The conversation rolled back and forth between the group, and while they grasped at several threads there was little that was conclusive. They knew who had killed the person impersonating Lili’s father, and that they had stolen something of import, but no idea why or what it was that they had been espionage about, or where the culprit had run off to. They knew the name of some fresh faction, but not really what their aims and objectives where, other than control over the city (again).

If there was one place that might have answers however, it was apparently Arahabaki, the brain of the city not just in terms of control but also memory. Given that they needed to go past it anyway to get to the guardian, it was an obvious choice for their next destination. Her suggestion on how to get there hadn’t quite been to steal cars, but she admitted that that was more subtle to use the hatchbacks than using the open topped machines she had in storage. Then there was the matter of the suggestion about a portal.

”I can put one down there, yes, but this bunker you’ll be in is a bit of a ways away from any of the other openings I have at the moment” she agreed with a caveat after thinking about it, before filling them in about the 5 she had, which were all rather awkwardly clustered around Seiran and the City of glass, baring the S.O.U. Building, before shrugging and conceding that ”It all depends how urgent getting back down turns out to be” as to whether not being close to one would be a problem or not.

It wasn’t as if they where in any shape to actually hit the Guardian right now, tired and split up as they were, so unless they were forced to go back tonight, Minda was more than happy to wait till the time was right.

The time for getting down there the first time however was right right now, and so rather than burn any more time, once they were somewhat rested, not to mention watered and fed, which the princess made sure to do once she’d had her fill of conversation, they got going.

A short ride later, and then a bit of a walk, and they were at their first hurdle, namely the front door of the imposing monument to ego that was the Shinra building. The front was crawling with human soldiers, though interestingly those in light and dark hues did not seem to like each other very much. Midna wondered who they actually served for a moment, before putting that aside and focusing on getting past.

Fortunately for her, that wasn’t much of an issue. The roving searchlights were a risk, certainly, but as long as she was not in a shadow when they banished it she’d be fine, and could just skip right past them. Ironically whatever advanced tech was letting the troops themselves operate without personal light sources like flashlights removed any erratic light sources that could have thrown her off. So the predictable sweeps were the only issues she faced.

As a result of this relative ease of infiltration, the princess was more or less on hand to assist the others however she could, be it minor distractions via knocking on/tossing objects or simply providing information/a look out. Better to have your shadow check round a corner for a guard than risk being spotted doing it yourself after all.

---

Karin was caught off guard when Sandalphon decided they did not, in fact, have anything better to do, and fired away at Jena. ”Oh, wow!” And here she thought her beration was a big enough time waste already. She was, Karin supposed, a threat. But to be honest, she thought that Jena and Neuron and whoever else deserved each other.

Regardless, Karin prepared to act, only for a much, much bigger problem to make itself apparent. The massive Homunculus shattered the earth and made itself known.

”Ah, yes…this is something more along the lines that I had in mind. But…” Karin took a few steps backwards. She would need to think of something a little more clever. Engaging these abominations in CQC would be unwise, even if she could outmaneuver it, damaging it is more of a matter of timing.

For her, anyway! Her teammates got right to work, no timing needed. The thing was big and tanky but completely without support, and the Seekers were shredding it to pieces. Easier said than done, but Karin watched them lay on the damage from a safe distance, trying to find her moment to strike. And her strike would be made possible by how much the beast was softened up. Karin had difficulty with monsters in the past but she was starting to piece together what her role should be when facing them.

Karin avoided stray beams and shockwaves, grappling around the arena for a positional advantage. Geralt and Zenkichi faced it head on, Blazermate and Susie were support and damage. Everyone had a part to play. The legs were somewhat damaged at that point, maybe the heiress could work with that.

She ran her hand along a wall, feeling for its support point. As a student of architecture she had a feeling for such a thing- not the bricks that could be pulled apart but the metal beams that made up the ribs and skeleton of a building. When she found it, she punched into it and fired her grappling hook into the steel. ”Goldlewis!” Karin called out. She was standing across the way, the beast in front of and in between them.

She fired her line across, aiming at his coffin. ”Hold fast!” She shouted. Then she ascended to the top of the building with a quick series of pulls using her grappling hook.

Assuming Goldlewis and the building head fast as the beast was brought to stumble and charge towards the taut line held across the street. When it reached it, Karin hoped it would fall over, trip, or at least lose a single step so she could strike.

When the time was right Karin leapt from the roof, spun, and rotated, coming down like a falling knife, slicing through the air. She shot out her arm and attached a grapple line to the beast itself, and began to reel herself in at high speed, the wind whipping through her hair. She front flipped, grit her teeth, and then flung her body down feet first, arms crossed over herself, to puncture the top of the skull of the beast. It was unfortunate for such a refined noblewoman as herself to be stuck right into the viscera, but that was the cost of fighting with ones body and not with a weapon.

”Yaaah!” Karin yelled, coming down with her flying drill kick from above. It she had too, she could pull herself out and do a similar attack again, but she was hoping the beast would be weakened enough that this would seal the deal. At least stun it enough so that her teammates could do so.

It was a good thing the Dancer placed her hand upon Artorias' armor with his attention focused upon her, once he was in the midst of fighting he would lose track of friend or foe at times and that may have been a risk one would try to avoid.

With a renewed vim and vigor the Wolf Knight felt his joints stop their incessant aching, he set to weaving amidst the dancer and her partner while they twirled. Whoever she was Primrose seemed almost otherworldly when she danced, the knight had to force himself to look elsewhere thankfully this was likely a better choice as he was met with all sorts of foes that came at him either chainsaws, gunfire and possibly some sort of incendiary weapons.

He took a few shots to the arm when he tried to raise his blade in order to protect himself yet even still he was not so easily felled even by something like bullets, he was a demigod after all. These Smallfry and Cutters were barely a nuisance to him, their attacks seemed to not faze him even though he bled. He left them in heaps of scrap, Smallfry had their arms ripped off or their bodies crumpled to the sheer Inhuman strength of his punches.

Too small to cut down even with his unmatched skill and strength, he settled to leave the brunt of his attacks to his fists. Pinning the larger robots with his blade to smash with his gauntlets.

It came time to deal with the Caretaker, severely hampered with so many fighters dealing with it at the same time. When it came to Artorias, the Wolf Knight came crashing into it with all his weight put into smashing into it with a single strike of his fist.

His aim not to dish a killing blow but to severely damage its metal body. Artorias thankfully boasted a strength far greater than most so his attacks were all the more devastating even with his bare hands.

The Wolf Knight opted to instead keep landing blow after blow to the Caretaker using brute strength instead of his blade. As he knew that the sword seemed less effective versus such constructs.

If there was one upside to fighting this massive monstrosity, it was that it made for an easy target. Goldlewis had no trouble perforating the Homunculus with a full barrage from his Skyfish minigun. If only it did more damage; even with a very helpful Tarukaja from Zenkichi, its stopping power was remarkably low for such a massive weapon, and even at Security Level Three it could only shoot for a couple seconds. After that, it was up to Sandalphon to lay down the law from a distance while Goldlewis got up close and personal.

Coffin at the ready, he joined the charge to fight the huge brute toe-to-toe. Geralt, Roland, Zenkichi, and Vigil -whose revolvers weren’t accurate enough to fight from long range- were the frontrunners, while he, Susie, and Penance brought up the rear. She slowed down in order to try and divert the monster’s attention toward herself. With the defensive abilities she showcased earlier, backed up by the lion’s share of Blazermate’s medigun support, Goldlewis had no doubt that the Judge would be able to weather the monster’s wrath, so left her to it. Contrary to appearances, he was no tank, but an all-out bruiser, and he showed the Homunculus as much when he finally reached it with an unstoppable Wild Assault that landed just after it busted through the house Roland somehow dropped on it. Against an adversary like this that obviously couldn’t combo, Goldlewis judged this to be the best way to spend his Burst, and it worked wonders. When it tried to crush him in its jaws, the Homunculus instead reeled back, several teeth knocked out and its eyes lolling as the Wild Charge brought its lunge to an abrupt stop.

Of course, that lasted for only a moment, but that was long enough for Geralt to cut loose. Goldlewis already knew to stand clear of his overtly aggressive ally, but once appropriately forewarned, he made sure to give Geralt an extra wide berth. Empowered by Blazermate’s kritz and eldritch lightning, the Witcher carved into the Homunculus in an almost frightening display of savage strength to take out a big chunk of its life right off the bat. Though the monster managed to wrest control back from Geralt before the kritz ran out, the damage was done, and everyone surged forward to keep the pain train rolling.

With its massive size and strength, the Homunculus set the pace for the battle, but its pace was slow enough to be manageable. Its enormous sweeps, slams, bites, and crushing blows were telegraphed just enough to offset their huge range, but the Seekers didn’t have the time to fight a war of attrition. Rather than play this methodically, Goldlewis placed his trust in his allies and waged total war against the Homunculus. He went whole hog on the monster’s legs with his coffin, landing Behemoth Typhoons one after another. His target moved a lot, only too happy to throw its massive weight around, but Goldlewis ran to keep up. “Come get some! …Hrrraagh! ..Try this on! …Crumble! ”When his Security Level refilled completely he’d pause just long enough to throw out a Thunderbird grenade to do some explosive headhunting, then return to the brute’s trunk-like legs, chipping away at them like an autumn beaver. Getting this close meant facing the Homunculus’ massive attacks, of course, and he managed to halt his onslaught so he could block them about half the time. Goldlewis, made of sterner stuff and backed by Sandalphon’s periodic Angelic Praise, did not relent, even when faced with the withering might of the monster’s purple laser. He spent a little tension in order to block it with Faultless Defense, then the rest on Down with the System. “Shut the hell up…” he yelled over the roaring noise. “AND SIT THE HELL DOWN!”

His mighty coffin uppercut struck the Homunculus from below, hard enough that its whole body thrashed, causing its beam to veer upward in its last couple of seconds and rake across the lot’s surrounding buildings rather than the veteran’s allies. Sandalphon shrank down into cover as the beam blazed overhead, then calmly got back up, took aim, and loosed an ether bolt that burst one of the monster’s eyes. Everyone’s efforts were adding up, and the Homunculus didn’t have a lot left in the tank. Penance and Vigil had been pulling their weight, shrugging off deadly blows and plugging it full of bullet holes respectively, but in the end the limelight went to Karin. When the monster began an unstoppable rampage, charging across the whole area with reckless abandon, her initiative (plus a little stalwart help) put a stop to its brutally simple gambit and dumped it on its back for a tremendous finishing blow.

With the Homunculus dead, the high-power fight had come to its climactic conclusion. Goldlewis watched the enormous, otherworldly body begin to turn to ash, his breathing heavy from the effort he’d put into that final maneuver. His gaze turned toward Sandalphon as she descended from her perch, gliding with the help of her radiant golden halo. As she landed, his communication glyph flared up, and a familiar voice offered a nonchalant greeting. “Someone call for a ride?”

An increasingly loud whirring brought both their attention to the cargobob helicopter just now descending in front of the opening between the empty lot and Quarantine Valley. As it flew carefully through the gap, its side doors swung open, revealing a certain gorgeous secret agent and her emerald green wolf spirit. Goldlewis breathed a sigh of relief. “There y’are. What in tarnation took y’all so damn long?”

Giovanna shook her head, nonplussed. Suppressed by the noise of the rotors, her voice only came through his glyph. “Just get in here, will ya?”

Everyone made a break for the helicopter, pushing through the wind given off by its rotors. For some of them, it was a blast for the past, just like the day almost half a week ago after they’d escaped the Cluster Trucks. How things had changed since then; Benedict had come and gone, Raiden made his final stand, Peach and Poppi as the Seekers knew them had ceased to be, and Tora became bereft of hope. Now they were advancing to a still more uncertain future, but at least they weren’t alone. Though Penance and Vigil hesitated, Goldlewis waved them over after climbing inside and turned to help them up. The Judge gave him a nod of appreciation, and as the cargobob’s doors closed, she turned toward the new arrival. “Giovanna,” she said somewhat stiffly. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Hey, Vinnie,” the secret agent replied with a smile, glancing at Goldlewis. “New boss, meet old boss. Old boss, meet new.”

The veteran ran his hand through his hair, then offered his hand to shake. “Huh. Didn’t realize we had a mutual friend.”

Penance accepted it, giving him a rare, slight smile. “Thank you for looking after her. Since she left, well…General Affairs, it hasn’t been quite the same.” Vigil just rolled his eyes.

“Where to?” Duke, the pilot, shouted from the cockpit as the helicopter rose and turned back toward Quarantine Valley.

“Neuron HQ.” Tonight had been hell already, but there was one final event that Goldlewis knew the Seekers couldn’t miss. “And step on it.”

---

Sector 04, Veles. A heavy-metal cyberpunk dystopia of towering black buildings, and none more so than the Aegis Research Institute in its center, Midgar’s greatest pioneer of scientific marvel. While even that didn’t reach the altitude of the Vandelay Tower in Sector 06, let alone the monumental Shinra Building, this sector’s cityscape gave it the highest average altitude in all of Midgar. Even to the Seekers flying high above it via the Special Operation Unit’s signature helicopter, it was overwhelming, not due to visual clutter like its smaller neighbor Suoh or its more jam-packed undercity Night City below, but due to its sheer scale. Goldlewis and the others weren’t here for the Aegis Research Institute -not yet anyway- but for the headquarters of the Neuron Task Force, the police division of Peace Preservation specialized in Astral Plane countermeasures. As they approached, they could see that Jena had been true to her word–Neuron was under attack. All around the building, its officers -as well as local security groups- were under attack by an army of masked vigilantes armed to the teeth with tools of destruction. “Reunion,” Sandalphon observed. “And if they’re here, Anderson must be as well.”



Up on the building’s helipad, a situation was unfolding. Two Neuron officers, the brother and sister duo Hayato and Akira Howard in armored uniforms of Neuron blue and Raven black, had just broken from the elevators to run across the open area with a third armored figure in tow. His outfit featured cherry-red plates over a gray undersuit, an intricate helmet, and a black cape that fluttered in the wind behind him as he ran. After a moment, he slowed to a stop behind the siblings, seemingly out of breath, only to turn and see Jena Anderson walking toward him, flanked by Mephisto and Faust.

Behind his mask, the Consul’s eyes narrowed. “...Jena.”

Her face hard and bitter, she took a few more steps forward before stopping. “It’s been a while, Y. Or can I drop pretenses, and simply call you Yoseph?”

The Consul ignored her. “Jena, why are you doing this?”

“Why?” Jena looked affronted. “You know why.” She began to pace, throwing her arms wide as if tearing something down. “To put an end to this misguided project of yours!”

Y shook his head and thrust his hand toward her in frustration, as if the true nature of things were patently obvious. “YOU’RE the one who’s misguided!”

“No…” Jena shook her head. “We can win. We have a future as we are!”

“Idiot!” Y cut her off, casting his arm aside. “Cling to your worthless husk, but let the rest of us evolve!”

Their voices rose in anger, and in unison. ”Only I can save humankind!”

Jena inhaled sharply. “It appears talking will get us nowhere.” She lifted up a vial of perfected Blue Evolve, a startling shade of purple. Without hesitation she knocked it back, drinking everything. The contortions began before she even finished, and the vial fell from her grasp as she doubled over, purple veins spreading across her skin. Her irises turned from blue to glowing violet, and her sclera ink-black. “RrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAGH!” With a final effort she thrust her arm upward, constructing a lance of chimeric flesh around it. Then Jena lowered it, all three Reunion members ready to fight. Y moved back in silence as Hayato and Akira stepped forward, their batons drawn.

It was at that moment that the cargobob swooped in, its bay doors open. Goldlewis jumped, fell a couple dozen feet, and slammed down on the surface of the helipad. Giovanna, Penance, and Vigil landed to either side of him, and a moment later, Sandalphon gracefully drifted down via her halo to alight amongst the group.

Jena gritted her teeth, glaring at the newcomers. “...You again!?”

“Well, well.” Y crossed his arms, unimpressed. “If it isn’t the Seekers of Light. I had a feeling we’d run into one another sooner or later. Quite the dramatic entrance, and with remarkable timing, too.”

Penance stepped forward. “Consul! On behalf of Midgar’s citizens, once this terrorist is dealt with, we need to talk.”

Y shook his head. “On the contrary, what you need is to fight.” He snapped his fingers. Suddenly, the eyes of Penance and Vigil, as well as Hayato and Akira, gleamed a vivid ruby red. “So fight. Protect me or die trying.”

“Wha-!?” Goldlewis lifted his coffin to block as Vigil turned, unloading his revolvers on his former allies. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me!” At the same time, Giovanna fell prey to a leg sweep from Penance’s flail. As she went to bring the hammer down on her fallen friend, Sandalphon interposed her gunstaff in the way, causing the flail to wrap around its length. Penance promptly yanked it back, and the archangel’s weapon flew from her hands as she stumbled forward.

Wasting no time, Jena went straight for her nemesis. “Yoseph!” she screamed, charging forward as Mephisto and Faust covered her with shots from their crossbow and luger pistol respectively. The Howard twins moved to stop her. The night’s final battle had begun.



Just when it really looked like the Seekers and their new compatriots had the Caretaker’s number, it brought out its biggest and nastiest batch of reinforcements yet, and the manageable battle went to hell in a handbasket. Once the Dirtscrews churned through the earth like giant drills to create entrance tunnels, the packs of Choppers charged in to start cutting, the Smallfries marched in to wreak havoc, and the bullet-spraying Hot Rods put the Rival Tech turrets to shame. Nadia scrambled along with everyone else to respond to the overwhelming new threat. While individually these new robots might not pose much danger, they were everywhere, and the risk of getting physically bodyblocked or locked in hitstun was a very real possibility. The chaos was such that when another uninvited guest showed up, smashing through a solid wall of dirt as if it were styrofoam, Nadia only glanced the newcomer’s way expecting yet another Dirtscrew making an entry. Instead she beheld a strange metal machine, vaguely similar to the automobiles of her world and the more modern cars throughout this one, but far more futuristic than anything she’d ever seen before. Still, even if it rang no bells for her, the visage of a white rabbit instilled her with a deep sense of dread.

And sure enough, she was right.

As soon as Kanna showed her face, or rather her drawn-on pot, Nadia’s blood ran cold. “Waitwaitwait,” she pleaded, so distracted by the prospect of another nightmarish assortment of random reality warps that she barely noticed the Chopper jumping for her in time. She brought her hands together and caught the little fiend with its chainsaw blade just inches from her horrified face. “Dammit, not now, I gotta-!” More ravenous Choppers were skittering her way, backed by a hulking Smallfry. One pounced, and she reflexively fell onto her back, where she brought her knees up to her chest, let go of the one she’d grabbed, then hyperextended her legs in bursts of blood to kick both high into the air. Planting her hands against the wood beneath her, she then hyperextended her wrists to launch the rest of her up after them. Once her hands snapped back into place, she grabbed both Choppers by the legs and hurled them down into the rest of the pack. They smashed messily through their kin, spraying the Smallfry with scrapped parts. As it put up one arm to block, Nadia blasted out high-pressure blood to hurtle toward the robot and shear through its metal with an X-scrape Claws shining silver with the power of New Moon. Her eyes met the Smallfry’s as the pieces of its arm fell, and the next moment she shot off her head on a spring of coiled muscle fiber.

The mighty headbutt knocked the robot over, and after Nadia caught it, she turned it toward Kanna to realize that the senseless girl had already grown a new Wonder Flower. “Waitwaitwait!” she yowled in protest, waving her panicked hands as she ran toward Kanna only to get caught in a shower of bullets from a Hot Rod. “Argh!” she groaned, her teeth gritted as she tried to block the stinging barrage while groping blindly for her Bait Launcher. After her fingers finally closed around the weapon, she yanked it out and fired off a steak at the offending Hot Rod, which she trusted would soon be sorted out. Without giving her a second to rest, another Chopper leaped at her, so Nadia got the hell out of doge with a spinning backdash, the claws of her free hand anchored in the wooden ground. As she slid to a stop, however, her ears perked up and her pupils shrunk. Something was standing right behind her.

Nadia whipped around, one arm poised for a bloody jet punch, only for the Smallfry she’d partially disarmed earlier to catch her with a massive haymaker right to the stomach. The feral’s eyes went wide as saucers, and spittle flew from her open mouth. “PUAH!” Her torso flew backward before the rest of her, connective tissue stretching out as her body -not to mention her Bait Launcher- flew away, though her limbs and head snapped toward it after another split second. Her various parts struck the petrified wood of the cave wall and bounced off it in quick succession, slowly sliding back into place like a pullstrings on a toy. Whimpering, her Polterpup flew after her and started to lick her face. “Uuuuugh,” she groaned, seeing stars instead of the robots closing in on where she’d fallen. It was in that state that Kanna’s lucky Wonder Effect washed over her. A bouquet of flowers appeared above her resting place and fell onto her body, absorbed in an instant and converted into power.

