Though impressive to behold, and reassuring in its ferocity, the roar of the Skyfish in Goldlewis’ hands amounted to frustrating little. Moebius Y didn’t even register it. Well, the veteran hadn’t exactly expected this chimeric colossus to melt like a slug once salted by his minigun fire, but it looked like the Seekers were in it for the long haul. Still, that was nothing new, and at least his shots weren’t just pinging harmlessly off barriers or armor. As long as the team could strike their target, they could win. Provided that they survived.

As expected, Moebius Y was determined not to let that happen. The blows delivered by his arms were gargantuan, and not so slow that they could be evaded with casual ease. Whenever his limbs began to move, the heroes needed to move faster. Their foe’s offensive arsenal seemed limited in this form, but his attacks proved to be brutal in their simplicity. Worst were the lasers, threatening huge areas at once as they raked across the floors, airborne platforms, and walls. Goldlewis could try to return fire, but his Security Level system was the limiting factor, a major double-edged sword. Though his UMA could replicate technology without theoretical limit given enough time, this process put a hard limit on the quality -and quantity- of the firepower that the veteran could bring to bear. Only his coffin -and his iron body- remained constant. That meant that, like Giovanna, he had no choice but to get up close and personal. If only he shared her speed.

When Midna and her savage beasts took off running, Giovanna joined the pack. She might not be able to keep pace with the unnatural wolves on her own, but together she and Rei had run with the Twilight Princess already, and the floating remains of the bridge looked like the team’s best bet for staying mobile. Standing still, after all, was death. Moebius Y did not tolerate Blazermate’s turret for more than a moment. With a baleful glance, his lasers quickly shredded the stationary sentry nest into shrapnel. Nobody who saw that could fail to realize that the same fate awaited them if they failed to stay mobile. As such, the Seekers kept themselves one step ahead of their foe’s mighty swings and sweeping beams. Midna and Gio in particular put their agility to use trying to circle around the Moebius. Out of the two, the secret agent leveraged her positioning to launch hit-and-run attacks. Her divekicks and Trovão flying kicks allowed her to close the distance, strike like lightning, and then disappear just as quickly back into the mako storm.

Meanwhile, Midna kickstarted the colossal endeavor of managing the Soul of Ambition’s aggression. Karin pitched in with the help of her grappling hook, trying to alleviate some of the burden. By taking the role of tank, the two were playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, banking on their ability to avoid the worst of Y’s assault. Karin in particular had one problem: lacking any ranged options, she couldn’t threaten and provoke Y as easily as many of those she was trying to safeguard. By now, everyone was laying into the Mobius with everything they had.

Their target moved a lot, shifting hundreds of feet at a time as he turned and attacked. Even direct hits on the eyes didn’t appear to be any more effective. That made precision less effective than sheer output, but with thirteen Seekers and only three heads to focus on them, the team was more than capable of rising to the challenge.

An array of lasers from the eyes of Y’s main head swept over the hallway’s mouth from low to high, just the sort of catastrophe the frontrunners had been trying to avoid by taking their chances on the floating debris. Geralt evaded it with a mad sprint, but Susie and Blazermate, who hadn’t changed their defensive tactics from the fight against the clones, both got hit. The laser obliterated the medabot’s projectile shield in an instant, and two hit Susie’s bulky Business Suit. Sandalphon hadn’t moved either, but when the lasers blazed forth, she stood up and braced herself, eyes narrowed as they calculated with almost mechanical precision. “Steady…” When the beams rose she moved a half-step back and turned sideways, standing tall as she narrowly passed between the beams. Only her coat, billowing from the disturbed air, was severed.

Though he'd put a lot of effort into helping to defeat the imposter Akiras, Hayato's fight was far from finished. He ran after the others, sending out his legion and using it to pull him from platform to platform. With only a Sword Legion beside him, his ranged options were limited, so he kept up the pressure with his x-baton in blaster mode as he made his way closer. In the short time the others had known him, the young officer had been unerringly taciturn, seldom speaking or showing emotion even as he pulled off daredevil stunts. Now though, he looked furious. As his fusion with his own legion made plain, the death of his sister -his real sister- had sent him on a downward spiral. Whatever it cost him, Hayato was going to take revenge. His Sword Legion slingshotted him through the mako storm, his x-baton switched to gladius mode, to deliver a huge smash to the middle head of the Moebius. Then, as retaliatory lasers surged forth, his partner yanked him to safety.

Not long after, Midna pulled off the impressive feat of binding one of Y’s hands to the bridge. Though the Moebius thrashed against the astral chain to break free, her allies quickly took advantage. Roxas in particular raced up their enemy’s arm in order to deliver a flashy series of strikes to his head. Opposite him and Karin, a floating platform spun around to reveal Giovanna crouched on it, hiding out of sight. She leaped, airdashed forward, then shot down in a crackling green-and-red blur. “Fear on the wind!” As an overdrive, her Ventania struck with vigorous strength, mirroring Karin’s own flying kick, then led into a quick combo. With Y distracted, the firing squad down in the hallway could renew their efforts. Crossbow bolts, shotgun blasts, missiles, and charged hadoukens flew up to spatter against the monster’s huge body, while strikers attacked en masse. Valjean’s gun skills and Pit’s light arrows flew in from the tempest as well, and Sandalphon joined in the barrage, emptying a full magazine of red-hot sniper rounds into those unblinking red eyes of his.

At the moment, Goldlewis wasn’t shooting. He’d thrown caution to the wind by throwing himself at his Moebius foe, landing on one of the rib-like bone spurs on Y’s torso. “You’re! Going! Down!” He worked the body with his coffin, battering the bizarre, corded purple flesh. Few living things could take punishment like this, but the Soul of Ambition was one of a kind. And after a few moments, Y broke free from his bindings in dramatic fashion. With one final, mighty wrench, he tore off the entire section of bridge that Midna anchored his hand to, including those attacking it. The chains shattered as he flailed his arm through the storm in a gigantic backhand that hurled the bridge piece away to crash into the reactor wall. Giovanna was unlucky enough to be caught in the path of his blow. Stunned by the agonizing impact, she grabbed hold of the arm and held on for dear life. Luck really wasn’t on her side today.

“Gio!” Down below, Goldlewis clamped a mighty mitt down on the bone spur’s edge and held tight. Unable to see what became of his friend from this angle, he gritted his teeth in anger and uncertainty. Right now, he had no choice but to trust her, or -failing that- trust in the team’s healers to bail her out.

The fight resumed, as intense as ever. While the Seekers could deal damage easily, their foe was just too big. If they beat Y like this, it wouldn’t be through a death of a thousand cuts–a million might be more appropriate. His enormous attacks forced evasion to be their number-one priority. By the same token, however, Y’s impractical size meant he couldn’t really hit the heroes if he didn’t catch them sleeping. This was a stalemate of incredible proportions, but a stalemate all the same, and Y knew it. “Cease your pitiful resistance,” he resounded. ”Within my ark, there will be no injustice. No disparity. No suffering. Through unity, you can finally achieve peace. Immortality. Don’t you see? I intend to transcend the cycle! To transcend Moebius!”

Suddenly, the Soul of Ambition straightened up, as if breathing deep. His ‘ribcage’ opened wide like the tentacles of an anemone, and in his chest a brilliant light began to shine. It was another vortex, like the one Y used before in his Consul form, but far, far larger. Inescapable, all-consuming. Given his proximity, Goldlewis was one of the first to be sucked inside, but the floating platforms flew in right after. This time, nobody could escape. Sandalphon braced herself as she hurtled out of the mouth of the pod-lined hallway, drawn violently alongside the rest into the maelstrom of pure, unadulterated white. Her eyes were squeezed closed as she prayed, pleading in silence for deliverance.

After a moment of pure chaos, the mind-numbing sensory overload ceased. The archangel fell against a solid, albeit nigh-invisible surface. When she opened her eyes, she found herself deposited in an extraplanar void, snow-white except for the geometric purple lines that indicated a floor, stretching out to infinity where the lines merged into a solid purple horizon. The planes roiled like a polygonal sea, their movement more intense farther away. It was a chilling, otherworldly sight, but not everything was alien. She could see Goldlewis, who’s already arrived and risen to his feet, and the other Seekers were materializing. They were not dead yet, nor absorbed into the Moebius’ being. In fact, this might be a blessing in disguise.



As Sandalphon picked herself up, her eyes lay squarely on the only anomaly present anywhere in this featureless, geometric void. It seemed to be a collection of polyhedrons, similar in appearance to the ground but arranged in a sort of cluster around a single, glowing nexus. It looked a little like the purple core she’d seen in the chest of Y’s armor, and a lot like the singularity created by what Y described as ‘legionic fusion’. Maybe it was both. It appeared to be pulsing violently, constantly shifting in shape, growing spiky protrusions that shrunk back down just as quickly. After a moment, it spat out lengths of glowing purple lines like circuits that stabbed outward. On impulse Sandalphon rolled to avoid one of the circuit lances, while Goldlewis blocked another, taking a chunk of chip damage. To the archangel, the situation seemed clear. “He’s pulled us into some manner of metaphysical inner realm,” she declared, making her intentions clear as she took aim with her gunstaff and fired. “We must beat him here, or be absorbed like the clones.”

In response, the Core fluctuated violently. More lances shot outward to try and impale the Seekers, while needle-like barbs flew in arcs through the air. Circuits that spread out across the ground created forests of spears that shot up after a brief delay, and purple wireframe phantoms manifested in groups to attack or create barriers of dark purple interlocking triangles around the core. In moments, everything was pandemonium once more, but the Seekers knew what they had to do: what they were best at.



Without many other ideas, Nadia made her way out of Reeves Quarry at a leisurely amble, still hungry. Her meal of silver fish, preserved in briny tomato juice, left her half full and with a whetted appetite. Still, even if the artisan had more to spare, she didn’t want to go and entreat him for another handout. Her friendly chat had ended on such an uncommonly positive note that the feral didn’t want to spoil it, and besides, she knew that she could do better than begging for scraps like a mangy alley cat. Out here in the wilds, the world might as well be her oyster. Of course, that didn’t mean she could just pilfer whatever she wanted. Nadia was not the kind of thief who stole from those who didn’t deserve it, or couldn’t afford it. She couldn’t bat her eyelashes at people and make them forfeit their worldly possessions, like a certain dancer friend of hers.

A real cat didn’t need to rely on people, though. From the hugest tiger to the teeniest tabby, felines were hunters, and no amount of domestication had tamed that primal instinct. Nadia felt pretty confident that, despite all the stuff she’d eaten prepared by another’s hand, the same held true for her. And already the gears in her head were turning, a factory lining churning out an endless procession of great ideas–though some, admittedly, were much better than others. After exiting the quarry, the feral crested a rocky knoll of red grass and put her hands on the hips, scanning the Chasm. Listening. In a place like this, with no lakes or streams to be seen, she’d have a hard time finding fish. But who said anything about fish? There lay another great expanse just beyond her fingertips, home to all kinds of creatures ripe for the picking, and no ocean -no matter how great- could hold a candle to it. For the first morning in far too long, she stood beneath the boundless sky. Its denizens, unlike the fish who could remain submerged forever if they so chose, couldn’t help but descend every now and then. What they lacked in size they made up for in quantity. For her next heist, it was time for Ms. Fortune to nab some birds.

Filled with energy and motivated by appetite, Nadia got moving. She made her way back to Dirtmouth and began to ransack the ghost town’s hovels, turning everything upside-down as she searched for what she needed. Out of all the settlers who might colonize an uncharted territory like this in search of mineral wealth, there was one tradesman whose importance outweighed all others, whose continuous efforts made such townships possible: the humble farmer. Though Dirtmouth had been nothing but a shell of its former self for an age, the laborers whose agriculture once sustained it must have left traces behind, just like the weaver under whose dusty looms and discarded scraps Nadia slept last night. Eventually, the feral’s gamble paid off. The sight of old, rusted tools that looked like farming implements led her to a stash of seeds that hadn’t been looted. Neither the miners nor the bandits had the time -or perseverance- to try to coax new life from this thin, rocky soil. Better for them to rely on merchants and packed provisions. More practical for them, and more fortunate for Ms. Fortune.

Nadia grabbed a sack of seeds and scampered through town, a mischievous air about her. Wheat, carrot, potato, it didn’t matter what they were, just that they were easily visible from a distance. Next, the would-be hunter hunted for a good spot. She needed a place where nobody would be likely to blunder in and ruin her plans. Before she could find such a place, though, she found her path obstructed by a towering mountain of muscle crowned by a fiery red mane. Nadia stared up at Ganondorf for a brief moment. He looked…groggy. If not for the shortening of his hair, he’d probably have a serious case of bedhead. The thought made Nadia smile. As scary the big guy could be when raging in battle, he was still human at the end of the day. “Good morning!” she chirped, her cheerfulness dialed up to eleven in an effort to burn through the warlord’s gloom like sunlight through morning mist. “How’s Dirtmouth treatin’ ya? You know, we’ve been underground so long I just about forgot what the sun was. But then it dawned on me!” That one left her cackling, whether it improved -or soured- Ganondorf’s mood.”

“I just got back from the big mining camp,” she continued. You know me, just can’t ‘mine’ my own business.” She winked. “Met this walrus guy there, you’d probably like him. When it comes to blacksmithing, he’s super e-fish-ient.” After reading the room a little, Nadia decided to tone down the puns. Ganondorf had just one thing on his mind: his next meal. When he asked her about food, she hoisted her seed bag over her shoulder. “Well, funny you should ask! I was just about to go snag myself some grub, and I don’t mean beetle larva. With these bad boys, I’m gonna catch me some birds. You want in on this?”

To such a large man the average bird must seem like no more than a crumb, but when faced with an empty stomach, even crumbs were preferable. The two set out together, quickly finding a stretch of relatively flat land by a cliff near Dirtmouth where more plants than usual seemed to cluster. Ganondorf used his strength to churn the earth, disturbing the soil and hopefully flushing out bugs. Nadia then scattered the bait she’d collected, hoping that the birds would know that poorly-planted farmland meant a smorgasbord of tasty seeds. The two hid themselves nearby, Nadia’s eagerness practically infectious, despite the resiliency of Ganondorf’s immune system. With surprising and refreshing speed, the ploy actually began to work. Golden finches were the first on the scene, flitting around with remarkable speed to snag the choicest morsels. These birds, tiny and very flighty, filled Nadia with disappointment, but the catgirl’s bad mood didn’t last long. Soon black king pigeons showed up. Plump, meaty, and rather bold, they focused on the feast more than on potential threats, allowing the hunters to make their move.

This was the tricky part, since the two hadn’t prepared a trap and neither could claim ranged attacks to be their strong suit. Luckily, the two managed to come to a quick consensus. When the time came, Ganondorf popped up and hurled Nadia, who’d tucked herself into the fetal position, like a ball. She used Charge and became a streak of lightning that blasted through the thickest crowd of pigeons. When fried, they immediately poofed into smoke, essentially exploding into raw drumsticks. The other birds took flight in an instant, the finches first off the block, and without delay the Moblin archers opened fire. Their clumsy shots weren’t terribly effective, but they downed a couple pigeons, and with two hungry adventurers every morsel counted. Nadia and Ganondorf hurried to collect the meat, which remained remarkably clean despite touching the ground. “Huh. Well, somethin’ somethin’ gift horse, right?” As they worked, the call came in from Kamek to meet up at the Stag Station. It surprised her to learn that the team was missing a mask piece, and it surprised her even more to find out that the others had come up with some kind of magical solution. “Okay, yeah. We’re on our way. Me and Big G got some fresh supplies, and we didn’t ‘fowl’ it up!” With the last of the meat in hand (metaphorically), the team turned to head that way.

The deluxe camping set shared by the Seekers featured a spit roast, among other cooking implements, so when the scattered members of the team navigated back through Dirtmouth, they could follow the savory aroma of roasting pigeon. While Nadia wasn’t any better of a cook than anyone else, and nobody could furnish the meal-in-progress with seasonings or spices, the meat smelled very promising. While it roasted, Nadia investigated the other’s findings, her eyes only lingering on the Constrained Heart. “Huh,” she murmured, noting the rune-inscribed golden arc that traced its side as she pulled the Ripened Heart from her bag. “It’s kinda like mine. I could make heart puns about it all day, but this thing’s no joke. Saved my butt a couple times already.” Her tall tales of being unkillable had been sorely tested lately, and it had taken a few extra jolts of healing to keep those yarns spinning. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any mask pieces to offer them. “Eh, it’s the shiny stuff that gets my attention. Call it a ‘farce’ of habit.” She glanced at the simulacrum, an object that seemed simultaneously futuristic and archaic. “If that thing lets us skip another leg of this trip though, it’s good as gold.”

Once everyone had gathered, both orders of business could conclude. The meat of the black king pigeons was dense, flavorful, and immensely satisfying. With only a few slices left of days-old pizza, the fowl was a welcome alternative, though naturally everyone else could wait until Nadia and Ganondorf had their fill. Meanwhile, the gathered fragments socketed together cleanly, forming two whole masks and two thirds of a third one. That last mask seemed to be missing its lower section, but when the team’s magical experts carefully applied the simulacrum, the artifact assembled itself into an exact copy of the missing piece. At last, all three keys were in the Seekers’ hands.

“Well, that’s everything, right?” Nadia grinned, full of pep. “Now we just gotta get back to that big black egg where we found you, G.” The team’s tour of the Under (or a small part of it, at least) would conclude right where it began. There was just one glaring issue in the Seekers’ plan, since the region directly beneath them lacked a Stag Station of its own.

“So…how do we get down the Chasm this time?”

Midna and her wolves slashed and clawed at the hand they had captive with vicious abandon, till they heard a crack in the very foundations of the bridge. It prompted Midna to command her beasts that it was ”Time to get away” as she herself moved to pull away from the chained hand, only for her wrist to be tugged and then held as the chain wrapped around their captor went taught.

She had all of a moment to give a little ”ah” of understanding of the double edged sword of her plan before it cut her, the titan putting all his force into wrenching free of the bindings, vaporizing the chain and the part of the bridge it was bound to in one titanic hail.

Disconnected from the chain, Midna’s Legion returned to its core as its mistress and fellow minion hurtled through the air towards the reactor wall. Midna reached out and grabbed said core as she flew, before opening a portal to the twilight realm that caught her minion and gave it a softer landing in the source of her sands. She could do little in the everpresent glow of mako to prevent herself from smashing into the far wall however, and so promptly did so. The air was knocked out of her lungs, and her back bruised to the nines, but at least she did not get crushed by the bridge segment as it smashed into the wall beside her.

Instead she just had to worry about both falling and the resulting hail of debris, but the latter turned out to be a solution to the former as she narrowly managed to catch a her sized chunk coming her way in her shadow hand, and then proceed to use it as a flotation device preventing her from plummeting down into the abyss below. She only got to cling to it for a few moments to catch her breath however, before she was forced to hurl herself off of it and to another bridge splinter to avoid being laser beamed. Then again to another. And another.

It was, then, something of a relief to end that song and dance by being sucked into their foe, at least after the futile screaming plunge into the vacuum had come to an end, and Sandalphon got an idea of where they were and what they could do.

”Alright” Minda replied, before pausing to block one of the purple lances with her shadow hand, and then continuing ”I’ve already ripped out one heart today, what’s one more?”

That was easier said than done however, especially because when she tried to open a portal to summon minion reinforcements, she couldn't find a link back to her own realm, just as she had failed to do so in the Astral Plane.

”Looks like you are replacing the other thing for now” she told the Legion core she was still holding in her hand, before re-linking her astral chain to it, and summoning the beast legion being beneath her. Mounting it as she so often did her wolfos.

She did this in near perfect sync with the core summoning its own reinforcements.

”Alright, let’s clear them out!” she declared upon taking in the masses, as she prepared to do what she did best: taking out the chaff.

Astride her beast legion she charged forwards, lance in hand, skewering one of the wireframes upon its tip, before pulling it closer with a yank and ripping its faceless head apart with two dragon claw swipes. It shattered into sprues, freeing her legion up to pounce on the next, knocking it down to give her a free stab right through the skull.

Those two loners were something of an exception to their duplicates’ fighting style however, as several more of the wireframes massed up and came at her as a gang, fists at the ready. So out came the shadow hand, and down went powerful ground pounds and slaps, sending wireframes flying or pulping them against the strange white ground.

Just as she had finished making wireframe pancakes, wires of purple circuitry forming on the ground below her, stretching out from the core, helpful reminded her of its existence. Not wanting to stand on whatever that was for any longer than needed, the princess spurred her astral beast to leap back, the legion doing so just in time to prevent them from being skewered by massive spikes spearing up from the ground.

”Awww, you want my attention?” she asked the core with faux sweetness as she turned on it, before raising up her shadow hand and starting to form a twilight volleybomb ”Then you’ve got it!”

She’d observed the squads of wireframes forming protective shield walls in front of it, but this held no concern for her as she let her volleybomb fly, spiking it down directly into them. The meters wide orb smoothly phased through shield, wireframe and then half way into the ground before detonating, scattering the defending wireframes and exposing the core.

She slashed a wide angle energy blast towards it using her lance, and then pivoted to charge another group of wireframes, crashing right into the center of them before winding a dark energy field and having her beast legion leap between their stunned forms, executing them en-mass with precision throat bites.

With her keeping the enemy minion population culled nice and low, she hoped others who where better at taking down singular foes would be able to focus 100% on heart ripping duty.

”I mean we’ll walk, obviously” was Bowser’s obvious answer to the question of how they were going to get down the chasm, causing Jr to groan loudly and to then turn and ask ””Kamek, make me one of those ridable dragons or something, I don’t wanna walk all day again!”

”I suppose” Kamek agreed with a sight, before beginning to conjure, before reeling what that sounded like and clarifying ”that I can make you a steed I mean. I do not suppose that we can walk down there, as the lift is out, remember?”

”Ohhh. By chasm I thought she meant just the way down to the hole” Bowser replied ”but I mean, can’t we just jump down it again? Land on those flowers”

”I’m not sure if that is wise, we got lucky last time that no one hit the sides of the chasm” Kamek replied as he finished conjuring a king gryphon for the young prince, who excitedly hopped on its back, before taking off, doing a loop de loop and then landing back on the ground again.

”Couldn’t we all just, well, use that to get down?” Rika asked

”No it's mine, and you can’t have it!” Jr disagreed with a mix of brattyness and cheer, before remembering something and saying ”Oh but here, you can have this” before tossing Rika the tape for the Beast.

”The ‘Undyne’ tape fixed itself over night somehow, so I’ve got that now” he explained, before briefly switching to the fishy knight, which made for quite the majestic image atop the king gryphon’s back, before turning it off again. ”Cool huh?”

”Oh? Thanks” Rika replied, catching it, before clarifying ”But I didn’t mean I’d take your bird thing. I can just float down using that floaty rock I have after all”

”Also I can make more. Some more anyway” Kamek clarified ”Not enough for everyone, but if needs must we can just ferry people down a few at a time”

”Sounds like a plan!” Bowser decided, getting up off his butt and declaring ”Alright troop, let’s move out!”

