Well, it seemed that the Consul was better at what he was doing when he had an army. Once he got cocky and started to want to eat everything, he went down with a fair amount of difficulty. Being the first Consul that these three had beaten, Blazermate was confused as to why he didn't drop a spirit. "Dang, I figured he'd drop a strong spirit or something." Susie noticed what he had said about Mobius, and while she didn't know what it meant, both her and Roland said, although in their own ways, that perhaps whatever power he had over the others of this world meant he no longer dropped a spirit upon death.

Given some time to rest and heal up before they approached the guardian itself, and the secret under Midgar. Blazermate took this time to turn Armstrong into a striker, beating Susie at a game of rock paper scissors over the buff boy as the two small ladies had a thing for big buff boys.



As they entered past the doors they saw the Guardian. It was some huge robot, monitoring portals all around it. It looked... very cobbled together for a word, but in a professional way. It was operated by what looked like steam, and it seemed to ignore the seekers for the moment. And as if to make the situation even worse, the other Consul C appeared and brought his own group that wanted what this guardian could do as well. Apparently it could control time? Something that only Roland had any experience with, if only second hand. Still, from what he knew from T corp and Angela, nothing good came with meddling with time.

He even voiced as such, saying. "So what is your plan then? Use this thing's power to reverse time to... what? There isn't a past to go back to if that Galeem thing was so powerful to erase and combine multiple dimensions together AND this thing is his guardian, thus under his power. At best you'll cause a loop and we'll just be here, again and again..." Hm... Could this be the case and he has been here before? He wouldn't know if that was the case at any rate.

Goldweis was the first to rush into battle, and it was clear that this guardian wasn't the only one with time powers as the mummy Nox, the one most interested in using this power, took out Goldweis in a flash using some time stopping power. Considering how tanky the vet had been so far, that was a bit of a shock. But with that, the battle began.

Blazermate was on healing duty as ever, but this time as she had turned Armstrong into a striker, summoned the big boy. The striker Armstrong and Sam locked eyes, and almost as if it was a magnetic pull from two opposite forces, Armstrong charged Sam with the former cyber ninja looking a bit apprehensive about the man running towards him but not floundering in his resolve as he wasn't alone this time. Roland was ready for a fight, and reminded of that, he gained the powers of the Floor of Language. And with that, he engaged with Armstrong and jetstream Sam, clashing with Sam to open him up for the senator. A clash that Roland didn't have a chance of winning causing him to get pushed back and injured from Sam's swipe but giving Armstrong a bit of an opening to tackle him.

This upped his emotion level and gave him Claws of Savagery, a savage voice saying "What sharp claws I had, the better to fill the role I was born for…" This wouldn't actually give him any benefits for a while though. While Roland and Blazermate were doing their things, Susie engaged with the guardian itself. While her business suit wasn't in prime condition, she could at least use it to try to guard the Guardian from the other enemies and deal some damage herself. Her high defense in her business suit softened the blows from the giant mech that could only do some heavy, but half handed punches her way. After having a bit of a boxing match with Susie, it began to start to use its abilities. Spawning portals around the room in a + pattern, it fired lasers out of them. Lasers that would be immediately stopped by its time powers. It was clear to anyone paying attention where the lasers would go once released, it just wasn't clear when Tycoon would release them.

Seeing Roland injured and her other allies, Blazermate went to heal them. The enemies around weren't dumb though, and upon seeing Blazermate heal her allies, those not distracted at the time made it their mission to deal with her. And unlike Y's clone army, these were much stronger opponents. Mephisto took their opportunity to engage with the medabot, shooting his special bullets at her. Blazermate was used to projectiles aimed her way, and blocked them with her suffering shield arm. Their damage was lower than even she thought, although after a few shots he had managed to build up some kind of debuff on her. Before she could swap to herself to cleanse her own debuff though, Sam had broken away after beating Roland in another clash and using his superior speed to get away from Armstrong whom despawned with his target out of range and deal with the medic, attacking her from behind as she was busy dealing with the shots from the front. This did bonus damage since she was weak from the back, and it wasn't often that people blindsided her.

Roland, taking over from what Zenkichi had done, moved to smack Karen with his hammer and parried his next move against Zenkichi. This leveled up his emotions again, and gained him Vampirism, with a noble voice saying "Chew it all up! Imbibe to the last drop!". Now his attacks would heal him if he succeeded in winning clashes a little bit. Using his hypervelocity and duplicate powers, Karen sent a duplicate to break Roland's counter, before attacking him and pushing him away so he could deal with the target that his other allies were targeting the healer. It'd use up a bit more of his power than he'd like, but getting rid of their healer would be paramount to winning this fight and claiming the guardian, so there wasn't much choice. Using the tail end of his hypervelocity, he moved to intercept Blazermate as she fell from the sky after a followup leg kick from Sam sent her to the ground and punched her into the line of Tycoon's laser.

To keep the medabot from getting back up in hope to keep her in line with Tycoon's laser, he hit her with his cryokinisis, freezing her momentarily in place. Sam slammed down on Blazermate with his sword to deal what damage he could before he moved out of the way as Tycoon's laser was let loose from its stasis, hitting Blazermate and with the damage caused by Sam and Karen's CC and shoving her into Tycoon's laser, overwhelmed Blazermate's parts and finally caused the medabot to eject her medal in defeat.

"Hmph. I suppose I should see what this staff you wanted to make so badly did..." Sectonia said, grabbing the blue gemmed staff from the ashes of Rubick. As she did so, she found that this caused his spirit to disappear, as if the weapon was tied to his very essence with how much he valued it.

Sectonia gained

Sectonia wasn't disappointed though, it gave her the same power Rubick had shown, the ability to summon Golden Antlers. She could only summon 2 at a time unlike Rubick's 3, but this was quite an interesting ability. She did find that she had to hold the scepter to have these buffs, but that was quickly remedied with her trinket smelter. From what she could gather from how joined it was to his spirit, whatever spell he stole, this scepter upgraded it so that it'd be better than the person he stole it from. Now she saw how he got that title. Although his lack of power in this world was ultimately his downfall.

Sectonia couldn't help but agree with the others distaste of F. "Considering P ran as well, it seems so far these Consuls are cowards that let others take care of things for them. But that also means they give up ground as they run. Annoying." Well, before them was the source of this 'infection' coming from behind the sealed door. As they moved through the temple, Sectonia could see what Bowser was about, this had some proper flare at the very least. "Could use more color." Sectonia said, giving her own criticism but not denying what Bowser and Nadia had said.

Soon they found the bound form of the Hollow Knight. Something felt a bit off about this though as when they freed the thing, it began to fight them. She summoned her new Gold Antlers, which took up a fair amount of space and were bigger than Bowser thanks to her BFF trinket. They were slow, but would smack the hollow knight with their maces if he got close.

As the fight went on, Kamek flipped through his book and learned something that had confused Sectonia, confirmed something for her, and also made her a bit uneasy. They had to somehow get inside this thing's dreams to deal with the true guardian, as this was just one more seal. "Hmph, so weaken, but don't kill so we can restrain it and find the true guardian. This'll be a bit annoying, but I'm sure the two kings can hold it down when the time comes. The question will be, when will we know the time has come to enter its dreams?" Sectonia said as she cast Slow on the hollow knight to slow it down and fired off some void globules as to not damage it too much, but give it some steady damage.

At this point, F's taunting felt very empty - and because he was unwilling to confront the Seekers himself, the way to the area's Guardian was now completely unobstructed. Seeing as she'd be needing it soon, Primrose didn't stow her weapon. She stabbed the butt of the shaft into the ground below and took a deep breath, composing herself as the others decided how to deal with the spirits of former allies. So long as she kept thinking of them as the Masters of Masters had described, how she had with her own spirit last night, the thought of using them didn't seem as bad - no where near fighting the people themselves. Even so, she had no interest in taking any for herself.

Therion felt the same, just sighing when it was all over. He had a deep wrinkle in his brow that wouldn't disappear anytime soon. He turned to look at Kamek and Junior while Primrose chuckled at Nadia's taunting of the absent Consul.

"Think about it from his point of view. He probably thinks he could beat us, but he's seen what we've accomplished - if he slips up, there's a chance he dies. He's interested in self preservation, so with all of us together? Trying is too dangerous." F was a prick, but he was playing this smart. While trying to do his job (which they all assumed was to protect the Guardian) he'd thrown deadly problems at them, and when that didn't work he tried something that could have broken the spirits of a weaker team. And it had all been without putting himself in harm's way.

In Therion's opinion, the consequence of F failing must not be dire enough for the Consul to really risk his life. F had to know there was a chance the Seekers destroyed the Under's Guardian even if he assumed they'd fail, but since he wasn't here fighting them himself, protecting his own life came to first above any duty. At least Therion could relate to that for the most part. Whatever the Consul's reasoning, the fact was he wasn't there to stop them anymore.

The Temple of the Black Egg had been imposing before, and was even more so now. When the hard won masks were fit into place and the door burst apart, letting a terrible cry from whatever was sealed within echo toward them, Primrose glanced at the other Seekers. Naturally, she found not a one hesitating to step forward.

At the end of the glowing path they found what they'd come here for. One of Galeem's Guardians, and the source of the Under's infection. It was bound, just as the Sandswept Sky's Guardian had been, but it was wholly different from the Red Eye that Primrose and Therion had fought before. Though on the surface it seemed a much more straight forward problem to deal with both Travelers knew wouldn't be any easier than its akrid counterpart.

Primrose tightened her grip on her lance. Nearby, Therion drew his stinging dagger and prepared for battle. This is it.

The fight came at them fast; almost as soon as their target hit the ground it lunged for Bowser. Without missing a beat, the Travelers got down to business themselves.

Primrose opened as she usually did when there were so many allies around - with a dance. She started off with the dance of seduction on herself, then quickly transitioned into the Mole Dance while the Koopa Troop were holding the Hollow Knight down. With buff from their dancer in place, a debuff from one of their thieves was soon to follow. Since Primrose had increased the party's defense, Therion went in to perform the opposite on the vessel. He darted close to tag it with Armor Corrosive, dodging a wide, wild slash as he got back out again.

It was when things were really getting going that Kamek shouted out his findings.

Underground, behind a sealed door, inside of a monster... how many layers of locks are there? Primrose thought, hoping that with the Dreamcatcher as the key this would be the last one. But to weaken the vessel without destroying it?

"Much easier said than done," she said. It was difficult to keep deadly, dangerous things alive without serious risk - much more difficult than simply killing them. They just had to hope that the Dreamcatcher would force the creature into slumber, like Robin's magic had to them.

She cast Fire Orb to draw its attention, and while the spell burst into flames against its body Therion circled around into what he thought was a blind spot. He dashed in with his blade at the ready - but it snapped its masked face toward Therion and shifted its stance inhumanly fast. Its nail was held high in one hand, but pointed toward the ground. It was unlike any parry stance Therion had seen, so he didn't realize what was happening until it was already over. His dagger struck the nail, causing a bright flash just before the Hollow Knight followed through with its riposte and sent Therion flying with a gash drawn through his torso. He hit the ground some distance away, managing to pick himself up after a couple rolls. He clutched at the wound, hoping it wasn't as bad as it felt. Thankfully the vessel hadn't chased after him, as it was currently engaged in battle with Primrose.

She had lashed out with her lance after the Hollow Knight's parry, stabbing it and setting the cold flames to it as many times as she could. Her approach was different from Sectonia's - they couldn't afford to go easy on this thing even if they weren't trying to kill it.

Primrose summoned the dark lance in her Rites of Termination, hoping to pin the creature down if even for a few seconds. The magic lance materialized midair and struck, just missing the vessel as it pulled back from Primrose in order to better line up its next attack. The waves of dark energy that rolled off of the construct didn't seem to phase the Hollow Knight; it slashed at Primrose three times in quick succession. Tearing through her guard, it advanced with her even as she retreated. Thinking quickly to stop its onslaught, Primrose took her lance in one hand and cast Warmth with the other. The Baldur Shell protected her from the Hollow Knight's next slash, giving her the chance to heal herself and retaliate. She got one good stab in before the knight too changed tactics.

The vessel let out another cry and leapt high into the air. It seemed to swell, its body glowing brighter as it let loose more globules of infection. The infection rained down over the entire area, threatening everyone present.

Therion had made his way back to the front line, but pivoted to take cover behind one of Sectonia's gold antlers when the rain of infection began. He fetched some crystal darts from beneath his shawl, preparing to pop out and throw once the vessel came back to ground. Primrose conjured a boulder with her stone gauntlet as a makeshift shelter, launching it at their foe when its attack was over.