Nadia’s eyes popped open as a sudden flood of energy coursed through her veins. She looked up to see the Smallfry raising its arm to bring down like a hammer. The deathblow descended, but Nadia’s head flew off on a jet of blood that rocketed past the robot and into the air. The Choppers that crowded in to hack the feral to pieces found themselves beaten to the punch as her pieces flew off on their own. In an instant the area filled with rogue body parts, each a missile propelled by a jet of blood and spinning like a drill bit. “Remember, remember!” They crashed and cut into the robots repeatedly, clumping them together until every portion of Ms. Fortune slammed together in a bloody explosion. “The Fifth of Dismember!”

As the blood subsided, carrying with it the sparking, mutilated remains of the machines, Nadia rose from the carnage in one piece. Something was amiss, though. She stared at her wrist as it, like all her scars, poured out blood without any sign of stopping. And yet she felt no trace of depletion or lightheadedness. Was this Kanna’s doing, too? Well, there wasn’t time for introspection, because there were plenty of robots left, not to mention the Caretaker itself. “Not sure if this is a-positive or a-negative…” She sharpened her claws and got into stance, Chucho wagging his tail as he floated beside her. “But I’m full-blooded and red-dy to rumble!”

Like the others, she went on total offense against the machines. Whether because of Kanna’s literal flower power flooding through her or some sort of catastrophic fault with the robots, Nadia found herself tearing through the enemies like tissue paper. She’d quickly found that while they weren’t weaker across the board, their heads -or equivalent processing centers- took way more damage than usual, practically popping like balloons. For a dextrous fighter who targeted such weak points anyway, the Rival threat quickly turned from unstoppable horde to cannon fodder. The others seemed to be every bit as super-charged, and the cavern filled with a magical lightshow as the Seekers unleashed a deluge of thunder, pitch-black flame, ice, and darkness. For the Koopa Troop and the dwarves, the whole place had become a shooting gallery. Cyclops bathed robots in flame, Paintbrush wiped them away in a deluge of micro-missiles, and Stetson busted heads with precision bursts of gunfire from his Deepcore GK2. “Whoa-ho! Whatever she did, it actually worked!” he yelled in a mixture of glee and disbelief. “My gun–it’s totally loaded!” The prospect of endless ammunition seemed to have activated something primal in the dwarves; all were roaring in satisfaction as their weapons sowed streams of destruction through the metal horde.

Nadia had been contenting herself with hand-to-hand combat and wanton abuse of her Blockbusters, leaving a wide trail of her own blood in her wake as she ran around collecting flowers and pulverizing robots, but when she realized what Stetson meant she got in on the fun. After spotting her Bait Launcher amidst the chaos she made a break for it, Chucho hot on her heels, and sure enough, when she held down the trigger it began to divulge an endless amount of tiger-summoning steaks. FOON-FOON-FOON-FOON-FOON-FOON-FOON! Her burly beasts appeared among the machines in droves, tearing them up like tinfoil. “Nyahahahaha!” Nadia laughed, almost euphoric, and her Polterpup barked along with her. “This is AMAZING!”

Everyone’s abuse of their unlimited resources meant it was curtains for the Caretaker’s reinforcements. Even Kanna got in on the action this time. She drove donuts through the bots, shot down Hot Rods with Eir’s main cannon, or jumped her Metal Attacker into the air to come down on opponents with a huge drill extended from its undercarriage, all while cheering everyone on incoherently. Thanks to Therion’s tactic, the machines couldn’t even fight back. Before long all that remained was the big bad itself. Sectonia’s magic slowed the Caretaker’s spin, however, and a few seconds later the explosion of a C-Foam grenade brought the inverted pyramid to a complete stop. Everyone joined the effort to focus down the vents one final time, and Nadia had a brainwave on how she could pitch in. “Aha, just you wait ‘til I get my ship together!” Running for where she’d laid her jacket, she scooped it up and put it on. At that point, the blood she’d inundated the floor with let her activate her rigging, and like clockwork its mechanical arms unfolded to bring her cannons to bear. “There we go! How’s this for in-vent-ive?” From her cannons she fired off homing hydro-missiles to join in the Seekers’ fusillade, and when the vents were done for, the Caretaker’s eye was next. Nadia kept skating and kept firing until the deed was done.

When the final blow was struck, the Caretaker pulsed violently, sparks flying as it lost power. It fell and hit the top of the Data Vault hard, then pitched onto one side with a massive KOMMM. After a brief moment, its four eyes open and lolling cartoonishly, it began to suck in energy. It released a resounding death scream like the shrieking bugle of an elk, then shook the entire cavern with the explosion. Kanna fed Yacopu a Wonder Seed so he could dispel the Wonder Effect, and as what passed for ‘normal’ in this reality reasserted itself, the torrent of blood from Nadia’s scars subsided. “Man,” she groaned, looking over her clothes. “Everything’s soaked through. And blood never comes out…” Her ears perked up and she fell quiet, though, as she heard the deep clicks of some massive mechanism. As everyone watched, the Data Vault unlocked, swinging upward like the door of a safe. Beneath it, concentric circles arose like a ziggurat, until finally the center section extended to reveal a glowing, humming Data Rack, cases of rare minerals, capsules containing specimens, and a one-third mask fragment.

“Alright, let’s grab the damn thing and blow this hellhole,” Cyclops groused. None of the dwarves seemed too enthused about the victory; to them this was just another day at the office, and Nadia got the impression that this wasn’t the first Caretaker they’d beaten, anyhow.

Stetson grappled up and grabbed the big, techy-looking cylinder, which he brought to the four-legged robot that had been waiting in the wings. “‘Ere, Molly.” Nadia’s team took the mask fragment, and split the minerals fifty-fifty between dwarves and Seekers, with the specimens free to whoever might want them. Once Stetson loaded the Data Rack onto the Mule, he held his hand over the big red button and turned to look at the others. “Roight then, once I press this button, it’s go time. Wherever the drop pod lands, we’ve got five minutes to make it there, ‘cause it’s leavin’ with or without us. Molly ‘ere’s gonna lead us at least, but it’ll be nonstop bugs the whole time, so keep your wits aboutcha.”

“More bugs?” Still breathing heavy from the battle, Nadia sighed in resignation. “Man, you guys just can’t catch a break.”

“You’re bloody well right,” the dwarf grumbled, trying not to let it set in.

Kanna, meanwhile, seemed just as cheerful as ever. “Ooh, I’ll totally go with you! One good turn, like, deserves another, right?”

For a moment Nadia’s gaze lingered on the unexpected helper. Then she adopted a rueful smile. “Uh, yeah, well...thanks, by the way. You really helped back there. Made the whole thing a piece of cake.”

“Well, doy!” Grinning, Kanna gave the feral a wink. “Like, I totally know what I’m doing and stuff~”

At that, Nadia’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but she managed to stay positive. Having recovered enough at this point to continue, Tingyun spoke up next, turning to Therion with a sly smile. “While we’re at it…” She leaned toward the thief, spreading her fan to cover her face as she planted a little kiss on his cheek. “You saved my life. Thank you.” Then she stepped back and turned toward the others. “Is everyone ready? Not to rain on my most gracious benefactors’ parade, but the sooner we’re out of these bug-infested caves, the better, hm?” Nobody could disagree with that, and when everyone was ready, Stetson pressed the button to begin the countdown.



A few tense moments passed before the Mule suddenly stood up, turned, and hustled off in the direction of a tunnel nobody had used yet. That tunnel also happened to be a good fifty feet up on one of the cavern’s walls. Molly climbed it like a spider, leaving both a trail of green warning lights behind her, and everyone else to find their own way up. “Aw, hell,” Stetson griped. “Paintbrush, zipline. Stat!” Nodding, the gunner ran back far enough to get an angle that wasn’t too steep. Once he set it up he, Overhard, and Cyclops all jumped on the slow-moving ride upward, with Tingyun joining them. Given the strict time limit, the Foxian seemed fretful, but she had no other choice. Stetson opted for the direct approach. “From A to D, skippin’ B an’ C!” He zipped right up with his grapple hook, and Nadia followed suit with Chucho right behind, digging her claws into the petrified wood to haul herself upward. With a Charge and a few spurts of blood, she managed to reach Molly and climb onto her to ride the rest of the way.

Kanna drove her Metal Attacker toward the wall and started jumping. While Eir could get some serious elevation, it wasn’t enough. “It’s, like, waaaay too high!”

“Here, try this!” Bringing out his platform gun, Overhard created a handful of plascrete shelves on the wall. When Kanna tested them out, the impressive substance held, and by jumping Eir between the shelves she managed to ascend to the exit tunnel.

Said tunnel turned out to be quite the gauntlet. It twisted and turned in a series of grottoes and chambers with plenty of thorny scarlet vines, bulbous plants bursting at the seams with sticky yellow goo, stray bots, and glyphids. With adrenaline fading and fatigue mounting, the Seekers could only fight through, following the trail blazed by allied Metal Attackers. At one point their mad dash awakened a towering, fleshy thing hailed by the dwarves as a Spitball Infector. Unfortunately, the Seekers were many, and they were in a hurry. They overran the spitballer, squelching its pustules into paste, and hastened down the final stretch. There they finally saw the fabled drop pod, a large, roughly octagonal pillar of corroded orange metal with bladed teeth on the corners and a huge drill on the bottom. With its eyes lights out and entrance open, with ramp leading down to the ground, it looked almost like a big face. Kanna’s Metal Attacker pulled to a stop beside it, and she got out to wave the others over, as if Molly’s trail wasn’t enough. Beyond it, the tunnel opened up into a huge, utterly colorless cavern of thick, towering trees and soft gray mists. A wide, heavyset structure, like some sort of hotel, could be seen in the distance. Right now though, Nadia had eyes for the drop pod only, and she saw a problem with it.

“H-huh!? It’s tiny! We can’t all fit in there!” The pod’s interior could seat four dwarves comfortably, and maybe sixteen if they all really crammed, but no way could all of Nadia’s huge teammates squeeze in. At least Sectonia and Kamek could fly, plus Junior if he left Kuebiko behind, but the Metal Attacker’s UI made it clear that its Recoil Jump would let it leap off walls as much as needed to ascend the purely vertical shaft the drop pod carved on its way down. Bowser and Artorias might be able to crawl inside, but they’d hog all the space and be terribly uncomfortable too. The four dwarves, Tingyun, Primrose, Therion, Nadia, and Kamek (if he wanted) could fit in without too much issue, the taller among them needing to stoop and/or crouch. Once everyone who could got in, the drop pod shut its gates, sealed the entrance, and began to ascend.

“Bye bye everyoneeeeeeeeee~” Kanna sang, bouncing up and down on the ground as she waved to the others with both hands. “Come back and visit soon, flower!”

After the intense rumbling diminished a little and it was clear that the extra weight wouldn’t sink the ship, Stetson let out his breath. He took off his cowboy hat, revealing a shiny bald head underneath, and wiped his brow. “That’s one for the books.”

---

After about a minute, the drop pod began to shake again, much more violently this time. Loud clangs gave the impression of multiple hits taken from above. Tingyun hugged her tail tightly, her eyes fearful. “What’s going on?”

“Loose debris in the shaft,” Overhard guessed, pulling out his terrain scanner to see what was going on. “Looks like we’re passing right by some sort of big underground complex.”

Nadia tried to peer at his tablet over his shoulder. “Wait, doesn’t that sound like where we oughta be goin’? Hold up a sec, let us off!”

After a bit of back-and-forth, Overhard managed to bring the drop pod to a half in the middle of the shaft, suspended by the teeth it was using to climb and the downward rocket burning just enough to keep it up. The doors opened and the ramp flipped down, breaking through a stone brick wall into some kind of dungeon. Nadia and the others piled off, while Tingyun chose to stick with the dwarves. “The sooner I’m back in the space rig, the sooner I can find a starskiff and chart a course toward the Luofu!” she explained, ironically explaining very little. “Thank you for all your help, benefactors. I hope to see you again soon!” Since the drop pod couldn’t tarry long, it was on its way after another moment, bound with all its passengers toward the surface. That left the Seekers in a new, very important, and very ominous place.



The heroes had arrived in a sprawling prison complex of considerable age and size, dimly lit by assorted candelabras that stood along the walls or hung from the ceiling. Crumbling walls, pillars, and arches characterized the whole place as one of both antiquarian style and sorrowful neglect, yet one neither in ruin nor silence. Voices and whispers echoed through the place, some more distant than others, eerie but not exactly ghostly. Nadia’s ears turned this way and that, zeroing in on definite sources. Whether this place’s prisoners were ghosts or real people, it didn’t ultimately make a lot of difference. The Seekers’ mission was the same: find the Dreamcatcher, find the eighth mask piece, and move on.

Of course, getting through this place was going to be anything but simple. On the surface this dreadful prison harbored an oppressive, twisted atmosphere, into which who knew how many sufferers had been immersed and left to rot. Although Nadia couldn’t see any enemies outright, her instincts told her to keep her voice down, lest she be discovered by…something. Something about Mercy Dreams ignited the imagination in unpleasant ways. Was it something in the air? Or leaking from the corners or the seams between stones? This strange undercurrent made the feral think of water slowly trickling through caves, slowly eroding cracks in the thin walls of reality and inviting madness to fill in the gaps, or depositing unknown minerals bit by bit to create monstrous teeth and regal columns never before seen, much less made, by man. While not as bad as the eldritch train platform where Nadia encountered the Nowhere Monarch, this place still unnerved her, so rather than sprint off guns ablaze, she slunk over from the wall everyone busted through to a spiky wrought-iron railing that overlooked the central atrium of Mercy Dreams.



The complex featured five layers, with the fifth and final being the bottom floor. Roughly shaped like a massive letter I, the rest of the floors ringed the atrium, increasingly narrow the farther down they went, with standalone cell blocks to either side of the central space and a square hall around the edges. Layers could be accessed via staircases barred by metal bar gates, which designated pull-switches could operate. On the opposite side of this first layer stood some sort of office, possibly belonging to a warden. On every floor were prison cells, some open, some not. Every windowless door featured a slot to drop food in and two locks, a bronze one and a silver one, either of which could open the otherwise impregnable cells if they received the right key. All of the voices that permeated this place issued from behind those closed doors, intelligible but delirious. Only one prisoner in the whole place seemed to be trying to get free. At the same time, not all of the open cells were empty. Within one could sometimes find pale, misshapen things, wretches somewhere between man and dragon that lurked in the dark. Dead silent, passive, and almost -but not quite- still as statues.

Nadia could also catch glimpses of the prison’s jailers on patrol. On the fourth layer were bishops on floating cathedra, wielding long spears to thrust downward with from their high chairs, often attended by a couple masked, bleeding flagellants with lashes. On the third layer were mind flayers, robed, tentacled, and beaked. They could cast brilliant soul rays without limit, or if the situation called for it, fire off an electric snare to bind an escapee in place for a deadly grab attack. Deeper still on the fourth layer, illuminators. Anyone within the light of their lanterns would find their maximum health drained at a rate of 25% per second to a minimum of 15%, accompanied by the sound of their pumping hearts. While their max health would restore after twenty seconds, the health itself would not, and if a laughing illuminator managed to brand a target with her soldering iron, the curse it inflicted would prevent healing and increase equip load to hinder evasion. Finally, two abhorrent jailers walked the fifth layer, each massive abomination carrying a cylindrical cage as a weapon. Nadia couldn’t see what they were guarding down there, but it had to be something serious. “...Yeesh.”

That wasn’t all, though. Much to her amusement, she also spotted a number of what looked like paper butterflies quietly sitting or flitting around the prison, the soft rasp of their paper wings adding to the overall ambiance. One fluttered Nadia’s way, and despite her earlier trepidation, she crouched down and went after it, pursuing and pouncing at it repeatedly until she finally caught it between her palms. “Gotcha, haha!” When she opened her hands, the butterfly -or was it a fairy?- unfurled into a sheet of parchment. It depicted one of those strange masked illuminators, naming it as an ‘Irithyll Jailer’. “The jailers were among the few survivors inhabiting the Profaned Capital, later serving under Pontiff Sulyvahn,” she read aloud, bewildered. “Perhaps the screams emanating from the cells help them forget their old home.” The page also gave a number of statistics, including health, resistances (slash and impact), weaknesses (pierce and lightning), and even a selection of three ‘drops’. “Well, that’s useful,” she muttered, passing the page to whoever wanted to read it. “Not to mention really…weird.” Were these paper butterflies the enchanted notes of some sort of monster biologist? Whatever the case, it made her uneasy. “Guess I wouldn’t mind snatchin’ one of their outfits though. Those fancy masks have me feelin’ kinda jail-ous.” Her attempt to lighten the mood did not, unfortunately, get results.

“...Nadia?”

In the middle of the feral’s uneasy chuckle, she heard a voice that made her freeze. It was distant, and a little muffled, but she knew that voice anywhere. Not many people knew her as anything but Ms. Fortune, and it would probably be some of her teammates’ first time hearing her real name, but she didn’t care. Right now, she only wanted one thing. “Minette!?”

“Nadia, is that you!?”

“Minette!” Nadia hesitated, a little spooked. While she sometimes had her moments, she wasn’t stupid. What were the odds of running into her best friend here, of all places? “Where are you? What are you doing here?”

“I’m trapped!” the Dagonian called out from somewhere in the complex. “Please, help me!”

Nervous, Nadia went back over to the railing and looked around, trying to zero in on the voice. She kept her own quiet enough not to alert the jailers. “Hang on, I’ll try and find you!” Like the others she was tired and a little hungry -it had to be dinnertime by now, after all- but now especially, she couldn’t afford to take a break. The hunt was on.

After doing their coordinated strike vs the Caretaker, the troop regrouped, Jr and Bowser road killing bots while Kamek and Rika went overhead. Then they held up in a defensive position from which to shell the bots, and finally, once the eye opened up, gave it hell whenever it dared look their way.

With that and all the other’s contributions, it was only a matter of time till the inverted pyramid fell, and they had their victory. Well, after being exploded anyway. Fortunately Jr was there to patch them up, the prince parking his tank, popping up the cockpit, and joining the others in the bloody dirt to stretch his legs for a bit as he healed everyone up.

While he did that, and Kamek had another rest, Bowser and Rika did the rather standard post battle spirit crushing, which had some interesting results.



”Weird. It just straight up made a bug. A tasty looking bug” Bowser noted, rather confused by the appearance of the vigorwasp that lazily hoovered up from Rika’s hand. The ship girl, equally confused and curious, promptly poked it, causing it to disappear and heal all the damage the mimic shaped hat had done to her while she had been crushing the various small robots and specimen sprites.

”Huh. Ok then?” the shipgirl said as she took off the hat, mostly bemused but a little thankful that she wasn’t going to have to wait for Jr to come round again and heal her

The rest of the items consisted of a pile of crystals which were immediately stashed, and a bunch of metal computer things that neither of them had any idea what they were really for. Jr, once queried, was less stumped but after some speculating and poking ultimately marked the components down as something worth selling rather than using, and had Kamek shrink them down for transportation.

With that settled, and someone hopefully making use of the caretaker’s spirit (and if they didn’t the troop would transport it), it was time to set off. That, apparently, was going to be easier said than done, because not only was the dwarf’s exit strategy noisy as heck, but it also had a time limit on it as well.

”Yeeeesh. You guys should do something about your boss, they sound like a picnic's worth of jerk sandwiches when it comes to minion treatment” Bowser complained, wondering what kind of idiot would just leave valuable minions who could actually get the job done behind like that.

Either way, it wasn’t like they could unionize down here, so for the time being they had to put up with these shoddy business practices.

Things did not exactly start out great, with the machine that was going to lead them to their extraction point climbing its way right up a wall. Fortunately Kamek and Rika didn't have any kind of problem with this, floating and grappling respectively, while Bowser attached his super bell in order to cat climb on up and finally, while he had a rough start, also Jr managed to to take the same rout as Kanna after the platform was put up.

After that Jr pushed on ahead along with the plantpot, with the prince only unable to turn this into a race because he had no idea where they were going, and had to keep the pace set by the 4 legged Molly.

As for the rest, well, now that the wonder effect was over they were back to where they had been before. Kamek was once again rather low on mana, Rika simply spent when it came to ammo, and Bowser was left burning through his remaining stamina to haul his heavy body through the tunnels. Still, they were at this point old hands at dealing with the threats they were facing, and so no bug nor bot could stand in their way.

The only new threat was turned to paste as well, with jr unloading his metal attacker’s cannon into it before the rest of the Troop even managed to see the thing. Then soon after they were at the goal, a towering metal machine with a big ol drill at the base. It was sat next to a foggy area which the troop recognized as the place where they had first met Barnaby. There was little time to reminisce about their fallen comrade however, as there was the larger issue of: ”Wait I need to get in there?!”

Indeed, there was a particular lack of space in the riding compartment, which along with Bowser’s own bulk problem, also prompted Jr to ask ”Wait… how am I gonna fit the tank in there?”

”Not to worry young master, I have a little potion left in the bottle, so to speak” Kamek replied, before requesting ”so if you step out and give me a moment” and then once the prince had done so casting his spell, shrinking down the fearsome war machine down to the size of a toy tractor, which positively delighted the prince.