Move out they did, or rather down, following the mining trails and avoiding any kind of trouble this time, till they arrived at the place where the crane had once stood. Reduced to splinters, it would not, as Kamek said, provide a way down. This had not, apparently, stopped the miners however, as while they approached, a figure was seen emerging from the chasm.

She was a blocky figure, in a way very reminiscent of a certain Steve, wearing equally blocky metal armor over a Yellow sweater that looked like it would be quite cozy where it is not at the moment very wet. When flagged down, she introduced herself as Makena and returned to the edge of the pit to explain how she had just gotten out, and in doing so why she was drenched.

Pouring endlessly out of a recently dug nook in the chasm wall was a 1 meter wide cubic waterfall that rolled down and down and down into the dark. She had, apparently, swum all the way up it, and claimed it to be a much superior alternative to her competition’s method. Said method was on the other side of the chasm, and seemed to consist of a single rope that, again, went down and down and down forever into the dark.

Makena espoused the creator said rope to be a fool, specifically for the sin of digging straight down, which was not a debate the troop and any reference for. Bowser promptly asked how in the world else you would dig down, prompting Makena to disavow him. Shortly after, she took her leave, leaving the seekers with a choice of 3 ways down. Leap of faith, vertical swimming, or massive amounts of abseiling.

Well, those or their own power, which 3 out of 4 of them took. After providing a steed or two if they were desired, Kamek simply began drifting down the hole atop his broomstick, while Rika activated her feather fall rune and began to float slowly after while Jr, well, Jr proceeded to divebomb his gryphon mount straight down into the dark while whooping with glee.

That left Bowser with the options of rope or water, and given that the rope was not going to be able to hold him, he opted for water. He could breathe it after all. Unfortunately the big lug forgot he couldn’t swim anymore.

The Koopa king promptly sank like a stone, endangering anyone who’d gone before him with his much too swift pace. Still, while fast for anyone sane, it wasn’t so fast he was gonna go splat, particularly when he added his super bell into the mix, and started to control his descent by scratching his cat claws against the wall. Now descending at a sane speed, he continued on down and down and down till at last he and the rest of the Troop arrived at the bottom and discovered something terrible: someone had cut down all the flowers!

There were also two holes dug into the once fertile ground. Into one the waterfall fell, and for some reason it did not overflow out of it and flood the cave. The second one had the rope descending into it, and from it the sound of metal striking stone could be heard. Suspecting a culprit of the flower devastation, the Troop looked down this hole, and found a rather short individual wearing silvery armor digging a hole straight down into the ground.

He was promptly shouted at, but insisted that the flowers had been like that when he got here. When asked why he was digging down there for, he informed them he was digging something called a ‘hellevator’ and to leave him to it.

So they did.

”Well, if it wasn’t him, I think we all know who did this, though I wonder if this means our survival was an accident, or if we’re scaring him now? Either way, he should be” Kamek declared, having already relayed the lack of a soft landing awaiting them.

At least there wasn’t also a pack of monsters awaiting them either, and so the troop happily set up shop and waited for the rest of the team to join them back down in the depths.

Roland, being more mobile in general with his fighting style, kept up the maneuvering jumping from platform to platform. Susie and Blazermate, being more defensive though, ate a powerful laser. Both robots had shields of various make, and Susie had her business suit, but this beam did some good damage to the two even through all that, even breaking Blazermate's projectile shield. This taught the two to be mobile like everyone else though at least, although Blazermate could only heal. And her sentry gun had gotten destroyed, but that at least ate one of his attacks.

Seeing these big attacks coming their way, the seekers unleashed their own big attacks. Roland acting like Goldlewis now and striking at Y with his large two handed sword in melee range, using his jumping momentum to slash into him, before using his body to jump back to the platforms. Blazeramte was busy healing, and Susie was busy dodging, so there wasn't much to do here.

Although things took a spicy turn when Y was tired of all the relative knats swarming and biting his form, so he decided to pull his trump card. Opening up his chest cavity, he put out enough suction force to devour all the platforms and the seekers upon them. This was... Well, it wasn't good considering what he did with those clones.

Being sucked up wasn't the end though, instead it seemed that, to 'assimilate' his pray, Y had to expose his core. Of course this wouldn't be easy, as Y was well aware of his own weakness and unleashed a varying barrage of attacks. Most were just strikes with some purple energy manifesting as various kinds of spears and lances in various formations in both melee and ranged variants. Alongside that he summoned some minions with the same kind of scheme.

Susie went on to deal with the Wireframes, whirling her fists to more move to dodge the barbs going her way as she barreled towards one of the wireframes, stopping to grab it and use it as a shield from a second wave of barbs heading her way. Her business suit had taken enough damage now, and she'd have to stop using it soon, but before that she'd use its strength to at least cause some chaos and the wireframes made excellent shields in the meantime. With Midna's assistance, she could also use a few Wireframes as body missiles to throw at Y's core, but that wasn't really all that effective.

Roland meanwhile clashed with the lances and barbs flying his way. He could deflect the purple barbs with his swords without much issue, but for now he could only clash with the purple spears, not gaining much ground for now. After a couple clashes though, he reached Emotion level 4, and gained Power of the Past, with the same womanly voice from before saying "I’ll be the one to take things away this time…" This made Roland a bit slower, but much, much stronger. He also gained the EGO The Homing Instinct. This one he decided to use when he got the chance.

As the white area turned into a grass field with a yellow road leading to a distant city of emerald, Roland donning a classy suit as he got ready to snap his fingers. Seeing what was happening, and needing a Kritz target to get this fight done as fast as possible, Blazermate decided to kritz Roland since she knew a big move was coming. Sure it wasn't the best of the EGO to Kritz, but a glowing electric blue house dropped onto Y's core dealing a massive amount of crushing damage to him and any wireframes nearby the landing area as well as giving all of his allies a slight damage boost. Roland's Rake ability now triggered, leaving Y locked out of using his Circuit Lance Stab and making him easier to approach as a bonus.

Not wanting to waste the kritz, Roland went in to smack the heart, the Kritz allowing him to overpower the lance attacks coming his way and allowing him to smack Y for some good damage. What was even better, when Y tried to attack Roland when he wasn't clashing, his Counter activated, and while under the power of Power of the Past and Blazermate's kritz, that just lead to Roland overpowering and striking Y's core a few extra times on each Counter, greatly punishing him for using a flurry of light attacks instead of one huge get-off-me move if he wasn't taking Roland seriously.

Eventually though Roland would need to retreat as his weapons started to flicker, signifying the end of Kritz. Seeing this, he retreated as he left a final parting shot with his crossbow, getting back to get into a more evasive stance for whatever came next.

With others taking some of the aggression from Y, and even Midna pinning its arm down for a bit, both Geralt and Zenkichi were able to avoid most of the Consul's attacks. That did not mean they came out unscathed from the barrages he put out, but they managed to dodge the lasers. Geralt did find herself on the receiving end of a wide-swinging arm, knocking her a solid twenty feet before she even realized what happened, but the Hateful Flesh proved sufficient as a brake, sending sparks flying and a grisly screeching noise as its blade dug into the platform she was standing on. When he shifted away, she was forced to move, running and leaping to another platform to try and get closer.

Zenkichi, himself, was forced to dodge a few laser blasts, as Valjean's attacks proved to irritate Y, though not nearly as much as Midna chaining him to a platform. That bought him some time to fire off a Triple Down as well as reload his revolvers, though he stowed them right away, saving them for another moment. When Y shifted away from Geralt's direction, Zenkichi found himself with an opportunity, following Goldlewis' lead and leaping onto their foe to take a few swings. Anybody unlucky enough to be stuck with the two of them when Y broke free found themselves hanging on for dear life, but then Y decided enough was enough. His ribcage opened, and from it came that same vortex that nearly sucked Zenkichi in to his death before. "Oh come on, NOT AGAIN!" He cried as the Seekers were pulled into the void.

Groggily forcing himself to his feet, Zenkichi looked around and groaned. "Now what the hell is this?!" He exclaimed, before getting a good look at the core. "Oh my god it's his weak spot." He laughed. "He actually sucked us in to his weak spot. Wow." The others by that point were getting up and getting their own bearings, and Sandalphon explained in less video gamey terms that they were probably inside Y, and that if they didn't beat the shit out of his core here, they'd probably be absorbed and killed. Fun times.

"Then let's kill him." Geralt simply added, lashing out with the Hateful Flesh to shatter a circuit lance that tried to impale her, switching to the LCCB Assistant Manager Identity and returning fire while hunkering behind her shield. As the wire frames appeared, Zenkichi practically lit up.

"Oh, hey, a bunch of mooks! That's my specialty!" He cheered, gleefully swinging his greatsword through a pair of wire frame phantoms as another landed a kick to his chest. He steadied himself against the blow, before retaliating with a hefty overhead swing and crushing the phantom into the ground, three more taking their place as he, Susie and Midna made sure their heavier hitters weren't interrupted.

Geralt's turtling strategy had proved to be a mistake, as a series of purple lines stretched along the geometric ground before lancing upwards and into her, drawing some blood and completely bypassing her shield. She transitioned to moving laterally, still hiding behind her shield, but keeping mobile to avoid such an attack again as she patiently fired shot after shot into the core. While she wasn't dealing any massive hits, the fact that she could react to the spears to protect herself while walking over and around the ground-based circuits that tried to get underneath meant that she was able to keep up her fire fairly steadily while they whittled at the enemy.

Sakura kept chucking fireballs, watching Karin and Goldlewis anxiously between her techniques. Things were…going! Going well? Hard to say. They just had to keep wailing on him until something happened!

Karin’s heart was pounding. She was having to be aggressive to carry her weight as a dodge tank. She could afford to be reckless because there was no chance she would fall to her death, she was confident in her skill with the hook at this point. But if she was struck even once she could be sent flying.

Consul Y kept rambling. ”You nutcases can imagine the end of life as we know it easier than you can imagine a chance in social policy!” She shouted at him, frustrated.

Karin was on the floating platform when his ribcage open and he began to consume them all. Thus, she was one of the first to go in. Logically, she knew that if Consul Y had a ‘kill them all’ button, he would have pressed it by now. This was more likely him getting desperate, or even more likely, just him changing tactics. So there was no way they were all about to die.

Still.

”Aaaaaaaaah!!”

”Bwaaaaaah!!!”

When Sakura opened her squeezed eyes and uncurled from her ball, she peered around the room. ”Oh…huh…cool?” She said, standing to her feet. Karin stood up and dusted herself off, clearing her throat.

”Be on your guard.” Karin warned, looking at the pulsating polyhedron. Just then it fired out a lance at Sakura, who ducked it, nearly losing a lock of brown hair.

”We’ll just destroy him from the inside out, then.” Karin confirmed. She and Sakura strafed in tandem, avoiding a series of barbs that trailed after them. They hooked around and slammed into some of the wireframe guardians. There was a brief exchange of blows that ended with the phantoms broken to bits. Midna was doing her part though, and Karin and Sakura eyed the core. Glancing at each other, they nodded.

”Game over!” Sakura yelled, leaping and slamming her heel down on the vortex of shapes while Karin came in low and slammed her palm up into it. It was like kicking a bunch of ultra-hard plastic plates floating in jello, Sakura thought. The two backed up as the thing counter-attacked, their forearms and knees scraped and chipped against by the offensive barbs. But they wouldn’t be deterred for long. Sakura blasted through a lance aiming for her torso and followed the fireball in. Karin travelled in her wake and the two encircled it with a series of punches and kicks. Karin pulled back before Sakura did, and the brunette caught a lance in the tummy for her trouble. It stuck against her, not breaking the skin but getting caught on her body before departing with a yellow spark. Grunting, she kicked away and shook her head, grinning for a half-second before dashing back in.

”You’re gonna get it now! Hope you bought polygon insurance!”

”Polygon insurance?” Karin asked.

”Hush! I’m concentrating!” Sakura shouted back.

For Ganondorf, the Chasm was easily traversed. He still had his Phantom Pet after all. And just like he had done when he descended into Mercy Dreams, he did the same thing here and safely glided down to the bottom of the Chasm. He was in a better mood now that he had a full belly. Those finches and pigeons were a little on the gamey side but not too different from eating pheasant. And if the choice was between that and something bug-related? Well, he’d take the birds every time.

At the bottom of the Chasm they found a silver-armored knight wielding a pickaxe. What kind of a knight would perform such menial tasks rather than have some squire or servant do it for him? Perhaps this particular knight wasn’t as wealthy as his silver armor suggested. And what exactly was a “hellevator” anyway? Something to do with the blocky waterfall? The knight didn’t exactly stick around long enough to answer questions and instead went right back to digging himself further down.

That armored girl with the blocky figure, Makena - whom they encountered above. Something about her struck the warlord as… vaguely familiar. Her physique looked almost identical to the watery zombies he’d fought in the Shrine of Light. And now he began to wonder if she could have told them where to find more of those handy little Ender Pearls. But unfortunately she was already gone now and Ganondorf himself was in no mood to go chasing her down for such information.

”A word of advice,” he spoke up to the other Seekers once they were all down and gathered, ”I fought zombie creatures with the same exact build as that woman who climbed out of here. We may want to be on the lookout for them around here too. And keep your eyes open for any dark green and black pearls. Snatch up any you find, they’ll teleport you to whatever spot you throw them to. Handy for getting through pesky obstacles or reaching places you couldn’t have reached otherwise. Ender Pearls, I believe they’re called.”

And then of course there was the obvious question about the Guardian. And unfortunately for the Seekers, despite all the time he spent chained to the entrance of the Black Egg, Ganondorf knew nothing of the creature that slumbered within it, ”I’m afraid Toriel and Consul P weren’t exactly chatty about that subject. So your guesses are about as good as mine, I’m afraid.” Ganondorf concluded with a shake of his head, ”That quiet little knight seemed to know a great deal, but Goddess only knows where he ran off to.”

”And one more thing.” Ganondorf added before the Seekers could disperse, ”I found another one of those Flame Clocks the Consuls are fond of in the Castle at Holograd. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but now that that hooded girl has told us of their significance, I thought this might be information worth sharing.”

After that, Ganondorf went ahead and made sure he was traveling near the two Octopaths. Or Therion at least. The warlord presented the thief with the pair of sickles he’d found in the Shrine of Light, ”I found these while I was separated from the group. They’re a little too light weight for my taste, so maybe you can make better use of them.”

Between Flow Motion and the dash of his StepSword, Roxas was probably one of the most agile and maneuverable of the Seekers aside from those who could straight up fly. So trying to flee from the giant vacuum attack was something he could do at least for a time and it resulted in him being one of the last to finally be consumed by the attack. And yet, that wasn’t the end apparently. He and everyone else awoke in a big white room patterned with geometric lines and shapes.

And at the center of it was the Consul. Or at least Roxas assumed that’s what it was. Some kind of mass of geometric lines surrounding a dark polygonal core, ”Um…” Roxas stammered, having no idea whatsoever what was going on, ”...Okaaaay.”

He heard Sandalphon’s explanation, something about them needing to fight their way out otherwise they’d get fully consumed along with everything else. Well that at least made things simple. And all of them against this one core thing? Easy! Or maybe not… because that was about when the core thing suddenly summoned a bunch of humanoid figures made up of purple wireframes.

”This seems… weirdly familiar.” Roxas commented. Was there something in his or Sora’s memories that was tied to what looked like a digital landscape? If there was, Roxas couldn’t recall it clearly. Something about… Bugs and… Datascapes? That part of his time within Sora’s Heart was admittedly pretty fuzzy and… absolutely confusing.

But no more time for thinking. The Wireframe enemies were closing in and they were clearly not friendly. But now Roxas’ MP had recharged so he could afford to be more aggressive again. The first cluster of them that came at him were treated to a healthy zap of lightning courtesy of a Thundaga spell. Then Roxas used his StepSword to dash into a flurry of strikes from both energy sword and keyblade alike. That dash was proving to be instrumentally useful in getting around faster, even in a big empty space like this where there were no objects or structures for him to use Flow Motion with.

”Finally!” Roxas quipped as he finished off a small cluster of Wireframes, ”Enemies I can actually fight back against!” Sure the situation wasn’t great but honestly the Nobody preferred this over getting bullied by a bunch of invisible Legios he couldn’t touch any day of the week.

The Keybearer was able to develop a routine of using StepSword to put himself in the midst of a wireframe cluster only to follow that up with a Thundaga Spell to soften them up. After that they were usually simple enough to finish off with strings of normal attacks. But he didn’t want to just fight wireframes all day long. The Consul’s form was over in the distance and Roxas suspected that the wireframes wouldn’t stop coming until they could actually concentrate their attacks on the thing that was summoning them.

With this in mind, Roxas decided not to focus on the wireframes so much. He instead used his StepSword dash in conjunction with what little Flow Motion he could build up to try and work his way closer to the Consul. When he started getting closer, Roxas dispelled his Keyblade in order to free up his right hand to take shots at the Consul with his RockGun. Of course he was still using the StepSword to dash and slash his way through wireframes at the same time. Ultimately he wanted to get close enough to start hacking at the Consul with melee strikes.

---

"Thanks for getting us food, you two." Jesse said. Though it was only after most of it had been eaten that she had the thought to try inflating it with her Tool Gun. It...kinda worked. "Do you think it has the same caloric value?" She asked the Seekers rhetorically, looking at her slice of roast duck that was now the size of a dinner plate. Regardless, everyone got a little bit more to eat.

Ganondrof shared some useful info. "I'd like to get a look at one of those things myself, at some point. Know what we're up against. And...destroy it? Or just leave it be? Maybe a helpful hooded person will be there to drop the smallest scraps of information again. They should just make a pamphlet. I'll make a damn pamphlet." Jesse said. Polaris twinkled on the edges of her vision.

You have the excuse of not being able to talk to me directly. It's just a little annoying to still not have the full picture. All the more reason for us to go back to the Oldest House after taking out the Guardian.

Regardless, it was time to get down the Chasm. Everyone had their own ideas. "Well, I know that we- I can just float down." Jesse said. "And if, anyone wants, I can shoot them with the balloon gun until they are slightly less then buoyant and you can do the same?" She offered reluctantly. "Probably not ideal, though. But, it's an option. I'm sure with all the wizards here we can figure something out."

Regardless, Jesse would take an easy step off the edge and Levitate from drop point to drop point, never dropping too far but usually staying right next to the edge.

It looked like the battle would go on for a while given the sheer bulk of the Consul's new form. Long, drawn out battles were tough - Pit hoped that the Seekers would be able to hold out. He knew they could do it so long as their morale didn't fall and their stamina didn't fail them, even if they couldn't deal huge amounts of damage. They had to avoid taking a lot of damage themselves too, something easier said than done.

When the Spirit of Ambition broke free of Midna's pin, Pit scrambled to get out of the way. He managed it, but the rush of displaced air pushed the winged boy away all the same. He got back to his feet and shook his head, only to hear Goldlewis' concerned yell right after. He found Giovanna clinging to the Consul, way too precarious a place to be. He made a beeline for her, through laser arrays, up and over floating debris to pick her up and get her over to safety where Sandalphon or Blazermate could take care of her.

And then the monstrous form's chest opened up, revealing a bright vortex that vacuumed everything in the area into it - Seekers included.

While being sucked inside Pit let out a shout, not so much of panic but of surprise. The feeling of being pulled in and tumbling through the air into some harsh unknown was not a pleasant one. But when he landed with an "Oof!" and stood up to find everyone else there and a weird, white landscape of shapes and lines there was one thought that came to his head first.

"...it's a lot cleaner in here than the last giant body I had to fight my way out of."

Sandalphon seemed to think it wasn't the Consul's physical body per se, and Pit was inclined to believe her. Still, the goal was the same - to destroy the giant's "heart" and get out. He made an affirmative noise.

The purple circuit lines that traced the ground meant only one thing to Pit: get out of the way. They spread fast but the angel was faster, dodging and dashing out of the path of danger. The lines erupted into piercing spikes seconds afterward, the same kind of lances that were conjured out of the core itself. If that was all the core had to throw at them, Pit could handle it. He was still fairly sure he could handle it even when the wireframes started appearing.

They took him by surprise, a pair of them knocking him out of his combat flow. They closed in on Pit with melee attacks, shockingly strong for apparently having no bones or muscles. The flat of his bow blocked the first's follow up punch, while the second bypassed the block entirely and came in with a flying kick that sent the angel stumbling backward into a newly laid circuit path. His instincts kicked in and he leaned into the fall, pulling himself into a back handspring. The spears shot up and cut against his hands and bracers as he flung himself out of the way instead of skewering right through him.

"Nice try!" he taunted, though he wasn't sure whether these things had ears or not. He pulled the bow apart and rushed forward with his dual blades, slicing through the wireframes and moving back toward the core. He could see that Midna, Susie, and Zenkichi had a handle on the multitude of wire people, so Pit left them to it and focused his efforts on the thing that would get them out of here.

Pit was an expert at using the divine bow he wielded; in the blink of an eye it was back in one piece with one of the blades reversed. He dashed towards the core leading with his angel ring technique, the bow spinning in one hand like a gilded buzz saw. When it ended the blades became two again, though in the same orientation - he held one blade in a reversed grip, the other traditionally. He carved into the core as soon as the latest shield blocking it went down with a fast series of slashes and jabs. He was far from rooted to the spot, though in his haste to pile on as much damage as possible he forewent dodging the next bout of wire spears the core spit out. He withstood them bravely and kept at it, at least until a new circuit line spread out and readjusted before diving in swords first again.




Within a few minutes all of the Seekers assembled at the meeting point. All that were left, anyway. It was the nature of groups like these, heroic ventures, to grow and shrink in size. To pick up new members and leave old ones behind. Of everyone that set out for the Under, the ones gathered now were a solid group. That went without saying, given everything they'd had to fight through since descending underground. Besides her friend and fellow Orsterran Therion, Primrose had known Sectonia and Jesse the longest; but having spent time with the others and having seen them in action, she felt there was hardly a better crew for the job they were about to undertake.

Since she'd eaten already, the dancer left the cooking and consuming to everyone else. She filled them in briefly on the strange encounter she'd had late last night, should anyone else feel like seeking out a rotten egg while they remained in this region. And she pulled out all of the mask fragments she'd been holding onto, setting them together with the others. So they really had missed one, somewhere in the sprawling dark cavern systems and alien-like realms.

While she looked on with interest as the simulacrum was changing into shape, her Orsterran counterpart was listening to the explanation given on the latest random assortment of items. As was the usual with a lot of things they'd found underground, they were mostly strange or gross. Ms. Fortune pointed out that one macabre object in particular was similar to one she had, which sounded useful to him.

"Then don't mind if I do," he said, taking the Constrained Heart for himself. Between that and the Hiveblood he had with him, he figured he'd be able to make it through a more drawn out battle if his evasion failed him. He also might have snuck a bird from the spits, though he doubted anyone would have minded that either.