Though Sandalphon participated in the initial conversation with Nox, she did not for a moment expect to convince the time mage of the error of his ways, nor to really understand where he was coming from. To an extent, she didn’t believe it necessary despite her proclivities for gathering data. In the end, he by his own admission sowed so much death and destruction not even for noble goals, but for selfish ones. Nox understood full well that his actions were evil, and for who knew how long bet everything on his success. Sandalphon was staring at the very embodiment of sunken cost. So she conversed with him just to goad him into trying to explain how his success would justify him, buying the team a little time as they repudiated him. The arrival of Nox’s team had thrown a lot more variables into her calculations, and the Seekers’ coordinator needed to prepare.

If the team had any chance of properly addressing the new threat, however, Goldlewis dashed it as he burst forward to lead the charge. This didn’t surprise Sandalphon inordinately, as she knew that the veteran preferred offense over defense, and that in warfare victory could be achieved by a swift and decisive blow. Unfortunately, his attempt at a blitzkrieg ended in disaster. Turning back all of time might be Nox’s goal, but it turned out that he could stop time here and now. When she saw the Pendulum Sword pierce the vital organs, Sandalphon took immediate action. She lifted her staff, conjuring divine screens that span around her as holy circuits wove themselves into being in a ring around her. This was all happening so fast, but if she could just cast her Angelic Wings miracle fast enough, she could restore enough health to bring Goldlewis back from the brink and cleanse his stopped time. But she was not fast enough. Nox expedited the process by extracting his target’s life, and by the time Angelic Wings radiated outward, Goldlewis was already dead. Sandalphon’s heart sank, horror gnawing at her soul from within. She’d not only failed to save him but also wasted her strongest miracle. It achieved only one thing: charging the remainder of her shapeshift gauge. The archangel’s grip tightened on her gunstaff. This was bad.

The sudden death prompted an immediate response, shifting gears from conversation to combat in an instant. Sakura charged forward, hopefully not to repeat the veteran’s mistake, and Karin followed her. Karen, however, sidetracked their revenge against Nox and kickstarted a fiery, fast-paced melee. At the same time, Geralt ignited herself with wrath, spreading the blazing wings of a new identity. A volley of arcing fireballs hurtled toward Mephisto and Nox like meteors, forcing them to adjust. As the singer backpedaled, the Watchmaker calmly skirted around the fire, then warped to a shielded Geralt to squash her flames with cold steel.

Despite his legendary quick draw, Sam was the last of the four off the mark, squaring up against Roland. Blazermate’s support came in the form of her new Armstrong striker just in the nick of time, backing the Fixer up with a dominating presence. A brief moment later, flashes of yellow lightning portended Karen’s turnabout against Karin and Sakura, forcing Zenkichi to intervene. Sandalphon forced herself to look past the eye-catching brawl toward Mephisto. He hung back, pistol at the ready in one half and his staff at the other. Her allies might not all know, but the archangel did. While the boy lacked the aggression of the others, he was no less dangerous, and perhaps the highest-priority target of all. “The boy is their medic,” she announced for those not present for the Reunion clash last night. Mephisto heard her and turned his icy gaze her way, but he only knew her as a sharpshooter. Once these intelligent opponents realized her role as a healer, Sandalphon would be at the top of their hit list as well. If she could headshot him before getting found out, there might be a path to victory.

That left just one opponent unaccounted for, though Sandalphon -standing with her back to it at the Seekers’ rear- was by no means unaware. Rather than open fire, she executed a dodge roll to evade Tycoon’s colossal swipe. The mountain of metal that was its arm passed within a few feet of her, the air displaced by its passage buffeting her hair and clothes. Tycoon scooted forward to advance, but by the time it geared up for another mechanical crush, Susie had arrived. Though her business suit looked like a toy in comparison, she pitted it against the Guardian bravely, and against all odds her mech actually withstood the punishment well. After a moment, though, Tycoon deployed pieces of itself to fly around the arena and unleash lasers that it froze in time. That was a problem, but Sandalphon hesitated to call it out. Fighting in the path of the lasers was flirting with danger, but any lapse in concentration against the other enemies could mean death.

Susie gave the Seekers a chance to focus on Nox’s team, at least for now. The Watchmaker himself was tackling Geralt, the biggest threat at the moment. As the Ardor Blossom, her ranged attacks couldn’t trigger a time stop, so she was uniquely well-suited for holding him off even as he pushed her back. Mephisto took potshots at Blazermate, and when Sam injured Roland, the Brazilian seized the chance to carve into the medabot’s back. Megido went off around Karen, and as the Septentrion disappeared Zenkichi grinned at his handiwork. When the dust cleared, Valjean’s magic seemed to have worked too well; no trace of Karen remained.

A split second later Karen reappeared, attacking out of Invisibility with a critical hit in the form of a stomp against the side of the detective’s knee. Zenkichi buckled, and Karen planted a fist in his ribs, then lifted both arms for a double hammer fist onto Zenkichi’s head. Sandalphon shot him in the back twice in quick succession, and when Roland charged in, Karen rounded on him for a trade of blows. Within moments the Fixer got pushed back again, and with the last of his Hypervelocity Karen took the chance for a follow-up on Blazermate. His Cryokinesis kept her locked down in exactly the wrong spot, and a moment later the Chekhov’s Gun fired. Once Tycoon’s laser consumed her, Blazermate was down for the count.

By that time, Sandalphon’s attention was elsewhere. Geralt had managed to stall Nox for a moment, burning him several times before a shattered Quen precipitated mounting slash wounds, but it would take more than that. After a moment, Nox switched tactics, banishing his Pendulum Sword to reply to her fireballs in kind. He held out his palm, the blue lens in its core powering up with an intensifying light and hum. Then a barrage of crescent-shaped projectiles shot forth, each about a foot in width, at a rate of three per second. They tracked Geralt as they flew, their absurd cutting power enough to sever limbs after only a couple hits. Sandalphon shot at Nox, causing his head to serve toward her in an unnatural fashion as the light of Tycoon’s Magitek Crossray lit up the battlefield. He turned his shots on her, only for the Archangel to teleport to Geralt’s side so that she could plant a Healing Field at her feet. It wasn’t much, and it limited the Witcher’s mobility if she hoped to heal with it, but with neither of her skills charged Sandalphon could do no better. When Nox’s gaze ratcheted toward the two of them, the archangel warped back to her original position, confounding Nox but leaving Geralt alone against him once more.

In the wake of the withering Magitek Crossray, Karen took drastic action. He activated Sclerokinesis, giving his body an indestructible rocklike texture, then slammed his fists into the ground. With his body impervious, one hundred percent of the amplified force went into the blow, enough to rock and destabilize the whole battlefield and unsteady the Seekers on the ground. Sandalphon used Vault to leap into the air, where she noted Blazermate’s fate, then switched to the Eye of Sol and took aim at Mephisto as she drifted down. Her shot took out his leg, but he gritted his teeth through the pain and brought down his staff for the first time. Immediately he, Nox, Karen, and Sam all healed for 25%, and as the medic rose, he lifted his pistol to return fire. “Can I get some goddamn assistance?” In reply, the last of Karen’s Duplication created four near-exact copies of Mephisto around him, turning the medic into a one-man firing squad who unleashed a barrage of gunshots into the Seekers. They then spread out, making it difficult to tell which Mephisto was real.

Out of the four foes, only Sam knew just how big a problem Sandalphon was. After the shockwave, he disengaged from his opponent and turned on the archangel as she landed, sheathing his sword. Expecting a lethal iaido slash, Sandalphon backed up, only for the cyborg to trigger his scabbard without his hand on his blade. His Murasama shot out like a projectile and struck Sandalphon in the eye. She reeled, seeing stars, unable to stop herself from clapping one hand to her face. After bouncing off her, the crimson katana flew into the air, and after Sam leaped up to catch it he descended in a splitting cleave. Eye squeezed shut, Sandalphon backpedaled, desperately trying to block. Sam’s blade fell just short of her body, but he did cut her gunstaff cleanly in half. “No...” Sandalphon stumbled, and with a shit-eating grin on his face Sam prepared to finish the job. Instead divine radiance welled up within the archangel, and after a moment she transformed in a burst of dazzling light. In order to survive, Sandalphon had become Heavenly Wings, a holy draconic angel that towered over friend and foe alike. Only Typhoon, standing at thirty feet compared to her sixteen, still eclipsed her.

But this was no time for exultation. This was a last resort in order to escape death’s door, but she’d put herself on a timer, and after her transformation expired the Seekers’ healing would end with her.

For a moment it was finally over. The Consul was down for the count and disappeared. And the Seekers would finally be able to focus on the Guardian next. The healing from Sandalphon was definitely welcome, nearly topping him off. He would have offered some healing to others as well, but couldn't. The attack he used with Pit cost him the rest of his MP. And now it had to recharge before he could cast any more spells.

All that healing of course topped him off and Roxas was able to reinsert the ejected medal back into its slot on his helmet. His Medabot weapons reactivated and could be used once again. But this moment of reprieve, however small, was in for a nasty interruption. The other Consul, from the debate, showed up out of nowhere. And he didn’t show up alone. Roxas didn’t recognize all the people that Chaos had brought with him. Just Karen Travers, and-

”Sam!?” he shouted, ”Why?” he then demanded. Out of the four, Sam was the only one who wasn’t gleaming. He, out of all of them, should have known what was really happening. So then what was he doing on their side? Sakura was equally confused and had some things of her own to say. Only after that did Sam look to Roxas.

“Sorry, kid.” he offered with a shrug, “But when someone offers you a chance to literally start over with a clean slate? Well… it’s kind of hard to say ‘no’ to that.”

”But you know what’s actually behind all this!” Roxas pleaded, ”And do you really think the guy who brought you here isn’t just using you?”

“Eh, you get used to it.”

And that was all the time there was for any conversations. It looked like Goldlewis was the one itching to get things over with. He rushed out to face off against the mummy man, and… ”What? No - no way!” It made him pause, standing there like an idiot for what was probably the longest moment of his entire life. But as the fighting erupted around him, Roxas willed himself to get his head back in the game. His first instinct was to settle the score with Sam. He looked around for him only to hear Geralt’s voice - reminding everyone what their actual target was supposed to be.

The Guardian! Right… that was the actual goal. The Keybearer whirled around and pointed his Keyblade forward, ”Freeze!” Thankfully, enough time had passed for his MP to recharge. The spell shot forward and left its usual rail of ice in its wake. A rail that Roxas instantly used his StepSword to dash onto and propel forward thanks to flow motion. Most of the flying Seekers were either busy with Healing or, in Geralt’s case, already engaged with an opponent. Roxas decided he needed to use that chaos to try and get to the Guardian.

When Tycoon sweeped it’s arm, it naturally disrupted and ultimately dispelled the Blizzaga rail that Roxas conjured. But Roxas himself had launched upward before he himself could suffer the massive hit. He charged up the RockGun and shot it right at Tycoon’s head while still in midair. That shot hit, but whatever damage it did seemed minimal from the looks of it. What it did do was turn the big Guardian’s attention away from Susie for a moment and onto Roxas. This was of course moments after it fired its laser attack that took Blazermate down.

It went for another swing of its massive arm, this aimed more or less squarely for Roxas. Despite still hanging in midair, the Nobody wasn’t completely helpless. He used his StepSword dash to launch himself on a downward arc that took him back to the ground more quickly and allowed him to safely pass underneath Tycoon’s attack. But Roxas didn’t stay on the ground for long. He became a streak of light that zig-zagged right to Tycoon’s face, where Roxas hit him with a powerful Cross Slash. He also added a short string of Keyblade strikes immediately after, but during this his gaze caught sight of Sandalphon being seemingly cut down by Sam.

”Sandalphon!” Roxas cried out. But that was a massive mistake. The momentary distraction caused the Nobody to be swatted right out of the air by Tycoon. It was only a single hit, but that single hit was hard. It sent Roxas flying back and slamming hard onto the floor of the platform. Roxas slowly and painfully tried to push himself to his feet. When he was at least part way up he weakly held up one of his Keyblades. No choice. He had to use Curaga.

”He-” Roxas was cut off before he could finish commanding the spell. Something had slashed him across the back, cutting deep. The Medal in his helmet ejected and Roxas weakly turned around to see Sam with a sullen look on his face. Where had he come from? Did he ninja-run his way over here after his attack on Sandalphon to cut Roxas off from healing himself?

“...Sorry, kid.” Sam sheathed the Murasama only to let out another Iado slash across Roxas’ front torso. Those two deep cuts, combined with the crushing swat he had suffered from Tycoon? Roxas went down, his helmet even slipping from his head and bouncing forward a few feet from him. Crushed, broken, and bloodied. The Keybearer was down, and he wasn't getting back up. He wasn't thinking of anything now. Not the Seekers. Not the Guardian. No, the dying Nobody's thoughts were only on one thing.

Xi... Xion... Ax...el...

”Goldlewis!” Midna cried out in alarm and horror, arm stretched out towards the agent as she raced towards him, shadow hand outstretched and grabbing onto his leg in an echo of how she had saved him from plummeting off of the bridge. Unlike the momentum of the blow that had sent him towards that pit, upon the frozen time her attempt to pull him away from danger had 0 impact, and before she could react to that failure it was too late.

