Nobody dies today, not this time!” Minda shouted as she summoned and sent her wolfos racing ahead of her as she approached on foot, the unladen beast able to move much faster than it could if she were riding it into battle. In the next moment she summoned skywave, one of her new strikers, and sent it rushing forwards as well to unleash a flash of light upon both Sina and her victim, one that would blind one while healing the other.

As her beast rushed forwards to try and either bodily tackle the ice psychic, or bite her clothing to drag her back via them, whichever seemed better situationally to first get her away from luka and to then try and keep her off balance, she moved towards the fallen pinwheel and did her best to obstruct her re-entry into the battle.

”Watch out!” she shouted at the patchwork woman, while extending out her shadowhand and placing it in between her and Sina, playing it off as if she was attempting to protect one from the attacks of the other ”Your hurt, let me cover you!”

Whichever way Painwheel tried to rush forwards under her powered up form, Midna would do her best to obstruct and buy time for Sakura, Luka, her wolfos, and anyone else who jumped in to do something to pin down the mad psychics, or rough them up enough that she or someone could flick a heart their way.

While her shadow hand worked to put itself in the way, her other hands pulled out her treespear from a portal. The long spear sported an almost sword like spearhead, but Midna had no intention of using that, instead flipping the weapon around so she would be jabbing people with the base of the shaft instead of the pointy end.

The spear also let her block more of the way forwards, as she tried to put herself in in-between their ‘ally’ and their ‘enemies’ if she could (with the ‘cover’ of shouting ”Stand behind Midna! I mean me!” to ‘explain’ why she was body blocking the blade backed woman). If all else failed, and it looked like Painwheel was going to get past her she could ‘accidentally’ slap from the flat of a quickdraw cleaver into her in-order to taunt her and draw her attention.

She really hoped it wasn’t going to come for that, or her blatant ruse being seen through, but if it did, and it probably would, she'd handle it, somehow.

Rubick struggled against Honeybottoms' gravity magic, wanting a piece of it for himself. Unfortunately, he could not move a finger due to the effects of said magic crushing him onto Sectonia's crystal. It was just too powerful. Fortunately, Barnabas came in for the rescue, expending his life to save everyone else's. Rubick was entranced by the display of power; it went beyond any form of magic he knew, in his own world or any others had dabbled in. The way Barnabas shined, the way he completely overwhelmed Honeybottoms with his swarm of bees and his blinding speed... it was magnificent.

Sadly, it did not last. After Honeybottoms was defeated, Sir Barnabas too dissolved into nothing, not even leaving a Spirit behind. It seemed such power had a price to pay. Overwhelming power often did. Still, Rubick was glad. Not just because he survived his latest battle, but that he also discovered a new form of power. One that he hoped to replicate without needing to pay his own life for. If he could do that, perhaps he could truly reach the peak of magical ability.

It would have to be a thought for another time, though. Right now, there were spoils of war to collect. Littered everywhere were the Spirits of the insects everyone had slain. Rubick took the time to collect them up; money was money, after all, and every little bit helped. There were also Spirits of particular note, such as the earth and air mage wasps, which Rubick happily collected. Once he had collected all the Spirits he could find, he was about to begin crushing the Spirits when he heard Sectonia speak about her magical smelter. Raising an eyebrow, Rubick came to inquire, "What's this about your smelter?" Rubick asked.

After a brief conversation, Rubick found no use for it, but he did borrow Sectonia's Symbol of Avarice to increase his chance for better loot. It stung, but his Tranquil Boots offset the damage. Now for his spoils of war...

---

Rubick also eyed the pair of rings that the Koopa Troop managed to create from their spoils, and they were kind enough to relinquish them to Rubick. "Ohhh... marvelous..." Rubick mused to himself, turning his hand around as he examined the newly-equipped rings, his mind racinig with the possibilities of their potential. Thrusting his hand forward, Rubick conjured up a coffin on the ground. Opening it up, hecould see that it was indeed empty. It really did have a plethora of uses.

"Yes, what is our next destination?" Rubick asked. "I hope to learn just as much on our next adventure as I did here."

As the others set off, beginning the rooftop trek toward the obvious point of interest that was the ramshackle colony a good ways off, Goldlewis lingered near the bridge for a moment longer. Part of him wanted to wait for Sandalphon to take up her planned position to ensure that he and the others were advancing through unknown territory with the assurance of the combat coordinator’s support, but that wasn’t the real reason.

“Never seen this part of the city before, I take it?” H’s bright yellow drone drifted over to hover a couple feet away from Goldlewis, its unblinking blue optic sensors fixed on him. “I mean, it’s understandable. Quarantine Valley…well, it’s a lot to think about, right? Nobody really wants to think about what a place like this means for us. Either in terms of Astral Plane corruption, or in terms of how we humans treat one another when the cards are down.”

For a solid couple seconds, Goldlewis didn’t say anything. H didn’t allow the unpleasant silence to linger for too long. Well, at least those should be the last guards for us to worry about,” H declared, his drone performing a high-spirited flip, “I was kind of expecting security on this side, too.” The two of them plus Geralt, who was not in any hurry to test the structural stability of the sheet-metal bridges until his allies put them through their paces, waited a few moments more, scoping out the area and plotting a route to the colony until Sandalphon reached her perch. She gave them the go-ahead, and the Seekers’ rearguard began to move. Still, despite the lack of immediate danger and the all-clear from both Sandalphon and H, Goldlewis kept a sharp eye out. His reflexes simply wouldn’t allow him to relax in a situation like this. You can take the man out of the war, but you can’t take the war out of the man, he thought wryly.

Within two minutes, though, his alertness bore fruit. In a corner of a rooftop with a bunch of metal containers, tucked up and protected from the winds by perpendicular metal sheets attached to the roof’s rusted perimeter railing he spotted a red-and-black machine about the size of a dog. It lay behind a box that hid it just out of sight for the average passer-by, and every few seconds a large gash on its casing spat out a handful of orange sparks. Curious, H followed Goldlewis over, and he identified it immediately. “A busted security drone…it looks like it was working fine up until a little while ago. Hm…usually these accompany Peace Preservation officers.” He hovered a little closer. “Maybe it saw something interesting. Let’s check it out.”