With that solved, and with Bowser stripping himself of all his extra size (and making sure to point his spikes at the wall rather than at anyone else (and ensuring his son was doing the same)) they all just barely managed to squeeze inside.

Then they were off. Until they weren't. Rather than rest and a drink on the space rig the dwarves were off to, the seekers ended up getting off early and exploring a very unpleasant looking place.

”Galeem really did just pick all the nicest places to build it’s new world out of, didn't it?” Kamek complained. At least with Rika and her tail lamp they didn’t have to rely just on just the candles, though it did make the Troop rather stand out among the seekers.

This got them a nice initial introduction to the threats of the area, namely a desiccated old man riding on a floating chair and armed with a long spear who floated up to say hello. Using his spear. Which he thrust at a now foot slogging again Jr.

The prince yelped in alarm, but managed to bring up his rune covered right arm with which he formed a crude shield to catch the spear thrust just in time. In response Rika, currently wearing her ammoless gauntlets on her back (she had not had the space in their cramped ride necessary to refill them with bullets or spit respectively), cleanly stepped around the side of her brother’s guard and thrust her own spear forwards in retaliation. The thin point neatly pierced through the bishop’s eye, and into his brain.

”The nicest places” Kamek reiterated his criticism as the area as the foe disintegrated, before suggesting ”Things look clearer up here, shall we go have a look over there before going down to wherever that thing came from?” as he pointed over at the warden’s office on the far side of the upper floor, a suggestion which he found general agreement for.

Upon entering it, they found that the room was in disarray, as if violently ransacked apart by a larger-than-normal creature via primarily blunt force, including the desk, where the damaged remains of a book lay. The book's cover has been scratched at, and leaving the only legible part of its title as 'Midsummer'

There was also a safe locked by a 4 digit combination lock, a set of oxidized bronze keys hanging from the wall and two potted whispering roots, one of them seemingly growing out of the floor due to its pot being broken in several places. When one of Kamek’s wisps (that they were using for extra light) floated close to one of those plants, it started to glow and hum ever so softly.

That wasn’t the only strange and mystical thing about the room, for a few dreamlike motes were also wafting through the air, looking in appearance like ethereal glowing dreamcatchers, and they seemed to be especially concentrated around the book, even more so than the plants which had similar styling. Kamek, naturally, was curious as to why, and proceed to flip the book open, only to find, after a bit of skim reading, that it seemed to be a novelization of a very long, somewhat comedic play about a marriage set in ancient times, including multiple subplots spanning several sets of lovers.

”How strange” the mage said to himself, unsure as to why this book was of interest to whatever minor magical force was wafting around the room. He proceed to close it after making that assessment, just in time for Jr to wander over to show him a 6 inch tall statue carved out of whispering root that he had found on the floor, one depicting a figure with a satyr-like body and a horse’s head.

”Hmmm, I think that is from the book? Odd. Perhaps the warden of this place carved it after reading this?” Kamek noted, to which the prince simply shrugged and declared that ”Well it's mine now” before stashing it in his duffle bag.

”That. Very well” Kamek sighed, it was no as if there was anyone around to complain that wasn’t going to try and kill them anyway, or so he assumed. After pocketing the book because he also could, and doing a quick test to see if he could get the trees to do anything more (he could not) they left the room, taking both the keys and the entire safe with them (again because they could).

Outside the two koopas found Bowser and Rika standing next to a cell door that had an air of significance about it. Soft light coming out from under there, orange-pink, similar to the motes around the whispering roots, and the sound of muttering (not uncommon in this palace as it would turn out) along with the intermittent (and more unusual) sound of something scraping on wood.

The king had clearly tried to punch the door open, giving he was nursing bruised knuckles, and he and Rika seemed to be in the midst of debating whether to use a torpedo to try and blast their way in when Kamek and Jr arrived to stop them.

”Let’s not draw any more attention to ourselves, shall we?l” he suggested, before Jr let them know that ”Besides, we have keys!”

Unfortunately, the keys they had found were bronze, not silver, and so they failed to open the singularly silver lock on the door they had found themselves before, resulting in the prince complaining ”Yeah, of course it couldn’t be that easy!” and giving the door a useless kick.

”Now now, these ones must open something” Kamek reassured him, before pointing out ”Plus there was a spot for another set of keys in the room, so maybe they are somewhere else in the facility”

”We should probably radio in and let people know about that, and stuff you found, then? Right?” Rika suggested, which the others agreed was wise.

They returned to the center of the chamber where they could see down the various levels, and while doing so Kamek took on the duty of informing people about the missing silver keys, the door that required them, the safe they needed a code for, and, lastly, about the bronze keys they had found.

Should any of the other heroes have waited for them to check out the office, the mage would supply them one of the keys then and there. Otherwise the mage was willing and able to coordinate sending a toady, his propeller hatted mini-me magic minions, down a floor or two to deliver a key to anyone who had started their own descent.

As a result of both their investigation of the top floor, and their subsequent organizing of key delivery, the troop would be quite a bit behind any front runners. No doubt those on ahead would have cleared several floors before they even got started.

While a big monster that could occasionally hit hard, its telegraphed movements made it fairly easy to fight until it got low, but at that point everyone was able to ramp up their abilities and finish the poor chimera off. Knowing the whole system now with spirits, Roland grabbed the now fallen monster and crushed it during the helicopter ride to the Reunion meeting. For once he had some time to breath, at least until the next fight, so he could process what was going on.



"Well, this has been 'interesting' so far. " Roland said, seeing how much hes been able to dig into the Evercrisis situation since he 'joined' the Seekers. Although having his world turned upside down, then turned upside down again was still something he was getting used to. What really made him conflicted is that, compared to where he was from, this place was great, yet apparently from both the seekers and those others, the city was still bad. And needing some multiversal godlike entity to fix his world was something he was still... processing.

Blazermate took the time in the chopper to try to tune herself up a bit, with Susie seeing that and doing the work for her in a much, much faster timeframe out of something to let her relax after the constant fighting as well than any sort of charity. Out of everyone, Blazermate was the most relaxed with all the fighting. Still annoyed, but she was a robot made to fight, so she was much more used to this. And she figured that there would still be more fighting if they were heading to this Reunion.

Once they reached the rooftop where Reunion was, they found a Consul as well up here. While they couldn't figure out what was going on too much, with how Jena and Reunion were hostile towards the Consul, and the Consul using his mind control powers to take over Penance, Vigil, Hayato and Akira, well, things had spiced up quite a bit now. While Roland sighed as he got ready for another fight, Blazermate decided to try to take advantage of the situation since it was 3 factions all fighting here. "Hey Jena. This guy is the guy who controls Shinra. Take him out, and the city changes overnight. You see how he mind controlled Penance and the others." Blazermate said, making it clear that her group viewed the Consul as the much bigger threat as she went to do her healing and sentry making. Roland was a bit conflicted here, but decided to go with the seekers in this case as they seemed to know about what was going on way better than anyone else here.

Although Blazermate had no idea what a Consul was, so while she hoped they could at least make him retreat, they were an unknown. Even so, they'd have to attack them at some point... Susie hopped into her suit and stayed at range for now to figure out what was going on, using her ranged missiles like she did on the Consul once she got a grasp of what was going on. And finally, Roland got into the frey. He wasn't a fan of mind control or anything unsavory like that, but he also knew that dealing with someone who could do that would be a huge problem for everyone. Although could he control an Arbiter? the Seekers didn't know what that was of course, but he also only knew two of them, and one of them was working for Shinra so... it was up in the air. He'd have a greater concept of what was going on whenever he saw Binah, as much as he disliked the hag.

Thinking of the Library, Roland remembered when he started there on the Floor of General Works. And after his first clash with Penance to keep her off balance, he gained Scars, a womanly voice saying "The depth of a cut depends on the moment’s mind and willpower.", reducing some of the damage he took. Which would come in handy as every 5th hit he took was outright ignored, alongside him taking reduced damage from any attack in general.

Speaking of Penance, Blazermate saw that she had managed to disarm Sandalphon. Also she saw that the battlefield was fairly... small all things considered. So she had an easier time summoning purgatory ghosts as she moved around which zoomed around at the Consul and those he controlled at random, using Roland's diversion to grab the gunstaff and bring it back to Sandalphon as Susie took the attention of Vigil in her business suit. For now, Blazermate looked like she was just moving around making exploding ghosts come out of the ground, but how long it would take for the opponents to realize she was a healer was unknown. These guys were a lot smarter than things they've been fighting so far after all. They also had the distraction of the engineer and his sentry gun to deal with in this chaotic battle, so there was that.

As Susie was starting to get double teamed by Vigil and Akira, Roland came to deflect and clash with Vigil and his guns so Susie could handle Akira. After a clash with his sword and lance against Vigil's guns and followup melee strikes as he soon found Roland was very adept at deflecting his bullets with his varied weapons, Roland got to emotion level 2, and with it got Urging, with a mosnterus voice saying. "Join me in this feverish pulsation.", increasing his speed and health by a fair amount.

When Blazermate was eventually fired upon, she summoned her projectile shield to give herself and those she was fighting with some cover and pressure. While initially being hostile to Jena and her group, seeing the Consul in front of them, she would at least heal up Reunion as long as they were on the same side of the conflict. This could come back and bite them sure, but eliminating one side of the conflict first before dealing with the other was the smart play.

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



With their coordinated assault, the caretaker fell. And much like they did, the koopa clan scooped up the leftover spirits and went to town getting various bits of loot, with or without the symbol of avarice Sectonia held. Still, they left the big thing behind, the caretaker, which Sectonia took. it would be completely useless as anything but an item, and who would fuse with what was essentially a giant inverted immobile pyramid?



After the dwarves had hitched what they came for onto their four legged... molly, things started to get hectic again. With the troop taking the spoils as they had the inventory space for it, which Sectonia would have them divvy up later, she moved with the group, striking at the various glyphids that emerged from the wall. Eventually the group made it to the dwarves 'escape pod', a giant drill looking ship with tracks that let it ride up the wall. Those who couldn't fly were squished into the pod, but thankfully for her, Sectonia could fly and just follow the pod to their next stop instead of being subject to what was probably a foul smelling pod.

And with that pod, they found themselves at the part they were told of, The Mercy Dreams. A prison complex that gave off quite the creepy vibe. Even Sectonia was put off by the oppressive atmosphere. Something was watching them, or so it felt like, and getting spotted by the guards wouldn't end well or so it felt. So Sectonia did a bit of a smart play, being able to see reasonably well in the dark she sent out a single antillion to catch the attention of a guard and lure it away as she moved through the prison. Stealth wasn't her forte, she'd much rather destroy these things, but the air of the place made it seem like doing that with these things, at least while the boss was alive, would be a poor choice. She'd also offer a distraction antillion to anyone else who needed it to go through the prison, but she wasn't going to wait for the koopa clan to do their shenanigans in the office she found. Instead she decided to move forward a bit.

As much as this was a prison, it was also a dungeon. After getting a green antillion to distract an Illuminator, Sectonia moved past its now fading lantern light and soon after, one of Kamek's Toadies delivered her some bronze keys. While she wasn't a dungeon delver herself, as it was shown that neither her or Bowser could open these doors by force, perhaps these were sent as they were what was needed to open one. When there were no guards nearby, she looked at the various doors and the howling of all the various prisoners and decided to just open one to see what it would contain.

The first door she opened contained something she wasn't expecting, someone quite decent looking. but they had been driven mad by the atmosphere of the prison, and attacked as soon as the door was open and freedom lay before them. Secotnia didn't take it well when this crystalline looking knight attacked her with a giant battleaxe with Sectonia only barely able to reduce the damage from the sucker attack by giving a slight deflect with one of her own staffs but still taking some damage. Being as large as she was, Sectonia made it difficult just by her bulk for this knight to get past her beyond the initial push to get out of their cell, and Sectonia wasn't going to take being attacked lying down. Being in such a small area, her projectiles wouldn't miss and would be extra devastating as she used her honey staff to summon her lightning and clash with the axe of the other person. This caused her opponent to reel as the lightning hit them. Seeing this opportunity, and combining her lightning with her tesla coil lightning, she pushed Agate back into her cell and continued to roast the blade with her electrical attacks. She even threw some fireballs from her fire breath for good measure. Still, the blade wouldn't go down so easily, and attempted to fight through the lightning barrage by throwing their axe at Sectonia and doing some damage before the queen backed off the spinning axe before it returned to Agate's hand.

Still, Sectonia had dealt a significant amount of damage from her passive and active electrical attacks, and while Agate had managed to leave her cell again, she wasn't in a great spot with Sectonia using her rings of light to deal more damage and finish the blade off as they continued their desperate escape from the prison. While taking more damage than she would've liked to, Sectonia had felled this aggressor, and claimed their spirit as her prize. She did like the way this one looked, and it was feminine, but she'd only know what she got by fusing with it...



Well, she'd have to see what she looked like, but she felt smaller after fusing with this spirit. That and the extra arms were a bit... Well they'd take some getting used to. But at least this beautiful figure didn't make her look ugly, she felt like she was more radiant than ever. Although at this time that might be an issue potentially. She would see, still she had one more key to use and if the surge of power she felt off this first one was anything to go by, there were some strong people here.

Using her second key, she opened up another jailcell, finding another person, Nocturne. This one was... hollow looking but wasn't outright hostile like the other one. She also didn't look all that pretty or strong, so if she wasn't hostile, perhaps she'd make a new minion. Although minions would have to be strong to be worthwhile, but she has been proven wrong before on the whole 'strength' scale. "If you still have your wits about you, it would be best for you to come with me. Perhaps you can be of use to me and escape this place."

Stagnant air muddied with the whispery echoes of the imprisoned rattled and echoed within the Wolf Knight's helm, though he knew no fear the incoherent voices that mingled together within the darkened halls of the prison sent a shiver along Artorias’ spine.

Unnerved by the atmosphere of the prison Artorias held a tight grip upon Finstertöter in his sword hand, the knight tread as light as his step could upon the old stone floor each step unsettling a bit of dust. It was unmistakable, the sensation upon his skin of being watched or like many eyes were upon him that left Artorias on edge.

No jail could be so evil, so dark or as seemingly sinister as this one could be. The hunched pale creatures in their corners only made the knight feel pity at their sight. Forcing his gaze elsewhere he watched the putrid, and otherworldly figures below with a mixture of disdain and cautious curiosity.

Who would have such horrors stand guard over criminals than normal guards, and what crimes would justify the conditions these poor souls deep in the dark below suffered?



It was unnaturally cold, one could see their breath in the misty air. Shivering yet burning up at the same time, a figure huddled against the cool stone wall draped with a large coat over the threadbare rags that he wore.

Quiet as the dead the only noise that he made was the restless breath of a disturbed slumber. His face was shadowed by a mess of disheveled blonde hair that hid the cruel looking device around his mouth like a dog's muzzle. A cold sweat trickled down his temples, despite the cold his forehead was burning up and his cheeks though covered were rosy as if sick.

‘It's always the same…’ Osvald's eyes blinked open, bloodshot and shadowed by the bags underneath them that were a telltale sign of many hours of sleeplessness ‘The moment is burned into my mind as if it was yesterday.’ memories of a burning house filled his mind, feelings of anguish, despair and helplessness swirled until they solidified into the heat in his chest, anger as he remembered when his life came crashing down.

‘The only thing keeping me alive is you…’ slowly Osvald got to his hands and knees picking himself from the ice cold floor one hand after the other with the chain from the manacle around his neck scraping against it ‘...Harvey.’ he endured every passing moment, suffered at the hands of others and the one thing that kept him alive was the desire to kill the one who ruined his life.

Osvald's knuckles grew white relaxing when some kind of disruption came muffled through the wall of the jail cell, he tried to peer from the slot to his cell with eyes straining to make out the source of the commotion he heard suddenly from nearby.

The next course of action was decided. Naturally, Pit chose to go with those headed for Arahabaki. He'd decided as much immediately after talking with Luka. So long as they didn't get into too much trouble on the way there, the short break from battle would have Pit fighting fit again in no time. Plus the provisions Midna provided would help a lot.

When it was time to split up again, the angel waved the other two groups off. "Good luck!" he told Lili and Raz, hoping they'd find Lili's father safe and sound. Then Pit was off himself, along with Luka's group headed toward Midgar's heart.

The Shinra Building. Of course Pit had seen it before, it was impossible not to. It loomed over the city, visible from the highway the Seekers had partially rode in on from Gutsford and even the wilderness where they'd fought off the machine army. Seeing it this close, Pit pressed his face to the car window and strained to get a glimpse of the top of it. He couldn't, even after exiting the vehicle and going the rest of the way on foot.

The building's base - or rather, the huge high-tech wall that surrounded the building's base - was crawling with soldiers of all kinds. Pit spotted at least three or four different factions, and the sight of the sectopods made his eyes widen. They had to get through all of this! Fighting off all of these people... it might be possible, but it really seemed like a bad idea. Since they had to get through the gate, they'd have to go with another strategy. The group quickly came to the consensus that sneaking around the defense force seemed the most practical.

Luka pointed out some specific people among those in front of the gate, and though most were just as unfamiliar to Pit as almost everything else in Suoh, he squinted at them and tried to commit their faces to memory. The weirdly shaped man he wouldn't forget anytime soon, at least.

"He must be one of the people in on- everything?" Pit said. It was possible that most of Psych-OSF's leaders were, even the Septentrions they'd just fought.

Since the small crew of heroes couldn't well sit and wait much longer lest they lose any opening they had to get past the gate, they had to begin to move out, plotting their own courses to try and slip through undetected.

I'm not Snake, but I can do this! Pit thought to himself.

The actual fact of the matter was that stealth was not Pit's strong suit. However given the circumstances on both sides - the guard personnel weakened and distracted, and the Seekers motivated to get through but with little other options - he thought he could pull it off. He just had to... actually think about how to do it. Maybe he could cling to the underside of a truck? That was probably something a tactical espionage expert would do. Maybe single out a lone guard, beat him up and take his clothes? No, that's more trouble than it's worth. Hmm...

The simplest option was probably the best. Despite his lack of flight, with his wings Pit could scale the gate itself - or at least get up to one of the damaged parts and get through the same way something else had, while the repairmen were working in a different area. Yeah, that could work!

Since Midna had gone on ahead thanks to her shadow powers, Pit gave the remaining people a quick salute before they went their own ways, only a little jealous of the teleportation option. To give himself a little boost in confidence, Pit imagined his goddess' voice. Okay Pit. Commence sneaking mission... now!

Avoiding the drones and cameras was simple enough because of their spotlights. Stay out of that and he'd be out of sight to them. The guards themselves were tougher to avoid, what with so many of them and wider fields of view. Carefully, and with a patience that the angel rarely displayed, he snuck over to a sparser area. Once close enough to the gate it was time to go up. His wings were not like those of an owl, they couldn't cut completely soundlessly through the air. Neither were they very loud in the first place though, not when Pit wasn't working them hard, and it was doubtful that anyone would hear his wing beats over the sounds of shouted orders and machinery.

Sneaking around guards like this had a completely different vibe from hiding from a horrible monster; it was kind of exciting. Of course, being guided by Midna as she gave signals for which paths were more clear made things easier. He continued heading up in the damaged, darker area of the gate, searching for the crack in the wall or the pried open vent that would lead him through - lest he have to go all the way over the top of it, doing his utmost to avoid detection and regroup with his friends on the other side.

The combined forces of the Seekers proved to be more than enough to fell the Homunculus, with Karin delivering the fatal blow from on high boosted by a line from her grappling hook. With the threat defeated, they all took a moment to breathe, stretching and relaxing, thought it didn't last. Within a minute, Giovanna returned via cargobob, urging the group to climb aboard, even Penance and Vigil. Zenkichi and Geralt climbed aboard, the massive Witcher having to stoop extra low, though Goldlewis suffered similarly.

"It's a General Affairs reunion!" Zenkichi joked, though he wondered how Benedict was doing at the moment. Hopefully he wouldn't get caught up in everything that was happening, and just found a good place to lay low and keep his head down.

The flight over was a bit tense, not due to their company, but the situation. Geralt took the time to take mental stock of the situation. In as many days, he'd gone berserk twice and had seriously harmed Goldlewis. With Blazermate on the team, the physical damage had been healed, but he could tell that whatever trust the large man had held was gone. Not that he blamed him, from his perspective Geralt must have looked like a deranged berserker. Most of the people here, in fact, had never met him before his fusion with the Orphan's Spirit. Only Blazermate had. They'd met up with Karin and Susie shortly after defeating the Guardian, and the rest had joined the crew here in Midgar (though some of the other Seekers had met Goldlewis earlier from what he remembered). They didn't know just how different this was from his usual behavior, and his explanation was likely seen as either an excuse or with less concern than it likely ought to have been. And given Blazermate's go-with-the-flow nature...

Only Geralt understood just how disturbing this was. He was used to being in control of himself and his emotions, not the other way around. He wasn't as emotionless as he often claimed, but even at his angriest, he never recalled losing control like he had. What Goldlewis said about fusing with another Spirit might be right, though...he'd have to try to find something to make this work. For now, however, he just had to do his best to keep his head on straight.