The man turned to ash that slipped through her fingers, the princess giving a soft ”no..” as her outstretched hand dropped to the ground tandem with the man’s spirit hitting the floor.

She was stunned enough by her failure that the rest of the seekers got moving before she could, most notable among them a screaming with rage Geralt, who rained fire down on Nox, prompting Midna to flinch away despite the well aimed shots not having any risk of hitting her. Then, before she could try and strike him, Nox teleported past her to take Geralt on in close combat, which his new form did not seem suited for.

In that moment, she could have gone after the guardian, fought against or backed up anyone else, but Midna’s one visible eye was locked on Goldlewis’s killer, and it was that more than anything that sent her to back him Geralt, despite Sandalphon appearing to do the same. As it turned out, she closed in just after Sandalphon blinked away anyway, rendering her intervention rather timely.

Unfortunately she could not keep mer mouth shut, and so if her wolfo’s paws and claws pattering over the ground didn’t give her rear charge away to Nox, her cry of ”Die you monster!” certainly did.

She rammed her lance forwards, only for the masked man’s gaze to snap to meet her own, and his shield to jolt perfectly in position to catch her weapon. Knowing what that would cause, she punched her lance from below with a secondary arm to knock it off course, missing both man and shield as a result.

Her wolfos, however, did not have the brains to put two and two together, and promptly pounced, striking Nox with its claws and aiming to do the same with its jaws, only to get taped by the bottom rim of shield on the head, freezing both steed and rider in time in the midst of a too late ”N-” from the princess.

Then, with a clinical flick of his wrist, Nox sliced a blade of energy straight through the beast’s skull.

Ironically the shield itself was the only reason Midna did not receive the same fate, as the wolfos having slipped under its guard left Midna right in front of it. Thus, the time it took for him to move it aside in order to target her, two things hit him.

The first was a fireball courtesy of Geralt, because it wasn’t like Nox’s original target had gone anywhere. The second was a pounce from Midna’s Beast Legion, the vague blur having been hard to pick up on in the midst of all of the pyrotechnics going on on the battlefield. Both knocked Nox off balance enough for his time stop of Midna to time out.

”-O!” Midna finished her interrupted command, only for it to be immediately followed by a confused ”what?” as she fell to the ground amongst the ashes of her Wolfos.

She blinked once and then scrambled backwards, dropping her lance to six limb scuttle clear of Nox’s attempt to finish the job despite the distractions with another energy slash that scored a deep groove in the floor right between her legs.

The Beast Legion darted in to claw at Nox while he was off guard, giving Minda enough time to summon her Flygon, and then use its bulk to ward her as she pulled herself first into a crouch, and then pushed herself back to her feet.

”Cover whoever he goes for. Don’t touch the shield, don’t up like the other thi-” Minda choked on unwanted sorrow, and then fought off the sense loss she did not want to feel, but not to adjust her the way she referred to her fallen wolfos to ”-like them”

The former wolfos nodded just a fraction and with a flap of its wings took to the skies, leaving her on her own again.

But not really.

With Minda on one side of Nox, the Beast Legion on the opposite side, and Geralt having a clear firing line between them with Flygon moving to defensively circle overhead, ready to swoop or rain dragon breath to assist, really it was Nox who was on his own.

They just had to play this smart, Midna thought to herself, yet that little boost of hope was smothered as, in her peripheral vision she caught the sight of Roxas’s ash joining that had already spilled on the floor. His fate basked in the light of what had to be a final smash from Sandalph, only for it to be blocked out as beads of tears formed at the edges of her eyes.

—

Sakura shook her head, forcing the feeling back into her muscles after getting shocked. While Karin had had to stay on the outskirts of the melee battle. The boss performed a swiping attack that forced Karin to tackle Sakura out of the way.

During a very short amount of time, things had gone from bad to worse. Karin had just barely made it out of there against Karen. But Sandalphon was in trouble, and Roxas and Blazermate were both down. Karen had just somehow helped defeat their invincible medic almost instantly. With Sandalphon and Blazermate in trouble, things were looking grim for their healing prospects. But in the frenzied battle it was hard to even notice where to go or who to fight.

They were bombarded by bullets and the ground shook beneath their feet, forcing Sakura and Karin into defensive crouches next to each other, their guards up. Though Sakura desperately wanted to help Roxas and Sandalphon, Karen Travers was a huge threat who had just done a big hit against Zenkichi, and if he was left to his own devices all could be lost. This was immensely frustrating. ”Grrr!” They’d have to somehow deal with Sam later. If Sandalphon called for help in her giant form then they would have to respond, but until then they had to focus down their opponent Karen.

After the ground stopped shaking Karin and Sakura rushed back in against their psychic opponent from behind. Sakura used Mental Connection to pull herself towards Zenkichi and get a speed boost to latch herself onto Karen’s back. She aimed to wrap her arm around his neck and head and start choking him, wrenching backwards. At the same time Karin slid in and struck Karen’s knee, trying to force him into a kneel and prevent him from so easily bucking Sakura off with Karin ready to start striking his body.

“Hhhck-” Grabbing onto his captor’s arms struggled against Sakura’s headlock. For a brief moment the sensation of being strangled commanded his instincts, giving Karin a chance to bring him to his knees, but the battle-hardened soldier started using his brain again long before Sakura could cut off its blood flow. With Cryokinesis still engaged, a huge amount of cold began to pour into the street fighter’s body, causing a flood of pain and numbness. When Karin attacked, she found herself confronted with Blastokinesis, forcing her to pummel her way through a bubble shield of psychic energy. The Septentrion gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate. He engaged Marksmanship and began to fire psychic lasers, not from his hands but from his forehead. Reminiscent of Pit’s arrows, the rays slowed down and arced around in midair. They rained down on Sakura, and though their targeting left a lot to be desired, the punishment in conjunction with Cryokinesis would be enough to dislodge her grip.

Sakura tried to cash out early, smacking him on the back of the head with her elbow before back flipping off. A few rays smacked into her and she stumbled backwards. ”Uff!”

Air flooded into Karen’s lungs, and though he swayed drunkenly for a split second, he recovered with almost unfair speed. All the powers he’d just used were spent, but others were just now coming off cooldown. He used Teleportation to blink a short distance away, then reached into his bag of tricks for something else. He stomped the ground to send out a wave of obsidian-black energy cubes wreathed in crimson power. With sweeping hand motions he sent forth clusters and pillers of cubes in different forms, some dropped from above and others erupted from the floor.

”It’s just party tricks with you, isn’t it?!” Karin shouted. She hopped zipped left and right and hopped forward. One cube fell from above that Sakura blew up with a hadoken. Mid-air, Karin blocked one more construct and her momentum stopped. Sakura reached out with Mental Connection and yanked herself forward, flying through the obstacle course with a spinning kick to slam into Karen. ”Shunpukyaku!”

Fist wreathed in flame, the Septentrion lashed out with a heavy punch, and the two to clashed in a burst of fire and ki. The blows traded, but while Karen only staggered, Sakura went spinning into the air. Her opponent was able to dash forward and unleash a blazing backflip kick to strike her down.

In her world, there was no one on the planet that wouldn’t get knocked down by that kick if they traded like that, but in the World of Light the rules were different. Sakura’s arms and legs trailed behind her before she slammed belly first into the floor. ”Oof!” She wheezed. Karin grit her teeth and dashed forward, ever quick in close range. She lashed out with her leg to catch him on the recover and then zipped forward to thrust her palm up into his chin. ”Tenko!” After taking her ache-inducing attacks, Karen disengaged with a backward teleport in time to escape a follow-up, putting him at a distance where he could unleash more cubes.

Karin snapped out her kicks into empty air, seeming him teleport away. She was angry, but as he unleashed more cubes she didn’t let her temper get the better of her. Instead she backflipped, dodging one, and then crouching in front of Sakura as she pushed herself to her hands and knees. Karin parried and struck the constructs as they came at her, getting pushed back but protecting her friend. They needed to stick together if they were going to survive.

Sakura recuperated, spitting some saliva onto the floor that had forced its way up since that flaming body blow hit her. ”Thanks.”

”Don’t thank me yet!”

---

Consul F got away. There was nothing he could do to them. He had failed his objective, at the end of the day. The more progress they made, the less leverage over them he had.

Moving into the Black Egg, somehow, Jesse was quiet. At the very center was not quite the thing they were supposed to kill, but rather, the thing they were supposed to use the Dreamcatcher on. It reminded her of the little guy they had met before going down into the Under. A big, giant, scary knight. Jesse whistled appreciatively.

It seemed the consensus was not to kill it. “If you say so. Just be careful. No reason to die when you could retreat.” She said.

The battle began and Jesse stayed at the back, firing her shots to begin wearing down the monster. When it jumped into the air and began raining down globules, she jumped up into the air with Levitation. Then she created a Shield of stones, blocking. She was about five feet off the ground.

“I’ve got cover!” She said to anyone who wanted to stay close to the knight while avoiding its attacks. When the globule rain was over she flung her Shield up in a shotgun blast of debris into the creature before it could hit the ground.

Ultimately Pit didn't concern himself with the Moebius' dying words. At best the man was misguidedly evil, but if there was any meaning to parse from those words he'd leave it to the smarter members of the group. Though he did briefly wonder what Palutena would make of all this, that train of thought was forgotten as soon as they found Giovanna safe. Pit waved to the martial artist, then she was quickly out of sight as the Seekers proceeded into the Guardian's chamber.

The arena was an incredible blend of sci-fi and magic, but nothing drew Pit's attention more than the hulking machine sitting in the center of the room. It was a huge winged robot! Its shiny chrome and gold bits combined with the white and blue paint job further enhanced its appeal, giving it a cooler, almost divine look. And the lights on its front that resembled a face...

"I think it looks really cool!" Pit said, refuting Sakura's comment that it was ugly. Not that his opinion was going to stop them from destroying it.

I wonder how this thing measures up to the Great Sacred Treasure? the angel thought to himself, hopping onto the platform it stood on. There was no way something artificial like this could stand up to the work of Dyntos, right? But if it was even comparable, then the Seekers were in for yet another hard fight. At least this one was expected, rather than sprung onto them.

Little did they know how much harder it was about to get. The area's other Consul sped into the arena, delivering yet another surprise.

"How come they got a free ride?" he mumbled. Upon learning just who it was that joined them in the Guardian's chamber, and what their goal was, Pit grew more serious. So Luka's brother really had something like this in mind the whole time? And Nox, the person they'd been warned about...

He would have told Nox off for his actions (if he knew what he was doing was evil, why do it in the first place?), but as soon as the robot had goaded them into trying to stop him the former Secretary of Absolute Defense had charged in - meeting a shockingly quick end. Pit gaped for a split second as his mind rushed to catch up with what had just happened. "Goldlewis!!"

Pit dashed into battle toward Nox's group a beat behind the others, but a beat was all it took - with Tycoon activated it swung its massive arm across the area and caught Pit in its path. He turned to see the metal coming toward him, his head buzzing with thoughts of how to deal with imminent impact. With his recent gambles not entirely paying off, Pit hedged his bets and leapt up as high as he could, using his wings to go farther while he quick summoned the Orbitar for as much defense as possible. But the shield wasn't strong enough to completely stop Tycoon's swing, and Pit was about a second too late to completely clear it either. The Orbitar mitigated some damage before it disappeared but otherwise was unable to stop its wielder from being flung across the arena. He slammed into the wall and fell, landing dazed on a pump. He struggled to clear his head at first; he hadn't taken a hit like that since fighting literal gods! When he did pick himself up, shaking off the pain and leaping the gap back to Tycoon's platform to rejoin the fight, he found the battle evolving quickly and lethally.

From the robotic parts that had flown off from the Guardian, lasers seemingly frozen in place were finally released. They crisscrossed over the arena all of a sudden, forcing Pit to throw himself to the side to avoid one of them. For once he cleanly recovered, rolling through the impromptu earthquake Karen released then popping back up onto his feet to finish speeding into battle.

Everyone - the Seekers, Tycoon, Nox and his allies - was engaged in the fight. It was a chaotic tangle, everything from fist fights to exchanges of magic going off in a relatively small section of the arena all while Tycoon bared down on the two teams fighting over the chance to take its spirit. Pit didn't even have a spare moment to admire the draconic form Sandalphon had mentioned to him before, if he didn't want to be struck with a stray projectile or another swipe of Tycoon's arm.