With everyone together now and the three masks finally complete, the Seekers could get a move on. Their goal was the Temple of the Black Egg, back underground. How exactly they were going to make it back there must have been on everyone's minds, though Ms. Fortune put the thought to words - and her words included going in via the great chasm as they had the first time.

"Down the chasm?" Therion repeated, skeptical. "Why don't we just ride the beetle express back in?"

"We could, but I'm not sure we'd know which station is closest to the Guardian. We might be wasting a lot of time with trial and error," Primrose said. She has originally thought the same as Therion, that they'd return underground via the train station. Now that the most obvious and direct route was pointed out to her though, it made sense to just go straight down to their destination.

"So we're going to forget almost dying last time and just go the same way again?" As he asked the rhetorical question, Therion also gestured to Kamek as the Koopa gave his comments. The turtle was usually a source of common sense, even if he did give in to his fellow koopas more often than not. It was clear that Therion was unhappy with going back down through the Chasm, but at the very least the offer of a flying mount courtesy of the Koopa King's advisor made him feel a little better about it. He'd taken one before when they were underground, so it wasn't like he'd be flying with it for the first time.

"Let's see what the situation is first and decide from there," Primrose suggested, seeing as some in their group seemed dead set on going directly down. For all they knew, perhaps the mining crews had set up a temporary way to get up and down the chasm in the few days since the lift was destroyed. Actually arriving at the lip of the chasm, they did find that there were a few scattered attempts to set something like that up, though the means left a lot to be desired...

...but it didn't seem to matter to some of the group, who went ahead and began their descent into the massive canyon without so much as a discussion. Though Therion's frown was hidden by his collar and scarf, his distaste showed through clear enough in just the upper half of his face. He caught Kamek before the wizard descended himself, getting the koopa to conjure him a ride down. Sure Therion could swim and climb a rope with no issue, but was he about to do that down a hole hundreds of feet deep? Hell no.

While he slowly got going, Primrose tucked her hand under her chin and considered her own options. It hadn't really occurred to her until then that most of the group had some means of flight, even if temporarily. The mounted rode their steeds down and Bowser dropped quickly through the water passage. Sectonia had her own wings, so she'd be descending under her own power. That left herself, Jesse, and Nadia - and two of the three of them had limited means of flying. Figuring that their feline (well, more feline?) thief would take the water route, Primrose let her go ahead. "After you~"

She gave the same offer to Jesse if the red head was going to follow Ms. Fortune down. She might have the same idea as Primrose, which was to use the water way whenever her floating power needed to recharge and there were no perches to land on nearby. Primrose didn't really want to get soaked after all, but it definitely wasn't the worst thing that could happen. The dancer carefully stepped into the vertical stream, letting it carry her down a little. Then she floated out of it, falling gently a little way until landing on a foot hold and more or less following her red headed friend's lead. Then she'd catch the water again, and continue on that way. After a while she could see the bottom of the chasm and the people that had gotten there first, and so she hopped out of the water and floated down the rest of the way - conjuring a flame right away to dry off while everyone regrouped and got going again.

"I think he just wanted to scare us last time," Primrose said to Kamek. Her smile sharpened. "Clearly it didn't work, and now the tables are turned."

Attention turned to Ganondorf as he gave the group some information and pieces of advice. The flame clock... I'd almost forgotten, Primrose thought. As eager as she (and she was sure most of the others too) was to leave this region behind, the mystery of those clocks and the world's timeline intrigued her too much. They'd still have to pay a visit to that old king, once their work was finished.

Information was not the only thing the king of evil had to impart. Neither Primrose nor Therion thought much of him sticking close to them - the dancer in particular was not as standoffish around him as she'd felt when they first found him. But the offer of a pair of sickles did take Therion by surprise.

"Didn't take you for the generous type," he told the man. It wasn't a dig, just an observation - as Therion himself wasn't the generous type either. He certainly wasn't the folk hero kind of thief. And for a matched pair of weapons inlaid with silver and gold? They could probably fetch a pretty penny, even as weirdly blocky as they were. Still he accepted them, giving them a few swipes to see how they cut the air. He found them sharper than they appeared. He could definitely make use of them.

Therion stowed them on either side of his belt, along with his daggers. "Thanks."

He didn't know what it was about him that made royals and nobles take note of him - some kind of general vibe maybe? Either way, he couldn't say he didn't appreciate it at times like this.

Sectonia wasn't much for this 'camp' food as it were, but with a bit of creativity, she could at least flavor the bland meat with something to subsist with. She wasn't happy though, not at all. This just reminded her of how she was a 'hobo queen' at this point and that just wasn't something she wanted to think about.

Unlike many of the others, the question of how to get down the chasm wasn't really a hard one for Sectonia. She was one of the resident fliers, and had flown down the chasm before. The only problem would be another ambush from F, but that seemed unlikely. She even offered to carry one of the lighter team members down, as long as they didn't make a fuss or mess, since it was quite a long ways down. What she wasn't expecting was the appearance of a strange warrior-miner, sorta deal. But she had already descended the chasm to worry too much about them. From what little she heard, they offered another way down that seemed... to waterlog you. Not a pleasant way to do things.

Upon reaching the bottom, Ganondorf showed himself to be... useful and giving information? Did he fuse with a spirit to make him more chatty or was this something else? Nor did she expect him to give away something so charitably. Much like the Octopath travelers, she found that was... unexpected. Well, she was a bit like that earlier before she got to know people, so perhaps it was the same for him? Or the seeds of some power grab? Well... time would tell, but that was interesting at least.

"The only thing I know about this guardian, is that it has something to do with dreams. So it could be anything really. A god of dreams perhaps?" Sectonia said, having just as little info as everyone else. "Hmm... if thats the case, do you think it has been watching us as we progressed through this area?"

Even if Sandalphon hadn’t pointed it out, Goldlewis had already gotten a grip on the situation now confronting his team. Nothing about the near-featureless, mathematical void that stretched out infinitely around him clued him in, necessarily, and certainly no prior experience shed any light on present circumstances in even the vaguest terms, but when all else failed his ever-dependable gut told him what he needed to know: that this was it. Do or die. This state of quasi-existence was the closest that the individual known as Goldlewis Dickinson had ever been to annihilation, not just his material body, but his immortal soul. His right to exist as an individual was staked on this battle, and as such, he held nothing back.

Bellowing like a raging bull, the Secretary of Absolute Defense attacked. He threw caution to the wind and bore down on the Moebius core to deliver a withering bombardment of punches, kicks, elbows, tackles, and smashes. His coffin became a battering ram of destruction, wielded in every manner conceivable, and the UMA within -perhaps fearing for its own existence- gave its partner everything it had. Thunderbird grenades appeared with mechanical regularity to detonate against the polyhedron’s glassy, amorphous bulk. The core struck back with relentless brutality, but without apparent intelligence or strategic cohesion. If it focused everything it had on one opponent, it might be able to overwhelm that assailant beyond any hope of recovery, but instead fought on many fronts at once. It churned out an abundance of projectiles, lancelike projections, and subservient wireframes, but that was all it could do. When Goldlewis confirmed his suspicions that his enemy couldn’t combo him, he didn’t need to know anything else. He just needed to tough out the punishment that came his way, sustained by the intermittent pulses of Sandalphon’s healing miracles. His furious assault really began to snowball when Roland ‘s Rake came into play. The core’s purple skewers represented its clearest and most present danger, thanks to their high damage and hard-to-react-to speed, and with that attack sealed the close-quarters specialists like Goldlewis, Sakura, and Karin could really shine.

Attacking from behind, the wireframes tried to take Goldlewis and the others down, but beyond shrugging them back and pushing them off the veteran barely needed to do anything. Everyone pitched in to clear out the fodder, but Midna and Zenkichi went among them like wolves among sheep. Though the princess and the detective couldn’t have been more different, some strange core conceit connected them across space and time, giving them a pronounced upper hand against hordes. Together the two shut down the wireframe offensive, shattering them as quickly as they appeared. Meanwhile, Sandalphon kept calm and did her job. Though able to take potshots here and there, and punish overeager wireframes with far deadlier wires that sliced right through their constituent lines, she focused on evasion and healing so the others could keep the pain train rolling.

Working together, the Seekers were gaining ground. Cracks created by the falling house and walloping coffin deepened where the missiles, bow blades, quake rounds, and karate techniques collected. Everyone was motivated to pull out all the stops in this fight for survival, but for one hero, this fight was personal. Hayato and his Sword Legion moved and fought in perfect sync, not just attacking in tandem but pulling off flashy sync attacks with a one hundred percent success rate. Together they piled on the damage, but when the core struck back Hayato diverged from the formidable Goldlewis approach. For him, the core’s attacks weren’t hindrances, but opportunities to unleash a counter strike or Perfect Call and turn the tables with an empowered blow. “Give her back!” he howled, breaking his characteristic silence. “This! Is for! AKIRA!”

Hayato whipped his Sword Legion around, and time seemed to slow down as he lined up the perfect slice. A moment later, his partner shot out, a blue-and-white blur whose blade parted -and subtly shifted- reality itself. After a brief pause the displaced halves slammed back together, but the rift didn’t quite mend. With the wireframes gone, the Seekers whaled on the break. The cracks spread, and the next second, the core ruptured. A wave of force pushed its attackers back as the core crumpled in, collapsing into a smaller, spiky shape like a split-open geode. Cubic purple cores rained down slowly across the geometric plane as it settled, and on touching the ground the corrupted data began to assume the roughly humanoid forms of those Y had absorbed.

Then some of the data began to coalesce. With a noise almost like crackling timber it amassed into a murky, purple-black figure. It was Y–or more accurately, the man beneath the Moebius mask, Yoseph Calvert. Though of course, it wasn’t truly him. In his endeavor to transcend everything he was or had become, Yoseph had made himself something entirely different.

Hayato rose and struck him in a rage, only for his baton to pass right through. “It’s useless,” Yoseph intoned, a strange feedback inherent to his voice. “I’m part of the Astral Plane now. I’m endless.” He held his hands up. “I transcend mere dimensionality.” Ignoring him, Hayato turned and attacked again as the others approached, but again his weapon phased through Yoseph’s body. “Please stop. Come, now. It’s time for you all to join me.”

Then a baton slammed through his back, actually piercing his heart. It belonged to Akira, now no more than a phantom of the Astral Plane, like Yoseph himself. Gasping in shock, Yoseph sank to his knees. Behind him, rays of darkness began to bleed through the core. “I am…endless!”

When the core ruptured, everything went dark and hazy. When the Seekers opened their eyes, they picked themselves up from the bridge leading toward the mako reactor’s central structure. No sign of the Soul of Ambition could be seen. A moment passed before Goldlewis dared to clear his throat. “We did it. Or…she did it, I guess I oughta say. Poetic justice.” He let out a deep breath. “I reckon we-”

A flare of purple light got his attention, and he turned his gaze down the bridge, toward the towering structure. There he saw a masked purple figure alight with power. Tentacles streamed upward from his head, and in his chest glimmered a true Moebius core. Yet his manner seemed strangely defeated, and when he spoke, his demonic tone sounded bizarrely morose. ”So this as far as I can go,” Y murmured, practically hanging his head. ”All that legionic fusion, the Astral Plane itself, and yet-! Moebius, after all. We are all slaves…” Raising his head, he adopted a side-facing stance and extended his index finger forward. A light appeared in front of it, and a moment later, a huge purple laser burst forth to scream across the bridge. It scattered the Seekers and struck Goldlewis, sending him flying. He hit the bridge again near the edge that had been snapped off and tumbled toward the brink, unable to stop his momentum.

”I no longer care who lives or dies,” Moebius Y announced, his voice imperial. ”But I may as well destroy you if I can. So show me, Seekers of Light. Who will bring a stop to this: you, or I.”





To some of her teammates, Nadia’s question invited an easy answer. Many of them had means of neutralizing the danger inherent to the Chasm’s preternaturally long fall, different in form but similarly effective. Primrose, Jesse, and Rika possessed arcane methods of slowing their falls, turning a lethal plummet into a slow, almost whimsical drift. Kamek could soar down into the nigh-illimitable pit with the help of his broomstick, and Sectonia’s majestic insect wings allowed her to achieve still greater aerial movability. Of the two magicians, though, only the Magikoopa could lend wings to others through the conjuration of additional beasts of burden. Even Ganondorf, someone Nadia would have expected to be hopelessly terrestrial in terms of locomotion, had apparently obtained a familiar that would allow him to parachute down alongside the others. It was a ghastly creature, reminiscent of the ocean’s stingrays or manta rays, but woven from fully exposed, blood-red sinew and serrated lengths of bone. The sight of Ganondorf’s phantom, together with the voluminous beat of its tarpaulin wings and its hideously raspy intonations, made Nadia shiver, but she couldn’t deny that she felt a little sting of jealousy. With everyone accounted for, only three of the Seekers lacked a reliable means of traversing the Chasm, and the cat burglar was one of them.

Once the final preparations concluded and everyone could put off the inevitable no longer, they began their reluctant trek down toward that terrible rift in the earth where they would once again entomb themselves in that subterrene kingdom of continual nightmare. The closer she got to the pit, trudging over rugged yellow grasses and through spiraling stone channels, the more Nadia loathed her newfound sense of duty that obliged her to leave the enlivening breezes, wholesome creatures, and liberating sky behind. In addition to the way it reminded her of a yawning maw, poised to snap shut on her for good now that it had gotten a taste, Nadia dreaded the possibility of revisiting the various horrors she’d already experienced down there in the last few sunless days. The Womb for example, and everything in the Basement leading up to it, had been plenty nasty in their own right, but the surreal encounters she’d suffered through in Mercy Dreams had been the worst of all. It was frustrating; Nadia had been doing her best to leave her past behind her and embrace this farcical hero’s journey, but her past seemed to be pursuing her doggedly, and she was tired of it snapping at her heels. Hopefully Robin had been the one responsible for bringing her shadows into the light, and with him out of the picture, Nadia could focus on looking forward.

Coming to the edge of the Chasm, Nadia steeled herself and peered down into the depths. On the way she’d tried to drum up some of her trademark great ideas, but nothing that came to mind really tickled her fancy. While she knew that Charge could be used to change her momentum, relying on that to stop her fall would demand such exact timing that Nadia felt really doubtful. Between miscalculation, accident, and good old-fashioned impetuousness, she’d almost splattered herself several times already, and this involved even greater risk. Her other ideas pleased her even less, like scaling the Chasm walls manually with her claws, or being carried by Sectonia like an infant. However, the World of Light was nothing if not full of surprises, and not always in a bad way. Other people, with more tools and time on their hands, had already taken a shot at solving the problem that confronted them. One solution, belonging to a very polygonal woman named Makena, seemed almost laughably simple. In clear and alarming violation of the laws of physics, she’d placed an endless waterfall that acted more like a column of water. Nadia ended up smiling at the delightful and convenient impossibility. “Well, it sure wouldn’t be the first time I soaked myself to the bone on this trip. And hey, at least there’ll be a little sunlight to warm me up at the bottom, so…don’t mind if I do.”

Ready for the shock of cold water, she took a running jump and leaped right into the vertical stream. She entered it with a splash. While she knew that it flowed much, much slower than a normal waterfall just by looking at it, Nadia didn’t expect the pillar to slow her down as much as it did. “Oh, jeez,” she muttered, sticking her head out of the water and into the air. “This is gonna take fur-ever…”

At that very moment, she heard another, much louder splash, and swiveled her head upward to look. With incredible comedic timing, Bowser fell on her the next instant. Something about the big guy caused him to sink like a rock, slower than freefall but still appreciable fast, and as he plummeted through the water column his weight drove Nadia beneath him. She plowed through the water like a fallen water skier dragged by an oblivious boat, spread-eagled and sputtering. “Whubbbububbububububbububbub!” Fighting to orient herself, she ejected her head from the waterfall on a corded ‘neck’ of muscle fiber. She craned it upward to look at Bowser in bafflement. “Water you doing!?” Once she realized what was happening, Nadia quickly did the only thing she could: unleash jets of blood to blast herself clean out of the waterfall and into the open air of the Chasm. Once Bowser passed her by, she airdashed back into the pillar of safety, where she hung for a moment in comparative peace. With friends like these, even the simplest tasks were never boring.

If nothing else, the mishap gave Nadia an idea for speeding up her progress. Nadia began to swim out of the waterfall on purpose, fall for a few moments, then jet back into the liquid elevator before reaching terminal velocity. This literal rinse-and-repeat strategy allowed her to make relatively good time. Still, the Chasm was monstrously, absurdly deep, so much so that even a freefall could have taken minutes. No matter who made the descent, or how, it proved to be a painstaking and drawn-out procedure.

After what felt like ages, Nadia finally reached the floor, not too long after the others. “Whew! Made it!” she panted. “Finally getting to the bottom of things, eh?” She said this, of course, knowing full well that the Under went down much, much farther. Down through the Basement and the visceral waterways of the Womb, down through the Kingdom’s Edge, down into the Hive…she dreaded to think just how far down it went. Instead, she stared upward for the second time, noting just how far away that vital pinprick of sunlight seemed to be. Only now did it occur to her just how bad it would have been if someone obstructed the waterfall mid-descent. Someone had shown up to ruin their day last time, after all. Come to think of it…where was F? Considering where the Seekers were going, she felt grimly certain that the Consul would make an appearance. At the bottom of the Chasm, that shaft of light shown on a bed of ruined yellow flowers, systematically severed and scattered with an ill-tempered haphazardness. If Kamek’s guess about who did it was on the money, maybe F was already here and lying in wait somewhere up ahead. For Nadia, though, that notion didn’t hold much menace. “Isn’t this a little…” she gestured around at the flowers. “Petal-ful? No way he seriously thought he’d nip us in the bud like that.” The feral shrugged. “Well, we’ve already pruned one Consul. If F shows up, he’ll find himself pushing up daisies.”

No vicious and varied monsters sprang from the dark corners of the vaulted cave in ambush, so the Seekers began the next leg of their journey after a warning (as well as heads-up about a Flame Clock) from Ganondorf. He, better than anyone, knew that their objective lay close at hand. When the team put aside ruminations on the Clocks and began to push through the ruined crossroads, however, they found it very, very different from how they left it. Before, this region had been rather plain, its corridors and pathways well-trodden by the subterranean denizens who dwelled within comfortable distance of the light of day, positively hospitable by the Under’s standards. During the days of the Seekers’ absence, however, the crossroads had undergone a profound and disturbing change. The stately roads of stone and shell, fringed with unremarkable vegetation, had been completely overtaken by a frightfully virulent corruption. Now, the blue-black backdrop festered with a kind of immense mold that gave off a vibrant, unnatural orange phosphorescence. Slimy threads connected clusters of gelatinous cysts or boils, and within those abominable buboes that quivered and pulsed in sync as if united by a single unfathomable heartbeat squirmed countless grotesque dark smudges, hideously suggestive of things to come. The contagion had spread into everything that once lived in this place, either changing them from within or filling up the hollows their deaths left behind. Vile sounds filled the cross roads, throbbing, squelching, slopping, and a foul stench pervaded the place. Not the miasma of rot or death, but the stench of new life, irreparably at odds with every facet of the ‘old life’ it had come to supplant wholesale. The Infection was here.



Boxcutters in hand to avoid close contact, Nadia fought through it alongside her teammates. The infected bugs on the road to the Temple of the Black Egg were aberrant, the mere sight of them making Nadia’s skin crawl, but they were hardly difficult to dispatch. They moved predictably, and in short bursts. The Seekers could outmaneuver and outrange them, and not one took more than a few strikes before it fell apart. As they made progress, Nadia couldn’t help but feel like this was just the beginning. This region was doomed, no doubt about it, but the plague had not yet surged forth to flood through the Under like a toxic tide. It was still…incubating. Nadia shivered, but kept moving. She’d heard about the Infection, but she got the impression that it had been under control. Was this connected to the Guardian, somehow? If so, there was no time to waste.

Within half an hour, the Seekers arrived at the Temple of the Black Egg. The closer they got, the thicker the Infection became, and now it gleamed through the temple’s windows like the eyes of some primeval monstrosity. The pustules clustered thickly here, bloated with disease. Having not actually come here before, Nadia wasn’t taking point for once. Instead she cast her gaze around with her eyes narrowed, clearly expecting something. She wasn’t disappointed.

A dark silhouette cut through the orange glare of the temple’s front door. Floating above the ground, it quickly grew larger, and though Nadia could tell what she was looking at for a moment, she quickly puzzled it out. This shadow belonged to a hand, hovering horizontally with its palm up, and atop it stood a small, squat silhouette made strange by a flowing cape. After another moment, Master Hand came into view, then lowered its fingers like a ramp so that the figure of Consul F atop it could step onto the ground.

F stayed where he was, however. Though he stood firm with his arms crossed, an almost imperceptible nervous energy animated him, causing him to fidget. Nevertheless, the malice in his eyes was very real. “A little early, don’t you think?” he sneered at the Seekers. “There’s no way you have enough fragments, duplicates or not. You didn’t even touch the Under’s north side, or the real depths. Are you stupid?”

Nadia averted her gaze, chuckling evasively. “Aheheh, well uh…”

The Consul’s eyes narrowed. “You know, I really didn’t think you little freaks would actually beat Robin. Finding out that he’s not real did a real number on him, huh? Giving in’s not so bad, you know. It’s liberating. Empowering. Of course, he went and trapped folks in dreams so they’d never have to suffer like he did. If you dopes had half a brain, you would’ve taken his mercy. Still, it’s fun watching you struggle.”

Nadia extended her blade toward him. “Better watch close then, little man, ‘cause we’re about to roll over your Guardian. Or are you gonna quit standin’ on the sidelines and actually try to stop us this time?”

Y chuckled darkly. “Hehehe. Funny you should say that, actually. I’ve taken the liberty of arranging some entertainment for us. Mostly for me, I’ll admit, but maybe you’ll get a kick out of it.” Finally F stepped off of Master Hand, who disappeared as the ground began to shake slightly. “See, I’ve been watching you. All of you. Did you have a nice sleep up in Dirtmouth? Ever stop and think about all the friends you left behind?” Around the Seekers, the infected eggs began to quiver with renewed intensity. “Well, I did. Poor souls, alone and shivering in the dark. Even though you’ve been terrible friendsI went and found ‘em for you so you can see ‘em again. But after I brought ‘em here, the funniest thing happened. Turns out, friends have a short shelf life. They all sorta…went bad.”

Suddenly, the sacs burst open. From within, terrible shapes lurched, sprawled, and finally rose. Some were very large, and others very small. They were little more than husks, practically unrecognizable. Puppets given life by an awful, insatiable light. They were grotesque, spine-chilling parodies, foul regurgitations of an eldritch force as pragmatic as it was cruel. Nadia’s heart thudded in her chest; her gorge threatened to rise. Why hadn’t the Seekers paid them more attention…how could they have let them go? Of course the lurking viper who dared not strike at the pack would single out those that strayed, one at a time…

For these were the infected corpses of the Adventurer, Omori, Ichiban, Undyne, Rubick, Nocturne, Teemo, and Artorias.