As they began their descent, the extent of Reunion's attack on Neuron became clear. It was like there was an army down there, laying siege to the HQ. As the cargobob began its descent, they could see a few figures arguing. Jena and her lackeys were quite clear to them, and though Geralt didn't recognize the others, Zenkichi's mouth flattened as he recognized Yoseph, the other Consul that Happy Chaos had mentioned. "That's Yoseph, the other consul that Chaos guy mentioned." He pointed out for the others. "If he was right and they're all phenomenally powerful, we're in for a beating..." He grumbled. And then Jena seemed to transform, making his eyebrows shoot up. "That...is definitely not normal..." Zenkichi muttered upon seeing what she changed into. It...she's not aberrated but she definitely just transformed..." Safe to say, he was stumped.

Geralt leapt from the cargobob after Goldlewis, Quen already cast and protecting him, and Zenkichi awkwardly dropped out of the helicopter last, rolling poorly with the impact and quickly stumbling up to his feet, suppressing a groan of pain from his old body. Unfortunately, he wasn't really given a moment to let the ache disappear, as Y took the initiative to brainwash the Neuron officers, Penance, and Vigil to defend him while Jena and her bodyguards sprung into action. Goldlewis blocked the opening fire from Vigil, while Sandalphon found herself quickly disarmed by Penance, while Jena attacked Y with backup from Mephisto and Faust, the Howard twins moving to protect the Consul.

"Dammit!" Geralt grumbled as he drew the lightning katana he'd gotten from Monsoon, moving to protect Sandalphon alongside Roland, while Zenkichi summoned his greatsword and called out for Valjean.

"Rakukaja!" The Phantom Thief yelled, granting Sandalphon a defense boost for about a minute, before he ran in to get Vigil's attention. The battlefield got pretty hectic pretty quickly, with Susie trying to pull Vigil's attention onto herself while Blazermate retrieved Sandalphon's staff. When Vigil started attacking Susie in her mechsuit and Roland came round to cover her, Zenkichi broke off that fight and started moving for their real target, Consul Y. Jena being in the mix was a bonus, but these guys were bad news. "So...good to get confirmation you can only control the Gleaming." Zenkichi said as he approached carefully. "Because otherwise you could've just turned them on us." While he wasn't exactly expecting an answer, he would give Y a moment to respond before trying anything further.

Geralt, meanwhile, was working on whittling Penance down, with and without Roland. Her weapon being a flail made her a particularly annoying opponent, as it was effectively impossible to parry without risking his sword being yanked. Even with the lightning coating it, he didn't want to risk being disarmed as Sandalphon had. This resulted in him taking a lot of hits that he did his best to mitigate by dodging into, giving the chain less time to transfer momentum to the flail's head. He swiped at Penance's arms quite a bit, using the superior range granted by his size to his advantage. The Judge was proving to be one hell of an opponent though, and the Witcher found himself relieved when Blazermate returned Sandalphon's staff finally and he received a quick heal from the angelic figure, letting him refocus on offense.

By now, it seemed to be late afternoon, with the shadows of early evening beginning to stretch as the sun grew low in the west. At this point, it had been days since any of the Seekers who ventured into the Chasm had seen the sun or the sky, and for Ganondorf, it had been far, far longer. In the depths of the earth it was impossible to measure night or day by the passage of celestial bodies above, so losing track of time was all too easy, allowing hours, days, weeks, even years to run together like rain in the Home of Tears. How long had it been since Ganondorf had felt the sun’s warmth? Or filled his lungs with fresh air? The air here was crisp, and a little thin. To anyone with worldly knowledge, it would be obvious that this desolate place lay at high altitude. Probably somewhere within the immense mountain range beneath which the Under existed. Around the new arrivals stretched a rugged, rocky, uneven wasteland, dotted by countless ruins of what were once glorious cathedrals and church spires. These formerly splendid edifices, erected in fervent reverence, had been laid to waste by some manner of seismic activity. Now only sad, cracked, hollow husks remained, many bowed over as if in silent penitence. No straight roads connected them, and the twisted trees that eked out a living here clutched at the unyielding heavens with leafless, finger-like branches in desperate prayer.



And yet, something rather deific in appearance could be glimpsed on one of the lower peaks that ringed this ominous place. A huge, golden wheel, not unlike a giant coin emblazoned with a smiling face, hung in the air there. Even from this distance, a crowd of people could be seen gathered beneath it. Petitioners, maybe. They were not as much of a concern as the other wanderers in these wastes, if those wretches could even still be called people, and not shells possessed by inhuman zeal. These monsters included the Phalaris with javelins and bronze bull helmets, gruesome convicts wielding the same rocks with which they were stoned to death, beheaded shieldmaidens, and more. Most horrible were the guardainfantes, naked giants adorned with little girls in dresses, who carried as weapons the carcasses of deer.

The Gerudo King had to be careful. He could lose track of time from just standing here and drinking in the twilight skies and fresh, seemingly mountainous air. But they had somewhere they needed to be. Much as he wished he could take this opportunity to rid himself of the Under, that meant shying away from slaying the Guardian. He couldn’t do that, not if Ganondorf wanted to eventually take the fight to Galeem, anyway. Better to pick apart the being’s pets and followers in order to weaken and reduce his power before going in for the kill. If he remembered the black coated girl’s words correctly, then the Seekers needed to look for a place called Mercy Dreams. That probably meant looking for a route that leads back underground.

Ganondorf could spot a few landmarks dotting the area. They were mostly temples, or churches, probably in dilapidated ruin judging by the state of the nearest one he could see most clearly. But there was at least one that looked promising, a big one way off in the distance. Impossible to tell what state it was in from this far away, but at least it was a start. Ganondorf considered heading toward the giant golden wheel at first, thinking someone there could maybe provide information. But it was honestly hard to tell the difference between people and hostile monsters. And the last thing he was in the mood for was wading into what could be a horde of hostile enemies.

”There.” the Gerudo King said, pointing a finger in the direction of the largest cathedral looming in the distance, ”The smaller buildings are probably in ruin. And that one is big enough to be the most likely to have an entrance to the underground within it.” he reasoned. And after saying this, he took the lead and forged ahead. They had a ways to travel, and Ganondorf preferred not to be out in this rugged wasteland after dark. As such, he kept his conversations to a minimum in order to focus on keeping a good pace.

After they had gone a short distance, the Seekers found themselves accosted by two trios of stone-throwing Convicted. Jesse and Rubick were able to dispatch one trio easily enough. And as for the other one, Ganondorf needed only to summon his Moblin archers to shoot them down. So far so good, but Ganondorf wasn’t about to let himself become complicit. He had a feeling that was only the start, and things would get a little tougher the closer they got to their destination. At least that was always how it seemed to go, anyway. They continued and after a bit longer found themselves facing a headless woman wielding a sword and carrying a tall, massive tower shield that looked more like a giant slab of stone. But he stepped forward and drew his twin greatswords, prepared to deal with this enemy personally. The Shieldmaiden’s shield made it difficult to find an opening. But after trading a handful of attacks, Ganondorf parried one of her light slashes. He then crouched and spun himself into a leg sweep that managed to catch the creature by her legs. This sent her sprawling backward onto the ground, where she was also crushed under the weight of the heavy shield she had been wielding.

The next encounter some time later was against a pair of javelin wielding men with brass helmets shaped like ox heads. The Phalaris initially attacked by keeping their distance and throwing their javelins. But those were telegraphed and easily avoidable. Ganondorf drew his swords and charged forward, resulting in one of the Phalaris rolling out of the way while its compatriot had its head lopped off by a sweeping slash of the Gerudo King’s blades. Nearby, the moblins opened fire on the second Phalaris, distracting it long enough for Ganondorf to get close and impale it with both his swords, then he wound up a Warlock Punch and knocked the helmet and head of the enemy right off its shoulders. This was essentially how all battles went. Foes would approach, and Ganondorf would make short work of them usually with a hard hitting finisher. And those that he didn’t battle, were similarly dealt with by Jesse or Rubick.

As for the travel, Ganondorf was always trying to maintain a brisk pace. It was true that the Seekers were occasionally interrupted by attacking monsters, but overall they were able to make good enough time. And with the sun hanging low and just about gone, the Seekers would at least stand before the large cathedral they had been trekking toward.

”Hm, seems I was right about it being in ruins along with the rest of the buildings.” Ganondorf observed. The whole building looked aged and dilapidated. The stone brickwork looked grimy and cracked in places. And the mist that filled the area gave the place a feeling of dread and unwelcome. But the Gerudo King would not be deterred. He and Jesse had come this far, and there was no point in turning back now. There were a handful of staircases, some even leading downward into what Ganondorf assumed was the Under. But the last thing he needed was to pick the wrong route and end up in some place far away from his actual destination. And so this, he felt, wouldn’t be as simple as it seemed.

Not helping matters was the large numbers of… people - for lack of a better word - milling about around the cathedral. They looked so deathly and gaunt one would wonder if they could even be called people at all. But they didn’t appear to be the masters of this place. Instead, that role seemed to be fulfilled by other creatures. Men-like beings with octopus- or squid-like heads wrapped in what looked like robes made of tendrils or tentacles. They appeared to be the overseers, almost watching over the human-esque creatures like wardens lording over prisoners. And there was something else above all of that. Suspended by chains in one of the tall towers was a large… heart? It sort of resembled one, but it was difficult to say. But even from this distance, it was obviously a grotesque and disgusting thing to look at. Ganondorf could only imagine what someone like Sectonia would think when looking at it.

The chains the heart was suspended on looked like they connected to a series of mechanisms, the controls for which were probably scattered about in key locations, ”This gives me an idea…” Ganondorf mused to himself, then got to work. Since he wasn’t sure any of the staircases were a safe enough route to take, the Gerudo King would instead make a route of his own. And destroy that accursed-looking blight of a contraption while he was at it. And it wasn’t long before the denizens of this cathedral became aware of the intruding Seekers’ presence. When that happened the Prisoners set about to defend the area at the orders of their Mind Flayer masters. In fact several of the Prisoners started clumping together to form floating hordes with what looked like single glowing eyes that fired dangerous looking rays as a form of attack.

Ganondorf wasted no time, and immediately summoned both his Moblins and his Phantom Self as a means of bolstering his and Jesse’s numbers. The summoned minions went to work, with the Moblins managing to hold back approaching Prisoners while Phantom Ganon went to work against one of the Prisoner Hordes. Ganondorf himself soon became focused on engaging an approaching Mind Flayer, drawing his twin greatswords in preparation for battle. The Mind Flayer attempted to fire a soul ray that Ganondorf was able to side-step out of the way of. He then charged forward with his swords, but was caught by an unexpected electric attack that left the Gerudo King momentarily paralyzed. The Mind Flayer grabbed at Ganondorf with its tendrils, no doubt preparing some kind of deadly attack. But before it could execute that attack, tendrils became riddled with bullets fired from nearby. It was Jesse, using her Service Weapon to give Ganondorf enough time and cover fire to recover from the paralysis. And then the Gerudo King quickly impaled the Mind Flayer on both his blades before yanking them both out in a horizontal cross slash that left the creature dead on the ground, cleaved in two.

”My thanks.” said Ganondorf to Jesse, who was already turning her attention to providing cover fire elsewhere in the battle.

As for Ganondorf, he pressed forward, having and cleaving his way through swathes of Prisoners as he went. Eventually he came upon an old lever that he thought might be connected to that big heart. It was guarded by another Mind Flayer, but unlike the first time Ganondorf was now wary of the paralyzing electric attack and was able to avoid it this time around. Once he was in melee range, the Mind Flayer attempted a shockwave attack. This pushed Ganondorf back a few paces, but the towering Gerudo warrior would not be so easily overcome. He simply pushed forward using his immense strength and soon enough the Mind Flayer’s head was rolling on the floor. After that, he was able to force the level down. That caused a chain reaction in some of the chains, but it alone didn’t appear to get the job done, ”Then I guess I’ll just have to find another.”

Ganondorf fought his way down a corridor, this time having encountered many Prisoners and a single Prisoner Horde. The Prisoners may as well have been child’s play for him to deal with. But that Prisoner Horde kept firing its soul ray and preventing Ganondorf from finding an opening to approach it. So he enlisted some aid, and summoned one of his Strikers: Blast Hornet. The reploid took flight and used his aerial superiority to easily avoid the soul rays. He then came crashing down onto the Prisoner Horde with his Stringer Attack. It wasn’t a killshot, but it damaged the monster and kept its attention long enough for Ganondorf to come charging in with his swords. A few strokes later and the Prisoner Horde was reduced to a pile of bodies on the ground. Not long after Blast Hornet vanished, Ganondorf felt the rumble of mechanisms and could see some wavering in the chains suspending the big heart in the distance. Last he saw her, Jesse was providing cover for the Moblins. This was likely their doing, ”Good. Another one bites the dust, it seems.”

At last Ganondorf found another lever. It was guarded by two Prisoner Hordes and a Mind Flayer. Ganondorf was starting to grow tired of these games. He summoned Riptor and sent the dinosaur charging straight ahead. He then hurled his swords at the Prisoner Hordes before they could fire their soul rays. And Riptor herself was quite agile enough to dodge the single remaining ray that was fired by the Mind Flayer. Ganondorf himself was advancing immediately after, deciding that now was as good a time as any to unleash the Darkness he had been building up in his weapons. He leaped in the air and came crashing back to the ground with a Warlock Fist that unleashed an explosive wave that enveloped the two Prisoner Hordes and eviscerated them. Then he grabbed his swords and charged the Mind Flayer who was too distracted by Riptor to stop the Gerudo King from practically hacking it to pieces. Riptor vanished and Ganondorf then activated the lever.

Either that was enough or perhaps Jesse had pulled another lever elsewhere. Either way he looked up and Ganondorf could see the suspended chains giving way one after another. And in moments the big heart came crashing down from the tower. With a huge rumble and boom it impacted the ground and forcibly created a gaping pit that could serve as a suitable route back down into the Under. By this point there was too much chaos and the enemies in the area weren’t even trying to stop him. Instead many of the Prisoners were attempting to flee en masse, which would also keep the Mind Flayers busy.

Minutes later, Ganondorf was running toward the newly opened pit and made a giant leap right into it. He could even see Jesse doing the same from another angle. And while Jesse could use her levitation to slow her descent, Ganondorf had no such power. But he did have something else, and when he needed it the Phantom Familiar teleported directly to Ganondorf and he was able to grab hold of it from below it. As long he held on, the Phantom Familiar would glide him back down into the Under safely. And naturally Jesse was able to levitate herself down. And down they went. Further and further until they could no longer see any sign of the surface they had descended from. But soon they could spot it down below. From one prison, directly to another, the pair of Seekers eventually touched down and found themselves staring at the entrance to Mercy Dreams.

Ganondorf retrieved the linked pearl earring that he had been given by Primrose during their stay at Pizza Tower and he put it on his right ear. If he remembered right, he was supposed to squeeze the pearl to activate it, ”It’s Ganondorf and Jesse.” he said, sending a message to any of the Seekers who would be able to hear it, ”We were a bit detoured, but we made it to the Prison. Where is everyone?”

Nocturne ceased her movement as a key went into her prison’s lock and began to tumble. The door swung open and revealed her savior, as it were. Or perhaps it was her jailer? She had no way of knowing outside this initial reaction. It normally wouldn’t be something concerning as Nocturne did have a few, creative ways to escape, but there was something going on in this place. Some debilitating effect that felt like she was limited.

The hollow had her vacant, cloudy watch the winged figure carefully but curiously. It was clear that wherever she was, she wasn’t back in reality that she was familiar with. A creature like this couldn’t exist given the impracticalities of it all, namely those floating hands. Then again, magic did create many forms of monstrosities and this could have been one. Nothing was impossible and this might have even been a stabler form of the Tower that she could interact with. Physics would likely be broken if she had actually made it here…

“...Once there, now here. Caged, no more.”

Nocturne muttered as she took a few booted steps out into the hallway of the cell. Her humming calmed, quieting in its earlier intensity, but there was still a disharmony in her quiet melody. She paused to add as her head turned to watch Queen Sectonia.

“You lead…” Nocturne pointed at the Queen before pointing at herself, “...I follow.”

---

Karin didn’t mean to steal any limelight, but her relatively tiny fists weren’t good for much other than capitalizing on weak points that she created with brute force, or that her teammates provided for her. ”Ah. Splendid. Another easy victory for the Seekers.” Karin clapped her hands together quietly.

When Giovanna showed up and invited them to pursue Jena, Karin cast a reluctant look over her shoulder at Quarantine Valley. Neuron was to be handling this, yes? That was the plan. In that case it made sense, she supposed, to go where the Seekers could do the most good by eliminating the most evil. Even with all her skill, she was only one woman, and the Seekers seemed to want to pursue their foe.

It didn’t quite sit right with her, even if she could easily rationalize the decision. Though she knew if Sakura was here, she would follow her heart without question. Karin stepped onto the nostalgic craft and followed the rest of the Seekers to their destination.
It was a two-for-one special. Neuron and Reunion tyrants, all worthy of a proper thrashing. Their allies had been turned against them, however, revealing the presence of a Consul member among them. Even better!

”Next time let’s abandon anyone who hasn’t been Friend Hearted, shall we?! They tend to be more trouble than they’re worth!” Karin shouted, rushing to Geralt’s side to help him deal with the powerful Penance. She had a shield that was protecting her, and it would extract its tax in blood and pain before it was broken.

Karin did her part, suffering the recoil damage and striking the shield with her palms and legs, and then jumping and dashing backward to try and avoid as much damage from Penance as possible. When Geralt took the lead again, Karin fired her grappling hook to a nearby metal plating on the railing and wrenched it free, pulling it towards her and then flinging it towards Penance in a single smooth motion.

Sakura was excited. It was time for a dangerous mission into the heart of the city to find the Guardian. Finally, the Seekers had waded through all the muck and confusion and had cleared the way to get to the big bad at the center of it all! No way Sakura would miss out on this.

Her agility and dexterity more than permitted it, but stealth wasn’t exactly her forte. Still, with Mental Connection and Teleport, she was a nimble and agile sneaky little Street Fighter. As long as she didn’t get too close to any guards so they could hear her footsteps.

A lot of these people she recognized. They were once her allies in the tunnels, but they would no doubt turn on her because of their orders just like the others. If only she could just waltz up to them!

”Stupid face, plastered all over the city…why am I even wearing this crummy uniform if it isn’t even a disguise?!” She muttered to herself. Though she looked down at her cool cropped body armor and combat boots, and tilted her head with acknowledgement. It was pretty cool. But she was going to change out of it again soon enough.

Teleporting was loud, as Luka demonstrated. Sakura used Teleport and Mental Connection to keep up with Luka, mostly following in his footsteps given their similar ability. She hopped from building to building, staying in a low crouch. She didn’t want to risk any close contact with the defenders and preferred to stay as far away as possible. Eventually Sakura found her way to the gate. She scaled its height with a hop and grabbed onto the edge, peaking over and scanning the area on the other side. Seeing some crates and some rubble to hide behind, and seeing how far away everyone was, she teleported to that spot and officially made it to the other side of the checkpoint.

”Hoooaah…watchaa…” Sakura made quiet, sneaky ninja noises to herself under her breathe proud of her stealthy accomplishment. She would follow the general direction of the Seekers, coordinating with Luka using Brain Talk to make sure the team didn’t get too separated.

When Consul Y ended negotiations by seizing control of all gleaming fighters present, it became clear that the time for talking was over. That suited Jena just fine; she’d heard enough out of her old nemesis already, and wasn’t in the mood to listen, whether to him or Blazermate. As the fight began, she sprang forward and barreled toward Y, leaving Mephisto and Faust to take supportive rolls. In response, the Howard twins leapt to the Consul’s defense. Akira’s Arrow Legion, outfitted with black armor just like its legionis and sporting a bright red core, unleashed a flurry of projectiles from its dual bow-arms. Jena put up her arm as she ran in, manifesting a chimeric shield wreathed in purple to soak the bolts until her own archer got Akira’s attention with a crossbow bolt that knocked her flat on her back. As the Arrow Legion turned to help Akira up, Hayato moved to clash with Jena in his sister’s place.

He threw himself into Jena’s shield with a flying kick, then cartwheeled backward away from her retaliatory slash. His Sword Legion rushed in with a double slash that drew blood, putting Jena on the defensive as she blocked slice after slice with her lance. When the Sword Legion performed a hurricane slash, she went low and pierced the ground, creating a purple rupture. The next second a spike of astral matter burst upward to hit the Legion from below, launching it into the air. Jena smashed through the crystal shield-first and into Hayato, knocking him back, but when she brought her lance forward in a thrust Hayato capitalized on the split second he had. He dismissed and then instantly recalled his Sword Legion in front of him, executing a Perfect Summon that threw Jena off and left her wide open. There was a blue flash, and he followed up with a Sync Attack, sending his Legion across the ground splayed out like a starfish and spinning to grind into his enemy from below.