It was the Guardian that Pit chose to focus on at the moment, firing upon it constantly. Light arrows flew as fast as he could fire them, striking all over the machine and searching for any place that Pit guessed might be a weak spot. Maybe it didn't even have one, as armored as it was. Still, this was their mission. On the off chance they could take it down before overcoming their opposition, one of them could snag its spirit and the fight would be all but won. Pit had been bouncing around while firing to avoid what he could when he could, and was doing a good job of it until he felt something strike his right shoulder. It wasn't very painful until the second hit, which hit his right wing. Instinctively Pit jerked away and pulled his wing in, spinning around to see what was hitting him. Only then did he note some very important changes: Nox's party size had apparently increased, as their were three extra copies of the boy with them... and Blazermate and Roxas were nowhere to be seen.

No way! Did they...?! After everything this group had survived through just today, was it actually possible they'd lost three members in such quick succession? Pit's heart was sinking, but he steeled himself before despair could even threaten to take him.

It was Mephisto firing into the Seekers that had struck him. Pit thought he might have heard their archangel call the boy out as the enemy healer, and right now he was running unchecked around the battle. It was time to switch priorities - clearly Nox and his team were way too dangerous to leave for after the Guardian, even with the disadvantage they had in numbers.

Pit dismissed his bow, replacing it with the rainbow orb that would becoming his Breaking Palm. He closed his fist around it as soon as it appeared, willing it to adhere to his skin as quickly as possible. As soon as it did and the chromatic marks traced their way up his arm, he opened his hand back up and unleashed his assault. Much faster and more homing than his arrows, the energy shots from his Palm could chase down even the slipperiest of foes. Since Pit couldn't tell the difference between the real Mephisto and the fakes he targeted them all - shimmery rainbow energy blasts spreading out and driving toward their targets at speed. They zipped through the arena and struck each copy of Mephisto, and then kept coming. Each of the four grunted upon being hit and attempted to outrun the rest, but it was a veritable barrage of light which they were unable to escape.

Without much of a health pool, the shots from Pit's Breaking Palm chewed through the copies with sheer numbers despite their relatively low damage individually. And with the original revealed, all of that fire could be focused on him.

"There's no way we'll lose!" Pit shouted to the room at large. They couldn't if they wanted to free the world, and avenge the sacrifice of their friends. Reaffirming himself, Pit fired everything at Mephisto. He could still move about the battlefield and dodge Tycoon as he did, using dashes to send larger, more powerful dash shots along with the rapid fire.

Ganondorf grimaced and made a low growl of frustration, ”Of course the little coward runs away. But he can’t run forever. I’ll hunt him down myself if I have to.” That of course left the matter of the newly dropped Spirits. And the warlord did have his eye on at least one of them, that being Artorias. He hadn’t known the knight for long, but he’d shown himself to be a strong warrior in his own right, just the sort of power that Ganondorf wanted for his own. With the spirit in hand, the Gerudo Warlord pressed it against his torso in order to consume it. Like always, he was enveloped in a brief flash of light.



He examined himself, Ganondorf now looking fully armored. The armor’s colors were darkened by the influence of the knight’s attire, and his cape also took on a blue hue stained with black. His helmet now appeared to be open-faced, though his actual visage appeared masked in shadow. He reached up and felt the newly formed plume on the back of his helmet as well. But apart from this, Ganondorf couldn’t help but stare at his left hand. The reason being that it suddenly felt more dominant than it previously was. Had Artorias’ spirit made him… left-handed? ”This will taketh some getting used to.” He said, realizing how he sounded shortly after. ”This, too, t’would seem.”

With that done, Ganondorf followed along with the other Seekers as they made their way back to the Temple of the Black Egg. The place where it all started. The warlord was none-too-thrilled to revisit the place he had been imprisoned. But he had always known that this was inevitable. The Guardian was here, and so it was going to be here where the hopefully final battle would be fought before he could finally put this blasted Under behind him forever. Also Ganondorf really hoped that their trick to duplicate one of their mask fragments actually worked. Because if this turned out to be for nothing, then… he would not be a happy camper.

Thankfully those worries turned out to be unfounded. The temple, cracked and damaged as it was since the last time they were all here, accepted the mask fragments as they were presented. And what finally emerged from the egg was… another knight. Was that it? Just another masked knight who wasn’t really much bigger than Ganondorf himself? He’d better have a lot of power backing him up, otherwise this was going to be a short battle.

It was Bowser and his kin who moved first. Typical. Of course he would be the one to impulsively jump in before anyone else. Even if, truth be told, if he didn’t then Ganondorf may well have done so himself. Oh well, at least he could look at what the Hollow Knight could do before engaging with it himself. If nothing else, Bowser made for a useful guinea pig in that regard. The knight was faster than he looked, even managing a nasty strike on the Koopa King’s arm. Jr and Rika managed to get him off but it was Kamek who finally said something that Ganondorf took note of.

It seemed they would have to kill this creature in its dreams in order for it to die for real. And now the Orsterrians in addition to Sectonia were making their moves. Therion’s attempted attacks proved unequivocally that the Hollow Knight was a lot faster than his appearance suggested. And so now Ganondorf decided to revisit an old tactic of his. While the knight was contending with Therion and Primrose and Sectonia was casting her Slow spell on it, the warlord summoned his Phantom to his side. Phantom Ganon brandished his trident and immediately took to floating in the air.

”Have at thee!” Ganondorf shouted. He brandished his own trident and hurled it forward in the newly slowed Hollow Knight’s direction. It spun through the air, but the weapon itself was intended to be a distraction more than anything. Ganondorf used a bullet jump to launch forward into a high-speed bullrush that he could put into a powerful lariat or clothesline attack with his right arm. As he planned, the Hollow Knight was busy deflecting the thrown trident and therefore was caught by the warlord’s attack which sent him flying back a bit.

The Hollow Knight was quick to recover from this and snapped its attention on the Gerudo and lunged, trying to impale him with the nail blade like he had nearly done to Bowser moments ago. Thankfully for Ganondorf, the knight was under the effects of the slow spell which gave him enough time to re-summon the trident and parry the incoming charge. But before Ganondorf could retaliate, the bastard teleported straight up so he could try to slam down on the warlord from above. And that was when Phantom Ganon made his move, lunging at the airborne Hollow Knight from the side and slamming into him with his own trident.

But Phantom Ganon was not as quick or responsive as Ganondorf. So even the slowed Hollow Knight was able to retaliate with a slam of his nail that sent Phantom Ganon reeling back. But Ganondorf had now jumped in midair in order to catch him with a sweep of his trident that finally sent the vessel back down toward the ground. Ganondorf threw his trident straight down, but the Hollow Knight was able to dodge being skewered by it. But he was caught by the lightning bolt that followed the attack, avoiding a direct hit but still taking some indirect damage from the blast. This was when Ganondorf landed back on the ground next to the weapon and grasped it in his hands. But the Hollow Knight teleported behind him and managed to slash at his back with the nail.

”Thou shalt not get away with thy cowardice, ye knave!”

When Sandalphon shapeshifted into Heavenly Wings, Sam assumed some kind of explosion and cleared out in a hurry. When her brief moment of blindness concluded, Sandalphon realized that her opponent had erred on the side of caution and ceased his assault. To his credit, he’d made the right decision; her draconic form boasted impressive damage and flinch resistance. But the archangel couldn’t afford to just stand tall and survey the battlefield. She was on the clock, and needed to make this transformation count.

So Sandalphon took in everything at a glance. She glanced toward Roxas, who had called out her name. He lay on the floor at the base of Tycoon’s body as Susie fought to regain the gigantic machine’s attention and Pit assisted her. Since Sandalphon knew that her skills could heal him, she spared him no more than a split second. Much to her relief, Geralt was still standing, her raging flames ablaze as Midna and her minions backed her up against Nox. Sandalphon saw that the street fighters had moved in for round two against Karen, even managing to pin him down. That left Mephisto unattended to, but the duplicates would complicate any attempts to dispose of him. If Karin and Sakura had Karen in a bind, that was where Heavenly Wings’ strength was needed. Though prioritizing the enemy medic made sense in general, the chance to eliminate the enemy powerhouse could not be ignored.

Golden light radiated from Sandalphon’s outstretched wings as she cast Celestial Skewer. An eruption of holy water went off around her, splashing up six divine droplets that hovered in the air for a brief moment, then launched toward Karen in the form of javelin-like rays of light. While their damage got spread over a large area, it helped break the Septentrion’s Blastokinesis and rack up some damage. It also healed her allies by forty-two percent. When Sandalphon glanced back toward Roxas to see if he needed more attention, however, a heart-wrenching revelation awaited her: that she was too late once more. In the moment she’d taken her eyes off him, Sam had executed him, disabling him with a slash to the spine that soon extinguished his light through a lethal combination of blood loss and shock. Without a word, Sandalphon turned on his killer and attacked, creating divine screens that she launched at the nobody’s killer like weaponized walls of light in an effort to stamp him out.

While she fought, Pit turned his attention on Mephisto with a relentless barrage of prismatic palm strikes. He pragmatically targeted and eliminated all of the duplicates, battering the real medic repeatedly in the process. Mephisto switched between healing and returning fire, pushing through the pain to knit his injured flesh back together. Pit boasted much greater output and mobility, however, and after a moment the medic’s pistol clicked empty. But before Pit could finish the job, two things happened. First, Tycoon -with only one of its three original challengers still holding it down- threatened the entire battlefield with Artificial Gravity. A number of small, swirling dark spots appeared scattered across the battlefield. After exactly three seconds, they would swell to a much larger size, overlapping to such an extent that only a few small slivers of the arena remained uncovered. A scant second later, Tycoon dropped magical mortar strikes on all the targets, consuming almost the whole arena in spacetime-displacing vortexes capable of ripping almost anyone apart.

Second, Nox took note of what Pit was doing. He felt confident that he could take on these enemies, but having Mephisto around provided a comfortable margin for error. In his moment of distraction, Geralt landed a direct hit with a fireball, setting Nox alight. “Agh. So warm-hearted….” The next moment, he disappeared in a shower of purple dragon fire from above. Midna’s flygon swooped down as its master charged in behind him, while Geralt hurled two flares turned infernal by her outpour of wrath. Exhaling sharply, Nox released both sword and shield, then joined his hands in an interlocked sign. “...Stop.”

All around him, the battle froze in time, every combatant and projectile slowing to a complete standstill. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply. “Who will it be, then?” He extended his hand toward Geralt, resummoning his pendulum sword. “You’ve certainly been bugging me, my hot-blooded friend…” He adjusted his arm in increments like the hand of a clock, ticking around from three o’ clock to Midna, and when it ticked into place at eight o’ clock his sword’s tip lay inches from her nose. “Beastmaster. Cut off the head, and the body dies. Looks like we have our answer.” He pulled his arm back and flung the sword, which slowed down the instant it left his grip and stopped an inch from her stomach. “So sorry. Looks like you’re number’s come up.”

He looked over at Sandalphon, then at all of the Artificial Gravity indicators on the floor. He then teleported, warped directly in front of Pit, and time resumed. Suddenly, the angel found himself face to face with the man who’d slain Goldlewis, his hand extended. Nox released a blast of blue energy, and as Pit flew back, he used his perspective to pantomime crushing Pit in his fist. At that moment, Tycoon’s attack completed, and one of the bolts dropped down on the angel. By that time Nox had warped Mephisto to safety, and after the blasts went off the Watchmaker resummoned sword and shield. “Je vous en prie.”

The boy slid a new magazine into his place and expressed his gratitude with a tap of his cane rather than a smile. “Don’t expect any thanks.”

Karen, Karin, and Sakura had all competed for a tiny safe space before Artificial Gravity went off, and as a result, all of them got hit. Sam would have made it if Sandalphon didn’t push him back into the blast zone with a divine wave, though Tycoon’s attack also struck her as a result. Zenkichi and Roland, who’d stepped back from their fights and been healed by Celestial Skewer, both escaped Artificial Gravity, while even if she made it to a safe zone Susie’s business suit was too big to not get clipped. Zenkichi and Roland converged on Karen, but bolstered by Mephisto’s healing, the Septentrion took them both on. After hurling explosive sparks at the detective with Pyrokinesis, Karen faked Roland out, knowing that the Fixer wanted to clash. He swerved out of the way of his attack, then made him see stars with a burning hammerfist to the jaw. The next second his other palm connected for an explosive blast that sent Roland head-first into the floor. Zenkichi struck him from behind, but to his surprise a Guardian Vision of a strangely-dressed woman appeared in a defensive stance to negate the blow. Even now, SAS seemed to be protecting him. He turned and faced off against Zenkichi, ultimately using Sclerokinesis to grab his foe’s greatsword in his hand, then melt through it with a pyrokinetic squeeze.