Hacking into the drone, H quickly scoured its memory. After salvaging some footage, H steered his drone back toward the path everyone just came through, then put its onboard holographic projector to work. An ethereal, green, three-dimensional image of a horned woman in somewhat patchy attire, a gigantic sword with teeth like a hacksaw slung over her back, and the drone itself. As Goldlewis watched, H used his drone to recreate the events from the footage. Flanked by her drone, the guard strode down the walkway that led to this rooftop and paused on the raised platform. Then she tensed up, turned, and ran down the steps onto the rooftop to circle around a cluster of barrels and come to a stop just below the overlook where she paused originally with her hand on her sword’s hilt. “She keeps looking around,” H noted aloud as Goldlewis came to a stop behind the projection. “I guess she lost sight of whatever she was after. She sees something again, and then…that’s the last we see of her.” The image abruptly went haywire, the recreated phantoms sent topsy-turvy before vanishing altogether. “And wouldn’t you know it, the drone got wrecked at that exact same moment. Whatever went down, went down right here. The culprit doesn’t show up on camera…are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Goldlewis had been stroking his beard, trying to figure out the sequence of events. Basically anything could have happened, from a simple equipment malfunction to an attack from local malefactors, possibly even the Hermits themselves. Then again, this woman looked way too rough-and-tumble for Peace Preservation, and what would one of them be doing on the wrong side of the restricted zone, anyway? Maybe she was a Hermit, her drone hacked and repurposed. If that was the case, the big question was what happened to her. Given the nature of Quarantine Valley, and the weird omissions from the recording, an obvious answer sprung to mind. “Reckon it’s a chimera abduction?”

“It’s gotta be!” H replied, getting excited. “Judging by the embedded data on the video file, it wasn’t long ago. We may not be too late to save her if we find her fast!”

Furrowing his brow, Goldlewis scanned the area. The others were already getting ahead of him, but abandoning this poor woman to her fate -a fate worse than death, incidentally- wouldn’t sit right with him. After a few moments, H located a concentrated bundle of red matter floating in the open air about twenty feet beyond a gap in the rooftop’s railing. When his drone approached, a blood-red wound split open in reality itself, a rippling crimson vortex of otherworldly energy. “A Gate!” H exclaimed. “With redshift levels as high as hers were, our guard probably saw the chimera. And decided to follow it…but it looks like it found her before she found it, and dragged her in. Oh…” He turned toward Goldlewis, his tone suddenly dejected. “But without a Legion, you can’t even see chimeras, let alone fight them.”

The veteran had already made up his mind. He by no means wanted a repeat of the night before last, but this was something he couldn’t just ignore. “Good thing I got that doohickey of yours to gimme a rough approximation. Can I still get in and out?”

“Theoretically, yes, but…”

“Then that’s what I’m fixin’ to do.” Goldlewis backed up, preparing to take a running leap. “Halo, you copy that? Whoever she is, she might be able to help us. But even if that wasn’t the case, leavin’ her to aberrate would leave a mighty bad taste in my mouth.”

“Understood.” Sandalphon directed her voice to all the Seekers in Zone 09, informing them of the latest developments that she’d witnessed from her vantage point. “Goldlewis is entering a Gate leading to the Astral Plane on the rooftop right before the one with a broken radio tower in order to rescue a civilian. Goldlewis, please keep me updated on your status.”

Without further ado, the veteran sprinted toward the edge, threw himself off the rooftop, and airdashed straight into the Gate. As he vanished The yellow drone did an agitated flip. “Ohhh boy. This is gonna be rough.” H took a deep breath and drove his proxy forward, riding the veteran’s coattails into the unknown.

This time, the transition was immediate–no hurtling through an infinite interdimensional passageway, just a quick red flash before Goldlewis was deposited on a large, uneven plateau of red-tinted obsidian emblazoned with countless golden lines that curved and meandered like rivers on a map. In the distance, beyond the sheer drops at the plateau’s edges, angular towers and monoliths hung in the air between planes of similar material that stretched all the way to the horizon, where a narrow strip of pure white affording only a partial look at a colossal, inverted black pyramid. That much Goldlewis remembered, but unlike before he could see no elaborate landscape or suspended labyrinth extending out into this alien dimension. Nothing beyond this roughly square arena, practically featureless except for some red data distortions, could be reached. Of course, that meant that both arrivals spotted their target right away.

“Ah! Look, there she is, over there! And it looks like she’s okay.” With her here in the flesh rather than an indistinct hologram, Goldlewis could get a good look at the abducted woman for the first time. She looked like one tough cookie, her slapped-together outfit -decked out with sophisticated climbing gear- designed for function over form. From her brown hair extended bovine ears and horns, one of them broken. She’d planted her greatsword in the ground and now lay slumped over it, seemingly hurt and half-conscious as she gasped for breath. “Well, she’s still herself, at least.” Both of them also noticed the dark crystals protruding from the right side of her exposed midriff. “For now, at least. We’d better hurry.”

Goldlewis held up a hand to his glyph as he began to move. Luckily, it seemed like Sandalphon’s miracle could reach him in here. “Come in, Halo. We found the missin’ woman. Just about to bring’ her home.”

The mountaineer spotted them as they approached, and her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “No way, someone actually came in after me? Somebody pinch me!” She winced in pain, holding her abdomen. Sweat dampened her skin; whatever exertion she’d just performed had worked her core muscles to the point where the lesions hurt more than her fresh wounds. “Urk…you…you are here to rescue me, right?”

“Yes ma’am,” Goldlewis set his coffin down beside her and knelt. “Hold tight now, we’ll getcha outta here in no time.”

“Then you better work fast,” the woman groaned. “‘Cause the chimeras aren’t done with me just yet.” Noises from behind Goldlewis forced him to return, but he couldn’t see anything other than a couple blots of rippling energy that quickly faded away. “Three more of ‘em,” she announced weakly, almost laughing. “Good luck, chief.”