“So much for a tearful reunion, I guess,” F remarked offhandedly, his tone mocking. “All you can really do now is put them out of their misery. You’ve slaughtered so many after all. What’s a few more corpses on the pile?”

Nadia bared her teeth scornfully as she got ready to fight. After a brief moment of weakness, her heart was hardened. Whoever these people had been, they were already dead. “The worst kind of boss,” she hissed. “When we’re done disinfecting, you’re next.”

Being faced with the prospect of having to put down their former allies got four different reactions from the troop, but they could be roughly split into two groups. On the one hand Bowser and his son were filled with a mix of sorrow and anger, neither of them were able to express correctly, feelings specifically caused by the sight of the thing that had been Omori.

”You… YOU! Bowser stuttered with impotent rage at F, filled with anger both at the Consul and at himself for having failed yet another child, while his son only managed a quiet ”No…” of disbelief at the death of his sort of maybe rival.

On the other hand, a freshly eneivilied Kamek’s opinion on the matter was that ”They are dead, we need to put them down for good before they do the same to us” a point that was handily punctuated when the thing that had been Undyne screamed a mutilated rendition of her battlecry at the top of her lungs as she began unleashing a scatter shot rain of spears at them. Rather than hurling them however, they ripped free from glowing regenerating pustules growing on her stomach and back, leaving each and every one tipped with the orange-yellow glow of infection.

”Put them down where?” Rika, who had been barely impacted by this at all emotionally asked, as she casually started stepping around or hopping over the spears that she was slowing as they got close to her

”Kill them all Rika!” Kamek clarified as he floated back and away from the front lines and started casting spells from a safe distance.

”Ohhhhh” the ship girl replied before declaring she was ”on it!” and leaping forwards through the spar shower, before counter charging the thing that had once been Omori.

The thing with the body of a child came at her with a combat knife in one hand, and a serrated knife in the other, and with the way the infection had affected it, they seemed to be fused with it’s flesh, such that it would never hold anything but the blades again. Still, despite these changes and the double infection, it had started out as just a child’s body, while Rika was a weapon of war augmented with over half a dozen additional spirits.

As a result they didn’t really clash, and instead Rika simply slammed into the little guy with a gauntlet fist, launching it up into the air, only to grab it out of it with her other hand and slamming it back into the ground.

”Careful of the infection Rika!” Kamek called out in warning, but the ship girl was already taking steps. Specifically, she leapt back, opened her palm which contained her grizco blaster, and promptly started hammering the infected child with burning goop as it started to rise, igniting it. She was going to start skewering it with her spear, when a crackle of electricity came from her side, keying her into an incoming shot from the thing that had been Nocturn.

A pinky tap of her feather fall sent her flying up into the air, narrowly avoiding the stunning shot thanks to her shot speed slowing aura. While floating up there, slowly descending towards the infected now grouped together beneath her, she had a clever idea. As such, a moment later both infected were smashed to the ground as Rika, in the form of The Beast, crashed down on top of them.

She couldn’t get infected if her body wasn’t the one on the line.

As Rika tied up the two humans, the entire rest of the Troop was busy trying to contend with the undying Undyne, despite the ship girl having once fought her living form to a standstill on her own. The magical monster’s form seemed to have been massively empowered by the duel infection, both in terms of durability and firepower.

Atop his gryphon steed, Jr was the first main target for that firepower, probably because he’d had the same idea as Rika, and was presently wearing Undyne’s face (or rather helmet) which seemed to tick whatever was left of her mind off to no end.

Despite wearing said face, he wasn’t actually able to fight back in the same way, and so there was no trading of spear volleys, as instead the prince’s own splashed up from the ground below his target. This had worked for a bit, but only till the thing that had been Undyne stopped standing there shooting and instead started trying to take them on in melee. The prince could have used his mount to stay out of the way of this, but instead he was using it to skirmish, raising his spear above his head to buff his melee strikes, before using his steed’s agility to dart in and strike his foe before she could strike him.

Unfortunately, while this might have been a great boon against a living foe, his strikes did not cause any flinching from pain, and so each blow given was traded for another in turn. At least when it wasn’t too busy wailing on Bowser that was. Lacking any real fitness, the thing used its spear more as a bludgeon than any kind of thrusting weapon, and yet its infection-fueled strength meant the king was still in danger.

Already his forearms were covered in bruises and cracked scales from guarding against the spear turned blunt instrument, and that was from only blocking a few blows. Returning the favor didn’t seem to have much effect either, for even when the king got the chance to rev up and deliver a kinetic strike module empowered punch when it was distracted by Jr, the blow was softened greatly by her mushy constituency and, worse, the damage it did do was bursting a pustule, which caused a shotgun blast of magical spear heads to shoot back at him.

”Gah” the king roared in alarm as he just barely managed to turn away and have the spears hit his side rather than his face. Unfortunately that left him off guard for when the thing that had been Undyne to whirl and drive a kick into him, its unnatural strength sending him sprawling onto his back.

”Papa!” Jr cried out in alarm, swooping forwards and sliced his spear across Undyne's back, but to no avail as it continued to advance on Bowser as he tried to haul himself off of his back and onto his feet. Sensing that the thing would not be dissuaded by just a strike, Jr gripped his spear in both of his hands, and drove it down in an overhead stab that drove deep into the thing’s back.

It didn’t flinch from the blow, but as it tired to take another step, it found itself slowed as jr used Unyne’s muscles to hold fast to the spear, and his gryphon steed’s claws to hold fast to the cave floor, scratching grooves in it. The strength of Jr’s mimicry of the living Undyne wasn’t enough to match that of the unliving one, but it was enough that it wasn't going to get to where it had kicked Bowser too before he got up.

So instead it turned on the person slowing it down.

Without a care in the world to the damage it did, the thing that had been Undyne twisted around on the spear embedded into it and drove its own forwards, skewering the feathered beast breath Jr before he could think to simply let go of the spear. He did so a moment later with or without his consent as the armored form of Undyne he was clad in was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, and though he did land on his feet, the half squat he was in as a result of his legs previously having been on either side of a giant cat bird wasn’t exactly a good one for fighting.

Nor was his lack of weapon, which was currently still sticking out of the thing that had been Undyne. Said weapon did however make a good point for Bowser to grab, now protecting his son in turn as he held the monster back long enough for him to recover and form a new spear with which to fight.

Actively pinned between the two armored warriors, the thing that had been Undyne should have been at a disadvantage, but with the way her wounds caused explosions of infection tipped spearheads to fly out, she really wasn't, the thing paying king and prince back for every punch and stab.

With the two male royals attempting to take the thing that had been Undyne down, and Rika neatly handling two others with her massive armored centipede form, the question could be asked, what was Kamek up to?

The answer could be found in a massive glowing orb of power reaching all the way up the tunnel’s ceiling, one held above a grounded Kamek and 4 doppelgangers who had all been charging it. The magikoopa artillery strike was something Kamek had come up with quite some time ago, but there had never really been enemies slow and stupid enough to safely charge it, yet also dangerous enough to warrant it.

The infected Undyne 100% fit those bills however, and so once it was finally ready, the mage called out ”Out of the way, your spiky mageties!” before he and his minions hurled the orb at the thing that had been Undyne. Prince and King threw themselves to the floor as the massive orb of energy raced forwards, slammed into their foe, and then just kept going, smashing into the cavern wall with an almighty explosion, sending rocks and dust tumbling everywhere.

”Did, did you get it?” Jr asked as he and his father picked themselves off of the floor, the prince mentally clicking a switch and pausing the song playing in his cassette player that had turned him into Undyne. His intention had been to begin healing, but a scream from within the crater in the wall Kamek’s attack had slammed into ended that notion: the wave of sound pushed the dust cloud away, revealing the thing that had been Undyne once more.

Alive, for a certain sense of the word anyway.

It was almost entirely unidentifiable as something that had once Been Undyne. Its legs a ruin it dragged itself forwards with its arms, while its body was held together by thorned roots, and its mouth hung far too wide open, exposing far too many teeth. The broken mermaid seemed at least like it might have difficulty attacking in this state, until it screamed again, this time causing a wave of spears to fly forth along with the blast of sound.

”Me and my big mouth” Jr complained as he ducked under a spear and then made an iron shield to block a few more. The infected spears stabbed into it, and began to immediately begin eating away at the metal, forcing him to drop it before any of it could seep between his scales.

”Buuuuurn it!” came a deeper, more gravely shout from Kamek, who had transformed into his new devil form after using up all his Mana in that one singular magical attack that hadn’t finished the job. Now he spat fireballs from his maw instead, flying on leathery wings and blasting the thing that had been Undyne. Jr joined in, seeing the logic of this even if it was Kamek’s only way of attacking at the moment, breathing in and hucking his own napalm fireball at the incoming thing.

Both were entirely outdone by Bowser in this department however, who unleashed a torrent of flames. Together, the trio ignited the roots that seemed to be holding the thing that had been Undyne together, further destabilize it, and causing infection to spill from its guts, both in liquid form and in the form of lightseeds that splatted to the ground and then came at them on their own.

Fireballs launched by jr and Kamek blasted into these one by one, incinerating them before they could reach Bowser, and yet even with both physical sources of infection purged, the thing that had been Undyne came on still. Chest cavity split open and emptied, voice dead in the process, all it could do was open its jaw wide, wider and wider, and attempt to sink its misaligned teeth into the King.

Bowser for his part stood his ground, breathed deep, and then unleashed a megafireball. The slow moving orb engulfed the thing which mindlessly shambled straight into, smothering it in heat and flame that burned and burned. It collapsed to the floor before it could reach the other side, arms ruined, her melted form burned away beneath the heat of the flame, evaporating and, at last, turning to dust.

The trio of koopas was left panting from exertion, while also being gripped with a tinge of sorrow at having had to put down the guard captain of the home of tears, who most certainly had done nothing to deserve this fate. There was a moment of thought about possible last words to put her to rest when a body that had once belonged to a small child splatted into the wall next to where the thing that had been Undye had been slammed by Kamek’s spell.

As with the thing that had been Undyne however, the collision with this wall failed to put down the thing that had been Omori. Unlike the former guard captain however, there was no obscuring cloud of dust to hide this fact, and so a moment later Rika, in the form of the Beast, rammed head and horns first into the infected child, once again splattering him against the wall. Despite what should have been a crushing blow, thing that had been Omori endured this seemingly lethal blow. It did not, however, endure the several follow ups as Rika used her head to mountain smashed it into paste, and then, finally, ash.

The Beast raised its perpetually grinning head up, a head smeared in blood, guts,ash, and infection and looked at the horrified faces of Bowser and Jr, before it vanished. The remains of Omari dropped to the ground several meters from where Rika now stood, the ship girl dusting off her gauntlets after having rather casually dealt with two of the seeker’s former members, who then proceed to ask her shocked relatives ”What?” with genuine confusion as to why they were looking at her like that.

Before they could respond however, the devilish looking Kamek reminded them that ”The one responsible is right there” causing the rest of the troop to turn and face the cause of this nightmare that the mage was pointing at: F

It was pure naivety on the Seekers' part that they never considered the allies that had abandoned the cause as no longer in danger. After all, if they no longer pursued Galeem's defeat then what reason did the Consul's have to target them? It was a foolish notion.

Neither Primrose nor Therion could say that they'd gotten to know the people opposing them very well, but it was still a nasty surprise to see them here now, like this. That he'd even taken a child like Omori after the boy had given up the fight was beyond reprehensible. But this was not a hostage situation - it was a cruel show of power with only one possible outcome. The Seekers had to put aside their feelings and do what needed to be done.

"Be careful of the infection," Primrose said. With her voice hard and as dispassionate as she could make it, she relayed the little she'd learned about it. "It takes hold quickly on contact. As you can see, the end result is... not pretty."

"Got it." Therion pulled out a sleeve of knives, ready to engage at range or get in and out fast with melee strikes. A flicker of fire formed around one of his hands, as he didn't discount the possibility of burning away the disease.

”I wouldn’t touch such a disgusting thing even without your warning.” Sectonia said, making it clear she’d be using her magic instead of her weapons due to how gross these former allies looked. Unlike some of the others, she didn’t have as many reservations about defeating their former allies. In fact she was sort of offended they were taken over so easily, but they also left her service for one reason or another, and thus her protection.

As soon as the bodies of a few of their former allies lurched in their direction, Therion darted forward to counter. He avoided a swing of Ichiban’s bat, sinking a few throwing knives into the man before pivoting toward the wayward Adventurer.

At the same time, Primrose stayed back a few steps to perform the Peacock Strut, empowering Queen Sectonia’s magical ability.

Sectonia used that buff almost straight away, summoning her Antlers before using her own magic to toss her massive rings of light. Rubick, being the ‘grand magus’ as it were, even though he was mindless due to the infection coursing through his body, stole her spell on reflex and summoned his own version of Sectonia’s Antlers. While they didn’t have the buff from BFF that Sectonia’s had, his unique staff upgraded them in a different way. Instead of summoning the 2 red, 2 green, and 2 blue Sectonia did, he summoned 3 GOLD antlers, who were actually bigger than Sectonia herself even without her fusion. These Antlers were far more bulky than any of Sectonia’s current Antlers, and they not only had massive shields, but also large maces they swung around if anyone got near. And if they were attacking at range, they’d shoot whoever was nearby with slow moving orbs of magic. They were even slower than Bowser or Ganondorf though, so anyone could easily outrun them.

These Antlers would act as walls for the enemy team, as they could take Sectonia’s boosted rings with their buky shields. She could zap them, and Rubick behind them with her dark lightning though, although Rubick would steal this and use it against Sectonia, which would hurt a fair amount even through her high magic resistance due to her electric elemental weakness. Even so, Sectonia’s lightning was stronger just due to sheer power and buffs.

While the proud spellcasters duked it out, Primrose and Therion made to handle the other two. The Adventurer fired on Therion with his crossbow bolts coated in viscous orange that looked suspiciously like the Infection. Therion didn't want to test if these zombies could spread the plague that way; he picked up speed to get in closer, making aiming at him harder while he dodged the bolts. During the next bolt reload, Therion was close enough to return fire with his daggers and crystal darts - unfortunately he found that his opponent had a similar knack for speed. The Adventurer rolled out of the way, beginning a deadly game of ranged tag between the two of them.

If the Adventurer had been alone, Therion would easily have the upper hand. His aim was good, the knife glyph he had meant he could cast and throw at the same time, and the horned headband he still wore duplicated his projectiles to fly at different angles just so often to be dangerous but not predictable. The Adventurer was taking damage and would eventually succumb, if one of Rubick's summoned antlers didn't move to protect the man.

Bad timing, Therion thought, backing away from the massive antler's swinging mace.

Then a blast of moonlight erupted onto the antler, and the white ghost of a Vengeful Spirit passed burning through it. Primrose alighted on the antler's head.

"I've got it," she said. She tipped her head to indicate the enemy she was trading Therion for, then cast her wide range Night Ode to catch the nimble Adventurer.

Against Primrose, Ichiban had no chance. Throughout the journey through the World of Light, the dancer had become quite formidable. Without magic resistance her spells could rip through a normal man - she had no need to even use her lance. Still, whether it was Ichiban's born tenacity or the infection puppeting his body, he refused to stay down. He had been ravaged by darkness, flames, and a combination of the two, yet still he persisted.

It was only then, watching the infected body doggedly rush toward him with spiked bat held high, that Therion really felt any pang of guilt. Ichiban had seemed like a really good guy. He'd had a heroic streak in him, that was for sure. Now he was reduced to this.

Therion clenched his jaw tightly and moved on instinct. He swung his arm like he had a sword in hand, and very suddenly the Wraith Blade appeared. The spectral sword pierced the weakened Ichiban's heart, letting the man rest for good. In one last act of kindness the ex-Yakuza fell backwards, away from the thief where the splatter of orange infection didn't reach him when his body hit the ground.

On the antler's other side, the Adventurer was meeting a similar fate. He had no armor or magical protection, but also lacked Ichiban's stubborn spirit, so Primrose's spells made very short work of him. When they first destroyed his body it reappeared a short distance away - it didn't phase Primrose, who figured he had some ability like her own Encore that triggered automatically, even without the body's consciousness. The second destruction kept, erasing much of the zombie's infection with it. She hopped onto the ground to avoid the antler's own magic orb, subsequently destroying the summon with her defense-bypassing magic.

All that was left now was two golden antlers and Rubick, the most troublesome of the bunch. Perhaps sensing this, Rubick cast his Fade Bolt. It struck the queen and then jumped to her two companions, blasting through Primrose and Therion and knocking them off of their feet.

At least thanks to Sectonia’s Pipe of Insight, her allies weren’t hurt as badly as they could’ve been by Rubick’s Fade Bolt. With the other two down, it was up to her to finish the last one of them. As Rubick used his telekenisis to hold up one of her red antlers for his gold antlers to finish off, Sectonia remembered how Rubick’s magic steal worked, and decided to just blast him with a Reality shatter hiding behind her Antlers as Rubick’s abilities were all on cooldown. She didn’t even have to charge it all the way, just enough to hurt Rubick and make him reflexively steal her spell.

And being the instinctive infected creature he was now, Rubick did just that and began to charge his own reality shatter, which Sectonia capitalized on by teleporting next to him and used her large axe to carve through Rubick with some quick swipes, taking him out and with him being taken out, the last two Golden Antlers also vanished.

”If these three had stayed under my governance like you two, this wouldn’t have happened.” Sectonia said, shaking her head at the infected corpses that lay before the group. ”Even more of a shame since I aided this ‘grand magus’ out of curiosity. I suppose he got that title from stealing it, like he did all of his magic. A shame.”

The Travelers came to stand by Sectonia after getting to their feet. "A shame indeed," Primrose said, neither of the two of them refuting the queen's comment about governance. The dancer turned her dark eyes upon the Consul then, drawing her lance in preparation for a fight.

Of all the Seekers, Ganondorf was the one who was probably the least shaken by the Consul’s trick. Instead showing any looks of concern or guilt, he instead fixed his sneer on the Consul himself. ”Hmph!” he snorted with contempt, ”If this is supposed to be your sad attempt at guilt-tripping me, then I’m afraid you’re sorely mistaken.”

The warlord brandished his newly acquired trident and shifted his focus between Artorias and Teemo, ”Any who stand in my way will fall!” After that he lunged for Artorias. His polearm gave him a longer reach than Artorias had with his sword even with the latter’s increased height. And unlike with his own swords, Ganondorf’s attacks were now fast and seemed to carry with them an aura of thunder and lightning. He gave a quick thrust and a sweeping swing follow up that were both deceptively quick. But then he followed that up by hurling his Trident which proceeded to spin through the air around in a circling pattern, while the weapon itself became temporarily electrified for added effect.

Ganondorf’s furious strikes hit home, but the infected knight flinched only slightly. The condition that dulled his senses slowed his reactions, but made him uncaring -if not impervious- to pain. Only one thought seemed to consume Artorias: slaughter. Once provoked, he launched himself forward in an ungainly front flip. His greatsword struck the floor with a tremendous clang, scattered infected slime that left a stain on the floor. After only a brief pause, he unleashed two more somersault slams in sequence, each covering enough ground to chase Ganondorf down if he tried to flee.

Nadia, not knowing how the virulent contagion spread, was sufficiently alarmed by and averse to it that she couldn’t bring herself to dive headfirst into battle with the gusto of her brutish companion. As such she produced her bait launcher and began to circle around, waiting for a little space that the strange weapon’s summoned tiger could fill. Her foes did not share her reticence, however, and as Ganondorf contended with Artorias in a high-impact clash of the titans, the other infected husk started causing problems. Since Teemo lacked many of his basic abilities, he could do only one thing: spit darts from his little blowpipe at a rate of one every two-thirds of a second. Instead of their typical poison, the former Yordle’s darts glowed with the luminous taint of the infection, proving highly caustic against armor and flesh alike. They might seem like little more than gnat stings at first, but Nadia could already see that if the Seekers allowed Teemo to aggress unhindered, the damage would quickly rack up.

“I’ll handle the little squirt,” she announced, a touch of urgency in her voice. Having not met Teemo in the course of her travels, the feral saw nothing more than a threat to be put down. Seeing a lull in the brawl with Artorias, she took aim with her bait launcher. “In the meantime…let us prey!” With a foom a juicy red steak flew through the air to smack wetly against the infected knight’s armor. If that impact was harmless, though, the burly tiger that poofed into being was anything but. In a lethal fury its huge claws raked across tarnished metal, living wood, and infected flesh, keeping Artorias busy for a moment that Ganondorf could use as he saw fit.

With that, Nadia stowed her launcher, got down on all fours, and sprinted toward Teemo with a burst of speed. The husk seemed to notice her and lolled his head her way, the aim of his blowgun shifting. He opened fire with remarkable speed and accuracy, but while Nadia found she couldn’t really dodge them, she realized that they weren’t impactful enough to stagger her either. A moment later and the cat burglar was in melee range. At that point, Teemo couldn’t do much other than walk backward between shots, mindlessly trying to burst Nadia down before her dancing blades took their toll.

Jesse owed Artorias something. She was surprised to see him. The least she could do, she thought, was dust him, and avenge his death. While Ganondorf engaged in close combat, she moved around the side, levitating to give herself a little bit more range on his sword. She lined up a Pierce shot and fired it into Artorias’ side while he was battling Ganondorf and the cat. And speaking of the warlord, Ganondorf used this moment to summon his moblins. This squad in particular wielded long spears of wood and bone. They formed up behind their master, who then proceeded to lead them in an infantry charge against Artorias. The moblins themselves weren’t nearly as strong as the man commanding them, but with his direct leadership in this fashion their attack could be much more coordinated than it would be if they were on their own.

Of course, against a scarcely-human monstrosity glutted on the primordial infection and the Grievous Miracle, such small fry might as well be lambs to the slaughter. Though harried by Jesse, Artorias managed to jam his mutated wooden arm into the earth, and through the earth snaked Ten Piedad’s cruel thorny briars. By pure coincidence, both Jesse and Ganondorf had taken a break during that fight, so they didn’t know what to expect–but Nadia did, and her fight with Teemo was one-dimensional enough that she could keep an eye on the main event. “Watch out, below you!” Nadia called, a split second before the brambles shot up from the ground to slice and pierce through her allies. The moblins got the worst of it, but even that barely compared to what came next. Artorias launched toward Ganondorf with a double spinning slash meant to cleave through him and any minions that remained.

It was incredibly fortunate that Ganondorf had only just last night absorbed the soul of an agile fighter like Oberon. Bullet Jump enabled the warlord to launch himself straight up in time to dodge the incoming spinning slashes. While in midair he jumped a second time, allowing him to flip himself over the knight’s head so that he could land in a position behind him. The moblins, however, were not so fortunate. The few that remained were easily felled by Artorias’ attack.

Jesse didn’t need to be told twice. She zipped through the air as a blur using Evade, the spikes caught empty air. “Thanks!” She called out.