At the same time, Sam continued to fight Heavenly Wings, but the archangel seemed to shrug off his attacks. Gathering her divine power, Sandalphon lifted her hand and created a holy star above her. Her Celestial Castling rained down rays of light across the arena, inflicting Frostbite and Scorchrend on Sam, Karen, and Typhoon. Nox took aim and let fly a volley of energy blades. Though the projectiles didn’t damage Heavenly Wings, they did deplete the rest of her draconic energy, abruptly returning Sandalphon to human form. The next second the last couple blades sliced through her, severing two of the archangel’s limbs. She fell, her final Frost Lock going wide and bursting into icy mist near the Watchmaker. Then she lay on the ground as the battle continued, alive but catatonic, helpless, and losing too much blood.

Just then, Giovanna arrived to find herself in a hellscape, but there was no time to stand there gaping. The secret agent dashed in to assist as best she could.



If she’d been expecting some sort of enormous monstrosity, Nadia might have been disappointed, but after her encounter with the nightmarish Orphan of Kos on that impossible underground beach the feral knew just how little size mattered. The Guardian of the underground kingdom appeared to be a bug, very similar to the little knight she fought alongside in the Basement looks-wise, but much larger and utterly enthralled by the Infection. The way her instincts screamed when that pulsing orange light confronted her convinced her that this wasn’t just some diseased dreg, either. “Patient zero,” she muttered. Maybe even the source of the Infection, sealed away, but not nearly well enough. She couldn’t hazard a guess about much else, but the environmental storytelling painted a vivid picture. Up close the Hollow Knight’s unnatural howl made her flinch yet again, but with her claws at the ready after the warm-up against F’s infected minions, Nadia wasn’t about to back down.

Of course, mustering up determination was easy. There were few things that Nadia couldn’t psych herself up into mindlessly running toward. Fighting this wretched warrior was another matter. While it still towered over two feet above her, and probably couldn’t be combo’d, the Hollow Knight posed an altogether different problem thanks to its relative size. Though the Seekers could easily surround it, there was a very real possibility of them hitting -or just obstructing- one another. Meanwhile, the Hollow Knight could barely swing its nail without striking a would-be hero. Everyone would need to be careful in this frenetic dance of death. Still, at the end of the day, this was nothing new to Nadia. Within seconds, the cat burglar charged in to take the stage.

Employing much the same strategy that she did against the likes of Ten Piedad, Robin Goodfellow, and all the other oversized threats that she couldn’t scrap with properly, Nadia darted in and out, waiting for -and in some cases baiting- attacks so that she could whiff punish the Hollow Knight as it recovered from its massive attacks. Of course, her target didn’t just stand there and let the others whale on it; it launched around the room with surprising agility, punctuating every burst of speed with a skewering nail thrust or enormous slice. Its warp slash, grimly similar to Barnabee’s, was a nasty surprise. Nadia kept on her toes, evading when possible and blocking otherwise. The chip damage and blockstun the Hollow Knight could dish out was no joke, but being excessively safe with her dodge rolls and blood-propelled dashes meant that she’d end up too far away to deliver punishment.

Of course, fighting as a Seeker meant sharing the stage with the likes of Bowser and his gung-ho entourage. The Koopa Troop bombarded the Hollow Knight with the elements, which Nadia tried to turn into elemental reactions like Electrocharged and Overloaded, and Bowser himself used his prodigious side and strength to actually push the boss around. Sectonia kept her spells to herself for once but contributed through the use of enormous minions that could control space with their bulk and implicit threat. After boosting her allies through the magic of dance, Primrose bathed the Hollow Knight in darkness and flame, while Therion’s steel cut through sorcery and sickened flesh alike. He also tasted the warrior’s sword skills, which Nadia naturally proceeded to trigger herself. The Hollow Knight’s riposte hurt like hell, stinging more in one blow than anything Rumor Honeybottoms spat out, but Nadia had seen worse. Her agility and regeneration allowed her to weather the worst of the vessel’s fury, and she boosted her damage output with her Bait Launcher from a safe distance.

Before long it revealed more up its proverbial sleeves than swordfighting. “Yugh!” Nadia groaned when the Hollow Knight unveiled its weeping lesions, running for the hills as infected globules began to fill the air. Whether sprayed out or rained down, they fell in abundance, and even the feral couldn’t avoid them all before reaching Jesse’s shelter. Luckily for the Seekers, the diseased deluge mostly acted like a scaled-up variety of acid rain. Though a caustic shower would be horrible enough, the infection couldn’t worm its way into those possessed of higher minds that easily. Sectonia’s golden antlers, however, were not so fortunate. They proved highly susceptible to the Infection. When the infected rain stopped, both Jesse and Primrose bashed the vessel with the rocks they used as shields, and the fight continued.

Once Kamek did some research, he came to the conclusion that the Seekers had been misled. Dangerous as it was, the Hollow Knight that they now faced seemed to be no more than a front. Nadia threw the magikoopa look of disbelief after he announced that everyone would need to keep their opponent alive. “You’ve gotta be kitten me.” By now, the fight had already escalated. The Hollow Knight fought in a berserk rage, weaponizing the plague that eked ceaselessly from the core of its very being, and before long the Infection worked its dark magic on the golden antlers. “The hell!?” Nadia yowled, leaping away from a stone-cracking mace slam. “Toni, get your buggies under control! This is getting g-old fast!”

At least Sectonia’s Slow, combined with Primrose’s buffs, tipped the scales in the Seekers’ favor. Ganondorf attacked alongside his Phantom, and the two gave a lot better than they got. At the end of their exchange, the vessel pushed the warlord back, and Nadia moved in. “Nyaow it’s my turn!” She slid beneath its follow-up slash with Cat Slide, then transformed her legs with Fluffy Soft to extend them for a double tiger kick into the Hollow Knight’s torso. Her legs snapped back into place, and after getting into a handstand, the feral sprang with her arms to fly into the air. Drawing a boxcutter, she grabbed onto one of the monster’s horns as she fell, her amplified weight bending its head sideways as she dangled. “Steel your heart!” Nadia swiped at the pustule on the Hollow Knight’s mask for a moment, but it quickly grabbed her and tossed her into the air. “Whoa-oa-oa!” She narrowly split herself in half to avoid an overhead nail slam, but picking up the pieces would take a minute.

Moments later, the battle reached a fever pitch. After the Hollow Knight stabbed itself with its own nail repeatedly, it threw itself at the Seekers with everything it had, but their counteroffensive bore fruit. The vessel slumped down onto its knees, bent forward. “Now!” a familiar, young-sounding, high-pitched voice called out. From the direction of the Black Egg’s entrance, a bright blue lash flew out and struck the Hollow Knight, wrapping around its body. A dark shape shot toward it, which turned out to be the short Organization member from before. She whipped around the vessel’s horns and landed on its head, tugging on the evil-looking keyblade in her hands to wrench the vessel’s head upwards. A brilliant light shone from its forehead, radiant as the light of day. “What’re ya flippin’ waitin’ for?! Get in there, you mugs!”

Kamek had the Dreamcatcher ready. After he extended it toward the Hollow Knight’s head and waved it around, a crystalline substance quickly collected into a globe inside its crescent. Within a moment it was large enough, and once Kamek plucked the globe from the staff, he hurled it against the ground. It shattered, releasing a flash of unreal light, and the world around the Seekers disappeared.

When the light died down, they found themselves back in the dream world on a circular pillar, much like they had during the fight with Robin Goodfellow. Except this time, the peach-colored sea of clouds lay beneath them, interspersed with hornlike spires, and around them stretched a vast, twilight-orange sky. On the horizon shone the sun–except that wasn’t the sun, brilliant and baleful as it was. The incandescent beacon approached with astonishing speed, then resolved into an incredible shape. It was dazzling, but unmistakably alien. Just staring at it burned Nadia’s brain, much worse than the sensation she got from the eyes of the Hollow Knight. There could be no mistaking it: this almost angelic thing must be behind it all. The Seekers had found it, the light of madness that seeped out through dreams, consuming the reason, the consciousness, and finally the very self of bug and beast alike. It was beautiful, but deadly. Not just to the Seekers, but to civilization, to sentience itself.



It had to be stopped. And as the first rays of light blazed toward the Seekers, Nadia Fortune was ready.

Fire rained upon Nox from the side and above as Midna, four hands glowing with draconic claws, charged the Watchmaker, alongside her Beast Legion. With all four of them working together they could strike around the shield, covering each other even if they did get frozen. They could beat him down, get revenge, move on to the smug snake of a swordsman.

Or at least that is what the princess had been thinking.

Then, in an eyeblink, Nox was gone, and there was an immense stabbing pain in her gut. The princess dropped to her knees and doubled over in agony and in doing so bore witness to her death, as blood seeped out from the edges of where a sword was buried in her stomach. It was a deceptively small amount for the carnage that had been wrought on her stomach, yet despite this she couldn’t make her body move. Likely something to do with how the tip of the blade was sticking out the back of her spine

It was without a doubt a lethal blow, but one that gave the paralyzed princess a handful of seconds of life as her vitality drained from her veins and into her digestive tract.

Rather than the sorrow she and hesitation caused by other’s death, rather than visions of her life or loved ones, Minda’s own impending one mainly filled her with rage. Or perhaps it simply caused the rage she had already had to boil over. She screamed with fury as she poured everything she had into the fragment of the fused shadow she wore, tendrils of orange energy engulfing her body as she rose up on a dozen limbs… but for all that power, none of it was going to put the ruins of her stomach back together. Halfway through forming the final smash, the monster's shape forming around her buckled, and then simply impotently collapsed, Midna’s spirit and ashes drifting to the floor.

As Nox had predicted, taking the head of the beastmaster slew her two limbs, though not quite at the same pace. The Beast Legion simply returned to its core, rendered inoperable by the loss of the holder of its chain. Meanwhile the twilight flygon, unable to return to that realm without the princess’ magic withered before any observer’s eyes, becoming deathly pale as the very nature of the light world terminally sickened the creature of shadow, causing it to fall out of the sky and crash into the ground.

Still, the princess’ death was not without consequence, for though her own attempt at revenge had been foiled, the collapsed flyon’s had been entirely automatic. When the lethal blow had been struck, the cactus dragon had practically exploded, unleashing a cloud of spikes and needles which all swung through the air towards Nox and hailed down upon his location.

Whatever the result of that was, it was the last thing the loyal beast saw before Artificial Gravity it had not the strength to even try and avoid went off, and it too was wiped from the face of this world of light.

And just like that, the battlefield shifted. The circular pillar looked almost the same, but the skies and terrain around it was not. That didn’t change the fact that this was the dream world yet again. As with Robin Goodfellow, Ganondorf was unmoved and unfazed. Whether here or in the waking world, it made little difference. Victory would still be his in the end. And then the sun-like beacon approached, and fast. It then also took the shape of a silvery-white being, angelic and alien-like at the same time. And this was when Ganondorf visibly grimaced in displeasure. Light. Pure, radiant light. This creature practically reeked of it.

All the more reason to kill it, he reasoned. The warlord wasn’t going to wait this time like he had earlier. No, this time he would be the first one to get a taste of what this wretched creature of the light could do. He summoned Moblins who readied their bows and fire arrows, but did not fire just yet. Ganondorf summoned one of his strikers, Riptor. And only when she lobbed the fireball from her mouth did he give the order for the Moblins to loose their arrows. What Ganondorf didn’t expect was the Radiance summoning a wall of light that she sent shooting forward like an oversized projectile. It easily tanked the fireball and fire arrows, but dissipated after it traveled halfway across the arena.

And then swords began to rain from above like a storm of razor-sharp pain and death. They came in 18 columns of twelve that almost seemed to shift around their positions. The only options were to either hope one was skilled enough to deflect the swords above them, or fast enough to keep to the occasional safe spots that showed up as gaps among the columns. All the while, the Radiance teleported herself about - making it all but impossible to try to attack her during the rain.

”Steel thyselves!” Ganondorf warned, knowing that the rain of swords endangered everyone and not just himself. He was able to use his trident to deflect away many of the swords coming down on him until he could bullet jump himself over to one of the safe spots. It wasn’t a clean getaway though, he was nicked and grazed by a few blades along the way. Riptor had vanished before the rain of swords began, and the Moblin archers weren’t nearly as skilled or fortunate as their master was. They were skewered and wiped out in moments by the falling blades. A horrific demonstration of the fate that awaited anyone who failed to avoid the attack.

”Curses!” Ganondorf said sharply. But he refused to be intimidated by this creature. He launched up and then jumped again in midair so that he could then catch the Radiance in a series of serial sweeps with his Trident. He intended to try and slam her down to the ground of the pillar where he could then call down a lightning bolt strike, but the Guardian had other plans. She suddenly shot out several beams of light around her from her face. Ganondorf tried to twist his body in a way to avoid them, but they caught him anyway and he was sent careening back to the ground.

That landing and the hard hit from the beams took Ganondorf to his knees. But the warlord pushed himself back to his feet with a scowl, ”Damn you!” he grunted. Instead of going on another direct assault, he instead summoned Blast Hornet. The reploid used its search attack to launch the wasp-like drones to fly toward the Radiance and explode upon colliding with her. Or they would have if she had not fired off a volley of swords from her face that struck the wasps and destroyed them before they could reach her.