On instinct Goldlewis took up arms, lifting his coffin as he prepared to swing. Of course, H was right. He couldn’t see hide nor hair of these monsters, and blindly swinging at them wouldn’t get him anywhere, either. “Let’s make a run for it,” H advised, piloting his drone over the woman. Four little crane arms descended from its underside to grab her around the middle and lift her into the air. “I’ve got the victim. Focus on reaching the exit!”

A little surprised to find herself hoisted so easily, the mountaineer looked down at the arena from above as H began to carry her out. “Listen up, I’ll direct you!” she called down to Goldlewis. “The first one’s chargin’! Dodge…left!” Putting his faith in the stranger, Goldlewis obeyed, barely avoiding the first chimera in time. “Now the other two, move back! Now…go, go, go!” The veteran ran back toward the gate, converging on it at the same time as H. “Wait, stop!” At the woman’s shout, Goldlewis hit the brakes, and H swerved out of the way. Unbeknownst to either of them, the first chimera had charged back toward them, predicting their path to try and cut them off. Instead it went right between them, severely overshooting. “Okay, step on it, they’re comin’!” At the signal, both threw themselves through the Gate, followed a second later by the chimeras. Remembering where he was, Goldlewis made sure to airdash back to the rooftop to avoid a deadly drop. Less than a minute after he first leaped into the Astral Plane, he skidded to a stop in the World of Light once more.

H flew after him, the mountaineer held safely in his drone’s tethers, but the chimeras weren’t so fortunate. They toppled out of the portal and plummeted all the way down toward the city streets. “Haha, they fell!” The woman exulted, her vindictive glee quickly turning to anguish as H laid her down. “Oof, ow…”

H, meanwhile, was practically overjoyed. “Amazing! We all made it out without aberration. In fact, I’m barely detecting any redshift in you at all, Mr. Dickinson. Less than one percent.”

“Thank God.” While Goldlewis couldn’t enjoy the sight of the chimeras falling to their deaths (assuming that they could even die of fall damage) he could watch as the Gate disappeared from view a moment later. “Huh. Is it gone?”

“No,” H replied sadly. “It’s ‘off’, but it’s still there. We’d need a Legion, or at least a Neuron member with an x-baton, to close it for good.”

“Good luck with any of that. That one’s hardly the first, and it won’t be the last.” The mountaineer lifted herself into a sitting position. “Down here, there’s nobody but the Hermits to look out for us,” she told them wryly. “Though I can’t exactly say that with you around. Not many people out there who’d jump into a Gate to save some stranger. I thought my delivery streak had finally come to an end. You must be crazy.” She smiled. “Thanks.”

Goldlewis nodded. “You’re welcome.”

Over the Seekers’ communication network, Sandalphon relayed the duo’s success. “Looks like the situation is resolved and under control. Please proceed with the mission.”

“If I might ask, how were you fighting those things?” H asked, hovering a little closer to the Astral Plane survivor. When it came to what happened, he’d managed to put two and two together. “Even if you can touch them, those things are inhumanly strong. Plus…well, if you could already see them even before being taken, it’s honestly a miracle you haven’t turned.”

The woman sighed as she weighed her options. She seemed reluctant to answer the question, but after a brief moment her principles won out. “Eh…it’s kind of a secret, but since you saved me, I guess I owe you. I’m a messenger, and sometimes I work with the Hermits. They don’t want their messages gettin’ lost in transit, so they gave me a little bonus a while back. That’s about it.”

“About that…” Goldlewis crossed his arms, his face apologetic. “I wish I could say we helped out purely outta the kindness of our hearts, but we just so happen to be lookin’ for the Hermits. If you could help us, we’d sure appreciate it.”

She looked unsure. After a second or two, H picked up the slack. “We don’t want you getting in hot water or anything, of course. We just want to get in touch with the people really trying to make a difference around here. The current state of affairs can’t continue, and the only way things get better is to fight. This is Goldlewis Dickinson, former Secretary of Defense. If you’ve heard that name, you know he’s been a man of the people all his life. And I’m Hal Clark.” At the reveal, Goldlewis raised his eyebrows, but he kept quiet as Hal continued. “So, miss messenger, if you could even point us in the right direction, we’ll call it even.”

Though the woman thought for another second more, it seemed to Goldlewis like Hal said the right things. “Call me Wind Chimes,” she said, lifting her hand so that Goldlewis could pull her onto her feet. “I haven’t heard of you, Mr. Dickinson, but you guys seem decent. I’m not a Hermit, mind you, but I’ll see what I can do.”

---

Meanwhile, near the rooftop colony, the other Seekers’ progress had come to a halt when they found a fortified gate and attendant gatekeepers barring their path. The obstruction, combined with their collective desire not to stir the pot more than strictly necessary, bade them take a look at their surroundings. Geralt in particular didn’t need to look far in order to find a person of interest. He found one wearing a ratty, hooded orange coat, dark pants, and yellow galoshes. The irate outcast was practically begging for someone to get him started, and as soon as the Witcher tactically offered himself up for the man to vent to, Geralt got everything he wanted and then some.

“What the hell are YOU looking at?” the outcast fumed. “Mind your own business!” When he got a good look at Geralt, however, his attitude adjusted with lightning speed. “Dammit, uhh…I, I mean, can you believe this? All I did was step out here for one second to pick up my laundry after it fell off the line. But the Hermits said no-one gets into Sector V, and those bozos at the front gate won’t listen to a word I say.” He looked up past the rusty girder scaffolding where the loafing man sat to an elevated walkway that ran along the colony’s outside wall, one end within jumping distance of the roof of the shack by the loafer’s respite. “If I could just get up to the roof, I could get back home. What a pain in the ass. They COULD let me back through the gate–wouldn’t have been a problem with the last guy they had leading the Hermits.”

In the opposite direction further past this spot, across a narrow makeshift walkway above part of the trash-littered rooftop where a bunch of red matter sat, the dingy camp lookout tower stood. Luckily for the Seekers, the lookout hadn’t raised any sort of alarm yet despite the appearance of so many notable newcomers, but if one headed over or looked down from on high they could see that the man responsible appeared to be badly injured. He lay at the foot of the tower itself next to a stack of boxes and a barrel fire, and if anyone approached him he’d call out for help.