Jena’s teammates moved to help her, so Akira went to back up her brother, too. At that moment, though, the sight of missiles coming in from Susie got Y’s attention. “Here!” Akira wheeled around to help, taking aim with her blaster alongside her Arrow Legion to mow the missiles down with a barrage of laser bolts. From there she stood ready to continue defending the Consul.

At the same time, the party had really gotten started for the Seekers. As Sandalphon stumbled toward Penance, Roland acted fast to save the archangel by intercepting the Judge’s follow-up attack. Blades metal flail in a furious clash of metal, pushing both apart. The trade powered Roland up, but with more foes on the way, Penance acted fast. In the moment that Zenkichi used Valjean to bolster Sandalphon’s defense, the Judge unleashed Last Word. Her empowered flail smash didn’t just hammer Roland for 200% damage, but also stunned him for five whole seconds, leaving her free to trade blows with the Witcher. Shielded by Guardian of the Law and Quen respectively, she and Geralt whaled on one another’s barriers, but Penance had one trick up her sleeve that her opponent didn’t. Whenever he struck her Arts barrier, it reacted with a burst of thorny lashes to deliver an attack equal to half a swing from her flail in damage. Her barrier also boasted much greater durability, more than half her own max health in fact, so Quen was gone long before Geralt could take Penance’s shield. Despite his greater stopping power and his efforts to mitigate the blows from her swings, he found himself losing the war of attrition. That was where Karin lent him a hand with her martial prowess, joining in to whittle down Penance’s barrier and distribute the recoil from Wreathed in Thorns. Together they destroyed her shield, putting the Judge on the back foot–until she spent a chunk of SP on Trial of Thorns. A new spiky golden barrier flailed to life around her, this one worth 130% of her max health, and reinstating Wreathed in Thorns. It also boosted her rather low attack by 400%, her attack speed by a little bit, and her inherent threat, turning the Judge from a thorny roadblock to terrifying powerhouse.

Vigil proved no less formidable. The minute Susie got him off Goldlewis’ case, he rounded on her with guns blazing. Still not used to her personal shield, she brought up the arms of her Business Suit to protect herself when Vigil shot at her head, and in the brief moment that bought him Vigil activated Leader of the Wolfpack. Two Wolf Shadows appeared on Susie’s position to Block her, both striking in quick succession every second or so. Their bites might be weak, but Susie couldn’t effectively reposition or attack anything else while Blocked, and that wasn’t all. Thanks to Vigil’s Wolven Nature, both him and his Wolf Shadows penetrated a huge amount of defense for anyone his Wolfpack blocked, and every thirty seconds a new Wolf Shadow would appear–even if there weren’t any left. By the time Roland recovered from his stun and came over to help Susie, both Vigil and Akira were ventilating her Business Suit without a care in the world.

Thanks to her allies, Blazermate in particular, Sandalphon managed to recover her gunstaff, which she accepted with a curt nod. If the archangel was mollified by getting disarmed, tugged around, and almost pancaked by Penance, she hid her indignity well. She escaped from the fighting unscathed and took a quick look around, clearing her throat. Penance seemed to be weathering the assault of both Karin and Geralt at the same time, which was no easy feat. Having used only his revolvers until now, Vigil had torn open his bag of tricks in order to shoot up Susie and Roland. On the other side of the brawl, Hayato was holding off all three Reunion fighters at once, while Akira was shooting from a defensive position near the Consul. Everyone needed a hand, and out of everyone present, only Sandalphon could actually help them all.

“Angelic Wings,” she proclaimed, lifting up her staff. Angular streaks of radiant blue light surrounded her, emanating from her staff and encircling the ground around her like embroidered threads. Four curved screens appeared around her, spinning in a ring, before launching outward in a divine pulse. Geralt, Karin, Susie, Roland, Giovanna, and Goldlewis all received a massive heal for over 100% of their max health, fully restoring them all. With Sandalphon in Concentration protocol, her powerful skill did not provide her teammates any extra benefit, but it charged her a certain resource of her own by a third.

That boost was just what Goldlewis and Giovanna needed to get back into the fight. Given the sheer threat exuded by Penance, the veteran understood that his team couldn’t make progress as long as she still stood. “Sorry ma’am,” he rumbled, running toward the melee. “But you gotta go!” He jumped, then burst forward with an airdash to land on Penance with a barrage of alien swipes. Pushing through the pain from Wreathed in Thorns, he canceled that into a downward Behemoth Typhoon that caused a ground bounce that an ally could follow up on. Penance rose quickly, and after landing Goldlewis joined Geralt and Karin in their assault, three on one. If the Witcher wanted to prove he wasn’t a liability to those around him, this was his chance. Together they finally began to overwhelm the stalwart defender. Two enemies Penance could withstand, but three was pushing it, especially with opponents of this caliber. That left no other options. The Judge reeled in her flail, then held her book high, surrounding herself in the golden light of Stoic Atonement. Protected by 60% damage reduction, she began to emanate ripples of thorns around her, each one dealing magic damage to any opponent they hit on the ground.

“Gah!” Goldlewis spat, recoiling from the painful wave of briars that bit into his legs like bestial fangs. When another wave rolled out the next moment, cutting into both his pants and the flesh beneath them, he grit his teeth. “We’re in trouble!” Taking a gamble, he performed a shorthop over the next wave and landed with another Behemoth Typhoon that struck Penance head on. Her poise withstood it, steeled by superhuman endurance, but she did flinch beneath the blow, a look of strain on her face. “But not helpless!” If they stood and fought normally Stoic Atonement might very well be a death sentence, but he’d found a way around it, risky though it was. The fight had become a dangerous game, and for the next twenty seconds or so, it was up to him, Geralt, and Karin to overturn the Judge’s ruling.

At the same time, Giovanna dashed in to help Susie and Roland against Vigil. Once the Turk got Urging and made it clear he wouldn’t just be eating bullets for breakfast, the well-dressed gunslinger sent his Wolfpack after Roland instead. From there had been able to flee from both foes consistently, keeping them at bay with his trusty revolvers. When he used Packleader’s Gift, his Wolf Shadows gained one instance of boosted damage plus lifesteal, and Packleader’s Dignity gave them three attacks for the price of one. But the secret agent’s sudden arrival threw a wrench in the works. “Need a hand, Roland?” With Rei at her back, Giovanna darted into the fight with blistering speed and took Vigil by surprise with Trovão. The flying kick knocked him down, and as he rolled to his feet he knew he couldn’t afford to let his foes pin him down.

“Sic ‘em!” He growled, using Packleader’s Call. A new Wolf Shadow manifested and lunged toward Giovanna, a streak of gnashing black.

The secret agent hunkered down to block, putting her under duress as she sustained chip damage from both blazing guns and flashing fangs. When Susie got Vigil’s attention, Gio took her turn back with a spectacular high kick that struck the Wolf Shadow below the jaw, and as it flew into the air Rei gave it a taste of its own medicine with a lunge of her own. The two ethereal wolves fought savagely, thrashing in the air and rolling on the ground, at times little more than green lightning and pitch-black fury. Giovanna broke off from her spirit animal and closed in to help Roland with Vigil himself. She slid in with a knee thrust, then combo’d with a punch into Sepultura, kicking with her leg in lieu of Rei. From there, it was up to Roland. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Meanwhile, Zenkichi had reached the other side of the fight. Having left Susie to Vigil, Akira had brought her Arrow Legion close to let loose well-aimed charged shots at Blazermate, forcing the Medabot to stop summoning ghosts and start spending her Projectile Shield. Hayato still fought Jena, his entire arsenal of legions brought to bear against Reunion’s leader, but Mephisto’s shots kept interrupting him, and Faust happily healed whatever damage the legionis did to Jena with a tap of his cane. Neither Jena nor Mephisto would let him go after Faust, either. That meant that for a brief moment, Zenkichi and the Consul were face to face.

Y turned toward him, his sneer imperceptible beneath his helmet but imparting a scoff to his voice. “It’s true, you’re quite unmanageable.” Y held up his hands to his chest, one curved above his purple core and the other below. “Fortunately, I have other uses for you.” Suddenly the core started to glow, and around it appeared a conical purple vortex of pure sucking power, as big as Y himself. With fearsome strength, the vortex began to pull Zenkichi in.



Despite his very useful power, Luka was no less tense than his allied Seekers when it came to the task set for him, and he wasn’t about to take it any less seriously. For a few more moments he continued to scope out the security checkpoint, trying to get a feel for which guards were patrolling and where, as well as checking and rechecking the cameras, turrets, and spotlights in the fading light. On a clear day the sunset would’ve illuminated the scene well enough, but today the stormy skies offered only a dying flicker of dusky orange over the western mountains, and an infiltration under the cover of night meant that nobody could bumble around. Neither could he afford to make any mistakes and compromise his team, which included overuse of his power. Teleportation wasn’t a common ability after all, and with the OSF soldiers stationed here, it was by no means impossible that one might recognize him just from the sound of his power going off.

Luckily, being little had its advantages. Small and fast, Luka could hide in places the others couldn’t, and his dark attire -especially with his good up- helped him blend into the plentiful shadows. He couldn’t literally fade into them like Midna could, making recklessness her only real risk, but he wasn’t that far behind. Luka even went as far as to temporarily disconnect from SAS, which caused the orange Vision cables that ran across his outfit to fade away. Alternating between bursts of speed and stretches of patient waiting, Luka made his way through the area with a couple close calls, but no incidents. That brought him close to the front gate, where he lingered, considering how to get through this final stretch and make it inside. There weren’t any entrances with low activity, since those were closed. From his hiding spot he spotted Pit entering a vent, and gave a nod of approval. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t get up there without teleporting, and if anyone looked up at the sound he’d be a sitting duck.

After a few more seconds, he noticed a patrol that would pass within inches of him in about thirty seconds. Luka took a deep breath; it was now or never. Going with the best idea he had, he borrowed Yuito’s Psychokinesis to levitate a bit of debris and throw it against the wall. The noise got the attention of one of the two sentries by his chosen entrance, who shared a glance with her partner and then sauntered over to look. Poking his head out from behind the wastebin, Luka waited until the remaining sentry looked away, then teleported. As long as he had line of sight and could confirm an arrival point, the distance didn’t matter, after all. He warped through the open door and to the far side of the foyer.

In truth it was more of a garage mixed with a warehouse, loaded with various materials, vehicles, and military hardware. Possibly the Sector 05 muster station for Public Security, or a parking garage for Shinra Power Company employees. Without missing a beat he ducked between a couple vehicles. In here, there were plenty of spots to hide and no patrols, just workers not paying too much attention, so as long as he kept a low profile there wouldn’t be much trouble. As it happened, a low profile was the only one he had.

A couple minutes later, the Seekers gathered together. Tense as the infiltration had been, they’d made it inside, so now it was time to go deeper. Hastened by the threat of discovery at any time, they moved from the station to the transport hub just beyond it. A number of routes seemed to lead to various destinations from this room, including two sets of stairs up to a secondary security checkpoint for the Shinra Building itself, a downward staircase between them that led to a large and ominous-looking lift, and a few other doors. A contingent of soldiers was just heading toward a stairwell marked ‘Seiran Access’. Given Karen’s city-wide announcement, it made sense to send extra security that way. Once they all left, Luka and the others could proceed toward the lift. Judging by its position, it couldn’t possibly go upward, so that plus its lack of label made it a prime candidate. Before running over, though, Luka noticed the odd set double doors on the right side of the hub. While the rest of this place seemed almost brutalistic in its stark, functional appearance, those doors were decked out in bright colors, and above them was a label spelled out in large capital letters, pale yellow-green with darker green dots: Daycare.

“Daycare?” Luka whispered. “Why would this place have a daycare? Who’s bringing their children past a security checkpoint?” Spurred on by a mixture of curiosity and dread, Luka headed for those doors instead. On the other side lay a wide hallway with an arched roof, with a matching set of double doors on the other side. Once Luka jogged down the corridor and pushed the door ajar, he could see exactly what the Day Care was.



Before him stood a very large room shaped like a square donut, with high ceilings that reminded Luka of a gym despite its somewhat alien appearance. Its look wasn’t anywhere near as strange as what was happening in it, though. The ‘donut’ featured two tracks separated by a central channel, and along those tracks were a number of people on ordinary bicycles. Though mostly human, these riders came in all shapes and sizes, most featuring a handful of inhuman or animalistic features like ears, tails, horns, et cetera. Clad in black and red sports attire, they were just…peddling around. Every one of those bikes, however, had a basket on the front laden with eggs, very pale green with darker green spots just like the sign over the doors. After stepping inside to confirm the truth of his eyes, Luka just stood there for a couple moments, baffled. “What are…why are they doing this?”

He gradually turned his attention toward the structure in the center of the ‘donut’. Though it had several windows and no doors in its entry, he couldn’t see very much from this angle. Mostly just glass walls, hazy -or dirty- enough to reflect the light in such a way that he couldn’t really see through it. Luka did see one thing, though. It was a line of ordinary people in nondescript white shorts and tank tops, some of them teenagers or even younger. Some of them held little orbs, of various colors, the majority half red and half white. As he watched, the central chamber suddenly filled with prismatic light. It shone for a moment, then died down, and after another couple seconds the line advanced.



Once she confirmed that the high-pitched, all-too-familiar voice in the distance wasn’t just her weary mind playing tricks on her, Nadia’s mission was clear in her mind. Her first instinct was to vault over the wrought-iron railing before her and plummet down into the depths of the dungeon itself, single-mindedly rushing forward and taking all comers until her best friend was safe and sound. After all, this eerie penitentiary layout meant that she could leap straight into the belly of the beast if desired, a tempting prospect given her love for dramatic entrances. And what situation demanded drama like a daring rescue? For once, however, Nadia decided not to be reckless. While she and the others had run roughshod over plenty of dangerous places so far, every fiber of her being told her that this morbid, uncanny prison wasn’t a place she could take lightly. Not this time. Her instincts told her that Mercy Dreams had some sort of strange intention to it, and though she couldn’t fathom what it might be, she knew in her gut that it was best left undisturbed. As a paper butterfly took flight nearby, Nadia released her tense grip on the iron fence and stepped away. If she wasn’t going to jump, it was past time she found another way down.

Nadia and the others split up, separating under the tacit assumption that nobody was to make a scene if they could help it. With how quickly the feral scampered around, and how undefended Mercy Dreams’ uppermost level. seemed to be, it wasn’t long before the girl and her dog found the intended way down to the second layer on the left side. Using it was another matter, though. The access route took the form of a stairway corridor, and both landings featured their own sturdy metal portcullis. Sliding to a stop on all fours, Nadia stood and laid one hand on a metal slat as she turned to look around. She found the mechanism not in the form of a lever on the floor or wall, but suspended from the ceiling up near the pulleys that controlled the gate. It was an assembly of gears all contained inside a large glass jar, and she could see what appeared to be a weight resting on the jar’s bottom with rope coiled atop it. Going with the obvious solution, Nadia stepped back and raised one fist extended like a rifle as she closed one eye and squinted the other. A brief moment of blood pressurization later, she fired off her fist and smashed the fragile glass with one punch. She flinched at the sound of shattering glass as it broke apart and hit the floor, tensed up in case any prison denizens noticed, but nobody seemed to. Instead the counterweight dropped, and as it fell the gate rose. Once she felt sure no enemies would be coming to corner her in this narrow corridor, she and Chucho raced down the stairs to the gate at the bottom.

This would be slightly more complicated, as there seemed to be no way to open the gate from this side. She couldn’t see another switch jar either, though she suspected one must be close by. “Weird system,” she muttered. Maybe this double gate system forced mutual agreement between parties on both sides of the stairs for anyone to get through? She scratched at a metal slat with her claws, but it wouldn’t yield. “Watt about this?” When she tried to bolt through with a Charge, it ended with her head slamming into the steel bars. “Ow, right. Lightning likes metal. Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat.” Nadia stuck one arm through the lattice and detached it, letting it fall to the floor. Then she took her head off with the other, squeezed it through the biggest space available, and dropped it as well. “Oof!” From there, she grabbed her head with the fallen arm and moved it around until she spotted the switch jar around the corner. “Bingo. Nothin’s safe from me as long as I use my…head!” With that she hurled her head like a volleyball and struck the jar with her mechanism, shattering it to open the gate wide and let her body through.

“Rrrrruh!?” Nadia’s smug satisfaction evaporated like morning dew as she heard a questioning snarl just down the corridor, far too close for comfort. Rather than snatch up her arm and head, she allowed the rest of her to fall to pieces, eking out blood to give the illusion of a freshly-dismembered corpse. Right on time, the guard she alerted arrived. Watching through barely-cracked eyes, Nadia beheld something that looked like a man, but clearly wasn’t all there. Though muscular, his bloodied, half-naked body exhibited signs of atrophy, and he lurched around with unnatural vigor. The heavy, gasping breath that issued from his scarlet headwrap suggested the presence of fluid in his lungs, and the motes of sunset red within it seemed more like sparks than eyes. In both hands he held bloody scourges. After he staggered to a stop, another flagellant came into view, followed in turn by a Spear of the Cathedra atop his floating chair, clad in flowing red. After a moment, the flagellant determined that not enough blood had been spilled and grunted, lashing Nadia’s torso across the belly. The intensity of that pain brought tears to Nadia’s eyes, her teeth and eyes clenched as she fought to give no signs of life. By that point the Spear and his other attendant had turned to resume their patrol, and after seeing blood trickle onto the ground the first flagellant gave a satisfied purr and turned to go.

When she heard its steps receding, Nadia cracked one eye open, then extended sinews from her body parts to connect them back together. Once whole, she stalked after her attacker into the dimly-lit hall, drawing Athame. The flagellant didn’t know what hit him. As one arm locked around his throat from behind to cut off his air throw, the other drove the dagger into his back, eliciting a guttural, breathless wheeze. To the feral’s surprise, however, he continued to struggle violently, not slowing down even when she stabbed him two more times. “The hell?” she hissed. This thing wasn’t human–not even close. When he managed to reach around and grab her by the ear, panic spurred her to resort to desperate measures. She released him and jammed the knife into the undead monster’s head, then delivered a heavy cross slash to his back with her claws. Finally the flagellant slumped down, but as he fell, the sound of his body slamming against the floor got the attention of the other one. With no time to grab her head, Nadia sprang into the air and sunk her claws into the ceiling, hiding in the darkness. When the second flagellant came to investigate, the feral waited until the right moment when he was standing over his comrade’s dissolving corpse. Then her head burst forward on a jet of blood from her neck, knocking one of the flagellant’s legs out from under him. As he teetered forward, Nadia’s body dropped onto him from above to take him face-first to the ground. This time, she knew she couldn’t be lenient. Pinning him beneath her, she revved up both arms like drills, thrust them into the monster’s sides, and brought them together until the flagellant had been halved.

That took long enough and made enough noise to alert the Spear of the Cathedra, who turned with a wordless cry to hover Nadia’s way. With his lackeys gone, however, the feral felt more confident. “Careful,” she said darkly, spinning her arm drills down. “This isn’t a bit.” As she rose she shot out one hand to grasp Athame’s handle, and as she took off running she yanked it free. As the two approached one another, Nadia threw her dagger, only for it to sail past the Spear’s shoulder and off down the hallway. Groaning, the feral went low, avoiding the old man’s thrust with a Cat Slide beneath his floating throne. After getting behind him, she jumped up and delivered a drop kick to the back of the cathedra in an attempt to knock him out of it and onto the floor. Instead she heard a crack as she flipped away and hit a three-point landing. When the Spear turned toward her, she was horrified to see his spine somehow fused with the cracked back of his chair, and the same nightmarish sparks in the sockets of his eyes. With a hollow cry he jabbed at her repeatedly, drawing blood with the first and then forcing her to block until she timed an evasive roll away. The Spear advanced on her turned back, but Nadia looked over her shoulder with narrowed eyes, hardening and then bloodily launching her tails. They flew up and sank into the Spear’s body, staggering him long enough for her to flip over and fired off a maximum-power Fiber Upper. Her spring-loaded double kick struck the monster in the chest and snapped his cathedra’s back, sending both it -and the Spear- flying off. Immediately the throne went up in flames, and the Spear dissolved right after.

Nadia stood slowly, taking a deep breath. Chucho caught up to her with a whimper, looking a bit nervous. Those enemies hadn’t been too hard, but their unnatural constitution demanded a sort of ruthlessness from her that even she found a little scary. “I’m a thief, not a fur-eakin’ assassin,” she muttered to herself as she went to collect her tails. Finding Athame took a little longer, but she stumbled across it about halfway down the second layer cell block. She slid it into her belt, stood, and found herself standing before a strange cell. Its lock was broken, so instead it was boarded over from the outside, and unlike most of the doors this one had a barred window. Inside, Nadia could see a large chest wrapped in chains, just begging to be open. Normally she would’ve been all over it, but right now, even treasure could wait. “Minette?” Nadia dared to raise her voice slightly, hoping her misadventures had brought her closer to her imprisoned friend.

“Nadia? Where are you?”