And then she summoned a trio of orbs that flew down and attempted to home in on Ganondorf. Thankfully he managed to avoid taking this hit, by batting two of the orbs with his trident and managing to dive out of the way of the third one, resulting in it striking the ground instead. Ganondorf gave the boss a frustrated glare. Whatever this Radiance was, she was doing a right good job of pissing him off. But Ganondorf hadn’t used up all of his tools just yet. He still had a trump card he could play. But that would have to wait for the time being. And besides, he didn’t want to waste the power of his true form until he had exhausted all of his other options.

—

Just as the damage had started to really add up, Sakura and Karin felt their bodies bolstered by Sandalphon’s magic, and Karen had taken a hit. The battle began again in earnest. It was a proper one on four, but Sakura felt like they were finally getting the edge on their opponent.

Sakura and Karin were both blasted to the floor by Artificial Gravity, but at least Karen got hit as well, though it didn’t seem to slow him down at all. Sakura was focused intently on her battle with Karen Travers.

Karin, however, saw out of the corner of her eye, that Roxas and Midna were both dead, with Geralt looking to follow after. Sandalphon, as well, had suffered lethal injury. This was an unmitigated disaster. Even if the Seekers succeeded at this point, the losses incurred here would never be recovered from. She saw Sakura, watched her face, saw the intensity in her eyes and movements as she rounded on Karen with a heavy kick. He blocked it, but the blow seemed to knock the last of his Pyrokinesis out of him, and she backpedaled away from his counterattack. Karin had been sure they were going to win. But now, no matter what happened, there would be no such thing as a victory.

A part of Karin wanted to cut her losses and run. Let Nox have his twisted fantasy. Come what may, at least this battle would be undone. But Sakura wouldn’t run. And Karin could never convince the remaining Seekers to retreat, she knew that much. In this moment she briefly met eyes with Giovanna, who looked like she was going to plunge headlong into this battle. A battle that, at this point, Karin could tell they were going to lose. Every time they lost a Seeker, their ability to deal damage and sustain themselves lessened, and their opponents had not grown weaker in the interim. In retrospect, Karin calculated they probably lost the battle the moment Goldlewis died.

For her part, Giovanna hesitated for just a split second on the outskirts of the battle, looking around with her brows furrowed. “Hey, where’d Goldlewis fuck off to? Old fart…” But nobody could really hear her over all the noise, and the question was rhetorical, anyway.

It didn’t matter. A Kanzuki did not retreat. There was peace in accepting the inevitable, and Karin redoubled her efforts, preparing to unleash some of her stored power upon her opponent. If nothing else, she could bring about the humbling of Karen Travers.

Sakura dashed in, feinted right, and then slammed her elbow towards Karen’s side, ducked and kicked out at his ankle, and just as fast followed up with an EX-fireball point blank, slamming her palms against him. Normally this would give her an advantage, and if he blocked it, she reached out to grab his hand and shoulder, looking to hook her leg behind his ankle and topple him to the ground. ”Seyah!”

“Hmph!” Karen grunted as he hit the floor. Even if most of his abilities were on cooldown, allowing his opponents to dictate the pace of the fight was unacceptable. He activated SAS, switching on two powers at once.

Should that unbalance him or not, Karin would swoop in from behind and try to slam her elbow directly into his spine, whether she was assisted by him falling over or not. After that she would shoot upward with an EX-Ressen Ha, looking to launch Karen into the air as she spun, arms vertical, like a sawblade, before slamming him back down to earth. ”Ressen Ha!”

Her combo dealt a chunk of damage, though thanks to the healing from Mephisto, Karen had plenty more where that came from. Naturally, the instant he landed, both street fighters closed in to apply pressure, accompanied by their allies as they rushed in to capitalize. Rather than face a four-way mixup, he chose not to wakeup at all, instead vanishing in a blink. If his attackers looked around to see where he’d warped, however, they wouldn’t see anything; only someone with uncanny powers of perception would have already internalized the visual difference between Teleportation and invisibility, both of which featured blue effects. “Enough of this,” Karen deadpanned, his disembodied voice coming from somewhere among the Seekers. They couldn’t see him, but they could hear electricity building up, and they could smell the ozone in the air. Too soon, Karen reappeared in the instant that he delivered a fully-charged electrokinetic blowout, the explosion blasting back everyone in a surprising radius. Thanks to Invisibility, it was a critical hit.

As the sparks flew, Karen pulled the cord at his collar. His hid flipped up, hiding his face in a darkness that then blazed with a set of orange jaws, and all across his outfit imaginary cables began to glow. Alight with the power of Brain Drive, he lifted his hands once more. “This is what real power looks like,” he declared, ready to finish this.

Karin lay on her side, supporting herself with her hands, electricity zapping and crackling around her. She couldn’t breathe, and she gasped shallowly, looking up at a foe that had only gotten more powerful.

Sakura rose first, undeterred. It was time for Round Two. Unlike Karin, Sakura wasn’t thinking about defeat. Only the fight.

He wasn’t the only one with Brain Drive. And while the hit she had taken was big, it was more than enough to give her access to V-Trigger. She activated the Brain Drive, still wearing her uniform after all this time. Then she pumped her fists, and blue flame ignited from her fists and feet. Sakura Senpu increased her melee damage and combo potential, and Brain Drive increased her mental acuity and strength just like it did Karen Travers.

”Shut up.” She said, and then sprinted forward. Karin grit her teeth and rose to her feet as well. Sakura dashed forward at high speed, and then stopped just as suddenly before she got into range. An eruption of cubes went off in front of her, narrowly evaded. She span to the left and then lashed out with a quick light kick. If it hit, she would confirm it into a bright blazing spin kick, and if it was blocked, she would back up and shift, trying to get behind him. That was her game. Overwhelm him with speed, power, and skill. Karin advanced, keeping her guard up to close in.

With several foes on their feet, Karen couldn’t afford to fight just one of them. He teleported backward from Sakura’s initial assault, refusing to play her little game, and activated both Levitation and Blastokinesis. He rose into the air under the protection of a psychic shield, then created a carpet of dark cubes beneath and around him. Switching to Marksmanship, he fired off a fusillade of psychic bolts, then deactivated it in favor of Duplication. Shielded, the four Karens began to charge. “This is checkmate!” they shouted, and the next second, they shot forward like bullets.

It wasn’t a question of which was real and which were illusions. Their fists were all tangible, their punches strong enough to crack solid rock. Only the Karen who went after Karin, however, remained after his assault concluded. “You’re checked out,” he told her, seizing her arm in a grab as she went to block. He pulled it against his forearm to break it. Karin screamed, eye wide. Then he grabbed her and teleported with her beneath the arena, where nothing but empty space between them and the depths of the Mako reactor. “Take a hike.” The Septentrion released her, and the street fighter began to fall. Karin didn’t know that teleportation could work like that. She gasped, her stomach lurching. Her grapple hook arm was broken. Her arms and legs trailing behind her, the Kanzuki looked up as the battlefield, her friend on it, got farther and farther away. It was a quiet fall.

When he reappeared on the battlefield, Karen Travers was alone.

”...” Sakura’s knees wobbled. She staggered, like Karen had hit her harder than he ever could physically. Her V-Trigger ended prematurely, her fighting spirit snuffed out. In the brief interlude of silence, she had stared, wide-eyed, at the deaths of the other Seekers. Somewhere inside, rage bubbled, but it was underneath an ocean of shock and grief. Instead of a defiant yell, all that came out was a pathetic sob as Sakura staggered forward to meet Karen in combat one last time. What else could she do?

Her skill was still there but it was clear her heart wasn’t in it. She swung and dodged a strike and took a mighty frozen fist to the chest. ”Guh!” She rose and threw another punch, only for it to hit nothing but psychic shielding. Another, another, a kick, and she was on her back. She yelled, pushed herself onto her knees, and fired a shaky Shinku Hadoken towards Karen. The sudden burst of power exploded violently, kicking up dust. If he hadn’t been prepared for it, he probably would have gone flying right off the edge to where Karin was now. Instead, Sakura’s arms dropped, her shoulders sagging as the energy cleared away and Karen stood with her arms crossed defensively in front of him, Sclerokinesis engaged after the breaking of his Blastokinesis shield just to show how little hope there was

By this point, almost half the roster of Seekers had been eliminated, but there were still enough to pose a possible threat if Karen hesitated. He took no pleasure in this act, but executed it with military efficiency. Teleporting away from Sakura’s allies, he appeared in front of her and kicked her over. ”Oof.” Sakura landed on her back. She brought her arms up in front of her. But her mental state had been broken, and her mind was unprotected. The Septentrion reached out through SAS to force a connection. Visions of prong-tipped cables appeared from the ether and stabbed into Sakura’s body. ‘I’m dead,’ Sakura thought to herself bleakly. There wasn’t any time to think about anything else.

A moment later, three huge ones lunged into the back of her head, and in one brutal assault he uploaded an obscene amount of junk data into her head. Her back arched, eyes wide and unseeing. The Brain Crush knocked her out instantly. She lay flat on her back with a little thud, eyes closing. As she hit the ground, Karen turned, his Brain Drive nearly out. This was a turning point. Victory was within his reach.

Things went from bad to worse quickly. Blazermate went down, Zenkichi got his knee buckled in (he wasn't an old man as much as he might like to complain, but he was not young enough to shrug a hit like that off), Sandalphon was forced to transform into Heavenly Wings after healing Geralt, and from there it only got worse.

With Roxas, Midna, Karin, and Sakura all down for the count, either dead, missing and likely dead, or incapacitated and on the verge of death, Zenkichi's options were limited. When Sukukaja came off cooldown, he buffed himself again, this time with Rakukaja to keep himself alive, but he still had Heat Riser in the back pocket. His own greatsword was half the size it used to be, so he dismissed the weapon and summoned the Closing Statement. Between its heft and his defense buff, now was the time to take the offensive. If Karen was surprised by the change in aggression level, he didn't show it. Still, Zenkichi was noticeably slowe than before, so he didn't bother with Hypervelocity, instead keeping Sclerokinesis up while he absolutely hammered the Phantom Thief, who shrugged off Karen's punches like they were barely a tap. As long as Rakukaja was up and he could land hits, the combination of his natural durability, his life-steal, and the defense buff would keep him alive. If only he could see a little better past his misty eyes.

Geralt, meanwhile, had abandoned all reason, leaping about the battlefield using the Orphan's strength, launching fireballs at each of their enemies, and then leaping away whenever one turned her way. Even Tycoon found itself the victim of a few barrages of Ardor Blossom's flames, but as the Seekers' numbers dwindled, so too did Geralt's ability to evade attack. With Sandalphon down, Sam entrusted Giovanna to Nox and broke off after Geralt, tired off having to dodge fireballs. His sword flashed out, carving through an ethereal wing, and Sam tsked while one of his fellow Winds of Destruction appeared to attack. Knowing that Monsoon would simply evade any attempt to cut him, Sam instead parried the series of sai attacks coming his way, backflipping out of the way of yet another of Geralt's barrages of fireballs. This time when she leapt away, Sam followed, sprinting after her about as fast as she could run herself.

The rampaging Witcher did not take kindly to this, and screeched violently, bolts of lightning appearing as if from nowhere and spreading across the battlefield, forcing Sam to jump over them and come down with a brutal overhead slash. Geralt found herself unable to dodge in time, the high-frequency blade carving a bloody line through her arm and down her side, but not quite severing the limb. She let loose another blast of fireballs, pushing Sam back with a cocky smirk, though he was not so distracted as to get hit by the next blast of fire sent his way, either. He ran around Geralt in a circle, pushing her back into the path of one of Tycoon's lasers, correctly guessing that she was too focused on killing him to notice.

Zenkichi, on the other side of the fight, was doing his damndest to stay alive and whittle down Karen, but Mephisto healed whatever damage he managed to chip past Sclerokinesis with the Closing Statement and Valjean's help. "Dammit!" He grunted as Rakukaja ended, and Karen launched him with a punch. Forcing himself up to his knees, he drew his revolvers and unleashed every round he had on the Septentrion, then calling for Valjean to hit him with a Megidola again, only for the man to teleport out of the blast radius and behind him, punching him in the back of the head. Dazed, Zenkichi looked around, eyes locking on the first Seeker he saw: Pit. "Save...save Akane, kid..." He groaned out as Karen's hands gripped either side of his neck. "Valjean. Heat Riser." Were the last words he got out before Travers twisted.

As Zenkichi's limp body faded into ash, energy flooded Pit's, boosting his speed, defense, and offensive abilities significantly. If the captain of Heaven's Host had paid attention, he'd know this boost would only last a minute, but it was all they had.