A high vantage point gave Sandalphon, Blazermate, and Susie a chance both to see into Sector V, and identify a handful of supply crates scattered throughout the area, all tucked away off the beaten path. While the robots could reach whatever ones they saw, Sandalphon began to relay their locations to the rest of the team. If the robots wanted all the items for themselves they’d need to call Sandalphon to get her to stop somehow; otherwise everyone else would learn of the crates.



Pit’s quick action stopped Sina before she could freeze the water over and embed Luka below it’s surface. As she tumbled away, a hefty blow from the Upperdash Arm shattered both ice and tub, the latter much to Brain Drain’s chagrin, freeing the young captain from his brief but terrifying captivity. He filled his lungs with a gasp as he hit the floor, soaking wet. Even if he had the breath to spare, words could not describe the mixture of surprise, anger, and betrayal that shocked him more deeply than the cold ever could; he was truly at a loss. Luckily, Pit put out an urgent request for additional information, and with two words Sakura confirmed everything they needed to know. Regardless of the circumstances, it seemed like Luka’s squadmates had it out for not just him, but everyone here.

At least that left the rogue duo sorely outnumbered, but with Luka recovering and Roxas seemingly overwhelmed, only Pit stood ready to challenge Sina right now. The young woman upended another tub, covering the floor around her in water that she could glaciate on a moment’s notice. Then she steadied herself in a kneeling position in her advantageous terrain and took aim with her arm, firing both blasts of freezing ice and singular piercing icicles as the situation demanded. That wasn’t all, though. Making use of her partner’s power through SAS, she could use Seismokinesis to create splashes in the water that could be frozen into spikes or barriers for offense and defense. No matter the odds, Sina would go down fighting.

Painwheel’s murderous rage found an impediment in the form of Midna once the Twilight Princess inserted herself into the fighting. With her in the way, the berserker couldn’t tear Dexio limb from limb like she planned. For a moment she glared at Midna, wondering whose side she was on as she tried to make her way around the annoying obstacle, but her own frustration plus Brain Drain’s urge to not waste her Hatred Install quickly caused her to boil over. “OUT OF MY WAY!” Extending her cord, she realigned her Buer Drive’s blades into a claw and brought it down on the shaft of Midna’s treespear with unadulterated strength, strong enough to wrench it from the Seeker’s grip. Then she jumped into the air and spun up her blades in fan mode to helicopter forward, forcing Midna to take quick and decisive action to keep Painwheel out of the others’ fray.

Of course, that meant starting one of her own as she triggered Galeem’s influence. “RaaAAAAaaagh!” After being knocked down, Painwheel sprang to her feet, her veins bulging as black blood surged through them. Propelled by her synthetic Gae Bolga parasite, a spread shot of spiky darts burst from her arm in a spray of blood, flying up and then down toward Midna in an arc. Painwheel quickly threw herself after them, spinning her blades like a wheel beside her with Pinion Dash to rip across the floor and into Midna like a living sawblade. From their her assault would consist of wild contortions plus Gae Bolga blood spikes interspersed with frightfully fast command grabs that would punish the Twilight Princess for complacently blocking.

Despite Dexio’s solid frame, Sakura managed to knock him over with her strong flying kicks, halting his seismic beatdown. The lab’s structural integrity might not be nearing the breaking point just yet, but the damage had been accumulating quickly. As he scrambled to get to his feet again the street fighter closed in to pressure him on wakeup. Though clearly brainwashed in some way, the young man hadn’t taken complete leave of his senses, and he quickly shelved his demolition to refocus on his assailant. He defended himself, first blocking and then fighting back, and as the two traded blows Gemma closed in to analyze the situation before lending a hand. Dexio fought with reach, solid defense, and power, his big swings packing a respectable amount of strength even compared to Sakura. He only really lacked speed and technique. Though a new soldier and therefore fresh from several months of basic braining minimum, he scrapped more like a brutish brawler than a well-honed cadet, lacking the efficiency and precision cultivated by countless hours of harsh drills and stringent supervision. It struck Gemma as strange; where had Dexio gotten the power that rendered skill obsolete?

Over the course of a handful of exchanges, Sakura managed to land a few confirms, but her opponent was stubborn, never taking to the air with a risky jump. He refused to be pushed around and backed into a corner, both protecting himself and taking the fight to her whenever possible. Though he didn’t match her either in terms of skill or statistics, Sakura was holding back, and against a former ally -with another’s fate in worrisome limbo- she wasn’t in the right mind. In her nervousness she’d made an assumption that the rest of Beacon’s bottom floor wasn’t precariously positioned over Seiran’s reservoir, like this chamber and the Doctor’s operating room were, but Dexio didn’t give her the chance to find that out. After just another moment, he took her by surprise by using the SAS to borrow Sina’s power. Cryonic power covered his arms, causing his strikes against Sakura -as well as hers against his guard- to build up freezing ice.

At that point, Gemma stepped in. “Sakura! Don’t forget to use SAS!” Setting the example, he tapped into Hanabi’s Pyromancy, coating his gloves in psychic fire, and bulled into the fight. He knocked Dexio away, then ducked while his opponent threw out a wild backhand smash with his left as he steadied himself. Dexio got his right arm in the way in time to intercept what would’ve been a heavy gut punch, but Gemma followed it up with a left-hand uppercut to the underside of his foe’s cestus, opening him up. Rather than capitalize, he used his other hand to guard his head against Dexio’s desperate hook. His unexpected strength kept Gemma in blockstun for longer than he would’ve thought, allowing Dexio to keep him locked down with a right cross, then slide him backward with a kick. With a grunt he slammed his foot down, sending out a seismic wave, but Gemma deftly dropped down to block it low.

