Cold Open
Very early Monday morningUntil a few minutes ago, the night sky above Edinburgh MagicaPolis had been overcast, shrouded in thick, moody clouds as tumultuous as the arctic sea that enclosed the city of eternal winter. Fresh snowfall filtered down from the heavens, and the black waves lapped thirstily at the city’s seawalls. Neither heavy sky nor relentless sea could hope to swallow the floating metropolis, however, so long as the sorcery of its citizens endured. The pleasant light of fire magic shined from Edinburgh’s windows, keeping countless homes cozy despite the polar climate outside, and arcane streetlights ensured that no pedestrians need wander in darkness. Of course, tonight the shadowed avenues also glimmered with the pale blue fire of ghostflame, stronger than ever before. For the past week or so the setting sun had preceded the return of the living dead, skeletons who wandered the city streets in their dozens and hundreds, often causing panic and mayhem. With the parting of the clouds, pale light shone down from the
ravaged moon onto the well-worn cobbles and frosty shingles of an
Edinburgh MagicaPolis alight with warm orange and spine-chilling blue.
It was a beautiful sight, especially from the apex of the tower that crowned the immense hat of the staggeringly huge pumpkin that formed Edinburgh’s centermost and most iconic feature. From way up here, civilians were totally invisible, the magitech vehicles that glided slowly across the city’s streets canals might as well be ants, and the buildings minuscule tiles in a vast, snow-dusted mosaic. One could see well past the limits of Edinburgh itself, across the inky waters and to the fathomless glaciers to the north, or to the Frozen Highlands to the southeast, where the mountain called Dragonspine towered over the landscape. The winds howled, and it was bitterly cold, but this pinnacle offered a breathtaking view nonetheless.
Unfortunately, its charms were lost on the woman who arrived in a burst of swirling purple particles, gasping at the frigid high-altitude air as she clutched the wound in her stomach. Though her futuristic gray bodysuit boasted an impressive set of cherry-red armor on top of it, it didn’t protect her completely, and her black velvet cape had done little to defend against a swordblade delivered from behind. Such pain at this height was dizzying, but with a groan the
masked woman steadied herself, then reached her other hand up toward her head. For a moment she fumbled at the switch before resorting to ripping her helmet clean off, allowing an enormous quantity of knee-length blonde hair to tumble down as the winter winds bit at a
mature face filled with unquenchable rage.
“I’ll kill you,” she hissed through her teeth. “All of you! Every time. Every time you rear your ugly heads, I’ll kill you, over, and over, and over again. My children…my beautiful pets…how dare you…how dare you!”
Her scream quickly faded into the blustering winds. After a moment she turned with a huff, walking away from the tower’s edge. Before her, suspended within the tower’s open-lattice wrought iron, hung an enormous metal gauge one-third full of purple fire. She stopped in front of it, staring into the blaze, then held out our hands. “I’ll keep coming as long as it takes,” she hissed as glowing red particles began to filter out from the huge device into her body. “I’ll drain the Flame Clock dry if need be. You’ll never win, and you’ll not get away…”
Suddenly, a sphere of spectral energy slammed into her, eliciting a yelp of pain and surprise as the woman slid away. “What!?”
When she looked up, she spotted three figures emerging from their hiding places behind the metal pillars. One was a monster hunter, formerly a
fresh-faced recruit now outfitted with all kinds of arms and armor, as well as an uncharacteristically serious expression. After him stomped an enormous
detective with a bell-shaped body beneath a beige trench coat, a bronze contraption shaped like the neck of a saxophone protruding from his back. Finally, a
short superhero with a black mask and red outfit walked beside them, his hands already balled into fists. After a moment, the perpetrator of the attack floated down in front of the Flame Clock from above: a sleek, almost alien
creature with a long purple tail.
<CONSUL!> a voice roared, formed not of a voice but of pure psychic energy, and thrust like a lance directly into the woman’s mind.