At the voice, Nadia whirled around, looking back the way she came. For a fleeting moment, she thought she saw the visage of a teenage Dagonian girl in an apron and seashells, silhouetted against the weak glow of candles in the gloom. Nadia’s ears flattened in alarm as she blinked rapidly, trying to see more clearly, but just like that the apparition had vanished so suddenly and completely that she couldn’t be sure it had ever been there to begin with. “Minette!?”

“I’m here, Nadia!” Now that she was facing the source of the voice, the feral could tell that it wasn’t nearby. Closer than before, but still not close. Maybe one layer further down. But then…what was that shadow? Was she just seeing things? Once again, the sound of her friend’s voice roused her to action. “Please, hurry!”

Nadia did. The second layer had a couple more patrols, but she avoided them, sticking to the shadows and zipping past with a Charge when necessary. Chucho helped a lot, alerting her to enemies and illuminating alternate paths. Nadia could hear fighting from elsewhere in Mercy Dreams. Were the other Seekers facing demons of their own? When the cat burglar found another barred staircase, she smashed the upper switch jar like before, then raced down the steps. This time she didn’t plan to screw around, so when she reached the bottom, she conjured a copycat that could simply pass through the portcullis like the glorified water she was. As the copycat went to smash the switch jar, Nadia heard a magical noise from the right, and a ray of brilliant green light blazed in from a blind spot to splatter the copycat against the wall. “Mew gotta be kitten me.” Wrinkling her nose, she looked over through the bars to see a Mind Flayer shuffling into view. Though clothed for the most part in a ratty robe like a burlap sack, the head of the cephalopod monstrosity looked just as bad as it smelled. “Urk, what nyeow?” She crouched down, her claws sharpened despite the separating barrier. “You want a copiece of me?”

In reply the mind flayer lifted its bell and unleashed a wad of magical electricity. It flew through the gate, and Nadia’s eyebrows shot up. “Hey, that’s not-!” Then the spell struck her, paralyzing her in a wreath of eldritch green lightning. “Gya-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!” While she struggled, the jailer grasped the bars of the gate and extended its tentacles to grab her. Barking, Chucho grabbed his owner by the arm and pulled her over backward. The impact with the stairs barely registered; Nadia was just glad her pooch saved her from that grab. Gurgling, the mindflayer gnashed its beak and thrashed its tentacles until the spell wore off. Then, as Nadia rose, it lifted its bell to cast again. “Alright already, no need to spell it out for me!” the feral yowled. As she fled back up the stairs, another Soul Ray went off where she’d been a moment prior. Hounded by its awful gurgles, she didn’t stop or even look back until she reached the second layer.

Once there she sat down for a moment, panting as she pet her softly-glowing Polterpup in the dark. “Okay. That guy’s clearly no octopushover. Gotta find another way…” Her eyes landed on the perimeter fence that ringed Mercy Dreams’ central space. Jumping to the bottom was out of the question, but maybe she could abuse this layout in another way. Nadia made her way to the railing. “After all, I’ve got a good head on my shoulders…or off them, for that matter.” She carefully lifted off her head, still connected by a length of muscle fibers, then dangled it over the edge and began to let out the slack. She extruded more and more to lower her head down to the third layer, allowing her to see the mind flayer upside-down as it guarded the staircase. After confirming its location, she reeled her head back in, then grabbed onto and vaulted over the fence to lower the rest of her down the same way–by extending the lengths of tissue connecting her hands. Eventually she reached the bottom, it being built out slightly farther than the layer above, and gently touched down so as to not alert the watchful sentry. Once in the clear, she let go with her hands, reeled them back in, and scampered off down the hallway with Chucho right behind. By the time the mind flayer looked over, she was gone.

After getting a safe distance away, the feral tentatively raised her voice again. “Minette? Are you there?”

“This way!” Her friend’s voice was low, urgent, and close.

Nadia homed in, pausing only to hide in the shadows from a passing mind flayer. Lucky that they were carrying bells and not lanterns. If the atmosphere in Mercy Dreams had been bad in the first layer, it was much more pleasant halfway down, and promised to get even worse closer to the bottom. She called out a couple more times as she went, and soon, Minette’s voice wasn’t from somewhere in front of her, but from the cell right beside her. Nadia took a deep breath. “Minette. I’m here.”

“Nadia! Oh, thank goodness!” Though she whispered to avoid being heard, the fishgirl’s voice was wracked with emotion. “I c-can’t believe it’s really you.”

The cat burglar swallowed. “Yeah…”

“H-h-how’d you find me?”

Nadia hesitated to answer. She didn’t want to say ‘pure coincidence’, which was the truth. Instead she put on a gallant smile, even though her friend couldn’t see. “What can I say? Whenever I hear my bestie’s in trouble, I come runnin’. That’s just how it is.”

Something between a happy sob and a rueful laugh issued from the cell. “Y-yeah…no m-matter how many times it happens, you’re always there. The brave knight rushing to save the perennial damsel in distress.” She exhaled, then inhaled sharply. “I’m…I’m s-sorry this k-keeps happening. That I always bumble into stuff like this, and you have t-to save me. Those creeps, the-the robbers, the cops, the Medicis, the…”

From the beginning, Nadia had harbored her doubts. What were the odds that she’d really run into her best friend in a place like this? But this didn’t just sound like Minette; those were her memories, too. Their memories. Nadia allowed herself to open up, genuine concern expressed through her voice. “Hey, hey, look, don’t do that to yourself,” she cooed. “Some guys have all the luck, right? Me, I’m just glad you’re okay. And always, always happy to help! I don’t mind one bit if you need me, ‘cause I need you, too. In fact, I need you outta here. So just hold on a little bit longer, ‘kay?”

Minette’s voice turned panicked. “W-wait, don’t leave me!”

“I just gotta go find the keys, right? My friends’re all lookin’ too. It’ll be a ‘lock’ in the park, you’ll see, so just give us a ‘Minette’, eh?”

Despite her current predicament, the fishgirl couldn’t help but laugh. “H-heheheh, ohh, Nadia. How can you crack jokes at a time like this?”

“Crackin’ yolks is just how I roe, baby,” Nadia grinned, relieved that her comic relief was actually working as intended for once. After a moment, though, her smile faded. “Uh…just one last thing, Minette. Somethin’s been buggin’ me…”

“What is it?”

The feral took a deep breath. “How do I know…you’re real?”

Her question seemed to take Minette aback. “R-r-real? Wh-what do you mean? I…of course I’m real, you know I am. I’m M-minette, and I lived in Little Innsmouth all my life. The R-River King is my dad, I’ve got a b-bunch of sisters, and I work at Yu-Wan’s r-restaurant. And you’re my best friend, Nadia. My hero.”

Nadia looked down at the cold stone brick floor, speechless. She swallowed, her throat dry. Her stomach felt hollow, and her heart ached. She kept on smiling, but for a brief moment, the corners of her mouth twitched. Sensing her distress, Chucho whined. Nadia knew that should make her happy. Why then did she feel such dread?

“R-right,” she replied after a moment, petting her dog for stress relief. “Sorry I asked. This place–it’s got me a little, ehe, y’know, loopy.” She pressed her hand against the cell door, just hard enough to make an audible noise. “Just hang in there, like I said. I’ll be back be-fur ya know it. I purr-omise.”

The voice on the other side took a deep, steadying breath. “...Okay. Please hurry back!”

Nadia waited a second more. Two seconds. Three. Ten. Then she stood, and resumed her search.

---

At the bottom of the huge, dark shaft opened by the heart that Ganondorf sent crashing down from its tower lay a fetid mire that stank of death, its sludgy waters full of fleshy mounds far too big to have come from an ordinary animal, crusted over with fungus and festering with maggots. There, in a pit of its own juices, the heart came to rest, wriggling in vain until its spasms became palpitations and finally ceased altogether. Even after it ceased, however, its loathsome flesh continued to move, until finally a host of grotesque man centipedes tore their way loose and began to spread around the bog.

By that time, though, Ganondorf and Jesse had no doubt navigated the crude, rotting wooden walkways just above the mire and found a sturdy door. Once forced open, they stepped out onto the third layer of Mercy Dreams, roughly opposite the side where Nadia had meddled with a mind flayer minutes before. This was an unorthodox place to enter the underground prison, but then again, he’d blazed an unorthodox trail. When the warlord used his linkpearl, the feral -being a little on edge- was the first to respond.

“Shhhh,” she shushed him gently. “We’re scattered around the prison. Lookin’ for the boss. There’s somethin’ weird about this place. Keep a low profile, will ya Big G? Good hearin’ from ya again, by the way. Thought we mighta parted ways for good back there.” Did she really like Ganondorf? Not really. Was he good to have around? Definitely. With the warlord (and allegedly, Jesse) in Mercy Dreams with her, Nadia felt a little less lonely. Plus, with a Toady on its way to deliver a requested key, things might get livelier very soon.

"Tch, this guy is getting annoying." Roland said, having to deal with Vigil's shenanigans. The wall that was Penance also sucked to deal with, having knocked Roland off his balance for a little while with her attack. At least she didn't really hit that hard even when trying, she instead just wore you down. But that wasn't for Roland to handle, as Geralt and Karin had that. Instead he would assist in dealing with Vigil. It was a shame the guy was not in his right state of mind, but thats that and this is this.

Having not all that much experience with her new shield, Susie wasn't sure on how much damage she could take. Although she learned a bit while Vigil landed a few shots on her in her mech, with one of the bullets just... dropping to her feet fully intact. While some of the others hit the shield. Roland had difficulty deflecting his bullets as well, since they were high callibor bullets compared to the machine gun fire before. Still, he could deflect a couple as he went to clash with Vigil, and his Scars made every 5th hit deal no damage but he still took a fair amount of damage. The heal from Sandalphon was well timed, and with that and the three way tag team between Susie, Roland, and Giovanna, Roland went in to deal with the guy.

Vigil wasn't going to take that lying down though, and getting tired of Roland deflecting his shots, sent in his shadow wolves to attack him, which Roland clashed against. While he blocked the first and parried the second attack with his hammer, the third attack landed. That was when Giovanna had gotten Vigil off of Susie though, with Susie taking that opportunity to spike the serve right in front of her right at Roland. Having the eyes of a guy who just didn't care, Roland struck at the grounded Vigil, overpowering his gun whip retaliation before striking him with his longsword. After getting 3 clashes, Rolands emotion leveled up again which gave him Guilt, with a soft girl's voice saying "Don’t shove the responsibility on others. The agony is yours to bear." making it so he took reduced mental damage, and inflicted a small amount of mental damage when attacked. He now had a smaller effect that Penance had, although Vigil wouldn't see that as Roland got an EGO page, Wrist Cutter.

He then used his new EGO page almost right away to finish off the gunslinger and possibly damage any other enemies around him. Donning the EGO of Bloodbath, the area changed to a scarred, bloody flesh bathtub via the glowing will o wisps for 10 seconds as Roland donned the EGO and filled the area around him with a drowning torrent of blood, washing away any buffs to damage or suitability to those that didn't defend themselves from the depression filled blood. While the attack only lasted a second, Vigil didn't have enough vitality left in him to resist and was washed away by the EGO. "Thats that, and this is this." Roland said, getting ready to help the others with the rest of the fight.

Blazermate meanwhile was just healing people and keeping her shield up to block Akira, using it to advance on the guy and attempt to zap him with the energy shield as the engineer's sentry gun plonked away at whatever enemy was close to it.

As the troop was organizing the key drop offs from the top floor and not being particularly subtle with their chatter there came a banging from one of the cells right next to them. Five heads (Mimi had been brought out to help out) turned towards the sound, before they all traded glances.

”I mean. Only one of the people that got let out where crazy” Bowser pointed out from what they’d seen/heard from their vantage point ”and the other two were alright, that’s, something like, 90% chance whoever's in there is fine and won’t try to kill us like the one Sectonia got”

”Sixty six point six recurring percent your mathmaticalness” Kamek raised an index finger to correct, during which Bowser plucked a key from the mage was holding onto and headed for the door.

”Wait! Sire!” Kamek called after him, while Rika asked ”Why are we using a key to let someone out?” not really understanding the altruism of the situation, while Jr just said for them to ”get ready as he started forming an iron barricade to use for cover.

There was a click as Bowser undid the lock, followed by one more bang on the door as the occupant came careening out of it surrounded with magical power and with her fist outstretched before her. Bowser was cleanly smashed to the side by the woman who was screaming at the top of her lungs, while Kamek yelped in surprise as he took to the open air above the central shaft and Rika leapt to the side, leaving Jr behind his shield still in her path.

Vi, which was presumably her name going by the tattoo under her eye, proceeded to cleanly blow through the iron and into the prince, who was launched up into the air. Then as he came down she slammed another punch into him, sending him sailing over the banister and down into the central shaft. With another cry Kamek swooped after the prince, leaving the king and princess to face the madwoman together.

Vi, who had finished screaming and was now laughing maniacally and shouting something about “I get it now Jinx!”, was now encased in some kind of energy barrier, which cleanly absorbed Rika’s first spear thrust. In response to the failed strike pivoted, and bodily grabbed the head of the spear with her gauntlet, yanking it from the ship girl's hands.

The blade promptly teleported out of Vi’s hands and into Rika’s again, but madness was a great vaccination against surprise and so the woman simply did what she did best, and drove a regular punch towards the princess. In response Rika brought up both her hullclaws and spear to block, only for the impact with them to send a shockwave pulsing forwards, battering her back.

The followup punch did the same and managed to bring down her energy shielding and dent the backs of the claws, but at that point Rika had enough of her wits about her to retaliate, and did so by firing her rigging mounted disruptions into her foe at point blank range. They knocked down whatever magic barrier was protecting the madwoman down, punching straight through and sticking to her, sapping her strength, and making the third blow she landed a little bit weaker.

Despite said weaker punch, Vi seemed to draw power from it, her fourth punch coming in with close to half the delay that there had been between the last. It was rather fortunate that she wasn’t thinking straight enough to do anything but wail on the guarding shipgirl however, because it meant Bowser had plenty of time to recover and come charging into the fight at last with a roar.

Said roar alerted Vi to his coming of course, and so she pivoted, pulled back a fist, seemed to start charging it, and then, before Rika could drop her guard and go on the attack, went flying back towards the king in much the same way she’d come flying out the door. Running on all fours as he was, the king’s head was right in the way, and so he got a nasty smash to the face as Vi knocked him into the air and into the ceiling, before pivoting and starting to try and give him a beat down as well.

She got a nice hit in with her follow up, but when her third came Bower, snaring past a cracked tusk, was up and ready to take it. Forming a boxer’s guard he blocked the hit, and then swung one of his own, only for Vi to step out of the way and jab at him again. Furious, the king lashed out with the vines from his shell, thorned tendrils tearing and zapping at Vi, only for her to deliver another shockwave punch that obliterated them all in a single strike.

She was quite the foe it seemed, but sadly for her, or perhaps thankfully given the loss of her mind, she was outnumbered. Rika entered the fray right after the vine blasting strike, becoming a hammer to the anvil that was Bowser himself. Her spear jabbed forwards, and then flipped around, inverted in the blink of an eye so she could bring the helbard like serrated spine up in an under swing of a chop.

Bleeding, Vi stumbled back, and then got absolutely anvilled when Bowser drove a kinetic strike module empowered punch straight into her, sending her tumbling clear across half of the upper floor.

She still got up again, snarling at them thro bloodied teeth, which was exactly the moment that Kamek, with Jr hanging from the bottom of his broom, floated back into view. Her gaze flicked to them and then, despite (or perhaps because of) them still floating above the drop to the bottom of the prison, she reeled back a punch. Rather than charging up any power however, an ethereal connecting line lashed out and linked her to the dangling prince, at which point she started flying through the air straight towards them, following that guiding line.

”Oh dear” Kamek exclaimed as Jr instead yelled ”Fire everything!”

The prince immediately launched a hail of metal shards from his ferromancy arm, as well as a swarm of strikers consisting of the toothy Flukefey and clever armed Vespikan, while Mimi hurled an electroball but all of this was blown aside by the unstoppable Vi, no matter how much it hurt her to do so. She also sailed clean through an explosion caused by a convergence of 4 of Kamek’s dark magic beams, and a hail of fire from Bowser’s shoulder cannons.

Then, as she was just moments from crashing into the floating pair and to send both plummeting down Rika surged forwards, in her own mad charge that saw her leap off the spiked banister around the pit and to then leap forwards, firing her maneuvering thrusters and intercepting Vi mid air, driving her spear directly into the fast but predictably moving woman’s throat. She burst into ash that fell alongside Rika for half a heartbeat before she smacked into the abdomen of her Vespikan Queen striker when she summoned it below her. She grabbed on with both hands, letting her spear fall away down below. She only had scant seconds before it timed out, but in that time a paintbrush was lowered down to her by jr, onto which the princess grabbed.

She also took the liberty of grabbing Vi’s falling spirit while she was at it.

Up above Bowser ripped up the banister to the central shaft, reached out, and grabbed Kamek’s hand, before effortlessly hauling his family back to safety. They all then sprawled onto the solid ground, catching their breath for a moment, before quickly slipping into conversation about what had just gone down

”Let’s actually set up before we do that again next time” Jr suggested while is papa awkwardly scratch the back of his head, ”You know, disposable minions at the front, rest of us spread out, that kinda thing”

Rika meanwhile was more interested in the result, asking ”So, who’s going to use this anyway?”

”You took her down, you can have her” Bowser decided for everyone, after which Rika decided ”I like how she looks, so I think I’ll just use it as it is, no snacktivator” and then popping it into her chest



”Huh. Guess I got some more armor” she noted as she examined her body, before doing a few practice punches, not finding anything different and then wondering ”Huh, I wonder what it did?”

”Uh, sis, check out your gauntlets” which got another ”Huh,” then and ”oh yeah!” and finally an ”Oh. Wow” as she pulled them up front, and took in the mechanical mitts she was now equipped with.

”That is just … perfect!” she declared, giggling with glee as she slipped them on, having them lock smoothly in place, and then flexing her new hands. Mechanical digits perfectly articulated to her whims, one of the first of which was booping her papa on the snoot. Her second was examining the twin guns now set into the gaunlet’s palms, careful to not actually point them at herself, and then finally summoning her spear from down below into her mecha hands, and twirling it around with masterful dexterity.

”Ok, I totally see why unlocking that door was a good idea now” she said, quite clearly delighted with her transformation. While Bowser of all people tried, badly, to explain why you should help people (his instinct to do so was not his own after all) Jr gave the gauntlets an inspection, equally impressed at what had happened to them.

”Way better than all my hacks I gotta admit, though there is one flaw, and that’s that you can't really use that feather fall rune any more, right?”

”Oh, yeah, shoot. Guess not” Rika replied, spirits dampened a bit, but Jr was already prepared to pick them back up, becking her to give her both a hand and the rune, before he used his ferromancy to simply weld it to the bottom of her ;eft palm in a place where she could squeeze down on it using a single massive mechanical pinky.

Rika enthusiastically declared this ”Neat!” before saying that ”This’ll make going down the central shaft way easier!”

This inevitably got her some questions, to which her answer was simply ”It’s faster than using the stairs, plus we won’t have to worry about those tough flailing guys we saw Nadia handle. So it's a good way to catch up with the others”

With that there was little argument to be made, but based on the previous event Jr did manage to sit his papa down for a few moments so they could hash out a strategy.

A few moments after that, they sent down one of Kamek’s wisps to do some recon. As it passed the fourth layer it attracted the attention of a few bishops, who floated out into the central shaft. They were promptly showered with acid from Bowser’s shoulder cannons, metal spikes from Jr, fireballs from Kamek, and Disruption cannon globs from Rika, against which they had little defense.

The wisp then floated on down further to the third floor, at which point it was promptly blasted by half a dozen glowing magic missiles fired by the beaked mind flayers roaming those halls. They got to stew in satisfaction at having seen two foes off now for a few moments, before all hell descended upon their layer.

First came a squad of five shadow clones of Jr, accompanied by flukfey and Vespikan berserker strikers who swarmed the closet mind flayer. It blasted several of them with a shocking orb as they came in, causing a brief shout of panic from on high as the paralyzing feedback hit jr, but the rest kept going and in moments teeth by the dozens, cleavers, and clown car boxing gloves where laying into it, overwhelming it with both numbers and strength.

A moment later, Kamek dropped into view, and promptly quad lasered a second flayer who had come in response to the frantic ringing and then silence caused by the attack upon and then death of the first. A third was sicked by the remaining jr clones as the real thing came sliding down using the Grapple Worm as a zipline down from floor 5. Rika floated down with her rune to land next to him as the prince reached down and formed a platform of iron sticking out of the closest support pillar, one that allowed Bowser, who had been using his Meowser form to cat scratch down said piller, to stop his descent and step into the room.

”Smooth work” the king complimented his son, but the prince replied ”We still got stuff to do, so let’s deal with the rest of these squid faced guys already!”