There was a brief pause as the two stared one another down through the steam given off by the collision of fire and ice. Then they clashed again, moving and trading blows like heavyweight boxers. Dexio kept going for knockout swings, but Gemma weathered them and laid into his opponent’s arms, damaging his weapons and burning away his ice. After a couple moments Dexio offense faltered, his cryomancy exhausted, and Gemma powered through the next haymaker to seize him with a clinch hold straight into a takedown. Dexio hit the ground hard, but the next second he blipped away, reappearing a few meters away from either opponent.

Luka recognized teleportation when he saw it. “He’s using my power! Hurry and sever your connections!” Just as he finished, Dexio teleported right in front of him to try and shut him up with a two-fisted slam, but Luka was faster. He dodged backward and lifted his Weight Hammer for a counterattack. His opponent blocked on reflex, only for Luka to teleport behind him and take his legs out with a low swung. Knocked off his feet, he could do nothing to stop his captain warping back in front of him and launching him like a golf ball across the room.

Dexio recovered and slid to a stop, breathing heavily. Without hesitation he reached up and yanked the cord protruding from his collar, causing his hood to flip up onto his head. His face disappeared into darkness, and red triangles formed a masquerade pattern in the middle. Simultaneously Sina did the same, her pattern identical. “Brain Drive!” Gemma warned the others. “Get ready for round two!” With Brain Drive engaged, both fighters gained stat boosts across the board and more frequent usage of their powers.



After they paid their respects to the Hive Knight, honoring his indefatigable gallantry and loyalty, everyone turned their attention to the spoils of war earned in the course of their short-lived campaign throughout these amber halls. In addition to the treasures they found in this throne room and the personal effects that both the usurper and reclaimer left behind, the Koopa Troop unveiled a hoard of extra loot seized from their vanquished opponents. Though she’d originally planned to loaf about while the others went about their business, the feral couldn’t just pass up a bevy of items when they were free to a good home, and she walked over to take a look.

She rummaged through the stuff carefully, not wanting to accidentally trigger any more weird effects. Most of it didn’t interest her except in its possible sell value, such as the acorns, magic runes, and snail armor. While she wouldn’t turn down a couple good-looking rings, their arcane abilities made them a much better fit for Rubick, so Nadia elected not to challenge the mysterious mage’s claim. Since she already owned plenty of weapons and couldn’t really use polearms or strength weapons anyway, she narrowed her choices down to just two items. She liked the look of the rugged combat boots, especially since the strangest part of her new appearance had to be the sneakers with the fronts cut off. While she could sort of understand the logic, seeing as her opera gloves and thighhighs both featured cuts around her scars, her new shoes just didn’t work. “I’ll give these a try. No offense to that Banjo guy, but I’ve had enough of bear feet.” After pulling the half-sneakers off and slipping into the Mantreads, she gave a satisfied purr. They might not be the most stylish or ladylike, but they felt pretty nice, and she’d definitely be happy not going barefoot in places like the Womb again. Besides, sometimes it just felt good to stomp around.

Other than that, the cat burglar only took interest in one other offering: the lava eel. Its strong smell made Nadia hungry, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten in hours. Surely it had to be lunchtime by now. Luckily, the lava-dwelling fish had been cooked to perfection, and it certainly wouldn’t keep if the team kept carrying it around, so she might as well take it off their hands. Nadia made quick work of the eel, chowing down in a matter of seconds before licking her lips. “Ooh, I love the spiciness! You could even say that’s a-moray.”

Sectonia stepped up to the plate to use the Orb of Undoing next, followed by Therion. After seeing what happened to Nadia, they both made careful, slight adjustments, ending up only a little different from before. The feral almost found herself missing Chibi Therion, but she knew that if their roles were reversed she’d have done the exact same thing. Sectonia went on to fuse with the usurper, and Nadia crossed her arms as she looked the queen over. “You really earned your stripes in that fight, huh?” she asked, grinning. “Well, I’ll try and keep the bee puns to a minimum. At a certain point they’re just too beeasy. Heehee.”



After that, the main issue wasn’t what to do next, since everyone knew their current goal, but where to go. “Wherever there’s more bosses to fight, I guess,” Nadia told Rubick. Rika suggested asking the local bee population, while Bowser and Sectonia took it a step further, wanting a hero’s welcome and a hand in the Hive’s new government, respectively. Therion mentioned the team’s map, but even before she reached into one of her belt pouches to confirm her suspicions, Nadia had her doubts. “Uh, I don’t think it gets any bigger unless we buy a new part of the map.” Sure enough, to her disappointment the map only went as far as the Home of Tears. “Yeah, looks like it,” she sighed, folding the map to put it away. “Guess we’ve gotta find a way out the old fashioned way.” She glanced at the royals. “For the record though, the Hive isn’t really…ya know, our problem?”

When everyone left the royal hollow, they found no sign of wasps in the Hive. They seemed to have cleared out wholesale, buzzing for the hills, but in their wake they still left a queendom in shambles. Though freed from their oppressors, many of the bees seemed to be at a loss. Their social structure and their very way of life had been decimated by the wasp occupation, and even picking up the pieces seemed nigh-impossible to them. Clearly they were in no position to sing Bowser’s praise or heed a new political consultant. From their inquiries the Seekers did learn one thing, though: this hidden kingdom harbored no other entrances or exits. This was as far as they could go, which meant they needed to go back the way they came.

Eventually, the Seekers managed to retrace the steps they’d taken to reach the Hive and make their way back out of its lustrous golden depths. As they ascended through the tunnels the amber walls and waxy hexes gradually gave way to sedimentary rock and rich, dark soil. While the crimson creeper vines they disturbed on the way down had long since snaked back out to their full lengths, just a little coordination meant that they could be sent packing without any more bloodshed courtesy of their fanglike thorns.

Furthermore, a different perspective brought one other secret to light: followed all the way back to their origin point, each creeper coiled up in a little burrow around a root core. Just a couple hits to the core proved sufficient to destroy each vine at the source. As such, the team could prune the invasive species from the Arboretum’s garden, and for that the Water Lily Siren was exceedingly grateful. From the remains of the creeper vines and a few choice specimens around her greenhouse the larger-than-life dryad fashioned a special charm for her new friends. “Here!” she beamed, offering it. “I call it ‘Thorns of Agony’. I’ve woven them together, but those mean little vines are still alive, and they still really hurt! If something hurts you when you’re wearing it, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise!”