<In vengeance for the people of Alcamoth, and all the Pokemon you’ve treated like playthings, we’ve come to put you down.>The Consul’s lip curled as she looked between her four enemies, still panting and disheveled. Then she straightened up, composing herself. “Oh. I see. You sent your little friends to my home to bait me out, then set up shop here to try and finish me off once I flew the coop.” She smirked darkly. “Clever. Though it’s a shame your friends died thinking their sacrifices would make a difference. Because I’m afraid your run ends here.” She stretched out her hands as her core began to glow, purple energy gathering deep within her. “You see, my power, Import, gives me complete and total access to the marvelous realm known as Ultra Space, in all its sublime glory. It was enough to take care of your friends as-is, but since you’ve gone to all this trouble, I think you deserve…”
Her power surged, consuming and transforming her body. When the swirling purple energies converged, they left behind a twelve-foot biotech
monstrosity with purplish-red armor over fused black flesh, cyan energy flowing through its cable arteries like blood. In her belly whirled a true Moebius core, an engine emblazoned with the lemniscate symbol of infinity. When she spoke, her voice bore demonic distortion. “...the
full treatment. The power of Ultra Space, distilled and perfected by Moebius.” Around the Consul’s Moebius form, space itself began to rip and tear, dark light and alien appendages breaking through.
<Struggle all you want,> Mewtwo declared as his teammates readied themselves for battle.
<What you do with the gift of life determines who you are.> He held up his hand, pure psychic energy gleaming between his fingers.
<And you…are dead.>Click for music Located off the World of Light’s southeastern shore, at perhaps the southernmost part of the region known as the Deep Blue Seaside, a certain island town offered a climate of tropical warmth and humidity, with palm trees and white sandy beaches. It stood out as the largest and most developed by far of the islands that together formed an atoll surrounding the ecological marvel known as the Blue Hole, a deep basin whose contents transformed with every high tide, its terrain and wildlife inexplicably swapped. One day its shallows might be home to colorful colors, and the next a kelp forest, while the lower reaches accessible through pits and tunnels in the underwater landscape could be polar, volcanic, or even prehistoric. A source of near-unlimited livelihood, the Blue Hole was a natural -or perhaps supernatural- treasure coveted by all and jealousy guarded by the denizens of Mafia Town.
Unlike its precious Blue Hole, though, Mafia Town was mostly man-made, paved over and built up into a densely-packed, multi-level maritime fortress of orange mosaic tiles, stone bricks of milk-white or chocolate-brown, and roofs of dazzling silver or shingles as azure blue as the sea itself. Each layer of buildings became the ‘ground’ for the one above, creating a winding upward path from the docks and shipyards past bustling markets up through narrow lanes between tall apartment buildings with hanging laundry lines and flower boxes on their windowsills. Toward the top things evened out and opened up a bit more, offering rooftop greenbelts among fountain plazas, poolhouses, and clock towers. Even that wasn’t the limit, though. At the very top and middle of Mafia Town there existed a seemingly unlimited source of freshwater, not just feeding the high-speed aqueducts and cascades and that washed down through the town’s channels to the sea, but a spiraling geyser that somehow held up a massive plate like a support pillar. The
Mafia Headquarters on top of it couldn’t be seen from down here, but like an umbrella it cast a great round shadow over Mafia Town that traveled throughout the day, offering its many residents -including the plentiful but mostly harmless (not to mention identical)
Mafia goons- a little reprieve from the beating sun.
Most remarkable, perhaps, were the smells. Thanks to the Blue Hole and its dominance over regional trade, Mafia Town boasted an abundance of eateries, and with the evening well underway all the restaurants were in full swing. It wasn’t just the briney tang of seafood on the wind, either. The aromas of fresh baked crust from
Possum Pizzeria, savory sauces from
Seaside Spaghetti, and so forth all filtered their way through the streets on the breeze, tantalizing the citizens’ taste buds as they wrapped up work for the day.
Of course, not everything was one hundred percent food-oriented. Even down by the water there were
seaside plazas alongside all the wharves, where one could find things like a
lovely flower shop or a
art display. Beyond the town itself, hot air balloons and sailboats lent both sky and sea a wealth of color, while the assertive billboards and hand-painted graffiti of the Mafia made sure that few public walls lacked decoration.