Geralt was blasted across the platform by Tycoon's unfrozen laser when Sam launched the pommel of his sword into her gut, pushing her back into its path. As she got back up, she saw him rushing her once more, and in a moment of lucidity, transformed back into her natural Identity, steel sword coming from its sheath in time to parry a slash. "Oh? Back to normal?" The Jetstream mocked, stepping back with an expert parry as Geralt launched into a relentless assault, steel flashing and limbs flying to take any opportunity to strike at him. He was almost impressed, but there was a certain...something missing from her savage blows. He could tell this wasn't Geralt at her best. Part of him was sad at that, but part of him knew that he'd come this far. Made his path. Whoever won, won. That was it. He had bigger fish to fry than to worry about missing out on the best fight he could have gotten.

Sidestepping a kick and parrying a sword slash, Sam sheathed his blade and breathed, pressing the trigger on his sheath and launching his blade into, through, and out Geralt's thigh. Stumbling to her side, Geralt's breath hitched, and she sighed, wondering if this was it. Her final battle. Her true death. Sam sheathed his sword, shaking his head softly. "Guess that's that, then." He breathed out, eyes narrowing when instead of crumbling to ash, Geralt began glowing slightly, her blood turning back into Lifelight and slowly flowing back into her body. "What's this?!" He said, turning his head briefly to Nox. "This one's doing something!" He called, narrowing his eyes as Geralt rose once more, steel sword in a defensive posture and the protective shield of Quen shimmering around her body.

More, her eyes and posture were clear of the manic energy that once consumed them. Geralt's mind was sharp as steel. "You'll pay for that. For all of them." She warned, voice even and firm.

The more damage the Hollow Knight took, the more aggressive it became - but at the very least it was easy to see that they were making progress. The collective efforts of the team were wearing the vessel down, after which point it would be up to Kamek to make sense of the Dreamcatcher and let them in to face the Under's true Guardian.

After suffering the knight's parry, Therion largely stuck to ranged attacks. His mobile cover in the form of Sectonia's antlers was compromised not long after the initial infectious rain, forcing the thief to abandon them and stay on the move - though with everyone else present and taking the knight's attention he avoided danger. Primrose was among those fighting up close and personal, her Berserker triggering and empowering her strength and speed. Normally she would enjoy the extra space and reach that her lance afforded her, but the Hollow Knight's nail might as well have been a polearm too for how large it was compared to the average person. She clashed with it, or managed to dance out of the way of lethal wounds only to take advantage of it going after someone else to land more hits, however glancing they were.

Then it all came to a head. Their often unseen helper from the Organization zipped into the depths of the temple, restraining the vessel just long enough for the Dreamcatcher to do its thing. Suddenly, the Seekers were back inside of a dream.

With no idea what they were up against just yet, Primrose had to choose her next dance more strategically. She performed a second Sealticge's Seduction, this time bestowing its effect on Bowser Jr. so that his healing or status purging would benefit the entire group at once. That was all she had the time for, as an angelic alien descended in a blaze of light and began its assault just as swiftly as its prison vessel had.

Walls of light, rain of swords, searing sunlit lasers - it certainly wasted no time in putting the Seekers through their paces. Its very presence was discomforting, and it rained hell on the group like an avenging angel or a demon disguised as something divine. Both of the Travelers were thrown into evasive maneuvers, heeding Ganondorf's warning as the the second part of the battle began in earnest.

With evasion being one of Therion's specialties, he fared better than most. Only the wall of light was trouble; when he realized he couldn't easily get out of its way since it covered the entire platform they stood on, he crossed his arms defensively and hoped for the best. The same was true for Primrose, though the falling swords had come too many and too quickly for her to get out of unscathed.

"Ugh..." the dancer let out a small noise of pain, resisting the urge to clutch at her cuts. Instead she thrust her lance toward the Radiance, pointing her striker towards it while she summoned it. "Makami!"

The wolf demon howled its understanding and rushed through the air towards it prey. It easily weaved through the swords with its paper thin body, delivering its Double Fang attack directly to the Guardian. At the same time Primrose was hurrying to catch up to it herself, giving her mana time to regenerate and using her Ravaging Confession to appear behind the Radiance after it teleported. Seeing as the Guardian preferred to stay airborne above the Seekers, it ended up with Primrose only able to get one or two slashes in before having to catch herself mid-fall. After floating back to the ground she huffed, and relied on her Devout Beads to contribute to the offensive. The ring of magatama spun as though charing before firing off their rapid projectiles.

Looking at the radiant being, Therion didn't get the sense that this would be a contest of stamina. It hardly looked like a living creature, rather made up of light or sickness or something else entirely - so it was better to assume it could conjure its swords and lights indefinitely without tiring. Going by that logic, offensive would be the best defense. He took the first opportunity he saw, using the King of Evil as a springboard to get up close to the Radiance. His own body began to glow as his Boost activated, empowering the point blank Wildfire he let loose onto it. The force of the spell pushed him away and he flew back through the air, just managing to right himself not take too hard of a landing.

Beneath him a section of the platform they were on began to light up. Taking that as his signal to get out of the way Therion sprinted to the other end. Swords sprouted out of the ground, restricting the fighting area for now.

After the Troop stepped away from brawling with the knight, the rest of the team stepped in, leaving the troop to mostly keep out of the way while Kamek watched and waited for his time to strike usng the dreamcatcher. This was easier said than done in the, rather cramped when it came down to it, boss arena. Bowser did his best to block big cleaves coming their way, while the others were small enough to scurry, leap or float out of the way of incoming harm for the most part.

Once the team had done sufficient amounts of harm of their own, the Organization member who’d sent them to get the dreamcatcher dashed in from the shadows, and immobilized the knight with a giant key.

”Open up, open up, it’s our turn to be the dream team” Kamek chanted as he attempted to improvise how to use the dreamcatcher, and fortunately finding it intuitive enough that in a flash, they were away from the dark dreary egg interior, and in the lumouse realm of dreams.

Then in another flash, their true target was there, a great being of light. Ganondorf wasn’t the only one grimacing at that, as Kamek too found himself squinting behind his specs, something about the being burning away at him as a result of his fusion with Cia. Unlike the king of evil however, he was not at all durable so this was going to get quite dicy if he simply tried to take their foe head on.

So while the others steeled themselves for battle, Kamek did the sensible thing and simply left the boss arena. They’d just had a lesson in how much of an issue a lack of spacing caused within the tight confines of the egg after all, and so if he could avoid being caught by attacks targeted at others, he very much would like to do so.

A wise decision, as it turned out, as the Radiance seemed to prefer indiscriminate amounts of quantity over individually targeted accuracy, unleashing a gauntlet that the rest of the troop had to deal with while Kamek exited stage left.

Rika had the least issue as she bullet jumped between dated sunglasses slowed lances, while also treating the platform like a suggestion. At one point she straight up leapt into the empty air to avoid the wall of light sweeping across the platform, before launching herself up into the air with her feather fall rune and then using both it and aim glid to hang in the air close to the Radiance so she could hammer with her guns.

Disruption cannons stuck magic power reducing globules to the being of light, reducing her damage output, while her grizco blaster splattered her pure white form with shocking or flaming goop, and she spent some of carefully rationed bullets to pepper it with her rifle’s venomous rounds.

Then as the light flared from the Radiance's eyes, she let herself drop down to avoid being blasted away, only to grapple back to the platform. Upon reaching solid ground however, she had to immediately leap once more as spikes stabbed up from the ground, cutting the amount of ground in half.

If Rika was near perfectly suited to dealing with all this, Bowser was distinctly the opposite. The big man was a big target and things started immediately going poorly. He’d got blasted by the wall of light, had lanced rain down on his shell, had energy beams clip his wide form even when he did get between them and had even jabbed in the feet by the floor spikes for good measure. Sure, he was also a tough guy, and shell and steel soled boots meant that things had not been half as bad as if someone else had taken all that, but it still wasn’t good.

Fortunately he had Jr to put that right, at least when the boy wasn’t frantically scampering to and fro to avoid all the stuff that would hurt him a lot more than it would his papa anyway. As team healer he had his work cut out for him already, but if there was one benefit to the spikes coming up and shrinking the arena it was that almost everyone was within 15 yards of himself, which meant than when he called out ”Medica” nearly every seeker got a nice bust of healing from the prince’s circular cure spell.

While doing both that, and running about, the prince had generated quite the collection of floating sears and darts, which he took the moment after the melee fighters had taken their swings to unleash. He was not alone in this, Bowser too blasting back at their magical foe, though his choice of using his flash cannons, based on the fact that all the light made them very easy to charge, was perhaps not his best choice of armament.

”It’s like fighting fire with fire, right?” he replied when Jr questioned this choice.

He wasn’t the only to hit the Radiance with light as it turned out, however Kamek’s light was also joined by fire, physical, blight, frost, and electric damage all at once as he unleashed a cosmic spray to test their foes defenses and to try and sniff out a weakness. However, disappointingly, there was none to be found in that smorgasbord of elements, leading him to hope that perhaps the antithesis to this being of light would work better.

Be it in retaliation to this bombardment or simply her next move, the Radiance proceed shot back, forming more spears, but this time doing so at the edge of the arena from which she launched them across it in waves. Doing so forced those upon it to jump and dodge, yes, but it also had the added benefit of being able to target the fliers as the spikes kept going beyond the platform’s bounds, soaring onwards and outwards towards them.

Kamek had little issue with the first wave due to the amount of prep time he had, but the second coming so close to the first was quite the issue. He had to back off to try and gain more maneuvering time, pushing him further and further from the battlefield till he managed to get above the wave and only then started traveling back to it.

Back on it, a rather frustrated and worried about having to burn through so much mana to keep his Papa healthy prince managed to convince his papa to ditch all of his size boosting magic, which at a bear minimum gave them all more room to maneuver without having to worry about the third set of spikes that was the king’s back.

Rika immediately dropped into that new space and together the three prepared for whatever the Radiance was going to throw at them next, while Jr tried to come up with a plan to coordinate their own strikes better than they just had.

Sectonia let out a bit of annoyance as her Antlers, while controlling a lot of space and offering cover for others with their bulky bodies, were falling to the corruption seeping out of the hollow knight as it used its own ichor to attack. Well, there was time to deal with them before they turned, and she did just that by throwing her Rings of Light to not only deal some damage to the hollow knight itself, but the Antlers as well as they were starting to lose control of themselves to dispose of them. Dodging the globes herself was annoying, with her trying to strike at them with her axe to knock them away. This ended up just having them splash off her axe, but at least she didn't get hit by too much of the horrid stuff.

It didn't take long for their opening to the REAL guardian to come about. As they had weakened the hollow knight, it started to stab and mutilate itself to get at whatever it was containing inside of it. And soon after that, the org member from before came and held its head open with their keyblade. Well, that was apparently what they were waiting for as Kamek used the Dreamcatcher and sent everyone into this things... dream?

Much like before, they were in some heavenly looking place with a big battle arena. Unlike before though, this place was unnantrually bright. And the center of that brightness would form into a giant moth. "Hmm... Something like this is the guardian of the whole underground here? Its a lot more pleasant than the other things down here, curious." Although that thought would have to be put on hold as now was the time to fight.

Much like its illumination would suggest, this thing used light magic, something that both Kamek and especially Ganondorf seemed to hate. Sectonia was pretty neutral on it all things considered. But not having a weakness to this magic didn't make it any less painful. Much like Bowser, avoiding these rain of attacks not to dissimilar to her own style of firing out multiple projectiles wasn't easy for her size. But unlike the koopa king, she could teleport and blink between the sword volleys as they seemed to come in a very predictable pattern. While Ganon and Bowser had to swipe or tank the attacks, she could gracefully teleport through them. Even the large beam of light that spread across the platform was something she could handle, although since the rest of her group had a very hard time dealing with that, it seemed like she'd need to help them with what she could.

Those close to her, at least before she blinked to the other side of Radiance's spells, would have some resistance to her magic thanks to her pipe's aura. She could also give her team a bit of a shield thanks to that that would absorb some of the damage coming their way. But it seemed with the lack of them able to hit this thing, Sectonia would have to step up being one of the few fliers in the group. Antlers would just be wiped out by the constant barrage of light swords and light beams, so short of the golden ones to take a hit for someone, they were out of the question. But she had her own powerful spells to throw at this 'light goddess'. She started by summoning her Chaos Heart shield to absorb some of the damage she'd no doubt take during this fight, as while some attacks were made for her to dodge, her big size made others, such as the light balls, the beams of light emanating from Radiance, and the sword burst difficult to dodge.

She would use the opportunites of being unable to dodge to hit Radiance with her Dark Lightning, letting her pipe of insight shield and her chaos shield absorb the not insignificant damage. Sectonia noticed that much like herself, it would be difficult to tell if they were even damaging this thing as it didn't react much at all to being attacked. Well, even if it had insanely high defense, Sectonia swapping to her void globules would bypass that. Although it was up in the air of this thing would be weak or heavily resistant to the void.