The infected knight brought forth brambles over such an area that even Nadia needed to dodge away, giving Teemo a chance to hide behind the thorny growths. When she got back up she didn’t immediately spot him, and though the lifeless trees soon receded, she met with a bewildering surprise: her opponent had disappeared. Baffled, she looked around for any sign of where he’d gone. Had he burrowed into a hollow that one of the briars left behind? Her answer came in the form of a barrage of darts as Teemo uncloaked, his attack speed heightened by the element of surprise. “Aw, still got some tricks, huh? Good for you.” Nadia muttered through gritted teeth, trying to block the darts. “Well, two can play at that game. And three’s company.”

Loosening her seams, she ejected a lot of blood, creating a copycat on either side of her. They raced around to either side, confounding Teemo with a target-rich environment, and reached him a moment later. One spun up her arm like a drill and jammed it into the infected boil that had replaced at third of his head, stunning him as she sunk her copied limb up to the elbow. Her counterpart seized Teemo’s blowgun and snapped it across her knee. Then the first copycat exploded, staggering the husk long enough for Nadia to close the distance. After absorbing the other copycat, chained together a crouching light kick into One-Two Pun-isher, then clasped her hands and disjointed her arms for a lashing upward wallop to launch Teemo into the air. Leaping up after him, she struck him with X-scrape Claws, then canceled an airdash into another one followed by an axe kick. A light Fiber Upper relaunched him for a low-altitude Shock and Paw, another X-Scrape Claws, and another axe kick before she landed and kept the combo going. Ears Pierced led into her Cat Scratch rekka, which she ended with a Fluffy Soft tiger slash that triggered New Moon.

That burst of damage turned out to be overkill; even with the infection making him less squishy, Teemo was deader than dead. “Whew. I really went ham…ster.” Though that turned out to be a problem. His body began to swell up, hissing as it shone with the infection from within. “Uh oh.” As the husk tried to lurch toward her, she quickly drew a boxcutter and slashed at his legs, then hightailed it out of there. A second later the husk exploded, scattering lambent globules far and wide.

The floating Jesse had touched briefly on the ground and jumped up again as the brambles roiled in the ground beneath her.

Ganondorf had to admit that brambles were unexpected. Having already used up his midair jump he had no choice but to finish landing just as the brambles stretched out around the knight. The warlord swirled his trident around in a circle in front him. This at least kept the brunt of the brambles from hitting him. However, a few on the sides did manage to graze him. Ganondorf responded with a sharp inhale that was followed by a gout of purple flames exhaling out of his mouth.

That wasn’t meant to be a particularly powerful attack. Instead it was intended to mask what Ganondorf tried next. Jesse used the flames to rip a stone from the earth and fling it at Artorias’ chest to crack into his armor and cover Ganondorf’s approach. Ganondorf suddenly rushed forward and attacked with a lightning quick spear-thrust. He followed that with an upward swing that normally launched most enemies upward. The 12 foot knight, however, was a bit too heavy to be launched. But the upward swing also served to launch Ganondorf himself upward. And once airborne he threw his trident straight back down at the knight’s torso. Then he focused his magic and called down a powerful lightning bolt to strike the embedded weapon like a makeshift lightning rod that in addition to dealing heavy lightning damage also produced a shockwave of thunder that could hit or push back any smaller targets gathered around the skewered Artorias.

Softened up by purple flame and Jesse’s boulder, the infected knight took a handful of trident strikes followed by a thorough electrocution. Ganondorf’s magic might not conduct through his wooden arm, but between his metal armor and his bloated pustules, the rest of him spasmed and smoked as the lightning coursed through him. Artorias hopped backward, taking the trident with him, and released an inhuman howl. Then he slid forward, practically riding a tide of corruption, in order to brutalize Ganondorf with an upward greatsword slash.

The trident didn’t stay with Artorias for long. Almost immediately after the previous lightning attack subsided, Ganondorf reached out a hand and used his magic to call the weapon back to him in a dark cloud. And when Artorias came charging at him, Bullet Jump proved once again to be quite the godsend for Ganondorf. He certainly understood why Oberon was such an annoying opponent in the previous battle now. With that ability, Ganondorf dashed forward and jumped to the side just before the upward slash could catch him.

With Teemo taken care of, Nadia rejoined the fight against Artorias. Her opponent, while annoying, had been a pushover, and one look at the infected knight reminded her that she needed to change gears. For one, his armor might shatter her blades, so she couldn’t just start whaling on him even if his oblivious rage gave her the opportunity. As the knight’s huge slash concluded, the feral moved in with both boxcutters drawn. Since it worked for Ganondorf, she unleashed a little lightning of her own. She blitzed straight through Artorias with Charge, then whirled around with Battery, a simple but effective strategy that had already become a favorite. Her blades’ crits struck her target’s wooden arm, tearing chunks from the timber, but it wasn’t enough to make Artorias flinch. His arm disjointed to wallop her away with a gnarled backhand, reacting with her electric nature to inflict the accuracy-reducing debuff Grounded. “Aw, not this crap again,” Nadia moaned, picking herself up. “I got enough of this tree-tmeant last night!”

As if in reply, the knight planted his arm into the ground, sending forth another wave of briars.

Jesse jumped and Levitated over the briars. She thought about using Healing Waters, but the fight was much too hectic with too much hazardous space, it might just force her teammates out of position so it wasn’t worth it for now. It could come after. While Artorias still had his arm in the ground, Jesse reached for the wall and pulled out two large stones, and flung them at him one after the other. “It’ll all be over soon, Artorias,” She called out somberly.

With Bullet Jump, Ganondorf could double jump out of the briars’ range. Before he landed from that he instead aimed his trident downward and proceeded to drop like a meteor onto Artorias with an electrified downward thrust.

In quick succession Jesse’s boulders pounded the knight’s center mass, crumpling his chestplate and puncturing whatever remained of his internal organs. The impacts left him doubled over for a brief moment, but that was enough for Ganondorf to land on him, burying his weapon in the enormous, throbbing pustule on the knight’s shoulder. It ruptured like a rotten grape, sending out a fresh wave of infected slime to join the rivulets leaking from his armor onto the floor. Such a landing would have flattened practically anyone against the ground, but somehow Artorias remained upright, bent but not yet broken. He thrashed around drunkenly, threatening to send Ganondorf sprawling onto the floor, and after a moment turned toward Jesse to throw the both of them at her with another giant somersault.

Jesse watched it come in. Couldn’t dodge too early, lest he course correct. She used Evade and zipped out of the way, backing up mid-air. She landed on the ground, and switched to her gun since she was out of energy. She used Grip and began to shoot Artorias down.

Not even bothering to try and attack with her accuracy crippled, Nadia stayed just out of melee range to watch and wait. Ganondorf made for quite the sight hurtling himself around like that, but she couldn’t deny just how effective his bullet jumping was. Had Artorias even hit him yet? Then again, the diseased monstrosity before her was a far cry from the knight she fought alongside yesterday. The sight of the bloated husk flailing around, shrieking incoherently and awash with the infection, etched a deep frown into her face. F was right about one thing; it was past time the Seekers put this abomination out of his misery.

A moment later, Nadia felt a weight lift from her as Grounded expired. “Back in business,” she muttered, taking off at a run. Circling Artorias, she darted in and out of range to slice at the breaks in his armor again and again.

“This fucking sucks.” Jesse complained. “God damn it. Can’t wait for that little shit to finally have to face us.” She sprinted and circled the opposite side of Nadia, but from a distance, and shot at Artorias’ head and shoulders with Grip to avoid hitting Nadia.

Artorias wouldn’t have to try bucking Ganondorf off him for much longer after this. Namely he pushed himself off willingly and hit the ground with a… less than graceful landing. His trident had been pulled out as well but left Ganondorf’s grasp midair and punctured the ground right next to him. Well, needless to say it would have been quite a predicament to be skewered by one’s own weapon. The Warlord pushed himself to his feet and then reached over to grab the shaft of the trident, ”I’m growing tired of this!”

He launched straight forward, using Bullet Jump to give him some extra momentum as he attempted to slide into Artorias’ legs with a fiery Warlock Kick. If it went well, the attack would knock over the twelve-foot knight and provide an opening for Jesse and Nadia to capitalize on.

Seeing the big man on his way, Nadia made her move. “If there’s one thing I have…it’s purr-sever-ance!” With that she put all the strength she could muster into an x-slash into the infected knight’s Achilles tendon. Infected or not, no leg could stay standing if that muscle was cut. Nadia didn’t exactly like doing this; it was a vicious tactic, best reserved for the most desperate measures and unsavory characters. Still, it worked wonders. The knight’s leg buckled beneath his weight, and for a moment it took everything he had just to stay upright. Infection gushed to the crippled limb to reinforce it, but the next second Ganondorf delivered his kick with bone-cracking force. Something snapped, and with a protesting gurgle the infected knight went down face-first.

“Now we’re talking!” With her opponent laid out, it was time to go all-in. Nadia could feel that she’d built up just over three bars of dramatic tension, so once she leapt into the air she pumped all three into a souped-up Purrge of Vengeance, an orb of raging water twenty feet in diameter. “Say good KNIGHT!” She hurled it down to detonate against Artorias in a massive explosion of Hydro energy.that also applied Wet. In the wake of the watery blast Nadia dropped down onto the knight for a spine-tingling stomp much stronger than it looked thanks to the Mantreads and 2700 Pound of Justice, then sprang away.

With one more Bullet Jump, Ganondorf double-jumped into the air where he could throw his trident straight down and into the knight’s back the moment Nadia cleared the way. Then before he fell back down, Ganondorf outstretched his arms and used his magic to summon another lightning bolt to strike the weapon. With Artorias afflicted with the Wet status, a strike from a lightning bolt was going to deal more intense damage than usual. After the bolt dissipated, Ganondorf hit the ground with a slam due to his weight and size, but he was able to call the trident back to his hand regardless. That final meteoric strike proved to be the metaphorical straw that broke the camel’s back. The overwhelming overdose of electricity flooded through the infected knight’s twisted, ruined body, popping every blister and boil at once. A rancid foetor filled the air as the husk thrashed spasmodically, seeming almost to deflate; the infection smelled sickly enough to begin with, and charring it did it no favors. After another moment, the once-proud knight crumpled to the ground, no more than a hollowed-out shell.

”Hmph…” Ganondorf muttered alongside his heavy breaths, ”Seems he’s finished. Such a waste.”

“Yeah,” Jesse said sadly, before her eyes hardened again and she sprinted after the Consul F.

The armor of Artorias was damaged beyond repair, and only his greatsword could conceivably be saved. That, however, could wait until later. Right now, the Seekers had more business to attend to.

”Say your prayers, Consul!” Ganondorf declared with a threatening gesture toward F, ”Because YOU’RE next!”

”Goldlewis!” Midna cried out in alarm as the heavy set man was sent tumbling towards the edge of the bridge after the laser scattered them all. Her Beast Legion surged forwards with her on its back as she formed and reached out a shadow hand to grab a leg. Yet even with her fusions and her bestial steed, she wasn’t enough of an anchor to halt his tumble entirely, the man rolling off the edge and leaving the princess to jam her lance into the ground and her beast legion’s claws scraping against the remains of the bridge as they tried to keep themselves from being dragged down after the man they were holding onto. This wasn’t helped by the fact that Goldlewis could neither truly see the Beast Legion nor grab onto it for purchase.

Karin had dashed towards Goldlewis, but she would meet with Midna instead. Concentrating, she dashed in, and grabbed the Best Legion’s rear legs, wrapping her legs around it and facing backwards. Then she fired out a grappling hook at the ground and pulled it taut with her arm, acting as the last anchor point. ”Pull!” Together, the combined urgent strength of the two Seekers and their assistants, be they monstrous or mechanical, were enough to start pulling Goldlewis back from the brink. From within his coffin, the UMA lent a hand as it stretched out numerous arms to help drag its partner to safety.

Sakura got up from the ground, casting a distressed look at the situation. The best way she could help was to prevent whatever Y was now from interfering, so she just started running towards him, zig-zagging every now and again to throw off his aim. Y snapped his fingers, and above him a series of bright flashes heralded the manifestation of energized cube-clusters. The clusters then fired forward in a wide spread, bouncing off the ground around Sakura as the girl dipped and dodged. Rather than keep shooting, though, the Moebius then charged forward. Almost twice Sakura’s height, he lashed out with long limbs in a giant backhand, then spinning hook kick, and finally a somersault heel drop.

As Y charged to meet her, Sakura yelled out a battle cry. She had to duck under the backhand, and used her forearm to deflect the force of the hook kick. She returned fired with a kick of her own- it caught air as he somersaulted over it and dropped the heel on her. She raised her arms and caught the heel, but the force was immense. Sakura gasped, and was knocked to the ground.

Roxas, too, pushed himself back to his feet. He’d managed to avoid taking a direct hit from that laser attack, but that didn’t keep him from sprawling out on the floor with the wind temporarily knocked out of him in its wake. He really didn’t have time to deeply analyze what was going on with the Moebius, but he decided he needed to get in there and do something. Not long after his attack knocked Sakura down, Y would find himself being shot at by Roxas’ RockGun. He of course was also running toward the Moebius in the midst of this. But rather than try attacking head on, Roxas instead suddenly turned into a streak of light that shot around Y in order for him to unleash his Cross Slash from the flank, ”Bring it on!”

Popping up on their feet, Roland, Blazermate, and Susie got up to deal with what was the last fumes of this Moebius. ”Did, did he just eat us, then vomit us up? This is so weird. ” Blazermate said, trying to figure out what was actually going on as she went and did her job of healing. Being next to the medabot, Susie and Roland shook their heads as they didn’t even want to think about that as they got ready to deal with this guy, Susie needing to keep mobile on her transport now as her business suit was too damaged and would need repairs now.

The shots, landed just as Y rebuffed Sakura, seemed to annoy him more than anything. He conjured another flurry of cube clusters, but the keyblade wielder repositioned in a literal flash. A blistering flurry of blows rattled off his arm, upper leg, and ribs, prompting Y to return the favor. Pivoting with deceptive speed, he launched a turning side kick at Roxas followed by a lunging palm. Before he could do any worse, a slug of weaponized sunlight slammed into the Y’s hip, and when the Moebius craned his neck around to fix his vivid purple eyes on the source, he spotted Sandalphon’s Eye of Sol with a smoking barrel.

”You must go,” he announced, stretching out his arm to extend his index finger toward her. A mote of otherworldly light flared up at the tip, and the next moment an immense purple laser screamed her way. But the archangel had already vanished, teleporting to Roxas’ side. Snowflakes in her eyes, Sandalphon launched a Frost Lock at Y to coat his body in ice. It would take another at the end of a twelve second cooldown to freeze him completely, but it was a start. She jumped backward for safety, stowing her rifle and brandishing her gunstaff with a flourish. Meanwhile, on his opposite side Goldlewis began to pick up speed, approaching the Moebius with his coffin at the ready.

Having pulled him up from the brink Midna was right alongside him, before picking up the pace as they got in close, racing ahead to lance strike Y, before chain summoning Minions to follow up her own attack. Y turned to answer in kind. A giant Flygon swooping overhead to deliver dragon claws, preceding an equally giant wolfos pounced to deliver a savage bite before it got shaken off, and then finally a regular sized Darknut to use the distraction of the bigger minions to deliver a heavy sword strike. Unfazed, the Moebius sidestepped the mighty slash and delivered a punch to the Darknut’s cuirass that caved in the armor like tin foil.

Then a moment later Midna was wheeling away, and her minions had dropped back into portals, clearing the way for the next attacker.

Following up behind Midna was the swift Karin. As she ran forward she was rejoined by Sakura. They ran side by side before splitting and moving to attack from the left and the right. Sakura slammed her fist and did a spinning kick into Y’s knee while Karin targeted his opposite thigh with a series of elbow strikes. Though their predecessor bought them a precious moment, the Moebius wasn’t going to stand there and take it for long. After stepping back, he extended the tentacles on his head into the bridge, and the next moment their piercing tips burst up beneath the street fighters like a forest of purple spikes. They stepped backwards to avoid the tentacles, and due to their experience they figured once they had gone in the ground the only place they could show up next was beneath them. They retreated backwards and braced themselves to block the upcoming spikes, but were forced away.

While that was going on, Roxas used the momentary reprieve to summon Burn Rooster. After which he sprinted toward Y alongside the Reploid only to split off from him so that they could launch their own pincer attack on the Moebius. Burn Rooster leapt high and crashed down onto Y from above with a fiery flying kick. Meanwhile Roxas veered around with his StepSword dash so that he could lunge at Y from the opposite direction as his striker.

Zenkichi added to the barrage of blows with a charging slash attack, Geralt leaping in overhead with a screaming overhead slam from the Hateful Flesh right after him, leaping high to avoid a counter-attack while Zenkichi stabbed his greatsword at the Moebius. Y actually caught the tip of the sword’s blade in his fingertips, shocking the detective with the strength and dexterity that such a feat demanded, but before he could do anything with it Geralt’s jump attack landed and knocked him back.

Blazermate made sure to heal up those she could, holding her shield arm forward as she did so as she was expecting this guy to go after her when she started healing. Susie, seeing the huge brawl in melee, decided to stay at range and pelt Y with her blaster fire. Melee looked pretty clogged, and seeing Roland dashing in, she decided it would be best to stand back for now.

Roland meanwhile joined in the melee fray with Roxas, Zenkichi, Geralt, and everyone making that area pretty busy. He used his hammer to try to deflect a few cubes as he got close, although that probably wasn’t the best tool to deflect these things. That would be counteracted though as he swapped from his defensive weapon that lost him those clashes, to his more offensive dual swords which he used to use a flashy swift swirling sword cut on Y and getting ready to deal with his next attack.

Purple light swelled around Y’s core with unusual intensity, and when he posed the next moment, glowing purple cracks spread across the bridge around him. His attackers had only the briefest window to react before enormous, jagged outcrops of a violet, icelike crystalline matter burst forth. Goldlewis has paused at the fringe of the melee so as to not overcrowd the others, but now he made his move, roaring as he smashed his way in through the spikes with a Behemoth Typhoon. His coffin’s momentum carried it around in a whirlwind revolution, and as he closed the distance it careened toward his enemy’s head. The Moebius blocked it with his forearm, stopping the mass of metal short, then launched a prodigious snap kick with enough raw power to tear the coffin from the veteran’s jarred grip and send it flying into the air. He then pivoted and planted a turn kick directly in Goldlewis’ belly, eliciting an agonized gasp as the big man sagged to the ground. When Y tried to withdraw his leg, however, he realized that Goldlewis had grabbed on, clinging to his ankle with both mighty mitts to stop the Moebius from moving. Y extended his arm toward Goldlewis, but an ether bolt from Sandalphon splashed against the temple of his mask, distracting him for the brief moment the others needed to make their move.

The team's other angel crashed into the fray at this point with his Upperdash Arm. It had only taken Pit less than a minute to recover from dodging the laser, dismiss his bow and equip the arm, and make it back to the fight while looking for an opening - but in the heat of battle seconds made all the difference. Looking to make up for his perceived lost time and make the most of the seconds Goldlewis was buying them to keep the Moebius locked down, Pit drove the arm into Y with abandon - and its starry, glowing core shone all the brighter as he pulled back for another go.

Sakura had backed up, but Karin looped around behind Goldlewis and came around his flank. He just took a hit for the team and she intended to help make that pay off. She ran in on Moebius Y’s side and then slid in and under him, looking to slam both feet into the Moebius’ ankle and carry forward so she would be out of the way when he fell over. Already off balance thanks to Pit’s full-force slam, Y found himself unable to stay upright.

Zenkichi, having backed off a bit after Geralt’s rescue, was able to dodge the spikes, but Geralt found herself knocked on her ass, groaning before pulling herself up and hurling a small glob of explosive flesh at Y from afar, while Zenkichi called on Valjean to attack with a One-Shot Kill to help rack up the damage.

In a different scenario, the sudden burst of spikes would have caught Roxas completely off guard. But thankfully in this scenario, Roxas had absorbed the spirit of RockTrans, and this gave him the intellectual edge to calculate an incoming attack from below and essentially back-dash out of the way before he could be skewered. Even more so he was able to use this newfound ability to calculate a path through the jutting spikes of violet ice that he could traverse. It turned out that combining enhanced calculations with Flow Motion made for an even more maneuverable combatant.

And at the end of this brief stint of platforming, he found himself jumping up just as the Moebius was tripped over by Karin, ”Gotcha!” he cried as he let his momentum take him downward into an empowered downward thrust with his Keyblade. But he was quick to jump out of the way after this so as not to obstruct anyone else who attacked next. His attack struck home, roughly around Y’s collarbone, and while his lack of commitment meant he could’ve dealt more damage, his blow paved the way for his successor to act.

Said attack came from above from a Midna who was riding on the back of her Vibrava (which she had used to avoid the floor spikes). Princess and pokemon swooped over their foe, airdropped an electrically charged Clubba Club directly on the Moebius, the massive spiked ball’s impact causing a lightning bolt to arch down after it as a follow up strike.

Though floored long enough for Seekers to start beating him while he was down, Y wasn’t defenseless for long. Midna’s tag-team galvanized him into action, and he began by twisting around to deliver a crushing blow to the side of his captor’s knee. Already shaken, Goldlewis yelled in pain and released Y’s leg as he fell on his back. Legs whirling around, the Moebius regained his feet and brought one leg down with a stomp. A bright purple ring shot outward along the ground, tripping most of the Seekers with surprising speed. Just then the veteran’s coffin slammed back down into the bridge with a terrific noise, and as if on cue Y thrust his hand upward. Energized purple cube clusters began to fall like rain, exploding among the gathered heroes.

Crosshairs in her eyes, Sandalphon swept through the storm with calculated grace to bring her gunstaff down on her enemy’s head. The Moebius saw her coming, and was almost affronted by the healer’s pitiful attempt. He dodged the swipe easily, then let loose a single hook punch that fractured the archangel’s ribcage with a horrible crack. She gasped, agonized, but clung to her faculties just long enough to spring the trap. Y would have surely dodged an icy cluster if she threw one his way, but now that he’d ensnared himself in her wires, he couldn’t avoid a point-black Frost Lock. Sandalphon cast her spell and froze Y solid, then stumbled away. Though she planned to treat herself immediately with Angelic Praise, her body was too human to pull off such a feat. If none of the others put aside their chance to whale on the Moebius in this brief, three-second window in order to stop her fall, the archangel would be down for the count.

Roland had gotten knocked back by the area blast of Y, much like some of the melee. Although unlike Roxas, he didn’t have flowmotion or anything to counter it, using only his reflexes to try to deflect it with his sword, which ended up with him being launched back and hurt. Being ranged combatants, and fliers on top of that, Blazermate and Susie avoided both of Y’s counter attacks on the melee to get them off of him, although Roland wasn’t as lucky getting knocked on his butt by the shockwave coming his way and getting staggered as he tried to get back into combat. So it took some time for him to get back into the fight. At least Blazermate could heal him while he was getting smacked by the various AoE attacks, as well as any of the other melee that flew her way. She would need to send her drone out to heal the melee that stayed in though, whose healing wasn’t as efficient.