Down on the water, the fishing boats were making their way back to port one by one. The Mafia was very selective about who could harvest from the Blue Hole, and many of these vessels worked for them, but among the handful of Mafia-approved enterprises that didn’t there was a distinctive
boat with a purple hull that had yet to get moving. On its deck, a
well-tanned man with a shock of white hair, scars, sunglasses, and a red Hawaiian shirt with bananas paced back and forth, his manner impatient but not necessarily troubled. He glanced at the water every so often, expecting something any minute, and before too long his vigilance was rewarded with the sight of familiar shapes swimming upward. Both were navy blue, and one much larger than the other, so Cobra didn’t need to think twice. By the time the pair breached the surface at the back of the boat, he was already ready and waiting to receive the waterproof yellow crates the divers thrust into his hands. “Took you long enough!” he greeted them, flashing the two a smile until he tried to heft the precious cargo in his arms. “Whoa, this is heavy!” He settled for dragging it onto the boat. “Stuffed to the brim again? You two don’t know when to quit!”
“I do: an hour ago!” The first diver, Dave, gasped as he climbed up from the water, hauling himself out like a seal on an ice floe. He was a
rotund man with a brown goatee, and though typically cheerful he looked red in the face right now, exhausted and practically panting from his efforts. After collapsing onto the boat’s deck, his chest heaving up and down, Dave just lay there while Cobra retrieved the other box. “But
she keeps swimming off the minute she sees anything interesting,” he complained, his tone affectionate. “I swear, she’s gonna be the death of me.”
After climbing aboard, the second diver immediately unzipped her wetsuit and let it hang around her waist, revealing a mint-green swimsuit underneath, tall cat ears, and a head of calico-colored hair in a fluffy bob cut that she shook to air out.
Ms Fortune’s electric-blue eyes were full of mischief as she grinned down at Dave, her hands on her hips. “Well, good thing I’ve got you around to bail me out when I get in trouble. Where you see danger, I seafood! Plus, you’re great at finding the extra oxygen down there, so it’s all ‘tanks’ to you!” When Dave just rolled his eyes, the catgirl known only to her closest friends as Nadia turned to the other man, pleased with herself for her puns and not out of them yet. “Whaddya think, Cobra? Our e-fish-iency is off the charts!”
After finishing his inspection, Cobra stood up from her crate with a huge grin. “Good haul, Fortune. Chances are we break our profit records again tonight.” As Dave sighed in exasperation, his contributions downplayed like always, Cobra he headed over to the ship’s helm and began to spool it up. “Let’s find out.”
A few minutes later, he brought the boat to a stop at the trio’s destination: a
floating restaurant docked at one one Mafia Town’s smaller wharves. Though essentially a glorified raft kept afloat with the help of tires, Bancho Sushi was solidly built and barely rocked beneath her feet. It also looked nice, with a clean traditional wooden style supplemented by elegant cherry blossoms. While Cobra moored the boat, Dave and Nadia worked together to haul the boxes over to the holding tank, where they dumped the live-caught sealife while putting the carvings from larger creatures on ice. Then Nadia made a beeline for the opposite end of the long counter to stroke the black-and-white cat that always lounged there. After a full week of feeding and petting the kitty, she and Nadia were basically best friends, even if Chucho didn’t approve. As one might expect, the interior of
Bancho Sushi had no customers right now, but that was about to change.
Already the sushi chef, a serious-looking man with black spectacles and a light blue kimono, was getting prepped, and the two other employees were running around setting things up.
Bancho could tell just from today’s haul -and the hungry customers beginning to gather outside- that tonight was going to be a busy night. “You’re late,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Whoa, don’t have a tempura tantrum,” Nadia joked, holding her hands up as in surrender. “So what’s on the menu tonight, boss?”