Not too long afterward, everyone emerged into Holograd, bathed in the everpresent radiance of the distant Lightroot once more. It was a far cry from being outside, but Nadia would take it for now. The sooner she got a breath of fresh air though, the better. There were no rules stating that the Seekers needed to finish off the Under’s Guardian before they revisited the surface world, after all. That line of thinking got her wondering about where to go next. Getting a little chilly, Nadia zipped up her jacket and then stood with her arms crossed, staring around at the ruined Termite Capitol as she thought. Grand as it had been, the hidden realm of honey had been a dead end, not just for the Hive Knight’s quest but the Seekers’ voyage as well. Try as she might, the feral couldn’t think of any ways forward except the Stagmer-line Station in Falldown Mall. Sure, there might be other routes that connected to this massive, misty cavern other than Pizza Tower, but even if she could find an exit she wouldn’t know where it led. “Better to have some goal in mind than bumble around, blind as bats,” she murmured. If only her map included these forsaken lands at the kingdom’s edge. “Guess I should’ve kept an eye out for that Cornifer guy. Oh well, surely there’s no possible way he just happened to find his way out here and set up shop nearbyyy~”

She perked up her ears and put a hand up to one dramatically, waiting with her mouth ajar for the faintest hint of any familiar humming that might be wafting through the fallen city’s streets. She turned her head this way and that, her ears twitching and turning, but after a few moments her shoulders sagged down. “Aw. Guess it’d be askin’ a li’l bit much. Wouldn’t want to put the cart-ographer before the horse, heehee.”

“Oooooooooooooooi!”

“Nyuh!?” Somehow taken by surprise, Nadia swiveled her head in the source of the echoed voice, scanning the nearby rooftops. Movement brought her gaze to one a few buildings away, and the feral watched as a short, stubby, darkly-clothed figure -only a couple feet all- parkoured across the domed red shingles. The stranger sprinted, hopped, and slid until she threw herself from one of the domes with a headlong leap. Nadia’s eyebrows shot up, wondering if the kid would be okay, but the little girl landed softly on the ground on her belly, and bounded forward with a front flip onto her feet to land with her arms outstretched as if to say tada!

Now that she got a better look at the stranger in that long black coat, her face completely veiled within the hood, a spark of recognition flickered to life in Nadia’s mind. “You…” She extended an accusatory finger, her brows scrunched together in a guarded glare. “You’re from the same group as the guy that stole Linkle when she became the Skullgirl!” A lot had happened in the last five days, but still, how could she have almost forgotten?

“Wot?” The hooded girl scratched her head, seemingly puzzled. Although what really puzzled Nadia was how she meant to scratch anything through both thick gloves and a hood–was she just acting? “Oo’s that?. Look, miss, we’re always up to somethin’ or another. They don’t tell me diddly-squat, and I’d ‘ave to be mental to keep tabs on everythin’ those blokes are doin’. Doin’ to help you lot, I might add. Didja ever wonder ‘ow that stuffy git Gallo knew to ask ya for help? Well, ‘cause I told ‘im to, didn’t I? And guess wot: it’s your lucky day, ‘cause I’m back to give ya all another helpin’ hand. So gather ‘round, will ya, ‘cause we don’t got all day!”

Though still a little suspicious of this girl, Nadia decided that she seemed important, and she decided to hear her out. Once everyone was ready, the Organization XIII member took a seat on top of an old barrel and continued.

“Well then, I take it you lot got everythin’ nice and tidied up down in the Hive? ‘Ow many’s that, four, five? The little mask bits, I mean.” All together, the fragments from Silitha, It Lives, Asgore, Pizza Head, and Rumor Honeybottoms made five. “Five! Nice job that, eh mates? Four to go, and the Black Egg’s yours to open, innit? But wot d’you suppose you’ll find in there?”

She held up her hands with a shrug as she looked around for an answer. “I’ll give ya a hint. It en’t the Guardian. At least, not exactly. All that’s in there’s a poor sod called the Hollow Knight. Chosen by the Pale King ages ago to seal the Guardian away, but that didn’t work out so good, and killin’ ‘im won’t work. If you lot crack open the Black Egg before you’re good an’ ready, all you’ll do is release the Infection on the entire Underground full-force. Little bits’ve been leakin’ for a while now, sure, but if it all goes at once? You and everythin’ else down ‘ere can kiss your bums goodbye. What you lot need is a way to reach the Guardian where she lurks–the Hollow Knight’s dreams. And for that, you’ll need somethin’ very special.”

The girl pulled out a slip of paper from her pocket. “I wish I could say it’d be as easy as gettin’ the Dream Nail from the Moss Tribe Seer, but even if you lot got it all powered up, it’d only work for one person. So your next best bet is this.” She held up the paper for everyone to see, revealing a strange staff bound with thread and adorned with silvery crescents that shone coldly like winter moons, which she then passed to the Seekers. “The Dreamcatcher. If you lot wanna kill the Guardian and get us all that much closer to a world without Galeem, you’ll be needin’ this little doodad. You’ll find it in Mercy Dreams, an old prison where the Miracle blurs the line between dreams an’ reality. And as luck would ‘ave it, gettin’ there’s pretty easy. All ya gotta do is go…” She lifted her index finger.

“Up?” Nadia stared skyward, through the misty cliffs and floating islands to where the lightroot blazed far, far above. She remembered a handful of what looked like bodies raining down from on high before when she made her way down that morning. “Ya mean, it’s above this cavern? How’s that easy, there’s no way to get up there!”

She got the impression that beneath her hood, the Organization kid was grinning. “That’s where you’re wrong, mate! You just don’t know it is all. Don’t know much of anythin’ I expect. Take that there for instance. Ever seen it before?” She pointed to a random stone tile that lay alongside this Holograd city street. About two feet square, it bore a spiral symbol on its cracked surface.