Rika was already ahead of him, reeling back a gauntlet and then slamming forwards in exactly the same way Vi had, smashing a mind flayer up into the ceiling while it was distracted by one of the jr clones. The gauntlet she had used to slam forward went dead for a moment, causing her to tilt to the side as its anti grav failed, but she still had the strength to pivot, raise the other one, and use the grappling hook to reel the mindflayer in so she could cleave into it with her hull claws.

Another stepped into view as she finished it off with her chainsaw bayonet, hitting her with a stunning blast, but Kamek was there to take it on in her place, first smashing it with a magic fist summed above it, and then blasting it with his own magical bolts.

On the other side of the room the same kind of teamwork played out, a stunned Bowser being protected by Jr and Mimi, who struck it with a combination of electroballs from the pokemon, and a mix of fire, earth, and metal projectiles from the prince. These drove it back long enough for Bowser to recover, at which point the towering king promptly punched their foe through a wall.

Said wall incidentally turned out to be right next to where Ganondorf and Jesse had come in from, which meant that a moment or two after they’d made their check in the King came stomping through the hole he had just made, dusting off his hands as he did so. He then, quite contrary to Nadia’s suggestions, loudly called over ”Hey! How’s it going?” prompting his son to pop his head into the same room a moment later and request that they ”Come help us punch up some squids!” while the sound of spellfire and more Vault Breaker powered punches echoed through the halls behind them.

The "daycare" sure was bizarre. Everyone had followed Luka in, either unwilling to split up or just as curious about it.

”So I was really hoping that this would just be a Daycare for the important people working past this security checkpoint but looks like that was pretty foolish of me” Minda broke the silence to comment on the cycling ring they were looking at. ”I mean what even is this? They’re rotating eggs?” she asked before hissing with annoyance as the center of the room flashed brightly, blinding her to whatever was going on in there.

"Hey, they're holding Pokéballs!" Pit pointed out, finger indicating the line of people queuing into the center room. As he said it, he seemed confused. Weren't Pokémon outlawed in Midgar? "And that light kind of looks like... wait..."

After a beat to put two and two together, Pit's eyes widened and he whipped around to face the other three. "You think this could be where they make the P-Types...?! It's practically right out in the open, I was expecting some kind of secret lab or something!"

Luka looked aghast. “If that’s true…well, I’d shudder to think of the implications. Things might be a lot different than we thought.” His face tightened as he squinted past the cyclists toward the Daycare’s center structure, trying to make out more details. “I know we’re short on time, and not in great shape for any more fights, but do you think we should check it out?”

Sakura shrugged nervously. She had ducked behind a nearby desk. ”I mean, it’s pretty creepy. But aren’t we kinda screwed if we get caught?” She asked. ”There’s dozens of people in here.”

That had not escaped Luka’s notice, but he seemed less afraid than one might think. “The question is, how many of them are combatants. I don’t see any weapons out there. Just eggs.” He put one hand to his chin. “With all the eggs around, plus equipment or other stuff precious to their operation, just the threat of us wrecking the place might be enough that we could get in and out unscathed.” Luka looked up at the others. “Your call.”

Pit couldn't say the lack of weaponry meant there were no fighters around, after all if they really were fusing with Pokémon then they'd be able to shoot lightning, fire, and all kinds of other things. But Luka made a good point that the powers that be may not want to risk damaging the daycare in a fight. More than that, though...

"We definitely have to check it out!" Pit said, fighting to keep his voice down. "What if they're fusing people against their will? We can't just leave them. Plus they're killing a bunch of cute little baby Pokémon!"

”Even if they can’t risk fighting back, they can still raise the alarm” Midna pointed out, but not to shut things down ”So I suggest we go in there like we’re meant to be there. If we’re luck these people won’t have had time to have heard we’re enemies of the state yet.”

After a moment spent thinking, Luka nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. Even if this place creates the P-types that join Psych-OSF, it seems more like a Shinra deal than an OSF one. Chances are they didn’t receive orders from the brass.”

With the majority in favor, the team got moving. They strolled into the Daycare at a measured pace, making no attempt at stealth. Even if they had, the outer track of this room was well-lit and lacked hiding places, especially given the number of bikers essentially on high-speed patrol. In fact, when the Seekers crossed paths with the cyclists, they barely acknowledged the newcomers’ presence. They just steered around to give them a wide berth so as not to endanger anyone; clearly, they were already doing everything their jobs required of them. A short time later, everyone reached the entrance to the Daycare’s center structure. With no doors in the way, everyone inside could see everyone outside and vice versa, but if the people in line for fusion looked nervous, it wasn’t because of the Seekers. Luka guessed that didn’t know how things were run around here either, and that they amounted to little more than patients at a doctor’s office.

Without raising any aggression or alarms so far, the team could enter and scope out the central chamber. In truth, it really did look like a doctor’s office, at least in part. On one side of the aisle, four operating chairs surrounded by medical instruments machines were spaced out evenly, and against the wall was a smaller chamber about four times the size of a phone booth, elevator off the ground and featuring a sort of spigot that made it look almost like a giant gumball machine, albeit with pitch black walls and a door instead of glass. On the other side of the room, the walls were lined with a number of large cells, stacked up all the way to the ceiling with walkways around each row, accessible by personal lift. These ones featured darkened glass that the newcomers couldn’t see through, as well as a pipe system leading toward a handful of hoppers, each of which contained several eggs. There were four PCs arranged in this part, and in the center stood a big desk covered in papers, ledgers, and computer screens. Nobody was sitting there currently; instead, the doctor was helping a subject into a chair. The subject looked young, with short dark hair, and to Midna at least he looked just a tiny bit familiar. Once seated comfortably, he offered the pokeball in his hand to the scientist, and right after he accepted it he happened to see that the Seekers had arrived.

“Good evening,” he greeted them, his voice calm and affable. He was a pale man, with slicked-back platinum blonde hair accentuated by a very long cowlick, half blue and half red, that wound around his head almost like a halo. He wore glasses, gloves, and a long white lab coat with blue and red triangle patterns scattered across it. In addition to being somewhat barrel-chested, he had large, fluffy, bulky white wings on his back. All in all, while he looked every bit a professional scientist, he was also unmistakably avian -or perhaps even angelic- in appearance. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure. My name is Colress. What can I do for you?”

”Ilia” the princess lied with a tone of casual authority she had never used with the Seekers, one which despite this seemed both well practiced and trained. She deliberately flicking her Flygon tail behind her to draw a glance of attention to her fused nature as she continued ”My associates wanted some reassurances that everything you are doing here is-” she paused, flexing her fingers as she made a show of search for the right words, before concluding ”-for the greater good”

The smiling scientist pursed his lips, his eyebrows raised slightly. There was a trace of laughter in his eyes as he discreetly glanced at Luka, who was trying not to wince.

Sakura stood up straight with her hands at her side, hoping the uniform she wore lended their whole group a little more respectability and believability. ”That’s right.” She said. ”...They’re with the Board of Ethics.” Sakura added, taking a moment to search for the right words.

“Interesting. I wasn't aware of any such entity. I do tend to absorb myself in my work, though, so who knows,” Colress replied after a moment, his manner and tone unruffled. “If that's your sole concern, then, well, yes. Without the shadow of a doubt.” After sliding the pokeball into his pocket, he crossed his arms, his expression still one of polite neutrality. “I’ll admit that isn't a very informative answer, though. A single word isn't liable to convince, well, anyone. Is there anything else the, ah, ‘Board’ would like to ask? I'm quite happy to speak candidly, you know.”

”We do have a tendency to be forgotten in such a large organization, so no offense taken” Midna replied, seamlessly playing along with Sakura’s addition to the combination of joke and ruse, before agreeing ”and yes, it will take more than that. You could start by talking us through your process. From the outside looking in you’ve got a pretty unorthodox looking set up in here, so some clarification would be appreciated to clear up any possible misunderstandings”

Still looking amused, Colress complied. “Well then, I must be sure to do the best I can. Let's see…” He put his hand to his chin, thinking about a way to describe the operation simply but effectively. “In brief, this is a clinic where the supernatural animals known as Pokemon are cohabitated, bred, raised to adulthood, and then harvested for their spirits. These spirits are then used in transfusions for people like young Souta here to grant them various abilities.” He tousled the nervous-looking boy's head in order to help calm him down.

He then turned his attention back to the newcomers, his expression curious. “I understand how this may seem distasteful. However, have you considered the meat industry? How much beef, chicken, fish, and pork it takes to sustain a city like Midgar? If you never see it firsthand it's easy to ignore, but every burger and filet is an animal that died so that we could live. As per the same regulations, we ensure that every animal is completely unconscious so that none suffer.”

Colress crossed his arms. “There's also the medical industry. How many millions of lives have been saved by medicines developed through animal testing?” Glancing over toward the patients in line with a sympathetic look, he continued. “And consider Midgar itself. A city fraught with constant danger. Laden with institutions few can trust. If the life of one animal can give you the power to protect your home, your family…not to mention the ability to access Psynet, I believe it's a worthwhile trade.” He nodded toward Midna’s tail. “Wouldn't you agree?”

Alright, so they weren't killing baby Pokémon, and Colress made a good point. Pit wasn't at all sure about the level of a Pokémon's sentience (in his experience some were and some weren't?), so the thought to bring that up didn't cross his mind at all. What Colress hadn't addressed so far was the people element to the operation here.

The group's pretense was flimsy, and though at first Pit tried to keep up with it by crossing his arms, doing his best to appear authoritative, and letting the others do the talking, now he gave that pretense up.

"What about him?" he said, gesturing to the boy named Souta, then to the line of people at large. "What about them?

"Having a Pokémon and fusing is illegal, but you've got both going on right here! And civilians fighting Others is illegal too, so it's practically like forcing people to join!"

He turned away from Colress, facing the people yet to have fused. "Is that something you all signed up for? On your own, or because you didn't feel like you had a choice?"

Put on the spot, the queued patients looked uncomfortable, which allowed Colress to step in. “Why don’t we answer your questions in order? It’s true that it’s illegal for citizens to own psychic-type Pokemon or perform fusion themselves. Why do you think that is?” His questioning gaze seemed to invite Pit to slow his roll and think. “It’s because of the inherent risk. In the city, psychic-type Pokemon will suffer because of ambient psynet overload, and either shut down or go berserk. As for fusion, what do you think would happen if ordinary people could obtain potentially unlimited power through murder?”

He crossed his arms. “Think of it like a gun. If anyone could get a gun without any kind of official process whatsoever, and then use it to easily obtain more guns, it would be anarchy. By strictly controlling fusion, we limit who can get a gun, how many one can get, and also establish records so that if anyone misuses their gun, we know exactly who it was and can take action.” He shrugged. “It’s natural that those who wish to protect Midgar by joining Psych-OSF would want power to do so, but recruitment is by no means required.” Nodding at the patients, he reached his conclusion. “Everyone here is here because they want this. If they feel like they didn’t have a choice, it’s not because we’re forcing them, but because it is a terribly cruel world we live in. One where everyone needs a little help to survive.”

"Urk..." Pit wasn't good with dealing with rhetoric. He struggled for a response, but Midna stepped in for him.

”That sounds very logical and thought out, which does raise the question as to why all this was a secret in the first place? Given the total moral catastrophe that the previous version of this project was, you have to understand that the board is just a little skeptical that the justification you now need to give public is all there is too it” Midna, whos tongue hurt from biting it, now relaxed her jaw to responded to the sales pitch they’d just been given, before asking ”For one but are people aware of all the side effects? The way fusion changes not just the body but also the mind, and as well as the way that fusion always comes with negative effects as well as positive ones? For two, there is the issue that Midgar is only a small part of this cruelly crafted world. Will non-citizens entering the city for the first time be able to apply for this if they have fused before arrival? The same goes for those who arrive with psychic pokemon companions, are they seized, detained, and processed?”

A lot of the references to things like animal testing, factory farming and gun control had gone way over her head, but the issues she had brought up, oh she was very intimately familiar with them.

Sakura just stood there, arms at her side, watching the discussion unfold. Suppressing her nervousness, she still thought that this was a bad idea. Maybe she was just being cynical for once, but this Colress guy didn’t look like he bought their disguise at all. She gripped at the legs of her pants. ”You Board of Ethics people sure ask a lot of questions.” She said. As for her thoughts about what Colress said, it all sounded about right to her, but what did she know? They were here to place down a sneaky teleporter and now there were witnesses to them coming in here.

Her remark seemed to bring a smile to the scientist’s face. “Why, you took the words right out of my mouth, young lady,” Colress said breathlessly, holding his hands up in a helpless manner. “That was such a barrage, I can scarcely even begin to respond. I’m all for a friendly debate, but is the ‘Board’ more invested in asking questions, or receiving answers?” His tone was jocular. “A verbal firefight is liable to sow needless confusion and panic, and I’m no orator.”

Colress sighed wearily, putting a hand to his head with a pained expression. “You know, this brings to mind a certain group of animal rights activists. Extremely uninformed, especially about the big picture, yet more than happy to rock the boat at every turn. Could you imagine if such people were to infiltrate a restricted area like this, posing as Shinra employees? Why, I’d have to ask them for their IDs.” He shook his head, as if to say perish the thought. “To see the world in black and white like that…I’m almost envious.”

After shaking his head, the scientist produced the pokeball he’d pocketed earlier. “I’ve enjoyed this ‘meeting of the minds’, but it’s been a long day. We have just a few more treatments before we’re done, and I’d rather not keep these folks here any longer than need be. Nor bother them needlessly. If you have any other questions, please direct them to my boss, Professor Hojo. Now, if you don’t mind leaving me to my work…” Colress smiled. “I certainly don’t mind leaving you to yours.”

At this, a somewhat nervous Luka stepped forward and spoke up. “We understand, Dr. Colress. We’ll leave you to it, thank you for your time.” He tentatively reached up to take Midna by the hand and gently pull her back in the direction of the exit.

She let herself be pulled away, Midna simply had a last word it seemed, and it was one that had nothing to do with ethics and that was simply that ”Not to worry, I’m sure we’ll have words with him soon enough” before striding away, tail swishing behind her. Then she paused, and half turned to ask ”But I’ll leave you with this: who would win in a fight, a soldier with some of a pokemon's power, or a soldier and a pokemon who fight side by side?” before continuing without waiting for an answer.

Once they'd all left, Pit let out a heavy breath. He seemed agitated, but uncertain.

"Aw man, what should we do?" he wondered aloud, shifting from foot to foot. "You think they're all really volunteers in there? But we know they're using the P-Types for evil, so we could... shut it down? But..." Pit looked up at the tower, so close by now. He sensed the hesitation Sakura had been giving off since they spotted the place, on top of the lies Midna had told to avoid a straight up confrontation, so maybe going gung-ho would be stupid if it meant they were caught before getting to Arahabaki. But leaving it alone felt wrong too, on behalf of both the people and Pokémon involved.

"Argh, what should we do?!" he repeated, vigorously scratching his head with both hands while trying to force the answer to manifest in front of him. His golden laurel ended up a little lopsided, and remained silent.

Luka looked conflicted. “Right now, we should focus on Arahabaki and the Guardian. They’re our primary concern. If we should be doing anything about Colress, it should be counting ourselves fortunate we ran into someone who cares more about his work than about us.”

Sakura nodded. ”Seriously.” Sakura said. ”We’re so close to the home stretch, Pit-kun.” She was very eager to face the Guardian. The idea of screwing it up at the last second was a stone in her stomach.

Pit closed his mouth tightly, biting back the "buts" he could think of. It was times like this when he was unsure of what the best course of action was that he was most thankful to have his friends and allies' voices in his ear, since he didn't have Palutena's. One quick internal struggle later and the angel sighed. "You guys are right. Beating the Guardian will help everyone, and we can... always come back and make sure everyone's alright after that!"

”We also know what the head of the snake is called now, and Professor Hojo sure seems to have a lot of bodies we’d be able to deal with in one fell swoop if we have that word with him” Midna pointed out with a flex of a briefly clawed hand.

As the Seekers left the Daycare, a bright surge of prismatic light from the facility’s central chamber prompted Luka to look back over his shoulder one last time, his misgivings clear on his face, before he closed the door behind him.

Gritting his teeth and powering through each retaliatory strike from Penance's thorn barrier, Geralt breathed a small sigh of relief when Karin joined to assist, followed by Goldlewis once they'd been healed by Sandalphon. The second barrier proved to be much more difficult to manage than the first, given that it also gave the Judge a massive boost to her physical damage output and even her attack speed. Even the ATG Missile launcher on his shoulder did manage to activate, launching a powerful missile at point-blank range into Penance for 300% of the damage of the katana swing that triggered it, but all that did was speed up how quickly she activated what seemed to be her trump card.

Lifting her book into the air, Penance sent out waves of magical energy along the floor, the first catching him by surprise and forcing a grunt of pain out of his mouth as the thorns dug into his legs, but Geralt had the same idea as Goldlewis and jumped over the next wave, proving they could be dodged. Carefully timing his actions, Geralt waited for another wave of thorns to go out before acting. He jumped this one as well, and upon landing, drew the Sign of Igni in the air, concentrating the wave of flames into its more focused, deadly form to wear away and Penance quickly. His concentration, however, meant that he was unable to dodge the next wave of thorns, and as the pain wracked him, the Sign winked out of existence, and Geralt shook from the damage.

"Damn, that stings!" he called. "We've gotta get her back on our side!" He warned Karin and Goldlewis, before taking a deep breath and charging back in, sword flashing. They'd just have to wear her down enough for one of them to pull out a Friend Heart. At the very least, he could provide a little support. "Judicator, keep us alive!" He called, summoning the eldritch monstrosity that was his Striker. The thing began its self-flagellation, giving Geralt and his nearby allies some relief from their wounds. It wouldn't outpace the thorns if they just stood there, but as long as the three of them stayed mobile, they would be alright.

Zenkichi, meanwhile, was already having trouble. He had no idea what would happen if he got pulled in close to Yoseph, but he knew it could only be bad. He slammed his sword into the surface of the helipad as hard as he could, hanging on for dear life. "AAaaaAAaaaAAAAHHHH!!!!" He screamed, trying to keep his feet under him even as he felt the Consul's power pulling him in. "Could use a...little help over here!!!" He cried out to whoever would listen. "Valjean!!! Shoot him!!!" Zenkichi begged, prompting his Persona to appear and unleash a One-shot kill directly at the Consul, which might hopefully get him out of this mess.

Coming down from the high of overflowing mana and BP left both Primrose and Therion feeling more tuckered out than usual after a battle. Magic was almost like a muscle to be flexed, and the constant use of their spells and abilities gave that muscle a good workout. When the Wonder Effect came to an end the Orsterrans let out near simultaneous sighs. More used to flexing her spellwork, Primrose recovered sooner, though she still left everything about looting the Caretaker and the various spirits around the area to the rest of the group. And while normally Therion would be very curious about what was so valuable inside the metal pyramid that was worth a risk like that, he couldn't drag himself over to it. He leaned on the metal arm of the Caretaker until it started fading to ash, at which point he shed his ceremonial robes temporarily to cool down faster. He tried not to groan when Stetson said they'd have to go through yet another gauntlet of bugs.

Since that seemed to be the only way forward, Primrose and Therion readied themselves to go. The latter of them was caught quite off guard when Tingyun approached him.

"Oh. Uh." Therion's face was tinted pink, and he was at a loss for words. He wasn't used to being thanked, much less like that. He blinked at Tingyun, then averted his gaze. When she turned away he gingerly touched the spot she'd kissed. "...don't mention it."

The ensuing fight wasn't quite as bad as the previous ones before it, but it was by no means easy. Thankfully everyone got through it and arrived at their transportation. Honestly it came as no surprise that it wasn't large enough to fit everyone inside. The Seekers had a lot of members, some of them much larger than your standard human. The Travelers didn't have that issue however, so they scooted inside while the others figured out how they'd handle it. Primrose offered a wave to Kanna just before the door closed.

The drop pod brought them straight up the cavern shaft, and though the ride was a little rocky at points it seemed alright. The Seekers didn't make it all the way to the surface, seeing as they had unfinished business below ground. They departed the safety of the drop pod after bidding a quick goodbye to Tingyun and the dwarves, and immediately they found themselves in the place they'd been looking for. Mercy Dreams, where reality blended together with the dream realm.

It was ominous from the get go, more than the Basement or the Necrodancer's crypt. A dark, eerie prison sunk miles below the surface of the earth...

"Can it be my turn to sit this one out?" Therion said, crossing his arms beneath his poncho.

The entire complex was stone and iron, lit by candles or torchlight. It looked old but sturdy, solidly built to house prisoners for a long, long time. With the age of the place came disrepair, but the prison was obviously still in use. There were noises coming up from the space in the center of the room where the prison continued down, footsteps, whispers, clanging, and all kinds of other activity. Here on the uppermost level there were no signs of life besides the Seekers and some flitting moths, that turned out not to be moths after all.

They hadn't been there all that long when a voice called out to one of their group.

Primrose approached the railing where Ms. Fortune was scanning the area below, a little surprised to hear that someone the Feral knew was locked up in this place. Of course it wasn't the first time the Seekers had come across a friend from their original worlds, and most likely would not be the last. If possible, Primrose wanted to make sure such reunions were happy ones.