“Hmm.” Bancho peered deep into the holding tank, identifying its contents and what could be made of them in an instant. “Quite a variety. In addition to sushi and sashimi, I can make Fried Onion Cuttlefish, the Tropical Fish platter, Wrasse Curry, Deep Fish Tempura, and Trevally Kombu Ochazuke,” he assessed before looking at the ice box. “Is that…Megamouth Shark?”
Nadia nodded, grinning. “Mm-hmm! Now
that was a fun fight. Poor Dave was just about pissing himself, though.” Imagining the menu, the catgirl sighed. “Man, I never thought I’d like sushi, but the stuff you make is something else. If swimming wasn’t such good exercise, I’d be as big as Dave by now.” She shrugged and turned to go. “Well, guess I’ll get outta your hair be-fur the customers show up.”
“Wait a moment.” At Bancho’s voice, Nadia turned on a dime. Her eyebrows shot up when she spotted the knotted blue headband in his hands. “You wanted to try working up front, didn’t you? Tonight’s your chance.”
He barely got the chance to finish before the catgirl snatched it out of his hands and started tying it around her head. “Hell yeah! Just you wait, Bancho. I’ll make you proud!”
The chef cracked the faintest of smiles. “Just don’t drop anything.” He then narrowed his eyes at her attire–or lack thereof. “And get changed, would you? I know you’re feral for tips, but I’m not letting anyone serve sushi in a swimsuit.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Nadia was already dashing away when she slid to a sudden stop, her head turned one hundred and eighty degrees. “Wait, was that a pun!? From YOU!?” By then he’d already turned his back, though, so the catgirl couldn’t do much but run off, snickering to herself.
After another minute she was back, dressed in her usual fur-lined jacket, shorts, and unbuttoned shirt. With Bancho Sushi about to open, Nadia took a deep breath to steel herself, and looked out across the water. Since she and the others arrived here last week, life had been good, but she hadn’t done a great job collecting information. Only fleeting rumors reached her ears about red-clad Consuls, or entities powerful enough to be considered Guardians. Plus, it seemed like the Mafia had been getting bolder ever since she arrived. Nadia rubbed the bruise on her chin. She bet they had Juri to thank. They’d met -and, of course, fought- several times already, and while Nadia generally got the better of her rival, Juri sure hadn’t made it easy. Hopefully the overgrown delinquent wouldn’t show up today, but it was shaping up to be one hell of a night either way.
Nadia took a deep breath, then put on her best smile. At a nod from Bancho, she jogged over to throw open the front door. “Welcome to Bancho Sushi!” she sang, giving the crowd an eyeful as she bowed with a playful expression. “Where we always let the good times ‘roll’!”
Floating high above the Sandswept Sky’s eastern coast, the airborne realm of Skyworld took the form of a gargantuan array of interconnected sky islands, sprawled out both horizontally and vertically, their mountainous landmasses of pale stone contrasted against the rich yellows and oranges of lush, perennially autumnal foliage. A number of the islands featured a more
natural appearance, with pools of pristine water, golden grasses, and placid herbivores interspersed among their untouched deciduous sentinels. Most, however, featured at least some semblance of deliberate masonry, and many of the largest islands featured architectural achievements of astonishing size and grandeur.
Holy spires,
breathtaking cathedrals, and lovely temples could be found all over, surrounded by elaborate monuments and serving as the centerpieces of angelic colonies of a uniform Greco-Roman style. Over everything towered several
minor erdtrees, the most massive of which could be found on the centermost and largest sky island of all,
Eden, surrounded by concentric rings of idyllic waterfall terraces.
The outlying forested islands, where the high-altitude winds sang through birches decked out in fall colors and past all manner of intricately-carved monuments, offered plenty of diversion for a wandering eye. Their inhabitants included curious egg-shaped
paissa, mischievous
gaelicats, two-faced
remlits, eerie
seraphaces, and moody
bansheep, all going about their business in beauteous harmony beneath a slow sprinkle of falling golden leaves.