Nadia narrowed her eyes, thinking. “Uh. Don’t think so, no.”

“Heh, heheh…course you ‘ave, you just don’t remember ‘cause it don’t mean anythin’ to ya. Don’t believe me? Just keep an eye out.” Chuckling, the girl pushed herself off of her makeshift chair to jog down the avenue a short ways, heading toward a long-abandoned flowerbed full of yellowed weeds. In it stood a little pinwheel styled after a four-leaf clover. “Yeah, there’s secrets all over the shop, long as ya know where to look.” Holding out her hand, the child summoned a strange sword that she pointed at the pinwheel. “Aero!”

A bright green wind spell flew from the keyblade’s tip and struck the pinwheel. Instantly a powerful updraft flooded through the windless cave, buffeting Nadia’s hair, ears, and tails. In the surge of magic, a whole host of miniature cloudbanks formed floating in the air all the way up from the red domes of Holograd past the sky islands to the cavern’s highest reaches. As Nadia stared, blinking in amazement, one of the nearby buildings popped open. From the door scuttled a strange, four-legged creature that resembled an upturned yellow bullet with a protuberant, horn-shaped snout. It leaped onto and bounced off the awning of an abandoned market stall like a trampoline, and once it sailed up to the lowest clouds, it began to bounce off them too, climbing higher and higher. Far above, near where the Lightroot grew from the pitted ceiling, a stone promontory made for a likely destination.

“Bam!” The Organization girl grinned, her voice smug. “Where there’s will, there’s a way, eh?”

If Nadia was being honest, it looked like a whole lot of fun. “Huh, and here I was wonderin’ about where to go for lunch. Didn’t realize the answer was a windmeal!” She grinned, glancing from the spinning pinwheel to the black-coated kid. Maybe they really were here to help. “With this, reachin’ the roof’s gonna be a breeze!”

“Innit?” The short stranger crossed her arms. “Once you reach the top, it’s just a little way through the Crypt and past Hollow Bough, and boom, you’re in business.”

“Wait, what?” Nadia went to turn her bewildered expression on the Organization member. She half-expected her to vanish away in the Organization’s customary manner, but no, she was just standing there with her arms crossed, waiting to watch the Seekers make the ascent. The way she stared back at Nadia seemed to say what do you mean, ‘what do you mean’?. Part of the feral wondered if she ought to be asking this black-coated stranger anything, but she nothing came to mind, so Nadia refocused on the daunting climb ahead of her. As she looked upward, the critter she saw before missed a jump and fell, quickly plummeting down until it happened to catch another cloud only a few dozen feet off the ground and save itself from a gruesome death, at which point it started the climb anew. Nadia took a deep breath. “This is gonna be a long day.”

When Goldlewis had found a gate, gone in, and come out with what H mentioned as only 1% redshift, Blazermate had to re-calibrate her sensors. She thought it was going to build really fast, but with Goldlewis being super, super high compared to everyone else, but only 1%, perhaps things wouldn't be as limited time wise as she thought. "Huh... well, go figure." Blazermate said, scratching her cheek. "Glad your still safe."

Taking back to the skies, Blazermate spotted some sort of lookout that was... injured? Well, he was for sure hurt. And a lookout would have a lot of info, since it was his job to actually look out around things. Figuring since they were looking for info, Blazermate did what she did, flew over and healed the guy and pulled him to a place of relative safety. He was grateful for the rescue, and much like his job said, he knew a lot. The gunner drone wasn't something Blazermate really needed, but she took it all the same since it would be rude to refuse a reward. The info about how to get to sector 5, and the warning, was nice either way, and Blazermte thanked the guy. She then flew back to inform Sandalphon so she could inform the others about what she had learned and found.

Susie meanwhile spotted the crates that Sandalphon was talking about. She used her transporter to head on over and grab a few, investigating them to see if they were worth anything before mentioning anything. She quickly found the crates were full of... basic things. While probably somewhat valuable in the area shes in, they weren't all that great. Still, loot was loot, so perhaps they could be useful. She still informed Sandalphon, saying. "I see the crates and I'm collecting them now. Have the others continue to look for information. " Susie flew to each crate, grabbing each item and not too enthused by what she found, finding some Medicine, some Gasoline Jelly, and an Electric Spike. All items that she guessed would be useful somewhere, but weren't super valuable. She'd let the others know what she found when she got back, perhaps they would find a use for such common items...



Roland meanwhile was looking about the area himself. He had heard the report about crates from Sandalphon, and as he was moving through the town, he saw a rattling Cargo container. Since he hadn't seen these crates, he wondered if this is what she meant. Outside the crate was some dead flowers, but considering the area, that wasn't anything strange. Strange sounds could be heard from inside the cargo crate, and it was locked, but from what Roland could gather from the sounds, they sounded vaguely human. And from the looks of the crate, it was locked from the outside.

"With how crazy these people have seemed so far, I shouldn't be surprised one of them locked another in a crate." Roland said, rolling his eyes as he conjured one of his swords to break the lock on the crate with little effort. This was a mistake, as the thing that sounded human wasn't human, at all. It was another one of those Other monsters. Having its freedom, it immediately charged out and rushed at Roland, who himself got into a combat stance and began to fight, clashing its charge with his two handed Durndel and breaking through its initial attack, dealing very little damage.

At this time he was reminded of those monstrous abnormalities on the floor of language, and with that, tapped into said power. His first memory was that of Little Red Mercenary, who's voice echoed around Roland for everyone nearby to hear. "I’m a pro. I can handle that easily."(Prey), and with that, Roland struck the creature with his daggers and with that, a mark appeared on it as it was now his 'prey'. The creature still took almost no damage from this attack, with its next attack, an overhead smash, being clashed with by Roland's hammer. This broke Roland's attack however, and he took the damage instead.

The next attack came, and with that, Roland swapped back to his swords. A few slashes with its claws that Roland dodged, parried, clashed, and struck through. This reminded him of Red's nemesis, the Big Bad Wolf, who's gruff voice howled out "A wolf needs no name, it just obeys the role it was born to fit in…"(Role of the Wolf) around Roland, which came into effect immediately as Roland used his Counter on the creature's next attack, a slam from its helmet. This counter had managed to finally do enough damage to reveal its weak point, a mass of eyes.