Susie meanwhile stayed at range for the most part, getting closer as she noticed Y’s attack range for more accuracy. This would eventually put her into a good position later, but first these three would have to deal with Y’s purple cube rain attack. Blazermate could handle the first cube with her personal shield, before using her projectile shield to block the rest. Roland recovered from his stagger and began to deflect the ones that came his way with his lance as he moved in to attack, only getting hit when he failed to deflect one, and Susie moved under Blazermate’s shield as it went up.

Once Sandalphon had gotten gripped and started to take s severe amount of damage, Blazermate approached her to start to heal her up, putting her medibeam on her as she flew up, giving her a bit of healing as she fell. Susie, having followed Blazermate for safety, saw the large angel also flailing, and summoned her business suit to catch her in the nick of time, a suit she’d get out of once she set Sandalphon down since it wasn’t doing so well at the moment. Set down rather than supported, Sandalphon couldn’t compose herself to cast Angelic Praise, but at least she was undergoing treatment. This left Roland to attack the now frozen Y, unleashing a lance thrust, a sweep of his dagger and finally activating his EGO, the False Throne. This changed the area into an emerald throne room for 10 seconds as Roland encased himself in emerald, dropping two columns of magical emerald that exploded on Y. This had an added effect of cleansing the debuffs of any allies the emerald shrapnel hit, but the damage was pretty basic.

"Three phases, and he isn't even the final boss!" Pit griped. He was back on his feet now, firing energy discs from his Arm at the Moebius. The Arm, as well as the angel's front, was scuffed and charred thanks to Y's explosive barrage. The wave he'd sent out had sent Pit tumbling onto his back on the ground, and though he'd raised the Upperdash Arm to shield himself from the very worst of the cube rain it was hardly designed for protection.

Still, being beaten up and wounded had (almost) never stopped Pit before. The transformations had to be taking a toll on Y, but with the way his current body looked it was hard to tell how much damage he had actually sustained so far. The Moebius was tough; far tougher than Pit thought he'd be, even after becoming that giant monster. They could only keep attacking and hope they were getting somewhere.

And if ever there was a time to pile on the damage, it was now. Following Goldlewis' example, Sandalphon had put herself in harm's way to freeze the Moebius. Pit revved the Upperdash Arm once more for a repeat performance, this time with a true uppercut that could send the Moebius's frozen form into the air for further follow ups. As soon as Roland's emeralds broke apart Pit went in and swung.

Roxas wasn’t quite as lucky as last time. The raining cubes caught him and he wasn’t able to get himself away fast enough to avoid getting caught by some of their blasts. And while those alone weren’t a huge deal, the following shockwave was. In fact the rain of cubes kept the Nobody too distracted to avoid that shockwave attack until it was too late. That sent him sprawling back a bit and left him briefly winded for a moment. It was a good thing so many of the other Seekers were keeping Y occupied or the Moebius could have swooped in and attacked the Keybearer with something worse. Roxas also noticed the medal from his helmet had ejected. Great, that meant he couldn’t use either of his medabot weapons until he could undo the damage he’d taken and reinsert the medal.

Well, he still had his Keyblades and magic, so it wasn’t like Roxas was totally helpless. He brandished Oathkeeper and Oblivion after spotting Y falling victim to Sandalphon’s freezing attack. He sprinted forward and then after a few meters became another streak of light that homed in on the Moebius like a zig-zagging line so that Roxas could break out a Cross Slash as a follow up to Pit’s attack. By that point the three seconds had passed and Y had unfrozen, but after Pit’s Upperdash Arm launched him into the air and the Cross Slash kept him juggled, the time was ripe for a finisher to throw him back down.

Like a bat out of Hell, Sakura shot to meet the Moebius midair, fists raised and clenched together above her head. Ichi-ni, san! She slammed her fists into his chest three times, bouncing higher on the first two hits before sending him crashing back down to Earth on the third. They landed next to each other, but Sakura landed on her feet. She grit her teeth and pushed herself forward and swung her leg up high, performing a Flower Kick to chop into his shoulder and push her offense forward before he could find his footing.

Wise to her game, Y rose to a crouch with his arm upheld as a shield. Despite her strength, Sakura’s leg struck what might as well be a solid wall, and then she was face-to-face with an otherworldly entity. Her allies were at her back, though, so Y couldn’t afford to spare much time. He aimed a brutal headbutt at her, trying to stun her with a rock-hard impact from his mask, then use his head tentacles to grab her by the arm and hurl her at her allies. Sakura’s head jerked backwards from the impact, and her eyes crossed. ”Ugh!” For a moment she sagged, shoulders slumping, before being used as a projectile. Her trajectory put her on a collision course with Pit, who'd been lining up for what he'd hoped would be another good walloping delivered to the Moebius. When he realized what was happening he hastily dismissed the Upperdash Arm to try and catch her, but the belated attempt saw her just crash into him, sending both youths sprawling to the ground.

Sakura shook the stars from her head, and quickly but sheepishly pushed herself off of Pit. ”Gomen ne!” She said apologetically, her meaning clear despite the brief language barrier. She reached down to help him up, and took a moment to dust him off, a mostly useless gesture but he let her do it and added, "No worries!"

Before the Seekers could converge, Y leaped away, a barrage of mildly homing purple bolts flying from his fingertips like an extradimensional chaingun, many of them arching up into the sky and forcing Minda to call off a diving bombing attack she’d been about to do, and she still took several hits despite this evasive maneuver. Once he landed, the Moebius held up his palm, gathering power into a crackling violet nexus.

As much as he still ached from the crushing blows he’d sustained so far, Goldlewis couldn’t stand idly by when he spotted Y charging up some sort of energy bomb. With a groan he picked up his coffin, hoisted it in front of him, and cracked open its lid to deploy a shimmering wall of blue hexagons. Of course, the battle had moved since he got floored, and his shield wouldn’t do the others much good if they weren’t behind it. “Behind me!” he called, inviting the others to shelter–if they didn’t plan to try stopping Y in his tracks.

Pit poked his head out around Sakura, looking first to Goldlewis and then to Y. His eyes widened upon seeing the growing power the Moebius was collecting in his hand. That doesn't look good! Even so, it had to be some drastic last ditch measure, Pit thought. He wasn't sure he wanted to risk the timing on his orbitars, so he took Sakura by the wrist and dragged the both of them over to huddle behind Goldlewis' shield. Sakura followed behind Pit, rushing to get behind Goldlewis’ shield. ”Th-thank you!” She said to both of them.

From behind there Pit could still attack thanks to the properties of his light arrows, so he resummoned the bow and fired the snaking rays of light from behind cover. When the Seekers withstood the latest attack Y was planning, Pit was sure he'd be winded enough for all of them to go back on the offensive.

While Zenkichi took cover behind Goldlewis’ shield after the blast wave of energy left him vulnerable to a heavy barrage of falling cubes, Geralt was running in, homing shots crashing into her but not halting her frenzied advance. Her Hateful Flesh lashed out violently, prematurely detonating the energy bomb as Y sent it hurtling her way, though unfortunately it did not seem to damage its creator. She snarled, yanking on the tether connecting the cleaver to her and using the momentum of the return yank to whirl it overhead before launching it at his feet. While he dodged the attack, she drew her silver sword and stabbed forward, plunging the blade a few inches into his gut before the Moebius turned violently, injuring himself a bit more, but also forcing Geralt to retract her blade or risk being dragged along with it. She chose the former, blasting Y with an Aard to keep him off-balance long enough for somebody else to land a hit.

When it came to his homing shots, Blazermate, Susie, and Roland were uniquely equipped to deal with them, although Roland much less so than the bots. Blazermate’s projectile shield simply made the bullets fizzle, with Susie hiding behind it as well. Roland meanwhile, being much more out of position, could deflect most of the shots, but even his ability to deflect range attacks wasn’t perfect: he wasn’t the blue sicko after all. So while he could deflect some of them, he couldn’t get them all, and he’d have to fall back, alongside the bots, behind Goldweis’s shield as Blazermate’s projectile shield would expire before that blast went off.

Having wheeled away to avoid the homing shots, Midna now came in again, weaving in between the falling cubes upon the back of her flygon. The incoming lance strike was rather predictable however, giving Y just enough time to charge and direct a beam her way. Well aware of her predictability however, the princess tilted her flygon by 90 degrees before the energy blast rang out, and then materialized her Beast Legion to its side, which immediately kicked off of it, launching the two apart to either side of the beam.

Beast Legion and Flygon both hit the deck just behind Y, before leaping past each other in an X, claws slashing at his back while Midna crescent moon slashed her Volcano Fragment into her hands and into the Moebius, igniting him at the same time as the astral chain bound around him.

That was as good an opportunity as anyone could hope for. Once the bomb had been taken care of, the others continued to push forward behind the frontrunners, careful not to get caught in the crossfire. Goldlewis had dropped his Wall of Light in order to pick up the pace, as he could only move so fast with it deployed and defense wasn’t going to win this war. And now, seeing the Moebius bound in chains, the veteran was glad he did. “Let’s finish this!” he rumbled, charging in after Midna. Y’s limbs might be bound, but his tentacles weren’t, and he sent them forward to try and stab Goldlewis in a half-dozen places. With a roar, his Wild Assault plowed straight through, bringing the big man close enough to use his favorite technique. “EAT SHIT!” His Down With the System struck Y dead on, smashing him out of the chains and a dozen feet into the air.

With Y being pummeled with Goldlewis’s ultimate move, Roland decided to use his own. Susie and Blazermate really didn’t have much in the way of ‘finishers’, with Blazermate needing a bit more to charge another kritz and Susie just having projectiles. Roland meanwhile, after the whole bomb and homing gatling rain, had finally hit emotion level 5, and with it gained the ability “Magic Trick”, with a seductive, sinister womanly voice saying “Cowardly kitten. I’ll give you the courage to stand up to anything and everything.” as well as the EGO page Harvest.

Seeing Y fly through the air due to Down with the System, Roland unleashed his wombo combo as well. First starting with Harvest, turning the area into a wheat field and donning the appropriate EGO as he shot a barb at Y before zooming in to drive his scythe at his head. Then Roland used the ability he had just gotten, Magic Trick. And in quick succession, he used all the EGO pages he had previously used during this combat. Starting with False Throne which conjured pillars of exploding emerald, followed very quickly by making Y fall to the ground by dropping a house onto him, and finishing with another Harvest, at which point the pillars of emerald exploded dealing their damage as well. The area rapidly changed as he used each EGO, exhausting Magic Trick and leaving the area back to what it was as it seemed the EGO space caused by magic trick didn’t last like it usually did. Roland was a bit sad he didn’t have Furioso to add to this, but for some reason he hadn’t been able to use that move yet, something was blocking him from doing it.

Roxas had been caught by one of the Moebius’ previous lightning bolt attacks. It left him momentarily stunned until this moment. He wasted no time and launched himself back into the fray as Roland was ending his barrage of attacks. Coincidentally, the Keybearer’s path took him right by where Pit was. And without much in the way of communication and warning, Roxas thrust his Keyblade upward as he passed by his angel friend. ”Light!” he gave the cry that was starting to become increasingly familiar to the other Seekers. The telltale sign that he was sharing his Light with another in order to combine their strengths for a powerful team-up attack.

Feeling the energy enter him, Pit picked up his pace so he was right beside Roxas when they both launched upward. "A combo attack!" he exclaimed, already drawing his bow back. Roxas' Light swirled around the divine weapon, making it glow bright and grow in size. The light arrow waiting to be fired swelled in size and strength, so much so that it took both boys to pull back on the ethereal bowstring. With Roxas helping, the two shared a glance and nodded, letting the arrow loose. It soared forward like a forceful laser, and when it struck Y it exploded into multiple smaller arrows that circled back around for additional hits and damage. If multiple enemies were present, these arrows would have spread the damage out - but with only a single enemy they all converged on the Moebius instead.

Karin had taken a moment to focus and switch into V-ISM mode, which gave her mobility and custom combos. A resource that she now intended to spend given how conservative she had been. They were passing Consul Y around like a tennis ball and Karin was more than happy to take her turn, a furious grin twisting her features as she dashed to appear behind us. Flattening her palms against the ground, she flashed and a series of blue transparent afterimages began to trail behind her rapid movements. Now she could link special move into special move for the next few seconds, to devastating effect. ”You can’t hope to defeat us!” Karin shouted, dashing in and unleashing a spurious series of triple, alternating palm strikes.

”You don’t have the will!” She punctuated her Custom Combo with a stomp that shook and supported a final elbow strike to send Consul Y skidding and stumbling away from her.

Geralt and Zenkichi both charged in, blades high as Karin smacked Y with an elbow strike, Zenkichi going low as Geralt went high. Zenkichi’s greatsword swung slightly upwards for his knees, while Geralt’s silver sword swung for Y’s neck and aimed to drag through his chest. Y crashed to his knees, with Zenkichi drawing his revolver while Geralt grabbed his hand crossbow. They stood side by side as each fired a shot into the Moebius’ head, before stepping aside for their Legionis ally to finish their enemy.

After all, if anyone had the right, it was Hayato. He’d chipped in throughout the fight whenever possible, switching between his weapon modes as the situation demanded, but with Y clearly on his last legs thanks to the Seekers’ incredible efforts, the time had come for Hayato to take the stage for the final act. Perhaps sensing his imminent demise, the Moebius pulled out one last trick.

He duplicated himself, standing five abreast as the last of his power welled up inside the doubles’ Moebius cores. The next moment, a laser blazed forth from each, threatening almost the entire bridge. Behind the policeman, Goldlewis put up another Wall of Light to protect his friends, but Hayato did not turn away. He turned the momentum of his headlong sprint into a low slide, then sprang up between two of the lasers and sent his Sword Legion flying upward. His partner turned, hooked its blade around the chain, and gave it a yank to pull Hayato up after it. Then it crossed its blades to form a springboard that launched the young man back down. He flew down, landed behind the five, and whipped around with the Sword Legion summoned anew. Time seemed to slow as he took aim, visualizing a single, narrow line that connected all five figures. The next second, the Sword Legion unleashed a lightspeed cut, destroying the four fakes and bringing the real Y to his knees in a single, reality-cleaving slice. Hayato yelled, and with every fiber of his being, drove his x-baton into the stab wound that his sister Akira left behind.

A long, low groan issued from Y as his head hung down, the chin of his featureless mask resting against his chest. The long, hair-like tentacles that extended from his head, which throughout the fight floated upward like the questing tendrils of an anemone, gently descended to splay out across the floor around him. With Hayato’s x-baton piercing -and protruding from- his chest, he couldn’t slump any farther down, but the Moebius couldn’t imagine getting much lower anyway.

”...Maybe S was right about you all,” he murmured, his voice weak but still resonant enough to be audible to all. ”You’re strong. Of that, there can be no doubt. But what…of the rest? Those not strong enough to seize their fates for themselves? That’s why…” He paused, groaning again. ”...Ah, nevermind. None of that matters now. I’ve lost. After everything, I failed to transcend Moebius. It seems even the Astral Plane is held thrall. I should have known.” A gasping laugh escaped Y as he struggled to raise his head, trying to look the Seekers in the eye. “S thought you might be the ones. But if…if even I couldn’t escape…the Endless Now…what chance have you?”

Then Y’s head dropped once again, and his body dissolved, not into ashes, but into light. And when those faint purple motes disappeared, not even a spirit remained. Hayato straightened up, taking a deep breath. Without another second’s delay he stowed his x-baton and set off on his own while the Seekers looked on, headed back the way he came. He’d evidently gotten what he came here for. The rest was up to them.

Leaning on her staff for support, Sandalphon watched just a moment longer to make sure that the Moebius was really gone. Once that tense moment passed her by, she lifted her staff and cast a long-overdue Angelic Praise. The divine radiance that flowed over her allies, warm and soothing as the waters of a hot spring, washed away their wounds and left them ready for more. After all, despite the extravagant spectacle to which they’d just bore witness, the Seekers knew that an even greater battle lay in wait just ahead. Before confronting it, though, everyone could take a moment to catch their breath, and to ponder what the Moebius meant.

“The Endless Now,” Sandalphon repeated. “I’m afraid those words do not appear anywhere within my memory. Though it would be a reasonable assumption that it simply refers to the Moebius dominion over this world, something tells me that there’s more to it than that. Would that I could discern what.”

“Guess we’ll have to have a nice long chat with the next Consul we see,” a familiar voice called out from up ahead. A rare smile spread over the face of Goldlewis when he looked toward the central structure and spotted Giovanna sitting just above the doorway. The secret agent was a bit beaten-up, but still very much alive.

“There y’are,” Goldlewis hollered. “Where’d the hell’d you go, Gio? When you didn’t show up for rounds two or three I thought you mighta finally bought the farm.”

“Pssh.” Giovanna eased off her seat and landed beside the door, markedly less steady than usual despite her laudable attempt to save face. “Urgh…well, the big freak did just about knock me into next week. Sent me flying on a chunk of debris across the whole reactor. When I stopped seeing stars, I saw you all get sucked inside, but I managed to jump into this thing.” She gestured at the difficult-to-describe building behind her. “After that…well, I’ve had better days. Kinda needed a break.”

Goldlewis gave her a sympathetic look. He hadn’t seen what happened to his friend when she fought Armstrong, but it had obviously rattled her, and after that the blow from the Soul of Ambition had been icing on the cake. “Well, don’t push yourself too hard, Gio. We don’t want you kickin’ the bucket on us. You can hang back for this next fight if you need to.”

At that, Giovanna gave an appreciative nod. “Thanks, pardner.”

If she felt bad about being the only one to sit out, the secret agent certainly didn’t show it. The others were all fighting-fit, and after the multi-faceted battle with Y, thoroughly warmed up again after their hour-long trek through Deep Ground. Finally, after everything they’d been through since their arrival in Midgar, all the losses, all the myriad friends and foes they’d encountered in their three crazy days, they’d made it. Just one last fight -one more enemy- awaited them. The Guardian of Midgar.

Yet even now, after all this time, neither Goldlewis nor Sandalphon had the slightest idea who -or what- it could be. By this point, who -or what- was left?

---

Within minutes, total war had engulfed the scarred borderlands between Midgar’s outskirts and the now-lifeless Valley of Ruin, and for the defenders the outlook was bleak right from the start. Without the backing of the Shinra Administration, whose forces huddled in their stronghold while the populace outside had to fend for itself, the fate of the city lay in the hands of a ramshackle legion assembled hastily and from disparate factions. The Sector 07 militia stood arm in arm with the remnants of the once-proud Hermits, while the androids of YoRHa had risen from the ashes of DespoRHado to fight alongside defectors from General Affairs and the Psych-OSF. Even Seiran, motivated to do what the Administration wouldn’t, lent its aid to the cause with the deployment of its inhumane Other Weapons. Still, despite their last-minute reinforcements, the coalition lacked numbers compared to the Machines. Outgunned and hopelessly outnumbered, but not out of options, the defenders of humanity had no choice but to fight with everything they had, and hope it was enough.

Of course, their enemy was just as determined. The Machines had sloughed most of their fodder during the fight a few days ago; today, they brought only their best. Animal-shaped machine lifeforms fought with bestial ferocity, leveraging the elements to their advantage, while the frightfully advanced Raptures brought terrifying weapons to bear. Blood spilled, sparks flew, and the window panes of Midgar -even the air itself- shuddered with the percussion of constant explosions. One by one the Machines fell, but their successors exacted retribution in kind–a price the defenders could not afford to pay. This wasn’t just a self-sacrificial bid to buy time; without knowing what the Seekers were up to, or what their actions could accomplish, the defenders were fighting for the fate of everyone in Midgar. Yet from the very beginning, the Machines made it clear that this was a lost cause. Any long-range artillery units among the Raptures not actively engaged in combat made it their priority to shell the city itself, firing indiscriminately into the undercities and up at the plates, with special attention paid to the supporting pillars. Filled with horror and anger, the defenders fought all the harder.

Protected by barriers and empowered by righteous fury, Penance let her flail fly again and again, its thorny hammerhead crumpling armor and dismantling machinery. When a gang of Clamberjaws attacked her, she held her own for a few moments with her stunning Last Word lash and Trial of Thorns, but eventually their onslaught proved to be too much and she was forced to activate Stoic Atonement. The damage reduction gave her a chance to chew through her simian assailants with radiating Arts waves, each kill replenishing her barrier, but with fateful solemnity the Judge realized that even this wouldn’t last for long. But as the Clamberjaws crowded around her, all slashing claws and gnashing teeth, help finally came. A half-dozen molotov cocktails exploded around her, getting the beasts’ attention, and a second later a nodachi plunged through a Clamberjaw’s back and pinned it to the ground. Then Kyle landed on his weapon’s hilt, releasing a massive surge of electricity that coursed through the machines, rupturing their purgewater canisters and stunning them. As they reeled, Mudrock charged in and brought her hammer down in a tremendous Crag Splitter, finishing what the Judge had started.

Penance canceled Stoic Atonement, letting out her breath in relief. “I owe you my thanks.”

“Save your thanks ‘til later,” Kyle seemed to smirk as he perched on his blade, his holographic mask ever-grinning. Up ahead, a Sunbather began to charge up red energy within the petals of its metal flower. “We’re not out of the woods just yet.”

Nearby, a squad of YoRHa androids was being destroyed by a deadly duo of futuristic Rapture walkers, Duelring and Halo. While the former plugged away with its heavy cannons, the latter launched energy rings like giant buzz saws to slice the dolls -as well as any mooks in the way- into scrap metal. In moments the squad was nearly wiped out, with just one stunned android left staring at a bright blue ring flying her way. Instead, an energy shield sprang to life around her, projected by an Axe Legion she couldn’t even see. “Don’t worry,” a grizzled, gray-bearded policeman told her. “We’ll take it from here.” Both Raptures focused fire on the shield, which was just what Captain Maximilian’s fellow officer Jin needed to send his Arm Legion forward and wrap its chain around Duelring’s legs from the side, disabling it. Maximilian seized the opportunity. His Axe Legion cast Blue Shield to give its partner three hits of invincibility, and Maximilian used it to charge straight at the Rapture in order to jump and strike its center with his x-baton in gladius form. That heavy blow left a crack in its armor, and the Axe Legion quickly planted an energy blade inside it. Unable to see or strike back against its attacker, the Halo simply leveled its cannons at Maximilian as he landed, but before it could open fire the energy blade exploded, blowing its core in two.

Meanwhile Jin had encased himself in his Arm Legion to deliver a rapid-fire beatdown to the Halo. It broke free of its chains just after the finishing punch and leaped back, hurling energy cutters. Steely as ever, Jin swerved from side to side fast enough to leave afterimages, then sent his Arm Legion forward to stagger the Duel Ring with an uppercut. It then yanked him over, and he grabbed its shoulder as it advanced with a flurry of four overhead smashes. He missed the final sync attack, however, and the Rapture recovered with surprising speed. It brought its halos around, spinning like saws, to carve into him either side, only for a deafening howl to stun it. Jin turned to see Alicia riding her Beast Legion, a grin on her face as she charged into the fray. She struck the Rapture’s legs again and again as she galloped past, and not to be outdone, Jin sent forth his Arm Legion in a barrage of punches and lariats. After a few moments the Halo began to fall, and both officers unleashed their legions with Hit Rush to deliver fierce combos on their own. When the legions disappeared, Halo was on its last legs, allowing the officers to pull off a double gladius cleave that put it down for good.