As divine as it all looked, especially that immense tree with its luminous boughs, this was no perfect paradise. Its many fortified bastions, ramparts, and winged soldiers spoke of plentiful turmoil, and nowhere seemed more active than the acropolis stronghold of Palutena’s Temple, sheltered beneath the wings of the goddess of light herself. The reason for this militance could be found just by looking around, for not all of the archipelago’s islands were autumnal parks or angelic townships. In sharp contrast, some of them -on the far side opposite Eden and Palutena’s Temple- were stained pitch-black and sickly yellow-green, infested and overgrown by some form of inky, oozy corruption with a tendency to form
crystalline deposits and
eye-like growths. So vile and virulent were these organic structures that one could scarcely imagine what might lurk deep within the throbbing hearts of those infected zones. From afar it could be hard to make out the details, but even at a distance this corruption inspired a strong aversion in anything healthy and/or holy.
Such was the danger posed by this pitch-black contagion that its presence redefined Palutena’s forces, demanding a drastic overhaul of the army to combat the plague’s monstrosities. Every thoroughly-drilled, well-armed squad featured at least one formidable
Feathershield, each possessed of brawn as grand as his sterling silver armor and a towering greatshield polished to a mirror sheen. In their company one could find a selection of gallant
Featherswords, keen
Featherbows, and slight
Featherstaffs, all wearing either helmets or silvery masks, while
cherubim filled out the ranks. Rarer but more impressive still were the elites, the
Storm Wardens with wings of light and heavy cannons, as well as the
Champions so heavily armed and armored that they might as well have been holy mechs. Captains like the stern, unflappable
Fodoquia and the honorable but formidable
Nathaniel commanded entire battalions of winged soldiers, and oversaw the operation of holy siege weapons like ballistae at tactical positions around the quarantine zones. Of course, nobody was busier than Palutena’s direct subordinates, the dutiful, fearless
Uriel and the energetic, dependable Pit, even if the young angel wasn’t quite as his goddess remembered him.
Tonight, as the colors of sunset began to stretch across the boundless sky, tensions were especially high among the cohorts and contractors of Palutena’s Army. Since the arrival of a handful of capable warriors last week, the goddess of light had spurred her forces forward in an aggressive initiative to push back and cleanse the corruption, and they’d managed to gain a lot of ground. Now, only a handful of the sky islands remained in the plague’s ink-black grip. Unfortunately, the corruption was reacting like a cornered beast, stoked into a frenzy by the threat of extirpation. New kinds of horrors had been rising from the depths of the murky more, each more powerful and twisted than the last. Most worrisome of all were the corrupted angels, some former soldiers fallen to the evil taint, and some that had never once been something holy–just fleshy abominations hidden within bodies of gleaming gold and pure-white marble, each one capable of triggering a new outbreak if its deception went unnoticed. Given the threat posed by these new
false angels, the decision came down from Palutena to push forward in an all-out offensive to eliminate the corruption and its horrors once and for all.
With a fully manned defensive perimeter already established around the infested islands, the main assault force now congregated at a checkpoint, that being the foot of the majestic
Crystal Spire just beyond the
Coliseum. Ahead of this point of no return floated the ominous
Ivory Citadel, first of the infected islands, but any bridges connecting it to more wholesome landmasses had long since been destroyed.
In the northern reaches of the World of Light mainland, further still than the Forbidden Kingdom that lay between the frigid winterlands or Midgar’s wartorn valley, lay a wild and untamed borderland of jungles and giants that only ended where the mind-numbing Transmission began, giving way to the bleak dereliction of the pale city’s hinterlands. There, beyond the Forbidden Kingdom’s fields of rolling gold and temperate forests sprawled the arid Tyrannian Plateau, home to mammoth monsters of prehistoric origin, and untamed tropical forests richly sustained by the faintest aftershocks of the monsoons that pounded the Garbage Wastes.