"A friend?" The dancer asked. "What does she look like? We can help search for her."

Though a little distracted at first as she listened intently, Nadia turned toward Primrose in a hurry when she processed the offer, a grateful smile on her face. "Sure, sure, yeah. She's a Dagonian...uh, sorry, a fish girl. Pretty human, except she's got light blue skin. Bright pink pupils, dark blue hair and...yellow fins." After realizing something, she reached around and grabbed her ponytail. "Long in the back, like this." With an agitated sigh, she turned and glanced back down into the depths of Mercy Dreams. Right now, the unflappable feral was looking a little flustered. "Thanks in advance."

The dancer nodded. It was no trouble, just another something to watch out for as they explored. In short order the Seekers split up from one another. Therion accompanied Primrose as she descended the nearby stairwell deeper into the prison after Ms. Fortune, and then went a separate way.

So far all they'd seen were cells. Cells and little parchment moths, which they didn't pay much attention to other than snagging a couple that flew too close. The contents of each were all similar to what Nadia had read out to them earlier. As for the cells, some had bars and slats that they could barely see through, but the things inside of them were less than human. The cells with no way to see inside were the ones that they could hear speech from, mumbling and rambling voices that suggested whoever was in them were at least a little more awake or aware than their twisted neighbors. No sign of a friendly face, a boss, or a secret dream weapon yet.

"I'd guess that whatever it is we're looking for is on the bottom floor."

"Most certainly."

The two of them peered over the railing, finding the that even in the dreary dim lighting they could see quite a ways down. Like many of the other Seekers they deemed that jumping straight to the bottom, while being the fastest route, would be inviting too much danger. They could see all kinds of patrolling monsters acting as prison guards, and if they were spotted in mid air they'd be sitting ducks, having to contend with all of them plus the hulking monstrosities on the lowest level.

"Maybe a jail break would help. Release a bunch of prisoners, let them fight it out with the guards, then we head right down."

Primrose looked at the nearest cell to them where on of the mutants was heaving, blinking its large eyes independently of each other. "...I'm not sure how useful these would be. And it may take a while to unlock a lot of cells."

"Nah, since they're all the same kind of lock once I figure it out the first time, the rest will be quick."

Therion approached one of the cell doors, one that was closed off with no way to tell what was behind it. He heard a faint scratching noise. Up close, he could see that there were two locks, one of silver and one of... copper? Bronze? He rubbed the rusty lock, ridding it of some of the green oxidation that had formed. It was bronze. It also looked like the insides were too rusted to actually work. He turned his attention to the silver lock and popped his lockpicking tools inside. Right away he could feel the resistance. The pins were heavy as hell!

"What the..." he murmured to himself, eyebrows creasing. Was this actually silver? He pressed in, trying to force the pick through. It couldn't find any purchase, so after a few minutes of trying Therion gave up and tried the bronze lock instead. This one didn't have the same problem, so it should be possible to pick - but the oxidation came with its own issues. Cracked pieces of the lock itself settled inside the keyhole, disrupting the entire mechanism. Therion pushed some of these pieces out of the way with his tool, or tried to, but when they got lodged inside the small space they snapped his lock pick a third of the way down, and now that was stuck in there too.

"Ugh. Okay maybe this won't work. I could get one of these open with time, but..."

"Time isn't something we have a lot of."

The thief turned to see what she was talking about. She stood slightly in front of him, facing a couple of advancing jailers. One ran towards them on the ground, waving a pair of cat o' nine tails over his gray clothed head. He wore pauldrons, arm and shin guards over his bare skin with the same kind gray fabric wrapped around his waist. A little slower behind was an old man dressed in churchly attire sitting in a floating cathedra. In his hand was a long spear, and he raised in preparation to stab down at the intruders.

The Travelers met them halfway. Primrose struck first, stabbing her ice lance into the space between the flagellant's breast and shoulder. The man, if it could be called that, did not recoil. He seemed to relish the pain and pressed forward, nearly skewering himself as he snapped the multi-tailed whip Primrose. Right behind her, Therion darted out and let the whip wrap around one of his knives instead of his friend's skin. He had a proper dagger in his other hand and carved it over the flagellant's chest and bicep. He circled the guard and shoved him in deeper on Primrose's spear.

The spear of the bishop came down on the thief, nearly piercing Therion's brain if he hadn't moved out of the way in time. The spear's blade made a shallow cut down his scalp and the side of his face. The bishop was much faster at attacking than he appeared to be. Therion fended off another thrust, deflecting it with his dagger. He retreated to put some distance between himself and the enemy, liberally peppering the man with daggers and darts. Thankfully the floating spear wielder was not as quick at evading as he was at stabbing.

With a grunt Primrose hefted the flagellant impaled on the end of her lance up and over her shoulder, slamming him into the ground. She yanked her weapon out of him and turned on the bishop, parrying his polearm strike with her own. Several knives were sticking out of his chest, but the old man was still holding on to life. He attacked Primrose relentlessly and she twirled her weapon to block whatever he threw at her. She retaliated the first chance she got, lance catching the bishop's leg and tearing it open as he veered to move out of the way. From the corner of her eye Primrose saw the flagellant was getting to his feet, so she whirled around in an elegant spin to slash him across the middle and then come back to face the bishop once more. She launched herself forward, knocking the opposing spear out of the way and getting a clean hit through the bishop's chest. He sagged down in the seat, and the cathedra sank to the ground before they faded away.

Having been about to backstab the flagellant, Therion was instead met with the man stumbled back towards him. The thief didn't really mind if Primrose wanted both enemies to herself, but would it kill her to at least let him know so he didn't have to change his strategy on the fly? Therion side stepped the flagellant, and with bronllavyn and the stinging dagger in each hand he sliced up the unarmored parts of the guard. The flagellant was made of tough stuff though, and he charged Therion with his whips flailing.

Rather than attempt another physical attack to no avail, Therion hopped back and stuck his arm out, summoning the Wildfire to his hand. The flames burst out in one explosive puff, much larger than the thief intended. His eyes widened in surprise and he drew his arm back, shaking his hand to rid it of the smoldering ash that the flagellant had been reduced to.

With the fight over they fled away from the site of battle, thinking that the spark of flames might draw more guards to the area. When they were far enough away and didn't have any pursuers, Primrose and Therion relaxed slightly. The latter stowed his daggers away again while the former set the butt of her lance down with a thunk, leaning against it. The shaft was nearly as tall as she was, the entire weapon taller still, making it a good support. She smiled, casting a glance at Therion.

"I'm getting good at this."


"You'd make Olberic and Tressa proud," he commented offhandedly, teasing a friend.

"You think so too?" she replied, meeting him in turn.

Though it was clear Therion had been joking, Primrose's thoughts lingered on their missing friends. She could imagine the pleasant surprise on Olberic's face if she held her own in a spar against him, lance versus spear. Tressa's excited giggles as she requested to join in. It might have been the nature of Mercy Dreams, but the imagined scene unfolded so clearly before her. She and the group's two polearm users sweating by a river side. Ophelia and Alfyn washing their dinner pans from the night before in the water, a basket of linen beside them, the young cleric laughing at some tale Alfyn was telling her. H'aanit stroking Linde's fur as the leopard enjoyed the sunshine, the both of them watching the spar with interest while professor Cyrus packed up the last of his supplies, chatting away to a thief who'd been gradually picking up on the academic jargon he was wont to use.

"I hope they're all alright," she said, melancholic in a way that had become uncharacteristic of her lately. Therion just shook his head.

"What's the use of thinking about it? There's no way to know unless we find them. And if we do find them then they have to start dealing with all this crazy shit too." His words implied he didn't want to endanger the other travelers, which made Primrose smile.

"You don't ever worry about them though? Since waking up?" she asked. When she'd been purged of Galeem's light in Smash City Alcamoth, the well being of her friends was one of the first things that came to mind, right behind confusion and... hurt, and familiar blood chilling anger. She recalled leaving a message for any of them that happened to find that place while she left with the Seekers. She had just assumed that Therion felt the same way, and patiently waited for his answer after it was clear he was reluctant to give it.

"...no, not really," he eventually told her. "They can handle themselves. Wouldn't be surprised if they ended up finding each other too."

There was a slight tremble in his voice, imperceptible to all but those who knew the thief best. People who knew him well were very few and far between, but one happened to be beside him. Primrose noticed, though she didn't question him. Together with Alfyn, she'd known Therion the longest of any of her compatriots - and it was the lack of prying into each other's pasts that made them better friends. Something had happened to him, or some thought occurred to him, but he didn't want to tell her. If it was important, she trusted that he would. For now, she left it alone.

He couldn't tell her about the nightmare he'd had in the Pizza Tower, the one where he and the rest of their group of travelers lived an easy life before being brutally slaughtered. It felt too vivid, too much like a terrible omen to dismiss it entirely. Of course he was worried about the others after seeing that, but... right now, he couldn't say anything about it. Didn't even want to acknowledge it.

So he changed the subject.

"What happened to your dagger anyway?"

Having anticipated the topic change, Primrose didn't miss a beat. She pulled the weapon out, unsheathing it and letting her fingers roam over the inscription. Faith Shall Be Your Shield. She smiled grimly. "I still have it. I'll save it for... special occasions."

At that moment they head Kamek's voice filtering through the linkpearls, informing them of a great number of things they'd found back on the first floor. The keys were most important they thought, both the ones they'd found and the ones they didn't. After a brief discussion with each other, the Orsterrans would be splitting up from there. They both responded to the wizard.

"I'll take a key, Kamek."

"I'll come back up and see if I can crack the safe."

Primrose relayed her location, settling in a less populated area of this layer while she awaited the toady to bring her a key. She listened as closely as she could to try and catch any sign of Ms. Fortune's friend Minette, but the only thing she could hear was the ambient noise of the prison: metallic clinking, monstrous guards walking about, and wailing at times from prisoner and jailer alike. Voices were muddled if she even heard them at all. Once she thought she heard her name being whispered, but she dismissed it.

When Therion made it back to the first level, he accepted one of the keys from Kamek. These would most likely open the matching locks on the cell doors. From their design he could instantly tell that the bronze keys were a kind of skeleton key, so one should be able to open any or all of the cells if nothing else.

The safe was another thing entirely. It was a combination lock with no visible key hole, so his lock picks would do no good here. He would be a poor thief if he couldn't deal with something like this though. It had been a while since he'd broken into a safe of this kind, as where he came from anyone with the wealth to purchase a combination lock would usually opt to hire a mage to enchant a regular lock instead, but he'd give it a try.

He waved the Koopa Troop away and pressed his ear to the metal. He listened closely as he fiddled with the combination, straining to hear any clicking noise that was distinctly different. A pin falling into place. He brushed away a few paper moths with a flick of his tail.

"..."

He couldn't hear it. He tried for a while, letting the rest of the Seekers get into trouble while he remained in the safety of the highest floor, but he just couldn't crack this thing. Perhaps cat ears were not as conducive to this as human ears were?

Ten years ago I could break out of a jail and now I can't even open a cell or safe? Godsdamn. He lifted his head and let it thunk back down onto the safe, annoyed at his lack of successes so far in the prison.

Meanwhile, after receiving a rusty bronze key courtesy of one of Kamek's clones, Primrose set off deeper into the prison. She hadn't seen any other Seekers so far, but since the stairway to the third level was open one of them must have come through. She wasted no time in descending, especially when a distant crashing noise sounded from somewhere vaguely below. Suddenly Ganondorf's voice was in her ear, swiftly followed by Ms. Fortune's reply. So that noise had been the king of evil and the FBC director entering the Mercy Dreams? She supposed that she shouldn't be surprised. Half the time anything bombastic happened around the group, it was caused by them in the first place.

Though Primrose wasn't privy to it, the disturbance drew the Mindflayer that had accosted Ms. Fortune away from the stairway's door. The coast was clear for the dancer, but when she tried going through she found the door closed. She peered around until she found the mechanism that would open it, a flick of her hands later and the glass surrounding it shattered due to her magic. Primrose slipped onto the third layer and swiftly made her way deeper in, suspecting that it wouldn't be long before some monstrosity came to investigate.

She didn't have to remain stealthy for long. Whoever was descending after her seemed intent on clearing out every tentacled guard on his floor. Well if that's how they wanted to do things, it suited Primrose just fine...

She turned around, intending to head back and join the battle, when she heard it again. A little louder this time, a little clearer. "Primrose."

She stopped in place, looking over her shoulder. It sounded so familiar. A woman's voice, somewhere a little deeper in, and deeper down. The fourth floor? "Primrose."

Instead of going to help against the mindflayers she turned around again and made her way to the stairway connecting the third level with the one below. The mechanism on this side she destroyed with no hesitation, and as she went down she spotted the one containing the gears for the second gate before it got too dark. She lined up a spell and opened the way to the fourth layer.

"You're close by, aren't you...? I can just tell it's you." The voice sounded relieved, like Primrose's presence alone was enough to quell the prison's horrors. The voice sucked in a breath, quavering. "Prim...!"

The dancer's heart clenched. Only one person called her that, she hadn't allowed anyone else to. Especially not after the girl had died.

"Yusufa," she breathed.

She hadn't seen hide, hair, or scale of Ms. Fortune's friend Minette, but somehow Yusufa was here too? One friend found was a miracle in itself, but two was just suspicious. What were the odds? They couldn't have been very good. But that voice... it was unmistakably Yusufa. Primrose had lived with the girl for a couple years, endured her attempts at friendship, and held her in her arms as she lay dying. In the World of Light it was possible that here she was, alive again.

But it was just as likely that this was a trap.

Primrose kept that in mind as she jogged through the cell blocks, her heart hammering wildly in her chest. Why did she feel so apprehensive about this? If it was Yusufa, then the dancers would be reunited. She would protect the other woman until they could bring her somewhere safe. If it wasn't Yusufa and was instead some malicious trick, she'd kill the thing responsible.

"Yusufa, which cell are you in?" Primrose hissed. She could barely hear anything over the sound of her heartbeat. Pumping, pumping, pumping, like it was in her ear and not her chest. She felt strange all over too, goosebumps rising on her skin. This wasn't a natural response, it was more like something that was happening to her.

Primrose whirled around, finding an imposing figure standing at the end of the cell block staring her down. She'd been too hasty and hadn't seen it, and now bathed in its lamp light she could feel her vitality wasting away. The illuminator had been content to watch Primrose and slowly drain her max health, but now that it'd been spotted the lantern it held turned to a red glow and it began to stalk towards her. The jailer's uniform and the brand it carried reminded Primrose of the evil monastery on the mountain. It picked up speed, emitting a creepy giggle and raising the burning piece of iron menacingly.

"Don't you dare touch me," Primrose snarled.

When the brand was thrust forward it met the icy head of Primrose's lance. Steam erupted from the impact point and they struggled briefly, though when it became clear that Primrose had the edge in strength the illuminator backed off, ready to try again. All the while Primrose could feel her health drain. She wasn't being damaged, but she could tell she was getting weaker, more vulnerable. She couldn't let it continue.

The jailer rammed the brand toward her mid section. She could feel the heat of the iron just before she disappeared, teleporting behind the masked assailant and slashing it with the ice lance. Cool blue flame mixed with her dark magic, ravaging the jailer. It stumbled, completely silent in its pain, and struggled to turn around to face Primrose. The dancer did not let it, gripping the polearm tight and stabbing it in the back. She twisted the weapon, carving a piece out of the illuminator as she retracted the lance. It fell forward, cracking its headpiece on the ground. It flipped itself over and brandished its lantern, holding the glowing red light up. Before it could raise its own weapon again, Primrose swiped the lance in a horizontal arc, shattering the lantern and striking the illuminator across the face.

"Hyah! She finished it off by piercing its abdomen. She kicked the brand away while the illuminator was pinned in place, squirming slowly until it began to dissolve. She picked up the jailer's spirit while catching her breath. She still felt... fragile.

"Prim? Are you still there? Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine." On edge, and with low enough health that any heavy hit might be lethal to her, but physically fine. "Where are you, Yusufa?"

"Right down here!"

Primrose found the cell that Yusufa's voice was coming from, but she couldn't see inside of it. Behind the iron door she couldn't feel if her friend was really there or not. She jammed the bronze key into the silver lock, the only one that looked functional, but it didn't fit. She tried the bronze lock underneath it, but found the lock too rusted to work no matter how hard she tried to force it. Primrose bit her lip, and though she hadn't so much as breathed Yusufa seemed to feel her disappointment.

"No good? Well, it's okay... I've been trying to find my own way out of here. A key would just be the easy way." It sounded like she was trying to be strong, and if that didn't just pull on Primrose's heart strings. "I don't even remember how I got here! But just hearing your voice gives me motivation. I'll... think of something else! But, if you could come back again and check on me...? Hehe..."

"I'll be back with a way out for you," Primrose said. Though it would be best to come back after making the area safer, and maybe even defeating the boss of the prison - her brush with the illuminator told her that. Assuming, of course, that it was really Yusufa in that cell.

She walked away after hearing Yusufa's noise of pleasant surprise. While keeping an eye out for any more of the masked jailers, Primrose found a lonely spot to stop and collect her thoughts. As she did so, she reached out to the other Seekers.

"I've made it to the fourth layer," she spoke into the linkpearl. "I'll try and open the way to the fifth. So far I haven't seen anything that looks like a dream catcher or a warden. But..." The magic device quieted for a moment. "...I found someone that I know, too. I don't know what to make of it. Is it too much of a coincidence?"

Maybe they should regroup and make an actual plan of attack? Systematically clear out the floors, scour every room for the keys that would open their friends' cell doors. They could talk out the likelihood that Minette, Yusufa, and any other friend that happened to be here were hallucinations or something even more sinister too. She suggested it to the others before cutting the communication, waiting on their response and preparing to slink deeper into the area toward where she thought the fifth floor connector would be.

Sectonia having found some success on floor 1, made her way down to floor 2 evading the enemies she was told about. She wasn't sure how she felt about being smaller now, but it did make sneaking easier. She was about the size of her now large fire antillions now, so there was that as well, but oh well. Making her way down to floor 2, she moved around the prison, looking at what was around and a bit miffed that most doors needed a key or something to open. And seeing how few keys they had and how many floors they had left to go through, she wasn't going to waste them on this floor if she could help it.

As she moved through floor 2, exploring the area, she heard a peculiar voice, her own. Well, that wasn't unnerving at all. While she just figured it was a trick of this place, she soon saw a flicker of an image of... herself in the corner of her eyes? Well, it was what she looked like before she became gorgeous, but... that was still really strange. Out of curiosity she decided to see what this spectre was, at least for a little bit as she had really little direction on where to go. And if this was some creature messing with her, she would smite it with all of her wrath.

Wrath which was building, as vague phrases such as "You forgot..." or "Remember your happiness" or "I wasn't sad." came from this specter at the edge of her eyes. This was both confusing, and annoying to deal with. She assumed the mixed negative feelings she got from this was from the area itself, although some of this felt... accurate? And that just made her more confused and angry, so much so that after a little while of this, she fired a few spells when she saw the specter, and after a bit more taunting, the shadow finally left her, for now.

Well, after encountering a literal shadow of her past, Sectonia was a bit disoriented and needed a bit of time to process that in a proper manner. Or a distraction, which she found as she found a door that was barred but not locked soon after losing track of her 'shadow'. Or rather, a door she could force open with her new giant axe. Inside that room was a large, chained chest. It shook a small bit but otherwise was just a large chained chest. Well, whatever is inside was probably something of some kind of renown or power, or perhaps the boss of the area or just general loot? Well, she needed a bit of a distraction at the moment, so she used her magic to break the chains and open the chest. And as soon as the chest lid popped open, a bunch of Chop Goblins appeared from the chest. 15 of them in total, which made strange high pitched mumbling and grumbling sound. (Almost like gremlins.) While a couple charged Sectonia, most just ran around her or down different paths to cause chaos in the jail.

Now, 15 of these things wasn't all that bad. Sure the initial surge made Sectonia back up a bit, but those that attacked her fell to her new axe and her magic without much issue. In fact, those that charged her dropped golden ChopCoins instead of their spirits when defeated, but only about every 5th goblin dropped one. And she got 5 of these coins before she was forced to retreat. Why you might ask? because the chest was vomiting a constant stream of chop goblins, 2 every second or there abouts, which forced the queen back due to sheer numbers as they rushed past and away from her or charged her with their choppers out, and soon it was made apparent why the chest was locked as the swarm of goblins grew and grew.

Using her linkpearl, Sectonia said to the rest of the seekers there. "I found a large chest in a barred off room. However opening it has unleashed a horde of... things which are starting to flood the area. I'll need some of you to come here and help me deal with this horde before we are overrun. They do drop treasure when defeated however, although sparingly." Sectonia reported as she made a tactical retreat, summoning some antillions to distract the chop goblins. She'd need a few allies to push through that approaching horde and lock that chest once again. Although if they could control what these things came out of, they could be useful tools... although she hated how they looked so perhaps destroying the thing would be the best course of action...