All over, the Psych-OSF defectors were fighting in tight-knit, well-coordinated groups. Yuito and Kasane’s squads led the charge together, closing the distance on the machines to take the fight to them. Hanabi’s fire and Shiden’s lightning flared up all over the place thanks to the SAS, and with Luka’s Teleportation plus Arashi’s Hypervelocity, everyone could reposition at a moment’s notice–or vanish altogether with Kagero’s invisibility. Critical use of Gemma’s Sclerokinesis and Naomi’s Precognition saved more lives than anyone would care to admit. The sight of Septentrion Second Class Fubuki Spring on the battlefield, Song of Broken Pines in hand, was glorious to behold. His ice encased all sorts of machine lifeforms and Raptures alike, allowing his allies to shatter them. When a handful of Porters put in a surprise appearance, flinging ink-black bombs the size of beach balls, Sasha Nein’s immaculate Marksmanship put a psychic bullet through each and every one to detonate them mid-air.

Still, a firing squad of long-range Raptures was nothing to shake a stick at. As wounds piled up, desperate measures became necessary. Yuito and Kasane joined forces, combining their Psychokinesis to rip up a huge amount of terrain. Milla Vodello lent them a hand, using her Levitation to lighten their load, while Kyoka used her Duplication to fill the air with even more debris. A moment later, the psionics launched their massive barrage of metal, earth, and stone, made even weightier by Fubuki’s ice. The havoc their efforts wrought gave the defenders a much-needed, but all-too-brief reprieve.

Farther forward, though, two YoRHa androids were on their own. Using their flight units, 2B and 9S made a beeline for the three lumbering titans known as Engels. “Kill…kill…kill…kill!” the rusty colossi chorused, their distorted cries echoing through the battlefield. Barely able to hear one another over the roar of battle, the androids opened fire, lighting up the dark, cloudy morning with floods of bright yellow shots. As if their huge saw arms weren’t enough, the Engels could fire volleys of missiles from their smokestacks and even huge red lasers from their heads. 9S and 2B played a dangerous game, kiting around to make the giants bodyblock -and even hit- one another. Sooner rather than later, however, their number came up. While trying to dodge one Engels, a second clipped 9S with its immense earthsaw, which was more than enough to destroy his flight unit and send him plummeting down onto its top.

“9S! Ugh!” Almost immediately, 2B’s flight unit received a punch from the third Engels, sending it flying for over a mile. Once it recovered, the flight unit transformed into flight mode to rush back into the fight at top speed. “Hang on. I’m coming!”

“Don’t worry about me,” 9S gasped falteringly, his tremulous voice reaching her over their sigils. “2B…I found a weakness in the target…hacking in…to provide support.” 2B said nothing, instead rolling her flight unit from side to side to avoid incoming lasers and countless shots from the Raptures. “2B…the control…on the enemy’s upper arm…” 9S piped up after another few seconds. “Use your pod…should be able to take it over…”

“Got it.”

Against all odds, 2B managed to fly in through the projectile storm, switch back to combat mode, and use her momentum to carve through the Engels’ upper arm. The enormous earthsaw fell, but before it could hit the ground, a huge halo of light appeared around it and hauled it back into the air. “Infiltrating enemy sub unit,” her pod reported calmly. “Behavior table adjusted. Balance controls overridden. Enemy unit subjugation complete.” With that, 2B went on the attack. She swung the captured arm again and again, each colossal blow taking a chunk off an Engels’ body, but even then it wasn’t enough. The arm buckled before her enemies did, and finally 2B was forced to jump for her life and land atop the Engels her companion fell onto, where she found 9S in dire straits. His human facade had been shattered, with the metal skeleton inside exposed wherever his limbs had been torn asunder. 2B knelt over him, holding him in her hands even as their enemies closed in.

9S half-laughed, half-coughed to himself. “I don’t imagine that…this is going to end well.” After a moment he held up a small object, a black cube inscribed with lines of flickering golden light. 2B stared at it, her expression vaguely terrified. The fact that her companion held it in his hand could mean only one thing, grim though it was. “The black box,” he groaned. “It’s ready.”

After pursing her lips for a moment as if pained, 2B nodded. “Right.” Immediately she withdrew her own black box, slowly holding it up.

9S breathed in deep, then spoke into his sigil. “Requesting…destruction of enemy hostiles via black-box reaction.”

There was a moment of hesitation before the response. “...Request accepted,” Sandalphon told him.

A moment passed, oddly serene. The call had been made. Their fate was sealed. “2B…it was an honor to fight with you. Truly.”

“The honor was mine.”

The two tapped their black boxes together, and among the army of machines blossomed the radiant light of total annihilation.

As the explosion went off in the distance, annihilating many of the biggest threats and most of the robotic horde alongside them, the two most pivotal fights reached their fever pitch. Unleashing up an immense storm of metal with his magnetic fields, Eve turned his battlefield into a night-impenetrable dust bowl. In that dusty shroud he attacked, his arms coated with masses of serrated scrap. Even in that mayhem, however, Chai managed to find the rhythm. Holding tight to his own scrap-metal guitar, he landed strings of musical hits, each a stylish combination of snappy lights and delayed heavies. His peppy energy even seemed to fight against the doom and gloom, coloring the dust with bright, cartoonish sound effects. Eve attacked him furiously, and Chai did his best to dodge and parry, then tag-team his opponent with attacks from his allies. His three friends supported him without fail, either lending a hand in neutral, punctuating his combos, or performing parry counters. Peppermint rattled off shots from her blasters or delivered acrobatic kicks, while Macaron dealt out punishing punches or pitted his strength against Eve’s heaviest scrap-metal slams. Korsica whipped up miniature cyclones to cut through the dust and make Eve more vulnerable.

When their teamwork finally staggered their opponent, Chai took the stage. As the world’s colors seemed to invert around him, he slid backward, then launched into action. His guitar cut into Eve with such energy that it left a bright blue streak in the air behind it, followed by another to make an X, then three from side to side. Finally, Chai brought his guitar down, yelling, “Overdrive Slash!” The blow threw Eve back, but he planted his foot, sliding to a stop. He growled, metal swirling around him. Peppermint promptly blasted him, which knocked him off balance long enough for Korsica to jump in and launch him with her staff. As he flew up, Macaron met him in the air and punched him down. He rolled to his feet with a yell, gathering a huge amount of scrap to armor himself up and coat his right arm for his biggest swing yet. The others scattered, but Chai charged forward. He slid on his knees beneath the giant limb, leaning back as his scrap became a real guitar with a slow-motion chord. 808 sprang toward their foe and swatted the scrap off Eve’s face with her claws, giving Chai the chance to follow up with a final climactic chop. “You’re TOAST!”

Meanwhile, Eve’s brother Adam took a different tact against Avalanche. At first he fought by conjuring countless pristine white cubes, some as defensive walls that could be launched, others in giant form to crush his foes, and still others as explosive projectiles. All the while pontificating about the nature of humanity. His opponents, seeing what was happening to Midgar and its defenders, had no time for this. Barrett let rip his prosthetic chaingun, tearing into Adam for all he was worth. Aerith pelted him with magic -occasionally magical beams- and provided the others healing. Meanwhile, Cloud and Tifa fought hand in hand, punishing the eldest of the twin machine overlords with an unrelenting assault. It wasn’t long before Adam began to realize what he was up against, which seemed to thrill him. Announcing his intent to risk his life in an effort to experience the purest essence of humanity, he disconnected from the machine network, then changed his fighting style completely. Wielding a sort of golden energy, he unleashed empowered kicks and punches, projectile barrages, and explosive fireballs, sometimes disappearing inside golden bubble shields or pumping out ground explosions.

Quickly, though, the fight began to drag on, and the members of Avalanche knew that this couldn’t continue. With the melee fighters pushed back by the constant projectiles, Barrett and Aerith dialed their output up to eleven to blaze a trail with magic and lead. Plan in mind, Cloud and Tifa fought their way back in, and the minute they worked their way back into Adam’s face they threw caution to the wind.

“No more games!” Tifa called, winding up in a low stance.

“Let’s dance, asshole,” Cloud declared, brandishing his Buster Sword with both hands.

The two unleashed their Limit Breaks, Ascension and Dolphin Flurry, at the same time. While Tifa leaped up and descended with a whirlwind kick, Cloud whipped his blade around in a fiery dance of death. At the last moment, they came together and launched into the air, Cloud with a climhazzard and Tifa with a magical dolphin uppercut. Their combined might launched Adam high into the air, and once he hit the ground hard, he did not rise. “Is this…death?” he choked out, laying in a pool of artificial blood. “So dark…so cold…”

Panting, Cloud looked over toward the other group. Though similarly haggard from his own boss battle, Chai gave a thumbs up. Then the soldier turned to survey the battlefield before him. In the aftermath of the androids’ black-box reaction, the scales had been tipped in the defenders’ favor. Without either of the twins, most of the machines seemed uncertain. Directionless.

But not all of them.

With a bloodcurdling howl, Chatterbox leaped from the dust. The enormous, apelike Rapture charged the two teams of four, eager to pound them into the dirt while weakened from their battles. Before it could reach them, however, a giant red ripped tipped with a golden spike burst from the ground and stabbed into the Rapture’s belly. Chatterbox snarled, scanning the area until it spotted a monstrous creature with many such ribbons, one currently buried in the earth. It was a freakish amalgamation of plant, statuary, mannequin, and insect, its limbs contorted in unnatural ways, yet it seemed determined to stand in the other abomination’s path. ”If you want them,” Peach’s telepathic voice resounded. ”You’ll need to go through me.”

Chatterbox leered at her, and spoke. Its low, scratchy, garbled voice sounded alien, artificial, but not in the manner of a machine–rather, like an alien tongue forced to construe its native sounds to words of a language for which it had never been designed. Not being psychic, it couldn’t have heard Peach’s voice, yet still it directed that loathsome voice her way. ”Fine. You first!”

It fired off Spike Missiles, corrosive Superacid Missiles, and finally its High-output Heavy Particle Cannon. Peach fought back, attacking with massive, contorted swings and bladed ribbons that burrowed through the earth. As its wounds mounted, Chatterbox growled and closed in. The two titans clashed in a tremendous impact, ribbons snaring and stabbing into Chatterbox as its massive mitts grabbed onto Peach’s marble heads. Struggling violently, Peach pounded at the Rapture’s head with a reversed fist, but no matter how grisly the damage to its head became, Chatterbox would not relent. Even if it meant dying here, it seemed determined to take Peach with it. Not even Barrett and Peppermint shooting him as the others rushed over seemed to slacken his grip. Finally, after a few more seconds, Chatterbox shattered the Other’s head in a burst of butterflies and plaster. A moment later the Rapture slumped down, the last of its strength depleted.

Peach slumped down the next moment. ”I’m sorry, everyone,” she groaned, her mind flooded with misery and regret. From the very beginning, back in her castle, she’d been trying to step up and do a good job. Yet no matter where the journey took her, the princess found herself hopelessly out of her depth. Though only too happy to become the figurehead for the campaign against Galeem, she routinely fell short both on the battlefield and as a leader, relying on the others to do all the heavy lifting. It was hubris. Maybe, she thought bitterly, she should have stayed in her lane. She could have waited in her castle, sipping her tea and baking her cakes while the real heroes went out to save the world. Now, she would never have that chance.

There was no cure for metamorphosis. That revelation, delivered by the scientists at the Supernatural Life Research Facility, had shaken her to her core. Then, she’d been told just what secret ingredient went into the medicine that kept her sane. Driven by her hubris to push ever farther and ever harder in an attempt to prove herself, she’d become a bloodthirsty monster forced to consume a serum distilled from human brains just to maintain lucidity. She didn’t want to live like that. So rather than rot away in her cell until the last vestiges of her humanity atrophied completely, she’d chosen to join the fight against the Ever Crisis as an Other Weapon. At least then she could die knowing she achieved something.

The dying Other lay sprawled on the ground, a broken heap of fiberglass, foliage, and clustered butterfly. It didn’t even hurt, not really. Others didn’t have nerves and didn’t feel pain like people did. Still…it was a shame it had to end like this. Peach would’ve wanted her adventure to continue, if only it could. She wanted to see new places and meet new people. To try and make the world a better place, even if she didn’t always succeed. She wanted to go back home, to see the rolling fields, to play soccer, golf, and all the other games with her friends. To throw lavish tea parties and bake magnificent cakes. To see him face to face once more.

Mario…

Chai reached the Other’s side as she crumbled into ash, then exchanged a look with 808. Not being even remotely psychic, he wasn’t sure what compelled him to jog over. As far as he knew, this was just an Other under Seiran’s control. Still, something about the monster’s sacrifice against that enormous machine struck him as oddly heroic, as well as strangely tragic. He pursed his lips. “Rest in peace, big guy.” 808 nodded her approval, and after another quiet moment, they turned to face the others. His friends and Cloud’s team were with him, while the Neuron legios and Psych-OSF defectors were approaching. In another moment, the remaining defenders had regrouped. “Hey gang. What’s up?”

As Hal’s drone finished its descent from its bird’s-eye view, its operator gave his report. “It looks like taking out Adam and Eve left most of the Machines directionless. They could still pose a threat in the future, but it looks like the invasion is over for now.” He paused for a moment. “We took heavy casualties. Even still, this might not be over. The Machines’ aerial weapons platform, Sinister, went straight for the Shinra Building, and Shinra sent out the Alpha to handle it. While they both went down over the Sector 06 bay, Sinister’s still online. But we’ve got a bigger problem. Nox.” He projected a hologram of the supposed Machine leader, who nobody present had seen since the battle began. “He’s nowhere to be found. It’s like he vanished the moment the fighting started. Which begs the question, horrible as it is…” His drone turned toward a battlefield coated in ashes and slag, dominated by the giant crater left over where 2B and 9S gave their lives. “Was this -all of this- just a diversion?”

---

Despite her stolid, almost robotic demeanor, Sandalphon was not quite as emotionless as she appeared. In her centuries of faithful service to the Ilian Church, she’d seen countless mortals come and go, whether on the battlefield against demons and fiends or in the course of their daily lives. Much as it pained her, she’d even witnessed terrible tragedies, the worst of all being the horrific sacrifice of hundreds of innocent villagers during the events surrounding Satan’s revival. After everything, however, she’d never grown numb to the grim reality of death. Though her face never showed it, the archangel’s heart went out to each and every lost soul, filled with sadness that good lives had to come to an end.

Only now, however, could she feel tears welling in her eyes. It was as strange a feeling as the first time, yet Sandalphon found herself oddly grateful. Sometimes, she wondered if she really was a machine, wearing the skin of an angel. But these tears told her that she really did have a heart for humanity–and for the androids who gave their lives to protect it.

Discreetly wiping away her tears, Sandalphon dismissed the screen containing the list of names she’d just received. It would take some time to read and eulogize them all, and time was a luxury she didn’t have. “Everyone good to go?” Goldlewis asked up at the front of the group, turning around to confirm that all of the Seekers were ready for the final battle. Naturally, they were. He gave an approving nod, then turned and mashed the button beside the central drawer. The doors to the Cornice’s central structure slid open, and the team moved in to see what awaited them.

The walkway extended into a giant domed chamber, terminating in a circular disc suspended above a long fall directly into a black abyss. Most of the room was dark, though a huge ring light in the ceiling illuminated the central plate, and spaced around the walls were strange moving images like projections in a movie theater, each surrounded by strange pumps. They appeared to be magic portals with the appearance of concentric gears, and inside them the Seekers could see visions of what looked like other worlds. Mountains, forest, oceans…all seemingly drained and devoid of life. All this was just the backdrop, though. On the disc sat an enormous machine, a bizarre amalgam of fantasy and space-age technology, with angelic wings like helicopter rotors, and arms outfitted with shuttle thrusters. It loomed about thirty feet high, and though it did not react to the newcomers’ presence just yet, it harbored a degree of menace beyond its status as Midgar’s guardian. For this was not some eldritch monstrosity, nor legendary beast. It was just an artificial enigma, forged by the hands of man.



Within a minute, the Seekers had amassed on the platform with their opponent. Still it did not aggress, and it likely wouldn’t until the newcomers attacked first. Maybe, Sandalphon considered, the machine was busy. To her, it seemed intrinsically linked both with this place and the phenomenon going on around it, and not just in the sense that it all served to keep Midgar’s Guardian under lock and key. Everything here struck the archangel as sharing one singular purpose, but whatever that was, she could not immediately tell. Did it matter, in the end? What could be more important than destroying the Guardian, after all? Putting aside her unease, Sandalphon readied her weapons and prepared to give the Seekers her support.

Just as the heroes steeled themselves to begin the fight, however, a strange noise reached their ears. It puzzled them not just with what it was, but where it came from–for it was the roar of a car’s engine, and it was coming from behind them. When they turned to look back the way they came, they saw an extravagant six-wheeled convertible, fuchsia in color and strangely familiar to a few of them. It was flying through the air of the mako reactor, and once it slammed down onto the broken bridge a moment later, it raced across the rest of the span and into the central structure. Just before reaching the arena, the driver slammed the breaks to bring the convertible to a halt. Though taken aback for a moment, Goldlewis remembered that car. He knew who it belonged to without even having to look.

“Chaos.”

“Hello, hello!” A familiar figure climbed out of the car, giving the Seekers a cheerful wave before he leaned on the convertible’s hood. Just like before, he was clad from the waist down in the dark suit and cherry-red armor of the Consuls, but showed up shirtless with his turquoise musculature on full display. This time, though, he also wore a helmet: a bulbous affair with protruding rabbit-like ears, a rictus grin, and a crossed-out heart where the eyes should be. It was Midgar’s other Consul, C.

“Y’know, it takes a real sumbitch to hang a comrade out to dry like that,” Goldlewis told him tersely. “You shoulda helped Y out back there, hoss. You mighta stood a chance against us fightin’ together?”

C shook his head, seemingly disappointed. “Aw, c’mon. Even if he did expect me to show up, that was his moment. Hayato’s, too. The culmination of their story. It’s a beautiful thing, you know. Not everyone gets the luxury of a true ending.” Crossing his arms, C tilted his head. “Besides, you got me all wrong. Remember? I don’t care who wins or loses. I’m just here for the drama.” He shrugged. “Of course, the same can’t be said for them.” He reached down and slapped the hood of his car. “Gentlemen?”

The hood immediately popped up. Instead of an engine, it contained an impossible staircase, made possible only by magic. As the Seekers watched, four men emerged from within. The first was one everybody recognized: Karen Travers, masked in silver, his demeanor deadly serious. A handful could claim to have seen the second and third: Jetstream Sam, one of the DespoRHado cyborgs from yesterday morning, and Mephisto, the sickly-looking Reunion subordinate of Jena Anderson. The last, however, nobody could identify. He appeared to be a mummy of some sort, wrapped in bandages and adorned with strange, mystical-looking armor. Once the four spread out, and C dematerialized his car with a snap of his fingers, it was the stranger who began to speak.

“I am Nox.” he told the Seekers, his coldly eloquent tone bearing a light French accent. Sandalphon’s eyes blinked into crosshairs as she recognized the name–it belonged to the ‘enemy’ that Xatow said must never be allowed to lay claim to the Guardian. “I don’t expect you all to know me. But know this. Since the World of Light began, I have been gathering Wakfu. All so that I could accomplish what even Xelor could not, and turn back the hands of time.”

He held his hands out to either side, indicating the others who’d accompanied him. “We have to go back. Mistakes to correct. Wrongs to make right. Not a matter of if, but when. So, Seekers of Light. Let us waste neither lives nor time. There is no need for us to fight; just hand it over to me. That thing, the Guardian. Its power over spacetime is the last piece of the puzzle. Then we will simply leave. Change what needs to be changed. Save what needed to be saved. You’ll never realize what changed. Barely anything, to most. But the world will be a better place. And every evil we’ve wrought…” Nox looked down at his own hands. “Will have never happened.”

Goldlewis held his tongue for a moment, absorbing what he’d been told. This was an insane revelation to receive seconds before a climactic boss battle, but the arrival of Nox’s team threw a huge wrench in the Seekers’ plan. Of course, this wasn’t really up for debate, and he felt pretty sure that the others felt the same way. Whether or not Nox spoke the truth, his team couldn’t afford to lose one of the thirteen spirits they needed to defeat Galeem. That much was an immutable fact.

“Hate to break it to you,” the veteran began. “Bad shit happens to everyone. Happens to loads o’ good folks who don’t rightly deserve, every goddamn day. It ain’t fair.” His expression hardened. “So how many good folks did you happen to? How many got their lives unfairly cut short, just so that you could someday go back and right your wrongs? What makes you so worthy?””

Sandalphon stared at Nox, trying to parse the man beneath the mask. “It’s clear that any amount of sacrifice is justified if you cannot achieve your goal. At the same time, it seems like there’s a tiny part of you that isn’t completely gone. I understand your conviction; you must undo the evil you’ve wrought, so you must succeed. But even if you did manage to go back and save whoever it was you mentioned needing to save, could that person live with what you’ve done to make that happen?” She narrowed her eyes, her gaze questioning. “Could you?”

For a moment, Nox’s eyes were closed. When he opened them, however, they blazed bright. “I didn’t expect you to understand. How could you? You couldn’t imagine it. The weight on my shoulders.” He lifted up his hand and beckoned. “Come, then. Stop me if you can..”

Goldlewis bulled forward with surprising speed. Nox’s allies readied themselves for battle, but he held out a hand to stop them, then lifted his left arm as if holding up a shield. A glyph appeared on his forearm of blue interlinked gears, glowing with magic as they slowly spun. “Try this on!” When the veteran’s crushing blow struck it, it came to an instantaneous stop as Nox’s magic froze both weapon and wielder in time. With mechanical precision, the Watchmaker held up his right hand, summoned summoned a pendulum sword, with its tip against Goldlewis’ forehead, and unceremoniously drove it in.

Putting his palm to the veteran’s chest, Nox drained his Wakfu in only a moment. Then his body fell, crumbling into ash, and with his team at the ready Nox levitated into the air. On the other side of the Seekers Tycoon stirred, roused by the disturbance, and unfolded its wings. “No further questions? Good. There’s no time to lose.”





As her jeers before the ambush implied, Nadia did not believe for one moment that Consul F would actually deign to put up a fight. From the moment the Seekers set foot in the Under he’d been a thorn in their side, appearing from thin air to try and get them killed. She couldn’t have failed to notice, however, that each attempt on their lives had been indirect. First he literally cut short the heroes’ ride into the Chasm, hoping they’d fall to their deaths. Then he mind-controlled the whole population of the Home of Tears in an effort to wipe them out. And now he’d gathered together the team’s former members, maybe hoping that the mental blow would soften them up enough for his infected minions to finish the job. And with the death of the thing that had been Artorias, the most enduring of F’s newest lackeys, he’d consummately failed yet again. Even before the infected knight fully dissolved, Nadia turned toward the doorway where the Consul appeared, where she found exactly what she suspected: that the smug little snake was nowhere to be seen.