Of course, even in a wilderness such as this, bastions of civilization still stood, and none stood taller than the acropolis city of Meridi-at-han. Equal parts
fortified citadel and
flourishing city-state, it towered above the land of jungles and rivers atop its central mesa, connected to a handful of outlying spires by bridges of astonishing scale. The city’s colorful buildings dared to rise even higher, stacked atop one another like a child’s building blocks, and over it all reigned the grand pink parapets of the Palace of the Sun, from which the Satrap and his Sun-Court ruled. After being denied access to the elevators and instead climbing up the interminable staircase from the port at the river’s edge, newcomers could pass beneath the hot and piercing gaze of the all-seeing eye that adorned the city’s main gate, and step into a fragrant haze of sweet incense and acrid smoke. Within lay dense, noisy, and colorful market streets, alive with the shouts of merchants and lively melodies accented by the patter of dancers’ feet that, like the silken tapestries that hung overhead, swayed to the rhythm of the winds.
After losing track of time in the city’s bustling heart, a visitor could climb higher to the balconies and hanging gardens of the
upper district, where they could be enchanted by the movement of countless kites that schooled and darted like so many fish, and the flight of pink
flamigos over the sparkling waters.
As with most nights, a certain man could be found in an open-air tavern overlooking Meridi-at-han’s mercantile center, leisurely seated at a corner table and watching the steady procession of cityfolk through the marketplace below. Standing at six foot eight and weighing almost five hundred pounds, with hairy forearms thicker than many folks’ midsections, he was a giant of a man with a strongman’s physique despite the age evident in his creased features and graying blonde beard. He wore somewhat militaristic formal attire with a rustic flair, such as metal skulls and horseshoes in place of typical accessories, and the contents of the huge coffin that laid by his feet was a topic of much debate among the regulars here, although few dared to disturb him. Even if the locals didn’t feel inclined to talk to him, though,
Goldlewis Dickinson was happy just to listen–that was why he was here, after all.
Over the course of his stay in Meridi-at-han, Goldlewis had kept his ear to the ground in order to try and ferret out certain details of the surrounding region, and he’d managed to learn a great deal. For one, no living soul could head too far north without succumbing to the eerie Transmission that emanated from the City Without a Name, which struck him as the perfect defense mechanism for hiding something -or someone- of vital importance. Meanwhile, rumors suggested that the Guardian of the Frozen Highlands to the west roamed his region freely, fearless thanks to what seemed to be complete invincibility. As for the Forbidden Kingdom to the south, all signs pointed to Esaka, the Tiered City, where it was said that talented martial artists gathered to do battle in spectacular tournaments.
Of course, in addition to all those tasty nuggets of information, Goldlewis took the chance to savor local cuisine. For dinner today he’d ordered a
gilded tajine, a simmer stew of spiced meat flower petals, and herbs hidden beneath the hat-like lid of a peculiar pot. It went well with a strong beer, so it was shaping up to be a nice evening.
That said, the army veteran kept a wary eye on one part of the scene down below. With the sun beginning to set over the Tyrannian Plateau, an infamous band had seemingly emerged from the shadows to begin setting up shop in an open plaza, sending excited whispers flying amongst the populace, and for good reason. Even in the relatively short time Goldlewis had been staying here, he’d heard plenty of rumor about a traveling caravan of masked but clearly inhuman performers who arrived in various towns and villages when night fell, speaking strange tongues and strumming strange instruments as a circus tent took shape amidst their mysterious wagons. Some looked forward to the arrival of the
Grimm Troupe as an invitation to a night of enchanted revelry, while others warned of it as an omen of imminent calamity, citing the darkness left in the wake of the itinerants’ departure. Already a handful of spear-wielding
guards in intricate blue outfits could be seen not-so-subtly hanging around the area, watching the enigmatic insects as they worked, but without any wrong committed so far they could not take action. At one point a guard captain had approached and demanded to speak to the troupe’s master, giving Goldlewis a very brief view of the grass-cloaked, scarlet-eyed
Grimm himself, though he was much too far away to hear anything. With plenty of eager bystanders nearby, the guard captain couldn’t reach a conclusion, and Grimm vanished again as suddenly as he came. At this point it looked inevitable that the Troupe would get to perform, though what that might entail Goldlewis hadn’t the slightest idea.
He looked away, drinking deep from his glass. If it wasn’t going to be a nice evening, at least it would be an interesting one.