The creature didn't like that however, and jumped away from Roland to initiate a special attack, where it stood on its hands and a blood like ooze dripped from its eyes and began to create a puddle in the area. Roland jumped on top of the crate this creature had been inside to avoid the puddle of liquid, pulling out his rifle to shoot at it in retaliation. Soon after it had done the attack, the ooze seeped into the ground, causing whatever plantlife it touched to wither and die. "Yikes, I've gotta watch out for that one." Roland said as he jumped off the crate as the ooze disappeared and came down on the creature with his giant sword, it now taking proper damage from his attacks at last with its head exposed.

Enraged by this, the creature began to thrash around wildly and slammed its body into Roland, who only managed to barely deflect its attack thanks to his recent buff. It didn't stop there though, and slashed at him again with its claws, which Roland clashed using his twin swords. The first two swipes of the creature broke through his clash, but Roland overpowered the third. He then used his hammer to smash in its head, dealing some damage as its next series of claw swipes clashed against the large hammer, dealing minimal damage to Roland.

Again Roland clashed with the creature, dealing significant damage as he pulled out Durndel again to slash at it and breaking its claw swipe attacks. This reminded him of that... mountain of smiling bodies, and with that, an echo of multiple voices saying "More bodies… will… make us… stronger…" (Absorbtion) chittered out, and Roland attacked once again using his mace this time. The monster, weak however, wasn't having that and as Roland was going in for the attack, did its ooze attack again, hitting Roland as it was much stronger than his mace.

"Yeah... that hurt..." he said, getting hit but not letting up on the damage and came at the creature with his lance, stabbing it three times and finally putting the thing down. A sickening squelching sound could be heard as Roland started to look much better. Not at full health, but darn well close as Absorbtion healed him at the death of this creature. And with that, the battle was over and he could claim the spirit as a prize. What he'd do with it, he wasn't sure yet. He could use a bit of a patch up either way... hey wasn't that blue robot a healer? He probably looked like he hit the ground a bit too hard right now, so getting topped up wasn't all that bad and he went to go back to the rest of the team, a spirit ready to be crushed in his hands.

Geralt merely raised his eyebrow as the man he'd addressed turned on him angrily, before adjusting his attitude once he got a look at the giant, heavily-armed and armored man. He was more amused than anything, especially given that he'd interrupted somebody clearly in a bad mood. The news was welcome, though: that the new leader was apparently much more strict on letting people in, to the point of keeping somebody who'd just been inside the walls from getting back in. "Hmm. Sounds like an ass." Geralt merely offered, looking around and seeing the rooftop the man had referred to. It indeed looked like it'd be a simple matter to get in from there, merely a jump to get inside.

"New guy in charge a real stickler, huh? Looking to get inside with some friends of mine. Feel free to try and tag along, but we're not in the business of charity." Geralt offered. Perhaps one of the others would offer a boost out of the kindness of their hearts, but Geralt wouldn't be the one. He stepped away from the annoyed man as Sandalphon announced that Goldlewis would be heading into a portal to chase after a woman taken by Chimeras. He'd happily leave the inter-dimensional travel to somebody else this time, instead getting a good look at the walls. They seemed fairly sturdy, though obviously not quite as heavy-duty as the walls protecting Midgar itself.

Zenkichi, meanwhile, was lucky enough to avoid any unfortunate run-ins with the locals, and found himself awkwardly climbing onto a rooftop to get a look around. His new vantage point hadn't offered much in the way of information, though he did have to steer clear of more pockets of red matter that H's drone pointed out helpfully.

After Blazermate's new information had been relayed to the group, Zenkichi got on the move. Back way in, on the right, just over the air duct, and drop down. All in all, it was fairly simple to do, though he was reluctant to pop up casually on his own in Sector V, looking the way he did. Instead, he kept his head down and took a quick look around exactly where he'd wound up while waiting on the others. If anybody came looking for a fight, though, they'd find him a lot tougher to push around than they might have expected.

Everything turned to chaos all at once. The people Roxas and his group followed turned out to be Dexio and Sina. And then they turned out to be under someone else's control as they attempted to eliminate everyone in the basement laboratory. And that was about when Roxas became lost as far as who was doing what down here. He had no clue whatsoever who Brain Drain and Painwheel were. Really the only thing that the Keybearer did understand was that Painwheel was fighting Midna, Sina was targeting Luka, and that Sakura was going after Dexio.

That would just have to be enough information to go on for the time being. Roxas didn't want to stand around in confusion any longer than he already had. So when he noticed that Pit ran off to help Luka and that Gemma was backing up Sakura, Roxas finally had an idea of where to go. Though delayed, he at last sprang into action and ran in the direction of where Midna was holding off Painwheel. Just in time to see her fire some darts from her arm and then seemingly dash between them at high speeds. Roxas wouldn't be able to get there in time to help stop the assault entirely, but when he did get there he joined the fray in the only way he thought would be of use at the moment.

"Thunder!" cried the Keybearer, thrusting on his weapons upward and calling forth a downpour of lightning bolts around himself and Midna as soon as he put himself in front of her. The Thundaga spell would at least act as a makeshift defensive barrier against Painwheel's dash attacks, and give Roxas just enough of a chance to follow that up with a second spell, "Heal!" he cast the Curaga spell in order to undo whatever amount of damage the Twilight Princess had endured so far.

Roxas then dispelled one of his Keyblades and used his newly freed hand to call out his recently-acquired Striker. Burn Rooster appeared in a fiery flare and immediately used his powerful legs to launch himself into the air. The Reploid propelled himself into a fiery dive kick aimed for Painwheel. Even if she dodged him, the Reploid would simply kick himself off the wall and aim for her again until either his attack managed to hit her until he landed back onto the ground.

"Did I mention that I have no idea what's going on here?" Roxas relayed to Midna, "Did these people have anything to do with Peach or something?"