“Hee…heehee…hee…” His voice reached the Seekers, somewhat faint due to distance, and try as she might Nadia couldn’t pinpoint the source due to the echos. “You guys really get it, huh? In this world, it’s kill or be killed. Too bad you have no idea what you’re up against. Go on, then. The Hollow Knight’s waiting. It’s your funeral. Hee hee hee hee…”

The Hollow Knight? Was that the Guardian? One this was clear: that F had ditched the Seekers yet again. Nadia rolled her eyes. “I knew it,” she muttered. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she raised her voice and shouted around the cavern. “You suck! You’re traaaaaaash! At least your buddy P-brain actually tried killing us himself!” Hearing no reply, the feral gave it up with a sigh and a shrug. “Then again, that’s why he’s dead I guess. Still. Tearing that little clown a new one woulda been nice consul-ation.”

Another look around revealed no sign of Master Hand either. In the nightmarish parasite farms beneath Carcass Isle, the five-fingered enigma had appeared to confound the Seekers with a difficult challenge in the form of timed boss battles. Did this brawl really count as the Hand’s pre-Guardian trial for the Under? Though thoroughly unpleasant, it had been very easy in comparison. Maybe Mast Hand deferred to F for some reason, giving him the spotlight for this penultimate encounter. Nadia snickered. If that was the case, then maybe the Hand wanted to see F embarrass himself as much as she did. With both enemies inexplicably absent, the way into the Temple of the Black Egg was clear. Only one thing kept them from heading straight in, other than a quick breather: the spirits of the fallen. Though their bodies had been twisted by disease, their spirits appeared untainted. That included not just the infected, but also their fusions: Ten Piedad, Silitha, and a Xweetok. Nadia wanted nothing to do with any of them, except for that of the tree demon, which she promptly mashed into the ground beneath her heel. “No way I’m taking the slightest chance you get to Ground me again,” she hissed.



Once everyone dealt with the spirits however they saw fit, Nadia was more than happy to get a move on and leave this sorry scene behind. None of the poor people brought here by F deserved what happened to them, but she doubted any deserved it less than Omori. He was just a kid. She couldn’t stop herself recalling the piggyback ride she’d given him back in Alcamoth, a warm memory turned painful. Though she’d taken an almost teasing tone earlier, Nadia’s hatred was strong. “You’ll pay,” she muttered venomously to herself. “Soon as I get my claws on you.”

For now, that would evidently have to wait until after the Guardian. Once the Seekers headed into the massive temple, they hurried across the infection-choked interior to the Black Egg. The great obsidian mass, so eerily flawless when Ganondorf, Primrose, and the Troop last saw it, now bore countless hairline fractures. Orange gas wafted from the cracks, and orange ichor oozed out from below. They’d reached the source of the infection. It lay behind the seal. Quickly, those who’d volunteered to carry the assembled mask produced and inserted the oblong keys. Each one fit like a glove, receding slightly into the surface. The Temple began to shake, and after a moment the completed seal pulsed in a flash of white, a web of glowing lines surrounding a shape like an upturned crescent moon–or a mask with enormous horns. It flashed again, stronger this time, and the seal blew apart in a shower of rubble. After a brief moment, a resounding cry echoed from within, a voiceless, mindless howl like nothing the Seekers had ever heard. It expelled a massive amount of fetid vapor, but even without the smell, it would’ve still chilled Nadia to the bone.

Inside the Black Egg, despite all the infection without, it was dark and quiet. Too dark, in fact. The heroes could see nothing but the glowing white patterns of stepping-stones leading them through the darkness, and the dull orange light to which the stones led them. “Heh,” Nadia chuckled to herself, trying to break the tension as she forged ahead. “Talk about build up, eh?”

All too soon, the team reached the other side of the darkness, and together they stepped into the light. There they found a metallic vault, murky with infected fog and strung with thick, intricate chains of almost ceremonial make. The Seekers found what they were looking for hanging several feet above the ground. Its chains had been wound tight, but not tight enough. Whoever had imprisoned this thing must have meant to contain the infection. They had failed.



The Hollow Knight shone from within. Bright. Too bright. So bright that Nadia could scarcely force herself to look into its eyes. There was something horrible about that light. It burned, like staring into the sun. Like someone was prodding her brain with a branding iron. The Orphan had been ghastly, but this was an altogether different beast. Even killing this thing wasn’t a prerequisite for fighting Galeem, Nadia understood instinctually that it needed to be destroyed. As the Seekers approached, the monstrosity struggled against its bonds, and the room began to shake. In quick succession the chains holding the Hollow Knight snapped, and after a moment it tore free. It hit the ground, assumed its full eight feet of height, and tilted its head back to fill the Black Egg with its haunting, ungodly cry.

—

Sakura got up from behind Goldlewis as the Consul died, while Karin regarded him with steely orange eyes. Hayato had delivered the final blow of his encounter, avenging Akira in the process. She had no words for the failure of the Consul, an extension of the loathsome Galeem that had thrown the universe into chaos. Whatever motivations he thought he had were of no concern to her. Karin wasn’t bloodthirsty, but she reserved her compassion and even her pity for those who deserved it.

Sakura gave Hayato a grateful and sad little wave as he left. Then she exhaled and turned her attention to the matter at hand. The Guardian. This was it! What they had been working towards. This would be her second fight. If- when they won, it would be her second guardian. She was definitely a long way from getting a lift from a nice dragon lady to catch up with the Seekers on their way to Alcamoth. Lumbridge felt like a lifetime ago.

Sakura smiled warmly at Giovanna, and gave her a thumbs up. Nothing wrong with sitting out a battle, after all. Sakura just really, really felt like fighting. It’s why she hadn’t stopped, so far. The Seekers pushed ahead.

The machine, the Guardian, no doubt, was a malevolent thing. ”What the heck is that ugly thing? Galeem sure knows how to pick them.” She said.

Karin narrowed her eyes at the interlopers. So this was that ‘Nox’ figure Happy Chaos had mentioned. And, of course, Happy Chaos himself, arriving in a car. She still didn’t know what to think of Happy Chaos. It sounded like he chose that name himself. He was pretentious and above-it-all despite this being apparently the only thing he thought was worth doing. Whatever ‘this’ was.

”Collecting…Wakfu? What? Does that mean-?” Sakura asked, confused, and dreading the answer. But Goldlewis’ response and Nox’s general demeanor confirmed it for her.

”Indeed. As if we could trust someone as low as that with the power to make the world better. Once again, another fool who would rather do anything than facing the problems of the world head on. It’s all machinations and magic and grand ideologies. And ‘sacrifice.’” Karin said bitterly. ”It’s all so terribly performative. It makes me sick. All of these self-important ‘woe-is-me’ murderers galavanting about like it’s their own personal hell and not one they’ve made for others. You can’t go two meters without bumping into one in this place.” She crossed her arms.

”And for what?” Karin asked rhetorically. ”Nothing. They’ll never succeed.”

”Sam-san?” Sakura asked, recognizing the swordsman. She looked at Roxas in disbelief. ”What are you doing here? Don’t tell me this guy beat you up and now you’re following him around.” She indicated Nox. ”You seriously need a hobby.” She was a little frustrated with him, and the fact that they were probably going to have to fight. He was really strong, too, and the last thing they needed was more problems.

”If you want to follow someone around whose actually strong, I know a guy who's perfect.” Sakura said. A bit dreamily, towards the end there. ”Err, I mean, perfect for that. Perfect for following around because he’s strong.” She cleared her throat.

The swordsman gave her an easygoing grin. “Tell you what. If you win, you can introduce us.”

”O-okay!” Sakura got into her fighting stance, focusing up.

The time for battle had come. And no sooner than it had started, Goldlewis was dead. He challenged Nox, and died instantly, for Nox had some kind of overwhelmingly powerful time magic.

”Wh-what?!” Karin exclaimed, outraged. Certainly, she had little intention of using lethal force herself. For Nox to render Goldlewis helpless and then execute him in cold blood was beyond forgiveness.

Sakura stopped dead in her tracks and gasped, covering her mouth. ”No!!”

Karin looked at Tycoon and Nox’s crew, trying to strategize. What should they do? They had to be wary of Nox and his ability! Sakura, however, wasn’t going to be paralyzed for long. She rushed ahead, angry. She would fight Nox, or anyone who got in her way. It was all the same to her, now. It ended up being Karen Travers who interposed himself between Sakura and Nox, running to take her head-on. Sakura sprinted ahead and then stopped on a dime, shifting to the left and swinging a kick into his knee.

Karin felt obligated to follow after her friend and so she did, running behind her. She aimed to jump over Karen and kick him in the back of the head and then strike him, only a short amount of time after Sakura made her approach.

Rather than try to blindside Sakura while she went for Nox, Karen meant to provoke her into attacking him instead, and when the girl rounded on him he reacted defensively. The Septentrion put his momentum into an aggressive parry, striking Sakura’s leg with his palm just before her kick could connect. His skill -and strength- left him at an advantage with his foe off-balance, and Karen didn’t waste the opportunity. He pounded his fists together, activating Pyrokinesis. Flames very much like Hanabi’s engulfed the lower halves of his limbs, and he lashed out with a dizzying backhand toward Sakura’s head before abruptly disappearing with a whirring blip. Sakura brought her leg down quickly, and raised her hands to her head, absorbing some of the force of the blow, given the brief window to defend herself due to Karen activating pyrokinesis. The Street Fighter had only the briefest chance to recall the sound of Luka’s Teleportation before Karen’s elbow flew in toward her back, expelling a concentrated jet of flame. The sound tipped her off, and she turned and took most of the force into her arm instead, the jet of flame sending her skidding backwards.

That move put Karen right in Karin’s path. He whirled to face her just as she jumped over him, seemingly giving her a free shot at the back of his head. Instead, knowing the psychological damage an untouched foe could inflict, the Brain Eater showed off Sclerokinesis right away. Karin’s kick connected with a body as solid and impermeable and titanium, and the next moment Karen’s hand closed around her leg to pull her into a fiery downward punch that bounced her off the floor. After switching off Sclerokinesis, another teleport brought Karen right to his foe so that a snap kick could add both insult and injury. ”Agh!” The floor-bounced Karin took the hit in the ribs and flew backwards, tumbling along the ground before pushing herself back to her feet. If she was phased psychologically, she didn’t show it.

Karen Travers then deactivated Pyrokinesis to save energy, dispersing the flames by arrogantly dusting himself off.

Sakura dashed right back into the fray, tears brimming in her eyes. She zig zagged as she approached. She came from the side and aimed to slam her elbow into his kidney, and then snap her leg out for a light kick against his leg. Non-committal attacks trying to bait out the use of Sclerokinesis or other defensive tactics while keeping herself mobile. Forced to block the attempted kidney blow, Karen gave his opponent a cold look. If she was willing to try and jolt him like that, he could afford to answer in kind. For a brief moment he bided his time, defending himself adeptly. Just long enough for Karin to regain her feet and rejoin the fight. Then he activated Electrokinesis in a burst of sparks, teleported straight upward, and after a second unleashed a lightning shower over a wide area.

Sakura reached out to grab his arm and force him off balance with her technique, but all she got was a brief jolt of sparks. Sakura glanced over her shoulder to block his behind the back attack, but all she saw was his shadow. He was above her! The electricity coursed violently through her and she squeezed her eyes shut, her arms flying out to the side as she grit her teeth. ”Rrrgrgrgrgrgrh!” She groaned loudly.

Karin could see the attack from this distance and back stepped the electric shower. It stopped, and her opponent began to descend while Sakura stumbled forward. Karin dashed forward, an orange and red torpedo. She fired out her grappling hook to stick into his shoulder while he was distracted and then pulled herself forward with high speed and force, looking to slam both her boots into his side and knock him over. The hefty collision knocked her target back, but he managed to salvage his footing by spinning with the force and slide to a stop in a crouching position. Eyes tightened, Karen poured electricity into his right hand and stepped forward with an overhead chop, seemingly much too shallow until a wave of lightning bolts blasted down in quick succession in front of him. Into the storm he charged, and the moment Karin weathered the last of the bolts her guard received a flying double snap that weakened her guard even further. The assault pushed her back, but before Karen could overwhelm her, help was on the way.

With Y defeated, the old men of the group could afford to take a breather. Of course, there was the mystery of Y's statements, but those could just as well be the ramblings of a madman hellbent on Neon Genesis Evangelion-ing the world. If they heard more about an 'Endless Now', they'd keep wary of it, but until then, they had a Guardian to slay. This would be Geralt's third Guardian down, now, from the Ender Dragon, to the Orphan that resided within him, and now this...mechanical...thing. As they turned to get ready to attack, the Seekers paused at the sound of...something...from behind them?

The arrival of Happy Chaos and his merry band of murderers made Zenkichi sigh. This was every 'misguided villain' trope wrapped up into one bundle of insanity. Save humanity by turning it all into one giant gestalt, check. Turn back time to undo my horrible mistake? Check. And then there was Chaos himself, and his motivation sure fit his name. Though, neither Zenkichi nor Geralt were convinced he was as dedicated to that idea as he let on. Surely he had some goal, beyond entertainment? If not...why was he chosen as a Consul? It didn't make sense. Though...it didn't have to. They were enemies, and they had to be stopped. What was unfortunate was the choice of allies that C had brought with him. Jetstream Sam, Karen Travers, Mephisto, and Nox.

Something gave Geralt the vibe that of all the threats in front of them...Nox might be the most dangerous. Travers was a world-class warrior, with psychic powers to boot, and he'd heard Sam gave Sakura and Roxas a hell of a hard time, but there was something about Nox that raised his hackles. The warning they'd received about him, specifically, as well...it all added up to a very disturbing picture. Geralt didn't have time or an opportunity to give a warning before Goldlewis barreled forward, brash as always, and was stopped short by the magic circle Nox produced on his arm. Geralt ripped his steel blade from its sheathe as Nox's own Pendulum sword pierced Goldlewis. By the time he'd taken a few steps forward, it was too late. Goldlewis was gone.



Geralt Transformed. But not into the riot-shield wearing LCCB Assistant Manager that might have started to become somewhat familiar to the other Seekers. No, rather than donning riot gear, Geralt's transformation gave her a cute outfit and flaming moth wings. She screamed in fury as her body transformed, fireballs launching from her at Mephisto and Nox, while a Bombing Flight appeared right beside her, making a beeline for Goldlewis' killer. She cast the Sign of Quen to protect herself, flinging more fireballs from where she stood.

Zenkichi, on the other hand, was silently freaking out. He just killed Goldlewis without breaking a sweat. Oh crap that's not good! Still, he did he best to stay calm, summoning his sword and jumping in to help the Street Fighters against Karen. With Valjean at his back, he was confident he could give the girls some breathing room, but just in case, he gave himself a boost with Sukukaja. This guy was fast, and Zenkichi didn't want to be caught on the backfoot. His sword cam down heavily, forcing Karen to give ground. The Septentrion wasted no time in activating Cryokinesis and firing a blast of ice at the Phantom Thief, but Zenkichi managed to dodge the attack, rushing back in.

Seeing that his opponent had given himself a boost, Karen followed in kind and activated Hypervelocity. Zenkichi grunted as a fist planted itself into his cheek, but between his own speed boost and his durability, he managed to tank the blow. Retaliating with a series of quick slashes to try to regain a bit of vitality, Zenkichi found his attacks dodged with simplicity by Karen, so he changed tactics after a few missed swings. Zenkichi swung his sword, and when Karen dodged by backstepping, Zenkichi stomped to help cancel his momentum, then pushed off the ground and thrusted forward, launching at Karen with a burst of speed that only Sukukaja could manage. The unorthodox follow-up caught the Septentrion by surprise, and pushed him back a bit with a grunt. As Karen stood back up, Zenkichi capitalized on the moment with a quick cry to Valjean. "Megido!" Balls of Almighty energy appeared and exploded all around Karen, buffeting him with magical damage as Zenkichi smirked a bit.

Nox responded to Geralt's bombardment by teleporting to her, lashing out with the minute hand Pendulum Sword, which Geralt simply backstepped away from to dodged. She flung another fireball at him, forcing him to dodge the projectile as she backed away further. In this Identity, she was definitely more of a ranged combatant, and having an enemy that deadly this close was stressful. Mephisto, in the back, was barely singed by the surprise fireball, and did not take the bait, instead focusing on monitoring his allies for damage.

Nox ran at Geralt, swinging his sword into Geralt's Quen shield and sending her stumbling back a step, only to take a fireball directly in the face. He retaliated with an energy blast that pushed Geralt back, before turning to the Guardian. "Our goal does not change. We must claim the Guardian's Spirit."

”COWARD! GET BACK HERE SO I CAN STOMP YOU” Bowser roared after the absconded F, but it was no use, he wasn’t coming back.

Jr more quietly agreed with his father’s sentiment ”I know this makes it easier for us, but it feels bad to let him get away with this” while Kamek pondered ”It’s strange, he was quite formidable when I tried to take him on. With his ability to reverse time I find it odd he would not even try”

He then had a thought, and proceeded to retrieve and flick through Robin Goodfellow’s tome to see if it had any information on why he might have done so. Unfortunately, unlike the previous owner of the book, F’s entry was rather short.



”Hmmf, so they can keep secrets even from you. Let us hope you are more useful when we get to dealing with the Guardian then, hmmm” Kamek said to the book, before snapping it shut.

Out of all of the troop, Rika was the only one unconcerned with the runaway Consul, as she was instead distracted by shiny things, namely the pile of items that had once constituted Omari’s inventory, commenting ”wow, look at all these knives he had on him” about its contents.



The ship girl had crouched down to look at all these, and while at it promptly flicked the little Cockatiel Bobblehead, who’s dance she found very amusing. Indeed despite how inappropriate it was to have it be dancing over a child’s grave, it was simply too merry a jig, resulting in a slight bit of mood raising all round.

Enough for the others to approach and inspect the items at least. Or rather at Kamek’s insistence, move them, so he could sweep the ash into a pile and then have some Toadies build a small cairn over it, along with one for all the other fallen Seekers (and Undyne). A bit of respect that made deciding what to do with the spirits and items feel a little less like grave robbing.

In the end, Jr ended up finding himself slipping the tulip hairpin sideways into his topknot, before fusing both Undyne and Omari into his right arm in a bout of sentimentality. Both had deserved better. Nocturne might have also deserved better, but having never actually met her, there was little sentimentality to be found, and she was promptly crushed into an item.



The results of the fusion were nothing flashy, though they did result in jr turning down a replacement mount upon having a rather adverse response to a proposed spider steed, and a slight red glow when he got annoyed at his new irrational fear of the multi legged creepy crawlies.

The volt gun was promptly stashed, along with everything else that wasn’t claimed, and with that they were ready to move on and face the final boss of the area. Well. Almost ready



They also had to open up the seal, a task easily done, though the result certainly was dramatic, followed by a dark and daunting traversal through a gloomily lit corridor, which had Bowser agreeing with Nadia that ”Yeah, definitely building some good tension here”

The area’s bosses chamber was certainly getting a good rating, as the payoff of the heavily chained Hollow Knight and its dramatic escape from its bindings right when they appeared was a nice capping off for the presentation, at least in Bowser’s books.

”Now this is more like it, none of that sad sack of a beach baloney. Let’s rumble big guy” Bowser said, smacking a fist into a palm as he prepared to go toe to toe with the towering foe, each punch reducing that height difference as he enlarged himself as much as he could.

”Less commentary, more taking it down” Kamek insisted, before belated adding ”If you please sire” only for the Hollow Knight to seized the initiative and lunge across half the arena while thrusting its blade towards the king.

The king had barely a moment to bring his guard up, the blade ramming clean into and out the other side of his forearm, but stopping before it reached his chest. In response to this blow there came twin cries of ‘Papa!’ from both Rika and Jr who had been flanking their father, and who both now came to his defense, starting with Jr unleashing a barrage of spears he’d prepped and had floating with him, the blades thunking into the knight even as the prince himself raised his staff to heal his father.

Rika meanwhile went in, fists at the ready, slamming into the knight’s chest with a vaultbreaker to drive it back, and forcing it to extract its blade from her father, before driving her other fist into one of its legs upon landing and then, when the first gauntlet came back online landing a third strike for good measure. That third strike was accompanied by a flash of light and a crack as jagged glowing orange lines formed on the hollow knight’s armor, briefly weakening its defense.

She went in for a fourth punch, only for the knight to have gotten wise to this gnat smacking it, preemptively blocking this next predictable strike with its nail, and then retaliating with a massive slash that sent Rika tumbling back.

A freshly healed Bowser was right there to take over however, declaring ”Now you’re gonna pay” as he full charged the knight on all fours, goreing it with his tusks and launching him up into the air, putting him in prime position to be blasted by Kamek, who, alongside 4 clones, all shot the predictably arcing knight with a Volt Gun each, overcoming its shoddy fire rate with volume of fire.

Briefly staggered by a combination of the bolts and a bad landing, the hollow knight was then assailed by all three of the Troop’s royals at once. Both Rika and Jr (in the form of Undyne) stabbed their spears into it from either side, skewering it, before Bowser came in last to deliver a healthy punch that messily ripped the Hollow Knight off of the impalement and slammed it back into a wall.

Infection dripped from the wounded knight’s guts as it pushed itself away from the wall, but rather than weakening it, all the damage they had done seemed instead to have empowered the Hollow Knight, for while it had moved slowly in between actions before, now it seemed more alert. Or perhaps, more easily compelled to move.

It also pulled out a few new tricks while it was at it.

First it teleported into the air before slamming right back down to the ground with meteoric force, causing columns of infected fire to burst up from the ground around the impact site, blasting the Troop back and away. Then it opened its cloak, revealing its infection dripping wounds in full, out of which globs of infection lept in a barrage of blight, furthur scattering the troop who did not want to get in contact with that one bit.

”I don’t understand, if this is the source of the infection why is only using the infection now that we’ve caused it to leak out” Kamek asked no one particular, and then, remembering he had a source of answers that he had intended to use anyway before them getting targeted first rather distracted him, put the lighting gun away and asked his book.



”Oh… oh dear” Kamek muttered, before calling out a warning ”The Knight is just another level of the seal! A living prison! If we kill it, the real source of the infection may well get out” before remembering what they’d been told they needed.

”Ah. That is why we need the dream catcher? To… enter its dreams? Akin to what Robin did to us? Is that where the infection is? In its… mind? Its soul?” He wondered out loud, as the Troop grouped up defensively around him, opening the way for someone else to take over. ”I dearly wish we’d had a better explanation” the mage complained as he put away the book, and instead brought out the staff they had retrieved from the prison, holding it aloft.

Nothing happened

”So what do we do? Weaken it? Will that make it work?” jr asked, having turned off the Undyne recording so he could heal them all.

”Something like that?” Kamek replied with uncertainty, before deciding the best they could do was ”Put it down, but not out!”