It seemed to Pit that within one blink of an eye and the next, Nox had appeared in front of him. The swirling energy of his Palm was already headed Mephisto's way, but he cut off the flow in order to gather that power into his hand, preparing to engage Nox directly.

"You-!!" was about all the angel had time to say. As fast as his reflexes had been, Nox was faster - he had the luxury of moving in stopped time after all. Pit pulled his arm back for a strike, but Nox already had his own extended and shot a blast of energy himself. If Pit had gone for a defensive play he might have avoided his current predicament of careening backward through the air, but hindsight wasn't going to help him either.

Pit flapped his wings until he was just about right side up, landing on his feet but stumbling from the sudden impact with the ground. He could hear Midna's visceral screaming mix with Geralt's cries of berserker rage and the street fighter's technique call outs, and hoped everyone could hang in there so he could rejoin them. Sandalphon's earlier heal, which unbeknownst to the Seekers at that point would end up being her last, had shored up a lot of his health - he wasn't worried about himself until there was a great crackling sound directly above him. He looked up, his eyes going wide. The Artificial Gravity!

It came down on him with monstrous force, pressing and ripping. But when the particles of the attack dispersed, Pit was still standing. Badly battered by the full force of the magical mortar, but alive and determined to see the fight through to the end.

He had already gotten moving again when he realized that Midna's screaming must have been her death throes as he took her place against Nox, since she was little more than ash and spirit now. Pit fired upon the Watchmaker while the Breaking Palm was still equipped, just after Nox had fired energy blades of his own at Heavenly Wings. He noticed the incoming projectiles and moved out of their path, only for the rainbow bolts to curve and hit him anyway. The same happened with Pit's second volley, though the third was mostly dispersed by rough swipes of Nox's swords.

With so many Seekers gone, there was no longer an easy way to distract Nox enough to get to the enemy healer. Eventually all of the damage they'd done to Nox's crew would be neutralized and then undone, if their healing hadn't gotten to that point already. To get to Mephisto, going through Nox was the bare minimum - and the Breaking Palm wasn't the way to do it. Its tracking energy bolts could chase him down without fail, but even at maximum output how long would it take to bring him down? Way too long, not even counting the other three he had on his side interfering. Pit backed off from attacking when one of Geralt's fireballs flew toward Nox in order to switch weapons. It was then, with mounting horror, that he saw what had become of yet more of his friends. At some point Sandalphon had reverted out of her dragon form and lay bleeding on the ground. Out of the two angels, she was the healer - he couldn't do a thing for her. In another area of the battlefield the elder Travers dropped Karin over the dark void that surrounded Tycoon's platform, and all Pit could do was watch while his heart clenched. "No!" Without the Power of Flight, he didn't have any chance of saving her. He'd never felt more useless.

On top of it all, Giovanna had arrived at some point. Normally, the sight of an ally come to help would inspirit Pit, but now would she just be another casualty? He'd hate to see anyone else end up dead, but telling her to run would be the same as admitting that the battle was a lost cause. He couldn't allow that, not after all of the sacrifices that had already been made.

Everything's getting worse and worse...! he thought as he felt the grip of his bow materialize in his hand. Lady Palutena... please help us! I don't know what to do to stop this!

When he felt a surge in energy flow into him, for a split second Pit believed his prayers had been answered. He could have cried in relief, but in the next second he realized that wasn't the case. This didn't feel like the Goddess of Light's touch. He looked around only to catch Zenkichi's final moments. He couldn't hear the man's words over the ongoing battle and the lurching of Tycoon as it readied itself to bring its fist down once more, but his feelings reached the angel regardless. With Heat Riser, Zenkichi reminded him that he already knew what he had to do. He couldn't buff, or heal, or fly, so it was the only thing he could do: fight.

He hurtled towards Karen with a battle cry just as the psychic's sclerokinesis ran out. Made all the faster thanks to Heat Riser, Pit made it to him before he could move to engage the angel on his own terms. A heavy cross slash delivered inside of his guard opened Karen up for Roland or any quick opportunist to take advantage of, but it wouldn't be Pit - he kicked off the psychic on his way to his previous target, Nox.

Nox had to be the lynchpin of the enemy's plans. He was the one that had demonstrated he could manipulate time. If they could just deal with him, maybe their entire plan would fall apart. The Xelor had turned his attention to Geralt when Sam called out, but when he noticed Pit making a beeline for him he held a hand out toward the angel. The energy blades that had cut through Sandalphon shot out just as Tycoon's arm came down, inadvertently protecting Pit from the blades even as he dodged the slam. He hopped up and over the machine god's limb, executing another emergency evade - having anticipated where Pit would pop up from, Nox had sent a few more blades flying. They'd nicked his leg, but Pit was undeterred.

He rolled to his feet and moved in, meeting Nox in melee. Honestly Pit had no idea how long the buff Zenkichi had granted him lasted, he only knew it couldn't be permanent. He had to make the most of it.

"I'm not about to let you have your way! Not after everything you've done!" He said, referring not just to the deaths the battle here had resulted in but all of the unnamed evil Nox had already confessed to. The man remained silent beneath his mask as his dual swords clashed with Pit's. "That all of you have done!"

Pit might be small, but he was strong. And now, empowered, he had an advantage. Nox's blades couldn't make any fatal wounds, if they got through Pit's blocking and parrying in the first place. At the same time, Nox also prevented any decisive blows - but he was slowly being driven back with each punishing swing of Pit's swords. The damage was mounting. This was doable!

"Evil doesn't deserve to prevail!" One of the blue and gold blades slid against the edge of Nox's where it sliced across his armored chest before Pit snapped it back together with its twin. He stepped forward just to give the next outward slash with the entire bow more force as he cut Nox and pushed him back.

He didn't intend to let up his assault, but when the Watchmaker raised his left arm it set off alarm bells in Pit's head. Nox hadn't been using that shield during their entire exchange - he must have been biding his time, waiting for the best time to use it. Now was a good one, with Pit's weapon extended and already in motion. The shield formed silently and ominously. The angel had to backpedal something fierce to avoid it, using his wings to catch and blow air in order to stop himself. Nox lunged forward with his remaining sword and sliced through Pit's bracer as he leapt away, swapping to peppering Nox with arrows from a slightly safer distance.

But out of nowhere he felt something strange in his wing. He flexed it unconsciously while he kept Nox under fire, stretching it out only for it practically try twisting itself inward. The limb was delicate enough that he could pinpoint where the prickly, weird feeling was radiating from - the impact point from Mephisto's bullet. It was also important enough that when he noticed this and felt a flicker of fear that something was happening to his wing, he directed nearly all of his attention to it. A deadly mistake for most to make in the heat of battle.

When Nox teleported in front of him again Pit's honed instincts kicked in. He performed a back-dash, narrowly dodging the Watchmaker's Minute Hand and drawing another light arrow back in the same motion. Then he felt another pull on his wing, unbalancing him and making his arrow sail right by Nox's head instead of into it. With a quick glance he saw Mephisto looking his way with a smirk on his face, so Pit willed the stray arrow to turn and strike the former Reunion member instead.

So this was how it was, he couldn't get to Mephisto without getting to Nox and couldn't get to Nox without getting to Mephisto? Something had to give, even if Pit had to force it to.

He felt a more painful wrenching in his wing, making him grimace and bite his lip to avoid crying out. They probably didn't know that his wings were part of his lifeline, and he didn't want to alert them to that fact either. Nox came at him again, this time making contact since Pit tried to dodged one way while his infected limb pulled him in another. The first swing bit into his shoulder, the second he parried with his bow. He jumped up high, pointing the bow at Nox and already expecting the tug that would throw off his aim. He did the same curving of the arrow to hit Mephisto once more. Their party's defender caught on quick though.

"Tu te crois malin." Nox raised his palm. It glowed blue and released a blast of energy at Pit - the same kind that had sent him flying earlier. It pulled a small, cheeky grin out of the boy even in these dire circumstances. He quick summoned his Guardian Orbitar, showing off its reflect function and bouncing the attack right back. This time it was Nox who was sent flying. Then, the pain in his wing subsided. If Pit had to guess, Mephisto couldn't heal and control at the same time. Or maybe he'd just changed focus entirely to healing as he started to raise his cane. Regardless, with Nox out of the way for now Pit had to strike fast.

The light arrows that smashed against Mephisto's frame were stronger than the energy bolts he'd been assailed by earlier - and now more were raining down on him. They too could home in on their target, preventing any easy escapes. When Pit landed he dashed toward Mephisto, using the momentum to fire the even more powerful dash shots at him. He had to overwhelm the other boy during the small window of opportunity.

A frail being in the first place, Mephisto couldn't withstand the concentrated barrage for long. He died with a gasp of surprise at his end when the final arrow punched into him, unable to heal through it all. When his body crumbled to ash, his staff crumbled with it - dashing any hopes Pit had of possibly using it for the Seeker's benefit.

Breathing hard after the exchanges with Nox and the rapid shooting, the angel whirled around to confront the Watchmaker once more... but the man wasn't where Pit had expected him to be. After calculating that he wouldn't be able to save Mephisto, Nox had started on his main objective instead of re-engaging Pit: the Guardian, Tycoon.

Pit didn't have time to feel foolish for not anticipating that Nox would all but abandon the battle. The Xelor's win condition wasn't defeating them in the first place, it was defeating it. Heat Riser had worn off a while ago, and without the speed boost Nox had a good head start on him. Still Pit had to do all he could to catch up and intercept him, even with his stamina beginning to flag.

"Stop!" he shouted, heart thudding in his chest as he gave chase while Nox got closer to his goal.

Being on the half of the group that was still standing, Susie and Roland were doing what they could. Although needing to take Tycoon's attacks alongside its gravity well clipping her business suit, Susie wasn't looking so good. Roland meanwhile was probably one of the healthier of the group somehow. His fighting style, with Sandalphon and Blazermate giving him heals before their untimely demises, was at least keeping him up. But things weren't looking good, he'd need to do something to turn the tides or think about running himself.

Karen wanted a piece of Roland and wanted to clash, which Roland was all for. He'd take this one down at least for how annoying hes been for the whole fight while their healer was occupied. Karen was ready for Roland's lance strike however, and countered with his own move to knock Roland back to the ground. Having gotten Roland off him, Karen now turned to deal with Pit, Sakura, and Karin. With Sam free Roland decided to focus on him. While Sam's sword was strong, Roland had a few strong blades of his own and broke through a defensive flourish from Sam using his massive two handed sword, Sam surprised the huge hunk of metal wasn't sliced apart by his blade.

Sam retaliated with a slash of his own, which Roland guarded against taking reduced but still fair amounts of damage. However with that, Roland's emotion leveled up and due to their losing position, he gained Mountain of Corpses, with a chorus of voices from some undead creature echoing. "Don’t fall off… Get together again… We are one…". As he did, he absorbed the pain and suffering in the air from his injured allies and defeated allies and gained immense strength, speed, and durability. He also gained the EGO page Mimicry. This also reduced Roland's HP enough to trigger his Claws of Savagery, which caused some strange fog to obscure Roland's actions for his next blow.

A next blow he'd be using right away as the page wisps appeared again, turning the area into an overrun containment unit as Roland donned Mimicry, turning into a horrifying abomination and struck at Karen from the shadows, using Pit's distraction and his own invisiblity to smack him with a buffed, fast swipe with his scythe, a demonic "GooDBYe" coming from it as he swung dealing massive damage and left a massive amount of bleeding behind and Roland healing himself for a large amount on top of that. A very nasty combination that left Karen reeling from the attack. And without Mephisto, who had been finished by Pit, there wasn't much left for Karen then to do a few extra moves before he bled out, each attack he did accelerating his bleed out.

While Roland was doing that, Susie had been dealing with Tycoon this whole time. Having taken many hits from the giant robot, alongside her previous battles and its AoE wells hitting her business suit, it wasn't doing super well. Even that was an overestimate, the thing was on the verge of falling apart at this rate. Something that Sam, having lost track of Roland, capitalized on. Coming from behind, he slashed at an exposed component of the business suit, causing it to finally give in and explode, knocking Sam back and Susie upwards.. Only to get spiked by Tycoon. And without her suit, she wasn't as durable anymore with the guardian doing some serious damage with its slap. Sam, not wanting to lose an opportunity as Roland had just struck Karen with a vicious move, the fixer looking like a monster himself, used this opportunity to move to, and finish off, Susie with a quick slash to her oversized head.

This left him in a weird position though, as now he was the focus of Tycoon. And since Susie had been tanking the guardian's punches and was now gone, Sam had to deal with these punches. Punches and slaps that hurt, a lot, as Sam would find out when one connected on him. It got even worse when Roland fired at him from behind with his guns, forcing Nox to come to Sam's defense against the fixer after dealing with Pit. Roland had been studying Nox, and knew his shield would be a problem.